This Platinum Crown

Chapters

Chapter One : Antimony
Chapter Two : Rare Earth
Chapter Three : It Has Been Decided
Chapter Four : A Kiss on the Cheek
Chapter Six : Determination
Chapter Seven : To Go So Far
Chapter Eight : In This World
Chapter Nine : Baroness
Chapter Ten : Grow
Chapter Eleven : Challenge
Chapter Twelve : Return the Favor
Chapter Thirteen : Motivate
Chapter Fifteen : Battles of Honor and Cider
Chapter Sixteen : The Lyre and the Letter
Chapter Seventeen : To My Faithful Student
Chapter Eighteen : The Knight and the Enchantress
Chapter Nineteen : Battles of Earth and Sky
Chapter Twenty : To Move a Mountain
Chapter Twenty One : Metaphors and Parables
Chapter Twenty Three : What You Want From Me
Chapter Twenty Four : Plans, Partnerships and Poison
Chapter Twenty Five : Brass and Twilight
Chapter Twenty Six: Party
Chapter Twenty Seven: The Games We Play
Chapter Twenty Eight : A Celebration of Art and Culture
Chapter Twenty Nine : Drawing Blood
Chapter Thirty : Friendship is a Battlefield
Chapter Thirty One : Escape
Chapter Thirty Two : Reveal
Chapter Thirty Three : Friendship is an Alliance (I)
Chapter Thirty Four : Friendship is an Alliance (II)
Chapter Thirty Five : Interlude (the beginning)
Chapter Thirty Six : Interlude (the end)
Chapter Thirty Seven : Cadance - The Spider’s Law
Chapter Thirty Eight : Sweetie Belle - Equestrian Girls
Chapter Thirty Nine : Blueblood - Press Ever Forward
Chapter Forty : Lyra - Breakout Beatdown
Chapter Forty One : Applejack - The Lion’s Den (part 1)
Chapter Forty Three: Twilight - Equestria's Strongest Couple (part 1)
Chapter Forty Four : Twilight - Equestria's Strongest Couple (part 2)
Chapter Forty Five : This Day's Aria
Chapter Forty Six : Here Comes the Bride
Chapter Forty Seven : Fury of the Setting Sun
Chapter Forty Eight : The Red Queen or Fighting is Magic (I)
Chapter Forty Nine : The Red Queen or Fighting is Magic (II)
Chapter Fifty : Losing the Daylight
Chapter Fifty One : The Blueblood Gambit
Chapter Fifty Two : Turn Up the Night
Chapter Fifty Three : Explode
Chapter Fifty Four : Brass
Chapter Fifty Five : Not to the Strongest
Chapter Fifty Six : Return
Chapter Fifty Seven : Captive
Chapter Fifty Eight : Endless Twilight
Chapter Fifty Nine : Ascend
Chapter Sixty : Pinkamena and Euphoria
Chapter Sixty-One : The End of Equestria
Chapter Sixty-Two : One Last Breath
Chapter Sixty-Three: If I Had a Heart
Chapter Zero and Table of Contents
Chapter Five : The Harsh Education of Dewdrop Dazzle
Chapter Fourteen : Circle the Wagons
Chapter Twenty Two : Deals, Regrets, Decisions
Chapter Forty Two : Pinkie Pie - The Lion’s Den (part 2)

Chapter One : Antimony

Well, here it is. The "Best Night Ever" sequel. I expect it will be a lot more divisive than TBNE and that some people will hate it while others enjoy it. Hopefully more of the latter than the former! This was very much an attempt by me to get away with a lot of worldbuilding and to explore a hypothetical pre-modern Equestrian aristocracy and social organization and the consequences of how TBNE ended. The focus will be primarily on Rarity rather than Blueblood. My thanks as always go out to my pre-readers, beta-readers, and proofers for helping to get this fic ready!

Anyway, that's enough of my author notes.

Hope you enjoy this latest delving into MLP: Friendship is Magic.

(1)

Antimony

Dawn.

The light of the freshly risen sun blasted up along the horizon with startling abruptness, as Celestia so often willed it to, amid a flourish of oranges and reds. Only a few sparse, broad-leafed trees stood out against the onrushing new day: dancing silhouettes and retreating shadows. As if on cue, the clouds overhead began to drizzle, adding to the faint, prevailing fog that shrouded the rocky valley. In the distance, the proud white and gold spires of Eternal Canterlot peeked out from around the busom of a brown and green mountain.

Momentarily distracted by the sunrise, Blueblood very nearly missed the first round of introductions. Mother's pink hooves pressed him close in silent reprimand and he faced forward. The family standing opposite his own, across in the field, was far more numerous than his own. Seated comfortably on an expensive tarp and plush pillows, the young Prince regarded the Terre Rare family in attendance, first with a critical eye, then with a little envy, before settling into disdain.

There were quite a few fillies and colts his age there, present to watch their father defend his honor. One brother and three sisters. Blueblood had no siblings of his own, but he had often wondered if that was a good thing. Other family would be competition, after all, and it was hard enough living up to everypony's expectations when you were the only alternative they had. It was sort of nice to be the default. Of the group of colts and fillies present across the field, one in particular caught his eye: a fair filly with a pinkish white coat and a reddish-purple mane. Together with an older brother, she seemed to be paying close attention, staring across the clearing with intense interest in her light violet eyes.

Umbrellas rose up, held by servants of both parties, to shelter the noble observers from the inclement weather. Blueblood glanced upward expecting to see a pegasus swoop through the air to clear away the offending sky. Then he remembered: there would be no pegasi here, not until matters were settled between unicorns and fellow gentlecolts. It was tradition, and tradition was important, even in the face of inconvenience. Even in the face of dirt and grime and discomfort. Even in the face of pain.

Father said nothing, except to remove his overcoat and step forward.

Alabaster coat and blonde mane, the Reigning Prince wore the family colors as his only son did. No other family had been asked to attend, and no others stood by Mother and himself opposite the Terre Rares. It would have been improper to involve Auntie. Father's second was a stallion Blueblood didn't recognize, though given his slade-gray coloration and size, he may have once been a royal guard. He and the Terre's chosen retainer were exchanging and inspecting the weapons of the duel: slices of génoise sponge cake had been chosen at the initial meeting, laced with a mild numbing agent.

It all seemed rather foalish, even to Blueblood the Younger, himself a young colt. Surely whatever disagreements or insults that had transpired in the past could be talked over and forgiven? The Terre Rare clan was, despite only being on the rise over the last few hundred years, very rich and very well respected. They were distant kin, even. There were no common, ditch-digging, cloud-clearing pony-folk here. None of this seemed worth getting filthy over, much less injured or humiliated by laced pastry.

Blueblood thought these things, but didn't dare give voice to them.

Mother would have been upset by such rudeness, and Father was quite single-minded and would have cuffed him for his impudence and impropriety. Blueblood knew well that speaking would have resulted in a scolding, so he sat quietly and stole looks at the other family's colts and fillies. Were any of them thinking the same? A few looked eager to get the spectacle underway, while others were staring down at their hooves or looking to their mothers for what attitude to display. One tiny light blue filly was asleep, unable or unwilling to deal with so much adventure at so early an hour.

Father's hooves sank into the soft ground, between the border of sod and mud, still damp from the rain last night. This was not his first duel by any long shot and he had by right chosen the field of battle. Meeting him was the patriarch of the Terre Rare. He was every bit as large as Father, with a dark bay coat, steel-gray mane and mutton chops, and a featureless, oddly shaped white star as a cutie mark. The sight of the two, picking weapons - slices of cake levitating one by one into the air - reminded Blueblood of matched chess pieces, black and white, stripped bare of clothes or other adornments. The two unicorn stallions spoke briefly, in low whispers, and then turned and paced away.

"Prince Blueblood the Elder," an elderly unicorn, light gray in a dark overcoat and top hat, spoke up as he stepped between the two nobleponies, both with backs turned. Blueblood the Younger, the Fifty Second, recognized the old stallion as the Earl of Trotington. A family friend.

"Are you prepared to defend your honor, sir?" the Earl inquired, loud enough for the family members present to hear.

"I am," Blueblood the Elder replied, chin held high, the first words he had spoken aloud since dawn. Already the sun was beginning it's slow creep across the sky since its dramatic release from the horizon. Celestia would already be on her throne, no doubt awaiting petitioners... and news.

"Lord Cruciger," the Earl then asked, inclining his head towards the onyx stallion. "Are you prepared to defend your honor, sir?"

"I am," the Duke replied, with a hint of deep low-country accent. Blueblood recalled the less common title given this grand noble: 'Les Deux Fleuves.' The Duke of Two Rivers. The Duke of Two Bloods. Great grandson of the Infamous Lady, herself.

"So be it, gentlecolts." The Earl, arbiter for the duel, quickly backed away on three legs, carefully holding his hat in place as he retreated a safe distance. "Honor your families and your names."

The fight began without further warning or word from the two duelists.

Father and his opponent spun, casting the first slice of cake at the same time, guided and wreathed in telekinetic unicorn magic. In ancient times, when ponies had first come to Equestria from the Old Kingdom, polished pewter had been used for duels to draw first blood. In more modern times, pastry had become the favored means for one pony to humiliate the other without permanent injury. As most duels never progressed beyond the initial exchange, it had been a truly civilizing advance... and one that resulted in far fewer injured or crippled aristocrats.

Save for the injured pride, anyway.

Blueblood the Younger winced, squinting his eyes as the two cakes splattered midway between the older stallions, followed a second later by a crackling burst of magic. Two streams of sparkling lights, one deep purple and the other light blue, warped and twisted around one another, the contact ripping apart the animating magical forces, searing strands away like a threshing machine. Fat droplets of de-animated mana fell to the damp ground, burning tiny depressions and sizzling like angry embers of molten iron.

Blueblood the Elder stomped, three slices remaining in his arsenal. His horn was glowing a fearsome, luminescent blue, and a pulse of wild magic rippled down his neck and into the ground. There was a moment's pause and then the grass around him shuddered, twisted, and uprooted. Per unicorn tradition, only base "pure" magics were permitted in a duel, telekinesis generally being the most important skill. A hundred blades of grass now answered the call of Blueblood the Elder, straightening out into tiny, razor sharp slivers that slowly began to orbit and revolve around their master. Only then - with the grass blades collected together - did the faint magical field around them become obvious to the unaided eye.

Blueblood the Younger felt a surge of pride in him at the sight. He had known Father was a duelist of some renown, but he had never been taken to see any actual fights before. He quickly turned to the black Duke of Two Rivers, his heart beating excitedly in his chest.

The other unicorn took a thundering step forward, concentrating as more and more magic poured out of his horn. The three, still intact, slices of cake he had control over circled around him, faster and faster and faster still, until they became a white blur, too fast for a normal pony's eyes to follow. The loud crack-crack rapport of teleportation signaled the next phase of the duel.

There was a splash of brown and white as something impacted something else, a moment's pause revealing what, though not how. Father was in a different spot, one hoof in the air, eyes wide. The storm of grass-blades that had been orbiting him protectively now bore a gaping hole, punched clean through. He cantered back, quickly, and then teleported again, a trail of green chasing after him like the tail of a comet.

Blueblood blinked, and a thundering boom pricked his ears.

He didn't see Father, but the Duke was all too clear: the black stallion seemed to be blasting an entire schoolroom's worth of magic out of his horn, blanketing them with wash from his Star Field. The colt could only watch in awe as the ground split and heaved, tearing upwards like one would scoop up a dollop of ice cream. Two massive fields of earth glowed with magic as Duke Cruciger lifted them higher into the air...

And crushed the two fields of dirt and stone together like clapping hooves, deafening the assembled watchers with its thunderous rapport. He then jumped back, teleporting in midair, and reappearing higher up - the momentum from his jump continuing even after his re-appearance. Conservation of Magical Momentum. Something bright and fast and trailed by green ripped through the wet, compacted earth, and a pair of streaming missiles surged upwards in impossible-to-follow zig-zags.

Father's opponent vanished into - behind - the still hovering mountain of earth he had control over. A pair of explosions gauged craters in the mass of dirt and stone, and in a bright flash, the whole mess came crashing down. Blueblood the Younger tried to see what was happening, but to his young eyes it was all a confusing blur. By the time the earth had settled on the dueling field, it was over.

Father stood on an uprooted rock, breathing heavily, his magic reserves running low.

Duke Cruciger stood in almost the same way, perched on another rock, though displaying less fatigue.

The two stallions turned to the Earl of Trotington, who stood far on the sidelines. Both raised a hoof to signal that they were out of cake. Each had tried and failed to tag the other. There would be no more. Four attempts was the traditional limit.

"Amazing," Blueblood whispered, quietly enough that only Mother could hear. He glanced up at her. "Isn't it amazing?"

Mother didn't reply, though her blue eyes narrowed slightly.

"Mother?" he asked again, and then stared at the two duelists.

"You may both honorably step away from this matter if you choose," the Earl declared. "Or you may request à outrance."

"It is not too late for us to reconcile, Blueblood," Cruciger spoke first, raising his voice so all could hear him. "Accept my family as the kin they are. Honor the vows made by our forebears! Let us embrace one another as brothers... and equals."

Blueblood the Elder's blue eyes shot briefly back to his wife and son, and then focused on his opponent.

"Your offer, though generous, has already been rejected, good Duke," the Prince of Canterlot replied. "My decision was not meant as an insult, however. The succession of the Blueblood line-"

"Not an insult?!" Cruciger roared, stamping hard on the rock beneath his hooves, causing it to splinter. That had not been a magical feat. The black unicorn was far stronger than he appeared. Far stronger than any normal unicorn could be.

Still, he quickly calmed, taking a deep breath.

"Accept my offer," he repeated. "Or it will be à outrance. I will accept no other apology!"

"The form of apology you ask for is one I can not, in good conscience, give." Blueblood's Father nodded his head sadly. "Then... it is à outrance."

Mother's hooves pressed tightly into his shoulder at that.

At the time, Blueblood the Younger had not understood why.

Dueling.

Prince Blueblood hated dueling.

Not simply because it was barbaric, but because he was bad at it. Those two reasons were among the many thoughts that spun erratically through his head as his body lurched limply, side to side. His retainers were removing his warm, thick cloak, and he glanced to the side as it was floated away, a glint of sapphire and silver catching his eye. The clasp. It reminded him of why he was in this mess.

Rarity.

Plus his own big mouth and recently embraced impulsiveness.

Stupid idiot.

She would have called him that to his face, were she here. It was a good thing she wasn't. Auntie Celestia would probably have thought the same - Idiot Nephew! - but at least she wouldn't have actually said it, leaving him to read it in her expression and in her eyes. As for Auntie Luna...? Well, as least with her around, he may have had a vocal cheering section, courtesy of the Royal Voice. No, no: it was best that none of them were around.

Getting mauled was bad enough; no need to be nagged at either.

Soon, not only was the cloak gone, but his comfortable Merino top-frock overcoat. He spared a minute, still in a bit of a daze, to remind his attendant to keep it clean. It was expensive, after all: the finest wool, the lapels embroidered with imperial silk gathered and hoof-spun by pony artisans. Oh, and his scarf as well. It was gorgeous Cashmere, and a Hearth's Warming gift from his beloved Auntie.

Truly excellent bespoke tailoring was a lamentably dying art in Equestria, at least when it came to stallion fashions. Perhaps it was a good thing that he had to be undressed for this, after all. It simply wouldn't do to get blood on such fine clothes. At least, no matter what else, his wardrobe would survive this cursed affair unscathed.

Blueblood's breath came in slow, cold gasps as the frigid mountain air wrapped around him, his body bereft of anything but the coat he had been born with. It was a beautiful coat to be sure, but in no way acclimated to these climes or the task at hoof of keeping him warm at the moment. Canterlot was technically built atop a mountain, like many old style unicorn stronghold towns, but not this absurdly high, nor this inhospitably far north! Canterlot was temperate, save for the winter months. What sort of insane, barbaric beast would actually desire to live this high in the damned mountains?!

"Yoh!" "Yoh!" "Yoh!" "Yoh!"

A griffin, of course.

Mnemon was this particular griffin's name. Prince Mnemon, if one included his title.

Eldest son of the King and heir apparent, he was a sizeable creature, again and a half the size of even a large pony like Blueblood or his armored bodyguards. Already bare of the hunting coat and cloak that he had been wearing before the calling of this foalish duel, Mnemon was rearing, facing his fellows, and flexing his muscular wings and razor sharp claws.

Blueblood felt a trickle of nervous sweat run down his brow as the hooked talons of one of the griffin Prince's royal hands clenched and unclenched. It reminded him of the claws on Dream Catcher, his little hunting tercer. Just.... writ large. Very large. Pony-rendingly large.

The rear legs of his opponent were no more comforting a sight. They rippled with muscle as he scraped and pawed at the ground. At least the tail seemed harmless, save for the fact that it was whipping back and forth with enough force at the tip to rip the leaves and branches off nearby bushes. Golden wings stretched - larger even than Auntie Celestia's - the feathers going taunt and flexing before relaxing and snapping back. Blueblood groaned and hid his face behind his forearm.

How in the Starless, Moon Forsaken Hells was he supposed to fight this beast?

The plethora of flesh rending claws, the murderous beak, eye-gouging tail... weren't even the worst of it. Griffins as a race drew from much the same wellspring of magic that pegasi did, and Griffin Duels didn't involve a round of thrown desserts before they degenerated into bloodletting.

This really was one fine mess.

"I suppose you'd think less of me if I turned and ran?" the Prince asked, directing the question to the senior of the three Royal Guard he had with him.

Overcast was a pegasus himself, and probably understood just how boned his liege lord was.

"Respectfully, sir," the Royal Guard in standard white and blue answered in a level voice. "I would."

Blueblood scoffed, staring into the cold vapor cloud that escaped his nostrils.

"Well, you have trained to fight these sorts of enemies," he reasoned.

"Not that, sir." Overcast coughed to hide his impropriety. "Respectfully," he repeated the word, just to be sure. "I overheard what this fight is about."

"Oh? You did?" Blueblood asked, and shook his head. "Well, just keep it to yourself, then. I don't need word of this foalishness getting around."

Overcast lowered his eyes in submission. "As you wish, my Prince."

Prince Mnemon, meanwhile, had turned from his pre-fight exercises - and the improper cheering of his fellow griffins and guards - to prowl in wait for the opponent to step up. A pitiful sigh was Blueblood's only response.

The day had started off well enough. He had been invited to a boar hunt amid the craggy rocks and forests of the lower mountains. It was a barbaric practice, hunting animals for food and sport, but it was a great honor among griffin-kind and a Prince of Equestria could not diplomatically refuse. Especially when he was on a diplomatic mission to begin with. He had actually hoped that the exercise would leave his fellow Prince more open to the negotiations that were Blueblood's reason for traveling this far north.

Instead, certain words had been exchanged, and now he was about to pay for it.

"Since running and hiding is out," Blueblood pondered, glancing over at his senior guard. "You wouldn't have any advice for me, would you?"

"Sir," Overcast said, pausing only a second to formulate a response fit for a unicorn. "Don't let him grab you. Griffins rake with their back legs, but they don't kick. The females may bite, but the males won't. They're like us in that respect. Despite the size, their bones are hollow and light. Lighter than those of a pegasus. They break easily."

"And his magic?"

"Sir. I am not aware of how proficient Lord Mnemon is in that area. Naturally, one would expect manipulation of winds."

"Winds. Winds." Blueblood nodded, trying to get in something approaching the right frame of mind. The cold mountain air and biting northern wind only made him feel naked and vulnerable. The thought that his opponent could harness those forces with his magic made it even worse.

"Are you ready yet, little pony?" Mnemon jeered, stalking forward. His wings outstretched, allowing him to hover. Raising his right hand, he pointed first at the Equestrian Prince, and then up at the sky.

A spark of electricity danced at the end of his talon, lengthening into a crackling blade.

"Also lightning, my Lord!" Overcast yelled, retreating to a safe distance.

"Lightning," Blueblood muttered, eyes lidded. "Wonderful!"

He looked around for an arbiter, but didn't see anypony, or anygriffin, assuming the role. Instead, his three guards and the two pony attendants provided by the King of Crown Roc were watching from a distance while Mnemon's hunting party did the same on the opposite end of the field. Around them, winds swept across distant mountain peaks and rustled the evergreen pine trees that covered the landscape.

He began to ask, "Who is to be our-"

At which point, no longer held back, heralded by a crack of thunder, the griffin Prince pounced.

Snow capped mountains ran across the horizon like the serrated edge of a knife. It was beautiful, in a stark and lifeless sort of way. Deceptively lifeless, of course. Equestria had a few lands like this, wild and untamed preserves on the edge of the national border, and Blueblood knew they had abstract ecosystems of their own that functioned without pony oversight. The lands of the griffins were like that, but at least on the surface - at least from a distance - they seemed completely inhospitable.

Mnemon, however, was in good spirits.

"You sent that poor girl to my room last night?" Blueblood asked, drawing his cloak tight against the cold air. He and his guards were at the rear of the hunting column, letting the griffins do all the actual work. Only the two local ponies, both unicorns and both natives to this land of griffins, seemed to be used to the physical and mental conditions. They comfortably trotted along in their winter gear while carrying a bevy of additional supplies.

"And you turned her away," Mnemon replied with a beaky grin, his bright yellow eyes searching ahead and waiting for his servants to flush out some game. He walked as well, saving his wings for the hunt to come.

"Did you expect otherwise?"

"I picked out a real beauty for you, my old friend," the griffin Prince added the affectionate comment at the end with some irony. They were hardly friends, in Blueblood's opinion, much less old ones. "Nothing keeps you warmer during a long night than a griffin girl."

"I'll have to take your word for it," Blueblood replied, keeping a level expression.

Griffins were a rather... curious species. Though they mated for life, before they found that one special someone they were notoriously adventurous. Crown Roc had a small population of hippogriffs that could attest to that fact. Checking in on the resident pony population was one of the unspoken reasons for Blueblood's visit, though King Mede had a reputation for fairness, he was also aged and soon to step down. Blueblood thus had little doubt in his mind that Mnemon had, over the years, sampled enough of the local life to determine where his preferences lay.

Simply Barbaric.

"Come now, I'm curious," the griffin lord pressed, rising up to gesture with a taloned hand. "Was she really not to your liking, or are the rumors I've heard true?"

Blueblood tried not to give his fellow Prince's words much weight. "Rumors?"

"That you've been gelded by that little dressmaker in the countryside?"

"If that is what you've heard, then you may wish to replace your spy master at court."

"Admittedly, we don't have the benefit of your... interesting free press out here, or your obsession with printing every little thing that comes to mind." Mnemon chuckled, his wings stretching to let him fly at the same pace Blueblood walked. "But we do get some information, second-claw."

"And?" Blueblood huffed.

"I've seen pictures of you and this seamstress. Now, I prefer my little ponies with a bit more meat on their bones, but isn't it a little scandalous? You aren't minding yourself because of this common street mare, are you?"

Blueblood's shoulders tensed beneath his cloak, but he otherwise remained calm.

"I would suggest, Prince Mnemon, that you refrain from speaking of things you know nothing about," he was a warning all the same. "Lady Rarity is no common mare."

"You may call her that, and you may wish that she had noble title," the griffin replied, leaning in closer. "But I hear she is no Lady."

The feel of rapping knuckles - not hooves - against his bruised and stress-worn horn snapped Blueblood's eyes open. The sensation of consciousness was then topped, like a cherry on one of Pinkie Pie's parfaits, with the added nugget of feeling stitches tighten and draw across skin, squeezing parted flesh together so it could be treated with antiseptic magic. Blue eyes closed briefly, experimenting with the possibility of mercifully slipping back into unconsciousness, before remaining open, resigned to the waking world.

He was surrounded by barbarians.

Also, he had lost the duel, rather conclusively.

"Mnemon."

"Blueblood."

The other Prince remained, sitting on his haunches, a pensive expression on his normally predatory face. Golden eyes glanced off in the distance for a moment and Blueblood took better stock of his situation. First and foremost, he didn't see his guards. Second, though he could feel the soft fur of a rug beneath him, separating his back from the cold ground, he was still outside. He recognized the flanking trees from the duel. He couldn't have been unconscious for long.

"You have good guards," Mnemon complimented, still gazing at some distant point in the trees or sky. "They rushed to your side as soon as you fell."

"They are unharmed," Blueblood immediately inquired, phrasing it as a statement that had best be proven true.

"Of course. You are our esteemed guests, after all." The griffin Prince smirked, a blast of hot breath drifting from the nostrils in his beak, forming vapor in the cold air.

Blueblood winced as another stitch tightened, then felt relief as it was cut.

"I would see them," he insisted.

"In a moment," Mnemon replied, and looked down at the beaten Equestrian noble. "Blueblood. I gave you a good scar. You should keep it."

"Good or not, I don't particularly want a scar," the white stallion grumbled, finally getting the chance to see where he had been stitched up. Predictably, he had been cut on the flank, but fortunately, not on his cutie mark. It had been when Mnemon swooped around and he had stupidly tried to kick at the griffin. Between the cutie mark and tail, two lines of red were crossed with black stitches.

A unicorn mare sat close by, putting her needle back in a medical satchel.

"A good scar is more valuable than gold," Mnemon assured him, pointing with his left hand to the wound. "This one came from a Prince, soon to be King."

Father had dueling scars; no doubt Mother had hated them.

The thought occurred to him that if Rarity saw it, she would know. She would hate it, too.

Yet, it seemed that to remove it would... offend.

Blueblood sighed, despondently. "Very well."

Mnemon smiled broadly and earnestly, turning to the unicorn mare. "Sepeia. Keep the wound clean, but no more."

"Aye, Lord." The unicorn, a pony but not an Equestrian, bowed her head and backed away.

For a long stretch of seconds, both Princes kept silent, composing their thoughts. Clearly, Mnemon was never going to apologize for taking the duel as far as he had. For a griffin, in fact, stopping a duel at 'heart's blood' was probably quite generous. For his part, Blueblood convinced himself not to relent on why he had issued the challenge in the first place. It was a matter of pride and honor. Appearances, though burdensome, still had their place in the world.

"We've never truly been friends, Blueblood," Mnemon finally said, craning his neck enough to fluff out feathers. "But we have known each other for a long time."

A little thrown by the statement, the Equestrian Prince wasn't sure how to respond.

It was true that they had known each other for quite a while. Like many royals, heirs apparent were often held "hostage" in neighboring countries. It was an old tradition to build bonds of fellowship and understanding, as well as discourage aggression. Appropriately, and in deference to the power and prestige of Equestria as a whole, Blueblood had been hostage to the griffins of Crown Roc for twelve months, living in their mountain Eyries and learning their ways. He had only been a colt at the time, having only acquired his cutie mark the year before.

Prince Mnemon, in contrast, had spent three years in Equestria as a reciprocal 'ostage,' first in Prance and then in Canterlot proper. Though he acted the part of the bloodthirsty griffin, much of the magic he had learned - to say nothing of the history, theology and other classical tenants of education - was Equestrian. The same was true of his father, the current King Mede, and his father's father, and so on. Aside from the civil war, five generations ago, there had been no war with the griffins in the four hundred years since the practice of mutual hostage taking had begun.

The two Princes had first met when Blueblood had returned home from Crown Roc. He had been a young colt back then, and Mnemon just a sprout of a fledgling, better at fighting than flying. The two had not gotten along well, though attempts had been made by their elders to form bonds of friendship in the interests of future peace. Blueblood was old enough to know why. Mnemon, aside from being blunt and abrasive in the way all griffins tended to be, was highly motivated and energetic. He admired his father and knew he would follow in his footsteps. In contrast, Blueblood was disinterested and lethargic.

'What throne is there for me?' he had asked, once, rebuffing his fellow Prince's demand that they practice what they had learned of military tactics by ordering servants around. 'Go do whatever you want while you still can.'

Not terribly diplomatic.

Still, Mnemon was clearly waiting for a response.

So Blueblood gave him one: "You stole my sweet roll."

"And you went crying to the guards about it," the griffin Prince remembered, shaking his head in disbelief. "You always did that. You were always such a little squawking chick."

He glanced up, to be sure there was no other pony or griffin around to hear them.

"Something happened to you," Mnemon guessed with a quick little sigh of his own. "You're different than before, Blueblood. I've been trying to goad you into a fight for almost two decades, and this is what does it...? Insulting your most recent conquest of a mare? I'm actually a little shocked."

Blueblood hesitated to reply. Had it really been that long?

And for what, a fight? Damned, crazy griffins.

"I... apologize for what I said earlier," the Prince of Crown Roc added, with a little hesitation of his own. He had clearly been working himself up to saying it. Griffins didn't apologize lightly.

"I'm not the one to apologize to," Blueblood said, forcing himself back up until he could manage to sit properly. It only hurt a bit, thanks to Sepeia's numbing magic. "However, I will not mention it to Lady Rarity, and thus, she will not need to hear your offer of amends."

Mnemon huffed in agreement and unspoken gratitude. This would be a matter kept between Princes... and their entourage, of course, all of whom would be encouraged to keep silent about it. If need be, Blueblood began to consider, it could be blamed on the hunt. Injuries were common when hunting wild boar, to the point where death was not an unknown occurrence. Even if they did acknowledge a duel taking place, there was no reason to get into why.

Sitting in silence, the Equestrian noble also noticed the bandages on his fellow Prince's right claw. The same hand that had likely caused the cut on his flank. Taking note of Blueblood's shift in attention, Mnemon chuckled and held up the injured hand. Two of the talons were wrapped tightly and glowing with faint magic.

"What happened?" Blueblood asked, not remembering.

"When I gave you that-" And Mnemon pointed to the scar the Prince had agreed to bear. "-you teleported, and took part of my fingers with you."

Ah.

Ouch.

"Don't even think about apologizing. They'll grow back," the griffin Prince continued with a laugh, seeing the color drain from his fellow's face. "A little discolored, but they'll grow back. More importantly, it'll make for a good scar. A Kingly scar. It was given to me by a Prince."

Blueblood wiped the matted mane from his forehead as the two shared a laugh. His horn still hurt from the stress of the duel, and, truth be told, he still felt more than a little guilty for hurting his opponent. He really did not have the mentality for this sort of thing. No amount of time would ever change that. For a few moments, though, he thought back to the Gala... perhaps if he had spent a hundred loops there practicing...

This time, it was Blueblood who caught Mnemon staring.

"What?" the Equestrian asked.

"You had a strange look," the perceptive griffin said, and turned away. "So! No more wenches, then. Just Lady Rarity?"

"She'd turn me into a pincushion if I acted improperly," Blueblood explained with a chuckle.

"You told me once that you hated mares like that," Mnemon recalled. "Didn't you want a compliant mate?"

"...I did,” he admitted, with some reluctance. “But things changed..."

Blueblood paused, half wanting to let the conversation die. He hadn't told anypony about the events of the Gala: about the time loop he had been trapped in. A part of him wanted to speak of it, almost desperately, but a larger part of him was afraid to. It all seemed, even to him now, just so damn impossible. He didn't want to burden his Princesses or worry them unnecessarily so whenever somepony found out he had knowledge he shouldn't by rights have had, he found some excuse or another. It was probably a secret best kept to himself.

Still, it felt right to say something, here. Maybe it was just a bit of griffin madness rubbing off on him. He knew that griffins mated for life and that they were absolutely loyal to their partners and to their friends. Friendship was still, sadly, a part of life Prince Blueblood had little experience with. He had gotten a fleeting, recursive taste of it in the loops, and he wanted more. If only it were so easy.

"This may sound banal," he began, letting out a deprecating snort. "But I was in a rather dark place, not too long ago. I think the best way to describe it was that I was lost. In..." He searched for the right words. "In a maze, I suppose. I learned a lot in attempting to make my escape, but couldn't find my way out... I wandered, only to find myself where I began, time and again."

Blueblood bemusedly brushed some of his blond mane away from his forehead.

"Lady Rarity helped me get out. Her generosity and her company saved me as sure as all my efforts. Even if she nags me, even if she isn't what I thought I wanted... with her, I... I feel... alive, and free." He fixed Mnemon with a serious stare. "I'm very fond of her."

Mnemon's smile widened and he laughed.

"Good!" The griffin declared, rising up on four legs. "That is good! Love your people, love your friends, and love your mate! Do this and die a good death!"

"I'll put off that last one as long as I can, thank you very much." Blueblood forced himself back on his hooves and shook out his mane. "Shall we be on our way, then?"

"Yes!" Mnemon pointed off to the forest, wings flaring before settling back in place, tucked comfortably back against his sides. "First, we shall wake up your guards, and then we shall hunt! And, in honor of your sporting loss today, I will make a concession regarding your request to build railroads though our mountain passes..."

"Wait, wait: wake up my guards?" Blueblood groaned. "I thought they were...?"

"...Mostly unharmed. Mostly, I said!"

"Wonderful."

A letter from the Prince?

Sitting atop her throne in the Chamber of the Sun, Celestia opened the woven linen and leather-bound scroll, breaking open the wax seal bearing the ancient signet seal of the Royal Family and Household. It was typical of Blueblood, to use the most expensive and ostentatious of materials just to write home, even though she of all ponies would be the only one to ever see it. Since he knew full well that her own tastes were of the opposite sort (she used high quality, but otherwise mundane paper for her letters), he was clearly doing it less in an effort to impress her, and more because he was just the sort of pony who liked fine things for their own sake.

Such was his way.

To my Dear Auntie and Exalted Princess

Celestia

In whose radiance the sun itself pales; in whose glory the chorus of bards find themselves speechless; in whose beauty all of Canterlot's great works aspire; in whose...

Celestia sighed and skipped past the titles. Blueblood was getting more effusive with every letter.

He had to be teasing her.

Anyway, Auntie -

You'll be amused to know that not only have I secured our interests in Crown Roc, but I have also learned a valuable lesson. A lesson about friendship. I know. I am as shocked as you are....

The pair of unicorn Royal Guards couldn't help but glance back at their seated sovereign.

Was she... laughing?

This Platinum Crown

Capn Chryssalid

It’ll be the biggest, best-est, most super terrific party Ponyville ever saw!

Nopony had been using the old western woods for years, which is probably why Bluey bought the whole area. Most all the guests should be arriving by carriage, so I - I mean: so most of the gate decorations and greeting staff (and security ponies and valets) will be around the south gate. The first thing the arriving ponies will see is the iron gate facade done up in balloons, with two super duper big um... hey, Rarity, what're are those big banner pole things called again?

"Vexillum, darling?"

"Yeah, those!"

Plus banners all along the gate, showing the shields of all the friendly families I was told to promote. Super accurate, too, since Twilight checked all the details on them just to make sure there weren't any mistakes! Up front we'll put two big, um, vex-illum-things, each with the royal crest, one with the hollowed sun on top and one with the half moon. Two pegasus teams are handling the local weather, and - Oh! There'll also be these really pretty enchanted streamers, heraldic streamers, and they'll be all fluttery and held up by the balloons. That'll be the south gate!

All the fancy party ponies will ride their carriages up and into the house grounds and across the big stone bridge. There are groups of trees - um, copses, I think? - mostly birch. A lot of it is new, but it looks really nice. When I did it, it took five minutes to get to the house from the gate, but I kind of got distracted by thinking about whether we should have an ice cream float or a candy fountain or-

"Pinkie, please."

"Oh! Right!"

The guest ponies ride up to the front of the house from the side, so they can see three of the five gardens around the property. Even though the gardens are just grass and trees, and not, like, real gardens. I said, hey! Put in a sunflower garden! Everypony loves sunflowers! Oh, and watermelons! But no. Just grass and trees and rocks and some sculptures and stuff. If I had all that money and I was building a new house, I'd have a Ferris wheel and a balloon garden and... hey, why are you looking at me like that? Okay, fine.

Finally, the guests will get to the good part!

They'll see this big, fancy mansion, tucked into a keyhole in the forest around it. There'll be all these pavilions out front, in so many colors! That's where all the artwork for the visual arts festival will be kept. Off to the side, there'll be this big, super yummy buffet! It'll be divided up into four parts. I wanted three, but Pokey said it had to be four and that it can't all be sweets. Can you believe that? Why does he always have to rain on my parade like that? Hel-lo! Everypony likes sweets, right? And I am the principal-pony primary-party-planner, so the food and stuff should be totally my call. So we'll put the cake and sweets in the center, around a big ice fountain, and the snacks and other stuff around it!

Oh! And each one will be marked with balloons of a different color: blue, red, yellow and my favorite, pink!

"Isn't pink rather close to red?"

"No. Duh! Pink is totally not a shade of red. Anyway!!"

That's only a small fraction of the balloons we'll be using. All around the house itself we'll have ninety nine different colors of balloons! Ninety nine! It'll be the best thing ever! Can you even imagine ninety nine balloons, all of them a different color! It'll be like a rainbow crown around the entire party! I'm so excited I can barely hold still!!

Oh, wait, I'm not holding still?

"Pinkie!"

"Right, right."

There'll be music, too, for entertainment. Since the front of the house is so big, and since the inside isn't done yet anyway, we can use it to show off the... um... what's it called? Oh! The oriel windows and all that other fancy stuff. There's a nice, big patio between the two curvy sets of stairs. There should be plenty of room there for Vinyl Scratch to-

"Pinkie, do not tell me you booked a DJ for this..."

"Yeah! She used to do weddings, so I figured she'd be good for this too!"

"Pinkie. That was a reception. A wedding reception."

"Oh? Oh. OH!" Pinkie Pie stuck her tongue out and tilted her head in mock confusion. "Oops?"

"I thought you were inviting Lyra and her string quartet?" Rarity asked, needle between her teeth as she worked on Pinkie's new dress. "I know I mentioned them the last time we met."

Her party loving friend shifted a bit, glancing down at her slippered hooves. "I didn't forget."

"The whole point of this is to encourage local arts," Rarity continued, levitating up a set of blue, gem-studded ear-rings to see how they looked on her model. Pinkie stole a look at herself in the mirror, cocked her head, and nodded.

"I just want to keep the party fun," Pinkie argued. "I like Lyra and all, but her music is kinda... well..." Not wanting to say boring, she instead said, "BORING!"

Pumping her hoof, Pinkie reared up to add. "I wanna Par-tay! Just like at the Gala!"

Shoulders slumping, Rarity waited for her friend to calm down and assume a normal position so she could finish touching up her dress. It was honestly a bit baffling that Blueblood had asked Pinkie to organize such a huge and important party on his property. Even for him. Rarity rather suspected he was messing around with somepony somehow. Where he had picked up that bad habit was anypony's guess.

"Since you've already booked her," the resident dressmaker relented, just a bit. "I do suppose it wouldn't hurt to have her play once the sun sets..."

"Yeah!" Pinkie cheered with a happy grin. "Now you're talking! Oh! We can have a day party and a night party theme!!"

She was nominally in charge of the festivities for the charity garden party, but Rarity had certain oversight and veto privileges. Thank goodness. Pinkie seemed to understand that this wasn't a normal party, but certain habits of hers were proving difficult to break. Hence the need for an 'executive veto.'

Case in point: having a game of 'pin the tail on the pony' and a two story tall bouncy castle (with functional battlements and a working catapult) at an exclusive event with 200-bit per plate dinner arrangements. To one's left, a priceless Trotticelli masterpiece, and to one's right, a party cannon loaded with cherry pie and whipped cream. Not that she had been able to entirely rid the occasion of party cannons, but at least they'd been kept away from the art stands.

"Oh! I can't wait to try my new party cannons!" Pinkie squeed, having clearly spent some of the money for the party on... personal requests. "Have you seen them, huh, have ya Rarity? I could partify a small town with these babies! From a mile away!"

"Hold still," Rarity reminded her friend, fixing up a minor adjustment to the piped dark red hem of Pinkie's new dress.

"I can't! I'm just so excited!" Pinkie's body started to vibrate and her ears twitched. "Oh. Oh? That... that's a funny one...!"

Ignoring the odd 'pinkie sense' silliness for a moment, Rarity stepped back to view her hoofwork in full. After the Gala, she had tried a slightly different approach to Pinkie's new dress, since she would be much closer to the center of attention at the Visual Arts Festival. It called for a more subdued approach, with more subdued colors. Pinkie's (normal) natural coloration was so bright, it presented something of a challenge to accentuate, so this time she went darker instead of matching. Something more befitting a hostess instead of a guest.

There was just the question of what to do with Pinkie's mane...

Rarity gave a soft sigh and circled around her friend, taking in the angles with her own eyes instead of relying on the mirrors. While she did so, she also went over the latest news about the party. The Heartstrings Orchestra would be prefect, and she could imagine the four of them playing on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, the looming gothic facade of the newly constructed spring palace behind them.

Rarity had already seen the facade, of course, and could picture it in her mind easily. It was a beautiful building, as one would expect from such an expensive undertaking. Blueblood had spared no expense since the Gala in breaking ground on a new home 'to bridge Canterlot and Ponyville.' At four stories high, the tips of it could be seen from the town square poking out above the surrounding trees: a number of elaborate fluted domes and refined smokestacks.

When it was finished, Rarity had been told, the new home-away-from-home for the Blueblood Family would boast no less than thirty fireplaces, fifty rooms, more than eighty hoof-crafted doors, over one hundred and forty windows, twenty of them stained glass. Two thousand panes of glass had been ordered from artisans across the principality, including Ponyville's own family operated glassworks.

While the arts festival was a charity event to encourage local artists and draw attention to fresh new talents in the areas around Canterlot, Rarity knew Blueblood well enough to realize it was also an egotistical attempt to play up the art collection he was assembling for his new home. It wouldn't do to have an extensive library - something on the order of four thousand volumes had been collected at his request and expense - and a massive art collection.... if no pony knew about it. So he was showing off his new spring retreat and its treasures, but at least he was also doing some good in light of that fact.

This was an opportunity for everypony in Ponyville to get noticed, just like she had with Hoity Toity last year...

Deep down, Rarity was also starting to wonder about something else. In the modern era, the Blueblood family traditionally resided in the Canterlot’s Royal Palace, though she knew they owned property and had homes and castle keeps elsewhere across Equestria. Why was Blueblood building such a grand home, close to his old one, but right next to Ponyville?

He hadn't said much about it before, usually opting to teasingly change the topic, but Rarity couldn't help but consider: if Blueblood was all but stating his intention to live close to Ponyville, would the time come when he asked her to join him? From the spring retreat (as it was currently called), she would remain close to her friends, but still enjoy the taste of Canterlot nobility she had always aspired to.

Was it less a retreat, and more a new family home?

It was probably a bit foalish to think of it - she would find out soon enough - but so much of her dream had already come true. The Gala had been wonderful. He had been wonderful. While not quite as... proper and Princely as she had imagined... the stallion who had swept her off her hooves that night was still much of what she had hoped he would be: he was kind (usually), soft spoken (sometimes), regal (well, most of the time... okay, fifty/fifty, as long as he wasn't given a target).

Rarity shook her head. The point was that she enjoyed being with him, and he seemed to enjoy being with her, and he was a bloody Prince.

It was like a dream come true! A sometimes strange dream. But still, a dream come true!

"Rarity! Do I have to wear this hoof-polish?" Pinkie whined, waving said ruby-coated hoof in front of her friend's face. "Do I? It's so sticky and it smells bad and tastes bad, too!"

That snapped the fashionista out of her daydream. "You aren't supposed to lick it!"

"Awn, now mah tongue is numb!" Pinkie lolled her too-long royal tongue out to demonstrate. "Ahl couldn't help it! Mlagh hooves look lgh candy!"

"For Celestia's sake!" Rarity poked the pink pony in the side, and her tongue shot back into her mouth. "Keep that thing holstered, would you? It'll put somepony's eye out."

"My tongue isn't a weapon! It just wants to make friends!"

Before either of them could go further with that so called topic, the familiar chime of the Boutique's doors caught both mares' ears. Pinkie wisely clammed up, if only for a moment, and stopped trying to demonstrate how her tongue was a 'friend to pony-kind, not an enemy.' Instead, she innocently glanced back at the door, even as Rarity turned to greet the new arrival.

"Welcome to Carousel Boutique!" She quickly called out, giving Pinkie a look that said 'I'll be right back.' "Where all the designs are chic, unique, and magnifique!"

Rarity nearly missed it, but there was a suspicious look in her friend's eye, as if Pinkie Pie recognized the new customer...

Well, even if she did, Rarity didn't recognize her, except as a customer, and at the Carousel Boutique all customers were welcome! In fact, the arrival was actually two, not one. First to enter was a large, dark brown pegasus mare in a crimson and gold military dolman and plain white pelisse - the unique fashion of the mercenary hussar that was also popular among some high noble stallions, who would wear a more ornate version of the loose pelisse jacket. The dolman, meanwhile, was a close fitting, heavily braided, short-cut coat.

The pegasus officer's dress immediately identified her as one of the few ponies in Equestria who opted for a purely military trade. She was also large enough to stand in the company of Applejack's brother, Big Macintosh, Blueblood, and the all-male Royal Guards themselves, a rare feat for a mare. The winged hussar immediately flanked the door and kept it open, having no interest in the offerings within the shop herself.

Her escort then entered: a tall, regal white unicorn mare. She had the sort of height and build that reminded Rarity of a cross between Fleur-de-Lis's slim, lithe figure and Allie Way's leggy height, more like the latter than the former. Much like Fleur, this pony was slightly off-white with a blushing hint of pink, but beyond that the similarities quickly faded. Her mane was two toned: a heliotrope violet that tinted towards red, styled around her horn in imitation of Princess Luna but with a deeper curl, and contrasted with shades of paler lavender. It reminded Rarity, oddly and for just a moment, of her little sister's mane.

A rich fall cloak covered her back in lieu of a formal saddle or dress while a pair of black boots could be seen, running from her hooves to her hock along with matching, shorter slippers of the same material on her front legs, the equivalent of the spats and gloves some non-pony races wore. A backwards facing diadem, similar to a tiara, helped to hold her mane in place behind her head, studded with dark metal and inlaid jade, the same as her collar necklace. A beautiful silk shawl trailed over her shoulders.

Intense violet-red eyes found Rarity, and the new customer - a wealthy one, apparently - smiled.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," the mare said, gliding forward with practiced grace. She also took note of the Boutique's other customer, one Pinkamina Diane Pie. "Oh. You."

"You two... know each other?" Rarity asked, surprised. This mare didn't seem like-

"We met when I was delivering invitations to the party," Pinkie replied, for once not smiling. "Your guards aren't very friendly. I didn't get to finish singing my invitation song, and they chased me and chased me for... for...!" Pinkie huffed, puffing up her cheeks in umbrage. "Forever! Two of them were still chasing me when I got back to Ponyville!"

"I'm very sorry to hear that." The mare inclined her head in apology. "You'll have to excuse their zealousness. My family takes security very seriously."

Pinkie's bad mood, a virtual unknown, quickly started to ebb.

"Welll-lll... okey dokey lokey!" She decided, with a happy little hop. "Did you come to RSVP?"

"I have sent one in the mail; you should get it quite soon. I am actually here to meet Miss Rarity, and to see about having a dress made." The tall noblemare gave a courtly bow and introduced herself to the two Elements of Harmony. "I am the Baroness Antimony, of the Terre Rare Family. Pleased to meet you."

"Terre Rare...? Baroness?" Rarity asked, a little dumbstruck. Slowly, she checked the lapel of the guard by the door. The gold medallion bore an ox-and-star sigil.

She turned to Pinkie. "You broke into a Baron's estate to deliver an invitation."

"Umm." Pinkie bit her lower lip and giggled. "Yep! I guess I did! Actually, it was a Duke's castle!"

"Father thought she was a thief," Antimony explained, still smiling at the memory of the encounter.

It just sank in then that, Pinkie's adventure aside, they were in the presence of a daughter of a Duke, a Baroness herself. Rarity quickly bowed her head and elbowed Pinkie to do the same. Antimony took the deference in stride, and motioned for them to stop.

"Please," she insisted. "No need for that. I am not here on business, only pleasure. I would insist that you please be at ease."

Once the little uncomfortable formalities and introductions were out of the way, Rarity's eyes quickly lit up with excitement and opportunity. She never had been able to talk Fleur into modeling - Fancy Pants' wife hated it, and went au natural whenever and wherever she could. He not only didn't mind this, but seemed to find it endlessly amusing.

Yet here was a titled noblemare, with (almost) Fleur's wonderful figure, asking for a dress for the Art Festival. Her coloration, specifically her mane, lead the fashion conscious mare to think of Twilight's coat, but contrasted against a white body. Rarity was confident she could put together a simply fabulous look for her... once she had an idea of her new customer's tastes in formal wear.

"Hi! We didn't get to meet before because ponies kept trying to blast and tackle me, but I'm Pinkie Pie! Of course I know who you are! I know the names and faces of ALL the ponies I invited to the big party! You'll love Ponyville! Since you're here early, do you want me to throw you a quick little welcome party! OH! We can try out my new party cannon! I've been WAITING for a chance to try out my new party cannon! You aren't easily deafened, are you?"

"Um, Pinkie Pie..." Rarity groaned, as her hyperactive friend bounced around the Baroness.

She even leaned in to waggle her eyebrows - during the party cannon part of her announcement - eliciting an angry growl of a warning from the guard near the door. Naturally, Pinkie being Pinkie, she spun around and gave the hulking pegasus a raspberry, her tongue still caught between her lips when Rarity pulled her out of the line of fire.

"If we have time, I would enjoy a small soiree," Antimony replied, unflustered by Pinkie's bouncing and proximity. "I was going to have tea with your Mayor Mare later. I would be delighted if we could speak more then."

Rarity opened her mouth to say something, anything, but a strange sensation passed through her in that moment: an almost ominous pit in her stomach. She blinked, and didn't notice when Pinkie somehow swapped the dress she had been wearing back onto a modeling mannequine, allowing her to freely bounce around the newly arrived Baroness, peppering her with questions about what kind of food she liked and how 'surprised' Mayor Mare would be to see other guests showing up. Before she knew it, Pinkie was saying 'we can finish later, right?' and bounding out the door past the bodyguard.

Left alone with this noblemare and her guard, Rarity felt an inexplicable pang of panic that came and left in a split second. It made no sense, really. Antimony was standing still, watching her with polite curiosity, waiting for her to begin her sales pitch. Her eyes were a bit intense, but no more than, say, Twilight's often got. The dressmaker just couldn't help but remember what she had said moments before.

'I am actually here to meet Miss Rarity,' she had said.

It had not been phrased in the warmest of tones.

"Well," Rarity finally said, forcing up a smile and motioning her new client over to the rear, exclusive collection of the Boutique. "Why don't I show some styles and then we can build on that?"

"That sounds wonderful," Antimony agreed.

As she began, settling back into her natural element, ensconced and encouraged by the familiar topic of fashion and dressmaking, together with the comfort of her wonderful shop, Rarity quickly found her center. This was only possibly her most important - customer - ever! So no stress or anything. Fortunately, unlike Sapphire Shores, Antimony was far less ostentatious and immediately dismissed the dresses and ensembles that relied heavily on embedded gems.

Rarity suspected that would be the case. The tastes and expectations of the aristocracy were different than those of normal 'high society.' The latter were wealthy and influential, to be sure, including moguls and media darlings alongside their ranks of poseurs and hanger's on. They chased the latest fashion craze to set themselves apart from the herd, or ahead of the pack. Equestria's tiny cabal of noble families were different from the superstars and tycoons.

Antimony's posture and tone said it all: she had nothing to prove.

Celestia never engaged in flights of fashion, and when there was no foreign Princess or Grand Duchess in the Blueblood line, everything basically stood still within the highest echelons of Canterlot. Due to this disconnect, aristocratic fashions were rather old. Antiquated, even. Anachronistic, if one was making no effort to be flattering.

Antimony quickly dismissed the sequin dress Rarity showed her next, which was a shame, since it was just perfect for her figure and coloration. She had it in both silver and gold, and if asked, could weave it embroidered with coins or bits instead of tiny overlapping hexagons. It was a risqué design, of the sort very popular in Marean this season. Too exotic, though, for this customer, even if she would have looked simply fabulous in it. By that standard, the cocktail dresses were out, too.

Rarity's own dress was among the next she showed her customer, though she ironically hoped it wouldn't catch the noblemare's eye. She was quite proud of the design, and intended to show it off at the art festival herself: the base model was an elegant swan silk layered gown in black with an antique white sash. The waist was higher than normal with an a-line skirt to flatter the flank and the rise of the tail. She had practiced dancing in her version of it, and simply loved how it flowed with her movements.

For the first time, Antimony seemed to pause to consider it, but ultimately opted to move on. It took a few more tries to narrow down the choices available. Finally, they found something for her: a long (and somewhat heavy) duchess satin gown with faux ivory guipure lace edging. It was a beautiful piece of work, but it also required wearing a steel boned corset. Hence, it was not one of Rarity's personal favorites. It was also extremely expensive, as Antimony immediately rejected the use of faux ivory for bloodless ivory.

Bloodless ivory was collected by using magic to shave off natural ivory, harvesting it without killing the animal involved. It was only made in zebra lands and imported only rarely. Rarity knew where she could get some - there was a supplier in Canterlot - but it made a dress studded with rubies look cheap by comparison. Natural grand pearl was one of the few things as rare and hard to import to Equestria, and Antimony similarly refused to use anything but the actual thing in her veil-less feathered fascinator and dress details. When Rarity told her that there was no way to make a bracelet with centered natural grand pearl in time for the festival, she compromised by switching it for a chain knot bracelet with dusted diamonds.

They were close to a final deal.

"...four layers. The lining, a support layer, the underlining and the outer fashion fabric. I'm not fond of corsets myself, but this one is fully boned throughout each panel and made to feel as soft and comfortable as possible. Everything I make here is intended for the greatest possible level of flexibility and support, but without sacrificing strength. If you look here, you may see one of my little signature styles: the boning is sewn into to the support layer, not above or below it, to keep it from shifting. This has the added bonus of keeping a very smooth, seamless silhouette."

Antimony seemed pleased with her selection.

"This will be perfect," the noblemare concluded with a discerning eye. "You need only ask, and I will cover any additional importing expenses. You may use our name to assure you are given what you need without complication."

"Oh, I'm sure it won't be half the trouble I imagine it to be!"

The two mares then moved over to the fitting area, where Rarity began the relaxing process of taking her customer's measurements. As was the habit of many dress and suit makers, she switched the conversation from their purchase to small talk while they worked. Rarity inquired about the noblemare's home: the land of Two Rivers was in the northeastern corner of Equestria, a rich and fertile province that included the region of Prance. Parts of it were also quite low and prone to flooding, or it had been in the past.

Antimony repeated some of the common facts that most any school filly would already know about her homeland. Rarity paid only passing attention. Taking the mare's measurements, she had noticed that - quite the opposite of what she had expected - Antimony's tall, curvy form was hardly as soft as it appeared. Beneath her soft coat and skin, her muscles were taut and hard, like Applejack's. Not really like most unicorns at all. She had feminine curves, enviable ones, but her stomach was almost rock hard. It was a little strange, but then, Blueblood had personal fitness trainers and a similar sort of build, so perhaps this noble mare did as well?

Her cutie mark was a star and crown, along with some constellation Rarity didn't recognize.

"Darling, you had the most lovely cloak when you came in," Rarity observed, just finishing marking down the noblemare's measurements. "May I ask where you got it?"

"I had it imported from abroad," the Baroness replied.

"The color of the hems and collar...? So very realistic I..."

"That's because it is real," Antimony explained, smiling as she continued. "Genuine sable from Castle Roc."

Genuine sable? Genuine fur?

Rarity didn't grimace, not externally. She should have suspected as much. Antimony seemed to dislike anything 'fake' and furs were not completely unknown as fashion accessories. Not that she included any genuine articles of fur or leather in her boutique. It was a practice and style of dress much more common up north where the winters turned much more bitterly cold. Necessity, now, had become more a matter of taste.

"I noticed you didn't have any," the Baroness mused, looking away and closing her eyes. She sounded and appeared completely unconcerned.

"I do not believe it is, well, entirely ethical," Rarity admitted. "My focus is on gems, anyway. I wouldn't know what to do with a... a pelt."

"Mm-hmm," Antimony replied, and her smile widened a bit. Leisurely opening her bright violet eyes, she stepped down from the platform. Rarity quickly put away her notepad and thanked her for her business. While genuine fur was something she had no interest in using in her designs, this project did accord her a chance to work in actual pearl and bloodless ivory. The dress, when it was finished, would be simply divine!

"You know, Miss Rarity," Antimony remarked, as she turned to leave. "I like you. I wish us to become fast, true friends."

"Oh. Well, I..." Rarity stumbled, not entirely sure what to say.

Fast, true friends?

"I see. You don't quite grasp what I mean." Antimony trotted closer, still entirely amiable. "The Arts Festival?"

Rarity tilted her head in confusion. "What about it?"

"I am attending it to see my new home."

Blink.

"What?" Rarity had to ask. "Your? No. Blueblood is-"

"Prince," Antimony cut her off, her tone dropping a notch from its friendly norm. "Prince Blueblood is building it. Yes." She leaned in a little closer, to add, "...and he is my husband."

Rarity blinked again, having trouble making sense of what she had just been told. It made no sense. This mare couldn't be his wife. There was no Grand Duchess in Canterlot. Blueblood had never mentioned being married! No magazine, no pony, had ever said as much.

"That's impossible," she quickly corrected the noblemare. "I'm sorry, but that can't be."

"It has already been decided," Antimony insisted, and there didn't seem to be a bit of hesitation or doubt to underscore what had to be a fabrication of the truth. She stepped into one of her slippers and tapped Rarity on the shoulder in a friendly, almost familiar manner.

"As his mistress, I'm sure you and I will grow quite close," the fair Baroness concluded, all smiles and warm words again. "I hereby guarantee you seniority over any future third or fourth, as is my right as wife. You are the element of generosity and a friend to both the Princess and the realm entire; I feel this is the least I can do. Let us be as sisters."

It took a moment, but that finally provoked a reaction.

"No!" Rarity yelled, jumping back and onto all four hooves. A stylus fell, jostled off a desk by her now erratic telekinesis. "What are you talking about? What are you saying?! Blueblood and I are-"

"Lovers," Antimony interrupted again. "I know. I don't even mind. So long as we unite the Houses, so long as we have an heir... he really can spend all his free time with you. I will permit it, but the marriage has been arranged. As I said..."

She turned to leave, her pegasus bodyguard slipping her cloak back on.

"It has been decided," Baroness Antimony glided through the door, just as gracefully as she entered. "I look forward to seeing my dress. Until then. Come along, Gewitter."

Falling back onto her haunches, Rarity slowly shook her head. It - it couldn't be. Decided. Decided? Decided by who?!

"Decided by who!" She snapped, but her guests were long gone. Stamping a hoof, she turned her head, lit up her horn, and carefully put her fallen stylus back in place. Only with that done, and order restored to her shop, did she take a deep breath. A deep, long, calming breath.

"So that's how nobleponies declare war?" she asked herself, brows slowly lowering into a scowl. "Let us be as sisters, is that it?" Behind the scowl, blue eyes burned with determination. "Ohh. It. Is. Definitely. On."

Chapter Two : Rare Earth

(2)

Rare Earth

My fair Rarity,

The affairs and machinations of Canterlot have once again stolen you from me. Though I am a pony in a palace, looking out over the shining jewel of Equestria itself, I find that I am only alone, and that the only jewel I desire can be found in Ponyville. The company of Princesses reminds me only of what I am missing in being apart from you. I yearn to be done with my work here, to return to your embrace, but duty demands that...

No. Not that one.

My fair Rarity,

You would be most entertained, I think, had you come with me to visit the court of Duchess Desert Flower. They say there are no finer fabrics in all the four lands, in Kingdoms Old and New, than can be found in the dry, dusty marketplaces of this realm. I was warmly received, and though I missed you terribly, I did not forget to pass on your request for a ream of local silks and cottons. In the process, I was taken to the monastery where these worms are cocooned, and shown the lengthy process by which it is prepared. You would have so enjoyed the local fashions on display - far more than myself, I fear!

No.

No, not that one either. That was Duchess Desert Flower.

My fair Rarity,

The light of my day was in receiving your letter. I know I have been terribly negligent, substituting proper company with these impersonal exchanges, but there is so much around me that I can no longer ignore. So much that I have overlooked. So much that I never cared to bother myself over but now feel I must set right. It is as if I have been given a new lease on life since the Gala. A breath of fresh air. When I think of it, I can not help but picture you by my side. The Gala has changed so very much for me.

You have changed so very much for me.

No.

Not that one.

My fair Rarity,

I will be in Canterlot over the next month. You need but whisper it, and I will have a team of my finest stallions escort you to me in a chariot of wreathed gold and sparkling silver. I have been most miserable dealing with the Mosaic family. I was received coldly, and my efforts rebuffed. I can only conclude that I have galloped at cross purposes with another great and noble house, likely a pony of the Terre Rare clan. Few others would be so bold. I am weary, and though you know I have affection for Ponyville, I would have you join me at my home. I would have you with me, always.

Rarity slowly floated down the letter, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

Memories of when she had gotten the letter for the first time came back. She had taken the Prince up on his offer, golden chariot and all, and had spent a wonderful carefree week in Canterlot. The thought of it brought a glow to her cheeks and nearly ruffled her composure, but it was quickly tempered by the reason she was looking through his letters in the first place. It was not to reminisce or lose herself in the whirlwind fantasy of their courtship. She was certain Blueblood had never mentioned a Baroness Antimony, but her family had been mentioned once or twice. Only in passing, however. There was nothing concrete.

"Nothing," she finally lamented. "Nothing else in any of these!"

Rarity had rolls of paper floating around her as she skimmed through letters she had read and re-read many times over. Blueblood's writing and taste in stationary were both distinct, and she had taken care to keep his correspondence with her intact and away from (uninvited) prying eyes. Sweetie Belle in particular desperately wanted to read the "love letters" her sister had gotten and Rarity had carefully exposed her to a select few.

Others... she was a little too young for.

Blueblood wrote little of the work he did except in general terms, assuming (rightly) that it would make for dry reading in most cases. He had been on a tour of Celestia's private reserves as Grand Veneur, a flurry of activity following the Gala. It had taken him across Equestria and raised a fuss in the papers. Most ponies had only limited knowledge of what their lords and ladies did behind closed doors. The fairy tale image was of endless parties and receptions, and these Blueblood did mention in his writings. However there was clearly far more behind the scenes that he did not share.

Terre Rare.

Who were they?

Carefully putting away the scrolls into their woven cases, each one tied with a blue ribbon, Rarity turned to a less reliable resort: magazines. From Pony to Fashion to The Canter, there had to be some mention of Antimony and her family somewhere. Some gossip. Some scandal. At least some pictures!

Stars alive, how could there be a hundred pictures of Sapphire Shores, and not a single one of an entire family of noblemares and stallions?!

"Ah-ha ha!" Rarity's eyes widened as she cheered, finally finding something.

It was an old issue of Pony, featuring a small article on the mare in question. Flipping through the pages, the fashionista was rewarded with a two pictures of Lady Antimony: one of her standing and addressing a small assembly in a richly adorned room, and another of her lying down on a méridienne - an elegant royal-purple chaise lounge. In the former she wore an intricate white dress, and in the latter, nothing. It accorded Rarity another look at her cutie mark: the mated crown and curious set of stars.

Eyes finding the article, she frowned, vaguely remembering it from more than a year ago. It mostly focused on the noblemare's role in promoting various charities, and in her governance of her realm. There was only a passing mention made of her family. 'Do you think your father the Duke will ever consent to an interview' - her answer being a polite but curt 'I think it unlikely.' To pour salt on the wound of her apparently being known for her charity work, she was also a great patron of the arts, particularly stone statuary.

The mare in the article spoke of underwriting a statuary garden in Pastern-sur-Mer and of the renovation of the great basilica there that dated back to the Founding period. There was no mention of a husband or an arranged marriage. Any of the gossipy questions had been very clearly vetted, removing anything truly informative and replacing it with vapid questions about her figure, other ponies' romantic affairs, and her tastes in music and theater. The interviewer did confirm for the readers that she was single and asked what sort of stallion she intended to look for in the future.

The Baroness's answer had been a dismissive: "All things, in time."

There was nothing else.

Not in that magazine, nor any of the others. The closest was a mention of the family with respect to castle construction and remodeling in Equestria. Nothing useful!

"Um. Excuse me?"

Rarity jumped, so absorbed in her hasty research that she failed, for the first time in recent memory, not to notice the familiar and comforting chime of her Boutique's bell. Somepony was at the door, and she hadn't even heard them enter. Flustered by that fact, and more than a little angry at herself - and at the newly discovered source of that distress - Rarity quickly turned and trotted over to greet her customer.

With a smile.

Always with a smile. At war with herself, she forcibly pushed her concerns down, if only for a little while. The Carousel Boutique had a reputation, one that both included and transcended her own. It was her life's work, her shop. Hers. It simply wouldn't do for her to impair it because some stuffy northern noblemare had decided to pick a fight with her.

"As his mistress, I'm sure you and I will grow quite close."

"Let us be as sisters."

The nerve of her!

"Welcome to the Carousel Boutique!" Rarity greeted the arrival, betraying none of her inner thoughts or turmoil. "Where all the designs are chic, unique, and magnifique!"

A familiar coif of wavy light blue and mint-white perked up from behind two display dresses, along with a unicorn horn. A surprisingly sharp horn. At the other end of the stallion's body, a cutie mark in the shape of a safety pin stood out.

"Oh, Miss Rarity, there you are!" Pierce, or Pokey as Pinkie liked to call him, lifted a hoof in greeting. His golden eyes darted around, clearly searching for something.

Or somepony.

"Ah. I guess Pinkie Pie left already?" he guessed, not having found his quarry. "Unless...!"

He flipped over the helm of a dress on display, and groaned at not finding anything besides pink lining underneath. Few ponies could actually find Pinkie when she chose to hide away, mostly due to her ability to squeeze into spaces seemingly too small to normally fit her body. Somewhat like an octopus, really.

"I'm afraid she isn't here," Rarity replied, letting out a little breath she had been holding. It was just Pierce. Not a customer, which meant she could go back to her... problem. And dealing with it. "Pinkie left... I suppose it must have been a half hour ago or more?"

"Great. Well, I'll find her sooner or later," he grumbled, frowning and heading for the door. "Hopefully sooner. I just found out she hired some technobeat DJ to headline with the Heartstrings... half our guests will walk out if they hear that so called 'music' playing!"

Rarity almost let him go. Almost.

"Pierce. One moment?" she asked, and saw him pause and glance back over his shoulder in curiosity.

"Yes?" he inquired. "Oh, you found out about it, too?"

"I did. And I spoke with her about it," Rarity replied, and walked closer so she could lower her voice and still be heard. "Pierce, you've gone over the guest list, haven't you?"

"I don't have Pinkie's strange sometimes-eidetic always-erratic memory," he answered, nodding. "But yes. I know most of the ponies on the list."

Rarity thought so.

Pierce was a bit of a party lover himself, but not exactly like Pinkie Pie. The thin, dapper unicorn was originally from Canterlot and he still split time between there and Ponyville. A relation to one of the noble families, though not close enough to be titled or a noble himself, his great aunt was the last one to inherit and hold a formal position. This gave him 'old blood' - breeding - but not enough property to be powerful. A lifetime of mingling and a foalhood being around both rich and middle classes, he had been raised with formal parties and grown up to work independently to organize social functions.

This had led to his line of work: party supplies.

Pierce owned several stores in and around Canterlot specializing in both office supplies, stationary, and party favors. His specialty was pins and needles, which was how Rarity knew him. Pinkie's business had prompted him to rename the Ponyville branch of 'Pins and Staples' to 'Pierce's Party Palace.' She was his best customer, and on occasion, more than that. Depending on their mutual whimsy.

This time, for once, they were cooperating. Mostly.

Fighting, but cooperating. Sort of.

It was going to be a miracle if this art festival didn't literally blow up in their faces.

"Remind me... how many noblemares are we expected to attend?" Rarity asked, already having her follow up question ready and waiting. "Titled noblemares?"

Pierce took a moment to mentally recount. "I think... let's see... we have four positive replies, so far. One decline. Three or four pending?" He shrugged. "I think that's it, anyway."

"One of them is Lady Antimony, yes?"

"Oh, yes!" He nodded again in confirmation, and turned around fully to face her. "She hasn't responded yet, but I expect she'll attend. Lady Antimony is a patron of the arts, so this sort of get together is right up her alley. I'm sure she'll make a generous donation above and beyond what we collect during the dinner and auction."

Rarity couldn't help but frown, for just a moment.

"I'm sure she will," she replied, but asked, "What can you tell me about her? Or about the Terre Rare family?"

This time, Pierce gave her a suspicious look, like he was being tested.

"What do you mean?" He raised a hoof to his chin. "The Terre Rare family administers to the province of Two Rivers, and from there, they have domain over Prance and a dozen other places. They're powerful and they're rich. What more do you need to know?"

"Pierce," Rarity said, fixing him with a serious gaze. "Please. I just need some information on them. I've..." She bit her lower lip, hating to lie. Then again, it wasn't really a lie, per say. "I've heard some rumors, you see?"

"Rumors?" Pierce seemed to accept that, and sighed. "Miss Rarity, really?"

He sighed, but did as she wanted, and elaborated.

"The Terre Rare family is... a bit reclusive and a little eccentric, maybe, but they're perfectly harmless. The whole clan is very much in tune with the old ways, so they don't normally interact much with the lower classes. They're most well known for their patronage. The old Duke has some kind of thing for rebuilding old castles, financing museums and gardens... I guess he's a believer in beautification of the country and all that? Two Rivers is a lovely realm, by the way. You really should see it some time."

"And Lady Antimony?" Rarity pressed.

"It's funny you should be asking so much about her. I heard..." Pierce trailed off, and shook his head. "Well, nevermind that!"

He waved the notion off as mere rumor.

"I actually heard that she was here," he explained with a laugh. "In Ponyville! Not likely, not till the party, I'd think. Anyhow, she's the youngest mare in the family, which would normally mean she gets the tidbits, you know? But for once, her family broke tradition. When a Barony opened up, I guess... her father gave it to her. Or something along those lines. She's done quite well for herself and she's very well spoken of. She may even be a Duchess when her father passes on or retires."

A Duchess.

A single, unmarried Duchess.

"It has already been decided."

Just what did she mean by that?

"...like her sister and her brother."

"Excuse me," Rarity interrupted, "What was that just now?"

"Her sister and brother," Pierce repeated, and as he shrugged, his wavy mane settled against the side of his face. "They both married into titles. Her oldest sister is married to the Duke of Connemara, and her brother married Marquesa Olive Branch. The two were also second cousins at the time. It caused a bit of a scandal, since he was supposed to marry into some other family. I forget which one. It doesn't matter - they're a good group of ponies, Miss Rarity. A little aloof, but well respected and much admired."

Rarity glanced away, considering what he had told her. "I see..."

"Now, if you'll excuse me," Pierce hastily added, and headed for the door to try and catch Pinkie Pie before she bounced off on yet another tangent somewhere. He nearly got there, only to stop, and speak over his shoulder a second time.

"Oh, one other thing," the departing stallion added, almost in passing. "I may be wrong about this, but your friend, Miss Sparkle. She'd probably know more, if you're really interested in the details."

He paused again, searching his memory. "That's right. Her father is Crescent Moon, right? She's part of the extended family."

Mister Shady had the coolest market stall in Ponyville.

It was almost as cool as hanging around Rainbow Dash.

Scootaloo hovered for a few seconds getting a good look at one of the glass displays on the main counter. The knives inside were very different than the ones used to cut up vegetables, and they were covered in gems and fancy marks and they came in pretty - but cool - looking cases that usually kept anypony from cutting themselves. Mister Shady had them on display, but Scootaloo had never seen anypony actually buy one. That didn't make them any less neat, though!

"Hey! Hey!" She used her hooves to hold onto the edge of the cart. "Mister Shady, what's that green looking stuff? On the handle and the case?"

"Eel-skin. And don't 'ang on that, you'll break something."

A dark maroon hoof gently swatted at Scootaloo's hooves, just enough to get her to stay on the floor instead of hanging from the edge of a table. That was the one problem with Shady's store: too much of it was above eye level! Filly-eye level anyway. The owner himself angled the case so she could see, just for a few seconds. Mister Shady was a pegasus, red coat and orange mane, but not much of a flyer from what Scootaloo had seen. His talent was in distance flying and finding odd things.

His store, Shady's Curiosities and Antiquities, was only open when he was in town and when he felt like working. It seemed like a pretty fun way of life to Scootaloo: less work than a weatherpony, the freedom to come and go whenever you wanted, and no boring apples or sofas to sell! Instead, there was just a hodgepodge of random stuff from all over Equestria! And a lot of watches. Why he sold so many gold watches, the filly couldn't begin to guess. Jewelry, too.

'Previously owned, already appraised' according to the cases.

"Eel skin?" Scootaloo made a disgusted face, sticking out her tongue. "Gross!" But cool, too! "Why eel-skin?"

Mister Shady put the case back as he replied, a little evasively, "Better grip that way when you hold it in your teeth. A customer wouldn't want to slip using one."

"How come they're shaped so funny?"

"'Aven't I explained this before?" he grumbled, strange foreign accent leaving his 'h's' almost silent. "They're shaped like that to go through... things."

Scootaloo quickly flitted around the cart's goods, looking for anything new, ignoring the shopkeeper's grumbling about her "going into debt for the rest of her life" if she broke anything. She'd learned over the last few years that Shady wasn't as grumpy as he liked everypony to think he was. Most of the stuff was kind of mundane: he had fancy looking rugs that were different than the ones at Rugs n' Ovens, Ponyville's rug store (and oven emporium). There were also lamps and pots and funny looking cups and stuff.

"Hey! Mister Shady?"

"What is it, kid?"

"Why's this so swirly looking?"

"It's graniteware. Don't touch it."

"What about this? What's this funny looking root?"

"That's ginseng. Don't touch it."

"Hey! What about this?"

"Antique scroll and carrying case. Very expensive. ...don't touch it."

"What about this thing?"

"Mammoth tail. Used for black magics. Don't touch it."

"Why is this floating in water?"

"That's a fire ruby. It grows when exposed to heat. Which means don't touch it."

"And this thingy?"

"That is a twig that fell from Yggdrasil, the largest tree in the world. Don't touch it."

It took a while, but a few circuits of the various items in display eventually wore out the hyperactive filly's desire to investigate anything that she hadn't seen before. By this point, Mister Shady was leaning over his table, giving her a cross look. Scootaloo pointed at him.

"What about that mask?" she asked.

He blinked, finally surprised for a second, and turned around. It took a full one-eighty before he realized she was referring to the mask on the counter. Holding it up, the salespony smiled a bit, a gesture that looked a bit strange on his normally frowning face. The mask itself was pretty scary, with black and white eyes and strange patterns like tattoos.

"This was a gift from Miss Zecora last time she visited," he answered, and quickly put it away behind the cart. "Not for sale."

"She gave it to you?" Scootaloo inquired, curious. Apple Bloom had mentioned running into Mister Shady at Zecora's hut a few weeks ago, probably making a delivery.

"Enough with the questions, kid." Shady growled, leaning forward over the counter. "You gonna buy something or what?"

"You bet!" Scootaloo flipped a trio of bits onto the counter. "The usual, please!"

With a gumpy snort, the seasoned pegasus traveler retrieved a brown paper bag. The moment it came out, Scootaloo could smell the sweet flavor of what was inside: candied flowers. Not that she wanted to be some lame cook or anything, but like any red-blooded filly, she loved candy! And this was a treat that only Mister Shady ever brought to Ponyville.

A pony could 'candy' or caramelize or preserve any old flower, of course, usually with some egg white and sugar. These were different. Different flowers from far to the south, roasted and crunchy and sugar-sweet and so-ooo good! Mister Shady always sold out when he returned with a new batch of them, but no matter when she came in, he always had at least one left.

"My last case," he told her with a put-on frown. "Looks like you got lucky, kid."

"Thanks Mister Shady!" Scootaloo wasted no time buzzing up, grabbing the bag, and opening the string tie. Soon she had a mouth-full of the roasted flower petals, hungrily munching away.

He reached over to hand her a napkin. "Try not to make a mess in my store, alright, kid?"

Scootaloo nodded, quickly wiping her mouth. Mister Shady wasn't a bad pony at all. He'd been a friend of her family for years, and he always had something for his friend's "little brat" whenever she came by. Never for free, but always at a discount.

"Nothing's ever free, kid," he had said once. "Sometimes ya get a good deal, though."

"Mister Shady?"

"What is it kid?"

"What's that up there?"

"That's an antique pegasus helmet." He almost forgot to add. "Don't touch it."

Before Scootalooo could find something else to ask about, a faint jingle sound came from the hollow beads that fell from the awning of the market cart. A mint green unicorn entered sporting a white and aquamarine mane. She glanced around for a moment before zeroing in on Shady.

"Miss Lyra!" He perked up, waving his front legs. "I've been expecting you!"

"Shady!" The musician pony greeted him, and then did the same for the other occupant of the store-on-wheels. "And... um..."

"Scootaloo," Mister Shady provided introductions.

"Hi," said filly said between munching on her candy. She knew about Miss Lyra, or at least the mare's name. She was well known as one of Ponyville's more eccentric types. She was also very pretty, at least according to Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo did figure she had a nice mane, at least.

Still, she wasn't cool.

"How was this last trip?" Lyra asked, quickly passing by the normal sets of items on display. "Find anything interesting for me, Shady?"

"As a matter of fact I did," he answered, ducking behind the counter for a few seconds. "An original, too! Not a reproduction like last time. 'Ave a seat. I'll be right out!"

"Should I ask where you've been?" the musician asked, pulling out a plain but functional sitting pillow from a set of them nearby while she waited. After asking the question, however, she took note of the filly in their midst, and seemed to hesitate on saying more.

"It's less where I've been and more where my friends 'ave."

"And where have your friends been?"

"Why, they've been all over Equestria, of 'course! Looking for... bargains..."

"None of this stuff is..." She trailed off, waving a hoof. "You know."

"I wouldn't keep it 'ere if it was. I'd use a you-know-what."

Scootaloo wasn't quite sure what the two were talking about anymore. It sounded like important - and strange - grown-up stuff. She watched curiously, but quietly, as Mister Shady retrieved a rough, dirty-brown rolled up blanket or sheet of cloth. She craned her neck to get a better look, but then he opened the roll of cloth on the ground to the side. Lyra's eyes widened as it began to reveal bits of gold and other metals.

The local Cutie Mark Crusader didn't quite see what the fuss was about. Mister Shady sold lots of gold and junk. What was so special about this stuff? As if to start to answer that, Lyra took another look at the filly, and posed the question:

"Shady, is it really alright for...?"

"Scootaloo's an okay kid," he grumbled, shrugging his shoulders. "As long as she doesn't touch anything."

"What are ya looking at?" the little pegasus asked, blinking.

"Antiques," Shady explained in all of one word.

"Is this real Etrotscan bronze?" Lyra asked, and the two adults soon began to quibble over details.

Still at least marginally interested, Scootaloo saw for herself what the pair were talking about. There was an old coin, and a small statue of a pony, and a really small ring and a weird looking plate. None of it looked like anything she had seen before in history class.

"Hey, what's that!" She finally demanded to know, no longer able to just sit back and keep quiet.

"A coin," Shady replied with a snort.

"Like a bit?"

"No, like a coin."

"The difference between a coin and a bit is the ratio of precious metal to base metal," Lyra answered, raising a hoof in the same sort of posture adults seemed to prefer when sharing their hard earned, worldly knowledge. "Bits were not used as currency until three hundred years after the unification of Equestria. This coin was made in imitation of those brought over from the Old Kingdom, but of lesser craftsmareship. See how it's lost it's luster and how poorly the details were impressed?"

Scootaloo blinked a few times in surprise. That had been... a rather more specific answer than she usually got. She pointed at the coin again.

"So it isn't a bit?" the curious filly asked. "Ya can't buy stuff with it?"

"It is valuable, but no, you can't really use it to buy anything," the musician answered, and smiled at the tentatively listening filly. "See that face on the front? That's Princess Platinum. The two wreaths around the sides represent peace, left with pegasi and right with earth ponies, and on the other side of the coin, you can see icons representing the movement of the sun and moon. Back then, the royal family still controlled the coming of night and day."

Scootaloo did see a somewhat faded face on the coin, cut or pressed out of the surface. The bumps along the edge had to be that other stuff about a wreath and peace. It was amazing Miss Lyra could recognize any of it. It was obviously a pony's face, that of a unicorn mare in profile, but there was no color or anything, and it was kind of vague and she wore a funny looking crown. Still, Lyra seemed to know what she was talking about.

"This is only a guess, but I'd say this coin was made between 100 BE and 200 AE," she concluded, sounding very knowledgeable indeed.

"Wow!" Scootaloo said, impressed. "You're pretty smart!"

Lyra laughed, eyes curving into happy crescents as a broad toothy grin graced her face. "Oh, I know a few things, that's all!"

"What about that one?" Scootaloo asked, pointing now at the statue.

"This? This is a bronze representation of Prince Star Caller," Lyra explained, levitating up the chipped and faded little statue. Despite the age, it was still very clearly a unicorn stallion, rearing up in anger, with a grinding wheel and star spokes for a cutie mark. He wore strange overlapping armor with his saddle. Part of the left front leg was broken off, but the base was intact and looked like it once had a metal plaque on the side.

"Prince Star Caller?" Scootaloo didn't recognize the name. The only Princes she knew of were the elder colts of the Blueblood family in Canterlot.

"He was Princess Platinum's cousin; he famously lead the invasion of Equestria by the Old Kingdom and fought against the First Triumvirate."

Scootaloo tilted her head, about to ask-

"Remember Hearth's Warming?" Lyra asked, and the filly nodded.

Sitting now, Shady sighed loudly, wanting to hear a lot less talking and more spending.

"After Princess Platinum, Chancellor Puddinghead and Commander Hurricane agreed to get along, they founded Equestria, but couldn't decide who was in charge, so they all tried to share power. The fighting had stopped among unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies, ending the Long Winter, but that didn't mean they were all friends. To decide what to do, the leaders of the three tribes formed a Triumvirate, which means 'three leaders.'"

Scootaloo began to get it, or, at least she figured she was close to getting it.

"So instead of two Princesses, they had three?"

"I guess that's one way to see it," Lyra agreed, nodding. "But even though ponies mostly didn't fight or hate each other so much, there was still a lot of... well, fighting... anyway... but just among those in power."

"The newfound friendship of the three leaders was finally put to the test when an army of unicorns arrived in Equestria from the Old Kingdom, lead by Star Caller. He offered to make Princess Platinum into a Queen if she joined him in defeating the local pegasi and earth ponies and building a new Kingdom. In the end, though, Platinum sided with her friends against him and using the power of friendship, they sealed his magic away. They were the two most powerful unicorns in Equestria, maybe even in the world, and she died stopping him. In gratitude for her sacrifice, all the other noble ponies in Equestria swore eternal fealty to Princess Platinum's bloodline."

"So what happened after that?" Scootaloo asked, staring at the statue for answers.

This Star Caller guy sounded kind of cool, in a rough 'take over the world' sort of way. Odd name, though. What, did he yell at the night sky for a living?

"Remember, things were different back then," Lyra reminded her, and quickly made clear why. "They say he was sentenced to be wrapped in a bag and trampled to death. But he survived, and so they tried to burn him with magic, but he still survived. According to legends, eventually he was bound with chains in the middle of a huge pit, and then a river was diverted to drown him under a lake."

Lyra floated the little statue through the air as Scootaloo's eyes widened in fright.

"Some say, even that couldn't kill him!" the minty mare remarked with a chuckle.

The little pegasus filly scowled, vigorously shaking her head.

"No way...! No way!" Scootaloo protested, eyes tightly closed as she tried not to let her naturally vivid imagination run wild. Discord and Nightmare Moon had been terrible enough! They didn't need more ancient evils waking up.

Mister Shady snorted again. "You know, ladies, this isn't a classroom."

"This statue isn't what I'm here for anyway," Lyra said, floating it back down onto the satchel. She carefully lifted out a tiny little ring instead. At least, Scootaloo assumed it was a ring. It was round like one, but too small for any pony to fit around their hoof.

"Look at this," the mint unicorn continued, holding the ring closer.

Scootaloo stared at it, but didn't see anything special. "What is it? "

"This is part of a torc," Lyra explained, and then explained some more. "What Princess Celestia wears around her neck?" She pointed at her throat.

"Oh!" Scootaloo nodded vigorously. "That thing! I thought it was... like a collar or a harness?"

"The part around the neck is a torc." Lyra then pointed at her horn. "Some torcs also have a matching segment for the horn. That's called a halo." She pointed at the ring again. "This is a halo for a horn."

"That's why it's so small?" the filly guessed, and then she remembered the weird looking plate. "That must mean that's the neck-part there?"

"That's right!" Lyra used a bit of magic to remove the larger neck torc. It was actually two segments, both recessed in the gold platter. What seemed to interest the musician was not so much the fact that it was really old jewelry, but something else...

"If you line these up..." The floating neck rings came together, like they wound around a pony's neck. There were two overlapping bits of metal with holes in them, as if something important had been pried loose. At first, it gave the impression of two broad leaves that would flank the left and right sides of the neck.

Looking closer, though, Scootaloo could see they weren't leaves.

"Those are hands!" Lyra declared, grinning madly and pointing right at one with her hoof. "Five fingers. A bit stylized, but they're definitely hands!" She then stared at Scootaloo. "Tell me, do you know any animal that has five fingers?"

"Um..." The little pegasus scooted back a bit and away from the suddenly intense unicorn mare. "Dragons?"

"Four fingers," Lyra stated, sounding cross. "Dragons have four."

"Oh. Um... ah...?"

"There aren't any!" Lyra declared, her face filling Scootaloo's field of vision. "But the five fingered hand shows up all over the ancient paleopony world! On stick figures in Diamond Dog caves in Prance! In the ancient symbol for knowledge! In Parallel B! The Neighzca Lines! The murals of Pochu Ponu!"

"Lyra. You're scaring her."

The musician pony pouted and went back to chatting with Shady.

"How much?" she asked, all but licking her lips. "I can't wait to show this to Twilight and have it dated and appraised!"

"If you say so," Mister Shady replied, deadpan. "But please don't scare my customers with this human stuff."

"Look. I'm not saying it was humans..." She glanced back at Scootaloo and whispered, "But I bet it was humans!" Levitating a bag of bits out of her saddlebags, Lyra chuckled happily, clapping her hooves together in excitement. "...and I'll prove it!"

Scootaloo just focused on munching on her candied flowers.

If nothing else, living in Ponyville had taught her that sometimes it was best to just hunker down and let the crazy pass you by. Either that or find a safe spot and enjoy the show. Both worked.

"Why aren't there any records of magic use before the first millennium BE? Then, all of a sudden, pony civilization develops? Where's the smoking pie, Twilight?"

Of all the silly metaphors she had to use...!

"Lyra," Twilight explained with a sigh as she floated two books from Spike's claws. "There is no record of magic before the first millennium, because our current written language evolved from the Tally script used for record keeping. Most of the syntax developed gradually over the course of centuries."

"Okay," the other unicorn conceded, sitting upright in a chair inside the library. "Then why are there earth pony remains that date back four to six thousand years, but no unicorns or pegasi?"

"Pegasi live in the clouds. Why would you find remains of them in caves?"

"Ah HA! But that doesn't explain the unicorns!" Lyra pointed accusingly.

"Unicorns probably... diverged from earth ponies..." Twilight argued, though not conclusively. Lyra was right in that there were no unicorn remains found dating back more than four millennia. "Besides, unicorns emerged from highland areas like mountains. It isn't that there are no remains, just that we haven't found them yet."

Lyra groaned, and the two mares were back at their usual loggerheads.

Honestly. Humans? Really?

Of all the mystical creatures and primitive gods in folklore, Lyra had to be obsessed with the most ridiculous. How a grown pony could buy into all those insane theories about ancient humans creating pony civilization and pony races and all that nonsense, Twilight just couldn't imagine. There were perfectly reasonable explanations for the mysteries of the past - and present! - without having to fall back on the old "a human did it!" excuse. Science and magic were about experimentation and validation of meticulously and exhaustively researched proofs, not about wild conjecture and fairy tales.

Yes, there were some very strange... and creepy... cave paintings.

Yes, when seen from a certain angle and height, some monuments and pony-modified landmarks did seem to make odd shapes or cast strange shadows.

Yes, there were deliberate gaps in the historical record. Princess Luna was living proof of that!

None of it meant that fanciful hairless sky pixies were visiting Equestria from the great beyond.

Flipping through the dusty eight hundred page tome ("A Tour of Torcs," a brief History of Neckware) Twilight focused on the facts at hoof.

The neck ring Lyra had just purchased a few hours ago was of Coltic design, very intricate, made of high purity gold. A dozen complex threads of metal were grouped into ropes and twisted around each other, giving the torc a unique, eye catching appearance. It could be divided into three parts: one was the halo, which was intact, the second was the upper torc and the third was the lower torc. Those two fit together snugly, clasping together to form the torc proper. It was much thinner and more delicate than the regalia that Princess Celestia wore, which was constructed along purely post-migration Equestrian lines.

It was so delicate looking, in fact, that Twilight had been a bit worried about manipulating it, even with her fine magic. Fortunately, it was much stronger than it appeared. It currently lay on a table next to a pile of books, on top of a white felt tablecloth. The designs on it were certainly fascinating from an academic perspective. The predominant use of abstract shapes and geometric lines, rather than the images or imprints of animals, places, or specific things, like branches or leaves... implied it was made in the Late Coltic style. Use of any iconography had been frowned on in the later Old Kingdom.

Then there were the... hands... as Lyra insisted on calling them.

"Lyra, look at this." Twilight was about to float the book over, but Lyra was already up and standing next to her, looking for herself. The student of magic pointed to a symbol on the page.

"The five shaded spade, or shield, is also the pictographic character for 'war,' 'luck' and 'magic.' We still use it as the basis for the modern escutcheon. This one is just made so the fifth grade is a little cut off. See? Look at all these examples. They aren't hands."

Lyra's expression remained impassive as she read the page, and the next. Finally she sighed and backed away, shaking her head.

"If that's the case," she argued. "Then why are the not-hands on this torc clearly holding something?"

"A lozenge is often placed at the center of a heraldic field," Twilight replied, smiling gently as she saw Lyra's resistance crumble in the fact of logic and sound research. It always did. This wasn't the first 'proof' Lyra had brought to her to try and test her crazy theories about ancient humans.

In the end, it never stood up to scrutiny.

That said, it was nice to be able to talk history with some other pony in Ponyville. Even if it was a conspiracy-theory, humans-built-the-pyramids slant on things. Poor Lyra didn't reply, instead looking down to paw at the floor. It wasn't that she wasn't a smart pony, not in Twilight's opinion. Lyra was probably one of the most intelligent mares Twilight had ever met! She just let her obsession with one or two topics cloud her judgment.

"If I could just..." She bit her lip. "Aww, nevermind."

"You know," Spike just had to chime in at that moment, looking at the torc for himself. "Those do look kind of like hands. No claws, though."

"They do look like hands!" Lyra bounced right back, clasping the little dragon on the back. "See? Spike agrees with me! And he HAS hands, so he knows better than anypony!"

Twilight nearly introduced hoof-to-face at that point.

"Anyway!" She decided instead to move on to the remaining facts. "The material, construction, and style appear genuine. The dating spell confirmed that it's very old and not just a very well made fake. I could check a few more books if you want, but at this point I'm fairly certain that it was made in the pre-classical period. Or by a pony well versed in pre-classical goldsmithing."

"At least I got my money's worth for once," Lyra grumbled, ducking her head to stare at the torc front-on. "What about the two holes? They probably had gems in them, right?"

"Probably," Twilight answered, carefully book-marking her page before flipping to another, this one with pictures and sketches of ancient neckware (it also had several very interesting chapters on the evolution of bracelet styles).

"Gems were much more valuable in the Old Kingdom than in Equestria," Twilight explained, and gave Spike a friendly jab. "Raising a dragon like Spike would bankrupt a pony ten times over."

"Like I eat that much," Spike objected, just as a knock on the door briefly distracted the trio of library occupants. "I'll get it! ...Since I'm being guilt tripped about my eating habits..."

Lyra and Twilight watched him go, the later with a proud smile.

"What about magic, then?"

"I didn't find any lingering spellwork," Twilight apologized, knowing that they had both been hopeful about a find there. "Sorry. I wish I had. There's so much that ancient unicorns like Starswirl could still teach us today."

Lyra's ears flatted against her head in frustration. "I can wear it for the art festival at least..."

It sounded like a distant second place to why she had purchased the jewelry, but at least there was a silver lining. Twilight could also guess that her initial assessment and debunking would only stick for so long before the other unicorn went back to believing in her own pet theories.

"Can you find out what the two original missing gems were?" Lyra asked, even as she and Twilight noticed who was at the door.

Rarity?

"That shouldn't take too long."

"Thanks a bunch, Twilight. Pay you back the usual way?"

Twilight nodded eagerly. The 'usual way' to pay her back was to find a book she didn't already have at the library and donate it. She loved helping ponies out, of course, and would do so without asking for payment, but this was also a really great way to help the library itself. All the recent talk about charity events over the last few months had given her some ideas about raising community awareness about the town library. It wasn't just her home, after all: it was everypony's contribution to the future!

"Rarity!" Twilight greeted her friend, waving her inside.

Poor Spike was still a-twitter, asking his supposedly secret crush if he could get her anything. Twilight felt a pang in her heart for her little dragon, her little brother in all but blood. He had only redoubled his efforts to get Rarity to notice him since the Gala, and not just as a good friend. The "friend zone" Pinkie had called it once, in a conversation that soon turned to speculation about a hypothetical "twilight zone." Whatever that meant.

Regardless, it had been an enlightening conversation. Twilight wasn't as knowledgeable about relationships as she was about... well, almost everything else... but she felt for Spike. Before the Gala, Rarity had been somewhat aloof but at least single.

Now...

Before she could think further on that, however, Twilight noticed her friend seemed a bit out of sorts. She thanked Spike, and took up his offer of a cup of tea. Outwardly, she seemed mostly normal, but there was an edge to the way she stood and composed herself. Like she had bad news, news she wanted or even needed to share, but that she was a little afraid to.

"I better head out," Lyra decided, giving Rarity a friendly smile. "Rarity."

The fashion designer remained polite, despite any internal stresses. "Lyra. We will have to meet up sometime. Do you have a dress for the festival already?"

"I'll probably just dust off the one I wore to the Gala a few years ago," the musician replied with friendly grin. "If I still fit in it after years of eating Bon-Bon's sweets anyway!"

"Nonsense, darling! You're in great shape!"

"The waistline test will decide that!" She gave one last wave before leaving. "See you tomorrow, Twilight!"

With Lyra soon gone, and Spike in the kitchen boiling tea, Rarity let her composure slip a bit around Twilight, and only Twilight. Collecting herself, she trotted up to her friend and looked the purple unicorn in the eyes. Twilight leaned back a little, raising an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Rarity?" she asked. "Is... something wrong?"

"You'll forgive me for being so forward and so rude," Rarity began, and glanced away to build up her resolve, or just not to see Twilight's face when the question was posed.

"Are you... " She finally asked, "Twilight, are you related to the Terre Rare family?"

Twilight's face scrunched up in confusion. Was that it?

"Sure! A little," she admitted. "I mean, the extended family is huge, but, yes, I guess I am."

"Do you know a pony named Antimony?" she asked, more accusingly.

"Antimony?" Twilight asked, stepping back. "No... unless you mean...? Lady Antimony?"

"Yes, her!"

"I know OF her..." Twilight thought back to her family tree, which her parents had made her memorize years ago. It was pretty useless knowledge, but noble families loved to tout their lineage. "She's... my grandfather's mother's older sister's great granddaughter."

"We're third cousins," Twilight concluded. "I think. Bear in mind I have... something like twenty cousins in my extended family. In fact, I remember reading once that almost every unicorn in Equestria is related to every other unicorn by five degrees of difference..."

Rarity seemed both mollified and confounded by this.

"I'm sorry, Twilight," she finally said, lowing her eyes. "I didn't mean to sound so... so..." She bit her lip and fell dramatically to the floor with a sigh. "This whole situation is just terrible! Just terrible!"

"The worst possible thing?" Twilight asked, drolly rather used to her friend's choice in method acting.

"Twilight," Rarity looked up at her, tears held back by a steely resolve. "This really is bad."

It was... so plainly earnest.

"Oh, Rarity, I'm the one who’s sorry. I - well, I kind if thought..." Twilight lent a hoof to help her friend back up and walk her over to where the library had some throw pillows. "What's wrong? It must be something really distressing."

Finding a pillow, Rarity lay down with a groan, momentarily hiding her eyes behind her front leg. Though prone to flights of melodrama, as her portable fainting couch would attest, it was never something she couldn't really handle. Rarity was one of the strongest ponies Twilight knew: emotionally resilient, despite frequent hiccups and difficulties, and if one were being honest, she was probably the least likely of all of Twilight's close friends to have a genuine mental breakdown. As opposed to a harmless fit.

That list sadly including Twilight herself, from what she recalled of her 'tardy report' adventure.

"Lady Antimony came to my boutique earlier today," the fashionista explained, starting from the beginning. "I was helping fit Pinkie Pie for her dress, and she just came in. It was a surprise, and I had a bad feeling even then, but I mostly forgot about it while we talked shop. Then, before she left, she said: ‘I wish we could become fast, true friends.'"

"I didn't know what she meant by that, but then she told me that the reason she was in town... was to see Blueblood's mansion. The one he was building to be closer to Ponyville!" Rarity didn't cry, but she did get angry. "She said he was her husband. Her husband! Can you believe it?"

"But... he isn't?" Twilight asked, tentatively. "I don't think...?"

"There's no way they're actually married," Rarity assured her friend and herself. "It would have been in the news. Everypony in Equestria would know! She said it was 'decided' which means somepony arranged it!"

Twilight frowned, seeing the problem, or at least part of it.

"You don't think Prince Blueblood arranged it behind your back?"

Rarity shook her head. "No. I don't. But he's also been out of the country for weeks dealing with the griffins up north. Why would Lady Antimony only come now to let me know?"

"So she arranged it?" Twilight reasoned. "Or her family did. Only recently?" She lowered from sitting down to lying on all fours. "And when she said she wanted to be friends?"

"She actually said, after I asked her about it, that we should be like sisters." Rarity crossed her hooves in front of her, trying to keep some of the anger out of her voice. "She said she doesn't care if he's with me, as long as she's his wife."

"Oh."

Twilight blushed a bit, but didn't say any more. Where was Spike with the tea?

"So?"

Rarity stared at her. "Darling, you see why this is so terrible, don't you?"

"Kind of?" Twilight asked, and shied back a bit by lowering her head closer to her hooves. "I guess not entirely. It isn't like you two can never be... close."

"Twilight," Rarity said her name like it hurt that she didn't understand. "I'd be his mistress. Not his wife! A dam!"

Twilight's first instinct was to ask how that was so bad. There were more than two mares for every stallion in Equestria, depending on where a pony lived. It wasn't as pronounced in big cities, but in the country, and in small towns like Ponyville, the ratio could be closer to three to one. There weren't close to enough eligible stallions for every mare to have a monogamous union and many ponies didn't want one to begin with.

From what she had learned in Canterlot, marriage was mostly meant to pass on property. Daughters always inherited from their mothers - usually the eldest daughter - and fathers were supposed to only pass on their property or titles to the child of their principal union. Their wife, in other words. The mares who had foals out of wedlock were dams, and the fathers of the children were sires. There was no prohibition about a sire spending time with a dam instead of his wife, only that legally he couldn't favor a dam's children over his wife's when the time came to bequeath an inheritance.

Many marriages in Canterlot were arranged: simple, practical political unions.

In fact, there were many rather popular bodies of fiction about courtly love between sires and dams, freed from the complication of family obligations and dynastic alliances. Her 'personal section' of the library had a few scandalous versions of those sorts of stories. Rarity probably had copies of her own, too, since she had been the one to introduce them to her!

"Twilight," Rarity said, pleaded almost, trying to make things clear. "Ever since I was a little foal, I've dreamed of meeting the one stallion who I could love and who would love only me. My father never had a dam, so maybe that colored by view of things... but it's always been my dream, Twilight. To fall in love and to be loved. My own very special somepony."

She buried her face in her front legs, choking back a sob.

"At the Gala... I was so nervous...!" She admitted, pausing to take a deep breath. "You can't imagine, Twilight. The Gala! Celebrities and nobleponies everywhere, and there I was, trying to fit in. When Prince Blueblood noticed me... when we danced and talked and..."

Rarity gave a raking sigh and turned to lay her cheek against her leg.

"It was a magical night, Twilight, and we connected on so many levels. It was like... my dream coming true. A Prince! And...!" The beautiful unicorn closed her eyes, preparing herself to say what came next. "Twilight, my family isn't exactly the highest rung on the social ladder. You may be distantly related to a noble family's main line, to actual noble titles, to an actual lineage, but I don't even know...!"

She frowned, depreciatingly.

"Twilight, I - I can't even trace my line back beyond my maternal great grandmother, the very mare I'm named for! My grandmother and great grandmother couldn't marry the stallion they loved. I don't know who half my ancestors even are," Rarity admitted.

"Isn't... isn't that pitiful...?" she sniffed, growing ashamed now of her thoughts. "I didn't want to be like that. I couldn't. I can't!"

She almost seemed about to say more on that topic, but buried her face again and switched tracks.

"Eventually, I thought it wouldn't matter," Rarity finally choked out. "Even though I didn't have a noble family line, I thought I could make it not matter."

Still not sure what to say, Twilight inched closer and lowered her cheek to nuzzle her friend comfortingly. She still couldn't entirely understand Rarity's distress, but she knew enough to see how it was hurting her friend. Twilight tried to imagine what she would feel, how she would feel, if Princess Celestia had been forced to take another personal student. She tried to imagine how she would worry, constantly comparing herself to this other unicorn under her mentor's wing, hoping that her place in the Princess's heart wasn't being eclipsed.

At some point, Spike had slipped in and left a tray of snacks, two cups of tea trailing steam into the air. Then he was gone, probably turned off by the sad vibes in the area. Or perhaps wanting to get involved in any "weepy girl stuff."

"I won't give him up," Rarity whispered, her mane a bit of a mess, but her determination restored and revitalized by sharing the burden with somepony.

"I won't give up on my dream!" she declared, more loudly. "Generosity or not, I refuse to bend on this!"

"I'll help any way I can!" Twilight vowed, draping a leg over her friend's shoulders. "Pinkie swear!"

Out of sight, but not out of earshot, Spike leaned against a doorframe. Closing his eyes, the little dragon crossed his arms, having heard every word. Pushing off with his tail, he silently return to the kitchen... to think.

Mayor Mare winced a bit at the tea.

The sweet tea.

Pinkie Pie being invited had come as a somewhat unpleasant surprise. Not that Pinkie herself was that much of an annoyance... normally. Everypony in Ponyville had come to first survive and then eventually embrace their party overlord. The problem - the dissonance - came when meeting and working with other non-Ponyville ponysonas. Especially important ones.

There had been that time at the Cakes, for example, with the Princess of all ponies...!

"Hey, are you gonna finish those?!"

And there went the remaining sweet cakes.

Amazingly, Lady Antimony seemed boundlessly patient and understanding. Having only eaten a little, spending most of the get together drinking tea and playing (or enduring) various games with her surprise host, Mayor Mare could only thank the stars that nothing had gone wrong. The Baroness was a powerful mare, even outside her domain. Rumor also had it that she was her father's favorite and intended heir, despite her youth, and there were few ponies in power who wished to cross that stallion.

"Miss Pie," the Mayor began to say, a little warningly.

"Pinkie," Antimony spoke up, placing her teacup on it's saucer with hardly a chime. "Would you like to go shopping later? I would like to see more of Ponyville."

"Oh! Shopping! That sounds like fun!" Pinkie hopped off the table, already planning out the itinerary. "We can start with the tastiest place in Ponyville, Sugarcube Corner! And then we can-"

"I don't need to hear where, Pinkie," Antimony cut the hyperactive element of laughter short. "I trust you to be an effective and efficient host. In the meantime, please take a seat and join us as a guest. Mayor Mare and myself have much to discuss and I'm afraid I'm a bit too tired to play around anymore."

Pinkie cocked her head in surprise.

"But... already? 'As a guest'?" Still, she seemed clever enough to know what the noblepony meant by that. "We didn't even get to play twister yet! Or charades!"

Rather than argue, the Baroness remained seated and silent. Mayor Mare's dark violet eyes shot from one mare to the other, curious as to what would happen next. Pinkie was notoriously irrepressible, so it was a little shocking when she sighed, resignedly, and flipped her mane. Licking her forearms, more than a little sloppily, she then wetted down her hair so it hung a little limp rather than stick straight up. Taking a seat by the low coffee table, she quickly cooled, adapting to the change in party mood, from hostess to 'guest.'

"It's your party," Pinkie said, in a much more reserved tone. "But as soon as you get your energy back, we're going back to having real fun."

Antimony smiled, not her normal smile, but a grin betraying a hint of smugness.

"There are many ways to enjoy oneself," the Baroness assured the party pony. Her half lidded eyes fell on Mayor Mare, bearing down on her like a pair of weights. "Did you know, Madam Mayor: I was most surprised to hear that a relative unknown had been picked by my intended to arrange the Ponyville Art Festival. At first, I wondered if he was intending to make it into... an amusement. But..."

Her eyes turned to Pinkie again, who had assumed a proper pose to drink some tea, even if she crinkled her nose at the bitterness. Even though it was sweet tea. Not sweet enough, apparently, given the fact that the pink pony was now dumping sugar directly into her cup in an effort to make the drink palatable.

"This one is more adaptable than she appears," Antimony decided. "It is a most valuable trait, adaptation, and I approve of my intended's decision. The festival should not only be enjoyable, but unique... a fitting venue, given the peculiar events of the Gala."

Pinkie, though forcing herself to be prim and proper, raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

"The Gala?" she asked. "Hey, and what do you mean your intended?"

"Prince Blueblood." The Baroness's smile seemed genuine, but her expression was otherwise so studied, it was hard to tell. "He is to be my husband. I forget, Pinkie, you were not there when I explained this to Miss Rarity."

"That's what you wanted to talk to her about?" the party pony realized, the gears in her head spinning as she tried to imagine how that conversation had gone. "Hey! But... he's Rarity's coltfriend! You can't just take him!"

"It is a decision out of both of our hooves," Antimony replied, folding her forearms together in a polite posture of calm disinterest. "It's unfortunate that she didn't take the news better. I still wish, one day, for us to become close family. I do not desire to be the mare who crushes another's dreams."

"Ohhh." Pinkie quickly focused on the problem, or what she had heard of it.

There was no doubt in the Mayor's mind that, having heard about the dispute between her old friend and her new one, Pinkie Pie would attempt to resolve it. Somehow. Lady Antimony, despite having known Pinkie for only a short time, must also have realized what sort of actions her words would provoke. It was the sort of headache Mayor Mare would have personally avoided were the situations reversed.

Having seemingly said what she wanted or needed to say, Lady Antimony soon moved the conversation from pleasantries to business over a deck of cards, but Mayor Mare just couldn't help but keep an eye on Pinkie as well. Against all odds, the party crazy pony seemed to be acting the part of a proper lady.

Minutes ticked by, and with every one, the Mayor had to wonder if Pinkie would suddenly throw her hooves in the air out of boredom and frustration. She certainly didn't seem to be enjoying herself that much, listening to the two older mares talk on and on and on about politics and Ponyville, though she did seem interested in the card game, even if it was only bridge.

All too soon, Mayor Mare got the impression that Pinkie Pie, her mane somehow transmogrified into a waterfall of hair from a cotton candy puff, was one anecdote short of snapping entirely. Curiously, if anything, Baroness Antimony seemed to be more and more amused by this fact every minute. She waited, watching, until...

"Pinkie Pie," she finally said, breaking from the discussion of local crops and administration of dues. "Would you be so kind as to do something for me?"

"Oh!" She instantly perked up a bit at hearing her name. "What is it?"

Antimony continued to smile. "A game."

"I love games!"

"As do I," the noblemare replied, always amiable. "If you please, could you bring out the chocolate and truffles? Then we can play another game. Whichever one you want. Think of it as my thanks for your patience. But you really should learn how proper mares play cards, so you won't have to sit out next time we have tea or coffee."

"That's no problem! I didn't mind waiting!" Pinkie insisted, hunching down to mutter. "...that much..." Before bouncing back up and off her cushion. "Oh! And I know just the game! Let me get my jam box! And the croquet bat! And the football!"

Pinkie dashed out, and as she did, Mayor Mare gave a small sigh of relief.

"For the life of me, I can't imagine what she intends for us to indulge in. I just hope it isn't too... eccentric," Mayor Mare remarked, quietly. She sipped her tea, savoring the peace and quiet.

"I rather enjoy her company as a change of pace," Lady Antimony admitted, pouring a cup of lemon camomile tea into her porcelain cup. "Tell me, Mayor Mare. Do you have many enemies?"

The question almost caused the elected official to choke on her drink.

"W-what?" she asked, sputtering. "Enemies?"

"Yes," Antimony repeated, "Enemies. Do you have many?"

"I don't..." Mayor Mare coughed, politely. "Well, I suppose I have a few. One can't become elected without making a few enemies at least." She reached up to flick back some of her naturally gray mane. "Do you...?"

"I have had more than a few," the Baroness confirmed. "I don't like to think of them as such, but from the day I was born, there have been obstacles to remove from my path, many of them other ponies. Those obstacles are always the worst, as I have the greatest affection for my fellow Equestrians, but if I can, I like to make a friend and ally for every enemy. If Miss Pie becomes a friend, then I will be pleased with the balance today."

"So you made an enemy today," Mayor Mare asked, reading between the lines and seeing where the conversation was headed. "You mean Miss Rarity."

"Oh yes," the noblemare answered with her ever present smile. "I expect she's thinking, even now, of how to stand in my way. She's probably making... desperate plans. I find it so unfortunate... when two ponies can not have what they both want. This may sound arrogant, but I really do regret that things have come between us."

"I simply hope this doesn't negatively impact the town," Mayor Mare broached her main concern. "Miss Rarity and the other Elements of Harmony are pillars of the community."

"Oh, I will be delicate, I assure you. Despite being a national hero, Miss Rarity's situation makes me very sad," Antimony said, sipping her tea. It was impossible to tell if she meant it or not. Her eyes were unreadable, and her smile never shifted. "Whichever one of us wins, Mayor Mare, will become your Duchess."

Your liege lord, in other words.

Ponyville was one of a few towns - enclaves really - that technically answered directly to the Princess of Equestria, relying on the local Duke solely for matters of security and trade, rather than taxation. It was a bit of an imposition on the noble lords, but the great old families were expected to indulge the regions Princess Celestia had vested interests in.

As the Duchess of Canterlot, a mare like this one would then have direct control over Ponyville's security and the freedom it enjoyed to trade and interact with the rest of the province. A Duchess could also be in a position to put a noose around the town, should she so choose, especially with Ponyville being adjacent to the hostile Everfree.

The Baroness's violet eyes, even half lidded, pierced the older mare. No more needed to be said. Whatever got in her way, she would push aside. She would remove it. Ponies. Enemies.

Obstacles.

"Despite being one of Princess Celestia's special administrative regions, Ponyville seems to be in some financial trouble, Mayor Mare," Antimony observed, and the town official had to remember to blink as the noblemare's eyes bored into her. They were almost... hypnotic.

"Let us make arrangements, now, for what is to come," she continued, always with a smile. "You will find in me a powerful and generous ally... it would be a shame for another to so benefit from my largess."

Chapter Three : It Has Been Decided

(3)

It Has Been Decided

Crown Roc.

The roof of Equestria could be found in the Skyspear Mountains of the north, a vast land of rugged highlands and snow capped mountains obscured by fog and cloud. Chief among the griffin realms was Crown Roc, a great crescent carved out of two mountainsides. Permanently adorned by pearls of clouds at the various levels, it was the triumph of griffin architecture and society, and had been for nearly a thousand years, since ponykind drove almost all rival races from the southlands in the great migrations of a previous age.

Of the two mountainsides, the east-front, Ajax, was the largest, more than twice the size of the smaller north-front, Teucer. A small, third mountain to the west, Trambelus, was occupied only by a combined ground and cloud fort guarding the navigable approach to the city. Thousands of buildings clung like moss to the side of the mountaintops, white stone and blue domes and a dozen colors of banner and parapet. The highest towers were the Skyspears for which the mountains were named: places of pilgrimage and sky-worship, connections between the monasteries in the heavens and the life on the earth. Griffins were more dual natured than pegasi, hunting on the ground, sleeping in the mountains, cavorting in the sky.

Dominating part of the largest mountainside, Ajax, lay the Aerie of the High King. Tiered like massive steps leading up to a glacial throne, ringed by trees and a beehive of small domes, it was a sight to behold - a rival of Canterlot itself, though poorer and purposefully lacking in proper opulence. Much of the Palace Aerie was a barracks and citadel, functional not so much as a venue for cultural expression as it was a show of force. The Griffin Tribes were not so openly and easily united as their pony neighbors to the south.

They never had been; and in fact, never wanted to be... so united.

Prince Blueblood took in the sight as he prepared to leave.

"One would think our honored guest found the hospitality of Crown Roc lacking?" The speaker, Prince Mnemon, joined him in looking out over the edge of the airship.

Above them, the thin metal skeleton of the semi-rigid airship's envelope fluttered, attendants checking it for travel and preparing the internal ballonets for takeoff. The whole thing had been fashioned in the likeness of a sleek predatory whale or fish, from the metallic tip to the cresting empennage. Hanging from the envelope by a weave of ropes and supports, the gondola was akin to the body of a small ship, with ample luxuries and amenities for the Captain and Lord.

It was Prince Blueblood's personal air cruiser, far faster than the diplomatic cargo airship moored close by. Curiously, that vessel was still at rest in its mooring by the mountainside of Crown Roc. Only The Princess Hesperus - The Princess Evening Star - was being prepared for launch. The suddenness of it all had drawn the heir apparent from the Palace to investigate.

Blueblood turned from the sight of the mountain city to busily oversee the small crew as they went about their duties. A soft blue glow enveloped one of the rigging supports, testing its strength. Finding it acceptable, it moved on to the others.

"Take it not as a slight, Mnemon," the Equestria royalty replied as he worked. "Please be sure your father the King understands this as well. Something unsavory has come to my attention, calling me home to attend to it."

"It must be quite the news, to have you scurrying around like a mouse before a hawk," his peer among the griffins observed. He reached out to one of the flags that hung from the side of the airship's envelope. A few of the ship's streamers were emblazoned with the Star and Vesica Piscis, representing the diarchy of the divines of sun and moon, but others proudly bore the silhouette of a unicorn's bust against royal purple, crowned with diamonds. Only one family in Equestria bore the heraldry of the Old Kingdom.

The fabric pinched between the griffin Prince's claws before he let it be.

"Father had hoped to save this to the last day," Mnemon continued, looking to the side as a trio of griffins mauled a crate onboard. "But since we have concluded our business, it can be given now, I suppose. Our artisans have crafted for Lady Celestia and Lady Luna a gift that Father believes they will find to their liking. I hope you don't feel disappointed returning home without a trinket of your own, Blueblood."

The Prince snorted, glancing back at his fellow with one eye.

"Really?" he asked, and went back to making sure the ship was ready to disembark. "I was given a fine scar. I suppose that will pass for a gift to remember this trip by."

Mnemon chuckled, slapping the alabaster stallion on the back. "Yes! You understand well! Equestria and Crown Roc will be good friends when we take our places!"

"I'm already in my place," Blueblood countered, and his eyes narrowed in anger. "It is the reason I must leave."

Seeing Mnemon was still curious, and that an answer could well smooth over his sudden exit, Blueblood floated an opened letter over from where it had been tucked under his belt and cloak. The griffin lord snatched it out of the air, handling it much more carefully than he did the flag before. It fluttered wildly in the mountain wind once Blueblood's magic released it.

"Come, see where my place in the grand scheme of things has gotten me," the Prince of Equestria growled, looking up to test the airship's hull overhead.

Mnemon examined the letter: it seemed unremarkable at first. The wax seal, broken on the outside where it had been folded, but intact at the bottom of the letter itself in place of a signature, indicated it was from the Stable of Lords in Equestria. Though the Stable had been the signatory, it was not the sender. Still, the fact that it was an official communiqué from the Lords was interesting enough. To the griffin Prince, it was a curious institution to begin with, giving voice to the country's landed classes, and one the Lords of Crown Roc had no desire to emulate. A Council of Elders served to advise the griffin King; there was no need for some preening legislature.

In Equestria, the Stable of Lords had been first formed by the aristocrats of the migration in imitation of institutions in the Old Kingdom. It included religious ponies, hereditary commanders of the air guard, heralds, abbots, barons, dukes and representatives of the great district mayors. The very founders of the Stable had been the three revered ponies of the previous era: Smart Cookie, Clover the Clever, and Pansy the Fair. Blueblood, too, would have been a lord among them, as the Duke of Canterlot.

As Mnemon read the letter, however, he realized the problem.

"You have been engaged," he remarked, folding the letter back up. Blueblood, finished with checking the ship, now spared all his attention on his guest, plucking the letter out of the griffin's hand with a bit of magic.

"Should I congratulate you?" Mnemon asked, a joke neither found funny. "Do you even know this she-pony?"

"I know of Lady Antimony and her esteemed family," Blueblood answered with a frown. "They are somewhat distant cousins." He then clarified: "Ambitious cousins to be exact. I don't need to sit in court and bend ear to rumors to know what they are doing here. The Stable, engaging me without so much as a word of consultation?"

Blueblood huffed, his anger already mellowed and tempered by consideration.

"It is insulting for them to go behind my back," he explained, and tucked the letter away under his cloak. "Nevermind that Lady Rarity will not accept the terms this will impose on her. On us."

"She would be relegated to second wife?" Mnemon guessed, knowing enough of ponies - despite the impression he tended to give - to determine the unwritten consequences of the letter and the engagement.

"We only have one wife," Blueblood reminded him. "The second, third or fourth... or however many... ladies... are not even accorded a proper title. They also remain in the household only at the permission and whim of the wife, to be ejected with their children as suits her. Lady Rarity is many things, Mnemon, but she is not the type to ever accept second place in anything. She is no leman or kept mare."

Placing a hoof against the banner-edge of the airship's gondola, a frown deepened.

"I must return... muster my friends and allies... find some way to reject this engagement," he said, determined but also cautious. "Some way that does not also insult House Terre Rare or impugn the honor of Lady Antimony."

"Then," Mnemon reasoned, a little cautiously himself. "You are certain that this Lady Rarity is to be your one... and only wife? You throw away much power by aligning your family with another that, by your own admission, has nothing to materially contribute. Not to be rude, but from what I know, House Blueblood was stronger in your father's day."

"For once, your spies see some truth." Blueblood gave a frustrated, unhappy whinny. "The family was stronger... and larger... in father's day. Stronger still in my grandmother's. Our power and prestige have diminished. We have fallen far from once lofty heights. When the forty seventh came to these lands, he was a Titan! Now...?"

He shook his head, trying to stay in the present. "Picking Lady Rarity as wife will do me no favors. It will grant my house no new lands. I will reap the benefits of no new alliances. Lady Rarity has no dowry to speak of. Any hypothetical children will not even inherit her element, before you think to ask."

The stallion's eyes narrowed as he continued.

"It will earn me only enmity. Her dowry will be the ire of great houses, whose own daughters have been snubbed. To marry Lady Rarity... is the worst political move I will have ever made."

Blueblood fixed Mnemon with a hard stare.

"But it is her dream... and I can imagine myself committed to no other," the Prince concluded, calmly, before glancing back out at the mountains and clouds. "So it is a move I will make, regardless."

The two royals stood in silence for a while, the shouts of the ship's crew confirming that the Princess Hesperus was ready for launch. The King's gift had been stowed away, and Princess Celestia's gift unloaded: an intact train engine, given as part of the peace negotiation, to encourage the more civilized of Griffin Tribes to link themselves with Equestria, not only by air, but by land as well. The thought of the Sun Princess gave Mnemon pause.

"What about Granny?" he asked, chuckling at the nickname he and many generations of griffin princes previous had used for the immortal alicorn. "The Old Lady must be a trump card you can use?"

"Auntie," Blueblood primly used a label that didn't quite stress how old his beloved relative was. "Will not be able to stick her nose into this."

Mnemon raised an eyebrow at that, not understanding. "Why not? You are her nephew, however distantly. She is Princess of your realm, the spiritual head of your people. And... if I'm not mistaken, she is quite fond of Lady Rarity and all the other Mares of Harmony."

"All true," the Prince admitted, and his blue eyes caught the horizon. South. Where Equestria's green fields lay. "She will not intervene because of her most terrible vice."

"Vice?"

"Her integrity. You must have noticed the outer seal in the letter..."

"You didn't break it," the griffin lord realized with a smirk. "Ah! Granny did, and she sent it to you."

"By royal courier," Blueblood confirmed, pushing off from the scaffold and heading to the airship's bridge. "My own letter will no doubt arrive days from now, when other plans have been put in motion." He stopped a pegasus in a sky-blue vest. "Ready the sails. We cruise as soon as our weather team builds up the wind."

"Mnemnon," the Prince added, shooing away the airship crewpony and turning quickly to incline his head in respect. "I do hate to leave the hospitality of Crown Roc so suddenly and so rudely, I do, but you must understand now. I need to fly! I need to get back! What I care for depends on it!"

"You never explained why Granny couldn't intervene," the other Prince reminded him. "I'm sure she can do more than give you some small warning?"

Blueblood's shoulders sensed, but he didn't immediately reply.

"Auntie..." he finally said, a hot breath of air against the cold mountain wind. "Auntie was the one to conceive of this engagement in the first place. That is why."

It went largely without saying that Spike had few male role models.

This wasn't the Worst. Thing. In. The. World! But it was a pain, sometimes. This being one of those times. His thoughts were a muddled, confused haze around one endlessly recursive subject in particular. He didn't let it affect his chores at the library - he wasn't sure how to talk to Twilight about it, or how awkward it would be - and he didn't let it otherwise detract from spending time with his friends, but it was always there. Rarity, this situation he had overheard... it was always in the back of his mind, enshrouded by doubt.

He needed another guy to talk to, to use as a sounding board, to just be a possible source of advice. Somebody or somepony who wasn't already in Rarity's circle of friends. Snips and Snails had been possibilities, but the pair had as much experience with girls as he did, or, honestly, LESS. A lot less. It highlighted the problem in general.

Just finding another dragon to talk to would go some distance towards clearing up his thoughts. Naturally, that wasn't possible. Dragons didn't raise their young - "they just don't have parental instincts," Twilight had explained once - and they were not the most talkative of races even under the best of conditions. He knew darn well that there was at least one dragon living nearby in Everfree, but the big green jerk was as likely to squash the 'competition' as he was to share any deep insights into dragon nature.

There would be no wisdom passed down from that source.

The only other alternative left was finding some camaraderie and common ground as guys, and just as guys, even if those ‘guys’ were ponies. It wasn't like they were all that different anyway. It wasn't like it was him - Spike - being abnormal in some way? Was it?

He was out of options.

This was also why he was at Sweet Apple Acres. The Apple family knew him, and even though his visit had been unexpected, he was greeted warmly and allowed to hang around. Applebloom was with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle at school, but he wasn't here to see any of the crusaders. He was here for advice from one of the few stallions he knew, albeit not very well.

There was nothing to do but wait as Big Macintosh finished stocking one of the barns for the fall. No stranger to repetitive manual labor himself, Spike still had to shake his head at the carts and bales of hay being stowed, together with other fruits of the farm. Pony-food, all of it. Realizing that there wasn't just one barn packed with inedible roughage, but several across Ponyville's many family farms, it just reinforced the bitter thoughts that he had nursed over the last few days: that, as much as he loved being with his friends, they were ponies. He was not.

He never would be.

It was never something that mattered much before, but... now...

After what seemed like an eternity of an early afternoon, the crimson farmpony finally finished and returned to the house. Before long, he had one of Granny Smith's apple iced teas in a tall glass, unwinding for a few minutes between time spent almost single handedly caring for half of Sweet Apple Acres. This, in turn, brought up the problem with trying to strike up a conversation with Applejack's brother: he was just not a very talkative pony.

Spike fidgeted as he tried to imagine how to start to ask what he should do about his feelings for Rarity, or specifically about Rarity's situation. He didn't want to go too much into detail to respect her privacy, after all, and he didn't want to be weird about it. He could just ask: 'hey, you know a lot about girls and relationships and stuff, right?' Big Mac was an older guy, but not that much older.

Ironically, the whole situation could've been easier - and easily avoided - if Twilight's parents had been living nearby, like they were back in Canterlot. Spike didn't know them much better than he did the Apples, but they were kind of default family. He knew they'd have some kind of wisdom to share. Parental stuff. Something.

"So, uh..." The little dragon muttered, setting his glass on the floor next to his leg. The farmhouse's patio was surprisingly cool, and a breeze rustled the shaded leaves of dozens of apple trees in the fields nearby.

"Eyup," Big Mac muttered back, taking a slow drink before readjusting the trademark wheat stalk between his lips.

For a while, the two sat in silence. Granny Smith even ducked in to leave a tray of apple cakes and slices for lunch. Slowly building up the nerve to just ask for help, for advice, Spike was pre-empted by Applejack coming up from behind and plopping down. Also on her late-lunch break, apparently.

As expected, she quickly asked him why he was here, and not in the town or with Twilight. Applejack, however, was a pony he knew. It wasn't hard to excuse himself: he was here to relax and clear his head. It was both true, and a convenient excuse. Sensing the former, Applejack nodded and relaxed for a little while next to her brother.

It... did not make broaching the conversation Spike wanted to broach any easier.

Then, without a word, Big Mac got up, stretched and started to head off.

"Yer goin' ta take care of the fence, right?" Applejack asked, still chewing a slice of glazed apple. It was only mid-day, but she already looked a little bushwacked.

"Eyup," he replied, and surprisingly added, "Ya wanna come help? Spike?"

"Oh! Me?" Spike jumped up, seeing and seizing the chance. "Sure! Yeah! I'd be happy to!"

Done asking, Mac nodded once and went back to walking: a slow, purposeful walk already set to Spike's pace. The little dragon was tempted, just for a moment, to steal a ride on the pony's back. He did it with Twilight all the time, and even her friends didn't seem to mind. With Mac, though, it would be... awkward. Probably something Applebloom and her friends could get away with, but Spike suspected that he'd just get a rather unwelcoming glare if he made the attempt to climb up.

He walked alongside the large farmpony instead.

"So, uhm..." Once again, Mac was silent, though he must have discerned that Spike wanted to ask him something. "I uh..."

Cupping his hands behind his back, Spike coughed, just spitting it out:

"Hey, Big Mac... you know about... girls and stuff, right?"

"A bit," was the response. Spike could admit he'd expected an 'eyup.'

"I, ah... need some advice," the dragon admitted.

Mac said nothing, he just nodded. Once.

Probably meaning something like 'I thought so' in Mac-inese.

"So," Spike began, kicking a small rock off the beaten path between rows of orchard trees. "Have you ever... liked a girl... a mare, I guess... who liked someone else?"

The stallion was a little slow to respond.

"Eyup."

"Well?" Spike thought the inference was, frankly, obvious. "What happened?" In a shade of Fluttershy-like anxiously, Spike realized how personal and direct the question had to have sounded. "I mean, if you don't... if it's okay for me to ask? It is okay, right?"

Mac snorted, but gave no other sign of discomfort or annoyance.

"Didn't work out tween them," he drawled, explaining it simply, but with enough insight to also add, "Didn't work out tween her and me, neither."

For such a short answer, it carried a lot of weight: there had been a girl, then, and he had liked her. She had liked somepony else. Yet neither of the two relationships had worked out. Spike tried to imagine it as it could relate to him. Was it possible that Rarity wasn't for either of them? It was actually an option he hadn't even considered, so focused was he on... that Prince of hers.

"Did you want things to not work out between them, though?" Spike asked, and this was the crux of the matter. He cupped his mouth with a hand, gritting his teeth. "I mean... it isn't wrong to feel that way, is it? Not that you did, but... if you had? It wouldn't be weird or wrong to think that? It would be normal, right?"

"It wouldn't be selfish, right?" he blurted the question out even as he looked down at his feet, ashamed. "It wouldn't be because you..."

Were different.

It wouldn't be because you were a dragon, and you fed and grew on greed.

"It ain't strange," the stallion replied, more quickly than he had with the previous questions. "Ah think... when ya like somepony like that, it don't make ya rational. Maybe it is ah bit greedy, but ya want what ya want. Ya want yer chance ta try an get it. Maybe you'll fall on yer face, but ya want the chance ta try."

Spike nearly missed a step. The chance to try?

He did. He did want that.

It was what he'd lost at the Gala. He had known from the start that the girls all had their own plans for the evening, and that Rarity wanted to 'find her Prince.' He'd never thought she would succeed, literally. Yet, against all odds, by the time the night was through, she and Blueblood seemed to have hit it off. Before long, Spike started to see him visiting Ponyville. Then Rarity began visiting Canterlot more often, and not on business. Even when she was here, in Ponyville, when she was with him it was like there was no room for... anyone else...

Nopony, no-one else, seemed to get it. Sweetie Belle thought it was wonderful and a fairy tale come true. Twilight probably thought it was fascinating and romantic and all that junk. It didn't change the fact that Blueblood was taking her away. He was taking her from them: from her friends and family. Even if she only moved to that mansion he was building outside town, it wasn't that he was physically taking her away. It was more than that. It was worse than that.

Spike didn't want him to.

He loved Rarity. He wanted her. He wasn't sure how, but he knew a strong feeling when he felt it, and this was more powerful than anything he had felt for anything ever before. It had to be love. But - but at the same time, he was smart enough to know that he was no pony. Dragons didn't "love" each other, their mates, or even their own children. They loved things. The contradiction between what he thought he felt and what he suspected he felt was too strong. He couldn't ignore his heart... or his head.

"I do want a chance," he said, dropping the veil of pretense.

"Any wrong ain't in wanting, but in doin' ... I'd think," Big Mac continued, green eyes passing over him as the farmer inspected the orchard around them. "Ah think ya gotta ask yerself, can ya be a little happy just fer somepony else bein' happy?"

"I..." Spike wanted to say yes, but the honest answer was, "I don't know."

"S'alright. Stop, listen, 'n think. A lotta life's problems sort out if ya stop, listen, 'n think." Big Mac stopped, mis-step, and raised a hoof to scratch behind his ear. "Well, would'ya look at this? Seems I got a bit turned around. We were supposed'ta be getting supplies from the shed ta fix the fence."

Yeah: quite a coincidence, that.

Still weighed down by his thoughts, but not quite as consumed by them as before, Spike followed the soft spoken stallion back up the patch to the tool shed. Mac didn't say anything else on the subject. He saw no need to, and Spike didn't ask any more. He had already said what needed to be said. Spike already felt better from having had someone to talk to.

That just left him having to help re-wire a rather lengthy section of fence.

Annoying work, but it gave him time to think... about what to do. About the letter.

Twilight tried not to look at her friend as Rarity read Princess Celestia's letter. She'd been disappointed to read it herself; for Rarity, who had to be pinning her hopes on a resolution handed down from her Princess, it would be much worse. It wasn't as if anypony had made a habit of calling the Princess for help, even when they were probably in over their heads. Not a one of them ran to Canterlot to have their problems solved with a wave or royal decree.

Now, finally, the one time that they had turned to the Princess for help, the result had been...

Conflicted and ambiguous.

Slowly, Rarity rolled the letter up and put it on a cushion nearby. Twilight checked her friend, but the other unicorn wasn't in the throes of her usual displays of despair. Instead, Rarity had a focused, thoughtful look on her face. Blue eyes found the letter, darted to the ceiling of the Boutique, and then closed as she processed the response from Canterlot.

"So," Rarity finally spoke, tapping a hoof against the soft red pillow beneath her. "I suppose we are left with a choice in where to go next."

"I'm sure if something else could be done..." Twilight offered in Celestia's defense.

"Twilight, darling, please don't worry yourself. I'm not mad. Or upset." Rarity chewed her lower lip as she thought. "A bit... troubled maybe..."

Shooing a hissing Opalescence off of one of her mannequines, the genius dressmaker swayed her head back and forth as she inserted a delicate ivory lace into the hem of one of her creations. Twilight could tell she was using it both as a form of distraction and as a way to help her think and clear her mind. The dress itself looked beautiful, as all of Rarity's creations did. This one was a bit unusual in that it had no gems other than pearl and fake ivory.

"Rarity?" Twilight asked, sensing her friend had something on her mind that she hadn't shared yet.

"Hm. Oh, I'm terribly sorry!" She paused next to the dress, looking at it with a critical eye. "It helps me focus, you know? This dress... I want it to be simply magnificent. Flawless."

Sitting up, the other unicorn cocked her head in confusion. "I thought you were wearing a different dress to the festival?"

"I am," Rarity explained with a smirk and shake of her head. "This is Lady Antimony's dress."

Twilight started at that in surprise. "What? But why-"

"She is a customer," Rarity reminded her bookish friend. "An important customer of the Carousel Boutique! I won't let any personal differences get in the way of what I love. Lady Antimony is a classically beautiful mare, with a perfect mane and perfect posture and perfect poise and she is paying for a similarly beautiful dress. So! I want it to be perfect. My best work. My master work."

Rarity's blue eyes narrowed as she grinned.

"I want to see her in this dress when she realizes she's going to lose," she said with a huff. "To me. To Rarity!"

Twilight shrunk back a bit at the intensity in her friend's eyes and voice. Nothing Rarity had described so far seemed particularly insulting, really, in her opinion. Yet from the sound of things, the two unicorn mares were bitter enemies and had become so in the span of a few sentences. Was this really all caused by the noblemare's engagement to Blueblood? Twilight just didn't quite get it. Not that she had to completely understand to sympathize and see the stress her friend had on her shoulders. Just that, if she were in Rarity's shoes, Twilight suspected she would just cut some kind of deal and move on.

That seemed like the rational response to the situation, anyway.

"Did I tell you? I exchanged letters with Fleur and Fancy Pants earlier," Rarity continued, chin held high as she levitated out a string of pearls for the dress. "Apparently, they can't help me either. Not a single one of my Canterlot friends suggested I pursue a confrontation with any member of Lady Antimony's family. And now... even the Princess...?"

At mention of Celestia, Twilight hastened to clear some things up:

"Just a minute," she interrupted, holding up a hoof for emphasis. "While the Princess herself didn't confirm this, my father was able to shed some light on what was happening in the family. The... rest of the family... that is."

This prompted Rarity to turn and give her friend her full attention. It was probably still something of a sore spot that Twilight found herself related, even distantly, to the main branch of Terre Rares that Rarity had found herself in opposition to. She just didn't quite grasp how large extended unicorn clans could be in Canterlot... or how complicated genealogies were. One of the most important and well-respected branches of magic in Canterlot related to the study of family lines, lineage, and the arranging of marriages.

A good genealogist was as well respected (and as well paid) as a good doctor, maybe more.

"When I asked them what was going on - aside from asking why I only wrote home about this and nothing else - my father told me what he had heard when he was young..."

Twilight focused her magic, projecting a copy of a genealogy chart she had formed from her letters and from her research. The branching tree went back seven generations, illuminated by a dozen important names and other blank spaces marked with XY or XX. It was incomplete, but would get the point across.

"My word! I keep forgetting how good you are at illusion magic, darling." Rarity watched with some awe.

Twilight laughed in embarrassment, still a bit flushed by getting praise. Especially for mundane stuff and helping out. This level of complex illusion wasn't that hard. Not even master-level.

"See this name here?" Twilight asked, and her magic highlighted one of the names from which all but one, the one above, branched. "This is Blueblood the forty seventh. Also known in history as Blueblood the Silent."

The name glowed, along with a date of birth and time of passing.

"About two hundred years ago, this Prince Blueblood fought during the Second Griffin Civil War. Oddly, I found conflicting information with respect to how he died..."

Twilight quickly assumed a lecturing tone and pose, one hoof raised and both eyes closed as she worked her magic and told her tale.

"One source says the rebellious Pretender King of the griffins struck him down before dying from his wounds. Another more colorful story is that the Prince developed a terrible spell that tore the wings from any flying creature in the sky, and that after the battle, he was killed by a crippled pegasus who was offended by his refusal to apologize or make amends. Hence the title 'the Silent.' Or so the book speculated."

"Anyway," she said, moving on. The two names under Blueblood the Silent highlighted. "The real mess begins with these two. Blue Belle the forty eighth, who adopted the feminine form of the title Blueblood, and her sister Arsenic. Both were born just days after their father died."

"Twins?" Rarity asked, seeing one name before the other on the family tree.

It struck her then that the tree was arranged in sibling order: oldest to the left, youngest to the right. It was clear enough to see, since the main branch - the titled leading edge of the family - was always confined to one side and marked by a little golden crown. Lady Arsenic and Blue Belle were the one exception.

Which meant -

"Lady Arsenic was the older sister by a few hours," Twilight confirmed, guessing that her fellow Element of Harmony had already figured it out. "But the family inheritance was passed onto Blue Belle."

"How can that be?" Rarity asked, contemplating the genealogy of her would-be enemy. "In an old family, a royal family, the oldest daughter should always inherit. Was something... wrong with her?"

"Lady Arsenic... she wasn't a unicorn," Twilight explained, and the mare's name faded while Blue Belle's glowed as bright as before. "According to the books I read, and according to my father, she was born an earth pony. So, despite being older, the family name passed to her younger sister. A unicorn."

Lady Arsenic, though clipped from the Blueblood line, found another branch on the tree.

The Terre Rares.

"She ended up marrying into the Terre Rare family in Two Rivers. In contrast, the Blueblood line after the split continued to be very straightforward," Twilight continued, briefly highlighting the family on the right side of the tree. It went straight from one Blueblood to another, ending in Blueblood the fifty second, Lady Blue Belle's great-great grandson. Twilight then focused on the Terre Rare lineage.

"Here's my part of the family line," she said, to demonstrate, even though Rarity had to have already singled it out. "Lady Arsenic had four children, three of whom survived to adulthood: Bismuth, Neptunium, and Kamacite. My father, Crescent Moon, is right here. I'm Kamacite's great granddaughter and Lady Arsenic is my great-great grandmother."

"I knew the name from when I was little," Twilight admitted, slipping a bit from her dispassionate lecturing mode. "But when I looked up more information on her - I didn't even know I had earth pony blood in me - there were some strange writings and rumors. There was a treatise on magic that she wrote... unicorn magic if you can believe it! Bridging alchemy and enchanting! Her sister didn't seem to have done much, but Lady Arsenic is mentioned dozens of times in arcane scrolls and notes. All very fascinating!"

Twilight lowered her voice, and her conjured illusion dimmed a bit.

"She must have been a scholar or something. Everypony knows no earth pony can use unicorn magic," she rationalized. "The Bluebloods have access to all of Canterlot's magic, forbidden or otherwise. I bet she was very knowledgeable..."

"Twilight," Rarity said, feeling the need to step in again to ask for clarity. "What were these scrolls and notes?"

Twilight shook her head. "It... isn't anything important. Esoteric magic. I guess because she still felt the need to use magic of some sort, she tried other ways?"

Rarity took a long look at the Terre Rare family.

They were all unicorns, probably, except for their matriarch, Lady Arsenic. Rarity noticed something then. Something that just couldn't be correct.

"Twilight, are these dates correct? Lady Arsenic lived-"

"One hundred and sixty six years," the Element of Magic confirmed. "Yes. I'm sure. I triple checked that."

It was an astounding age.

Granny Smith, one of Ponyville's oldest living residents, was a little over eighty years old. Lady Arsenic had lived roughly twice as long. It was commonly known that the more magically gifted a unicorn, the longer his or her life could be. There were certain spells, potions and rituals to extend longevity, but not that long. She must have been truly ancient, second only to the Princesses, when she finally passed away.

Her husband, in contrast, died in his forties.

That fact certainly wasn't very ominous.

"Her oldest daughter died?" Rarity asked, seeing that the main line was again continued by the second daughter, Bismuth.

"Oh. That, well..." Twilight licked her lips, a little hesitant to say much more. Lady Arsenic's first child was marked with an XX, but no name.

"She - she died soon after being born," she explained. "According to the family rolls."

"Oh. How sad!" Rarity shook her head sadly, knowing it must've been a tragedy for a new mother starting a new family, after being cruelly forced out of her old one. "But health care was lacking back then... so unhygienic, and there is always the risk-"

"Actually," Twilight corrected, coughing and looking nervous enough to pass for a violet colored Fluttershy. "According to family lore, the foal was born healthy... but when Lady Arsenic started to feed her, she... um... died. Of poisoning. She was considered too weak, so Lady Arsenic refused to give her a name..."

"Oh ho. That old tale?"

Both mares startled, jumped, to see a silent group of figures at the door. One of them Lady Antimony. The others were Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Pierce, and Colton Vines. Twilight knew that the latter was expected to give a wine tasting tonight to determine which vintages were to be used at the Arts Festival. They were early, though, weren't they?

A quick look at the clock instead informed her that it was her sense of time that was off.

"Should you really be repeating two hundred year old slander, Twilight Sparkle?" Lady Antimony stepped forward, eyes narrowing, but still wearing a small, amiable smile. She sounded unhappy, but looked more amused than insulted.

"Especially when the victim of said rumors is our own great-great grandmother?" she asked. "How distasteful. To see such disrespect for our shared, common blood... it's... unfortunate."

"So sorry, really," Colton felt the need to speak, too late, after having been discovered to be collectively eavesdropping. He held up a bottle of wine. "Um. This isn't a bad time? I came when I was supposed to?"

"Everypony, my apologies," Rarity said, quickly taking charge of the situation with her typical suave charm. Despite shooting a quick glare at Lady Antimony. "Twilight and I completely lost track of time."

"We, uh, should'a knocked..." Applejack admitted, blushing a bit in embarrassment. She didn't finish her sentence by saying, 'instead of opening the door and listening in.'

"It ain't true though, is it?" she asked.

"Of course not!" Pinkie Pie finally jumped in. Literally. She jumped into the room with a springy bounce. "Remember all the silly stuff they said about Nightmare Moon? She doesn't really eat ponies! Just candy! Especially candy corn and candy apples and candy suckers and candy crunch and candy canes!"

"Lady Arsenic was the victim of much slander in her lifetime," Antimony remarked, shifting to the side as Pinkie made a bouncing lap around her and then around the room.

The noblemare fixed Twilight with a calm, unblinking gaze.

"Our shared grandmother was a great mare, Twilight Sparkle. A misunderstood mare. A victim!" For just a moment, Lady Antimony's voice lost a bit of cool and she paused to collect herself. "By which I mean, please refrain from spreading such unkind rumors, especially with respect to a family tragedy."

"I should also apologize." The noblemare turned to Rarity and inclined her head. "It was terribly improper of us to listen in as we did and to enter without first asking admittance."

"But we couldn't see the diagram from the window!" Pinkie complained, stopping by Twilight's projected illusion of her family tree. "Oh! Oh!" She pointed at one of the names, seemingly at random. "Tell a story about this one!"

Twilight spared her bubbly friend a hard stare.

"Pinkie-" she warned, as the party pony tried to interact with the illusion magic, sticking her hoof in one side and out the other.

"Lord Neptunium was known for his knowledge of the tides. He served on Princess Celestia's Privy Council for thirty four years. Forty one laws bear his signature, and as Minister of Rivers he is responsible for the construction of no less than one hundred and fifteen dams, levies, breakers and locks."

Twilight stared at Lady Antimony, the source of that outburst of information.

"His preferred style of magic was water-based and his cutie mark was a canal lock," the noblemare continued, determined to answer Pinkie Pie's inquiry. "He was also known for his skill as a duelist and his mastery of the Posta Breve and Porta di Ferro. He had one wife and two dams. He once engaged a Sea Serpent in a contest of wits that lasted three straight days, all for the right to construct a dam on the River Steeple."

Pinkie Pie, looking somewhat thwarted in her randomness, pointed elsewhere on the tree without looking.

"Oh yeah? What about this one?" She demanded with a grin.

"You aren't pointing at a name. That's empty space."

"This isn't time for show and tell," Twilight remarked, looking to her (other) friends for assistance.

"Quite right," Rarity agreed. "We're here together for a wine tasting."

"And cider!" Applejack injected into the conversation, pushing a reluctant Colton Vines along. The apple farmer had a pony keg strapped to both her sides and likely a set of cups or mugs somewhere in her saddlebags.

"I... only brought my best..." Colton offered, still nervously looking around at all the powerful or unpredictable mares around him. Three were local celebrities and heroines, and to make things crazier, one of them was Pinkie Pie. It was clear by the way he kept glancing at the party pony that he wasn't entirely convinced that even giving her wine to taste wouldn't end in disaster. He turned to the only other stallion present, the cultured Pierce, for some assistance.

But the wavy-maned unicorn was thoroughly distracted by one of Rarity's embroidered vests on display.

"Pierce!" he barked.

"Oh? Oh yes!" the dandy stallion chuckled and trotted over, assuming his role as Pinkie-distraction (aka bait) for the evening. "Now, I was thinking of a merlot as our signature for the festival."

"What!" Pinkie immediately objected, as she always did, to basically everything Pierce suggested. "I want a super bubbly, super fizzy, super sparkly wine!" She punctuated each 'super' with a bounce. For effect.

"Dry wine with all the sweets you have at this event?" Pierce rolled his eyes. "Ugh."

"It's called contrast pairing!"

"It's called murder. Murder of the palate. Wine should compliment the dishes served."

"Contrasting wine is best!"

"Complimentary wine is superior."

"Contrasting!"

Everypony's eyes went from one of the bickering ponies to the other.

"Complimentary!"

"Contrasting!"

"Complimentary!"

"Contrasting!"

"Complimentary!"

"Contrasting!"

"Complimentary!"

"Contrasting!" Pierce all but yelled, and only then noticed-

"I guess you're right as usual," Pinkie relented with a shrug. "Contrasting wines it is."

The unicorn hung his head in defeat. "I hate it when you do that."

The next hour and a half passed quickly, as Colton laid out his range of local vintages. He brought his best, along with the less numerous wines from other, smaller, vineyards close to Ponyville. His preference and specialty was zinfandel, but he had a selection of lighter reds and bold white wines as well. Colton was, himself, an accredited and acknowledged sommelier as well as cultivator of both old and new world grapes.

Though not his equal, Rarity considered herself fairly knowledgeable, as well.

In fact, she had considered that it would be mostly her decision that would tip the scales in what wine to promote at the Art Festival. Pinkie and Pierce would want opposite things, naturally, leaving her with the actual decision making. Colton tentatively offered a few suggestions, but he wasn't the most assertive of stallions at the best of times. At least Fluttershy could eventually be goaded into giving her genuine opinion on one thing or another. Colton had just enough grit to stick with being indecisive, as ironic as that was.

Inhaling the aroma of the last glass of sauvignon blanc, she drank enough to whet her palate and get a feel for the taste of the wine in-mouth. It was one of her favorite, actually, with a very bold cut-grass flavor. Not as fruity as his usual selection, but with a lively, aromatic impression. Perfect for guests to sip at while chatting and milling around the festival.

Spitting the wine out into a nearby spittoon on a table, Rarity saw Applejack plying her trade with the Carousel Boutique's ... other guest.

To no pony's surprise, Apples would be factoring heavily in virtually any local event, and the Art Festival was no exception. Ponyville was an Apple Town, after all. It had been founded by the Smith Family and other settlers and it had grown prosperous in large part because of apples, particularly the once-annual Zap Apple harvest. The local economy wasn't entirely pastoral anymore, but it was still an essential source of income for the town and region, and a source of pride, tradition and history.

Cider would be just one of a few apple-products in the limelight at the Art Festival. All the food would be local. Blueblood had stressed only a few absolutes to Pinkie and the others before he left for Crown Roc, giving them great leeway and latitude to "have fun" with the festival. One of his rules had been to only use local produce. Ponyville was on the cusp of Cider Season and the Apple Clan had started on their signature drink a little early.

It made sense for her to be here, at the tasting for the festival.

It made sense for her to be chatting away with Lady Antimony.

It still rankled, however, that no pony seemed to do anything but like the noblemare. Of course, Rarity thought to herself: why would they have a problem with her? So far, she had quite visibly taken a tour around Ponyville with Pinkie Pie, spending money at a variety of local shops. She was rich, and despite being a noble, she was generous. She had even apparently offered to help renovate the Town Hall... and to construct something adjacent to it in the lot that had been destroyed during the Mare-Do-Well adventure. Celestia-alone knew what was to be built there. Probably a gaudy statue.

No: that was petty.

Lady Antimony was, Rarity knew, a smart mare. She was insinuating herself into the town. It made perfect sense if you knew, as she did, that Antimony expected to be the next Duchess of Canterlot and that her husband had suddenly developed an interest in this one little country town in his domain. It was silly to expect that, just by virtue of their differences, that all her friends would see the threat that-

Again, Rarity shook her head. Petty. Petty. She was being petty.

This whole misadventure was simply bringing out the worst in her.

But... it seemed there was only one recourse left to take...

The sound of liquid hitting the inside of the spittoon redirected Rarity's attention. The smiling face of Pinkie Pie filled her field of view, causing her to back up a step. The pink pony looked downright goofy suggesting she'd swallowed a little less wine than she had probably spat out this evening. Yes: there was definitely a very Berry Punch-like look to her hooded eyes. Eyes a lighter blue than her own stared hard at the unicorn mare.

"Don't be so grumpy, Rarity!" Pinkie suddenly declared, wrapping her front legs around her friend in a big hug. "I know everything will work out just fine!"

A little surprised by the move and by the words, Rarity's first impulse was to huff in annoyance, but she quickly sighed and realized that Pinkie had said just what she wanted and needed to hear. It was just like her to either cut to the quick or fly off on some wild tangent. The question was always which route the erratic party pony would take at any given time.

"Thank you, Pinkie Pie," she replied, patting her friend on the shoulder; a cue to disengage a bit.

"You looked like you needed it!" the bubbly earth pony remarked with a silly grin.

"I admit I have wondered how this will turn out," Rarity then realized, "Wait, you knew...?"

"Monee told me!" she supplied, and saw Rarity's smile slip a bit. "She didn't say anything mean. Just that she has to do it."

"Has to do it," Rarity repeated.

Both mares paused as Twilight trotted up, looking more sober than Pinkie. Even as sheltered and bookish as she was, Twilight was still a Canterlot mare. Rarity would be surprised if this was her first wine tasting. They were all the rage in the great palace-city.

"I wanted to say this earlier, before we got interrupted," Twilight said as she got closer. Her voice had a conspiratorial edge to it, and the three of them took note of where everypony else was.

The two stallions were chatting over by some of the male outfits on display, Pierce pointing out something on one of them. Rarity smiled at the attention given to her products. He and Colton were both cultured ponies, and Vines was even in one of the few actual professions - management of a vineyard - held in such high esteem that nobles themselves were allowed to partake in it. They had good taste and a good eye for fashion. Both had to be looking for outfits for the festival, too, maybe even a few accessories.

Applejack was still talking Lady Antimony's ears off on the other side of the boutique, the farmer with a frothy mug of cider in-hoof and the aristocrat with a glass of expensive tulip stemware. From the gestures Applejack was making, she seemed to be describing the many, many, many nuances of apple distillery, cider production and the intangible taste-enhancing powers of fresh country produce. Lady Antimony had the same expression she basically always wore: smiling placidly and amiably with her eyes half lidded. It was impossible to tell if she was paying the slightest attention or completely zoning out due to apple-information-overload.

"Say what earlier, Twilight?" Pinkie asked, blinking.

"Yes, now is as good a time as any," Rarity said.

"The reason I brought up that family tree was to explain why I think the Princess can't intervene to help you, Rarity." Twilight levitated her glass over to rest on the table with the brass spittoon. "We got a little sidetracked, but it has to do with Lady Arsenic and Lady Blue Belle."

"Oh." Pinkie Pie made a little 'o' with her mouth.

Rarity just raised an eyebrow at the strange response in her friend.

Twilight continued, regardless, making up for lost time: "Even though she was picked as heir, Lady Blue Belle didn't really seem that interested in doing anything. She was one of the few Bluebloods not to hold public office, or to hold a seat in the Privy Council or the Royal Household. She seemed to be mostly well known for her... well, for her parties."

The two unicorns coughed, eyes falling on the earth pony present.

"There are worse things to be infamous for," Pinkie wisely observed.

"After something my father wrote back to me about, I found mention of a petition from Lady Arsenic to the Stable of Lords recorded in the weekly minutes," Twilight explained, sighing. "From the look of it, it was probably a request to have one of her descendants marry one of her sister's descendants. There aren't many other ways to request 're-uniting the bloodlines' and 'correcting the loss of my privilege and inheritance.' It took time, but it got enough approval in the Stable to end up forwarded to the Princess for consultation."

Rarity closed her eyes, already having guessed what came after that.

"She probably felt sorry for Lady Arsenic," Twilight said, as always jumping to her mentor's defense. "I mean, wouldn't you? Any pony would."

"I see," Rarity said with a nod. "She agreed."

"After three generations, and not before, we would agree to see the bloodline that was lost restored in honor and matrimony to the ducal throne of Canterlot."

It was Pinkie who had spoken, and the party pony licked her lips at the surprised looks her friends were giving her. She reached up with a hoof to sip at her glass of sparkly-bubbly-fizzy wine. The same type she had been enjoying for most of the get-together. She giggled nervously.

"That's what Monee said," she finally explained. "She said," and here, Pinkie tried to adopt Antimony's normal pose and bearing. "Blueblood and I are of the fourth generation removed. It has been decided. Princess Celestia herself decided it. My family will never accept anything less than the crown and shield of Canterlot itself, our very birthright returned to us at last."

Pinkie shook her head at high speed, returning to normal.

"Her words, not mine!" she stressed.

Twilight looked dejected at being unable to help solve the situation. Even Pinkie seemed remorseful for having brought it up. There would be no resolution from above, as Celestia had already agreed in principle to the union two centuries ago. The Terre Rare family had done nothing but grow in power and influence since that time, enough to cow any potential opposition. No middling social connection, no matter their impeccable taste or reputation, would be able to sway the only ponies who had a say in the matter: the high aristocrats who made up the Stable of Lords.

"There is only one thing to do then," Rarity whispered to herself.

"I, uh - I could..." Twilight spoke up at the same time, just a little louder than Rarity's own musing. "I am part of the Terre Rare family so... maybe I could..."

Seeing her friends staring at her, Twilight blushed and suddenly found her hooves very interesting points of study. She pawed softly at the floor, swallowing as she tried to find a way to suggest the un-suggestible.

"You know," she muttered. "I could ask to take over the engagement instead... and just.. not go through with it?" She groaned, shaking her head in defeat. "No. No! that wouldn't work! Maybe-"

"It wouldn't," Rarity agreed, but put a hoof on her friend's upper leg in support. "But thank you for the thought, dear. Even if the rest of your family agreed to it, I am sure they would be insistent in taking this affair to it's conclusion."

Twilight nodded. "I know. I just... thought... there has to be something I can do!"

"If I was to be second to another mare, you would be the only one I would consider, Twilight." Rarity leaned down to touch horns with her close friend. "But there is another option left to take."

"There is?" Pinkie and Twilight asked in stereo.

"Oh! I know!" the former cheered. "You and Bluey can just elope!"

"In a manner of speaking," Rarity agreed, swirling the wine in her glass as she explained herself. "The answer is right in front of us."

"The answer is... a wall?" Pinkie slid up to Rarity's side, looking in her direction. At the wall.

"Building a wall between her and Bluey probably won't work," the party pony reasoned sagely, raising her hoof to outline a square in the air. Followed by gesturing around said wall. "She'll just walk around it. Or teleport through it. Or dig under it. Unless... this is a magic wall!?"

"You know a wall won't work, right?" Twilight asked, sounding completely serious.

"It isn't a wall," Rarity deadpanned.

"Good! Because a wall totally wouldn't work!"

"Actually a magic wall might, if you-"

"The answer," Rarity interrupted. "Is that Lady Antimony believes I can be pushed aside because she is a titled noblemare, and I am not. That is the root of this situation. Were I a member of a noble family, like the Stardusts or the Garlands, it would not matter what her family wants or what they have been promised. All that would matter is Blueblood's own opinion, and I know he will choose me."

"So you need to become a titled noblemare!" Pinkie quickly saw her plan take form. "Which means we have to conquer Equestria!"

"No."

"Besiege a castle?"

"No."

"Colonize the Channel Islands?"

"I... don't even know what that means..."

"Oh!" Pinkie snapped her hooves. Somehow. "I got it! We need to be knighted for valor!"

"Ah." Rarity slyly poked the party mare with a hoof. "That's just it, darling. We already have been. Don't you remember the ceremony at the palace after that whole Discord mess?"

Pinkie shrugged. "I remember the party afterwards!"

"I don't know, Rarity," Twilight said, having taken a more thorough and less Pinkie-ish analysis of the suggestion. "We didn't genuflect during the ceremony, and I know we didn't get slapped across the face. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a knighting. We weren't given any land or anything."

"There are two forms of accolade, Twilight... the secular and the-"

"Religious!" Twilight abruptly perked up, electrified by sudden realization and the excitement of a new idea racing through her head. "A colée is only given during the secular ceremony!"

"Exactly," Rarity replied. "Even if it wasn't her original intention, it is enough of a pretext to stand on."

"Oh! Oh! Can I do it too! I'd make a great Lady of the Realm! Lady Pinkie Pie! The Pink Knight! Woo-hooo! Hhffgg!"

Not for the first time, and not for the last, Pinkie's tirade ended with a hoof in her mouth. Rarity's in this case. Honestly: did she have to be so loud? Luckily nopony else seemed to have found Pinkie suddenly erupting into cheers and calling herself a noblemare at the top of her lungs unusual enough to even so much as glance in their direction.

Maybe she had finally hit the point of diminishing returns for zaniness?

"There is a rather troubling downside to this plan," Rarity whispered, removing her hoof from Pinkie's mouth with an audible pop.

"What could be the downside?" Pinkie asked, unperturbed by the interruption.

"A titled noble mare or stallion is forbidden to practice a trade, Pinkie," Twilight explained with a frown, concern for her friend written on her face. "If you became a Lady, like Lady Antimony, then you wouldn't be allowed to work at Sugarcube Corner."

Pinkie blinked a few times, seemed about to say something, only to find herself nearly speechless.

"But... but I love Sugarcube Corner!" She gasped, just then getting it. "So then Rarity-"

"That's exactly it," the fashionista confirmed, blue eyes firm with conviction. "I would no longer be able to run the Carousel Boutique. I could make dresses, of course, but not sell them. I would be putting aside everything I've worked for up until today."

"Are you okay, sugarcube?"

Applejack gave the noblemare a gentle prod. She seemed pretty unresponsive.

"Oh. Yes." Baroness Antimony remarked, magically dabbing her lips with a napkin. "Quite fine. This hard cider as you call it... is quite strong..."

The flushed look on her cheeks hinted that it probably wouldn't be wise to ply her with much more of the family brew, to say nothing of the real stiff drinks Granny and Big Mac brewed out back. She had been diligently spitting wine earlier, but having never sampled Sweet Apple brand hard cider before, the Baroness had been convinced to try just a 'bit' of the stuff for the road.

Not having the heart to spit out good brew, Applejack had already downed three times as much, resulting in a minor, pleasant buzz. If all Canterlot types were such lightweights they'd have to go with the traditional soft and spiced ciders for the Art Festival. It wouldn't do to have a bunch of drunken unicorns stumbling around, shooting magic everywhere.

"My father would enjoy this drink, I think," Antimony muttered, putting the glass of cider aside. "I have more... my mother's constitution when it comes to such spirits."

"Ain't nothin' wrong with that!" Applejack assured her with an overly familiar tap on the shoulder. "Yer pop's who, now? Anypony I'd know?"

"My father... is Lord Cruciger," the noblemare answered, levitating out a delicate folded fan that expanded into a maple leaf shape, adorned with gold trim. She seemed much more relaxed than she had when Applejack had first cornered her to talk about the famous orchards of Prance and Two Rivers. It was the home country of what she recalled Blueblood's favorite apple to be. The region seemed to have cornered the market when it came to pandering to the tastes of Equestria's aristocrats.

A tasty little pie that the Apple Family wouldn't mind getting a hoof in someday.

"Cruciger, huh?" Applejack asked. It wasn't a familiar name.

"You would know him if you saw him. He is a large stallion. Over twenty nine stone." The archaic form of measurement caught Applejack a bit by surprise. By her reckoning, though, it put this stallion in at even larger than her big brother.

"Dark coat," Antimony continued, as she fanned herself to cool down and compose herself. "Dark mane, as well. But he rarely travels anymore. I haven't seen him in... a few years, I suppose. Even when my engagement was advanced in the Stable of Lords he contacted me through magical means."

"Aren't ya right under him in that-there whole hierarchy of lords thing you unicorns have?" Applejack gestured to a rough set of rungs, like steps in a ladder.

"Yes. Along with a dozen other Barons and Earls," Antimony explained, glancing away at her fan. "Father rules from the family keep at Marestricht whereas my responsibilities typically keep me to either Canterlot or Mareseilles."

"It's funny." Applejack gestured over to where three of her friends were standing close together. One in particular. "Twilight never said much about her family before today."

"Hers is a distant branch of the bloodline," the Baroness explained, off-hoof. "None of us expected her magic to express itself so strongly in Kamacite's lineage, yet I have been told she is likely to be Starswirl reborn." The noblemare snorted very delicately in dismissal.

Applejack raised a curious - and defensive - eyebrow.

'Express her magic' ...? That was an odd way of phrasing things.

"Hey, now," she warned. "Twilight here's about the most powerful unicorn Ah've ever seen. And Ah've never seen a pony who studies harder."

"Apologies," Antimony quickly said, sensing she had hit a raw nerve. "I meant no insult. We are truly proud of her, and we respect both her accomplishments and the judgment of the Princess in selecting her as an apprentice."

"However," she added, before Applejack could reply. "There are limits to what one pony can achieve with more common magics."

"What's that mean?"

"...ah." The Baroness dabbed her lips again with the silk napkin, though they were already clean. "Nothing substantial. Only that we unicorns still have so much left to... learn."

Applejack nodded, willing to accept that much.

Watching the noblemare fan herself and regain her proper bearings, Applejack suddenly had an impulse to ask something. It had been niggling at the back of her head since she and Pinkie had overheard the conversation inside the Boutique from outside and decided to try and listen in. It wasn't right, of course, letting their curiosity get the better of them. Colton and Pierce, good stallions the both of them - but not particularly assertive - had just sort of stepped back to let the girls do whatever they wanted. Lady Antimony had joined in, too, despite it no doubt being improper.

She'd seemed pretty harmless back then, when she and Colton had met up with Pinkie, Pierce and the noblemare. They had exchanged introductions, and despite being a member of Equestria's highest courtly class, Antimony had come across as friendly. It helped that there had been talk about her in Ponyville lately, and that that talk had reached Sweet Apple Acres.

Yet...

"It wasn't true, right?" Applejack asked, rolling her eyes to nonchalantly look around Rarity's boutique. "That stuff about yer great grandma?"

Antimony's fan stopped in midair, snapping closed with a ting of metal-on-metal.

"You mean my great-great grandmother, Lady Arsenic," she corrected, and for the second time, her tone became just a little bit emotional. Just for a moment, then it was back to her normal cool tone. "Miss Applejack, have you heard of a self-fulfilling prophecy?"

The apple farmer nodded shortly. "Yep. That's about when ya do something that ends up making what ya don't want to happen, happen, right?"

"Lady Arsenic," Antimony said, as if reciting from a book. "Was cruelly mistreated in her day. She was disgraced and dishonored simply by not being born a unicorn. Though she was eldest, though she bore the most noble blood - the blood of Princess Platinum, the blood of the Old Kingdom, the blood shared with the Princess herself - she was deprived of her legacy."

"Our family was weak, two hundred years ago," she continued, passion slipping into her voice, perhaps because of the bit of alcohol in her system, perhaps because this was finally something she felt strongly about. "The Terre Rare line was old, but insignificant. The griffins pressed us from the north, Prance from the east, Whinnychester from the west."

"Now..." Her eyes widened, and something burned behind the red of her irises. "Now these enemies of my grandmothers bow to my father. They bow to me. Who then... will bow to my daughter? To her daughter?"

Almost despite herself, Applejack found that she was backing away from the older mare.

Sensing this, Lady Antimony quickly reined herself in. Her eyes closed, and it felt as if a weight had been removed from Applejack's chest. It had to be her imagination. It had to be. For just a moment there, it had almost-almost seemed as if the breath had been stolen from her lungs. Applejack was not a pony to spook easily; she had to correct herself. It was just her imagination.

In the future, however, she took note not to stare into Lady Antimony's eyes.

They were a bit unnerving, now that she thought about it.

"What was wrong... must be put right for there to be peace and justice in Equestria," the Baroness concluded, back in control of herself. "I do regret that your friend Miss Rarity has become so close to the Prince. You of all ponies understand the importance of family, Miss Applejack. You of all ponies understand what it means to honor your ancestors. The blood of an earth pony, too, flows through my veins."

"I am Terre Rare," she said, simply. "Canterlot, too, will bow to my daughters. There is no stopping this."

Applejack began to think of a response -

But honestly, what could one say to a statement like that? One thing was certain. She had misjudged Lady Antimony. The mare was normally soft spoken and friendly, reserved and delicate, but there was something undeniably disturbing about the certainty of her conviction. It was like the quiet intensity of an oil lamp - a gentle glow that seemed harmless at a distance, but that cruelly burned if touched.

"Applejack. Lady Antimony. I'm not intruding, am I?" Rarity asked, sounding amiable and hospitable as can be. The Baroness who, moments ago, had been on the verge of losing her cool, now seemed completely in her element once more. Her ever-present smile even seemed to have grown, just a fraction, in the presence of Ponyville's trend setting resident.

"Not at all," Lady Antimony purred. "We should discuss our selections for the Art Festival."

"Yes. And another matter as well," Rarity agreed. "You'll have to excuse us a moment, Applejack, if you don't mind?"

"Uh, no, but-"

But, as Rarity lead the noblemare away to talk in private, Applejack couldn't help but have the feeling that something bad was about to happen. Something really bad.

Sir Spike

I hate to impose on you as I am, making use of your spell connection with Princess Celestia without your prior consent, but I find that circumstances have forced my hoof. I have no speedier means of sending communication to Ponyville and to Miss Rarity. I implore you to pass this on to her, as well as to Twilight Sparkle, at your soonest convenience. Please also take care to be discreet. Nopony is yet aware of this means of communication, and if you can keep it so, I will reward you upon my return.

Lady Rarity

I am to leave Crown Roc with all due haste. Until I arrive and until I muster my resources at home, my dear, you must

The linen paper did not yield easily; small purple claws dug in tight to find purchase.

With a popping, atrociously loud rapport, it finally gave way, ripping in ragged stitches. At the bottom of the letter, the signature parted neatly into Blue and blood as it tore in half, straight down the middle. Done.

It was done.

It had taken a half hour for Spike to muster the courage to do it, but now that he had, it felt a little easier to finish the job. Clawed hands worked, bunching up the resilient linen paper, folding it and then ripping it again. No one - no pony, except maybe one - would know that it had been destroyed. Just because it had been sent by some third party didn't mean that it was guaranteed to erupt from his breath and fire unscathed. If asked, he would say that it burned.

Dumping the scraps of paper into the wastebin, he carefully modulated his breath to produce only flame. Pure flame. Soon what was left became a short lived, cracking fire. It was a little risky doing it this way, but he knew enough not to send everything he belched fire on to off to the Princess. He could tell by the red flames that slowly ate away at the paper that the deed was done, and done right.

Pushing the wastebasket away, Spike fell on his backside, holding a hand to his snout.

It was wrong. He knew it was the wrong thing to do.

He'd done it anyway.

For Rarity. For her sake - for his sake - for their sake... she could not receive that letter. He could not let her receive it. Let this other family have Blueblood. Let them live in Canterlot. It was wrong, it was selfish, but he wanted them all to just go back to the castles and palaces where they belonged. This was his chance. His only chance to stop things... his only chance to...

"I'll take care of her, I promise. I'll make her happy," he told himself. He told the ashes of Blueblood's letter. He told no one. "I will."

Soon, there was nothing left of the trash and paper that had been in the bin.

He was alone, outside the library. Even Owloysius would never know.

"I - I just..." Spike slowly rose to his feet, hands balling into fists. "I just need a chance...! Don't I deserve a chance to make her happy? With me?"

He remembered how Blueblood had tricked him at the Gala with that letter. He remembered how the Prince had distracted everypony with fun while he snuck off to seduce Rarity. The depths of it all hadn't even set in for Spike then. It wasn't until days later, when she had overheard Rarity gushing to her friends about her new coltfriend, that it all became clear. It was only then that he realized it would only be a matter of time before... before...!

"I deserve a chance," the little dragon decided.

Spike didn't even notice his spines lengthen slightly.

"I do," he repeated. "I do! This is my chance."

Chapter Four : A Kiss on the Cheek

(4)

A Kiss on the Cheek

The rafters of the great hall shook from the pounding winds outside, buffeting the thick glass windows and rattling the stones and timbers. It was fitting weather for a national day of mourning. Out there. In Equestria.

Inside the Hocksbach Hall of the Terre Rare, the mood was solemn, but far from mourning.

Lanterns cast long, flickering shadows that etched across walls and marble floors. Massive feasting and drinking tables had been pushed aside to make room and hooded figures stood in rows to left and right. Sworn guardponies in blue and black armor guarded the exits and entrances. This was the lair of the Terre Rare for the night. The night when bells tolled and Canterlot wept.

"Prince Blueblood is Dead." Lord Cruciger sat at the head of the family, at the front of the great dining hall. White bandages covered half of his face and much of his upper body, concealing his left eye. The right, however, remained. It glared at those assembled before him, the orb dark and menacing.

"Your young cousin, Vladimir, is now Blueblood," he declared, voice a thunder within the hall. "Prince Blueblood, the fifty second. Tomorrow, we attend his ascension, present him gifts, and wish him well."

Nopony dared speak.

Cruciger's one eye closed and he sighed: a deep bass rumble. "Stand to my left, Alpha Brass. Be seated before me, Polished Jewel..."

A young, light blue mare with a dark black mane trotted out from the right side of the extended family. She was joined by a younger colt with a golden coat and mane. For the occasion, both wore only a simple cloak, adorned by family insignia in silver, iron and gold. The young colt, not yet a stallion, stood obediently by his father's side. His sister, Polished Jewel, bent down to bow first, and then sat at attention on the cool marble floor of the hall.

"Chalice."

Another, even younger, mare followed her sister. Her coat was a pale pink and her mane a dark rust and puce red. She bowed to her father, the family patriarch, just as her older sister had done. This, despite being a little awkward, caught in that age between fillyhood and maredom. She sat with dignity, though her posture and blinking betrayed her anxiety.

"Antimony."

The youngest of the three sisters - a young filly only recently in possession of her cutie mark - emerged and bowed gracefully to her father. Her coat was white, with only a faint hint of pink, and her mane was bundled up into a bun of lavender and orchid violet. She sat to the right of her older sisters, tallest to shortest in good order.

"One of you," Cruciger declared, "Shall marry Prince Blueblood."

The hall remained silent as a tomb - no pony could express surprise at the news.

"I have given this eye and this face," their patriarch continued, gesturing to the bandages that concealed the left side of his face. "Honorably lost. Blueblood was our enemy. Blueblood has always been our enemy. Blueblood shall always be our enemy."

He stared down at his daughters with one cold, onyx eye.

"Remember this face of mine... when you take your vows with him. When you lie with him. When you bear him foals. One of you, my daughters, shall be the death knell to the weak and corrupt line that so shamed our beloved and great mother. One of you shall be the vengeance of Lady Arsenic, made flesh. We shall absorb them, replace them, and purge away the decadence of the last two hundred years."

He pointed down with a dark hoof.

"One of you... will do this," he finished.

The three daughters dared only a moment to glance at each other. Polished Jewel's shoulders tensed, holding herself back from springing forward to volunteer. She was haughty, but beautiful, and she knew how to turn stallion's heads even at a young age. Chalice looked more nervous, but her shyness was not to be mistaken for meekness. She blushed and fidgeted with her hooves, imagining how she could make the family's long harbored dreams take form.

Antimony, the youngest, simply stared forward, seemingly unmoved.

"Father!" Polished Jewel finally said, unable to hold herself back any longer. "Which of us is to have this task? This honor?"

Lord Cruciger's one good eye narrowed.

"Is it not obvious?" he asked, curling a lip in reproach. "I would think the answer self-evident."

The two older sisters shifted, suddenly uncomfortable, not knowing what to say.

"The honor," Antimony spoke up, for the first time. "Will go to the strongest of us."

Cruciger's smile could almost be mistaken for pride.

"Yes," he said, and the bandages of his face crinkled as his smile broadened. "We choose not just a wife... but a conqueror. You three are my daughters. You three are Terre Rare. As always, we shall rise up those who show merit... and cast down those who show weakness. And frailty!"

He stomped a hoof for emphasis, and the vast Hall shook in it's foundations. Flecks of wood and dust fell from the rafters and the howling, mourning winds outside - kicked up by the pegasi on royal orders of the widowed Duchess - bleated their chorus against the window panes. Lights flickered, dimmed, and then resumed their enchanted duty. The late-Prince had taken Cruciger's left eye and much of his face, and even one of his lungs, but the patriarch of the Terre Rare was still no crippled stallion.

He lifted his hoof out of the imprint it had made in the marble.

"Four generations we have waited," he said, reminding them, not for the first time. "Four generations we have grown. Biding our time. Making allies. Crushing enemies. Our lands are rich. Our ponies thrive. Our star is rising, and soon to be ascendant. My successor as clan head will be one of you three. The strongest of my children."

He took a deep breath, and boomed: "Leave my sight, now, if you do not wish to shoulder this burden."

Cruciger could likely have assured them that there would be no repercussion for bowing out early. No punishment or censure. He did not say it, likely because none present would believe it. To show cowardice now, to show dishonor, would turn any pony into a family pariah. The eyes of cousins and uncles, aunts and grandparents, were on the two mares and one filly sitting in the middle of the hall.

The Duke of Two Rivers did not compliment them for their lack of fear.

"I now strip you of all but your names and your titles as noble-by-birth. You shall have a small weekly stipend to last all of three years. You will not be given lodge in our castle, keep, or estate..."

His one baleful eye moved from daughter to daughter, judging.

"You shall be given the company of five allies of your choosing, or five chosen knights. Equestria itself is to be your battleground..."

Lord Cruciger's gaze finally fell on his youngest child, and after a moment, Antimony had to look away. She felt his attention wander, and resumed staring up at him, no longer risking eye contact.

"The first of you to rise, of your own merit, through your own toil, by your own strength... to the rank of Baroness," he declared. "Shall be our heir! She shall be educated in our family secrets and she shall carry our rights into Canterlot!"

"My children! My brothers and sisters! My family...!” The clan patriarch’s words, barely out of his mouth, already stirred excitement within the assembled Terre Rare. They nickered and shifted in place, eager to hear what they knew to be coming.

"We stand at the cusp of a new era in Equestria! Our seers have seen great change, great discord, great opportunity, in the immediate future. I speak not of new technologies, or even new magics. This is a time when the upstart sons of bankers, of tinkerers, of merchants... all grow to believe themselves the equals of old and noble houses. The great horse of change is rising, to be either harnessed... or chained. Or sacrificed."

"My daughters!" Cruciger roared. "Prove yourselves worthy! Prove yourselves and seize the power that is before you! One day, one of you may sit an equal to the Holy Princess herself! All that was stolen from us: the legacies, the secret knowledge, the Forbidden Power of the Old Kingdom...! All shall be returned!"

"And Equestria," he added, with a snort. "Shall rejoice... with us."

The framed picture floated gently within a sparkling magical grip. A pair of smiling parents sat behind their two daughters, one old enough to look embarrassed at having to dress up and wait for the photograph to be taken, the other little more than a foal. The white stallion in the picture sported a colorful island shirt and a rich brown mane. His wife was pink with a bold iris-blue mane, gold earrings and a modest pearl necklace around her neck. A young mare with long legs and a thin body sat in front of them, giving the camera a put-out, frustrated look. Her little sister was more peacefully asleep in her mother's legs.

"Your family," Lady Antimony observed, carefully putting the photograph back in place.

Standing close by, Rarity noticed which picture had caught the other mare's eye.

"Yes. That was Sweetie's first birthday," she recalled. "The camerapony took forever to get the shot right."

"Your younger sister, Sweetie Belle." Antimony proved to have done her research - the cutie mark crusader had never come up before in conversation. "I have two sisters, you know, but we have not been close in many years. We all love our family, but we hardly know each other any more. Is that not ironic?"

"But, apologies, I seem to have lost myself for a moment," the noblemare corrected herself, wearing the same false smile she always put on display. "We were discussing the champagne for the festival?"

"We were," Rarity replied, but didn't immediately pick up where they had left off.

The two pale coated unicon mares had retreated upstairs, to the Boutique's living areas to talk, ostensibly about the wine selection. Rarity felt a little emboldened here, in her Boutique and in her personal quarters. Here, she knew where everything was, where everything needed to be, and where everything made sense. It was the beating heart of her world. Her small collection of family photos lay in the center of even that, on the dresser by her bed.

"Family is important to you," Rarity said, instead, putting aside the matter of wine and the upcoming festival.

"It is everything to me," Lady Antimony's response seemed genuine.

Her hostess lowered her eyes, a curl of indigo mane falling across her face. "You must think me terribly selfish, then-"

"You are the Element of Generosity," Antimony interrupted, before Rarity could express any further regret. "You have right to happiness. I should have said so before, when we first met, but for all you have done for Equestria you do have my deepest and truest thanks and my utmost respect."

To Rarity's surprise, the Baroness Antimony bowed her head and folded her front legs in a posture of deep, courtly submission. It probably should have filled the seamstress with pride, but seeing such a deep genuflection from one of Equestria's most powerful nobles only made her uncomfortable. Her dream had always been to stand among the ranks of Equestria's finest, true, but Rarity had never sought adulation of this sort.

"For freeing Princess Luna," the Lady of the court continued. "And for defeating the spirit of Discord, we express our sincere appreciation and gratitude."

"I - I wouldn't say I did terribly much," Rarity found herself muttering, probably to her detriment, since her entire plan revolved around cashing in on this same wellspring of respect and authority. "Only what was required of me. I only wished to be a good friend, you see... and things just sort of happened..."

Antimony rose, flicking back her violet mane so it no longer concealed her eyes. "You are too modest. My dear husband has picked well, in you."

Ugh.

And there things went, back to the insurmountable difference between them.

"You call Blueblood your husband," Rarity accused, trying not to let her temper get the better of her. "But does he even know about this engagement?"

"In the final analysis, his knowledge of it... is as important as his consent," Antimony answered, unruffled by the indignation in her hostess. "Which is to say, I do not lose sleep over it. He will learn of it when it is his time to do so, and he will accept it as is his place in the world. The houses must be reunited."

"You don't even know him!"

"Should I know him?" the Baroness inquired, raising an eyebrow in curiosity at the strange question. "He can sire foals, can he not? My spies would have told me were he wounded or otherwise broken. The royal genealogists have confirmed that he is not impotent."

Seeing Rarity about to object again, on romantic grounds, the Lady held up a hoof for silence.

"It's unfortunate... but you have some mistaken pre-conceptions of this affair," she explained, somehow without sounding condescending. Instead, her tone was like that of a disinterested announcer for a game.

"Perhaps we will come to love one another in time," she speculated, but without enthusiasm. "Foals, they say, often bring parents together. But beyond any of that, ours is to be a political alliance between families. The line of Bluebloods has grown soft and weak - they have lost the respect of the common pony. For two hundred years, they have become objects of... fun. They have become flighty little things, cantering from party to party and shirking their duties and responsibilities. They are not what Princes and Grand Duchesses should be."

"Do you understand?" Antimony asked, raising a hoof to eye level. "When a rung of a ladder is rotten and weak, it must be ripped out and replaced. That is all."

"I do not desire a courtly romance, nor would I feel inclined to indulge in one, even if it were put before me." She snorted in dismissal. "I would be quite content to leave such things to you. I spoke only the truth when I wished you to become my sister in consummation. There is no dishonor in becoming dam to a Prince."

"If there is no dishonor, then why don't you become second to me?" Rarity asked, testily. The noblemare's little tirade and dismissal of romantic life - of the very aspects of court and nobility that the seamstress so adored - rankled her. It was the romance and passion and virtue of the noble class that ponies held in esteem. What use was a court that made a mockery of courtly love?

"Second... to you?" Lady Antimony's eyes widened a fraction in what could have passed for mirth. "Even if you are an Element of Harmony, I'm afraid that's impossible."

"And I won't let a mare who only cares about power and ambition be my Duchess!" Rarity asserted, not backing down. For a moment, the two locked gazes, but Lady Antimony averted her eyes with practiced poise, blinking first.

Her response was a simple: "How unwise."

Rarity took a deep breath, summoning her courage and willpower.

This was it.

"I am asserting my right to privilege as Element of Generosity, as agent of Her Majesty, Princess Celestia, by the Grace and Harmony of the Principalities and Duchies of Equestria. I petition henceforth to be esteemed and entreated in rank appropriate to my standing."

Rarity puffed out her chest, reciting the words:

"To our heirs and successors in perpetuity, we would appoint, give and grant unto them the degree, style, dignity and title so bestowed on us. By these honors, we would be so ennobled."

The room was almost deathly silent.

Lady Antimony's eyes moved, slowly, towards the Element of Generosity. Rarity's own blue orbs met them, just like before. For all of a second. This time, Antimony did not avert her gaze. A chill ran down Rarity's spine and she was forced to look away, unnerved.

"I would not object to such decree, bestowed on such pony," the Baroness agreed. "Nor would the Stable of Lords, I expect. You have earned such respects."

Without warning, her hoof lashed out, striking Rarity across the face hard enough to cut the inside of her mouth.

"So you remember it," Antimony decreed. "You may never need suffer another. We recognize you as noble, so long as you comport yourself in a manner befitting a unicorn of our station."

Rarity smiled, despite the lingering pain of the strike - the traditional, ancient colée that a noble unicorn endured as their coming of age or at their ascension to recognized title. The ones she had read about in books and magazines described the colée as a "kiss on the cheek." The Terre Rares clearly preferred an older take on things. It was always meant to represent the last offense a noble unicorn would have to suffer in silence.

This "kiss on the cheek" was one Rarity Unicorn would not soon forget.

"Can you object now, to his choosing me over you?" she asked, sensing triumph.

At last - at last she was noble.

It had come about in a way she hadn't wanted, riding on the coat tails of her friends and the Elements of Harmony, but there was no time to slowly insinuate herself into Canterlot's ruling classes. The quick route had been the only one left open to her. Now, taken, she felt flushed with excitement and victory.

Lady Antimony stared at her for a moment, before shaking her head.

"I can not," she admitted, and a hint of menace entered her tone. "But... unfortunately... you seem to have misread the situation. Again."

"Misread?" Rarity asked, huffing. "What have I misread?"

"You assume that because you are worthy... that you are not still weak." Antimony stood, and stepped towards the other mare to whisper, "But you are. Bound by her words and her blood oaths, the Princess is forbidden to intervene in this, and what other allies do you have in Canterlot? That effete bauble peddler, Fancypants, and his merchant hangers on? My family controls the three richest provinces in Equestria. We keep the roads safe, the mines secure, and the mills running. Oppose us? The Stable of Lords would sooner leap, en masse, off the Serene Falls."

"Let me tell you what will happen to you," Antimony hissed, slowly stalking around Rarity, her eyes glowing softly in the room's fading light.

She barely seemed to be whispering, but her voice filled Rarity's ears like poisonous honey.

"If the Blueblood Line breaks their vow; if he marries you, a noble lady of common birth and common blood... then he will be censured in the Stable of Lords. We can not legally stop it from happening, but I assure you, the both of you shall earn the enmity of my father, of me, and of all the Terre Rare."

"In conflict between us, Equestria itself will suffer, but it will not suffer alone," she vowed, settling behind Rarity to place her hooves on the fashionista's shoulders. "As Oath-Breaker, Blueblood will be blamed for it. He will be cursed. For incompetence. For negligence. For dishonor. The Stable of Lords will oust him and strip him of his Duchy. He will be forced to abdicate his throne, and he - and you - will be sent to preside over some poor, dusty colony in the middle of nowhere."

"Everything will be taken from him," Antimony whispered in Rarity's ear, close enough to tease it with her breath. "Like Blueblood the twenty third, who was judged insane. Like Blueblood the thirty first, who was in fact impotent. Like Blueblood the eighth, who died without heirs. Did you think his to be an unbroken line? Another will take his place. A cousin. My own brother, Alpha Brass, exists simply because of that possibility. Or even my distant cousin Leon, who I will marry instead."

Slipping away from her ear, Rarity saw the noblemare stalk back around to her side.

"You both will live in disgrace, as pariahs," she promised, her raised voice and cruel words cutting the other mare to her heart. In her mind's eye, Rarity could see herself by Blueblood side as they were forced from Canterlot, exiled from the royal court. Even Ponyville, so close to the palace city, would pass them by, leaving her friends and family behind... forcing her to choose between the stallion she had given up everything for, and the life she didn't think she could survive leaving.

"The stallion you love will no longer be a Prince," Antimony drove the point home, like a stake. "And every night, he will look at you - and you will see it in his eyes. He will blame you. And you will blame yourself."

She leaned in closer, close enough to kiss Rarity's cheek, sharing one last prediction, "Until that silent reproach turns to hate. And everything you two wished to have will turn into smoke and ashes and tears."

Rarity felt a sound hitch in her throat and she crushed her eyes closed, trying to dispel the horrible images Antimony's words had so vividly conjured up in her mind. She sniffed, trying to pull herself together. However long it took, by the time she opened her eyes to glare at the Terre Rare Baroness, Lady Antimony was still standing, still waiting. She had always been tall and beautiful, but now, she looked truly menacing, even without trying to be so.

"Do you understand now?" she asked, feigning compassion. "Claiming nobility means nothing. Nobility is only a word. Even the Platinum Crown itself is nothing more than a twisted piece of metal. Power is what matters... and except as a conduit for the Elements of Harmony... you have none."

Shocked silent, Rarity barely heard the door fly open; she didn’t and couldn’t even register the identities of those responsible for the intrusion until the shouting started up. Voices without faces filled the air as she tried to collect herself.

"That's it! I ain't gonna listen ta any more ah this hogwash!"

"Monee, how can you say such mean things!"

"Is it wrong to speak the truth, just because a pony finds it uncomfortable to hear? You two are more sheltered than I thought. And, should you really make a habit of listening in on other pony's conversations like this?"

"Rarity? Are you okay?"

"It's one thing ta tell the hard and rough truth, it's another ta act like a bully!"

"Yeah! You told me you wished you could be Rarity's friend!"

"Well, ain't ya got nothin' ta say? Huh! Cat got yer tongue? We're talkin' to ya!"

That seemed to snap Rarity out of her daze. She blinked, rapidly, and noticed Twilight standing next to her, shaking her. She turned her head and saw Pinkie Pie and Applejack ganging up on Lady Antimony. More the latter than the former. Pinkie looked upset, but Applejack was predictably furious. The apple farmer had her hooves bunched up in the noblemare's coat. For her part, Antimony was making no effort to either speak or shake the earth pony off.

It occurred to Rarity, suddenly, that Antimony's bodyguard from before, Gewitter if she recalled the name, wasn't around. It was considered improper and unbecoming for a noble to act forcefully or untoward with a non-noble. Antimony would probably sit there and take whatever Applejack did to her. It would have - should have - probably been a vicarious pleasure to see her friend give the Baroness a good scare. But it wasn't what she wanted.

Besides - this wasn't over yet.

"Applejack," Rarity said, hurrying over. "Please treat her more gently. She is a guest in my home."

The Element of Honesty frowned, but released her hold on the other mare.

"Ah don't know what's goin' on between you two, but the things she said to ya - the way she said it - it wasn't right!" Applejack insisted, quickly backing away from the tall unicorn. "High falutin' threats are still threats!"

"You all think them threats, but the truth is the truth," Lady Antimony stated, in what passed for her own defense. "Be it ugly or beautiful, offensive or enlightening. This is not about me. This is about history, and family, and justice."

The tension between the four mares thickened, but one quickly found her voice.

"I understand you can not back down," Rarity said, holding her head high. "Your family would never let you. There is only one way to settle this without one of us losing face."

Twilight alone seemed to get what her friend meant.

"Oh, wait-" she began to object.

"I accept," Lady Antimony cut her off. "What will we use?"

"Cupcakes," Rarity replied, too quickly for anypony else to speak up. "From Sugarcube Corner."

"And the time?"

"Three days. The maximum allowed."

Antimony inclined her head in consent. "Then the place shall be the Castle of the Sisters in Everfree. At dusk."

"That effectively cuts the time to two days, plus one day to travel," Rarity realized, but accepted regardless. "Fine."

"It is agreed, then," the Baroness said, raising her chin. With as much grace as she could muster, she cut between Applejack and Pinkie, her violet tail swishing behind her as she left. On her way out, she crossed paths with Pierce and Colton Vines, the two stallions cautiously peeking in from outside the room. The pair exchanged a worried look that seemed to mean: 'oh great, more trouble.'

"What was all that about?" Applejack asked, still glaring back at the door Antimony had left through. She turned to Rarity. "What was that about cupcakes and the castle?"

"A - a duel," Rarity answered with a slight stammer. "I think I need to sit down. Or better yet-"

With a bit of magic, she pulled over her fainting chaise, and laid into it with a dramatic sigh.

"A duel?" Pinkie asked, looking rapidly from the door frame to her friend. "OH! Like a cupcake eating competition! That makes sense!" She cupped her chin with a hoof, nodding sagely. "Unicorns are so enlightened!"

"A magical duel," Twilight began to explain, only to look over at her friend. "Oh, Rarity. I don't think that was very smart..."

"Don't you worry none, sugarcube!" Applejack propped herself up against the back of the fainting couch, playfully punching the melodramatic unicorn on the shoulder. "After what ya did during the Sisterhooves competition, I bet you'll beat the stuffin' outta that fancy mare!"

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie bounced over, landing next to Rarity and pressing their cheeks together in a hug. "And then you'll both be best friends, forged in the fires of combat!"

Twilight groaned, realizing she wasn't going to get much of a chance to speak her own concerns. Namely, that Rarity probably didn't have much more than the faintest idea how to actually fight a formal unicorn duel. The sort of duel that Lady Antimony had probably been weaned on, given family records and the fact that she had explicitly referenced obscure fighting styles used by her forebears earlier in the evening.

Still hanging out a careful distance away behind the doorframe, the only two stallions in the Boutique exchanged befuddled looks.

"What do you make of all this, Colton?"

"I honestly don't know, Pierce. Furthermore, what is it with mares and group hugs?"

"Can't rightly say. Looks fun, though."

"... Don't even think about it, Pierce."

"As if I would."

"You didn't peek, did you?"

"As if I would need to." Blueblood emerged from behind the compass rose topiary sculpture of his cutie mark. "One glance was all it took."

Rarity peeked out from behind his sculpture, the three diamonds of her cutie mark crafted by magic in scale but ten times size. A hunt of illusion gave the impression of three living gemstones suspended in midair where the groomed hedge had once risen like a pillar. The would-be diamonds even twinkled, catching the light of the full moon far overhead.

The Gala was still underway, back in the Palace, but the tail end of the magical night was one they had decided to spend together. The sky was so amazingly clear, despite all the light from the palace and the surrounding city of Canterlot. Rarity looked up, breathed in the cool night air, and felt a hoof take hers and lead her out from behind the sculpture.

Blueblood was... not quite the stallion she had expected.

She had expected a Prince, of course, but one from her novels and foalhood fantasies. The popular press only fed that image: of a gentle and chivalrous noblepony, a social animal both aloof and engaging, a stallion both imposing and welcoming. Blueblood was not these things. Though one of Canterlot's heavenly bodies, he seemed to have erratic social orbits. He spent time chatting with Wonderbolts, with Fluttershy in the garden feeding animals, with both a complete stranger and the Princess herself, dancing to common "swing" music - only to again switch, abruptly, to introducing a formerly unknown Luna to his connections among the court.

He seemed too impulsive, too unpredictable, too flighty and unconcerned to be the prim, proper and dignified Prince she had been lead to believe. It was as if he had woken up one morning, realized that the Gala was tonight, and decided to throw all caution and decorum to the wind. Seeing him, she had gone from confused, to shocked, to a little scandalized, to intensely curious. This wasn't the Prince she had read about, or even the Prince she had dreamed of.

Maybe he was something even better.

"Miss Rarity," he asked, leaning in close. It didn't hurt, in Rarity's opinion, that at least one thing about him proved true from tabloid to flesh and blood. He was a handsome pony. Strikingly so.

"I've wanted to ask you, for a while now," he continued, sounding curious and a little unsure. "Why me? Out of all the stallions you could have been with tonight? Why is it me?"

"Oh." Rarity looked away, not so much out of shyness, but a hint of shame.

"Is it because I'm the... a Prince?" he guessed. "Is it because you read about me in some tabloid and caught your fancy?"

Rarity almost gaped - was he a mind reader or something?

"I'd be lying if that wasn't a factor in it," she admitted, and it seemed almost as if he had expected that response. In a way, she could understand why. He was Equestria's Most Eligible Bachelor, after all, and while (before today) Rarity hadn't been all that informed as to what he actually did as Prince and Duke of Canterlot, it was likely to be important. There could be no way for him to truly separate his public image from his private life.

A little guiltily, she further realized that she had, early this evening, fallen largely into the 'yes, exactly because you're a Prince' camp. There was only the one, after all, unless one counted foreigners. He was famous, handsome, rich, and single. Beyond that, Rarity didn't really know much about him. Nopony did. Not... that she thought of herself as after him for his money...

Sadly and brutally honestly, it was probably because he was the social pinnacle of Canterlot.

He was the height of the tallest mountain; a stallion like no other. There were a dozen Dukes, but only one Prince. What did it say, then, about the mare who won him? What did it say about her that she tried, and that she had come to the Gala, just for that purpose? Nothing good, really. It was not a fact she wanted to admit to, not now, not with him. Not when it would ruin this perfect night, this best night ever.

"I see," he said, softly, having heard enough as it was.

"You aren't what I read about," she quickly added, and his ears twitched as he stared at her.

"I'm not?" he asked, beginning to walk past her.

"Well," she explained, and decided on honestly. Even if it was undiplomatic. "All those articles painted you as the most elite of the elite. Prince Blueblood the fifty-second. Lord Grand Veneur. Most eligible bachelor in Canterlot. Destined to marry any number of the nobility's finest. A unicorn of impeccable taste and unmatched refinement."

He chuckled, amused. "Actually, that does sound like me."

"Nothing mentioned dancing, or... what was it?" she asked, thinking back to his swing dancing with similar merriment. "The 'sea pony swim'? Much less gardening and common topiary."

"Do you know what I expected?" she asked. "I expected to spend the night stargazing, talking about art and being toured around the Palace."

For some reason, that made him cough and he quickly sucked in the night air, pushing down a throaty laugh. Maybe he had planned just that, and thrown it out the window at the last second? Wouldn't that have made for a... different night?

"We do sponsor half the artists in the country," he reminded her. "And auntie needs a place to store it all." He looked up at the night sky and raised a hoof. "And it is a nice, clear night."

Rarity silently agreed, taking in the view, but keeping him in sight too.

"Miss Rarity," his voice and face grew a bit more serious. "You should know that I was never the pony you imagined me to be. If you had met me on a bad day, I think you would have been... very disappointed. The truth is that I've enjoyed driving mares away. I've enjoyed rubbing their faces in what I'm not."

His confession should probably have surprised her, but it didn't, not after what little she had seen of him tonight. Back in Ponyville, she had her fair share of admirers as well, and there were times when she was not entirely kind to them. Her ride for the night, the very same ride all her friends had shared, had been acquired with a little 'Tactical Wooing.' It wasn't much of a stretch now, with her image of him as a perfect Prince already cast aside, to realize how a stallion in his position could take some advantage of the situation. Especially if a potential suitor encountered him at an inauspicious time.

"And why didn't you?" she asked. "You seem to know every pony at the Gala. You knew who I was. Why am I any different? Is it because I'm one of Twilight's friends?"

Another possibility occurred to her, one that had often lurked in the back of her mind. How many ponies knew why she was really at the Gala tonight? How many knew what had happened, that night, in Everfree Forest?

"Is it..." she wondered, with some trepidation. "Because I happen to be one of the Elements of Harmony?"

Blueblood paused at that, as if in thought.

He shook his head. "Thinking back... I think it was because you were the most beautiful mare in the Gala... and because I knew you were interested in me. It had nothing to do with Harmony. Or fame. Or honor."

He sighed, rough and weary, thinking back to the past. "When I was little, and other ponies used to use blocks to make castles and towers. I was the one who picked the nicest one... and kicked it. That was so long ago... but I still feel that part of me, in here." He tapped his chest, and frowned. "I think that's what auntie meant before. That's what she meant."

Not sure what he had meant by that - 'what auntie meant before?' - Rarity opted for silence, and Blueblood quickly realized his slip of tongue, also turning quiet. It started as an uncomfortable silence, of the sort common to when one pony said something strange that the other overheard, but it soon turned light and airy, even comfortable. He chuckled under his breath at his own silliness and she smiled in sympathy.

Rarity touched her hoof over his.

"I don't believe you're that kind of pony anymore." She looked into his eyes, a blue similar to but different from her own. "And since you don't seem to be the Prince your press paints you to be, I think it proper I find out the real you..."

BRREEEEEEEEEEE

"AAAAGHHH!!"

Rarity found her dreams rudely cut short by the bleat of a whistle what had to be inches from her sensitive ears. Launching straight up and off her bed, hooves flailing madly, she landed on her back in an explosions of feathers, pillows and blankets.

WWWWOOOoooooooo

Blowing a pillow out of her face, the normally fashionable, currently irritable unicorn managed to sit up and turn her head in the direction of the warbling noise. It was the window. To be more specific: it was a figure perched where her window should have been, the drapes now wafting in the morning air and the shutters thrown open.

"About time you got up!" Rainbow Dash dramatically announced, pointing at her friend, now rather rudely returned to the world of the waking. A sports whistle fell from her lips to hang by a chain around her neck, complimented by a bright blue cap on her head and a black and white sweatshirt.

"We've got a full schedule of training ready for your race and it starts with a ten kilometer dawn jog around Ponyville!"

She showed off a rather crudely drawn piece of paper half crumpled under the ministrations of a clipboard. It showed a pony with a loopy horn running, and then lifting weights, and then running again, and then lifting weights, and then doing more running. Another figure was also rather prominently displayed to be sleeping on a cloud the entire time with over-sized Z's filling the air.

"If this doesn't whip you into shape, nothing-"

Mid declaration, she noticed her victim had turned around in the bed and gone back to sleep.

BRREEEEEEEEEEEE

A second later, and a pillow smacked her in the face.

WWWoooOOOoooo

"Awake again?" Dash asked, the pillow falling away from her face.

"No."

"No?"

"No! No! Did you have to interrupt my dream when it was just getting to the good part!?" Rarity was suddenly up and shaking the intruding pegasus by the shoulders. She slumped, spun, and landed on the edge of her bed. A quick look in the dresser mirror confirmed her state: her mane was a mess, like every morning she didn't curl it, her tail was all frizzy and uncoiled, her eyelashes weren't on, and there was enough sleep in her eyes to build the foundations of a small sand castle. She groaned pitifully and wiped her eyes with her hooves.

"Oh my... maybe we should've just waited for her to wake up on her own?"

"Sorry, but that's boring. No way am I gonna wait around for that long!"

"Fluttershy, you too?" Rarity asked, seeing a curl of pink mane and two golden hooves hanging onto the bottom of her windowsill. Fluttershy peeked over the edge, looking guilty.

"Darling, please, what is this commotion about?" she asked, and then added for good measure, "And why does nopony respect any other pony's privacy anymore?"

"Well," Fluttershy answered, punctuated by an: "Um. We heard. That is-"

"We heard you got challenged to a race!" Rainbow Dash cut her off, adjusting her sports cap with a cocky grin. "So we thought we'd come over to help you train!"

"You thought that," Fluttershy corrected in a tone barely above whisper. A little louder, she explained, "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I'm fine, thank you both. But - And-" Rarity moved her mouth, but no words came out, until, "Just... how did you even find out about this so quickly? And why would you ever think it was a race?"

"You mean it isn't?" Dash asked, and tossed a card out of a clip in her visor.

Catching the note with a little uneven, half-awake magic, Rarity skimmed through the blocky, cutsey, cartoonish writing. The source should have been obvious from the get go. Who else used such tacky, bright pink stationary outside Hearts and Hooves Day?

You are cordially invited to

Rarity's

BIG FIGHT

Tailgate Party!

At the Spooky, Forbidden Castle of the Sisters in Everfree Forest

SEE

Ponyville's Dauntless Dressmaker

TAKE ON

Prance's Peerless Prizefighter

Invitation Only!

(I don't want to get in trouble again, and you don't want me to get in trouble, do you? Oh! Don't tell Rarity. Oh wait, she probably knows. Hi Rarity!)

Please RSVP with your preference(s) in:

Hot Dogs [_]

(you didn't put an x did you? How come you guys don't like hot dogs?)

Salsa [X]

Guacamole [_]

Artichoke-Spinach Dip [_]

Pretzel Wings (plain) [_]

Pretzel Wings (salty) [X]

Pretzel Wings (hot) [_]

Pretzel Wings (super hot) [_]

Pretzel Wings (Twilight-destroying) [X]

"How nice," Rarity said, returning the note. "Apparently my duel of honor is now a prime-time sports event. Perhaps I should wear a mask and a colorful costume."

"Can you?" Dash asked, intrigued by the-

"NO!" Flopping back on the bed, Rarity rolled herself up until she ended up buried in her blankets. It was so nice and warm all wrapped up like this. Maybe, if she was lucky, she'd wake up and find out that she was just having one weird dream on top of another. Then she'd probably wake up to find Opalescence scratching up something valuable and think: well, at least this isn't another crazy dream.

"Boy, she's really wrapped up tight in there!"

"Maybe we should leave?"

"Giving up already? All you have to do is - is, ugh - tug this part and - mmfg - hey, a little help?"

"I don’t know..."

"Fluttershy, you want to help her, don’t you? Well no pony can win a race without at least a little practice! Especially for an out of shape-"

"Who's out of shape!?" Rarity suddenly emerged from her cocoon, once again forced awake by the endless chatter and potential dig at her actually rather fit form. Face to face with a grinning Rainbow Dash, she realized she'd been goaded out of bed. Again.

Defeated, the tired dressmaker finally rolled out of bed, levitating her morning sundries to help armor her for the long day ahead. After all, even the worst of challenges were best confronted when looking at least passably presentable. First: some water to wash the sleep from her eyes, then some moisture crème, and then a comb and brush for her mane, then another brush for her coat...

"So why's this race of yours taking place in Everfree, anyway?" Dash asked, tapping her hoof impatiently, but successfully resisting the urge to use her whistle again.

"First of all," Rarity began, magically arranging for her mane and coat to receive their brushing in parallel, all while she prepared a quick lather and curler, spat out a bit of mouthwash and made her bed to exacting specifications.

"It is not a sweaty, barbaric race!" she insisted, looking over her shoulder to make sure that point got across. "This is a dignified, traditional duel of artistry, magic and personal conviction between respected noblemares."

Rainbow Dash groused shamelessly. "Wha-at?" she asked, and stuck out her tongue. "Lame."

"Um... then... what is it?" Fluttershy asked, finding an unobtrusive spot to land and sit down.

"It is... well, first, we meet up at the assigned place and time," Rarity explained, pausing only to vigerously brush her teeth. "With our seconds, and any attending friends and family. An attempt is made to mediate the dispute by friends and family of the two ponies involved. If that fails, then they separate either ten or twenty paces and attempt to hit one another with one of a set number of pastries or cakes."

"And you unicorns do this instead of just having an all-or-nothing, winner takes all, loser goes home crying, race?!" Rainbow asked, rolling her eyes. "Like I said: lame! And I got out all my cool training stuff for nothing! Even my saddle weights!"

"I appreciate the thought," Rarity replied, straightening her eyelashes. "But it is a strict contest of magic, not gymnastics or athletics."

"So you just sit there and throw cake at each other?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes, though I suppose one could move around if one needed to."

"And if you get hit by the cake you lose?"

"Exactly, darling. To be struck is a 'humiliation' and concession to your opponent."

"Um, Rarity?" Fluttershy spoke up, a little hesitant to jump into the conversation between her two extroverted friends. "What if no one is... um... humiliated?"

"Then the duel can end with both parties having properly satisfied their honor," The fashionista answered with a smile. A smile that quickly faded away.

"So it just ends with no winner?!" This seemed to shock Dash more than anything. She shook her head in visceral disgust making an 'bbbblllegh' sound and tossing her mane left and right. "Somepony has to win and somepony has to lose! You can't have ties! There's nothing lamer than a tie! A tie is like kissing your brother! Gross!"

"But Rainbow, you don't have a brother-"

"I was speaking metaphorically. The point is: it sucks!"

"If..." Rarity spoke up, catching the two pegasi mid-discussion. She looked down, at the floor, and then back at her dresser mirror, feeling a little anxious. "If no pony is humiliated... and they still can not be made to reconcile their differences, then the fight becomes à outrance."

"To the end," she translated. "Technically. To the death, that is."

Rarity finished the rest of her morning grooming in silence. Mane properly combed and styled, she admired herself in the mirror for a moment longer. Everything seemed fine. Normal. In it's proper place. Under control.

"To the death!!" Dash finally blurted out. "You're kidding right!"

"I can't imagine any pony actually takes it that far in this day and age," Rarity assured her, trying to sound dismissive despite the increasing worry building up inside her "We live in civilized times, after all. It's just a term. A linguistic relic from a long ago. No pony would kill another pony over..."

The brush clattered against her dresser, until she forcefully put it down.

"Over... this sort of thing," she concluded, glaring at the brush as if to blame it for her magic reflecting her anxiety.

"Um, Rarity?" Dash asked, flying over. "Maybe you should fill us in on what's going on? This actually sounds kinda serious."

Seeing the concern on her friends' faces, how could she say no?

"Very well, I suppose it can't hurt at this point. You see, it began last week..."

"Why did you say those mean things last night?"

Gewitter seemed to be slower than she used to be.

It took all of a full second for her to realize her Lady's personal space had been invaded without warning. In her defense, few ponies would have expected Pinkie Pie to emerge from a folded umbrella of all things, but a bodyguard really had to expect most anything, now didn't she? The last few years had made her a little complacent when it came to her mistress. The Gewitter of their mutual youth would have been faster.

Of course, the Gewitter of their mutual youth would also have tried to decapitate the bouncy pink pony.

That would not do.

Holding up a hoof, Antimony motioned for Gewitter to release Pinkie Pie's shoulders. The burly pegasus mare seemed a heartbeat or two from throwing the other pony over the horizon, even if it meant taking her chair with her. Pinkie, in contrast, had one hoof under her hastily acquired chair and the other bunched up in the tablecloth. She did not seem intent on being easily ejected or dislodged.

Seeing her mistress give consent for the intrusion, Gewitter snorted, released the party pony and resuming her post nearby. Quite a few customers around the Tulip Cafe seemed to startle at the brief commotion, but upon seeing the source of it, relaxed into relative indifference. It was perhaps the most fascinating thing about this young mare: the people of this town had grown used to her antics. To her. Quirks and eccentricities and all! It was quite wonderful and fascinating to see.

"Why did you say those things, Monee?" Pinkie asked again, releasing her deathgrip on her chair and the tablecloth now that the noble's bodyguard had been mollified. "They were so mean! I just don't understand!"

Lady Antimony ignored her for a moment, instead, to sip her tea.

"Good morning, Pinkie Pie," she finally said. "Would you care to join me for elevens?"

Scrunching up her face, Pinkie Pie groaned and stood... and then sat back down.

"Why thank you, Monee!" She readily, carelessly even, mixed formality with familiarity. "And good morning to you, as well. I would be happy to join you for brunch!"

"How lovely," the noblemare replied, floating out a second platter and cup of tea from the set she had been served. "Please allow me. This is a very sweet blend, so you may enjoy it."

Pinkie, growing increasingly impatient, none-the-less put up with Antimony's own quirks.

She took the proffered cup, and the offer to share elevens (brunch, in this part of Equestria), and they exchanged formalities and platitudes. It was all quite required before politely broaching other matters, such as the incident last night. Restless energy, of the sort Pinkie had in spades, was really something to control. It was like steam in a boiler. Properly directed, it was productive. Improperly directed, it was explosive.

"Do try the white sausage," Antimony said, moving the plate in question closer to her guest.

Pinkie's nose twitched, likely not finding the offering too pleasant. Peeking up at Antimony, and wanting to go back to her original reason for coming here, however, she eventually relented. Taking one of the sliced vegan sausages between her teeth, she flipped it high into the air before catching it in her mouth and biting down. It was mostly oatmeal, onions, vegetable fat and spices. Given the fact that Antimony herself had needed to tell the cafe's cook how to prepare one properly, it was not a very popular dish in Ponyville.

Perhaps because of the onions?

"If that is not to your liking, I have always been fond of tapenade, and-"

"Monee," Pinkie said, after drowning the taste in her mouth with a gulp of rather steaming-hot tea. "Why did you say those things to Rarity? They were so not-nice!"

"I am aware of that," Antimony replied, setting down her cup with a barely audible 'ting.'

"Then why did you say them!" Pinkie demanded to know. "You should apologize! You and Rarity will never be friends if you're mean to her!"

Antimony closed her eyes, letting out a soft breath; slowing the conversation.

"A tree."

"A tree?" Pinkie asked, raising an eyebrow unnaturally high.

"Have you ever cultivated a tree?" the noblemare inquired, and explained, "It will naturally grow towards the sunlight, greedily even, and sometimes the leaves must be trimmed, the branches pruned, or the trunk wired. Similarly, cutting and grafting can be used to encourage growth instead of discourage it."

"Another way to put it is the more well known metaphor of the carrot and the stick. Lessons are not always most effectively learned by simple statement of the facts. These facts must be accompanied with either a positive or negative response. In attempting to dissuade your friend from her foalishness, I opted for the stick over the carrot. It is unfortunate... that she did not heed my words."

"Wait. What?" Pinkie's perplexed face stared at Antimony from across the table.

Twitch.

"I was harsh with my words because I wished for my point to be taken with utmost seriousness," she explained, much more simply.

Pinkie leaned back in her chair, forelegs crossed.

"Was that it?" she asked, apparently deep in thought.

"What else would it be?" Antimony asked, pouring out a new cup for herself and her guest. "The one you should speak to is your friend, Lady Rarity. It is too late to honorably remove herself from her issued challenge, but if she swears to put herself in my care, or to end her courtship with Lord Blueblood, then I shall express my willingness to end this affair amicably."

"And if she doesn't?"

"Then I will still end it. But I will not do so... amicably."

"And if she wins this duel thingie?" Pinkie asked, full of questions this morning.

"That is no more possible than it is for a mouse to hunt a cat," Antimony answered, without a trace of arrogance. Nor was it arrogance - it was fact. Simple fact.

Pinkie Pie sat stony silent for a little while. She was normally such a bubbly, upbeat young mare. It was a little sad to see her so struck by what had happened the night before. Not that it was unexpected, but it was a little sad. She genuinely seemed to want, or even need, for everypony to get along. However, such things were only possible when there was order and understanding. These two things were the basic virtues of friendship... and harmony.

Order and Understanding.

"You both will live in disgrace, as pariahs."

Antimony blinked. "Excuse me?"

"The stallion you love will no longer be a Prince," Pinkie Pie said, repeating her words from the other night. Rather accurately. Even the inflection was the same. "And every night, he will look at you - and you will see it in his eyes. He will blame you. And you will blame yourself."

Pinkie leaned across the table, inching closer to drive the verbal daggers home. "Until that silent reproach turns to hate. And everything you two wished to have will turn into smoke and ashes and tears."

Antimony closed her eyes, veiling her expression behind a cup of tea.

"You didn't need to say those things," Pinkie Pie finished, leaning back again.

"We have a difference of opinion, in that case." The noblemare lowered her cup. "Furthermore, any future words exchanged between myself and Lady Rarity may take place on the dueling field. I will not speak with her before then. It is improper."

"I want you to promise not to hurt her."

For the second time, Antimony blinked in surprise.

"Pardon?" she asked, staring across the table at the pink party pony.

"I want you to promise not to hurt Rarity when you have this duel thing," she repeated, and stuck out a hoof. "You have to Pinkie promise!"

Looking down at the hoof, and then back at the other mare, Antimony frowned. Just a little.

"Very well..." she replied with a shrug. "If it will set your mind at ease. What is this... Pinkie promise?"

"So you don't know any fighting magic?"

"For the last time, Rainbow Dash, I do not. Why would I have bothered to learn such a thing? Who would even have taught it to me? That sort of magic is the responsibility of royal guards and nobleponies."

"Yeah. And who here is one of those crazy nobleponies, now?"

"That is beside the point. There is no need to make a mountain of a molehill."

"You know," a certain chromatic pegasus said, as Twilight entered the room with a stack of books wreathed in her magic. "There was this one half-unicorn in Daring Doo and the Temple of Doom and he could rip a mare's heart right out of her chest! Tali-ma! Tali-MA!"

Rarity brushed Rainbow Dash's hoof off her chest.

"Honestly," she huffed.

"Even though he was only in one book, Mola Ram really was one of the best Daring Doo villains," Twilight chimed in, two stacks of books to her left and right as she saw down.

"I know!" Dash agreed. "I really like the adventures where Daring Doo is up against mortal bad guys and not just more monsters, you know? The end is usually so much more satisfying!"

Mid-gushing, as if remembering she was talking about books, Rainbow Dash affected an air of nonchalance, tossing her head high.

"I'm just saying," she quickly reminded them. "Just a little fun between practice and stuff."

The four mares shared a little laugh, Rainbow Dash included. It was still a fresh joke among them: their anti-egghead pegasus friend suddenly finding an almost addictive love of the Daring Doo series. She had already blasted through twelve of the sixteen volumes currently in print, reading almost as fast as she flew.

Since Dash was almost at the end of the series, Twilight had tried to expose her to other authors and genres to little success. Even similar adventure novels didn't seem to have the same visceral punch that Daring Doo had. There was something about Doo herself that Rainbow Dash really identified with. It couldn't even be just the author, since the Daring Doo novels had been published by a number of writers.

Hopefully, the weathermare wouldn't put down books once she finished the last of the Doo series.

What was she up to again? 'Daring Doo and the Heart of the Wild?'

"Hey, Twilight." Dash suddenly seemed to think of something. "How do they pick the Daring Doo authors anyway? Can anypony just write a Daring Doo story and send it in?"

"I think the publisher owns the rights to it, but there's always fanfiction."

"Fan-fiction?"

"Fanfiction."

"Fanfiction..."

Seeing they had strayed into some less than familiar territory, Twilight set her hooves in place and brought out one of her books, floating it over to Rarity. This morning, when she and Rainbow and Fluttershy had come over, had been strange. Spike had been acting oddly lethargic and reclusive, like he had eaten too many gems from the stash he thought she didn't know about. He had been slow, even reluctant, to answer the door and let anypony in.

It was just one situation on top of another. Still, Twilight resolved to look into it as soon as she helped Rarity prepare a bit for her duel. Spike was remarkably mature and responsible for his age; his problems could probably wait a little while, especially if he didn't feel the need to bring them up. Very likely he was already halfway to solving whatever problem was on his mind.

"Dueling for Dummies?" Rarity read the cover page of the book with an un-amused expression.

"It's just a title for a set of books," Twilight assured her. "Not, you know... that you're a dummy..."

"Dueling seems kind of dumb, though," Dash commented, resting on her back with her hooves behind her head. "Throwing cake around and then trying to kill each other? Crazy."

"I told you, it isn't like that!" Rarity came to the defense of the ancient and noble tradition. "It is a matter of honor, and standing, and courage. It embodies all the values and virtues we hold dear, not just as unicorns, but as civilized and respectable ponies."

"I never thought you'd feel so passionately about it," Twilight admitted, opening another book, peppered by multi-colored bookmarks throughout the pages.

"I always found it romantic," the fashionista replied, giving the 'Dueling for Dummies' book a closer look, pages flipping as she took it from Twilight's magic into her own. "Two stallions, meeting at dawn or dusk, to defend their honor... or the honor of the mare they love!"

She frowned, as she reached the 'ode to humiliations' section of the book.

"I never expected I'd be the one defending my honor," she added, and cringed at a picture in the book. "My word: chocolate mousse? How dreadful! Would that ever wash out?"

"Um..." Fluttershy spoke up from where she lay, her forelegs tucked primly under her. "Twilight, is it true that ponies can get hurt doing this?"

"Of course not!"

"All the time."

Twilight and Rarity looked up from their mutual books to send questioning looks at each other.

"Twilight," Rarity said, finding her voice first. "There's no need to scare the poor dear."

"Well, it does depend on the type of duel and who you are dueling with," the Canterlot bookworm replied, biting her lower lip. "But, Rarity... injuries are actually pretty common in duels..."

Rarity tilted her head in unsettling puzzlement. "You're serious?"

"Maybe," Twilight said, coming to a decision. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe this is something more easily demonstrated, rather than just reading it in a book."

"Wait a second! Wait a second! You're telling us not to read books?" Rainbow Dash suddenly sprung to her hooves. "OH ho HO! This should be good!"

It was a relatively warm, pleasant Ponyville day - the kind of day where surely nothing strange or humiliating was to befall anypony. The sun was almost to its midway peak overhead and only a smattering of extremely fluffy - tame - clouds remained to obscure the perfect blue sky. A few colored specks, high flying pegasi, soared leisurely across the horizon. It was autumn, creeping closer to the Running of the Leaves every day, so it wasn't hot even at noon. Birds chirped happily among the bushes and trees. Even the unpleasantness of the Everfree seemed far away in the carefully maintained glades around the town.

Out back behind the town library lay a broken down old gazebo in a clearing.

It was just the spot.

"Okay," Twilight began, running a hoof through her mane. "How to put this? I'm good and ready, so... I guess... try and hit me, everypony?"

"Did I say this'd be fun?" Rainbow Dash snickered, calmly tossing a ripe, rotten apple in the air with one hoof. "This is so gonna be fun!"

"Um, do we have to?" Fluttershy was seated on her haunches, looking guiltily at the rotten fruit she had been given. "Where did you even get these?"

"Are you sure about this, Twilight?" Rarity seemed hesitant to even handle the gooey old apples, and that was even with her magic.

"I think I'll be fine," Celestia's apprentice assured them. "You'll see what I mean."

"Then what are we waiting for!" Dash reared up, wings flapping, and threw the first proverbial stone. Or mushy apple in this case.

Only for the apple to curve, a few hoof-lengths from Twilight's nose, rotate around her, and then zip back in the direction it came, shrouded in a purple aura. Dash yelped at the incoming projectile, jumping into the air and contorting her legs in every direction to avoid being hit. The mushy apple blasted by her face, passing through the green and blue streaks of color in her mane-

Until it hit one of the wooden supports of the gazebo with a loud crunch and splatter.

"Problem?" Twilight asked, cracking a smile. "I should warn you: Princess Celestia trained me to teleport this way."

"By throwing apples at you?" Rarity gawked.

"Moldy oranges, actually." She suppressed a shudder. "...and bananas."

"Okay! Number two now!" Dash scooped up two more apples from a nearby bucket and spun, throwing one and then the other. This time, instead of redirecting them, Twilight vanished with a soft flash of light. Her hooves touched the ground, for just a moment and then she arched her head to the side.

Rarity's apple missed, became wrapped in a sheath, and spun around.

She had to jump to the side avoid it splashing into the ground where she had been standing. Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, continued to barrage the blinking unicorn with a stream of thrown fruit, her cyan forelegs a blur. Quickly cupping the bucket under one leg, she took to the air.

"Let's see how you handle this!" she yelled, spiraling overhead to rain gooey destruction. "Death from ABOVE!"

"Um! Watch out!" Fluttershy squeaked, finally throwing an apple of her own.

Rarity laughed, getting in the spirit of things as she levitated out a dozen of the old apples that had been stockpiled behind the library. All three mares unloaded on Twilight Sparkle, trying to hit her just once. If anything, it got harder as Twilight put genuine effort into avoiding the flying fruit. Her teleports became louder and brighter as she used them in faster and faster intervals until they took on a lighting-like rapport.

An apple spiraled past her, swinging into an arc, joining a half dozen others.

It wasn't just blinking and object capture, either. Twilight was much faster on her hooves than any of her friends imagined, and the ground became streaked by slashes of magic and divots torn out by teleportation. It was impossible to pin her down in one spot. Even trying to grab her with a magic field resulted in a fizzle as she broke free.

"YAAAAHH!" Rainbow Dash came from above, tossing her empty bucket aside and dive-bombing, two apples in her right front hoof.

Fluttershy's foreleg was a blur as she gave one last throw.

Rarity's face was etched with determination as she projected her last four apples at her friend.

Twilight landed, back where she had originally started. Her back legs cut a furrow in the grass and dirt, horn trailing sparkling magic and light. Dash was only a few pony-lengths away, intending to throw her apples from extremely close range, a move further amplified by her downward dive. It proved to be her Achilles heel, as well. When Twilight counter-attacked, she felt it first.

"One!" Twilight announced, sweeping a foreleg up.

Rainbow Dash's blur came to an immediate halt as something soft and fast slammed into her chest, sending her tumbling off course.

"Two!" Twilight spun, deflecting Fluttershy's throw down and into the ground.

Another rotten apple swept across and up, kicking up blades of grass, to slam into the shy pegasus' stomach with a messy, if basically harmless, splatter.

"Three!" She faced Rarity, and then vanished-

Behind the tumbling Rainbow Dash.

The four apples splattered against the back of the falling pegasus turned pony-shield. Rarity squeaked, looking around for where Twilight had gone. By the time Dash hit the ground, rolling and cursing, she was nowhere to be found. It only even occurred to the fashionable unicorn to look behind her a moment too late.

The sting of rotten fruit hitting her face filled the air with an ear-shattering scream.

Birds took off from trees in shock and fear.

"My face!" Rarity moaned, wiping the foul smelling, slimy apple bits away with her hooves. With a sickly "ohhh...!" she fainted on the spot.

...

Sitting outside, towels drying from a line, the four mares faced each other.

"I don't get it!" Dash yelled, stomping a hoof in indignation. "How did you get so fast!?"

Twilight Sparkle, the mare sitting on her haunches in the grass, next to a pile of books, did not seem particularly threatening. She did not look like she had just made a mockery of her friends attempts to hit her with what had to be four or five dozen rotten apples. She looked like plain old Twilight. Granted, 'plain old Twilight' was also the one who had levitated an Ursa Minor while magically milking a dozen cows... and juggling a water silo.

"Conservation of Magical Momentum," she answered, opening one of her books to a page covered in scribbles and equations. Dash just threw up her hooves in exasperation.

"In other words," Twilight explained, closing the magical physics book. "I kept speeding up."

"Obviously you kept getting faster!" Dash asked again, "How did you do it! More importantly: can I do it?"

Twilight sighed, and dropped her physics textbook physically into her hooves.

"What's the difference between this..." She carefully tossed the book from one hoof to the other, a little clumsily. "And this?"

She took the book in her magic, and spun it around her, faster and faster.

"One is fast and the other slow!" Dash answered. Wrongly.

"It loses energy when you move it from one hoof to the other!" Fluttershy declared, and shrunk a bit as all eyes turned to her. "I mean: I think?"

"You're right," Twilight replied, and raised a hoof to punctuate her explanation. "If a pony is running, and they teleport, they'll still be moving when they re-enter the material plane. You thought you saw me stop and teleport, but I never stopped moving. Put another way: using magic, you can theoretically speed up while appearing to stand still."

That seemed to do it.

Rainbow Dash's eyes grew wider and wider as it sunk in.

"Speeding up," she said, looking down at her hooves. "While... standing still?"

"The most basic form of defense in a unicorn duel is to teleport," Twilight went on. "It is also among the most difficult to master. Some unicorns study teleportation their entire lives. One of my Professors back in Canterlot was a stallion called Whitemane. Ponies used to say he was so good that he can teleport a spider's web without damaging it... and without the spider in the web even noticing."

"And I can't teleport at all," Rarity realized. "How can I duel with Lady Antimony if I can't keep up with her? Then again, maybe she can't teleport either?"

"My grandparents followed family tradition and trained my father to teleport by forcing him to blink across a river," Twilight cut her off. "Every time he fell in, he had to swim back to the shore and start over."

Her listeners were left stunned silent.

"Really?" Dash found her voice first. "Wow. That's actually kind of cool."

"It was wishful thinking, I suppose. So, assuming she is proficient in teleportation, what am I going to do?" Rarity asked, thinking back to Twilight's demonstration. "I can't teleport and it would take weeks to learn. I do suppose... I can create illusions and redirect things?"

Twilight nodded, having come to that conclusion herself. "The other alternative is blocking, but that requires more brute force than you probably want to use. Dodging is only part of it, though. You also need to hit the other pony and you need to develop a counter-magic focus."

"Counter magic?" Fluttershy inquired.

"This." Twilight demonstrated, and a magical field wrapped around her three friends, lifting them off the ground. For a few seconds, she let them hover there in varying states of surprise. Of course, they knew Twilight could lift them, or in Dash's and Fluttershy's case, grab one of them by the tail.

"The first and most important thing is to learn to use your magic to resist other magic," Twilight lectured, lowering them back into place... but not dropping her magical field.

Dash crossed her forelegs and nodded in perceptive agreement.

"Makes sense," she said. "In racing, some ponies will use a 'bump' to try and throw their opponent off balance or trip them up. The best time to use a bump is right when everypony starts. It's kinda dirty, but ya gotta be prepared for it."

"I didn't know that!" Twilight's smile lit up at finding out something new. She quickly focused back on current events, however. "To start, why don't you try to get out of my magic right now?"

"Even us?" Fluttershy asked, flailing her legs and clearly not liking her chances.

"Any object with natural magic, which is to say any living thing, can develop a magical resistance," Twilight replied. "Try to imagine yourself as a bubble or a balloon about to pop. You want the pressure inside to be equal to or greater than the pressure outside."

The next few minutes passed in silence (except for Dash's occasional grumble) as the three mares tried to do what their book-loving friend suggested. Fluttershy found it easy to remain still and concentrate, whereas Dash constantly shifted and readjusted her legs in a battle to get comfortable. Rarity tried to keep still, but it was difficult to imagine oneself as a bubble or balloon, much less one about to burst. On the other hoof, she could feel Twilight's magic around her and how her own magic tried to push it away. Experimentally, the fashionista tried to use her horn...

Only to find that she couldn't use magic at all.

"That won't work," Twilight said, having either seen or sensed the attempt. "As long as you remain within my levitation magic, you can't fly. Or use magic of your own. You're completely helpless."

"How dreadful!" Rarity grimaced. "Is this how you learned to do this?"

Twilight blushed, fiddling with her hooves even as she tried to read one of her many books.

"Well, not... not exactly," she admitted. "The Princess, well... she... well, I don't know if you want to do that..."

"Do what, dear?" Rarity asked, her bright blue eyes shining. "You know how much of a bind I'm in! If it worked for you, and worked well, too...! You're a genius with magic, Twilight! It must be able to do something for me!"

"If you're sure..."

Ten years earlier:

"Are you sure about this, my little pony?"

Celestia was so great!

This was so exciting!

Twilight could hardly contain herself, mere moments from erupting into another fit of giggles. She had to be the luckiest filly in Canterlot! No! In all of Equestria! Celestia, the Princess herself, was going to teach her magic! The last few weeks had been spent studying and reading with the beautiful alicorn, and now, finally, they were going to start some hooves-on instruction!

"Yes!" Twilight, just a filly, hopped around Celestia's legs. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"The quick and fun way it is, then!" The Sun Princess agreed with a wide grin, one eye closing into a cheeky crescent. Holding out a regal, gold-trimmed hoof, the mighty and wise Princess of Equestria produced the means by which her student and apprentice could unlock the mysteries of magic.

Well... that is to say...

Celestia held out an old, metal bucket.

"Magic!" she groused, mischievous grin still in place.

Twilight Sparkle soon learned not to look forward to when her mentor's one visible eye squinted impishly. That was the day when the equation, Mischievous Grin (Mg) + Princess Celestia (Pc) = Trouble (T) received its initial proof.

Sweetie Belle, and for that matter, her fellow Crusaders, had seen some unusual and remarkable things since beginning their seemingly never-ending quest to obtain cutie marks. They had climbed the highest peak - er, hill - in Ponyville, and encountered the rare and deadly - kind of - fresh-water octopus. They had snuck into Everfree Forest! That was pretty scary and impressive. How many fillies can say they survived a run-in with a cockatrice?

What she saw now, though?

This was weird.

"Hi girls!" Twilight waved them over with a friendly smile. She wasn't the only one either. An assortment of ponies had gathered around the spectacle. Pinkie Pie and Applejack were selling candy and apple-snacks respectively, and the others? The other ponies seemed otherwise occupied.

Sweetie winced as one mare gave the tennis ball a throw, bouncing it off her older sister's side.

"Not bad! Not bad! Now watch a master!" A mint colored unicorn floated another tennis ball out of a basket, put it in her hoof, and stood up. How Lyra could balance properly, much less make a strange stepping throw, Sweetie Belle couldn't imagine. The ball bounced off Rarity with a "poing!" and flew through the air.

The bucket on Rarity's head began to wobble.

"No no no no no!"

SPLASH

Indigo mane slumped and unbound beneath the torrent of cold water.

"Un-believable!" Sweetie's sister groaned, grabbed the bucket with her magic, refilled it, and then got back up on the log to balance on two legs, one front and one rear. Back in place, the pelting continued, as a nearby sign declared: DRENCH ME IF YOU CAN

It looked to Sweetie Belle like she had been, and already was.

At least her wet mane was kind of sparkly, for some reason.

"Ah, Twilight?" Applebloom asked, as all three crusaders had paused to watch the spectacle. "What's goin' on here?"

"Magic," Twilight answered, punctuating it by throwing a ball of her own. One Rarity clearly hadn't been expecting. Knocked off balance by the sudden impact to the back of her head, her one arm and one leg that had been stuck out for balance began to comically pinwheel to the exclamation of "Ah! wait! wait no! Ah!"

"I warned her," the librarian explained.

SPLASH

"Not again!"

Celestia's sun began to set.

The cutie mark crusaders had come, stayed for a while, and eventually left the various older mares to their own devices. Eventually the rest of the town had grown bored with repeatedly soaking their most fashionable mare and also wandered off, leaving an increasingly bored Rainbow Dash with most of the work of throwing things at her friend. Twilight pitched in, as necessary. Fluttershy came and went, often asking to make sure Rarity wasn't getting sick or feeling under the weather.

By later afternoon, Sweetie Belle alone had come and gone a second time.

It quickly became clear why: Rarity's parents were in town, and it was only a matter of time before they came to see what all the fuss was about. It was actually a miracle they hadn't come sooner, but work must have taken them out of town or otherwise kept their ears from the local rumor mill. Twilight had never seen the expression on her parents' faces like she did on Rarity's - Celestia had trained her at the Palace, and her parents had lived in the city below. Twilight suspected her father would shrug, even if he had been there, but her mother would definitely have freaked out.

"Rarity! What is this? What are you doing!?"

A bit like that.

"Balancing, clearly," the family's oldest daughter replied. "Or trying to."

"Honey, is there something you want to tell us?" Her father scratched his chin, trying not to look as amused by the situation as he clearly was. "I didn't realize buckets were in fashion this year."

"Oh, ha-ha-ha!" Rarity stuck out her tongue as she mock-laughed.

"Dear," Rarity's mother nudged her husband. "Be serious for once."

"I would, but this situation is just too funny. Remember how hard it was to get her to bathe when she was little?"

"I never thought a filly could love playing in the mud so much..." Rarity's mother shook her head. "Dear, please, what on Equestria are you doing out here?"

"If you must know," the suffering unicorn replied. "I'm training."

"Training?" her father asked. "Don't tell me! My daughter is finally going to follow in my hoofsteps!"

"Yes, all this will make me Ponyville's greatest quarterback."

"Second greatest maybe..."

"Dear!"

"There is really a very good explanation for this," Rarity said, and winced as a tennis ball bounced off the side of her head. "Twilight! Really! Now of all times?!"

Twilight wanted to feel guilty for it... but it really was hard to. After all, it was for Rarity's own good.

In the back of the librarian's mind, a little white alicorn was snickering.

"As I was saying," she began anew. "I have a very good reason for being in this rather ridiculous position. Or at least I trust I do."

"Do tell," her mother asked.

"I have... well, I've ended up in a duel," Rarity explained, and rushed through the rest rather quickly. "You see, I just recently petitioned to join the nobility and found myself in a bit of a dispute. With another noblemare. That would be the Lady Antimony, who you have no doubt heard is in Ponyville."

The two older ponies were silent.

"Huh. That all?"

"Dear."

"What? This is more surprising to you than dragon attack? Or parasprite invasion? Or a rampaging bear made out of stars? Or..."

"Why are we only hearing about this now?" Rarity's mother cut her father off before he could continue, likely for some time, repeating the many dangers and oddities that have picked Ponyville as their playground.

"I'm afraid it's all been rather too sudden to ask for much consultation." Blue eyes glanced over at Twilight, and Rarity sighed, contrite. "I... I mean, I am sorry this is the first you have heard of things. I should have spoken to you when I first ran into this... situation."

Twilight hated herself for throwing another tennis ball, then, but Rarity ignored it (her parents glared, though) as she explained what had come into her the last few days. She told them, in somewhat hushed tones, about how Lady Antimony had come to her store to order a dress for the art festival, and then how she had informed Rarity that she would - at best - only be a dam in Blueblood's household.

Rarity told them how she had worried and tried to find out what to do. How she had contacted her close friends in Canterlot and eventually how she had come to the decision to fight fire with fire and stand up to Antimony. Her parents reacted with bemusement at her rationalization for declaring herself noble, thanks to the Elements of Harmony. It was possible they had expected something similar, sooner or later. For most mares it probably would have remained a boastful dream - the upper echelons of unicorn society were not eagerly inclusive.

For Rarity, it was a leap, the price of which was leaving her old life behind.

Not wanting to dwell too much on her decision there, Rarity moved onto the specifics of why she was currently balancing a bucket on her head while trying not to fall off a log. Also why her friend seemed to be pelting her with tennis balls. Unfortunately:

"It occurs to me... that I really don't know why on Equestria I'm doing this!" Rarity suddenly yelled, slowly turning to stare at her good, dear friend, Twilight Sparkle.

Said good, dear friend quickly found a book to hide behind.

stomp-stomp-stomp

"Twilight!" An alabaster hoof peeked out over the rim of the book, drawing it down. "Aside from repeatedly soaking me to the bone, what has all this foalishness actually accomplished?"

Bearing a pout at having her reading interrupted, Twilight nodded and closed the book. Even as she put it away, her magic levitated the bucket off her friend's head. It was still full of ice-cold water. Without a word of explanation, letting action speak instead, Twilight Sparkle wandered a yard or so away, turned around, and upended the bucket over herself.

Water splashed and fell-

And rippled, leaving her dry.

"You didn't notice," she said, at the trio of boggled expressions. The water had rolled off her body without actually getting her wet. She pointed at Rarity... and at Rarity's dry mane and coat. Looking down at herself, the dressmaker realized she hadn't actually been wet. Not for hours.

But neither did she remember drying off.

"I - I don't understand," she stammered, looking herself from flank to fetlock.

"Magic!" Twilight declared, holding up the bucket with a hoof.

"But," Rarity protested. "But the tennis balls-"

"They had two purposes, but one was to annoy you so you lost your balance and got wet," Twilight explained, putting the bucket on her head without breaking her stride. "This bucket enchants the water you fill it with to keep it ice-cold."

"Then that 'ancient artifact' Princess Celestia left you...?"

"It's actually just an old ice bucket."

Gob-smacked, Rarity could only point at her friend accusingly.

"The enchantment is why this works," Twilight continued, smiling. "When you learn to resist magic on yourself, to repel foreign magic, this enchanted water won't get you wet. Instead, it will slide right off, like water on oil."

"Go ahead!" She bucked her head, and the bucket flew through the air to end up caught in Rarity's magic. "Try it."

Turning and trotting slowly, and then with a touch more haste, Rarity did just that.

Filling the bucket at the trough, like she had all day, she floated the pail over her head and paused. Glancing back at Twilight and her parents, she closed her eyes, and upended. Water fell all over her... and washed off her without a trace. Her mane sprang back up and curled without even a hint of moisture. She was dry. The ground at her hooves was muddy, but she was dry!

"It actually worked!" Rarity sounded like she could hardly believe it. She gave a happy little giggle and cheered before throwing her head back and laughing out loud. "It actually worked!"

"Then the other reason for the tennis balls?" her father inquired, leaning close so only the librarian and his wife could hear.

"Officially, they're used so she keeps her concentration, even when agitated," Twilight explained, deadpan. "I think they're also used to keep the trainer amused during the whole process."

Oh, and how smug that little white alicorn in her head was now.

As if to drive that fact home, Rainbow Dash picked that moment to bounce one of the tennis balls off Rarity's flank, causing an immediate argument between them. "The training was over!" "It was? But I still have some balls left to throw!"

"This is only the start," Twilight warned Rarity's parents, trying not to be distracted by the unicorn vs pegasus grudge match.. "If she's going to have a chance of winning that duel, I'm going to have to pull out all the tricks."

'I never told her... but Lady Antimony... they're only suspicions, but I don't think she's a normal pony.'

"Cross my heart,

And hope to fly,

Stick a cupcake in..."

Antimony stared at her hoof, inches from her face.

"My eye?" she asked, smiling. Her expression darkened as she withdrew her hoof with a grimace, the pristine white coat around the horseshoe starting to smoke. The little rhyme Pinkie had made her repeat quickly brought the smile back, though she closed her eyes and repeated it in her head instead of out loud. It was not wise to keep them wide for very long.

"You seem to have taken a liking to Laughter's Bearer."

"She has a sunny disposition, devoid of pretense," Antimony explained, inclining her head towards her right side. "And she reminds me of somepony."

"She does?" The air shimmered and a tiny twinkling star suspended in a sea of black appeared, becoming visible only to vibrate with the chiming, otherworldly voice. "Who?"

"Isn't it obvious?" the noblemare asked, in imitation of her patriarch.

Despite the darkened and insubstantial little star by her side, Antimony was alone in the vast athenaeum of Blueblood's new estate. The building was only partly complete and furnished, but it was passable as a base of operations for the time being. The engagement passed by the Stable of Lords gave her access to it, though not the more secure family holdings of Canterlot's Prince and Duke.

It was a splendid retreat, built in imitation of the pegasus style: two stories high, a vaulted ceiling gave the impression of an airy, open sky, while carved marble pillars rose up, bearing busts of Celestia and Equestrian Venus statuettes. The room had the illusion of being circular but was, in fact, an octagon. The walls themselves were lined with books in row after row. A dozen sliding stairs provided access to the upper volumes. The central area contained yet more sections of the library, recessed into the floor in imitation of a parting cloud, or risen above in crystal cases. These were the rarest books; the showpieces of the magnificent collection the Prince had assembled.

Almost invisible, tiny dark forms skittered over books.

Searching.

Chapter Six : Determination

(6)

Determination

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I asked if you could sit by my side in the upcoming duel," Antimony repeated, setting down her now empty saucer of sorbet, a tiny silver spoon balanced on top. "As family, it is only proper. Ah," the regal Baroness added with a little gasp. "Sir Spike, please do not touch the entremet. Though edible, it is merely for show."

"Oh, uh - sorry!" Across the dinner table, a purple claw pulled back from the decorative swan that had been placed next to his two glasses of grape and apple juice. It was made of gingerbread and swam in a little saucer of jam, looking very much like a proper desert dish. The back had been hollowed out as a vessel for glittering gemstones, mints and sweetbreads, though Spike would probably be the only one in attendance enjoying the gems as more than a display item.

"I'm sorry," Twilight Sparkle apologized from her seat next to him. "I just - I know it is tradition, but Rarity is my friend. She deserves my support."

"I understand that," her hostess replied. "My request is merely for appearances. A family should always show solidarity, should it not? Even though you have been training Lady Rarity to oppose me, I would not have it drive wedges between the branches of our great and loving clan."

"I guess I'll think about it?" Twilight answered, after thinking it over for a few seconds. She poked at her between-meal berry sorbet, spooning a tiny portion into her mouth to cleanse the palate. "I really just wish you and Rarity could somehow come to terms?"

Antimony raised an imperious eyebrow. "As do I."

"You want her to come to your terms," Twilight observed with no small amount of criticism in her tone. "That's not exactly the same thing."

"Things are as they are, Twilight Sparkle," the older mare admonished, but soon adopted a more forgiving expression and voice. "Please, let us not spoil this meal with talk of such onerous topics. I wish only for us to reacquaint and warm to one another."

"Madam," a server spoke up, having waited for a pause in the conversation. "Econdo Piatto is served: quenelle dumplings, grated apples and dough, browned, with butter, cinnamon and glazed sugar. Served on a bed of mixed greens with a sweet vinaigrette. Please enjoy."

The reprieve of the servers arriving with the next meal dish helped to dissuade an argument from forming between the two unicorn mares. The food itself was exquisite; Lady Antimony had reserved an entire room of Ponyville's most expensive A-list restaurant for herself and her guests. All two of them. The staff, the owner, and the chefs were no doubt bending over backwards to accommodate their potential patron.

On her way in with Spike, Twilight had even noticed some of Ponyville's richest families eating in the restaurant outside. Like her, they had gotten dressed to eat out, as was the custom among Equestria's mercantile and noble classes. Unlike her, they did it often. Twilight couldn't remember the last time she had worn a dress - much less forced Spike to put on a little suit - just to have dinner. It had seemed prudent to not snub her distant cousin's invitation, however, so she came. If nothing else it was free food... but the sense of separation from the rest of Ponyville, of celebrity, was not something Twilight Sparkle relished. This once, though, she could endure it.

A part of her still held out hope that some step could be taken to diffuse Rarity's situation, if only she could find out what it was.

Unfortunately, Antimony did not seem inclined to entertain much talk of the duel. Whenever the topic came up, or threatened to come up, she plead for it to change to most anything else. Twilight, hoping to be polite, had not pushed as hard as she had told herself she would before the meal. Instead they had spent the first course (a delicious artichoke, cheese and olive antipasto) talking about her parents and about her time in Canterlot, the two intermittent courses (a small tomato consommé with rich onion and carrot undertones, followed by a single vol-au-vent spinach pastry) talking about the Princess and magic in general, and then the pause before the main dish discussing Ponyville and her arrival there during the Summer Sun celebration.

This, in turn, prompted discussion of how and when Lady Antimony planned to make her trip to the ruined Everfree castle for the duel. In turn, this also presaged the Baroness' comment that Twilight, as family no matter how distant, should sit by her side of the field during the event. Twilight had already taken sides, to nopony's surprise, in support of her friend. There was no doubt she wished Rarity to win the duel. Antimony seemed to understand that and accept it, but wanted protocol followed for appearance's sake.

"I have found myself wondering," Antimony spoke up, as the three ate in relative silence.

As was the way of the nobility in polite rather than casual settings, they tried to eat with their hooves as much as possible, in keeping with the ancient role of 'breaking bread' that had long since passed into antiquity. It was considered mannerly to eat without magic, but while still coming off from the effort unsullied and with proper decorum. To an outside observer, like Twilight, the belabored effort was actually a little comical. Princess Celestia ate with her magic almost all the time, forgoing formality and pretense.

"With great curiosity," the Baroness amended. "What is it like to bear an Element of Harmony? Much less, to command the most powerful of all Elements?"

Twilight wiped her lip with a napkin, observing the niceties she hadn't otherwise bothered with in years. She had heard that Applejack spent some time in Manehattan as a filly, learning manners and the mores of the upper class there. Twilight sympathized.

"Well," she answered, with some hesitation - how to even describe it? "I don't know if you can say we command or even 'bear' the Elements. I mean, we don't even have them with us most of the time. The Elements themselves - the bijou or lavaliere - are kept in a secure place. But they don't function like any sort of magic I've experienced before."

"Oh?" Antimony inquired, fascinated. "But their power...?"

"It isn't something we really control," Twilight admitted. "It is more of a reflection of what's in our hearts. When Discord, well, discorded myself and my friends, we couldn't use the Elements of Harmony. They didn't respond to us because the harmony in our hearts and the friendship between us had been corrupted. He must've known that, but what he didn't know was that friendship can't be extinguished so easily. The memories of our adventures, the feelings of friendship, were all still there. Buried. Waiting."

"When we remembered who we were, and why we were friends," she finished, with a small smile. "We bounced right back!"

"All well and good, but... does that mean you can't control this magic? Doesn't that frighten you?" Antimony asked, looking past the moral of the story to the functional utility. "What if the Elements use this bond to act against your interests? Your description sounds rather vague, as if these weapons have a will of their own."

"They aren't a danger," Twilight assured her. "Like I said, they seem to respond to positive thoughts. Virtues, if you will. I don't think we could empower our vices if we tried. Besides," she added, seeing Antimony about to inquire further. "The Elements of Harmony are something we would only use in case of an emergency and..."

Twilight paused, just then, and realized the question behind the question.

"You're worried Rarity will try and use the Element of Generosity against you?" she guessed.

The noblemare concealed her response with a sip of dry wine.

"Yes," she finally admitted. "Not just that she would use the Element, but that I may damage it somehow if I act in my defense. The Elements of Harmony are essential to the defense of the nation."

"That would be cheating, though, wouldn't it?" Spike asked, speaking up for the first time since he introduced himself, three courses ago. "Rarity," he assured the Baroness. "Would never cheat."

With practiced ease Antimony dipped her head to the side. "My apologies if my worry prompted offense."

"I guess it only makes sense you'd consider the possibility," Twilight reasoned. "But I give you my word, the Elements won't leave my - oh!" She abruptly muffled herself with a hoof.

"It seems I have put you in an uncomfortable spot," Antimony commented with a chuckle. "Rest assured, I have no interest in the Elements of Harmony. They are bonded to you and your friends and they are valuable weapons against unknown threats. I would protect them with my life."

"But you'll fight Rarity for Prince Blueblood?" Spike asked, balancing a small red gem in his palm.

"Surely you are not suggesting that it is endangering the country itself to, what? Keep her from wiggling into bed with that - with our beloved Prince?" Antimony's voice betrayed just a little of her frustration, as did her near slip of tongue. "It is for the good of Equestria, and for the good of the Terre Rare family, that I pursue this engagement with force and vigor. Rest assured that it brings me no personal pleasure to earn anypony's enmity."

"Have you even met Blueblood?" Twilight asked, but quickly corrected herself. "His Grace, Prince Blueblood, I mean."

"I have had the pleasure of his company at previous functions," Lady Antimony replied, but carefully studied her response. "He is fair, and... 'charming.' I have long anticipated the reunion of our two Houses and my time as his wife and Duchess."

"But-"

"Twilight, surely you are aware of the root of the verb 'wed' are you not?"

Twilight glanced down at her food: sometimes an encyclopedic knowledge didn't help one's case. "It comes from the Old Equestrian, meaning to pledge or bind. It also refers to the transfer of goods or property involved in dowry."

"Exactly," Antimony replied with a single nod. "It is your friend who wishes to make this into a confrontation. For me, this is a contract between families that must be honored. I believe you understand this, but find it at odds with your loyalty to this Rarity."

Twilight knew she'd been read like a book, but still persisted.

"If we could all just talk things through..."

"Please," the older mare remarked, shaking her head and trying to steer the topic away. "If you insist on speaking of stallions, let us not discuss that one or the situation he is the cause of. Instead, I would ask if you or your parents have made arrangements for yourself yet, Twilight Sparkle? I know several eligible and delightful stallions of title and worth that-"

"You're wasting your time," Spike interrupted, crunching a ruby between his teeth like a piece of candy. "Twilight's ideal boyfriend is a giant checklist. Probably full of chores."

"Spike!"

Spitfire collapsed into the soft, forgiving weight of the wild cloud, letting the moisture wash over her face. It was one of the benefits of wild clouds: they were both solid enough to hold up a pegasus and yielding enough to soak those that knew how to handle them. It was refreshing little respite, however brief, from her current mission - a mission looking very much like a failure.

Nothing.

There was no sign of the Princess Hesperus anywhere.

The Prince's ship had disappeared in the north of the country. There were very specific flight paths for large airships in Equestria, and if the Prince had left Crown Roc as Captain Thunderhead suggested, then his ship should have been within a relatively small space of a hundred square kilometers. Vice-Captain Raging Storm herself had headed up the search. Officially the mission was still filed as an 'escort.' Squad Two and Squad Three were supposed to rendezvous with the Princess Hesperus as it entered the populated parts of the country between snowy Stalliongrad and more northerly Mos-Cow, perform a few celebratory maneuvers, and then take up security.

It was the other side of the Wonderbolts. They were a display troupe for aerial maneuvers, but they were first and foremost still a military unit on secondment from Cloudsdale's Territorial Air Guard. They had few ceremonial duties outside that great cloud city but the big-wings often sent them on missions where color guards would raise suspicion. The pretense of practicing maneuvers or putting on a show was something most uniformed pegasi could not take ample advantage of.

The free-range cloud beneath Spitfire shook with added weight, and she looked up to see Soarin standing close by. He ducked his head to check on her, but silently motioned for her to get back up. Groaning, she forced herself back onto her hooves, shaking clinging moisture out of her fiery, golden mane. If Soarin was here, that meant -

"WONDERBOLTS! ASSEMBLE!"

Spitfire sighed in time with her partner as the two shot straight up and into a lazy arc.

Nopony had a voice like Raging Storm. Within seconds, Spitfire saw other streaks curving across the wild sky, all a solid blue plus one other distinct color, from red-on-blue to silver-on-blue to neon green. All were answering the call of their vice-captain, a normally nondescript looking mare with a spiky blond mane cut shorter than Soarin's own unruly frill. For unknown reasons, their esteemed senior Wonderbolt had taken to the idea of covering her blue body jacket with cloudy stars instead of lightning bolts. The result was jarring, but the stubborn pony never hesitated to defend her choice in style. Never quietly, either.

"Unit One!" She roared at full blast. "REPORT!"

"Nothing in my sector, vice-captain!" Zip Line replied, the silver-maned mare trying in vain to raise her voice to anything near Storm's preferred ear-splitting decibel.

"Nothing in my sector either, vice-captain!" came the refrain all down the line. Spitfire and Soarin chorused their response, wings fluttering to keep them in a hover as they shouted their lungs out.

For just a moment, it was silent, and everypony's ears began to relax.

"Un-acceptable!" Raging Storm suddenly yelled, somehow directing her voice at all three of them. "Continue your search pattern! Radius twenty kilometers! If it is out there I want it found!"

Spitfire blinked, and the angry vice-captain was nose to nose with Soarin, staring into his wide eyes.

"Well, I'll bed a donkey! Our resident comedian is grinning!" she blared, her voice powerful enough to flatten his ears and blow back his mane. "Well, kid, you find something funny about us being out here?"

"No, Vice-Captain!"

"Oh! I see! You think this is a waste of your time, huh, precious?!"

"No, Vice-Captain!"

"I bet you'd rather be painting your hooves and playing with your dick, isn't that right?"

"No, Vice-Captain!"

"How many hooves am I pointing in your face, cadet?"

"One hoof, Vice-Captain!"

"So you CAN see! AND count! In-bucking-credible! Now wipe that smirk off your face before I do it for you!" Raging Storm was quick to zip back to where she had been flying before, in a literal streak of blonde, blue and red light. "You five DO know what we're looking for, don't you?"

"Yes, Vice-Captain!" all five yelled.

"This is a Celestia damned zeppelin!" Raging Storm explained it anyway, waving her hooves out wide to demonstrate. "A hundred star-damned pony lengths long! Maybe if it were a PIE onboard you'd have found it already, Soarin? Isn't that right, you out of shape sorry excuse for a stallion? You think I didn't catch you dawdling around?"

"Sorry for dawdling, Vice-Captain!" Soarin replied with his standard goofy grin, the same one that always pissed Raging Storm off, and the same one that always prompted her to pick on him. Though to hear him say it, it was just motherly affection and empty nest syndrome. "I'll do better next time, Vice-Captain!"

"Vice-Captain!" Spitfire spoke up, as soon as her partner finished. "Is it true there are griffins about, Vice-Captain?"

"If there are, and I am neither confirming nor denying that there are bloodthirsty, pony eating savages in these mountains, you are to follow standard operating procedure! You are to follow this procedure even if one of said griffins is nibbling on your leg and you have to limp back in to report, dragging the beast along for the ride. I want colors. Clan markings. Tail banners! Not every griffin is allied with Equestria!"

"Yes, Vice-Captain!" all five Wonderbolts barked as one.

"Then get to it, Wonderbolts!" Raging Storm raged, her turquoise eyes narrowing behind her goggles. "Rendezvous at cloud twelve and give me those twenty kilometers! Go Go GO!"

"Consider it done, Vice-Captain!" Soarin screamed and zipped off. He was followed, moments later, by his squadmates, Spitfire included. The mare, taking the rear, could've sworn she heard Raging Storm mutter something about some 'spunky little brat.' Knowing how weird the Vice-Captain and captain were, they would develop a liking for fellow oddballs. Maybe the key to Wonderbolt promotion was to be as bizarre as they were in some way?

Ah well, the job description never said any of them had to be normal. Just that they had to be the best.

There was no time to talk to any of the others as they flew. Within seconds they were at cloud twelve and then they broke formation, each one heading out like spokes in a wheel. Spitfire couldn't help but hope that at least one of the squads were having some luck. While she didn't know the Duke of Canterlot very well (in fact, she hadn't met him at all before the Grand Galloping Gala) he seemed like a fun guy. One time she and Soarin had run into him in Canterlot and they'd even dressed down and hit a bar, all while avoiding his Royal Guard escorts. It had been a fun night, though he'd sworn them into secrecy about it later.

Where could he have gone?

Captain Thunderhead had sounded sure that the Duke had left Crown Roc two days ago. Where his information came from, Spitfire couldn't begin to guess. The weather north of Equestria was too wild to reach top cruising speeds for airships, but he had to be close by. Hadn't there been Royal Guards with him, too? There were always a few rebellious and potentially hostile griffin tribes around, but none of them were crazy enough to attack a well guarded airship.

Spitfire sighed and circled as she guessed at her distance from cloud twelve. It was largely based on personal intuition and spatial recognition. An experienced flier got a "feel" for different speeds and could use that to calculate distance as long as they accurately kept track of time.

Below her, the dense hilly forest seemed to stretch on from horizon to horizon, constrained only by the more rugged peaks to the north. Passing over a rise, she caught sight of something artificial - gold and silver and blue - over the edge of the forest. Angling her body and wings, the Wonderbolt spread them wide to slow into a slower banking curve.

"Oh no..." she could only whisper.

Peeking out from where it was impaled by the forest's tall, thick trees:

Wreckage.

Rarity kicked off the covers of her bed, shifting uneasily before leaving the embrace of the sheets entirely. It was a dark night, bathed only in the glow of a quarter moon, but it wasn't the lack of light or the dim stars that left her feeling restless. Glaring angrily at her normally comfortable and normally neatly made bed, she now saw tangled blankets and tossed pillows.

A little bit of magic fixed the covers and smoothed out the sheets, and satisfied by the look of it, Rarity took another try slipping into bed. Inching herself into the layered warmth, she sighed into her pillow and tried to relax. Twilight had told her to get plenty of sleep; tomorrow was the day. No more foalish training. Tomorrow she faced Antimony in an honorable and proper magical duel. For love. For the good of Canterlot and Ponyville. Everypony, even if they didn't know it, was counting on her.

She just... needed to get some sleep.

Why was it so hard to just go to sleep? The covers had to be too hot or too tight, perhaps. She loosened them up a little to get more air in; to breathe. From lying on her back Rarity switched to lying on her side, legs splayed out at first and then legs tucked in. Neither helped. Desperate, she tried flipping her pillow upside down, momentarily reveling in the cool side of the pillow... before it warmed, and her situation went back to what it had been a minute ago.

Why? Why couldn't she just fall asleep? Was it too early?

Was it because she wanted to be out on the town or to see the outdoor play Ponyville's newest and most gracious noblemare had sponsored, all the way from her home? Hardly. Antimony was just pandering to ponies, buying their goodwill with shows and appearances and sweet words. Rarity curled up and crushed her eyes closed. Her bed had always been big and soft and inviting, but now it felt empty. She was doing this for love, after all: putting her life and her livelihood on the line. Now, the night before it all came to a head, she had to spend it alone? It seemed so unfair.

Rolling over again, she stared out the open window - the same window her friends had taken to bursting through to help her in one way or another. She remembered seeing Fluttershy, just the other day, hanging on the edge as Rainbow Dash blew on that accursed training whistle of hers. Her eyes drifted to the door where her friends had eavesdropped on her conversation with Lady Antimony, bursting in to her defense when the noblemare's cruel words had left her momentarily stunned. They would all be there tomorrow, but one pony she wished to see... wouldn't.

Flat on her back, Rarity sighed, all but giving up on sleep for the night.

Was it - was it fear?

Was she afraid of tomorrow? Afraid of Lady Antimony?

Closing her eyes, Rarity could vividly recall those illusionary eyes, hypnotic and churning, together with the panic they had caused. Perhaps even without meaning to, the noblemare had demonstrated her superiority in a field of magic Rarity had considered herself at least skilled in. It was like meeting a dressmaker not just with twice her skill, but ten times her ability.

"When an enemy can not tell where their reality ends and my reality begins... it becomes clear in their eyes. First confusion. Then fear. Then panic... and finally, anguish. Or as I prefer to call it: understanding."

It was... silly.

She had faced Discord himself, a spirit of disharmony from ancient times. She had faced an enraged red dragon in his own lair. She had kicked a manticore square in the toothy snout. How could this one mortal pony elicit more consternation - not fear, surely - than even a rampaging hydra? Especially since she was convinced Antimony, no matter her own ill wishes, would not kill another pony. All the noble unicorn would do was take away the stallion she loved, humiliate her, and strip her of her shop, her work and her pride. If nothing else, she would be left with her life. Why? Why couldn't she sleep?

"Generosity. Let me see you sweat."

Was this... was she still in an illusion?!

Panic began to well up from within. If it as an illusion, could she even tell? Was she still in that classroom, head on her desk, drooling and lost in a manufactured dreamworld? Was that why she couldn't get to sleep? Because one couldn't sleep when one was already in a dream?!

"Rarity?"

Sitting upright, her breath caught between her lips, the Element of Generosity noticed a familiar silhouette against the crack of her partly open bedroom door. The panic from before ebbed and she sighed as Sweetie Belle entered, looking around with wide green eyes. With a bit of magic, Rarity lit up one of the lamps on her dresser. Foalish - she was being foalish, letting her fear get the better of her. There would be plenty of time for panic tomorrow, but not tonight.

"I couldn't sleep," Sweetie said, and propped herself up on the side of the bed. "Can I sleep here tonight?"

"Of course you can," Rarity replied, and smiled as her sister jumped onto the bed. She leaned in close to whisper, "You know, I was having trouble falling asleep, too, so you aren't the only one."

Sweetie, not the neatest of little ponies, dove under the covers and made herself comfortable. At least she didn't dive bomb into them like a certain friend from a certain farm, but Rarity obliged her to make a little mess of the sheets. It wasn't like she was doing any better or worse herself tonight. Turning around, feeling the warmth of her family behind her back, Rarity found herself a little grateful Sweetie had slept over instead of spending the night with their parents.

"Hey, Rarity?"

So: she wasn't asleep yet.

"Yes?"

"You aren't still mad at me, are you? Because of the letters I took?"

"I'd mostly forgotten about it until now," Rarity joked, laughing and feeling Sweetie chuckle, too. Then she tugged on the covers, and the older sister of the pair had to tug back to keep them from all bunching up on the left side of the bed. Honestly!

"Sorry," Sweetie apologized, and the covers went a little slack.

Rarity buried her nose into her pillow. "You're forgiven."

"Good night."

"Good night, Sweetie. Sleep tight."

Tomorrow.

She would worry about it tomorrow. Rarity closed her eyes and slept.

"Your company this evening was most welcome, Twilight Sparkle. It would be a pleasure to repeat this outing at a later date."

"Yours as well, Lady Antimony."

The two unicorns, separated by different branches of the same family tree, bowed in polite farewell. The older of the pair, the Baroness of Mareseilles, had a dark brown traveling cloak levitated just over her shoulders and saddle. Twilight in contrast bore only the weight of a sleeping baby dragon. Spike had fallen asleep near the end of the theater troupe's rendition of Don Pasquale. Despite both a unicorn providing subtitles in real time and a printed out playbill for the outdoor audience, all the speaking roles had been in Cavalian and had followed a very filling meal for dinner. Many of the younger members of Ponyville in attendance had not made it to the last fifteen minutes of the comedy.

"You are sure it isn't an imposition...?" Twilight began to ask, for the second time.

"No. Not at all. In fact, you may be better acquainted with my husband than I am. I can not imagine he would take offense at my letting you into our library," Antimony replied as she donned her cloak and motioned to her ever-present bodyguard, Gewitter. The huge pegasus mare grunted, donning a similar cloak over her uniform.

Gewitter was, Twilight had noted, one of several guards to have taken up residence in Blueblood's half-complete villa outside Ponyville. Their number was made up of pegasi and unicorns, all dressed in similar red and gold military dolmans. Only Gewitter seemed ready to accompany their mistress to her forthcoming duel. The others were stationed around the house, and likely on the roof or around the manor's sprawling back acres.

"Thank you again," Twilight said, inclining her head.

Antimony made as if to leave, approaching the door outside, only to pause.

"Not to pry," she remarked, glancing back over her shoulder at the other mare. "But why is it you wish to make use of the library here?"

"Oh. That's easy enough to answer!" Twilight assured her with a happy grin. "I need to check a few references on pre-classical and classical spellwork. Specifically the structure and organization of Reinmare Star Fields, the nature and disposition of magical amplification via low density inorganic solids, oh, and I need to double check the elastic theory of aether propagation as a result of both invocation and convocation."

For a moment, the sheer technical density of Twilight's words baffled her fellow unicorn and magic user. Antimony shook her head in much the same way most of Twilights friends and acquaintances did after hearing a few sentences of technomagical babble. Muttering a soft "very well," the Baroness started on her way... only to pause once more.

"Aether propagation?" she inquired, but didn't turn around. "And Reinmare Fields?"

"Yes! Aether propagation! Talk about obscure, right? Do you know anything about it? I found the most interesting artifact the other day!" Twilight gushed, taking a moment to shift the weight of her assistant slightly. Just enough so she could raise a hoof and make a few gestures.

"A torc of all things!" she went on. "Coltic in style. I thought it was inert, but after Rarity found out how to fix it I discovered a latent spell matrix still within the internal field. All the spells that fizzled before suddenly started identifying new things! I can't wait to tell the Princess about it!"

For some reason, Antimony tensed, one hoof scraping against the floor.

"How... interesting," she slowly and carefully replied. "That you would come into possession of such a thing. You have not worn it, have you?"

"Oh no! Not until I know what it does and how it does it!" Twilight assured her. "Rule fifty seven. Always know what an artifact does before you use it."

"You own this torc?" Antimony asked, slowly, still with her back to her distant cousin.

"Ah... actually, no. A friend of mine, Lyra - you might know her as Miss Heartstrings?" Twilight asked, and Antimony did glance back at her finally, as if to check for the truth in her words. "It's technically hers."

"I see," the Baroness replied, and reached for the door. "Good luck with your studies, Twilight Sparkle."

She had just turned the knob, when a pink blur exploded out of the entryway.

"HI!"

"Holy stars!" The noblemare reared up and fell flat on her backside. "Pinkie Pie?"

"That's me - umh!" The party pony, appearing literally out of nowhere, was in turn quickly caught in a restraining hold by Gewitter, the pegasus already growling at the hyperactive pink hassle. Twilight almost felt sorry for any royal guard or otherwise that tried to get between Pinkie and one of her new friends. There wasn't a security system in Ponyville Pinkie couldn't casually breach, sometimes stealthily, sometimes by tripping it everywhere at once.

"How did - how did you get here?" Antimony gasped, trying to compose herself as she fell forward back onto her hooves.

"Well that's a funny question," Pinkie replied, squirming in Gewitter's hooves. "I opened the door!"

"How did you come to this door?" Antimony asked, pointing at the villa's gilded entryway.

"I opened another door, walked around a little, then opened this door!" Pinkie explained, her back legs kicking as Gewitter held her in place. "Come on! Lemme go!"

"Release her, Gewitter. Pinkie is no threat." Antimony hesitated a second, and muttered, "Probably no threat."

"You're leaving already?" Pinkie asked, falling onto all fours. She then pointed to the traveling cloaks Antimony and her servant wore.

"I must be at the castle by dawn," the noblemare replied. "I have received a rather specific summons."

She nodded to Twilight Sparkle a second time and left the manor house. Not surprisingly, Pinkie followed close behind, hopping up and down and still full of energy despite the late hour. Outside, her destination beckoned: a parked chariot with decorative wheels, axle and an ornamental yoke pole fashioned in the likeness of arched, intricate vines. The sides were high but without a permanently affixed top to guard against the sun or rain.

It rested close by a fountain statue of a rearing unicorn, twin scrolls in her forehooves representing wisdom and power, respectively. The unicorn herself was mythological: the primordial pony, "Lady Victory," supposedly crafted by the gods from dust, water, air, and a drop of divine blood. Those who observed the statue closely could see a small third eye beneath her horn, representing enlightenment in harmony with magic.

"Oh! You're flying to the castle!" Pinkie guessed, seeing the pair of pegasi fixed to the chariot's yoke.

"Did you expect I would slog through that wilderness?" Antimony asked and huffed. "I think not."

"You should be careful anyway," Pinkie warned, still hopping around the Baroness, utterly carefree. She only stopped when Antimony mounted the chariot's seat.

"It would be convenient if something were to happen to me before the duel, would it not?" she wondered, only to draw back at seeing Pinkie's smile fade.

"You think that's what I meant?" the earth pony asked, sounding saddened by the thought.

"Lady Rarity is your close friend," Antimony replied, holding up a hoof for Gewitter to wait at the reins. "I would not begrudge you if you held such thoughts."

Pinkie Pie shook her head, vigorously enough that her cotton candy-like mane became a blur.

"I meant what I said!" she declared, stomping a hoof. "Be careful on the way to the castle. After the duel, you know, you're invited to the party, too!"

"Oh? You are that confident your friend will beat me?"

Pinkie shrugged. "Nope! But whoever loses, I want to be right there to cheer her up!"

Antimony blinked and shook her head, far more confounded by Pinkie's strange outlook and approach to life than any of Twilight's technobabble. "And you came all the way here just to say that?"

"And to ask you why you didn't return one of these!" Pinkie ducked her nose into her tail, rummaged around for a moment - whipping out a rubber chicken, a Neighponese hoof trap, and what looked like a piece of sponge cake - before finally producing a small piece of pink paper. Floating it out of her mouth, Antimony took a moment to stare at the invitation.

"Is this... a joke?" The corner of her mouth curled up a bit. "How rich! What are these - these pretzel wings? What is this 'tailgate' party?"

"Check the box for hot dogs," Pinkie insisted, leaning over to whisper. "Nopony seems to be asking for hot dogs. They're good. Trust me."

"Very well. I do not see how it can do harm." Antimony levitated a mysteriously produced quill pen held between Pinkie's teeth. Checking the box required, she handed the list back.

"WHO-HO!" Pinkie cheered, somehow tucking both invitation and pen back into the folds of her puffy pink tail. "Finally, somepony to eat hot dogs with!"

"I pray your good mood remains infectious, and I trust I will see you and Rarity tomorrow at the appointed hour." Antimony, unable to resist an amused chuckle, motioned for Gewitter to get them on their way. Cracking the reins, the pair of pegasi stallions spread their wings in preparation for take off.

"This so called tailgate party," Antimony inquired, just before they left the ground. "It is a private affair, is it not?"

"Very private!" Pinkie promised, yelling up at the chariot as it circled and took to the air.

"P- P- Pinkie Pie! Just what is all this?!"

"Can't you tell? It's a party!"

Rarity stared, lost for words.

Dozens of ponies were in colorful masks, many of them wearing decorative unicorn horns in place of hats, dancing and enjoying the free food before the long trek through Everfree to the supposedly Forbidden Castle. Music blared from the back of a cart where an enchanted gramophone record player had been set up. Tables full of morning treats and lemonade were set up next to another food cart, run - of course - by the Apple clan. No doubt it would fall to Big Macintosh to haul the overladen thing through the forest to the castle.

But - but this whole enterprise -

"How?" Rarity finally rediscovered her voice. "However did you manage this?"

Her question, sadly, was directed at empty space.

Pinkie Pie had already moved on, bouncing from place to place to encourage everypony to wear one of the masks provided. In all honesty, when she had joked about Pinkie turning her honor duel into a spectacle, she had been exaggerating. Clearly the very act of exaggeration was a mistake when it came to Pinkamina Diane Pie. She must've taken sarcasm for challenge.

"Come on, Bon-Bon! Put it on! Foam hands rule!"

"NO!"

"This is..." Rarity muttered under her breath, watching the eccentric pair of room-mates argue over a strange foam hand with a 'R' on it. "I don't even know where to begin..."

Rarity found solace and refuge in one of her dearest, oldest, and most stable of friends. Good luck and a sharp eye helped her find Fluttershy by one of the mask stands, looking back and forth in indecision. Unfortunately, along the way she ended up bumping into or passing by a dozen different acquaintances from around town all wishing her luck. The sentiment was welcome, but this level of attention was simply... unheard of. It had to be improper! Duels were meant to be quiet, private affairs!

As she approached, Fluttershy finally buckled under and picked one of the glittery white masks. Putting it on, she turned around just in time to 'eep' and take halfway to the air. To Rarity's surprise, Fluttershy's mask had exaggerated black lashes and oval eyes and a pearl white horn. It could only be, she realized, a mask of her.

"Oh, um. Hello Rarity. I hope you don't mind. I mean. This." She reached up to remove the mask, but Rarity gently stopped her.

"It's actually flattering," she assured her friend, though it was a bit of a little white lie. "I don't mind."

"Hey. Rarity," a whisper prompted her to turn around-

And jump in surprise as a pale unicorn mask with red glittery eyes stared at her.

"WA-ahahaha!" A rainbow colored tail swooshed through the air as it's owner laughed, hooves holding her sides as she flew in tight little loops. Catching her breath, Rarity glared up at her other pegasus friend and fellow Element of Harmony. Apparently part of said element of loyalty involved pranking and testing pony's patience.

"That wasn't very nice," Fluttershy observed.

"Aw, come on! I have red eyes, so I think this Antimony mask fits me pretty well!" Dash leveled out in the air and added, "I hope you totally kick her flank, Rarity! I just think the mask is cool. Hey, Fluttershy, you psyched up for those hot pretzel wings later? We totally gotta get Twilight to try some!"

"I don't want her to get a tummy ache," the ground based pegasus argued.

"That's the whole point!"

"Plain pretzels are fine..."

"Fluttershy, I love you, but you're terrible when it comes to putting peer pressure on, like, anypony."

"That's true, I am."

"Well, look who finally got up!" Applejack came up from behind to give Rarity a friendly nudge. "This is the big day, sugarcube! You get yer beauty sleep?"

"I did, for what it's worth," she replied, accepting a platter overflowing with country style scrambled eggs and apple slices. Her friends really did know her too well. "Thank you so much. What do I owe you?"

"On the house," Applejack insisted. "We're gonna make a pretty penny caterin' this here duel thing."

"That reminds me. These events are not really meant to be, well..." Rarity looked around, a little guiltily. "You are all my dear friends, so an exception would be made, but-"

"But what?" Dash asked, flying a bit closer.

"You must not be aware of this, but magical duels are traditionally held by unicorns and only in front of other unicorns," she explained.

The earth pony and pair of pegasi were silent for a long second.

"Good thing we've got these masks then!" Dash realized with a grin.

"Oh yes. I see why we're supposed to wear them now."

"Ah was thinkin' ah gettin' a Twilight one. Too many ponies around here wearin' Trixie masks."

"Yeah, since when did she get so darn popular?"

"What's wrong with a Trixie mask?" The last member of their group finally appeared, lavender beneath and behind her baby blue mask. Twilight looked from one friend to another and finally shrugged.

"I just think it's ironic," she explained, explaining her choice in mask. Though technically she didn't need one. Pointing at the other true unicorn present, she quickly asked, "So, ready for your last bit of training?"

"More training?" Rarity gasped, aghast. "I have a duel at sunset!"

"Which means plenty of time to get some last second training in!" Twilight leaned in, looking a little menacing behind her Trixie mask. "You should take my advice. Anything you can do I can do better. You don't want to end up with another bright green mane, do you?"

"Sweet Celestia, no," Rarity said, and laughed along with her friends. Really, at this point, 'fighting' Trixie would be a welcome relief.

"So what potentially humiliating training am I to undergo this time?" Rarity asked, standing up on her hind legs. "Walking on stilts while casting magic, perhaps?"

"That's not a bad idea!" Twilight realized, floating out a notepad to write it down. "Maybe later."

"...please don't."

"For now," she answered, and her magic levitated out six small tennis balls, each with a glow to it in a different color. One was bright purple, another blue, another pink, another gold... it didn't take long for the pattern to set in. One was even a colorless white.

"Tennis balls," Rarity observed as the balls floated around her. "I am growing a little tired of tennis balls."

"Good!" Twilight declared. "Today, you're going to lead us through the forest to the castle. And by 'us' I mean everypony here."

"Let me guess the rest," Rarity said, already seeing the tennis balls float over to her friends, color coded for their convenience. "Along the way, you're going to throw these balls at me."

"You have to catch or dodge each one before it hits you," Twilight finished, nodding as Rarity's spot-on guess. "But here's the catch. You can't look at who you're returning it to. You need to tell just by the color of the ball and the trajectory it follows."

"Also!" Pinkie Pie added in, appearing out of thin air. "I'm pretty sure that if we get there late, you lose by default."

"Wonderful!" Rarity sighed... but then noticed the white ball.

If she had to return the colored tennis balls to her friends, then what was this one for? Then again, knowing Twilight, and getting a sense for Twilight's mentor, maybe the answer was obvious.

"Perhaps," she realized, smirking evilly. "This will be more fun than I thought."

"Time Keeper."

"Shady Deal."

The two stallions pulled aside from the festivities just as the trek through the Everfree finally got underway. Finding a little distance and privacy among the slightly thinned throng of reveling, partying ponies, Shady Deal also took a moment to adjust the white unicorn stallion mask over his face. His compatriot with the hourglass cutie mark had a nearly identical mask, but blackish blue in color.

"Pinkie sure knows how to overdo it, doesn't she?" Shady asked with a chuckle.

"I believe Pierce would say, if he were here: overdoing it is her specialty. Still, I'd wager a crowd like this is unexpected."

"But you've noticed our escorts?"

The brown coated earth pony stallion nodded very slowly. "I have."

"And?" Shady prompted.

He motioned his head subtly towards one of the guardponies helping chaperon Pinkie's Party Parade through the forest. The Everfree was still dangerous, even for a large group of ponies. The Mayor, or even Pinkie herself, had helped ease ponies worries about monster attack by asking for outside assistance. These were no royal guards purloined from Canterlot's Grand Palace. They weren't even locals.

Instead, the party had a retinue of Lady Antimony's hussar guard watching the forest for danger. The ponies, sometimes in the trees, sometimes on ground level, all wore the distinct burgundy-red uniform of the Two Rivers Guard. A few Ponyville residents had attempted to talk with them earlier, but now they were left to their business of keeping any potential threats away from the townsfolk.

"I have identified twelve individual members of the guard," Time Keeper replied, trotting casually alongside his merchant comrade. "The only one missing is the Baroness' personal bodyguard. That one is a hard read."

"But you're sure they're all 'ere?" Shady asked, eyes following one of the pegasus hussars as she flew overhead.

"I am always sure," Time Keeper replied in a dour tone. "Though dressed identically, their faces and body types have been committed to memory. I would know them even if disguised. Six mares; six stallions. Two captains, one with a small scar on her left lip, the other a stallion with a slight overbite. The former light blue eyes, the latter teal, one at the front of the group the other at the rear. Need I go on, Shady Deal?"

"No. Quite alright." The pegasus stopped him. "Celestia's flank, I almost forgot how creepy you are with that."

Time Keeper chuckled behind his dark mask. "It keeps the mind occupied. That is all."

"Sure it does." Shady hopped a few steps as he brought a hoof to his chin. "So none of them are being left behind in Ponyville?"

"Not unless the Baroness has called in reinforcements overnight," Keeper answered. "I can not account for ponies I have not met."

"Things in Ponyville are getting a little too hot for me," Shady grumbled, unhappy.

"If Lady Antimony wins today, these red coated fellows are something you'll have to get used to," Time Keeper said, not sounding too worried. "We'll all simply have to adapt."

"Yes, well, that's easy to say. Some of us 'ave benefited from all the guards in the province sticking to Canterlot and the major roads." Shady then added, in a low whisper, "Do you know what they do to smugglers in Prance? I'd rather not end up in a state run mine after running clandestine errands for the old lady."

"I'm sure she'd arrange for one of us to bail you out," Time Keeper assured his friend, a small smirk on his face. "Eventually."

"Blasted Bluebloods," Shady growled under his breath.

"The situation is as it is. There is no point bemoaning it."

"Do you think Antimony will win?" Shady finally asked, the two falling quiet as another pegasus hussar cruised past, her green eyes scanning the noisy crowd. They were a mile or so into the forest now, but a pony could hardly note the gloom of Everfree with the music playing from two pulled carts and everypony hopping along while chatting and eating snacks. At the front of the would-be parade, the six mares of harmony were tossing colored, glowing balls back and forth. The streaks of light could be seen even from the back of the line.

"Do we know anything about our girl's chances?" Shady asked again, still keeping his voice low.

Time Keeper was silent for a moment, waiting for any and all potential listeners to disperse.

"By any rational analysis," Keeper eventually replied. "Lady Rarity's chances are, statistically... near zero."

Shady Deal whistled, very quietly. "That bad, eh?"

Again, his earth pony friend waited a few seconds before speaking.

"Very little is known of Baroness Antimony's dueling style," he admitted. "Even to me. It is publicly known that she is a master of Il Fior and very likely also accomplished in both Posta Longa and Di Bicornio. She likely began training at the age of three or four. While records of duels are not officially kept, I would estimate that she has defeated over a dozen other unicorns in as many years across the length and breath of Equestria. I do not believe, in all that time, that she has ever been defeated. Not even once."

"So, what?" Shady asked, his frown deepening at Rarity's prospects. "She's some kinda Rainbow Dash of duelists?"

"Only in the sense that both are highly skilled in their respective forms of competition." Time Keeper explained, "Many of these duels were likely to cement her position as most suited to wed our Prince and become Grand Duchess. As you can imagine, the position is highly coveted among our country's noblemares. Only one may wear The Platinum Crown of Canterlot, so bequeathed by the Princess herself."

Shady shook his head. Unicorns. Crazy.

"Near zero?" he repeated. "That bad?"

Time Keeper walked in silence, and the two stallions jumped as one over a large root.

"Two years ago," the earth pony replied. "Lady Antimony had a duel with Lady Sand Dune."

"Desert Flower's daughter?" Shady knew that name and that pony. Sand Dune was a pretty little thing: peach colored coat, blue mane, ocean-spray eyes. Very pretty mare. He did a lot of business in Mareabia and Bitaly where the two families were entwined in blood and trade so he knew her by looks and reputation. Many considered the heiress of Mareabia to be the most beautiful pony in all of southern Equestria.

"You are aware of the magic Sand Dune commands, are you not?"

Shady shrugged. "I know what she looks like and I know who to bribe to slip things out of the province."

"A thousand years ago, Lady Sand Dune's family repaired the First Hourglass," Time Keeper said with a look that implied his friend really should have brushed up on his history. "The one brought over from the Old Kingdom. The one damaged by Star Caller. They still keep it. They still keep time with it."

"That kind of magic?" Shady realized and shuddered. Old Magic. Creepy stuff.

"No different than the honor of moving sun and moon," Time Keeper admonished him. "Unlike the Terre Rare, the family lands of the Quartz Clan are full of moles. Information is easily obtained. Lady Sand Dune was a master of her family's magical arts, the most talented in generations. As you have no doubt noticed by the road tolls you avoided when you traveled there, her family is attempting to bolster their finances and keep up with the Terre Rares. I only assume that part of their overall play for power involved having their daughter humble Lord Cruciger's heir. An incident was manufactured and a pretext made for a duel."

"But she lost," Shady Deal guessed, and Time Keeper nodded.

"Neither mare was seen for over a month." Behind his black unicorn mask, the punctual earth pony smiled. "As I said: Lady Sand Dune's mastery over her family's unique magical domain is something to behold. She is said to have once kept an entire burning building frozen in time."

What more needed to be said?

It was hard to believe a pretty little mare like Sand Dune could be capable of such a feat, but such were the unique powers of the greatest of unicorn clans... and among those few elite noble families the Terre Rare stood highest. Lady Antimony was their heiress and representative. She had beaten a pony who could control time. What chance did a dressmaker from Ponyville have?

"If Miss Rarity loses..."

"Then this land will fall into Cruciger's hooves... but we will continue to watch over the Elements of Harmony," Time Keeper informed him, adding a glare for good measure. "We will both do as we must, no matter the circumstances."

Deal hung his head low in disgust. "Damn it. What about the - the Princesses?"

Time Keeper chuckled. "That's a good question."

"You must understand, I'm not normally such a violent pony."

Teleportation, Blueblood had learned, was quite useful. Difficult, since it was a category of spellwork that did not come anything near naturally to him, but useful. He had spent the equivalent of several months back in the Gala loops learning to refine his teleportation spells. Back then it had been a necessary means to achieve his goal of a perfect Gala. He still thought it possible he would be trapped in the loops had he not gone back to school and taught himself this basic albeit often frustratingly difficult skill. He had escaped the loops, but kept the skills: and teleportation was perhaps the most useful of them all.

For example: it made it rather easy to catch one of his treacherous pursuers by surprise. Pegasi, you see - they never expected a unicorn to attack them while flying. A bit of a racial conceit, perhaps? Natural when one group thought themselves masters of all things airborne.

"You just happened to catch me at a very bad time," Blueblood explained, putting more pressure on the back of the downed pegasus' head and driving his face into the dirt. He was one of the Princess Hesperus's compliment of royal guards. Treacherous royal guards, it turned out. Not moments after the confusion of the airship's crash, they had attempted to capture their charge and Prince. It was all terribly dishonorable.

The pegasus guard tried to move to break free, but Blueblood's magic had him by the wings. It was the most effective way to immobilize a pegasus: don't bother grabbing the tail or neck. The wings were very sensitive. Very dangerous, too, if the pony in question knew how to use magic to sharpen them. That, however, was not a problem when one was a unicorn.

A little more pressure, and Blueblood's hoof planted the guard's face into the ground.

"I've actually been called a bit of a dandy, you know?" Blueblood said, his voice just loud enough for the traitor guard to hear. "I recall one paper once wrote that I had 'no profession, interest or talent other than the pursuit of elegance.'"

His hoof pressed down just a little harder.

"Which I think is rather unfair." Casually, the Duke of Canterlot magically lifted the ex-guard by the wings and tossed him against a tree. "It is true, I do enjoy the finer things in life: rich food and good clothes... beautiful mares and elegant surroundings. I do disdain violence, including the sort I am inflicting on you right this moment. However, do not mistake me for a ninny or careless popinjay."

"A mare I care deeply for is in no small amount of danger," he continued, leaning down to look the guard in the eye. "Furthermore, you and your comrades have betrayed your sacred oaths. I'm quite tempted to indulge in that same violence I normally abhor. So: how about you tell me why you sabotaged my ship? And to which upstart noble I should send the bill for its repair?"

"That would be me, I'm afraid."

Blueblood's expression darkened at the voice - unexpected, female, vaguely familiar. Leaving the guard be for the moment, he turned and frowned in the direction of the speaker. He had been expecting to flush out more of the traitorous detachment aboard the Princess Hesperus in this rustic little mountain village. They had followed him, hounded him, for more than twenty hours straight. The only way to make any good time getting to Ponyville wasn't simply to elude them. They needed to be eliminated or incapacitated in entirety.

There was another reason why he had picked this remote village to make a stand. Not far past the quaint brown homes and shops lay a train station. Blueblood intended to either stow aboard or hijack the train to get back to his home province. Predictably, the conspirators had downed his airship on the border of Terre Rare controlled territory. There was no way he intended to take chances by putting faith in that family's small army of red-coated guardponies.

That in mind, he glared at the newcomer.

The voice told him the gender, female, but the pony's size indicated otherwise. Mares were rarely larger than stallions, especially ones his height. A plain white cloak covered her body, concealing her face but bulging where it could not conceal a horn. A sparkling platinum chain dangled around her throat, connecting to leaf-shaped clasps around her shoulders. The cloak and hood were secured there, wrapped tightly and firmly in place. Two other treacherous royal guards flanked her, glaring back at him. Perhaps they were annoyed at having to chase him for the better part of a day and then put up with him ambushing their comrades?

Well! Their comrades should have watched their back. A unicorn could teleport virtually anywhere, and Blueblood was not in the mood to engage in a fair match. It was time to drive that point home. The faint aura around his horn rippled and he teleported, vanishing from sight and reappearing just behind the group. Sparkling tendrils of magic reached out to seize the three -

Only for the trio to vanish in a poof of smoke and light.

"She saw it coming?" Blueblood gasped, and teleported again.

He exited his star field at the apex of the village's schoolhouse, hundreds of yards from where he had ambushed the other guard. Well manicured hooves touched down on the brown-tiled roof, skidding a bit before finding purchase. Blueblood felt a perfectly focused burst of magic send a tingle down his spine and turned, eyes narrowed, to see the cloaked unicorn and her two treacherous guards appear almost in spitting distance.

pop

Displaced dust blasted away from his hooves as he set down on an empty section of dirt road. He was followed, less than a second later, by the trio. One, two, three pinpricks of light expanded into pony shapes. Blueblood tried to get a read on the other unicorn's magic, but couldn't, despite the fact that she had to be reading the direction and magnitude of his own spellwork. She was good. There was no denying it.

She even had the audacity to smirk beneath that hood concealing her face.

This mare was very, very good.

Two more times in quick succession he teleported, pausing on the eave of a clocktower roof. Here, there was room for barely two ponies to stand, side by side. The entire village could be seen stretched out below, including the largest building of all: the train station. Railroad tracks cut through the side of town opposite the river and led all the way south.

Blueblood allowed himself a triumphant grin. What would his pursuer do now? There was no room to follow him with a teleport of her own. Would she reappear into midair? It would be amusing to see the seemingly master teleporter's legs flail around in impotent opposition to gravity. When and if she did so... Blueblood prepared another spell, to counterattack in that one moment of weakness. He really did not like violence, this was true: but to get to Rarity, to protect her from the machinations of the same Terre rare who had killed his father, he was more than willing to dirty his hooves a little.

In a triplicate flash of light, the trio appeared, as expected, in midair.

The two guards, startled but still pegasi, quickly unfolded their wings. The unicorn, though. Her long legs kicked, she began to fall. Blueblood tensed. The cloak flew back from her shoulders as she pitched backward -

Only for two white wings to snap out, arresting her tumble.

The smirk beneath her hood broadened into a wide smile.

"My wings..." she said with a titter. "My wings are so pretty. Don't you think so? Nephew?"

"Starless hells!" Blueblood gasped, and nearly tumbled off the clocktower roof. "A-Auntie?"

Those two majestic wings flapped, bringing her closer. Too shocked to protest, Blueblood could only look up, trying to see her face beneath the white hood. Then she was close enough, and Princess Celestia's magic enveloped him. the wayward Prince felt the familiar tingle of a teleportation spell, and then the village - and his erstwhile plans - vanished in a cloud of smoke.

"She comes."

Half lidded eyes turned to the heavens as night turned to day. Hours before an unexpected party parade left Ponyville for Everfree, as the rays of the sun stretched out over the horizon, Lady Antimony felt the presence of the mare she had been expecting. There were very few who could summon a Baroness at a whim. There were fewer still whose presence pierced the veil between the sky and the eternally dark heavens. The mistress of the World's Moon was approaching.

Next to the Lady, Gewitter tensed, her wings spreading not in excitement but anxiety. It took a moment for her to realize the slip in control and return them to normal. It was as the sun finally ripped free of the distant horizon that it began: a column of chattering, screeching, flocking bats appeared, momentarily turning the sky dark with their combined shadows. A hundred of them swept low; Gewitter closed her eyes and Antimony did the same, letting them pass and feeling the beat of their wings against her body.

Where most of them went after that, she couldn't say.

However, when her eyes opened again, the swarm of flying rodents were already beginning to coalesce at the topmost parapet of the decaying, ancient Everfree castle. Leathery wings merged, melting together into a dark mass, then a dark blue coat, and then an unfurled pair of feathered wings. Cerulean blue eyes opened wide from within the forming body, revealing a head crowned by a long, magnificent horn. A lighter shade of blue detached, ripping free into a mane that glittered and billowed in the passing wind. Finally, the royal regalia manifested: a black crown hooked around and behind the horn, then a thick black torc around the neck and chest, lastly silver horseshoes and slippers over the bare hooves.

"Beautiful..." Antimony's voice was barely a whisper.

Powerful.

So wonderfully powerful.

This was it! The very pinnacle of the pyramid: a power and position shared by only one other.

This was Princess Luna.

The pair bowed low as four hooves, decked in silver, lightly drifted down to the ground of sparse grass and rubble that surrounded the castle. Though Everfree itself was a thick deciduous forest, the craggy plateau that supported the abandoned palace of the Princesses sported only a few trees, shrubs and grasses within the ruins. Nature had done a sub-par job reclaiming the land, despite Everfree's fierce reputation as a refuge of wild and untamed natural processes.

"We remember you," Luna spoke in the plural, but at a thankfully reduced volume.

"Princess." Antimony remained bowed, not yet having been given permission to rise.

"You may rise," Luna said it, at last, ad the noblemare and her bodyguard stood on all fours before the alicorn Princess. "Yes," she repeated. "We recognize your face. From the Stable of Lords."

"You swore your allegiance to us," Luna recalled.

"As did all those of my family," Antimony reminded her in a soft, polite voice. "Our Princess returned to us... I am fortunate to have ruled in such a time as to renew our ancient vows."

"Yet you antagonize one of the six who rescued us from my darkness," Luna admonished, but quickly raised a hoof to forestall protest. "Rest assured, we will not intervene in any way with your duel tonight. Despite it being held on the grounds of our former home."

Antimony bowed her head in respect, holding her tongue.

"We will only observe," Luna promised, looking down on the other mare with curious, analytical eyes. "You are here to make good on the promise given to Lady Arsenic, your great-great grandmother, is that right?"

The Baroness, cautiously eschewing obsequiousness, looked up at her Princess.

"It is so, Highness."

Luna cocked her head to the side. "We have been told that, for two hundred years now, your family has built itself up for this moment."

"That is also so, Highness."

"And now you wish to return, in body and soul, to Canterlot?" the Princess inquired.

"We do," Antimony replied, firmly.

"And what of your Barony?" the alicorn asked, as if she was simply curious. "What of your father's realms, which you will also inherit? Deux Fleuves? Germaney? Whinnychester? Prance? The Western Reaches?"

"We shall administer those as well!" Antimony exclaimed, and swiftly bowed her head.

"Your lands have grown quite rich," Luna admitted. "Perhaps it would be a boon to give you Canterlot as well? Our poor nephew and his forebears have mismanaged these lands. We knew his greatest grandfathers and grandmothers. They were very different than he."

"We-"

"Yet," the Princess continued, butting the Baroness off. "Have you considered that, if not for the circumstances of Lady Arsenic's exile from Canterlot at the hooves of her sister... that you and yours would not exist? More importantly, that your lands would still be divided, their ponies made poorer in your absence?"

"Princess. Highness!" Antimony interrupted her superior, looking up at what could have been mistaken for indignation. "Are we to put aside and forget the injustice of the past; the suffering of our great mother, Arsenic? The indignity of being cast out of Canterlot? The land that was our birthright? Whatever good fortune we enjoy in the present, my family has achieved it in spite of our enemies, not because of them. Insults must be answered in kind. The Bluebloods must...!"

"Must?" Luna prompted, locking eyes with the unicorn mare for just an instant.

"They must... yield," the Baroness choose her words carefully. "And accept us as equals."

Luna's eyes narrowed and she sighed.

"Though not the only reason, we did come here wondering if we could somehow talk you out of this duel," she admitted, slowly trotting past the noblemare and her bodyguard to look out over the Everfree beyond the chasm that separated castle from forest.

"We wondered if you were set on this course simply out of duty or resignation. Perhaps a generous gift of lands or bits to yourself and your father could forestall this confrontation? Perhaps even in exchange for a royal favor. We had thought much on this since hearing news. We see now that we were mistaken. Neither words nor gold nor promises shall deter you from this. We see it in your eyes."

Antimony raised her head and turned to watch the alicorn's back.

"It is why I exist," she stated. "It is even etched into my flesh: my own cutie mark. Terre Rare must return to Canterlot. Terre Rare must rule Canterlot. We will avenge Lady Arsenic and we will serve you and Princess Celestia. We shall serve you better than Prince Blueblood and his family ever could!"

"And in the process, you will make good on that mark on your flank?" Luna wondered, glancing back over her shoulder. "We have seen that in your eyes as well, and we know what you have drawn contract with. Do not forget what aided in our escape, only a year ago."

A little self-consciously, Antimony shifted her cloak so it covered her cutie mark: a star and crown, imposed over a constellation. One of the four Great Constellations that ruled the airless heavens beyond the veil. Looking back, there never had been a doubt what she could do with her life. Father had always known. Despite the endless trials set before her. It had been obvious the moment her parents looked into her eyes.

"There is no pony better able to embrace the great magics of Lady Platinum," Antimony replied, carefully and mindfully closing her eyes. "I have proven it before and I will prove it again. By the end of this year, Blueblood will be my husband and you will see how worthy a servant I can be, Princess."

Luna turned, the swiftness of it not giving Antimony time to bow her head. With the latter's leggy height, the two almost stood eye to eye.

"Yes. I will watch you," Luna whispered, breaking from the royal 'we.' "You should know: I have grown rather fond of my nephew. His misery - and the suffering of the bearer of Generosity - could well earn my enmity. Please remember that, Baroness."

Luna trotted off, momentarily leaving Antimony and Gewitter behind. She didn't notice the former digging the tip of one hoof into the ground in anger. Blueblood. Rarity. Who didn't seem to want to stick their neck out for those two lately? It was baffling. The Prince was a charmless, incompetent buffoon. The Element of Generosity was a stubborn mule of a mare.

However, as long as the Princess held to her word and did not intervene...

Then this 'duel' was a foregone conclusion. Luna, too, would learn to accept the strength and rightness of the Terre Rare. In time. It was why she had held the duel at this ruined castle, after all: to lure out one of the Princesses. Celestia had never once attended a duel as far as any pony knew, so Luna witnessing the defeat of Lady Rarity was just as planned. Not in a hundred years would the dressmaker forget that she had lost, not just in front of her friends, but in front of a Princess.

At last, the crumbling castle came into view.

For the first time since she had begun leading the Ponyville parade through the thick Everfree forest, Rarity hesitated and nearly stumbled. They had traveled at a sedate, easy pace through the untamed nature preserve, and for some odd reason, the pictures of the forest Blueblood had kept in his study had flashed to mind. He was responsible for these lands and others like them throughout Equestria: the last, pony-free remnants of the world his ancestors had found and claimed, by force and by friendship, so very long ago.

It was far less frightening in a rowdy, loud throng of fellow ponies. Rarity's mind had soon forgotten why her body was marching down a dirty, overgrown forest trail. It had put aside the reason why her dear friends were attempting to pelt her with glowing tennis balls.

Instead, she had thought back to the Summer Sun celebration, and the journey that forged their friendships. They had joked and gossiped and, yes, they had hurled tennis balls at the back of her skull. Not a one of which had hit, so really, it was mostly just a minor annoyance. They had even paused to linger long enough for Steven, the sweet but somewhat dandy Sea Serpent to come out of hiding along his stretch of river. It was truly a shame that he did not easily take to land with his long, serpentine form. The parade had waited just long enough to serve a quick meal to the tired partygoers, receive an invigorating prep talk from Pinkie Pie, and then they were back on the trail.

"Do be careful, Miss Rarity! And good luck!"

It had been good to see him again.

But now -

Now the castle itself was in sight, and like a bill come due, her fear and insecurity from the day before became impossible to ignore. The old rope bridge had been replaced with a sturdy span of wooden beams. It was magical construction: one could tell transmuted trunks and branches from hoof-cut planks and hoof-spun rope. It would make crossing much easier for everypony - no frightfully swaying rope bridge that threatened to send one into the abyss below at the merest gust of wind.

Yet at the opposite end of the new bridge, in the shadow of the castle and the steadily setting sun, Rarity could see her opponent. The mare who had not only thrown her life into disarray, but the mare who had stabbed her heart with fear in Cheerilee's classroom. Antimony. The beautiful, ambitious, powerful unicorn... nothing like the fair and carefree nobles of books and tales of courtly romance. Had some dashing rogue attempted to abduct the chaste daughter of the Terre Rare, he likely would have spent the rest of his life drooling into a pillow in a hospital, his mind lost to a frightful illusion.

Three days.

She had trained for only three days. She had been acknowledged as noble for only three days. What madness had gripped her to think she could prepare herself for this on such short notice? What tail-biting lunacy had convinced her challenging this other mare was in any way a wise move? Rarity screed her eyes shut. The answer was as obvious as it was irrational.

This mare could not be his wife.

This mare could not become her Duchess.

"Is that Princess Luna?" Dash blurted out from off to Rarity's side. "I guess she's here for the show!"

"She got my invitation!" Pinkie cheered, but then added in a less happy tone. "Didn't RSVP, though. Which means... I think we have a third volunteer for our hot dog eating competition!"

"Rarity," Fluttershy's quiet voice prompted the unicorn to glance over at her timid friend. "Are you okay? I was, um.. going to..."

A tennis ball, glowing gold, caught in Rarity's magic inches from her shoulder.

"Sorry," Fluttershy muttered, but couldn't repress her smile. "Are you ready?"

"We can throw more stuff at you if you aren't ready!" Dash volunteered.

"Quite alright!" Rarity assured her, and looked from one friend to the next. All had stuck with her; all had helped in any way they could. One in particular stood out: Twilight Sparkle lowered her horn, and all the enchanted tennis balls slipped out of hooves and into midair. Even Rarity's own, which she had used to take more than a few shots at her fellow Elements of Harmony.

One by one, they returned to Twilight's saddlebag.

"Now," the librarian said. "Your training is done. Everything else is up to you, Rarity."

"Thank you, Twilight. Thank you all!" The six shared a quick hug, and then raced across the bridge. Rarity didn't need to look back to know much of Ponyville was behind her, including her parents and her little sister. It was the whole of her family. She had no Great and Noble House, no clan with great name. She had both less than that, and more than that.

And, to her surprise, more still waiting on the other side.

"Rarity!" a refined voice greeted her. It was Fancy Pants and Fleur.

"I regret our other friends couldn't make it from Canterlot," he continued, trotting slowly from the impressive pegasus-drawn carriage he had taken out into the heart of Everfree. As always, Canterlot's famous stallion-about-town, renaissance pony and connoisseur was impeccably dressed in a casual black suit and high collared vest shirt. His bow tie was black instead of his preferred purple, but his monocle was the same. Fleur-de-lis was her usual unabashed, unclothed, thin and stunning self.

His words, however, brought back another recent memory.

"Bound by her words and her blood oaths, the Princess is forbidden to intervene in this, and what other allies do you have in Canterlot? That effete bauble peddler, Fancypants, and his merchant hangers on?"

He had come, regardless.

"My word, what a scene!" he added with a rich chuckle that only grew more and more mirthful. "A hundred ponies to observe a noble duel! They will speak of this in Canterlot come tomorrow!"

"I pray they speak of an upset," Fleur remarked, greeting the nearby Elements of Harmony with a polite and graceful bow. "Of a fashion designer who defeated a Baroness."

"Thank you both," Rarity began, only to hold her tongue as Fancypants made encounter with another local celebrity.

One blue eye almost seemed to bug out as Pinkie Pie stared, long and hard, at Fancypants’ monocle. The gentlecolt took it in stride, however, at least until Pinkie began pondering out loud why anypony would wear 'half their glasses on a string.' It served to distract Fleur even more as she tried to extradite her husband from the loony pink pony.

"Twilight?" Rarity asked, quietly, while most everypony else was distracted.

Her friend leaned closer. "What?"

"Do you think I have a chance? Honestly?" she whispered and expected a whisper in response. Whatever Twilight's thoughts were, her honest and true thoughts, it would only be between them. Rarity would not have been surprised or shocked to hear a 'no.'

"You do!" Twilight whispered back, but with force and feeling. "Rarity. You do have a chance. Just be yourself, follow your instincts... and, uh... don't play by her rules. When things get tough, never play by anypony's rules. That's Celestia's rule number one."

"But, darling, isn't that a rule? A rule to not follow rules?"

Twilight shrugged. "I never really got that one myself. I mostly stuck to the rules like: never leave a pony in an elaborate death trap. Though why the Princess would even have a rule like that is kind of strange, too. But you get the idea!"

"I will think on it," Rarity decided, and stared across the courtyard. Antimony stood with a much smaller entourage: her ever present bodyguard, Gewitter. Luna stood close by, but had to be here as an impartial observer. There were four other ponies, too - unicorns dressed all in white, three with their faces obscured by masks. These were not the party masks Pinkie had handed out. These looked like metal, covering all but their ears and horns. Cloth fell like a veil around their necks and their uniforms were cloaks over chainmail and plate barding.

"Do you know who those four are?" Rarity asked, but in her normal tone. There was no need to whisper, not anymore.

"Those are Terre Rare household guards," Twilight replied. "Mage guards. Not like the hussars."

"But why are they here?"

As if to answer that very question, Antimony turned to the three, speaking too softly for anypony else to hear. The three unicorn guards moved without giving a response. Two turned on the one in the middle as he sat down on the grass. The flanking pair pressed their hooves to the ground, horns aglow - their light engulfing their seated partner. There was a crack like lightning, a swirl of dusky, dark magic, and the unicorn in the middle vanished.

In his place, the large, flickering image of somepony else now loomed.

More than twice the height of Lady Antimony, the image of a huge stallion appeared. The representation was not entirely clear or detailed; the spell imperfect. Nonetheless, the sudden application of unfamiliar magic drew a hush from the crowd of Ponyville revelers, even as they slowly camped to watch the duel and take part in Pinkie's so called 'tail-gate' party. the huge image flickered several times in quick succession, resolving itself slightly with each self-correction. The two projecting ponies to either side bowed their heads, and a moment later, so did Antimony and Gewitter.

"My family's patriarch," Twilight explained, a bit of awe in her voice at the spells being cast. At least, Rarity hoped it was directed at the spellwork. "Duke Cruciger."

Rarity saw, in the image, another unicorn stallion, his face covered by a metal mask. Though only black and white, the towering figure looked lifelike and imposing. Aside from his alert ears and immense horn, the rest of his face was concealed, save for the fact that only one eye stared out from behind the sculpted silver guise. A large mantle and cloak rested on his shoulders, covering all but his chest. There was a massive X there - what could only be a scar from some previous battle.

The towering image turned, identified the one presence it deemed worthy, and bowed deeply.

"Princess Luna," a deep, distorted voice boomed. "You do us great honor by your presence."

The alicorn nodded respectfully to the reverential projection.

"Lord Duke. A pleasure to see you again, face to face."

"What spell is that?" Rarity asked, slowly walking forward. It was time. She looked up, checking the sky, and saw the sun about to set. The horizon was bathed in red and orange: crimson and bittersweet.

"A form of body possession combined with an illusion," Twilight replied, gesturing for Pinkie to come along. She had the cupcakes after all. It was time to inspect them. "I've read about it but I've only ever seen it once before."

Rarity let out a breath she had been holding.

Formalities.

Formalities came first.

She, Twilight and Pinkie Pie soon met up with Antimony and Princess Luna. The alicorn, it seemed, would be acting as the Baroness's new second. It was a role of respect and honor typically reserved for a close ally or friend of the duelist: the second had the all important task of inspecting the weapons of the duel - in this case Sugarcube Corner's gourmet cupcakes - to ensure they were all identical, un-enchanted, and of proper size and weight. Twilight and Rarity both bowed briefly to the Princess, but Pinkie was too hyper to bother as she bounced up and down, holding an ornate wooden case in her mouth. It was perhaps the only reason she wasn't chattering away.

The five mares met, and Pinkie spat the case into her hooves before opening it up. Inside were ten cupcakes, all the same size, style and flavor. Carnation pink, they were generously topped with split cherries, sprinkles and cream. They may have looked delicious, but they were not for eating: each one contained a mild contact sedative. There would be no 'faking' a miss. A soft blue glow passed over the case of cupcakes followed by another, darker purple illumination. They checked out.

"When I kissed your cheek, I warned you to act the part of a noble unicorn," Antimony broke the silence, her words directed at her opponent. She motioned to the Ponyville crowd camped in the shadow of the castle. "You have dishonored me, and your own vow, by bringing this throng to a solemn occasion."

Before Rarity could respond, however, Pinkie Pie took advantage of her lips being free.

"Hey! But you said friends and family only!" she objected. "Right, Monee?"

"Friends and family does not mean half the town," the noblemare hissed. "This is an affront. Duels are conducted in locations such as this specifically to avoid... turning them into a common spectacle."

"But - but I thought...!"

"There is no need to apologize," Rarity cut her friend off. Behind her, dozens of ponies milled around on blankets, waiting. The earth ponies stuck to the ground, but the pegasi perched in trees or on pillars to get a better view. All wore unicorn masks. "These are my friends and family."

"Just when I thought you couldn't vex me further, you do so." Antimony lowered her gaze. "Unfortunate."

"We will rest here, until our sister's sun sets," Luna decreed, placing the opened case of cupcakes onto the ground. "We urge you both to make amends and recompense. Whatever has been said or done in the past, let it be forgiven. See each other with fresh and unbiased eyes and attempt reconciliation."

Antimony demurely lowered herself onto her stomach to wait. Rarity followed a moment later. Neither spoke. Soon the soft sound of hooves indicated that Twilight, Pinkie Pie, and Princess Luna had all left. It was just the two unicorns, alone.

Still, neither spoke.

Finally, the sun dipped below the horizon. It was dusk. It was time.

Antimony rose, and as she did, Rarity could see hints of buried anger in her normally placid, cool expression. Her magic flexed, and her cloak unclipped and flew off to land in Gewitter's hooves, far on her corner of the courtyard. She pawed the ground and craned her neck, working out the kinks. There may as well have been no other ponies present. Everything had fallen silent as the sun's light faded.

"This," she said, softly. "Is the very last chance I will give you. No more. Kiss my hoof and in time we may still be friends."

Rarity stared at the outstretched hoof, so well manicured, so like her own.

"I am sorry," she replied. "But no."

At her response, Antimony's hoof lowered, the offer withdrawn.

"Then I have nothing more to say to you."

With all her aristocratic bearing, the Baroness nodded and paced away, five cupcakes held in her magical grip. Rarity took the remaining five and turned, counting her paces. Both had their backs to the other. They wore no clothes. The duel was to be with cupcakes only, at least to start. After that, whatever their magic could create or transform was fair game.

There was no whistle or shot to signal them to begin; they simply turned around.

Rarity kept her cupcakes in place, all around her. Five of them. In her mind's eye, she could almost imagine them glowing in different colors, each with her own name. Applejack. Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie. Twilight Sparkle. The glow of her magic suffused the desserts, each one taking on a unique radiance.

She felt calm. Amazingly calm. The wind rustling her mane; the slowly fading light; the muted whispers of anticipation from around the courtyard. It was like the calm that overtook her when she worked in her beloved boutique, losing track of time as she labored into the night, not even noticing it when dawn came to remind her of the sleep she had missed. Despite the walk from Ponyville, her body and mind felt loose, free, and focused.

Antimony's cupcakes began to spin.

Faster. Faster still. Until each one was a blur. The noblemare turned her head, off to the right, and two of the cupcakes shot like bullets into a stone pillar, punching clean through the old stone in a spray of debris. Like needles threading paper. Within seconds, the pillar had been cut in half, crumbling loudly to the ground. The five cupcakes - now deadly projectiles - orbited their mistress.

Rarity did the one thing she could.

She ran.

Chapter Seven : To Go So Far

(7)

To Go So Far

"Now, correct me if ah'm wrong," Applejack dryly observed, watching as Rarity bolted away from her supposed duel. "But is she high tailin' it outta here? It ain't just me, right?"

"Is she allowed to DO that?" Rainbow Dash scratched her mane in confusion. "That can't be legal. Can it? You can't race outside the bounds of the course!"

"Wow." Fluttershy was still following her friend as she left the courtyard entirely, escaping into the ruined section of the Everfree castle. "She's fast. Look at her go."

"Isn't there a ref?" Dash continued, still confused. "Some kinda rule keeper or somethin'?"

"Oooo!" Pinkie Pie bounced in place, her excitement making it all but impossible to remain still. "Monee looks really mad."

Twilight coughed into a hoof to get their attention.

"As a matter of fact," she explained, "it is not against the rules. Once the duel begins, there is no limit on the distance at which to fight, or how to fight, or how long you take to fight. All unicorns begin the duel on the same hoofing, with no armor or weapons, but after that literally anything goes. The only restriction is that one duelist must not physically touch the other with their own body."

"But she just ran away!" Dash objected, gesturing towards the field of battle hard enough to nearly knock the unicorn-mask off her face. Said field of battle now had only one occupant: a surprised and confused looking Lady Antimony. The Baroness' mood, however, was quickly shifting from confusion and surprise towards indignation and anger.

"H - how dare you!" she finally snarled, galloping after her opponent and into the castle ruins. "Get back here this instant!"

The five Elements of Harmony present watched her go, unable to follow. Soon both the Baroness and her fashionable quarry were out of sight, lost amid the tangle of ruins that had once been Celestia and Luna's bastion in the Everfree. All was quiet... for about three seconds. Then the crowd of Ponyville tailgaters let out a collective groan of anger and disappointment, their promised entertainment for the evening - and the reason for their long excursion through a wild forest - now robbed of them.

"Uh-oh. We're losing the crowd." Pinkie Pie glanced back at the ponies that had followed her through the forest. It was her party after all, and if a party went south, ponies tended to pick on the poor party planner.

"I guess there's no avoiding it," she decided, fishing a microphone out of her curly mane. "I'll have to buy some time with my standup comedy routine."

"Oh, good!" Dash hung her head with a sigh. "I'd hoped to end the night with an angry riot followed by a stampede."

"Um, is this alright, Twilight?" Fluttershy asked, eyes still on the castle and worry in her voice.

"Everypony just sit still and wait!" Twilight raised her voice, causing Dash - and Pinkie, who she had been trying to stop from putting on an emergency one-mare show - to stop and turn to her.

"Running into the castle like that. It's actually a really good idea!" The librarian continued, eyes narrowing at the sprawling rubble and foundations that had once been a royal palace. Pointedly, Princess Luna, the towering projection of Duke Cruciger, and the one unmasked Terre Rare Mage-guard were all focused on the castle.

"Rarity can't teleport, but Lady Antimony can," Twilight reminded them. "She's also outclassed when it comes to illusions, experience, and even raw power. Running into the castle ruins breaks line of sight and gives her a chance to catch Antimony by surprise. It also limits how freely she can teleport."

"So this is a good thing!" Applejack smirked and yelled towards the castle, "Quick thinkin' sugarcube! Go get 'em!"

"The downside being..." Twilight added, as her friends gave her a concerned look. "If she gets in over her head, or if she gets hurt, then she's all alone."

Sweet merciful Celestia, what was she doing?!

Rarity could hear the pounding of her heart in her chest as she rounded the corner at the top of the stone staircase, ducking into a low crouch to better sneak out of sight. It could well have been adrenalin, or even her imagination, or more likely some combination of the two, but she could have sworn the old castle ruins had appeared far less creepy and imposing from the outside. Her ears twitched at the sounds of creaks and groans from the crumbling masonry, the howling, hissing wild blowing in from collapsed ceilings and broken windows. The ground was littered with fallen chandeliers, shards of glass and twisted loops of rusted iron.

The duel simply had to be at dusk, didn't it? What other time of day could fill the ancient palace with a menagerie of lengthening shadows like the stripes of a zebra, etching across bare surfaces of stone and chipped plaster. The thought of that same stone between her and her opponent failed to provide much sense of comfort, not after seeing Antimony project an ordinary cupcake - straight out of Sugarcube Corner - through a bloody pillar and out the other side.

Rarity closed her eyes, took a quiet breath, and focused.

Behind her eyelids, she could see Antimony's feat, no doubt made with the calculated intention of cowing the noblemare's opponent. She recalled the spin of the cupcakes: clockwise. Were they all spinning in that direction? Rarity knew she had a good memory and an eye for detail. Normally this was directed towards fashion and her boutique. This time it would help her hold her own. Ideally.

Yes: clockwise. All five had been moving clockwise. Antimony had also orbited them around her clockwise. Most likely, her magic also projected more strongly to the right than to the left. Just as a pony could be left-hooved or right-hooved, unicorn horns were also oriented to spiral left or right. This had subtle effects on magic, even Rarity's own. She filed that observation away.

Next.

Breathing calmly, she played back Antimony's killer cupcake trick. The spinning must have meant to impart energy to the projectile without actually moving it in any direction. Speeding up while staying still. Twilight's lesson came back, as did images of her fellow unicorn using teleportation and momentum to increase her speed. Was Antimony that good? It was an unknown factor. She would have to test it to be sure.

Next.

Antimony had demonstrated the power of her enchantment spells back in Ponyville. She had turned little Scootaloo's feather into a razor blade. She had given a hardcover textbook the weight of a soap bubble.

"Should I wish it," she had explained. "A feather can become as heavy as an anvil. A pillar of stone can become as malleable as jelly. Water can be as hard as glass. Straw as slippery as oil."

The cupcake. It had been turned diamond hard. The duel was not yet à outrance. She wouldn't use it against her, punching holes in her body, even if given the chance. To kill an opponent in the initially harmless first phase of a magical duel was dishonorable. At the same time, she could use the cupcakes to demolish or destroy anything used as a barrier. To disarm Antimony, to have a chance of beating her, Rarity knew she needed some sort of counter to that combination of enchantment and raw power.

Creeping along, Rarity grimaced at the dust on her hooves and coat. Even if she escaped the humiliation of defeat-via-pastry, she would not emerge from this contest unscathed. It was doomed to be a dirty affair the moment she ran into the castle ruins.

Edging closer to a broken pane of glass, part of what had once been a magnificent stained glass window, she discarded two more fragments of crystal before finding one just the right size and color. Applying a little transformative magic, Rarity imagined the end result. Her transformation spells were peculiar and finicky, based on her desires and impressions. Most importantly, she could only make something that she felt looked more appealing than it had been before. She could easily turn a block of wood into a pony sculpture, but it was much harder to a wooden sculpture into a block of wood, for example.

It was not exactly the best skill for making a weapon or tool.

Still: this time it worked out. She only needed to turn the glass into a mirror. With a poof of displaced air, Rarity soon had a small rectangular mirror with a delicate iron handle. Moving quickly and quietly away from the window, she paused only to collect a few more pieces of glass, wrapping them in a magical field with the glow toned down to minimum. Her skill with magic also included crystals of all sorts, together with fabric.

Peeking around a corner on the second level of the castle's dilapidated foyer, she tried to catch sight of her opponent. Lady Antimony must have entered by now. Rarity had rather suspected that the more experienced duelist would expect that she was laying some sort of trap. Yet, it perhaps would have been expecting too much for the noblemare to blunder inside, hooves clattering and voice taunting.

No: instead, Antimony would be stalking, quietly.

Rarity moved into a long bath of shadow behind one of the hall's eight huge pillars, reaching from floor to collapsed ceiling. Ears twitched, hearing the wind, but nothing else. Rarity's five cupcakes still floated close by, each one faintly colored by her magic. Familiar colors. Colors that faded as she tried to remain unseen. The glow was comforting, almost as if her friends were somehow still along side her, helping in what ways they could. In fact: they were with her. In spirit, if not in body. Comforted and emboldened, she took another peek around a corner.

Was it possible Antimony simply hadn't followed her?

Was it possible she was still outside, in the old palace courtyard, waiting?

Rarity shook her head, not believing it. Lady Antimony was patient, but the impression she had given before was not of a mare who would stand idly by. She would follow. She had followed. She was out there, somewhere, in the growing darkness of the setting sun. Rarity scanned the long dark room, craning her neck to better get a look around the foyer.

A pair of glowing eyes stood out within a pool of darkness.

A second later, and the pillar shattered, spraying Rarity with rubble as something fast and spinning drilled effortlessly through thousand year old masonry. Throwing herself to the floor and rolling - ignoring the dust that now covered her mane as well - Rarity heard a whirring, droning sound as two more spinning killer cupcakes slashed blindly at the pillar and the floor. A cloud of dust kicked up, and the fashion designer had to squint to keep it out of her eyes.

'She's coming!'

There was a deafening crash as four hooves cracked the floor, heralding the arrival of Rarity's opponent. One of her hind legs was tucked in, as she landed too close to the old stone railing. Muscles tensed, and the railing broke, Antimony's hoof slamming down hard. Her eyes were still glowing, like two red lanterns in the darkness, the pupils barely even visible.

Rarity scrambled, instincts kicking in. She had seen her beautiful and slothful cat, Opalescence, once turn into a ferocious killer at the sight of a toy mouse. Something in the shape alone had gotten to her head, turning finicky house cat into cold blooded killer. She had ripped the toy mouse to pieces, to Rarity's shock. She had to fight not to look into those glowing eyes. Not even for an instant. Making eye contact with Lady Antimony would be as good as giving up.

Back on all fours, she rounded the balcony and jumped straight down to the lower level, twisting as another screaming cupcake missile curved to follow her. It came close to hitting as she ducked behind another huge beam... but swerved rather than flow through. Rarity didn't miss seeing it. The cake floated in the air, not spinning, before slowly starting up again.

There was no time to be thankful for testing her theory.

A burst of magic engulfed her tail like a vice. Twilight's training kicked in, and Rarity reasserted her control over her body. The magic struggled to hold, but lost cohesion. A few hairs drifted in the air as Rarity tore free, spinning around as she emerged from behind one pillar and on her way to the next. Her horn glowed with effort as she lifted a dozen pieces of debris from a dozen fallen chandeliers and hurled it all upwards at the second floor of the foyer, where she could see Antimony's glowing eyes peering down at her.

A pair of buzzing missiles and a blast of overpowering force intercepted the swarm of bent iron and faded crystal, effortlessly smashing it apart. Another two continued to pursue the fleeing mare from Ponyville, blowing holes in the floor and walls as they tried to flush her out into the open. Antimony could only either use them to destroy the obstacles or to actually hit her opponent - where they needed to splatter, not punch through - not both. No doubt she had designed this move to the defeat 'blocker' type duelists Twilight had described.

So she upped the ante.

Each flying cupcake missile suddenly became two, then four and then EIGHT missiles.

Rarity braced herself, a veritable swarm of incoming cupcakes hovering overhead. As one, they began to slowly spin. There was barely enough time to clear her throat, tense her legs, and utter two words: "Oh dear."

Sixteen of them angled in for the kill.

But - but not all of them were real.

Rarity's eyes tried to track them as she began to run, but then she corrected her mistake. Twilight had drilled it into her with tennis balls: she could not use, could not trust, could not rely on her eyes in a fight with Lady Antimony. So, with nothing to lose, Rarity tore her eyes away from the incoming hailstorm and reacted purely on instinct, letting her magic guide her movement and her reactions.

Four incorporeal cupcakes tore through her body, one passing into her at the left flank, one at the right rear hock, one the chest, and one the side of her face. She ignored them, raised a hoof as she spun in midair, her horn burning bright and hot. An angled telekinetic field deflected the only real cupcake in the barrage, altering it's course just enough that it whizzed by and missed her ear. Even then, only because she flattened her ears at the last half second.

"Ooooh?' Antimony finally broke her silence, still perched atop the broken railing on the second floor. "Was that a fluke, or do you really have some skill?"

Eight more cupcakes screamed as they flew by, whipping around and mixing with sixteen more, moving out of formation and into wild, erratic zig-zag paths. Rarity gritted her teeth as she rolled past another of the castle's foyer pillars, the sound of buzzing and smashing stone surrounding her. Some cupcakes - distractions - were pulverizing the once beautiful colonnades and the faded decorative trumeau around them. Others were moving in, and a few were swooping slowly and dramatically.

Rarity's magical senses screamed a warning: feeling the intrusion into her personal space of another unicorn's power. The image of tennis balls, not one, but all five of her friend's attempted coordinated strikes, hit a trained nerve. They were converging in on her from all sides, and Antimony was too strong...! She could possibly deflect one when it wasn't diamond-enchanted, but -

Rarity's blue eyes widened as an insane thought offered some small chance of escape.

Jumping and flipping her tail, hard, she avoided the two missiles from below. Catching her tail on the lip of a broken stone vase, she then pulled herself down, hard, avoiding the one from above. That left only two, coming in from the left and right. Watching intently, Antimony smirked, knowing she had her opponent trapped. There was no physical way the younger unicorn mare could escape, no matter her acrobatics.

Rarity held out her hooves.

The cupcakes hit - but didn't splatter. It wasn't a victory by virtue of humiliation unless the pastries actually broke on contact and splattered the opponent's actual coat, no matter how little. Annoyed and confused, Antimony's horn glowed, just a bit, and she pushed them harder. Forced onto her hind legs, Rarity's hooves skidded roughly off the floor and her back slammed into the wall. She still had her front legs out, hooves up and stopping the cupcake missiles.

"How are you...?" Antimony began, and narrowed her eyes.

The leading edge of each cupcake was still hard. Too hard to break on contact. Diamond hard.

And covering Rarity's hooves were glass slippers, the crystal enhanced and made gemstone hard. Not only had she transmuted crystal into protection for her hooves, she had triggered the diamond-based spell Antimony had been turning on and off in her own weapons. It was not the most elegant solution, a point driven home when the two cupcakes began to spin more fiercely. Rarity's legs quivered in strain.

"You're actually much stronger than you look," the Baroness commented with a sinister chuckle. "I don't terribly mind breaking your legs if you insist on using them like that. Maybe you should stop?"

The force behind the killer cupcakes doubled, and then tripled.

Rarity's legs buckled and she cried out, but falling back, she also pushed the missiles into the wall behind her. The pair crashed into the stone, sending spiderweb cracks spreading in every direction. A thick cloud of dust fell, shrouding the area. By the time two more spinning cupcake missiles swept down, slicing into and dispersing the cover, their victim was gone.

Still standing on the second floor of the foyer, Lady Antimony huffed.

"She's quick." The noblemare slowly looked around the vacated foyer. "How annoying."

Jumping down, the Baroness pursued.

Soarin glanced up at the wreck of the Princess Hesperus' flight balloon and tried to imagine how it would have looked just a day earlier, cruising through the sky. Zeppelins were awkward compared to a pegasus, of course, but then even an enchanted chariot could only carry so much. Large airships were a commercial necessity and some of them were actually graceful in a 'flying whale' sort of way. The Princess Hesperus must have looked pretty cool once, the bits of gold glittering in the sun flanked by heraldic streamers and stylized patterns etched into the envelope.

It was just a deflated mess now.

Shaking his head at the loss, he went back to work. The Vice-Captain wanted an independent search of the starboard underside of the airship, where it met the underslung cabin section. Needless to say, what the Vice-Captain wanted, the Vice-Captain got. When she didn't, she raised her voice. More than usual, anyway.

As for why Soarin had to do it and why now, it probably had something to do with the red coated pegasi that had moved in less than an hour after the wreckage and survivors had been found. Soarin saw one of them on the exact same mission he was on: a pretty mare with a dark coat, rimmed glasses and a serious expression. She had some kind of orb tucked under her front right leg. Her body above the waist sported the distinctive red uniform preferred by the guard units of the northern territories; she even had little epaulettes on her shoulders! Her body below the waist looked good, too.

"Hey there!" the Wonderbolt flew over, putting on his winning-est smile.

The mare stole a look at him, snorted and went back to using the orb to project some kind of light at the airship remains. Clearly, she was playing coy.

"The name's Soarin," he smoothly continued, as if he hadn't noticed the brush off.

"I know who you are, sir," the uniformed mare replied, still intent on her job.

"Since it looks like we're doing the same thing, I hope you don't mind if I stick close by... Miss...?"

The pegasus guardpony didn't respond at first.

"Drizzle," she finally said.

"Drizzle?" He stole a look at her cutie mark. Sure enough there were three very plain looking raindrops. "You don't strike me as the weathermare type."

"That isn't it," Drizzle corrected, tucking the orb back under her leg as she flew. "I don't make weather. I just enjoy it."

"You enjoy it?"

"Hurricanes. Tornados. Hailstorms. Thunderstorms. The wilder and more destructive they are, the more I enjoy watching them." She shared a sunny smile with him as she glanced back. "I just love it when a rainy day clouds out the sun, don't you?"

Momentarily speechless, Soarin hovered in place. "Uhmm..."

"Of course you don't," the mare stated, and resumed her scanning of another part of the crashed airship. "So what do you want?"

"Well, I'm supposed to be looking for anything suspicious," he explained, putting away his charming voice in favor of his professional tone. He was a Wonderbolt, after all. "What brought down the airship, specifically."

"Sabotage."

"Excuse me?"

"I said it was sabotage," Drizzle replied, not even bothering to look in his direction. "Which is unusual, yes, but nothing warranting the Wonderbolts interfering in Duchy affairs."

"Hey, hey," Soarin protested. "We're all on the same side here. We all want to find the Prince."

Drizzle speared him with a critical, insulted look.

"With all due respect, Sir Wonderbolt, this is our territory and thus it is our business. On whose orders are you even out here?"

"I don't know," Soarin admitted. "But even if I did know, I doubt I'd be at liberty to say. Now, you said it was sabotage? That was what we heard, too, but... are you sure?"

"The Princess Hesperus has a double reinforced envelope. A pegasus like yourself, or even a griffin, could cut it from stem to stern without compromising the inner helium storage chambers. Additionally, due to the nature of a rigid airship, it would not easily deform even if pressure were compromised. I have identified and recorded two points of failure in the hull that could not be caused by malfunction or... sadly... natural weather phenomenon. Given eye-witness testimony from the survivors of the crash, it was clearly grounded on purpose."

"Very likely," the red-uniformed guardpony concluded. "The same party responsible for the sabotage is also responsible for our missing Prince."

That made sense, though Soarin knew he would have to double check everything before reporting back to his CO. Captain Thunderhead himself was here, deeply enmeshed in dealing with the local guard commander sent to secure the wreck. No pony would be bothering him anytime soon but it just reinforced how serious the situation was becoming. It also meant the Vice-Captain was bound to be working everypony extra hard. Soarin took another long look at the crash.

Not long after Spitfire had found it, she had also caught the eye of the survivors on the ground. Thank Celestia, the entire crew had escaped unharmed and uninjured. The ship had descended slowly, giving plenty of time for ponies to get rides off-ship. Supposedly the Prince himself had helped to slow the descent with some sort of spell, teleporting ponies to the ground in the process. That was before he and his guard escorts all disappeared.

Celestia knew where the Hell he was now.

"We have dedicated tracker teams looking for His Grace even as we speak," Drizzle assured him, flying off to make another survey of the crash from another angle. "Earth pony trackers, unicorn mageguards and pegasus spotters. If he lives, we will bring him home. If he doesn't... then we'll still send him home."

"You Terre Rare guards don't lack for confidence," Soarin remarked, appreciating the flirty flick of her tail and the contrast of her dark coat against her red uniform. "Mind telling me how you got here only an hour after we did?"

She chuckled as she flew off.

"We have good eyes and sensitive ears, Sir Wonderbolt."

Moonlight streamed down from the broken lattice of what had once been an atrium dome and into a dried up reflective pool. Creeping vines and weeds had taken over the garden that could have once grown in the open area, covering patches of debris and turning a collapsed wall into a tangled mess thick enough to use to climb from ground to unstable roof. An old cockatrice nest lay abandoned, sculpted of broken shards of stone and masked by a thick spider web.

"Are you sure she's around here, Twilight?"

"I'm pretty sure. Its better than waiting around."

"If you say so! Hey, Rar-it-eee! You hiding round here? You are still alive, aren't you?"

"Pinkie!"

"What?"

"Of course she's alive. And if she wasn't, how would she even answer you? Anyway, just keep calling. Rarity! Rarity!"

"Rar-it-eee! Come out come out wherever you are!"

From where she hid behind a splintered window frame, Rarity could see her two friends in the atrium below. Twilight had her head up, scanning the roofline; Pinkie was just behind and to her left, looking around seemingly at random. A particularly large spiderweb momentarily distracted her long enough for her to 'eep' and jump back at the sight of its designer: a particularly large and nasty looking Everfree Weaver Spider. Rarity chuckled to herself but kept quiet. She could giggle at a ghostie, but Pinkie Pie did not like nature's vast array of 'creepy crawlies.'

Maybe... maybe they were the real thing?

"Twilight! Pinkie! Please don't move from where you are!"

The two ponies stopped on the verge of leaving the atrium only to turn around. They looked around, having heard their friend's voice, but still unable to actually see her. Twilight lit her horn to provide additional illumination in the dark.

"Rarity?" she asked, moving closer to the center of the open area and into the dried mess of the ancient reflective pool. "Rarity? Where are you?"

"I'm... here." Cautiously, she peeked out from the broken and partly collapsed window. "Not that I'm unhappy to see you two, really, but just what is going on? You shouldn't be here."

"I know," Twilight replied, and motioned for her to come down. "Assistance is against the rules, but I don't think anypony will mind us coming to get you."

Rarity shook her head, not understanding. Carefully, she jumped down from the open window.

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Monee went back to waiting in the courtyard!" Pinkie explained with a giggle. "I think she got sick of chasing after you."

"While a duel doesn't observe strict boundaries, there are grounds for disqualification," Twilight continued after Pinkie finished. "You need to head back. Also... well, everypony is kind of waiting there..."

Rarity sighed. "I do hate to disappoint them, but, Twilight, you know very well I can not just go back into that place and fight Lady Antimony. Not out in the open. Didn't you tell me not to play by another pony's rules?"

"Yesss, I guess," Twilight demurred. "But there are still some rules that you have to stick to. For example, we're not really 'helping' by telling you what's going on. So we're just kind of bending the rules and not breaking them."

"Yep!" Pinkie agreed with a happy bounce. "Don't worry, Rarity! You'll do fine-"

Pinkie Pie blinked, pausing mid-sentence, as a bright pink cupcake passed clean through her cutie mark. Her torso shimmered, like a mirage.

Rarity immediately jumped back, the ground at her feet exploding into little blossoms of dust.

'Twilight Sparkle' made an irate tsking sound as several concealed cupcakes floated out of Pinkie Pie's illusionary body. Violet eyes took on a vicious gleam and her grin broadened, revealing teeth. She laughed, still in perfect imitation of the real Twilight's voice.

"I'm impressed," she admitted. "You saw through my little Pinkie Pie imitation?"

"Actually," Rarity replied, backing away as an illusionary Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy perched on the broken edge of the roof. The two looked down with cold disdain.

"I didn't see through the illusion at all," she said with a small shrug.

"But you attacked...?"

"If that had been the real Pinkie Pie I hit, then it just would have been a matter of saying 'I'm sorry.' It was as simple as that," Rarity explained with her own small grin. "I didn't have much to lose by being sure."

"How calculating," the fake Twilight remarked with a hint of admiration.

"I'm not above taking advantage of little things like that."

"Of course, that you isn't the real you either," the false Pinkie Pie said with a sinister chuckle. "A proper illusionary pony also mimics the effect her hoofsteps on the ground. You need to practice more."

Rarity's horn glowed, and she vanished in a ball of bright light.

"I'm sure I'll get the chance!"

A bat soared overhead as the atrium collapsed, blazing streaks ripping apart the inner walls and facade. A brief chase followed, ending with the six illusionary Elements of Harmony coming together back in the desiccated reflecting pool. The fake Twilight looked up, taking notice of the flying rodent. The others retreated into the shadows.

A single black bat silhouetted against the half moon before circling around and down. Flying past broken rafters and crumbled beams long since decayed by time it finally landed on the broken remains of buttress. Webbed, winged arms clawed as it crawled to the edge, large eyes blinking and watching the ruined gallery below. Huge ears twitched, listening.

It was pitch black, but Princess Luna could see and hear everything.

Rarity's heartbeat stood out from where she hid behind a row of cracked obsidian urns topped by a fallen statue. The remains of ancient, enchanted tapestries drifted in the cold night air having resisted almost a millennium of abandonment. Rarity had been running from Antimony for a half hour now: an impressive feat in and of itself. For almost that entire time, she had been on the defensive, hampered by being unable to risk meeting Antimony's eyes with her own and struggling to counter the other mare's power. It was extremely rare for a duel to last longer than five minutes, much less almost an hour

"You'll be worn down if you keep this up," Luna thought, her real body still sitting in the courtyard where the duel had began. Her eyes were closed, but she didn't need them to see. "Do you really think something like 'that' will work?"

Antimony, despite the power of her eyes, found herself straining to see in the dark.

Moving silently, she searched for magic, feeling the ebb and flow of it in the air. It was faint, like a distant and unfamiliar scent. It was the only way to keep chasing down her opponent. There was no theoretical limit on the length of a magical duel. It was possible that Ponyville's resident dressmaker was of a mind to so stretch out the contest as to make her inferiority in magic moot. Sooner or later, one of them would tire and need rest. Did she think to make this a war of attrition? It did make a certain amount of sense.

"How unseemly you are," Antimony broke her silence. Hooves clattered against the broken ground. She raised her voice to be sure she was heard. "Lady Rarity! Is this really some strategy on your part... or is it just fear?"

There was nothing a cornered mouse could do to a lion; there was no need to keep chasing her around these damned ruins. There was no need to flinch from so meager a threat.

"Are you afraid of me, dressmaker?" she called out, stepping boldly and fearlessly into the open. "Come! Face your fear! I shall give you opportunity to strike, if that is what you wait for! Come! Coward!"

Antimony's glowing eyes searched the seemingly empty gallery, her patience dwindling down.

"I have been gentle with you until now. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to swat a fly without killing it?"

Rearing up, she tossed her mane and growled. The five spinning cupcake missiles that orbited her lashed out in every direction, blasting through walls and cover. A flicker of movement betrayed her opponent, and four of the projectiles pulverized the three heavy stone urns on the left side of the gallery. Even as she did so, however, Antimony noticed the floor.

The floor was moving.

The floor was not the floor.

As she focused on it, the illusion unraveled, revealing a ream of violet-blue fabric formerly disguised beneath dust and rubble directly underhoof. The illusion had been so simple, so basic, that the fabric itself must have been physically buried under the debris. Two coils of it twirled and surrounded the Baroness before snapping taunt like a helix shaped bear trap.

Antimony vanished in a flash of light.

'She provoked me into attacking... so she could spring that trap?'

Antimony reappeared closer to the entrance just in time to turn. Two cupcakes were mere inches from the tip of her nose. Beyond them, an alabaster hoof and leg finally led to Rarity herself, the seamstress having finally emerged from cover. Yet there was something wrong with her appearance. Something wrong with her mane. She - she had cut it.

She'd cut her mane and used it; turning it into -

Rarity's twin cupcakes slammed into Antimony's face. Through Antimony's face.

Rarity tumbled through the illusionary noblemare, gasping in surprise and tucking in to land on her side and roll with the abrupt loss of contact. It wasn't enough to protect one of her cupcakes as it surged forward and into the ground, splattering into an unsalvageable, gooey mess and leaving a pink streak along the stone floor. The dressmaker turned duelist only allowed herself to tumble a single body-length before springing back up and onto her hooves. Two long sheets of fabric swam, serpent-like, through the air to wrap protectively around her.

Antimony emerged from the far side of the gallery, smirking confidently.

"You aren't the only one who can set up traps," she lectured. "But I never expected that you'd mutilate your mane like that..."

Rarity stood tall, the short cropped remains of her mane blowing in the breeze. The long violet tresses had been cut haphazardly and desperately with little more than a sharp piece of glass. What was left had less body and volume than even Rainbow Dash's mane and an even more spiked appearance. Her tail swished behind her, still intact but charged with fashion conscious magic. Rarity snorted, and a ripple of that same magic ran up her mane and past her ears, transforming the ragged cut into a more proper and modest curl.

"In Reinice they call this: tessuto di crine," she explained with a determined smirk. "Haircloth, in common Equestrian."

The two purple reams of fabric coiled around her shoulders, animated by her magic.

"How unfortunate," Antimony replied, her horn beginning to glow with menace. "To go so far... to accomplish so little!"

She willed it, and her cupcake missile barrage began where it left off. The air filled with swarming, buzzing cupcakes, some diamond-hard and some soft enough to splatter. Rarity charged into the shoals of illusionary projectiles, skidding and jumping as they converged on her. Like before, she only tried to dodge a few: the real ones. The illusionary cupcakes she let pass through her.

Antimony teleported again as a cupcake, glowing neon cyan blue, passed through the space she had occupied a moment before. Just like before, the moment she blinked she also created an illusion of herself appearing in another spot. It was one of her signature tricks: very few unicorns could multi-task spellcasts, and virtually none could parse the casting of a difficult spell like teleport with another spell in parallel. Those that tried risked disrupting their star field in the moment of transition, to less than pleasant effect.

She watched, eyes narrowing as Rarity turned and attacked the most obvious of the two of the illusionary Antimonys. One copy was not her limit either. If need be, she could produce a half dozen illusionary copies of herself with every teleport. Yet. Yet why could Rarity see through the illusions around her cupcake missiles and not see through the teleport duplicates?

Antimony watched as Rarity acrobatically spun through another barrage.

Her haircloth fabrics managed to block two of the cupcakes intended to impact her while letting the illusions pass through. There was no doubt about it, not anymore. She could anticipate, clearly, which cupcakes were real and which were not. How troublesome.

It was time to up the ante.

Antimony's horn glowed, and a dozen pieces of rock levitated off the floor. A little bit of magic, and the old stone shimmered, replaced by an illusion of one of Sugarcube Corner's cupcakes. They began to spin. If Rarity could see through illusions, then...

"What will you do now, dressmaker?" Antimony asked and gestured to her with a hoof. "How long can you last? Don't think you can afford to make even one more mistake!"

Rarity didn't respond as she struggled to catch her breath and keep her eyes away from her opponent's face. Again, though the effort was doomed to prove futile, she charged.

More of the projectiles descended, but this time the illusions were joined by the disguised rocks. Rarity jumped, twisting and letting one of her horse hair fabrics block two missiles from the left. They deflected off the enchanted fabric, made all the stronger by the fact that it was literally a part of the dressmaker's body. She landed, blocked a third cupcake projectile from hitting her in the face -

And then fell to the side as something hard and fast slammed into her right side.

Antimony smirked at the gasp of pain she heard. That one. That one had not passed through her.

Still, Rarity rolled on her back and bounced back onto all fours. She was tougher than she appeared. Most unicorn mares, especially those non-nobles unaccustomed to battle, would be mewing and crying in the dust after just one blow of that power. Rarity was already breaking into a gallop, horn lowered. Perhaps she had some earth pony blood in her?

Antimony teleported again, back to the other side of the room. Four of her stood at each corner of the ruined castle gallery, each wearing an identical look of smug, confident disdain. Rarity scrambled, diving out of the way of more of the erratic killer missiles that filled the darkness of the hall. High speed rocks pulverized the ground at her hooves and the broken pedestal she briefly hid behind. Leaping out of cover, she yelped as another disguised rock slammed into her right shoulder, sending her sprawling.

Only the last second interposition of purple cloth protected her prone form from being hit further.

'There! She can sense the cupcakes, but not the rocks with the illusion overlay. There's something about my spellwork that's tipping her off... that's allowing her to read my moves.'

Predictably, Rarity tried to fall back: to escape from the room.

'Another tactical withdrawal? As if I would allow a cornered rat to run.'

Rarity, her sense overpowering her urge to escape the crossfire, stopped before the apparently unguarded exit. It was good that she did. Skidding to a stop, she prodded the seemingly open aperture with a hoof, confirming that it was in-fact rock solid. Had she run right into it, she would have introduced her face to solid rock. Shoulders slumping in grief, Rarity spun, blocking another cupcake missile and diving away from a second. More illusion cloaked rocks bombarded the floor around her; one even clipped her ear.

"That's right," Antimony gloated with a laugh. "You didn't notice it, did you? What's wrong? Lost track of the exit? Maybe if you feel along the walls you'll find it. Eventually!"

More projectiles stitched through the air and, again, Rarity attacked the wrong Antimony. It was probably her best bet to try and attack the one that had taunted her, but it was foalish to assume her ears, too, couldn't be deceived. Her reward was a blow to the cheek, hard enough that the illusion around the rock-missile wavered for a split second. Forcing herself back onto her hooves, Rarity winced and broke back into a gallop. Still, she was slowing, as fatigue and demoralization wore her down.

'Soon.'

Predictably, Rarity turned on the last Antimony - the real one - by simple process of elimination. Filthy and bruised, she charged and launched her cupcakes, twirling one long coil of haircloth fabric around them to prevent deflection. It was a nice move, and that fabric in particular was a fascinating bit of magic. There were very few materials that could hold up against her enhanced cupcake barrage. Still, it was futile.

Antimony teleported.

As she reappeared on the other side of the room, and every corner of the room, she couldn't help but chuckle. In her haste, the poor dressmaker had splattered yet another one of her cupcakes. Only three remained, whereas she still had all five. More to the point: Rarity had landed right in her trap. This little game was finally at its end.

"You're done," the Baroness announced, craning her neck to get a good look.

Rarity hissed in frustration as she tried to raise a hoof -

Only to have it stuck to the floor, the stone turned into gray tar. It was not wise to have landed where her opponent had been standing. A pony could never tell what was enchanted and how. That was the wonder of it. That was the terror of it. Rarity's own transformation spells were rather interesting in their own way, but lacking in comparison.

Stuck to the floor, at least for the moment, Rarity looked up with wide, shocked eyes. She knew it, too: that she was, for the first time, rendered immobile. There would be no more dodging. Desperate, and with no other options, she did just what Antimony expected her to do.

She launched attacks at every Antimony she could see, all at once.

It was a shame they were all a ruse.

The real Antimony emerged from an invisibility spell, like a shimmer in a shadow. There had been no teleport. The flash had merely been cover for an invisibility spell instead. Without hesitation, her horn glowed and she struck. Rarity squawked in surprise, instinctively covering her face. For what little it was worth.

One cupcake and then another splattered against her torso and the back of her head. She screamed, knowing that she was beaten. That she had been humiliated. That she had lost.

The duel was over.

For good measure, Antimony directed five cloaked stones up and into the pinned mare while dissolving the stone-to-tar enchantment. Blown clear off her hooves, Rarity spun through the air to end up pinned against a wall. Spread eagle, she hung there, one of the projectiles pinning her legs to her sides. Like a speared insect.

"At last," Antimony remarked with a relieves sigh. "At last I have you. A little beaten and bruised, perhaps, but I doubt even your friends will object much. Like a mouse under a lion's paw."

Rarity looked up, but still not enough to make eye contact. Her long lashes batted as she blinked, wearily. Her chest rose and fell as she sucked in breaths of air. Yet, both her face and her chest dripped with sticky, splattered cake. Proof of her failure. Proof of her weakness. Proof that she could never be Duchess - that she could never rule alongside Equestria's Prince or any other.

"Even... even a mouse under a lion's paw..." she struggled to say, and her face sagged. "Can still bite back!"

"Eh? You've lost. Don't think you-"

Antimony's words stuck in her throat as Rarity's face peeled away. No. No! It wasn't her face! The illusion over her bright blue fabric faded, the white melting into nothingness to reveal the real color and texture beneath. The same was happening around her body. Her haircloth had been wrapped around her, disguised as the same color as her white coat. But -

But the fabric used in the attack -

'Illusions?!'

Which meant that the cupcakes Rarity had attacked with were also -

"Illusions!" Antimony realized, rearing up as three cupcakes, disguised cleverly as pretty little bits of broken statuary, shot up from beneath her. Despite her own shock, and even a tiny iota of panic, the Baroness couldn't help but admire the move. The desperate move!

Thinking just like her opponent, Rarity had allowed herself to jump into a trap. Maybe she had planned it, or maybe she had just thought quickly, but she had good instincts. There was no way for her to tell which Antimony was the real one. Just like before, JUST like then, she had allowed herself to fall into a trap to find the one who set it. This was her gamble: to give her opponent an opening she couldn't resist!

'Like me. She thinks... like me...!'

Except.

'Except...! You, Rarity...!' Antimony's smile widened, and she thrust her face forward and into one of the trio of cupcakes that converged on her. 'You are weaker than me!'

The cupcake passed through her eyeball, through her face, and out the back of her head. Without even disturbing the unsullied lavender mane. Spinning around, one of her hooves swept up a dollop of liquid-enchanted stone and splattered two of the cupcakes behind her, wreathed in blue and yellow magic. The last cupcake, still glowing with a purple aura, she forcibly enveloped in her own magic. It took only a moment to fully wrest it from her exhausted opponent's telekinesis.

Breathing heavily, less from exertion and more from excitement, Antimony licked her lips.

"That was good! Really. I mean it. That was good!" she enthused, grinning at the still pinned Rarity. The other unicorn was struggling to escape the five stones that had her spread on the wall.

"No pony," Antimony continued in a more sedate voice. "No pony has come that close to tagging me in a long time. Your body is tougher than it looks. You have good instincts. Training alone could never account for you giving me this much trouble."

"But!" she concluded, trotting up closer to the beaten mare. "That was it, wasn't it? Your last trick. Your last.. gasp."

"I don't..." Rarity finally replied, closing her eyes and groaning. "I don't understand... how did...?"

"How did it miss?" Antimony finished, and allowed herself a small happy sigh. "It's unfortunate, but you made a mistake. You've been avoiding my eyes this entire time, and you knew to expect illusions. You figured: if I can just make the real her appear, then I'll have a chance. Your mistake was in assuming you ever saw the real me."

Rarity's eyes opened, cautiously. "What?"

"I'll show you, out of courtesy." Antimony stamped one of her front hooves. "Did you notice it?"

Clearly, Rarity didn't.

So, the Baroness then used her right front hoof to pick up a piece of rock. Except... except the rock she picked up seemed to float in the air, as if by magic. Antimony's entire body then appeared to shift around it, higher, and then around to the other side. Closer and then further back. Only the rock remained in place, immobile.

"All this time," Rarity said, seeing it at last. "All this time you were like that?"

"Those ponies who meet my eyes experience instant and certain defeat," Antimony explained, casually flicking the rock to bounce off of Rarity's exposed midriff. "You are far from the first to think they can guess where I am by watching my hooves or my tail or my mane. The fact is that, from the start, you never knew if you were attacking an illusion or an illusion covering the real thing."

Antimony's eyes narrowed and her horn glowed.

Rarity winced in pain as the stones pinning her in place pressed harder. Her back against the stone wall of the castle gallery she gritted her teeth and tried to keep conscious. For a few seconds, Antimony was silent, letting her power over her opponent speak for her. The stone behind Rarity was unyielding. The stone began to twist, ripping white hairs from her coat and leaving the skin beneath red and raw.

"After all that scurrying around, I have half a mind to break your legs," Antimony remarked with alarming coldness in her voice. "Do you know what they used to do to ponies who broke their legs? I think it is time to give up."

"Give up?" Rarity asked, and forced out a laugh. Blue eyes squinted out beneath her long lashes. "Last I checked... you lost all your cupcakes..."

Antimony frowned.

It was... true. The cake-splattered mess that was Rarity's haircloth lay on the floor. It had protected the mare itself, leaving her coat frustratingly unblemished. This phase of the duel could not end until either one opponent had become humiliated by cake or if both had exhausted their supply of pastries. Antimony glanced back at the one cupcake left: one of Rarity's, still faintly glowing purple even within the older mare's own magical field.

"No pony would be able to tell this was your cupcake and not mine," Antimony explained, hovering the paralysis-laced baked good before Rarity's eyes. "But... I would know. And you would know. Unfortunately for you, I have no interest in winning dishonorably... or in leaving my opponent anything but completely crushed under-hoof!"

With a flick of her chin, Antimony sent her opponent flying.

"Auntie? It was you, then, all along."

Princess Celestia had thrown back her hood, though she still wore the cloak against the cold northern wind so typical of Whinnychester. In just one spell, she had teleported herself and her two guards entirely out of town and into the countryside. He had later noticed, after the fact, that Celestia had also teleported away her injured royal guard. She had done this while observing and chasing his own long-distance teleport spell, while bringing two ponies with her. He still couldn't imagine how she multitasked that. Just teleporting other ponies with oneself was difficult enough.

The two royals rested now on the thatched roof of a farmhouse. The town could just barely be seen in the distance, further down the slope of the valley. Smoke from a train idled at the station. The very same one Blueblood had planned to make use of. That plan, it seemed, was no longer viable. The ponies chasing him had not been traitors in the secret employ of the Terre Rare.

They had been his Aunt's own royal guards, obeying their first and greatest oath: to serve and obey her and her alone. He snorted.

"I can't believe..." he continued, running a hoof through his blond mane. "It was you the whole time? You had my poor Princess Hesperus brought down?"

Celestia exhaled, enjoying the cool air. Her mane waved freely, reflecting the fading light of her sun as it began to set. It was almost surreal seeing her lying comfortably on a straw roof instead of a throne or pillow. Her presence here raised only questions, and not just the ones he had dared to ask about his airship and his would-be pony-napping. Prince-napping. Whatever. Just what on Equestria was the Princess doing so far from Canterlot?!

"I am sorry for breaking your airship, nephew," she answered, still looking out to the distant horizon. "I know it meant a great deal to you."

Below them, within the farmhouse itself, her Royal Guards were assembled. Including the few Blueblood had injured in his various escapes. He felt a little bad about it now. It was yet another reason why he disliked violence. He supposed, before the events of the Gala, he would have been fine simply moving on and trying for forget that fact. Now, he knew he would have to at least make some token apology. The guards, in the end, had been doing their duty. He could not fault them for that.

"I do suppose the ship itself doesn't really matter. Much," he added that caveat. "But ponies could have been hurt. Ponies under my employ and my protection. You had me convinced there were Terre Rare spies on my staff!"

"Oh, but there are Terre Rare spies in your staff!" Celestia informed him with a sunny smile. "My own spies, too."

Blueblood's face fell, his jaw going agape. "What?"

"Exactly why your ship needed to actually go down in a crash, and why you actually needed to be pony-napped," she explained, matter-of-factly. "But then I was sitting there, back at the palace, having arranged all this. I was running the whole plan around in my head and then I remembered that you somehow picked up some rather unusual skills a few months back around the time of the Gala. There was every chance that the few guards escorting you would be unable to keep you safely and convincingly contained."

Celestia winked, mischievously.

"It was a delightful excuse to come myself and get out of town for a while!"

Blueblood was still agape.

"Unbelievable," he muttered, and groaned. "Or maybe I should say: unbelievable but typical."

"So," he began to work out the rest himself. "So you sent that letter, knowing it would prompt me to leave as soon as I could. You must have sent another letter, one I didn't see, telling your guards when to take down the airship and where. You probably also told them to make sure nopony was hurt, which was why they waited until after the ship was down and everypony was safe to turn on me."

He snorted as it all began to make sense.

"They made it look like sabotage, because it was genuinely sabotage. This whole mess also occurred right on the border with Whinnychester - a border of a province controlled by the Duke of Connemara. A Duke married to Lord Cruciger's daughter, in a territory run by the Terre Rare. Everypony will suspect their involvement and no pony will blame you for sending guards to scour the countryside."

"They dispatched their own guards within the hour. Very prompt, actually," Celestia observed with a chuckle. "Luckily, my guards found you first. Of course they would, since they've been on your tail this entire time."

"You overlooked one thing, though!" Blueblood glared at his benevolent, immortal aunt, finally betraying his upset with her. "I need to get back to Ponyville. Lady Rarity...!" He saw her glance at him with one inquisitive eye. "You must be aware of it. Rarity is being baited! They'll want to get her out of the way before I return!"

"I am aware of this," Celestia replied, looking away, seemingly without concern. "Her duel is set to begin tonight, in fact."

"Tonight? Hells! Then you know I have to intervene!" Blueblood stood up as if to leave.

"I went through all this because you can not intervene!" Celestia suddenly turned on him, expression serious rather than serene. "I will not see a repeat of what happened twenty years ago! Nephew," she said, her expression softening. "What do you think you can do? Abdicate? Fight for her? Maybe you think you can come to some agreement with Cruciger? Or broker some secret deal with Lady Antimony?"

"I... I'm not entirely sure what I can do," the Equestrian Prince admitted, lowering his head with a pained look. "But I know I can't do nothing. I just can't. I have allies in the court. I can assemble a coalition perhaps? Something. Anything!"

Celestia favored him with a warm smile and extended a wing to ease him back down. Blueblood's legs froze for a moment, resisting, because the will to fight left and he fell back onto his stomach, his legs tucked under him. Raising a hoof to his forehead, he ran it anxiously through his mane. He was clearly and unabashedly panicked, frightened and unsure, but not for himself.

"Two hundred years ago," she said, breaking the short silence. "Your great ancestor, Blueblood the forty seventh... died in a war. He was a great stallion, and I loved him as I love all my family, no matter how distant. He would have been a wonderful father, too. He left two daughters as heirs. Twins."

Blueblood eyed her warily, knowing the story, though never from her point of view.

"Even when they were born, there were great differences between the two sisters," Celestia continued. "Differences more than skin deep. Arsenic, the oldest by a matter of minutes, had great power. I could feel it radiate from her small body even as a foal. Blue Belle did not have this gift. She was strong, as all of the Blueblood line are, but nothing exceptional."

"The genealogists argued and debated but could not decide which to invest with the succession. For the first time in a thousand years, the heir was not a unicorn. You know exactly why they feared the consequences of a non-unicorn inheriting the responsibilities of the Blueblood line. The timing could not have been worse. In the end, the scholars and nobles came to me... and I..."

Celestia closed her eyes and sighed, sadly.

"I gave the order to deprive Lady Arsenic of her right to carry the Blueblood name. I tried to soften the decision, I did, but her fall from grace quickly became palace gossip. I couldn't stop it. I saw... a darkness grow in her. A darkness that only grew worse as Blue Belle parleyed her status as heir to engage in year after year of revelry and festivities. What I saw in her reminded me so much of my own sister. I felt I had to do something. This..."

She opened her eyes to see her nephew.

"This," she repeated, her voice heavy with sadness. "Is why you are engaged to Lady Antimony. As you well know. This is why, when you were young, my two precious nephews dueled over the future of their mutual bloodline. I still remember them playing in the palace green as colts. It seems, in the blink of an eye, the darkness that so clouded Arsenic took her grandson."

"I tried to bring them together, as family, but instead it all turned to argument and... and that horrible duel." She shook her head, still heartbroken by the infighting that plagued the two branches of her closest family. "Blueblood, my precious little pony, please believe me when I say I am sorry this had to happen to you. Since that time, two hundred years ago, I have tried to prepare. I have tried to find a way to satisfy everypony."

"Auntie, please. You don't have to apologize," Blueblood replied, shaking his head and motioning for her to stop. "All that matters to me is fixing things. Now. Here. History and bad blood can stay in the past, for all I care."

Celestia's smile returned, and with it her warm glow.

"Would that history could stay in the past. But believe it or not, a compromise between the families can still be arranged," she assured him. "But not by your rushing in like a white knight riding a dragon! Rarity and Antimony must face one another, and you must not be there. Before you see either, there are things you have to know..."

"You're saying there's nothing I can do?" Blueblood pleaded, not wanting to hear it. "Auntie, please, you can't tell me that. There has to be something!"

She leaned over, close enough to touch her horn to his, like a mother would a foal.

"You really love her, don't you?" she asked, amused. "I'll admit I am a little surprised! I half expected that if you two met that there would be a bit of a... scandal."

"Many things happened that night that I don't think any pony could have expected," Blueblood cautiously replied. "But yes: I think I... I think I do love her."

"Good!" Celestia declared, as the sun set, and a distant duel began. "Then believe in her."

"Believe in her?" he asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "That's it?"

"It isn't as easy as it sounds! But, sometimes, even I have to just sit back and hope things work out." Princess Celestia, Equestria's immortal goddess of the sun, chuckled. "Prince or Princess, unicorn or Alicorn. What happens tonight is out of our hooves. So believe in her."

Rarity crashed through the weakened iron frame of a window. Her limp form hit the ground of the courtyard, bounced, and then rolled to a stop. It felt for all the world like being finger-flicked by a dragon. For a moment, she blacked out, but tenacity and humiliation forced her to regain her senses. Eyes wearily opened and Rarity saw her legs sticking up comically in the air.

Dirty.

Her perfect white coat was so dirty. So filthy. It was disgusting.

It would take an entire day at the spa to even begin to fix things. Such was the curse of a white coat: it stained so much more easily than Applejack's earth orange or even Fluttershy's butter yellow. Particles of dirt that got under the coat stood out even to the casual observer. She would need a full body brushing and a cleansing bath, followed by a restorative soak, then another bath to remove the last of the loam and crud. Even her hooves were positively filthy, and that was saying something when a pony had trotted through a forest hours earlier without even getting them muddy.

Then there was her mane! Oh, her poor, precious mane!

What had she done to it?

Cutting away at it to make that tessuto di crine. She must have lost her mind; she must have suffered from some temporary insanity! Even the cloth itself was gone now, the magic in it spent. All that was left was a mangled, unseasonably short mane. Rarity wanted to cry. If she was lucky she could salvage enough to copy Lyra's look. Maybe with more body perhaps.

"Where...?" asking the question drove home another problem.

Her face hurt. Her legs hurt. Her entire body hurt.

Why? Why did her body hurt?

Rotating her legs, Rarity saw circular red bruises just below the hoof. She remembered: slowly spinning stone, pinning her to a wall, pressing hard enough to threaten to break bone. She remembered. She remembering being hit, again and again, by those rocks, each one disguised by an illusion to resemble a small tumbling cupcake. By Celestia, after today Sugarcube Corner would probably resemble an arsenal. Rarity rather doubted she would ever regain a sweet tooth in any form.

Rolling onto her side, she saw distant shapes and faces. Her ears twitched and she heard voices, too. It slowly came to her - she was back in the courtyard. Antimony had thrown her through a window, out of the ruined castle, and all the way back into the courtyard!

It was all over then.

"My, but it has been ages since I defenestrated anypony!" a now familiar voice prompted Rarity to at least try and get back onto all fours. "You really should try it sometime. It is quite empowering."

Something cold and sweet smelling pressed against her cheek, eliciting a numbing tingle.

"Come now," the voice continued, cruel and persistent. "You aren't quite done yet. Our audience wants to see the finale, and you have one last line to deliver before you walk off the stage."

Painfully, Rarity rolled onto her stomach and got her hooves under her. Legs wobbled and shook, like those of a newborn foal, as she forced herself upright. Just inches away, left on the ground, was her fifth and final cupcake. The one that glowed with a purple light. Twilight. All the others were gone. Antimony had dumped it unceremoniously on the sparse grass of the castle courtyard.

Barely any magic left, Rarity floated it into the air before her.

Antimony was already waiting, close to where she had stood when the duel first began. The Baroness of Mareseilles appeared calm, collected and almost indifferent to the slow advance of her opponent towards her. Rarity's vision blurred for a moment, but she kept on her hooves and stumbled forward. Antimony tossed her long lavender and orchid violet mane. She seemed none the worse for wear, as if she had managed to chase down her quarry in the ruins of that damned castle without so much as a scratch or smudge.

She simply stood and waited for Rarity's last, futile, humiliating attempt to ward off the inevitable. Past her, Rarity could see the impassive projection of Lord Cruciger, still seated. The unicorn guards from the Terre Rare family may as well have been projecting an image of a statue for all the emotion Antimony's father had in him. Princess Luna was more animated, watching everything closely from where she sat between two stoic Night Guards.

Rarity stumbled again, her legs wobbling in strain.

She paused, having seen one side of the field, and turned briefly to see the other. There was still a crowd: the revelers from Ponyville who had followed her earlier in the day were silent. Watching. It was hard to pick one or two individuals out from the blur, which was a shame. More than anything, Rarity would have liked to see her little sister, her parents, her good friends... even if they were looking on in pity. She shook her head, dispelling the melancholy thoughts. Besides, there was one other.

One other pony...

Why wasn't he here?

Rarity slowed to a stop, the single cupcake left in the duel floating uneasily by her side. Slowly, haltingly, it began to descend until it finally rested on the ground. Very slowly, the overmatched dressmaker raised her eyes. Antimony was only a few paces away, literally within kicking distance if a pony still had the energy to try it, which Rarity doubted she did anymore. Instead, she raised her head, proudly.

And looked Antimony right in the eyes.

"Do it, then," she dared.

The other mare's expression darkened at the show of defiance.

For the first time since Cheerilee's classroom, Rarity met the noblemare's hypnotic gaze full on. In the span of a heartbeat, something tightened in her chest - the air in her lungs turning to concrete. The side of her vision blurred black until it was impossible to percieve anything but Antimony's burning red eyes, like a pair of suns, their coronas melting and merging into an enveloping cascade of fire. Rarity blinked, her heart clenched, and all sensation fled from her mortal frame.

Chapter Eight : In This World

(8)

In This World

Alone.

Rarity found herself alone in the Everfree castle courtyard.

Inspecting a deflated balloon with the tip of her hoof, the limp string coiled and leading to the leg of a discarded fold-out table, Rarity swore she could still smell the grease from hay fries. Nor was this the only bit of detritus seemingly left behind. Bits of wax paper and a dozen paper cups could be seen here and there; the only visible evidence that ponies had recently visited the remote castle ruin deep in the forbidden forest.

The old palace of the Princesses seemed none the worse for wear despite the fierce duel that had taken place within it. It was early morning, the sun only starting it's ascent into the heavens. Trees rustled in the morning breeze. Birds roosted in rafters and tangled vines obscured ancient statuary. It was... convincingly real. Of course it wasn't real.

It couldn't be real.

Rarity waited. When she had faced Antimony, eye to eye, to show her that she wouldn't be intimidated or dismissed, she had expected something more engaging. What, exactly, she wasn't sure. The whole idea had come to Rarity as a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing. Being transported to a mountain castle like before would have been about right. It would not have been a surprise to end up somewhere surreal and dream-like or to have nightmare creatures rise up around her. Something. Anything. Antimony had to know that she knew this was a dream.

This was a dream. An illusion.

Rarity was sure of it.

As if to test things, she forcefully and magically plucked out a hair from her mane. It hurt, yes, but really that hardly proved anything. Antimony's illusions could simulate pain. Or cause pain. It was unclear which. Yet Antimony herself was absent and had been for what seemed like hours. Had it been hours? It was hard to think; hard to concentrate.

She waited.

The sun began to set before Rarity ventured into the forest, less out of desperation and more out of thirst. It was pitch black, well past midnight by the time she reached a river she knew had fresh, clean water. This was Steven's river. It was.

The water serpent wasn't there, but then from what little she knew he could easily have gone up or down stream. It didn't prove anything. Antimony could have seen the river somewhere. It being just where Rarity knew it to be didn't prove anything. This - none of this was real. Nopony would just abandon her in Everfree after the duel. Her friends and family would never just leave her there.

It was hard to find a place to sleep that night. Not that she was actually sleeping. This was all an illusion. Still, her body seemed to demand sleep just as it demanded water. Everfree was about the worst place in Equestria for any pony to try and spend the night. Rarity was already filthy and hurting from the duel. She tried hard not to think about how worse she would look after sleeping in a dirty lean-to in the forest. Then again: none of this was real. Thinking that, repeating that fact to herself, made the hardship easier to endure. She would be back to her fabulous self, back in the real world, in no time!

It was all just a bad dream. When you knew it was a bad dream, how bad could it be?

Ponyville.

Ponyville was empty.

It was definitely a dream. This was definitely an illusion. A lie.

There was no way - no way - that Ponyville would be evacuated or abandoned. On the long walk back from the castle, Rarity knew she had shamefully indulged in the occasional thought that perhaps her friends had left after the duel. Perhaps they had left her in Luna's care, or even in Antimony's. The cruel noblemare could have tricked them somehow - gotten them to leave assuming everything was fine. It actually seemed rather unlike the Baroness, but then anything was possible.

Rarity regretted having those treacherous thoughts now. This couldn't be real.

Ponyville was so quiet with no pony around. There weren't even any animals. Fences and pens were left open giving the impression that everypony had, at some point, simply decided to pack up and leave. A few empty carts lay alongside the main road leading into town. Awnings and wind chimes rustled and provided a faint background melody. Once again, Rarity had to remind herself that it wasn't real.

Despite her conviction, however, she felt she had to investigate. Picking up her pace as she entered the town, she first headed for home: her Carousel Boutique. The door was locked, but she knew where she kept a spare key hidden in the nook of a tree's roots out back. It was only on retrieving the hidden key that Rarity hesitated.

Nopony knew where she kept this key... except Sweetie Belle.

Antimony wouldn't have known. She couldn't have known!

This -

This couldn't be real, could it?

Opening the Boutique, finding it just as she remembered, Rarity ran to the back rooms. She kept all her supplies and all her designs in a state of organized chaos and apparent disarray. Though to unpracticed eyes the mess may have appeared, well, messy, in fact Rarity knew where everything was. It was organized in her own unique way. It was a little cluttered, perhaps, but it was her mess and she liked it as it was. Seeing it now, in this illusionary world, nearly bowled her over.

Everything. Everything was just where she knew it to be. First Steven's river, and then the key to her shop, and then the unique form of organization only she knew? It was impossible that Antimony would know about these things. It was impossible that she would have details of them. No pony, not even Sweetie Belle and her parents, could recreate things so exactly! This -

This -

This was a dream, wasn't it?

"Somepony... say something..."

Dazed, Rarity emerged from her shop. Only the empty town of Ponyville greeted her.

"Somepony...? Anypony! Please! Somepony please say something!"

Silence was the only response from Ponyville's lifeless streets and abandoned buildings. Growing increasingly desperate, Rarity ran pell-mell to Sugarcube Corner. Despite her earlier joke that it would resemble a candy coated arsenal after her experience in the duel, seeing it brought a stark injection of familiarity and relief. Built to resemble nothing as much as a giant gingerbread house it was one of the most distinctive of Ponyville's buildings, radiating fairy tale warmth and perpetually good cheer. There were few in Ponyville who didn't have one or two fond memories of time spent with friends at Sugarcube Corner.

The shop's doors swung open, and Rarity braced herself for an enthusiastic greeting. It took a few seconds to sink in that, despite the stocked shelves and displays, the town's famous sweet store was as deserted and empty as the rest of the village. There was no effusive smile worn by Pinkie Pie as she bounced over to greet her friend. Even checking in the kitchen yielded nothing.

Nothing!

Staggering away from the supposedly happy venue, her spirits rapidly falling, Rarity slowly made her way to the nearby library. She found the door locked, but a window open. Suspecting there was no pony around to object to her unorthodox entry, Rarity snuck in via the window on the ground level. Inside, rows of neatly sorted, stacked and lined books rested in shelves, on tables and podiums, and even a few on the floor. A pony could, from the main room, see up and into the second floor where Twilight slept. Daring to look for herself, Rarity found everything in place. Just like she remembered from the sleep-over. Even Spike's little bed was there, his purple and green blanket neatly folded.

But it was all empty - there was nothing here. No pony here!

Moving mechanically now, Rarity checked other homes and businesses. She knew it was futile: that the town really was empty. It was less a search for somepony and more an attempt to find something wrong with the illusion she knew she had to be trapped in. The town square; the town market; the bank; the cafes and shops and homes and apartments. All empty. All abandoned. Even the unthinkable... even Sweet Apple Acres. Empty.

A cruel, unbearable thought pried its way into her mind:

The town hadn't been abandoned. She had been abandoned.

There was only one place left to check. Taking some apples off a tree in what passed for the day's meal, Rarity took one of the newer roads outside town. All too soon she encountered the first of the decorative iron gates that framed the road to Blueblood's newly constructed summer retreat outside town. Oddly, bright and festive balloons were tied to the portcullis - an effervescent contrast to the otherwise somber and oppressive atmosphere.

The peaks of the roof's crow-stepped gables and the tips of elaborately carved brick chimneys emerged from the tree line. It was a view Rarity had not expected to see again, not until the Art Festival; not at least until her reunion with her Prince. She paused, slowed, then resumed her journey with renewed determination. This building, so slowly revealing itself from behind a curtain of trees - it was going to be her house one day. Hers to share with the stallion she loved. It being recreated in such perfect detail only reinforced that fact. It only bolstered her resolve.

Antimony had made her own mistake in her commitment to realism in this dream world.

As the last gateway passed overhead, Rarity finally saw the two iconic curved stairs that flanked the frontal facade of the manor house. Here, too, she could see more of the odd festive touches: more balloons and even streamers and tables, albeit empty ones. It was as if the house had been prepped for the Art Festival and then abandoned, just as the work was half done. Balloons in all colors drifted lazily from window panes and stone railings. Three even floated in the grasp of the statue-fountain out front, comically wrapped around the right hoof of Lady Victory, just beneath the mythological scroll representing wisdom.

Just like Ponyville, the manor seemed empty - but some gut feeling, some instinct, pushed Rarity onward. This building, she suspected, was not like Ponyville. It was not like Canterlot, which she could see in the distance, recreated in all its glory. This one building would not be empty.

Wearily ascending the curved staircase to the upper front door, Rarity saw, for the first time, another pony. Her heart skipped a beat in relief and anticipation. She wasn't alone! But... this pony. It was, of course -

"Antimony," she hissed.

"How familiar," the Baroness chided from where she sat, waiting, at the top of the stairs. "Please address me as Lady Antimony or Your Ladyship." She wore the same impassive, frustratingly calm expression that she always put on. "Did you enjoy your trek from Everfree? Would you like to wash up inside?"

"I may take you up on that," Rarity replied, well aware of how bad she looked. The offer of a nice hot bath had more appeal to it than she wanted to admit.

"You should know," Antimony warned, watching the younger mare carefully. It was then that Rarity noticed it: Antimony's eyes were different inside this illusion. There was no reddish glow. They seemed... normal. A normal orchid-violet.

"I considered letting you wander longer in that forest, but I think my point is more keenly made this way," she said with a little laugh. "Also, I do not wish to drive you insane. Yet."

Rarity inclined her head in mock respect. "I bow to your kindness, your Ladyship."

Antimony's expression darkened again, just like before, and her blush colored eyes betrayed growing annoyance and fraying patience.

"This world, however it may appear, is entirely my domain," she remarked, holding out a hoof to prevent Rarity from going further into the manor house itself. "The length of time you spend here can be an hour, a few days, or an eternity. I can ply you with bliss or drown you in torment. It would be wise to remember that fact."

Rarity frowned, as Antimony's hoof still held her back.

"Do you know the most common phobia among ponykind?" Antimony quickly answered her own question, "Isolophobia. A mild form of it is all but universal, so much so that it is not even considered a mental disorder. Ponies are afraid of being alone. We desire to be part of a herd. We need this contact with others."

"Without it," she lectured, and Rarity got the impression it was a speech the noblemare had given before. "Without at least seeing others and being acknowledged by others... a pony's sanity begins to slip. She begins to imagine inanimate objects to be loved ones. She divorces herself from reality, creating a separate world that is more comforting. In my experience, a normal healthy sociable mare in our age bracket can last only a week in complete isolation before losing her mind."

Rarity didn't need to ask why, but she did. To hear it from the Baroness' own mouth.

"Why are you telling me this?" Rarity cautiously inquired.

Antimony slowly lowered her hoof, but still she stood between Rarity and the door.

"It would be wise to abandon your ambitions," she stated, as if still giving advice. "In this world, I could do the most terrible of things to you. Defy me, Rarity, and I will break you. As I have broken many, many ponies before you."

Antimony held out her hoof - her clean, manicured, perfect hoof. Rarity took a long look at the proffered hoof, considering the offer.

"It isn't ambition," she corrected the noblemare.

"It is!" Antimony roared, and the hoof that had been offered stomped, hard, against the ground. "You believe yourself noble? You believe yourself my equal? I have struggled and fought and bit and kicked my way to where I am! I have earned the love of - !"

She quickly cut herself off, correcting her faux pas and her angry tone. "I have earned this."

Antimony leaning in closer to the exhausted dressmaker. "You think yourself right to challenge me. To take the title that was mine by right. How is this not ambition? How is it not arrogance?"

Rarity shook her head, sadly. "I wish I could explain it to you, darling. I wish-"

"You will wish and you will beg," Antimony cut her off. "To kiss my hoof and plead for my mercy. In this realm, there is no Princess Celestia! There is no Princess Luna! There is only Antimony!"

Her shoulders hitched, her back arched, and great white wings unfurled from her illusionary form. Her already impressive horn lengthened and in one flap of her new, massive wings she took to the air. The elaborate manor house ripped apart around her, forcing Rarity to shield herself as hundreds of thousands of bricks and tons of marble erupted into a spiraling hurricane. Spinning around, she could just see Ponyville and Canterlot in the distance, also de-materializing.

The very ground beneath her hooves came apart and she fell, through the firmament, and into what felt like water: cold and wet. Rarity forced herself up and back to the surface, teeth chattering and the hairs of her coat standing on end from the chill. She gasped for breath and her legs kicked frantically.

Equestria was gone.

In its place was an Ocean, endless and dark. There was no land in sight, from horizon to horizon, and though the sky still shimmered with bright stars, one nightly fixture was absent. In this world, this illusion, there was no moon. Rarity kicked and tried to keep afloat before will overpowered instinct and she tried to drift and conserve energy. She knew how to swim, after all. All she had to do was keep her head above water.

Hours passed.

Hours, and Rarity's body began to burn. There was no driftwood to hold onto. There was no raft on this black, moonless sea. There was no land to paddle towards. She had feared some sea monster lurking in the depths below, but then even that terror had been replaced by the slow and agonizing realization that no tentacles or toothy beast was needed. The cold and the constant need to keep safely afloat were killing her already.

The numbness took her legs first. They became hard to move. Then it crept into her chest, seizing her heart and lungs. It became hard to breathe, her pulse felt far too slow, and her vision blurred. She zoned out and tasted salt as water poured into her nose and throat from an errant breath. Rising her face to break the surface, she coughed violently. Ponies were not meant to swim for long periods of time, even under ideal conditions.

Rarity drifted, kicking only occasionally.

Before slipping silently into the still, lightless waters of the sea.

Bells tolled in Ponyville.

Woken early by the sound, Rarity kicked off her covers and squinted her eyes. The sun had only just risen, sending lancing streams of light into her room. But it was a strange, warbling light, full of reds and oranges instead of the usual bright yellow-gold. Off color or not, it was still enough to wake a pony up. Rarity groaned and rolled around on her bed, attempting resistance even in the face of Celestia's divine light.

Around her room, paintings of Canterlot could be seen hanging from the walls. A bust of Princess Celestia, a gift from her grandmother, smiled with regal grace from the top of her dresser. Dolls and magazines were strewn around the room with less obvious organization, alongside pads of paper and a constantly rotating set of hoof-drawn pictures.

Rarity rolled herself into and under the covers, trying to hide from the tolling outside. Eventually it became too much of a distraction to even try and sleep through. Small legs bounced off the bed as Rarity scampered to her window, intent on identifying the source of the disturbance. She couldn't see the town chapel from her room, but she could see the school. The heraldic and Equestrian flags were at half-mast.

Sniffing the air, the filly headed downstairs.

"Mom?" she called out, bounding down the stairs. "Dad?"

She found them in the kitchen and dining room. By the smell, Rarity could tell her mother had somehow managed to burn the oatmeal. Again. Father never seemed to mind, but Rarity had quickly learned to cook for herself. Usually the morning was lively in their household, but as she took everything in, she could see somber expressions on her parents' faces. Father seemed to be glaring at his newspaper.

"Oh, hey there my little marshmallow!" Rarity's father quickly cantered over to pick her up and place her on his back. Rarity giggled and tugged at his mane.

"I'm not a marshmallow!" she objected, sticking her nose in the air. "And I'm not little! I'm four years old!"

Normally, her father would then say something like: "A four year old marshmallow!"

But his mood was dampened enough that he only craned his neck to nuzzle her.

"What's wrong?" she asked, turning to the open faced kitchen where a pink unicorn with an indigo-blue mane seemed to be watching her family with tears in her eyes. "Mom? What's wrong? Why are all the bells making so much noise?"

Mother lowered her eyes. "Oh, Rarity, it - it isn't anything-"

"She'll learn about it in school, dear," Father argued. "Rarity. Something did happen yesterday."

"What?" she asked, curious and now a little concerned. She was already about to ask, 'is school canceled?' when her father explained.

"Our Prince is dead," he said, softly. "He passed away last night."

"Our Prince?" Rarity asked from stop her father's back. Did he mean the Prince up in Canterlot?

Rarity watched with wide, sparkling eyes as the ranks of guardponies parted, revealing Equestria's New Prince. He was a colt, of course, but only a little older than herself. A older mare stood at his side or behind him: a statuesque and noble looking Lady with the same sort of pink coat Rarity's own mother had. Her mane and eyes were a deep ocean blue and she wore a formal all-black dress and veil. This had to be the Grand Duchess. A beautiful platinum crown was the only bit of color in her ensemble.

Rarity quickly found her attention focused less on the noble lady and more on her son. The New Prince! The new Blueblood! He was dressed in an impressive coat with shawl collar, defined with royal blues and purples and laces of silver. Sparkling gems glittered in the cloak around his shoulders and back. His coat was pure white, like Rarity's father's, and his mane was a light shade of gold. A small scabbard hung from his belt.

Rarity couldn't help the stars forming in her eyes.

He was the cutest, most handsome and dashing colt she had ever seen!

"We, Blueblood the fifty second, have taken upon ourselves the Duchy of Canterlot, your neighbor and patron. We embrace you, Ponyville, and affirm our commitment to warm relations, open roads, and everlasting protection."

He could also speak pretty loudly! Rarity doubted she could scream that loud and still be heard as far away as everypony was. All around her, ponies stomped their hooves in applause. The entire town of Ponyville had been gathered in the town square to greet the new Prince and to receive his renewal of vows. Up on the stage, the little Prince - Rarity wondered if he even had his cutie mark yet - glanced nervously around at his audience. Blue eyes lowered and he politely inclined his head in a smooth and practiced bow.

Still, he looked... sad.

He wasn't smiling. Then Rarity shook her head, reminding herself that of course he would be. His father was gone. Anypony would be sad. Now he was Prince, and he had to travel around to show everpony that what had been done under his father would continue under him. Even a little filly understood that much.

The Mayor then rose up to the platform, bowed to the Prince and kissed his hoof. She then went into another one of her boring speeches. Rarity craned her neck, trying to keep sight of the Prince and his Duchess mother. Even standing on her father's back, it was hard to see over everypony's heads. Ditzy and the other pegasi had it easy. They could just fly, or hang out on top of a cloud. All the unicorns and earth ponies were stuck on the ground.

Looking around, Rarity noticed Applejack from school. The other little filly, Rarity's age but in a different homeroom, had been done up in a pink dress. Her brother, around Prince Blueblood's age, wore a proper black coat. All the Apple Clan were out in style, for once. All of Ponyville's major landowners and upper class types had been given front row seats for the renewal of vows. Some, like the Apples, would even get to meet the Prince or Duchess personally. Rarity hoped they understood just how lucky they were.

Her family wasn't rich, and they didn't own a huge farm.

They hadn't helped to found Ponyville.

Rarity felt a little sting of sadness, but set her hooves on her father's back and quashed it.

"I'll meet him one day!" she declared, to her father's surprise.

"What?" he asked.

"One day, I'll meet the Prince," she said with a grin. "And I'll marry him and we'll both be happy!"

Father watched her out of the corner of his eye, for just a second or two.

Then he chuckled. "I hope the Prince likes marshmallows then."

"Dad! I told you! I'm not a marshmallow!"

"Here," Antimony whispered, standing over her prone opponent. "Let me show you... how malleable your reality is, dressmaker."

Rarity fought not to blush as she danced with the stallion of her dreams at the most magnificent event of the year, the Grand Galloping Gala. Prince Blueblood was not quite the stallion she had imagined and dreamed of for so many years, but she found that she didn't much care about her expectations any more. Despite her outward confidence and poise, she still couldn't be sure why he had singled her out - unless it was because of her Element of Harmony - when there were so many other fair ladies of the court watching them with envious eyes. He had even traded off dancing with his Aunt, the Princess herself, to be with her!

Rarity tried not to ruin things by obsessing over 'why.'

She was having fun. Her friends were having the night of their lives. She couldn't imagine a more magical and wonderful night, and it wasn't even over yet. Pirouetting and matching the Princes' steps in the marche, Rarity recalled how she had dreamed of marrying the Prince as a filly. She still entertained the wild fantasy from time to time. But it was realistically just that: a fantasy. A dream. Fleeting and wonderful but, of course, impossible.

Wasn't it?

"My sweet lady Rarity! How wonderful to see you again!" Blueblood bowed even as the words left his mouth. A pair of stoic royal guards flanked the sides of the door as he entered her humble Ponyville Boutique.

Rarity felt the ribbon she had been levitating fall from the trembling grip of her magic.

"Blueblood?" she stammered and immediately blushed at the too-familiar tone. "Your Grace. What a surprise...!"

"I know, I know! Dropping by un-invited like this." He chuckled and smoothed back a lock of blond mane. "Luckily, surprise was just what I intended. We must be in and out of town before you-know-who decides to arrange a party we sadly do not have time to attend."

You-know-who being a certain pink party pony.

"But... we?" Rarity asked. "You... I don't recall you using the royal 'we' like this before?"

And, how did she know him well enough to say that?

"Ah, yes. By 'we' I mean myself and my fiancée," he explained, stepping aside.

Despite wearing a dapper suit and vest for a casual visit, the mare he introduced was more elegantly attired. She wore a delicate dress of white and gold, decorated with gemstone drop beading and artistic lace panel detail. It was an inspired and fascinating design... one Rarity wondered why she hadn't thought of herself. Looking at it on this new and strangely familiar mare almost seemed to strike her with deja vu.

"Your fiancée?" Rarity found herself asking, and regretting how shocked dumb she sounded.

"Yes, it has been in the works for years, but our families only recently finished negotiations on the dower," Blueblood said with a passing, far off look. "But, I digress! You see, talk turned to the eventual wedding itself. My Lady and I would very much appreciate it if you were to have a hoof in designing, if not making, a matching dress and suit for us."

"Of course! And congratulations!" Rarity exclaimed, her thoughts racing with the possibilities and opportunities. Designing for a royal wedding? She would be the talk of Canterlot! She would - she was -

"...my manners? Allow me to introduce Lady Antimony, Baroness of Mareseilles, Lady Grand Cross of the Royal Celestial Order, and future Duchess of Canterlot."

This wasn't r-

Rarity felt a spike of pain. A corrective jolt in the back of her head. She winced, eyes closing briefly and blocking out the tableau before her. The pain passed, leaving only a faint impression behind. Her eyes reopened and fortunately neither Blueblood nor his new bride seemed to have noticed the faux pas.

"I'm honored," Rarity quickly said, though for some reason she didn't feel it.

She stared at Blueblood, looking, waiting for... something. He seemed happy and oblivious to her concern. The latter was a bit vexing, especially after the -

Especially after the friendship they had struck during the Gala.

But he seemed happy, so she told herself to be happy for him. Of course he would marry another noble. Of course he would find a perfect, beautiful noblemare of high birth. It was what all the magazines and tabloids had speculated on. The question was always which noblemare would rise to the challenge. What did she, a simple dressmaker from a little country town, have that could compare to the vast dowry that so many of these Ladies could offer?

He was a Prince, after all. She was -

She was happy for him.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, holding the side of her head. "I fear the excitement is getting to me. I have a... a headache..."

"I'm sorry to hear such news," Blueblood said, walking closer and dipping his head to examine her more closely. More intimately. It seemed to make the pain a little sharper. "Is there anything I can do? I have a royal physician on call..."

"No. Thank you." Rarity bowed deeply, to the Prince and to his blushing bride to be. "Please give me the honor of designing for you. You won't regret it!"

Blueblood gave a happy little titter. "Good! Excellent!"

"I'm sure we won't regret using you," Antimony added, and a flood of pleasure swept away Rarity's headache. She looked up at the beautiful noblemare. She knew she should have been at least a little envious of her, but -

But instead she only felt awe and devotion.

"Just a little more. And then..."

How...

How very interesting Ponyville was. Really. It wasn't like the small towns in Prance or Two Rivers. Superficially, it was similar, but there were many distinct touches that reflected it's unique history. To say nothing of it's unique location!

A hydra, really?

Fascinating. They had been hunted to extinction in the northern territories. Father had a set of skulls from the last one on display in his great Castle Keep of Marestricht. She had never seen a living one. Antimony still had not, really, since she was simply seeing it as Rarity saw it. It was only a reflection of a memory, but it was close to seeing it herself. Simply fascinating.

"Just... a bit more," she whispered to herself, eyes ablaze.

Inside her eyes, inside her mind, inside her illusions...

"Welcome, everypony!"

Antimony smiled as she greeted the Ponyville sextet and Elements of Harmony. The illusionary reality had run longer than she had expected, the better to reinforce it's mind altering effects. In this realm, it was the day before the Art Festival and she - and Blueblood - had invited their friends from the town to a private party at the now complete manor.

As the six mares entered, looking around the house and the many and varied snacks and waiting servants, Antimony felt herself relax. All was well in this realm she had absolute control over and she had been privy to the most interesting spectacles in the form of these girls' adventures. Things she had only heard about from her spies became so much more vivid and real, from the defeat of Discord to that little situation Alpha Brass had conspired to cause in Canterlot to Twilight Sparkle's little assistant growing to a massive size due to his draconic greed.

It had been impossible to resist watching closely, or even taking opportunity to insert herself here and there into events. The better to augment and supplement the illusion's positive and negative reinforcement, of course. Rarity had a truly invaluable cadre of allies in her fellow Elements of Harmony. For all the differences they sometimes had, they were a reliable group.

One could not ask for more than reliable, loyal allies - for these friends of hers.

The illusions all deferred to her, of course. It was important that Rarity subconsciously sense that her friends were all in lock-step with her in this. Antimony willed them to bow to her and thank her for the invitation, to show the basic modicum of respect and obeisance. After that, though, she let them "free" to act as Rarity imagined they would act.

Pinkie Pie bounced over to oversee the fair distribution of sweets and party favors much to the consternation of the servants. Antimony had to remind her that the party's treats were to be parsed out over several hours, and not consumed all at once. Twilight Sparkle quickly became distracted by a framed treatise on magic in the library, trying to explain its historical and scholarly relevance to her bemused friends. Rainbow Dash and Applejack had found the croquet set left out, but the former had also brought some sort of discus that Rarity imagined she intended to toss about.

Given a reprieve from Twilight's lecture, Fluttershy soon entered into a casual discussion of the Everfree's ecology with Antimony's husband. With Blueblood. He was the most difficult of the illusions to maintain. Antimony knew his presence was necessary, however, despite the trouble it took to control him and rein in Rarity's own view of things. So long as she remained in control, all was well. The illusionary world was much like the real world in that respect.

Things were going so well, in fact, that negative reinforcement had not been necessary for some time. Rarity was all but "trained," as Antimony's family called this use of her eyes. It was a description she did not favor herself. A pony could do much with the gifts she had been given. The bending of another to her will was one such possibility. If her brother or sisters only knew what it involved, they would not be so keen to recommend her use of it. A life was not easily or lightly tampered with, nor a mind re-wired.

Still: all was well. Soon.

Soon she would be able to leave this world, and assert her earned dominance.

The group talked and snacked and soon moved outside to the back acres. Fountains and entrances to themed gardens stretched out before them. A game of croquet and then badminton eventually ended in favor of Rainbow Dash's peculiar thrown disk. Antimony felt a tug in the illusion as Rarity's own view of things conflicted with her own. The issue, as it often was, related to Blueblood. It seemed unlikely to the Baroness that the prissy Prince would indulge in such an unusual game, cantering around on the grass to toss some disk here or there.

Couldn't they play Polo instead, perhaps? They could use teams of three and...

Antimony had to keep the world from changing. If Rarity wished for Blueblood to engage in this curious activity, then there was no harm in allowing it. It was simply strange. That was all.

Not partaking in the game, Antimony watched from a cushion on the grass. A silver tray rested on a small wooden table with tiny sculpted ponies holding it up in place of legs. Enamel cups and dishes provided for coffee or tea, scones and fruit cakes of all colors and varieties. A silver-maned servant, one of the manor's male domestic staff, stood within a respectful distance to cater to any need. A gramophone had been left on a chair to play music, next to a clavichord that Antimony had played earlier, recalling lessons learned as a foal. Even without having to tweak things in this world, she was still quite accomplished on the keys. It was required of all her family to learn a courtly instrument.

This place: this illusion. It was... nice. So very nice.

"Have you given thought to my earlier proposition?" Antimony asked, glancing to her left where Rarity also sat on a cushion, watching her friends play.

"I have, and I'm afraid I must decline." Rarity dipped her head in a respectful bow. "While the position of maîtresse en titre - of first mistress - would be an honor, I do not think I would be comfortable accepting."

Antimony nodded, expecting - and reinforcing - that answer.

"I understand," she replied. "My Blueblood has become fond of you, so I thought it fair to give offer. But you must be free to do as you wish. I'm sure you'll find a special somepony of your own soon."

"It isn't really that."

"Hm?"

"I would... I would like to be with him, but not like that. I'm still not sure exactly what to think," Rarity admitted, and Antimony frowned inwardly, applying just a little illusionary pressure. To reinforce. To correct. But only a little.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I think... you'll have to forgive me," Rarity said, looking a little afraid to speak her mind.

"Go on," Antimony pressed. "I'm curious. What is on your mind?"

"I just... I feel so very sorry for the both of you." Rarity's answer took the noblemare by surprise. "I can see it so very clearly, darling. You don't love him, do you?"

Antimony's ears twitched in annoyance. "I don't see how that matters."

"I'm not surprised you don't," Rarity said with a sad shake of her head. "But you will one day and by then, I fear it will be too late. I can't begin to understand what your families gain by this marriage, but is it really worth losing your chance at love? And Blueblood... Prince Blueblood I mean. He seems happy, but something... something keeps telling me he isn't. It just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel real."

"I can't help but think, if you go through with this, that you'll both be unhappy," she admitted, giving the Baroness a sympathetic look. "And that something bad will happen."

"Is..." Antimony had to couch her words and control her temper. "Is that all you care about? There is more to life than self-indulgence. There are many things that can make one happy."

Rarity bowed slightly in apology. "I didn't mean to offend you, your Ladyship. I'm very sorry, but - that's just how I feel."

"Well, you're wrong," Antimony replied, but couldn't bring herself to administer a small corrective reinforcement. Not when she knew, deep down, that Rarity was right. To an extent.

"I will be happy," she said, and contented herself with watching the game in the garden. "All I have to do is win."

"All I have to do... is beat one... little... pony."

Rarity emerged from the endless black sea, eyes wide and gasping for air. Her lungs spasmed and harsh salty water rushed up from inside to flood out her mouth. The icy cold liquid stung her throat and nose and worse, she collapsed bonelessly and gracelessly into it as she grasped for solid ground. Her hooves desperately scraped and found purchase on smooth stone.

Hacking and coughing, she looked up at her nemesis.

Antimony stood, just as she had a moment before, her chin high and her orchid-violet eyes calculating. Rarity tried to rise like she had before - she could see the manor house, the familiar tress that divided it from Ponyville, even the distant snow capped mountains that sheltered Canterlot. Everything was just as it had been before the world turned to dust and spiteful shadow, casting her alone into a dark, terrifying sea.

"It can all end," the noblemare said and Rarity involuntarily shivered. She extended her hoof.

She didn't need to say why.

"I can't see a darned thing! What's goin' on?"

"Yeah, Twilight, what is goin' on out there?"

"I - I don't know."

If his pony friends were having a hard time seeing, Spike had it worse. It was still dark out, less a problem for him then most ponies, but from what he could see Antimony and Rarity were standing still in the center of the courtyard. Rarity was on the ground, barely moving. It couldn't be, but... was it over?

'This... this is what I wanted, isn't it?' the thought sickened him, but it was true, wasn't it? 'If Rarity wins, then it's only a matter of time. She'll marry that jerk of a Prince. She'll leave Ponyville. I'll never have a chance to tell her how I feel.'

She had to lose.

He had already realized this; already accepted it, back when he destroyed Blueblood's letter. All Rarity had to do was lose. It wouldn't be the end of the world. Why was it so hard, seeing it about to happen, to just accept it?

Sure, she would be sad for a while.

But she'd get over it. Spike was sure of it. He'd be there to help her get over it.

'Help her recover from a problem I helped cause,' he admonished himself, his little hands balling into fists. 'I can't watch this, can I? Even if it's what I wanted, I can't watch it happen.'

"Come on, Rarity!" Rainbow Dash pawed the ground, fighting to hold herself back. "Don't just give up!"

'I can't watch it. I can't...'

"I don't think she can move," Fluttershy said, craning her neck to try and see.

"Probably not," Twilight agreed. "Some sort of visual paralysis spell? But that isn't unicorn magic."

'Rarity. I'm sorry. This is my fault. I'm so sorry! Rarity!'

"If she can't move, then how's she gonna fight back?"

Spike opened his eyes and saw Sweetie Belle being held back by her parents, just a stone's throw away. Luna's guards were in the air, circling, preventing anypony from getting closer.

'Don't give up!'

Lady Antimony, the esteemed and beloved Baroness of Mareseilles, just couldn't understand it.

She had not been lying earlier when she remarked that she did not enjoy torture. Granted, a part of her did enjoy inflicting a little pain during a duel, but then a part of her enjoyed receiving it as well. As a unicorn, she never felt so alive - so free - as when she could truly cut loose with her magic. Many other noble mares seemed to feel the same way, with the determination, courage and honor they showed in a duel.

Antimony loved it. She loved dueling. She loved fighting.

Fighting was life. Fighting was honor. Fighting was proof of one's convictions and one's place in the world. Rarity was fighting her now like no mare had before, and in a realm Antimony controlled every aspect of. She just couldn't understand why. If Rarity had demanded the right to be Duchess, demanded that she had a right to rule, and then galloped through Hell to earn it - that, Antimony could understand. That, she could respect.

Why? Why would this insane dressmaker go so far, and for what? Having pierced her mind with her illusions, Antimony could see that she did not desire power. She truly did not want to be Duchess of Canterlot. She had no idea of the secrets and the forbidden power the Blueblood family had sealed. The forbidden spells of Starswirl! The Tartarus Key! The Obsidian Codex! The Lexicon of Dragon Names! Actual Sand from the First Hourglass! Star Caller's Seal!

Spells to bend and twist and remake creation!

Spells from the Old Kingdom! Spells to give unicorns the powers they once had, now wielded only by Celestia and Luna. Spells that could bring fire from the sky and shatter the barriers between worlds! Magic, it was whispered, to even make unicorns into alicorns.

Not... not that she would use many of these spells, of course. It was the rightful and honorable duty of the Greatest House in the land to assist Princess Celestia: to guard and maintain the treasures and dangers of the past. The Bluebloods were the heirs of Princess Platinum, who had first sealed the spells of the past. The Terre Rare, too, were the heirs of Platinum. The true heirs.

Rarity did not seem to either know or care about any of that. Like Blueblood, she was concerned with more mundane things with little interest in the grand scheme. Antimony found it hard to fathom, but she had encountered other mares like that: ones skilled in magic, but not terribly interested in it otherwise. They pursued the Platinum Crown not out of a desire for knowledge or to find purpose in the fulfillment of destiny. They did it simply to seek high office, or to one up a rival, or even because they were smitten with Equestria's handsome Prince.

Why? Why did Rarity persist?

Why did she fight a duel she must have known she would lose? Why had she dared to look her opponent in the eye, knowing it was her doom? Antimony didn't want to truly believe that her opponent was so foalish, so stupid, so divorced from reality. From what she had seen and heard, Rarity was an intelligent and charming mare. During the fight she had thought quickly and creatively. Many, many other duelists would have lost to her.

Why? Why? Why?

"How much longer are you going to make me do this to you?" Antimony asked, and she even allowed Rarity to hear her.

Unlike the other unicorn, she was mentally aware of both her dream realm and the real world. While it was true she could keep Rarity suspended in this illusion for a long time, eventually even she - the most powerful daughter of the Terre Rare - would run out of magical energy. Two weeks of absolute illusion was her limit. No pony's mind would survive that long, however, so calling it 'an eternity' was not that much of a white lie.

She floated down to where Rarity lay, on her side, unable to even move.

"Look at you," she remarked, sadly. "Rarity. It is time. Time to give up."

Blue eyes, once so determined and defiant, looked up at her in defeat.

"You have caused me no small measure of vexation, but I suppose you are a saint next to some of the other mares who wished to take what is mine. You have my respect, but it is time... to give up and go home."

Antimony held out her hoof, just inches from Rarity's lips. She didn't need to say what had to be done. All the other unicorn had to do was crane her neck forward, just a little, and kiss. In the real world, too, Antimony held out her hoof. Their positions there were much the same: Rarity had long since collapsed onto her side, back in the castle courtyard.

Now, in both realms, she began to inch forward, lips puckering.

Antimony licked her own lips in anticipation. Finally. With this, finally, all things would be back on track. She would marry Blueblood and bear his heir. Only then would he, and his house, finally be allowed to fade from prominence. She would even do him a kindness and allow him to pass away peacefully, in his sleep. Then, at last, the Terre Rare would pick up where the Bluebloods left off. The first thing Antimony would do, as Grand Duchess, would be to erect a great monument to Lady Arsenic. By decree, the Stable of Lords would be convinced to pass a resolution proclaiming Arsenic as the One True Heir and Blue Belle as the usurper.

All would be made right. Equestria itself would be made right. In strength. Through strength! Like the Princesses themselves! It was the Divine Order made manifest!

And all that was required, now, was for one stubborn Element of Harmony to kiss her hoof. Rarity's lips were close enough now for her breath to tickle the trimmed fetlock around Antimony's hoof. In both realms, Antimony felt her body tense with anticipation, eyes closed, as she waited.

"Rarity."

Eyes snapped open. That voice. That little whisper. She recognized it from the other day.

Rarity heard it too.

"Rarity!" it repeated, more forcefully, in the youthful soprano of a child's voice.

"Sweetie Belle?" Rarity asked, eyes wide as she tried to identify the source of the voice.

Antimony snarled as her prey pushed away, rolling over onto her other side. Rarity's body in the real world did the same. So close! She had been so close! What was happening?

Shifting slightly back to the castle courtyard, Antimony saw it.

Even though Luna's two guards had posted themselves between the Ponyville crowd and the still ongoing duel, that had only kept them from intervening directly. Food and festivities forgotten, they had pushed up to the very limit of the courtyard's edge. There, at the forefront, standing between her mother and father, Antimony could see the little unicorn filly she had recognized before from the Ponyville school. Sweetie Belle. The little filly was... cheering?

How undignified she was; one did not 'cheer' at a duel.

"Rarity! Get up!" Her voice pierced the veil between that world and Antimony's illusion. Which shouldn't have been possible. No sensation should have leaked through from that direction. Rarity herself was insensate when under the absolute illusion. It couldn't even be coming from Antimony's own senses, which did work in both realms.

"Rarity!" another voice joined in. An older stallion's. It was followed by a mare's voice, also calling her name. "Come on, Rarity!"

Antimony focused her power, adding another layer to the already absolute illusion.

"Rarity!" "Rarity!" Rarity!" "Rarity!" "Get up, Rarity!"

More damned voices.

Voices she recognized, unlike the other two: the stallion and mare. Those voices belonged to the Elements of Harmony. As they repeated their cry, against all logic, Antimony identified them: that first one was Twilight Sparkle. There was no doubt about it. The second had to be that timid pegasus, Fluttershy. The third was the noisy farmer from Sweet Apple Acres. The fourth was Pinkie Pie. The fifth was the pegasus tomboy with the rainbow mane and tail!

"Rarity!" "Rarity!" "Rarity!" A virtual chorus of voices soon joined in. Too many for Antimony to pick out names. "Rarity!" "Rarity!" "Rarity!" "Please, Rarity!"

"Rarity!" one young voice stood out from the others. "Don't give up!"

To Antimony's mounting anger and frustration, Rarity rolled onto her stomach and with wobbling legs and labored breath, she forced herself back up. Despite her exhaustion. Despite her drained magic. Despite the pain, the injuries, the mental starvation and conditioning. Despite everything.

"You!" Antimony growled, all pretense of civility put on the back burner. "You're using the Elements of Harmony, aren't you! How! How are you doing this without your Element?"

Back in the real world, somehow, there was only silence.

Antimony couldn't believe it. Why was the crowd so silent in the real world, but producing this tumult in her illusion? As the real Rarity fought to get back on her hooves, looking for all the world like a strong breeze could knock her back to the ground, Antimony saw no livery around her neck. She was not wearing her Element of Harmony. Even in the dream realm, she wasn't.

This made no damned sense!

Backing away a step in both worlds, Antimony recoiled as faint wisps of magic began to form around her opponent. Rarity seemed surprised by it herself, turning her head to watch the colors of light around her as they circled and spun, leaving scintillating contrails in their wake. More and more of them appeared until Ponyville's dressmaker was all but engulfed in a ever-widening hurricane of magical energy. Antimony took another step back, lifting a leg as one of the brighter lights nicked her.

"This magic!" she gasped, recognizing it. "Pegasus magic?"

Another of the swirling lights came close to hitting her, and Antimony recognized it as well.

"And earth pony magic?" she asked, incredulous. "And unicorn magic!? And..." And others she didn't even recognize. "Just what is this? Just what are you doing!" The Baroness reared and stamped her hooves. "Just what kind of magic is this?!"

"You don't recognize it?" Rarity asked, haltingly, as she looked up with wide bright eyes.

All at once, the swarm of colors became a screaming, lightning fast rainbow.

"This," she declared, blue eyes alight with a fire of their own. "This is the magic of friendship!"

The words hit Antimony a moment after the light did. In the real world, the two mares vanished amid a blast of multi-colored light, but within Antimony's realm - within the world she commanded, a single hoof pushed back against the rainbow of light.

That single hoof split the beam, ripping it apart into a twisting, slashing sextet of colored beams.

"The magic of friendship?" Antimony hissed, adding her other front hoof to help block the rainbow of light. "Is that what you call it! What a joke! You're just leeching magic from your friends! Like a parasite! I wasn't aware you had that kind of power!"

"And you called me stubborn," Rarity replied, lowering her horn.

Antimony grunted, still pushing back the rainbow. "All you're doing is using others to compensate for your own weakness!"

Rarity stood on her hind legs, a rainbow light building into a scintillating accretion disk around her. She pushed herself forward, one painful step at a time.

"Your illusions. Your world. I only just noticed it," Rarity explained, the five bright lights of her friends pulsing around her. "It's empty, isn't it? Is that really the world you're happiest in?!"

"A pitiful dressmaker like you doesn't have the right to lecture me!" Antimony pushed into the surging wave of rainbow colored magic before battering it down with her hoof. "Is this really the magic of friendship? Huh? Is it! Because I don't need it! I'm stronger than you! Stronger than all of you!"

She laughed as she lifted one hind leg and forced herself forward.

"In this world... in this realm... there is only Antimony! I don't need any pony else! My own power is all that matters! Throw everything at me and more!" The noblemare screamed, shaking her mane behind her as it became unbound. "I'll crush it ALL!"

Her alicorn wings, gifted as the God of her personal world, unfurled in glorious splendor. The illusionary world around her darkened and contracted and roared with fury as a sun exploded from the nothingness behind her. The blazing star was no gift from Celestia - it churned and boiled with dark energy and twinkling stars. Black tendrils began to seep into the rainbow, turning it into a ruddy, messy brown.

Laughing in excitement and triumph, Antimony pushed herself upstream, corrupting the rainbow... until, at last, she stood almost horn to horn with Rarity, towering over the smaller mare. The once bright and solid rainbow that poured from around the Element of Generosity was now a broken and darkened shade of its former self.

Antimony raised an illusionary hoof over her head, and a second black sun grew just inches from her sole. The lens of the black sun parted, revealing a sea of twinkling stars suspended in the darkness, the otherworldly energy warping into the outline of a claw-like pincher.

"Your friends... and family...!" she roared, eyes flashing and a smile on her face. "Even together, you're WEAKER THAN ME!"

"Rarity."

That voice - that voice was new. It was new, but both mares recognized it.

"Blueblood?" Antimony hissed. "But he isn't here-"

"Rarity," the voice whispered. "I was wrong. You can win. You have to win!"

Antimony snorted, still pressing down on her opponent. "Pointless!"

"I almost gave up," Rarity whispered. "Without even knowing it, I almost gave up."

Her eyes closed, for just a moment -

And another star, bright crystal clear and twinkling, appeared among the others.

"But I won't!" she yelled, taking one last step forward. "Even your illusions can't extinguish how I feel!"

Rarity's eyes opened, and the rainbow around her expanded five fold and blasted away the darkness that had corrupted it. Blazing brighter than before, it redoubled its assault. No words were spoken, no sounds could be heard over the white roar of the magic of friendship, bolstered and empowered by love. Antimony's upper lip curled in distaste as the rainbow ripped through her blocking hoof, swelling and crashing and engulfing her leg and then her body in rainbow colored light.

"But I... in this realm I... I'm...!"

Her legs and lower body vanished, leaving her to tumble, half an upper torso, in midair. Shockingly slowly, she fell back and into the chromatic stream, the black energy at her hooftips breaking away into slivers of nether. Her wings vanished next into the stream of rainbow light, dissolving instantly.

'I'm losing? I'm losing. I'm losing! I'm losing! I'm losing! I'm losing!!'

Her back felt warm, and her eyes widened with fright and horror.

'NO! I can't lose! I can't lose! Not to her! Not to anypony!'

Soon, the rainbow tide covered even her mouth, open in a gaping silent scream.

'I - I -'

And then Lady Antimony's illusionary world shattered.

The whirlpool pillar of churning rainbow light lasted only a second in the castle courtyard, fast enough that a pony could blink or look away for just a moment and miss it. No pony, however, could miss hearing the scream that followed. A shallow crater had been blown away from the two dueling unicorn mares and the air visibly crackled with magical energy.

In the middle of it all, one mare - her white coat caked and crusted with dirt and her mane cut short - crouched on all fours. In the air over her, another mare twisted in midair, her back arched as a cascade of six colors spun around her like a school of hungry, frenzied piranha. Lady Antimony screamed and howled and kicked and flew through the air before hitting the dirt hard enough to kick up dust and blades of grass.

From where she sat, Princess Luna glanced to her right. The image of Lord Cruciger was as unwavering and impassive as it had been all night. Except for the occasional movement in the one eye behind his metal mask, the faintest of visible cues, he could have been mistaken for a still image of the great Duke and not the stallion himself. Now, that one eye crinkled and narrowed in some veiled emotion.

Abruptly, his image wavered and vanished.

The two projecting unicorns promptly collapsed onto the ground, no longer having to maintain the spell. The third, the one in the middle who had been under Cruciger's possession, stumped and fell flat on his face. All three were still breathing but unhealthy black smoke pooled around their horns. Their master, the fourth unicorn guard without a mask, simply lowered his eyes.

Antimony continued to scream.

Long legs kicked at the dirt, uprooting clods of grass and soil. The rainbow still coiled around her like a multi-colored snake, constricting the noblemare. Her screams soon turned to choked curses and sobs. Upside down and on her back, a pair of eyes - still flickering with red illusionary magic - saw the absence on her side of the courtyard.

"Father!" she cried, tears in her eyes. "Father please! Wait! I'll do anything!" Hate filled eyes turned on the mage guards. "Bring him back! I command you to bring him back! You're WEAK! You're ALL WEAK!! He didn't leave me! Bring him back!!"

Then her face disappeared beneath the frothing rainbow and she choked out another curse.

Princess Luna closed her eyes to not have to watch the all too familiar scene. She knew a rainbow like that and what it could do. The Elements of Harmony, as far as she could tell, had not been taken out for this fight. She would have prevented it if some pony had made the attempt. It would not have been honorable. A pony entered a duel only with the skills and magic she had inside her. This was something else.

The fact of the matter was simply that friendship alone had magic. This was true many times over when it came to an Element of Harmony. There was no telling what these six could do, even in defiance of reason and rationality. Fate had decided this duel. Which was not to say that some pony - or some alicorn - had not helped Fate along a little.

Not that Luna had any idea where her older sister even was at the moment.

Finally, back in the courtyard, Antimony's voice gave out and she stopped struggling. The other side of the field was stunned silent by the sudden reversal. Quite a few ponies looked shocked, either at the unexpected and dramatic display of magic or at how it had laid low the Baroness from Prance. Even Luna's own guards, trained to be impassive, were looking over their shoulders at the battlefield to see what would happen next.

In the blasted crater, Rarity's form wobbled and slowly moved away. Turning around, then around again, looking for something - she found it a moment later. Pawing at the dirt, she unearthed a still intact cupcake. An attempt to pick it up with magic failed, as the pastry lifted a couple inches or so off the ground only to fall again. Lacking even the magic to do the job, Rarity pathetically tried her hoof only to fall face first into the dirt.

Seconds passed and she slowly raised her head. It took longer still for her to get back up, and with a grimace, the filthy duelist gingerly picked the cupcake up with her teeth. One step followed another. Antimony wasn't moving. The crowd on one side of the duel watched with baited breath; the group on the other refused to watch, Luna exempted.

Somehow, Antimony sensed the approach of the other mare.

Her struggles abruptly resumed, her hind legs kicking wildly and frantically to reorient herself. Rarity picked up her pace, knowing better than to let the noblemare get on her hooves. Stumbling on an exposed rock, Rarity nearly fell - a mistake that would have left numbing agent and cupcake sludge on her face - but soon stood over Antimony. By the rules of the duel, which had not yet progressed to à outrance, neither mare could physically touch the other. Luna watched closely to make sure the rules were adhered to.

Rarity, standing over Antimony, opened her mouth. The cupcake fell-

And Antimony rolled sharply to the left, knocking Rarity to the ground and avoiding the falling pastry. Both fashionable unicorns ended up in the dust, coughing and soiled. The hungry rainbow had dissipated, leaving Antimony's coat and mane frazzled. She said nothing, breathing slowly and laboriously. Rarity, too, was on the ground. She pushed herself back onto her hooves for what felt like the hundredth time, saw the mostly splattered cupcake and fell onto her other side as she tried to pick it up.

For a long minute, the two unicorns lay there, not moving beyond taking their next breath. Rarity had one eye open and one closed, dirt staining the corner of her mouth. Time and again she had risen despite the odds against her. She groaned pitifully and focused her one eye on her opponent.

"Like I said," the dressmaker said between breaths. "Stubborn."

Antimony's chest heaved and a weak laugh escaped her lips. At some point she had bitten the inside of her mouth and blood leaked over her chin mixed with drool. Her normally frightful eyes were bloodshot and spent, the pink-white coat of her cheeks stained with tears. She moved a leg once, twice, but couldn't get back up.

Her eyes closed and she sighed, her breath blowing dirt away from her nostrils.

"You know," Rarity continued, finding it a little easier to talk than to try and fight. "I never imagined I'd see you like this. You're as dirty as I am..."

Antimony's brow crinkled at the words, the association with weakness and impending disgrace and defeat.

"When you walked into my Boutique... I thought you were so beautiful. Like a fair lady from a story book. I'll admit I was a little intimidated, too." Rarity spent a few seconds just breathing, slowly, willing her body to recover. She opened her eye and saw Antimony staring at her. "But... but I don't really understand you. Why? Why can't you let this go? Even now? Can't you see how miserable you'll be if you do this?"

"You may as well kill me," the Baroness finally replied, and composed herself enough to close her mouth and keep from drooling blood into the dirt. "You want me to give up? This is my life. This is my... everything..."

Her eyes darted away, to her side of the courtyard, before closing in grief.

"When a pony can not tell where their reality ends and another reality begins," she whispered. "It becomes clear in their eyes. First confusion. Then fear. Then panic. Finally, anguish," she said the words almost by rote. "Anguish... is the pain of understanding and accepting that what we call 'reality' and what we call 'dreams' are not the same."

"I won't let you hit me with that cupcake!" the noblemare declared, a tiny bit of fire left in her eyes. "I'd rather die!" She snorted and shook her head. "Not that I understand you either. You spurn my offers time and time again. And for what? Love of Blueblood? Hatred and spite of me?"

Rarity, exhausted, gave a ragged sigh of her own. "I just..."

"Don't understand..." Antimony muttered.

"You," they said at the same time. Eyes wide, the two enemies stared each other down. Antimony began to move first, inching towards the fallen cupcake. Rarity grunted and did the same. It was like two fish out of water, weakened but still trying to get to the same tiny pool of water. Neither would give up. Neither would yield.

Rarity reached the cupcake first. Holding the base of it in her teeth, she stretched her neck -

And scraped part of the dirty frosting against Antimony's cheek.

"We formally recognize that the match has now ended!" a royal voice blared, shocking the two exhausted and beaten unicorns. "In favor of Rarity!"

A uproar met and even exceeded Princess Luna's legendary volume. Rarity could hear excited voices coming closer to the beat of galloping hooves. Her friends would be close, soon, running in to congratulate her. It was ironic. She didn't feel like celebrating, not like she imagined she would.

"Twas an honorable match," Luna announced, more quietly directing the words at the two exhausted duelists. "There is no shame in such a loss."

Rarity tried to rise, to thank the Princess for her kind words, but Luna gestured for her to remain still. She lowered her horn and a soft, healing magic gently embraced the two mares. Turning instead to her former opponent, Rarity saw her on the verge of tears, but somehow Antimony held it back at the last second. Stiffening her chin and trying, for a moment, to wipe the frosting off her cheek, the beaten Baroness eventually gave up. Instead she sucked in a deep breath and nodded, slowly.

"You have beaten me," she conceded, eyes closing as she drifted into unconsciousness. "This time, it seems... I was the one who made the mistake..."

Polished Jewel hit the stone floor, a gasp on her lips. Energy continued to whip and crackle off her light blue horn as oldest daughter and would-be heir of the Terre Rare dynasty struggled to stay conscious. Behind her, the front of her castle keep, done up in mock-Canterlot style, exploded. Pillars snapped like dry twigs and the upper level tumbled down with a thunderous crash. A cloud of dust billowed from the disaster, briefly obscuring the powder blue body of the fallen unicorn noblemare. Further from where she lay, a dozen other bodies were also groaning and in varying states of consciousness.

On the ground, Polished Jewel protectively clutched her bruised throat. The duel was over. Polished Jewel had to know that it was over, but she refused to yield out of pride. Stubborn, stupid pride. Antimony watched, impassive, as her eldest sister struggled just to breathe. Close. That had been close. She had almost died back there, but now Polished Jewel was finished.

"Jewel," she said, her voice and body still immature. Little more than a filly. Antimony's cutie mark stood out, bright and sharp on her flank proclaiming for all who could see it that she knew her purpose, her unbending ambition, in life. Her reason for being.

"You made a mistake," she explained, moving in to finish the job. "Thinking I'd be content to remain your little sister. The one who will rule this family one day... is me."

"Huuuuh? Are you serious? Confronting me here!" Alpha Brass sat on a resplendent lacquer throne in the open feasting hall, the roof still under construction. Four humorless female guards surrounded him in a defensive cordon, wearing plate armor and reflective magic shields strapped to their forelegs. Antimony's older brother leaned forward from his admittedly awkward sitting position, a sneer contorting the young stallion's features.

"You really are daddy's little girl!" he exclaimed with a laugh. "Not even a trace of fear or hesitation!"

"Brass. You made a mistake," Antimony informed him, trotting forward on ungainly teenage legs. "This was a contest between sisters. You shouldn't have gotten involved."

"Big words from a noisy brat!" Alpha Brass growled, and jumped out of his throne. "CHALICE!"

Antimony's body shook as the ground beneath her rumbled.

Turning, Antimony's violet-red eyes narrowed. Chalice, her middle sister, did not normally make for a very imposing sight. Her coat was a faded pink and her mane rusted brown and red. She was slim and small for a mare. What was rather more intimidating was the massive rift in space behind her. Twinkling stars began to spill out from the tear in the aether, forming into blasphemous shapes and outlines. Chalice winced but set herself in place, determined not to back down despite the pain of her summoning spell.

"I've got her, big brother!" Chalice declared. "Just leave it to me!"

"There are many kinds of strength in this world, Antimony!" Alpha Brass lectured, his gold coat decked with twinkling finery. Antimony had heard other mares describe her brother as 'devilishly handsome' - they had half of it right at least.

"As I'm sure your body has begun to realize," he gloated. "Tell me: how long do you have before the poison kicks in and you can't even keep those evil eyes of yours open?"

"I believe I have three or four minutes," she replied, face to face with her older sister. Chalice was already beginning to manifest: star sparkling, pitch black energy pooling all around her. "Plenty of time to show you what true strength is."

A hundred trees flanked the sides of the road, bathed in fallen flowers and leaves. All at once, they came to life.

"I warned you..."

The sky thundered as her opponent's bladed wings flapped.

"The one who will rule..."

Sand trickled down Antimony's face, space warping around her like a vice.

"The most worthy one...!"

Pushing through the torrential rainbow, the so called magic of friendship, Antimony looked into the face of her latest obstacle. There was no way - no way this little dressmaker had what it took to rule. There was no way she deserved to rule! The Grand Duchy of Canterlot! The forbidden secrets of Platinum! The destiny of the Terre Rare!

"Your friends... and family...!" Antimony roared, ready to deliver the finishing blow. "Even together, you're WEAKER THAN ME!"

Eye slowly opened, and with them, the agony of understanding.

"I lost," Antimony whispered, her chest rising and falling with every slow breath. She had lost. Not to Sand Dune, or to Ritterkreuz, or even to that lunatic Euporie. Not to her sisters Chalice or Polished Jewel, or even to her snake of a brother Alpha Brass. She lost... to a dressmaker from Ponyville.

"Hey! You're awake!"

Antimony quickly closed her eyes to avoid the all too loud color and exuberance of Rarity's crazy pink friend. Hers had been one of the many voices summoned to overwhelm her in that nightmarish rainbow of friendship. The noblemare tried to slip back into unconsciousness, even as her body shook from side to side. What was Pinkie doing, shaking her by the shoulders? For that matter, where was she? It didn't feel like the hard packed earth.

The world pitched and both mares tumbled off the cart and onto the ground.

That - that - felt like the ground.

"Why must you torment me?" Antimony asked, mustering just enough energy to partly open her eyes. Her rational mind calculated her magical reserves. They were still low enough that she didn't have to worry about her eyes inadvertently doing damage to anypony. She opened them a little wider.

"I'm not tormenting you, am I?" Pinkie inquired, cocking her head to the side and then ducking down to nudge the noblemare's ribs. "Come on! Get up! You can sleep after the party ends!"

"What in the name of the Princess makes you think I want to celebrate my own loss?" Antimony glared now at the party pony. Pushing Pinkie away, she noticed a piece of string tied around her hoof. It, in turn, was attached to a floating blue balloon.

"Somepony has to win and somepony has to lose, right?" Pinkie asked, adopting a strangely serious tone. One similar to her own, Antimony noticed. "Isn't that the nature of what we call 'reality'?"

The Baroness frowned and said one word: "Gewitter."

"Hey!"

The burly pegasus mare leaned over, rudely pushing Pinkie away. The sight of her brought a silent sigh of relief to the noblemare. Gewitter was still here. She had not left. Even though her Baroness had lost.

It was... something.

"Do I really sound that condescending all the time?" Antimony asked, rolling onto her side and then standing up. Pinkie Pie was still close by and she ducked her head a little.

"I'm sorry you lost," she said, still held back by Gewitter. "But it isn't the end of the world! There's still a party or two to enjoy! Then the world can end!"

Antimony, for some reason, had to avoid the urge to meet Pinkie's stupidly silly smile with a timid, painful grin of her own. If she didn't know better, she would chalk it up to some kind of mind altering magic. Then again: mind altering magic did exist. Could a simple earth pony...?

No. No, probably not.

Instead, she turned around and found the far side of the courtyard where the end of the duel had taken place. It was the sight of her first serious defeat. There had been setbacks, at times, this was true. When her future had been on the line, though, she had always seized victory. Victory - merit - was the one virtue her father prized. Those who were skilled, those who strengthened the family and the family lands, were given position. Those unworthy were cast down and cast out.

The far side of the courtyard was empty. Father was gone. His mage guards were gone.

Antimony fought back tears.

"So," she whispered. "He did leave? He knew I would lose, so he left."

Around them, ponies were celebrating despite the late hour. This was the foalish tailgate party the Element of Laughter had organized. There were inane games, of which Antimony was a little shocked to see Princess Luna taking part, and upbeat -- and totally inappropriate - music playing from a gramophone. Some ponies were drinking and eating and others were fighting sleep, and everywhere they wore those damnable unicorn masks. This was not the sort of thing she had expected to accompany her one, brutal loss.

"Hey, Monee! Are you ok?" Pinkie asked, nudging her again, this time with her shoulder. "That was a pretty amazing duel, you know! I didn't get to see most of it, but there was a bit BOOM! and ZOW! And smashy-crash from the castle! And Applejack was like: 'we gotta go and make sure Rarity's ok!' And Twilight was all 'absolutely not! You'll disqualify her!' and I thought, gee, if only I'd brought the hot air balloon! Then we could have play by play commentary! Wouldn't that be neat?!"

"Didn't I explain that this is supposed to be a solemn event?" Antimony asked, deadpan.

"This IS a solemn event for me," Pinkie explained, also deadpan. Her bright expression remained, but darkened slightly as she remembered something else. "You know, you broke your Pinkie promise. Monee."

"Did I?" Antimony asked, and nodded as she realized she had. "I suppose that's true. I did."

"Are you sorry?" Pinkie asked, slipping out of Gewitter's hooves with bizarre ease.

"Perhaps a little," the noblemare replied.

Pinkie shook her head, her lips pursed into an unhappy moue.

"You and Rarity both broke your Pinkie promises!" she whined.

Antimony raised an eyebrow. "Both of us?"

"I had Rarity promise not to hurt you, too!" Pinkie explained, back to her bubbly self.

"But - why?" Antimony asked, utterly perplexed. "Why would you?"

"Why? That's a silly question, Monee!" Pinkie bounced over and rested her hooves on Antimony's shoulders, knocking her onto her rump and looking her in the eye. "I don't want to see my friends hurt each other!"

The noblemare could only blink in confusion.

"We're friends, aren't we?" Pinkie Pie asked. "Monee?"

"I... I don't know," she replied. "You have Rarity. You don't need me as a friend."

Pinkie just giggled, as if she Baroness had made some off-color joke.

"I don't care about stuff like that!" she said and winked, none-too-subtly. "But if you really need to do something to feel like somepony's friend, then I know just the thing! I've been waiting all night for my hot dog eating contest partner! Let's go unpack our tuxedos!"

"Gewitter."

Seeing her bodyguard tackle the pink terror did alleviate her spirits somewhat. What an odd pony she was, with a head full of odd ideas. Still, as Antimony scanned the crowd of ponies, she knew there was unfinished business. In fact, there was a great deal of unfinished business in Ponyville. It would be interesting to see if Lady Rarity was up to the task.

'We're friends, aren't we? Monee?'

"Crazy," she muttered to herself. These ponies were crazy.

The worst part of the evening came almost the moment Rarity reunited with her friends.

Rushing past them, none other than Mayor Mare hurried to take her hoof and shake it with all the energetic and carefully forecasted vigor of a career politician. Still dazed by her apparent victory, announced by Princess Luna at ear-splittingly close range, Rarity could only stare mutely and dumbly as the older pony fired off a stream of congratulations. She heard words like 'credit to Ponyville' and 'Ponyville's first citizen' and then the words 'our future Duchess!'

Followed, disturbingly, by Mayor Mare bowing deeply and reverently. Rarity blinked, confused, a moment away from asking her to stop - only to see other ponies follow their leader's example. More than a dozen heads bowed, and Rarity realized what she was seeing: they were bowing to the unicorn they expected to be their Duchess. They were bowing to her.

She - was going to be Duchess. Grand Duchess, even.

The thought made her feel faint, and not with joy. Even now, she had little idea what being Duchess of Canterlot actually involved. Her story books and novels, her magazines and papers, none of them ever went into much detail about what nobility really did. In his more introspective moments, Blueblood occasionally painted a picture of feeling powerless in his own position as Prince, but ever since the Gala he never seemed to lack for business to see to and affairs of state to arrange.

Rarity doubted she was the type to (as Antimony had described to Cheerilee's class) decide on weighty matters of provincial trade and she certainly had no impulse to command a legion of guardponies. All she really wanted was to be happy with the stallion behind the Prince she had dreamed of for so long. A degree of recognition and respect was only natural for a mare of refinement and taste, true enough, but an actual title and actual authority was, if anything, unwanted baggage.

Luckily Twilight and Applejack were soon by her side, helping her up.

Of course, a moment after that -

"All-right Rarity!!" A cascade of water drenched the poor unicorn from horn to hoof, courtesy of two pegasi: one accomplice and one instigator. Not even enchanted water she could repulse, just regular, cold water. Rarity sniffed and licked a drop of it from her lip. Great: make that flavored water.

"That was pretty awesome!" Rainbow Dash flew low enough to identify, tossing the empty water barrel away. She made a few frantic punching moves with her front legs. "I just wish I could've seen the fighting in the building! Hey, what was that spell you used at the end? It was like: Blazing Meteor Rainbow Uppercut! And then some pony popped up and said 'toasty!' and I was like 'Finish Her!' I thought you were in trouble back there, but you really kicked her flank! So cool!"

"It was pretty amazing," Fluttershy chimed in, landing nearby. "I didn't know you could do that, Rarity."

Twilight floated over a towel, helping the other unicorn to dry off.

"It looked like a rainbow," she observed, wincing at the mess - now the sticky, wet mess - that was Rarity's precious mane. "Didn't it?"

Rarity watched her friend and trainer, silent as her head rolled back and forth, her mane under the tender ministrations of Twilight's towel. She didn't even have enough magic to help, so instead she closed her eyes and waited, patiently. Her friends' voices surrounded her, and she even heard her parents talking a short distance away. No doubt Sweetie Belle wanted to run up to her. The little filly would probably bowl her right over with how her sister could barely muster the energy to stand.

Sighing, she finally stole a look. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were acting out the end of the duel, speculating what they had seen. Fluttershy had started helping Twilight to dry her off and Pinkie Pie was bouncing around all five of them listing off the rest of the fun she had planned for the evening. She then saw her parents... and the two unicorns talking with her parents. She nearly collapsed at the bemused expression on Fancypants's face given the rather bourgeois company of her father.

She also looked for her fallen opponent, and saw her being carried on her bodyguard's back. The huge mare was giving orders to the other red-coated guards that had escorted the crowd from Ponyville. Pointedly absent were the Terre Rare mage guards. They had promptly disappeared.

"Twilight," Rarity began, facing her friend. "I won't ask how much of this you thought would happen, but... could you please see to Lady Antimony for me?"

"I will," she promised, magically wringing out the formerly white towel, currently stained by dirt and berry flavored water.

"What I did to her, it - it wasn't bad, was it?" Rarity asked, worried.

"Impossible to tell," Twilight's response didn't fill her with confidence. "Not right away, anyway."

"Come on, sugarcube, you're dry enough!" Applejack interrupted, holding out a ripe red apple. "Let's get some food in you!"

Trying weakly to grab the apple with her magic, and failing, Rarity had little choice but to take it in her hoof. Her currently fragile state also meant she had no way to neatly cut the apple into fine slices, much less any ability to peel the skin away. Well - if she was going to be Grand Duchess, then perhaps she could afford a little impropriety when it came to Sweet Apple Acres' finest. Popping the whole thing in her mouth, she bit down.

"So," Applejack asked, as Rarity chewed. "Is it over then? I mean, ya did win, right?"

"I hate to say it, but... I don't like the way some ponies are looking at me now."

A little food and time spent off her hooves had done a great deal to restore vigor to Rarity's rather abused and overworked body. Even her magic had returned after a half hour or so, making it easier to drink and mingle. The effort was also what allowed her to realize that Mayor Mare's show of respect had begin to spread and take root in many other ponies. It was clearly one thing for her to be a local item, even a minor celebrity, and another for everypony in the crowd to know she had dueled with and defeated a Baroness for the right to be Canterlot's Duchess.

Fancypants, she hoped, would understand her situation. As much as she loved her friends, there was no way they could grasp quite what Rarity saw her situation spiraling towards. She didn't even want to think about what she would be doing in the long term as a result of what had happened tonight.

"You can't say it comes as a complete surprise," Fancypants told her, sipping punch from a paper cup without a hint of shame. "My dear, it must be just sinking in: you have now both the right and the desire to marry Lord Blueblood. Should you both wish it, of course. The Duchess of Canterlot is a first among equals. There is reason why Blueblood himself is both Duke and Prince."

"You would be Princess, if not... you know, for the Princesses," Fleur added with a small, amused grin. "Duchess actually makes one sound a little old, doesn't it, Fancy?"

"It has an air of age and dignity," he agreed, in a roundabout way.

"His way of saying the title makes one sound old." Fleur playfully draped a leg on his back, leaning on the large stallion like a giant pillow. "Foreigners are lucky to still have the Princess title in circulation. Here, Celestia and Luna have such a monopoly! It hardly seems fair to the rest of us non-alicorns, and then there's that Cadence mare-"

"Nonetheless," Fancypants interrupted, forestalling a potential tangent to the conversation. "Rarity, you may well be Duchess within the year. If other ponies have begun to defer to you, it is because they realize that you will stand among the most powerful and influential of Equestrian nobility."

"Aren't you a little excited by that fact?" Fleur asked, blinking her bright amethyst eyes. "Or at least curious?"

"I actually have little idea of what I will do as Duchess," Rarity admitted. "Blueblood never seemed to become involved in local affairs in Ponyville."

"Nor in Canterlot," Fancypants answered, knowing it was on the tip of her tongue. "It is arguable whether this is a good thing or not; some nobles dally too much in the goings-on of their realm. Others too little. Canterlot survived on trade and... frankly, cultural export. Blueblood has been good for the latter, but the former has suffered somewhat. Only in the last few months has something energized him. You, I assume?"

"I wish I could claim credit." Rarity shook her head. "If it has come about as something I said or did, I can't imagine what it is."

"As for what a Duchess must do?" Fleur winked playfully at the other mare. "An heir is usually involved!"

Rarity blushed at the idea - of course the model and minor noble was right. That was perhaps the most obvious bit of business she had to deal with. If she took title. For a moment, she recalled Antimony's offer for her to be Blueblood's mistress. Marriage was a very specific social contract among courtly circles, one with very clear end products.

"Preferably a daughter," Fancypants added, to her surprise.

"Fancy!" Fleur gave her stallion a reproachful little poke in the side with her hoof.

"I was speaking practically," the mogul and well-to-do stallion explained. "Nothing more. The Stable of Lords has always been quicker to recognize female heirs."

"And yet we have had two straight generations of male Bluebloods!" Fleur objected, waving a hoof at Rarity. "Don't listen to this silly colt when it comes to politics."

"Well, aside from... that," Rarity tried to press on. "You two must have some idea of what I will be called to do."

"Defend the realm!" Fleur spoke first, gesticulating dramatically. "Command the guard!"

"I am confident His Grace has that well and covered," Fancypants replied with far less enthusiasm. His shoulders tensed, but Fleur still hung onto him like a huge throw pillow. "What you must do, Lady Rarity, is to defend the honor of your station and to safeguard the secrets of your new house."

Rarity thought about that for a moment. "I do believe I can handle honoring my station."

"You have the grace and poise already," Fancypants agreed.

"And the dueling skill," Fleur chimed in.

"But what do you mean: safeguard the secrets of my new house?"

"It varies from family to family." Fancypants gestured back at his clingy wife. "The mare is traditionally the head of the household. Among some unicorn families, the old ones that is, that means she is also responsible for keeping records of certain spells and artifacts. The Bluebloods are the oldest of all Equestria's families, predating even the Princesses. I could hardly begin to speculate on the sorts of magics they have access to."

"My own family's great and secret spells are truly to be feared!" Fleur could almost have been taken seriously, had she not been waggling her hooves in mock fright.

"Not that she'll tell even me what those spells actually are," her husband countered. "Isn't that right, dear?"

Fleur responded by rolling her eyes. "You don't need to know what they are, so why bother asking?"

"You see? She makes light of it, but still keeps quiet."

"If you had married into my family, like I wanted, then maybe I could tell you."

Rarity looked from one to the other. Fancypants and Fleur were... an odd couple. "So I simply must keep these spells of his, of ours, secret?"

"That would be most of it, aside from the simple things: functions, organizing social events, finding some cause or another - that is always quite fashionable," he hesitated as he came to the end of his sentence. Fancypants expression changed, growing a little worried. At the urging of Fleur's less-than-subtle pointing behind her, Rarity turned around.

Lady Antimony had paused, waiting, a polite distance away.

Seeing she had been identified, she took it as her cue to close in. Fleur notably dismounted her famous husband to stand on all fours, even going so far as to straighten up her posture and fix her mane. Rarity found her sudden rigidity actually rather amusing: Fleur was excessively and flamboyantly casual in her appearance, a fact she got away with in part by being a gorgeous supermodel. Fancypants, too, quickly assumed a stiff and proper appearance. His cup dipped low, as if he was tempted to throw it away, if only for a moment.

"Gentleponies," the Baroness spoke in her usual smooth, dignified voice. "How nice to see you all."

It was, of course, an empty compliment. Rarity well remembered Antimony calling the stallion present an 'effete bauble peddler' or something of the sort. The noblemare may not have been a great fan of the merchant classes in private, or perhaps she had some problem with Fancypants specifically?

"My Lady," Fancypants bowed his head.

"Your Ladyship," Fleur followed a second later, bowing with practiced grace.

Antimony inclined her head at the show of respect, responding to it with one of her own. "I would share words with Lady Rarity, if you please."

"Of course," Fancypants quickly agreed. "If that is alright with you, Lady Rarity? We can continue this later."

"I'll find you two soon," the Element of Generosity promised.

As the two left, she wondered - a little belatedly - why she didn't feel nervous standing next to the mare she had dueled so viciously just an hour ago? This same mare who had trapped her in cruel illusions, used enchanted rocks to batter her and pin her to a wall. This same mare who had chased her through the abandoned castle nearby, taunting her and hunting her. Despite her exhaustion in both their bodies, she was still Rarity, and Antimony... was still Antimony.

Something still seemed different. Was it just confidence? No: it didn't feel like that either.

Antimony opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and gathered her bearing. Rarity noticed her glance down at the balloon still tied to her right front leg. She took that moment to see if the noblemare was as injured as she had seemed before. Truth be told, neither of them would be winning beauty contests anytime soon: Rarity's mane was now unfashionably short - despite her attempts to style it herself - and she had ugly bruises on her legs. Antimony's mane was intact, but she had no styling magic and no way to fix how ragged and unkempt it appeared. The white coats of both mares were dirty.

"You have beaten me, and I should congratulate you for it," the Baroness finally spoke up, giving voice to her thoughts. "The duel was honorably fought and I shall not hold grudge because of it."

"If I had lost, I'm not sure I would say the same," Rarity admitted, keeping her voice low enough that the conversation could be mostly private.

"I had thought, in passing, that this 'friendship magic' of yours was a cheat. That you had stolen victory from me." Antimony's half lidded eyes betrayed just a tiny flash of anger, but then she shook her head sadly and put it aside. "But after dwelling on it more, I can not accept that as anything other than a pitiful and desperate excuse. I refuse to sink so low, so... I shall not plot or move against you, should you move to become Duchess."

"So we may part on good terms?" Rarity asked, and cautiously smiled. She held out a hoof.

"Make no mistake, you have set to ruin some twenty years of my life," Antimony stated, somehow without a trace of a growl. "Since I was your little sister's age, I have strived towards only one goal: to take for myself the Platinum Crown of Canterlot. To realize the dreams of Lady Arsenic. To punish the Bluebloods who stole our legacy. Tonight, my dream turns to ash. Even my own father, who acknowledged only me as worthy daughter and heir, has forsaken me."

Rarity lowered her offered hoof, disappointed. "I... see... perhaps it was a bit too much to ask, so suddenly?"

Before it touched the ground, Antimony reached out and took it, her hoof, in her own.

Rarity looked up in surprise.

"Until such time as I can claim it for myself," Antimony told her, shaking one firm shake. "I will be content to see That Crown on your head. You can keep it safe for me."

"Is that so?" Rarity asked, her smile cracking into a grin as she repressed a laugh. "As I said: stubborn."

"I would and I have said the same of you," the noblemare replied. "In this world, a true Lady must be stubborn to realize her dreams; as you may come to realize yours. Lady. Rarity."

Antimony bowed her head in respect, and Rarity did the same, their horns briefly touching. This, she realized, was the real end of the duel. Not when one of them had beaten the other. Not when she had touched that cupcake to Antimony's cheek. The duel ended when the feud ended. Whatever else Antimony was, she would honor the way of life she knew. Rarity believed her when she said she would not plot or move against her, at least until she took the crown.

This... at last, was the victory she had been waiting for.

"I was once told: to fill a cup with anything pure, it must first be emptied. Fighting you, at the end there," Antimony's voice cracked and she paused to exhale, steadying herself. "I felt like an empty cup. Instead of being full and pure, I felt empty. I felt like the cup that was my life had been upended and broken."

"But maybe... a broken cup doesn't have to be full and what's in it doesn't have to be pure. The friendship of magic, was it?" Antimony shook her head, rueful but accepting. "I'll remember the feeling."

She smirked and gave Rarity's hoof one last shake.

"In the meantime, should you survive the year, I pray you enjoy the fruits of your labor!"

"Well, thank you, but - waa? What? Hold up a moment...!" Rarity raised a leg in confusion. "What do you mean: if I survive the year?"

"Oh? You must not know?" Antimony wondered, and explained with a dark chuckle, "You see, all the mares I defeated to earn the right to pursue my engagement with the Prince... they lost to me, not to the mare who defeats me. You have only replaced one enemy with a dozen! I do hope you are ready."

Rarity did not miss the irony in what her former opponent said next:

"From this point on, you will be the pony everypony wants to lay low."

Home.

It was so, so good to be home.

To Rarity's very personal and very private relief, she and the rest of the Tailgate Partiers had arrived back in Ponyville by the afternoon of the next day. Guardponies, from both Antimony's retinue and from Luna's Night Guard, had taken shifts watching the revelers as they began to turn in. There were no real sleeping arrangements: ponies just slept on the grass or on rolled up lawn blankets that had been packed onto a cart. Rarity had spent the night curled up next to her friends and family, basking in the company and companionship. Only one warm body was missing, but she supposed that couldn't be helped.

They were all back in Ponyville now, and the streets were bustling with activity. Ponies were chatting in whispers, and sometimes in loud voices, about the duel and what they had seen. Fancypants and Fleur had left in the morning after 'camping out' and enjoying what they thought to be a 'rustic excursion.' No doubt Fleur would be spreading word of Antimony's unlikely defeat as fast as her limbs could strike appropriate poses to describe the occasion.

There would be no disguising the details of this duel from the public. For better or for worse.

Rarity was only moments away from opening the door to her Boutique when her body tensed and she spun around, blocking an incoming -

Tennis ball.

"Honestly, Twilight-darling, you must be more careful." Rarity flicked the ball back the way it came with a tiny application of magic. Twilight Sparkle caught it with a raised hoof.

"The Princess once told me: the study of magic and the training to use it, it only ends when you want it to. I always thought she was telling me that 'life is study.'" She levitated the tennis ball back to Rarity, more slowly this time. The other balls followed, in their rainbow of colors. "Are you planning on stopping?"

"I only did all that to beat Antimony," Rarity explained, but enveloped the six magical tennis balls in a field of her own.

Twilight smiled in understanding. "And you did."

"I did," Rarity replied.

"You aren't happy about it?"

"I am," Rarity objected. "I think I'm just a little worn out. The last week has been an absolute roller-coaster. I just need more time to process it all..." She saw her friend about to turn and leave, and asked, "Twilight!"

The other unicorn stopped, looking back in curiosity.

"Twilight," Rarity asked again, "What would you do if you were in my place? Would you want... you know? Would you want to become Duchess?"

The studious bookworm answered with an anxious laugh.

"Well, I don't exactly know Prince Blueblood very well-"

"Twilight, you know what I mean."

Twilight Sparkle's smile faded as she replied, more seriously. "It sounds like a huge responsibility. Canterlot has secrets, Rarity. Places most ponies aren't allowed to go. Things they aren't supposed to know or see."

Twilight sighed, not liking her own train of thought much.

"It'll just be you, Blueblood, and the Princesses going to those places and knowing those things," she said, sounding sorry for her friend. "Lady Antimony thought she was ready for that. That was all she wanted."

"And you?" Rarity asked, point-blank. "Is that something you would want, Twilight?"

"I don't know," the other unicorn replied, shaking her head. "I just don't know. How many ponies knew Discord wasn't just a statue in a garden? Probably only three... and all three spent their lives living right next to him. Wouldn't it be hard to sleep at night living like that?"

Rarity's own thoughts were eerily similar to those expressed by her friend. Her ears folded back and her head dropped down as the imagined all the other things that lay in her future. Then there was the other warning Antimony had passed on to her.

"Rarity," Twilight said, walking closer, close enough to reach out and touch her friend's shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll always be there to help, and you know everypony else will be there, too."

"Thank you again, Twilight. For everything over the last few days." Rarity quickly hugged her former trainer, close friend and fellow Element of Harmony.

The parted and Twilight trotted off to check on her library.

"Any time!" she called back over her shoulder. "Drop by if you want to help with studying that torc! ...Now where did Spike go? I swear he's always wandering off..."

Waving one last time, Rarity returned to her Boutique. Talking with somepony always helped, at least a little, even with literally the weight of Canterlot and Ponyville on her mind. The door clicked open, and she entered the darkened shop. The silhouettes of mannequines and dresses, both finished and unfinished, stood out against the faint light tricking in from outside. Rarity began to summon up the magic to draw the Boutique curtains wide.

"Hold that thought, would you?"

Rarity's magic caught mid-cast, pooling around her horn. The inadvertent illumination pushed back the shadows with a faint blue tint. It was enough to reveal one of her larger mannequines shifting as it moved, jumping down off a stand and into the light. It craned its neck, and the horn glowed revealing a face: white coat and a blond mane.

"Blueblood?" Rarity moved to gallop forward only to hesitate. "It... is you, isn't it?"

"You kick me when you sleep," the stallion stated, ratting off the fact without a care.

"I do, do I?" Rarity stalked up to him. "At least I don't roll around and smother ponies with my bulk."

"And I do?" he asked.

"My kicking you is a self defense mechanism."

"My rolling is to pre-empt your kicking."

"Well," Rarity said, now face to face with her intruder. Blueblood, as he rarely did, wore nothing, not even a vest or neckcloth. He looked tired and a little worn, but then Rarity couldn't help but point out she didn't look much better.

"You do seem to be you," she decided.

"Rarity," he began, his tone of voice losing it's characteristic arrogance and confidence. "I... I'm sorry I - "

She cut him off, lifting her head up to lean in, her lips catching his mid-explanation. She heard him sigh in defeat and lean in himself, sharing the kiss in the privacy of her closed shop. It felt like ages since they had been together and alone, and the emotional highs and lows of the week condensed and amplified by the duel weighted heavily on her mind. Blueblood had a lot to explain, a lot to share that he should have shared weeks or months ago, and probably a story to tell as to how and why he was lying in wait like this. She knew he did, but all that could wait.

Their lips parted, and she smiled.

"Now that's real," she said, and sauntered past him.

"You'll have to explain that one," he remarked, turning to follow her.

"No one knows you're here?" she asked instead, making for the stairs to the second floor.

"That was rather the point of my sneaking in."

"Good. We can share explanations later."

"Are you sure?"

Rarity paused to glance back over her shoulder. Her mane was an atrocious mess. Her legs still hurt from all the walking and running and jumping and, yes, the being battered by rocks didn't help either. Her tail probably had little thorns in it, to say nothing of dust and bits of Everfree spiderweb. Her coat still smelt faintly of the flavored water Rainbow Dash had dumped on her. She had just spent the longest night of her life fighting the second most powerful, and certainly the first most terrifying, pony she had ever met.

"Ah. You're sure, then," Blueblood realized.

"Good boy," she said, leading him back to her room.

"A new Baroness?"

A long lane of blooming cherry trees stretched along the sides of a wide decomposed granite paved road. Against a backdrop of distant mountains, a single castle loomed at the end of the picturesque roadway rising up from the terraced farmland like a small vertical mountain itself. A single blossom fell from one of the hundred trees, caught in the wind and drifted upwards... until finally the pink petal flittered to land on the steaming surface of a cup of tea.

Green eyes glanced down at the cherry blossom that had fallen in her cup.

The cup in turn rested on a saucer, itself on top of more cherry blossoms. Like a pink cloud, it hovered in the air, suspended but always shifting. A pony sat calmly on top of the floating mass. A cherry blossom petal falling into her cup, despite flying above the trees?

"How lucky."

A Wonderbolt uniform hung in the cloud-form closet tucked between a pair of decorative pillars. An arching dome overhead, also made of solidified cloud, depicted scenes of pegasi and chariots and storms. More uniforms hung from the walls in places of honor. The Wonderbolts mare's locker-room was alive with chatter, but one mare had little to say to her comrades.

A cadet-gray leg snagged the uniform and slammed the locker shut. Tossing it over her shoulder, a pegaus with a jagged green-yellow mane laughed as she headed to practice. Passing by a wastebasket, one wing snapped out, discarding the remains of a pink letter.

"Fun. This'll be fun."

Birds chirped and flew around the glass solarium and aviary: little brightly colored birds flying from branch to branch, to one of a half dozen hidden feeders or to marble and iron baths cleaned and refilled daily. It was bright and sunny out, the rays of light filling the open solarium with life and energy. It was a wonderful new day.

A brush moved slowly, oil painting on canvas recreating the plumage of a bright red cardinal spreading wings and taking to the air. The artist did not use magic to paint. A golden ring circled the base of her horn.

"Chalice."

The brush paused, almost slipping.

"Yes, big brother?" The middle daughter of the Terre Rare main house turned to see her brother standing outside the gilded cage.

"Ready yourself," Alpha Brass said, smirking. "We have a meeting with Father."

"Antimony?"

"She's out of the picture. Isn't that nice?" The handsome golden stallion's smirk broadened into a vicious grin. "You don't want to squander this chance."

A delicate hoof held the small, bright pink slip of paper. It was a most curious sort of invitation. The letterhead and font were floral but the flanks were bedecked in stylistic balloons, each bearing a different heraldic icon. It was almost as if someone had taken a normal, proper invitation and passed it through the hooves of a hyperactive filly on a sugar-high for proof-reading... and scribbling.

"Ponyville, hmm?"

A peach colored bubble of magic, sparkling with grains of sand, slipped the signed invitation back into its envelope.

"Ponyville it is."

Chapter Nine : Baroness

"WE, CELESTIA and LUNA, sovereign diarchy of the Realm of Greater Equestria and Neighpon, Northern Camelot, and of Our other Realms and Territories, Defenders of the Pegasi and the Cloudsreach, Lords Magical and Temporal, and to all Our Subjects to whom these Presents come, We do address. Know Ye that We of Our especial grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion do by these Presents advance, create and degree style, dignity, title and honor of BARONESS of Ponyville in Canterlot."

"And for Us, Our successors in perpetuity and heralds, We do appoint, give and grant unto her the said name, state and degree style, dignity, title and honor of Baroness to have and to hold unto her and her heirs of body lawfully begotten and to be begotten. Willing and by these Presents granting for Us, Our successors in perpetuity and heralds, that she and her heirs aforesaid and every of them successively may have, hold and possess a seat place and voice in the Stables, Assemblies and Councils within Equestria and Our other Realms and Territories. And also that she and her heirs aforesaid successively may enjoy and use all the rights, privileges, pre-eminences, immunities and advantages to the degree of a Baroness duly and of right belonging which Lords of said rank of Realm have heretofore used and enjoyed or as they do at present use and enjoy."

"In Witness whereof We have caused these Our Letters to be made Patent."

As Blueblood finished the announcement, the assembled Stable of Lords beheld the newest member of the Equestrian nobility. It was a rare occasion in many ways. Letters patent, issued by Princess, approved by the Stable, and then signed and witnessed by one or both alicorns were not that uncommon. However, it was rare indeed for both Princesses to personally attend and oversee an induction or ceremony of the Stable of Lords in Canterlot.

Both Celestia and Luna sat in their normally empty thrones, an unspoken and undeniable exclamation point to this particular ceremony. As if the word of this pony's achievements had not already become well known. She was ostensibly being rewarded for her contribution to the defeat of Discord, her application endorsed both by the Prince, the Princesses, and a member of the Terre Rare - she had also done what many thought impossible, and humbled that same Lady in a duel days after.

Prince Blueblood stomped a hoof, the sound echoing loudly in the Stable of Lords.

His magic glowing a faint Persian blue, he rolled up the gold-lined scroll in his hooves and sealed it with a platinum clasp. He then presented the letter to a unicorn mare bare of any clothes or adornments - a symbol of penitence and humility on entrance to the peerage. The white coated mare stepped forward, accepting the scroll before the other Lords and Ladies of the Equestrian High Court. Across the half-circle hall that was the highest ruling body in Equestria, with multi-colored light streaming in from a sixty tall stained-glass lancet windows, came an echoed return of hooves on marble.

"We recognize and confirm her, now, before her peers: Lady Rarity, Baroness of Ponyville!"

(9)

Baroness

Lotus carefully threaded a strand of Twilight's mane in place before clipping it down onto the metal separator. The unicorn's unusual highlights were natural but still required touch-ups to straighten them out, otherwise the result was a ragged, irregular line of pink or purple instead of a seamless contrast. Carefully, scissors-in-mouth, she cut a few strands of pink and smoothed out the rest with a fine brush. It was just part of the full-body no-expenses-spared treatment Twilight Sparkle and the rest of her friends had paid for.

Or, to be more exact, that Lady Rarity had paid for.

"Rarity, why is that when yer beau shows up in town he always seems to rope other ponies inta some kinda trouble?" Applejack asked from across the spa, her face momentarily etched with a frown.

Then the masseuse's hooves kneaded into a tender spot and her eyes rolled back as her cares melted away.

"A-anyway," she murmured, momentarily coming back to her senses. "Ah don't much like the sound'a this 'stallions-only' night he's hostin'... y'all know Big Mac ain't the type for Canterlot nonsense, but ah'd rather not risk him pickin' up any big city bad habits."

"It's just a little entertainment troupe from the city," Rarity assured her, keeping her eyes closed as rollers in her hair suffused with magic, slowly but steadily encouraging her mane to grow back to it's normal length.

"A burlesque troupe!" Pinkie Pie chirped up. "Oh, I can't believe there's a party in Ponyville and I'm not invited! Me! Pinkie Pie! Not invited to a party! Why not bake a sugar-free cake to celebrate? Or drive a cart with square wheels! Or have a firecracker that, um, shoots down instead of up, and goes eeeeeeeewwwwweeeeeeeeeoooooo-pp? Actually, that'd be kinda funny! But a party without Pinkie Pie?"

"I find that kinda funny," Rainbow Dash interrupted, her nose in a book as she reclined nearby.

"Funny like a FOX!" Pinkie suddenly sprang up and snapped her right hoof - somehow - as an idea came to her. "Hey, Twilight, I betcha you know a spell that can turn a mare into a stallion for a few hours, right? Right? Right! Then I could go to the party!"

"Uh... well, Pinkie, even if I did know that spell..."

"No way! There's really a gender-bender spell!" Rainbow Dash, the only member of the group to not be making use of the facilities, looked out from behind her Daring Do novel. "I knew it!"

"Ya sound a little too excited about it, sugarcube. There something ya wanna tell us?"

"Hey, hey! I just thought it could explain some of the coltish looking mares around town." Dash tapped her hoof to her chin in thought. "A spell like that... you never know who could be-"

"I don't know a gender reversing spell," Twilight assured them, speaking up to make sure the conversation didn't venture into uncomfortable territory. She pointed a hoof at Pinkie. "And even if there was one, it wouldn't be responsible to use it just so you can go to an all-stallion party."

"We obviously have different definitions of 'responsible,'" Pinkie Pie replied with a doe-eyed pout, that quickly turned childish as she stuck out her tongue. "I guess I could try and sneak in..."

"Um, Rarity? You don't mind Blueblood hosting this, um, event?" Fluttershy asked, neck deep in a bath of the finest imported mineral water, straight from Whitestone Glacier. Even her wings were submerged, though her long pink mane was tied and bundled up and out of the way.

"Yeah, ain't ya worried it'll get, you know, bawdy?" Applejack shot a look at the group's party pony. "Ah'm sure these things get a lot racier than that show Pinkie put on in Appleloosa."

Pinkie chuckled to herself as she dipped back into the water with Fluttershy.

"Oh, Applejack," she said, hooves blurring as she bound up her mane in a towel, lightning-quick. "The essence of burlesque is to caricature a serious topic, turning everypony's frown upside down! The bigger the joke, or the more ridiculous you make the situation, the better! As an often taboo topic, erotic humor is also an essential part of the comedy routine!"

For a few long seconds, everypony present - the spa sisters Aloe and Lotus included - simply stared at the pink pony. Pinkie seemed completely oblivious, only to open one blue eye to see the confused looks on her friends' faces.

"What?" she asked. "Did I say something funny?"

"Makes sense she'd know about weird stuff like that," Dash dryly observed, turning the page in her book with the tip of a wing. "Pastry and parties. I bet she knows even more about that stuff than you do, Twilight."

Twilight just nodded, mutely.

"As I was about to say, you really don't need to worry, Applejack. Your brother will be in the company of all of Ponyville's finest gentlecolts." Rarity flinched a bit, as a crackle of growth magic touched her scalp.

"Ah guess it is an opportunity fer him ta catch up with Filthy Rich and some of our other retail-type business partners," Applejack decided with a sigh, face down as the massage moved to her lower back. The Apple Clan and the Rich Family had been partners for three generations thanks to the bounty of Zap Apples unique to Ponyville.

"The way Blueblood described it, I suspect the entire evening will involve deals of some sort made in that nasty smoke room he had built next to his study." Rarity's face screwed in distaste. "I don't think I'll ever quite get used to all this political nonsense."

Twilight perked up as she remembered, "That reminds me, Rarity, did you give any thought to what you'll do for your gifting?"

"Gifts?" Pinkie Pie's ears shot straight up.

"Gift-ing, darling," Rarity explained. "I need to bequeath something to the city now that I have title over it. It is tradition."

"I don't get it!" Pinkie complained, floating over to the edge of the mineral bath and sticking her hooves off the side. "You have to give everypony a present now that you're a noble Lady like Monee?"

"The gift is given to the entire town, not to any one individual," Rarity answered, blushing a bit at the reminder of her new title as noblemare. "Typically, when a pony either inherits a realm or if she is given it, as I was, then she begins her tenure with a show of generosity and good faith. For example, Blueblood had a wing added to the Canterlot Academy of Arts and Magic when he became Prince. It shows a noble's commitment to her land, you see?"

"So - wait - you have to do something big for Ponyville?" Dash asked, her attention once again drawn away from her book.

"I don't necessarily have to," Rarity replied, lowering her head as Aloe checked on the rollers in her mane. "But it is expected."

"Nopony's ever done that fer Ponyville before," Applejack commented with a thoughtful breath. "Course, then again, we haven't had a Baroness or Baron in generations."

"We had a Baron?" Rainbow Dash asked, then amended, "I mean, you guys did? My family was still in Cloudsdale. But when was this?"

"Actually," Applejack fielded the answer. "It was mah great grand-daddy."

Dash snorted and had to stifle a laugh. "Come on! Really! Who...?"

"Ah told ya: mah great grand-daddy." Applejack sighed, though there was a trace of annoyance in her voice at being questioned about it. "Back when the Princess founded Ponyville, she also made Baldwin Apple inta a Lord. He was the first and only Lord a' Ponyville till Rarity here, since only the Princess herself can give titles inside special regions like our town."

"Oh!" Pinkie exclaimed, happily clapping her hooves together. "So all this time you've been a Baroness, too, Applejack?"

"No. Ain't any of ya listening?" Applejack huffed, getting up enough to prompt the end of her back massage. "Mah great grand-daddy accepted the title at first, that's true, but it got in the way. The whole thing was more trouble than it was worth so he dropped it. Granny Smith, mah folks, myself - we don't have any fancy titles and don't need 'em either. No offense ta you, Rarity, that's just me speakin' for myself and mah kin."

"But why wouldn't you want to be a Lady, like Monee?" Pinkie wondered aloud. "Rarity! Since you have to give something to the town, how about BIG party! Everypony LOVES parties and we can have TONS of fireworks and floats and a parade and - Oh! Oh! We can have a ball, a masked ball, for all the ponies who come to Ponyville from Canterlot, and rides and games and more games and food everywhere!"

Then, with more than a little slyness, Pinkie added:

"Plus, I betcha it'll help tourism! Monee said a bunch of times that her city made lotsa money outta tourism!"

"Did she?" Rarity asked, still a little bit wary of Pinkie's inside knowledge of 'Monee' aka Lady Antimony. The Baroness of Mareseilles wasn't an enemy anymore but she wasn't really a friend, either. Well, perhaps she was Pinkie Pie's friend. On the other hoof, Mareseilles was a very rich and powerful city and Antimony was similarly a very wealthy and influential noblemare. There had to be worse role models for Rarity to look to for inspiration.

"Pinkie, I'm pretty sure Ponyville already parties well above the national average," Twilight argued. "What we need-"

"Hey, if you're going to be doing something big like that," Rainbow Dash spoke up, closing her Daring Do novel and putting it aside to point at Rarity. "How about addressing the needs of us Ponyville pegasi? Huh?"

"Excuse me?" Rarity inquired, confused by the accusatory tone.

"I'm just sayin' - Ponyville's pegasus population is, what? There's about a hundred of us?" Dash shrugged, assuming it was a close estimate. "How about doing something to help us out? We're like a fourth of the entire town! Right Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy, who had been silent the entire time, mustered her voice to agree.

Sort of.

"Um. I guess."

"Well what did you have in mind?" Rarity asked, looking from the shy butter colored flyer to Ponyville's leading weathermare.

"First of all," Dash said, ticking off the points with the feathers of one wing. "Ponyville's reservoir is too small! We either need to expand it or add a second one. Cloudsdale requires an absolute minimum of stored water for each town in case it needs to make new rainclouds. We're sitting at the edge of that as-is, and that means we don't have enough to use locally."

"We have a water shortage?" Rarity asked, shaking her head. "I never noticed..."

"It isn't a shortage of water for weather," Dash answered. "Don't forget that we live in the clouds, whether it rains or not! And all clouds are made of water. So even if we've got a full reservoir down on the ground, we still have pegasi who have to go ALL the way to Cloudsdale to get the water to keep their homes from falling apart the next time a strong wind blows in."

"What we should do is tap the lake outside town!" she suggested, flying slowly across the room. "We're already using more water on farms outside town than-"

"Hey now, sugarcube! We need that water, too!"

"And, um... the lake is a protected habitat..."

"Get it from Everfree or Froggy Bottom, or something, then! It's just a big, smelly swamp."

"Froggy Bottom is a protected wetland!" Fluttershy actually raised her voice, and suck back down into the bath water with an 'eep.' "Sorry."

"Anyway, that's the big thing, but...!" Dash landed near where Rarity lay and listed the rest of her suggestions in rapid fire. "We could also use better gym facilities! Ponyville doesn't have a public bath, or a gymnasium, we have a race track but its barely three ponies wide! I mean, those aren't as important as the lack of water for cloud repairs or cloud-homes, but they're important, too!"

"So... a new reservoir?" Rarity tentatively summarized Dash's suggestion before looking to Twilight. "Is that doable?"

"I guess, sure," the other unicorn replied, crossing her legs in front of her as she ran by a few possibilities. "The lake isn't being used, that's true. And I guess we could divert water from Froggy Bottom. If the Office of the Veneur approved it."

"I think you can sweet talk them, or should I say him, into it, right Rarity?" Dash observed with a grin.

The new Baroness of Ponyville huffed in mock indignation at the suggestion.

"I guess we could also drill deeper into the local aquifer," Twilight concluded. "But..."

"Actually, since we're on the topic 'a what ta do for Ponyville," Applejack jumped into the verbal fray. "Ah've got a few ideas of mah own. For example: how about we save money instead'a spendin' it? Right now, not counting some excise and import taxes, most everypony at the market has ta pay four percent Duchy and four percent local retail sales taxes. Now, as ah recall, yer gonna be collectin' half ah' what we were sendin' to the Princess in Canterlot, right? Cuttin' sales taxes could help the local economy which'd make more money for everypony in the long run."

"Um, Rarity, not that I don't think everypony had really great ideas, but maybe - that is - if it isn't too much trouble... a lot of animals around Ponyville have to live in Everfree Forest, and you know how dangerous it can be. So, um, could it be possible to expand the borders of the town to make some safer forested areas for them? If you have some extra... time... after doing whatever."

"What? Come on Fluttershy! More forests? Look around! There's trees everywhere!"

"Not the right kind of trees."

"Ah think it's a fine idea, Fluttershy. But doin' something like that takes a couple'a years, don't it? Ah'm just sayin' that there's things we can do now to help the town. Not everypony has a government job, ya know."

"Hey! What does that mean?"

"I bet if we were having a party everypony would be too distracted to argue about stuff. You can't go wrong with cake and circuses!"

"Please! Everypony!" Rarity had to raise her voice to stop the ensuring fracas.

Rainbow Dash and Applejack muttered quick apologies and cooled off; Pinkie and Fluttershy kept by the edge of the mineral bath, peeking curiously over the edge. Rarity kept silent, giving the room a chance to release some of the built-up tension. Aloe and Lotus diligently resumed their pampering of the six mares and soon only the sound of scissors making the occasional 'snip' could be heard.

"Sorry 'bout that," Applejack said, relaxing forward again with a towel draped over her upper back. "Ah guess we got a little carried away."

"Yeah," Dash agreed, but didn't elaborate.

"What about you, Twilight?" Fluttershy asked. "What do you think Rarity should do?"

"I'm glad you asked," the bookish unicorn replied, taking advantage of everypony else sharing their thoughts on the subject. "As you know, Rarity, unicorns like ourselves are the smallest demographic in Ponyville, but like Rainbow Dash, I think there are important things that can be done for the community that will benefit not only unicorns but Ponyville as a whole. I recently completed an informal survey of young unicorns-"

"What a coincidence," a certain pegasus noted, ducking behind her book.

"Anyway," Twilight continued, glaring at the weathermare. "I'm concerned about the lack of magic-education for young ponies in Ponyville, particularly unicorns. Ponyville is an earth pony town, but the lack of opportunities for unicorns to get magical apprenticeships is creating what I call a 'brain drain' as ponies migrate to Canterlot to pursue either higher education or vocational training. The problem always comes down to a lack of local mentors!"

Having presented her argument in a timely and organized fashion, Twilight Sparkle lit up her horn to project an image of a small tower with an onion-bloom dome at the top and a spiral running along the outside, much like the grooves of a unicorn's horn. A large telescope stuck out from the apex to observe the night sky.

"I think it would be a great gift to Ponyville to construct a mage tower," she recommended with no small amount of confidence and forethought. "A small one, obviously, but it will help attract unicorn scholars and mages to the town to serve as mentors for local children who need apprenticeships. This will benefit not only the unicorn community in Ponyville; a well staffed tower can also provide a strong local resource for pegasi and earth ponies to make use of!"

"Sweetie Belle does need to start learning magic soon, and I don't think I'll be able to apprentice her," Rarity thought aloud before she could stop herself.

It was true that presently, just as in her youth, Ponyville unicorns had trouble finding proper mentors from which to learn magic. It wasn't simply a matter of school teachers, like Cheerilee. Only unicorns could really teach other unicorns, and the nature of magic meant that it was generally a one-on-one mentor-apprentice program. Sometimes that ended when the youngster developed a basic level of competence and sometimes it lasted a decade or more.

"A tower like that, in Ponyville?" Applejack sounded skeptical. "Ah dunno..."

"What's wrong with it?" Twilight asked defensively.

"Ah, nothin! It doesn't really look like a Ponyville type'a building is all," the apple farmer replied, waffling a bit. "Just... what's wrong with goin' ta Canterlot for that kinda magical stuff?"

"The same reason pegasi shouldn't have to go to Cloudsdale just to fix a cloud-wall."

"It's just my suggestion," Twilight concluded, terminating the little illusion-projection. "That's all. What were you thinking of doing, Rarity?"

"Mayor Mare wished for me to repair and refurbish the town hall. Apparently your friend Monee also made certain promises about shoring up the city's budget that the Mayor wants ME to live up to," the fashionista turned Baroness explained with a soft sigh. "Honestly, I'm not sure what to do."

"Well, how much money do you have?" Pinkie asked, now all but dangling off the edge of the bath. "Cause Monee was really rich! Really, really, super duper rich!"

"Thank you Pinkie, I know." Rarity shifted a little, folding her legs one over another. "I'll have to borrow heavily for this project, clearly."

"Can't ya just have Bluey pay for it?" Pinkie then asked, upside down.

"Then it would be Blueblood's gift to Ponyville, not mine. It would defeat the purpose." Rarity shook her head, having thought of that. "Even if the purpose is just semantics."

"You could always do nothing," Dash suggested off-hand.

"Absolutely not!" Rarity immediately objected, going so far as to clop a hoof against the floor. "Not only is this is a honored and noble tradition, I've lived my entire life in Ponyville! This is my home, and everypony came out to support me when I dueled with Lady Antimony! I must repay that now that I am Baroness! I must!"

"Just don't get carried away," Applejack warned, once again relaxed and blissfully under the tender hooves of her masseuse.

"Carried away?" Rarity dismissed the very notion with a little have of her hoof. "Darling, when have I ever gotten carried away by something?"

A moment of silence answered her, as five pairs of eyes stared her way.

"Well, I won't this time," the new Baroness promised.

"Hey, uh, Spike, right? Does Miss Sparkle know you're here?"

"She knows, and yes, I was invited," Spike explained, biting back a growl. It wasn't the first time somepony had asked him that and it probably wouldn't be the last, either. Really, with all the ponies questioning him being around, he wasn't even sure why he had come.

"If you say so," the stallion - Caramel, or one of them anyway - retrieved a drink from the bar and disappeared back into the show room.

Spike rolled his eyes as he caught some of the act on stage: a saucy play about an amorous prop-dragon chasing after a flighty alicorn Princess, the pony being too dense to realize that the dragon was after the huge gem on her feathery necklace and not her maidenhood. Which, by the way, she lost several times over tricking a progression of idiotic stallions into fighting the dragon for her. All of whom were promptly eaten.

It was a stupid, silly play. The prop-dragon would swoop down with an annoying laugh, booming some form of sexual innuendo like "give me your most precious jewel, my dear!" or "I see what you have hidden under those robes! It will be mine!" The Princess would then shriek, running away and losing some piece of her costume in the process. She would then find a knight, seduce him, and then send him to fight the dragon. Of course each noble pony-in-shining-armor met a comically grisly fate.

It was so ridiculous...

It was even kind of funny, really, though Spike found himself silently and secretly annoyed by the subject matter. More than two dozen stallions had been invited over for Blueblood's Ponyville soirée, spending the afternoon and evening watching comedic and frequently naughty theater, drinking and smoking and gambling. If Twilight could somehow see the party, Spike suspected she would have serious second thoughts about allowing him to come.

Why had he come, anyway?

Spike just wasn't sure. He sure as heck wasn't going to try and drink or smoke - not that he had done so at the Gala, either - besides which he doubted any of the Manor staff would allow it given how grossly underage he was. The plays on stage had been fun, at least until they got to this one bit about the dragon and the princess, but he missed watching with the girls. He only knew a few of Ponyville's male population, and none that well. Big Mac came closest, and Spike had hung around him for a while, but then drifted off so as not to seem... clingy.

It was probably a good chance to meet some other guys and make friends, but that was so much easier said than done. Spike didn't consider himself terribly shy. He had made due in Canterlot pretty well, after all. He had contacts and acquaintances back there, like Donut Joe and Moonchaser. Lately, though, it always seemed like he was - to be frank - that one thumb in a room full of hooves. The one dragon in the entire town.

Why was he here?

Why had he come?

Curiosity? Some belated hope that he could mingle and make new friends? Looking back, it was probably that simplest of explanations. He was curious. This was a stallions-only event, and he had been invited to attend as one of the guys. It was probably an honor. Or something.

At least there were tons of sweets to eat. Sitting at the bar, he dipped a long-handled spoon into a thick custard and cream trifle, laden with sweet fruit slices. It was apparently an alcoholic dessert, but Spike already felt a bit heady from the sugar. It was better than ice cream, even, though he doubted he'd have many other chances to binge on it outside tonight.

"Auntie likes those with sherry. She has a real sweet tooth."

Spike put down his spoon and nodded to himself. This, maybe, was another reason why he had come.

"Yeah," he replied, tapping a finger against the polished wood of the bar. The servant on bartender duty hastily dipped his head and excused himself. Spike fought off a frown but couldn't help but glare at the party's host.

Prince Blueblood. The bastard from the Gala. Despite everything, despite Antimony supposedly breaking them up, he and Rarity were still together. Spike may not have had external auditory canal like all the mammals around him, but he wasn't deaf. He'd heard everypony whispering about them, now that Rarity was a noblemare, titles and all.

It was hard - so hard - to feel happy for them.

He'd been so sure he wanted Rarity to lose to Antimony. He had even burned Blueblood's warning letter to her to make sure she ended up in the duel. Antimony should have won, forcing them apart. It was what he had wanted, it was, but during the duel - seeing Rarity struggling against all odds - he hadn't been able to bear it. He had silently cried for her to win. Even if the two of them needed to be broken up, it was wrong to have it happen like that. At least that was how he explained it to himself.

"I put you in an uncomfortable situation before," Blueblood spoke first, when it became clear Spike didn't quite know what to say to break the ice. The Duke of Canterlot reached across the bar, his magic levitating out a glass and a bottle of amber liquid.

"I know you care deeply for Lady Rarity. The same feelings I have for her," he continued, pouring a sliver of a drink onto rocky shoals of ice. "You didn't pass on my letter to her, and looking back, I can imagine why."

Spike knew Blueblood knew - he also knew the stallion hadn't told anyone. He could easily have told Twilight or Rarity. They probably deserved to know that Blueblood had tried to warn them about Antimony. Spike doubted reading it would have entirely stopped a duel from taking place, not with how determined Antimony was and how easy Rarity was to rile up when her pride was stung. Still, they probably deserved to know, and he probably deserved the anger they would have for him. It was wrong to burn that letter. It was just a wrong he hoped would lead to a right in the long run.

Rarity... he could make her happy. Spike knew he could. He wanted, so much, just to make her happy. The little dragon glared down at his spoon, still not sure what to say. "Thanks?" It was probably the right thing to say. Which wasn't to say he actually said it. Not to Blueblood.

Not to this pony stealing his Rarity.

"How do you know how to do it?" Spike asked, instead.

"Do what?" Blueblood asked, and then realized. "You mean send you letters like Auntie does." The Prince smirked into his drink. "The answer to that... is complex. No pony knows I can do it, you know. Which was why I used it to try and send that warning to Lady Rarity. In a way, you, Spike, are an ace in the hole."

"Is that why you aren't going to tell anypony what I did?" Spike asked, scooping a bit of raspberry and custard into his mouth.

"An unreliable ace is still an ace. Besides," he added, taking his drink and heading off, "telling Rarity would upset her... something I'd rather avoid."

Spike couldn't let him leave on just that. "Thanks... for inviting me."

"Don't worry about it." Blueblood started to leave, the sound of his hooves making a klak-klak on the floor behind Spike's back. "Oh, and as for the dragon thing on stage? I'm afraid Canterlot is a little dragon crazy at the moment due to the migration. The next act should be more tasteful."

Spike carefully held the silver spoon between his claws.

"What... migration...?"

"A dragon migration! Can you believe it? Of all the times and of all the places!"

The Carousel Boutique, normally Rarity's sanctuary, her fashionable bastion, had seen something of a transformation in the weeks since her duel with Antimony. As a titled noblemare, it was no longer open for 'business' as such; despite that fact, Rarity continued to fill the very last set of orders she had been given prior to her duel and accolade. Most were being finished, and had been finished, for the Art Festival next week. One dress in particular hung from a mannequine, waiting for it's owner to return from Prance.

Slowly but steadily, fewer ponies began to enter the Boutique to browse for clothing Rarity couldn't sell, only give away. The Element of Generosity herself couldn't decide whether to give away her store's dresses and accessories or whether to try and pass her precious Boutique on to another in name if not in fact. It left things in a sort of commercial limbo, replacing the lost activity with something else entirely: political dealing.

Or at Rarity called it, 'that little game.'

"It is unusual for them to pass so close to an inhabited town or city," Twilight agreed, though she didn't share Rarity's apparent distress. "But this is a real opportunity for anypony who wants to study dragons! According to early reports, there are over a hundred of them heading this way! It's exciting!"

"I think terrifying is more like it," Rarity countered, pacing over to one of her mannequines and adjusting the hat and dress it wore. Twilight could tell, by that nervous tick alone, that Rarity was troubled. It wasn't hard to guess why: not just the migration itself, but what it imposed on her.

"All these little adventures... they were a great deal more entertaining when I didn't have to personally see to their ramifications," the dressmaker turned Baroness lamented. "Ah! Yes! I-de-a!"

Hastily stripping down the mannequine, she began assembling a new ensemble from rolls of red, yellow, and purple cloth. Twilight let her friend work off some of her anxiety while she skimmed through her book on great animal migrations. It was fascinating reading! She and her friends had already seen a great migration before, at Appleoosa, with the Buffalo Tribe. Who could have guessed then that Dragons migrated, too? The Buffalo stampede was dangerous enough to get one small town up in arms.

Ponyville, situated in the shadow of Canterlot, was no Appleloosa, and Dragons were an order removed from even the most stampede-happy Buffalo. Hence Rarity's current situation, one of many on her plate at the moment.

"How much money do we have to work with?" Twilight asked, checking the elegant wooden clock on the east wall.

Rarity continued to work on her new patchwork dress. "Forty thousand bits."

"Forty thousand?" Twilight asked again, to be sure. That was not an insubstantial sum by any means. It was a year's income for many ponies.

"We've also been given a teeny tiny contingent of royal guards, but naturally they want to keep almost all of them in Canterlot!" Rarity levitated up three different patterns of forest purple and shrubbery-in-gold. "Blueblood has only a few Duchy guards outside the royal household, so... what choice is there? We have to hire free companies."

"Have you ever met a condottiero before?"

"Me? Oh, no-no-no-no-no!" The fashionista asked with a scandalized laugh, looking back at the other unicorn. "If ever met one, he or she certainly never introduced themselves a such!"

Rarity returned to her mannequine, happy little sounds indicating she had hit upon something particularly interesting. "I always imagined them to be quite roguish, swash-buckling types."

Twilight really had no more experience than Rarity did when it came to Equestria's 'free company' ponies and griffins. Academically, she knew that they were groups of adventurers and "contractors" that moved around, both inside and outside Equestria. They were frequent and convenient villains in the Daring Do series, either trying to steal or abuse whatever magical artifact the fantastic archaeologist was after that week. Like in that adventure serial, they worked for whoever paid them. Some were renowned for their honor and code of conduct, acting as "knights for hire," and others... well, others were famously much less scrupulous.

Equestria was a peaceful country, and it had been without conflict for centuries, unlike some of its more unfortunate (or more warlike) neighbors. There was little need within Equestria for large numbers of guardponies and only a few families bothered with the expense of keeping standing companies in full and permanent employ year-round. The few that did were well known.

The Royal Guard had supposedly started as one of Equestria's oldest 'free companies' that famously and eternally pledged themselves to Princess Celestia. Their rivals had then done the same, but for Princess Luna. Other companies had been raised or integrated into the hereditary rite of great families. Just a month ago, Antimony brought a number of her family's Cardinal Guard with her on her visit. By some accounts, the red coated Cardinals were spread out across four Equestrian provinces. It was likely they were the largest single company of guards in the country.

Rarity was only half done with her new dress, a strange fusion of camouflage and Canterlot high fashion, when her awaited guest finally arrived. The welcoming jingle of the Boutique's bell heralded the entrance of a pony who, just at first look, could only be a condottiero. Specifically one of the representatives sent to discuss handling security for Ponyville during the Dragon Migration.

"Miss... Sparkle, is it?" the newcomer inquired, before zeroing in on Rarity. "Your Ladyship."

The mercenary stallion was a tall and handsome unicorn with a black moustache and vandyck beard. His mane and tail were perfectly groomed and cut short. He bowed fluidly and deeply, despite the intricate white and red armor that covered him from his withers to his hooves.

Having a brother as Captain of the Royal Guard, not to mention having lived at the Palace for a decade, Twilight had grown used to seeing stallions in barding and armor. This stallion's armor, however, seemed almost needlessly ornamental. There were pouf-like frills sticking out from under his foreleg sleeves almost to the tips of his hooves and a delicate silk sash of gold and ivory that crossed his chest and covered one shoulder. Stuffed "bombasted" hose blossomed over his back legs, from haunches to mid-thigh. On his polished steel cuirass he boasted a large red-on-white cross with a star in the center and a dove on the upper left quadrant.

"Baroness," he greeted Rarity with a silky smooth Bitalian-Reinice accent. "It is an honor to meet you at last, generous and fair Lady of Ponyville."

Rarity opened her mouth but had to rethink her immediate response, likely deeming it too friendly or too familiar. She was Baroness now, and when acting as such, she had to rein in some of her instincts. Belatedly, she realized she had a pair of scissors in her teeth and measuring tape draped across her shoulders. Rarity looked much more the dressmaker than the noblemare, though she corrected that by assuming the proper poise and bearing. A haughty flick of her mane and straightening of her back affected an air of dignity and command.

"Thank you for answering my summons," she replied with a carefully measured bow: polite but not too deep. "Please feel free to name yourself and speak casually."

"I am most humbly Germoglio Bianco, duly elected Captain of the Compagnia della colomba e croce," he introduced himself with a flourish of both hoof and magic. "At your service."

"I am Rarity, of Ponyville," the freshly titled noblemare replied, and motioned to Twilight. "This is Twilight Sparkle, of Canterlot."

Twilight bowed her head and crossed her front legs in polite greeting. "È un piacere incontrarlo, signore."

"Parlate in modo bello," he replied, smiling at hearing his native tongue spoken this far from Reinice. He gave a sly wink Twilight's way before focusing entirely on Rarity. "If I may, your Ladyship, I would introduce my notary: Nastro Rosso."

Germoglio tapped his hoof two times, and a second pony entered the Boutique. A brown earth pony stallion with a normal sized frame, he wore no armor himself, but bore a sash around his neck that draped over his shoulders. It, too, bore the cross and dove of the free company. Unlike Germoglio, Nastro's cutie mark was visible: a loop of red tape around an open book.

"My Ladies," he said in greeting, bowing deeply.

"Nastro, please share with her Ladyship the standing strength of the Compagnia."

"Yes, signore." The notary coughed to catch his breath. "The Free Company of the Dove and Cross may bring to bear fifty four trained stallions-at-arms, finely armed and armored, of which eleven are unicorns, twenty one are pegasi, and twenty two are earth pony. We also command that same number in squires, plus six engineers trained in construction and siege, four mages of distinction versed in a variety of arts, and three doctors accomplished in both medicine and alchemy."

"Have any of you faced dragons before?" Rarity affected an air of nonchalance as she returned to her mannequine and her work-in-progress.

"Six years ago an orange wyrm had to be driven from a cistern in the western territories," Germoglio answered, gesturing for his notary to silently assume a place behind him. "The creature did not wish to leave peacefully and needed to be... persuaded."

"You tried talking to the dragon first?" Twilight asked, just to be sure. Dragons weren't citizens of Equestria like many other races were, but they weren't animals or monsters.

"Of course, my Lady." The condottiero raised his shoulders in a mirthful shrug. "It called us insects and maggots and demanded we leave while we could. This was not an option as our Company had been paid in advance to remove the creature. For eight days we camped around the dragon's lair and flooded it with assorted refuse. Eventually the beast was compelled to sally and protect its hoard; we then netted it to keep it from flight and used magic and muscle power to pacify it."

"I've run into a grown dragon before," Rarity said, as if that was a casual thing. "It was quite frightful. Was anypony hurt?"

"Nopony died, my Lady." Meaning there had been injuries. "Not my soldiers and not the dragon, which we released elsewhere, properly chastised."

"You are prepared to protect Ponyville if one or more of these creatures attack it?"

"We are, though it would be wisest to dissuade attack rather than respond to it." Germoglio watched Rarity closely, trying to get a read on her. Twilight could tell he was a little surprised and put off his game by the fact that he was interacting with a potential employer in a fashion shop, of all places, and by the fact that she was working rather than entertaining him.

"And you would dissuade a dragon, how?" Rarity asked, needle and thread and a flash of magic attaching a hood to the camouflaged dress.

"My Lady," he continued. "We shall post ourselves around town as a show of force and prepare highly visible magics capable of resisting flame. It is my belief that the real threat comes not from the adult dragons, who are in a haste to reach their terre amorose, but from the juveniles. Particularly the young males. They have not yet learned to respect ponies or our boundaries and may make a test of it."

"An interesting analysis," Twilight replied, giving Rarity time to consider things. "I've found very little literature dealing with dragons."

"Experience can often yield better results than a book, my Lady." Germoglio was astute enough to notice Twilight's displeasure with that answer, and attempted to mollify her. "Like all Free Companies, we also maintain our own records and battle manuals, many centuries old. We have access to information you may not find elsewhere."

The librarian slowly smiled, almost leered, at the prospect of new books and knowledge. "Really, signore?"

"Knowledge, like security, comes with a price," the stallion from Reinice reminded her with a smirk.

Rarity nodded in agreement. "Name the price, then, for both."

"Forty four thousand bits to cover five days of protection."

"But we don't-" Twilight almost blurted out.

"Forty four thousand?" Rarity interrupted her, giving Twilight a chance to button up. Negotiation really wasn't her strong point. "Twenty thousand seems more appropriate. My dear Lord Blueblood would laugh if I were to spend that much."

"Would he?" Germoglio asked, his voice soft but with an edge of steel.

"An extravagant dress can be attractive," Rarity explained, two needles in her teeth. "An extravagant soldier is unseemly."

The dressmaker shot only a quick glance the mercenary Captain's way. Twilight tensed a bit, expecting the stallion to respond angrily. It would be hard to blame him. Rarity wasn't usually this cold, especially to a stranger. Surely if she just explained that they only had thirty thousand bits to spend he would find a way to -

"Twenty five thousand for three days," he offered without apparent irritation. "Fifteen for every day after, should you need it."

"For that price, I expect you will defend the countryside as well as the town."

"You expect much then, your Ladyship."

"True, I do expect much from the things of quality," Rarity remarked, fashioning a small golden bow to the short sleeve of the camouflage-dress. "My friends and I shall be observing the migration from outside the city."

Germoglio chuckled, his armor jingling like a martial chime.

"A fair request from a fair Lady," he decided. "Very well. Two days from now, and for exactly three days, we shall protect Ponyville and all the surrounding lands from harm. During that interval, we shall be at your command, and you may command my Company through me. We may renegotiate when our contract expires. Nastro shall draw up the papers and return to you shortly."

After a round of "farewell" and "arrivederci" the mercenary Captain and his notary left the Boutique. Only moments after the door closed behind them, Rarity rested her legs on top of the mannequine to breathe a sigh of relief. She quickly composed herself and retreated away from her dress in the making to lay on the soft cushions of a fainting couch.

"Twenty five thousand is a good deal," Twilight said, her thoughts still on the fact that a compagnia di ventura of all things would or could be hoarding knowledge on dragons. Maybe there was something to all those Daring Do novels? It would be great to even get a peek at records written by ponies who actually ran into adult dragons!

"Twenty five thousand bits... even my order for Sapphire Shores was a mere two thousand bits!" Rarity stared hard into his distance as she considered what she had now, and what she could spend. "I never imagined some day I would be just - just spending so much! Like that! But with a veritable swarm of dragons set to fly overhead, the town either pays a heavy price or it holds its breath and hopes for the best."

"It could have been forty thousand," Twilight reminded her. "Now we have fifteen thousand left to give back to Prince Blueblood."

Rarity lowered her head between her front legs, her lower lip stuck out in a pout.

"Rarity?" Twilight asked.

"He did give us forty thousand to spend how we saw fit," Rarity mused. "And if - when - we do marry, it will not be his fortune it will be ours. Should I really return the little bit we have left over?"

"Fifteen thousand is hardly a 'little bit,'" Twilight argued, taking a seat close by on one of the floor pillows. "And I'm pretty sure those were Duchy funds, not personal ones."

"We could put it towards funding that tower you wanted, darling." Rarity rolled onto her back as she pondered the possibilities. "Or to the new reservoir Rainbow Dash suggested."

Twilight didn't want to say: 'isn't that embezzlement?'

Instead, she tilted her head to the side and grumbled, "I don't know..."

"Blueblood wouldn't care. It'll only be a fuss if we make a fuss of it," Rarity assured her. She was still on her back, using her hooves now to draw little shapes in the air. "I'm sure I can press the Rich family for more bits. With fifteen thousand and another loan, I'm quite confident I can afford to fix both the town hall, expand the reservoir, and lay down the foundations for that tower you wanted."

"It will be a wonderful gift for Ponyville!" she said with a happy laugh. "Oh, I can't wait to see everypony's faces when they hear the news!"

Rarity, Twilight knew, would know the Prince best. Even if she hadn't confirmed it, Twilight doubted he would mind that much. For what it was worth.

"We do need those things," she agreed. "So... I guess you're right..."

"Of course I am, darling!" Rarity flipped off her couch to resume work on her new camo-dress. "On the topic of the migration, though, I very much wanted to ask if Spike will be doing anything special?"

"Like taking part?" Twilight shook her head. "I don't think so."

"He never... socialized with other dragons back in Canterlot?"

"There are only a few of them in the entire city." Twilight made her way past Rarity; now that the meeting was over, she could get back to the library. Though she'd probably have to help go over the contract the notary left in a few hours.

"You don't think the migration will give him any ideas?"

"It might," Twilight replied, and since she had heard about it, she had given the situation more than a little thought. It was largely out of her hooves, however. She could only react to how he reacted. "But what can we do? He's been the same size for a year now, but he is growing up, little by little."

She had meant that to be the end of it, but Twilight noticed Rarity watching her instead of working on her camouflage for the migration. There was something strange to the look - like the other mare wanted to ask something, but couldn't quite find a way to phrase it. Eventually, she just focused on her dress.

"We'll have to be extra nice to him. I'll see what I can do on my end. Thanks again for dropping by, Twilight."

"Anytime, Lady Rarity."

Dragon.

Just what did it mean to be a dragon?

Spike was determined to find out. Even if he had to walk the entire way, biting back his envy of all the other ones like him, but with wings. Even then, he would find out. He would finally get some answers.

"Chubby cheeks? Waddle?" Yesterday's events ran thought his mind like a herd of angry buffalo, circling a wagon train and refusing to disperse. "Cute?"

Maybe that last one was a mixed bag.

But dragons were not supposed to be 'cute!' Even Rainbow Dash, of all ponies, had watched the migrating dragons overhead with awe and respect. Spike didn't expect to be inspiring awe much, not for years yet, but a little draconic respect would be nice. He did breathe fire, after all! Just as vexing, nopony had complimented him on his cooking either!

As if - as if blueberry scones and almond ladyfingers just materialized out of thin air! Because they did not! Spike growled under his breath as he scrabbled up the volcanic incline, his claws finding rough purchase on the bare rock. Making fun of his apron? Okay, maybe in retrospect, he should have bought one of the novelty ones that said 'kiss the cook' or 'I'm with stupid' or 'I break for gems.' Instead of just buying one of Pinkie's with a big lame heart on it.

"One tough stain against one lame dragon!"

Making fun of him in one breath and scarfing down his food with the next.

"Hmf!"

So what if he didn't act like a dragon? The cookie fits the mold it's baked in, didn't it? His entire life, as far back as he could remember, he had been Twilight's loyal and capable assistant. Being a dragon had always been secondary. He lived with ponies, so it was only natural that he acted... pony-ish, right? Even though he never really fit in with the ponies his age. Even though he never entirely fit in with the ponies Twilight's age. Hell, he couldn't even fit in with the ponies Big Mac's age, much less Blueblood's. Being Twilight's number one assistant was great, but there had to be more to life than just that, didn't there?

Looking up, Spike could see dozens of dragons still circling and soaring through the ash-laden sky. The migration had crossed west and south of Ponyville, thankfully not crossing over or through Everfree. He'd momentarily lost sight of them through the mountain passes, but after that it had been a simple test of endurance to keep the slow moving flock in sight. Open prairies had ended in a forested caldera nestled within semi-wild parklands.

Muddy hot springs bubbled from cracks in the earth, yielding poisonous pools of yellow and green. Geysers erupted from calcified mounds, betraying the turmoil building far beneath the surface. Spike took it all in. He had never seen a land like it before, but inhaling the acrid sulfurous fumes filled his lungs with vigor and his body with energy. The features of this place: plateaus of old basalt lava flows, rivers of dried up pyroclastic rock and pumice, the permeating heat and the hissing vents like cracks in the egg of the earth...

It felt good.

It felt surprisingly good!

Finally reaching the height of his climb, Spike got his first look at the migration's terminus. Even though there were still dragons overhead, the majority had already taken to roost among the crags and ledges that surrounded the three largest calderas. There were dragons of every shape and size and color, from a familiar red and green to an exotic mauve and topaz. There were even two black dragons in sight, lounging lazily in the heat from nearby magma springs, their scales the color of smoke and ash.

He also began to notice a pattern at work: almost all of the dragons at roost bore the tell-tale features of females: slimmer bodies, no horns, and narrow jaws. He recognized the green dragon from Everfree, a 'her' he supposed, languidly watching the stockier males up in the air. The sky was alight with fire as the adults... well, Spike wasn't sure what they were doing. Fighting, probably?

None of them seemed to be paying him much attention.

Down below, at the lowest point in the caldera, a group of much smaller dragons were standing upright - rather than on all fours - and yelling as they postured and played some sort of game. Spike saw a red, two purples, a white and a black and a brown. It looked like they were fighting, too, but much less seriously than their much older fathers and brothers up in the air. They were older than him, still, but it looked like a start.

"Teenage dragons, huh?" He skidded down the slope, passing by a huge slumbering wyrm on a nearby steppe. "That's more like it!"

He didn't pay much attention to the weird looking dragon who followed him down less than a minute later. The migration had brought every dragon in Equestria - possible every dragon in the world - together. A few bizarro-types were to be expected. Eight legs, though? Weird!

His name was Sir Mercury, Royal Guard and Knight of the Thistle Order and the Heavenly Garter. Honored servant of Her Immortal Highness, Princess Celestia, protector of the Royal Household, and currently in service to Her Nephew, the Duke of Canterlot and Prince of the Realm. It was his privilege to obey the commands of the household, except that those current orders - to watch and guard one Lady Rarity - were starting to look rather suicidal.

The crazy mare had donned a fanciful and none-too-convincing costume along with two of her friends. Fine enough, except that she had then pranced along the edge of the dragon migration and into the waiting jaws of a hundreds of the largest and most terrifying wyrms Mercury had ever seen. Their disguise was a flimsy piece of work, held together by gems, plaster, magic and a prayer. It was a miracle they had survived this long, and he had assumed they would turn back after tracking the dragons to their latest mating ground.

Apparently not!

The trio had instead half-flown half-scrambled up, over, and into one of the dragon infested calderas. Mercury watched them disappear from sight with despair. There was no way he could survive following them in. He was a fast flyer, true, and a skilled fighter, also true. Perhaps he could snatch them away from danger if there were two or even three dragons. Perhaps. But there were hundreds! No pony could survive if things went belly-up out there.

After the now very public incident with Lady Antimony, Lord Blueblood had not been as forgiving of his subordinates as in the past. The Prince was up to something, meeting day after day with ponies from Canterlot and abroad. In his oft-absence, he had charged Mercury as his most trusted and capable guard to the task of seeing Rarity was not surprised by another Terre Rare plot. What pony could have imagined he would, instead, end up following her here into the very gates of a draconic Tartarus?

Keeping out of sight, the Royal Guard kept a close watch. If there was a commotion, then suicidal or not, he was duty-bound to at least make the attempt at a rescue. It was possible he could buy time for Miss Sparkle to teleport them out, far from the caldera. The forest could hide them long enough for them to gallop back to a safer place.

A rustle in the bushes reminded him there was another pressing matter as well.

This one, though, he could deal with, now that they were both stalled in terms of following the three ladies from Ponyville. Stealthily stalking away, he vanished into the shrubbery, using the nearby roar of a geyser to cover the sound of his movement. Then it was only a matter of waiting. The other pursuer took his or her sweet time investigating.

A fellow pegasus - a stallion - but who did he work for?

With hardly a whisper or rustle of leaves, Mercury pounced. A white hoof muffled the other pony's yelp, or would have if he had made any sound of alarm. The tip of a knife-edged feather bit into the skin of the spy's neck. It was a trick all royal guards knew. A little bit of enchantment magic, though they could only use it on themselves. Surprisingly, Mercury's captive remained unruffled and calm despite his capture in the field.

"Don't be too 'asty, now," the other pegasus warned. "The same pony pays both our bills, after all."

Mercury scoffed. "The Prince never mentioned you..."

"Shady's the name." The pegasus managed a chuckle despite his disadvantaged position. "And I wasn't talking about 'is Grace."

That could only mean...

The Princess?

"Things're moving pretty quickly, but for now we're stuck 'ere," Shady Deal said with a knowing grin. "Why don't we compare notes?"

Cloudsdale.

The Wonderbolts private training range thundered as Hanger Four exploded, solidified clouds unraveling as the roof peeled off in long curling strips. A brief, intense flurry of cold rainwater and frozen hail fell like debris on the nearby runway, sending a half dozen pegasi into a rush to find shelter. It was followed, seconds later, by a reverberating crash as chunks of cloudcrete descended, punching holes in the firmament. A siren began to wail, filling the air with a warbling cry.

"What was that?"

"An accident...!"

"Some kinda explosion?"

"What should we do?"

While confused onlookers debated -

Captain Thunderhead pulled himself out of the crater that now stood where Hanger Four had once been. The majestic white and silver stallion glanced back over his shoulder at his broken right wing. The long feathers twitched, sending a jolt of pain up his side and across his torso. His Wonderbolts uniform was shredded into strips and tatters, hanging barely to his lean, muscular frame.

A single, cadet-gray hoof slammed into his chest, sending onto his back.

"Fun."

The hoof pressed down harder, and with it a rush of wind that flattened the Wonderbolts Captain into the exposed cloudcrete. An agitated mist seeped out and spread from the pinned pegasus. Standing over him, and then straddling him shamelessly, another Wonderbolt - a mare with cadet-gray coat and a wild, jagged green-yellow mane - licked her lips. There was a decidedly unhinged look in her jasmine eyes.

"That was fun!" she gleefully declared, still straddling him amid the ruins of the Hangar. Her face dipped down and she nibbled the Captain's ear, hard enough to draw a few drops of blood. "Thank you very much, Captain. I haven't had fun like that in what seems like forever."

She leaned back, still mounting him.

"I'd be happy to do this again... when you're all patched up." She sighed in ecstasy, raising a hoof to wipe the blood from her split lip and bloody nose. A throaty laugh began in her throat as she reveled in the sensations flowing through her. And the destruction around her.

"I wonder: since I beat you, maybe I should be the new Captain of the Wonderbolts?"

Thunderhead coughed, sneering. "That... will never happen...!"

Instead of looking cross, the victorious mare merely laughed.

"I know! I know!" She stomped hard on his chest, eliciting a pained groan from her victim. Then, with only a little reluctance, the madmare spread her wings and slowly floated off of him. "I suppose I won't be Captain, but I don't mind! Really! The truth of it is, spending time here was getting kind of boring. You Wonderbolts were boring me. I want to have fun... like I used to."

"Ritter!"

The vicious pegasus slowly turned around.

"Spitfire?" she asked in a lazy, unconcerned tone. "How nice to see you!"

Settling down onto her hooves, Ritterkreuz shook her body and spread her wings in anticipation. Snorting from flared nostrils, a chilly wind drifted out from between her clenched teeth. Standing in a very similar position, with wings wide and ready to fly, Spitfire had been caught out of uniform. The yellow Wonderbolt, her two-toned fire-orange mane blowing in the wind, snarled at her comrade and wingmate.

Ritter's mad smile only broadened at the display of pique.

"Damn you," Spitfire snarled. "Even for you... this is..."

"What? What is this, exactly? Hmm?" Ritterkreuz - her cutie mark taking the form of a trio of orange and black explosions - prowled closer to her teammate.

"Oh! I think I get it!" She seemed to realize, looking around at the destruction she had caused. She raised her front legs to glory in it. "You mean this?"

"Or do you mean that?" Ritter pointed back at Captain Thunderhead's wounded body.

"Just what in Tartarus do you think you're doing!" Spitfire roared. "Attacking the Captain?! Injuring your team-mates!"

"Team-mates?" Ritter asked with an exaggerated expression of mock confusion. "You ponies? Are you joking? You were never my team-mates! I only joined you because I thought you could keep me amused. And you did, for a while. But now I'm bored, so I'm leaving."

"You think we'll just let you go, after all this?" Spitfire asked, edging away from the madmare.

"You can send the bill to my Daddy. I'm sure he'll be happy to build another airfield for you." She leered at her former comrade. "If you want to play with me, Sparky, I can make the time. But do you think you can take me on? When your precious Captain Thunderhead is lying broken behind me? What chance do you have?"

Her eyes narrowed, noticing the other mare still edging back, warily.

"Maybe you can get a few of your friends to help. Like that cutie, Soarin? Where is he, anyway?"

"Don't you lay a single feather on him," Spitfire hissed, standing her ground.

"Touched a nerve, did I?" the other mare asked, getting closer and closer, now that Spitfire refused to back away. "How territorial. I like that."

Spitfire tensed to fight...

But Ritter simply trotted past, her jagged tail swaying behind her.

"Come find me when you want to play rough," she suggested, still chuckling darkly. "Bring all your friends, too! I don't mind groups." She then lifted a wing in passing salute. "Bye, bye, Captain! It was fun while it last-ed!"

Torn between rushing the other mare's exposed back, Spitfire blasted off to check on Thunderhead. Only up close could she gauge the full extent of his injuries and how his uniform had been shredded, even while he wore it. He was conscious, but only barely. Thunderhead - he had been Captain for years! No longer a young stallion, true, but he was a legendary flyer. A legend even among the Wonderbolts; a mentor to the most elite of combat and trick flying pegasi that made up the Corps.

Even for Ritter, the spoiled daughter of the Governor of Cloudsdale, this was going too far!

"Where does she think she's going?" Spitfire ripped away a piece of Thunderhead's uniform to help bind and elevate his broken wing. "Don't worry, sir. The base doctor should be heading here right now! He'll be here any minute."

Thunderhead's breathing was steady and he raised his head to speak.

"Sir," she pleaded, trying to get him to relax. "You don't need to-"

"Ponyville," he whispered between clenched teeth. "She's... headed... to Pony... ville..."

"Ponyville?" Spitfire asked, knowing the town. But there was no reason to go there. Not for a psychopath like Ritterkreuz. "Why Ponyville?"

Chapter Ten : Grow

(10)

Grow

Fluttershy inhaled the clean, clear, intoxicatingly dragon-free air of the Canterlot gardens. Every visit to the Palace retreat rewarded her with something new to smell, hear and see. Gliding, just a few inches off the ground, her nose twitched as the rich aroma of nearby flowers tickled her senses. She had first seen the gardens at night and late afternoon, during the Grand Galloping Gala, but the grounds were so much nicer during the light of the day.

Carefully cultivated flowers, dappled blue and yellow, leapt out from a canopy of ivy and hedges. Fountains and a babbling brook sang, a background chorus for the choir of birds that made the gardens their home. Fluttershy held out a hoof and a Mazarine Blue butterfly alighted gently on her leg. It remained for only a moment, and then it was off again.

This was so-oo much nicer than going to see scary dragons!

The Prince and Princess had been kind enough to give her a room for a few days so she could wait out the whole frightful migration in the safety and seclusion of Canterlot. It was also a chance to catch up with her animal friends outside Ponyville. The garden's exotic fauna were still skittish and wary, vestiges of their old instinct as wild creatures, but Fluttershy was determined to be patient and give them time to accept and embrace her.

Finding a wood and iron bench, the shy pegasus sat down to rest her wings. It really was nice to be able to visit the gardens again and to see Green Thumb and even pamper herself a little at the palace. It was. But...

But she also felt a little guilty.

Rainbow Dash had a point. She had gone with Fluttershy to see a butterfly migration, though she clearly hadn't enjoyed it much. It had been nice to have the company. Fluttershy knew she probably should've reciprocated and at least tried to watch the dragons with her friends. It was just so... so scary! Just the thought of the sky darkening with massive, reptilian shapes, their huge leathery wings beating as they soared menacingly through the air...!

"Eep!" Fluttershy had to hide her head under her hooves.

No: it was just too much! She just hoped her friends understood and forgave her for 'bailing on them’ as Dash would say. If it had only been anything but dragons! Maybe she could get them something from Canterlot? Rarity always loved things from the city, and she could get Twilight a book and Rainbow Dash and Pinkie some music records. Applejack was harder to shop for, but there was sure to be something that caught her eye.

"I really need to apologize for kicking Rainbow Dash, too," she reminded herself, her ears perking up as she caught sight of something in the gardens nearby. It was a dash of off-color. An animal, maybe? One she hadn't met before?

Away from the bench and over a long, narrow pond thick with water lilies in full bloom, Fluttershy ducked behind one of the many crenelated arches that decorated Celestia's royal gardens. Beyond was a secluded grove with low stone walls covered in ivy. White oak trees framed the weald, and a small company of Neighponese Blue Jays were gathered around a marble bath, chirping and singing.

The birds weren't the color and shape she had seen through the bushes, however.

That distinction belonged to a pony, a unicorn mare sitting at the edge of the grove with an easel and paints. Her coat was a shade of pink, like Pinkie's but a more a dark rose than bright pastel, while her mane was a deep, ruby red bundled up in a prim and elaborate bun. To Fluttershy's surprise, she was painting with her mouth and hoof, instead of with magic, dipping a tiny brush the size of a quill in a well of watercolor before putting it to canvas.

The unicorn's cutie mark appeared to be a golden cage with a black bird inside.

Not wanting to disturb her or get in the way, Fluttershy backed up and resumed her tour of the gardens. She even found the resident kangaroo that had first caught her eye, back in the Gala. She knew from Blueblood and Green Thumb that it was still considered dangerous to approach the nervous creature. Kangaroos had a famously powerful kick, but a little emboldened, Fluttershy slowly managed to get close enough to stroke its coat without prompting it into flight. It was all a matter of acclimation. Already, many of the critters in the gardens were as used to her as they were to the groundskeepers who had worked here for years.

"You can always come back, I promise."

The Prince had been true to his word, always extending every courtesy to her when she wanted to visit. Friendship couldn't be rushed, and just as she counted many of the birds and animals of Celestia's gardens among her friends, she considered His Grace to be the same. Blueblood was a bit strange at times, but he was nice. Fluttershy smiled to herself; maybe Rarity would pick her as Best Mare for the royal wedding? She figured it was likely between her and Twilight. Then again, being up in front of so many ponies at such a big event...?

"Eep!” Maybe - maybe it would be best to let Twilight have that honor.

But her little gasp had been enough to startle the kangaroo. It hopped away a few paces and resumed foraging. Fluttershy didn't press it, knowing that it was skittish. More skittish than she was, even! Instead, she moved along, quietly finding some of her other friends away from home. The birds in particular were out in force today, and Fluttershy indulged herself by singing along with them.

Curiosity brought her back to the grove from before, along with a little embarrassment that another pony may have overheard her singing. Sure enough, the pink unicorn was still there, painting. A little bolder than normal, inspired by how absorbed the other pony was, Fluttershy crept a little closer. What was she painting? A landscape? The castle?

It was the Neighponese Blue Jays.

All five of them, around the water bath. One had its wings spread as it splashed, two were singing, their beaks open and raised to the heavens. A forth was landing and a fifth was drinking. The artist had saved the backgrounds not adjacent to the characters for last, filling in and painting over faint lines of pencil with strokes of contrast and color. For a few moments, Fluttershy just watched her.

"Hello." The unicorn mare's voice was soft and shy. She didn't turn around.

"Hi," Fluttershy replied, shrinking away a bit in recrimination. "S-sorry. I didn't mean to disturb you."

"You weren't," the other mare said, touching up a patch of light blue sky.

Normally, Fluttershy would have muttered 'okay' or some other platitude before excusing herself. She really didn't want to bother anypony, especially since this one - like herself - must have come to the gardens for some solitude. With how focused this pony was on her artwork, though, Fluttershy couldn't help but feel at ease. She didn't even have to try and be unobtrusive, and there was a sort of calmness in watching the unicorn mare paint.

Settling down on her stomach, Fluttershy watched her and relaxed in the mottled shade of the trees. This time of the year there were always a few acorns on the ground... poisonous to ponies and uncomfortable to lay on. Fishing one out from under her, however, it was easy to settle into a cozy spot. Pleasantly, unlike most ponies, this mare didn't try and make conversation just because she had company. The two just enjoyed the gardens in silence.

At one point, a large hare hopped over, having found Fluttershy and knowing to associate her with an easy meal. She was much larger than Angel Bunny, as most jackrabbits would be, with a smaller head and larger body and ears. Fluttershy retrieved a bit of a lettuce from her saddlebag, soon attracting a couple more of the garden's smaller and more opportunistic eaters.

The animals here, even the ones that knew her, still didn't "talk" like Angel Bunny or the ones in Ponyville did. They hadn't been infused with the magic that came from being exposed to and raised by ponies over long periods of time. Most were still half-wild. It made for a bit of a challenge in getting to know them and even made her appreciate how pony-ified things were back home. She really did hope that Rarity used her new power as Baroness to help protect Ponyville's non-pony populations, as well. It was so easy for ponies to forget the animals that brightened their world.

A garden like this one, but maybe a little more wild - requiring only one or two groundskeepers - would be just wonderful back in Ponyville! Nicer than some musty old mage tower or eyesore reservoir.

Stroke by stroke, dab by dab, bit by bit, Fluttershy's unnamed companion finished her watercolor. Coming together, it was quite beautiful, a mixture of detail and emotional impression as the color drew one's eyes to the playful birds. Who, she only now noticed, had departed. The marble bird bath was unoccupied and the sun had set noticeably lower. Finally, the artist put her brush down, staring critically at her creation.

"It looks nice," Fluttershy broke the silence.

"It does?" The unicorn asked, glancing back at her for the first time. She had dull violet eyes, like Twilight's almost, but missing something intangible. She returned to her painting without another word.

"I especially like the bird you have landing. The wings are so detailed, and... um... well, you can't have caught a bird in that pose for long, so it looks really nice considering you didn't have a model. For it, I mean." Realizing she was rambling, Fluttershy pressed her mouth against her front legs.

"Thank you," the mare said in a soft voice. "If you like it, I'd be happy to give it to you."

"That's very nice of you, but..." Fluttershy raised her head, checking the painting to see if there was a name or anything on it. "I don't even know your name, Miss...?"

The other mare scooted around and inclined her head in courtly greeting.

"Chalice," she introduced herself.

"Fluttershy," the element of kindness did the same and returned the gesture.

"Ah." The other mare made a little sound, one of recognition. She didn't say as much, however. "Fluttershy. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"The pleasure is mine," Fluttershy bowed her head a little more deeply and then, formalities over with, she nervously shuffled her hooves a little.

"You are staying at the Palace, I expect?"

"Oh. Um. ... Yes."

"Will you be in Canterlot for long?"

"Just... a few days," Fluttershy muttered. "What about you?"

"I will be here as long as my brother has need of me. At least a week, I believe." Chalice ducked her head and smiled weakly. "I would enjoy it if we could meet again tomorrow in the gardens. It was nice to have some company."

"Yes," Fluttershy agreed. "It was nice."

"My dear sister, do you know you have leaves in your hair?"

Chalice shrunk at the sound of her older brother's voice. Her horn glowed, rippling through her mane and removing a few of the offending blades. It was dark out, the night sky bright with Luna's moon and the glittering expanse of heavenly lights. Some ponies loved the night sky. Most unicorns revered it. They didn't know; they didn't understand. Having touched the forbidden beyond, having felt starlight burn her skin, Chalice could not see the constellations overhead without an involuntary shiver of dread.

It was just one of the many reasons why she was weak.

It was why she was little more than a backup for her sister Antimony.

She stared up at her brother, Alpha Brass. The stallion was dressed in his golden finery, adding a sparkle to his perfect aurulent coat and flaxen mane. Her brother had few of Father's solid features; fitting given his preferences in magic. Alpha Brass lowered his mouth to nip the stem of a leaf from behind her ear, his breath tickling her.

"Much better," he complimented, letting the leaf fall from his lips. "How was your day, dear sister?"

"I merely went to the gardens to paint," Chalice answered, closing her eyes.

"Ah. Curious," he observed, running a hoof down her back and over her saddlebags. "For you return with empty easel and no canvas to speak of."

"My painting was not to my standards," she said, stiffening slightly. "So I discarded it."

"Hmm." He mused, and she couldn't tell if he believed her or not.

"Did you find what you wanted?" she asked instead, the better to divert his attention.

"I did, in fact." He turned away with a single motion to lead her to their family estate and hall in Canterlot. Hocksbach Hall. "I found it and more."

"You have a name?" she inquired.

"Heartstrings," he answered her, a soft chuckle in his throat. "Lyra Heartstrings. I do not yet know how, but she has acquired one of our torcs." Alpha Brass licked his lower lip in eager anticipation. "I can't wait to meet her."

"Uh, Twilight? Did you know Spike was fire-proof?" Rainbow Dash asked from the center of their three-pony dragon costume.

"Or lava-proof?" Rarity's muffled voice came from the rear.

"I had an educated guess, but there was never any lava in Ponyville to test my hypothesis!" Twilight's enthusiastic response was paired with some hasty note taking in the cramped space of the goofy costume. The dragon's head, wide googly-eyed and mouth agape, rocked back and forth as the scholarly unicorn recorded her latest findings. "I wonder what the ratio of iron and magnesium to aluminium and silica is in that pool of lava..."

"Yeah, me too! Maybe we should fly down there and take a sample?" Dash asked, and looked up in time to see a growing, slightly unhinged grin on her friend’s face. This was Twilight Sparkle she was talking to, after all. "That was a joke, by the way! A joke!"

"Are you sure Spike isn't hurt?" Rarity asked from the back. "I can't see a thing from here! Twilight, switch places with me."

"What? No! We can't switch now!"

"I think the ass is the right place for you, Rarity - hey, ow! Watch it!"

"Oh, was that your tail, darling? I can't see anything in the dark."

"Yeah right!"

"Girls, please!" Twilight pleaded from the 'head' of the dragon. "This is not the time or place!"

"HEY! Crackle's Cousin! What was that guy's name again? You coming or what?"

"Quick, Twilight, play dumb!"

"Right!"

Shuffling over to a patch of basalt, the three ponies draped themselves over the rough volcanic rock pretending to be asleep. Or just passed out. Unfortunately, their dragon costume couldn't close it's eyes. Twilight crouched and hunkered deep in the throat of the costume as the red teenage dragon of the pack stuck his arm out to hang from the edge of the rocky high dive. He glared at the supposed eight-legged dragon, rolled his eyes, and returned to the magma below with a splash.

"Forget that guy!" he called out, loud enough for the girls to overhear. "I think he's having a personal time out or something."

"You know this isn't going to work forever," Dash whispered.

"And can you be a little more gentle with this costume?" Rarity asked, craning her neck to try and see past Rainbow Dash's rump.

"Why does our dragon have a big pink bow, anyway?"

"Because it matches her gems, of course."

"Except this dragon is supposed to be a HE."

"Then it matches his gems, of course."

"Ugh!"

While the middle and rear of the dragon jockeyed for position at one of the eye-holes cut into the chest, Twilight angled the head to get another look down at the magma pit. Spike seemed to be not only safe in the pool of lava; he actually seemed to be enjoying himself. He was splashing around, and even joining in throwing balls of liquid rock at the other young dragons.

It was intellectually fascinating - Twilight had always known Spike was amazingly resilient - but it was also a little troubling. Spike was having fun; he was happy, Twilight had to remind herself. That could only be a good thing. He was learning about being a dragon, too. Another good thing. So why was she secretly growing a little worried?

"Hey! Hey Twilight! Check it out!"

Dash's hoof jabbed into her flank, and Twilight ducked her head down to the lower eye holes.

"What?"

Rarity had her face plastered right up against one of the view ports, dabbing at her forehead. "Oh my. We really shouldn't be watching this."

"Then don't watch it!" Dash declared, trying to pry her away.

"Of - of course I don't want to watch it...!"

"Watch what?" Twilight inverted herself to hang upside down. Painfully twisting her neck upright, she saw what Dash had meant. At the far side of the caldera, some of the adult dragons had paired up and...

"Oh," she breathed. "Huh."

Dash coughed into her hoof. "Twilight, when you take notes on this, I think you should call that one out there 'Big Mac.'"

"He certainly seems popular with the ladies," Rarity observed. "Is it hot in here?"

"Dear Princess Celestia, tonight I played voyeur at a dragon orgy-"

"Don't you dare tell the Princess that!" Twilight objected, grabbing the colorful pegasus by the cheeks to try and quash her goofy grin. "These are majestic creatures, and we are here on a scientific expedition! Of learning. And knowledge. And understanding!"

"So we’re not searching for Dragon balls," Dash said between her mashed cheeks.

"At least none of the younger dragons seem to be doing... that," Twilight continued, taking another look from next to Rarity before moving back to the head of the costume.

"Which begs the question: where are all the younger girl dragons?" Rarity inquired, finally tearing herself away from the view.

"If I had to make an educated guess, I'd say that all the dragons here are segregated by age and sex. Notice the smaller dragons are sleeping near the bottom of the crater and the bigger ones are at the top. The bigger ones... the females it looks like... would also naturally be the first to, you know. Um. Breed. The female dragons too young to do that are probably in another crater."

"Huh? You noticed all that?" Rainbow Dash looked up at Twilight, impressed.

"I also noticed that the mature dragons would watch whenever Spike's new friends did something competitive, like when they were belching fire or tail wrestling." Twilight Sparkle pursed her lips and 'hmmed.'

"I think they're establishing a mock pecking order," she speculated. "Just like the adult males in the sky. I wonder if dragons act like this outside of the migration? None of the other ones we ran into seemed very social..."

"Except Spike," Rarity corrected her.

"So what?" Dash asked. "He doesn't act like a dragon! We already knew that."

"Hold on. Something's happening."

Emerging from the lava pool, the group of teenagers began to binge on gems from the hoard they had been mock-fighting over before. Twilight wasn't a hippologist or sociologist by any stretch, but it did seem as though Spike had passed some sort of initiation rite or rite of passage. He had been accepted into the clique. Primitive societies often relied on such things to -

"You know, this reminds me of Flight School! See, what we used to do to newbies is we blindfold 'em and duck 'em in a cloudbank..."

Yes, well.

"...to the surface and then back up to the camp with a mouth full of water without swallowing!" Dash finished her description, much to the shock of the two unicorns in the costume with her. The cyan pegasus looked back at Rarity and then up at Twilight, blinking in confusion. "What? You guys didn't do that kinda stuff?"

"Unicorns are apprenticed after primary education," Twilight reminded her.

"Honestly, Rainbow Dash, hazing? How positively barbaric!"

Dash defiantly stuck out her tongue. "Look, whatever!"

"Anyway, Spike seems to have become part of this social group."

"Which is a good thing, right? Right, Twilight?"

"I guess... maybe."

The sky reflected the ruddy red of the volcanic pits below, tinted by sulfur-yellow and hues of pale green. It was like nowhere in Equestria, and Spike loved it. Claws behind his head and a belly full of gemstones, he sighed contentedly. Picking a sliver of emerald out from between his teeth he stretched, languidly, like a well fed and pampered cat.

This was the life.

All around him, his new friends were similarly half asleep, digesting their gluttonous meal of gems. Spike had no idea whose hoard they had pillaged. None of the adult dragons seemed to care to claim it, so he supposed it was free game for anydragon who wanted it. Cracking an eye open, the baby dragon snorted.

The adults! Ha! They clearly had other concerns aside from finding gems. But then, dragon eggs had to come from somewhere, didn't they? Most everydragon seemed spent in one way or another. Huge slumbering forms were listlessly strewn around the volcano, arms or legs dangling off the edges of sheer cliffs and outcroppings. The smell of base elements tickled Spike's nostrils and the distant bubbling of lava and viscous mud relaxed him like the sweetest strumming of a lyre.

"Man, now that was a great party," he said aloud, angling his shoulders to get comfortable in the volcanic dirt.

"Great? Pffh!" Garble rumbled, a trail of smoke escaping his flared nostrils. "Maybe by Ponyville standards." He reached over to bump his fist against Spike's shoulder, a friendly gesture so similar to what ponies did, it was hard to chalk it up to coincidence. "Stick with us, Spike! You've still got plenty to learn about being a dragon."

Spike turned to the older drake with more than a little admiration. Garble was basically the leader of the group here, even though he wasn't the biggest or the strongest. The red dragon just seemed to have a certain something that helped him stand out. Watching him, it reminded Spike of Rainbow Dash. Garble always seemed to be the one not just with ideas of what to do, but the drive to get others to do them. It was that latter trait that earned him the role of top diamond dog and King of the Hoard.

Like Rainbow Dash, he was kind of a jerk, but he was cool.

Spike could imagine that if Garble wanted a girl, even a pony girl (not that he would since he seemed to hate ponies), that he would just go and get her. Like Dash. Maybe he'd think about it a little, but mostly he'd just get where he needed to go just by wanting it hard enough and never doubting himself.

Finally.

Finally, he had another guy he could look up to. A fellow dragon! A... a big brother almost.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said with a contented smile, staring up at the ash-laden sky. "The way I feel right now, I could hang out with you guys forever."

For a few more minutes, they all just lay there in bliss. Then, gradually, other dragons began to stir and stretch. It was still light out, after all. Though, while all the other dragons were still getting on their feet... there was a question Spike wanted to ask. Something only another dragon could answer.

"Hey, Garble?"

"Yeah?" The older dragon rocked back and flipped into his feet, shaking the dust from his spines.

"How'd you get your wings?" Spike asked, eyeing the red and gold limbs on Garble's back. Every dragon here had them. Every dragon except him.

He remembered one joking that he had 'flown in on his mother's back.'

Did dragons do that?

"My wings?" Garble asked and laughed. "Really? You don't know?"

"No, I don't," Spike replied, disappointment and a bit of anger in his voice. This was not the best topic to mock him about. Why? Why didn't he have wings?!

Garble seemed to notice this, but rolled his eyes and snorted ash.

"You know, your mommy should have told you this, not me," he said with an unhappy growl. "But look: you get your wings when you prove you're a real dragon."

Spike raised an eyebrow at that. "I thought I was a real dragon?"

"You're a dragon in training, little guy!" Garble patted him playfully on the head, ruffling his spines. "I mean, ya gotta find out what kind of aspect of being a dragon you're best at! You gotta find that thing that makes you, you."

Spike took a second or two to process that.

"So," he said, getting back on his feet. "It's like a cutie mark? Great. Just great."

"What's a cutie mark?" Garble shook his hand. "On second thought, I don't wanna know. Probably some prissy baby pony thing." His hand became a fist, and he pointed at Spike. "Forget that stuff! You want your wings, ya gotta prove you're a dragon! You ready for a raid?"

"Sure I am!" Spike enthusiastically replied, just as the others pumped their fists and cheered in excitement. Only to deflate a bit. "Uh, wait, what?"

"A raid, man!" Garble bonked Spike on the head at forcing him to explain. "There's a nest full of phoenix eggs nearby. We're gonna swipe 'em!"

Phoenix eggs?

Swipe them?

Spike's mouth hung open, an impairment Garble quickly remedied with a free claw and another bop on the head.

"Aren't you totally psyched to go on this raid!" Chunk planted Spike's face in the ground with a slap of his coarse knobby tail . "YEAH! Let's do it!"

"Alright!" Garble announced, turning around and already flapping his wings. "Follow me!"

Chunk and Spear, a wiry purple drake, followed close behind. Even with the former's stubby wings and chubby body, they were soon in the air. Spike felt a brief pang of jealousy, but then realized this was also an easy out. He didn't have wings!

Besides which, he wasn't really... keen on the whole egg-napping scheme. Why phoenix eggs? Were they going to eat them? True, there probably weren't many chickens around, and even ponies enjoyed the occasional scrambled egg for breakfast, but they had just eaten. Gems even! Plus, wasn't nabbing a phoenix egg kinda dangerous? Was it even right? They were just birds, but... still...

The thought of eating a phoenix egg, even beaten and fried with a little ham, maybe some sparkling sapphire, a pinch of cream and chopped herbs... aw, and a little rosemary and a pinch of salt?

Okay, that sounded good.

Curse his culinary talents! It was a true curse to be able to make anything taste good. Baked Bads, even? Those were delicious!

"Guys, I don't have wings, so... maybe I should just sit this out and, aaa!"

And they could carry him just as easily.

Nuts.

Rarity's dragon costume was clearly not designed for mobility, much to the growing annoyance and impatience of the team’s only pegasus. Galloping even at full sprint wasn't even in the ballpark of a good cruise when it came to getting from point A to point B (unless you were dealing with Pinkie Pie, but that was a special case). Having to basically stumble blindly forward in the equivalent of a seven legged race with the added burden of a unicorn on her back and another behind her was torture, especially when time was of the essence.

Rainbow Dash was tempted to just throw off the stupid costume and head off solo.

Of course, then she remembered the hundred dragons circling overhead or sleeping within shouting distance, not to mention the fact that she'd be abandoning two friends to help one. That was what really got her goat: either she stayed with Twilight and Rarity, resulting in all three ending up too late to help Spike, or she left Rarity and Twilight to fend for themselves for a while with the assurance that she could find Spike with time to spare. There just didn't seem to be any middle ground.

'Just hold on, Spike! We'll get there!'

Of course, Rarity took that opportunity to bump into her from behind while Twilight lost her balance, legs flailing within the confines of the costume. The result was a millipede-like collision of legs that took more than a little time, and a few creative invectives, to sort out. Wings flapping, Dash had to fight her instincts to take to the air. Lifting up the middle part of the dragon had only made things worse, since it left Rarity to try and gallop on two legs and caused Twilight to lean far forward.

"This is like the worst parade float ever!"

"The costume is perfectly fine! It just isn't meant for such rough handling!"

"We're almost there!" Twilight said, calling down from the 'head.' "You should probably watch out for-"

"Aw! AWW!" Dash recoiled, tears in her eyes. "What the heck?"

"Twilight. Please. Please tell me we didn't step what I think we stepped in."

Twilight urged them onward, after a slight detour. "Don't worry, because it definitely wasn't dragon guano. ... It was probably some other type of guano."

"Not helping!" the two locomotive ponies yelled in unison.

"Smash it! Smash it!" the three dragons were chanting. "Smash it! Smash it!"

Spike had already decided not to go through with it.

It wasn't that hard a decision, really. Maybe he would have gone through with it if they were going to eat the egg. Maybe. But just smashing it for no reason? Why? Why would they want him to do that? That was what he didn't understand. That was what left him paralyzed, eyes moving from his new friends to the defenseless egg in his hands. It was so big, so lustrous, the shell patterned flame on gold. Holding it in his arms, he could imagine another egg that must have been this same size or maybe just a little bigger.

Why?

Everything else he could see the fun in it. The lava diving had been awesome; the tail wrestling was scary, but pretty fun, too (even if he had gotten flattened that one time). King of the Hoard - he wanted to try it again! Everything today had been so much fun! Scary sometimes, but fun. It felt right.

But this? This didn't feel right at all.

And Spike knew what his friends, his pony friends, would expect of him.

"No," he whispered, not looking up from the egg.

"What?" Garble asked, leaning in. "What did you say?"

"No," Spike repeated, holding the egg out of the older dragon's reach. "It's just a defenseless egg. Like I used to be."

The three dragons exchanged confused looks that quickly transmuted, in one case, to anger.

"No one says 'no' to me!" Garble growled, advancing and leveling an accusing claw at the wingless Spike. "You're a dragon, aren't you? So act like it!"

Spike backed away a step, and then another. His eyes screwed shut, and he forced his legs to stop shaking. He had made his decision and that was that. There was no doubt in this. Not like with destroying the letter. Not like dealing with Blueblood taking Rarity away. He had questioned himself, he had waffled, he had been unsure. Not this time.

This time, he had seen what a dragon was supposed to be.

"NO!" he yelled, bearing his tiny teeth. "What does breaking this egg have to do with being a dragon? Huh! What?"

"It's what we do." Garble towered over him. He pointed down at the gold and crimson egg. "Break that egg, little Spike. Or you'll never be a dragon. You'll never get your wings. Is that what you want?"

Spike cringed, not out of fear, but because for a split second he believed it. Dragons were fierce. Dragons were formidable. Dragons were scary. Wasn't that what his own friends had said in that trench, watching the migration? Would breaking the egg give him wings? Would breaking it make him a dragon? A real dragon?

"You're wrong."

Spike shook his head, stepping up to Garble glaring defiantly up at the older drake.

"You're wrong!" he repeated, more loudly. "Breaking this egg isn't fierce! It isn't scary! It isn't impressive! It's just... stupid... and cruel... so I won't do it."

"Fine! I'll do it!" Garble swiped at the egg, but Spike sheltered it with his body. "Come on! Give it!"

A red claw found the top of the shell, fingers about to tense and claw -

"Argh!" Garble recoiled, his wrist bearing a small bite mark. "What the hell!"

"I told you I won't let you break this egg!"

"It's dead anyway!" The older dragon gestured back at the broken nest and the family of Phoenixes that had just fled.

"That doesn't have anything to do with it!" Spike yelled, taking a step forward. "This is stupid! This isn't FUN! Do you think smashing this egg will really be fun?!"

Garble snorted, a line of fire escaping his nostrils. Behind him, Chunk and Spear were watching intently. They turned to their leader for what to do next. Garble balled his fists and crossed his arms.

"You know I'm right," Spike drove home.

"It's a raid, Spike," was all the argument he could muster.

"So?" the little dragon snapped. "So what?"

"So it... it's just what we do," Garble replied, still eyeing the egg dangerously. But not hatefully. "You're thinking like a pony-"

"I was raised by ponies," Spike cut him off.

"Then why don't you go BE a damn pony if you love them so much?" Garble hissed, his temper flaring up, directed not at the egg but at the defiant little dragon with no wings. He pushed Spike at the shoulder, forcing the little dragon backwards.

"Yeah! Go be a pony!" He sniffed in disgust. "Go live in a house with one. Go mate with one! If you don't have the balls to be a dragon, go be a stupid..." He punctuated each insult with a push. "Lame! Sissy! Little! Pony!"

The last push nearly knocked Spike off his feet.

"I'm not a pony." He glared up at Garble with bright green eyes. "I... Am. A. Dragon!"

'Like you!'

"Raised by a pony and friends with ponies and proud of it!"

White hot pain lanced Spike in the back and he groaned, mind racing. Had one of the others snuck up behind him? Forget tail wrestling. There was no way he could actually fight any of these... former friends. They had to be twice his age or more. They had grown, not just with time, but by accumulating hoards of their own. Small ones, but still hoards. Had one of them slashed him?

Whirling around, snarling, Spike only saw that weird eight legged dragon... emerging from the bushes...

No: not him.

Who?

He spun back around, keeping his front to Garble and the others. He had to protect the egg. They probably wouldn't kill him, no matter how much he annoyed them or pissed them off. Probably. But they would smash the egg. Spike couldn't understand why, but they would.

"Dude," Garble whispered.

"What?" Spike demanded, expecting a one-way fight to come down on him any minute.

"Spike," the voice, so familiar, came from the weird dragon the others had called 'Crackle's cousin.' But he knew that voice.

"Twilight?" Spike turned, blinking hard. Yes: that was Twilight. Her face in the darkness of the dragon's mouth. He felt lightheaded. Twilight... was...?

He felt something move on his back, and looked over his shoulder.

Wings.

Small, wet, wings.

"You were supposed to break that stupid egg," Garble said, still glaring at him. He scoffed. "I guess you got your wings anyway. Somehow."

"Dragons are fierce," Spike whispered, laughed, and raised his voice. "Short tempered. Scary. But they don't have to be cruel."

Garble huffed in disdain but lowered his arms to his sides. He turned away, took a breath, and spat a ball of fire well over Spike's head. It arced down and right into the weird eight legged dragon, the one with Twilight's face in it's mouth. Almost immediately it caught fire and ended up tossed into the air. Three shapes darted out from under it before the flames could reach them.

"Ponies," Garble growled. "Spike, you know these three... things?"

To the little dragon's surprise, he saw not just Twilight, but Rainbow Dash and... and Rarity. His heart skipped a beat. How much had she seen? She could have been hurt!

"I..." he waffled for a second before nodding, unabashedly. "Yeah. I do. They're my friends. From Ponyville."

"They're ponies," Garble stated the obvious, sniffing and making a disgusted face. "Smelly ones."

"Yeah. We kinda stepped in something on the way over-"

"Rainbow!" Rarity elbowed the pegasus in the ribs.

For a few long seconds, the three dragons and the three ponies exchanged icy stares. Each seemed to find another to zero in on for one inexplicable reason or another. Chunk picked his ear with a claw, flicking the wax towards Rarity, causing her to whinny in disgust. Twilight was peering closely at the silent, similarly purple Spear, his face hidden behind a mat of yellow hair-like scales. She was probably trying to get a read on him, which Spike considered impossible since his face was constantly covered up. For his part, Spear had been hanging around 'Crackle's Cousin' all day and hadn't noticed the deception. Maybe he couldn't even see that well?

Garble and Dash, of course, were shooting daggers in midair.

"Rainbow Dash," Spike said, pointing at her.

"Eh?"

"That's her name," he explained, and made the rounds. "That's Twilight Sparkle and that's Rarity." The whole rounds. "Guys, this is Garble, Chunk and Spear."

"Who cares what these namby pamby ponies call themselves?" Garble muttered.

"Hey, you got a problem with ponies, pal?" Dash fearlessly and probably thoughtlessly flew over to poke the dragon in the chest.

"Do you have a problem with ponies?" Spike asked, sounding genuinely and simply curious.

"What a stupid question," Garble grumbled after a second or two of not finding a good answer.

"Says the guy who couldn't tell three ponies in a dragon costume have been spying on him all-lll day!" Dash just had to chime in.

Garble snorted smoke the pegasus's way, causing Dash to sputter and shake her head. "This one has stones in him, that's for sure."

"I'm a girl, idiot!"

"You are?"

"They all are," Spike explained. "You can't tell?"

"Uh, excuse me," Twilight spoke up, raising a hoof to get the attention of the three dragons. "I couldn't help but overhear some of what happened before, but sociologically, where you attacking that phoenix family as part of a territorial display or as an extension of the initiation rite?"

That, typically, left the entire group speechless.

"Huh?" Chunk answered as well as anyone.

"Let's get outta here," Garble broke the awkwardness that hung over the group. His wings started to beat in preparation to take off.

"Wait!" Spike's voice prompted the three to pause, if only for a second. "I... I still want to know more about being a dragon."

"Spike!" Twilight objected.

"Really, darling, you don't have to-"

"I do!" Spike told them, and looked up at Garble. He was still the first dragon he had ever met who he could look up to. Who he could learn from.

"Why?" The red drake asked, not getting it. "Those ponies..."

"Are my friends," Spike said, nodding. "Just like I want you guys to be. I'm a dragon, but I have pony friends. So what?"

For a few seconds, Garble looked like he was going to take off. Chunk's little wings were already flapping hard, and Spear likewise seemed ready to go. They were all watching the young red.

"You know, I'd bet Rainbow Dash here is twice as fast as either of those Phoenixes," Spike added with a grin.

"This little pony?" Garble spun around to stare at the cyan pegasus.

"No one's faster than me!" Dash promptly boasted.

Grinding his sizeable teeth together, the older dragon seemed to come to a painful decision.

"Fine," he relented with a loud, put-out sigh. "I can't let a little squirt learn to fly from some feathery blue fairy. You'll give all us dragons a bad name. I guess I have to help out at least a little."

"Better to fly like a blue fairy than a big red brick!"

"Don't you have a cloud to hide in?"

"At least all my teeth point in the right direction!"

Begun, the clash of egos has.

Still cradling the phoenix egg in his hands, the danger passed, Spike was left with one last question. "What to do with you?"

Maybe two questions.

He glanced over at Rarity and saw her watching him with some concern, and maybe a little pride. Twilight, in contrast, was beaming. And no doubt eager to inspect his new wings and make sure he was okay. But Rarity... she led to that other tricky question.

What to do next, when he went home?

Blueblood Manor. Ponyville.

Prince Blueblood knew that the faint tap-tap scratch-scratch sound at his study window meant. Rising from behind his desk, the Duke of Canterlot adjusted his mane and straightened his tail to give his honored guest a proper presentation. High on the third floor of his new home, this late at night, his visitor was either an amorous pegasus who had clearly lost her way (as that wall eyed mare had somehow done more than once), a certain unwanted and potentially hostile visitor, or...

No sooner had the shutters opened wide than a dozen bats swept into the room, chirping and flapping. Blueblood stepped away, giving them room. With an audible snap, they turned to blackened, living shadow and magic, swirling and colliding and melting into a bubble of onyx. The shifting shadows quickly took on a pony's form, initially crude and indistinct, and then with increasing detail. A sapphire blue mane and tail appeared, darkened, and twinkled with tiny stars. Slits grew into round turquoise eyes.

"Auntie Luna," he greeted her with a cordial bow of his head.

"Nephew," she returned, looking up at him.

She was small. A normal-pony sized miniature version of herself.

"I see you only sent one of your spare bodies," he observed, ushering her to a seat in his study. "Please sit. I would offer you coffee, but..."

"Our... my... real body must remain in Canterlot at court, at least for tonight," she explained, sitting primly on a soft cushion. She had substance, weight, and form. But this was not the entirety of her. It was only a third of her full self. "Business, as you can no doubt imagine."

"The succession crisis in Manehattan."

"I wouldst not call it a 'crisis,' Nephew."

"The 'dispute' then," Blueblood corrected himself, but did not resume his seat behind his desk. Only one-third of Luna was present, but she was still a Princess. He sat opposite on another floor pillow.

"I expect you are being asked to support new elections?" he continued. A faint magical aura reached out to pour a cup of Marabian coffee into a fine demitasse cup with a silver metal frame. "New elections that will favor the city's social conservatives."

"You would be correct in that," Princess Luna confirmed, looking around the room and mentally comparing it to the Prince's study in Canterlot. She saw a small dart board, just like the one he had in the palace-city, and smiled. She was growing more and more adept at the strange commoner game, largely thanks to time spent with her new nephew.

"They are petitioning us as we speak," she finished, mind returning to the present.

"If new elections are held, the social conservatives will carry Manehattan."

"This is true," Luna conceded. "If we-" and here she really meant the full royal we. "-ask that elections be put off, we fear it will be seen as an imposition on the domestic affairs of a major city."

Blueblood let out a breath to cover an inaudible sigh. He didn't say as much, but the leaking of Mayor Sky Scraper's corruption could not be a coincidence. The Prince only knew of it due to the Grand Galloping Gala time loops. Sky Scraper had covered his tracks carefully. It would have been much better for Equestria if he had been convinced to quietly resign. He could then be replaced by another moderate or social democrat.

Which was a true irony. Manehattan's democratic fringe was no friend of the aristocracy in Equestria, but by all accounts, the social conservative candidate for the new election was in bed with the Terre Rare. Blueblood privately suspected they had leaked details on the previous Mayor when it became advantageous to push a candidate who was more firmly in their pocket.

"Elections can not be held until the vote of no-confidence forces Sky Scraper and his cabinet to resign. We can't protect Sky Scraper, nor should we. What he did was criminal."

"We are in agreement in this," Luna replied, tapping her silver-gilded hoof. "Corruption must not be tolerated in Our Realm, no matter how advantageous it may be to turn a blind eye to it."

It was typical Luna. Uncompromising. Idealistic, in her own way. A thousand years removed from the ways and means Equestria had developed, she still had an unblemished and pure vision of the country that harkened back to an earlier time. Blueblood wondered if the Princess of the Night was the most chivalrous pony in Canterlot. He also wondered how long she could stick to those beliefs in the modern world.

"Regardless of the morality of it, his political career is over. There is nothing to gain by chaining an anchor to our necks." Blueblood saw a flash of disappointment in her at his pragmatism. He felt a little bad about it, too. Though she didn't know it, Luna had taught him much over the Gala loops. She had come to respect and even be at ease around him since then and he did not want to offend her.

"By which I mean, we should focus on containing the situation and let the legal process take care of law breakers," he explained, and she nodded in agreement. "Auntie Luna, the way I see it, the way I believe we both see it... is that removing Sky Scraper is not the problem, it is his replacement. We thus need to find one who better suits us."

"Yes, an astute observation, nephew!"

Luna beamed at him, but her smile soon faded. Manehattan had not existed before her exile. No city had any form of real democratic system unless one counted the odd 'first come first vote' the pegasi practiced at the time or the chancellery of the earth ponies, which was basically a one-pony dictatorship. Meddling in an election left her a little out of the loop, far more so than dealing with nobles who were - at least - a familiar fixture in society.

"How would we manage this?" she asked.

"Rising up a popular pony is hard," Blueblood advised. "Tearing down a popular pony is easier."

Luna narrowed her eyes in thought. "A rather callous assessment of the situation."

"Time is of the essence and we do not want Manehattan to elect a pony allied to Lord Cruciger." Blueblood pointed back at the window, and to Ponyville. "Fillydelphia and Cloudsdale aside, it will leave Canterlot all but surrounded."

Of course, by 'Canterlot' he meant himself, and House Blueblood. What little there was of the family anymore. All ponies in Equestria, even the most adamantly feuding noble families, were still Equestrian. They all still bowed and swore fealty to the Diarchy of Celestia and, more recently, Luna.

Canterlot and Ponyville being surrounded by Terre Rare aligned lands would probably go completely un-noticed by most ponies. To them, the guards on the roads and in the towns would change color, a few flags would look different, but otherwise things would be basically the same. Few noble families wanted their affairs to spill over into the realm of the common pony. Those who went too far, disturbing the peaceful order of Equestria, also invited censure and rebuke. The threat was to Blueblood personally, to his vassals and dependants, and now, to Lady Rarity as well.

"We would not be inventing faults, only unearthing them," he assured the rigidly ethical Princess.

"We have been told that, if the current Manehattan government calls for new elections, a stallion by the name of Broad Way will be elected Mayor." Luna raised an inquisitive eyebrow as Blueblood picked a file off his desk. "You have something on this pony?"

"Not yet." The Prince replied with a sniff. "He wasn't at the Gala and I don't have many contacts in Manehattan."

"The Gala?" Luna asked.

"Nevermind that. This is the pony I want to push for in the city."

Blueblood floated over the dossier, and Luna's own magic opened it for her to read. Despite having seen her do this many times, it still amazed Blueblood that Luna could multi-task several bodies at once. Not just physically, either. Each one was capable of emulating normal pegasus or unicorn or even earth pony magic. As far as he knew, she was the only one in Equestria with an ability like that. Even Auntie Celestia couldn't.

'Multiple bodies... probably Old Kingdom magic,' he thought, watching her as she read. 'But even we don't have records of that kind of spell.'

"Ticker Tape," she said. It was Blueblood's choice in Manehattan's next Mayor.

"His wife is the head of the Orange Clan..."

"And the Oranges are related to the Apples."

"Who value family ties above all else," Blueblood finished for her.

"There is no guarantee they'll work with you," Luna warned.

"No. But I don't want them to be vassals or clients." He smirked, leaning one arm against his desk. "I'll use that power of friendship I'm constantly reminded of."

The Princess flipped through the last two pages of the dossier before making her decision.

"Very well," she declared, floating the papers back to him. "We approve, and shall see it put in motion. We leave it to you, nephew, to find some assurance that Broad Way will not prevail in this new election."

"Gladly," Blueblood told her, heading around to the back of his desk.

"There is another matter we... I... wished to discuss with you, nephew." Luna's spare body flexed its wings before folding them back in place.

"Something besides this?" Blueblood still didn't take his seat, but he did put his papers away, busying himself. "Is there some other problem in Canterlot?"

"The problem lies in the heart of the Palace itself," the Princess replied, but Blueblood remembered she had amended her last 'we' to 'I.' The implication was that it was a personal matter. He emerged from around his desk and sat before her.

"However I may be of assistance, Auntie."

"You and Tia have not been speaking. Nor have you shared meals with us of late. We, and I mean both my sister and myself, have missed your company." Luna sighed and gave him a worried, concerned look. "Is there some dispute between yourself and my sister?"

Blueblood stiffened, enough for her to notice right away.

"Ah!" she exclaimed. "That is it, then!"

"I apologize for my absence from the household," he stiffly replied. "Surely Cadenza can provide company in my stead."

"She is not, how should we put it?" Luna groused and shot him a teasing grin. "She is not 'entertaining' as you can be. Nor is she versed enough to discretely assist us at court."

'Neither was I, until the Gala. On both counts.'

"I also do not entirely trust her relatives in Bitaly," the Princess continued, fortunately unable to read his thoughts regarding the bizarre time loops and the effect they had had on him. "In my time, the Reinetians and the other Imperials did terrible things in service to Star Caller."

"That was a thousand years ago, Auntie," Blueblood reminded her, though it was perhaps a little improper to do so, given the lingering soreness of her imprisonment. "Cadenza is a sweet girl and I doubt she even knows who Star Caller is. Or was."

"As I said, it is her scheming and opportunistic relatives I distrust."

"And what are we doing, if not scheming?" he asked, carefully pointing his frown away from his guest and aunt. "I would not even recognize a Canterlot bereft of schemes and plots."

Luna seemed to see something - read something - in his response.

"Is this why you and my sister have been..." she paused to find a word. "Recently estranged?"

Blueblood paused to carefully word and weigh his answer.

"There are few things more vexing than being a pawn, knowing this, and still advancing mindlessly forward," the Prince explained. "Auntie... Celestia has... she had good intentions, I understand this, but recently her machinations have become grating. Now that I can actually see them begin to play out. Now that I can see the honey-trap for what it is."

"Sister has always been fond of schemes and pranks, this much rings true."

Luna closed her eyes as she recalled more than a few at her expense. Still, she smiled. She knew as he did that Celestia's pranks were always harmless beyond, possibly, some good natured embarrassment. Her schemes, too, were always aimed to end in some net gain. If Celestia had a vice, it was her kindness and forgiveness.

"You object to some machination of hers?" Luna asked, wanting to mend the fences between her two closest relatives.

"I wish I could object to it! No. She explained to me in detail just what she wants to happen, and how she expects it to happen," Blueblood told her, his brows knitting into a frown without his even wanting it. "With no better alternatives of my own, I agreed to go along. I suppose I'm honored in a way to be in on it. It may show that she believes in me... but I also can't help but worry... especially about Rarity..."

He lowered his head as the caffeine and energy seemed to drain out of him.

"Lady Antimony could have hurt her. As it was, she escaped with bruises, but it could have been so much worse. So much worse." He wiped a strand of mane away from his face, staring outside the open window with skin-deep stoicism. Luna could see he was far more troubled than he let on.

"I have not cared for much in my life, Auntie... but I care for Rarity. And her friends, believe it or not. Auntie wants me to stand by and let them... risk their lives."

"Is it truly that dire?" Luna asked, tilting her head to the side and walking over to stand next to him. "Nephew?"

"Well, first there's the normal lunacy they seem to pull off every damn day!" He clopped a hoof against the wall in frustration. "Do you know where she is now? Off chasing the dragon migration! How can I ever guarantee her safety when she takes such risks? I can't!"

"She is an Element of Harmony," the Princess reminded him. "She will risk her life. It is her choice. It is her fate."

"I can't control that," the Prince relented, at least when it came to the destiny of the element bearers. "But I can try to control or contain the danger posed by other ponies. Yet here I am being asked, by my Auntie, by my Princess, not to."

He took a short breath and tapped his hoof anxiously against the window pane.

"Lady Ritterkreuz recently tenured her resignation from the Wonderbolts. To be specific, she punctuated her resignation by blowing up a building and sending the Captain of the squad to the hospital." Blueblood shuddered. "To think that madmare is on her way here... she's more vicious than a griffin in heat. Of course, her father has used his influence in Cloudsdale to cover for her, and Celestia knows we can't do anything upset the city that manufactures weather for the entire country. They claim they will handle her 'quietly' but I rather doubt it. I have seen what she can do."

"And that isn't even all of it!" Blueblood turned to give Luna a plaintive look. "The Garland Princess is in Ponyville even now, traveling in disguise. Ostensibly, she and her retinue are here as tourists to watch the migration. Knowing her, she'll make her move the minute-to-the-hour the Free Company protection in Ponyville expires."

"Lady Sand Dune left Reinice four days ago, and my spies don't know where she is. Probably laying low and waiting to strike. The insane Mosaic Twins are easy to track and I know they're headed to Ponyville. And then there's the Rares! Chalice is in Canterlot even now, tagging along with her brother the Marquis and his troupe of Amazons."

The Prince touched his horn to the window panes, inhaling the cool night air. A fly landed on his nose for his trouble, forcing him to bat it away.

"This is like the perfect storm of insane, power hungry, star-struck mares," he lamented. "And to top it off, I can't marry Rarity because suddenly Cadenza - Cadenza just has to have her wedding of the year. And we can't have the Prince just elope. It has to be pomp and ceremony!"

Luna brushed up alongside him, prompting nervous, ranting stallion to catch his breath.

"Nephew," she said, jabbing him with a wing. "I have seen Rarity fight. I have seen the Element of Harmony in action. Tia wishes them to handle this on their own? Trust in her judgment, and trust in their ability."

"Maybe," he conceded, eyes narrowed as his frown slowly turned up into a tight smile. "But I've noticed Auntie never let faith keep her from skewing things just a little in her favor. The good thing about a spotlight is that it keeps everypony else in the dark. So I will make my moves in the dark."

"The darkness is as fine a place as any," Luna agreed with a cheerful titter. A flap of her graceful wings and she jumped out the window. "I will be in the dark as well. Watching for you."

Nopony noticed the flock of bats circle the manor outside town on its way back to Canterlot.

"Are you sure about this, Spike?"

"Yeah. I'm sure." The little dragon reached over his shoulder to gently poke one of the small wings that had emerged from out of his back. Twilight batted his claws away.

"Don't pick at them," she chided.

"Maybe I'm supposed to pick at them?" Spike asked, but realized she was probably right. He laughed and fell into a hug. To his secret delight, Twilight's purple coat was almost the same shade as his new wings.

"I'll only be gone for a few more days," he assured her. "You'll find a way to survive without me."

"Just be careful," she insisted, smiling down at him.

"I will." His own smile slipped slightly. "...Take care of the egg."

"Did you have a name for it?" Twilight asked, having packed the phoenix egg in one of her bags. "You did save her life... or his life."

"I'll think of something when I get back. The chicks looked pretty small, so maybe... Peewee? If it's a guy?" Spike shrugged. "Right now, I'm still cramming for Introductory Dragon Studies."

Twilight reached out a leg to hug him again, just briefly.

"And what about...?" Twilight lowered her voice.

Spike shook his head. "I can't... I can't talk to Rarity just yet. Tell her I'm sorry. I'm sorry for a couple things, but, I guess I have to say that myself."

"Hey, Spike!" Rainbow Dash took that moment to zip over, landing on three legs, one bashfully tucked behind her neck. "Look - I just wanted to say... about what I said before..."

"Don't worry about it!" Spike saw her sigh with relief in not having to apologize.

"Right!" she said instead. "When you get back to Ponyville, we'll hit up any place you want. My treat!"

"Yes, Spike, earning one's wings is worth a celebration, I think!" Rarity walked up, smiling softly at him. He felt his heart jump in his chest. "Oh, and a new suit to show them off!"

One last round of goodbyes, another reminder that it would only be a few days, and then they were gone. Leaving behind a burned dragon costume, but actually gone. Spike stayed at the base of the caldera to see them off - there was no guarantee the adult dragons would accept ponies in their midst. He jumped as he heard and felt something heavy land behind him.

"They're gone," he said, glancing back out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah. I can smell as much," Garble replied, elbows resting on his knees. "Come on. I figure we've got about four days to clear out four years of sissy pony junk."

"And I've got four days to show you ponies aren't as lame as you think," Spike replied, testing his still soft winglets.

"Don't hold yer breath." The teenage dragon snorted, fire and smoke. "We'll get you started on a hoard and go from there." A toothy grin preceded a laugh. "You should know: since you whined so much today, I picked a new target for tomorrow's raid: the girl dragons the crater over."

That got Spike's attention. "The... girl dragons?"

"Yeah! No more defenseless eggs. Girl dragons." Garble slapped Spike hard on the back, knocking him to the ground. "I hear if ya get caught... they'll eat ya! So try not to mess up, little Spike!"

Chapter Eleven : Challenge

(11)

Challenge

The Platinum Crown of Canterlot.

Celestia glared at the cursed thing, resting innocuously on a blood red sheet within the Princess Reliquary. Her ire was not directed at the entirety of the crown, only part. It was two pieces in all, and the larger piece that sat on a lower pedestal was of no concern. The platinum framework was inlaid with white palladium-gold, supporting five broad-leaf style arches and a purple velvet cap. Set within each arch were the five most prominent amethyst gemstones for which the crown was famous. Less well known were the 96 smaller precious stones, mostly diamonds, that gave the crown an ephemeral glitter when touched by sunlight or an enchanting twinkle under moonlight.

That crown was superficial; it was of little consequence.

It was the circlet of the crown, the part nopony saw or would recognize at first glance, that mattered most. The actual crown within the Platinum Crown.

That crown was a simple, seamless belt of meteoric iron. Tiny grooves held a crisscrossing pattern of aqua pura, frozen in space and time. Platinum banded the top and bottom. There were no other gemstones or adornments. At the time, when it had first been made, it had taken the efforts and resources of a small, war torn country of unicorns to produce the required grade of aqua pura; it had taken the finest earth pony smiths to salvage and shape the meteoric iron; the strongest pegasi from ruined Pegasopolis forged it all together with lightning and thunder.

None of which would have been necessary if not for that mad pony following the three founders to Equestria. His hubris; his insane, blasphemous ambition, even after his fall it had nearly destroyed the new world and ponykind with it. It was beyond the ken of mortal ponies, even the pride of immortal Princesses, to re-order the Heavens themselves. Now, more than a thousand years later, only the Royal Family even knew of the crown-within-the-crown and among them, only she, Celestia, knew its importance to Equestria.

The Princess of the Sun reached to the iron band -

And recoiled as it shocked her gilded hoof.

"Still?" She whispered, accusingly, the inanimate object not deigning to respond. "Still you reject me? It seems to be the curse of this family... to fight amongst ourselves..."

Platinum and Star Caller.

Discord.

Luna.

And now, a millennium later, the Terre Rares.

"Vernal Equinox has been dead for over ten years," she whispered. "Your seal is weaker than I've ever seen it. Still you treat me like a stranger. To think mother would insist on enchanting such a picky piece of jewelry."

Celestia's mane covered half her face from view, on the other half, her violet eye narrowed in barely concealed irritation. In the past, there had been little threat in allowing the crown to go two or even three decades without renewing Platinum's covenant. The seal had been strong, then. Centuries had gone by without Celestia worrying much about it at all. The last two hundred years, unfortunately, had seen a steady decline in the quality of the seal's renewal.

No matter what else, Canterlot needed a new Duchess.

Fluttershy sat in the shade of a parasol, a myriad of little tassels hanging from the canopy swaying in the breeze. She was in a part of the Canterlot Gardens she had not visited much before: a section with numerous geometric basins and water fountains. Bronze statues of animals and ponies stood out from within carefully manicured bushes thick with flowers. The hedgerows were smaller and shorter here, allowing a visitor to see much further than normal. She could even see spires from the surrounding Canterlot City against the blue horizon.

It was actually an enjoyable change of pace. There were fewer animals here, but more birds.

One thing Fluttershy had quickly deduced about her new friend Chalice was that she loved birds. Her current interest lay in a pair of swans swimming across the clear blue water of one of the basins. In her painting, they were contrasted against a bronze water spout of a swan. Though there was such a statue, Fluttershy hadn't seen the swans approach it, so there was clearly some artistic license taken. This time, she had watched Chalice's painting from the start and seen the first rough sketch evolve into a vibrant spectacle of watercolor.

It was quite remarkable just how many birds from around the country Celestia had in her private gardens. Coming to this spot, she had seen ones never before encountered in her trips here: flamingos and cranes and exotic bright orange and green ducks (probably teals) and, of course, the swans. The birds were unfriendly, at least to start, but the others had soon returned her song and gathered around her. Fluttershy didn't want them to associate her with food just yet. That could come later. For now introductions were enough.

It was looking to be another pleasant day outside.

Neither mare spoke much. Chalice had brought the parasols (expensive looking ones, too) and a small book on the gardens and their layout. Fluttershy had brought a few snacks with her, enough for the both of them plus some extra for her animal friends. A few, she knew, would smell her from afar and seek her out. They weren't that far from where they had all first met.

Having largely finished her newest painting, Chalice took a break to lie down nearby. She didn't seem to use her magic very often, but she did manage a little to coax out two juice boxes from a pack she had brought. Fluttershy took the other with a nod of her head. She had wondered what the color Chalice's magic would be, but it was a pale white.

"Have you ever had a pomelo?" Chalice asked, floating out two large, green fruits. "Would you like to try one?"

"Is it bitter?" Fluttershy asked, inspecting the strange fruit. It looked like a large pear.

"It's sweet, but you eat it with salt."

The soft spoken unicorn flexed her magic, just a little, and the two fruits bisected, then again and again, until each one had been cut into eight neat, perfect slices. Fluttershy was quietly impressed: most unicorns didn't 'cut' with their magic. They used a knife, albeit one they manipulated magically. Chalice also gave Fluttershy a saucer and sprinkled it with coarse grained sea salt.

Delicately picking up a slice with her hoof, Fluttershy mimicked what her friend was doing, dipping the slice into the salt and then biting into it to suck the juicy fruity flesh off of the thick rind. She smiled at the taste - it was sweet! A little messier than biting into an apple, but very good! The salt added an interesting texture and layer of taste. She wondered where the fruit came from.

"I've never heard of... a pomelo... before," she guessed at the name, but got it mostly right by the look on Chalice's face. "It's good."

"I'm glad you like it," the unicorn mare replied. "We import them from tropical islands. My family, I mean. ... My brother does."

"Have you ever visited the tropics?" Fluttershy hoped the other pony answered yes. She'd read so many things about the animals and plants down there!

"No. Sorry." Chalice turned her eyes down and demurely sucked on one of the pomelo slices.

"Oh. That's okay!" Fluttershy found herself raising her voice a little, to her own surprise. "I was just curious... I've never met anypony from that far away."

"Are you from Cloudsdale?" Chalice inquired. Most pegasi around Canterlot had roots there.

Fluttershy nodded. "My parents are. I don't... go up there that often myself."

"Why not? You don't like the clouds?"

"I don't... I'm not good with heights," Fluttershy admitted with a shameful blush. It wasn't her proudest feature: imagine, a pegasus who was afraid of heights! It was almost as silly as an earth pony afraid of the ground or a unicorn afraid of magic!

"I don't much like heights either," Chalice said, smiling but not laughing.

Fluttershy smiled back, glad she hadn't been made fun of. Still, though she hadn't dared to say as much, she was very curious to learn more about her friend. If nothing else, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie and Rarity would want to know all about who she had met in her trip to Canterlot.

"Um, if you don't mind me asking, where are you from? You said you were here with your brother?"

Chalice looked down at her hooves.

"I'm from... north of here," she said, barely above a whisper. "My brother... he's sort of my caretaker when we're away."

"He sounds very nice."

"He's very protective." Chalice blinked her purple eyes and looked past Fluttershy. The pegasus turned and saw two bunnies crouched to her right. They seemed to be keeping almost out of sight, using her as a shield.

"Hey there." Fluttershy motioned them closer. "Come on."

One of the rabbits - one she recognized from the other wing of the garden - tensed to come forward only to balk at the last second. It bolted off, taking the other with it, to hide in a nearby bush. Fluttershy's shoulders slumped.

"Why did they...?"

"Sorry, I think that was me," Chalice apologized, fiddling with her juice box. "Animals don't like me very much."

"Why ever not?" Fluttershy directed a reproachful stare at the bushes and the vanished bunnies. "That was very rude of them."

"Please don't be upset with them. I'm sure they have their reasons."

They made a little small talk after that. Fluttershy told her that she would be going back home to Ponyville soon, but that if she could, she should visit. She was confident that the animals there would be more accepting, since most of the ones in Celestia's gardens retained traces of wildness. Chalice didn't seem very convinced, but promised she could drop by if she could. Then she returned to her swan painting.

Fluttershy still found it odd.

'Reasons?' she wondered. Chalice seemed nice enough. Quiet. Friendly. It seemed rude to just ask, but: 'What reasons could they have?'

"Fluttershy," the unicorn said, finishing up her painting. As she often seemed to do, she spoke without turning around. "When you go back to Ponyville, please be careful. I've been told there are dangerous ponies headed there."

"Yes. Here is fine."

It was early morning just outside Ponyville, the first rays of the sun catching the damaged upper levels of the town hall. From the slope of a hill, between the town and the many outlying farms, a pony could see the entire town sprawled out before her. Some of the more distinct buildings stood out, even at a distance. The Gingerbread Shoppe with the lovely sweets, for example, and the circular Boutique near the main road, and how could anypony forget the great, hollow tree that contained the town library? It was particularly wonderful. A pony with the right affinity could see and feel the swell of natural magic in that place.

"These eastern towns are quite pretty," a mare said, taking a seat on a square cloth laid out before her. Her retainers set up a rectangular shade behind her before backing away. The mare didn't seem to pay them much mind.

"The trees are rather dull, though," she mused. Forest green eyes evaluated the rusty orange and red of the autumn foliage around down, finding it lacking. Her nose crinkled at the sight of Everfree, finding it even worse. "And that hideous forest will have to be removed. How offensive it is."

She extended a hoof, her leg draped in white. Following the gesture, a retainer set a small breakfast for his lady. A cup of tea soon lifted to her lips, turned slightly, and permitted her to drink. In Ponyville, the citizens were just starting to wake up and see to their daily routine.

Behind the mare in white, a number of ponies were also going through a routine and dressing themselves. They washed themselves with damp cloths before putting on silk shirts and belts. A brightly polished cuirass of rectangular, overlapping lamellar scales followed after laced greaves around legs, tied and fastened with red cord. Skirts, cuisses, attached to the flank, forming barding. Finally, long shoulder guards, rectangular and flexible, flowed down from withers to elbow.

"Be sure to obey all the conventions of this land, Master Shigure," the mare said, still watching out over the town below. "I would not unnecessarily irritate my beloved Prince."

"Yes, Yumi-hime."

The response came from a stallion with a black armored face mask, a menpo, the Neighponese equivalent of the better known Equestrian champron. A pair of backwards facing antlers distinguished him from the other ponies and their metal kuwagata, again, a counterpart to the local use of decorative crests like the cross or fleur-de-lis. Blue eyes watched from behind the face-armor, navy blue against a sky blue coat.

Yumi sipped her tea as Master Shigure, and then three others, descended the hill to where a road and a bridge cut through to the town. Two of the armored ponies planted a flag bearing the heraldic mon, or crest, of the traditional plum blossom. The upper field behind the flower bore a half moon on the left and a full sun with twelve rays on the right. Beneath it, on the shield potion of the herald, green was cut by a saw-like line of gold, representing fertility.

Their first potential challenge came from a pair of curious pegasi. They wore the colors of the Compagnia della colomba e croce. The duo swept low, circled, and landed to investigate. Yumi watched closely, wondering if there was a knight among them. Alas, there did not seem to be. The two mercenary pegasi laughed at some joke and soon took to the air.

Their contract had expired in the morning.

Naturally, a good mercenary did not fight on an expired contract. Yumi smiled; it was just as she had expected. The special guards brought in for the migration would not be stepping in to defend the road or the bridge. They had no interest in a "pas d'armes" as it was called in this part of the country.

"Let us see how the locals handle themselves," she whispered to herself.

She was lucky, as fortune had it. She didn't have long to wait.

The cart jostled slightly as it traveled down the well worn road. Nestled inside against a barrel of their family's finest, Apple Bloom tried to finish the homework she probably should have done last night before bed. Or before dinner. Or before her chores... Or before she went cutie mark crusading. Dazedly staring down at the boring lines of math problems, the little filly groaned. It was looking increasingly less likely that she was going to earn a Cutie Mark Crusader Theoretical Mathematicians cutie mark any time soon.

Big Mac was the only pony in the family with a head for fancy numbers.

Walking alongside the cart, Applejack directed the occasional disciplinary glare at her younger sister. She was well past the age when anypony should have had to force her to do her schoolwork on time. It was a matter of responsibility, just like one shouldn't have to be reminded to do one's chores.

"Ah'm almost done. Ah didn't have that much left ta do!" Apple Bloom said under her breath, but still loud enough to hear. "Ya can stop givin' me tha evil eye, sis."

"Just make sure ya finish before we drop you off."

"As long as it gets done, geez, who cares how close ah cut it?"

Another glare and Apple Bloom buried her nose in her math book.

Applejack smirked to herself, picking up the pace a little to walk side by side with her brother. If Big Mac noticed the extra weight in the cart that was his youngest sibling, he didn't mind. The sturdy workhorse had a fresh sprig of wheat between his teeth but had also picked up a dusty hat to wear on the way to market. It sat easily on his mop of a messy orange mane, protecting his eyes from the early morning sun.

It couldn't hold a candle to her Stetson, of course.

"You really should'a seen the migration, you know," she said as the two crested a small rise.

Big Mac dipped his nose and shook his head slightly. "N'ope."

"Aw, come on. Weren't you a little curious?"

"N'ope."

"Don't tell me you were afraid to see them?" Applejack asked, leaning in close to try and get a good look at her brother's face. He coughed and turned away.

"Big Macintosh," she pressed, playfully zipping around in front of him. "Are you afraid of dragons?"

He looked up from behind his hat, eyes shaded.

"Maybe a little bit," he answered, breaking from his usual 'eyup/n'ope' preferences. He also pointed a hoof forward, the gesture momentarily jerking the cart to a stop. "What's that?"

"Hm?" Applejack turned around to face forward down the road. There seemed to be a big old flag of some sort sticking out from a pole. The apple farmer couldn't recall the proper name for those kinds of fancy flagpoles, but she recognized them. Canterlot and the areas around it had tons of them all over the place.

"I dunno," she said, trying to recall if she had seen those colors and patterns before.

"Hey, what's goin' on? Why'd we stop?" Apple Bloom asked, peeking out from the back of the cart. "Oh, look! Applejack! There's a bunch ponies in funny costumes by the bridge?"

"Probably some more of those 'Free Company' fellers," Applejack reasoned.

Quite a few had come by the farm and one of them, a unicorn, had used to magic to set up a fire suppression circle incase any of the dragons in the migration got ideas about swooping down for roasted apples (with a side of BBQ pony). They'd been polite and friendly enough, though the unicorn hadn't spoken much Equestrian. Granny Smith had brought them some crumbled apple pie to eat while they stayed on watch on top of the roof and one of the pegasus stallions had shared a few stories from abroad.

It was downright funny to imagine that they were all working for Rarity of all ponies. The starry-eyed dressmaker she remembered from when they were both fillies! Now she was a Baroness, if that didn't beat all.

"Ah don't think so!" Apple Bloom called out from her perch on top of a barrel of apples. "They look like ah different kinda funny."

Soon Applejack got a good look of her own.

Apple Bloom was right. They weren't the Free Company types Rarity had hired. There were four of them, plus a fifth sitting in the shade of some kind of umbrella. Two were on each side of the road and bridge and their dress was... well, it definitely wasn't like anything local. Each one had little flags on their back, like the big one but with just the flower on a green background.

Apple Bloom continued to watch, her last few math problems forgotten as the cart continued down the road. Two of the ponies in fanciful armor, a unicorn and a pegasus, advanced waving a hoof in greeting.

"Hold!" The male of the pair said, a unicorn, projecting his voice but with a strange accent. "Be either of you knights or servants of the Baroness Rarity?"

Apple Bloom couldn't help but giggle from her perch. "Knights? Us?"

"We're just passin' through, unless ya wanna buy some apples," Applejack answered for the three of them. "What's this all this about over here?"

"We are challenging the ponies of this realm to a pass of honor," the mare of the duo explained. It was hard to see much of her face behind her half-mask but her wings fluttered easily at her sides. "To cross this bridge, any pony of courtly standing must fight us or be shamed."

"Why?" Apple Bloom asked, now completely distracted from her remaining homework.

"It is a challenge," the mare tried to explain. "A test of skill and honor in defense of one's land. Do any of you know who is the mightiest knight in Ponyville?"

"Uh... I dunno. Do we have any knights in Ponyville?" Applejack turned to her brother.

Big Mac just shrugged.

"Canterlot's fulla knights and frilly noble types." Applejack pointed over to the towers of the castle-city, visible against the mountains and the horizon. "Ah think you've got the wrong town."

"This is the realm of Lady Rarity, is it not?" the mare inquired.

"Eyup," Big Mac answered her.

"Rarity's a friend of mine, but..." Applejack gave the armored mare a long look. "Ah, guess this is her realm now, kinda. Look, just what're you ponies after?"

"We are to humble her by defeating her knights," the stallion of the pair answered with blunt honesty. "Are you saying she has none? Truly?" He laughed, and not in the way Pinkie Pie would approve. "Then bring word and have her come herself!"

"Yes," the mare agreed, and Applejack could see the smirk behind her lacquer mask. "We shall skip her non existent knights and humble her this very morning! I shall personally cut off her tail and wear it as an uwa-obi!"

"If you are not knights, then you may pass," the male with the mocking laugh told the Apple trio. "You need only bow in passing to Yumi-hime."

and that got her goat, and her apples.

"Now wait just a second here!" Applejack boldly poked the armored stallion in the chest. "We don't bow to nopony but the Princess! We don't even bow ta' the Prince when he comes by, so yer in fer a real shock if you think we'll bow to yer Yumi-humi or whatever her name is! Don't even get me started on threatening one of mah friends!"

The stallion backed away, but the eyes behind his mask glared at her.

"We have no desire to fight with farmers or common folk," he said. "Only nobles and servants of the Baroness."

"Applejack," Big Mac warned, having seen the signs of an impending appleplosion forming. "We don't want Apple Bloom here to be late."

"I'll write Cheerilee a note." Applejack craned her neck, stalking up to the stallion who had backed off. "You want a servant of the Baroness, do ya? Well, the way I see it, ah do owe her a favor or two. Kickin' yer flanks should help even that score!"

"Master Shigure!" the mare called back to an approaching stallion with a black mask and antlers. An earth pony by the look of it. "This one is not a knight, but she wishes to fight! What do we do?"

Mister Antlers chuckled, the interlocking armor over his shoulders shaking slightly from the movement. Applejack could see his blue eyes behind the featureless mask.

"I know of this one. She is a respectable and worthy opponent. You may fight her, if she wishes it," he gave permission. "Announce yourselves."

The two ponies stood straight, holding their heads high.

"I am Yudachi!" the male declared first. "You may call me Evening Squall! I am a third generation retainer to the family of Yumi-hime and I am trained in the Bounding Barrier Style!"

"Suzukaze," the mare said, eying Applejack with sudden interest at hearing she was somepony important. "In Equestrian, Cool Breeze. I am a second generation retainer to the family of Yumi-hime and I am trained in the Piercing Current Style."

"And what about you?" Applejack asked Mister Antlers.

"I only need announce myself to those who have defeated my subordinates," he replied, but inclined his head in respect. "However, I will make an exception for the one who helped seal Discord. I am Shigure, 'Late Rains.' Among other styles, I am honored to represent the Jade Pillar and the Iron Temple."

"My line has served the family of Yumi-hime for twenty-four generations," he finished.

'Twenty four generations?!'

"Ah'm Applejack..." The farmpony, finding that a little inadequate, added, "Mah family's been here fer four generations. And ah guess mah style's Apple Buckin'."

"Apple... bucking?" Suzukaze asked, not familiar with the word. "What is this technique, Master Shigure? Are we to provide her with weapons?"

"No," the earth pony replied. "She fights in the same manner as the Fuji Clan."

"Ya'll know the Fujis?" Applejack asked, surprised. "Well, shucks! They're our cousins! Ain't this a small world?"

"If you wish to accept our challenge," Shigure told her, stepping to the side. "You need only pick an opponent you deem worthy..."

"You!" Applejack pointed at Antlers, a cocky grin splitting her cheeks. "Ah'll fight you!"

"That is unwise."

"Earth pony to earth pony!" Applejack insisted. "No fancy magic or flyin' around! Just pony to pony! You know about mah cousins, too, so ya won't complain when I buck ya clear across the river."

"Master Shigure!" Suzukaze barked, bowing her head to him. "You mustn't! This one is not worthy! She is neither noble nor a knight! Please allow me to show her humility!"

"Or me, Master!" Yudachi exclaimed, also bowing his head. "You are Yumi-hime's right hoof!"

"Hey, I may not be noble, but mah grand-pappy was the old Baron ah Ponyville! That good enough for ya?" She smirked at the shocked looks of the two objecting ponies. "I'd say it is!"

"If that is your wish, Applejack of Ponyville." Shigure lifted his hoof, just a little, to shoo his two subordinates away. They retreated at his order to stand back by the bridge. The other member of their group, an earth pony Shigure identified as 'White Dew,' was also looking over. No doubt he had only a vague idea what was going on. Suzukaze whispered something to him and he stood up to watch carefully.

"If you lose, Miss Applejack," Antlers warned as he turned to walk a few paces away. "I am required by tradition and law to take a token from you. Spurs, if you have them, a sword or a lance."

"I ain't got any of those." Applejack stretched out her legs, digging her back hooves into the dirt. She made sure to put some distance between herself and the apple cart. Big Mac was watching with an even expression, but she could tell by the way he shifted the stalk of grass around in his mouth that he wasn't happy. Apple Bloom was still on top of a barrel, excitement on her face.

"Your hat, then."

"Fine!"

She never noticed Big Mac plant his hoof into his face. She only had attention enough for one stallion at that moment. Shigure finally stopped, turned, and faced her.

"Come."

Apple Bloom shuddered as her sister legs wobbled, Applejack's breath coming in ragged gasps. An unsteady hoof reached up to pat her hat down and keep it in place. The ground was cracked beneath her hooves and Applejack stumbled, almost tripping on herself, as she tried to regain her balance. What was worse, Apple Bloom could see the tension in her sister's legs from overexertion. She had seen it before when Applejack overdid it and pushed herself too hard.

"One... more... TIME!" she yelled, running towards the immovable object that was the funny dressed pony called Late Rains.

Hooves kicking up clods of dirt, Applejack juked to the left, then to the right to catch the other pony by the side. The foreign pony turned his head to follow her movement but made no other effort to dodge or face her. Applejack's hooves cut a long line in the ground as she spun around, a hundred and eighty degrees. Her back legs tucked in, muscles bunching in preparation to kick.

CRACK

Apple Bloom forced her eyes shut at the sound. When she dared to open them, for the eighth time, she saw her older sister twist limply through the air. Eight times now, she had tried to buck this strange pony; kicks that could knock apples from the highest branches of the thickest apple tree, all to no effect. Every time, she bounced off. She had kicked Shigure in the chest, in the ribs, in the throat and in the flank.

Just now, she kicked him in the face.

Applejack couldn't land on her hooves this last time. She hit the ground on her side, gasping as the air knocked out of her lungs. Her Stetson rolled to a stop a pony-length away, bottom up in a patch of grass. With a pained groan she tucked in her legs, the muscles still twitching. One hoof slammed down as she bit back a cry.

"Is that it? Master Shigure?"

The stallion with the black mask and antlers nodded, once. "I believe so, Yumi-hime."

The other speaker was an earth pony in a bleached white dress marked by green floral patterns over a similarly pale white coat. Her eyes were the same color of green and her dark black mane fell straight over her shoulders and the side of her neck. This was the 'Yumi-hime' the others seemed to be following, even the antlers-guy.

"You spoke highly of her earlier and you are not prone to exaggeration," Yumi said, spearing the prone apple farmer with a disappointed scowl. "I expected more. This is like watching a donkey kick a wall."

Apple Bloom pressed down hard on the apple barrel beneath her hooves.

"Shut yer yap!" Applejack spat, bracing her front legs to pull herself up.

The foreign mare narrowed her eyes and nodded to one of her servants. Without warning, something spun through the air to land inches from Applejack's face. She flinched involuntarily, eyes opening to see what had almost hit her. Apple Bloom saw it too, though she hadn't been able to see what it was as it flew through the air.

It was a spear.

The end buried in the ground sported a long, thin steel blade. It reminded Apple Bloom of the tool she'd seen her siblings use to cut dead branches off of trees. It even had serrated edges on one side of it, but this tool looked like somepony had stuck a long knife onto the end of a pole. The blunt end still vibrated from the shock of impact, the long wooden shaft sporting a soft black bite-grip to make it easier for non-unicorns to hold onto and manipulate.

"Take it," Yumi commanded. She turned to her servant with the antlers. "Master Shigure. Please give Miss Applejack your neck."

"As you wish, Yumi-hime." The stallion reached up to a loop of red around his neck. Untying it, he pushed apart a seam in his scale cuirass. He then used the same hoof to pull down part of his white tunic, exposing the coat color of his bare neck.

Applejack stared mutely at the stallion and then back at the spear, buried blade-first in the ground.

It was sharp.

"Go on. Take the spear. Use every bit of your strength," the white mare advised, snapping out a small fan and waving it at the two ponies. "I will allow it."

Applejack shook her head, her blonde mane falling over her face and eyes, slick with sweat.

"Is this some kinda trick...?"

"Trick?" Yumi asked, blinking innocently. "No trick. But you can not harm Master Shigure without a weapon, now can you? Unless you admit defeat?"

Applejack's own eyes, also green, glared back at the arrogant foreigner. Then they moved on to her opponent, who still stood without moving, exposing his neck. It was impossible to see what expression he may have had behind his mask. Applejack snorted, reaching for the shaft of the spear -

Only to swat it away and knock it onto the ground.

"Ah said what ah said." Apple Bloom's sister slowly made her way past the spear to where her hat had fallen. She bit down on the edge of the family Stetson, a pained shudder racing across her frame. With a flick of her head, the hat spun through the air.

The antlered foreigner caught it with a hoof, releasing the hold on his tunic.

"Ah don't know why... but ah can't..." Applejack turned to Apple Bloom and her brother, exhaustion betrayed by her heavy breathing and a look begging forgiveness in her eyes. Applejack was a proud pony, but between keeping her word or holding onto her pride, she had to make a choice.

"Applejack," Apple Bloom whispered, and she jumped down off the cart. She heard Big Mac move, too, but he was still strapped to the dolly. Bloom got there first, doing what she could to help hold her sister up and keep her from falling.

"Ah concede," Applejack told the foreign ponies, and just saying it seemed to hurt her more than the rest of the fight's injuries put together.

"I accept your concession, Miss Applejack." The pony with the antlered helmet bowed his head. The other three, the two loudmouthed pegasi and the pony in the back, quickly followed their master. Only the pony in white refrained.

Yumi-hime continued to fan herself, seeming disinterested now that the fight was over.

"We have our first token of the day," she said. "See to their injuries and have them on their way."

"Ah can't believe... ah lost..."

Applejack hung her head in shame. Apple Bloom could guess that it wasn't just the fight that had her sister to heartbroken. She had bet their father's hat and lost it. Seeing it clipped to the belt of another pony, as a trophy... and then seeing Big Mac wearing one of his own, even if it was just a dusty work hat... Apple Bloom saw tears in her sister's eyes. Tears she hadn't shed even when her body had hit the ground and spasmed in pain.

"Applejack..." "Sis!"

"Never you mind me." The apple farmer wiped her face and stood up straight. "We've got apples to sell, and you need to get to class, Apple Bloom. Ah'm sure if you tell Cheerilee what happened she'll excuse ya for being a little late. You finished your homework, didn't ya?"

"Uhm... yeah..." Apple Bloom knew she wasn't going to be inheriting the Element of Honesty anytime soon. "Ah finished."

"Good. Get goin'! Ah'll meet up with ya in a couple minutes." She slumped forward, her body too tired to keep up her front for very long.

A shadow briefly loomed over the group of them: the armored Neighponese earth pony. He lowered his head and gently touched a hoof to her flank. Whatever magic he used it couldn't be seen with the naked eye, but its effects could be heard. Applejack sucked in a relieved breath and rested her head on the grass.

"She will be fine," the pony explained - a doctor of some kind - invisibly working his magic to treat Applejack's burning muscles. "But it was unwise to challenge Master Shigure. Despite many battles and many years of service, I have only ever seen two ponies cause him harm."

"I just don't get it," Applejack argued, despite her tired state. "Kickin' him... by Celestia, it was like kickin' a rock. Harder than a rock."

"A master of the Iron Temple Style can not be harmed in such a way." The Neighponese healer leaned in closer to whisper, "But it is good you did not use Yumi-hime's spear. I respect your sense of honor, Miss Applejack."

Applejack closed her eyes, her breath slowing as she came down from an adrenalin high.

"Go on, Mac. Apple Bloom. I don't need ya fussin' over me."

"Okay, sis." Apple Bloom gave her a quick hug before retreating back to the cart.

Climbing back up, she saw Big Mac take off his hat and drop it on the ground nearby. He was still hitched to the cart and soon they were headed over the bridge. The three foreign ponies were watching them, the pegasus and unicorn pair seemed wary, but the earth pony with the antlers didn't seem concerned. As they passed by, he reminded them.

"Please bow to Yumi-hime before you go."

Apple Bloom wasn't particularly inclined to follow his request, but the Apples were an honorable and upstanding family. Big Mac stopped the cart and bowed his head slightly. Apple Bloom did the same, though she glared angrily at the white unicorn on the top of the hill. Soon they were across the bridge and headed into town.

Rarity.

Those ponies had caused this trouble because of Rarity. Apple Bloom didn't understand why. She had heard that Sweetie Belle's sister was a Baroness, now, like Lady Antimony who had talked to their class. But for Ponyville. Was this Yumi-lady also some kind of noblemare? Why was she here? What did she want?

"Your Grace. Your Ladyship. We have a problem."

Rarity barely heard the pegasus as he flew down to land in front of her. By her side, Blueblood slowed to a stop and cantered around to face the guard. Pinkie had an easier time. Her bouncing, bounding stride somehow came to a midair halt before dropping her right down to the ground like a sinking stone. To the fashionista's private pique, neither her friend nor her would-be fiancé seemed winded by the morning jog.

An endless reserve of sugar-based energy was only natural for a strange miracle of pony evolution like Pinkie Pie, but even Blueblood seemed in excellent shape. His physical trainer, a powder blue earth pony mare named Rock Candy, likewise came to a slow before turning around. Like Pinkie, she wore leg warmers and a jogging outfit with the addition of a star spangled bandanna. A stopwatch hung from around her neck.

"My apologies for the interruption," the guard, who Rarity recognized as Mercury (having had him follow her around several times), bowed his head in apology.

"Think nothing of it." Blueblood magically wiped his face with the a kerchief. "Which one is it?"

"Lady Yumi, my Lord."

"I see."

"Yumi?" Rarity asked the royal guard and retainer. "The Garland Family Yumi?"

"Yes, my Lady." Mercury turned to the two nobles for guidance. "She has set up a passage of arms outside Ponyville, next to the bridge out of town."

"A passage of arms?" Pinkie asked, zipping up between Blueblood and the guard. "What's that? Hey Bluey, what's that? Ponies don't have arms, they have legs! Shouldn't it be a passage of legs?"

Mercury gaped at her invasion of the Prince's personal space but Rarity only shook her head in bemusement. Blueblood never seemed to mind Pinkie's indiscretions, privately finding her antics and outlook 'whimsical.' She was also the only pony Rarity knew who shared some of his more peculiar tastes in music. She did notice Rock Candy, Blueblood's new personal trainer, frowning at the pink party pony.

"It is a martial game where one pits one's knights against those of another noble."

"Oh! A game? Sounds fun!"

"It is very much like pin the tail on the pony... except with a bigger pin," Blueblood remarked, seemingly without worry. He turned to Rarity. "I'm sure Lady Yumi has set her banner within Ponyville, my Lady. Which means-"

"I must respond personally," Rarity answered him.

This turn of events wasn't unexpected. Blueblood had been warning and preparing her for almost two weeks to receive noble visitors to Ponyville and Lady Antimony's parting warning had not gone unheeded. It was part of why she joined him most mornings for his constitutional. Aside from wanting to keep in shape and maintain her figure in light of all the rich food he plied her with. Until they formally and finally tied the knot on the steps of the Palace Chapel this, too, was a fact of life.

"She waited for your Free Company contract to expire," Blueblood reminded her. "Do not be hasty and do not underestimate her."

"Hey Bluey!" Pinkie interrupted, sitting next to the much larger Sir Mercury. "You said this was a game for knights, right?"

"Knights and Ladies," he confirmed.

"Allow me to company you, Lady Rarity." Mercury stomped his hoof once. "I will gladly meet these Neighponese in the field."

"And me too!" Pinkie made the exact same move, though instead of a solid 'clomp' her hoof somehow made a 'suuee.' What, did she have woopie cushions for horseshoes?

Rarity couldn't help but stare worryingly at her friend. "Pinkie Pie, this is-"

"I missed one party!" she declared, the forward curl of her poofy mane falling over her face and obscuring her eyes. "I don't want to miss another. Please?"

"This is serious, Pinkie."

"And this is my serious face!" Pinkie replied, looking up... and trying to suppress a silly smile.

"That's your serious face?" Blueblood asked, poking her gently on the cheek. Like the springs of a trap set off, whatever control she had over her smile broke, resulting in an over-eager girlish grin.

"No! My serious face!" Pinkie mashed her hooves into her cheeks. "Ruined! And I practiced all night, too!"

"Rarity. Take however many ponies from my service as you need," Blueblood said, amusement absent from his voice or face. "Once they are yours, you can not return them. Mercury will accompany you as my representative."

She nodded, having heard that before. "I understand."

"Understand this: Lady Yumi is not Lady Antimony," he said this to both mares, Rarity and Pinkie. "She did not come to Ponyville to cement her position or to convince you to remain out of her way. She will not duel you or give you time to prepare for her tricks. She is here to dethrone you and to humiliate you. She is here to publicly make a show of the fact that you are not fit to be Baroness."

"Then we shall just have to prove her wrong," Rarity assured him.

"You know where I will be. I only hope... I wish that," the Prince said, taking a deep breath. Rarity leaned forward and kissed him quickly on the lips, cutting off. Watching them, Pinkie giggled and wagged her eyebrows, shamelessly nudging the stoic royal guard next to her.

"From what my spies tell me, you should beware both her archery and her magic. If she consents to a fight, strike quickly and do not let her see you coming," Blueblood finished. "Good luck."

It wasn't long before Rarity, Pinkie and Sir Mercury disappeared from sight, leaving the Prince and his personal trainer alone among the gardens and trimmed rows of trees. Without another word, Blueblood returned to the road and his morning jog. Alone. Rock Candy knew what to do. As he cantered around a marble statue he took a left turn, taking a more circuitous route around to the back of the manor.

There was still no news on the other threat approaching Ponyville.

There was a reason why Blueblood had dismissed Sandy and Light Touch as he got dressed. It was much the same reason why he hadn't locked his bedroom window. That reason being that he didn't want the lock broken. Tightening his bow tie in the mirror, he felt the sudden gust of cold air from outside but didn't let it ruffle him.

"Morning. Your Grace."

"Good morning, Ritter." He straightened his collar out and turned around. "Could I interest you in breakfast?"

"Buck that shit."

The former Wonderbolt perched like a gargoyle in the open window, jagged mane and tail swishing in the breeze, in the latter case much like a hungry's cats. She was bereft of uniform or any other adornment, letting her vicious, predatory smile and gleaming eyes make more a statement than clothes could hope to. Her gray body and harlequin green mane stood out starkly against the purple curtains.

"You remain as classy as ever," he quipped, expression darkening.

Rather than reply, Ritterkreuz sniffed the air and hopped down from the windowsill. Brazenly stalking over to the large mahogany four-poster bed in the center of the room, she bent over to smell the sheets, folded and cleaned as they were. Her shoulders tensed, wings rising and lowering.

"Hard to believe this little kitten of yours beat that bitch, Antimony..."

Ritter passed by the bed to look around the rest of the room. She quickly picked out a framed gemstone, squinting to make out the details carved into its faceted surface. Blueblood doubted the mare recognized the cutie mark cut into the gem, blue on turquoise.

"I don't really like her," Ritter told him, finally leaving the distractions of the room to focus entirely on him. "Anyway. I've spent the last few days beating idiots half to death; I'm horny."

"That's a shame," Blueblood replied, not flinching away as she came up right in front of him. At her full height, she was just about as tall as he was. "I hear there are some new treatments for female hysteria. Would you like use of our fainting room?"

The former Wonderbolt licked her lips, chuckling.

"Why would I need to clop off when you're right here, and your little kitten is off fighting Yumi?" She reached a hoof up to snake over his shoulders. "Let's have some fun, Your Grace."

"That isn't going to happen, Ritter." Blueblood pushed her back, not with his hoof, but with his magic. He knew from experience that a physical fight was just what she wanted most. It was also a fight he couldn't win with her. No pony in his employ could remove this mare from the premises against her will.

"We aren't teenagers anymore," he said, as she started to spread her wings, resisting his telekinetic push for space. "You caused quite the mess in Cloudsdale."

"So what?" Ritter narrowed her eyes, and his magical hold on her broke, dropping her hooves to the carpeted floor. "Being a Wonderbolt was boring. And we aren't that old, Your Grace. Come on! Just a quickie and I'll be out of your mane. A little something to keep me awake."

He opened his mouth to quip -

"It has to be you," she cut him off, her hungry grin widening as she prowled around him. "You may be a big baby, and you may think you're in love with that kitten, but you're not. You're like me. You'll get bored with her... you always do."

Blueblood sighed, but kept her in front of him, even if it meant side stepping slightly.

"I knew you'd come to me first," he said. "In fact, I'm glad you did. Ritter, I'm asking you... begging you: please... return to Cloudsdale. Tell the Governor General-"

"Daddy always wanted us to shack up," Ritterkreuz interrupted him, and in a flash she was up and breathing the same air. Her tongue darted out to lick the tip of his nose. "You know I'm the best you'll ever have... and you're the only one I don't grow bored of, Your Grace."

"I am a Prince of Equestria," he reminded her, turning up his nose and leaving her to bite his chin. "Return to Cloudsdale."

"Make me," she dared. "Have your guards drag me off. I'll kill them."

"You will not." He glared at her with cold blue eyes.

"I'll maim them, then. Since you're such a mommy bear." She gave his chin one last nip before spinning and sauntering away towards the window. Ritter touched a hoof to the windowsill and looked back over her shoulder.

"Are you sure you aren't in the mood?" she asked, her tail swaying back and forth. "I remember you used to like a quick roll in the hay in the morning."

"I still do," he admitted, adjusting his lapel. "With my fiancée."

Ritter sniffed, facing out the window.

"You told her I'm coming?" she asked.

"I did."

"Good. More fun that way."

And with a rush of wind, she was gone.

Applejack watched the road while she recuperated. These foreign ponies had picked their spot well. The bridge connecting Ponyville to most of the farms opposite the direction of Canterlot prevented anypony from theoretically making the effort of going all the way around to get to town, traffic was also light enough that the four Neighponese didn't get swamped, like they would if they blocked up a thoroughfare. Additionally, almost all the ponies crossing the bridge were ones on business, mostly farmers taking their good to the market in the morning.

The intention was clear: send a message to the pillars of the local economy rather than inconvenience ponies who would be less likely to bring a complaint to the Mayor... or to the new Baroness. So far, nopony aside from herself had bothered to make much of a fuss. They stopped, talked briefly with the four foreign "knights" in the funny armor, bowed to the white mare on the hill and went about their way.

The pegasus and unicorn pair also seemed to enjoy requesting some small token to prove that they had stopped a pony. They had asked for a single carrot from Carrot Top's family, the smallest available jar of honey from the Comb Family, a bundle of hay from Last Straw (the old coot had predictably sputtered and launched into a long spiel before being sent on his way), a few pieces of asparagus (that had been amusing to watch, given the notorious price gouging that family engaged in)... the only exceptions were un-escorted mares, who were asked to leave a piece of cloth if they had one, and children who were let through without fuss. It reminded Applejack, guiltily, that on top of everything else, she had probably made Apple Bloom late for class.

But then there was her father's hat... her precious Stetson...!

All the other stuff was kept on a blanket out in the open, probably to draw Rarity or some other noble-types into heroically winning it back as part of this tom-fool game of theirs. Her hat was not. Antlers kept it clipped to his belt while he stood by the side of the road, letting the others handle things. She longed to snatch it back. Somehow. Her legs, now mostly recovered, cautioned her against it.

She still didn't understand why her kicks had been so ineffective. Ponies, especially earth ponies like her brother, could get pretty tough. She knew that. But Big Mac would at least get knocked off his hooves if she gave him a good buck to the side. Antlers over there hadn't moved even an inch. She may as well have been bucking a cast iron statue of Celestia for all the good it did.

A sudden rustling among the foreign ponies drew Applejack's attention.

They turned to face back down the bridge towards town, and averting her eyes as well, Applejack soon saw what had caught their eye: another banner, dipping and bobbing up and down as the pony bearing it kept to a measured pace. Emblazoned on the banner, a shield with a regal purple border surrounded a prominent apple tree, the three apples in the bough's branches each sporting a silver line through them. To the left of the tree was an open book, and to the right an estoile - a star with six wavy points.

Rarity.

It had to be.

As much as the sight of her friend coming filled Applejack with renewed confidence, she also couldn't resist shaking her head in bemusement at the fashion-crazy pony going a little overboard with the pomp. Would it have been so hard to just run over?

Instead, Rarity cantered gracefully over the bridge in a steel, silver and pure white cuirass with cerulean blue barding. Small blue gemstones set into brass fasteners strapped the chest piece in place. Walking just behind her and to her side, Applejack could see a royal guardpony, a pegasus, the gold and polished bronze armor unmistakable anywhere in Equestria. Opposite him was the pony with the banner. Bouncing.

"Pinkie Pie?" she groaned.

"HIYA Applejack!" The hyperactive party pony enthusiastically waved. "The cavalry has arrived!"

"Only you three? That's it? How... disappointing." Up on her hill, Yumi yawned, covering her mouth with her fan. "Where is my dear, sweet Prince? Master Shigure? Attend to me."

She hadn't spoken loudly enough for Rarity or her group to hear, but Applejack had heard. Standing up, she rushed over to meet with the so called 'cavalry.' Yumi was finally being roused from her shady spot on top of the hill, but Applejack ignored that for the time being.

"Am I glad to see you!" Applejack called out, meeting her friends halfway across the bridge. "But didn't ya bring any other fightin' types?" She pointed quickly at the one royal guard. "Why only him?"

"No offense," she hastily added.

"None taken," the guard replied with a dip of his head.

"I am the cause of all this trouble; it is only right I see to it myself. Besides," Rarity dropped her voice to a hush. "Ponyville is not exactly swimming with martial ponies. Bringing even one royal guard to a meeting like this is something of a faux pas."

"In that case, sugarcube, I'd like to volunteer for another shot at 'em!" Applejack's gaze wandered back to the Neighponese knights, and especially their leader and that mare they all deferred to.

"Oh! Oh! Grudge match!"

"Somethin' like that."

"Thank you darling," Rarity said, resting a hoof on the farmer's shoulder. "I had been hoping for volunteers in town, but... well. you know." Not a martial town. "And this is very much a contest of local prowess."

"What about Twilight?" Applejack asked. After all, she was the most knowledgeable and powerful unicorn in Ponyville.

"What about Twilight?" Rarity asked in return, smiling mysteriously. She then trotted past to continue across the bridge.

Assembled and arrayed against her were the four armored ponies. The pegasus and unicorn were on the right side of the road and the two earth ponies on the left. Yumi stood in the middle of the road between them. With her standing straight, Applejack could see that the foreign mare was normal pony size and height. There didn't seem anything ostensibly odd about her, even on closer inspection, except maybe the rounded snout. It gave her a youthful sort of look, enough that it was likely she was Rarity's junior by a few years.

Applejack's green eyes narrowed, tightening in concealed emotion.

"I have the pleasure of introducing myself as Lady Yumi, daughter of Lord Yama, heiress to the province of Neighpon." The earth pony mare crossed her hooves and slowly bowed. "I am sorry, but my name does not translate well into common Equestrian."

"I am Lady Rarity, Baroness of Ponyville. It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Yumi." Applejack suspected Rarity was telling a little white lie, but it was convincing enough to pass muster, especially combined with her proper and courtly bow. The farmer rolled her eyes.

All this high faleutin' nonsense. No wonder her grandpappy wanted no part of it.

"We have come to engage Ponyville in a friendly pass of arms," Yumi continued, gesturing to her left and right and the two pairs of attendants. "I humbly invite you to challenge my retainers in any manner you wish so that the honor of this town may be demonstrated for all the world to see."

"How kind of you. I see you have already acquired quite a few prizes this morning," Rarity replied, her blue eyes darting over to the small pile of assorted foodstuffs and trinkets. Applejack didn't imagine it was worth much, not in terms of actual bits, but this wasn't about bits.

It was about something more valuable than just money.

It was about pride.

"We have," Yumi agreed and her smile widened a fraction, taking on the beginnings of a smug tug of her cheek. "But curiously, we have not yet encountered any of Canterlot's famous knights or gendarmes. Nor have we been visited by our betrothed, the Prince."

Rarity's left eyebrow twitched.

"Ponyville normally has little need for knights or gendarmes." Rarity even kept a civil tone as she explained, just a hint of irritation in her voice. "Darling, as for Prince Blueblood, I'm sure he'll come see you at his earliest convenience."

"I do long to see him again." Yumi sighed dreamily. "We were parted most cruelly by that fiendish Baroness, Antimony. You have my true and sincere thanks for dealing with her."

"Funny." Rarity covered her mouth as she softly laughed. "Despite working quite closely with him, I can't recall Blueblood mentioning you before. At least, not as his betrothed. Perhaps we have had a mistranslation? Have you two met before?"

"The Prince and I have met before, yes."

"Oh?" Rarity still feigned ignorance. "Where? If I were to ask him, would he remember it?"

Yumi's smile, once bordering on smug, slipped into a displeased frown. Her fan flipped out to conceal her face below the eyes. It didn't take a mind reading unicorn to see that Rarity had successfully located, struck, and then jammed a needle into that nerve.

"Do you wish to observe our servants from the shade...?" she asked.

"Thank you, but no." Rarity gave a polite bow of her head. "This is my town and my ponies have business to conduct. We should be out of their manes."

Applejack, at the moment, wanted nothing more than to slap her friend on the back. She couldn't have said, "Get the heck outta our town!" better herself. Well, she could have just said it, but Applejack doubted it would have the same one-two buck to it!

Yumi's white coat blushed pink as she huffed and stormed back up the hill.

"Ooh! She's angry!" Pinkie whispered. Loudly. "I was gonna ask if she wants a Welcome to Ponyville party, but may-y-y-be I'll save that for a little later!"

"That might be a good idea," Applejack whispered back, just as loudly.

At their Master's prompting, the three Neighponese once again repeated their formal introduction. Applejack noticed both Evening Squall and Cool Breeze eyeing Rarity like a prize hog at market. It hadn't been more than a few hours since the mare of the two gloated about making Rarity's tail into some kinda fancy belt. Applejack as a rule didn't quite buy into her old friend's obsession with fashion, or any of that nonsense, but there was no way she'd let that happen.

"A Lady should not dive right into a melee." The royal guard she had brought with her stepped forward. "I am Sir Mercury, of Her Highness Celestia's household guard. I have the honor to serve both the Prince and Canterlot's future Duchess, the Lady Rarity!"

The over-eager Neighponese pegasus eyeing Rarity clearly thought, if only for a moment, about accepting the Royal Guard's challenge. She was the obvious choice, being another pegasus. Looking for some sign, she turned to her comrades, and then to...

"Master Shigure," Yumi declared, having resumed her comfortable spot on the hill. "Surely a Royal Guard should only be asked to meet our finest?"

"As you wish, Yumi-hime," antler-helm responded with typical deference. He slowly began to trot off to the far side of the road, well away from the others. Mercury seemed ready to follow, but Applejack hurried to stop him, just long enough to share something.

"Just a second there, partner," she said as his look which seemed to ask 'what, did you want to fight him?' "He's got some kinda thick skin or magic or somethin.' I kicked him hard enough to split open an apple tree and he didn't even feel it."

Sir Mercury looked past her at the waiting Neighponese pony.

"I see." He nodded and continued on his way to the field. "Thank you, Miss Applejack."

"I was worried for a moment there," Cool Breeze remarked, pointing an armored hoof at Rarity. "I claim the Baroness."

"Oh! And I'll take on this guy!" Pinkie exclaimed, bouncing on her hooves and sprinkling confetti over the bemused Neighponese unicorn of the group, Evening Squall.

"I guess that leaves you and me, sugarcube." Applejack smiled to end up with the pony who had helped heal her legs after her run in with old Antlers. White Dew was a fellow earth pony and he bowed respectfully before walking off and away from the others. As she followed the brown coated foreigner, a question occurred to her.

"Ya'll mind answering something?" she asked.

"That depends on the question, Miss Applejack."

"When the others introduced themselves they mentioned how long their families had served and such. Third generation or whatever." Twenty forth generation in one case. "But you didn't."

"I am the first of my family to have the honor of serving the Garland Clan and the family of Yumi-hime. I have not yet inherited the honor the others have."

He stopped on a patch of deep green grass a good stone's throw from the road. Rarity and her pegasus opponent had that stretch to themselves. Further past them, Pinkie and Evening Squall had found their own spot - though the poor unicorn seemed mostly to be nodding his head up and down as the pink party lover pretended to be a bouncing ball.

Much further down the road, a loud TING of metal on metal indicated the fourth duel had begun in earnest. Applejack privately wished Rarity's royal guard luck. She had a feeling he was going to need it.

"Till you submit," White Dew declared, raising a hoof in salute.

Applejack grinned, breaking into a run. "I ain't gonna fall flat twice!"

Leaning over the edge of a cloud, a gray pegasus stared down at the fight below her.

"Oooh!" she awed as the duels began.

Sitting next to her, another gray pegasus angrily scowled.

"Hey! You! Get offa my cloud," Ritterkreuz snarled. "You trying to pick a fight or something? Huh? Huh!"

"Oh, hey! I didn't see you!" The wall eyed pegasus mare reached into her saddlebag to enthusiastically munch away on a snack. Crumbs tumbled from her mouth onto, into, and through the cloud. Ritterkreuz gave the similarly colored mare a curious frown. Why wasn't she moving? Was she dense? Suicidal?

"You want one?" the mailmare asked, holding one of the muffins out as a peace offering.

Accepting the baked bread, the former Wonderbolt warily sniffed it. "You know," she warned the smaller pegasus. "If this is poisoned, I'll kill you."

"What do you mean? It's blueberry!" Derpy gave her a serious albeit off-target stare. "Poison would ruin the muffin! Who would do that?"

Ritterkreuz took a tentative bite - and damn, it was actually pretty good! Almost as tasty as watching her competition beat each other senseless and draw first blood.

'Lucky bitches. I wonder which one I should finish off first?'

Chapter Twelve : Return the Favor

(12)

Return the Favor

"Hey! Hey! How come you've got such a silly looking mask? Why does it have a frowny face? Wouldn't a smiley face be better? I know! After this, how about we go to the party store! I'm sure I can find a great smiley face mask for you to wear with your funny costume!"

Bounce, bounce, bounce.

"Oh! And I'm sorry I didn't get to throw you guys a party before! Every pony who visits Ponyville should have a party before they leave, but there were a who-ole lot of tourists in town and I tried to welcome all of them to Ponyville, but I guess I didn't notice you guys! Or maybe I did welcome you! I still don't know what you look like with those silly-billy masks on and -"

Yudachi, or as the ponies in this part of Equestria called him, Evening Squall, shook his head at the seemingly endless barrage of words invading his ears, planting a flag in his eardrums and claiming what was left of his sanity and patience in the name of crazy-mare-town. All courtesy of the bubbly pink pony who had picked him as an opponent. When he had seen her with Baroness Rarity crossing the bridge, he simply hadn't imagined she would be... like this. Noisy.

She was so noisy!

Cute, too, but even a cute chatterbox got old, especially when said chatter wasn't in your first language.

"You talk too much," he finally interrupted her, halfway through a one-pony treatise on party hats with horns. His horn glowed a faint orange and a circle appeared under his hooves.

A circle that fattened into a bubble.

Throwing the little orange sphere to the ground, he smirked as Pinkie Pie paused in her chattering to watch it with wide eyes. "OOoooOO!" she went, her mouth making a big O. She didn't even try and move or dodge. A moment later and the bubble hit the ground beneath her and expanded a hundred-fold. Just like that, the fight was over.

"Could you even call this a fight?" he asked himself, but then the silence hit him.

Pinkie Pie was within the shield-bubble, her mouth moving, but not making a sound. Not a sound he could hear anyway. Finally. Peace and Quiet.

Only then, too late to save herself, did the foolish pink pony realize that something was amiss. She poked the inside of the shield bubble with a hoof, her big blue eyes wide with almost foal-like fascination. She rubbed the bottom of her hoof against the glasslike inner surface of the barrier bubble then leaned in to peer at it with one big eye. Was she looking for a hole or a crack in it? Did she even realize the magic she had been trapped in?

Evening Squall doubted it. A part of him felt a little guilty for removing her from their duel so abruptly, without even a traditional word of warning, like "prepare yourself" or "behold, your defeat." He had planned to, but it was hard to get more than a word in with this crazy mare's stream-of-consciousness rambling. It was too late now.

Inside the bubble, Pinkie soon progressed from staring at the magical barrier to pressing one twitching ear up against it, to try and hear anyone outside. She could see him, just as he could see her, but it was only just then sinking in that the barrier was not sound-permeable. She opened her mouth, speaking words he couldn't hear, as she spun around in dizzy circles. She even tried to bounce up, only to hit her head.

Then her hooves hit the barrier, again, no doubt in some belated attempt to punch through. Evening Squall shook his head at her, lifting a hoof to shake back and forth. He didn't need to say the words. The gesture was enough to imply: "you're in time-out, young lady."

He'd expected her to get angry at that point, but instead the pink pony just backed away, her pretty blue eyes moving around as she took in her new magical enclosure. Her tongue stuck out as she tried to think of some means of escape. It was silly. Foalish. There was no escape. Evening Squall quickly put her out of his thoughts; there were more important matters to see to. It was just unlucky - for him - that he had ended up with such a joke of an opponent.

Yumi-hime wouldn't be impressed by -

"Wow that was neat-o! Like being in a big bubble! Hey! Can you make one that floats? Does it have to be stuck in place? Oh! Oh! You know what that spell would be great for? Surprise p-"

Evening Squall slowly turned around.

"How are you...?" He nearly jumped out of his intricate scale mail armor at the smiling pink face that filled his view. "Ga-ahha!"

Landing nimbly on his back legs, he pointed accusingly at the crazy earth pony.

"How...!" Just behind her, he saw the shield bubble. It was intact. "How did...? Can you...? But that's...!"

"Hey, did the game start already? I guess it did!" Pinkie Pie bounced up, whipping out something from behind her back. Some sort of attack! "TAG!"

Only a narrow dodge allowed Evening Squall to escape.

"Is that pie?" Spinning out of the way while deflecting the crazy mare's weapon the Neighponese unicorn got a good, clear look at said weapon in Pinkie's hoves. It was pie. She had tried to hit him with a pie.

"Where did you even get that? Wwoop!" Jumping to the left, he avoided the spinning pan, hurled like a discus. As it passed by, bits of custard and whipped cream flew free, making a mess of his nice clean armor despite the last second save.

"Where? I got it from Sugarcube Corner, of course!" Pinkie hopped forward, abruptly shooting up to avoid another orange shield bubble sent her way. "You should try some! It's super yummy!"

"Stand still, you loon!"

A pony could be forgiven for assuming that the pony who helped heal her wasn't really the fighting type. Doctors and nurses and Hippo-cratic oaths and 'doing no harm' and all that razzmatazz. Not that most ponies picked fighting over fleeing in general, but one would think a doctor would never willingly fall in the former category. So Applejack had thought. If White Dew had taken a vow of 'do no harm' he clearly hadn't sworn it to Celestia or taken it very seriously. The stallion could buck, and buck hard.

'Why did that sound so dirty in my head just now?' Applejack wondered, shaking out the cramp from her left front leg.

The point was that White Dew was clearly no pacifist doctor, healing magic or not.

"Is there a problem, Miss Applejack?" The Neighponese stallion sounded calm and in control. Unlike Antlers, he didn't seem inclined to tank whatever his opponent hit him with, abusing some kind of weird earth pony invulnerability. White Dew was just that nimble and quick on his hooves.

A fact he aptly demonstrated by dashing forward, twisting around while balanced on one back and one front hoof, and kicking at her. It wasn't like an apple buck, where a pony set her front half in place to transfer as much force as possible into her rear legs. White Dew didn't need to hit hard. Even a glancing hoof left a strange stinging magic.

Ducking, Applejack avoided his back leg, braced her own hindquarters and lunged with her front hooves. He felt a glancing hit, but then White Dew shot into the air over her, using her legs like a springboard. He passed out of her sight and, before she could turn around, one of his hooves connected with the back of her head. Grass filled her vision and dirt shot up her nose.

"You can hit hard, Miss Applejack, but almost any earth pony can do that."

Snorting blades of grass from her nose, Applejack pushed herself back onto her hooves.

"If you could see and feel where you were hitting, then you would be much more formidable. That you can't... it is strange for a relative of our famous Fuji Apple Clan." White Dew rushed her, the moment she got on stable footing. "As it is, you can't beat me, and you're years away from facing Master Shigure or Yumi-hime!"

Applejack spun around, as if to kick, but instead aimed low for his legs. He jumped, but only enough to avoid the blow. A blindingly fast hoof came around and down, hitting her just behind the shoulder. A wave of force shot painfully through the farmer's body, making her teeth rattle. She was barely in any kind of condition to feel the kick that sent her tumbling across the ground, grass staining her coat green.

Her back hit something familiar as she came to a stop.

Groaning, Applejack propped herself up against the oak tree. It was one of hundreds planted strategically and scenically around Ponyville. Touching it helped her steady herself, but it also reminded her of the farm, and her wounded pride. These foreign ponies knew her distant cousins in Neighpon, they knew about apple bucking, but twice now they had compared her to them and found her wanting.

It was galling. Apple bucking was her trade. Her life.

'Are the Fuji's just... that much better than me? Than us?' She covered her face as White Dew's armored form jumped at her. His bare hoof hit her leg, sending an electric shock across half her body. 'I know Big Mac is a stronger apple bucker than I am, but...'

A kick to her stomach doubled her over, and Applejack had to think quick to roll out of the way.

'Big Mac's older. Bigger. Of course he'd be stronger. It makes sense the Fujis could be, too. So where does that leave me?'

White Dew's blow passed over her, hitting the tree -

The impact, hardly on the level of a good solid buck, still dislodged a dozen or more acorns. The small nuts bounced off the Neighponese fighter's armor and a few landed in Applejack's mane. She kicked up at him to try and take advantage of his miss, but he batted aside her hoof and stomped down. Only pushing off the trunk of the tree with a kick saved her from being stamped.

Applejack rolled away and bounced onto her hooves. White Dew snorted behind his mask, shaking his head to dislodge an acorn that had gotten stuck between his ear and helmet. Applejack tensed to try and charge in.

But then she stopped.

She stopped to stare at the tree. Reaching up to pick one of the acorns out of her blonde mane, Applejack stared at it. The way he had knocked those acorns out of the tree...

"Apple Bucking isn't just about strength, Applejack. Kick the tree too hard and you'll hurt yerself or you'll hurt the tree, and we don't want that, now do we, Sis?" Big Mac hadn't been that long into his teens when he'd explained it to her. She had only just gotten her cutie mark and returned to Ponyville from Manehattan, determined to master the family trade.

"Ya gotta hit it just right," he had said, smiling around the stalk of long grass in his mouth. "Find that sweet spot and give it just enough of a kick ta get the job done. No more, no less. Just enough."

"I expected more," Yumi's mocking voice came back to her. "This is like watching a donkey kick a wall."

"It isn't about strength," Applejack whispered to herself. "Or hittin' hard..."

"If you could see and feel where you were hitting," her opponent had said, sounding disappointed. "Then you would be much more formidable. That you can't... it is strange for a relative of our famous Fuji Apple Clan."

Dropping the acorn, Applejack looked up to see White Dew right in front of her. The stallion already had one leg tucked in and the other extended in a flying kick. Like Rarity's fancy stay-in-shape martial arts. For once, Applejack tried not to dwell too much on that fact, which was to say, the imminent kick she was about to feel. Instead, she thought back to the tree. White Dew had only tapped it... but he had knocked those acorns loose.

She saw the hoof, just a half second from hitting her in the chest.

In her mind, she tried to picture it as a branch; she tried to imagine White Dew as a tree. An apple tree. Uncooperative apples were nestled among the canopy of his mane, tangled in his armor, along the branches of his raised forelegs. She saw green apples still too ripe to easily fall. They had fields of greens like that. They were the hardest ones on the farm to buck. Until only a few years ago, Big Mac had been the only pony to work them. In Applejack's mind, White Dew's green apples called to her.

And she saw the sweet spot.

His kick sent a numbing shock across Applejack's body when it hit, the force of it knocking her back and off her hind legs. Still, she reached out, grabbed hold of his shoulder armor with one hoof, and struck with the other. That sweet spot! That apple bucking sweet spot!

Applejack flew back, her hoof still holding onto White Dew's rectangular shoulder armor, the steel scale and red stitching bunched up in her hoof. It had been torn completely free. White Dew himself arched through the air, almost ten yards, before slamming into the ground near the acorn tree.

Applejack's right hoof still shuddered.

"What... was that?" She rolled off her back and onto three hooves. "Did I just... apple buck a pony?"

"Aaauh...!" White Dew moaned, flipping nimbly back onto his hooves as well.

Bits of armor tumbled from the hole hammered against his chest.

"I guess I was wrong," he said, brushing damaged scraps of cloth and armor away from beneath his neck. "You do have the power of the Fuji Clan! Were you holding back this entire time?"

"Can't say ah was," Applejack admitted, honest as always. "Ah only just now got it. Thanks to you, actually."

"I suppose it would have been wiser to say nothing," White Dew wondered, but shrugged. "Too late now. In fact, I'm happy. Your best will bring out my best!"

"Did it hurt?" Applejack had to ask before she tried it again. "Hittin' ya like that?"

"Worry about yourself, Miss Applejack!" the earth pony from Neighpon announced, breaking into a gallop. "I won't hold myself back either!"

Cool Breeze inverted in midair, wings flapping as she circled her unicorn opponent. This Baroness, this Rarity, didn't seem like a particularly impressive specimen in her opinion. It was hard to believe that she was the mare Yumi-hime had traveled from one end of Equestria to the other to fight. To hear some speak of it, Ponyville's new titled noblemare was either some sort of idiot savant or pint sized powerhouse. By Celestia's flowing mane, she had even defeated Lady Antimony, a task even the Garland Princess had failed at.

Clearly, this 'Rarity' had some kind of trick up her sleeve.

Cool Breeze was not about to let her use it. Gusts of wind trailed from her right wing as she cork-screwed around Rarity, the friction in the air creating sparks of electricity. A smarter pony, like Yumi-hime, would have prevented her opponent from accelerating. Most pegasi required a good head of speed to pull off their tricks. A pegasus that had been immobilized was only fighting at a fraction of her real power.

This foalish mare didn't seem to know that! This 'Rarity' circled around dizzily, trying in vain to keep Cool Breeze in sight. It was already too late for her.

A crack of lightning erupted from the churning storm that had been conjured around her. Rarity narrowly avoided being hit, squeaking and jumping away from the blasted scorch on the road. Cool Breeze scoffed to herself. By the look in the unicorn's blue eyes, she had no idea what was happening to her or what to do.

'You can't even teleport, can you?' the Neighponese pegasus thought, amused. 'Do you even know any barrier spells? You can't hit me when I'm circling you like this. How pathetic!'

Rarity yelped as another lightning bolt singed her, missing by just an inch or two. Her horn glowed, desperately, as she ripped up a few pieces of roadwork, hurling them into the stormy circle that surrounded her. Cool Breeze laughed, her voice echoing from several angles.

"Were you even trying to hit me?" she asked, flexing her wing to trail along the stormcloud ring. The friction trigged another vicious lightning bolt. "I'm over here, Baroness! No! Over here!"

Another speedy projectile passed close, zipping through Cool Breeze's tail.

"Your eyes are too slow, my Lady!" she chortled, getting a good feel for the ripeness of her storm circle. "Cloud pressure: good. Wind speed: good! Static electricity: good!"

Both wings angled, and the charge in the air multiplied.

"Here it comes! My Electrical Storm!"

The ring of clouds sparked and a dozen bolts shot out, both inside and outside the circle. It was difficult to aim lightning from a personally manufactured and charged cloud. Most pegasi used regulation clouds, and most of those were stamped and mass produced in Cloudsdale's weather factories. Those were useless to a fighting pegasus. Only military-grade clouds could do more than give a pony a mildly painful shock. To be a real master of lightning fighting, a pegasus had to learn to make her own.

From there, it was a matter of quality versus quantity. Cool Breeze's preference was for quantity.

Bolt after sizzling bolt shot into the center of the ring, filling the space with a crisscrossing web of high intensity electrical arcs and discharges. It was probably overkill. A normal pony could well be killed in the barrage. That worry prompted Cool Breeze to slow and level out her wings, ending the electrical assault. If the local Baroness was killed... there would be Tartarus to pay. More importantly, Yumi-hime wouldn't forgive it, either. They were here to humiliate the dam, not to kill her.

Smoke curled up from within the barrage ring and Cool Breeze exited the toroidal cloud.

"Hmf! Some Baroness!" Blue-green wings flapped, keeping Cool Breeze aloft.

"Yumi-hime!" she called out to her mistress, still seated and watching from her blanket on the hill. "I apologize, but it seems I may have-"

SSWWUIP

The strange sound draw Cool Breeze's attention back down to her cloud ring. There, in the center, something blue and egg-shaped seemed to be unwinding. There were scorch marks on it from where lightning bolts had hit. The pegasus blinked, not quite sure what she was seeing. It wasn't an egg, not really. It was spherical.

A barrier then? But she hadn't felt any magic like that, and she'd worked and trained with a barrier-specialist for years. Even if this was a barrier, her lightning had a magical component; it could cut through magical energy.

"What...?" she hissed. "What is that?"

With a sound like a cracking whip, the blue barrier came apart into long reams of... cloth?

It then retracted like measuring tape, the long indigo wave zipping together into a spool. It was glowing a faint purple-blue with what could only be magic and floating protectively alongside the Ponyville Baroness, who seemed none the worse for the electrical storm she had been subjected to. It was clear she had used the cloth as a shield.

That was new.

"But if that's the only defense you have..."

SSWWUIP

The cloth shot out again, this time extending straight out and forward. It cut through the circle of clouds, turned ninety degrees, and then made a three-hundred-sixty degree circuit. With the flat of it pressed into the cloud matter, it shredded through and dispersed the ring, crackling bolts of static electricity scoring the ground as it died. The roll of cloth then retracted again with a whip-crack.

On the ground, Rarity turned and glared up.

SSWWUIP

Cool Breeze moved, as fast as her wings could take her, juking to the right as the bolt of cloth extended like the tongue of a frog trying to pick a fly out of the air. Eyes wide, she was still too slow to deal with the cloth as it whipped through the air, smacking her across the face and upper torso. The menpo of her helmet snapped loose and Cool Breeze tumbled through the air before righting herself, moments from hitting the dirt.

"So sorry, darling," a voice snapped Cool Breeze's head around. "Did I hit you too hard?"

Rarity still stood in the center of the now destroyed cloud ring, her spool of cloth retracted and floating by her side. Cool Breeze gritted her teeth, her pale blue eyes shooting daggers at the other mare. To think that she, Cool Breeze, retainer to the most honorable and noble Yumi-hime, had been swatted out of the sky!

'Hit me too hard?'

"Don't buck with me!" the Neighponese pegasus roared, ripping her helmet off entirely. Arching her back, her wings flapped with a fierce and painful intensity. Tail swishing back and forth, the enraged pegasus quickly surrounded herself with clouds and charged them with lightning.

"More! More! MORE!" she yelled, generating an ever increasing volume of cloudstuff. "MORE!"

The white vapor darkened with moisture. Small uncontrolled spikes of electricity crackled among the billows, trying to disperse the charged cloud. Cool Breeze didn't let it. The bigger and nastier the cloud, the bigger and nastier the lightning!

Rearing up, she viciously buried a hoof into the cloud.

"I see you have some kind of barrier," Cool Breeze said, grinning at Rarity's challenge. "Then try this! I call this my Electric Barrier Breaker!"

With a yank, she ripped her hoof back out and a white-gold bolt of light exploded from the angry cloud. Rarity didn't respond, not verbally. Her cloth spoke for her, winding protectively around her body and forming into a solid shell. The narrow beam of arc-light hit the indigo fabric with a thunderclap -

And then it punched through.

"Look at that!" Cool Breeze declared, laughing. "You see! You see? Like threading a needle through an egg!"

Sputtering, the lightning beam died down, the dark, furious clouds drained of electrical charge from that one, massive, piercing discharge. Cool Breeze licked her lips, wings still flapping slowly, the brume she had generated settling into a slothful fog around her hooves. She kept her eyes on the fabric-shield, a trickle of black smoke wafting out of the hole she had burned through the supposed barrier.

She had to be sure. Evening Squall would never forgive her if she ran into a magical barrier she couldn't pierce, not with how she had mastered punching through his energy bubbles. Even the famed energy barriers of Canterlot's Captain of the Guard were no match for her Barrier Breaker! This Rarity's cloth-defense was nothing in comparison!

"Like threading a needle?"

Cool Breeze spun around at the voice, her wings flexing to shoot her up into the air.

"Darling, take it from me," Rarity emerged from the dying cloudstuff to press a hoof to the pegasus mare's chest. "Your needlework needs more practice."

"Get away-" Cool Breeze gasped, feeling something move across her body, between her coat and her armor. Like a snake, it wound around her chest and found her midsection, growing longer and longer. With wide eyes, she saw it emerge from her wing-seam: a ribbon?

The blue ribbon uncoiled, wrapped around her wing, and bound tight and fast.

"W-what - what is...?!"

Cool Breeze felt her body hit the road, her wings unable to move.

"What are you doing?" she snarled, trying and failing to break free. "What is this?"

Rarity stared down at her with a placid, confident expression.

"Bust: 4.24 hooves," she explained. "Waist: 3.96 hooves. Hips: 4.52 hooves. Length: 3.1 hooves shoulder to flank, 4.4 flank to ankle. Inseam: 3.2 hooves, maybe 3.3" Rarity paused, looking down at the immobilized pegasus. "Oh. I'm sorry, you must be confused?"

Rarity leaned down, pointing a hoof at the ribbon binding Breeze's lef twing.

"Measuring tape." She stood back up, looking off at a nearby hill, and at the white earth pony seated there. "You have a wonderful figure, by the way. All that flying must make it easy to stay in shape."

Cool Breeze blushed, her face turning beet red not from the compliment, but from the humiliation.

"But I hit you... I blasted you and your shield!"

"Did you?" Rarity inquired with a friendly, uncomfortably familiar smile. "I seem to recall you assuming I was behind my Bombazine Barricade. I also seem to recall you calling my eyes 'slow.' You were mistaken on both counts."

"L -L - Let me go!" Cool Breeze screamed, bouncing and struggling on the ground. "Let me go! I will not be humbled like this! I will not! Yumi-hime!"

"Your Lady Yumi is next," Rarity told her, whatever civility had been in her voice turning ice cold. "I will not be attacked in my own home. In my own town. Not anymore."

Grunting in annoyance, Evening Squall spun around, releasing another bubble. Pinkie landed, flattened like an octopus, and scurried away as the bubble hit and expanded. Legs a blur, she vanished behind one of the bubbles and Evening Squall had to side-step to try and give chase, another shield forming and settling into the cup of his hoof. This mare... she wasn't that fast, not really, but ponies couldn't move like that, could they? It was like trying to hit a fly with a beach ball.

And then she was gone.

"Where did-"

It was a stupid question, but still one he would have liked to finish. He wasn't able to. Something hard slammed into his flank, spinning him like a top. By the time he braced his hooves and regained control, his vision was filled with yellow and orange goo.

"W-wa-?"

Ripping his helmet off, Evening Squall desperately threw the shield spell he had prepared while backing away. He heard a characteristic screech of static as it hit and stuck to one of the existing bubbles nearby, expanding on contact and producing a bubble-on-bubble. Good enough. It did the job of scaring off his loopy opponent and bought him a second or two to wipe the marzipan off his face. A flash of bright red and white focused his mind like only an imminent beating could, and his armored leg shot up to block.

A candy cane?

"Where are you getting these things?!" he roared, horn blasting light.

Hearing her squeak of surprise, he jumped and kicked, feeling his hooves connect, if only for an instant. Landing on his back legs, Evening Squall saw Pinkie lying on the ground holding her head. A comically large lump seemed to be sticking out between her right ear and her poofy mane.

"Owie!" she whined, rubbing the bump on her head. "That hurt!"

"Just stand still!" Evening Squall cast another bubble -

Pinkie reached a hoof deeper into her mane, and her leg shot out, releasing a quarter cup of... flour? The white cloud briefly obscured the pink pony, and by the time the shield bubble hit, she was gone. Again.

Eyes darting left and right, Evening Squall slowly made a three-sixty.

Only to find a rather conspicuous cardboard box with a 'this way up' arrow sitting a few yards away. One could almost - almost, almost - think it to be a clever trap. Except for the big pair of blue eyes peeking out from holes in the cardboard. One could almost even think that part of the same clever trick, except the eyes also blinked. Nevermind how this pony found a cardboard box to hide in out here.

"Do you really think that will work!" Evening Squall yelled, projecting another shield bubble.

This time he expanded and solidified it before Pinkie could dodge. A pink blur did shoot out from under the box before the expanding bubble crushed it flat against the ground but - too slow! The rapidly expanding barrier hit her on the side, knocking her out of the air to roll limply along the ground, blades of grass kicking up from the landing. She didn't stop until she bumped into one of the still solid barriers, sticking out of the ground like a garage-sized dome.

"I don't know how you got out of that first bubble I put you in... but this time...!" Horn flashing orange, Evening Squall created not one, but a half dozen shield bubbles. One for each hoof and four spares circling around his horn.

"This time you won't get away!" he yelled.

Hurling the first bubble, he smirked at the desperate scramble his opponent had to make to escape. She clearly didn't know it yet, but her seconds were ticking down. Shield bubbles and barriers were among the most unappreciated of unicorn magics. Most ponies only thought of them as defensive techniques, and while that was the primary purpose, they were really so much more versatile!

Pinkie 'eep'ed loudly as she bumped into a dome in her way, forcing her to bounce off in another direction. Predictably, she tried to jump upwards - he had a bubble there, expanding, waiting for her. Only her unusual and frankly fantastic body-contortions allowed her to escape. She slammed face first into another dome, now completely surrounded.

This was the trick.

A barrier wasn't just defensive. It was area-denial. It was foal's play to herd an enemy into an area using barriers they couldn't break or cast spells through or even teleport through. Then, when they were pinned in place, it was a simple matter to either trap them... or squash them flat. Finally, Miss Pie had no where to go.

"Wow-ie!" she chirped, catching her breath and looking around for some last route to run to. "I don't remember dodge ball being this hard!"

"Tired of running around?" Evening Squall asked, knowing she had exactly one last escape: forward. Right into him. And when she rushed him, he'd have her.

Pinkie was still smiling. "You're really lucky, you know that?"

"I am?" he asked, hesitating a moment in confusion. "Lucky?"

"I wish I could make bubbles and balloons with my mind." The party pony sighed, holding up a deflated yellow balloon. "That's the one thing I don't like about balloons. Having to blow them up, one by one."

Evening Squall raised an eyebrow at the silly mare. "I suppose I can see that being annoying."

"Hey! Hey! I just had an idea!" she exclaimed, the fight seemingly forgotten, "Can you make little bubbles like that instead of big ones? Little ones? It'll make setting up your party even easier!"

"Uh. Alright," he agreed. "Why not?" With a snap of his front leg, he threw the second to last of his shield bubble spells. "If you want to have a party so badly, you can celebrate Yumi-hime's victory!"

"Whoo-hoo!" Pinkie cheered, heedless of the bubble barreling down on her.

And then she ran forward, right into it.

With an audible POP, Pinkie triggered the barrier's trap. It expanded around her -

But still she continued forward, her pink legs a blur as she accelerated. The shield bubble became a giant rolling sphere. It hadn't had the chance to contact the ground. Pinkie had trigged it too soon. It wasn't rooted in place. It was... a giant rolling sphere... heading right for him!

Evening Squall bit back a snarl as he reflexively threw his last shield bubble to try and protect himself. It started to expand in front of him... But then, with a crackle, it stuck to Pinkie's rolling barrier, forming a bubble-on-bubble. It didn't stop it.

'What? Did - did she... plan this...?'

Pinkie's shield hitched up as the bubble-on-bubble rolled under it, bouncing it into the air overhead. An ominous shadow fell over the unicorn's wide eyed form.

'Was I the one in her trap this entire time?'

"Ah. Ah." The Neighponese barrier specialist tried to shield himself with everypony's last resort: his hooves and his forelegs. "AHHH!!"

Evening Squall's view went orange and white as a Pinkie-powered barrier bubble filled his world.

And then that world ran him over.

White Dew planted his hoof against Applejack's shoulder, only missing her forehead by virtue of her twisting to the right at the last second. In return, she managed to plant a solid one-hoof apple buck into his chest. A blast of air shot out from the two earth ponies, ripping blades of grass into the air as they shot apart.

"Ugh!" Applejack winced, but resisted the urge to cradle her now swollen shoulder.

White Dew landed much the same, bits and pieces of his armor falling from his exposed shoulders, chest and front legs. She had mangled his once exotic apparel; it was clearly less able to stand up to her apple-buck strikes than his actual body. His helmet had similarly been blown off by a blow to the cheek... a blow that had left his face as swollen as her shoulder.

Looking at him now, she could see he had healed already.

"You heal pretty quick, sugarcube," Applejack said between breaths.

"You aren't like the mare who fought Master Shigure," White Dew replied, also breathing heavily. "I can't believe you weren't holding back so much." He started to pace off to his left. "You hit pretty well... Miss Applejack... but still not well enough to put me down."

He could well be right.

She had hit him a half dozen times, each one in a sweet spot. If this pony had been a tree, as she thought of him as, she would've bucked the apples out of his branches three times over. With the almost explosive reaction her apple-buck blows had on his armor, it had to be his healing that was keeping him in the fight. It was earth pony magic...

Applejack sidestepped to keep White Dew in front of her. He may have been lucky enough to master healing magic, enough to apply it to both others and himself, but she wasn't in that plot of dirt. Her entire body felt like it had been put through a taffy machine. And then chewed up by Pinkie Pie. She snorted, remembering Apple Bloom's story about how she and her friends actually had ended up in a taffy machine. At least somepony in the family would be able to sympathize.

'If he hits me two or three more times...' she thought, watching White Dew warily.

He was still so fast!

She had only gotten slower.

To top it all off, as much as Applejack hated to admit it, the foreign pony was a whole heckuva lot more skilled than her when it actually came to matching hooves. He wearing her down and he knew it.

"Hey," she called out, seeing him tense to jump. To her surprise, he paused.

"Miss Applejack?"

"Ah wanted to thank ya," she said, smiling despite everything. "For healin' me before. Ah'm pretty sure I hadn't thanked ya properly before."

"There is no need for thanks. I was honored to do so." The Neighponese earth pony smiled at her, a bashful, amiable grin. "But you are welcome."

"Good! Ah'll return the favor when I knock ya out!" Applejack declared, legs kicking up dirt as she ran to him.

White Dew's smile didn't leave his face. He jumped, spinning in midair. Applejack momentarily lost sight of him as she turned to kick with both back legs. It was her strongest kick, but also her slowest. She felt one of his legs sweep down, kicking hers out of the way. Imbalanced, she fell onto her stomach, tucking in one leg so she hit her side.

White Dew passed over her, touched the ground and spun on a dime.

'Like some kinda fancy fightin' ballerina!' Applejack thought, rolling onto her hooves.

"Too slow, Miss Applejack!" With both front hooves, he pounced on her as she tried to get back up. She ignored it. Jumping, legs wide, she took the double blow for the chance to bowl right into him. A look of surprise on his face, caught balanced on just his hind legs, he was easily pushed onto his back.

"Finally!" Applejack placed her front hooves to the left and right of his upper body. "I got ya, sugarcube!"

He cocked a hoof back to knock her off.

"I don't see what-"

Applejack used ever bit of strength left in her legs to push off and into the air over him. Below her, she imagined an apple tree, not with one sweet spot to kick.

She was aiming for four.

As her body came back down, her legs - tucked in - shot out.

One. Two. Three. FOUR!

A quadruple-ponybuck! The ground beneath White Dew reacted, buckling, as the two earth ponies collided. A blast of natural magic rippled out from the impact, uprooting grass and snapping open acorns tossed into the air. The almost invisible green hue settled quickly into the earth, the blades of grass that had been torn up growing inches in the span of a few seconds.

In the middle of it all, Applejack stood over the still stallion from Neighpon.

Quickly ducking her head, she heard breathing, felt it across her cheek. White Dew was on his back, armor in shreds, alive but unconscious. Four orange hoof-prints stood out against his brown coat.

"Sorry 'bout that," she apologized, though she knew he couldn't hear her. He really hadn't seemed like a bad guy. "Ah'll make it up to ya."

Catching her breath, Applejack finally got the chance to look around without interruption.

Pinkie Pie was furthest away, bouncing happily on top of what looked like a giant carrot-colored bubble. Her opponent was nowhere to be seen, but Applejack figured he had to be out of the picture. Somehow. Rarity was by the road, closest to her, and standing over a struggling pony in armor. It was hard to see what the fashionista had done, but she appeared to be in control of the situation. Applejack shook her head; it was a little strange to see her old friend from filly-school like this.

The Rarity from their youth had been terrified of worms and snakes and dirt, and now she was... Baroness. Maybe even a formidable one. It was strange to see. Stranger still to think about.

There was no sign of old Antlers or the Royal Guard.

"No. No, this is unacceptable," the voice came from the hill, where one pony did not seem pleased by the situation before her. "This is unseemly. Embarrassing. I'm unhappy. Shiratsuyu. Yudachi. Suzukaze."

Next to Rarity, the downed pegasus cried out in despair. "Yumi-hime! Forgive me!"

"You three have shamed yourselves," the Neighponese noblemare repeated, rising from her blanket. "Worse than that. You've made me unhappy! All of you!"

Applejack, slowly walking over to Rarity and Pinkie Pie, wanted to scoff.

She was about to, in fact, except for the strange tickling sensation under her hooves. Looking down, not at the dirt, but at what grew out of the dirt - she saw the grass. It wasn't just waving in the wind. Every blade of grass was pointing in one direction. It was all pointing at the hill.

At this 'Yumi-hime.'

"Okay," she muttered to herself, running towards the road. Anything to get off the grass. "That's kinda eerie..."

Yumi continued down towards Rarity, her green eyes wild with outrage.

"I shall turn this field... this battle-field... into a Sea Of-"

She bit her tongue, as something landed next to her.

"Yumi-hime." It was old Antlers, looking none the worse for wear. He still had her hat. The tank of a pony was followed a moment later by a white blur that quickly stopped in midair.

The Royal Guard, Sir Mercury.

He, on the other hoof, did not look 'none the worse for wear.' There were dents and scuffs in his bronze and gold armor and dirt covering his pure white coat. Applejack could guess that he hadn't found a way to get around that troublesome invulnerability the foreigner knight seemed to have.

"Yumi-hime," he repeated, though Applejack could barely hear him. "Please forgive them and remember the rules of this realm. We should not be so indiscrete."

Yumi's face, in the process of contorting into a volcanic rage, slowly returned to calm.

"Quite right," she agreed. "I also see we have guests arriving."

"Guests?" Applejack asked Rarity, now close enough that she felt she could whisper without being overheard. Pinkie Pie bounded over a second later, all smiles and sunshine.

"Guests," Rarity confirmed.

A few seconds later, Applejack's curiosity was sated. Fast forms dropped out of the air, either to land on the ground or to hover just above it. There were more than a dozen of them: unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies. All wore the same intricate red and white half-plate armor and barding. All bore the sign of the cross and the dove.

The Free Company.

Applejack could see 'Yumi-hime' start to frown. Then her fan snapped out and she covered her face below the eyes, closing even those for good measure. The only one to have noticed the strange movement of the blades of grass, Applejack watched as it almost seemed to stretch and then contract. There was no doubt about it.

This Yumi pony... she was...!

"We should go, Master Shigure," she said aloud, opening her eyes just a crack behind her fan. "Lady Rarity. I must thank you for entertaining my retainers. I see Ponyville is... not bereft of capable and honorable individuals. I graciously congratulate you on your victory this morning, but sadly I must depart."

"As you wish, Lady Yumi," Rarity replied with a cordial smile, only skin deep. "I wouldn't dream of holding you up any longer. Please leave your retainers to me. I will see them returned to you once we check them for injuries."

One of Yumi's eyebrows twitched.

"How kind of you," she lied, "I would appreciate that."

"Yumi-hime!" the bound pegasus cried. "I am not injured! I can still-"

A silent glare from the Neighponese noblemare locked her jaws shut.

"I will return for them," Yumi said, and to Applejack, it sounded rather like a threat. The noblemare rolled up the sleeve of her white dress and a moment later a unicorn servant appeared, teleporting to her side. The newly arrived brown and yellow mare paused only a moment to collect herself, then a swirl of magic escaped her horn and she, Yumi and Antlers disappeared. The fields of grass settled, once again swaying peacefully in the breeze.

Applejack released a breath she had been holding.

"She seems nice!" Pinkie was grinning as always.

"Positively charming," Rarity agreed, laying on the sarcasm. "I swear I felt my mane stand on end. If there is any justice in Equestria, she will be the worst we have to deal with in the coming weeks."

Rainbow Dash cruised alongside her friend, keeping to the air as she ran.

"Okay!" Twilight said, craning her neck to check the clock on a the dilapidated town hall. "We're all set!"

"About time," Dash grumbled.

"What?" Twilight asked, heading into the town square.

Dash did an easy barrel roll to switch from her friend's left to right side.

"Nothing! Just you and that guy playing kissy-hooves. Didn't seem like the best use of time."

"He was just saying goodbye!" Twilight glanced away but Dash could see a faint blush on her cheeks.

"What'd you promise to give him, anyway? More money?"

"Something more valuable than money," Twilight replied, blush gone as she faced forward again.

"...IOUs?"

The unicorn's half-lidded stare seemed in indicate that wasn't it.

"Because my IOUs are as good as gold," Dash reminded her.

"Sure they are," Twilight agreed, rolling her eyes. "No. I was talking about knowledge. I learned some interesting things about the dragon migration. Germoglio understands how important information is."

Rainbow Dash didn't necessarily agree, but: "If you say so."

"Once we get to the bridge," Twilight explained as they galloped through the town center. "We should-"

She abruptly came up short as a pony dropped to the ground in front of them. From the speed and impact, Dash immediately suspected it was a pegasus crash. The sight of two wings amid the quickly clearing dust only lent credence to that guess. Except - this pegasus had crashed on her hooves. Twilight backed up, her legs scrambling, as the gray pegasus rose to her full height, wings flared behind her like a wall.

"Yo," she said, her voice a husky mezzo-soprano.

"Excuse us," Twilight said, trying to get around the tall pegasus mare. "We're in a hurry, so..."

"Off to help fight Yumi?" the strange pegasus asked. "Sorry. But I don't want that. And don't try any magic... or you'll regret it."

Twilight seemed about to argue when her body tensed and she made some sort of realization or connection. Bunching her shoulders and leveling her horn at the pegasus, she slowly backed away. Her doing so only seemed to provoke the gray mare, eliciting a few amused chuckles. Her jagged tail whipped through the air behind her in excitement.

Twilight's eyes were narrowed as she tried to find a way around. "You're..."

"Ritterkreuz!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, landing to stare at the other pegasus with wide eyes. "Oh my gosh! You really are her, aren't you! What are you doing here? Are you on vacation or something? This is so awesome!"

The grinning Wonderbolt turned her eyes on Dash. "You recognize me?"

"Heck yeah I do!" Dash excitedly clopped her hooves beneath her. "You buzzed the Princess and the stands in the derby, two years ago! You invented the Twisting Cloud Carver! I still remember the first time I saw you and Spitfire pull that off! SOOOOO Cool!"

"I remember that," Ritterkreuz said, still watching Twilight.

"I've always wanted to ask you if-"

Ritter took off, without warning, and Dash's multicolored mane caught in the sudden, intense wind that was her wake. It was a cool move, but it was followed by a yelp - a yelp that sounded distinctly like it had come from Twilight Sparkle. Dash pivoted, turning to see her friend pinned beneath the Wonderbolt's hoof. Twilight's face was pressed against the ground.

Ritter's hoof was on her glowing, sputtering, horn.

"Didn't I say: you'll regret it if you try any magic? Huh? Unicorn?!" Ritter's amber yellow eyes moved from Twilight to the still stunned Rainbow Dash. "You were saying something, kid?"

"What are you doing to her!" Rainbow yelled, taking to the air. "Get off!"

"And have her teleport away?" Ritter asked, chuckling. Beneath her hoof, Twilight's horn sparked but couldn't conjure up any coherent magic. "No. This is better for now."

"Why...?"

"She's one of the mares after Rarity!" Twilight yelled, squirming to get free. Without her magic, though, there was little she could do against the large pegasus mare who had her pinned.

"One hundred percent correct!" Ritter confirmed, still bearing her teeth in an energetic grin. "You asked if I was here on vacation? I guess I am! I'm here in Ponyville to have a good time."

"You're like that Antimony pony," Dash realized, wary of flying too close. A crowd was starting to gather on the fringes of the town square, exchanging hushed whispers.

"Antimony?" Ritter asked, shaking her head. "Not really. I couldn't care less about politics or about being Duchess. Blueblood's a good lay and we've had some fun times, but that's as far as it goes. Being a Wonderbolt was boring, especially since they kept telling me what to do. So I quit. There are some strong ponies in this town and I wanna crush 'em. That's all there is to it."

"You... quit?" Dash could only hover in silence for a few seconds. "You quit being a Wonderbolt?"

"Ehh? That bothers you?" Ritter chuckled again. "They're a boring bunch, you know! All rules and safety and orders! Like being back in boarding school. I'm honestly amazed I stayed there as long as I did."

"Rainbow!" Twilight warned.

"If you want to join, I'm sure they'll be looking for members," the former Wonderbolt continued, responding to Dash's growing fury with a smile. "I've already taken out... what? Five of them? Or was it six? The stupid idiots just keep coming, wanting revenge for what I did when I left. Poor Captain Thunderhead. He must've been great in his prime."

Dash shook her head. She had heard about the news from Cloudsdale. "That was a training accident!"

"Was it?" Ritter asked, chuckling darkly. "There'll be a lot more training accidents in the papers tomorrow."

Still pinned to the ground, Twilight gritted her teeth to try and push a spell through her horn -

"Ah. Ah. Ahh." Ritter pressed down on her with a blast of wind, and the magical field turned to multi-colored sparkles. "The Wonderbolts aren't important anyway. What's important is that you two fillies don't go butting in with that bitch Yumi's fun."

"Are you working with her or something?" Twilight glared up with angry, violet eyes.

"Hardly," the vicious pegasus replied. "In fact, I was just over there, watching... and thinking: I bet I could wait till everypony's exhausted from fighting and then swoop in and wipe them all out. But...! But that would be boring! I'm not really interested in taking on somepony who isn't at his or her best."

"So then I asked: hey, aren't there two other Elements of Harmony running around in town? And a little bird who just happened to be on the same cloud... she told me where to find you. She even told me that one of you was the fastest, toughest, 'best-est' weathermare in Equestria. So off I went."

"I just couldn't help it," Ritter concluded with a feathery shrug. "So, Rainbow Dash, why don't we forget about Lady Yumi and all those silly unicorns and have some fun?"

The chromatic pony and Element of Loyalty had a deadly serious look in her eyes. "Fine by me!"

She blasted off in a streak of rainbow colored light.

Ritterkreuz whistled loudly as she flapped her wings behind her. "That's quick!"

Carefully, she removed her hoof from Twilight's horn, stepped back, and took off in a thunderous explosion. The race was on.

Chapter Thirteen : Motivate

(13)

Motivate

Rainbow Dash, all sixteen years and three months of her, reclined against her favorite cloud for a quick snack. There was little scheduled weather over Ponyville to manage today, for once, leaving her with plenty of time to catch a catnap or otherwise chill out and shoot the proverbial breeze. A paper bag of Spring Crisp brand hay chips rested comfortably on her stomach.

In her hooves, she unwrapped the bag's surprise.

"Hey, cool! A new one!" Ripping open the paper, Dash flipped through the three trading cards included in the bag of chips.

Wonderbolts trading cards!

It was a pure merchandizing gimmick, of course, to sell Spring Crisp brand chips (now with ruffles). It was also, needless to say, a huge success! She already had almost all entire set! A few of the cards were really rare, though, and others were super common. Just as an example, she had something like twenty Blue Streak cards back home but still no Thunderhead or Wind Shear. She knew other ponies, adults, had to be collecting the cards, too. They weren't just throwing them out, were they? If worst came to worst, she was always happy to trade.

Except for her Spitfire card. She only had one and it was in mint condition. There was no way she was parting with her Spitfire, but she had duplicate Soarins and Snow Flakes. Today was lucky, she had another new card! Only three more and she'd have the complete Wonderbolts roster for the last five years!

"Hey! Awesome! A Ritterkreuz card!" Dash made sure to handle the card carefully and wiped her hooves to not get grease from the chips on it. "Squadron Four, Rookie All Star."

On the front of the card was a lithographic color print picture of the gray mare, leaning forward and grinning as she flew. There wasn't even a trace of hesitation in her picture or expression. All that mattered was going forward and winning. Rainbow Dash stared at the card for a long while before deciding that, when she finally made the Wonderbolts, she'd have the same sort of picture taken, with the same cool, confident look.

"Someday ponies will be collecting my card, too! Heck yeah!" Dash flipped the card around. "Let's check out the stats...!"

The reserve side had all the usual juicy statistical minutiae and biographical information. Ritterkreuz was right-hoofed, accepted into the team the previous year, and came from the Air Guard (like most Wonderbolts) but instead of squadron deployment there was just a single 'border guard' posting. That was a bit of a let-down. Pegasi put a lot of stock into their wings and squadrons and teams, but Ritter's service background looked pretty dull.

The card had complete data on everything else though. It had her birthday, her astrological sign, her home town: Cloudsdale. It had her weight and height and wingspan. Below all that was her racing record for the year, including the names of races and her placing in each one. There was another adjacent section for air shows she had participated in and the tricks she had used in flight. A final bracket on the right side of the card recorded her wing strength and lift, plus her highest recorded speed.

"The newest addition to Squad Four, Ritterkreuz enjoyed a mid-year streak, placing in the top two four times in a row," Dash read with a grin. "Highest top speed: fourteen hundred and twenty hooves per second. That's... four hundred something knots. Not bad. Wing strength: class eleven. Wow!"

Those were some strong wings, and Dash remembered seeing Ritterkreuz race once. She was fast, with high acceleration. She was big, too, for a mare.

And her average wing-power...

Windows rattled as Rainbow Dash blasted up and along the periphery of Ponyville. Details of the houses and shops of her adopted home town shot by leaving only a blur of faces and signs and brightly colored facades. Cyan hooves touched, barely tapped, the sill of a shop as she angled upwards, wings straining with the sudden change of direction.

Curving up through the air a glance back confirmed a yellow-green blur just beyond the rainbow bridge of her tail. Facing forward into blue sky, feathers angled to increase the rate of climb. She knew these skies even better than she knew the town below. How many hundreds of hours had she spent up here, not just working, but training?

The snap of cold cloud against her cheek; through the first bank and then the primary coverts of her wings were in, cutting and shaping a corkscrew into the cloud as she twisted around and around. It slowed her for just a second or two, only to accelerate her sharply once she reached the end of the now cork-screw shaped cloud.

Behind her, the cloud came apart moments later as Ritterkreuz's own Corkscrew Climb shredded the nimbus into vapor. Banking to the left, Dash dove hard and fast into a flurry of hardened weather-clouds. They were all built and stamped to a given size and humidity density; normal pegasus magic couldn't modify them except to produce pre-approved levels of rain, thunder and lightning.

Blasting between two cracks in the dense clouds, Rainbow Dash rolled around and dove up - her up being the real down - back into and through another bank of storage clouds. A collision with one or any of these would be like flying face-first into a tree. She slowed only enough to feel confident of not regaining her title of Rainbow Crash.

Or Rainbow Smear.

A pair of on-duty pegasus weathermares shouted in surprise as she roared past them well above safe flying speeds. Wings angled abruptly, slowing her to allow her hooves to find and then gallop along the edge of a particularly large high-density storage cloud. Daring another look back, at the sound of another pair of shocked cries, Dash could see her pursuer blast out from around another bank, having found an alternate route.

"She's good!" Dash almost hated having to admit it, refocusing on the obstacles ahead. "But then, she is a Wonderbolt..."

Or... she was one.

"They're a boring bunch, you know! All rules and safety and orders! Like being back in boarding school. I'm honestly amazed I stayed there as long as I did."

Ritterkreuz's words filled Dash with angry, restless, indignant energy.

"I've already taken out... what? Five of them? Six? The idiots keep coming, wanting revenge for what I did when I left. Poor Captain Thunderhead. He must've been great in his prime."

Up ahead, Ponyville's cloud-cutter magically separated blocks of bulk cloud matter shipped in from Cloudsdale. The tall, narrow circular-saw of a cloud was one of the few things that could safely break apart the larger clouds into smaller, useable chunks. A team of weatherponies were currently using it to tear through a thundercloud, like a log into a woodchipper.

Puffs of low-density rain-cloud emerged from a vent at the rear, directly below darker billows of storm-cloud. The pegasi operating the cloud machine all wore cold-weather jackets. The device was, as Twilight would called it, endothermic. It sucked in heat from all around to operate. Smaller clouds, each sporting a yellow stripe, warned away any fliers from the area.

Needless to say, fooling around near one was dangerous.

"They'll be a lot more training accidents in the papers tomorrow."

To heck with it being dangerous!

Cantering along the top of the cloud-block, Dash pressed in her hooves to generate some static electricity. Brief flashes of lightning shot up from her wake, courtesy of the Canter Conductor, but when she turned to see if she had caught her pursuer, the chromatic pegasus only saw a gray hoof inches from her face. Bright cyan colored wings flapped to try and frantically right her posture as her head yanked around, eyes wide.

"HA-HAHA!" Ritter's maniacal laughter punctuated her slamming Dash into the charged cloud below. The gray hoof pressed down, and then a ripple of magic followed, hitting harder than the physical blow. Dash felt her entire body flatten.

"A little shock like that isn't worth flicking my tail!" Ritter chortled, leaning down to look her prey in the eyes. "You've got the right moves, but haven't you ever fought another pegasus before? You keep looking over your shoulder like an earth pony!"

Dash coughed, trying to catch her breath and work feeling back into her wings.

Ritter, meanwhile, found some distraction in the slowly approaching cloud-cutter. With a single flap of her wings, she took off -

And as she did, a deafening roar filled Dash's ears, crushing her body back down. The cloud below was unyielding, worse, it was excited by the magic on it's surface. Reactive crackles of electricity danced along the dark surface forming pinpricks in her back. A warning siren blared. Dash barely registered it. The cloud-cutter was getting closer.

'Move. Move! Move you stupid body! MOVE!'

With a cry, Rainbow Dash pulled herself out of the indentation in the storage cloud. Jumping off the edge, she spread her wings to glide away. A few seconds later and the Dash-indentation disappeared into the mouth of the chipper. The sounds of two hooves clopping in approval showed where Ritter had flown off to. She was standing on the cloud-cutter controls on just her hind legs, keeping anypony from turning the machine off.

"Good! You recover pretty quickly!" she complimented. "But you wouldn't have been in that mess if you knew how to use your momentum. Come on! Step up your game! Get serious!"

Her left wing snapped out, huge and gray, before sweeping forward.

There was a shimmer in the air, like a split second mirage, and then only thunder. Dash protectively tucked into a ball as she tumbled through the air, her ears ringing. It was like being too close to one of Pinkie Pie's firecrackers. What in Celestia's name had hit her? Some kind of mid air explosion?

"And again!" Ritter cried, from another direction.

Dash dove straight down, going into a brief free fall to let the explosion go off above her. Wings snapped out, arresting her fall and converting it into controlled acceleration. Slowly drifting high-density clouds quickly gave way to the paper-thin cosmetic barrier that kept ponies below from seeing the bank above. Rainbow punched through it, hooves in front of her. It was too large to go around.

Ritter's insane laughter exhorted Dash to look back, but -

"Ain't ya ever fought another pegasus before? You keep looking over your shoulder like an earth pony!"

If she did -

"...you wouldn't have been in that mess if you knew how to use your momentum. Come on! Step up your game! Get serious!"

Another explosion damn near knocked her out of the sky. Spinning wildly to her right, Dash barely pulled out of a stall. The recovery was almost instinctive for her but... but checking her wings for damage, she noticed: they had angled differently to recover from her spin. Of course, that was what a pegasus did. The wings could and did angle independently. All the best tricks relied on -

On...!

Struck by the idea, Dash turned one wing up and kept the other level, stabilizing herself with her legs to keep from making a banking turn. Instead, her entire body whipped around like a top. A split second readjustment of her wings and she was facing backwards while her momentum bled off, keeping her going in her original direction.

It was just in time to bat away a gray hoof that tried to snag hold of her. Ritter had a size and reach advantage and, disturbingly, her eyes were alight with excitement at seeing Dash pull off her... well, she didn't have a name for the move yet. The Frantic Filly Flip sounded cool!

'Later! Name the new acrobatic techniques later!'

Her blue hoof quickly ended up caught in Ritter's grip instead of her mane or tail; trying to extricate herself, Dash grabbed onto the other mare's mane while Ritter did the same. Pegasi rarely actually touched in flight if it could be helped; it made control of flight difficult. Both mares refused to go limp and let the other fly, so instead they entered into an acceleration war, spinning and spiraling out of control. Straining and pushing and tumbling, the two top notch flyers created dizzy, erratic scribbles against the pure blue sky.

Then Ritter laughed again, and her wing flexed -

"What are you...?!"

'She'll blow us both up?!' Dash realized, too late to prevent it. 'Oh crap!'

Ears folded back as a blast send the already out of control pair end over end, all sense of coordination or equilibrium tossed to the winds. Ritter wasn't done, either. Her other wing snapped, and another explosion bucked them to the other side. It became impossible to distinguish sky from ground or retain any sense of orientation. Dash could almost feel the ground rushing up to meet them.

"You'll kill us both!" Dash tried to pry herself loose, planting a hoof into the bigger mare's left eye. "Are you insane?!"

"Shut up and enjoy it!" Ritter yelled, pressing her face in close. "Here it comes!"

"N-n-"

Whatever Rainbow Dash had thought she could say to dissuade the madmare from bringing them both to a grisly end was itself ended by the sudden impact. No stranger to high speed crashes, the weathermare's body still screamed in protest. The ground gave way like solid rock and dirt never did, and in the span of a heartbeat, everything was cold and dark and heavy.

She felt Ritter let go at last.

Her entire body numb, Dash floated in the darkness... before sheer will snapped her eyes open. Bubbles escaped her mouth as she gasped for air. Red eyes took in the blue water of Ponyville Lake.

She was... underwater?

It felt like she had nose dived into liquid concrete. Paddling her legs, it took a second to remember to use her wings as well. Thank Celestia they hadn't been broken in the crash! Even if her mind had forgotten, Dash's body had somehow known and remembered to tuck them in at the last second. Looking up, she could see the surface of the lake.

When, suddenly, something fast slammed into her as it swam by.

"A shark?!" Dash nearly spat out the last of her air as she whirled around. Of course, no, it couldn't be a shark. There weren't any sharks in Ponyville Lake, were there? Celestia's flanks, she hoped not! The lake was unusually deep and dark, was it possible there were monsters in it?

A dark shape twisted around, just far enough to see as a blur in the dark water.

Dash started to back paddle and the dark form soon resolved into that of a pony, the tail slashing back and forth like the tail of a fish or crocodile. It took a second to realize it wasn't some predatory hippocamp, hungry for the flesh of an innocent virgin land-walker (Dash silently cursed all the scary stories and movies she had seen with this premise). The black shape turned gray, the tail colored a murky yellow.

The underwater menace grabbed Dash with a hoof that was far from a flipper, pulled her in close, and head butted her. The air rushed and heaved out of her lungs from the impact, stinging her nose and throat. Another butt to the head and Dash nearly blacked out. Everything became distant and light headed.

'W-wha...? What the hell have... I gotten into...?'

Behind her eyelids, she saw Cloudsdale, far below her. Her body felt light, like the wind itself.

'NO!' Gritting her teeth, Dash slammed her forehead into the gray face in front of her.

The grip on her loosened and she shot straight up, wings flapping and legs kicking in a mad, heady rush to the top. Breaking the surface of the lake, her chromatic mane plastered to her face, Rainbow Dash greedily sucked in short, frantic gulps of air. A retching sound heralded her lungs vomiting up cold water.

Dash's wings broke the surface, trying to get her back into the air, but pegasus feathers were not waterproof. To be exact: only a fastidious preener like Fluttershy went through the trouble of oiling up her wings enough to be waterproof. Dash hardly bothered, and as a result, she was soaked basically to the inner later of her coat.

She got maybe a hoof length or two off the surface.

Only to be bowled over and blasted through the air. She skipped like a stone across the lake, before hitting the shore. Groaning, Ponyville's number one weathermare barely registered the thud of four hooves landing next to her, one of them close enough to almost touch her nose. Bleary eyes opening, she saw a spray of water as her pursuer shook like a dog, whipping water out of her feathers and mane.

Snorting, Ritterkreuz spat a wad of blood into the grass. Dash could see a trickle of red from the other mare's nose, probably from where she had been head butted. Jasmine-yellow eyes watched the prone pegasus for a few long seconds.

"You have a great body!" A gray hoof smashed down, forcing Dash to roll away and onto her stomach. "And good wings!"

A kick knocked Dash off her stomach and onto wobbly legs.

"And you're tough! Not many ponies can survive that level of explosion," Ritter said, not advancing but not retreating either. Her mouth was twisted into a mad grin as she waited for Dash to steady herself. "Your instincts are good, too. You're a good flyer... but..."

Her large gray wings extended, out, and then forward.

"Is that really it?" she asked, smiling fading yet still remaining vicious. "I want to see more. Maybe if I push you harder, you'll show me something even more interesting!!"

With a laugh, her wing snapped and Dash barely escaped another explosion. A small one. Just enough to prod her into moving. Of course, a 'small explosion' was still relative. It was enough to blast away enough dirt and grass to produce a bare spot on the ground.

It also gave Dash her first good look at what was causing those blasts in the first place. It was obvious that Ritterkreuz was doing something with her wings. From the look of it, she was grinding together the feathers close to her body, the so called 'secondary feathers.' She then pushed whatever weather magic she had formed forward with the whole of the wing.

"Move! Move! MOVE! Come on! Do something!" Ritter demanded, growing angrier by the second. "Don't bore me or I might just blow you up!"

"You want to see something new?" Dash yelled back, jumping away from another small explosion. Without another word, she broke into a gallop, shedding the excess water from her wings and taking off. It was harder than usual, but a few seconds of serious flight and they began to dry off.

Spinning quickly, she saw Ritter close behind her. Transitioning out of the Frantic Filly Flip, she blasted up and then across a hill. Trees shot by as blistering speeds, thick with the oranges and reds of fall. Traditionally, it was up to the earth ponies to bring down the leaves in Ponyville, but as Dash picked up speed, blasting and weaving through the trunks, her wake tore hundreds of the leaves from dozens of swaying branches creating tornados of amber and titian.

An explosion from behind ripped one of the trees out of the ground and sent it tumbling like a match stick. Dash nimbly dodged around another two thick trunks before a tingle of wind on her right wing prompted her to move, hard, to the left. A blink of an eye later and a long series of explosions, a veritable column of fire and ash, uprooted three trees with terrifying ease. As if it hadn't been clear before, Ritterkreuz could vary the power of her explosions.

Dash tucked in, shot through two of the burning trees, and then made a sharp right.

Up ahead loomed a gash in the earth, one normally and wisely avoided by most ponies. A weak trickle of a stream ran through the bottom of the ravine, fed by water leaking out from cracks in the walls. Knowing exactly what she was getting into, Rainbow Dash angled back her wings and dove straight into the quarry. She didn't need to see Ritterkreuz to know the bloodthirsty pegasus was hot on her heels. She could feel her. She could feel the ripples in the air as she tried to line up another explosive projection.

Then the eels came out.

Huge red toothy maws snapped out from crevasses and burrows in the rock, beady nearly-blind eyes attracted to the movement outside their lairs. Dash's vision filled with a fleshy fin and then a snapping mouth as she twisted, rolling and spinning away. More and more of the eels emerged from their lairs forming a hungry wall of jaws and slime-covered skin. The monstrous amphibious fish passed by in a frenetic blur as Dash swept up and out of the ravine.

Turning around, still gaining distance form the terrible mass of quarry eels, she heard an enraged roar. Down below, the less nimble Ritterkreuz had been caught. The savage pegasus was half in and half out of the mouth of one of the large red eels. Her wild, yellow eyes glared up at the weathermare.

Then the eel's mouth opened, permitting the inner set of jaws to grab hold of their prey and drag her down into the gullet. Ritterkreuz vanished beneath the white teeth and pink gums. The huge fish shook its scale-less body, already easing back into his burrow. A few others searched in vain for nearby prey before also retreating into their holes.

Dash caught her breath high above the carnage. She had almost been caught by those eels before, her first time practicing near the ravine. It was not a fate she wished on anypony, but if it came down to being blown up or leading her pursuer into a trap...

The gorge shuddered as a wave of black and red exploded from one of the quarry crevices.

Not just one of the crevasses. The same one -

The ragged, severed head of the quarry eel tumbled out of the burrow, hit the other side of the ravine, and then bounced until it splattered against the shallow water at the bottom of the canyon. A spreading pool of blood and slime, crimson and splotched yellow, oozed out to pollute the stream, fed not just by the eel's decapitated head, but by the waterfall of viscera that streamed out of it's nest in the wall.

From that charnel house of a burrow, a small gray form emerged, dropping with ichor.

That small gray form was laughing.

A wing swept, pulsing with weather magic -

And a parade of explosive charges ripped into several more eel burrows, powerful enough to leave aftershocks in the hills above. Cracks split the quarry as entire sections collapsed, crushing whatever was left of their occupants in the wake of the initial blasts. The remaining eels refused to emerge, their animal instincts counting on their moist, protective niches for protection.

Rising up from the bloody quarry, laughing loudly, Ritterkreuz resembled a demonic parody of Celestia, framed not by the rays of the rising sun, but by the guts of the creature that had tried to eat her. If she had been injured by the ordeal, she certainly wasn't acting like it. Her laugh dying as she leveled out with Dash, Ritter spit off to the side.

"Tastes like shit, these eels." She stuck out a copper-red tongue. "Fly."

Dash shot off like a bullet, once again being pursued. Her heart beat a like a drum in her chest, echoing in her already abused ears. The Quarry Eels had been the nastiest critters she could think of, short of leading Ritter to the Tartarus Approach. Even trying to trick her into flying face-first into a wall or building wasn't looking like it would help. She was definitely faster and more maneuverable than the former Wonderbolt, but if there had been any doubt before, Dash knew better now. Ritterkreuz was stronger, tougher, and as vicious as a rabid manticore.

A large explosion, no doubt just to keep prodding her, went off a dozen yards below. Riding the sudden air current upwards, Dash caught her breath and came to a decision. There was only one thing left to do: escape. And the only way she could manage that, with Ritter likely to chase her as long as she was in sight, was to use a Rain Boom. If she timed it right, she could even knock Ritterkreuz out of the sky with the shockwave.

'But... Celestia... my body hurts! I'm running on fumes here!'

"HAHAHAHA! Come on! Are you really out of tricks? Don't make me pluck your wings and send you back to flight school!"

Rising higher, Dash poured on the speed, burning the last of her energy. A small, fluffy white cloud hung overhead, and as she reached it, she dug in a wing and a hoof. Arching sharply and suddenly around, Rainbow Dash left a rainbow-colored U behind her as she shot down like a cyan blue rocket. Ritter didn't even try and veer off in case of a collision. She slowed and tried to ram her opponent with her hooves.

Just like Dash had expected.

She veered off instead, just a bit, narrowly avoiding the large, gore-covered former Wonderbolt. The maneuver had robbed Ritter of almost all her speed while preserving Dash's own. She angled out, diving away from her pursuer. Wings folded slightly before going into overdrive, pushing Rainbow Dash faster and faster into her dive.

"You won't get away!" a voice screamed, and she could feel ripples in the air.

'Almost...'

The ripple crossed the tip of her wing, closer -

"Almost... " The wind and the air became a cone, pressing against her, crushing into her nose and hurting her eyes. "THERE!"

The ironic thing Rainbow Dash had found about a Rain Boom was that she didn't actually hear herself breaking it. One moment there was a resistance, like a wall against her body, and then it was gone and the world became - for just a moment - bright white light. The sound of her Boom wouldn't reach her until she slowed down.

The dense, rippling air she felt on her body suddenly vanished.

She was gone.

The ground was furrowed and upended leading up to the broken tree. Hundreds of leaves and dozens of broken branches littered the impact site. Beneath the fallen oak outside Ponyville, something stirred. The tree shifted slightly, rolled back and then fell hard to the ground with a groan. Emerging from the crash, a battered pegasus wobbled before righting herself.

Then she laughed.

"That was... nice..." she gaped, licking her dry lips. At least most of the eel innards had been blasted off by the high speed chase. "Very nice!"

High overhead, a vast expanding ring of rainbow color filled the sky, bigger than even her largest explosive spell. The colors lingered against the blue backdrop, an exclamation point etched into the heavens. It was fantastic. It was amazing. It was...

It was...

"Beautiful," Ritter whispered, her wide grin slowly melting into a faint smile. "A real, honest to Celestia Sonic Rain Boom. All this time, and she was the one those crazy old mares were trying to copy."

The filly was gone. She was just too fast. No pegasus could keep up with somepony who could cruise on the power of a Rain Boom. Rainbow Dash was gone, but Ritter didn't feel any frustration or anger over that fact. The weathermare had been fun. Wonderfully fun!!

And she would only get more fun with time.

"Ugh." Hovering in midair, Ritter reached down to her hind leg and wiped away a bit of eel-guts. It stunk. It tasted bad. It felt disgusting. Probably looked it too. And it hurt. Her whole body hurt.

Beneath the ichors, a deep cut from where one of the eel's inner teeth had cut through her thick hide started to become... uncomfortable. It had been a long time since anypony managed to hurt her this badly, and that 'scratch' was just one of several. She'd have to convince somepony to donate some thread so she could stitch it up. In her current state, she also knew she needed to keep an eye out for any vengeful Wonderbolts or Military Police. A brief tactical withdrawal was probably in order.

"Thanks for the fun... Rainbow Dash."

Ritterkreuz saluted the vanished pegasus and turned to fly away from town.

"Bucking Hell! All that and I'm still horny."

Rainbow Dash all but collapsed in front of her cloud house. Every muscle in her body felt like it was about to cramp up. Even her heart wanted to put off beating quite so damn hard, if only for a few seconds. Trying to lift her wings to fly was like asking her to put on a harness and cover for Princess Luna's moon-moving duty. Face buried in the fluffy, wet cloud that was her front yard, Dash finally just gave up.

What was going to happen, at this point in her life, she was prepared to just let it have it's way. She hadn't seen hide or hair of that insane Ritterkreuz since the Rain Boom, thank Celestia, but Dash still half expected her to pop out of nowhere, tossing explosions left and right. Eyes closed, she felt her body drift off. Getting inside for a nap would've been nice, but this was alright, too. Better than dragging her body up to the door, fumbling around for the key, forcing herself up to her b -

Four hooves landed with a thump on the soft cloud.

"Oh, come on..." she groaned, burrowing her face into the soft downy cloudstuff. "Can't I catch a break here?"

The landing was followed by two others.

'Who?'

"Rainbow Dash." The voice didn't belong to Ritterkreuz. In fact, Dash recognized it right away.

Looking up, she saw a orange mane, like fire, and a blue Wonderbolt uniform.

"Spitfire!" the weathermare gasped, trying but failing to get back up. Instead she settled for falling onto her side and rolling over onto her back. Her right wing flapped happily in lieu of the rest of her being unable to move much.

"Soarin!" She recognized the smiling stallion next to Spitfire right away, but it took a second or two to narrow down the other, older, Wonderbolt. "Raging Storm!"

"Still alive?" Raging Storm asked, the gruff mare turning to Spitfire. "Good! Get her inside and see what she knows!"

"We'll make sure she's okay," Soarin replied, snapping a salute. "What about you, Vice-Captain?"

"I'm going after the traitor, of course! If she's even half as exhausted as this filly here, this is our chance to take her down! Report in at the mobile headquarters when you're done here."

"Yes, Vice-Captain!" Soarin and Spitfire replied in stereo.

With that, Raging Storm took one last look at the prone and exhausted Rainbow Dash.

"Helluva thing, kid," she said.

Dash didn't quite understand what that meant, but it sounded good. She was being complimented by a Wonderbolt! Bereft of the energy to squee, she nodded. Then Raging Storm took off. Spitfire herself helped Dash up and carried her over to her house. As she did, the weathermare got one last look at Raging Storm's retreating form against the blue sky.

'The Wonderbolts are... after one of their own.'

The thought of it made Dash want to cry.

Ritterkreuz. She remembered the trading card, still tucked securely into a horseshoe box under her bed. It was right next to Spitfire, and it still had that confident, fierce expression on it.

'Why...?'

Ponyville Central Station

Lyra Heartstrings reclined against the back of her seat, rather enjoying the occasional curious look from passerby. Nopony else in Ponyville sat like she did, which had always struck her as odd. The backs of most chairs and benches and even couches were perfect for leaning back against instead of just planting against your side. So far her one-mare trend-setting sitting hadn't won any visible converts, but at least it was still catching the eye of Jane Q Public.

Yawning, one hoof covering her mouth, the mint colored unicorn checked the clock next to the switchboard of arrivals and departures. She also kept an eye out for her escort. According to her invitation, she would not be admitted into the sealed private train without an escort. It seemed a little paranoid, but she knew all about visiting nobility and how they guarded their privileges and privacy. She was from a noble house herself, if a pony went back a generation or two to when her father branched off back in Canterlot.

The smell of hay fries from a vendor nearly tempted her out of her seat.

She resisted the urge; there would be food served when she got on the private car. There was no need to spend good bits filling up on hay fries. Besides, they were probably greasy and salty. It was hard enough keeping in shape living with Bon-Bon. She did not need to indulge her sweet tooth outside the house, too!

Ponies trotted by around her, on their way to the train currently stopped at the station. Ponyville was not a large town and Ponyville Central Station was not a large facility; it only had the track to load and unload one train at a time. There weren't even that many amenities in the station, just a single concourse leading from the entrance to the loading platform. At least it was colorful and bright, unlike Canterlot's main station, half of which was burrowed underground in the mountainside.

A sleek looking steam locomotive whistled in a final call. Lyra saw a few ponies galloping with tickets in their mouths to try and catch it before they left. From her seat in the middle of the concourse, she could see the train: four cars, the one in the front marked blue - for first class - and the three following passenger cars in white and pink... plus an observation car in the rear. Still not her ride. Lyra fully expected to be able to tell the private train car from the others when she saw it.

Holding her single piece of luggage next to her on the tow of chairs, the musician patted the pocket in her saddlebags with the note she had received. It was good news!

She had, in her hooves, an invitation to play for the visiting Lord Alpha Brass, Equestria's only Marquis. The stallion and his wife, Olive Branch, were in charge of all of Equestria's frontiers and border colonies. He was also a well known collector of historical artifacts, having donated enough to have a wing of Canterlot's Magical History Museum named after his family.

Lyra wasn't a foal.

She suspected the invitation also had something to do with her own small (well, tiny) collection of artifacts and paraphernalia. Twilight had been fascinated by the strange torc she had bought from Shady Deal. Lyra had let her hold onto it in the library for a while longer; had Twilight passed on information on it to ponies in Canterlot? She must have! It was only natural then that Lord Alpha Brass could catch wind of the find.

"Oh! Hey!" She quickly strapped her saddle back on, along with her lyre's traveling case. "Over here!"

She waved at a unicorn mare waiting near the loading platform. The dark gray pony was holding a plain sign that read: LYRA HEARTSTRINGS. This had to be the escort she was waiting for!

"Hi there! I'm Lyra!" She held out her hoof, noticed the other mare's hesitation, and inclined her head instead. "Lyra Heartstrings."

"You look like her," the dark mare replied, craning her neck to inspect the other unicorn. Seemingly satisfied, she nodded. "Follow me, please, Ma'am."

"Lead away!"

Lyra followed as the unicorn mare exited the station, walking out onto the loading platform and then down a flight of steps. There was a small rail yard and switching track outside. It had to be where the private car was. Did this mean Lord Brass had a private engine to pull it, too? It didn't seem likely it was going to hitch up to the train at the station.

As if to prove this fact, the train that had been calling for final boarding started moving, the copper chimney puffing out spent steam. With a distinctive "chuffing" sound it began to pull away from the station, the two pairs of drive wheels rolling as the coupling rods on their sides chugged along.

"This way, please," the dark mare said, noticing Lyra's momentary distraction.

"Oop! Right! Sorry!"

Picking up the pace to trot over, she tried to find the private car. If it was like the ones she had heard about and read about, it would be distinctively colored and marked with a family crest or blazon. Even if the outside appeared somewhat simple, the inside would be opulent, with fine furniture and all the luxuries of the crème of the Equestrian upper class. There were private cars with separate bedrooms and fully stocked pantries and -

"We are here," the serious sounding mare told her, standing for all intents and purposes in the middle of nowhere.

"Uhh... where?" Lyra asked, turning around in a circle. "Where's the private car?"

"Ma'am," the other unicorn said in monotone. "I need to see your shoes. Can you please present your back right leg?"

"My shoes? What's all this about?" Lyra huffed, angrily, but turned and stuck out her right hind leg. "Fine, see? They're clean if that's what - OW!"

Bouncing away on three legs, she whirled on the strange unicorn. "What the heck was that?"

The unicorn bowed deeply in apology. "Ma'am, my apologies, but you can not meet His Lordship without enchanting the nails in your shoes."

"Why not?" Lyra found a mostly clean spot and sat down to check under her back right leg. The horse shoe was still in place, but...

"Is that gold?" she gasped, seeing the head of the glittering metal nails now rooted in place.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Why do....? Okay. Nevermind." She got back up and lifted her back left leg. "Go ahead. I guess I'll find out when I get... wherever I'm going."

"Yes, Ma'am."

The unicorn wasn't very talkative, but she did her work quickly. It stung a bit, and Lyra could guess that the little shock was due to the magic altering the nails themselves. The after shock of which must have been able to penetrate her hoof wall. When the foreign unicorn finished, Lyra stood up on two legs and balanced, making sure there was nothing "afoot."

"Ma'am finds something funny?" the other unicorn inquired, confused.

"Don't sweat it!" Lyra told her, dropping back onto all fours. "So, what now?"

"Now, Ma'am, please stand still and do not use any magic of your own." The dark coated mare circled Lyra, once, periodically stamping her hoof. A unicorn herself, and no slouch when it came to magic (at least the study and basics of it), Lyra could guess that the other mare was denominating a spell circle.

"You're going to teleport us?" she guessed.

"Correct, Ma'am."

Lyra's escort entered the circle, her horn glowing softly. She had her eyes closed and an intense look of concentration on her face. The light grew brighter and brighter -

Her hooves left the ground, for just a moment.

And then gravity re-asserted itself, and Lyra's hooves clattered against something pliable but hard enough to be purporting. The light faded, like a flash from a camera, and she took in her surroundings. She was inside... a building or maybe the private rail car... and it was just what she had imagined! The walls were richly decorated with paintings, recessed lights reflected from within carved glass, the ceiling was a little higher than she'd have expected for a train car, though, and...

And what was with the floor?!

"C-clouds?" Lyra stammered, rearing up as she readied to fall through the floor.

Except, she didn't.

Cautiously, she pressed her hoof into the white tile that she had assumed to be, well, anything but cloudstuff! It gave a little under the pressure, so it was a little pliable, but it didn't suck her in or let her fall right through. One hoof and then another, she tested out her ability to walk on condensed water vapor.

But...

She knew this. This spell. It was the Walk on Clouds spell! A variant of the more widely known Walk on Water spell. But nopony had cast it on her before. She didn't feel the spell field around her. Glancing back at her hind legs, she realized: it had to be the enchantment on the nails. It was a Walk on Clouds spell!

"Welcome, Lyra Heartstrings, welcome!" A rich voice prompted her to look up, as a golden stallion entered the room through a pair of heavy doors. Wooden doors. With a cloud floor? It was... Lyra wasn't sure what it was, but it wasn't what she had been expecting.

"I am the Marquis of the Frontier and the Greater Equestrian Reach, Alpha Brass," the stallion introduced himself, reached out to take one of Lyra's front hooves and bring it to his lips. He wore a snug and finely trimmed wool vest with Prench cuffs; a pocket square peeked out from one of the pockets, trimmed in gold. His cutie mark was uncovered: a snake, in a circle, eating its own tail.

"Welcome," he greeted her warmly. "To my home away from home."

"Umm. I'm Lyra..." She stammered a bit, a bright blush darkening her cheeks. In her mind, she could just imagine a tiny Bon-Bon on her shoulder, laughing away at her roommate's embarrassment. She had heard of the charming Lord Alpha Brass, even growing up. "L-Lyra Heartstrings... I was invited..."

"Yes, I know. I do so look forward to hearing you play for me," Lord Brass said, releasing her hoof and leading her towards the doors.

"Huh? Oh, right!" Lyra took the opportunity of his turning away to conk herself on the head. 'Come on, Lyra. Keep it together! Don't make an idiot of yourself!'

"If I can ask," she found her voice again. "Where are we?"

"We are in my personal retreat," he replied, opening the doors... not to another room, but to the outside.

Lyra's eyes widened in awe as she took in the sight before her. It was like no cloud castle she had seen before. A great circular ring of structures seemed to emerge from within the clouds, but they were not clouds themselves. From a distance, the ring and the buildings within and around it looked to be made of stone. In fact, as she took the sight in more, it looked less like a ring and more like a wall.

A circular stone wall, built into a cloud.

Smaller clouds hung in the air overhead, supporting other structures, hanging literally upside-down. Lyra craned her next to try and make sense of the orientation. They were towers, but inverted, pointing down instead of up. Towards the center of the main cloud below, it dropped away in three tiers. It was as if they had been cut, quarried away, from within one huge cloud. It was enough to disprove that they had just been moved to the peak of a mountain somewhere.

"We're in the sky?" Lyra asked, dumbly.

"Far from earthly concerns," Alpha Brass told her, chuckling at her shock. "I call this place my Hanging Garden. It is my pleasure to share it with you, Miss Heartstrings."

"Well, that settles it. That settles it, Flim! Our last twenty free bits. We're broke."

"Say it ain't so, Flam! Our last twenty already?"

"Fraid' it is, brother o' mine! Celestia's mercy, not a bit in the basket!" Flim's ears twitched as Flam lamented their financial situation. "If this next con doesn't work-"

"It'll work," Flim promised, squinting against the light of his horn as it illuminated the cramped and bafflingly complex interior of his life's work: the Cider Squeezy 6000.

"We've always had backups before, Flim," Flam continued to fret over the pressure cooker that contained their food for the evening. Despite the seal, Flim could smell the fragrance of apple and oats from where he worked.

"Think about it, big brother!" Flam's hooves could be heard as he paced worriedly. "We'll be hundreds of bits in debt! To who, we don't even know! We don't even have the papers we signed! They could send griffins after us to collect from our hides! We'll have to flee to the desert and sell moisture condensers! Or work off our debts in a salt mine!"

"Flam..."

"Sorry. Sorry." Flam's voice calmed slightly. "That was foalish. Clearly we'd have to spend our twilight years on the coast building super speedy desalination machines."

"Flam!" Flim snapped, very nearly extracting himself from the Cider Squeezy to face his brother. "First of all: stop worrying about our new partners. They're good, respectable noble ponies. Not griffins. Second: I need a three-fifths radiant emerald with an induction calibration. Float one over, would you, brother?"

"Of course, brother. But..."

"No buts," Flim corrected, and noticed the small gem float over in the familiar glow of his younger twin brother's magic. He took control of it with his own telekinesis and swapped out another burned out gem of the same size, it's color distorted and warped. "There we go! One more refit down."

"Six more to go," Flam fretted again from behind his brother's back. "That's not including the stress testing. You know, brother, I had a bad feeling when we were given the money to upgrade the Squeezy. I've heard weird things about Ponyville. If our benefactors are who I think they are-"

His head still half-way into the mechanized steam-powered guts of the Squeezy 6000, Flim barely heard the tell-tale pop-hiss of unicorn teleportation from behind him. It wasn't a spell either brother were skilled in. Conking the back of his head, more than a little painfully, he hastily extradited himself from the two brothers' combination of transport and livelihood. The Squeezy really was a marvel of magi-technical innovation and engineering. It hadn't gotten them rich-quick yet, but Flim was confident it would eventually. Third year was the charm!

"Oh, uh, Flim, we've got guests..." Flam said, and Flim barely had the time to take a breath and ponder a response of, "who is it?"

This was largely because he found himself enveloped in a hug.

"Hi there, Flam!" an overly familiar, cooing voice declared, and he looked down to see a pale coated unicorn mare with a wild bright blue mane nuzzling his chest. "Been a while, hasn't it? Ooh! You smell like motor oil! Sexy motor oil!"

The sight of her, less her close contact, sent a quick shiver down his spine. It was countered a moment later by a flash of contentment. He forced his eyes closed and sucked in his breath.

"I'm Flim, Miss Mosaic," he gently corrected her. "Flam is my brother."

"Ohh?" the flirty mare asked, whispering into his left ear. "Does it matter?"

Pushed back onto his rump, the con-pony and inventor coughed, daring to open his eyes and compose himself when he could feel the mare back off. Quickly running his hooves through his peppermint colored mane, Flim pinched his cheek, using the little spark of pain to help control his thoughts. He knew he couldn't afford to have his mind impaired when dealing with... important investors.

"Your machine does not appear to be in the condition we require it," another mare said, standing in the middle of a smoking teleportation circle. She was virtually identical to the one that had been snuggling him, save for the severe and humorless expression on her face and her stock of bright red for mane and tail, contrasting with her sisters' blue, done up in a librarian's bun and folded tail-knot.

The other mare strutted over to the other mare's side, smiling pleasantly.

"Our apologies, Ladies," Flam spoke up, moustache twitching as he smelt the magic around the two unicorn mares. It was heady, confusing, inebriating.

"We expect you in Ponyville tomorrow," the red-maned one continued, not caring for Flim's apology. "The Apple Family begins Cider Season in two days. You must arrive a day early."

"The modifications to the Squeezy have taken longer than we initially planned," Flim offered, seeing Flam shrink back from the strict mare. Neither brother even knew their names, only that these two had been willing to support them and fund them on their way to Ponyville's next apple harvest. They were mysterious benefactors who arrived and departed only by teleportation. They had mentioned being part of the noble Mosaic Family, but privately, Flim just called them 'Red' and 'Blue.'

"What's the problem, Flam?" Blue asked, once again mixing their names up.

"It's Flim, Miss Mosaic."

Nevermind that both sisters, twins, were technically Miss Mosaic.

"Flim? Flam! Whatever!" Blue exclaimed, still giddy as a schoolfilly. "What's the problem with the Cider Squeezy? You guys said it would be ready." Her light orange eyes took on a dewy pout. "You promised it would be ready!"

"You signed a contract with me," Red reminded them. "Failure to abide by the terms of our arrangement will not be tolerated."

Flim and Flam both gulped in stereo. As weird as she was, it really was much more pleasant dealing with just Blue and avoiding her scary sister entirely. Luckily, Blue turned to said sister, whispered in her ear, and trotted forward. Sill smiling. Flim couldn't recall her ever losing that perpetual smile.

"Is there any way we can help?" Blue asked, batting her eyes.

"First of all, the upgraded Squeezy needs to be properly and thoroughly tested before we risk using it on this sort of scale," Flim explained in a professional, engineering tone. "We can probably finish swapping out all the low amplitude gems tonight. Thanks to your generous contributions, we've converted entirely to high amplitude gems..."

"Despite the cost," Flam added.

"But the chassis may not be able to keep up with the increased power," Flim picked back up, used to speaking in tandem with his brother. "A failure in one part could result in a breakdown lasting days. Somepony could even get hurt. The Squeezy is a delicate machine."

"We need more time," Flam said, simply. "Even with all the bits we've been given to make the upgrades you wanted, we're only two stallions."

"I hope you understand that we can't risk an accident. Our livelihoods, literally every bit we have to our name, is wrapped up in this," Flim finished, patting the side of the Squeezy.

Standing further back, Red narrowed her eyes in silent displeasure.

"I totally understand!" Blue announced, bouncing up to him close enough to rub noses. "You need to work super hard to make the deadline! Right?"

"Y-yes, that's it exactly, Miss Mosaic," Flim muttered. "Please accept our apology..."

She just giggled. "Silly stallion! That's not a problem at all!"

"I - eh - uh, what?"

"I said," Blue repeated, teasingly tapping his nose with her own. "That's not a problem at all! Not for us! Sis and I are great at motivating ponies!"

"You... are?" Flam asked, glancing from Blue to her somber sister, Red.

"Oh yeah! We're super motivational ponies! That's our special talent even!" She slowly trotted over to the mustached stallion, a mysterious smile on her face. "All we have to do is motivate you to do the work of four stallions in half the time. Without sleep."

"All you have to do?" Flim asked, raising an eyebrow as he nervously ran a hoof through his mane. A glance at Red didn't provide any answers either, but he could only imagine the sort of answer these mares could give. What kind of motivation was Blue talking about?

"You don't know me, yet, but my name is Euporie," Blue told them, giving her tail a cute little flick as she took one bounced over to where her sister stood. She smiled prettily as she explained, "I motivate ponies. This'll be easy!"

Euporie's own smile was radiant. Magical, even.

"My name is Eunomie, and while I am not prone to boasts, I do believe our combined talents will resolve this to everypony's mutual satisfaction," Red assured them. "Tomorrow, you will enter Ponyville. No delays."

Flim and Flam anxiously licked their lips but bowed in acquiescence, at least willing to give their new sponsors the benefit of the doubt. Realistically, their choices were extremely limited. Their financial situation hadn't exactly been sunshine and rainbows earlier, but now they were deep in debt to the two Mosaic twins. Red - Eunomie - had even had them sign a legally binding contract. One that apparently included a clause that they could not have a copy of their own. It really was "sink or swim" at this point. Either the Ponyville con went off as planned, and they paid off their debts in full - and more! Or...

Flam coughed, adjusting his untied black bow tie.

"Miss Mosaic," he said, and both mares turned to stare at him, one bubbly and smiling, the other icy cold and glaring. The attention only added to the stallion's nervousness. "I've been thinking."

"Go on," Eunomie prompted.

"About what, Flim?" Euporie asked.

"I'm not... ah, nevermind. When we get to Ponyville and begin to undercut the town's Apple farmers," Flam said, repeating himself as he spoke up a little louder. "Won't the local nobility step in to protect their business interests? I mean, we've been chased out of towns before, and even when the con worked, it really only stuck until the local Baroness drove us out with subsidies. What if that happens here?"

"You describe this situation as if this it were a problem," Eunomie answered, her severe expression still not cracking despite her twin sister’s amused snickering. "So long as you have the papers we gave you, you can not be legally prevented from operating a business. And so long as I hold you to my contract, you will be ... protected from uncomfortable questioning."

Flim felt a bead of sweat run down his forehead. What did that mean?

"And if the local noble bails out the apple farmers...?" Flam inquired. "What then?"

Eunomie's lip finally twitched in what might have passed for a smile. Euporie, on the other hoof, broke out into wild giggles.

"Like anything else," Eunomie lectured the two brothers, a dark and intimidating counterpoint to her ever smiling and laughing sister. "Even the Magic of Friendship can be crushed by golden bits."

Chapter Fifteen : Battles of Honor and Cider

(15)

Battles of Honor and Cider

Rarity melted into the guilty pleasure that was a skilled brush running through her mane.

"Oh. Light Touch, have I mentioned how divine you are? Simply divine."

"You have, my Lady," Light Touch replied from behind her, continuing her ministrations. The tension of the day evaporated under the supple hooves and practiced strokes of Blueblood's superbly skilled maidservant. The light blue mare was worth her weight in gold and then some. Utterly relaxed into the bedroom's fainting couch, savoring the pampering that signified the end of a long day, Rarity finally felt removed from all the troubles she had faced... and the ones that appeared on the horizon.

The odious fighting with Yumi's henchponies outside Ponyville; the mad rush after finding about Twilight and Rainbow being attacked; the mental exhaustion of weighing her options, for and against dragging her dear friends deeper into her own mess... it all seemed distant. For a time, at least. It was all left to fade into the background noise in the more remote reaches of her mind, alongside worries of how to finance her gifts to Ponyville: the new reservoir project for the pegasi she had a surveyor looking into, the new mage tower Twilight had suggested and last, but not least, the renovation and rebuilding of the town hall that had been promised Mayor Mare. If it had been possible, she would have taken up the suggestions of all her friends, but those three were the most practical projects on the table.

A more cynical side of her also had to admit that the idea of her gifts being things of permanence was attractive as well. Long after she was gone, she would leave Ponyville a better place than it had been when she was born into it. Ponies would be able to point to her gifts to the town and remember. It was egotistical - she knew that - but hopefully history and her friends wouldn't begrudge her that teeny tiny bit of narcissism. She was paying for it, after all!

"Mmmm..." Rarity sighed softly as a bundle of her mane found itself set to roller for the night. "Oh, that reminds me. Blueblood tells me your birthday is... a week from now, isn't that it? And the Art Festival is in a few days! Would like me to fit you for a dress?"

"One of my Lady's designs?" Light Touch asked, but continued, guessing correctly at the answer. "If it please my Lady, I would be honored."

"It really would please me," Rarity replied, a little sliver of exasperation escaping despite her relaxed mood. "I miss my shop. I miss..." she shook her head, resisting another sigh. "I miss things I never thought I would. As I can no longer sell dresses, or anything else, I can at least make them and give them to those close to me! I dare somepony to tell me I can not do at least that."

"I pity the pony to bear such ill tidings," Blueblood's voice heralded his entrance to the room. Rarity couldn't help but smirk at the distinctly feminine curlers in his own mane and dual nightcap he had with him - by which she meant both the light cloth protecting his mane and the tiny glass of brandy floating alongside the Prince. He disrobed easily and flashily, teleporting out of his robes and over to the bed, leaving his clothes momentarily suspended in midair. Sandy, the poor dear, hurried to catch them before they fell to the floor.

"Light Touch, I wanted to ask, before we were so rudely interrupted-"

"Rudely?" Blueblood inquired with mock offense, reclining on the bed with a small book.

"Before that," Rarity began again. "I wanted to ask where you were from, if you don't mind me asking? I'd like to add some details to your dress to reflect any local flair...?"

"My Lady, I was born in Whinnychester, but I'm afraid there is little flair to my background." Light Touch didn't sound upset by that fact. "Sandy, however, comes from exotic Bitaly. She may even have Imperial blood."

The younger, dusky brown unicorn meekly shook her head. "I never said... I mean I don't know, but... I doubt it."

"Still, Bitaly itself is quite exotic, to say nothing of Mareabia!"

"The Quartz Family is singularly intolerable," Blueblood commented from the sidelines. "The richest pony in Equestria could arrive in their lands with a full purse and leave the next day without a bit to his... or her name."

"Since my sweet, oh so charming Prince feels the need to interject himself into every conversation-"

"Not every conversation." Blueblood only had one eye on his open book, the other meeting her gaze with an amused twinkle.

"Every conversation," Rarity repeated, a bit more of her good cheer leaving her as one or two thoughts from before came back to the forefront. "There was also a matter I wanted to bring up with you."

"Ah. Sounds serious," he observed, rightly for once. "What is it? The gendarme business?"

"There was that, earlier. I'm still not sure I'm doing the right thing, dragging everypony into this mess. Your mess, really. Or our mess, now." Rarity's shoulders slumped and she leaned back into her fainting couch to try and get comfortable again.

"I think it would be more of a fight to keep some of them from not getting involved." Blueblood shrugged, but had the decency to put away his book while he talked with her about things. "Even Fluttershy wants to help, and that little pony wouldn't hurt a fly. Literally, she would avoid the fly. Or politely ask it for right of way. The rest would have to be chained down to keep them out of the fray."

"And I doubt the chain would even work on Pinkie Pie!"

"Oh no, that would require a twenty four hour elite guard, dedicated solely to keeping her from jumping in to help. Around the clock magical surveillance." He laughed with her, rolling his eyes. "I still don't know how she does what she does. The mare could confound Starswirl himself."

"It... the issue is..." Rarity hesitated a bit, wondering if he would just guess at it. Unfortunately, the Prince's perception only extended so far. He gave her a questioning look that seemed to say, 'well?'

"This morning, during the fight with Yumi's pegasus guard, Cool Breeze, I felt... I was excited by facing her. Defeating her." She hastened to give voice to her own reasoning and rationale. "Of course, I'm sure that feeling is only natural. Since the duel with Antimony, I've trained to defend myself and Ponyville. It makes sense that finally putting all that into practice would get the blood flowing. I understand that."

"...But?"

"But... I am not a fighter, Blueblood," she admitted with unveiled worry. "I do not want to be one. I do not want to be like Antimony... taking pleasure in fighting... and from the sound of it, this Ritter mare seems to be cut from the same sort of cloth. The dueling and the intrigues... don't you see how it goes to their heads? I can't be like that." She frowned, despite Light Touch's hooves massaging her shoulders. "I won't."

Blueblood studied her for a moment before smiling, reassuringly. "My dear, you won't be."

"How do you know?" she pressed.

"It isn't just that I do think I know you fairly well, but I know Antimony - admittedly less well - and I know Ritter. You fight for very different reasons than they do. And if that changes in the future..." He held his hoof to his chest as a vow. "I promise you will be the second, or maybe third to know!"

Despite her worry, his antics brought a smile to her face. "Pinkie Promise?"

"Must I?"

"I suppose I can let you get off with a regular promise this once."

"Element of Generosity, indeed."

Rarity rolled her eyes. Her mane nearly readied for bed and her spirits lifted a bit, she adjusted her posture on the fainting couch a bit to be a little more flirty. He noticed right away, but it served to throw him off balance when she asked a follow up question that had occurred to her only recently.

"How did you feel after winning your first duel?" Privately, she wondered if he had experienced the same heady rush that -

Blueblood raised a noble eyebrow. "What makes you think I've ever won a duel?"

Only a last second save kept her from falling off the couch.

"Be serious!" she demanded.

"I am being serious. Mostly serious." He conjured up the book he had closed so it floated around over his head like a captured moon. "I'm no duelist. I've never pretend to be otherwise. Really, what makes you think I've won any serious duels at all?"

"You've... never won a...?" Rarity bit her tongue before finishing that sentence, realizing how rude it had to sound. "I mean..."

"Fighting and dueling was never a high priority for me," her Prince admitted, throwing chivalry and the myth of courtly, noble bravery to the wind. "I never told you...? Not this-you..."

"This me?"

"Ah! Nevermind that!" He sat up on the bed, putting the book aside again. "Long story short - actually, maybe this is something I should go into more detail about? Hm. What to say? You must have been quite young, but you know when my father died?"

Rarity nodded. She remembered hearing it from her parents: the Prince, their Prince, had passed away. She didn't even know what he looked like. Not off the top of her head, though surely Blueblood had pictures or paintings of his family somewhere. Didn't he? Thinking on it, she couldn't recall any pictures of his family in his manor home.

"My father died dueling Lord Cruciger," Blueblood explained, pausing and closing his eyes for a moment. "His rib cage was... broken. Crushed." He held up a hoof, and slowly lowered it down against the soft sheets of the bed. "Like one would step on an egg, or..."

For a moment, he had a distant look to his blue eyes.

"Or... like a donut, where all the filling comes out." His description sent a shiver down her spine, and even Sandy and Light Touch had frozen at the words and the implication. Blueblood quickly shook out of his stupor and shrugged. "We couldn't even have an open casket for his funeral. His face was intact, at least, praise Celestia."

"You... saw that?" Rarity dared to ask, moving to get up and hug him, like she would any of her friends, much less this stallion who had come to mean so much to her. "Oh, Blueblood..."

"It was a long time ago," he quickly added, motioning for her to remain, and that he was fine. Still, she got up off the couch to at least sit nearby, at the edge of the bed.

"I was told to take pride in the fact that Lord Cruciger did not escape unscarred, but... that sort of thing is small comfort, really. A tragedy, everypony said. I was promptly crowned the next day and given the Duchy. Long live the Duke, three cheers, huzzah, huzzah, huzzah." Looking away from her, he still wore a wan smile. "I was terrified of dueling after that. Terrified."

"Any pony would be," Rarity assured him, touching a hoof to his side. "It isn't something to be ashamed of."

"It was, though," he said, turning to face her and holding her hoof with his own. "I was Duke. I was a Prince, and the one and only thing that was asked of me was to maintain appearances. That includes at least having the courage ponies expect of their Duke of Dukes. That simply is the way of the world. When I was little... I told my mother the essence of what I just told you. That I was afraid."

He shook his head; Rarity already knew he had a mixed view of his mother.

"She told me, 'one day, you will find out what honor means to you, and see the value of defending it, even to the death.' I lived all the way up to just a few months ago not having found anything worth defending, much less risking death for. One of the saddest things is that... even up to the day she died, I don't think I ever measured up to my father in my mother's eyes. But who can know for sure?"

"That," he concluded. "Is why I am not exactly the stallion to come to for tales of dueling and honor."

Rarity, at a loss for words, could only express her sympathy with her eyes. There was so much tragedy in -

"Hold me!" he exclaimed, jumping shamelessly into her forelegs to rub his cheek against her chest. "I'm so sad, only physical intimacy can make me feel better!"

A second later, he found himself sprawled out on the floor.

"Aww!" he whined. "No pity sex?"

"What kind of a Prince are you?!" Rarity loomed out over the edge of the bed, shaking an accusing hoof at him. "Honestly! You lecherous colt! Making a grab for me like that!"

Blueblood grinned up at her, both of them knowing that at least he had snapped them out of the dour spirit left by his story. He really was a terrible Prince: not very noble at all! What charms he had were entirely unorthodox or improper. He couldn't even brood properly over a tragic past.

Simply terrible.

"There was one duel, though," he told her, still upside down with his legs in the air. "I think even Auntie agreed that I had to come to accept that a pony like me - stars and heavens, especially a pony like me when I was growing up - that I was bound to end up challenged and dueled."

"Especially a pony like you?" Rarity asked, skeptical. "Why the 'especially' in there?"

"Oh, I was a naughty little colt!" he exclaimed with another lusty grin. "Did I ever tell you about my second governess, the young one, and how I snuck into her quarters once to..."

He coughed, self-consciously, as he finally took stock of her cross expression.

"Forget about that. Where was I again?" he asked, scratching his chin. "Oh yes, well, after I returned from Crown Roc, you've heard that one before, I had the pleasure of meeting my newly adopted step-sister. Just before my mother's funeral."

"Princess Cadance?"

"Mi Amore Cadenza," he didn't recite the name with very much fondness. "A winged unicorn, plucked from the land of her birth to reside in Canterlot as an honored guest and adopted ward of the daughter-less Blueblood family. Just like most everypony, she's a relation, but this time one too close to marry."

"You haven't spoken much of her before," Rarity observed from above him.

"I haven't had much to say about her," Blueblood replied from the floor. "We didn't get along then and we don't get along now. Mostly my fault, really, but that's another story. Skip forward a bit, and I catch wind of this little fling she has going on with some ambitious little would-be royal guard. You may have heard of him from your friend, Twilight Sparkle. Shining Armor?"

Rarity shrugged, not knowing the name.

"Really? Twilight never told you about him? The two are very, very close." He chuckled to himself. "Or they should be. Ask her about him sometime. So, Shining Armor - the colt is a Terre Rare brat. A Canterlot Rare, so not as bad as the rest really, but there was bad blood from the start. I didn't like him."

"You said something, didn't you?" Rarity could only guess at what.

"Something unkind. I did indeed!" Blueblood pointed up at her. "I won't say what, only that it was quite inappropriate for a colt of my age, and that everypony agreed it was both witty and scathing."

"You like to toot your own horn, don't you?"

"Not at all. I much prefer beautiful mares do it for me."

"Ugh!"

"Now, let me finish this tale of martial glory! So Shining Armor, being a beacon of Canterlot values, not to mention a good, stalwart, self-sacrificing son of the Terre Rare-" Blueblood said that part with embellished disdain. "-he challenges me to defend the honor of his Lady. I accept, mostly because I really liked the idea of sending him back home with his tail between his legs, but also because he was about the same age as me and twice as clumsy. He was in that gangly legs phase. We were just old enough to duel, since we both had our cutie marks, but still too young to do it without supervision. I knew Auntie had my back."

The Prince rested the palm of his hoof against his face, undoing one of the mane curlers.

"So the appointed day comes, sunrise, and we go out there. Two little colts. We go through all the stupid pomp and ceremony. Grievances this and grievances that. Shining Armor calls me a 'stupid jerk' and I call him a 'ruffian with no class' and then he calls me a 'fop' and then I call him a 'lackwit' and this goes back and forth until he says I have 'a mane like a filly' and then I ask if he 'wants to kiss me, now, instead of Cadance.' So stupid."

"Even back then, he had his shield spells. He's famous for them now, you know." Blueblood tried to animate the fight with his hooves in the air, drawing rough shapes for the field. "I knew all about it, and came to the duel with a spell so the pastry would chase him around and wait for his shield to drop."

"That actually sounds pretty useful!" Rarity was impressed. If she had a spell like that -

"Oh, it worked wonderfully. At chasing ponies. It just wasn't very discriminating in its targets."

"Oh?" She suddenly had the image of the havoc caused by pony-seeking cupcakes laced with numbing agent flying wildly around Canterlot. "Ooooh!"

"We spent almost an hour running around, somehow possessed of enough magic to try and duel, but absolutely no common sense or experience. Finally, he manages to hit me with... stars, what was it? Some sort of cruller, covered in icing, I think. Bam! Right on the nose. I fell down."

He paused in the story, pursing his lips.

"Actually, a bit like I am right now!" he objected, from face up on the floor. "But then he rushes over, babbling. 'Are you okay? I didn't break your nose, did I? If it's broken, can I see it?' Mostly I remember him saying 'I didn't mean to hit you so hard!'"

"I then asked him," Blueblood continued quickly, motioning with his hooves. "'How hard did you mean to hit me then, you oaf?' And he says - he says to me, 'Just hard enough for you to remember it, your Grace.'"

Blueblood laughed at the memory, but Rarity was already barely restraining her own amusement at the picture he painted. She still remembered seeing him as a colt, that one time he had visited Ponyville to renew his Ducal vows. It had been enough then to plant the seeds for a decade of daydreams. She had never imagined him actually doing anything foal-like, though he must have been a child, even with his title.

"The crullers didn't even have the usual numbing agent," he admitted as his chuckles died down. "I think... I think that was the only duel I've had that I enjoyed. For what that's worth. And after it was over, Auntie took us to the Palace and we had lunch and ice cream. I think we were her entertainment for the afternoon."

"What happened to Shining Armor?"

"That same oaf became the Captain of the Royal Guard." Blueblood shuddered, but only in humor. "He'll be my very well removed brother in law once he finally marries Cadance. Yours too."

Rarity was a moment away from cracking a joke of her own, when she realized something. Something Blueblood himself possibly hadn't.

"Was that...?" She asked, cautiously. "Did you just...?"

Propose to me?

"What?" he asked, seeing her confusion but not the reason why. It took a moment, mentally backtracking, for him to realize it, too. And, for once, it left him a little speechless. "Oh, uh - well - I, that is..."

"Come on up," Rarity finally offered, holding out a single, manicured hoof to help pull him back up and onto the bed. "Next time, make it romantic."

"Romantic. Duly noted."

"On that topic, though, I should probably meet this step-sister-in-law I'm probably going to have.... w-what's so funny?"

"My dear, you already have. One of them. You see, Shining Armor is..."

Twilight Sparkle shot out of bed with a start.

Glancing around the room, her attention lingering on Spike's empty little bed near the door, she couldn't quite place where that sudden feeling of night terror had come from. Suspiciously narrowing her eyes, the Element of Magic lowered herself back under the warm covers.

It was probably nothing anyway.

Afternoon.

It was just an hour after the merciless sun reached its apex, the perfect time of day to grab a quick nap in the shade or sleepily finish another chapter of Daring Do and the Ocarina of Time. That was what any normal pegasus would be doing. Unfortunately, it wasn't what Rainbow Dash was doing.

Oh no.

Rainbow Dash spiraled, face first, into a cloud bank, her impact kicking up wave-like whips of fluffy white vapor. By the time she came to a complete halt, having carved a trench in the cloud with her face, only her flank stuck straight up out of the cloud, a multi-colored tail draping limply between her legs. It took a second or two for the weathermare to recover enough to sputter and kick her way free, falling flat on her stomach.

"Uuh. It's too hot for this kind of stuff..." Dash groaned, petulantly closing her eyes as something fast and blue zipped in from the corner of her vision. "I could sure go for a nap right now."

"And I could really go for some pecan pie," a stallion's voice replied, "but we don't always get what we want, Rainbow Dash. You hear me? If you want to beat Ritterkreuz, you need to work harder! Train harder! Push your body to the limit of endurance and put aside everything else except for-"

"PIE DELIVERY!"

"Aw, sweet! My pie's here!"

"Hey, what was that about not getting what we want?" Dash growled, still sprawled out on the cloud even as her trainer and Wonderbolt hero bounced up and down like a hyperactive little kid.

"I don't know how you're doing it or what the crazy machine is, lady, but I think I love you!" Soarin exclaimed, already inhaling the smell of incoming pie. "And this town! I've dreamed of pie deliveries for so long...! You're like a dream come true!"

"Oh, hehehe!"

Dash's left eye twitched as Soarin and Pinkie flirted shamelessly to the methodical 'thump-a-whump' of the party pony's strange flying machine. She closed her eyes and tried to shut it out: pie this and pie that. Apparently the acclaimed Wonderbolt had checked out the local confectionary and bakery stores yesterday, realizing he would be flying over Ponyville for at least a week, and discovered that Sugarcube Corner now had deliveries. Even to cloud-homes. Or more likely Pinkie Pie had come up with the silly idea on a lark.

No matter how it started, it was breakfast pies - somehow - and brunch pies and now lunch pies, and give it a few more hours, she would probably fly up to deliver dinner pies, too. Soarin was lucky he had good credit. By the end of the week his tab with Mr and Mrs Cake was bound to be record breaking and/or career ending. If Pinkie Pie didn't run him ragged first. The poor stallion had no idea what he was getting into.

"...as for the filling... surprise me..."

"I always try to surprise everypony, so that's no problem at all!"

"Enough with the pies!!" Dash exploded off the cloud and shook her entire body like a dog, spraying water from her crash over her trainer and best friend. Both of them were being so annoying!

Huffing and puffing as she caught her breath, Pinkie and Soarin at least looked a little guilty. Up to and until Soarin slowly raised the pie he had ordered to his mouth to take an obnoxiously slow and deliberate bite. He was looking pretty damn casual despite kicking her into a cloud just a minute ago! Dash was about to say just that when Pinkie filled her vision, the party pony's legs churning to keep herself aloft on her gyro-copter-thingie.

"Hey, Dashie, you've got a - a bit of cloud... I'll get it..." A pink hoof tried to wipe a bit of cloud off her friend's face, only to pass right through the condensed vapor. "Just - just a second. I'll get it."

Again with the hoof in her face.

"Almost got it. Wait. Almost. Hold on. Just about. Wow, that's slippery. Almost..."

"You'll never almost get it!" Dash angrily batted the cloud out of her mane. "You can't interact with clouds, remember!"

"Oh yeah!" Pinkie banked around with her flying machine into a tight circle. When she came about, she somehow had a small box balanced on the tip of her nose. "I got some lunch for you, too! Eat up!"

"Huh? Lunch? For me? Hey, thanks!" Dash gleefully snatched up the box of sweets, ripping the top off and popping a slice of coffee cake into her mouth. As one would expect from Sugarcube Corner, it was delicious! There were also a few cookies inside, along with some sort of round disk-like pastry sprinkled with dusted sugar. Picking one out for an experimental bite, Dash was rewarded with a blast of raspberry goodness. Sugarcube Corner had the BEST stuff in Ponyville, bar none!

With food like this, the silliness could be forgiven... for a little while longer anyway.

"So how's the training going? Huh? Is there anything I can help with? Oh! I know! How about sticking a party cannon on your back?" She turned to Soarin, eyes lit up and already imagining the insane possibilities. "Can you do that? Or we could put one under each wing! Or better still, we could put it under your chin and call you a warthog! Then we could put firecrackers and lots of rockets under your wings instead!"

"Wait. What?" Dash finished chewing one of the cookies and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "First of all, why 'warthog?' Why not something cooler... like Thunderbolt!"

"Warthogs are cool," Pinkie argued, but not very persuasively. "You can try Thunderbolt, but it won't catch on."

"What's she talking about again?" Soarin asked, already confused. Dash shook her head. He wouldn't be able to keep up with Pinkie at the rate he was going. His tolerance for the crazy just wasn't up to it yet.

Rainbow Dash shrugged, helplessly. "Beats me. I usually just pick the one part that makes sense and run with it."

Pinkie just giggled. Still nibbling away at her lunch, Dash saw that Soarin had already finished his pie and had the empty platter spinning idly around one of the feathers on his right wing, much to Pinkie's amusement. Since they had a moment, the pink pony removed one of her forelegs from the handlebars of her flying machine to reach down and retrieve what looked like a mug of cider. Of course, that wasn't possible. Cider season was still more than a day away and AJ's family always stuck to the same schedule, refusing to bend even for pleading cider-starved friends.

Heedless of that fact, Pinkie Pie took a swig from her stein and came back with a rather distinctive cider-moustache that she promptly wiped away with her tongue. Her unusually long tongue. But what the heck! Was that cider?! How had she talked Applejack into giving her cider before cider season!?

"What is that?" Dash asked with strained casualness. Even Soarin seemed to notice the tension in her voice as he looked from pegasus mare to earth pony and back again.

"What? This? Oh! I'm so glad you asked!" Pinkie tapped the mug, now safely locked in place below the handlebars of her gyro-copter. "This is my new, super special, half-liter clip-on mug holder! I actually have three of them, one for the front seat and one for the passenger side - oh wait, I don't have a passenger side - and one in the back. I mean, I don't really have a back seat yet either, but you could hold onto the back and hope you don't fall. And while you're back there, you have a place to put your cider! Isn't that neat?"

"I meant the cider."

Pinkie blinked. "What. But. My cup holder. Isn't it neat?"

"Uhh..."

"It's amazing!!" Soarin rushed forward to grab hold of Pinkie's gyro-copter, his eyes wide and sparkling with joy. "A way to hold your drink while flying! Awesome! You're a genius, Miss Pie!"

Dash's expression fell and Pinkie pointed slyly over to her recently acquired Wonderbolt admirer.

"See? Some-pony likes my ideas." She leaned over the edge of her handlebars to stare deeply into Soarin's eyes, coquettishly batting her eyelashes. "You really think I'm a genius? Tell me more."

"You have to make one for me!" Soarin pleaded, letting go of her copter to grasp one of her hooves. "Please? So simple, so functional, but so stylish! Finally, a way for a pegasus on the go to bring his drink with him! You could put it on a harness of something!"

"I meant the cider! The cider!" Dash exclaimed, stomping one hoof into the cloud beneath them. "You two can get a private cloud later! Where. Did. You. Get. That. Cider."

"So this is what it will look like?" Mayor Mare inquired, looking cross eyed at the architect's scale model. "Must it be so... tall? Ponies will be able to see it from clear across town."

"By nature, mage towers are rather tall," Filly Buster's observation was dry, but accurate. The gray old stallion happened to be the town's Assemblypony and representative in the Equestrian Lower House. Like Ponyville's Mayor, he had been a civil servant all his life, the difference being that he spent most of his time in Canterlot. "It obeys our zoning ordinances for constructions outside the town center."

"I'm sure you've already given the project your blessing," Mayor Mare replied under her breath.

"Mares in glass houses, Mayor."

"I think it looks great!" Twilight Sparkle circled around the back of the miniature tower. The Mayor and Assemblypony had been invited over for a viewing of the planned project on behalf of the potential architects chosen. Mage towers were more common in Equestria than office buildings - of which Ponyville already had plans to construct at least one - but since they were inevitably hubs for unicorns, most of the design firms that specialized in them had headquarters in Canterlot.

"I especially like the arrangement of the refractor and dome up top!" Twilight continued, utterly engrossed. Crouching down so the base of the tower was at eye level, she oh-so carefully reached up towards the observatory pinnacle, where a tiny model lens stuck out.

"Our design," the chief architect for the proposal batted away her hoof. "Will be a fully functional and stand-alone facility, accommodating all the traditional facets of a Canterlot Mage tower, but with the added benefits of a much wider foundation space. The sort of benefits that can only really be found in the country, like this."

The engineer-pony, a large bodied Canterlot unicorn stallion with a slide-rule for a cutie mark, magically pointed over to the blueprint on display. A beam of light from his horn produced a red spot that circled one of the lower foundation sections.

"We have an astrophysical laboratory here, on the sun-wing, along with a mechanical workshop. The Lunar wing is primarily living quarters for resident mages, the third floor having a amenities and quarters for the Archmage and Curator. Further up, we have rooms and field-supports for magical experimentation and tutelage, the traditional 'spiral library' occupying the first third of the tower proper..."

"Finally!" He circled the top of the spire. "Our design can incorporate a switching 76 centimeter heliostatic refractor and zonal astrograph. We can also add a revolutionary, new 20 centimeter Bittrow spectrograph with a magically augmented twelve meter achromat. Our design firm's partnership with Canterlot Optics ensures the installation of only the highest quality observatory equipment. We recently constructed a mage tower in Buckingham capable of five point five arc-second per millimeter spatial recognition imaging."

"And the lens?" Twilight asked, bouncing with excitement. "What about the lens!"

"Our achromatic refractor lenses are produced by Glassoix Brothers in Prance."

"I used their eight-eight centimeter lens once in Canterlot!" Twilight gushed, zipping back over to the model in glee. "It was amazing! We'll take it!"

"Madam Baroness?" the architect inquired, bowing to his would-be employer and waiting for her say-so.

Rarity has been listening in silence for most of the morning, knowing next to nothing herself about mage towers or observatories. Really, all the projects she was prepared to fund and begin construction on were out of her depth. One mage tower really seemed the same as any other, at least functionally. Only one of the designs had been aesthetically objectionable. This one was a very traditional ivory tower for the most part, but with an expanded three story base. She could picture it on the stately hill overlooking the town.

...And Twilight did like it.

"Very well," she decided in favor of the proposal, raising a hoof and waving it to indicate the matter was now closed. "Make the arrangements."

"As you say, my Lady."

The Canterlot unicorn bowed a second time, deeply, and quickly packed up his things to leave. All except the scale model, which Twilight insisted on keeping. Rarity could already see the day dreams in the studious unicorn's head: losing herself in the spiraling staircases and endless rows of books, spending all night in the stuffy observatory, constantly pestering whatever poor mages did move in to run the tower. She'd get away with it, too, since it would be the Sparkle Tower Observatory.

"Yes, well, we have yet to decide on the matter of the second reservoir," Filly Buster warned, though he knew as well as anypony present that his stamp of approval was mostly a formality. He stole a quick look at Ponyville's new Baroness, his golden eyes hiding a very well concealed disdain.

Filly Buster, like all Assemblyponies in Equestria, occupied the lower legislative house of the Stable of Lords. The upper house was fully populated by nobleponies from across the country and it had the real power, controlling all issues of taxation and appropriation. The lower house was full of lawyers who did the difficult work of wording and writing laws. Like many in his position, he was not very fond of Equestria's entrenched aristocracy, a point of view that may or may not have been made worse by his being an earth pony while most nobles were unicorns.

The Assemblypony adjusted his black tie and smoothed back his ice-blue mane.

"Mayor Mare?" he asked, tilting his head in her direction.

"Ah. The reservoir? Yes!" Mayor Mare coughed and deferred the decision. As usual. "Miss Sparkle! What was your overview on the reservoir plans?"

"Oh, that." Twilight's interest faded rather noticeably. She floated the model mage tower over to a safe spot in her library while thinking up her response. "Hard to say, really. All the ideas have some merit."

Filly Buster frowned, sighed even, until he noticed Rarity frowning. Then on came the usual veiled, shallow smile. He was up for re-election soon, and winning over the pegasus community in Ponyville by being associated with a new reservoir was win-win for him. The new Baroness was bankrolling everything; all he had to do was go along with it but that didn't seem to be enough for the esteemed legislator. Rarity had never met her 'representative' in the House of Lords before, but she had developed a rather negative view of him since becoming Baroness. The former dressmaker was quite sure the feeling was mutual, though neither pony would admit as much.

"The easiest solution-" by which Filly Buster likely meant the quickest solution. "-is simply to tap into Ponyville's Puddinghead Lake, behind the dam. We have a massive volume of water up there in the mountains. I know for a fact that Canterlot doesn't use even a drop of it. We can have a new spillway built, and..."

"Puddinghead is supposed to be recreation-only," Mayor Mare spoke up, showing she had at least paid attention earlier when the proposals had been introduced by the environmental surveyors. "Isn't it? I'm sure it is. Fairly sure."

"Do you know anypony who actually goes up there to fish or swim?" Buster argued and the Mayor relented. "Even before the new dam, I think it was... what? The backyard for some noble family or another. Before they went bankrupt. I say we finally get some use out of it!"

"The lake itself is part of a preserve," Twilight recalled.

"So we drain it a little," the Assemblypony urged. "It isn't drinkable. It's too far from town to be of any commercial use. We don't have tourists visiting it. Tap it. For silver bits we can restock a second service reservoir twice the size of our current one! Three times, even! We could sell water instead of importing it."

"What was the volume of the Highland Reservoir outside town?" Rarity asked.

"Six hundred and ninety thousand cubic hooves," Twilight answered, taking control of the conversation with the model tower distraction out of the way. Or at least out of sight. "That's the theoretical maximum. Current capacity is only eighty percent. Rarity, I think Assemblypony Filly Buster has the right of it. Given the alternatives, tapping Puddinghead Lake is probably the cheapest and easiest proposal."

"Thank you, Miss Sparkle."

"But," Twilight hastened to add, "ponies do go up there more than you think, Assemblypony. The land was also a part of Canterlot before Ponyville was founded."

"You leave that to me, ladies." Filly Buster smirked, knowingly. "I have friends in Canterlot who can smooth over these sorts of 'problems.' When the land was vacated, it defaults to the closest municipality."

"Are you sure we're closer to the lake than Canterlot?"

"No. But I am sure my lawyers can press our claim harder than Canterlot will."

"Everfree is out, as you know," Rarity reminded them. "I spoke to Blueblood about it, and he said what he always says about Everfree."

"That it's full of monsters?" Twilight guessed, snapping her hooves. "Or that he'd sooner sit on a nail than spend ten minutes there? Or that the outline of it from above looks like a skull with the castle as one of the eyes?"

"That it is a protected this-and-that," the seamstress turned Baroness said, rolling her eyes. "Though he has said those other things, too. Just as well: I wouldn't want to upset poor Steven anyway, so I don't mind that much that we can't use it. He said Froggy Bottom was a possibility, on the border as it is... but Fluttershy..."

Twilight nodded. "She'd be really broken up if we drained it. She has friends there."

"Friends? What, like frogs and fish?" Filly Buster gave the three mares a strange look. "Really?" he asked in a droll voice. "Frogs."

"And beavers and ducks and other animals," Rarity told him. "We can get more water from the lake, without damaging it, than we could from Froggy Bottom."

"Good! We're all agreed then? There's really no need to beat around the bush here!" Filly Buster seemed excited by the prospect, and by the votes it would win him. Mayor Mare, facing no competition for another two years, remained more ambivalent. Rebuilding the town hall was her primary concern. The legislative stallion eagerly rubbed his hooves together.

"I've heard from fellows in Cloudsdale that Ponyville is being seriously considered for the next water drawing," he told them in a tone of voice that was both warning and opportunistic. "We should see to this as soon as possible."

"Agreed." "It will mollify the pegasus constituency." "I think so."

No sooner did they come to a consensus, however, than a ruckus from outside caught their august attention. It sounded like a song and dance number. A big one.

"Is that a..." Twilight's ears twitched. "A steam whistle?"

Applejack shifted the pencil from one side of her mouth to the other.

The barn was stocked and ready: forty barrels ready to be rolled out for cider season. Currently empty, of course. They would fill them up as the week went on, ten per batch, building up an ever increasing supply. Every year she could remember Sweet Apple Acres sold out, especially in the first four days of the season. According to Big Mac's number crunching, they'd end the season a smidge in the black. All the recent disasters - especially those Tartarus-cursed parasprites - had really cut into Sweet Apple Acres' profits.

"Ah guess there's always the rodeo competition, too..." Applejack mused as she looked over one of the barrels, tapping it lightly with a hoof to produce a dull ring. If she won first place this year, the prize money could go straight into the family savings. Thank Celestia Rarity had come up to help fix the town hall, too! If she hadn't, Applejack suspected that she'd end up roped into using the prize money to help the town and not her family.

Then again, the rodeo wasn't any time soon, and in the meantime...

The sound of heavy hoofsteps prompted the apple farmer to check over her shoulder. Her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of her brother, short of breath, his orange mane matted with sweat. Had he run all the way from the town? For that matter, if he was here, who was in town selling apples?

"Big Mac! What in tarnation are you doin' here?" Applejack advanced on her brother, already guessing it had to be something important to send him running pell-mell back home. "Who's mindin' the stall and the market? What's goin' on?"

Succinct as always, Mac said only one word in response:

"Trouble."

"So he's Flim. The other one is Flam?"

"I thought you said the one with the mustache was Flam?"

"I dunno! And I still don't know what nonpareil means!" Pinkie Pie admitted, the usual - and literal - spring in her step. Rainbow Dash flew just off the ground, craning her neck at the mass of ponies gathered around the back of the town marketplace.

Heck, it looked like a party!

A cider party!

Peppermint striped flags with the names 'Flim' and 'Flam' waved from poles and a brightly colored banner advertised a 'cider garden - the Flim Flam experience.' The centerpiece of the whole festival in miniature seemed to be a wheeled contraption, a machine of some sort. There were various barrels, some opened and tapped, and others on display. Ponies crowded around tables and, just by the smell in the air, Rainbow Dash could confirm the rumors. Cider!

"Cider! Free samples! Half price specials! One bit each? Wow!" Dash darted up to a sign... a sign full of different cider flavors. It was like she'd died and gone to cider heaven! Or at least a respectable cider coma.

"Oh! The Appleoosa Express was really tasty!" Pinkie said, quickly catching up to her speedy friend. "And the Apple and Blackberry cider was great, too! Oh, and you have to try the Tom's Rock Hard Cider! Mm-mmm-mmm!"

"so... much... cider..." Dash whispered, and blasted off to the samples table, only to come to a skidding stop in the face of a line that formed and winded around like a snake. Gaining a little altitude, she could see who was holding things up. From the look of things it was the unofficial town 'master of drinks,' Berry Punch, carefully and thoroughly inspecting the wares. She could be at it for hours!

Groaning, Dash skipped the free samples and flew over to where the machine was in operation, sucking up apples from a barrel and processing them into cider. Gears churned and pistons chugged and sparkly green unicorn magic provided the power. A family of ponies were gawking at a transparent window that let ponies see into the guts of the cider squeezer.

Shaking her head, forcing away all other distractions, Dash lived up to her name and took to the actual cider stand with all due speed and discretion. The line was shorter here, mostly because it moved so fast! Flim and Flam already had a bunch of barrels on tap and the machine was filling up more than enough to make up for what ponies drank.

Even while attending to different booths, both unicorns had their horns on full blast, too, probably to power the chugging contraption. Well, they could do whatever they wanted to if it made good cider! It was only a minute or so - feeling like much more - and then Dash found herself at the front of the line, face to face with a smiling unicorn stallion with the same sort of coat and mane colors as Apple Bloom. Opening her mouth to order, the memory of the last few years of cider season suddenly came back to sap some of her enthusiasm.

"You guys have lots of cider still, right?" she asked, just to be sure.

"As much as you can drink, young filly," Flim - it was probably Flim - replied with a friendly, engaging smile. "What can I get ya? First drink's free! Don't forget, if you buy a Super Squeezy Jumbo Mug, you get a discount on your next four drinks!"

"I'll just... I'll have..." Dash's eyes wandered back to another poster advertising all the different cider flavors. "The Appleoosa Express? And, uh, one of the Cloudsdale Unfiltered! And a Tom's Rock Hard!"

"You got it!" Flim concentrated for a moment, a crackle running through the magical aura around his horn. Aside from powering the machine, he was also handling distribution: three mugs zipped through the air in a showy spiral, lining up at three different barrels and filling up with three different types of frothy, thick cider.

The mugs floated over, just out of reach. "Two bits for the three drinks, Miss."

A split second later and the two vibrating coins were flat on the table. Cyan forelegs reached out to claim her cidery treasure, and chuckling to herself, Rainbow Dash carefully made her way around the line behind her.

It had been a running gag at the last few cider seasons to always, always, always find some way to ruin her cider. Even if she finally got a mug of the first-come-first-serve platinum-rare liquid. Not this time. Not this time!!

"Hey Dashie!"

"AHH!" Dash's forelegs flew wide at the sudden surprise, tossing her drinks clear into the air. Blasting off at top speed, a blue blur just managed to grab every one out of midair before any of the mugs could tumble and spill. Wings flapping, Dash slowly lowered herself back to the ground.

"Pinkie PIEEE!!" She whirled on the Element of Laughter. "That wasn't funny!"

Pinkie cocked her head to the side, blinking innocently. "It wasn't?"

"Not at all. I'm guarding these mugs with my life! And, in fact, before I tempt fate any more than I just did by saying that-"

Putting two of the mugs onto a nearby table, Dash picked one and quaffed it in a single, long, luxurious gulp. The tang of apples and the blast of flavor hit right away, drowning out her worries and leaving only a raft of contentment floating on a tranquil sea of satisfaction. The mugs were unlabeled, so she couldn't be sure anymore which one she was drinking, but if it was worth a guess, it had to be the Appleoosa Express. There was a rough and tumble sort of quality to it with a complex aftertaste.

"Aaaaaaaaaa...!" Dash slumped, bonelessly, to the ground. "That's the stuff."

"These guys sure know their cider," Pinkie agreed, and for the first time, Dash noticed what was in her hooves. It was a mug. The mother of all mugs! Bigger than the one she had just drunk from, with pictures of Flim and Flam on it along with an apple, minus a slice, and a slice minus an apple. Probably their cutie marks. Printed in big, pink letters was: Pinkie Pie.

She actually had a mug with her name on it!

"Where did...?" Dash began to ask. "How did...?"

"Oh! I'm already one of their preferred customers!" Pinkie explained, holding out the super sized cider stein. "I got a custom mug and everything! You have to check out the gift store, too! They have a Super Squeezy model kit, and a book on apples, and toys and shirts and games and mugs with your name on them and a rewards program so when you buy cider you get points towards free stuff! I really wanna get the Super Squeezy pinball machine! Do you think the Cakes will mind if I have a pinball machine in my room?"

"Isn't your room right over theirs?"

"Yep!"

"I'm sure they'll be totally cool with it, then." Pulling herself back up, Dash picked out another random mug and downed its contents. This one was more airy than the last, with a flavorful cinnamon taste to it and plenty of frosty head. It had to be the Cloudsdale Unfiltered. Good stuff!

Pinkie took a moment, not responding or anything, just being her usual weird self and checking around Dash's wings. Like she expected to see something there.

"Heeey!" she finally said. "Did you check the bottom of the lunch box I gave you?"

"Noooo."

The party pony did something she rarely did, just then. She groaned.

"There was an invitation at the bottom!" she explained with an upset pout. "How could you miss it?"

"I guess I was distracted. By Soarin's crazy training, or... cider... or you flirting with the guy I'm training with," Dash said that last bit with a little growl. At the inflection there, Pinkie again did something she rarely did: her typical grin morphed into a smirk as she leaned in closer.

"That's not a problem is it?" she asked. "If you want to keep somepony from playing with your toys, Rainbow Dash, you should really put your name on them. Like my name on my new cider mug!"

"That's the last thing on my mind right now. Besides, what about Pokey? Or that jerk, Dan?" Dash tried to gauge her friend's reaction but Pinkie's mind was, as always, pretty much inscrutable and unfathomable. Save for one universal constant, anyway. "So, what, I guess you're throwing a party welcoming him to Ponyville?"

"And Spitfire," Pinkie corrected her, conveniently forgetting the other issues brought up a moment before. "I want her to come too! And any of the other Wonderbolts! Where are they, anyway?"

"Aside from Soarin and Spitfire, I have no idea." Dash tried not to let it worry her. She knew what they were doing. "Probably still chasing that crazy Ritterkreuz. And before you even think it, do not try and give that pony a welcome party!"

Pinkie feigned shock at the mere suggestion. "Consorting with the enemy, me? Pinkie Pie? Does that sound like something I'd do?"

"Yeah. It does."

"Oh yeah. It does sound like something I'd do! So maybe I'll go do it!" Pinkie giggled as she began to recount her upcoming itinerary. "I still have a party planned for Squally and his friends at the hospital today-"

"Squally? You mean those three ponies working for what's her name?"

"Yu-mi!" Pinkie corrected, pronouncing it 'you-me'. "It is a funny name, isn't it? And those are the ones! It's a get-well-soon, sorry-for-bursting-your-bubble-literally party! Then after that-"

"What about your actual work?"

"What about the town's weather?"

For just a moment, the two mares and old friends narrowed their eyes at each other... before breaking into a fit of giggles. There were plenty of other pegasi to mind the weather while their team leader took a few days leave. Thunderlane and Cloudkicker could fill in and step up. As for Pinkie, well, the Cakes seemed to be less her bosses and more like her doting, somewhat indulgent parents. Either that or she had some kind of double or clone doing all the work for her while she zipped around town. With Pinkie Pie, that was an actual possibility.

"Awww, yeah. This is what it's all about, you know?" Turning around to lean bodily against the table, refreshed and already a bit light headed, Dash nodded to herself in leisurely bliss. "Even with all the trouble around us now, this is good. Just taking it easy and-"

"Oh, lookie! Applejack's here!"

And, wouldn't you know it, she did not look happy.

"-and... I should probably learn when to keep my mouth shut."

Tossing whatever guilty feelings she had aside for the moment, Rainbow Dash gulped down the last mug of Tom's Rock Hard Cider. She had a feeling she'd need it.

Applejack preferred being angry to being in a panic. These jokers were selling cider at one bit per drink, but they were also compounding that with all sorts of gimmicks. She couldn't imagine how they were breaking even, especially with a stocked free sample table. Maybe they made it up in merchandizing or some kind of brand name scheme? A part of her had to admire the salesponies for turning anything and everything into an advertisement for themselves and their products. That part of her was largely overshadowed by the very real threat that Sweet Apple Acres would go broke before even cashing in on this year's cider season!

"We're the world famous Flim Flam brothers; traveling salesponies nonpareil!"

"What does that mean!" Pinkie Pie cried, grabbing Flam by the cheeks. "Tell me! You keep saying it but what does it meeeaaaan?!"

Their act suddenly cut short, the mustached unicorn stared down at the pink pony. "It means-"

"Nevermind what it means!" Applejack snapped, bumping Pinkie out of the way. She jabbed a hoof into Flam's chest. "Where'd you two come from? Where are ya gettin' all these here apples?"

"From all across Equestria, of course!" Flim announced, to her and to the crowd of thirsty ponies they had momentarily extracted themselves from. "Brought to this very community by the miracle of magic and modern steam-powered locomotion!"

"In fact, just about the only apples we don't have a cider for are Ponyville's own delicious Sweet Apples!" Flam picked up where his brother left off.

"That's right, brother o' mine!" Flim spun around, pirouetting over to suddenly stand at Applejack's left side. "Say, Miss, could it be, could it be possible, that by the cutie mark I see you're the famous Applejack of rodeo rise fame?"

"Uh. Famous?"

"And could it be, I ask you could it be, that you've come here to sell your apples and join the Flim-Flam Family of Perfect Potables and Designer Drafts?"

"Now wait just a second-"

"It isn't every day we get this opportunity-"

"Visiting such a fine community-"

"To see the expansion of a new world of cider-"

"With your apples-"

"And our know-how!" Flim finished, wrapping a foreleg over her side. "We could make Super Sweet Apple Cider!"

"Cider! Cider! Cider! Cider!" The crowd chanted, bouncing up and down in excitement.

"Super Sweet Apple Cider!" Flam called to them, dramatically tossing his hat into the air before catching it. Completing another little turn, with seemingly half of Ponyville behind him chanting 'cider, cider, cider' he directed a confident grin Applejack's way. "What do ya say, sister?"

"Now wait just one second!" Applejack bumped Flim away and held up her hooves to the chanting crowd of ponies. "Sweet Apple Acres makes it's own cider. Everypony here knows that. Ya'll haven't forgotten that we were just about to start cider season tomorrow!"

The reminder did quite a bit to tone down the chanting, to Applejacks' relief, but -

"You guys always run out."

"Yeah!"

"Yeah, that's right!"

"Now we'll have more cider than we can drink!"

Applejack shifted uncomfortably side to side. To her relief, the initial complaint hadn't come from Rainbow Dash, who watched from the front row of the crowd, but like a brushfire it started mutters about the yearly cider shortages that always hit the town. Applejack didn't wear blinders - not outside of a race anyway - and she wasn't a foal. She knew as well as anypony that certain problems cropped up during cider season. The family could only make so much of it, and the generations old policy of selling drinks, first-come first-serve at the farm, probably originally an incentive to get ponies to visit and see the apple trees, now made distribution to the town more complicated.

Seeing one of her good friends missing out on the first or even second or third day of cider season, year after year, also didn't help paint a positive view of certain traditions. Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. If the family could sell in bulk at a good margin...

"Say Ah went along with this," Applejack whispered, finding Flim and Flam once again flanking her left and right. "How'd we split what we sell?"

"Why, seventy-five-twenty-five, I'd say!" Flim whispered back, still enthusiastic to close the deal.

"Ah, generous as always, brother!"

"Really? Ah was gonna suggest fifty-fifty, maybe, but..." Applejack narrowed her eyes in realization. "Wait. You mean you'd get seventy-five."

"But of course!" Flim replied with good cheer. "It is our invention and our magic."

"And now, our market," Flam added, with just a teeny bit less cheer and more threat. "Unless you think you can out-sell us now that we have our hoof in the door?"

"Applejack, dear, if I could have a moment to ask you about your part in the art festival-"

"Not right now, Rarity."

"But...! Oh dear." Rarity couldn't recall the last time she had seen Applejack storm off in such a sour mood, hooves stamping the road with every step away from the marketplace. Actually, no, that wasn't accurate. She did remember it: it was just after she'd convinced the farmpony to help her model some fashionable work-clothes... that may not have really been work clothes. This time the offense seemed rather more ominous.

"What happened?" Twilight asked, having hung back with the Mayor. All three mares had seen Applejack storm into the marketplace, and now, storm back out.

"I don't know." Mayor Mare's attention seemed first and foremost on the crowd of ponies, her political muscles tensed to find some way to take advantage of any newly popular trend. "But there certainly seems to be some sort of commotion in the market. Shall we investigate?"

Rarity watched Applejack disappear down the road, blue eyes narrowing.

"Yes. Lets."

Author's Note

A/N

A little late releasing this one. I'd planned to load it up earlier this morning but ended up spending a lot more time than I thought on the road. Sorry!
(also tried experimentally moving this author note to the new 'author note' section of FIMfiction)

Chapter Sixteen : The Lyre and the Letter

(16)

The Lyre and the Letter

The coiling streaks of rainbow and sulfurous yellow tightened and turned, beating whipping belts in the skies over Ponyville before crashing apart with a crack like thunder. The normal pale blue overhead was scratched and marked by the tell-tale antics of high flying pegasi, but to even the most causal earth pony observer there was something different about this high speed dance in the afternoon sky. Most pegasus races, the result of hot heads and swollen egos, didn't involve all the sound and fury of a storm juxtaposed with none of the rain.

The blue streak sputtered, the trail of light becoming intermediate before plowing into a cloud at full force. There was no such hesitation or inconstancy in the golden comet that ripped an arc across the heavens before corkscrewing tighter and tighter into that same cloud. This time the magical firmament shattered entirely, the magical bonds that held the vapor together ripping violently apart and transitioning into streamers of impermeable mist. From within the destroyed cloudstuff, licks of fire like the breath of a dragon exploded out from the impact.

For a long moment, the sky was silent, the flames dimming as they spread out.

Then the blue streak appeared again, sputtering, choking, buzzing not in a clean line but in an erratic zag that would do a wounded bumblebee proud. The golden light appeared again, circling blindingly fast before zipping in and out, each time knocking the blue light off course, before it vanished entirely.

Down in Ponyville, more than a few ponies muttered about the strange noises and flight patterns. Reckless young flyers? A pair of stallions fighting? Some kind of performance or airshow? A problem with the weather team?

Like a tiny blue firefly, the cyan stream started to move again, accelerating -

Before the golden streak, coiling and shedding licks of flame slammed into and through it, crashing to the ground outside the town like a meteorite. Past the market square, past the town hall in mid-restoration, past the Carousel Boutique and down the street from Sugarcube Corner, across a rolling green field and neat rows of decorative trees and scrubs, a fire consumed the cratered face of a small hillside. From within the smoke, a yellow body began to emerge.

"Soarin!" A mare's voice yelled, off to the side. "I thought you said she was improving!"

"Hey! She is! She is!" A blue mane and similarly azure stallion peeked out from behind a tree. "I'd say twenty percent improvement!"

"You think so?" Spitfire stepped to the side as another blue form, wreathed in frazzled, sooty rainbow colors lunged out of the inferno. Her left wing snapped out, catching the pony by the throat and throwing her back.

Rainbow Dash tumbled across the field and out of the fires, yelling as she slammed her hooves down and sprung back up onto all fours. Shaking like a dog, a small black cloud of ash fell away from her coat. Coughing, she nonetheless remained standing, sparing one hoof for only a second to cover her mouth.

"Look at this," Spitfire hissed, motioning to the scrape in her uniform with a critical sneer. "All this... and the most you can do is scratch me? A pet cat could do better!"

"I'm not out yet!" Dash roared, lunging wildly for the Wonderbolt with her hooves.

Spitfire shook her head in dismay, sweeping one golden wing back and up, a crest of flame rising up like a sine wave. Ritterkreuz wasn't the only pyrotechnic pegasus on the Wonderbolts roster. One of their signature moves was to leave a trail of crackling cloud in their wake. Fire was easy for some of them. Fire came naturally to one of them.

"Awgh! More stupid fire?! Geez!" Dash's lunge came to an averted end in the face of Spitfire's flamewave, forcing her to dodge off to the side and then up, as a second wave rolled towards her. A momnent's hesitation cost her, as one of her feathers caught fire. "Bucking horsecocks!"

Burgundy colored eyes shot to the offended, burning feather, and then upwards.

"W-"

A golden blur of a wing slapped her in the back of the head, forcing the pegasus to crash back down and into the dirt. Dash couldn't count how often she had ended up "making out with Equestria" as Soarin called it. It didn't get any more amusing, no matter how often he used the phrase.

Four hooves, coated in Wonderbolts blue, landed in front of the prone weathermare.

"If I was Ritter just then, you'd be dead," Spitfire snarled, all business. She and Soarin couldn't be more different when it came to training. Dash found she was rather thankful Soarin spent much more time with her than Spitfire did.

"Forget Ritterkreuz!" the squadron leader barked. "If I'd been serious then, just me, I'd have used fire and not just my wing! What is rule five, cadet?!"

"It is essential... to try and always attack... from behind..."

Dash started to push herself back up and half expected to get stomped on for it, but Spitfire was already walking away, considering the fight finished. The weathermare tensed, struck by the urge to make another leap for her, now that her back was turned.

Except -

Spitfire looked back, nodding. There was no point in attacking from behind, not when your opponent was expecting it. Dash groaned, coughing as she tried to get back up. Spitfire hit a lot harder than Soarin did, and that was saying something. He didn't look it, but Soarin's wings were like the pegasus equivalent of Applejack's legs. She closed her eyes against the heat and smoke and remembered another pair of Wonderbolt wings: huge and gray, vibrating enough that she could hear it in the bones of her ears. They were the strongest wings in the strongest squad of pegasi in all of Equestria.

She remembered an entire row of trees ripped to shreds by explosions.

She remembered being caught in those explosions.

"Heh. Heheh! Awesome!" Dash laughed to herself, ambling away from the fires left in Spitfire's wake. "The higher you set the bar, the higher I have to fly! I don't mind it one bit!"

"Twenty percent better," Spitfire commented, her back still turned. "Maybe."

With a few flaps, she stretched her wings out and then snapped them back in.

"Soarin!" she barked.

"I got it!" He flew by at a leisurely pace, a saturated rain cloud snagged in his tail. "You bossy pyromaniac."

The golden mare shot him a cross, suffering look.

"Hey, some guys like bossy pyromaniacs. You don't know it wasn't a compliment! You can't disprove it! Okay! I'm going! ... Bossy."

While Soarin took to fire-detail, Dash managed to find an un-singed tree and collapsed against it. She refused to fall down - and didn't, until Spitfire trotted over and kicked her legs out from under her. She fell to the ground with a thud, and a sigh of relief.

"Relax. Catch your breath," she advised. For a time, the two mares just watched Soarin darting around, either snuffing out the fires with wind or as necessary, a few seconds of intense rainfall.

"You've got the body," Spitfire finally said. "But your skills still need work. Lots of work. Why did you keep attacking me head on? Do you like punishment? Is that it? Or are you too proud to go for a pony's back?"

Rainbow Dash, her breathing slow but clear, took a moment to reply.

"That isn't it," she said, and Spitfire glanced down at her. "It isn't that I'm too proud or... or that I like getting hurt. I really don't."

"Then what?" the Wonderbolt asked, losing her earlier viciousness and settling down on her stomach next to the weathermare. "What is it?"

"It's... it's just my personality, I guess?" Dash tried to explain it. It was hard. She didn't quite get it herself, and looking deeply at her life, her motivations and her personality wasn't high on her to-do list. Dash knew she probably couldn't soul-search even if her life depended on it.

"I like to go at things head on and head first," she said, and it was the unvarnished and probably ugly truth. "You guys keep telling me: always try and attack from behind. Don't put yourself in danger. Try and minimize your risk and fly conservatively. It guess the truth is that sort of thing just doesn't fit me very well..."

Avoid a head to head confrontation. That was what she had been told since the start of her training with Soarin. It was one of the fundamental rules of pegasus combat, formulated by the founder of the team himself: the famous pegasus ace, Boltcke. Air to air combat was exceptionally dangerous by nature - a wounded pegasus was most likely to die from her fall, not in mid-air, and collisions at high speeds weren't conducive to long term health. Because of this, a flyer was supposed to avoid injury and attack from the safest angle possible. Even attacking directly from the rear was dangerous, due to getting kicked. The best angle to attack from was the rear hemisphere, but outside a cone directly behind.

An ace hit the enemy fast and hard, with surprise, and then flew away to make sure her opponent tumbled to her... to her...

"You're just like her."

"Huh?" Dash asked, snapped out of her thoughts.

"Ritterkreuz. That idiot will bash a wall down instead of look for a door," Spitfire described it with an out of place grin, almost as if it brought up a fond memory. "I'm not even kidding. One time, after a show, we stayed late with the fans and found the locker room closed. The janitor was just down the hall, but instead of call for him, that moron just kicked the doors down. Stupid, bull-headed... idiot..."

Rainbow Dash let her trail off, keeping her eyes on Soarin instead.

The thought came to her and had to be asked: "Ritter was your friend, wasn't she?"

Spitfire blinked, sucking in a breath.

"I thought she was..." Spitfire closed her eyes and reached a hoof up to tuck some of her bright orange mane behind her ear. "Maybe I just saw what I wanted to see."

"Is that why you let her go?"

"Let her go?" Spitfire asked, shocked at the suggestion. "I let her go because..."

"Because?" Dash asked, finally looking her idol in the eye. "Spitfire, you're... you're amazing. You were so fast up there, and - and that thing with the flames? I could barely follow your moves! Why don't you fight Ritterkreuz? Why didn't you?"

Spitfire softly exhaled, looking back at the burning field, now mostly extinguished.

"I need to talk to Soarin," she said, getting up. "Excuse me."

Dash watched her go, she watched carefully, her ears up and listening. Unfortunately for her, Spitfire pulled her fellow Wonderbolt away and well out of earshot. All the weathermare could see were their expressions at a distance, and then not even that as Spitfire pointedly turned Soarin's head away.

She didn't hear that she was very much the topic of conversation.

"Damnit. Raging Storm, too?" Soarin asked, fighting to keep his voice hushed. "Unbelievable."

"They confirmed it at the headquarters this morning," Spitfire whispered, one foreleg over Soarin's shoulders. "You know what this means, don't you?"

The blue Wonderbolt stallion nodded grimly.

"It means no more getting yelled at?"

"... I mean, do you know what this really means?"

"Yeah," Soarin admitted, lowering his eyes. "That, too."

"I'm trusting you," Spitfire whispered. "With everything."

"Got it. Got it! You can count on me. Just take care of yourself, Spits."

Stealing a quick look back at where Rainbow Dash lay in the shade of a tree, Spitfire leaned over and kissed her old friend and partner on the cheek. Just a quick peck on the cheek. Soarin's eyes widened a little in surprise, but he smiled, understanding what she meant. Words would've just been awkward... and inappropriate. Now more than ever.

"For the honor of the Wonderbolts," she whispered.

"For the honor of the Wonderbolts," Soarin repeated. "Come back intact, Captain. Pinkie Pie will want to throw you a promotion party. And I want to upend a barrel of cider over your head."

Spitfire's sulfur-yellow eyes fell on the horizon and the challenge ahead. The skirmish with Dash had proved it.

"I'll do more than come back," she promised. "Just wait and see."

Apple Bloom sighed. A pony could tell it was a slow day when she had time to work on her school report instead of help out at the cider stand. The first day of cider season coincided with Decoration Day Weekend. For most families it was three wonderful days of relaxation, yard parties, barbeques and the occasional fireworks accident... and what went best with yard parties, barbeques and the occasional fireworks maiming better than cider?

Nothing. The answer was nothing.

Hence, every Decoration Day Weekend as far back as she could remember, Apple Bloom had helped out at the cider stand just outside the Sweet Apple Acres main gate. Under Granny Smith's watchful eye, she got to pour mug after mug of frothy, flavorful cider that Applejack and Big Mac had made the day before. Every year, the line of thirsty ponies outside Sweet Apple Acres stretched over hills and dales almost to the town of Ponyville itself. It usually petered off after about a week, but for those first seven days it was always a flurry of excitement and activity!

Today... like the last two days before it... less so.

Sitting on the grass, her hooves mashed up against her cheeks, Apple Bloom's eyelids began to droop. Cheerilee had given her students a particularly annoying report to write over the vacation. Since the line of waiting ponies this morning had taken less than half an hour to finish off and none of her friends were around there was nothing much to do except kill time by - Apple Bloom shuddered - reading and doing homework.

A few ponies trotted down the road from town while she slowly read through her library book, buying a few mugs of cider before finishing and heading back to town. Applejack waved them off with a smile... only to gesture over Big Mac and Granny for another quick talk. Probably about prices and other business-stuff. Apple Bloom really hoped they wouldn't have to relocate into the town itself like Applejack had suggested earlier. Moving twelve or more full cider barrels wouldn't be easy, even for Big Mac.

The sight of two familiar ponies walking down the road perked Apple Bloom up right away.

"Sweetie Belle! Scootaloo!"

"Hi, Apple Bloom!" Sweetie Belle waved, running the rest of the way. Uncharacteristically lagging behind on her scooter, Scootaloo seemed to struggle to keep up. She looked sort of tired.

"Ah'm so glad you guys came by!" Apple Bloom gave Sweetie a quick hug before the two turned to wait for the third Crusader. "Hey, Scootaloo! You okay?"

"Fine. Just fine." Scootaloo came to a stop and jumped off her scooter. Shaking her mane and wings, a single white feather drifted to the ground.

Sweetie Bell lowered her head to stare at the strange feather. "Is that a-"

"Chicken feather?" Apple Bloom asked, recognizing it. It was too small to be a ponyfeather, even a filly's ponyfeather. "Hey, it is!"

"S-so how's the cider stuff going?" Scootaloo conspicuously changed the subject, her efforts paired with a big, guilty grin.

"Pretty slow," Apple Bloom admitted, glancing back at the cider stand.

"You wanna go crusading?" Sweetie asked, hoping to cheer her friend up. "We could borrow an accordion and one of Fluttershy's monkeys and get our performing artist cutie marks!"

Apple Bloom's spirits did perk up at the thought. A couple hours of cutie mark crusading did sound fun! "Sure! Lemme just ask Applejack and Granny Smith first."

"We totally should've just snuck away while they weren't looking," Scootaloo grumbled, face flush and cheek down against the wooden counter of the apple stall. "I don't even want a market research cutie mark. No pony wants a market research cutie mark!"

"Ah know it ain't exactly everypony's idea of fun, Scootaloo, but this is important work," Applejack told her as she leafed through a small pile of papers. The apple farmer took a moment to pat the little pegasus on the head, ruffling her mane. "And Ah'm right thankful that you three helped out! Ah couldn't have done it without ya!"

"Really?" Scootaloo asked, looking up at the older pony. It was getting late already; she'd have to head home soon, and after that, sneak out onto the roof to... do that other thing.

"After all the time we spent on this, ah really thought we'd get somethin!" Apple Bloom stared forlornly at her bare flank. "Ah think an apple with a check mark on it could'a been pretty nice."

"Or three check marks!" Sweetie Belle bit her lower lip as she fumbled her magical hold on several pieces of paper, sending them flying. "Aw! Stupid paper!"

"Ah got it," Applejack said, deftly picking the papers out of the air with her mouth. She then inserted them into the pile tucked under her left foreleg.

"Applejack?" Sweetie asked, slumping a bit until her forelegs stretched out over the market stall. "Are you and Apple Bloom really in trouble? I'd buy some of your cider... if I was old enough."

"You don't have any money," Scootaloo reminded her, rather ruining the sentiment.

"I'd just borrow some bits from Rarity!" the little unicorn insisted, smirking at her friend for coming up with a perfect comeback. "Rarity's got tons of bits now! And Prince Blueblood gives me anything I want if I bug him about it enough. Five or six times usually works."

"Five or six times?"

"Five or six times," Sweetie Belle confirmed. "He doesn't have much of a tolerance yet." She smiled over at Applejack, the farmer having paused in thought.

"What a second, Sweetie Belle," she said, slowly. "What did you just say?"

Sweetie blinked, momentarily confused. "You mean about bugging Prince Blueblood to buy you toys? Well, first you have to get inside that big house he has and find him, and then you have to make sure Rarity isn't around, and then you just have to keep asking him over and over and over and over-"

"Uh, no... not that..."

"Oh! You mean about me getting bits from Rarity?" Sweetie asked, and saw Applejack's expression become thoughtful... and then doubtful. She clopped two hooves together as her earlier idea took form. "Sure! If I was old enough, I'd just buy ALL your cider, and then you wouldn't have to worry about selling it!"

"That..." Applejack struggled for a second before vigorously shaking her head, dismissing whatever was on her mind. "That ain't right, Sweetie Belle. It's sweet of ya, but what yer describin' ain't exactly ethical."

"It isn't?" Sweetie asked. "Why?"

"Yeah, why not?" Apple Bloom chimed in, poking Applejack on the leg. "It sounds like a great idea to me!"

"Well, it..."

"It's cheating," Scootaloo guessed. She was still face down on the hardwood, looking half asleep.

"Cheating?" Sweetie and Apple Bloom asked in stereo.

"That's right. If you ask me, we Apples gotta sell our apples fairly or not at all." Applejack glared accusingly down at the papers in her left hoof, and tucked under her right foreleg. "As much as Granny doesn't want'ta believe it, those Flim Flam fellas make good cider... the research you girls helped with proves that... and they make a lot of it. They made in a day what we make in darn-near a week."

"But they're cheating, too!" Apple Bloom insisted, stomping her hooves. "Their crazy machine does all the work for 'em! They aren't really workin' at all!"

"Now, Apple Bloom, you know that ain't fair. Unicorns do things a little different, but that machine 'a theirs ain't much more than a fancy wagon and press. We don't crush them apples by hoof, now do we? What they got is fancier than what we got, that's all. Ah'm not even upset at that. It's pretty darn impressive... what Ah just can't put my hoof on is how they can afford all this!"

Applejack folded up the survey papers and put them on the table.

"They brought their own apples, includin' ones from Appleoosa. Brought em in by train. That's fine and dandy," she admitted, turning around to stare across the market. The Flim Flam 'cider garden' could just be seen from where they set up the stall. "But Appleoosa apples shipped in fresh cost upwards'a two and a half bits each, even in bulk. Ah recognize some'a the others, too. Most'a them are cheaper, but their expenses don't add up."

"I thought you didn't like playing with numbers?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Ah don't. Not like Big Mac, always tryin' ta save a bit here or there by messin' with the books. Ah've never been into that fancy math..."

"I don't like any sort of math," Scootaloo grumbled.

"But," Applejack continued, "those two cider boys can't possibly be making any money off this trip, no matter how much they sell. Not at one-darn-bit a mug. That just ain't possible. Ah thought, maybe, they were makin' up the difference in all them brandy knickknacks ponies are buyin' from em, but that can't be it. They're throwin' away all their money on penetratin' pricing, and for what, just'ta under-cut us? Cider season ain't year-round revenues. Maybe they think if Sweet Apple Acres goes broke before they do, then they'll be able'ta corner the market and drive up prices?"

"Aaahhh! I don't understand!" Sweetie Belle clutched her hooves to the sides of her head and groaned. "So they aren't making money? What's the point if you aren't making money?"

Applejack explained, "Imagine two ponies are both selling the same thing, like sugar, which everypony needs... both of them can sell this sugar for ten bits and make a small profit. Then, say, one can put the other outta business by selling his sugar for cheap. Everypony will buy the cheaper sugar, assumin' there's no change in quality. The pony who keeps trying to sell at ten bits won't sell anything at all."

"But the pony who sells the cheap sugar loses money, too!" Apple Bloom jumped in, seeing how the story turns out. "It's like a game ah chicken."

Scootaloo's left ear twitched.

"The pony sellin' the cheap sugar is bettin' that the other pony will run outta money first and give up. Then, when they're the only game in town, and everypony has to come to them for sugar, they can make up their losses!" Apple Bloom, rather more financially savvy than her friends expected, grinned at having figured things out. Then her smile faded as she realized it wasn't just a story: it was her family and her future.

"So who has more money?" Apple Bloom asked, turning to her sister. "Us, or Flim and Flam?"

"That's what ah gotta figure out," Applejack replied, subdued.

"What if they have more?" Sweetie wondered. "What then?"

"Then... then ah'll figure sometin' out. Don't you worry none!" Applejack looked around at the three crusaders she had conscripted into helping her for the afternoon. "Ah'll figure somethin' out."

Lyra Heartstrings was in heaven.

On one hoof, she was Celestia-only-knows how high in a cloudy dream garden, but that was looking at the expression too literally... figuratively, she was in an artistic heaven. This fact was both wonderful and unusual, in that she had never considered herself to be that exceptional a musician. Stringed instruments were her talent, true enough, but they weren't her passion in the way the Apple family went cuckoo for apples or even the way Bon Bon went nutty over her confectionary (pea-nutty to be specific). Music was just something that came naturally, something that made money, and something that she enjoyed enough to do frequently. Okay, it sounded like a passion, but she had never really thought of it as one before.

Things were different here. Here, in the Hanging Gardens, Lyra found herself beset by a relentless and fruitful muse; it sang to her when she trotted along ivy covered flagstones, melded supernaturally into ethereal cloudstuff, it whispered to her from trickling streams in the clouds, some flowing with water but others dribbling pure color. It was the magic of inspiration. There was no other way to describe it.

Never before had she felt the need to try and alter a piece of music, much less compose her own.

Never, before coming here, to this magical place. It was heaven, for artists, and Lyra had soon learned that she was not the only one in residence. Lord Alpha Brass had collected artists from across Equestria, inviting them to be his clients and to them, he became a beloved sponsor and patron. Not long after being given his gifts, Lyra had run into - just by chance - the infamous Soleil Levant in one of the tiered gardens below. The mare was the most well known of the upstart Impressionists making their mark in Canterlot and elsewhere, challenging traditional Equestrian schools of art.

Not a day later, taking an unguided, meandering tour of the palace in the sky, Lyra had found carvers and poets and even other musicians, all lost in their creative endeavors. One that had stuck with Lyra in particular was a glassblower, working in murrine: she had set up a small workshop and her colorful, delicate sculptures of glass and crystal seemed as otherworldly as the statues and blocks of pink and white marble were, set here among the clouds. She had even found a pegasus artist working in ice and cloud, whose fantastic representations of ponies and scenes in miniature were magically preserved by her apprentice - a harmonious combination of pegasus and unicorn magic to create a new form of art.

All of which should have put pressure on her to do the same, but instead of that weight on her shoulders, all Lyra felt was relaxation and contentment. The only anxiety she felt was with respect to her host and when she would finally, finally be called in to speak with him as she had been waiting for. The hours since had seemed like days, and the days like weeks. Disturbingly, she thought of him and their too brief meeting when she napped. He had promised to speak with her again and it was all she could do to occupy herself and wait.

She had devoured the book he had given her on Equestrian history and ancient, traditional pony beliefs (she did not like referring to them as cults). It had only whetted her appetite for more. There had only been a few teasing references to humans, Orion specifically, and their place among the celestial pantheon and the vault of stars. She still wasn't sure how Lord Brass had known she would be interested in such a thing... but she couldn't wait to ask him, and to see what else he had and what else he thought. Her heart insisted that it would be soon, that he was merely finding the time, and that he hadn't forgotten.

Floating a gold and silver harp along to practice with, Lyra trotted down halls that quickly became familiar and comforting where once they had been strange and intimidating. She paid only passing mind to the great tapestries, paintings and busts that lined the glittering hallway. Even the scintillating light from towering stain glass windows seemed but a fleeting fascination from the day before. She did pause at one - one she didn't recall being where it was currently.

It was a ice and cloud sculpture of Lord Alpha Brass, his hooves outstretched and welcoming, as if in an embrace. Who he was meant to embrace, Lyra couldn't guess. Was it his older, absentee wife, Lady Olive Branch? His daughters? Was his embrace meant for anypony? Was that the artist's intent? Or was it...

Lyra reached out, to touch one of his ethereal hooves, but shook her head.

The strangest dizzy feeling had come and gone.

Luckily, it hadn't disturbed her concentration and led to her dropping her harp. She continued on her way, down a tier of abstract crystal mosaics towards the still pools she had caught sight of the day before from one of the upside-down hanging balconies. When she had inquired about them, one of the staff had told her that they were heated pools, open to all guests. An afternoon reclining and relaxing and swimming appealed and she made her way around, exploring as she tried to find a route. Another pleasant thing about the magics of the garden was that it was neither too hot or too cold, despite the altitude. It was always perfect; always just what was comfortable and inviting.

"Finally!" Lyra exclaimed, finding the elaborate brass gate to the many pools. She smiled, especially with the thought of one of the pools in particular. From her view the other day, she had seen partly through it, but instead of finding a bottom, it had revealed a shifting patch of sky.

If her suspicions were correct, the bottom of the pool was literally looking out over Equestria.

Making her way through the gate, she also heard a strange melody. It was undeniably stringed, and Lyra's ears twitched at the sound of it. Unlike normal, the source of the sound - the actual instrument being played - did not come readily to mind. Slowing, she looked around and saw what had to be the wellspring of the haunting music. The notes were sharp and distinct, but the melody strung them together in a way that complimented the mix of chords.

The musician was the earth pony mare from the night Lyra had played for the Lord's dinner. She still wore strange white attire that covered her from neck to fetlocks, folded neatly over her body despite her sitting in what looked like an uncomfortable position for a pony. Not that Lyra was one to complain when it came to sitting in unorthodox ways... but still. It must've taken practice to fold one's legs off to the side like this mare was.

More interesting was the way she was playing the long, strange wooden instrument. Her hooves were dancing over the strings, plucking them as ponies hooves permitted, but also running the front of her hoof along them in a manner Lyra hadn't seen before. Not only weren't there many earth pony musicians in the stringed instrument family - though there were a few famous ones, like the lead cellist in the Canterlot String and Symphony Orchestra Company - but they couldn't do what this pony was doing. Not unaided.

Peering intently, genuinely curious, Lyra could see how it was done: there were smaller 'picks' attached to the rim and base of this pony's hoof, allowing her fine albeit artificial control over which of the bridged strings she touched. Picks were not unknown, of course, but the ones native to Canterlot where Lyra had learned to play didn't look like these. Then again, this instrument was unlike anything she had seen before: played not upright, but laid down on the ground.

The cream white pony stared up at her as she ended her piece.

Green eyes narrowed behind her black mane and she seemed about to snap out something angry over the intrusion only for there to be a brief pause. Recognition. "You? You are... the harpist?"

The mare then noticed the harp Lyra had floating behind her and shook her head, seemingly upset by how easily she was upset. She put her foreleg hooves against the cool stone tiles and turned around to bow her head politely.

"My apologies," she said, in an amicable tone. "I do not believe we have met. I have the honor of being Lady Yumi of the Garland Clan."

"Oh! That's right, you're a..." Lyra hastily and stiffly bowed in reply. "Sorry. I'm Lyra. Just Lyra. Or, um, Lyra Heartstrings. You can call me Heartstrings, too, if you want. My Lady."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Lyra Heartstrings," Yumi said, and smiled pleasantly. Lyra relaxed a bit, sitting down on all fours in a much more comfortable position. "Please call me Lady Yumi."

Lyra nodded eagerly, now that she had an opportunity to satiate her curiosity.

"That instrument there," she said, pointing with one hoof. "What is it? I've never seen one before!"

"This is a koto. I am not surprised you haven't seen one outside Neighpon."

"Are you a musician, too? Neighpon, huh?"

"Yes, but no. I am from Neighpon, naturally, but I am not a musician like yourself," Yumi explained. "In my country, a Lady must be versed in music, poetry, calligraphy and combat. The koto is merely my chosen instrument."

"You play it well... I think so anyway!" Lyra put her harp down by her side. "It sounds so different than what I'm used to. Could you show me how to play that piece you just did?" Realizing she was probably imposing, Lyra quickly put on a nervous grin. "I mean, I don't want to take up your time or anything, and I'm sure you're busy, but if you're not or... you know?"

"I wouldn't mind. I have found myself with a preponderance of free time in this unnatural pleasure dome." Yumi's green eyes seemed to watch Lyra closely for a moment, evaluating her, memorizing her face from more than one angle. "First, I would have you tell me: when did you arrive here? More than a week ago?"

Lyra shook her head. "Just a couple days. Just before the dinner I played for. Why?"

Yumi lowered her eyes, and scooted over to the side. "No reason. Come, let me show you..."

Even as Yumi explained it, Lyra found herself acclimating to the new instrument. It was a zither, originally brought over from the far reaches of the Old Kingdoms. The wood was different now, and the number of strings had multiplied from three and four to thirteen or more, but the history of it was as fascinating as learning the basics of how it played and what the equivalent chords were. It was not just the history of an musical instrument, it was the story of Equestria in miniature.

For thousands of years, ponykind had lived in the 'Old Kingdoms' and like the koto, the societies they built had become more and more complex. The lyre on her flank was not a modern harp - it was an ancient design now rarely used by modern ponies. The Three Tribes had grown alongside one another, trading ideas and beliefs from a common wellspring of pony experience and knowledge, but almost always in competition for resources and influence. Any schoolfoal knows what happened in a general sense: about the Winter Wars or at least the Winters caused by the 'lack of harmony.'

Yumi's ancestors, the ones who brought the koto to Equestria, had not come with the three main migrations: that of Puddinghead, Hurricane and Platinum. Like many smaller subgroups that made up today's Equestria, they had come to the new world on their own and, freed from the yoke of their Tribes, they had set up their own tiny fiefdoms, some homogeneous and others more varied experiments in harmony. In some of these fiefdoms, indigenous magic had even gone so far as to cause ponies to diverge in appearance.

One of those fiefdoms in particular, founded by earth ponies but along imperial unicorn styles, had developed in relative isolation, moving far from their cousins and seeking refuge from the winters and Windigos by sequestering themselves away. Like the Crystal Empire and the Bitalians, they formed their own power structures and even a royal family to bridge the old and new worlds. Neighpon's isolation eventually and inevitably came to a forceful end when an Equestrian explorer came to work for the royal court there, exposing them to the wider world and vice versa. The Blueblood at the time became convinced that the smaller country needed to be included in Equestria proper, and after some altercations, the then-Imperial family cemented a treaty, bowing to Celestia and accepting her as supreme sovereign.

In Neighpon, the Princess was the Empress.

The bond that tied Neighpon to Equestria, naturally, was one of blood.

"We accepted a Blueblood son into our line four hundred and fifty two years ago this winter," Yumi explained, having long since moved on from her description of the koto. Lyra didn't mind the tangent the conversation had taken; history in general was a subject she enjoyed and her musical talent had quickly adapted to the point where she could play some basic melodies on the instrument.

"Since then," she continued, sounding not so much upset as she was vexed. "...we have not once been considered for inclusion back into the royal line. We, who have the blood of the Sun Goddess in our veins."

"Princess Celestia?" Lyra asked. She had heard of the Princess being called similar before.

"Not her, I mean the star-god." Yumi saw Lyra's confusion over the terminology she had used and attempted to clarify, "I believe I am not using the right words. In Neighpon, it is our belief that in ancient times, gods could come down from the heavens and take pony form. Unicorns believe something similar, do they not?"

"Not these days," Lyra replied, shaking her head. "Most ponies just think of them as weird spirits or monsters, like Discord. Not gods."

"Oh?" Yumi considered that, and it wasn't clear just how much of it she actually separated from myth.

Myth. It was myth, after all. Humans were one thing, but the idea that spirits like Discord or Windigos or Sagittarius or Ursa Major... the thought that they could take pony-form and even have children with mortal ponies? Or spirit them away to the stars? It was just ancient fantasy and parable. It was a way for ponies to make sense of the world and explain the origins of magic and, yes, to give their lives and existence context and meaning.

"An Ursa Minor attacked my town, Ponyville, just last year," Lyra said, hooves comfortably strumming the strings of the koto before her. The plectrum glove that Yumi had provided (luckily they had the same hoof size) felt wonderfully natural.

Almost like having fingers!

"I remember back in astronomy class, we were told that The Ursa Major was once a pony called Beautiful Light, or Callisto, and that because of her beauty she was cursed by jealous spirits. These days, they imagine her as an alicorn, but in older myths she's a unicorn. Anyway, the spirits, they turned her into a monstrous bear, but she was with child when she was transformed and gave birth to a foal. A little baby colt with no wings or horn but with tremendous physical strength. That foal became one of the progenitors of the earth ponies."

"So the legend goes," Lyra concluded, skeptical. "I know plenty of strong earth ponies back in Ponyville, but I really doubt any of them is descended from an Ursa Major. The Ursa Minor that attacked the town sure didn't see anypony as his long lost brother or sister. Like: oh, hey Big Mac! AJ! I just dropped by to eat a few unicorns. See you at the next reunion! Nope, it was pretty much just roaring and smashing."

"I am not saying I believe it... entirely," Yumi said after a long, placid silence. The Neighponese heiress sighed and turned her eyes up to the heavens. "My family traces its lineage back to the spirit of the sun, before Celestia... though she wasn't even the one who descended as a pony. It was her grandson, and his mother was a sword. I - I suppose it is somewhat silly. It is... mostly just a title and point of pride."

Yumi's green eyes squinted against the filtered sunlight, softened by the canopy-like shield around Alpha Brass's Hanging Gardens. Still, only a moment or two and the heiress had to turn away, eyes squinted shut.

"We have our pride, we Neighponese. We are not children of Platinum or Hurricane, but we have our pride." Her eyes opened and they were hard. "I will remind Equestria of this by becoming Duchess. There is no stallion more fit to be my husband than the Prince, and no mare more fit to rule than This Lady Yumi."

The plectrum on Lyra's hoof paused, mid-melody.

"Lady Antimony said something... similar... I think...?"

Lyra's mouth moved faster than her mind. For some reason, for just a split second, the image of the red-eyed noblemare from Prance had filled her world, a reflection of Lyra herself swirling in those wide open eyes. What had they talked about again, back then...? She had visited, asking about the torc. That was it. The torc.

Bon Bon had been there, but she went to sleep, and -

And -

"Do not speak that name in my presence again!" Yumi snarled but quickly smoothed over her momentary lapse. "Lyra Heartstrings, I would ask you not to mention her. That mare only wants power. I despise her and as for her family..."

"Pardon, my Lady, but aren't we in her brother's estate?" Lyra asked, trying not to sound insulting. "Flying estate, but still his estate. And you had dinner with him. What about his family?"

Yumi seemed to want to say something, but couldn't; in the end she kept her mouth closed.

"I fear you would not understand," she finally said, "and no matter. It does not concern you. I think I may-"

A sudden crash prompted the Neighponese Lady from finishing her sentence, likely a polite excusing of herself. Lyra and Yumi both turned at once to see a thin marble column fall to the ground, the sparkling globe of soft light that had once been on top crackling open. A marble gyrfalcon, once perched on the magical orb, was now broken into a dozen pieces, ruined forever.

"Ha ha ha! Look at that! You're so-ooo clumsy Auntie!" A bright blue mane flashed by, jumping and winding fast up another column. Two pairs of eyes caught the end of it as it reached the top of the second column, a single hoof perched on top of the head of another gyrfalcon, somehow, without even damaging the delicate statuary.

There, balanced on one leg, was the blue-maned, white-coated pony from the dinner before.

And in her mouth was what appeared to be a large but basic canvas frame. She held it between her teeth, in the middle of a large, playful grin. Two forelegs whirled in comic circles, not so much keeping her balance - she sure didn't seem to be in any threat from falling - but just to burn up energy and look flashy. Down on the ground, next to the rubble that had once been a slender pillar, a smaller pink mare shook the dust off her coat.

"Euporie!" she yelled up at the perched unicorn. "Give that back right now! Please!"

"No!" Euporie replied, speaking around the wooden frame in her mouth. "Come and get it if you want it so much!"

"Do as I say! Give it back!"

"And I said no! Take it!"

"I said I was sorry!"

"And I told you: I'll tell you when you're sorry!"

"This isn't funny!" the pink mare cried, mashing her hoof into her cheek. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!" Despite the desperation in her voice and the glistening tears in her eyes she was smiling. Wiping a few tears away, she tried to push down her smile as well.

Up on her perch, Euporie chuckled, dark and mischievous. "You say one thing but your body says another, Auntie."

"Please just give me back my painting! Please!"

"You're not sorry enough yet."

"I am sorry!" The petite pink mare yelled, bowing her head. "Please just give it back!"

"Didn't I just tell you? Words are empty. Meaningless. How you feel is what counts. But! If you want to prove to me that you feel sorry..." Euporie's own smile twitched, just for a second. Then it grew wild and wide. "Then sure, I'll forgive you! You can have it back. Here!"

She spat the painting off to the side, and into the pool.

"NO!" The pink mare cried, realizing only too late -

"Got it!" Lyra said, grabbing the picture and frame in a burst of magic as she ran by. Reeling it in and tucking it against her chest, she came to a skidding stop on the other side of the crystal clear water. Still seated by the koto, Lady Yumi made no other move than to narrow her eyes.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!" The pink mare ran over, but not to inspect the painting Lyra had saved. She pointedly put herself between the musician and the blue-maned Euporie still perched impossibly on top of the pillar. The otherwise normal looking unicorn shaded her amber eyes but never lost the grin on her face.

"That was pretty lucky Auntie," she admitted, her grin somehow finding a way to grow wider. "But you should have let it fall in the water. It was a crappy drawing anyway. It was trash. And the only thing to do with trash is throw it out. That's what I say. Now? Now I'm going to have to find another way to-"

"To what?" Yumi asked, slowly making her way over to Lyra and the pink mare. "Are you really going to start a fight? With all three of us?"

"How does there being three of you change anything?" Euporie managed to say it with a giggle. "No! Wait. On second thought: if anything, three-to-one makes it perfect odds for me!"

"Sister. You said you would forgive Aunt Chalice, didn't you?"

The new voice came from another, almost identical mare, but with a close cut red tail and primly styled mane. This unicorn stood inconspicuously next to the destroyed column, eyeing it with displeasure. She didn't spare a look up at her sister, as if calculating the trouble caused in the wake of the mess assuming, without a doubt, that it was already over. The tension in the air hardly seemed to matter.

"But!" Euporie objected.

"Words are not meaningless. They can not be taken back and deals are deals. You said 'I'll forgive you.' You said 'you can have it back.' You may have said them without meaning to honor them, but you still said them." The red-maned sister levitated the broken orb, still leaking magic from the cracked glass surface. "The question you should be asking yourself is: how much destruction can I cause before father gets upset? By my reasoning, you are very close to that point of no return."

Euporie's grin slipped, drawing down just a bit...

"Besides which," the frowning mare droned on. "You should know better than to pick fights with our Aunts. Any of them. What do you think will happen if you keep pushing on Aunt Chalice? What will happen if you attack father's honored guests? Isn't it wiser to save your energy for something important like our trip?"

...until it was just a small smile.

"Shut up. You're a dull stick in the mud as usual, Eunomie," Euporie said in a toneless voice. "But you're probably right. This time."

She vanished in a flash of light without another word. Hearing the sound of magical teleportation, the other mare sighed, finally looking up to be sure her sister had left. Then, facing the three mares by the pool, the red-maned mare lowered her head in apology.

"I am terribly sorry for my sister's behavior," she said. "Aunt Chalice, please forgive her for being so impulsive. Lady Yumi, Miss Heartstrings, I sincerely wish you had not seen such an unbecoming altercation. You have my deepest and most sincere apologies."

"Thank you, Eunomie." Chalice bowed back, visibly relieved. "This isn't your fault, and I'm sorry you had to come out and get involved."

Yumi just huffed, turning up her nose.

"Good afternoon, then," Eunomie punctuated the end of her sentence by also vanishing in a silent, phantom blink, utterly devoid of fanfare, spectacle or wasted magic.

"What was all that about?" Lyra asked, the first thought to cross her mind. She tentatively looked down at the painting she had rescued. It was clearly incomplete, she could still see sketch lines and where the brush had streaked from being suddenly yanked away. It was a picture of two birds nestled together on a branch amid thick bushes.

"Thank you both for helping me. Could I have my painting back, please?" The pink mare with rust colored mane and tail delicately plucked the painting out of Lyra's hooves with a dark field of magic. Lyra blinked, a little shocked by the color. She'd never seen or heard of a unicorn with black-colored magic. "I just wish my brother would do more to rein in that Euporie."

"Whatever did you do to make her so... ummm, she was angry, right?" Lyra asked, turning to Yumi for a second opinion. "Was she angry?"

"Don't let the smile fool you," Chalice replied, holding her painting with a protective foreleg. "I made a terrible mistake. My niece was trying to talk about going down to the surface... about meeting somepony. I wasn't paying enough attention and I offended her. It was my fault."

Yumi sniffed and started walking away. "Well then," she said, with no small measure of sarcasm. "Simply don't repeat the mistake and you'll be fine. I'm sure."

"Where are you going?" Lyra asked. She couldn't say that Yumi had become much of a friend, but at this point she could probably be considered an acquaintance. An aloof one with a superiority complex, but still an acquaintance. She and Bon Bon would probably hate each other thirty seconds after exchanging greetings. Not that Lyra gauged everypony she met by how much her friend and roommate would deal with them, but it would be nice if certain close friends of hers got along. Carrot Top and Bon Bon just being the obvious ones.

Moving on -

"Lady Yumi?" she asked again.

"I have ponies to check up on and actual things to do," Yumi explained, glancing back at Chalice and Lyra. "Besides put myself in danger to keep a doormat from being stepped on. You'll have to forgive me. Perhaps... we could have tea sometime, Lyra Heartstrings. You can return the koto then. Keep practicing with it. Your Cherry Blossom was passable but only just so."

As she trotted off, Yumi didn't get to see Lyra's half-lidded expression.

"Do you know what's up with her?" Lyra asked, the nobility of the pink mare next to her not yet sinking in. "Ponies to check up on, huh?"

"I'm afraid I do know," Chalice replied, violet eyes down-turned. "She has an appointment with my brother... and some of his associates."

A book flew across the library to land in a rough, messy pile in the corner.

"Just like you thought, Owloysius! Another dead end!"

Alone in the library, save for her unblinking owl companion, Twilight Sparkle paced from one floating book to another, sleepy eyes examining the open, bookmarked pages with mounting frustration. Scrolls were left unfurled over the backs of chairs and hanging from tacks, with one even draped over the bust in the center of the small library. Books, normally stacked in some semblance of order and neatness were now piled one on top of another, disposed of when they proved unhelpful.

"What am I going to do? What am I supposed to say?" Twilight spoke aloud, not bothering to vet her thoughts before she gave voice to them.

Predictably, Owloysius had exactly one mode of response: "Who."

"Me! What am I supposed to do? Not everything can be about you, Owloysius! Let's talk about my problems for once, okay?"

"Who."

"Exactly!" Twilight, not deranged in the slightest, levitated up a quill pen. "Let's try another letter. Dear Daddy. No... that's too informal! Dear Dad. Hi! NO!"

Crumpling up the paper and throwing it into the wall with a telekinetic crunch, the stricken study bug whipped out another sheet of replacement vellum. The quill immediately set on it like a hungry cockatrice, spilling drops of ink everywhere.

"Dear Dad. Sorry I can't help out, but I'm sure you've got everything under control over in Canterlot! Good luck not getting killed!" She stuck out her tongue and nodded eagerly at Owloysius. "I know! That's good, right? I'll end it with a smiley face. NO!"

Crunch-crumple.

"You see, I'd love to help, but Rarity is my friend... no no. Rarity is my good friend. Gotta stress the 'good' friend part. On second thought - or is it third of fourth? Need to keep count next time! Rarity is one of my best friends! You can have multiple 'best' friends, right? I mean, they don't have to be all equal, do they? A friend is a friend, and all, but... I mean, if I was getting married, who would I have as my first bride's maid? I think it would probably be Rarity. Which would be really, really, really awkward if I was marrying Blueblood, because then she would be the bride's maid, but also kind of a co-wife thing? It would just be weird. Like Baked Bads weird. Right? Right? Right."

"Who."

"Owloysius! Enough! Now isn't the time to argue metaphysics! Assume that a given property can be known independent of direct observation!"

"Who."

"Yes, yes. I have considered that! I've thought about it quite a lot actually!"

Twilight resumed her pacing around the library as she tried to reason out a solution to the situation that didn't leave somepony on the lurch. If only Spike was still here! He was always a good sounding board and lightning rod for ideas (and stray magic). Not like Owloysius, obsessed as the bird was with existential obfuscation and endless reductionism. There had to be a solution! Something obvious! Something she was missing!

Staring up at a blackboard, covered in sketches and lines, Twilight went back over the basics. Her father was challenging Cruciger and threatening to divide the extended family. She still didn't know why, exactly, he was doing all this - but a tacit assumption was that he had a good reason. Something to do with what Lord Wrathenow had said before he died.

The problems emerged in the fact that the roughly one third of the family from Prance and Two Rivers kept a tight rein on the rest of the family. Every single one of them, from what she had researched, was an accomplished duelist and didn't hesitate to use that to advance their aims. She had looked up Antimony's prowess before, when Rarity had challenged the previous undefeated mare to a duel. She had left Ponyville for Prance and Twilight was positive she would back her father and the main family if it came down to a serious fight.

There she was, up on the board: Antimony (represented by a crude pony with half lidded eyes) - known defeats: one, known victories: twenty one, plus speculative victories: forty eight. Magic: illusion and enchantment. According to Twilight's own analysis, if she were Cruciger himself, Antimony would be best sent against Shining Armor. Twilight knew her brother was skilled in physical magic and barriers, but he was probably still weak when it came to illusions and indirect magic.

Next was Antimony's oldest sister, Polished Jewel (another crude pony sketch, this one with a mouth full of sharp teeth) - known defeats: two, known victories: eleven, plus speculative victories: eighteen. Magic: telekinetic, plus an unknown component. She was married now, and had even had a foal. She probably wouldn't be used against a rebelling branch family. Her stallion, Lord Ash Ford, was also a known and accomplished duelist. The words: RESERVE and BACKUP were circled next to them.

Chalice was another of Antimony's sisters (a pony with an X over her head). Known defeats: five, known victories: three. She didn't have a very impressive record, which was probably why her magic was also a complete unknown. Speculative victories were also a question mark. There was just too little information. Nopony much cared about her or considered her a threat.

Which was exactly why Twilight considered her one.

"Remember Celestia's rules," she muttered to herself. "I will maintain a healthy amount of skepticism and not underestimate somepony or something just because it does not appear threatening. Also, don't feed anything cute after midnight."

"Who."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, Owloysius. Spike doesn't count, and he isn't supposed to eat after midnight anyway. Who knows what could happen?"

Then there was Cruciger himself (represented by a big pony with one horn and one antler). The old warhorse hadn't been defeated in a single recorded duel. According to public and family records, he had faced no less than a hundred separate challenges of varying seriousness. Half of them after being nearly crippled killing the previous Prince Blueblood. The only bright spot was that his magic was well known. He was a telekinetic juggernaut, supposedly able to move upwards of a hundred tons using basic - though grossly overpowered - unicorn magic. Twilight couldn't put a number on her own personal best. It was high, yes, but a hundred tons?

If family records were to be believed, Cruciger had once thrown a mage tower at somepony.

The Duke's last recorded duel was five years ago and, like many, it ended with an honorable compromise (probably the challenger had peed himself and given up). Twilight felt a headache coming on. A worse headache, anyway, that wanted to replace the current one. It had a right to! Only the strongest migraine deserved to rule the head of Twilight Sparkle!

If her father was picking a fight with a pony who could legitimately claim to be the most dangerous stallion in the country, Twilight hoped the Old Duke had seriously let himself go over the years. She remembered the magically projected image of the big stallion from Rarity's duel with Antimony. He wasn't a hundred pounds overweight and struggling to breathe, so it was probably hoping against hope that he had lost his edge or that he had a secret heart condition that would manifest itself at just the right time.

Then there was also Alpha Brass (represented by a pony and question mark). He was doubly suspicious, having not a single reliable record of a duel, won or lost. That was perfectly normal for most unicorns, even most low ranking nobleponies, but for a Terre Rare of his standing? It was as if he had dropped off the map and become a cloistered academic or mystic. Which he hadn't. Even Shining Armor had been involved in a hoof-full of duels, and he was such a nice guy it was hard to imagine anypony having a problem with him.

Not that she was biased in that assessment.

"I'm completely impartial," Twilight assured herself and her bird companion. "Right, Owloysius?"

"Who."

"Exactly."

The only other possibility was that Alpha Brass just didn't have any political enemies with any inclination to duel with him. Not a single one. Which made no sense! Twilight already felt herself becoming one of his enemies just because she couldn't get why he was so liked! Even his old grandmare of a wife, Olive Branch, had at least one duel under her belt and she was a revered peacemaker. He was the Marquis of the entire Equestrian colonial frontier, and just a cursory look at the marketplace tabloids proved that the famous philanthropist was no shut-in recluse.

Maybe - maybe he was like her, and simply avoided duels and disputes? That was technically possible, too. It was something to hope for even, that at least one member of the main family had developed a pacifist streak. It was all just that, though: hope. It couldn't be counted into any rational analysis of the situation.

The conclusion she kept coming to, again and again, was that, without getting involved personally, her family would be in serious trouble. Three generations back, a few of Lord Neptunium's children had gotten the idea to break away from the Terre Rares. Neptunium had been Arsenic's third foal and only son, and his line had risen to power among the pegasi in Las Pegasus and Cloudsdale (probably because of their proficiency in water magic). The 'little rebellion' had lasted only as long as it took to force them all back to Prance where they quickly and contritely renounced any disaffection or disenchantment with the Lady Bismuth's heirs, and not under any sort of duress, since they had all written very public proclamations of how they had all been stricken by 'fever' and 'momentary loss of their senses.'

"What is dad thinking?!" Twilight slammed her head into the black chalkboard. "I don't even really want to know about all this stuff! I hate politics! I don't want a title! I just want to study and learn about magic!"

She imagined having to fight her extended family and shuddered. Even though she and Antimony had disagreed, rather strongly, about Rarity and the engagement there, the other mare seemed pleasant enough. Twilight didn't want to duel her.

She didn't want to duel anypony! Not seriously! It never made sense, how absolutely and irrationally crazy some ponies were about 'family honor' and all that stuff. The worst she had ever expected to hear was her mother trying to set up a bunch of arranged marriages and then the embarrassment of having to explain it to her friends... and to get some other academic or magician or noblepony to get used to life in Ponyville, since that was where Twilight felt she probably wanted to put down roots.

"Dear Dad. I really don't want to get involved in any of this. Please just leave me out of it. Sincerely Twilight Sparkle. No! Love Twilight Sparkle. He always falls for the 'love' Twilight Sparkle angle. Perfect!"

"Who."

Twilight shook her face against the blackboard, smearing her cheeks with chalk.

"Perfectly bad," she corrected herself, falling back on her haunches. "Perfectly terrible!"

Running a hoof through her mane, she couldn't resist glancing over at the little model tower from the other day. It was Rarity's gift, both to Ponyville, and to herself: to her friend Twilight Sparkle. The Sparkle Observatory it was going to be called. It was going to be amazing when it was built, and it was all because of Rarity. Her friend. Her friend.

The alternative... the alternative was...

"Dear... Rarity... This will probably sound sort of funny, but bear with me, okay? Um, don't friends share all kinds of things? Like when you let me borrow your white dress? And that hat you liked? Or when I let you borrow my copy of Cantrip Collections, volume two? And Jem's Gems? And remember that time you checked out a copy of Foaley's Finders and Keepers? And you returned it twelve days late. Now that I think of it, you dog-eared pages in Cantrip Collections! I hate it when ponies do that! And Jem's Gems has a smudge on page sixty five that I know wasn't there before..."

Twilight's eyes shifted left to right, not sure how or where her thoughts had gotten derailed.

"Anyway! Friends let friends borrow stuff, right?"

She also made a mental note to see if Rarity had any other overdue library books.

"Friends totally do! So if you could just let me become Duchess and marry your coltfriend, just a little bit, I'd owe you big time. And - and - I'd renew your library card. For free. So: we good?"

Face met blackboard again with an unhealthy thwack.

"Dear Rarity. My family needs me to seize power in Canterlot. Hoof over the prettyboy and nopony gets hurt."

Thwack.

"Hey, Rarity, you know how this whole royal engagement thing has caused nothing but problems? Like with all these crazy mares coming after you? Well, what do you know? I've got the perfect way to fix that!"

Thwack.

"Do you remember... that time..." Twilight exhaled, softly, the memory crystallizing in her mind.

"I, uh - I could..." Twilight spoke up at the same time, just a little louder than Rarity's own musing. "I am part of the Terre Rare family so... maybe I could..."

"You know," she muttered. "I could ask to take over the engagement instead... and just.. not go through with it?" She groaned, shaking her head in defeat. "No. No! that wouldn't work! Maybe-"

Twilight nodded. "I know. I just... thought... there has to be something I can do!"

"If I was to be second to another mare, you would be the only one I would consider, Twilight." Rarity leaned down to touch horns with her close friend. "But there is another option left to take."

"Would you really be okay with it?" Twilight wondered, blowing chalk out of her face. "Could you really live with it? Could I?"

Closing her eyes, Twilight imagined approaching Celestia's throne in Canterlot, but not as a student and apprentice. Floating in the air before the Princess was a gleaming crown of platinum and iron and electrum suspended in a cascading rainbow of magic. She imagined the feel of it on her head, fitting snugly behind her horn. It was her crown. Just like Princess Celestia. She had a crown of her own and a place by her mentor's side, literally.

In her mind's eye, in that mental throne room, she caught a glimpse of a frowning stallion, watching the coronation with practiced impassivity. Like it was exactly what he had expected but never wanted.

"Who."

For once, Owloysius was right.

"This isn't just about me, or Rarity, or what my family wants me to do," Twilight said, pulling herself away from the blackboard and taking in the mess that was her library. "I need to talk to somepony about this."

Twilight had barely left the library before an incessant knock on the door roused a certain owl - who really wished she had been let out to hunt for the night - to answer the summons. Her mistress having the occasional mental breakdown was, sadly, just part of the job. It did make annoying her with the hoot-gag more amusing, though.

Owloysius, unable to actually open the locked door, flew over to a nearby window and pecked loudly enough to be heard. She could see another pony in the dark, quite similar to her mammalian quadruped of an 'owner.' This other pony, on the verge of knocking at the library door a second time, noticed the sound and trotted closer to investigate.

"What's this? An owl? I didn't know she had a familiar."

"Who."

"You."

"Who."

"You. Bird. I'm talking about you."

"Who."

"Look. I am really not in the mood for this. Where is Twilight Sparkle?!"

"Who."

The mysterious pony groaned, burying his head between his hooves.

Chapter Seventeen : To My Faithful Student

(17)

To My Faithful Student

"Will that be all, my Lord?"

"Yes. I believe so." Prince Blueblood, Grand Veneur of her Majesty's realms, Great and Respected Duke of Canterlot, this and that and so forth and here-and-such, did consider one other request for yon lowly maid. He leaned a little closer to the parlormaid while motioning her closer with his hoof. The young mare inched closer in her black and white dress, looking unsure.

"I won't bite, come now," Blueblood reassured her, gesturing, and she came a little closer. Finally, she was within range for him to whisper into her ear. "Do warn me if my Lady returns unexpectedly, will you? Otherwise I do not wish to be disturbed. Vast and terrible arcane magics may be conjured within this room, portals into the infinite the likes of which could drive an un-initiated common-pony mad. Mad I tell you. Stark. Raving. Mad."

"T-t-truly?" the parlormaid recoiled, frightened. "My Lord-"

"If Rarity returns, you are to simply knock twice on my study door," Blueblood said in his most serious tone. "Then flee. FLEE! Understood?"

"Y-yes, my Lord!" The maid stammered, bowing her head.

"Good. Good." He started to close the door but snapped his hooves, remembering something. "I'll ring the bell if I require a late night repast or more chartreuse. Or... or reagents. Now, off you go!"

Gently closing the sturdy wooden door, it was followed by an audible click, and then another.

"Ah! Finally. Some time alone!" Blueblood sighed in anticipation and contentment as he crossed his personal study. Arcane magics! As if.

Theoretically, it was possible, but in the same vein it was possible Auntie Celestia would prance around the palace in a Prench Maid's outfit. He did have the requisite potion laboratory, orrery, antique astrolabe, and other suitably uni-corny knickknacks scattered around the place. The maps were real and of genuine use, as many came from his study in the Grand Palace in Canterlot. Much of the drafting equipment was functional and in use when he saw to his job as Veneur and Master of Equestria's Parks and Wildlands. Poring over maps and documents, for all their utility, was not very impressive or magical.

"Perhaps I should develop some sort of magical map?" he wondered as he approached several tidy shelves of books. "It would be less of a hassle... and I would not mind reducing clutter. Yes, a map on which one could impose multiple maps. If one could compress sheets of very fine, very thin vellum or paper..."

Tricky. Possible, though. He'd have to propose the idea to Right Angle.

"Now, for some real research," the Prince muttered, stealing a few wary glances about the study. Lanterns burned with a soft, magical glow, providing ample illumination. A window framed by tropical woods and goldleaf provided a view outside at the darkening hour. A small fireplace, elaborate but functional, sat beneath a carved lintel of pearl white marble. It was a peaceful, undisturbed sanctuary.

Trotting over to a bookshelf with a glass door, he used a spark of magic to float a small silver key over to the clockwork lock. Inserting it and then adjusting a trio of notched wheels on the side of the device to "zero-F-F" he turned the key. A click-clatter of moving gears followed and the magical glass door swung open, revealing the arcane tomes and secret knowledge within.

Skimming his hoof over the available shelves, Blueblood found the book he was looking for.

Die Metaphysik der Sitten und Magie

Or, in plain Equestrian, "The Metaphysics of Morals and Magic" - one of Kanter's densest philosophical tomes on ethics, history and astronomy. The Prince tilted it forward and along a hidden switch plate. It clicked soundly and he left the book to retract back into place. He waited a moment and then used a modicum of telekinesis to push-in a false-front of wood, ostensibly a decorative part of the bookcase proper.

It sunk inward, now that the locks were fully disengaged, and then slid to the side, revealing a bare patch of solid metal. Once again checking over his shoulder, then back to the door, and then over to the window, and then back again to the door, Blueblood listened intently. Nothing. Satisfied, the Prince lit up his horn. The metal face that had been behind the false wooden front shifted, turning ninety degrees. Blueblood then switched spells slightly, and the metal slid upwards instead of sideways, another ninety degrees.

At last, it clicked.

The metal surface opened, revealing the treasures within! Grinning, eager with yearning, the great Prince retrieved just one of the prizes he had so sheltered away. It was actually one of his newer acquisitions.

"I will have to thank Miss Dash," he said to himself, giggling as he saw the cover of 'The Erotic Adventures of Daring Do.' "She truly has excellent taste in smut!"

Tip-hoofing silently back to his couch and his flask of vintage chartreuse, Blueblood opened the book to where he had left off, tucking the white ribbon-bookmark to a random spot later in the novel. Blue eyes skimmed back to the middle of the second page in the chapter...

"Oh yes! The lovely Miss Do, cornered by the leather-clad dominatrix pirate Queen in her treasure trove. Whatever is to happen next?" He giggled, eyes squinting in guilty pleasure. "Some plundering, if I were to wager a guess! He he he he!"

He was just about to hop onto his plush reading chair when his ears fluttered.

"..." He quickly folded the bookmark back to the right page. "Can't you abduct me after I finish this chapter?"

Apparently not.

Getting tired of waiting in the bag, Blueblood emerged, right eye twitching in irritation. His initial instinct had been to wait for an opportune moment during her escape to foil whatever nefarious scheme was ahoof, but... well, his would-be foalnapper had gotten distracted while making her escape! Which rather made it obvious who she was, nevermind that she had taken off her mask to make it easier to read.

"Ahem," he coughed into his hoof.

The mare-in-black continued to bury her nose in one of the books from the shelf.

"AHEM."

"Hold on," the distracted foalnapper muttered, waving a hoof in his general direction. "Just a minute. I'm almost done."

"You'd best not lose my page, Miss Sparkle."

"I won't. I won't. I just-" She gasped, jumping clear off her hooves and spinning around to point at him. "You know who I am!"

"Ah... of course," he replied, deadpan. "You took off your mask."

Twilight reached up to her face and gasped again. "Oh yeah! Oh NO! You saw my face!"

For a long second or two, neither pony said anything.

... Then Twilight covered her face with a book. A naughty book about Daring Do.

"About your so called mask..." Blueblood recovered his senses again and held up a pair of rather sheer pantyhose. "Rather risqué lingerie for a librarian, isn't it? But you stretched these out. They aren't sexy at all anymore."

"I needed something to break up my outline while I was sneaking in," Twilight explained from behind the pornographic book perched on her nose. "And to disguise my identity."

"I see. That makes complete sense then." Prince Blueblood coughed into his hoof and raised an appraising eyebrow at her attire. "I must admit, I do like the outfit. Very black and form fitting."

Twilight looked down at herself and the cat burglar like outfit she had worn to visit. Perhaps 'visit' wasn't the right word. To be more exact, it was the outfit she had used to sneak into his manor without also alerting Rarity to her visit while planning to foalnap the Prince and take him someplace secluded to 'talk.' Only once he was firmly in her camp, so to speak, could Rarity be brought in to join them in taking over Equestria and rewriting of all its laws.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

"Uh, thanks..." she muttered, having cornered just the pony she needed to talk to: the only one in Ponyville who could help with the mythical hydra that was unicorn political scheming, especially ensconced as it was in the swamp of Canterlot. The plan had been to teleport out with him, but... but there were just so many rare and exciting books here! In mint condition! Nopony dog-eared Prince Blueblood's books. He was so lucky!

"Normally a pony looking like you are is here for the porcellana and the good silver," he said, levitating over a small vanity mirror to check the damage to his mane. Bag-hair. It was the bane of all foal-nap-ees.

"I know!" Twilight blurted out, having taken the tour a few weeks ago. "Like that eight hundred year old moon flask! You do have some really great antiques! Actually, if I was here to steal something, it... would probably be a book..."

Blueblood watched her with exactly no surprise.

"You would steal a bookof all things," he commented, grinning even as he turned his vanity mirror to show her reflection. "But more importantly, you look like a mess."

"I do?" Twilight got a good look at herself in his mirror. Form fitting ninja-outfit aside, her eyes were bloodshot and she had chalk on her cheeks and forehead and her mane, well, it had seen better days.

"You're also wearing that catsuit inside-out."

"What? Oh my gosh! I am!"

"Hm."

Twilight facehoofed and in the process slumped down onto the floor, her chin meeting the quilted buffalo rug. Hooves covered her embarrassment, her chalk-cheeks, and her messy mane. What had she been thinking sneaking in? What had she been thinking even coming over?

It had made so much sense in her head back in the library. She couldn't just announce her arrival, not in case Rarity was there. It would just be too much right now to talk to her about her family's problems and... requests. It made the most sense to be discrete, and that meant getting inside unnoticed. A little teleportation and serpentine sneakery, convenient use of a cardboard box and a naughty magazine, and she had made her way from entrance to inner sanctum.

Prince-napping had been the next logical step, since she needed to convince him to help and, um, maybe - just maybe - drink some love potion. And then get Rarity to drink it, too. Maybe. She wasn't crazy! It made sense!

'Just like trying to become omniscient to understand Pinkie sense made sense. At the time. Sort of.'

"You are also aware of the fact that you are welcome here at all hours?" he inquired, snapping shut the cover of the mirror and looking down at her. "You didn't really need to sneak in?"

Twilight Sparkle moaned, wanting to facehoof again.

"Stupid! Stupid! I shouldn't have come at all!"

"Really. Why... are you here, Miss Sparkle?"

Looking up, Twilight slowly lowered her hooves so he could see her face.

"Do you..." she began.

"Do I?"

"Do you want to marry me?"

Blueblood put a hoof to his chin in thought "Well, usually I get asked to dinner first?"

"ARGH! NO! That came out all wrong!" Twilight buried her face in her forelegs, deep enough to impress even Fluttershy. "I meant - I mean - what I meant to say was that my family... and..."

It only took two words to turn around Blueblood's entire demeanor.

"Your family?" he asked, eyes shaded as he looked away. One hoof, still clad in a frilly slipper, touched his chin. "I see. I guess it makes sense; she did say this could happen."

Twilight blinked, honestly surprised he had caught on so fast. "You do? Who did? She?"

"Auntie."

Lyra wanted to kick herself for not realizing it earlier.

She blamed Ponyville and its notoriously imbalanced gender ratio, somewhere among the worst in the country for single mares. The years there had left her accustomed to seeing her gender everywhere. It was all just second nature. That had to be why it had taken so long for even this simple realization to sink in.

The Hanging Gardens - it was full of mares.

Not just in the sense that there were the Ponyville three or four mares per stallion. Not in the normal two to one ratio in most of the country. Literally, she could walk across the floating estate and see nothing but mares. Alpha Brass had an entire artistic community sequestered in his luxury villa, removed from earthly concerns: earth ponies and pegasi and unicorns all, but all mares. The only stallion she could remember seeing was the Manehattan politician from the dinner she played. Not a single one otherwise.

Even the guards - one of the few professions dominated by stallions - were all female! Lyra cautiously trotted by one even as she wondered just where they had all come from. The Marquis did not have a very affable looking bodyguard: the armored mare guarding an otherwise nondescript door was big and mean looking, like she could eat a small minty unicorn for breakfast and still have room for a big bowl of Wheaties. Her coal-black eyes followed Lyra like the eyes of a cat following a cricket: not entirely threatening or predatory, but alert and ready to pounce if only given the opporunity.

Mares. Mares everywhere.

"I was wrong. Maybe Bon Bon would actually like this place," Lyra snickered, gazing up at one of the vast murals painted into the domed ceilings overhead. It was a depiction of the Old Kingdom, but not in the new style, where the disharmony was rendered as a sterile dissatisfaction between the three great tribes.

In this mural, ships bristling with oars battled with formations of pegasi, the air thick with lightning and magic. Vast rows of pikes jutted out from the decks of the ships to impale low flyers and earth ponies hurled javelins up in volleys. The sky itself was dark and menacing, except for a tear in the heavens that revealed the moon and a single glowing eye. Realist art was not very popular among the Equestrian elite, and neither was realist music for that matter, but Alpha Brass seemed to enjoy it.

At least there were stallions up there.

"So," she wondered aloud. "He only invites mare up here? At least only mares when it comes to living here full time..."

Why, though?

Brass himself didn't exactly take tours of the estate to revel in the fact that he had a hundred or more ladies living under his roof. Everypony certainly appreciated his patronage, and he was undoubtedly a handsome - even beautiful - stallion by most mare's standards, but he seemed reclusive. Tartarus, if Lyra were in his shoes, with a hundred stallions waiting on baited breath for her to just appear, she knew she'd probably let them cart her around on a palanquin while hoof-feeding her grapes. Er... probably. That sort of thing would get old after a few days.

Actually, in retrospect, there was one exception. Lyra recalled Lady Yumi, practically unique among all the others in the estate, seemed to dislike Lord Brass's family. Certainly, she hated Lady Antimony, but she had not spoken terribly fondly of Lord Alpha Brass himself or his wonderful Gardens. Lyra had privately had to disagree. Gender exclusive it may have been - and perhaps that had been part of it's subconscious appeal - the Hanging Gardens were a wonderful and magical place. Never before had she felt so at peace in a place.

And Lord Alpha Brass himself...?

He had to be a great pony. To - to have organized all this, of course. It spoke of great wealth and resources and creativity and magic and organization. How many hundreds of thousands of bits had he spent, how many did he continue to spend, all to patronize the arts? To better Equestria? To beautify it? What was there to object to in such a stallion?

Lyra's heart raced as she thought about the letter she had found in her room.

'His Lordship requests the pleasure of your company on the eve of the party...'

She didn't notice the sound of soft hoofsteps further down the hall behind her. The steps paused as a regal alicorn glanced down the way, spying the retreating back of the Ponyville harpist. Eyes flashed, green beneath opaque white, unseen by the accompanying guardponies.

"Lady Cadance?" one of them asked. "Is something the matter?"

"No. Not at all," the Serene Princess Minor replied, smirking enough to reveal a hint of fang. "Merely a flight of fancy... but we mustn't keep Brassy waiting. He and I have so very much to catch up on."

"...and that's basically everything. I think it really only started to sink in once I'd looked up the problem in detail. Then I started looking at it from the outside, and more and more the idea made a kind of sense, but I just couldn't go through with it! It was like the more I learned the less sure I became of... of everything, I guess?"

Twilight buried her face into a soft blue pillow, hating how unsure and unhinged she sounded. It was bad enough hearing herself. She had to sound totally crazy.

"Does that even make any sense at all?" she asked, still not wanting to see anypony. "I'm just so confused! I don't know what to do anymore!"

She had been relocated to the manor library - a setting she had always found blessedly relaxing, even a little intoxicating - where a confused servant had immediately taken to brushing down and combing out her mane, washing her face and otherwise making her presentable. Objections to the treatment had been summarily dismissed, again, to her relief at length. The stress still ebbed and flowed inside the conflicted unicorn, but there was much to be said for a good comb-down.

It had given her time to think, to relax just a little, and to better compose her thoughts and her arguments, her concerns and her conflicts of interest. Somepony had even cleaned and ironed out her catsuit; it currently hung over the back of a couch in the den area of the circular library chamber. Given a choice of tea, the Princess's own student took her time explaining just how screwed up her situation had become, and how she hadn't been able to find some way to satisfy both the needs of her family while staying true to her friends.

The only option left that had appeared to make sense was to change the rules. Wasn't that what Princess Celestia had always said? If you couldn't win within the confines of the rules, then change them? Think outside the box... or inside the chimney, as the saying went? The only way to change the rules, then, was to rule Equestria and make things make sense from the top down. The only way to make everypony happy was to literally make everypony happy!

When her host finally spoke, however, it was not to say what she had expected to hear, namely: 'You are one crazy pony, Miss Sparkle.'

"I believe I understand," Blueblood told her, inhaling the scent of his tea. He seemed to enjoy it with milk and ginger. After getting his guest cleaned up, he had made the tea himself, pouring enough for the both of them. "You've been put into a no-win situation and it really isn't easy, trying to satisfy everypony at once."

"You could have years and not manage it," he continued, sipping from the ceramic cup. "Lifetimes, even, and this dispute between families has existed for several lifetimes already. Myself, personally, I'd dance in the streets if your father found some way to supplant Cruciger. I actually have no problem with you Canterlot Terre Rares. I've met your father, and I have great respect for him. And I've met your brother."

"And you have great respect for him?" Twilight asked, emerging from beneath her pillow.

"... I've met your brother."

"I bet you two would get along great!"

"I bet he'd try and spear me if he heard I was even in the same room as you."

"Yeah!" Twilight told herself. "You two probably get along great!"

"..."

"So," Twilight asked, straightening up. "You think we should fight it out with the main family?"

"Honestly? Probably not," Blueblood said, mentally adjusting a nearby bust of Commander Hurricane, the pegasus stallion staring out with a curly, classical mane. "Your father is a good stallion, but Lord Cruciger is not. You said you had researched the dueling history of your family, and you must have done the same for dueling in general. How often do duels go to the death?"

"Oh, that's easy!" Twilight merely dipped into her bottomless well of statistics. "Babbling Brook and Record Keeper published a study two years ago on gender trends among social strata. Dueling à outrance occurred in five percent of duels among mares and twelve percent of duels among stallions. There was also a bell curve correlation between wealth and willingness to duel, with the richest ten percent and the poorest ten percent of registered nobility being the most likely to accept duels. The study also showed that, contrary to expectations, less than half of all duels 'to the death' actually resulted in death, due to the presence of trained medical staff at the site and improvements in medical magic. The study was published in the Journal of Unicorn Sociology and..."

"I rather get the idea, Twilight Sparkle," Blueblood intervened there to keep it from turning into a full blown seminar. "It is also common sense. The ones with the most to gain from a duel are the poorer nobles and the ones out to make a name for themselves. The ones most likely to receive challenges and to train to defend themselves are the richest nobility. The majority, like most ponies, simply stay out of the way as the two groups bicker in the shadows."

Twilight nodded - she knew this.

"Your family fits into this middle strata. For you, duels are inconvenient and prideful, but for poor nobles they are a chance at glory and recognition. For the most powerful, like Cruciger and his heirs, it is a means of survival. The founders gave us a system in which a small number of nobility battles amongst itself so as to not disturb the greater body of society. It is our misfortune that your Terre Rare cousins take this to an extreme. You said you had attempted to compile their individual dueling records? Of the wins and losses, how many ponies actually lost their lives?"

"Again, easy!" Twilight stuck out her tongue as the recalled the relevant facts, gleaned from newspaper clipping and archives and family records. "Lady Antimony dueled Lady Wood Land seven years ago and she died of her injuries, and then five years ago, Lady Thorny Rose challenged her and ended up in an asylum, where she later died of a cardiac arrhythmia. Lady Polished Jewel received a challenge from Ser Leaf Cutter and they both ended up hospitalized. When she got out, Leaf Cutter challenged her again to finish the duel and died of her wounds. According to family records, all three of Lady Chalice's dueling victories were à outrance: Lady Slate Stone, Lady Bountiful Rewards, and Ser Downward Stroke."

As she came to the last of the family, Twilight turned sheepish. "Your father was, um... the first one... Lord Cruciger killed. There were about a dozen after that, over the years."

"Many of my father's friends and retainers were foalish enough to try and win back his honor," Blueblood said, and she knew details there were unnecessary. "Cruciger is merciless towards those who threaten or challenge him. Eventually there was nopony left and I hoped it would all fade into obscurity."

He pointed at his guest.

"Your father," he told her. "Your father has already rejected the summons to Prance. For a stallion like Cruciger, this is a declaration of war. Crescent Moon will be the first brought to challenge, to break this family schism. They will try to cut the snake's head off."

Purple eyes turned downward. "My dad can't win, can he?"

"No," Blueblood was blunt in his assessment. "Not against Cruciger who has both power and a willingness to use that power. Even if he survives the duel, honorably, your father will still be humiliated. He will lose the support he needs. But the axe cuts both ways. Take out Cruciger, and anything is possible. Probably Antimony, too, since she is next in line... I honestly don't know how far she'd be willing to go to keep the house whole and under the hoof of the main family. Another thing I don't know - that we don't know - is what your father learned from Wrathenow. It had to be something big. If you want my advice, I'd say: get all the facts first and then make the big, life altering decisions."

"And in the meantime, my father and brother and mother put themselves in danger?" Twilight didn't much like the sound of more waiting and planning and worrying.

Blueblood nodded, callously. "Yes. Remember, any duel, no matter how serious, can be delayed at least a few days. The trick is using the window of opportunity."

"How fast do you think the main branch will move?"

"I expect they have already. If, as your father suggests, Lady Antimony was the one who silenced Lord Wrathenow, then it would have been put in motion that long ago."

"Then what should I do?" Twilight asked, almost pleading. "You must know about something I can do. Something I can use! There has to be a way to fix all this! What about the Princess?"

"Actually," Blueblood began, floating out a small scroll with a wax seal. "When last I spoke to her, she gave me this, and told me to give it to you in a circumstance much like this one. Given what she-"

Mid-sentence, he realized she had already magiced the scroll out of his telekinesis and that there was an empty space in his star field.

"To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle...!" said faithful student read the scroll aloud, purple eyes darting across the parchment. "Don't panic. Signed, Princess Celestia."

Blueblood blinked a few times, not quite sure what to say.

"DON'T PANIC!!" Twilight screamed, going ballistic right then and there. "What kind of advice is that?! WHO'S PANICING ANYWAY?!"

"It actually is good advice."

Twilight stumped back down into the couch, deflating like a punctured balloon.

"Don't panic, she says. Oh, Auntie. Really?" Blueblood picked the scroll out of Twilight's magical grip with nary a protest. The Princess's apprentice couldn't help but notice the stallion chuckle as he read it for himself, examining the scroll with rapt amusement.

"This isn't funny," she told him, working up the energy to sit straight on the couch. Don't panic. Celestia's advice, despite how ridiculous it was, was still Celestia's advice. It could probably have been 'jump on one hoof while singing the national anthem' and Twilight Sparkle would have at least tried it once. Or twice.

"I need a loophole," Twilight said, wracking her brain. "Something! Come on, Twilight! Think!"

"Loophole?"

"Yes! A loophole! A cheat! An exploit! A hack! A trick! A dodge!" Twilight did a little dance with her hooves. "You know! Up up, down down, left right left right, B-A?"

"...what."

"That was... just something Pinkie said once..." she sat back down on the couch. "Nevermind."

"Hmm. I think I get it. You want a quick-fix? I'll tell you of one, then." Blueblood's cup met his saucer and he placed both down on the table next to the rolled up scroll. "Not long ago, I considered how to try and keep Rarity from dueling Lady Antimony. I considered renouncing my inheritance and my titles. I considered escaping with her in the dead of the night. I considered..."

The foppish unicorn Prince watched his guest with dark blue eyes.

"I considered having Lady Antimony assassinated," he admitted, and Twilight shrank back slightly at his frank admission. "I considered the possibility of turning Equestria into a battlefield to protect her."

Celestia's faithful student summoned up her courage. Because: "You didn't."

"I didn't, no. But I considered a lot of what you did, tonight, when you broke in here," he said, without a hint of malice. "I considered much worse than you ever would. I'm not like you and your friends, Twilight. If faced with doing something unethical to protect somepony I care about, I probably wouldn't look long for a perfect solution."

"If you thought about all this," Twilight reasoned, taking some time to relax around him again. "What changed your mind?"

Blueblood answered with a sigh. "Auntie did."

Contrary to her earlier exuberance, this time Twilight took the revelation with more calculated interest. "What did she say? Does she know what's going on?"

He replied after considering how to phrase it properly. "She wants things handled... delicately. Which is a surprise, given how indelicate she can be, but she also feels a measure of responsibility. Towards my family. Towards the Terre Rares. Towards Equestria and all her noble houses. The Bluebloods are called royal, but my blood is in many families including yours. You, Twilight, are her niece as much as I am her nephew."

It should have been reassuring. It should have been affirming.

To be Celestia's niece. It was true, too. Twilight knew her lineage, so she knew of the distant relation, but to hear it phrased by the one pony in all the land actually considered the Princess' kin? It should have filled her with wonder and delight and pride. It was tempered by the fact that it was not just Twilight Sparkle, Celestia's niece. It was Cruciger, Celestia's nephew. It was Antimony, Celestia's niece.

They were all one, big, stupid, feuding family, every one of them.

The thought made her want to cry all over again. "Then maybe... maybe I should just... maybe I have to..."

"Twilight." Blueblood tilted his head and gave her a long, serious look. "Look at me."

"What?" she had to ask, a little perplexed by his scrutiny.

"I know I'm a sexy beast and all the mares want me," he said with a straight face. "But you don't want to marry me."

"..."

"You have to resist my incredible animal magnetism, Twilight Sparkle!"

"..."

"Fight it! Fight the urges!"

"...consider them resisted."

"No lingering hunger for my stud-ly self?"

"It was a crit-resist," Twilight assured him, sipping from her cup of tea with a small smile. A big, stupid, feuding family. That was it exactly, and some were clearly more foalish than others. Or at least they pretended to be.

"You sure?" he pressed, waggling his eyebrows as he leaned in.

"I rolled a perfect natural twenty," she replied, amused at his resulting confusion.

"I'm not sure I understood that, but good," Blueblood continued, resting a foreleg against the back of his couch opposite her and across from the coffee table.

"Because," he explained, raising his other free hoof. "For a noble, the first rule of politics, like the first rule of marriage, is that the best partnerships have nothing to do with lust... or love. My mother used to say that the ideal pairing is entirely professional. I bring this up, because for most ponies this is abhorrent. Can you really imagine yourself in a loveless marriage, Twilight? Because that is what it would have to be."

It was a question that cut to the quick of her conversations, and her secret disagreements, with Rarity before. By nature, Rarity was a romantic. She probably always had been. Twilight Sparkle was not. Twilight Sparkle was a student, an academic, a researcher, and a lover of magic, science and reason. Not stallions. Not mares. Magic. If magic was a pony, she probably would be head-over-hooves in love with it. As it was, magic was a thing, and her affection for it was expressed in terms of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge.

When she thought of being married, like her parents were married, like her brother wanted to get married, she imagined it would probably involve meeting several stallions picked out by her family and giving one the rubber stamp of approval. The stallion would be handsome and smart, of course, and skilled in magic, and they could talk about magic together in a warm study while reading books or over dinner or tea. That was probably what mattered most to her: that her mate was intellectually stimulating, even if it was in a field other than magic.

That would be basically love, or love-like.

The things Rarity imagined, the things she spoke about: about stallions throwing themselves into danger for their mares, or about the emotions of unrequited or forbidden love, or about long, confusing, drawn-out courtly romances that take years...? When Rarity mentioned those sorts of things, her voice betraying the sort of awe and excitement that Rainbow Dash had when she talked about the Wonderbolts, Twilight usually just nodded her head. She could understand the appeal of it, simply because many mares felt that way, statistically, and so it made sense that her friends followed that species-wide trend. It was like Rarity's favorite color, violet. Twilight could understand the choice her friend made in favorite color, yet disagree.

Best color was clearly lavender, not violet.

Love was important, of course, but there were many ways to create love. It was just chemical reactions in a pony's brain, after all. Back when she was little, her foalsitter Cadance had been exceptionally skilled in love magic, or more specifically, she had the ability to alter brain chemistry in a very specific way. This chemistry was, in the vernacular, called love. Twilight understood the mechanics of it. It wasn't a mystery. There were even alchemical potions to do the job!

The assumption had always been that love would come later, after the more important arrangements were made. This was where family came in. It just made sense that one's family had a say in who continued it, just like a business had a right to determine who ran it based on who owned shares in its future and wellbeing.

Twilight wasn't a silly pony - she understood that there were class distinctions in Equestria when it came to this issue. Rarity, coming from a poorer strata of society, wouldn't have been raised to consider marriage as a means of furthering the interests of the family as a whole. It fit the demographic that she wanted a romantic match, and Twilight was happy for her because she had just that! The fight with Antimony had proved to everypony how Rarity felt. This was love for her. It had to be. Real love, not from a potion or a spell.

Twilight just... couldn't see herself in that way.

It didn't make sense.

"A loveless marriage? Of course not." Twilight put down her tea, game face on. "But there are ways to fix that."

"Fix it, she says, and with a super-intense face, too." Blueblood relaxed against his couch, staring back at her without betraying any of his supposed anxiety over her 'intense look.' "You have no idea how many couples in Canterlot see... marriage councilors... to patch things up with potions and magic. Despite the dangers and warnings of history. You'd be okay with that?"

"If friendship is magic, then magic can be friendship. Magic can be redemptive. Redeeming." Twilight held out her hooves, two of them, like scales on a balance. "Two mathematical expressions are naturally equivalent so long as they lead to the same result."

"You can tell a pony that a glass is half full, but you can't prove it, can you?"

"That's just a matter of precise measurement. A glass would be half full if you could prove that it trends towards being greater than fifty percent full."

Blueblood opened his mouth and raised a hoof to continue the debate, only to shake his head.

"Arguing with you is like arguing with one of my professors back in the Academy."

"Thanks!"

"It's annoying."

"... thanks." Twilight stifled a laugh at his dour put-out expression. "Your Grace, you are insufferably arrogant." Twilight saw him twitch. "And not nearly as 'stud-ly' as you think you are." Another twitch. "And you're obsessed with a lot of strange things..."

"Uh... okay..."

"And you use a mare's perfume."

"Well, yes..."

"And you freak out at the idea of getting dirty."

"I'm hardly the only one who-"

"And have I mentioned your vanity?"

"Ah, yes, you have."

"And you read perverted books."

"You were reading it too!!"

"But, all that aside, I probably would." Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic, crossed her forelegs over her chest as she examined Equestria's only Prince. "I probably would marry you, if it saved the lives of ponies, much less those of my family. You said you'd do questionable things to protect the ponies you love? I'd do the same."

She laughed again, rolling her eyes and tapping her hoof on the cushion.

"Maybe Rarity and I could roshambo for it?" she wondered. "Or draw straws? Or, like I said, we could all three of us just get-"

"Don't even joke about that," he growled.

"Who says I'm joking?" Twilight asked, watching him out of the corner of her eye. "Who says I'm entirely joking?" she clarified.

"I do so enjoy being the most expensive piece of meat in the country." Blueblood groaned. "Thank Celestia and the Heavens themselves that the package isn't available sliced or otherwise proportioned."

"Sorry," Twilight apologized, but also shrugged, helplessly. "Appeals to emotion won't really work with me. Besides which, this is about a lot more than what I want."

"Quite right. This is about what your father wants," he said.

"What my family needs me to do," she corrected. Twilight's horn glowed and the cup in front of her began to slowly spin around on its saucer. "I could do it."

"You could," Blueblood agreed.

"I could become Duchess," she elaborated.

"You could become Grand Duchess," he agreed yet again and went further. "First among all the peerage, a mare third only to Celestia and Luna! Part of the Royal Household itself! To sit at the left hoof of the Princess of the Sun! Your domain would be magic and secrets and all of Canterlot, the jewel of Equestria!"

"Think!" he exhorted, "Of all that power."

"That is the downside," Twilight admitted.

Blueblood laughed. "And that... is why I hate to admit that you may fit the bill. You and Rarity both."

"Not everypony who wants power should be barred from it," Twilight argued, even though she knew his comment to be meant as a compliment. "What kind of country would Equestria be if everypony with responsibility didn't want it?" She also considered how he had phrased his response. "Are you saying I should do it?"

"I'm saying you can do it," he clarified. "Should you do it is a philosophical question."

"You're so evasive!" Twilight threw up her hooves in aggravation. "I came here for advice! This is your life, too! Your future! Show some interest in it!"

Blueblood made a show of sitting back down and smoothing out his mane.

"If I was forced to marry you, I'd just make Rarity my lover instead of my wife," he said, bluntly. Then he grimaced. "Or I'd try to, anyway. She'd probably turn us both into pincushions."

"You think I'd care?" Twilight asked. "Not about the pincushion thing, I like my flanks un-pierced, but I'd be happy for the two of you!"

"Yes, right up until I call out her name while we're doing our professional business of making the next generation of Princes and Princesses. Then, bang, zoom, straight to the moon!" He even gestured up at the sky. "I've seen what you can do. I'd be in Low-Equestrian Orbit before you even knew what happened."

Twilight managed to both blush and pout, puffing up her cheeks and boring a hole into the floor with her eyes. "Probably... I wouldn't... I mean... I have better control than that..."

So focused on the floor was she, that she didn't notice his hoof gently cradling her chin and lifting her face up. Twilight's eyes grew wide as platters as she found herself staring into blue eyes. Eyes that grew closer and closer, lips almost touching-

"Let's have a threesome."

ZAP

Blueblood ended up hindlegs in the air, bowled over the couch he had been sitting on. A faint trail of magical smoke wafted up from his sprawled form. Twilight glared at him through the barrier she had erected.

"Ahhh." His voice warbled as he rolled back and onto his hooves. "My poor mane. My poor, abused mane. Why must you suffer so?" With a wink, his vanity mirror reappeared, allowing the Prince to check his blasted countenance. "You made it all frizzy."

"It looks fine!" Twilight objected, pointing accusingly at him. "W-w-what was that about a threesome, anyway!"

Blueblood ignored her to focus on fixing a few burned hairs.

"You're crazy, but then again, almost all the mares around here are nuttier than one of Auntie's banana splits... and I'm not exactly normal myself either. Alright. Let me get serious for a moment..."

"Please do!"

Blueblood straightened out the couch and rested his forelegs against the back of it, crossing them under his chin. "In order to make Canterlot and Equestria a better place for peace, harmony, and all ponykind, imagine you acquire the Crown your family needs. You would still expect your marriage, even one to me, born of political necessity, to eventually become one with love in it, right?"

Twilight nodded. "We could use magic," she suggested. "Hypothetically."

He nodded in return. It wasn't taboo. It wasn't even shameful. It was just magic, as she said.

"So, Grand Duchess Twilight Sparkle and I, we do what so many others do and turn on the love in our life, like striking a wonderful little rainbow colored match. But I still love Rarity and want to be with her. The you I'm speaking to may think this is just fine and dandy. The you I'm speaking to may even be happy for us, as you said. But..."

He raised a hoof to punctuate the point.

"The you who loves me will not be happy for us. The you who loves me will not want to share me, not even with a close friend, not even to make me happy. This hypothetical future you, recipient even of Cadance's love zap, will see me sneaking off at night to visit my dam, my mistress, and my family of bastard foals. The ones I picked to be with first but couldn't. You will see and hear about me doting on them, and, inevitably, you and Rarity will stop seeing each other as friends... and start seeing one another as competition. You'll ask yourself: which one do I love more? How can I prove it?"

"Don't try and predict the future like that. You don't know any of that will happen," Twilight told him, shaking her head in denial. "It's just as likely that we'll all get along fine. That we'll all understand one another and we can make Canterlot into what we want. We can make it better!"

She held out her hooves, pleading for him to be optimistic about the one chance she had to fix things. For everypony.

"We can show all the nobility that they don't need to duel or fight or try and one-up one another!" she insisted and he hung his head. "We can show them - we can prove to them that there's harmony! Not one being better than another! Real! Harmony!"

"That... would be nice," Blueblood admitted, still leaning informally over the back of the couch opposite her. He gave a rueful sigh. "But there is a good reason why, as my mother said, the best marriages are professional. Loveless. Which you don't want."

"But you're... you want to marry Rarity! For love!" Twilight accusingly pointed out the most obvious flaw. "How can you say that the best marriage is loveless when you're doing the exact opposite!"

"Because," Blueblood explained, smiling again. "I'm an idiot... and a silly pony. Why would I follow good advice?"

"Argh!" Twilight fell back, reclining the couch back and slightly of the floor. Staring up at the ceiling, she started to laugh. "That isn't fair, you know. Making sense while not making sense!"

"You were taught by Auntie, I thought you'd be used to it?"

The two unicorns laughed, digesting their own thoughts along with a cup of hot tea. Some time during that, Twilight Sparkle realized that she felt better: about the conundrum that still wasn't solved, about fears that even bringing this topic up with Rarity would drive a rift of suspicion between them, even about the threat to her family caused by the Terre Rare schism. She felt better. Maybe, it was just the laughter and the endorphins...

Maybe it was just blasting the Prince with some magic. That seemed therapeutic too.

However, that conundrum, those fears, that threat - there were all still there. The only difference was really that she had spoken to somepony about it. For a few minutes after sneaking in and confronting the Prince, Twilight had seriously considered running away again. It was just so embarrassing to even talk about all this. She had regretted even coming. Now, she was glad she had.

"Can I ask you something?" There was just - just one more thing she had to know before they went on. Something she wanted desperately to understand.

"I am a font of wisdom," the arrogant Prince declared with a grandiose flair of his right foreleg. "So go ahead."

"You mentioned your mother talking about proper marriage?" Twilight asked it with due caution, loaded as the question was. "You're a noblepony like me and you probably had a similar upbringing, so why...? Why is love so important to you?"

Why you, and not me?

Yet.

Blueblood paused for a few seconds, collecting his thought and predictably mixing them with some improper observations. "Give yourself time. I have known quite a few mares, none of which I loved, before meeting my dear Rarity. Whereas, I suspect you, my sweet Lady Twilight, have never once indulged those virgin lips of yours."

"S-sure I have!" Twilight stammered, blurting out the first thing that came to mind to refute him. "I kissed my parents and the Princess lots of times!"

"You and Auntie huh? I can imagine it, but likely not in the way you suspect."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Pray tell, Miss Sparkle, what did my Auntie's heavenly lips taste like?"

"T-t-the lips!?" Twilight blushed a bright and candid crimson, her hooves finding a sudden urge to fidget. "I never - I wouldn't - I couldn't!!"

"As I said," he repeated with a smirk. "Virgin lips." Her frown did nothing to dissuade his laughter at her expense. "You haven't even had the chance to fall for somepony. At least, somepony who isn't my rather alluring Auntie. Reason would indicate that the more exposure one has, the greater chance of there being a chemical match of sorts, yes?"

"Oh! Yes, that makes sense! The more energetic a solution-"

Blueblood held out a hoof. "You see the point."

"I guess." Twilight huffed at being cut short in her exploration of that scientific analogy.

"When it comes to Rarity and myself-"

"Was it love at first sight?" The bookworm interrupted. "Rarity told me...!"

"It wasn't," Blueblood returned the interruption, and the answer clearly surprised the lavender bookworm. "Maybe for her it was something like that. Love at first sight. My circumstances... back at the gala... were different. Skewed. I can't really explain it, but it wasn't love at first, second, third, or even tenth sight. Rarity is a beautiful mare, but that isn't what's important. It's nice, mind you! I do love pretty mares and pretty mares love me. But it isn't what's important in the end. Waking up next to her, just being with her, I feel like I can live every day without regrets, like I can make every day perfect. I honestly can not imagine letting her go."

"So that's love?"

"That's my version of it. Cadance herself could work her magic on a dozen couples and they would all describe two dozen different ways they love their partners. There is no one answer and there never will be."

Twilight contemplated that, in silence.

Seeing her introspection, Blueblood tried to provide some perspective, "If it matters, for most of my life I did think like you do. I was rather more jaded, actually, since I knew from a young age that my colthood and my title made me a prize to be won. I had always expected an arranged, political marriage, hopefully to some pretty young mare who was willing to work much harder than myself. I never, ever expected to have affection and romance trump practicality and politics."

"And!" he added, leaning over the couch a bit more, his voice conspiratorial. "If you can keep a secret, I think I had a little crush on Auntie when I was younger, too!"

He used one hoof to cover up his right eye and the other to flow his mane back and away, adding a bit of magic to make it flow and shimmer in colors. "Oh, my little nephew, you have grown into such a handsome stallion! Why don't you come closer and let your Auntie Celestia get a closer look at you. Kissy-kissy-kiss!!"

"Your Grace!" Twilight gasped, covering up her eyes, fighting the scandalous image.

"I, your Princess, do hereby allow you to kiss my royal hoof. Hmm yes. Do not be afraid to use some tongue, my dear, for I assure you I am not! Yes, very good. Why not my royal throat as well. Hmmm! Kissy-kissy-kiss!!"

Peeking from behind her hooves at the ridiculous play Twilight sputtered.

"And here comes our faithful student Twilight Sparkle! At a loss for words as usual, but is she not comely as well, nephew? And so obedient! Come, faithful student, you may be of some use! Why not take some of this royal cake with royal frosting and smear it all over our perfectly toned and sculpted royal flanks? And are our wings not the most beautiful in the land? Would you like your Princess covered in sticky, gooey cake, my faithful and naughty student? Kissy-kissy-kiss!!"

The impact of pillow on face brought an end to the mimicry with a POMF!

"Kissy kiss," Blueblood concluded.

Twilight's magic already had another pillow armed and at the ready. "Princess Celestia is not nearly as perverted as you, your Grace!"

The Prince merely raised an eyebrow, floating up the rather expensive silk throw pillow she had smacked him with.

"As perverted as me?" he asked, and shuddered visibly. "I should hope not! If she was, I would fear for the safety of Canterlot itself! Then again, I did catch her staring lustily at our Captain of the Guard once-"

POMF!

"Aha!" Pillow met pillow, sparing his royal countenance from another cushioned assault. "Blocked!"

"Next time I'll throw the couch instead," Twilight warned, levitating the pillows back to her couch. "Rarity was so right about you."

"In what way...?" the royal asked.

Rather than reply, the element of magic giggled.

"Fine!" he grumbled, indignant. "Keep your little filly secrets! Now I'll never tell you what we stallions do when we get together."

"You probably just watch pornography and gamble."

"We also smoke and drink."

The two nobleponies, their families bitter enemies, laughed together.

"Bye-bye, daddy! I love you!"

"I love you, too, Euporie."

"More than Eunomie, right?"

"I love you both equally."

Alpha Brass, the Marquis of the Equestrian colonies and frontier, and a Duke in all but name, smiled pleasantly as his step-daughter hugged him. He was not a mountain of a stallion like his father; those who knew the family would remark that he took mostly from his mother, the Duchess Twinkling Star Light. He had his mother's flowing mane and tail, but colored in gold, and he had her more lithe, muscular body and her large and expressive eyes. Even as a colt, many mares (and some stallions) had considered him beautiful. There had been much wailing when he had gotten engaged to a far older widow and become a step-father.

Next to the Marquis, Eunomie watched her sister and father with a level expression.

"I want you both to be careful down on the surface," he said, still smiling lovingly. "No killing anypony. That means you, Euporie. I expect you both to remember why you're going down there."

"Please leave it in our hooves, father," Eunomie assured him. "We will return with what you need."

"I don't like it!" Euporie growled, letting her step-father go and trotting angrily over to where her sister stood among the clouds and white tile. "But if you need it done, I'll help out."

"Thank you, Euporie." Alpha Brass touched a hoof to her wild blue mane. "It really is a relief for me, that I can always count on you both."

"Of course, father."

"Anything to get that bug-witch out of your bed."

"What was that?"

"Nothing, daddy!"

"Excuse me, brother..." The two siblings turned their eyes towards the intrusion, prompting one to smirk and the other to remain - as always - impassive. Chalice slowly trotted towards her closest family, head lowered slightly. She kept her eyes on her brother; Alpha Brass didn't so much as turn his head, not until she boldly pushed herself forward. Only then did one green eyes move to secure her, like a pin impaling a butterfly.

"My dear Chalice," he said, in a tone that was welcoming but not entirely warm. "Don't tell me? You want to go down to the surface, too?"

"This is important to - to our plans, right?" she asked, trying to ignore Euporie's intense stare. "Don't look so surprised. They're my plans, too, aren't they? Didn't you say that this was my chance? Brother?"

"Of course. Our plans." Brass held out a hoof; Chalice took it and he used the contact to straighten her up and adjust her chin so it held high. "I know these parties and orgies I host make you nervous, but as you know, things are as they need to be. Take some time to relax in Ponyville. It is a lovely little town full of happy little ponies."

"Speaking of the party, father," Eunomie interrupted, though she spoke quietly and politely. "I wished to ask you about Miss Heartstrings."

"I don't like her," Euporie chimed in.

"I have some concerns about the timing," Eunomie continued. "If we return early..."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry!" Alpha Brass chuckled, waving his step-daughter away and not to fret. "She's already coming along nicely. She simply doesn't know it yet. There are merely some things I need to do, and then we can retrieve her torc and put it back to use."

"How did she get it to begin with?" Euporie frowned. "Daddy, I can't imagine anypony would betray you! So how could we have lost a star key?"

"It is impossible for any of my beneficiaries to betray me, this is true." Brass' own facade of good cheer slipped, just a fraction, as his jaw clenched. "I am aware of the one who took this torc and gave it to the Princess. I know she continues to conspire with our enemies. I will find her. Concern yourself with finding Celestia's intermediaries in Ponyville and your other business. There will be no repeats of this fiasco."

"And the torc itself?" Chalice inquired. "Um, maybe we should just take it back...?"

"We must inspect it thoroughly first. What if it was tampered with? Or damaged? That sort of danger is best kept on the surface where it belongs," Eunomie explained, as if to a foal. "Please, Aunt Chalice, leave this to Euporie and myself. As father said, you need only relax and let us shoulder the burden of this endeavor. Isn't that right, Euporie?"

"That's right, Eunomie," her sister agreed with a vicious grin. "Just stay out of the way, Auntie. We'll call you if we need to destroy the town and everypony in it."

Chalice scowled, but nodded. She stood next to Eunomie while her niece charged her horn, preparing to teleport the three of them down to the surface of Equestria and through the Hanging Gardens' Barrier. A ring of magic formed in a circle around them, leaping out of the tiles on the floor, the animated sigils dancing in midair, spinning slowly as magic built up.

"Oh yes, and as for Lady Yumi?" Alpha Brass called to them. "Her situation is rather unique, having been here without feeling my influence. You know what to do with her."

"Of course, father."

"I can't wait, daddy! I'll do it! Pick me! I'll do it!"

"No," he told them, before they blinked out. "Chalice. When the time comes... you take care of it."

The small pink pony lowered her head.

"If you want, brother," she deferred. "I'll get rid of her."

With a snap and a blast of vapor, the three vanished from the Gardens' porte-cochère. Alpha Brass inhaled deeply, savoring the smell of magic lingering in the air. It had not been an exaggeration earlier: betrayal really was impossible, except where permitted by inaction or conflicting orders. To have that one mistake from that one horrible day threaten to ruin so much? It was unforgivable. It was simply unforgivable!

"Discord," he hissed, under his breath. "You bastard."

Alpha Brass spun around to return to the gardens proper.

"So many little thorns in my side." His lip curled as he paused at the threshold. "They're irritating."

"What I mean is... thanks for... listening I guess?" Twilight cracked a knowing grin at her host. "And for being an ass."

"That part comes easily to me," Blueblood replied, reclining lazily across his couch. "So your thanks are unnecessary."

"I feel better now. But," she cautioned. "I still need a solution to this mess. In fact!" The studious unicorn stomped her hooves down in place, albeit onto the soft couch cushions. "In fact," she repeated. "I'm not going anywhere until we solve this problem! And if we can't, then maybe I'll just have to do what I have to do! Even if that means asking Rarity to play along!"

"Which, as I said before, is a mistake." He facehoofed, and it was rather cathartic for Twilight to see somepony else doing it for once. "Worse than a mistake, since I can actually see her agreeing to it. It's a disaster in training. Especially since..."

Like a trap, his jaw snapped shut.

"Especially since what?" Twilight asked, and he avoided eye contact. "Especially since what? Blueblood? I'll zap your mane if you don't come out with it."

"Great. You know my weakness," he grumbled, but still didn't explain.

Twilight shot a few sparks from her horn, just as a little reminder.

"You're both Elements of Harmony," he finally relented and explained himself. "If a rift develops between any of you then it puts the entire country in danger, and playing around with emotional magic - especially love magic - is just asking for that to happen. Besides which... how different is this plan, really, from any other mare who wants to get her hooves on my family's Crown?"

"They want it for their family as much as you do," he went on, cutting off her attempt to defend herself. "They want it for the power to change Equestria, just like you do. Oh, the things they would change are different, and the families that would benefit are different, too... but the spirit is much the same. Rarity is really the only one... the only mare I've ever met... who doesn't care about the power and whose family doesn't have something to gain from it."

Twilight's response withered even before she tried to get a word in.

"I rather wish there was no damned Crown," the Prince whispered, just loud enough to be heard. Then, more loudly, "This world would be the better for it. I've been wondering if... well. Here. I guess you're back to being mostly sane, so see for yourself."

Without another word, he retrieved Celestia's scroll and floated it back to her. Confused, Twilight's eyes caught how he unrolled all the way, folding the top back and leaving only the very bottom facing her. There was something there. Something she hadn't read before.

To my faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

Don't Panic.

- Princess Celestia

PS: Don't panic. Cause it.

"You understand, don't you?" Blueblood asked, and Twilight slowly lowered the scroll between them. "Auntie is our beloved Princess. We love her because she doesn't abuse her power and because she doesn't make sweeping changes to things. She is the steady rock, the very foundation of our world."

"The sun that rises every morning, without fail," Twilight agreed, and the scroll rolled up with an audible whorl. "She makes the ponies who make the changes."

The Prince of Canterlot leaned forward until he was balanced on his front hooves. "Are you that kind of pony, Twilight Sparkle?"

The quiet librarian focused on the scroll, and the broken wax seal it bore, still streaked by the rays of the rising sun. She shut her eyes, concentrating on the calming pulse of her heartbeat and the steady rhythm of her breath. It was impossible for her not to get involved, not when her family was in danger. The option her father had given her was to stamp on Rarity's dream, and no matter if Rarity herself felt pressured to agree to it, it would still be the end of her romance with the Prince she had longed to find. Finally, in her desperation, Twilight had imagined a third path: changing the rules, pushing herself, Rarity and Blueblood into artificial harmony.

There was a fourth path.

"I'll find a way to bring them together," she whispered, vowing it to the bundled scroll of her mentor. "The Terre Rare. All of them. I'll bring them together. But if I do..." Twilight Sparkle turned her eyes up, to Equestria's Prince. "I want something from you."

Blueblood didn't agree, not right away, but he did listen. "And that is?"

"The vow," she told him. "You'll honor it. You and Rarity will honor it. Our children will honor it."

Author's Note

A/N
Gonna put in a quick note here. I don't do it too often.
Been working hard to get out new chapters at a good clip to hustle things forward in the fic! Don't expect next weekend to be as productive, though. I can't keep the pace of a chapter or two a week for much longer. Just a bit of forewarning.

Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting, though! It really does help fire up the creative juices! Things wouldn't be where they are without you guys and your energy, pushing me forward!

Now, for Twile's Chapter.

Chapter Eighteen : The Knight and the Enchantress

(18)

The Knight and the Enchantress

Chickens.

Scootaloo wasn't exactly a big fan of flightless fowl to begin with; her recent activity and 'training' hadn't exactly done much to improve her opinion of the birds. There was nothing deep or self-reflective about it. Not really. Probably not, anyway.

She was just tired of chasing the dumb things!

Hooves scrambling, the Cutie Mark Crusader jumped high to intercept one of the fleeing, flapping chickens, catching it by the neck with her mouth in midair. White wings beat furiously, nearly blinding her, but Scootaloo resisted forcing her eyes entirely closed despite the abuse to her face. She already had one chicken under her left foreleg, angrily pecking at her chest, and now one in her mouth. The maximum she could bring back at a time was three. One more.

Landing softly on three legs, she stared across the muddy field at her nemesis. Henrietta. The Queen Bad-B-word of Chickens herself. Swallowing the earthworm that had just been squirming between her beak, the large white hen began to pace, all while eyeing the intruding filly ruining their freedom.

'You again?' she seemed to say with her beady bird-eyes. 'I won't go back this time. You can't cage me, and I won't go back to dealing with that evil bunny rabbit! I won't!'

Or maybe, Scootaloo had to admit, her imagination was just running a little wild. Probably also it was getting bad vibes from her so called trainer. Either way, there was no point thinking too deeply about it. Deep thoughts were for Sweetie Belle, and it was clear how much trouble they got her into.

“Ir'lh grwet ru riss grime!” Scootaloo shouted, standing to point dramatically at Henrietta, the chicken in her mouth starting to struggle again, a wing smacking into her left eye.

Scootaloo charged, buzzing, body narrowing and flattening as she blasted forward at top speed. Henrietta's talons were already kicking up clods of dirt as she made her escape, wing flapping and occasionally taking her off the ground for long flight-assisted leaps. Despite the wing slapping against the left side of her face, Scootaloo didn't lose sight of her quarry. The chase was on, and once Henrietta was back in the hen house, the others would fold like a house of cards. Checkmate.

Closing the distance with a burst of speed, Scootaloo reached for her nemesis fowl, only for Henrietta to briefly vanish. 'Up! She went up!' Skidding on her hind legs, the world spinning around her, Scootaloo reversed her momentum and shot upwards. Sure enough, Henrietta was up in the air, her wings flapping to keep her mostly in place. Seeing the pegasus filly closing in, she cut her flapping short and dropped, fast.

'Missed!' Scootaloo's hoof again closed in on empty air.

Rebounding off a tree she made another flying leap, catching sight of Henrietta as she zigzagged wildly through the brush and groundcover. The rustle of leaves betrayed her. Nimbly moving from branch to branch, Scootaloo never lost sight of her target's movement. Any moment now, she would play possum and try and disappear...

“Rrere!” Scootaloo cried, seeing the movement abruptly cease. Slamming her free foreleg down into the dense ivy, a whoosh of force bucked a storm of leaves and debris into the air. Glaring up from beneath her destroyed cover, trapped by Scootaloo's hoof right next to her body, Henrietta clucked in indignant, impotent anger.

“Grot ruu!” Scootaloo muttered, triumphantly. The stupid chicken in her mouth was still flapping around. But she had it!

Henrietta pecked her on the nose.

“Ow! Strop rat! Rrupid ricken!”

Scootaloo endured the bandage and petroleum jelly on her nose. It was annoying, and itchy, but by and large offset by the milk and cookies Fluttershy had put out for her as a way of thanks. The kind pegasus and foalsitter still hadn't put two and two together and realized that the recent 'chicken troubles' she'd been having weren't just a coincidence. Her chickens had always been kind of bird-brained and escape prone, after all.

The savory, moist flavors of peanut and oatmeal and just melted in her mouth. Fluttershy made some good cookies and Scootaloo made darn sure to eat them all, and enjoy them, before leaving the sanctuary that was the honorary game warden's house outside town. There were animals everywhere, cavorting around both the front and back yards, running the whole gamut from an 'A' for armadillo to a 'W' for warbler. No walrus yet, despite Fluttershy's wanted posters. The vast majority didn't have a problem coming and going or running away the moment somepony mysteriously broke their enclosure. Stupid chickens.

Brushing her mane with a hoof, just to make sure there were no stray fowl feathers left, Scootaloo skipped down the road to town. Not only was it embarrassing to get her caught with her hoof in the proverbial henhouse, but she couldn't risk her friends finding about where she was sneaking off to and why. It was for their own good, for one, but she had also made a promise not to tell anypony.

Of course, she hadn't Pinkie Pie Promised...

“Hey. Runt. Why didn't you bring me a cookie?”

Scootaloo didn't even bother to look up where she knew a certain somepony was probably hanging from a branch. How somepony so big - and so fond of violence - could move so quietly, she had no idea. It was eerie.

“Last time you ate all of them and not just one,” Scootaloo informed her. “I did all the work, so I get all the cookies.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ritterkreuz said from overhead. “I saw.”

Without warning, she swept a wing down, scooping Scootaloo up and into the air. She didn't put the little filly on her back, however. Instead, she balanced Scootaloo on her outstretched wing while she skipped from branch to branch, keeping a low profile away from prying eyes. There had been a string of beaten guards and wounded Wonderbolts discovered around and outside Ponyville. Even when she hadn't gotten into an outright fight with another pony, every time Scootaloo met up with her would-be flight instructor the big mare was sporting some new bruises.

“What do you do all day?” Scootaloo had to ask, poking a matted scrape on the older pegasus' wing. “Doesn't that hurt?”

“It does when you poke it,” Ritter grumbled, rolling her eyes. “As for what I do... it's the same thing you should be doing. Every day and every hour. Training.”

“You mean fighting?”

“Any fight worth the time is training.”

“Yeah, well, some of us have friends and a life,” Scootaloo quipped, settling down on the former Wonderbolt's wing and even rolling nonchalantly onto her back. She had seen the crazy pegasus flip fallen trees with her wings. Flip. Fallen trees. Her wing muscles were unreal.

“You mean that little white horn-head and the pint sized tree-kicker?”

“Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom,” she informed the older pony. “Plus, I still have to write my report for Decoration Day.”

“How lame,” Ritter scoffed. “Decoration Day. What a joke.”

“What does that mean?” Scootaloo asked, and poked the scrape on Ritter's wing when she didn't answer. “Hey! What did you mean by that? You don't like Decoration Day weekend?”

One of Ritterkreuz's golden eyes turned to stare at Scootaloo, catching her by the corner of the big mare's vision. The filly froze, still balanced on the mare's wing. She'd known since first running into the former Wonderbolt that she was dangerous, but she'd never really acted particularly badly. Not really. She'd never been that threatening or mean. Insulting - all the time - but not really that mean. If anything, she mostly acted pretty foalish, like a big kid. For the first time, Scootaloo saw a real hint of violence in the mare's yellow eye.

Then it was gone.

“What are you supposed to write about anyway?” Ritter asked, pointedly avoiding answering the question from before. She closed her eyes even as she jumped down, from branch to branch, to land on the ground.

Scootaloo needed a moment to relax and get back to normal. “Just... famous ponies who serve Equestria.”

“Ponies who serve Equestria... huh?”

“Like Wonderbolts. Or... well, Sweetie's writing about Prince Blue and his park ranger thing.”

“Grand Veneur,” Ritter corrected her, slowly opening her eyes to once again watch where she was going. “And who is that earth pony filly writing about?”

“Some uncle of hers in Manehattan. He's running for Mayor or something.”

“Yeah? And what about you, runt?”

“I dunno,” Scootaloo admitted, glad that her would-be trainer was back to normal, or what passed for her weird version of normalcy. “I was gonna write about Rainbow Dash, since she's the town's head weathermare, but Miss Cheerilee says I always write about her, so I have to pick somepony else. Which sucks because I know everything about Rainbow Dash and could just reuse one of my old reports on her. Plus, I don't really know about anypony else. I guess Miss Doo counts, since she's a mailmare, but I bet Dinky wants to write about her...”

Her flight instructor snorted, derisively.

“I don't suppose you know anypony?” Scootaloo asked the question much more slyly than usual, making a production of looking away and simply wondering out loud.

“No. I don't.”

“Yes, you do! You do! Out with it! Come on!”

Ritter stared levelly at the filly bouncing up and down on her outstretched wing.

“There are other Wonderbolts around town. Why not write about that little girl-scout, Spitfire? Or that playcolt, Soarin?” Ritter asked back. “I know you sure as hell don't want to write about me. What with me being an evil fugitive and all.”

“I guess not...” Scootaloo admitted, head dropping slightly. “But I haven't come up with anypony good that hasn't been done before. And I have to hoof over the report tomorrow!”

“Oh, I get it! You want something juicy to show off for the class?” Ritter's mouth broke into a vicious grin, despite her facing forward. “I can help with that. Sure. You can write about my old stallion.”

“Your... what?”

“My father,” Ritter replied, her pace picking up somewhat. “The Governor General of Cloudsdale.”

“Ummm?” Question marks floated over Scootaloo's head. “What does he do?”

“Doesn't this Miss Cheerilee teach you anything in that mud pony school of yours?” Ritter snapped, frowning at the little filly.

“Do you know what the difference between a proper and common noun is?” Scootaloo asked back.

“Uh... no?”

The filly nodded sagely, as if expecting that answer. “Who invented the printing press?”

“Uhhh.”

Scootaloo continued, mercilessly. “Who gave us the leap year?”

“Errr.”

“What kind of animal spirit is Discord?”

“That one I know!” Ritter announced with due pride. “He's a drag-qaaa-no-pony. Ponycamp. Dracoponycamp. Dragon-o-pony-monster. Okay, I don't know.”

“Well, you tell me who the Governor of Cloudsdale is and what he does, and I'll tell you what kind of creature Discord is.”

“Runt... I kinda wanna toss you into the bushes right now.” Ritterkreuz, needless to say, didn't follow through. Instead, she sighed. “Okay. Look. The Governor-General of Cloudsdale is the big pony who plans out Equestria's weather patterns. He and this committee of eggheads decide where the water gets sucked up and where it rains back down. All the local weather teams, like that Rainbow Bitch's squad, take their orders from Cloudsdale.”

“They even schedule disasters, like tornados and hurricanes and experiment with weather. Hell if I know why the world needs the occasional hurricane or flood, or... other things... but somepony smarter than me decided that was how it worked. Usually they just dump the problematic weather out in the boonies anyway. All of that, it all comes from the desk of my old stallion, Winter Bora.”

“So how come you call him an old stallion?” Scootaloo clopped a hoof down on Ritter's wing in realization. “Is it because he's old?”

“Nooo,” Ritter said, looking surprised. Then she snickered. “I guess he is sort of an old fart, but he isn't like... seventy or anything. He isn't an old grandpa. I just don't like him that much. Geez, I thought that would be obvious.”

“But he's your dad!” Scootaloo protested, still sounding and looking confused. “Why don't you like him? Don't you love your mom and dad?”

Ritterkreuz didn't answer right away.

The two traveled further down the dirt path before she replied, “I don't. No.”

Scootaloo gave the older pegasus a sad look, but Ritter refused to do anything but stare straight ahead. The filly expected her to drop the subject entirely after an answer like that, but the big mare eventually continued on.

“Winter Bora... he's a former Wonderbolt. He even trained Captain Thunderhead. There's no way you ever met Thundy, Runt, but he was strong. Worthy of the title Captain. The old fart showed him how to fly and fight. Made him into a legend. Loved him like a son. Taught him everything... almost everything. Too bad for him.”

Midway through her description her voice and features became serious, her characteristic vicious grin giving way to a reflective mask.

“You know, Runt, I think I have a complex about my old stallion sometimes. Back when Blueblood and I used to buck I would call him daddy and have him sp-”

“AAAAHHH!!!” Scootaloo's mad cry thankfully blocked out the rest of whatever the crazy pegasus was in the process of imparting. “Language! Language! I'm just a filly! And I don't want to hear about that! GROSS!”

“Huhh? Oh yeah. I forgot.”

“How could you forget?!” The schoolfilly stomped up and down to drive the point home, and to hopefully drive the image out of her own fertile imagination. It was easier said than done, though, especially since she had read those letters Sweetie Belle had borrowed. “Are you stupid or something?!”

Ritter shrugged, the motion bouncing Scootaloo up and down on her outstretched wing.

“I was saying, I guess my dad knew how to bring out a pony's strengths. It makes sense he would. Just like the unicorns have their stupid stuff, Cloudsdale has Four Winds. He's the North.”

“Four Winds?” Scootaloo wondered. That had to be north, east, west and south.

“Yep. I wonder how much of what I tell you to write your teacher will even believe?” Ritterkreuz put back on another toothy grin, but it only seemed skin deep. “Then again... Decoration Day... maybe I...”

“Maybe you what?”

Flapping her wing without warning, Ritterkreuz tossed Scootaloo into the air, letting the filly land on her own. “Maybe I've had enough talking for today.”

“Alright! Some real training!” Scootaloo cheered, looking around at the seemingly empty field around the two pegasi. Her cheer then died a bit and she turned on her supposed mentor. “Hey! What are we doing out here? Are you gonna teach me how to take off?”

“Runt, you have to grow talons before you can maul anything.”

“What?” The little filly asked. “Talons?”

“A griffin saying. Point is: I've got something else for you to work with. You'll love it! Trust me!” Ritterkreuz giggled to herself as she crept over to some long grass and picked up a pair of wheels.

“Those better not be-”

“Training wheels!” Ritter exclaimed, breaking into full on guffaws as Scootaloo pouted, angrily stomping her hooves.

“No no no! I am not wearing training wheels! Not in a million billion zillion years!”

“Really?”

“No. Not ever! Hey! Lemme go!”

“Thanks again fer comin' along, Pinkie Pie. Ah tell ya, it's kinda nice to see at least one'a us isn't havin' some sorta crisis.”

“No problem, Applejack!” Pinkie Pie bounced alongside her friend, a small box of treats nestled securely - somehow - in the curly confines of her fluffy pink mane. “Just think of me as your number one source of normalcy in Ponyville!”

“Ah wouldn't go that far, sugarcube,” Applejack joked, squinting her eyes against the morning sun bereft of her beloved Stetson. She tried not to think about its absence. This morning was make or break for Sweet Apple Acres, and for what had to be the first time the future of the farm was riding not just on hard work. It was reliant on a hoof-full of papers in her saddlebags.

Pinkie appeared to note her friend's thoughtful pause.

“Hey, Applejack?”

“Yeah?”

“I'm sorry I drank so much of Flim and Flam's cider...”

“Ah, don't sweat it!” Applejack leaned over to bump shoulders with the other earth pony. “Ah've been tryin' ta get Granny Smith to sell cider in town for years now. Ah know it ain't exactly convenient to sell it out by the farm. We'll pull through and we'll be better for it next year.”

“It's really okay?” Pinkie asked, guilt lowering the normally lively tone of her voice. True to form, she had come by the farm every day to buy cider, but with how drink-crazy the pink pony was, Applejack knew she was buying some in town, too. Who wasn't?

Sweet Apple Acres had been forced to make a few changes to their sales program this cider season, due to the unexpected and frankly crippling competition. Barrels of cider were made the night before and taken to market in the morning. 'Fresh squeezed' cider was available at the farm itself, just like it had been for a hundred cider seasons past, but now Sweet Apple Acres could be bought in the town as well.

They had also changed their distribution scheme to keep pace, using local business contacts. It was a lot of work, and they still weren't selling anywhere near normal capacity, but the farm wasn't sunk yet. Apple Bloom had even rigged up a filter for the press, so they could make filtered cider - less pulp - along with normal cider, and Granny was brewing up a high proof alcoholic mix to compete with the Flim Flam boys' brand of Tom's Rock Hard (which had tested very high in street surveys). According to Mac's books, sales were up to almost half normal.

“Ah just wish ah didn't have'ta wear this silly thing,” Applejack groused, motioning to herself with one hoof. She had 'borrowed' some clothes from Rarity, namely a mare's business collar in black and white. She'd originally planned on just reusing Big Mac's, but - no surprise here - it was too big to fit. It was also a faux pas for a mare to wear a stallion's collar, apparently. Applejack couldn't see why, but at least this way she didn't have to button up the top of it and lace a tie around her neck.

“Even Mayor Mare can get away with just wearing the top part,” she continued, sighing. A picture of the gray-maned mare came and went, reminding Applejack of the downside. She stuck out her tongue in distaste. “Then again, she's got that frilly thing instead'a a tie. No thanks.”

“You should dress up more! I love my new delivery outfit!” Pinkie Pie did a little twirl on her next bounce, showing off her magenta full body suit, replete with white and blue frills and the Sugarcube Corner logo on each side. “I was thinking last night, wouldn't it be neat if I also had a bicycle, and then I could zip around town even faster!”

“Bicycle? Do ah even want to know what that is?”

“Sure! It's like a cart but with two wheels instead of four!”

“Sounds silly and dangerous. Two wheels? How'd that even work?” Applejack shook her head, trying to dispel some of the residual silliness that always came from being around Pinkie Pie. She had to focus her thoughts. “We're just about there. Okay, Applejack. Gotta get yer game face on.”

“But your face is already on!”

“...yes. I know.”

Right up ahead was her - their - destination: the Prance cottage styled Silver Stable Hotel. It was one of the town's oldest and nicest hotels, though not very large by the standards of a city like Canterlot, and certainly not Manehattan. It had been a coaching inn twenty years earlier before the daughter who inherited it modernized the place, keeping the outside the same but updating the amenities.

Entering under the old hanging sign proclaiming the 'famous Silver Stable in Ponyville,' Applejack and Pinkie Pie passed through a sleepy lobby thick with wall-to-wall pictures, autographs from famous patrons, and kitschy memorabilia. Their targets were at the back of the lounge, getting ready for the day. Flim and Flam were already out of bed and out of their rooms, chatting over a breakfast of sugar beets and minced bran. Every day, they opened the cider garden at eight sharp. This theoretically gave a small window of opportunity for Sweet Apple Acres to sell before they opened, except for the fact that it was a thirty minute walk from the farm to the town. In practice, even getting up two hours ahead of time to set things up hadn't helped much. Sales didn't pick up until afternoon.

“Howd-”

“HI!” Pinkie Pie chirped, springing away to land right next to the pair of thoroughly surprised unicorns. “Did somepony order a whooooole bunch of sticky buns? And carrot-raisin-walnut bread?”

“That would be me, Miss, if you could just stop - moving - around - quite - so - much!” Flam finally managed to pluck the box out of Pinkie's mane with green tinted magic. “There were go.”

“You and your sweet tooth, Flam.”

“Don't start on that, Flim. We have the exact same body type.”

“Yes, but then why is my blood pressure lower? Eat healthy foods for once.”

“Ugh! Health food!” Pinkie and Flam said in unison, and as one, the two ponies turned to each other. Then Flam pointed over to her. “See, brother o' mine? This mare knows the score.”

“Oh! That reminds me! I wanted to ask you guys!” Pinkie excitedly put her hooves on the table, glad to have their attention. “When you said traveling salesponies nonpareil, did you mean-”

“Ah, actually,” Applejack interrupted, prompting her friend to collapse onto the floor.

“Tell me what it meeaaans,” Pinkie groaned from the floor.

“Ah was wonderin' if I could have a couple minutes ah yer time?” The apple farmer continued, turning her head around to fish out a pair of clipboards from her saddlebags. She put both on the breakfast table. “Now, ah know we didn't exactly get off on the right hoof, but I got an idea here that I think you'll want'ta see.”

“What's this about, Miss Applejack?” Flam levitated the clipboard with a critical eye. At the same time, he munched on one of the cookies from the delivery box.

Flim, meanwhile, was already skimming the papers.

Applejack produced a copy of her own, pointing to one of the graphs on the first page. “Mah brother and I have been goin' over this here cider season, and we realized that with the both of us sellin' to Ponyville, we're actually over-saturatin' the market. We're makin' literally more cider than the ponies here can drink.”

It was a first for Ponyville, perpetually short of cider. For the first time anypony could remember, there was too much cider flooding the market. Projections were that six times as much cider as normal was being produced daily between Sweet Apple Acres and the Flim Flam Cider Garden. Aside from public citations for drunkenness increasing rather dramatically, it was also crushing cider prices and worse: wasting cider! Ponies were buying entire barrels and taking them home.

“Ya'll can see that accordin' to these here projections, we're both gonna run ourselves inta the ground goin' at this like we are,” Applejack explained, going over the points she had outlined and written up the night before (and then copied two times over by hoof).

Flim and Flam exchanged looks.

The brothers then noticed Pinkie Pie leaning against the table and nodding sagely. “Makes sense to me!” she declared.

“You don't understand a word'a this stuff, do ya, Pinkie?”

“Nope! Not even a little bit!”

“The numbers do trend that way,” Flim admitted, flipping one of the pages. “What do you think, Flam?”

“I think she's got a point, Flim,” Flam agreed, biting down on another sticky bun, moustache twitching in delight. “My stars, brother, these are good!”

“If we all agree that we can't keep at what we're doin' like this, then if ya'll don't mind, ah think I've got a solution!” Applejack quickly held up another paper, this one displaying a small map of Equestria. Ponyville was circled in red, along with several blue lines that radiated towards it with arrows pointing inwards.

“What we got here is, as far as Ah can figure, all the routes yer usin' ta import apples,” she said, pointing to the blue lines with a hoof. “Now, take a look at the routes. With just a little tweakin' ah think we could use these same trains ta' distribute all our extra cider. Both of us! If we work together, form some sorta Cider Consortium, then we could both of us make up our losses by selling in bulk.”

“Naturally,” she hastened to elaborate. “Since you fellas already have the trains and the cold cars, ah'm willing ‘ta let you be senior partners in this partnership. You can even have three-fourths of all profits AND Sweet Apple Acres will provide all the apples we need, just like ya wanted. We can make and sell both traditionally pressed and machine pressed cider!”

Flim and Flam exchanged looks; nervous looks.

“Canterlot is right around the corner and mah family's already got contacts there.” Applejack pointed to Equestria's capitol city, and then to one near the coast. “Manehattan is another good city. We got trains goin' right past it and there's bound ‘ta be plenty ah retail types out there lookin' ta buy. Ah've also looked inta sellin' ta Fillydelphia and Cloudsdale. Pegasi love cider but they can't grow any and have trouble storin' it up in the air for long periods of time. It's an untapped market!”

“But,” she concluded, hurrying to finish before the questions started up. “Ta make the most'a this we gotta work together! If ya'll check the last page there, you'll see that if we can maximize our distribution and actually sell all this cider we're makin' at premium prices outside Ponyville we can both come outta this in the green!”

“So what do ya say, boys?” Applejack put on her best smile, eager to hear from the two unicorn brothers. “Ya'll wanna make some serious bits or what?”

Pinkie Pie's riotous hoof-clapping drowned out any immediate response.

“WooOO!” She nudged Flam on the side and then did the same to Flim. “I didn't understand any of that! But a Cider Consortium sounds neat! Oh! We should call it ‘Omni-Cider Products’ or OCP for short! And we can have a party to celebrate!”

Disturbingly, Flim and Flam said nothing. Applejack gulped, waiting, as even Pinkie Pie's normally boundless enthusiasm started to fade. The two mares waited, and waited, as Flim and Flam checked and double checked the outlines and graphs Applejack had made for them. Inside were records and numbers for sales, projections, and estimates for expanding joint operations outside Ponyville compared to smaller individual efforts that would struggle from the competition. It was a case of either of them being too small individually. It made perfect sense to cooperate, even if it meant Sweet Apple Acres took a junior position with a smaller share of the profits.

“Brother!” Flam finally spoke, tearing his eyes from the documents now held in shaking hooves. “This - this could work, Flim!”

“I know, Flam,” Flim didn't sound enthusiastic. He sounded almost afraid.

“What in Tartarus are we going to do?!” Flam started to panic. “Oh, sweet Celestia and Luna! What are we-”

“Quiet. Flam.” Flim winced, carefully putting down the papers held in his magical field. “Just be quiet.”

“But according to this, we'd be making more bits working with-” Flam was mid-sentence when his voice gave out with an inaudible gasp. It was as if he had suddenly been put on mute.

Applejack noticed it with some worry. “Uh, is he okay?”

“Perfectly fine!” Flim replied, a forced grin in place. “Aren't you, Flam? Perfectly fine?”

The stallion cleared his throat. “I'm just... fine, Flim. Nothing wrong with me at all.”

Flim gave his brother a glare that seemed to say, 'Good. Now shut the hell up.'

“I'm sorry, Miss Applejack,” the clean-shaven brother continued, floating over the clipboard. “We can't cooperate with you in this.”

“But!” Applejack turned from one to the others, agape. “But! Look at the numbers! Did you find a mistake? Were we wrong about something? Is that it?”

Flim closed his eyes, almost regretful, shaking his head in the negative.

“No,” he replied, with a bit of effort. “You're right. This is a good deal, and... and it would have been nice to accept it. But we can't.”

“Why the hay not?!” Applejack very nearly yelled, only barely restraining herself from upsetting the other ponies in the hotel lobby and lounge. “Of course ya can!”

“No,” Flim insisted, frowning at her and pressing his hooves flat against the table. “We can't. It just isn't possible for us to agree to this. Do you understand me?”

“I thought I did!” Applejack growled, stuffing her copy of the papers back into her bags. “I thought ya'll were businessponies. I thought you cared about sellin' yer cider ta ponies. Ah thought ya liked seeing how cider could make ponies happy. But Ah guess Ah I was wrong!”

“I'm sorry-” Flim offered her the clipboards again.

“Ya'll keep em. Just in case ya come to yer senses!” She turned to leave, firing one last parting shot their way. “Ah just hope fer both our sakes ya don't take too long.”

The apple farmer held her head high as she left the hotel. Inside, where nopony could see, she was crushed. This proposal had been the end result of all her work, even getting Big Macintosh to help with the math, and all her hopes to find some sort of compromise that would save Sweet Apple Acres. She had been so confident... so sure...

Pinkie Pie followed close behind her, looking back at the two unicorns, but not with anger.

“They were unhappy,” she muttered, but Applejack barely heard her.

“What?” she asked, and by then they were back outside.

“They were unhappy. They didn't want to say no,” Pinkie Pie said, and their unhappiness became hers. Her smile became a thoughtful line, slightly down-turned.

“Yeah, well they did,” Applejack growled.

“Twilight? Twilight? Oh, hello there, Owloysius, you wouldn't happen to know where-”

A large pair of eyes stared back from the ground-floor library window.

“On second thought, I'd best keep that question to myself.”

Rarity had spent enough time at or around the Ponyville library to know when to end certain lines of questioning, so long as those questions were posed to the resident night owl. Owloysius leaned forward just a bit from her perch on the window sill, waiting for the moment to answer any question with a predictable question of her own. Rarity knocked one last time, silently wishing Spike had come back from his personal dragon quest with them. The sweet little guy never failed to answer the door or wake Twilight up as necessary.

“Maybe she isn't even in?” Rarity wondered aloud with a soft sigh. Quickly, she pointed to the waiting owl. “No need to respond, I was merely being facetious.”

“Who?”

“You know who. Me.”

“Who?”

“…”

Biting her lip, Rarity sucked in a deep breath and turned around, fighting the urge to exchange words with the obstinate avian. Owloysius could go on for hours, though Pinkie Pie had once said she was a much better conversationalist than Gummy, a fact that clearly said something about either Owloysius, or Gummy, or mostly just Pinkie Pie.

Rarity reminded herself not to get side tracked. There were some important matters that she and Twilight needed to discuss, or, to be more precise, there were some things Rarity needed her friend's expert input on. Most important of all was the matter of Sweet Apple Acres.

Applejack had insisted that she not need any 'government assistance' even if it came from a friend who just happened to be the new local nobility, but luckily, Macintosh had not been so cavalier about the future of the farm. He was at least willing to consider outside help. Applejack really was too stiff-necked sometimes! Too stiff-necked even for her own good.

“Oh dear. She isn't in?” The question came from the magnificent brass and lacquer carriage waiting by the road. A pink coated older mare with a snow white mane had rolled down one of the windows. Like Rarity, she wore a fascinator for a hat, but hers was pearl white instead of crimson.

“It seems not,” Rarity replied, walking closer so she didn't have to raise her voice to be heard. “I am terribly sorry, Patent. If I had known, I would not have dragged you along out here.”

“Oh, I don't mind!” Patent Pending assured her. “I've been meaning to get back to my research anyway. This doesn't change anything, though, does it? I do so hope Sweetie Belle and your Ladyship can join my little Diamond and me in Canterlot next week.”

Rarity shook her head, noticing the top of Diamond Tiara's head as the filly jumped up to also look out the carriage window. “It would be a pleasure. I'm sure we can have quite the excursion with Fleur and the others.”

Quite the costly excursion, perhaps.

It was a little hypocritical, as a fashion designer herself - a former designer anyway - to criticize the ponies who purchased a certain sort of fare, but the 'Canterlot party' Patent Pending had in mind was really just an excuse to spend un-Princessly amounts of bits on jewelry and clothes. At one point, her designs could have been among those on sale at one of Hoity's galleries, but the prices she knew he charged were scandalous. She had already calculated that the trip would set her back by at least five thousand bits.

The irony came from the fact that she had agreed to go on the trip, spending money, in order to raise money. A pony in her position couldn't simply ask for it. It had to be garnered by in turn raising the esteem of those around her. By being seen shopping with Equestria's newest Baroness and by being introduced to her friends in Canterlot, Patent Pending and the Rich Family would gain new contacts and prestige.

'You're a noble now, Rarity,' Blueblood had told her once, in passing. 'Your celebrity is an asset. Use it.'

And in return...

“By the way, should I assure my husband that we are moving forward on that other bit of business?” Patent asked with a small, knowing grin. She may have been an inventor at heart, but she had been married to Filthy Rich long enough to know the game the mercantile upper classes played with the aristocracy.

“Please do,” Rarity said, false smile well and plastered across her face.

“How wonderful!” Patent Pending patted her hoof on her daughter's purple and white mane, much to Diamond Tiara's annoyance. “Little Diamond here is so excited to spend time with her new friend! Isn't it adorable?”

“I'm positively ecstatic,” the pink filly grumbled. “Can't we also bring Silver Spoon and her mom, too?” At her mother's frown, she quickly added, “I mean, ahh, we both want to spend lots of time shopping with Sweetie Belle. Our good friend. In Canterlot.”

“We'll see,” Patent Pending promised. “And we shall be in touch, Lady Rarity.”

“Yeah, bye,” Diamond Tiara disappeared back into the carriage, but not before complaining a little too loudly, “I can't believe you're sticking me with that blank flank for an entire afternoon...!”

Her comment was followed by a rather stifled little muffle.

Rarity breathed a sigh of relief at the carriage started up, the two Rich family ladies ensconced inside and rapidly removing themselves from the newly titled noblemare's presence. Patent Pending was not a bad sort of mare, really, though she loved to drone on about herself much more than was healthy. Diamond Tiara, however, was an insufferable brat of the worst order.

Some excuse would have to be made to get Sweetie Belle out of the trip. It didn't take a nosy older sister to pick up on the fact that Sweetie wasn't very fond of Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon. The well-to-do fillies came up in conversation at least once a week as a source of seemingly unending and relentless aggravation and harassment at school. What Rarity had herself seen during her brief schoolyard appearance as 'Dewdrop Dazzle' had only reinforced her views on the subject.

Then again, if it was three against two during the trip...

She began to imagine the chaos that would be Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom around thousands of bits of expensive merchandise in Canterlot's finest shops and boutiques and showrooms. It would be like three pint-sized bulls in a china shop! A scene like that could be worth the admittedly high price of admission.

The humorous thought was dispersed by the unmistakable sound of a commotion nearby, towards the center of town. This being Ponyville, a disturbance and the resultant crowd could be caused by just about anything: a half-price asparagus sale, or maybe a rampaging dragon, or even a particularly adorable stray dog. It was just Ponyville being Ponyville. Nopony was fleeing en masse yet, though, so it was probably more amusing than threatening, as far as commotions went.

Curious, Rarity approached.

She also heard the swoop of wings and the soft hoof-fall of a pegasus landing nearby. It wasn't startling; though she did not know his name, she had seen this pony before, perched on one rooftop or another, following her in his elaborate steel cuirass, culet and burgonet helmet. If he was landing now, keeping this close to her, then whatever was going on up ahead was security related. Rarity briefly closed her eyes and resisted the urge to let out an un-ladylike groan. Of all possible things, she had hoped it wouldn't be that kind of problem up ahead.

“Baroness,” the free company pegasus spoke, keeping close to her.

“What sort of trouble is it this time?” Rarity inquired, letting him move ahead a bit to help clear a path for the newly titled mare. Already, she could hear voices: stallions’ voices.

“...this is an outrage! Germoglio! You unscrupulous cutpurse! We are Her Majesty's Guards and shall be treated with due respect!”

“Corazza. With all due respect, this is not Canterlot. The Prince and Baroness have given us jurisdiction to see to the peace and you must submit to-”

“Germoglio?” Rarity didn't hesitate to intervene, emerging from the crowd of curious and gawking onlookers. She could see the Bitalian condottiero and two of his fellows in resplendent steel cuirasses, frilly white jerkins and sleeves, gilded berets perched on their heads behind their horns. Of the trio of well-dressed free company unicorns, only Germoglio Bianco himself wore the gold and ivory sash that was his ceremonial badge of office. Seeing them, Rarity had to guiltily admit that part of her reason for keeping the mercenaries on her payroll was how well they dressed on the job.

It was well enough providing security, but to do it in style? How could a mare resist?

Opposite the trio of Compagnia unicorns were three similarly splendid stallions in royal guard attire, awash with contoured solar gold. Brilliant blue pony-hair frills flared from their polished helmets, their cropped tails whipping left and right in agitation. Theirs was a much older though no less impressive uniform, still very much grounded in the pegasus traditions from which the Royal Guard originally sprang.

The exception was the guard in the center. He was a unicorn, tall and solidly built, very likely a guard himself, but not in armor. Instead, he wore the same sort of crimson dolman so popular among those in certain military circles - or those who had purchased their way into a commission in those circles. She remembered when she first seen Antimony's guard, Gewitter, in one, when the pair had first come to her boutique. How long ago had that been? Since then, so much had changed in so little time…

This stallion wore his dolman better than Gewitter did, which only made sense as it was intended for stallions and not mares, no matter how brutish and large they were. She knew the style to be itself rooted in the Free Company tradition, spreading from the rowdy hussars of the past to ingratiate itself into the nobility of the present. Blueblood had one as well, those he wore it with a particularly ornate pelisse, ostentatious but bereft of any medals or other pretentious accoutrements. To contrast Germoglio's own white and gold sash, this stranger wore one of midnight blue, a shade darker than his own azure mane.

“Lady Rarity,” the Captain of her mercenary guard bowed his head in respect at her approach. “The Company apologizes for the disturbance.”

“What is the matter here?” Rarity asked, catching herself to keep from asking 'may I ask.' She was Baroness. This was a matter under her direct purview, as strange as it all still was to her. “Who are these gentleponies? They appear to be from our Prince's Royal Household.”

“That is correct, my Lady,” Germoglio responded, inclining his head to give the three a chance to introduce themselves.

“Baroness,” the stallion in the dolman said, motioning to his left and right companions first. “I would introduce Sir Arrow Head and Sir Gale Force. I am Sir Shining Armor, a Captain of Her Majesty's Guard. We are at your service, but must unfortunately protest our treatment at the hands of your condottieri.”

Rarity smiled at hearing the name but covered her pleasure with a respectful dip of her head. This was Shining Armor, Twilight Sparkle's brother? To be honest, she had imagined him to be more... purple. She made a mental note to tease Twilight about how handsome her brother was sometime. He even had that wonderful Canterlot unicorn build to him! Still, there was the pressing matter of just what was the problem. It wasn't just two Captains of two different guard companies butting heads, she hoped.

Now, she used the polite interrogative.

“A pleasure, Sir, but may I ask what you protest, specifically?”

“Our companions have been asked to submit to a search,” Shining Armor explained, huffing in displeasure and stamping a hoof against the cobblestone road. “They are my subordinates, they are gentleponies both, knights of the realm, and honored members of the second regiment of the Royal Life Guard. I will not stand by and see their honor questioned by coin-purse soldiers of fortune.”

“You are not the only knight present, Sir,” Germoglio objected, also scratching the cobblestone with his hoof. He didn't feel the need to attach any sort of warning or threat to the statement.

“Boys,” Rarity admonished, waving a hoof between them. “Both of you, please, calm down.”

The two guard Captains turned to stare at her, identical looks of scandal on their faces at being called 'boys.' It wasn't as bad as being called colts, she had warmed it up with an affectionate tone, but it was still a public rebuke. Rarity looked from one to the other, her eyes narrowed slightly. Despite having gone out plain - without even saddlebags - and with no finery of her own except her fabulous new hat, all present knew her title and who she was. Rarity felt a small, heady thrill at that fact.

“Yes,” Germoglio agreed, lowering his eyes slightly.

“Mmm,” Shining Armor muttered.

“Now then, Germoglio,” Rarity asked, “what was the meaning for this search?”

She still had difficulty wrapping her head around just how seriously and even intimately these knightly and noble types took their honor. Oh, she had thought she had known enough from reading her courtly romances, but the last few months had shown her the darker and less agreeable side of ‘noble behavior.’ It didn't even matter what sort of search the two guards had been asked to submit to. That they had been asked to submit to anything was insulting in their eyes and in the eyes of their guard captain. It would have been entertaining if it didn’t also cause so much trouble.

“By your orders, Baroness, we have been watching the perimeter of Ponyville,” Germoglio carefully explained, his eyes drifting lazily to the watching and listening crowd of ponies gathered in a wide circle around them. Rarity had asked the Free Company to monitor the ponies coming and going from Ponyville. She had very little information on the various potentially troublesome mares she expected to try and upset the peace in the town or even the upcoming art festival. The exact details of her requests, however, did not need repeating in public.

“When these three crossed our wards along the road to Canterlot, they only registered as a single pony.” The Bitalian captain turned his attention to the royal guards. “If they were making an attempt to mask their entrance to the town, then that is, in my eyes, suspicious.”

“Is that true?” Rarity asked in a sweet, amiable tone. Years of working at her boutique had taught her to treat even difficult customers with courtesy bordering on friendliness. Everypony was more malleable when spoken to nicely by a pretty mare.

“Of course not,” Shining Armor objected, not to her, but to his Bitalian counterpart. “Why would we mask our presence? We did not sneak into the town like common thieves or skulking bandits!”

Like their Captain, the two pegasus guards were glaring angrily at the local condottieri. A glare that turned, for just a moment, on their Captain.

“Our wards tell a different tale.”

“Your wards were likely improperly constructed or laid down.”

“You insult us again, Sir Corazza.”

“Maybe I do, Sir Bianco!”

“Germoglio,” Rarity interrupted again, feigning a measure of confusion and innocence. It was partly genuine. Wards were not a spell she understood very well. “What could have caused one of your sensory wards to read only Sir Shining Armor and not his companions? It makes little sense to me that two of them would attempt to sneak in while the third does not.”

The esteemed Condottiero and Company Captain cooled down to consider her question, and her observations. He raised a well-manicured hoof to his chin as he thought.

“You speak wisely, your Ladyship,” he mused. “I was only told that we detected three new arrivals, of which two attempted to mask themselves.”

“With magic?” Rarity asked.

“Yes. With either invisibility or some other type of illusion spell,” he explained. “Fog. A mirage. A muffle spell. There are any number of things that can be used to aid in stealth or concealment.”

“And how many of those are pegasi capable of?”

“Far fewer,” Germoglio told her, eyeing the pair of pegasus royal guards. “However, a unicorn could easily cast such magics on them.”

The pair exchanged a quick glance.

“I must confess, Captain Shining Armor,” one of them said, sounding suitably contrite. “Gale Force and myself did receive an enchantment from one of the guard unicorns two days ago.”

“You did?” Shining Armor turned on the two, confused. He narrowed his eyes and lit up his horn for a moment. “Strange. I don't... sense anything on you.”

“It was a Night Guard enchantment, sir,” Arrow Head explained.

That seemed to at least partly mollify both guard Captains.

“It that so?” Shining Armor seemed to consider asking more but winced and shook his head. Rarity, watching closely, could've sworn she saw a faint green glow behind his blue eyes. A magic detection spell that he was dismissing, maybe?

“Nonetheless,” Armor continued, turning to face Rarity. “I must insist that my subordinates not be searched. While I apologize personally for this accidental deception, these two are still esteemed guards of Equestria’s Royal Household. They are not to be dishonored in this fashion.”

“My Lady,” Germoglio warned. “At least let us...”

“They are my Prince's guards,” Rarity said, blushing as the three stallions bowed in gratitude, Shining Armor planting a kiss on her hoof. “We should avoid any incidents among those we count as friends and allies, shouldn't we?”

Germoglio Bianco's face set into a frown, but he nodded in deference. “As My Lady wishes. We shall make exception this time.”

She graced him with a thankful smile. “Thank you, Germoglio. Please keep up the good work.”

The soldier of fortune grunted, and he and his two subordinates vanished in a flash. Like the pegasus watching over her from the rooftops, they were only out of sight, not really gone. Despite this, their disappearing act had the intended effect of convincing the crown of townsponies that whatever sort of crazy incident had occurred was effectively over. They began to disperse, more than a few muttering about being cheated out of seeing a fight or two.

“My gratitude for your generosity, Baroness,” Shining Armor thanked her again, releasing her hoof.

“Just Rarity is perfectly fine, Sir Shining Armor,” she replied, for once unable to completely banish her blush. He was a charming stallion, this brother of Twilight's.

“Please call me Shining, then,” he said with a friendly grin. “Actually, if I could impose on you for another favor?”

Rarity had been expecting a similar introduction from the two pegasi, especially since they had been the source of the whole confrontation, but they hung back, watching, waiting. At first, Rarity thought they were watching her. It gradually dawned on her that there was every possibility they were watching someone else instead. Shining Armor. Was it possible that his own guards were...?

No. No. Rarity tried not to let those sorts of paranoid thoughts fester. It was enough to imagine there were mares out in Equestria after her blood despite having never met her. Royal guards in armor were notoriously stoic and reticent after all. It was all very much a part of their mythos and identity as Royal Guards. That was all.

“A favor?” she asked.

“Yes,” Shining replied, looking downright bashful for a moment. “My sister. I really need to talk to her. You wouldn't know where Twilight is, would you? She wasn't at the library last night.”

“I was actually looking for her myself. As for her location, if I had to guess,” Rarity said, turning down a familiar road outside town; a road that ended at a manor estate outside town.

Pinkie Pie loved Sugarcube Corner. She loved it just like she loved a moist sticky bun sprinkled with cinnamon and raisins and brown sugar, left on her dresser as a surprise after a long day's work. She loved it like she loved the way Gummy would always lurk someplace new and unexpected, bouncing out to clamp into her hoof while she rooted around for his latest hiding spot. She loved it the way she loved foalsitting the Cake twins and how even a little giggle from them could make all the diaper changing and panic worth the effort. She loved it because it was an intrinsic part of her being, her life, and her imagination.

Just the smell of sweets in the air made her want to smile! It was just too bad she was already smiling! Pinkie Pie tried, but she hadn't yet trained up her cheek muscles to handle maximum smilage for more than a few minutes. What to do?

A soft mutter proved to be the answer; it was enough to dampen the party pony's spirits, which in turn was her chance to tap into the happiness of being around Sugarcube Corner, allowing her to keep her smile at peak wattage. Now if only she could translate her good feelings into her not-melancholy but not-happy friend.

Things would have been soooo much easier if Applejack had been sad.

Pinkie knew how to handle sad. Angry was a lot trickier. Applejack wasn't the type to sulk, like Rainbow Dash, or fly off into a panic, like Rarity, or go completely off the deep end like a certain librarian. No. Angry!Applejack got quiet, like a stove with a broken pilot light, slowly filling up with explosive energy. In that sort of state, she never wanted to talk, not until she had worked things out with herself first.

“If'n those two idiots-”

“Make em eat crabapples, those-”

“No no no, that wouldn't work...”

“You know, Applejack, a pony once told me I shouldn't talk to myself, can you believe that?” Pinkie asked, bouncing in reverse to she could face her friend and still head home at the same time. “He was all, like, it isn't really healthy to carry on conversations with potted plants and bags of flour, and I told him that he was being totally rude, since the plant and the flour were right there, and that the least he could do is excuse ourselves or something! Especially since we were on a double date and-”

“Huh? What?” Applejack finally snapped out of her stupor, eyes blinking in momentary confusion. “What was that, sugarcube?”

“Nothing!” Pinkie lazily bounced back to Applejack's side, slowing her normal pace to a basic, happy trot.

“Ah zoned out for a second there, didn't I?” The apple farmer sighed, lowering her head with a wry shake of her mane. Not for the first time she reached up for her hat only to find it missing.

“This has just been the perfect end to a real ringer of a week, Pinkie,” she continued, last real grief over the situation and into embarrassment and frustration. “Ah honestly don't know what Ah'm gonna do now. Ah bet Granny's gonna suggest takin' out a loan, but Sweet Apple Acres has been ours lock, stock and barrel for generations! And here Ah go and buck over the crate just a couple years into the job! Con-sarn-it!!”

She scuffed a clod of dirt out of the road and turned to Pinkie Pie.

“No offense, sugarcube, but after a quick bite or two Ah'll have to head back to the farm.”

“No problem!” Pinkie Pie replied, not really understanding much from the business side of things, but more than happy to be supportive. She was sure Applejack would figure something out with a bit more time. She was really smart, just like Mister Cake, and she had the patience to go through all those little numbers and make them all add up and stuff.

Applejack nodded at her friend's infectious smile, and together with a deep breath, she perked up and started to cautiously grin in return. Pinkie could already see her friend starting to bounce back from Flim and Flam's rejection of her business plan. Soon she would be back to her usual self.

But - but the fact that Flim and Flam had turned down the plan itself was still kind of bothering the pink pony. Pokey was fond of pointing out that she couldn't balance a book to save her life, a fact that Pinkie usually countered by balancing a book on her head and nose at the same time - balance was super easy! What balancing books had to do with money, though, Pinkie couldn't imagine. It all sounded so silly!

The point was – wait, what was her point again?

Something to do with balancing things?

Oh, that was it! Flim and Flam. There had definitely, super definitely, been something funny going on with them. Pinkie had seen plenty of the two brothers in the process of becoming one of their Double-Gold Rewards Club members (and in the process drinking herself silly… or sillier). They were a lot like Mister Cake, or so she had thought. He loved to bake and see how happy his food made his customers, but he also liked to, in his own words, keep his business solvent. Which was weird. A business wasn't a liquid.

Pinkie shook her head. Focus!

Maybe it was a stallions thing, now that she thought more about it. Pokey was like that, too! Except he always went on about his 'nest egg.' How could Pokey have a nest egg? He wasn't a bird! Stallions didn't lay eggs! Did they? No. Almost certainly not.

“I'll ask Twilight later...”

“What was that?” Applejack asked, one eyebrow elevated.

Pinkie gave her friend a serious, intense look. “Applejack. Stallions don't lay eggs, do they?”

“WHAT?! NO!”

“Are you suuuurre?” Pinkie zipped up, face to face with the other earth pony. “Big Mac's never built a nest for eggs? Not even for Easter?”

Applejack blinked, supremely confounded by the very nature of the question.

“No,” she concluded.

“Hmm.” Pinkie went back to her happy trot, skeptical but just a little further enlightened. No. Stallions probably didn't lay eggs, at least not where their sisters could find out about it. It would be pretty embarrassing, wouldn't it? Big Mac's would totally be big and red and orange and speckled! The pink pony couldn't help but giggle to herself.

“Beyond random,” Applejack muttered.

Anyway. The mysteries of the 'nest egg' could wait. It definitely required money, though. At least Pokey's one did. Stallions liked to have bits, probably because they liked to spend bits on mares. Yes! That made sense. Pokey always paid for them when they went somewhere, and so did most of the other stallions she went to parties with. Bluey spent tons of bits on Rarity and Mister Cake always got flowers and other presents for Mrs. Cake. That would all explain why they like to make bits and why Mister Cake did that eye-twitchy-thing whenever she ate inventory or fiddled with the building's heater.

It was like a male Pinkie Sense. A money-sense!

But then why did Applejack have it? And Rarity, too? So strange.

“What was I thinking about again?” Pinkie wondered aloud, eyes lighting up as she saw Sugarcube Corner up ahead. “Oh yeah! The new Chocolate Chip Brioche! I can't wait to have one! Hurry up!”

“Right behind ya.” Applejack followed at a much more sedate pace and Pinkie heard her words as she bounded through the fuchsia colored door of her home and workplace. It was a deceptively large building: something about the delicious chocolate colored roofing with rocky road shingles and white frosting eaves, or the creamy white chocolate colored walls or candy cane rafters and trusses and pillars and gum-drop window panes and - and -

Flying behind the counter, Pinkie Pie popped a brioche into her mouth with a blissful moan. Super tasty!

“Pinkie Pie!” Cup Cake objected, pouting as Pinkie slowly emerged from behind the all concealing darkness that came from rows of chocolate and oatmeal cookies.

“Sorry, Mrs. Cake! Thinking about architecture makes me sooo hungry!”

“It does?” The older mare did what so many ponies ended up doing in her presence: blinking in momentary confusion. Pinkie suspected she should have gotten used to it by now. “Of course it does,” she realized, “and how did the deliveries go?”

“They also made me hungry, but-” Pinkie jumped up to pull a waiting string, releasing a burst of confetti and a banner that read: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

She then gave a thumb-up.

Tried to give a thumbs-up, anyway; it was the thought that counted.

“You!” Applejack's voice brought the celebration to a stop before it even got to the twenty one gun salute. More than a few customers had already started ducking their ears or putting on helmets in expectation of what was to come. They just knew her so well!

“Miss Applejack,” a distinct and foreign voice returned the greeting.

“Oh! Hey!” Pinkie jumped across the store to where her friend was making and meeting other friends! In the blink of an eye she was in the middle of it, hopping up and down. “I didn't know you guys finally got out of the hospital!”

Opposite Applejack, her three Neighponese friends were looking hale and hearty. Evening Squall greeted her with a smile and a little wave, horn glowing softly to return an almost completely devoured cupcake to his table. Even though he had been the pony Pinkie had fought at the party-de-arms (or whatever it was called), thanks to his silly armor she hadn't actually gotten much of a look at him before visiting them all at the hospital afterwards.

Without their funny masks and flags, they were pretty normal looking ponies. Squalls had a cream coat, faintly bluish white, and a spiky red two-tone mane and darker-red eyes. Maybe it was because he was a unicorn, he didn't quite have the same sort of oval eye shape that the other Neighponese ponies had. Dewy, the pony Applejack had beaten in the duel, had the same color mane that she had, but with a brown coat and copper eyes. Both stallions greeted Pinkie with happy smiles, though it had taken longer than most to get poor Squalls to stop asking how she had escaped his barrier bubbles.

Like she even knew it herself! These things just sort of happened.

“You two idiots!” The only mare of the group bulled into the unicorn and earth pony, shaking them with her wings. “A couple bento boxes of sweets and you're fawning over her like drooling schoolcolts! What kind of retainers are you?!”

“B-but she makes really good green tea yokan!”

“And her sesame anpan is incredible...”

“She gives you food and you forget that she's our enemy?! You should be ashamed of yourselves! What would Yumi-hime think if she saw you now?”

Sadly, Cool Breeze, both the lone mare and only pegasus among her comrades, had yet to come over to the Pink Side of The Force, despite more than a little outreach on the part of Ponyville's premier party planner. Releasing her two fellow retainers, the teal colored pegasus stalked over to Pinkie until she filled the earth pony's vision, angry yellow eyes locked on Pinkie’s blue.

“Don't think I don't know what you're doing!” she snarled, roughly poking the Element of Laughter with a hoof. “I see right through you.”

Pinkie gasped. “You mean I'm invisible?! That's so cool! I didn't know I was invisible? How come nopony told me? Oh! Maybe nopony even noticed? I never saw another invisible pony before, but then if I did, then I guess they wouldn't be invisible! Invisible ponies could be all around us and I never noticed! I need to find out who they are so I can plan parties for them!”

“There you go again!” Cool Breeze growled, punctuating her words with a press of her hoof. “You always act dumb! Like a harmless idiot!”

Pinkie cocked her head to the side. “Acting?”

“Harmless?” Applejack drolly interrupted, pushing the pegasus away from her fellow Element of Harmony. “Hey, hooves to yourself, sugarcube.”

Cool Breeze snarled again, but a cough from the older blue coated earth pony among them prompted an immediate, almost panicked response. A single motion of her wings carried her away to sulk over a cup of tea, her back to the whole affair. Pinkie's grin never left her lips, even in the face of an irate pegasus. Cool Breeze would come around eventually! She just needed another party to cheer up. The last one at the hospital didn't seem to stick.

“Ser Pinkie Pie,” the blue earth pony continued, hoof lowering from his mouth post-cough. He was a little larger than the other neighponese stallions, and clearly older, with a gray mane and calm azure eyes. Two rough scars ran over his cheeks on either side of his face, almost from his neck to his nose. It took a moment to piece together who he was.

“Mister Antlers!” she gasped, pointing in his direction. “Hi again!”

“My name isn't Mister Antlers,” he replied, turning his gaze from Pinkie to Applejack and back. “Shigure. My name is Shigure. Late Rains is also fine.”

“But you had that cool mask with the antlers!” Pinkie Pie insisted with a wide grin. “Antlers is really funny to say, too! Ant-lers!”

“Ah'm actually glad we ran into y'all,” Applejack slipped into the conversation again, green eyes twinkling even as they narrowed. “Cause Ah still want mah hat back.”

“Miss Applejack,” White Dew warned. “Master Shigure, please forgive-”

The pale blue, foreign earth pony held up a hoof for silence.

“I don't mind, Shiratsuyu,” he said, unconcerned. “I have been told you are gendarmes, now, Ser Pinkie Pie. Ser Applejack. I have also heard much about your visits and your kindness towards my defeated students and subordinates. I was unable to see them during their long... convalescence, but it is heartening to know they were embraced so warmly by those who humbled them. You do yourselves great honor.”

Behind the stallions, Cool Breeze snorted in abject disgust. Rarity had made a token visit to the beaten neighponese pegasus, but it had not gone very smoothly. Pinkie remembered what Cool Breeze had suggested Rarity do at the time and she was still pretty sure that it was physically impossible. Also gross. Horns don't go in there!

“If'n we did ourselves great honor, then I figure Ah've got another chance to get mah hat back!” Applejack spared a moment to softly consider, “All'a this began with losin' mah pappy's lucky hat. If Ah get it back...”

“I suppose I could return it, as thanks,” Shigure considered.

“Awww! But that'd be so boring!” Another pony bounced over, appearing out of nowhere - a wild mane of electric blue, a toothy grin, and a blush-white coat. A hoof planted itself firmly on top of Shigure's head, to the stallion's well veiled vexation. The newcomer was a unicorn, and a small pink tongue darted out to lick her lips as she craned her neck to turn her eyes on Applejack.

“Heeeey,” she drawled, ever grinning. “Applejack, right? Do you really want him to just hoof over your hat? I would've thought you'd want to earn it back?” Her right hoof left the back of Shigure's head to cup her chin. “Then again, this is a lot easier, and what kind of pony objects to a hoof-out? Free stuff is free stuff, right?”

“Heck no ah don't want a hoof-out!” Applejack snapped, only considering it for a second or two.

Pinkie Pie, a little slow on the uptake this once, pointed to the new pony. “Hi there! I haven't seen you around before!”

“I'm new in town!” The unicorn announced, giggling. Without any sort of clothes on, it was easy to steal a peek at her cutie mark: one half of a smiling face, one eye closed in laughter. She stuck out a hoof in greeting. “I'm Euporie!”

“I'm Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie bopped hooves with her.

“Nice to meet you, Pinkie Pie! And you, too, Applejack!” Euporie extended her hoof to the apple farmer, who was a little more reluctant to return the sudden greeting.

“Nice... to meet ya?” she replied, cautious. “I guess? You a friend of these ponies?”

“Just Master Shigure here!” Euporie bounced back to rustle the older stallion's gray mane.

“We just call him Antlers!” Pinkie said with a giggle.

“Antlers? That's good! Antlers!” Euporie shamelessly nuzzled the grizzled Neighponese retainer. “I'll call you Antlers from now on!”

Shigure's impassive expression strained, but didn't betray itself.

“But like I said,” Euporie continued, extraditing herself from the rather public embrace of the stallion. By now, everypony in Sugarcube Corner was either eyeing the group openly or while subtly pretending to eat. “The honorable thing is to earn that hat back, right? Antlers told me about how you lost it, Applejack. I can just call you Applejack, right?”

“Uh...” Still more than a little uncomfortable with her recent gendarme status, Applejack nodded slowly. “Ah guess...”

“How about a little contest?” The grinning unicorn suggested, seeming to give it a moment or two of deep thought. “Hmmm! Something fair. Hey! I've got it! You didn't have much luck fighting Antlers here before, so how about you just try and move him a little?”

“Move him a little?” Applejack asked, sounding partly sold on the idea. “What do'ya mean exactly?”

Pinkie noticed that Dewy and Squalls were both looking a bit sheepish, their expressions tight and discomforted. Probably because Antlers’ marefriend was around! That had to be kind of awkward! Even Cool Breeze was watching, carefully, over her shoulder. None of them looked like they were willing to talk, but then Breeze smirked, hiding it a moment later behind her cup of tea.

Too slow. Pinkie had still seen it. It was a mean sort of smirk, too, just like the kind Gilda used. That one definitely didn't have a lot of Pink Side points under her belt. At this rate it would be years before she unlocked the pink lightning or party storm techniques.

“Um,” Dewy tried to speak up, but the cheerful blue-maned unicorn glanced back at the trio.

“Something you wanted to say?” she asked, pleasantly.

“Y-Yumi-hime didn't want us to... by which I mean, Miss Applejack here is...”

“She's?” Euporie asked, still smiling wide enough to show teeth, “what, exactly?” White Dew turned his eyes down, muttering nothing intelligible.

“Good!” the bubbly unicorn turned back to Applejack. “As I was saying, this is super easy! No rules! I hate rules, don’t you? I'll just pick a spot outside, and all you have to do is move Antlers here an inch or two from that spot. You can push him, or kick him, or tickle him or trick him or whatever! You'll have eight tries. That sounds fair, doesn't it?”

Pinkie felt a twitch in her left elbow. What did that mean again?

“You're on!” Applejack cheered, patting her saddlebags and smirking. “This time, Ah'll even the score!”

Chapter Nineteen : Battles of Earth and Sky

(19)

Battles of Earth and Sky

“Hm hm hm -ian girls… they’re kinda magical…”

Washing the shower gel off his face and out of his diamond blue and aquamarine mane, Thunderlane squinted his eyes against the spray of warm water and the trickles of soapy lather. It was inexplicable how the tune for that stupid little song had gotten into his head, but now it seemed impossible to dislodge, even though he could barely remember the words for it. It had to be Cloudchaser’s fault.

Or maybe Flitter’s.

Or maybe Blossomforth.

“-something on hooves, bikinis on top-”

He was just up to the part he sort-of knew the words for when the wall of his cloud-shower bulged, groaned, and shattered into a wave of freezing cold water droplets. A less than stallion-ly screech escaped his lips as he dove for cover, black hooves flying up to cover his head and his precious, beautiful, spikey Mohawk of a mane. He caught sight of something fast and big and gray moving in front of him, and then over him.

And it had just crashed through his wall…

“Derpy?”

“HWww-OOO!” The gray blur screamed, spinning something blue through the air with it. There was a flutter of wings, the sound of displacing air, and then the crash of more shattering cloudcrete. The gray form’s war cry rose in volume as a hoof reared back, cocked, and shot forward and into the blue body half embedded into his shower wall. The blow sent a cone of frothy colt spray outward, drenching all three ponies in icy rainwater. Not finished yet, the gray hoof pulled free, reared back, and repeated the process. Again it struck, and then a third time, until stress lines and cracks completely rent open the shower and cloud, wildly and indiscriminately dispensing high pressure water in every direction, both painfully hot and numbingly cold.

Then the blue pony – Rainbow Dash!? - tucked in a pair of legs and kicked, sending the gray Derpy-like pegasus – no, it was too big to be her – back to into and against the other wall with a deafening crash. Thunderlane had to roll out of the way as the gray mare, and it was definitely a soaking wet pegasus mare, crashed back-first into the cloudcrete. Bits of broken cloud, shattered out of the larger body of his cloud home, reverted to base vapor as it fell to the floor around him.

“WA HA AHA HA!” The gray mare emerged from the blasted wall with a wild laugh, none the worse for wear. Blue rushed in to strike Gray, but the other pony spun and clamped her teeth down on the smaller mare’s arctic white mane. Wings flapped as she spun in a tight spiral, raining destruction down as her victim sheared the walls apart around her, face-first. Finally, with a mighty heave, the gray pegasus flipped the blue one over and into the ground with a crunch.

For a moment, a twitching and unconscious pony in a torn blue bodysuit could be seen, planted several inches into the bathroom floor. A second later and the floor itself gave way, sucking up the stunned pegasus and leaving behind a gaping hole and a waterfall of cascading water eagerly making use of the new drain.

Thunderlane slowly lowered his hooves to the wet, smashed floor and for the first time got a good look at the gray mare he had mistakenly assumed to be Derpy. Her mane was all wrong: it was a jagged lime green that, even soaked, stuck out in seemingly random directions. Vicious golden eyes glared down at him like a hungry griffin’s. He couldn’t repress an ‘eep’ as one of her gray hooves seized him by the shoulder and picked him off the floor as easily as he would pick up his little brother, Rumble.

Holding him up, she sniffed, and ran a hoof through his hair.

“You know, I really like your mane, handsome!” she said with a grin. “Very sexy!”

Thunderlane opened his mouth to mutter a ‘what?’ when she pulled him in and unceremoniously locked lips. His first thought, naturally was:

“The commercials were right! The Mane Gel actually works?!”

Followed by:

“Oh, sweet Princesses, please don’t let her walk in right now-”

The strange pegasus had all but forced him up against the smashed and spurting wall of his ruined bathroom when a familiar voice shouted up from below:

“Thunderlane? Why is there an unconscious Wonderbolt in the living room and a hole in the ceiling? Are you okay up there?”

The gray mare broke the kiss, leaving his tongue waggling in the air. “Jealous marefriend, huh?” she asked, and he groaned.

“Maybe a little,” he admitted. “I’ve been trying to get her to open up to a thr-”

“Sorry, handsome, I’d love to help with that, buu-ut-!” She paused, glancing over her shoulder. He had been about to ask what the sorry was for, well, besides smashing up his bathroom and tongue-wresting him out of the blue, when his world turned upside down. Spinning end over end, Thunderlane barely had time to cry out before smacking into something that felt suspiciously like a fast moving pony. It was a sensation he had been accustomed to since he first heard the name ‘Rainbow Dash’ an odd number of years ago.

“Civilian! Look out!” “W-aAaahhHH!” “What the ff-”

One high speed impact later, and Thunderlane and the Wonderbolt he had smashed into tumbled down and away in a ball of wings and limbs. Emerging from the hole in his cloud house, Ritterkreuz shook out her mane and took off with a spray of droplets and blasted cloudcrete. Close behind her, an orange streak twisted and closed in, followed by two others in blue and yellow, all trailing the characteristic black electrical smoke of Equestria’s premier stunt flyer team.

“Overcast!” Spitfire yelled, leading the V formation. “Tighten up and stay in overwatch! Fleetfoot! Intercept! Eagle Eye! Break right and try and suppress her!”

“Yes, ma’am!” “On it, Captain!” “You got it, boss!”

Across the blue sky of Ponyville, the chase was back on.

Perched on top of one of the cloud houses, a trio of pegasi in steel cuirasses and elaborate burgonet helmets watched. As Spitfire swirled around, avoiding a midair explosion, one of the trio raised a clenched hoof, turned in slightly at the wrist. It was the universal signal for ‘wait.’ The other two relaxed their wings; content for the moment to let the Wonderbolts wear each other down.

“The wedding?” Shining Armor asked, head high as he cantered at a leisurely pace. “Truth be told, Lady Rarity, I have been leaving the details of it to my family. They are the ones who revel in gaudy affairs of state.”

Despite his size, Twilight’s older brother moved with the sort of practiced ease and agility that came only from training both in the castle and out in the fields. A pony could have set a watch to the rhythm of his hooves from the cobblestone of the Ponyville streets to the gravel of the paths outside town. Well dressed and properly presented, the young knight and guard captain seemed almost superimposed over the bucolic terrain around him: present, but removed, or even a world apart. By virtue of not even paying mind to the uncharacteristic surroundings, he gave the impression of true refined detachment.

A palace, a dusty road, or a battlefield, he likely moved through all with equal ease.

“Affairs of state?” Rarity asked, a hint of disappointment in her voice. She had hoped for some inside information on the upcoming royal nuptials. “This is a wedding we are talking about, is it not?”

“Of course it is,” Shining objected, breaking from his eyes-front march to track down his sister, if only for a moment. Blue gray eyes fixed Rarity with a calm, confident stare. “Please do not mistake my disinterest in the pomp and ceremony for any lack of desire. Or – or any hesitation to marry the mare of my dreams! I would marry Cadance in a barn, if she wished it!”

“That would save a few bits,” Rarity joked, unable to properly rib him, but dipping her cinnamon red feather fascinator in good humor.

A smile cracked on his stoic soldier’s façade. “Yes, well, we may yet have a modest reception,” he said, resuming his steady pace towards Blueblood Manor. “The affair was being paid for by my extended family, the very same family we are now in something of a dispute with. We certainly will not be able to pay for a thousand-pony feast and open bar on a Royal Guard’s salary.”

“Princess Cadance can’t pitch in?”

“Her biological family have all been excluded from the event. I doubt they will pay for a wedding they have been forbidden to attend. Her Royal Highness may have to trot in to pick up the slack.”

“I had heard some of that from Blueblood,” Rarity told him, noticing the momentary flinch on Shining Armor’s face. “It was so sad, that Princess Cadance is so estranged.”

“Her relatives are not entirely responsible for things,” Shining Armor admitted, but a moment later offered a more honest and frank response. “Cadance and I used to speak often about a reproachment… about mending fences with her family in Bitaly, and even her adopted family here in Canterlot.”

“And?” Rarity pressed, particularly interested in finding some way to bridge the years-old divide between the adopted sister and the Blueblood brother.

“She no longer wishes to speak of it. The Terre Rare will be her family,” he said that later part in monotone, shaking his head a moment later to dispel the cobwebs. “She just needs… time.”

Shining Armor didn’t change his pace, but the slight lowering of his eyes indicated he had no particular desire to further explore that avenue of conversation. He continued ahead and, flanked by his two guards, the trio of muscular stallions towered over Rarity’s left and right. She had been forced into a similar pace with shorter legs to keep up, but choose this time to fall behind slightly.

Even leaving side his outward appearance, Shining Armor was not what Rarity had expected from the brother of Twilight Sparkle. He was very polite and professional, but without any social awkwardness or flappablity. He answered what he felt comfortable answering, and he had a boldness in dealing with others – and expecting others to adhere to his rules and his mores – so far, he had been extremely cordial, amiable even, but not necessarily friendly. She could only imagine that he would be terribly intimidating if he dropped the guise of the ‘gentle sir knight’ and turned into a stern Royal Guard Captain.

He broke the silence a few minutes later as they approached the main gate of the Blueblood estate outside town. “My sister actually comes here often?”

A guard on watch moved to intercept the trio, royal guards or not, but stopped when he saw her. He then bowed his head and let them pass. It would be several minutes before they reached the manor itself, but already it was visible above manicured treetops and up a slight, manufactured incline.

“Twilight loves to use the library, and Blueblood often hosts parties for all of my friends,” Rarity explained, adding, “By which I mean my Ponyville friends, not just the social climbers I’m sure you’re imagining right now.”

Warming up some, he smirked but politely hid it a moment later by glancing away. “I must admit, I was imagining just that… and how Twilight hated such things back home, or even in Canterlot.” A fond memory tickled him, just then. “She usually fell asleep at social functions…”

“Or she just read a book the whole time?” Rarity guessed.

“Exactly!” Shining Armor chuckled, but in a soft, low voice. “Oh, Twily. To think she visits places like this, now? And Blueblood, of all ponies.”

“Now, Sir Shining Armor, I know you two have some history together,” Rarity said, cantering ahead with a burst of speed and using it to spin around for a moment. “But I am confident you’ll see that he has turned over a new leaf.”

“Do you see her?” Spitfire asked, flame-orange eyes scanning the outcroppings of the cloud homes below. Ritterkreuz had been playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with her Wonderbolt pursuers all through the residential flight-zone.

“Not yet,” Eagle Eye replied, wings flapping as she hovered in place. In uniform, she looked much like any other Wonderbolt. Unlike almost all of her fellow ‘Bolts, however, Eagle Eye had a fairly close cropped mane of short hair, blue with white highlights. Her wings and the coat beneath her uniform were dirty silver. Most prominent, however, were her goggles.

Eagle Eye was the only Wonderbolt with decidedly non-standard goggles.

A lens clicked down, coloring one of the large round blinkers a vivid red. Spitfire waited to see what the Wonderbolts’ premier spotter and long distance marksmare saw. There was no better in all of Equestria, though her unique training had created a pony who preferred to spend entire days taking pictures or stalking animals alone rather than with her team. Eagle Eye tilted her head slightly then faced forward.

“Don’t move, Captain,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Do not even flinch.”

Spitfire tensed, her wings flapping and building up charge.

“She’s behind us. Seven o’clock, thirty degrees negative… on the underside of the cloud. I can see the heat in her body. She’s tensed. She’s moving. Now!”

Together, the two mares spun around, wings angling. Spitfire, the faster of the two by a good margin, pulled ahead. She could see the house Eagle Eye had picked out: a small two story cloud-home with Doric pillars and a motif of angled clouds on either side dripping rainbow. A pegasus civilian – a Ponyville citizen – was out on the top balcony, looking around in curiosity at all the commotion.

‘Where… where is…?’ Spitfire saw a flash of movement as Ritterkreuz emerged from cover. “THERE! Everypony converge!”

Spitfire heard a curse as her target juked away and off to the left, just barely catching part of her crackling contrail. A pair of gray feathers skipped and snapped through the air as the Wonderbolts’ new captain came around for another pass. Flapping to right herself, Ritterkreuz sneered, glancing down at the feathers ripped free from her left wing, a gap where there hadn’t been one before.

The orange streak blasted around, the pair of gray feathers catching fire as they fell out of the sky. Ritter’s right wing vibrated and as she blasted herself backwards, pinpricks of light and heat contracted, shuddered, and released into an expanding flurry of thunderous explosions. Spiraling through the conflagration, protected within a sheath of titian flame, Spitfire emerged in time to see Ritterkreuz beset by Eagle Eye and Overcast.

Both were circling, keeping their distance from the former Wonderbolt. Caught between them, Ritter had to move: a rapid, erratic gray zagging line cutting across the blue sky. Orbiting just as fast, Eagle Eye lined up and projected a vector, twirling end over end, the force of the maneuver ripping loose three feathers. Like the Royal Guard, they were as sharp as a razor, and guided by the best eyes in Equestria.

Ritter’s wings wrapped protectively around herself as she tumbled, the three silver feathers sinking in and drawing blood as they cut through thick pegasus hide. For most any other pony, a cut to the wings would make it all but impossible to fly. Every movement with an injured wing was blinding agony.

The madmare snapped out one wing as she went into free fall, hurling the bladed feathers back up at her tormentors. Eagle Eye paused and craned her neck, avoiding one of the feathers hitting her face by inches. Her body snapped to the side, flat, and the other missed as well. Then her head snapped around, as she saw where the other feather had been flicked.

“Overcast!” she cried.

“Aye!” Overcast also stopped, bringing his hooves out in front of him. Fluffy particles, collected around his wings in flight, combined and expanded in front of him. There was nopony faster or more skilled at cloud manipulation than Overcast. Just like barrier spells among unicorns, it required a great deal of technical skill and finesse. Overcast was fortunate to be blessed with both, and power besides.

The silver feather thunk-ed into a solidified cloud the size and shape of an archaic pegasus shield. It was followed a split second later by an explosion, and then another, and then another – driving him back and across the sky along a lengthening trail of crackling embers.

Finally, pushed nearly into another cloud house, Overcast stopped himself. Emerging from the largest blast yet was a cloud-shield with the face of a glowering pegasus in a plumed helm, tusk like teeth jutting out of a grimacing mouth. Against this shield were the blasted remains of three smaller ones. Eagle Eye’s silver feather had been driven through one and then the next.

Crushed between explosions and the final cloud-shield, it crumpled like tinfoil.

“Keh!” Ritterkreuz hissed, raising a wing to block a speeding Spitfire. A roaring wave of fire and redirected magical exhaust momentarily concealed her from view. Gray wings ripped through the flames, trying to tangle into Spitfire’s own. It was one of the former Wonderbolt’s favorite moves: to get in close and create a free fall condition.

Spitfire didn’t play along.

Yelling loud enough to be heard by her comrades, hundreds of pony-lengths away, she lowered her head, pushed forward, and then angled her wings – suddenly turning her momentum upwards and into a spin. The crown of her head collided with Ritterkreuz’s nose, knocking the big pegasus back.

“Keep at it, bolts!” she yelled, trusting in her comrades to swoop in at their enemies’ back. “Drive her out of the area! We’re winning!”

‘Please don’t let him be doing anything untoward. Please don’t let him be doing anything perverted. Oh, Princesses, please don’t let him be doing anything weird.’

“You seem nervous, my Lady,” Shining Armor observed, his own expression well-guarded.

“Nervous? Why would I be nervous?” Rarity asked, “It isn’t as if we are dropping in unannounced, after all!” She quickly covered her anxiety with what she had planned to be a polite titter, except it quickly became one of her forced, embarrassingly loud laughs, bereft of courtly propriety. She quickly covered her mouth with a hoof.

“No. Though I suspect I would have had to wait, had you not been in attendance,” Shining Armor thanked her with a polite nod of his head. They were almost to the third floor studio and study. Armor’s two fellow guardponies had been asked, politely, to remain below in one of the sitting rooms. A servant had then escorted the knight and Lady to the hall leading to where the manor’s lord and ‘guest’ were currently ‘in study.’

It was in that moment that Rarity had developed a sudden, nervous tic. The phrasing had been so innocuous; it had immediately struck her as the servant saying what he had been told to say should a certain somepony appear. Living with Blueblood for months had taught her to be wary of his inevitable tricks, but with Twilight here, and her brother…

‘Please let him just be on his best behavior for once-’

“Oh, yes!” Twilight’s unmistakable voice, partly muted behind a heavy door, could still be heard by the two unicorns. “That is sooo good!”

A stallion’s voice chuckled, amused. “You like it, don’t you?”

“I never knew you could do this! Wait till I tell Spike!”

“I am a pony of many talents, Twilight Sparkle. Now then, how would you like some whipped cream drizzled all-ll over your-”

Rarity felt her hoof meet her forehead.

She turned to her left to try and explain – only to find Shining Armor’s space vacant. Any sort of modicum or measured pace had been thrown away as he charged forward, nostrils flaring and eyes wide, in full-bore assume-the-worst, overprotective-brother-mode. Even if she had been able to get a word in edgewise, it was doubtful that he would be willing to listen.

And there he went, blasting the hardwood doors off their hinges.

“Twily!” he roared probably alerting half the villa to the outburst. “Don’t do it! Don’t let this vainglorious miscreant corrupt… you…?”

Rarity entered at a much more sedate pace, hardly surprised by the sight within the room. Her dear friend, Twilight Sparkle, lay on a couch with a book and a plate of bread pudding, the end of a spoon still sticking out of her mouth between her lips. It was worth noting that the magic around said spoon was a faint gold and clearly not Twilight’s own. Reclining nearby, Blueblood was both sharing the brunch treat with Twilight and watching the door, expecting Rarity’s own outraged entrance. Presently, his face was etched in a mixture of confusion over the unexpected guest and grief over the broken doors to his study.

“I knew I should have done this in another room,” he muttered, loud enough to be heard.

“You should not have done it at all!” Rarity snapped, pointing a hoof at him.

“Shining!” Twilight greeted her brother with a happy wave. “Hi!”

“Wh- what on Equestria?” the stunned Guard Captain murmured.

“An… Apple Betty? When did you, of all ponies, learn to cook? Why would you even learn such a thing?”

“I had all the time in the world, at the time,” Blueblood explained, fussing over the patchwork fix that had set the beautiful carved doors back in place. He had similarly fixed and buttoned up his white wide turndown collar shirt and tied up his blue cravat into a proper, though loose, knot. Rarity considered the likelihood that he suddenly felt underdressed around another stately stallion in doublet and balmoral bonnet. It was equally likely he was simply getting ready for another affair that morning; she could see he had already picked out a morning coat and dress horse-shoes.

“Just try a bite! You’d like it!” Twilight said, floating a spoonful of the crumbly pudding up to her brother’s face. The sinful sweets were even lathered in whipped cream. Shining Armor only relented at his sister’s persistence, taking a small bite with obvious distaste – more for the maker of the food than the treat itself.

Rarity took a demure spoonful for herself as well, her ire towards her so-called Prince receding at the flavor and exquisite consistency of the Apple Betty. It was a mystery even to her where and when Blueblood had learned to cook an admittedly narrow range of things, all apple-themed for some reason. When asked, he had simply said that he had learned it from a ‘pâtissière living in a small town’ but for anypony who knew him it was an obvious prevarication, or at best, a half-truth.

In the end, she had accepted it as another of his odd quirks. One of the less annoying ones, really!

“By the Princess, it’s actually edible,” Shining Armor remarked, stunned.

“Edible? Come now; it’s delicious.” Blueblood finally took his place again, filling the reading chair in the luxurious study. He grinned at Rarity specifically, as if to rub in that she had taken his plate from him and claimed it for herself. She smiled right back, guessing that he had made it for her anyway. Just as she had expected, he had set the whole thing up to get a rise out of her.

“There is actually a more serious matter I had thought to discuss – just between the three of us – but I do suppose it can wait for a time.” The Prince nodded politely to his unexpected guest, his admission giving Rarity a moment of confusion. “By the way, nice to see you again, Sir Shining Armor.”

“Lord Blueblood,” the Guard Captain replied, nodding almost imperceptibly.

“What did you mean: the three of us?” Rarity asked, directing the question at both Blueblood and her friend and fellow Element of Harmony. “For that matter, Twilight, and not that you aren’t always welcome, darling, but what brought you here?”

“A good question,” Shining Armor agreed, watching his little sister. “This is the last place I would have thought to look for you, Twily.”

“I just – needed to get something off my back,” she explained, poking her apple pudding with a silver spoon. “It had to do with our family…” She sucked in a breath and looked up at her seated brother next to her. “Why are you here, Shining? Oh, and you aren’t in your armor either!”

The guard unicorn shook his head. “I came on my own, not to represent the Royal Guard. Family is actually why I dropped by, too.”

Blueblood shifted uncomfortably in his chair, frowning. Neither Twilight nor Shining Armor seemed to notice or care, but Rarity did notice, and immediately wondered what was wrong. It had to be the mention of ‘family.’ She had not heard anything unusual about Twilight’s family, unless a pony counted her extended family. Were they up to something again?

“I wanted to tell you that I will be going to Prance in Father’s stead,” he said with indomitable cool. Curiously, the innocuous statement caused an immediate reaction in both Twilight and Blueblood. The latter lifted a hoof to his chin in serious, intense thought. He was otherwise dead silent. Twilight, on the other hoof, gasped and started shaking her head, almost dropping her plate in the sudden panic.

“You can’t!” she objected, setting the dish down on a nearby table with a clatter. “Didn’t Father send you a letter…?”

“Saying not to go?” Shining Armor asked, shrugging. “He actually told me in person.”

“Then why are you going?” Twilight asked, sitting upright now to be closer to him.

“It is the honorable thing to do,” he replied, as if that was the end of it. Normally, it probably would have been, but even he could see the confusion in his sister’s eyes. With a sigh, he made himself clear, “We swore an oath to the main line of the family, moreover, we swore an oath to Lord Cruciger. I am a knight of Equestria. I will honor my vows, always.”

“But – but – but!” Twilight stammered, shoulders slumping as she tried to find some way to get through to him. “You can’t!” she fell back on.

“I must,” Shining Armor said.

“You’ll have to excuse me, but,” Rarity choose that moment to speak up, addressing the two siblings. “May I ask just what this is about?”

“Respectfully, Lady Rarity, it is not something of concern to non-family members,” Shining Armor told her, displaying a hint of iron in his tone of voice.

“My great uncle died recently,” Twilight began to explain, “and-”

“Twilight!” Shining Armor snapped, clearly not one for airing the family laundry out for others to see or hear.

Twilight ignored him. “He passed on control of the family in Canterlot to my father, but Lord Cruciger is calling for a convention in Prance to elect a new head of the family.”

Rarity could begin to see the problem, right away. “And you all have to attend?”

“We were called to convene at Marestricht, the ancestral home of all ponies descended from Lady Arsenic,” Shining Armor said, realizing that there was no glossing the facts over by simply calling it family business. “Sadly, Lord Wrathenow left no written or verbal testament passing authority on to our father. Lord Cruciger is entirely within his rights to call for convocation to determine the succession. His request should be honored.”

“But-”

“Honor is honor,” he announced, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “And one’s word is his bond.” Frankly, Rarity found the logic to be rather circular. “A pony should not abrogate his values because they are inconvenient. I will meet Lord Cruciger and explain the situation. I am confident he will-”

“Will, what?” Blueblood wondered in a speculative tone, one hoof propping his head up by the cheek. “You know he will not instate you as head of the Canterlot branch of the family. Not with you marrying Cadance and heading off on your own. What do you think Lord Cruciger will do?”

“He is an honorable pony, and fealty runs both ways,” Shining Armor replied, glaring at the Prince. “As you would know, your Grace, if you had ever taken your ducal duties seriously.”

Not rebuffing the reproach, Blueblood closed his eyes and let his old acquaintance say his piece.

“Just as we swore to Lord Cruciger, so he swore to us,” Shining Armor continued, and Rarity remembered:

That had been Blueblood’s promise, to Ponyville, when she had been just a foal – maybe younger even than Sweetie Belle was now. On that day, the well-to-do families of Ponyville had also pledged themselves to him and to the Duchy of Canterlot, reaffirming their vows following the death of Blueblood’s father. Fealty was a two way street. It was the core of what it really meant to be noble: it was the mortar of the social contract between every strata of society, all the way up to the Princesses themselves.

“By my example, Lord Cruciger will see that our family is not in rebellion. We are merely… confused… as to how to proceed, and in mourning over the passing of Lord Wrathenow. Our Great Uncle had run our branch of the family for three generations after all. Lord Cruciger will understand the delay. I need only get his permission to convene here at Hocksbach Hall. We shall have one of his children stand in for him: Antimony or Alpha Brass. Most likely the latter. This way, both sides can save face.”

Twilight’s expression fell as he mind raced to try and convince her brother to change his mind. Rarity couldn’t be sure exactly what was going on, but she could tell just from her friend’s frightened eyes that she was absolutely certain that her brother would not come back from Prance if he left.

“And if Lord Cruciger is not as forgiving?” Blueblood wondered, and now a bit of mocking reproach entered his tone of voice. “And if he wishes to make an example of your father, will your honor compel you to stand by and watch?”

Shining Armor bristled, a dark look shading his eyes behind blue streaks of mane.

“Or maybe…?” the Prince continued, unperturbed by the growing anger of his guest. “You think you can go to Marestricht and impress Lord Cruciger enough that he won’t challenge your father. Maybe you think you’d do better. Maybe you think, even if the worst happens and you lose, you won’t die. After all, the family won’t want to lose you, not with you marrying a Princess, even if she is adopted.”

“I fail to see how this is even your affair, Your Grace,” Shining’s response was as cold as a windigo’s breath. He resisted the urge to say more, no doubt along the lines of, ‘don’t you have something frivolous and debauched to lose yourself in?’

“Shining,” Twilight spoke up, standing between the two stallions even as she tried to get through to her brother. “You can’t go to Prance. You just can’t! You’ll be turning yourself into a hostage. And – and I… I’ve decided to…”

He held up a hoof, cutting her off. “I told you before, Twily, honor is honor, and vows are vows. I would not be worthy of Her Highness and the Royal Guard if I acted otherwise. I would not be worthy of my sweet wife, if I was otherwise.”

“Yes,” Blueblood drawled, a spoon full of apple pudding in his mouth. “Heaven forbid you dishonor your precious Dulcinea. We can have the wedding and the funeral on the same day. Isn’t Cadance a lucky pony? She can save on catering!”

“Wait!” Twilight asked, “Who?”

“Enough!” The ‘Dulcinea’ remark seemed to have finally pushed Shining Armor too far. “You will not insult my wife-to-be in front of me! You will not insult my honor or my convictions again!”

“G-guys, come on,” Twilight tried to protest.

“Yes,” Rarity joined in, urging calm. “Why don’t we…?”

“You couldn’t even beat me, Shining,” Blueblood said, spitting out the spoon in his mouth in an almost unprecedented display of rudeness for the normally fussy Prince. “If you go to Cruciger, you’ll only embarrass yourself. And I’ll call my adopted sister whatever I want!”

All but sputtering in rage, Shining Armor floated off his military cap, his Balmoral bonnet, and tossed it to the floor. It would have been a foalish display of pique if not for the fact that it was effectively the same thing as a thrown gauntlet, all in response to a spat-out spoon. Blueblood rose out of his seat, unbound his cravat, and similarly threw it to the ground.

“Duke and Prince you may be,” Shining declared, “but gentlepony you are not! I challenge you, sir!”

“As you wish!” Blueblood agreed. “We will settle this outside. Right now! In the field!”

“Agreed, sir!”

Without even acknowledging the two stunned mares, the Prince and Guard Captain stomped out of the room to prepare. For the second time in as many hours, Rarity felt the urge to put hoof to face. Would it have been so hard to just have a pleasant conversation?

“W-what just happened?” Twilight asked, blinking, recovering from what she had seen and trying to reconcile it with what she knew of her brother and her friends.

“It seems we have a fight on our hooves,” Rarity told her, floating a silver spoon off the floor with obvious distaste. “Those two foals. I swear, can this day possibly get any more difficult?”

Pinkie Pie felt the shock, the impact that was Applejack’s blow. It reverberated through the ground and into her hooves. It sent tingles all up her legs, down her spine, and into her mane and tail. Applejack had been her friend since she had moved to Ponyville as a little filly. Aside from Big Macintosh himself, there was no pony stronger than Applejack in Pinkie’s mind. How many hundreds of trees did she apple-buck every year? How hard did she work, day in and day out, to a degree Pinkie could barely comprehend?

They were both earth ponies, but they were as different as unicorns and pegasi. Applejack worked her hardest, every day, on that farm. Pinkie remembered her family’s rock farm all too well, and she had no desire to return to it (not on your life, sister). It wasn’t so much that hard work was an unwelcome or alien thing – she just couldn’t focus on doing the same thing for too long. It was much better to fit in a hundred little things a day than make one big effort.

Applejack’s hard work, her work ethic, was something strange and admirable.

‘Like Blinky and Inky. Once she sets her mind to something…’

Pinkie felt another shudder in her hooves, rising into a tingle in her mane.

‘She won’t stop. She won’t give up. Ever.’

“Wo-ho-oh! Earth ponies are so strong! I’ve always found it impressive!”

Next to Pinkie, her new blue-maned friend watched Applejack and her latest contest with a wide grin. The pale unicorn mare who had introduced herself as Euporie licked her lower lip, giving her smile a predatory gleam.

“Like an ant carrying a huge dead beetle,” she described it with a laugh. “Raw strength and tenacity given form. I love it!”

Past the party pony and her newest friend, Applejack’s back legs strained, hooves digging into the dirt and grass of the yard behind Sugarcube Corner. The commotion inside had transformed into a crowd outside as hungry ponies found some free entertainment to go with their brunch or late breakfast. As with all of Ponyville’s buildings, ample green spaces had been set aside between the town proper and the scenic, organized sets of trees beyond. It was here, in full view of Sugarcube Corner’s customers that Applejack strained against her similarly implacable earth pony opponent.

“That won’t work,” Shigure could be heard without his needing to raise his voice. “I told you before; this is a foal’s errand. I can not be moved against my will.”

“We’ll see about that!” Applejack yelled, her shoulder jammed into the side of the stallion’s chest, one foreleg wrapped over his shoulder for leverage. Her entire body heaved as she tried to push forward, either knocking the Neighponese stallion down or at least shift him out of the way.

“Four of you,” the stallion replied, slowly and deliberately lifting a hoof off the ground to rest it against her side. “Would still be four too few.”

With just his foreleg, he dislodged her and knocked her back with a grunt. Applejack, repulsed for only the third time, landed easily on all fours. A murmur swept through the watching crowd of ponies. Almost everypony was aware of how strong Applejack was. She always came back with trophies from the Equestria-wide rodeo and she always placed in the Running of the Leaves, even when ponies from Canterlot and Manehattan came to compete.

“Of course,” Euporie mused, innocently. “Sometimes, even a strong ant bites off more than it can carry.”

“Applejack will find a way to win!” Pinkie told her; though a melancholy voice in the back of her mind couldn’t help but remark (Will she?)

“There is one way she can win,” Euporie said, her smile unwavering, her poppy orange eyes watching intently. “And I so want to see it.”

Applejack felt every labored breath fill her lungs with air. It was just like before. This was just like before. Back when that Yumi pony had done her ‘pass of arms’ outside Ponyville, Applejack had challenged her biggest and baddest-looking henchpony. He didn’t have his fancy foreign armor or that crazy helmet-mask with the antlers, but this was just like then, and back then, all her kicks had amounted to exactly squat.

She still didn’t know how he did it.

It didn’t matter, anyway. It was just another trick, but this time, she had some tricks of her own. She hadn’t really expected just trying to bull the stallion over to work but there had always been the possibility that some sort of magic of his, in his armor maybe, had been what made him so tough. No such luck. He was just standing there, in his birthday coat, taking everything she threw his way.

Craning her neck, Applejack reached her mouth into one of her saddlebags, finding and uncoiling her trusty lasso. It felt good between her teeth: a comfortable weight, balanced and reliable. In one breath, she could pick a parasprite out of the air with it or clip the head of a flower. In the next breath, she could hog-tie an angry bull. The Apple family didn’t use normal rope for their lassos either – a pony could drag a house out of its foundations before the cable snapped.

Old Antlers seemed unconcerned, following her with his eyes.

Taking her time, unhurried despite all the onlookers, Applejack wound the lasso up and started it spinning over her head. The familiar rapid whump-whump sound only pumped up her blood, helping the apple farmer to forget all the business problems waiting back at the farm. The intransience and short-sightedness of Flim and Flam was all but banished from her mind. This pony – Shigure, Antlers, whatever one wanted to call him – he had her pappy’s hat. It was past high time to get it back.

“Hah!” Applejack tossed the lasso, full force, the loop circling over Shigure’s body before snapping closed around his legs. Pulling with all her might, Applejack nearly whiplashed herself as the rope came taut. She had him.

As well as she could, anyway.

Shigure’s legs were still set in the same position, not even trying to brace himself. It was as if she had tried to lasso the legs of a concrete block. It was a little frustrating, but… not unexpected. Rope clenched between her teeth, Applejack began to run.

“Hey! Applejack!” Pinkie called out as her friend streaked by. She pursed her lips and waited a moment, and then Applejack ran by again. “What are you-” she waited a third time. “-doing?”

Euporie laughed, though whether it was at Pinkie’s question or Applejack’s dizzy running, the party pony wasn’t sure.

“Not a bad idea! Rather than going head-on, she’s building up centripetal force and applying circular stresses,” the unicorn explained, but her face fell a bit as Pinkie’s discombobulated expression.

“You’ll see,” she concluded, rather than try to explain it further. “It is clever… but it still won’t work.”

“This… can’t be right…” Applejack hissed between her teeth, barely able to hold onto the lasso with all the tension it was under. It was vibrating like a plucked string, but still Shigure’s legs hadn’t been forced together.

It didn’t make any darn sense!

What, did he have leg-long posts sticking out of his horseshoes holding him in place? How in Equestria was he able to just stand there? His hooves should have lost traction long before her narrowing circuits around him became this short.

Without a word, the old stallion craned his neck lower and bit down on part of the lasso. Then, inching his forelegs in, he let the coils of rope go limp. Stepping out of the lasso, one hoof at a time, Applejack tried to pull, but it became a matter of her grip against his. Both earth ponies had clamped down, and neither were about to move. When the last of Shigure’s legs came free, he unceremoniously let go, causing Applejack to stumble backwards.

“That was your fourth try, Miss Applejack,” he warned.

“Ah can count, ya know!” she growled back, lasso still between her teeth. Catching her breath for a moment, she also weighed her options: normal force wasn’t working, and her strongest lasso trick hadn’t done it either. No pony should have still been standing with that much force pushing their legs together, but apparently old Antlers was the exception.

“Ah guess ah don’t have any other choice,” Applejack said, spitting out her end of the lasso. It fell to the ground with a thump as tangerine orange hooves walked over and around it, pacing. Circling her opponent at a relaxed pace, she saw Shigure also spit out his section of the lasso.

Eyes narrowing, Applejack searched him over in detail, taking in his posture, the length of his legs, the thickness of his chest, the weathered old muscle of his neck, the slow steady rhythm of his breathing. In her mind’s eye, his legs became the foundation of a trunk, corded and ancient with roots running deep, deep into the ground. This was no apple tree. This would be like bucking an ironwood tree… no… like an old olive tree.

There was no other tree known to earth-ponykind more difficult to harvest than the olive tree. She had never seen one herself, but Granny Smith had seen one once, as a little filly, when her family had wandered through Bitaly. Ancient, gnarled and scored by the hoofmarks of hundreds of ponies, they were said to yield their fruit to none but the most worthy. They were one of the few plants said to be harvested by pegasi. That admission was more damning than any description Applejack could conjure up from her imagination.

That was what her mind’s eye made Shigure into.

But – but even the oldest, hardest, nastiest olive tree could be made to yield.

“There!” Applejack charged, feeling the moment as much as she imagined she saw a spot on her opponent. Just before her body screamed to turn around, she saw old Antlers’ eyes grow wide. He saw it, too. Somehow, he saw it in her. Still, he did not move.

Applejack turned around, tucked in her legs, and bucked – harder than she had ever bucked before!

Her hooves connected, guided by instinct and skill; she didn’t need to see them to know she had hit exactly where she had intended. Her body shook from the impact, the shock of it blasting up her legs and into the bones of her pelvis. Still, she held her posture, fearless, waiting for that reciprocal sensation of the tree behind her shaking, trembling, yielding.

Yield.

Yield!

“If there had been… two more of you, then maybe,” she heard, and then a hoof pressed into her midsection and she went airborne. Had it been a regular kick on her part, Applejack doubted she would have been able to land on her hooves as she did. As it was, the muscles of her back legs felt tense, but not tired. It wasn’t just muscle power that gave an apple-buck its power.

Throwing back her mane, Applejack saw that her opponent still – still – had not been staggered. Shigure stood just where he had before, no different than before except for the one hoof he had raised to flip her end over end like a pony would flip a coin. There were stress line fractures beneath his hooves, grass ripped out of place, but no actual harm done. He had not been moved.

“The Fuji Clan’s secret harvesting art. I know this feeling well; my every hair is on end.” Shigure lowered his hoof back down. “How have you developed it so quickly?”

“Ah don’t know what yer talkin’ about,” Applejack replied, wiping a strand of straw blonde mane out of her eyes. “Ah’ve been apple buckin’ all my life. This ain’t too different.”

“Is it?” Shigure wondered and tilted his head slightly to the side. “That was five.”

“Ah know!”

“I can't believe this,” Scootaloo grumbled, trotting around the grassy field in a big circle. Humiliatingly, with the stupid, lame-o training wheels on her wings. Turning her ire towards her absent teacher, she roared, “I'll get you for this you crazy, um... b-word!”

Not receiving any response, Scootaloo resumed her pacing, feeling a little bit better after the good shout. The least that darn fugitive could've done is at least stick around and watch or something. Wasn’t that what teachers did? Miss Cheerilee certainly never left her class alone for very long. There was no way she’d just give an assignment and then bail on everypony.

Not that that crazy Ritterkreuz being there, laughing her guts out, had done much for the little filly's self-esteem while she had been around. Maybe it was best she endure this alone. Whatever this dumb training actually was, which she wasn’t even sure of! It was just by the grace of Princesses Celestia and Luna that nopony else was-

“Hey! Look who it is!”

Scootaloo paused, eyes growing wide as saucers as she caught sight of her idol flying by. Rainbow Dash! What was Rainbow Dash doing here? This was supposed to be an isolated field that nopony flew over! Ritterkreuz had said so! What were the odds of...?

The odds of...

“You crazy, stinky, no good...!” Scootaloo hissed under her breath. So it was a set up then!

“Oh man! Oh man! This is too rich! Are those training wheels?” Dash asked, circling around the grounded filly and muffling herself to keep from laughing out loud. Between snarks and the hooves squishing her cheeks together, she managed to ask, “What are you doing with wheels?”

“I - uh - I - I mean- I - ha. haha. Hahaha!” Laughing hysterically at her lack of a good answer, Scootaloo felt more than a few beads of sweat fall from her brow.

“Nothing!” she announced to the entire world. “I mean,” she tried to explain more quietly. “Just – just, ahh, hanging out, you know? Chilling. Out. Being chill. Everypony has wheels these days.”

“They do?” Dash asked, flipping around to make a flashy, perfect landing. Lowering her eyes, she stared at the wheels on Scootaloo's wings. “Are these broken or something?”

“Broken?” Scootaloo stretched her neck to try and see what her idol was pointing at.

“Usually, the, um, axle-thing is in the middle of the wheel. This one was built funny.” Dash stuck her hoof into one of the spokes of the wheel, moving it forward. In the process, Scootaloo was forced to trot forward, the tip of her wing stuck in the axle as it went around and around. Instead of just being in the middle of the rotating wheel, however, the wing itself made a smaller circle.

“That's weird,” the chromatic pegasus observed. “Everypony has these?”

“Uh... yeah...”

“Oh wow! Look at that!” Another pegasus flew down, but without the flair Dash put into it. It was a stallion, blue on blue, with a simple azure and gold vest and a strange harness. Said harness carried what appeared to be a mug of some sort of drink with a long straw.

“Oh ho! You like this, huh?” He proudly pointed to the mug holder. “Pretty cool, isn't it? I bet you've never seen a pony who could fly and drink at the same time!”

“It looks weird, Mister.”

The stallion recoiled, shocked to the core. “What? B-b-but Miss Pie made it for me! It isn't weird!”

“Wait till you see him in a giant hat made out of pie. I can't believe some of the ideas you two have.” Dash shook her head at the lunacy of the two pastry-crazy ponies. She pointed to the wheels on Scootaloo's wings. “This is Soarin, by the way. And this kid here is Scootaloo. So, you know these things?”

“Sure!” Soarin replied, walking around the filly and nodding his head. “They're weight wheels. Boy, that's some old school stuff, though. What kind of crazy pony trains like that anymore...?”

“Weights? Of course!” Dash jumped up, stars in her eyes, and head full of less than thought-through ideas. “If I attach weights to my wings and legs then I bet I'd get super strong!”

“Hey, hey, now,” Soarin objected, trying to get a word in.

“Then I'll just take the weights off, and be like, POW ZIP BAM! Sudden burst of unexpected speed! Hoof to the face! Blasting away leaving an after-image!”

“Actually...”

“Quick!” Dash frantically looked around. “Somepony find me a boulder! Anypony find me a boulder!”

“Right away, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo volunteered on the spot, speeding off - only to stop as Soarin stomped a hoof down on her tail, pinning her in place.

“Hey, listen,” he said, shifting a hindleg to hold Scootaloo back while a front hoof stuffed Dash's mouth closed. “That's a stupid idea.”

“It is?” Dash muttered, hoof-in-mouth.

“Look, while there is a degree of weight training involved in a lot of stuff, none of it fits your flying style. If you just strap a bunch of heavy stuff to yourself, chances are you'll just hurt your wings and be worse off.” Soarin glanced over at Scootaloo next. “I'm not so sure about the kid here.”

“I'm not a kid,” the filly growled. “Scootaloo. I'm Scootaloo! Why do all you adults keep calling me a kid?!”

“Sorry. Scootaloo, then,” Soarin said, letting go of her tail. “I actually trained with weights myself, but that was for endurance. It isn't something either of you should need.”

“But - but the wheel?” Dash pointed over at her inspiration, no longer looking quite so brilliant. “You said it was weighted?”

“The weight there isn't on what you think it is. It's a low resistance weight, making it harder to push and move forward,” Soarin explained, spreading his wings and walking in a line. While he did so, his wings made little circles. “It trains the whole body: legs, torso, pectorals and supracoracoideus. It's a basic body motion tool, which you don't need, Rainbow. You probably never needed it. Plus, look at the ground.”

Dash did so, particularly noting where there were grooves in the grass left by Scootaloo's circling.

“Uhhmm...” She stared, even narrowed her eyes while ‘hmm’ing, then suddenly turned to Soarin with a bemused expression. “What am I supposed to be seeing again?”

“I’ll explain. This is a side of a hill,” he said, trotting up and then holding out his hoof to around Dash's eye level. “An incline. She circles up and then back down in periods of high effort and muscle relaxation. Like I said: very old school stuff. Most pegasi just do this in a gym these days.”

“Ohhh!” The weathermare finally got it. “That's pretty neat. And, look at that, Soarin, you can actually be pretty respectable and knowledgeable and stuff!”

“Of course I can!” Soarin puffed up, assuming a stately pose. “I am a Wonderbolt after all!”

“Is that a pie over there?”

“Where? Where?!” Soarin immediately abandoned his dignified posture and started looking around, nostrils flaring. “I don't smell it. Where is...? Aww.” He straightened up and glared at his student. “Rainbow Dash. You... you lied about pie.”

“I know,” Dash replied with a grin. “But I wouldn’t do it if you weren’t so easy.”

“Just for that, I'm adding a written test to your training!”

“NOOOOO!!!”

Scootaloo watched the two carefully. “You're training, too, Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow Dash paused in her crying to the heavens over the horror that was written exams. Whatever mercurial grief she had felt quickly vanished, as if it hadn't been there are all. A cocky grin lit up her face.

“Sure am!” Dash replied, proudly thumping her chest. “I've got a big fffii- race to train for! A race! That's it! Plus, check it out! I'm training with the Wonderbolts! Isn't that awesome! A Wonderbolt as my personal trainer!”

“Must be fun,” Scootaloo deadpanned.

“Actually, he's kind of weird...”

“I heard that!”

“And obsessed with pie...”

“I am not 'obsessed' with pie.”

“And he's a sucker for a pretty face.”

“Okay, that's true.”

“Heeeeey, if that's true, how come you haven't fallen for me?” Dash slowly turned to stare at the bemused stallion. “Don't I have a pretty face?”

“Sorry. I'm in love with the town DJ.”

“Vinyl!?” Dash blasted over to stare him down face to face, shaking him by the lapels of his Wonderbolts flight suit. “But why? I'm sooo much cooler than she is!”

“Vinyl, is that her name?” Soarin wondered, and grinned broadly at the weathermare's ire. “Anyway, enough joking around. You still need to work on Boltcke's sixth rule of air combat. So let's get back to it, huh?”

He punctuated the serious declaration by slurping loudly from the straw that poked out from his drink harness. It did wonders for ruining what little of his serious image remained. Groaning in defeat and resignation, Rainbow Dash let him go and slouched a short distance away before remembering one of her fans was watching.

“Okay, okay,” Dash decided, shooting Scootaloo a wink before taking off. “See ya around, kid!”

“I'm not-”

But she was gone.

Soarin also tensed to take off... but the goofy Wonderbolt hesitated. Looking back at the filly, his eyes narrowed for a moment. Then he was off, a blue streak chasing after rainbow and cyan. What the suspicious look was for, Scootaloo couldn't say. He couldn't have figured that out, could he?

Resigned, she went back to circling, wheels on her wings.

“I don't care what anypony says,” the flightless filly grumbled. “I hate these stupid things. And I'm not a kid!”

Chapter Twenty : To Move a Mountain

(20)

To Move a Mountain

Fluttershy batted at her furry friend’s paw.

“Now, Angel Bunny, what did I just say?” she asked, receiving a menacing glower in response courtesy of the surly white rabbit she shared her home with. He fell back on his haunches, crossing his forelegs in an angry, grousing pout. He knew and understood exactly what she had said: that the food she was laying out was for her friends and guests, and that he could have some when they all sat down to eat. Not before. Angel Bunny being Angel Bunny, however, he was loath to wait or be told that anything was strictly off limits.

He waved a dismissive paw at her, as if to say, ‘Yeah, what-eva! I do what I want!’

Carefully tightening the rubber band around the bowl with her mouth and snapping it in place, Fluttershy checked to make sure the wax paper was securely in place as a lid. Inside was a mixture of dips for later, taken from her stock of preserves. Experience had taught her that most ponies did not like using dips that animals had been into – the odd bits of hair and the occasional fleck of dirt seemed to be a serious turn off – so Angel Bunny would just have to keep his mischievous paws to himself for a little while.

The timid pegasus gave her beloved bunny one last serious look ‘I’m serious this time!’ Then she retreated to her small pantry to bring out two pitchers of lemonade and cider. On the way back, her eyes ran across her living room, making sure everything was cleaned and in place. She was a neat pony by preference, but life and living was a hectic affair when she had so many of her animal friends coming and going, day in and day out. She always had her hooves full making things presentable when she had company over.

She felt a sense of pride as she took it all in. Her house wasn’t very large, but it was everything she had imagined as a younger filly, namely a large open lower floor and ample space outside for her animals and other charges. Her name may have been on the deed, but it wasn’t just her house; it was a refuge for animals from Everfree to Canterlot, if they needed it. It was a place ponies could leave their pets if they were out of town for a few days, and a place where the best things that made pony lands so special could flourish: the unique way ponies and the nature around them synergized.

Sadly, she had needed to shoo out many of her animals for the time being, leaving the lower floor clean and empty. Animal beds had been put in closets and boxes and a few bird cages had been moved temporarily out back. Light streamed in from the east windows on either side of a stone hearth and mantle, and at night she could light up her two hanging oil lanterns, filling the room with an amber-tinted ambiance. Fresh flowers provided a gentle scent of the outdoors and paintings and impressions of butterflies and vines gave the house a warm, natural touch. A small Equestrian national banner had been put up on the wall by the stairs, a recent addition for the Decoration Day weekend.

Fluttershy smiled, nodding once and finding everything in place.

Just in time, too, as a knock on the door elicited a gasp from the easily startled pegasus.

“J- Just a moment!” she said, raising her voice but still probably too softly to be heard. She made her way over, but Angel Bunny was faster, hopping over in two long bounds. Nudging the door open a crack, he caught a peek at the pony outside before snorting and slamming the door closed.

“Sorry about that,” Fluttershy apologized, opening the door again, Angel Bunny glowering up at her. Waiting outside with a bemused expression was a raspberry colored mare with two toned cherry blossom pink mane. Cheerilee had a checkered cloth of a bundled box held by the side of her mouth; Fluttershy relieved her of it, freeing her up to speak clearly.

“There’s nothing to apologize for!” Cheerilee told her, shooting a sweet, amused expression Angel Bunny’s way. “Nice to see you, too, Angel.”

The white rabbit rolled his little black eyes.

“I brought some sweets from Sugarcube Corner and a jelly salad,” she continued, trotting alongside Fluttershy while Angel Bunny closed the door behind the two chatting mares. Cheerilee winked before Fluttershy could reply, “I also brought the fireworks.”

“Oh but I already have plenty of snakes and sparklers-”

“I meant real fireworks, Fluttershy,” the schoolteacher said, craning her neck to retrieve a small bag from inside her green saddlebag, the same color as her eyes, alight with waggishness and the fun they would have later in the day. Putting the bag down at the end of the table, Fluttershy could see the tail ends of some of the larger fireworks ponies could buy in Ponyville.

“I don’t know…”

Jumping up onto the table, Angel Bunny eyed the explosives, snatching one out of the bag to inspect it first-paw. It was almost as long as he was, painted in blue with an arrow shaped tip. He weighed the rocket in his paws, sighted down the end of it, and nodded approvingly.

“I just hope those don’t scare the animals,” Fluttershy worried, but cautiously smiled back at her friend. “But I guess shooting off a few won’t hurt anypony.”

“A few little pops over Ponyville… I doubt most animals will even notice it. Besides, I’ve heard that Cloudsdale’s fireworks display this year is going to be huge. We can watch it from the roof, or on top of the Apple’s barn. Big Mac and Applejack are having a get together tonight, too.” Cheerilee then took a moment to look over the table’s potluck. Fluttershy could see the other mare as she remembered that she wasn’t the only guest this year.

“So this other pony… is it Rainbow Dash?” she asked. “She isn’t going to bring those nasty jalapeno things again, is she?”

“I did ask if she wanted to come over, but she’s very busy,” Fluttershy explained. “But a friend I made in Canterlot sent me a letter that she’s in the area and wanted to drop by, so… well… it just seemed like it could be nice for her to meet another pony or two.”

“Sounds good to me!” Cheerilee replied. “So what’s the itinerary?”

“I thought we could just relax and play a few games, like Panorama and Ups and Downs… and then maybe walk around outside with the animals before the fireworks…” Fluttershy shrunk back a bit, less and less sure about her own mental plans for the day. “Unless you want to go back to town for a little while? There’s an outdoor play showing tonight. We could do that, too. Or if you want to go over to the Apple Farm to watch the fireworks instead, that’s good too. Umm, so really, just about anything is fine.”

“Relaxing sounds great, Fluttershy. Don’t worry.” Cheerilee helped herself to a cushion on the floor, sitting down with a happy sigh. “Thanks for inviting me, by the way. A little time away is just what I need! I am not looking forward to the day after tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong?” Fluttershy asked, also taking a seat.

“A dozen Decoration Day reports,” the school teacher said with a soft sigh. “I shouldn’t make it sound so…” She shook her head, not happy that she made it sound like such a chore. “You know I love my students, but grading eighteen papers across two homerooms all in one night is not fun, and I just know I’ll be getting some critical letters from certain parents afterwards.”

“Oh I’m sorry to hear that.” Fluttershy felt a pang of sympathy for her earth pony friend. She often hosted field trips for little fillies and colts about zoology and the local flora and fauna. It was rewarding but, still, trying sometimes.

“On a related topic,” Cheerilee asked, “The other day, you mentioned that Scootaloo had started helping you out?”

“Actually, she came by earlier today to help with the chickens.”

“She’s been looking very tired in class. I was wondering if you had any idea what she’s been doing that could leave her so tired?”

“I can’t imagine. She always seems very alert when she comes by, though I really don’t understand how Henrietta keeps escaping in the first place. She’s always been troublesome, but…”

Angel Bunny lingered by the fireworks, his paws over his long ears as the mares talked.

After a few minutes, he seized on the ongoing distraction to purloin a few stalks of celery and a carrot. Fluttershy still had the dips covered up, so he had to eat the vegetables raw – a state that was not his preference. Fluttershy watched him with one eye, trying to make sure he stayed out of trouble while she and Cheerilee caught up on things.

Decoration Day was technically a day to remember all the ponies who had died in wars and who served in the many and varied guard companies across the country. Equestria was a peaceful land, moreso than its neighbors. There had been no war within the borders of Equestria in over five hundred years and the last major war outside the country that had involved ponies was over two hundred years ago. It would have been easy for ponies to forget that conflicts even existed anywhere in the world around them. Decoration Day was a time to remember those who put themselves in harm’s way, and it had extended to include pegasi in weather teams taming wild weather, unicorns who perished in controlling un-chained magic or fighting fires, and earth ponies who colonized new lands and made them safe for ponykind.

It was also a holiday when ponies could get together with friends and family to eat outside before it got too cold and enjoy displays of fireworks and free entertainment. Fluttershy had considered visiting her parents in Cloudsdale but, like almost every year, she had decided against it. Most of her family in the clouds had very different… extremely different… views on life, and very strong personalities, and they took Decoration Day very seriously. It was usually too much to take in, too fast, for the Element of Kindness. Her father was still unhappy that she had decided to live in Ponyville and not try and carry on the family legacy. Fluttershy was not one to look for a repeat of flight camp or anything else that would ‘toughen her up’ or ‘turn you into a proper flight leader.’

A knock on the door snapped her out of her thoughts and prompted a pause in the conversation.

“Oh, that must be-”

Hopping over to the door, Angel Bunny nudged it open, as he always did. Fluttershy got up, making her way over with a bit more haste than before. If Cheerilee was here, now, than that left…

Angel Bunny froze, just then, his ears folding back.

Abandoning the door entirely, he bolted, crossing the room in a few frantic leaps to hide behind the Cheerilee’s chair. Left ajar, the door swung open, revealing a plain looking unicorn pony: blush pink coat and a rust and coral colored mane. Despite being a unicorn, she also carried a bundle by her mouth rather than levitating it in the air, as Rarity or Twilight would have. Unlike Cheerilee, however, this pony wore a fashionable white traveling cloak with magenta trim. The clothes alone identified her as a visitor to Ponyville; most ponies didn’t wear traveling clothes for a trip around town.

“Chalice!” Fluttershy greeted the unicorn with a small wave, her timidity countered in large part by her familiarity with this visitor. “Please, come inside! You didn’t have any trouble finding my house, did you?”

“No, I didn’t. Well, maybe I got a little lost, but…” She entered alongside Fluttershy, the pegasus having also retrieved her guest’s bundle. She noticed Cheerilee, and raised a hoof in greeting, only a little hesitant. “Oh, hello there.”

Cheerilee nodded and motioned to a seat at the table. “I’m Cheerilee.”

“Chalice,” the unicorn introduced herself, her horn glowing for just a moment to remove her cloak. Fluttershy had seen Chalice use her magic before, so it didn’t shock her again to see the strange black glow. Cheerilee did tilt her head, recognizing it as a very strange color, but Chalice only took a second to have her clothes hung up, and then the glow was quickly snuffed out. She didn’t like others seeing her magic, Fluttershy knew.

“I brought some fruits and cheeses,” she said, taking her seat. Behind Cheerilee’s chair, Angel Bunny still had his ears folded back, his breathing slow and his eyes narrow as he flattened himself against the floor. Chalice smiled at her host, and then at Cheerilee. “I hope you like them.”

It was at that moment that Angel did something Fluttershy thought she had taught him better of years ago. He hissed and reared up. It was a posture she had seen before in Angel Bunny’s displays with other rabbits. He was always very assertive with them, and sometimes that involved showing his dominance by picking a fight. It had been years since he had acted like that towards a pony.

“Angel Bunny!” Fluttershy snapped, and the white rabbit turned to her with a snort.

“I’m sorry,” Chalice said, to the other two ponies. “Fluttershy, just like I said before, animals don’t really like me.”

“Angel Bunny isn’t like those other animals in Canterlot,” Fluttershy assured her, addressing her closest animal friend with a soft tone. “He’s different. Angel Bunny, what’s wrong? I was hoping you would-”

He bounced away, onto a table and out the window, nearly knocking a vase over in the process.

“Oh dear,” Fluttershy muttered, her wings drooping.

Chalice’s eyes turned down to stare at her hooves. “Maybe I should-”

Fluttershy shook her head, feeling the need to be at least a little more forceful in the sanctity of her own home. “I’ll talk to him. But you’re my guest and my friend. I think he’ll come around eventually, he just has a… way of acting around ponies he doesn’t know.”

“And ones he does,” Cheerilee commented, glancing over at the window Angel had fled through. She turned back to Chalice. “Do all animals run away from you?”

The pink unicorn nodded slowly. “I think,” she tried to explain. “It has something to do with my smell… or my magic. I don’t have any control over it.”

“Well,” Cheerilee said, reaching for the table of treats. “How about we get started on these with a game of Panorama? Have you ever played that game before, Chalice?”

“No,” the unicorn replied, “but I would very much enjoy learning to play.”

“You have such a rich, healthy mane, Miss Heartstrings! We shall make it lovely for tonight; an envy for Lords and Ladies! Please remain still.”

Lyra had to resist the urge to fidget.

Despite some lordly blood in her, she was not cut out for pomp and dress. Yet here both pomp and dress were, knocking on her door. For the upcoming… event… she had been given an exquisite chiton of woven samite and cloth-of-gold, designed and cut to her figure by one of Lord Alpha Brass’s resident tailors. She had expected that to be the extent of it, but then she and the other entertainers for the night had been taken aside for hours of preparation. They had been washed, watered, scrubbed and brushed down, and after that, unicorns had attended to them.

She still wasn’t entirely sure what they were doing to her coat and mane. There had been a chemical dusting and at least two layers of magical prestidigitation involved; she could see in the mirrors both in front of her and to her immediate left that the effect was cosmetic. Her coat had taken on a glistening, reflective sheen, almost glass-like. Her mane had a similar look, but more pronounced, deepening the greens and adding luster to the whites. The stylist was going over it a second time to firm up and keep all the little curls and coifs in place with shimmering, ethereal thread. Glancing behind, Lyra shifted her flanks and the angle of her tail, trying to get used to the ribbon that had been tied close to its base.

‘I almost look like I’m made of glass… and these clothes are Bitalian?’ she thought, recalling a famous Bitalian Princess in attendance. ‘Is this for Princess Cadance? That would explain the clothes, but not the weird crystal look.’

She took comfort in the fact that it wasn’t just her. Nearby, two other mares were also in the same state of touching up. All the entertainers and staff were getting the same treatment. It had to be part of some sort of party theme. On the subject of the party, though… Lyra felt a titter of nervousness pass through her stomach.

“This… um, party?” she asked the part-beautician part-magician. She was older, and gave the impression of having been on staff for Lord Brass for some time.

“Mmm,” the older mare muttered, using a bit of magic to add more reflection to the illusion covering part of Lyra’s mane, behind her shoulders. It tingled.

“This is, that is-” Lyra laughed, awkwardly, noticing the other two mares and their stylists and imaging how they had to be overhearing. One of them closed her eyes. Only the stoic guardmare in the room didn’t seem to care. The well-built Amazon merely stood watch, like an omnipresent statue. Or like a gargoyle, to hear some of the mares in the Gardens joke about it. What were they even needed for, here in Lord Brass’s sanctuary in the sky?

“This is my first orgy,” she admitted. “I was wondering… if ah… you know…”

“Mmm.”

“Have any of you ever been to one of these before?” she pressed on, regardless of how embarrassing it was to talk about. It was definitely better to know just what she was getting into; better a little embarrassment now than a lot later. The mare furthest away said nothing, the one with her eyes closed, but the other – a pegasus singer Lyra had overheard in passing the day before – did reply. Unfortunately, her response was an amused titter, covering her mouth with the back of a hoof as she did so.

“Your first time? That’s so sweet, but I really wouldn’t worry about it,” she said just as Lyra felt the urge to tuck her head between her legs like a turtle and disappear. “I take it by your cutie mark that you’re the second string harpist?”

“First, actually…”

“Oh? You replaced Cords?”

“Just for tonight, I think.” Lyra had learned about the pony she was replacing: another musician specializing in stringed instruments. It had hurt a bit at first, to realize she wasn’t the first one in the Gardens, but then she had learned that she was taking the other pony’s place. She still wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that. Guilty? Proud? Nervous? Mostly that last one.

“She’s prettier than Cordelia,” the other mare added, still posed with her eyes closed as her stylist added a crystalline sheen to her eyelids.

“Thanks?” Lyra replied. “I guess…?”

“While His Lordship is hosting an orgy tonight, I can’t imagine it will be all too lively,” the singer explained. Her stylist was working on her cutie mark, two highly stylized musical notes one pointing up the other down. She raised her wings, which were as yet un-marked by magical illusion.

“So we won’t… have to do anything?” Lyra inquired, her imagination running rampant.

“Not unless you want to,” the pegasus told her. “We aren’t servants, Miss… was it Heartstrings?”

“Lyra is fine,” she replied. “Um, and you must be…?”

“Siren Song.” The other mare shared a sultry smile with her, soft red eyes sparkling, contrasting with her bright purple mane and white coat. Silver ear-rings almost touched her long eyelashes. Together with the almost complete crystallization guise, it gave her a very exotic and erotic look, which was most likely the intent.

“You’re so new, it shouldn’t surprise anypony that you don’t understand yet,” she continued, admiring her own reflection in a body height mirror. “His Lordship isn’t the only host for this event. We are his trusted and beloved cliens. We have his respect and his… his love. The Lords and Ladies he invites are Our guests as much as His. We serve them not because we must, but because we wish to, for his sake. Should any of us wish it, we can expel any guest at the party.”

Lyra blinked a few times as she processed that. Not long ago, she had played for some of Lord Brass’s dinner guests. They had been important and powerful ponies. She had expected more of the same to arrive for the… well, the orgy. She tried to imagine herself demanding the removal of some great and noble pony, her, a little pony from nowhere. It was comical. Was that really something she had the power to do, here?

“There is no need to be nervous or frightened,” Siren Song explained with a growing smile. “If anything, this is an opportunity for fun. We don’t get many stallions up here, and Lord Brass… is loving but so cruelly distant. With that Princess here, it all but makes it impossible for any of us to spend time with him. Especially with his bulldogs watching us.”

She fearlessly pointed over at the stoic female guardpony.

“Yes,” she said to herself, licking her lips hungrily. “You would do well to make the most of tonight.”

The openly salacious look on the pegasus mare’s face brought a blush to Lyra’s cheeks. Clearly, this was an event some ponies looked forward to more than others. For just a moment, she imagined Bon Bon, and wished she had come, too. This was definitely an occasion when it would be nice to have a close marefriend nearby.

“So we… don’t have to do anything?” she asked, to be sure. “Unless we want?”

“There will be quite a few pretty ponies,” Siren reminded her. “His Lordship always gives preference to the beautiful at his orgies. It makes things so much easier, you know? That way, we only need to grease the wheels with song and dance and drink.” Glancing back at Lyra for a moment, she guessed that the unicorn mare had more questions but hesitated to give voice to them.

So she explained, “But, as I said before, I doubt this party will be all that wild or memorable. Lady Euporie isn’t here to stir things up. Most ponies will probably just drink and eat and watch and talk – they come for the voyeurism rather than to participate. A few of the more adventurous or scandalous couples will enjoy themselves in the Solarium… some of us will probably find a couple handsome single stallions and have some fun as well. I know I will! And those with more exotic desires will probably retreat to the Night’s Solar and the Lunarium. I doubt we will have an event like the last, when Lady Euporie personally oversaw the festivities.”

“Lady Euporie,” Lyra muttered, recalling the young unicorn mare with the wild blue mane from the other day. She had not left a very nice impression, tormenting her aunt Chalice and threatening both Lyra and Lady Yumi.

“Unlike his daughter, His Lordship is unfortunately not a true libertine,” Siren Song said, having overheard.

“Alpha Brass doesn’t take part?”

“Lord Alpha Brass,” Siren Song corrected her. “And no. Only in the Night’s Solar. I assume.” She shrugged, and the stylist working on her tsked in annoyance. “He often comes and goes. Oh, and I believe I accidentally made a rather lewd joke!”

“So he doesn’t get involved himself? He lets Lady Euporie handle it?” Lyra guessed, and Siren nodded.

“Yes, and without her, I worry tonight will be rather stale.” The sultry pegasus songstress sighed with mock dejection. “I feel sorry for you in particular, Lyra Heartstrings. No pony can do what our Lady Euporie can with but a word and you…? You’ll be missing it.”

“I see her!” the shout came from one of the watching pegasus ponies on a cloud above the duel. She pointed off, out of sight, but only the other pegasi with the advantage of a high perch could see what was coming.

“Is that…? Is she crazy?” Another pegasus clutched her head in dismay from the roof of Sugarcube Corner.

“All I see is a cloud of smoke,” another complained, squinting his eyes. He flew up higher and his eyes widened. “Oh.”

Soon enough, all the ponies gathered behind the confectionary to watch Applejack win back her hat had their heads turned and necks craned, trying to see. Reaching behind her, Pinkie Pie whipped out a pair of binoculars to better peer into the oncoming cloud of dust. There was definitely something heading down the hill towards the road.

But what?

“Oh my gosh!” The pink pony gasped, shocked, adjusting the sight on the binoculars. “A bear!”

“A bear?” Euporie inquired next to her.

Other ponies, overhearing the remark, started to panic. “A bear?!” “Everypony RUN!” “Not another bear.”

“No, wait!” Pinkie gasped again. “A tiger!”

“Now it’s a tiger?”

“A tiger!!” “Everypony RUN!!” “What kind of tiger?”

“Oh no! A giant penguin!”

“Gimme that!” Euporie snapped the binoculars off Pinkie’s face and brought them to her own eyes. The stormy blue mane behind her fizzled up for a moment before returning to what passed for normal: random curls and ends sticking out like an ocean’s surf. The unicorn slowly handed the binoculars back to their owner.

Pinkie quickly took another look. “Now it’s a sperm whale!”

“A … what?” “Everypony RUN!” “At least it isn’t a kraken.”

A spark of magic later and a circular reel ejected out of the sides of the ‘binocular’ revealing it to be a toy stereoscope in all but appearance. Pinkie Pie ‘aww’ed at the sudden darkness and tossed it away without a second thought. Euporie shook her head and continued to peer into the incoming dust cloud without further visual aid. When she finally saw the source of it all, her smile returned, broad and toothy.

“Awww,” Pinkie Pie groused, disappointed. “It’s just a plain ol' rampaging bull.”

This was followed by the predictable:

“A bull!” “Everypony RRRRUNNN!!” “Time to panic, I guess.”

Euporie’s formerly silent grin turned into full blown laughter as ponies caught on to what was coming, seeing it now that it was heading right towards them. Applejack had rounded up a couple heads of cattle and sent them stampeding into town. The determined – some would say crazy, others nuts – apple farmer was riding on top of the lead animal: a two thousand pound dairy bull, all muscle and bone and bad temperament. Pinkie Pie flailed around wildly, feeding the panic as ponies fled for the safety of houses, roofs, bales of hay and any other thing that they could find. One pony hid behind another pony, who then hid behind the first pony, and so on and so forth.

“I like this town!” Euporie announced, clopping one hoof into the other as if it was some profound realization. “It’s full of crazy ponies!”

“INCOMING!!” Applejack yelled from on top her family’s breeding bull. Through the smoke and dust, the front of the beast could be seen quite clearly now: twice the size of a pony’s head, with small ears that bounced at it took one muscular stride after another, snorting angrily through a copper ringed nose. A pair of large, curved white horns arced to either side of the thick skull.

“Y’all better move!” she warned, not like the residents of the town needed to hear it to get the hell out of the way. “I’m getting’ that hat back or dying tryin’!”

Behind her thundered four other cows, smaller than the bull, but doing their part to egg him on.

“I’ll just be standing over here,” Pinkie Pie said, casually, as she slipped behind her new unicorn friend turned meat shield. “Behind you.”

“I wouldn’t worry about us,” Euporie replied, turning her head to the side. “We’re not her target, after all. Isn’t that right, Antlers?”

Still standing where he had been since the duel began – the purpose of it being to make him move just an ‘inch or two’ – the Neighponese pony known as Shigure or Late Rains remained in place. He turned his head to the oncoming stampede, but otherwise didn’t give word or action to indicate discomfort or distress.

“Pinkie Pie!” a voice called from one of the second floor windows of Sugarcube Corner. “Your friend isn’t going to destroy our shop, is she?”

“Of course not!” Pinkie replied, waving up at Mrs. Cake. “Sugarcube Corner is a candy shop, not a China shop! You don’t have anything to worry about!”

“That’s good,” Mrs. Cake said, and ducked back inside, but not before Pinkie and Euporie overheard her yell, “Honeycake! Take the twins across town, would you? As in: right now?”

“Already on it, sugarplum!”

“It sounds like you’re about to get trampled,” Euporie remarked to Shigure. Only his subordinates from Neighpon were standing around, albeit well out of the way. Shiratsuyu and Yudachi had both moved off to the side just to be on the safe side, while Suzukaze took to the air, yellow eyes tightened angrily.

“Y’all better move!” Applejack yelled, her face betraying more than a little fear and hesitation now that it had come to the last few seconds. “Move! Move!”

Meanwhile, the stampede continued, right on target.

“MOVE, damn it!”

Moments from impact, Euporie giggled.

Carriage crashes were not unknown events in Equestria, though rarely at speeds of more than ten or twenty miles per hour. To the sound of one pony’s laughter, another’s frightened yelp, and one other’s curse, two thousand pounds of dairy bull went from thirty miles per hour to a dead stop in the span of an instant. In that moment, all the pony sounds, cries and howls of warning were drowned out.

More than a ton of bovine muscle and bone pounds buckled and bellowed amid a swirling nebula of dust and hooves. The back of the bull hitched right up and into the air, the back legs still kicking, hurling Applejack into the sky as well as if she’d been launched by a meaty catapult. It was followed a heartbeat later by two other thuds as a pair of smaller cows, each just shy of a ton, slammed into the halted dark mass of flesh that was the intact dairy bull.

Plaintive moos cried from the sudden impact, and behind those two, another cow crashed and bowled over the top of the others, rolling on top of them carried purely by momentum. A fourth ended up momentarily airborne, like Applejack herself, tumbling end over end before crashing down with a warbling bleat. She hit the still moving mass that was at the head of the crash, legs kicking frantically into the air.

Applejack slammed hard into the ground, skidding all the way to Sugarcube Corner’s backdoor.

Snorting dust out of her face, she groaned and tried to get back onto her hooves. A pink hoof appeared to help her up, and shying away from the assistance for only a moment, the apple farmer ultimately let Pinkie Pie help. Swaying momentarily on all fours, Applejack shielded her face and eyes from the roiling cloud of dust the stampede had kicked up. It was slow to settle, but she could see…

“That was good!” Euporie commented, clearly approving. “I did say no rules, right? Weapons are totally fine, so I guess animals are, too, though I hadn’t imagined it myself.”

“Master Shigure,” Suzukaze said, trying to see through the dust. Flapping her wings, she began to blow away the offending cloud and airborne debris.

“Seven.”

Even before the dust began to clear, the moaning pile of smashed bovines began to move.

Almost gently, one of the cows tipped over and onto the ground. Standing behind her, Shigure had one leg up and against the head of the bull, one of the horns just digging into the meat of his shoulder. Another cow was supported entirely by his back, and he shrugged her off and onto the ground by lowering his rear legs. Throughout all that, three of his four legs had not left their spot.

Applejack glanced down at a broken horn that had come to a stop just inches from Sugarcube Corner, the tip of it buried into the ground. Reaching out for it, she kicked lightly and knocked it over. It had been broken so clearly, so cleanly, that it resembled nothing less than a side of sliced sausage. Shigure shifted again, this time to throw back the unconscious bull that had slammed into him, and Applejack heard a scraping sound as the remaining horn rubbed its tip against the Neighponese pony’s shoulder.

It sounded like bone scraping on rock.

“What - what kinda pony are you?” she asked, softly, but still he heard the question.

“I am Lady Yumi’s shield,” Shigure explained, letting the bull collapse onto the ground at his hooves. “I am the Mountain of Neighpon. No Earth Pony in the world is my equal when it comes to defense.”

“Has it sunk in yet?” Suzukaze jeered, flying down lower to zip by Pinkie and Applejack. “There’s no way you can move Master Shigure! You could struggle at it all day and not even disturb a hair on his mane! A smart pony would just give up!”

“Applejack,” Shiratsuyu spoke up, as the pony she’d fought – and defeated – at the pas d’arms. “There’s no shame in-”

“A smart pony would probably give up,” Applejack agreed, shrugging off Pinkie Pie to trot forward. “That’s probably right.”

“Don’t tell me you’re giving up?” Euporie asked, frowning. “I think you can do it.”

“Ah said a smart pony would probably give up!” Applejack yelled. “Too bad! I ain’t exactly a smart pony!”

“Stupid! Idiot! Baka!” Suzukaze taunted as she flew around. “Only a brain damaged fool doesn’t know when she’s in over her head! That’s nothing to be proud of!”

“No, Suzukaze,” Shigure said, and she jerked her head around to gawk at him.

“But, Master Shigure…!”

“That was only seven,” he explained. “She has eight tries, and eight times she wishes to win back her honor. You could learn from her determination, Suzukaze. As outmatched as she may be, I would bet that the thought of seriously giving up has never crossed her mind. I am oath-bound not to move, but right now… this pony has my blood pumping. I want to see what you do next, Miss Applejack. Please show me.”

He noticed her eyes on the moaning and mooing cattle around him.

“They should all be alive,” he tried to assuage her concerns. “I softened my stance before the impact to keep them from getting too hurt. Lady Euporie?”

“Huh? You want me to help? Isn’t that a shameful waste of my magic… moving meat around?” The noblemare flipped her wild blue mane in disgust. “But…! I want to see it, too! So, okay!”

With apparent ease, her horn lit up with a sparkling cerulean aura. A similar field engulfed the four cows and the unconscious bull, as a lattice of flashing lights and spilling sigils wheeled through the air above and below. Then, in the blink of an eye, the magical aura winked them away without a trace.

“W-where’d…?” Applejack recognized what had to be a teleportation spell. It didn’t look like one of Twilight’s, but it had to be something like that. Right? “You can…?”

“I sent them to my boring sister,” Euporie explained, shrugging in further disinterest. “I’m sure she’ll take them to the local vet. Or maybe they’ll land on her hard head and crush her. Either one is fine.”

“Ah guess I’ll have to trust ya on that,” Applejack admitted, keeping her eyes and attention on Shigure. He still had her pappy’s hat somewhere, a trophy from the pas d’arms outside Ponyville. This was her one, last chance to get it back. She’d have to check up on Hugh Heifer and the girls later. They’d more than earned the premium feed she’d promised them for all this.

Looking back, though, it had been so reckless…

Somepony could’ve gotten hurt. Hell, the intention had been to hurt Shigure, hadn’t it? A pony had to hurt him to move him. ‘He has mah hat.’ The thought repeated in her head, over and over. ‘Ah can’t lose! Ah can’t lose! Ah gotta beat him no matter what ah have ta do!’

Thinking, gathering her thoughts, Applejack didn’t notice the faint magic collecting around her.

“One more try,” she vowed. “Ah can’t mess this up. Not again.”

“Ohhh! I can not believe you! What were you thinking?”

Blueblood didn’t offer any words in response. He and Shining Armor had gone from the upper floors right to the conservatory, to change, and then outside. The stallions had hardly broken eye contact since the duel had been declared, and neither had so much ad acknowledged the pair of mares who tried to get in their way. Despite Rarity’s indignation and Twilight’s magical prowess, neither had the inclination to physically try and bar the two stallions from marching around towards the inevitable.

“Mercury!” Blueblood roared the moment they were outside the manor, hooves clattering as he and Shining Armor traversed the beautiful Bitalian stonework outside leading to the laurel maze. It took only a moment for the Royal Guard to swoop down, head bowed before the two nobleponies.

“I would recommend Sir Mercury as an impartial arbiter,” the Prince said, meeting Shining Armor’s glower.

“I know of him,” the Guard Captain replied, nodding once to the bowing pegasus pony. “You were squire to Sir Steel Heart and you unmasked the mystery knight of the Briar Thorn Tourney.”

The Royal Guard nodded, once.

“Sir Mercury it is,” Shining Armor consented.

“Then I shall meet you on the field,” Blueblood glanced back at Rarity, a move that only restored her pique and pressing urge to talk to him – or more exactly, to talk him out of things. “Shortly.”

“Do not be too long, Your Grace.” Shining Armor huffed, stomping off, followed by a flummoxed and unhappy Twilight Sparkle, who could only turn and shrug helplessly at her brother’s brusque behavior.

Blueblood sighed and turned, fully, to face Rarity. “Well, then,” he prompted. “You were saying?”

“I was saying,” she had to bite back a harsher phrase that came momentarily to mind. “You can not tell me that you were being anything other than rude and – and provocative back there! What were you thinking? What are you thinking?”

Blueblood grimaced as she leaned in, whispering harshly and critically.

“What are you two even fighting over?” she asked. “Have you listened to yourselves? When you go out there, I want you to apologize to him and-”

“That is something I cannot do,” Blueblood cut her off.

Surprised by just how firm he had been, over so frivolous a thing, Rarity trotted back in surprise. “And why not? I have never before seen you lose your temper like this, or behave in such a crude manner! Don’t tell me Twilight’s brother gets under your skin, so?”

“This has nothing to do with anything he said,” the Prince told her, leaning over to whisper into her right ear. “Not to me, anyway. Rarity, you are an astute and observant pony, but I do not believe you understand Shining Armor’s character like you think you do. That idiot is honorable to a fault. Do you remember when I told you there were no fairy tale white knights in Canterlot? I was wrong. There is one and you just met him.”

“You make it sound as if that is a bad thing,” Rarity countered, blue eyes darting away to disguise her confusion. “How many times have you lamented the state of Canterlot’s elite? Just the other night, didn’t you call it a nest of vipers? You should wish for more white knights like Shining Armor.”

“An honorable and just pony is a great thing, and in certain times, to be commended.” Blueblood leaned back, snorting through his nose at just how twisted the situation had become. “Shining Armor is as incorruptible as he is gullible. Unfortunately for him, the world needs black princes as much as white knights… and there is no blacker prince than Lord Cruciger and his ilk. Shining cannot be allowed to go to Prance. He’ll be eaten alive.”

He began to walk off to the grounds outside the manor when Rarity called after him, “Why not just tell him that? Why not just explain it to him? Do you really think this really the best way to do this?”

“It’s the best way to make things stick,” Blueblood said over his shoulder. “If he knocks me unconscious, it’ll be up to you to welcome our first few guests for the art festival. Tell Photo Finish I’m power napping!”

“I’ll tell her you were a hothead and a royal pain!” Rarity called out, not afraid to be overheard by any of the staff.

“Believe me! She already knows!”

Blueblood loved the feel of chewings fescue beneath his hooves: it was like a luxurious green carpet, soft to the touch and inviting to the eye. Chewings fescue was good, old, Canterlot grass, mixed in some parts of the back forty with smooth stalked meadow grass and browntop. A pony could eat it, if need be, but to do so was generally frowned upon. Casual grazing pulled up roots and damaged the yard, after all, and who would want to do that? Nibbling wasn’t a faux pas however.

However, the best thing about a perfectly maintained and cut yard was that there was no dirt or mud to soil oneself. The visual appearance was essential, naturally, but there was that all important utility: no civilized pony wanted to see or interact with filth. His gardeners and staff had done such a wonderful job on the acres that surrounded his new Ponyville manor. What was about to happen now, well, it brought a tear to his eye.

“Are you crying?” Shining Armor asked, having spotted the lone droplet making its way down Blueblood’s cheek.

“I’m sorry. I – I can’t help it,” he moaned, wiping away the unsightly tear. “We’re about to ruin my poor yard.”

“You never change!” the other pony groaned, shaking his head in disgust. “This is a matter of honor!”

“Hm? Honor?” Befuddled, Blueblood bit his lower lip in apparent thought. “Oh, oh yes. I almost forgot.”

Shining Armor growled his response almost too quietly to be heard, “I don’t know how the Princess puts up with you, sometimes.”

“Which Princess do you mean?” Blueblood asked, speaking loudly and freely, all but drawing attention to every word.

“The Princess, of course.” By which he meant the one he had served under for so many years and not the one he planned to marry. “Her Highness, Princess Celestia.”

“And, wait, your question was what?” the Duke of Canterlot inquired, as they waited. “Why my Aunties stand having me around?”

“Yes, why do they?” Shining Armor demanded to know. “All you do is… is revel in this or that! I understand that the nobility is the court, and I know that the court is a stage, but you act like a clown in motley! Carelessly foaling around with mares, or – or, when not cavorting, you are dealing in shadows and behind curtains! I could never understand why. Why you are the way you are, or why Her Highness put up with it.”

“I see...” Blueblood let a bit of the act slip, just to aggravate the other stallion. “You resent that ponies like me pull the strings of ponies like you, Knight Guard Captain Shining Armor?”

“When Cadance and I run our realm,” he swore. “It will be with honor and justice! Ponies like you will have no place there.”

“Oh! How delightfully anachronistic! A revival of King Solomare’s court,” Blueblood quipped. “Will you cut a foal in half, too? Maybe Cadance can do the honors?”

“Enough of your irreverence!” The angry Royal Guard stomped his right hoof in growing impatience. “Where are those…” he tried to recall the weapon for the duel. “Those…?”

“We are dueling with almond blancmange,” Blueblood provided. “A waste of it, by the way, but that was the chosen desert.”

Shining Armor somehow found a way to deepen his frown. “The very fact that you have committed all these sweets to memory is itself damning.”

“Much of it was not by choice, I assure you.”

Fortunately, Rarity and Sir Mercury arrived with the dueling deserts before Blueblood could try and tempt his angry fellow noble into giving compliments on his villa’s garden designs. Little Shining Armor was never one for the “frivolous.” Blueblood privately blamed it on his Terre Rare upbringing and the resultantly typical obsession with “honor” and “duty” and a generally Spartan lifestyle. The whole family would have fit in perfectly if transplanted into a bunch of pegasi, two thousand years in the past.

Only having met Twilight Sparkle was that generalization rendered unfair. He saw her, all the way until the end, trying to talk her brother out of the duel. Blueblood very nearly shook his head. She really was too nice a mare to belong to so cruel a clan of ponies. It was no compliment. If she really wanted to make inroads into protecting her family, there would be no way around having to beat down the main branch in Prance. She had the power – he was sure of it – but he could only hope she had the mentality.

After what she had made him promise last night, and after this, it was all but set in stone; they were committed, the both of them.

‘I’m doing this for you, too, Twilight Sparkle,’ he thought, watching the pair of siblings, so unlike how he and Cadance conducted themselves. ‘If Cruciger has your brother, he’ll have you as well.’

“Blueblood,” he heard Rarity’s voice, seemingly for the first time today not laced with anger or frustration.

He turned his head and saw her standing close by, also watching Twilight argue with her thick-headed honor-bound blockhead of a brother. She had on a feathered fascinator of a hat he hadn’t seen before, and like most everything she made for herself, she looked radiant in it. He saw her eyes, and her face, still frowning, and a part of him wanted to just tell her he would yield and let things die down between himself and Shining Armor. As long as it made her happy.

Sadly, that just couldn’t be. This was for their long term happiness. She’d see that, eventually.

“Try not to get too roughed up,” she said, fighting to keep looking cross. “I don’t want our pictures together to look like a well-dressed nurse and her favorite burn patient.”

He gave his best deadpan response, “Now that you’ve talked me into it, I’ll try my best.”

Kissing him quickly on the cheek, she cantered off; he took a long look at her go. At least if Shining Armor did knock him out, he could try and have some pleasant marshmallow dreams.

“Gentleponies,” Sir Mercury’s voice cut in, and Blueblood faced forward where the rather less pleasing sight of a frowning Shining Armor met him. The Prince rolled his shoulders, accepting that what had to come, had to come.

“Prince Blueblood,” the armored pegasus began the traditional introduction, holding out a tray balanced in the flat of his gilded hoof. “Are you prepared to defend your honor, sir?”

"I am," Blueblood replied, adopting a proud bearing. His eyes darted treacherously over to where Twilight and Rarity watched, and then to the manor he wanted to call his new home, bathed in the light of his Auntie’s risen sun. Dueling. All he could think about was how he hated dueling.

“Sir Shining Armor,” Mercury continued, addressing the other aggrieved party. “Are you prepared to defend your honor, sir?”

“I am, always.” Shining’s response technically broke protocol, but he seemed proud of it. He would be. It was the exact same thing he had said, all those years ago, when he had first challenged his distant royal cousin to a duel over the insulted honor of a little Lady Lord. Even then, she had been his precious and infallible Princess, Mi Amore Cadenza.

"So be it." Mercury, a Pegasus, would not normally have been given leave to attend much less to arbitrate a unicorn duel. It was not prejudice, simply the fact that a unicorn was best suited to preside over (and if needed, intervene in) a magical duel. On such short notice, however, he would do. Blueblood made a mental note to thank the guard later, no matter the outcome. It could not have been easy for him to stand as he was between his royal charge and his guard Captain.

"Honor your families and your names," Mercury concluded, presenting their pastries.

Blueblood and Shining Armor both floated out five of the small round blancmange cakes. They then turned and paced in opposite directions in silence. The Duke of Canterlot was already preparing the magic he would need in his mind. The first move should have been to teleport away and gain some extra distance. Shining Armor was more athletic and, by virtue of his being in the Guard all his life, he could be expected to be stronger and faster than a pampered noble, despite Blueblood’s private physical trainer and relatively healthy living. His magic would also likely be faster from conception to inception to projection.

Luckily, this was also Shining Armor.

He would sooner pluck his eye out than hit a pony in the back. Blueblood let that fact sink in as the countdown ended, the distance between duelists passed, his back still turned to his opponent. There was a long pause then, as Blueblood sucked in a breath.

“If I had been in your position,” he said, still not turning around. “I would have struck already.”

“I’m glad you at least recognize that much,” Shining responded, huffing in dismay. “But on the other hoof, it means you’d choose to cast aside honor for victory. That isn’t something to be proud of, Your Grace.”

Blueblood chuckled, slowly turning around to face the other stallion.

“Shining Armor,” he said, eyes narrowed and all distractions cast aside. “Why don’t you show me what an honorable pony can do?”

“GO Applejack!”

“Yeah! You can DO IT!”

Despite the vocal praise, Applejack couldn’t help but hide her face behind a hoof. Somehow, while everypony’s backs had been turned, Pinkie Pie had darted off and found a cheerleader’s outfit. Donned in frilly white and pink skirt and a tube top, waving a pair of bright pink pom-poms, she was currently bouncing up and down, providing ample drooling opportunities and fanservice for the hoof-full of ponies who had remained after the stampede.

Worse still, she had gotten that crazy unicorn from before into it, too.

Tucking into a ball and landing on Euporie’s shoulders, both ponies struck a pose. “A!” Pinkie exclaimed from the top. “J!” Euporie chimed in from the bottom. “APPLEJACK! GOOO TEAM!”

“Wait, what team?” the unicorn of the pair asked, looking up.

“Our team!” Pinkie cheered, jumping down.

“If this is ‘our team’ how come my shirt says RD on the back? And why is it so tight around the-”

“Details, details,” Pinkie explained, clasping the other pony around the shoulders. “The important thing isn’t how tight your clothes are-”

“You sure about that?”

“The important thing,” Pinkie repeated, “is how you cheer from the depths of your heart!”

Momentarily forgotten, the two dueling earth ponies exchanged apologetic looks.

“Your friend is certainly… energetic,” Shigure said, politely.

“Yours, too,” Applejack replied, but the Neighponese retainer shook his head.

“She’s not a friend.”

“Then why…?”

“For Lady Yumi, of course,” he answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Why else would he do anything?

“Hmmm!” Euporie commented from the sidelines, twirling a baton around one foreleg. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think our Little Miss Applejack was stalling for time! Maybe she’s low on ideas?”

“Oh! Oh! I’ve got TONS of great ideas!” Pinkie Pie declared, raising one hoof in the air and waving it excitedly, like a certain lavender schoolfilly eager to get called on in class. “So many I don’t know what to do with them all!”

“Well, go ahead!” Euporie invited her to contribute, still spinning the baton around without paying it any real attention. “This is a no rules duel, right? There’s no rule against giving good advice!”

Zipping over to where the apple farmer stood, one eyebrow raised in bemusement, Pinkie Pie started whispering in her ear. The more she heard, the more Applejack’s expression fell. Eyes half lidded, she could only draw back and stare at her pink friend. Was she serious?

In her mind, she could picture it:

Applejack stood, feather in her mouth, trying to tickle her opponent into submission. Needless to say, it wasn’t working all too well.

“You ain’t ticklish, are ya sugarcube?” She grumbled, feather between her lips.

Shigure shrugged. “Only under my hooves.”

Hooves firmly planted on the ground.

“Horsefeathers.”

“Oh! I’ve got it! You can…”

The carrot-flavored cupcake dangled from a line attached to an old fishing rod. Sitting on the roof of Sugarcube Corner, Applejack sat hunched next to an out of place tackle box, wearing a wide brimmed hat full of spare hooks and gaudy lures. She also had the misfortune of wearing a life jacket, because… safety first? What the heck kind of idea was this?

Two stories down on the ground, Shigure looked up at the cupcake, grabbed the line, and yanked her down to fall flat on her face.

“Ah really don’t think this’ll work,” she muttered into the dirt.

“The life jacket was in case of a tidal wave. Anyway! Another idea!”

Applejack hammered a sign into place above her cart: FREE APPLES

No sooner was it in place than a swarm of ponies, not one of them the one she wanted, converged on her clamoring for free food. Swiftly buried beneath the deluge, she counted herself fortunate to still have the life jacket from the other bad idea.

“Ah don’t think this’ll work,” she said, pushing her way out of the press of hungry ponies.

“OH! I’ve got it!”

Blinking, Applejack glanced back and forth.

Around her, a dozen ponies waited for their cue to start dancing and singing. On the side, Pinkie Pie was encouraging her on to try and get a beat going. Then all the ponies would join in as her chorus and they would march along and sweep up everypony in town, Shigure included! Nopony could resist a good group song!

“Um… everypony dance or… something?” Applejack scratched her head. “Um… Ah can’t think of anything here, sugarcube.”

Applejack ran to the middle of town, yelling into a wristwatch just above her right hoof. “Big Apple! Show-time!”

Without preamble, a huge metal hoof burst out of the ground! It was followed by a gigantic leg, and then another, as a huge mechanical mechapony burst out of the network of secret tunnels beneath Ponyville. In moments, the Big Apple stood tall over the toy sized buildings of Ponyville, and Applejack piloted it from inside an overly elaborate and frankly confusing command center. All around her, dozens of lights blinked in blues and greens and reds, gauges spun and spat steam, and levers covered every square inch of available space.

Sitting on the pilots seat, Applejack had only one thing to say.

“Uhh… why do I have a giant robot?”

“Oh yeah, they don’t exist yet. I forgot!” Pinkie Pie ‘hmm’ed, taking special mental note of the lack of giant mecha in the real world. “Well, I’ve got lots more ideas! For this next one, all we need is a giant whoopee cushion, some gak, and Sapphire Shores…”

“I’ve got an idea, myself,” Euporie spoke up, tossing the baton through the air. “Use this.”

Halfway to Applejack, the unicorn’s magic turned it into a much more wood-like form. Hitting the ground, it slid around and came to a stop right next to Applejack’s hooves. When it did, she got a good look at it. It had been turned into wood, and the top half of it was also wrapped tightly in some sort of fabric. She realized what it was right away.

A spark later, and the torch took flame.

“Go ahead,” Euporie told her, a malicious grin at odds with the cheerleader’s outfit she still wore. “No rules, remember?”

Pinkie Pie stared down at the lit torch with wide, blue eyes.

Applejack, hardly even thinking about it, reached down and picked up the burning flambeau. Just like with Pinkie Pie, she could see herself using it. Except this would work. This would actually work! Nopony would just stand there and get burned! Old Antlers had managed to take everything she had thrown at him. The adapted apple bucking kicks hadn’t worked. Her lasso tricks had been useless. He’d boasted that if there were something like eight of her, then maybe he would move, but even a stampede of cattle hadn’t budged him.

Fire.

Fire would move him.

“Do it,” Euporie whispered, but Applejack could hear her as clearly as if she had been in Pinkie Pie’s horseshoes, right next to her. “You want your hat back, don’t you? Hesitation is so unseemly. So unattractive! Don’t think about it. Just do it.”

Holding up the torch, Applejack could see her opponent – her enemy – through the flickering flames. The crazy unicorn was right. What was she doing thinking about it?

“Applejack.”

The apple farmer turned her eyes to the left, where Pinkie Pie sat on her haunches.

“That’s not a fun idea,” Pinkie said, tentatively reaching out to take the torch away. “I think you should try something else.”

“Pinkie!” Euporie cried from the sidelines, distraught and seemingly hurt by the party pony’s words. “You don’t like my idea? But what is she going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Pinkie admitted, plucking the torch out of Applejack’s hooves, “but I know she’ll think of something!”

For a moment, the other earth pony was silent.

“You spoke highly of her earlier and you are not prone to exaggeration,” Yumi said, spearing the prone apple farmer with a disappointed scowl. “I expected more. This is like watching a donkey kick a wall.”

“Shut yer yap!” Applejack spat, bracing her front legs to pull herself up.

It was a spear.

“Applejack?” Pinkie asked, whispering.

“Yeah,” she finally said, smirking. “Ah’ll think’a somethin.” Green eyes drifted back to the unicorn in the cheerleader’s outfit. “Thanks anyway, sugarcube.” Then back to Pinkie. “And you especially.”

Nodding, torch in hoof, Pinkie Pie bounded away without another word.

Clopping her hooves together - her empty hooves – Applejack let out a long, slow breath. This was it: she had one last chance to move this Neighponese rock in the shape of a pony and win back her hat. Her father’s hat. So far, her track record was one of failure after failure. By all rights and reason, no pony would have faulted her for wanting to just give up and go home.

Instead, she began to run.

“Come on, Applejack!” Pinkie Pie’s exclamation was much quieter than usual. “Come on!”

A peach colored blur shot by as Applejack picked up speed, circling her opponent. When Pinkie had seen her start, she had started to worry. Applejack had tried a trick like this before, using her lasso and circling around and around. This time she was just running. Running and running.

‘Come on, Applejack! You can do it!’

Next to her, balancing the still burning torch on the tip of her hoof, Euporie chuckled.

“You know,” she began to say, as Applejack shot past again. “When one ant can’t carry her burden alone, another helps out. I wonder if that’s what ponies call the ‘magic of friendship’?”

“What do you mean?” Pinkie Pie asked, not quite understanding the question.

“Oh, nothing important,” the unicorn remarked, always grinning.

Pinkie Pie turned her attention back to Applejack and Shigure, butterflies in her stomach (which was odd, since she didn’t remember eating any, but maybe they’d gotten into the cookie dough?). Even she wasn’t oblivious to the fact that nothing Applejack had tried so far had worked. Amid the circling dust left in Applejack’s wake, Shigure remained as implacable as always.

At first, Pinkie had just assumed he was super-duper confident in being able to take anything anypony threw at him. That wasn’t it, though. He was watching everything Applejack did. He just didn’t talk much. Even now, she could see him following Applejack with his eyes as she circled him, well out of reach.

“So much running!” Euporie commented with a chuckle.

“She’s quite fast.” White Dew, the other earth pony from Neighpon aside from Antlers, had moved to stand near the two mares. He cupped a dark brown hoof to his chin, considering the fight. Pinkie Pie had befriended both him and Squalls in the hospital, and he had talked about Applejack fairly often and how she had surprised him. Evening Squall had also come closer, a lingering magic clinging to his horn, probably in case he needed to put up a protective barrier.

Cool Breeze, meanwhile, lurked on top of a cloud, still smarting from being chided by her master.

“Going faster won’t change anything,” Evening Squall spoke up, his dark red eyes knowledgeable. “Nopony can generate the force required to move Master Shigure against his will. It isn’t possible.”

A little dejectedly, White Dew nodded. “That’s right. Miss Applejack has made remarkable strides, but… but I don’t see how she can make him move by running fast.”

“It just isn’t possible,” Squall repeated.

Pinkie Pie shook her head, not wanting to hear it. “She said she’d think of something. So she’ll think of something!”

Sitting down, Euporie watched, intently, smiling happily.

‘Come on, Applejack!’

Pinkie Pie winced at the fluttery feeling in her stomach. Forget butterflies for a moment – she thought back on if she’d eaten anything funny. Well, she ate a lot of funny things, but was there anything weird or bad, too? Those peanut and cream cheese brittles had been pretty funky. Then there had been the spicy mustard and dandelion chips. Those had been super funky.

Applejack raced past again, kicking up more dust.

As she did, Pinkie felt that pang again, and with it came a moment of (relative) clarity. It wasn’t something she’d eaten. That feeling in the pit of her tummy wasn’t food. It was Applejack.

It was Applejack doing something.

“Oh!” Pinkie Pie bounced up, seeing it. The feeling was funny, but not strange, now that she remembered it. “I know this feeling!”

“What feeling?” White Dew asked, but a cry came from the duelists, and all eyes turned to them.

“That rock smashing feeling!” Pinkie Pie replied, landing on his back. She pointed. “Look!”

With a rebel yell, Applejack had broken from her rapid circling, changing course to crash head-long into her invulnerable opponent. Shigure watched her charge with intense azure blue eyes, one cobalt hoof shooting up to intercept her. The few remaining ponies that made up the crowd held their collective breath, expecting another painful crash. Ponies watched in pairs from open windows, from clouds and rooftops, and at least two from behind a light fixture.

With a clop, Applejack’s hooves came down on Shigure’s leg –

Vaulting over him, like a rodeo clown clearing an angry bull, she spun once head over shoulders. Her legs tucked in, a posture White Dew recognized, given his sharp intake of air. At the exact same time, all four of her hooves hit the ground.

“Not bad,” Shigure barely had time to say.

And then the ground heaved and bucked back, a thick crack forming from Applejack’s impact point. The lines races across the ground, forming a circle – the same circle Applejack had worn into the ground with her running. With a thunderous crack, the last of it parted and met, forming a complete, continuous circuit.

Applejack reared, two legs in the air, and stomped down HARD.

With a howl of splitting, grating stone on stone, the circle shifted, one end sinking and the other end rising. Chips of rock and clumps of dirt spat angrily out from the excavated earth as the circular cracks became a warping bowl. Applejack yelled, a raw inarticulate cry, rearing up again and stomping down. The force drove her part of the bowl down, and the other part up, until it seemed to take on a life of its own: tipping almost to ninety degrees.

And still, against that crumbling vertical wall, Shigure stood with three legs planted in place.

“A- ah…!” He grimaced, eyes wide, and the grip of his hooves finally slipped.

When he did, whatever force was holding the now vertical bowl of stone and dirt together slipped with him. It came apart all at once with a sound like a dropped glass. The implacable, seemingly invincible blue earth pony fell silently amid the detritus, burying him and Applejack alike.

It had taken all of two seconds, and the lot behind Sugarcube Corner now sported a half excavated crater. At least, Pinkie figured, it would be easier for Mister Cake to put in a pool for the twins. Then she found herself running towards the devastated and broken ground with Squalls and Dewy. The former’s magic lit up, projecting an orange colored disk into the pony-tall hill of dirt and rock. White Dew lend more muscle to moving the debris, knowing there would only be so much time before any buried pony ran out of air. Pinkie plunged her hooves into the dirt alongside the two Neighponese ponies, easily moving away rocks half her size.

Her ear twitched, and her elbow itched. Just a little closer –

Grabbing hold of an orange hoof, Pinkie tugged, and Applejack followed, gasping for air. She was more brown than tangerine now, with bits of rock sharing space in her mane with irate earth worms and bits of sheared roots. None of it detracted from the look of triumph on her face, breathless, but there.

“You did it!” Pinkie cheered, crushing her friend in a bear hug. “You did it, Applejack! That was SOOO COOL!”

“Truly impressive.”

Both mares turned, seeing Shigure in a similarly filthy state. He had been in the very center of the crush, but appeared unhurt. In fact, he was smiling in approval. White Dew and Evening Squall stood by his side, having dug him out. He nodded, happy that he had fulfilled his vow and his honor, but still lost.

“I admit my defeat,” he said. “You have more than earned your hat back. It is my trophy no longer.”

“Master!” Cool Breeze objected, jumping down from her cloud. “Return the hat if you must, but do not call it defeat! Your defeat is Lady Yumi’s as well! It is already unbearable that we have so shamed her, but you… you can not lose, Master! Not you!”

“A pony should not regret an honorable loss, Suzukaze,” Shigure told her, shaking his head to throw bits of dirt out of his greying mane. “I would only ask how the idea came to you.”

Pinkie helped Applejack to her hooves and the apple farmer explained, “It was the cracks under you. When I apple-bucked you before, it made cracks in the ground, but later, when I had the torch… I noticed they were gone. What happened to them?”

Applejack leaned heavily on her friend, but kept upright.

“It was like a tree, healin’ itself,” she continued. “But the ground doesn’t just do that. That was how I knew. You must’ve fixed it, and what you did before, you probably countered my apple bucking with your own. I just got ta thinkin’ … if you could do it, maybe I could do something like that, too.”

“All that running,” White Dew said. “It wasn’t running at all.”

“I was hittin’ the ground just like when I apple buck a tree, or when I used it on you, sugarcube,” Applejack replied, but kept her eyes on Shigure. “Whatever sorta power you were getting from the ground, I had to do somethin’ ta mess with it.”

Shigure nodded, his smile broadening.

“In ancient pony times, before the migration, one earth pony was honored with the title of Mountain. It was our counterpart to the unicorns Archmage and the Pegasi’s Winds. My own skill is nothing in comparison to the legends of old, but like Lady Yumi’s father, I follow in that tradition. An earth pony’s roots run deep.”

The sound of one pony’s hooves clopping heralded Euporie cantering over.

“Awesome!” she said, laughing cheerfully. “I am truly impressed! Genuinely impressed! What a wonderful first day in Ponyville!”

“Oh! That reminds me!” Pinkie gasped, pointing at both Applejack and Euporie at the same time, somehow keeping from falling flat on her face. “We need to throw a party for both of you!”

“I agree. But, how about,” Euporie suggested, smile sly. “You throw a party for your friend, and I throw a party for you, Pinkie Pie?”

“For… for me?” Pinkie asked, eyes wide and beaming. “Really? But I usually throw Welcome to Ponyville parties for other ponies…”

“As long as there’s a fun party to be had, I don’t think it matters,” the amiable unicorn replied, a glint in her amber eyes. “It’ll be a special welcome party for me, and a special my-new-friend party for you.”

“I’ll put it together while you focus on Miss Applejack’s victory party,” she added, and Pinkie Pie nodded eagerly.

“Okay! Deal!”

“Good!” Euporie clopped her hooves together excitedly. “Just… one thing… how many pretty ponies would you say there are in town?”

Shining Armor knew that many ponies had described him as ‘groomed for command of the guard.’ It was somewhat rude to think that his place in the world was anything but the fruit of his own efforts, but at the same time, he recognized that the description wasn’t entirely inaccurate. For years after the Magic Academy he had been apprenticed to the High Mage and Court Magister, Lord Rune Stone. He had squired for Lord Aegis, the Silver Shield of Equestria. He had entered the Guard at an almost unprecedented young age, and yes, he was the son of Lord Crescent Moon and Lady Twilight Velvet.

Excellence had been expected, along with rightness, correctitude and virtue. These were the hallmarks of the gentry. It was not hubris to claim that his own hard work counted for his Captaincy of the Royal Guard as much as birth and connections. It was not pride to expect ponies to respect that fact.

His Grace, Prince Blueblood, was the antithesis of all that.

Still, Shining Armor would not have begrudged the royal fop his laziness, his entitlement, his callousness towards mares, or his dismissiveness towards the common pony. He was willing to be the bigger stallion and forgive the Prince his lack of chivalry, his irreverence towards the Princesses and his niggardly manners. Blueblood was as he was. What Shining Armor could not stand, and what he could not forgive, was insults towards his fair fiancée and bride to be. Not then, when they had been colts, and not now, when they were grown stallions.

Not ever, would Shining Armor let that be without challenge.

He took a forceful step forward, five round blancmange cakes cloaked in magical steel. The flickering barriers around them caught the light and shimmered like polished diamonds, reflecting in innumerable facets. Turquoise eyes bled off excess magic as his training kicked in.

“I hope you are ready, Your Grace,” he gave that last word of warning, and attacked.

Rarity had only one serious duel to her name. It was a monster of a duel to be sure, against one of Equestria’s most infamous mares, but she was hardly what one would call an old hoof at the subject. For the most part, she only had Twilight’s training, her small body of prior experience, and some literature she had read over the last couple weeks. She saw, immediately, that Shining Armor was not like Antimony.

For one, he went right for the jugular.

Four of the shimmering blancmange cakes shot forward like bullets, the crack of their rapport hurting her ears. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw Blueblood’s surprise. He hadn’t been expecting such a quick attack. It was faster than even Antimony’s own diamond-enchanted cupcakes had been.

The Prince flashed to light a moment before the cakes hit him.

Shining Armor frowned, pivoting and erecting a purple shield to block the incoming cake from behind. Invulnerable behind it, he took his time retrieving the four cakes he had thrown. All four were still encapsulated in barriers of their own, buried into the ground. Rarity could see that they had punched cleanly into the ground, leaving perfectly circular depressions in the immaculate turf.

Antimony would have pulled the cakes back quickly and set them circling about her. Shining Armor felt no such urgency. He was probably more aggressive than Antimony, but from the look of it, he was physically slower. Safe behind his translucent purple bubble barrier, the guard Captain was in no hurry to either protect himself or press an attack before he was ready.

“I had heard that you teleported at the Gala,” Armor said, watching his opponent with cool disdain. “At first, I had dismissed it as barracks gossip, but there you are. I remember you puking all over yourself the last time you tried to teleport.”

“Not one of my finest moments in school,” Blueblood remarked, tapping his back right hoof against the ground. Four cakes floated around him, and his blue eyes turned to them, missing the one that had been wasted on Shining Armor’s barrier. “And now I only have four left. So sad.”

“A teleport behind to a blind spot is the most simple of moves,” Shining Armor lectured, shaking his head. “A novice move, really.”

“I’ll have to try something else,” Blueblood replied, sighing.

“Feel free to try!” Shining, having recovered his five barrier- blancmanges, advanced again. The projectiles shot forward again with a loud ‘crack!’ ‘crack!’ and Blueblood had to scramble and backpedal to escape.

With a nimbleness belied by his large build, the Prince weaved away from the barrage of cakes, projecting two of his own. They arced around, and Shining Armor ignored them. His barrier was hemispherical and covered all angles. Blueblood’s cakes skimmed the surface, looking for a weakness, avoiding splattering in the process. All while he frantically jumped and scrambled, manicured hooves kicking up clods of dirt and staining his white coat with brown and green.

“He has to time an attack to when the shield lowers,” Rarity said, mostly giving voice to her own thoughts rather than expecting to take part in any sort of ongoing commentary.

“That wouldn’t work,” Twilight replied, watching the duel; her earlier aggravation displaced by fascination and a desire to analyze what she was seeing. “Shiny’s shields are selectively permeable.”

“He can pass attacks through his barrier without dropping it?”

“That’s right,” Twilight said, frowning. “Shiny’s barriers are supposed to be the best in Equestria. He won’t drop his shield and there’s no way through it.”

“But that… that hardly seems fair!” Rarity protested, on Blueblood’s behalf. “How can anypony beat that? There must be some way through!”

Twilight thought for a moment. “Brute force could do it.”

Rarity thought instantly of Antimony’s display: smashing one of her enchanted pastries through a stone pillar. That mare didn’t lack for brute force. Blueblood, on the other hoof, had never demonstrated any sort of powerful telekinesis. He was capable enough, but she didn’t imagine he would be winning the magical dead-lift any time soon.

Unlike her duel, there also wasn’t anywhere to hide here.

Blueblood came to an abrupt stop, teleporting away from a fast moving blancmange. For a moment, it seemed as if he had vanished entirely, as everypony searched for the tell-tale ‘pop’ that came from a unicorn teleport. Even Shining Armor paused to glance around, spinning around in a circle before craning his neck and looking up.

Up.

To where Blueblood hung high in the air, along with a blanket of grass and dirt he had teleported with him. For the first time, encountering something really unexpected, Shining Armor grunted and guarded himself. His bubble shield glowed fiercely in response to its caster’s emotional state.

“What’s he doing…?” Rarity asked, shielding her eyes with a hoof. “He’s so high up.”

“He’s accelerating,” Twilight deduced.

The mass of falling debris shattered as something punched through it at high speed. The small black blancmange rained down like a meteorite, slamming into Shining Armor’s shield with gravity and spell assisted force. It was far too much to be the result of just dropping it.

“That wasn’t his cake!” Twilight explained, impressed. She turned to Rarity. “Don’t you remember my demonstration from before? Teleporting conserves momentum.”

“He hit Shining with his own cake?” Rarity realized, but her good cheer quickly evaporated. It wasn’t enough.

Shining remained safe behind his barrier, glaring up at the sky.

“Tricky,” he admitted, his mouth turned down in a frown as he shot three of his other cakes up at Blueblood. “I’ll just attack from more than one angle!”

“What were you aiming at?”

Shining spun, surprised by the voice and how close it was. Blueblood wasn’t in the air, he was behind! Instinctively, the Royal Guard twirled around and counter attacked. This time, he got a good look at Blueblood’s trick. The Prince leaned to the side, letting the cake fly close –

And then he blinked.

A half second later, and Blueblood teleported back in the same place he had left, but backwards. The cake he had been attacked with came with him, and continued on course before Shining to reassert control over it. It crashed, hard, into his barrier. Hard enough that it splattered into an unrecognizable mush.

“I always was a better dancer than you, Knight Captain,” Blueblood quipped, turning around. “Remember how you used to trample all over poor Cadance’s hooves?”

Shining Armor snarled, but before he could retort, the debris from above hit the ground all around him. It wouldn’t have been of note, except that it also splattered all over his barrier, covering it in gunk. Fescue and meadow grass clung to the purple bubble along with a layer of moist, rich dirt and displaced turf. Blueblood cantered backwards, well away from the mess.

“Of course! It was all to blind him!” Twilight exclaimed, clopping her front hooves together in bookish excitement and newfound realization. “You counter a solid barrier by blinding it!”

Rarity leaned forward, a little miffed that Blueblood hadn’t already tried to capitalize on his advantage. “And when he drops it to get rid of the grass and dirt…!”

“More tricks,” Shining Armor remarked, growled, and another shield sprung up around his muddied one. Only when that was in place did he drop the inner barrier, the dross and bits of lawn falling harmlessly onto the ground. Except –

Shining’s eyes widened, as he suddenly side stepped.

One of Blueblood’s blancmange cakes narrowly missed hitting him as it fell.

“How like you, to fight dirty,” Shining Armor commented, scowling down at the cake that had very nearly ended the duel in Blueblood’s favor. Watching, Rarity barely managed to contain a groan at the near miss. The cake had been hidden among the mess that had fallen on the shield, and dropped directly above. Nopony had noticed it.

“That was close,” Twilight said, and Rarity couldn’t be sure who she was rooting for in that moment. Or at all, really. She clearly hadn’t wanted the two stallions to duel at all, but now that it was underway, who did she want to come out on top?

There was no question on Rarity’s mind, at least.

“That was so close, darling!” she yelled, pumping a hoof. “You’ll get him next time!”

Blueblood blushed a bit, scratching behind his ear with a hoof. “That was pretty clever, wasn’t it?”

He abruptly bounced back and away, as Shining Armor crashed down on all fours. In midair, his bubble shield was just that, a true bubble, but it retreated away from the ground to allow him to land safely. Following behind him, his three remaining blancmange cakes struck, shooting forward and then back to their master like lances.

“You’ve noticed your sister isn’t exactly cheering you on, Shining,” Blueblood remarked, lip curling as he levitated up a strip of turf to escape behind.

“All the encouragement I need, I have in my heart!” he replied, spinning around to keep Blueblood in his field of vision. A line of earth ripped open as one of his cakes missed their mark.

He had to be careful in his attacks. With only three cakes left, he always struck with two from different angles, to make it harder for the Prince to use one of his teleportation-redirection tricks. Watching the two stallions move, Blueblood constantly circling to try and keep out of Shining’s frontal field of vision, and the Guard Captain constantly shifting and turning to counter, Rarity could see how it was playing out. Blueblood was able to avoid the three cakes, but he was already breathing heavily.

“Enough jumping around!” Shining Armor snarled, slamming one hoof down and into the ground.

What had seemed like a momentary loss of cool quickly proved to be more: a purple ripple emanated from the point where Shining Armor had brought down his hoof. The radial barrier shot out along the ground like a wave, like a pebble dropped in a formerly calm pool. Caught unprepared, Blueblood stumbled and slipped, falling onto his side with a grunt.

“I have you!” Shining roared, pouncing.

Jumping, he unleashed his three cakes again. Blueblood teleported away, frantic, but when Shining landed a second time, he sent another rippling barrier through the ground. Immaculately trimmed grass ripped out in bunches and far from the fight, Rarity could feel a tingle in her hooves. So much closer to the impact point, Blueblood staggered, very nearly blown off out of his horse shoes.

“Blueblood!” Rarity yelled, not caring that it was proper decorum to watch a magical duel in relative silence. “Get out of there! Teleport!”

“The mare wastes her breath, I fear,” Shining Armor laughed, but then Blueblood vanished again, from a prone position on the ground. “You have to set hoof to the ground sooner or later! And when you do-”

“Why set hoof to the dirty ground?” Blueblood’s voice came from above. “I have such fine turf below me right here.”

The Duke of Canterlot was standing right on his barrier.

“Get off of there!” Shining growled, two of his cakes blasting right up and into the midsection of the royal unicorn.

He realized his mistake, just a second too late.

Blueblood did another micro-teleport and returned the two cakes, splattering both against the barrier. Only one glittering, barrier encapsulated blancmange remained in the Royal Guard’s arsenal. It hovered close to him, within his barrier, quivering in time with Shining Armor’s frustration and anger. Three of Blueblood’s weaponized cakes floated around his head, like points on a crown. He stood on two legs on top of the Captain’s shield, waiting.

“I get it,” Twilight explained, for Rarity’s benefit. “Shiny only ever projects his attacks from inside his barrier. Inside, to outside, and then back inside. By covering part of the shield directly, it makes it easy to predict where the attacks will come from. Closer is actually safer, as long as you have a way to block an attack!”

“And standing on top of the shield means he can avoid that thing on the ground!” Rarity realized.

“If Shiny doesn’t have a name for it already, I think ‘Rippling Rampart’ would be… what?” Twilight suddenly noticed Rarity staring at her. “Yes, I came up with a name for it! So what?”

“Nothing, darling. Carry on.”

Twilight pouted. “It isn’t nerdy at all.”

“I never said it was.”

“Blueblood… do you think you’re safe up there?” Shining Armor asked, directing the attention of the two mares back to the duel. “That because I only have one of these things left, that you’ve beaten me?”

“It would be nice of you to give up,” the Prince quipped, his hooves making little ripples in the barrier where he stood. “But I’m not betting on it happening.”

“I could simply drop the barrier.”

“And I have three delicious blancmanges to give you if you do.”

“I only need one good shot,” Shining reminded him. “And at a closer range, I won’t miss. I know how fast you can teleport.”

“Are you sure about that?” Blueblood inquired, mockingly. “I could be only using, say, one percent of my true power.”

“You’re as cocky as always,” Shining Armor replied, grimacing. “A trace of skill has only made it worse. As long as I’m behind this barrier, you can’t do anything to me and you know it.”

“Well, that’s true,” the other stallion admitted, slumping his shoulders. “I could never break through one of the famous Shining Armor’s shields. Your little sister possibly could, but me? No. No. Never.”

“Then you admit it?” The Guard Captain glared up at the Prince. “You’ve put up a good fight, but you admit you never had a chance. Ask for forgiveness, and we can end this farce.”

For a long moment, Blueblood was silent.

“Forgiveness?” he finally asked, eyebrows raised in bemusement as Blueblood stared down at Equestria’s barrier magic prodigy. “That's sort of funny. Why ask for forgiveness… when I can just beat you here and now? Knight Captain Shining Armor!?”

The Royal Guard felt something shift underhoof.

Not far from his right front hoof, the ground flowered open and a small black shape popped out and up. The almond blancmange floated in front of his chest for a moment – just a moment – just long enough for Shining’s horn to try and conjure up a new shield inside his current one. It was too late.

The almond blancmange exploded, spraying the inside of the barrier with cream, sugar, starch and magical numbing agent. Protected, ironically, by the barrier he stood on, Blueblood hopped off and onto the ground. Turning around to regard the sputtering, splattered, sticky shield… he kept the three blancmange cakes rotating around his head.

With a wet splat, Shining Armor’s shield petered out.

“Ah. Ah.” The Guard emerged, another shield, circular and purple, protecting his face and upper body. His breathing was labored and strained. “Ah. I. Ah. I was…”

He took a step forward and fell to one foreleg.

“A heartbeat too slow…”

One cream splattered foreleg.

“Those shields of yours are formidable. They always have been,” Blueblood said, comfortable enough to let the cakes around his head fall to the ground. At they hit the grass, each one turned back into a clump of mud. “Which was why the cake needed to explode: to make sure some small part of you got hit.”

“Ugh…” Paralysis had already begun to set in, and Shining Armor could do little more than narrow his eyes and glare at the other stallion. Sir Mercury rushed over to check in on the Captain.

“All that time, the cakes you had with you were fakes?” Twilight asked, passing the four clods on her way to check on her brother.

“There was no way I could hit him with his barrier up,” Blueblood told her. “From the start, I buried all but one, waiting for when he would get close enough.”

“We didn’t notice, with you scrambling and bumbling around so much!” Rarity exclaimed, running up to give him a quick hug. She paused at the last second, turning up her nose. “Honestly, that was so reckless of you! And you’re positively filthy. I’ll hug you when you’re clean.”

“What? I don’t get a kiss?” He made a show of checking his legs and torso. “I have a clean spot… somewhere…”

“Tricks… dirty tricks,” Shining Armor managed to groan, his chin to the ground. Twilight was already lifting him up in a magical field. “How could I lose to that?”

“You lost because you don’t fight dirty,” Blueblood explained, walking over to the hovering unicorn. “In fact, I believe the very concept of ‘dirty fighting’ never entered your mind for even an instant. You are a good, honorable, charitable, upstanding knight of Equestria. And, my friend, you are going to return to Canterlot that same good, honorable pony. You are going to marry my adopted sister, and you are going to stay away from Prance and the Terre Rares there.”

“My honor-”

“You lost to me,” Blueblood cut him off, pressing a hoof into the Guard’s chest for emphasis. “On your honor you had to go, but now, on your honor, you can’t go. It’s called getting an ‘out’ that saves face. You’re to take it.”

Shining Armor, still fighting the paralysis, was slow to acquiesce. “But…”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Blueblood answered the unspoken question.

Her name instantly recaptured his attention. Shining Armor’s eyes lit up as he stared at the Prince, and then at his little sister. The bookish unicorn found her hooves suddenly very interesting. Still, she effortlessly held her brother up in the air with her magic.

“Twilight Sparkle will confront the Terre Rare,” Blueblood said, letting everypony hear. At Rarity and Shining Armor’s shocked expressions, he smirked. “You Canterlot Rares are my subjects. Obviously, I would want an ally of mine in Prance. Part of my scheme to take over Equestria and become an alicorn, you see?”

Twilight and Rarity both elbowed him at that.

“What?”

Twilight Sparkle didn’t want to say as much, but for all Blueblood’s confidence in her, she had only a vague, half formed notion of how to confront her distant cousins in Prance. Antimony. Cruciger. Polished Jewel. Chalice. Alpha Brass. Was she to simply try and overpower them in honor duels? Having seen Blueblood and her brother fight, she was fairly confident she could hold her own, or even beat, either stallion. Shiny used brute force, and she was… well… stronger than him when it came to that.

How much worse could the other Terre Rares be?

But then, Blueblood had just shown that brute force alone wasn’t enough. He used trickery and quick thinking to win, or, as her brother described it, to “compensate for being a ponce.” Twilight thought of herself as a smart cookie, as the expression went, but her track record of coming up with magical improvisation on the fly was probably only about fifty-fifty. A duel wasn’t a library or a laboratory with nice, controlled conditions. Messing up just a single spell could cost her the fight, or worse, her life.

Besides all that theory and speculation, the fact was that Twilight didn’t really want to fight anypony in the first place. Maybe, if nopony else, she would have to fight Lord Cruciger. The family as a whole respected strength and ability – their very creed was ‘merit first, not birth.’ To save her family, to replace Cruciger, she would have no choice but to prove herself in the way her family values most. Magic.

‘Silly Twilight! You’re the Element of Magic!’ she chided herself as she walked. ‘There’s nothing to worry about!’

‘But,’ she reasoned. ‘If I had dueled with Antimony, right off the bat, I’d have gotten caught in her illusions.’

‘And you’d have broken out of them, just like Rarity did!’

‘I wish Spike were here. He was always a good sounding board.’

‘What, and I’m not?’

“Twilie?”

“Oh, sorry,” Twilight said, snapping out of her little mental debate. Trotting alongside her, Shining Armor’s expression softened with concern. He had bounced back pretty quickly after losing the duel, his issues regarding Blueblood overshadowed by his worry over his little sister’s chosen path. It had taken some convincing to make sure he well and truly understood that this was her choice, and not something Prince Blueblood had tricked her into accepting. He had not ‘put her up to it.’ It was how she was going to save her family: the close family and the extended one, too.

“I just have a lot on my mind,” she explained, apologizing again. “I didn’t mean to ignore you or… were you saying something?”

It reminded her that she wanted to clear up that whole ‘Cadance is Lady Cadenza’ thing. How had she not gotten that?! She had been told about the wedding on her birthday, but her brother and her old foalsitter? It wasn’t too squicky, but it was going to take some getting used to.

“This business about Prance,” he said, and Twilight sort of wished he had been able to dismiss the pair of guards he took with him. There was something creepy about the way they stared at him. And her. “Twilie, once you start down this road, I’m just afraid it will lead to bad places. What you’re talking about is… is deposing a head of the family. I don’t think it’s right.”

“If we don’t do something, then Lord Cruciger will appoint another pony to run our family here in Canterlot.”

“So what?” Shining asked, shaking his head in dismay. “This is politics, Twilie. You hate politics!”

Twilight hung her head a little, knowing he was right.

“Let the power hungry ponies fight over it. It isn’t your business. It isn’t mine either, except that I have to go – or, had to go, anyway.”

“It is our business,” Twilight corrected him, frowning at him with violet eyes. “Dad made it our business. Don’t tell me we have to let him fight his own battles.”

Shining clearly felt the temptation to argue the point, or some point, but his mouth closed a moment after opening. He stopped walking, and Twilight did, too. There was a pony on the road back into Ponyville.

A mare.

Standing in the middle of the road, her mane was brick and cherry red, bundled up in a bob, her mane cut prim and short. Her coat was a dry cream white, a shade less pure white than Shining Armor’s own. A functional, velvet traveling cloak with a stylized ring of outer lining in bands of stars on night sky covered her torso, just barely touching the ground. It also made it impossible to see her cutie mark. Below the steel clasp that held the mantle in place, a small jade and moonstone medal hung from her neck. By the bulges under the cloak, she also had saddlebags hidden beneath.

“Please excuse the interruption,” she said, but did not smile. Her face remained frozen in a neutral, bored expression. “Twilight Sparkle. Shining Armor.”

“Ah!” Shining’s own face lit up with recognition. “Lady Eunomie!”

The mare dipped her head in respect. “I am honored you remember me, Sir.”

Twilight didn’t recognize her at all. “Shiny? Who is this?”

“My name is Lady Eunomie,” the mare said, inclining her head again. “I have come on behalf of my Lord Father with a proposal.”

“Your father? Who…?” Twilight asked, but as she did, the name clicked something in her memory. Her studies. Eunomie… and… Euporie… was it?

“Lord Alpha Brass,” the pale mare replied.

“Twilie,” Shining said, gently nudging her. “Did father’s letter to you make mention of him sending somepony you can trust? I did not want to say as much in front of the Prince, but we do have friends and allies within the main family.”

Twilight did remember…

You must understand this, Twilight: we will not be going to Prance and we will respectfully decline Lord Cruciger's invitation. If you receive an invitation from him, or from any of our extended family outside Canterlot, you are to politely decline. With one exception.

But, who….?

Two final things. First, you must not let the Princess catch wind of this turmoil. The family must not be seen to lose face. Second, earlier, I mentioned an exception, a pony you can trust who is not from our branch of the family. I can not name him in this letter, but he will send somepony contact you. I have told him to use a name you will recognize.

Eunomie choose that moment to speak up, “On meeting you, I was to say: ‘I am a friend of the family’ and call you ‘Twilie.’ You were to understand the reference.”

“You?” Twilight could only say, as she tried to collect her thoughts. “You’re the one?”

She could hardly believe it, but her father’s letter had mentioned a pony she could trust, not from their branch of the family. She had expected it to be someone from the scattered Neptunium branch, not one of the Bismuth descended main family! Certainly not one of Cruciger’s own children and grandchildren!

“My adopted father wishes me to express his undying love of the Canterlot branch of the family, and his devotion to you,” Eunomie continued, despite Twilight’s befuddlement. “He abhors violence, and wishes to mend relations within the family. We must solve the succession without bloodshed. That is his wish.”

“All well and good,” Shining Armor agreed, raising a hoof. “I think all good ponies want that. But the question is how?”

“My father has a proposal,” Eunomie answered, but with little emotion. “Lord Crescent Moon no doubt considered the benefits to the family of Lady Sparkle wedding the Prince. As you are returning from his estate, I can only assume you have already started to explore this possibility. However, my father would present you with a counter offer.”

She held out her hoof, finally cracking a ghost of a smile.

“He wishes to join our houses. He wishes the branches to reunite, in peace, and you, Lady Sparkle…” Eunomie bowed her head deeply to the Element of Magic. “He wishes you to be his wife on the passing of Lady Olive Branch. In one swift stroke, the conflict is resolved, and you and he will head the Terre Rare in its entirety. Her Serene Highness, Princess Cadenza has also consented to give her blessing to the union. Will you not accept?”

Twilight felt her mouth move, but no words came out.

It was too much, too fast. Alpha Brass, proposing? Uniting the two branches of the family? Was this… really the answer? A way to protect her family, her family’s honor, and more: to make her family and the main family one and the same? It was all she had been hoping for, laid before her. It was the solution to the problem.

She thought, briefly of Alpha Brass. She had last seen him at her birthday party, in Canterlot, among the rest of the family. He was handsome, charitable and philanthropic, popular and said to be very knowledgeable. He had funded numerous libraries and museums across Equestria. He was also married, to a much older mare. The same mare that was Eunomie’s biological mother. If she was passing, if Alpha Brass was about to become a widower, then he wasn’t a bad choice, by any means. At least when one looked at it from a purely pragmatic point of view.

This was it. This was the solution, laid out before her.

All it would take, all Twilight Sparkle had to do, was say one simple word: “Yes.”

And all her problems would disappear, like magic.

Chapter Twenty One : Metaphors and Parables

(21)

Metaphors and Parables

The sound of jingling metal keys opened her eyes.

A tangled bush of lime green mane shifted as a head angled towards the jail cell’s door and a gray wing brushed the wall nearby. It was hard stuff, as expected from a jail and under the surface, the four cloudwalls concealed metal rebar beneath the surface. Even for this pony, busting out wasn’t much of an option, as often as she had thought about putting the cell’s construction to the test. One golden eye watched in silence as a white pegasus guardpony unlocked the door and stepped back. There was another reason why she hadn’t bothered to try to escape. Why bother, when it was inevitable that somepony would come to bail you out anyway?

“You’ve been cleared to go, ma’am,” the guard said, and the door opened with a metallic whine.

The prisoner snorted, starting to ease off the cot in the back of the cell.

“Who came to…?” she asked. She started to ask it, anyway, but cut herself short when she saw the answer to her question standing right behind him.

“They said you’d gotten into a fight, but wow, look at you!” Spitfire exclaimed, whistling at the variety of purpling bruises her comrade sported. The shiner, and pride of the evening, had to be the hoof-mark that stood out in imprint on the side of the pony’s head.

“Well, well, well! If it isn’t little miss perfect!” Ritterkreuz chuckled, hopping onto all fours and heading for the door. “I didn’t expect you of all ponies to get sent downtown to bail me out!”

“Commander Bora didn’t send me,” Spitfire replied, to the other mare’s surprise.

“Huh? Then why…?”

“Maybe I just wanted to see for myself what it took to beat you up a little.”

Ritter laughed again, winking at her former warden. The guardpony looked like he regretted having to let the screw loose Wonderbolt back on the streets. “Apparently, it takes four drunken stallions, two chairs, three pool cues, one bottle of whiskey - for drinking - another bottle of whiskey, that one broken over the head, oh, and two mares who joined in at the end when I called them cheap whores. One of them had heels, too, the bitch.”

“You really know how to celebrate Decoration Day,” Spitfire joked, throwing back her bright orange mane as she laughed. Like Ritterkreuz, she was out of uniform, her usual Wonderbolts bodysuit packed up in her locker back at the base. Instead, maybe for the holiday in particular, she had donned one of the team jerseys in blue and gold, the color of her coat underneath. Bold white numbers on her shoulders and over her back displayed her number in the squadron.

Ritter bit back her initial response, which was to tell her squad leader that Decoration Day and everypony who celebrated it could go bugger themselves with the tip of a manticore’s tail. Instead, she grunted in what passed for polite silence. Together, the two mares left the cell block where the Wonderbolt had been kept for ‘disorderly conduct’ and a couple counts of other stupid stuff, like ‘disturbing the peace,’ ‘assault,’ ‘unlawful intoxication’ and maybe ‘mayhem.’ Mayhem was such a broad category, though.

What wasn’t a little mayhem, here or there?

“I don’t see the guys you got in the fight with.”

“That’s because I put them in the hospital. I called the ambulance and saw them off and everything because I’m so darn nice.”

“And then you let the police arrest you?” Spitfire asked, amused.

“Why not?” Ritter shrugged. Passing by the front desk, and waved a hoof at one of the officers, a pegasus stallion whose eyes widened frightfully at the sight of her. Or her release. One of the two. The uniformed pegasus quickly grumbled something to himself and buried his nose back into a stack of paperwork.

“So, just so I know what to tell Soarin’ later,” Spitfire began, and Ritter rolled her eyes. “You walked into a bar, a bar right outside one of the Guard Company barracks, drank yourself silly-”

“I was not silly,” the big mare protested, wings briefly flaring, “but I was shit-faced drunk.”

“Blame it on the drink, then?”

“Not at all! I’m no different drunk than sober.”

Spitfire’s eyes were half-lidded, incredulous and not sure whether her team mate was joking or not. “So, while emptying a bottle of cheap corn liquor, you picked a fight with the biggest, meanest group of ponies you could find?”

Ritter chuckled, dryly. “You’ve got me all wrong, lieutenant!” She closed her eyes, sighing. “As you’ll see on my record tomorrow, I was just out having a quiet little drink all by my lonesome when one of these friendly guard ponies comes up to me and starts making advances. Now, maybe I was looking for a lay tonight and maybe not, but he wasn’t exactly my type, so I politely declined his offer of a roll in the clouds.”

“Politely?”

“I may have said that a pencil dick like his would just break off if I gave him a go.”

“Ah.”

“And then maybe I objected to his calling me a big cow.” Ritter’s eyes narrowed dangerously when they opened, that one comment having stuck despite the madness and confusion that followed. “I then asked his friends if he was a cow bucker, since he insisted on trying to hit on a ‘big cow’ like me. The discussion became animated soon after that… and a bit hazy.”

Spitfire sighed, but didn’t voice her thoughts, not right away. For a while, the two Wonderbolt mares walked side by side, enjoying the silence. They left the police station and returned to the streets of Cloudsdale, but not before Spitfire picked up a small saddlebag from a rack where most ponies hung jackets or other traveling clothes. Outside, Cloudsdale was as marvelous as it was mundane to those who had lived in it all their lives.

Fluted Doric columns and vast open pavilions stood alongside waterfalls and shimmering reflective pools. Curling trails and tails of clouds separated squares and streets and neighborhoods, above and below, meeting only to connect the many tiers and terraces that defined the social and physical strata of the largest cloud-city in Equestria. Statuary in water vapor and imported marble, white fluff and pink stone and black with captured stormcloud, populated the city. There were said to be as many statues and busts in Cloudsdale as there were living ponies. The brightest colors came from the many pendants and flags that waved in the carefully controlled breeze, ironic symbols of pegasus pride and independence, they were all imports from the ground below.

“Here,” Spitfire said, abruptly. A piece of colored cloth hung from her mouth, fished out of her saddlebag.

Ritter retrieved it with a hoof, recognizing it right away. “My team jersey? Why bring this?”

“Put it on.”

“…no.”

“Put. It. On,” Spitfire said again, her voice no longer casual. Even though they were off duty, she said it as if it were an order. Ritterkreuz glared at the smaller mare, half tempted to start another fight.

Grumbling, she ultimately slipped it over her head. “Fine. Whatever floats your boat.”

“You’re a Wonderbolt,” Spitfire reminded her, her tone stern. “I don’t know what kind of issues or hangups you have, but you’re a Wonderbolt and you’re on my team. You’re my squad mate. You want to know why I came to bail you out? Because I’m your superior officer. You’re my responsibility now. Not Commander Bora’s.”

Ritter cracked her neck back and forth, working out the kinks.

“Is that so?” she asked, casually.

“And I’m your friend, too,” Spitfire added. “Or I’m trying to be.”

“Don’t get too attached to the ponies under you, lieutenant,” Ritterkreuz warned. “You’ll regret it. Anyway,” she hastened to add, “you got me out of there, and I’m wearing your little ‘team pride’ jersey. We done?”

“No,” Spitfire said, even as the other mare tensed to fly off. “A bunch of us are going to watch the fireworks display. We’re going to celebrate Decoration Day together. I’d like you to be there with us… instead of face down in toilet retching.”

“And why the hell would I do that?” Ritter snapped. “Because you asked me so nicely?”

“No.” Spitfire took wing, slowly lifting off the ground. “But the drinks will be free.”

“Free wine?” The gray Wonderbolt snickered. Most of Equestria drank earth pony spirits, but among pegasi, wine was still king. “Okay. I guess I can fit you guys in.”

The two mares took off.

Spitfire wiped the blood from her lower lip, coughing violently amid the acrid smoke and blinding ash. Her head throbbed painfully from a lingering concussion and her vision wavered in and out, clear one moment and deep-sea-cam the next. Swaying back and forth on what should have been a stable four legs, she blinked, hard, trying to focus.

Clouds.

Was this… Cloudsdale or…?

No.

They were far from Cloudsdale, and this wasn’t cloud. It was fog – heavy, uncooperative fog – ripped free from the skies above Everfree. All around the golden Wonderbolt, wreathed in the smoke and the fog, there was destruction. And fire, too, but she didn’t fear that. Trees had been splintered and uprooted. Somewhere, far away, an animal was howling in fright. She stumbled forward, and her hoof crunched against something wooden, but yielding.

The empty eyes of a dead Timberwolf glared up at her. It ended prematurely at the torso, where fire danced around a jagged line cut into its torso, just above there the back legs would have been. Spitfire blinked, remembering –

A slash of her blazing tail, frantic, they were everywhere, as explosions rained down and –

That was right. She had done that.

Spitfire’s tail hung limp now, the flame gone. All that was left was a phantom trail of smoke, spent and exhausted. It mirrored how she felt. It was hard to breathe, hard to think, her mind raced and wandered at the same time. She coughed again. The air was thick and poisonous. Spitfire didn’t fear flames, but she still needed to breathe. Smoke would kill her where a forest fire wouldn’t singe a hair on her mane.

She saw a shape in the dust and dirt and fire. It was too large to be Fleetfoot or Eagle Eye. No. Fleetfoot had been taken down outside Ponyville. An ambush. And Eagle Eye? Eagle Eye was still around, somewhere, wasn’t she? They had gotten separated. She staggered closer to the prone form. It was a pony. Overcast, maybe, but he… no. He was down, too, wasn’t he? He had flown through a cloud, and she had been inside it, waiting for him where he couldn’t form a cloud shield.

Ritterkreuz.

The big gray mare lay in a shallow depression, her back against a broken, cracked tree. Blood dribbled down her throat and jaw, and marks covered her body. ‘Just like then,’ the thought came, unbidden. ‘Except, this time, we did it to each other.’

Reaching down, Spitfire wrapped her hoof around a stout, hard log.

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Ritter opened her eyes, laughing through bloody teeth. “That was… pretty fun… are you… going to bash my brains in with that… Sparky?”

Tasting smoke, everything else, all her other senses blasted away by it, Spitfire nodded.

“Maybe,” she said, trying to raise the broken branch like a club. “Maybe bashing your brain in... will knock some sense into you.”

Ritter continued to slowly laugh.

“I don’t mind dying here, like this,” she admitted, taking a breath to compose herself, the chuckles gradually fading away. She looked up, snorted, and spat a wad of blood and phlegm off to the side. “We got to do the Twisting Cloud Carver again. So this isn’t so bad.”

The branch came down, and clonked meekly off the side of the Wonderbolt’s forehead.

“Buck… me…” Spitfire muttered, face down in Ritter’s chest, having collapsed on her hooves and fallen right on top of the other Wonderbolt. The branch rolled off and into the brush, adding to the kindling. For a few wonderful gulps of air, filtered through the coat of her opponent, Spitfire managed to catch her breath and breathe easily. She fumbled with a hoof for her makeshift club for a moment before giving up.

“Was it,” she finally muttered, chest greedily sucking in some relatively ash-less air. “Was it really so bad? Being one of us?”

Ritter’s chest rumbled as she growled.

Her admission was like acid on the tongue to the violent pony. “No. It wasn’t.”

She didn’t say any more than that, and the two mares remained in a heap, slowly trying to recover and will themselves back on their hooves. Around them, the flames from their final, explosive, pyroplastic Twisting Cloud Carver continued to consume the undergrowth. It was too wet to make a real fire, but the smoldering laced the falling fog with foul, black soot.

Overhead, fireworks went off, cracking and blasting, filling the sky with festive thunder.

Ritterkreuz grunted again and rolled to her left, letting Spitfire fall to the matted forest floor. Moaning, the newly promoted Captain of the Wonderbolts managed to eke out enough energy to push off and roll onto her back. For a time, all she could see was the sky, and the bursts of color as Cloudsdale and Ponyville alike celebrated Decoration Day. The holiday dedicated to all the ponies who served Equestria, and all those who had lost their lives preserving a thousand years of peace and prosperity.

Ritterkreuz blocked her view, and without a word, the gray mare craned her neck and bit down on Spitfire’s torn uniform, pulling her up. Everything went black for a second, and when she came back, Spitfire found herself in the process of being hoisted onto her former comrade’s back. Large wings stretched and struggled to fly, but eventually succeeded.

“If it wasn’t so bad,” Spitfire said, coughing up the last of the smoke from her lungs and throat as a sticky, stained spit. “Then… why?” she couldn’t even say more than to repeat, “Why?”

Beneath her, Ritterkreuz continued to fly, albeit unsteadily.

“This is just…” she struggled just as much to reply as she did to keep airborne. “This is just the way I am.”

It was almost a perfect Decoration Day. Sitting on top of the thick, comfortable thatch on her roof, Fluttershy really only wished that her other friends had been able to make it. Even since she had been a little filly, big groups had always made her nervous, but never when she was with her close friends. Somehow, they always made her feel at ease, even in the worst of situations. Watching the fireworks paint glitter across the night sky, from spiraling bright pinpricks over Cloudsdale and Canterlot to the more modest, but much closer, fireworks over Ponyville, Fluttershy couldn’t help but wonder where the others were.

Many, she knew, would be at the Apple Family farm with Applejack. The Apples always set off fireworks for Decoration Day, and more than a few ponies from town would come by to eat and drink and watch them light the candles, streamers and other pyrotechnics. Pinkie Pie had to be there, she was sure, but Rainbow Dash had said she was too busy training to do much else, and Fluttershy wondered if her fellow pegasus had at least stopped by the farm for a little while to relax. It wasn’t healthy to overdo it.

Twilight and Rarity – they were both probably in the town. It was only natural to miss them, but the night wasn’t over yet. There was still time to head over and meet up, introducing new friends to old ones. Well, one new friend to more old ones, anyway.

“Here goes two more!” Cheerilee yelled, and a second later a fizzling firework shot up into the sky. Straight as a dart, it rose up and up and then suddenly burst into a huge sphere of orange and yellow embers. The light from them receded quickly, leaving behind a few very bright glittering white stars.

“Oh! That’s the Lyre!” Chalice exclaimed, excitedly. She was on the roof, too, and pointed out what constellation each of the unicorn fireworks shot up into the sky. A moment later and a second firework went off, revealing another set of white lights within the fading dome of orange and yellow. “And the Pegasus!”

“You know, I, um… I always thought it looked sort of like a box,” Fluttershy replied, shrinking back into her shoulders and wings slightly. “The Pegasus, I mean. A box with some things stuck in it.”

“A box with things stuck in it?” Chalice asked, and smiled at her, guilelessly. “Isn’t that what a pegasus is?”

“Where are the wings?” Fluttershy insisted, feeling a little emboldened by the night’s drink and a stomach full of sweets and chips. “I don’t really see any of the things constellations are supposed to be,” she admitted, and felt the sudden urge to apologize, “Sorry.”

“I guess I don’t really see it that well, myself,” Chalice said, waving a hoof, as if to say, ‘no need to apologize.’

Cheerilee called out from below and lit one last firework, and Chalice took a moment to float the earth pony up and onto the roof. All three mares were in a good mood, and Cheerilee set down a radio next to her. She had been listening to one of the hoofball games for the last few hours, and while Fluttershy didn’t really follow sports, and Chalice had only a polite interest, Cheerilee loved it. Somehow. Despite the fact that her team appeared to be in a constant state of, “What the hell, offense? What happened to our running game?”

Before the game and all that, Fluttershy had played board and card games with her two friends, relaxing and talked about the town and her animals and the latest news. The food had been too much for the three alone to finish, ensuring plenty of leftovers for her animal friends tomorrow, though the punch and a few hard drinks were reserved for pony consumption only. Only one thing had really been missing from the event.

She had so hoped to show Chalice that some animals, her animals, wouldn’t be so mean to her.

Her critter friends weren’t like the ones in the Canterlot Palace Gardens. They didn’t come from bad homes and they weren’t rescued from the illegal animal trade or anything like that. All but a few were happy animals from outside Ponyville. They had been around ponies their entire lives. They were for all intents and purposes completely tame.

It was disheartening, even now, to remember how Angel Bunny had hissed at Chalice and later tried to bite her. That wasn’t acceptable behavior, even for her precious little Angel. He wasn’t alone, either. Her otter pals had swum away at the sight of her new friend, her squirrels had hidden in the boughs of the closest tree after she called them over, and even her birds had flown off to roost away from the house. Fluttershy was left with the sad and terrible truth that maybe Chalice had been right before: her magic really did scare away animals.

It was just too sad, to imagine that she’d never be able to have a pet or an animal friend.

“That was so nice, Cheerilee. Thank you!”

“No problem!” Cheerilee bopped the visiting unicorn on the shoulder. “I’m glad you liked it, your ladyship!”

“Please, my sisters may insist on titles, but not me,” Chalice explained, bashful. “I - I don’t really have much of a title anyway.”

“Well, did you have a favorite?” Cheerilee asked, changing the topic back to something comfortable with practiced ease. “I really liked the big dipper! There’s another name for it, too? Can you guess what it is?”

“Among unicorns, it isn’t often separated from the Ursa Major,” Chalice replied, contemplative. “And I recall the big dipper, or the great plow, was one of the old earth pony constellations, wasn’t it?”

“You know your stuff!” Cheerilee clopped a hoof against the roof in approval.

“Ah. Well. Just a few things,” Chalice answered, shying away slightly. “I really liked the Pegasus. She’s one of my favorites.”

“It is?” Fluttershy asked, curious at her new friend’s choice. Rarity had no interest in constellations at all, but Twilight had one favorite in particular: the mysterious Orion.

Chalice nodded, happy to explain herself. “Pegasus is the only constellation to love ponykind. She is also the constellation representing lost love.”

“I’ve heard about this,” Cheerilee, ever the schoolteacher, paused to recall her astronomy and pony mythology. “Pegasus was one of the mothers of ponykind, and the mother of winged unicorns. According to the unicorns, of course.” She brought a hoof to her mouth, still thinking back to her studies. “I don’t remember anything about lost love, though.”

“Pegasus so loved ponykind, she often descended from the heavens,” Chalice said, staring up at the firework framed night sky. “When she took physical form, mares and stallions alike all fell in love with her. But she was forever torn between the heavens and the other stars and the ponies below.”

“I remember now! You’re talking about one of the old Star Caller fairy tales!” Cheerilee announced, laughing. “That he saw a Pegasus bathing in a hot spring one day and fell in love with her. I wonder if that was before or after he kicked over Puddinghead’s chimney? Both are metaphors for chasing the impossible…”

“Metaphors and parables,” Chalice agreed. “I know.”

“Um,” Fluttershy muttered, hesitant to interrupt, but wondering about the story about the celestial pegasus. “You said she represented lost love?”

Chalice continued to star upwards. “They say, even though pegasi and unicorns were enemies back then, both under threat from the neverending winter, he would not let anypony harm her. Eventually, she came to love him too, but the stars refused to let her remain long among ponykind. One night, without warning, they took her away, and no matter how loudly Star Caller commanded her return, the heavens would not permit it.”

“A valuable lesson on the limits of one’s power,” Cheerilee explained.

“No,” Chalice muttered, very softly. “It wasn’t.” Before the schoolteacher could argue otherwise, the unicorn pointed off in the distance. “Look. I do believe I see somepony… heading this way.”

Shifting from a laying to sitting position, Fluttershy quickly saw what Chalice had. At the mention of ‘somepony’ she had initially thought it could be Rainbow Dash, probably wondering when they were going to head over to the party at the Apple Farm. Except, it was the wrong direction. This pony – these ponies since it looked like one was draped over the other – were headed in from the Everfree border.

She recognized one of them, as they drew closer.

“Oh dear,” she whimpered.

Her.

And the night had gone so well, too.

Lyra couldn’t help but notice that Siren Song was really making the most of the evening.

She had said she would, of course, and Lyra hadn’t had a reason to doubt the sultry pegasus. She had been to events like this before, and a few of the attending ponies even seemed to recognize her. It shouldn’t have come as either a shock or a surprise when she sauntered off with a stallion or mare, or, just now, one of each. Not more than a few minutes ago, she had been serenading the Solarium guests with a set of vocal pieces in classical Bitalian – part of the theme of the evening – and now she was partly concealed behind flowing indigo drapes, only the front half of her visible as she teased the back of another mare’s neck with her teeth. By the rhythm of the way she shifted back and forth, it was obvious what little the curtains concealed.

She had been close to the mark on her earlier predictions, however. Most ponies at the party did not seem interested in more than watching. ‘Is this really an orgy?’

The Solarium had been done up in opulent fashion to parallel the ‘Bitalian Crystal’ theme of the entertainers. There were crystal sculptures and mosaics wrought in lead and stained glass, and rivers of silk and satin gave the illusion of open air colonnade in a cool magical breeze, wafting in from the Marediterranean Sea. Marble architraves encircled the Solar where the domed ceiling met the curving walls. Sparkling glass bowls overflowed with delights: there were honeycakes with black and blueberries from Mareabia, sweet prickly pears from Equestria’s dry, desert colonies, a fragrant dish of eggs and peppers cut into elaborate flowers, crusty baked ‘coffyns’ made in the old square style, teasing Lyra’s appetite with the smell of alluring pine nuts, blue crystal bowls of steaming mushroom soup, carved, personalized wooden trenchers overflowing with raisins, oats, stewed carrots and finely chopped apples, drizzled in milk. The raisins tasted like they had been boiled in wine. Old world spiced squash served on platters of crunchy oatbread added to the heady aroma of food, drink, incense and sex.

Just as Siren Song had said before, there was a staggering cross section of Equestria’s best and beautiful in attendance. Lyra could overhear the distinctive accent of Manehattanites as they sipped imported sparkling white wine, watching a nearby couple’s spectacle with amusement. Most of the mercantile and wealthy wore suits and gowns, but the aristocrats who had been invited were clearly in competition with one another. One mare, her voice laced with Prench accents, wore an embroidered felt dress with a split back around her tail, trimmed sinfully in red vair. Another wore ivory silk with gold and deep blue velvet. Her hat may even have been one of Rarity’s designs, with plumed fascinators emerging from beneath waves of delicate silver wire.

Remaining close to her Brayehard diatonic single-row harp, Lyra Heartstrings tippled from a crystal glass and smiled in what she hoped was a friendly – but only friendly – manner at the occasional guest that made eye contact. As nervous as she had been at first, and then as embarrassed as she had been first seeing ponies behaving… like this… in relative public, it had all too quickly became interesting to watch if not participate in. That last bit was a little too much, too soon. It was a little shocking to herself that her comfort level had grown - or maybe sunk - to accommodate all that surrounded her.

A beautiful earth pony mare with flaxen yellow mane and soft violet eyes lingered as she walked past. Lyra kept her smile beaming, thankful when the mare turned her attentions toward a unicorn dam and her stallion, both from Canterlot. Lyra had already had to politely decline a few invitations over the course of the evening. One or two of them, she had been sorely tempted to accept.

How long had it been, she reflected, since she had been with anypony?

Would it really be so bad to enjoy herself, here? When she went back to Ponyville, would she look back on this one otherworldly experience with regret? There would be no complications, if she to find a pretty mare or a handsome stallion, though Bon Bon would probably be a little upset at the former. What was the problem, though? She would never see them again. There would be no awkwardness. Except, maybe, when she bragged about it privately to Bon Bon and told her she had missed an amazing evening. And, there was no doubt in Lyra’s mind, that all this was amazing. It was a party the likes of which most ponies would never see in all their lives.

But, at the same time…

“Miss Heartstrings?” a gruff, feminine voice interrupted the musician’s ruminations. Lyra turned to the side from where she sat, on one of the many floor pillows, to find one of the Garden guards. For the party, all the guards expected to interact with the guests had been dressed in dusky red doublets, black sash tight across the chest and oiled black leather swordbelt around the waist, the scabbard removed. Save for the roundness of their snouts and a few other tells like eyelashes and the shape of the torso, they could have been easily mistaken for stallions.

“Yes?” Lyra asked, still a little nervous around the fierce looking mares. The guardponies had a reputation among the other mares in the Hanging Garden: no sense of humor, no desire to mingle, no interest in conversation.

“Lord Alpha Brass has requested your presence in the verandah.”

“Oh!” Lyra bounced off her seat. “Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Should I – should I bring something, or…?”

“No.”

“I, uh, I guess I’ll just follow you, then?” Lyra asked, grinning broadly. In contrast, the guardpony’s lips remained a trim, tight line. She turned and began to trot off. Lyra stuck close behind, and as they left the solar, she caught one last look at Siren Song. She was on her back, now, eyes closed and enjoying the company of the two nobles she had corralled.

‘I’m luckier than you, after all,’ Lyra couldn’t help but think, remembering their conversation earlier. ‘I bet you wouldn’t feel sorry for me, now.’

“You wore the pearls,” Alpha Brass commented on seeing her enter. “Just as I’d hoped, they bring out the color of your blush. I hope they bring out even more, in time. Please, walk with me.”

Lyra fell in step with the Marquis, the scarlet color of her cheeks burning, now doubly so at the compliment paid her. It was surprising how nice it was to see her patron again in the flesh. A statue and a few vivid dreams really couldn’t do him justice. He wore much the same fading rose red doublet as his guards, but where they wore their uniform in Spartan simplicity, his attire was more flamboyant. Ruffled lace the color of his golden coat spilled out from his collar and cuffs, and brass medallions took the place of buckle and button. A set of butter yellow gloves were clipped to his belt by golden rings. His mane, ash and honey blond, had been styled into wavy Marediterranean curls around his horn, like the bust of a golden statue given the breath of life by Celestia herself.

“Have you enjoyed the party so far?” he asked, leading her across a long, sweeping verandah overlooking the tiered gardens below. “I had a cask of Nhorse moselle opened for tonight. I’ve become quite fond of moselle since I inherited the Scandaneighvian colonies.”

“Oh, uh, no I – I don’t think I’ve tried that, yet,” Lyra admitted, trying to find her voice. She picked up her pace slightly, if only to keep from staring too lewdly at the swaying of her host’s tail and flanks. It wasn’t polite to stare at a mare like that; it probably wasn’t to do the same to a stallion, especially her new, powerful patron noble. No. No. Not at all. Defiantly not polite company.

“Mm,” he murmured, softly. “Well then, I take it you did at least sample the book I loaned you? There are only three complete copies of The Equus Formicarius outside the Royal Archives. Two are mine, but you have the only original text.”

“I’ve been very careful with it!” Lyra promised, cantering up to be side by side with him. “I didn’t smudge the ink with my hooves or anything! I only used magic to turn the pages!”

He chuckled, a worldly, deep laugh. “I’m glad to hear it. Do you know why I loaned you that book?”

Lyra opened her mouth to answer but bit back a moment. “No, I-” she muttered. “Actually, I don’t know… I assumed…?”

“The torc,” he told her. “Who else would have an eye for it, except one who knows their antiquities? A little looking around, a little logical deduction, and it occurred to me you would enjoy a little peek.”

“It provided a lot of insight into how pre-classical unicorns viewed the cosmos,” she said, but wondered just whether he really wanted her to gush on about the technical details.

“And their own place within the cosmos,” he reminded her. “Imagine, if you will, that first pony who looked up at the sun and the moon and thought: ‘I will command this.’ Was he or she mad? Or simply ambitious?”

“Or afraid?” Lyra ventured.

“Or afraid,” he agreed.

The Equus Formicarius, Lyra had discovered in her reading, contained a very real undercurrent of distress and fear on the part of the author, or authors. In modern times, the sun and moon and sometimes even the stars were worshipped and celebrated as extensions of the Princess or, more recently, Princesses. They were symbols of stability and reliability and comfort.

For the ponies who wrote The Equus Formicarius, long before the Princesses, the sun and moon and the stars were all frightful powers beyond the comprehension or control of ponykind. They could not be altered, like the land and the weather, and ponies were left at the mercy of their whims. Witches and cultists invoked the favor of higher powers at the cost of their sanity and their souls. In the night sky, a pony could behold were the pantheon of spirits, like the Windigos and Discord, who took vaguely pony-like mortal form to pursue goals ponies would not understand. More often than not, they tormented ponies and treated all the mortal races of the world as entertainment, from the lowest earth pony peasant to the mightiest dragon.

Lyra had not expected that particular slant on ancient mythology.

Sensing that he wanted to hear some of her thoughts on this, she speculated on whether the Formicarius was banned because it gave the impression that the sun and moon were, if not evil, amoral beings. This wouldn’t reflect very well on Princess Celestia and Luna, after all, and those ponies with constellation cutie marks wouldn’t be pleased with such teachings either. Alpha Brass listened, and agreed. The dangerous knowledge in the Formicarius and the reason it was heretical was because it led ponies to fear what they did not need to fear.

“It is rare that I encounter a fine artist like yourself who also has an eye for history for deeper mysteries. I would like you to meet somepony, but first, you may enjoy a small detour.” Motioning her along, he trotted away from the great curving verandah and down a wide flight of steps draped in violet carpet. “As I patronize the arts, so do I also patronize the sciences…”

The pair passed through a circular antechamber, where four kneeling Minotaur statues held up a large marble crown. Lyra passed under the impressive work of sculpture, glancing up at the glowing blue orb of magic that scintillated within the eye of the marble cincture. The light from it reflected off of a circular diagram on the floor: a map of Equestria. Lyra realized, as they passed the chamber, what it all represented.

“The vault of the heavens?” she wondered. The Minotaurs were the four pillars that held the purely magical world of the aether high above the physical realm of Equestria. Normally, this would be represented by a dome with the constellations and starts on it, not a magical orb.

“A very literal interpretation,” Alpha Brass replied. “But yes. It was a wedding gift from Lady Marmo, crafted with her own magic.”

Past the statues, the floor was stone with no carpet in sight. The ceiling grew more lofty, but no less ornate. Horseshoe archways repeated across the hall every twenty meters or so, colorless, but cut in elaborate arabesques. Passing through one arch, Lyra finally saw some color, as both walls to either side sported frescoes. The murals were beautiful, the one on the left depicting a garden with foreign looking unicorn ponies at play, and even a pegasus flying through the air with a blue banner between her teeth. The one on the right was a palace on two tiers, built on the side of a mountain, almost like Canterlot was…

“These are old?” she wondered, looking closer at the garden mural.

Alpha Brass smiled, pleased. “They are.”

“How old?” Lyra felt the need to know.

“One and a half thousand years,” he replied, studying them briefly, merely turning his head to one and then the other. “Both date back to pre-classical times, before Equestria, before the migration, and before the Princesses.”

“But,” Lyra argued, her thoughts clear despite the surprise at his admission. “The only way you could’ve gotten frescoes this old… was to…”

“Go on,” he urged, raising a hoof for her to continue.

“You must’ve dug them up,” the harpist reasoned. “From the Old Kingdom?”

He nodded, confirming it. “Does that surprise you, Miss Heartstrings?”

“Of course it does!” she blurted out, quickly stuffing a hoof in her mouth. “I mean…! No pony goes there! It’s a frozen wasteland!”

“Still chilly, but not so frozen anymore,” he replied, “and you would be surprised what you can do with enough money and resources. Both of these were recovered from a chapel cut into a cave, unearthed by my archaeological teams and transplanted here at great effort and expense.”

“Amazing,” Lyra admitted, reaching out to touch one of the murals before thinking better of it.

She studied the ancient frescoes, marveling at what it must have taken to find the treasures and to bring them back intact to Equestria. The Old Kingdom, as every foal knew, was a frozen, lifeless land far to the north and across the Small Sea Straight. Since the migration and the following invasion, it was believed that all ponies who had remained behind there had perished. After all, there would not have been an invasion at all if the Old World hadn’t been rendered uninhabitable. Yet here was a glimpse of the past: of the Old Kingdom of the unicorns, green and warm and vibrant.

Describing the murals as a treasure had proven appropriate, as Alpha Brass explained that they were about to enter his ‘treasury.’ Unlike most imaginings of the word, however, he assured her there were no piles of bits, no cases full of jewels, or rows of gold bars. His ‘treasury’ was where he stored some of his most valued pieces of artwork, past and present, and the artifacts his expeditions had uncovered.

“This is something I doubt you’ve heard of before,” he said, as he unlocked a rather plan wooden door flanked by two of his female guards. “But you must have noticed that your appearance for the evening is not entirely Bitalian?”

Lyra thought of her elaborate hair, and the crystal sheen magically added to her coat and mane.

“I’ve never been there, but I don’t think the ponies look like this,” she said, pointing to herself.

“Tonight is actually a call back to an isolated city of earth ponies,” he explained, leading her into the Treasury. “They called themselves the Crystal Empire, and like the Neighponese, they came over independently of the founders during the migration period. When they vanished, under the rule of King Sombra, many of their descendants married into the Bitalian families to the south. Their original city was on the cusp of the frozen wastes, so perhaps they found a warmer climate to be a relief?”

“How could earth ponies make themselves look like this?” Lyra wondered. “It took a unicorn stylist to…”

“Their transformation was not like what you underwent,” Alpha Brass said, trotting over to a large ice-like shard of crystal kept under glass. “It was a complete transformation of their entire race through the use of a powerful artifact. One that has sadly eluded me. When I say they ‘vanished’ I really do mean they vanished, without a trace. Maybe the Princesses sent them to the moon, lock, stock and barrel?”

“Regardless,” he continued, smiling at the crystal. “We have one of their descendants with us today as a guest of honor. It made for a humorous theme, I thought, since she both is and isn’t a crystal pony princess herself.”

“You mean,” Lyra guessed. “Princess Cadance.”

“None other,” Alpha Brass replied, “I’d like you to meet her, a little later. But first, take a look around. See if you see something you’ve seen before.”

The open invitation was all Lyra needed. Like a filly in a candy store, she darted from exhibit to exhibit. Many had only cursory labeling, some nothing more than a serial number, but she recognized many of the treasures for what they were. One large glass display in particular caught her attention.

Inside was the skeleton of a prehistoric pony, supported by wires and metal rods.

A skeleton of an alicorn.

The wing bones were delicate and long, spread out for display – the incomplete sections were filled in with white replica bones with a single black stripe – as if she was about to take flight. Her proud, upraised head sported a long, slightly curved horn. She was an alicorn in all but size. Unlike Celestia or Luna, this winged unicorn was no taller than Lyra herself, and did not possess the trademark waifish figure of the three Princesses.

Arrayed in the same display were the skulls of several other ancient ponies: unicorns in one row, earth ponies in another, and pegasi in another. Particular note was taken on their teeth and dentition, their degree of maturity, their estimated age and where they had been found. A few were just skull fragments, carefully pieced together. The pegasus and unicorn skulls were from a few thousand to even a couple hundred years ago, but some of the earth pony ones were much older. From the more horse-like slant of them, Lyra could guess that they were very old indeed: tens of thousands of years, maybe.

Not far from the skeletons, a series of racks displayed row after row of clay tablets in pre-Equestrial Tally-A and Tally-B linear, and beneath that, shelves stocked with scrolls, each one sealed in a wax case and tagged with a neat paper label. Skimming the display, Lyra saw that the scrolls were from various excavated libraries thought lost to history, from a time when a unicorn could not become a true mage without a great magical discovery to his or her name. These names read like a laundry list of the ancient world’s Top Ten. Black Harvest. Gate Crasher. Dream Walker. Night Keeper. Idle Hooves. Star Swirl.

“I intend to make a gift of one of those,” Alpha Brass informed her, inspecting a stele of a monstrous alicorn-like creature with obsidian knives for hooves and a hole in her chest. Her roaring mouth bristled with sharp teeth, including a pair of tusks. “I’ve heard tell of a mare who is quite taken with Star Swirl.”

“What… is that?” Lyra couldn’t place it. It didn’t look like anything a pony would make.

“This? Just a stele I recovered from the Temple of Tezcatlipoca.” Alpha Brass chuckled, amused by something he left unsaid. “Note the resemblance to Princess Luna. The cutie mark is even quite similar. I wonder if we’ll ever see her in a Daring Do book?”

Lyra considered it pretty unlikely they’d be including a night themed flesh-eating alicorn monster in any Daring Do books anytime soon. The distraction from the scrolls and tablets also served to draw her eyes towards the stands of jewelry near the collection of steles and other carvings. Out of a dozen different displays, featuring bijous, rosaries and ancient finery, one piece of royal regalia stood out.

“The torc,” she said, too loudly to be just a whisper. “That’s just like my torc.”

It wasn’t alone, either.

Two torcs, similar to the one she had loaned to Twilight Sparkle to research, rested on the busts of three identical mannequines. They were all unicorns, and each one possessed a prominent halo for the horn to fit through. Leaning in closer, she tried to find some sort of inscription or description, if only to shed light on what her own torc was. Twilight had been able to confirm that it was of Coltic design, wrought in gold. The twisting, rope-like etching was distinctive.

Then, it occurred to her. “One of them… you have three mannequins, but only two torcs.”

“Your torc,” Alpha Brass whispered into her ear. “Was mine, before it was stolen.”

“Oh! Oh no!” Lyra shipped around, throwing up her hooves in a panic. “I never meant to! I didn’t know! I…!’

The noblepony laughed good-naturedly.

“You didn’t steal it,” he said, and she relaxed at his easy tone of voice. “I know. But I would appreciate you returning it to me. I will more than compensate you for it.”

“Of- of course!” she assured him, speaking faster than she could think. “As soon as I get back to Ponyville! Twilight has it, Twilight Sparkle, but I…”

He gently slipped a hoof under her chin, closing her mouth. “I’d like you to do more than that. I don’t believe it to be a coincidence the torc ended up in your hooves, or Miss Sparkle’s. I’d like very much for you to tell me who sold it to you, and I would like very much to see you wear it.”

‘Shady Deal sold it to me,’ she thought, amid a haze. Alpha Brass’s jade eyes made her head swim. ‘He wouldn’t want me to snitch on him, but… but…’

“W-wear it?” she muttered, oddly overwhelmed by that one request.

“Yes,” the Marquis of the Equestrian frontier answered, leaning closer. Lyra opened her mouth slightly, lips parted, fully expecting him to crash into her then and there, wanting it even. Instead, he touched the pearls around her neck. “Look.”

Disappointed, frustrated, confused, she obeyed.

The pearls were glowing.

“The torc was stolen in an incomplete state,” Alpha Brass explained, stepping away from her and letting Lyra catch her breath. She fell to the floor, her legs suddenly weak. “By a traitor… a pony I can never forgive. She secreted it away, and now it has come to you, Miss Heartstrings. I can only wonder why.”

He turned his head over towards the three mannequines.

“I have two others,” he told her, “but each one is unique, a different door to the same place. I must have it. I must have a pony who can use it.” Those jade eyes of his turned on her, staring down into her soul. “Would you like to be that pony, Lyra Heartstrings?”

“Brass, really? Must you be so dramatic?” another voice interrupted and a soft pink alicorn with glowing green eyes sauntered up beside him. The tips of her wings were tinted with purple on pink as they fidgeted in sharp, sudden movements, like the claws of a hungry mantis. Her smile parted as she laughed, and for a moment, it almost looked as if she had fangs beneath her sinuous lips. “There really is no need. Of course she’ll agree to whatever you ask. I never understand why you even bother.”

“You’re early, Princess,” Alpha Brass informed her, frowning in displeasure. “I did not wish to frighten her.”

“This is to be one of my bride’s maids, then?” Cadance asked, leaning down and analyzing first the fallen harpist and then smiling over at her host. It was the sort of smile a fox would have for a hare. “There is certainly enough love in her heart. Very well. She will do.”

“Come, Lyra Heartstrings.” Alpha Brass held out a hoof to the prone pony. “There is much to be done. Trust me. Come with me, and I will show you things you have scarce imagined.”

Princess Cadance had been right: he need not have even asked.

Without hesitation, Lyra accepted, and took his hoof in her own.

Twilight Sparkle yawned as she descended the steps to the library that was her home, the tantalizing smell of breakfast drawing her down even before she finished combing out her mane. She was halfway down to the bottom floor and moments from asking Spike what was on the menu for the morning when she remembered –

Spike was still on his dragon quest.

Continuing down more cautiously, she inhaled, the aroma of poached apples and cinnamon faint but unmistakable. Despite the relatively early hour, seven in the morning, the shutters and the curtains had been opened downstairs, letting the risen sun’s light bathe the large open inner area. Following the circular staircase, she smiled at the sight of her beloved books in shelf-like alcoves grown and cut into the inner walls of the living tree that was Ponyville’s Golden Oaks Library. Strictly above the lower level, where most of the books were kept, smaller alcoves around the windows stored scrolls and spare candles and a few flowering spider plants that trailed vines halfway down to the floor.

Looking around, she quickly noticed Owloysius asleep in a dark nook, her bedding made. She would sleep through most of the day, if she could get away with it. Even as helpful as she was, creatures of the night were just that, and their diurnal cycles were not lightly broken or tampered with. Following her nose, Twilight soon identified the source of the cinnamon smell.

Two plates had been left on a cleared coffee table, on top of a cloth place mat. Both were domed by a phosphorescent field that Twilight identified as a “Keep It Warm” spell. It was a utility cantrip spell, usually cast on something directly like a pot or a cup. Between the two plates was a third stocked with muffins, butter and jam. A pitcher of juice perspired, still frosty, and two cups were upside down and waiting to be used.

“Good morning, Lady Sparkle.” Emerging from the library’s small kitchen was Eunomie, the fair coated unicorn holding a tray of teacups balanced one on top of the other. Her scarlet mane was still done up in a prim bun, like the night before when she had intercepted the librarian and her brother on their way to town, but now she was without her traveling cloak or other attire. It provided a clear view of her cutie mark: the impression of half a mask, the expression either frowning or at least bored.

“I didn’t think you’d be up, Lady Eunomie,” Twilight said, and reminded her, “And like I said before, you don’t need to call me Lady.”

“That is correct,” Eunomie replied, putting the tea cups down on the table. “You did say that. But I had assumed you were only being polite in giving the offer, not serious. I will call you by just Twilight Sparkle, then.”

“Or just Twilight.” The librarian sat down next to one of the plates.

“I would like to be simply Eunomie, then,” the other mare insisted, also sitting down. “It would be improper otherwise.”

Twilight nodded, glad they had gotten past that little social hurtle. “So, are these for…?”

“I already ate, but I kept breakfast warm for yourself and Euporie,” Eunomie explained, her voice and face seemingly stuck on neutral, day or night. “I hope you like oatmeal. I used cinnamon, apples, almonds, milk and honey. Nothing you should be allergic to, I think, but please do not hesitate to tell me so I can adjust my cooking and shopping schedules ahead of time.”

It was… appropriately thorough. Twilight approved!

“Thank you!” she said, dispelling the Keep It Warm spell with a touch. “I feel a little bad asking you to cook, though, since you are a guest here…” She levitated a spoon over and dug in. It was good!

“Euporie is incapable of cooking even the simplest meal, so I have assumed that responsibility when we are away from our home or our servants.” Eunomie finally used a bit of magic to retrieve the kettle and begin soaking a packet of black tea. Steam rose from the cup, but she didn’t use magic to hold it.

“What time did you get up?” Twilight had to remember to pace herself. She hadn’t had a good, cooked breakfast since Spike went off on his trip.

“I always wake up at six thirty, local time, regardless of when I get to bed.” Eunomie blew on the tea, staring down at it as it fully took color. “Breakfast will be ready by seven, on the hour, and if I am present here, I will have lunch ready by twelve thirty. I do not often cook dinner, but if I do, I will post a note somewhere with my meal plan so you may choose to either eat with me or eat out… or order in, as Euporie sometimes does.”

“That’s very organized of you!” Twilight said, liking how this pony thought. “I’m afraid I don’t really know how to make… much of anything! The kitchen was really Spike’s domain.”

“Spike. Your dragon.”

“You know about him?”

“I’ve done my research,” Eunomie replied, either not noticing or not caring that she had phrased it a little ominously.

Twilight let it go, though, since research was never a bad thing.

While she ate, she studied her new guest. Eunomie, and Euporie – who had come by very late last night – were both bunked down in the library basement for the time being. Eunomie had insisted that she remain close by as long as they were negotiating the terms of Twilight’s potential engagement, and she had made the argument that if Twilight were to accept, it would be wise to know if she were compatible with the life styles of her step-daughters. The fact that said step-daughters were a year or so older than Twilight herself was irrelevant, but the idea did have some merit. On her part, Twilight also wanted to observe the ponies Alpha Brass had sent to deal with her.

Currently, Eunomie sat quietly, reading a book while sipping tea. A quill and a roll of paper rested on a portable scribe’s lectern, and after a minute or two, the white unicorn turned her attention to it and began to write. The quill didn’t just make a quick notation, however. Soon it dipped back into an inkwell and went back to work, producing line after line, as if Eunomie was copying whatever had caught her eye in the book.

Twilight was nearly finished with her oatmeal, engaged in buttering up a muffin when she asked, “Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing?”

“Studying,” Eunomie replied, and used a tiny bit of magic to hold up the paper. It was a magical equation, repeated over and over and over and over. Twilight recalled it, too. It was an equivalence expression for inorganic transmutation and transmogrification.

“Swords to plowshares?” she asked.

“And spears into pruning hooks.” The other mare nodded, once. “When learning new magic, I like to copy the formulas on paper one hundred times to be sure I remember them. Then, when practicing a spell, I cast it three hundred times, and for every mistake I make, I repeat it another hundred.”

Wow.

“That’s… very impressive, actually!” Twilight internally winced. She loved magic, she really, really did, but repeating a spell three hundred times to remember it? If she had repeated recasting of a spell a hundred times every time there was some tiny mistake, she’d probably still be casting Levitate Grade-One today. “You must really like magic!”

“Magic is simply one of many tools a pony has at her disposal. That is all.”

So much for that.

“I suppose I do… enjoy magic, some times,” Eunomie amended, a little grudgingly. “But I prefer when it is practically applied, rather than as pure theory.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Twilight told her, smiling and hoping to eke a smile out of her guest. “Most unicorns have a very practical view of magic.”

Eunomie’s response was a dry, “Yes.”

“Your cutie mark isn’t magic related…” Twilight blurted out, and immediately regretted it. It really wasn’t polite to discuss cutie marks with a stranger, especially among nobleponies.

“No, it isn’t,” Eunomie replied, not sounding offended. Not that she ever apparently sounded offended or anything but indifferent. “My special talent is not magic, as yours is. I believe it to be ‘focus and attention to detail.’”

“I have a few friends who could probably benefit from some of that!” Twilight joked, but it was hard to be funny when your audience seemed incapable of laughter. She chuckled with herself, though it came out as a weak, “Ha. Ha. Ha?”

Abruptly, Eunomie changed topics. She pointed over to Owloysius.

“Your animal familiar is nocturnal, but you do not seem to keep a nocturnal schedule yourself,” she observed. “This seems inefficient. Have you been unable to alter the owl’s biological rhythms?”

“Owloysius isn’t really a true familiar.” Twilight finished off her bowl of oatmeal, saving a few of the delicious apple bits for the last bite. “Spike handles things during the day.”

“I see.”

A question came to the librarian, then. “Do you have a pet, or…?”

“No. Not a pet,” Eunomie said and dipped her head. “Since we are living together, this is as good a time as any to show you. Galen. Open your eye.”

The pale mare exhaled and a shape began to coalesce in front of her nose. Twilight watched, intrigued, as a spark of life entered the conjured wind, forming it into a tiny frozen crystal, like a snowflake of air. It glowed red and orange hot, like forging metal in a fire, before cooling off and assuming an almost transparent glass-like sheen. The red glow remained, but became faint, along with an amber hue around the center.

“This is Galen,” Eunomie said, looking up at her host. “You’ll forgive the play on words that is his name, but it is traditional when it comes to familiars to use puns and such. He is my assistant.”

“Hello, Twilight Sparkle,” the wind-crystal chimed in a melodious voice, somewhat similar to a young colt’s in timbre.

“It talks?” Leaning in, Twilight tried to get a closer look, but the crystal drifted off to the side and away. “I know some familiars can talk, but making sophisticated magical constructs like that…? I’d always read that it came with a price of some sort.”

Eunomie nodded slowly, her face still shrouded.

“That is correct. As you know, most familiars are animal spirits or ambient energy bound by magic. They are considered harmless, but very limited. This is usually seen as a fair tradeoff, and so they are the most popular type among those capable of such spells. If one wishes a fully capable companion, there are more extreme options, but they come with risks. Binding a pony’s soul is illegal and forbidden, of course. All sapient beings inevitably turn malevolent in servitude, and wild spirits, the most powerful of all, are invariably and instantly hostile towards any who try and command them.”

“Galen is a piece of myself, not an external spirit per say.” Eunomie raised her chin, and lifted a hoof to her left eye. The formerly amber pupil was blank and cloudy. “I do pay a price for Galen’s service, proportional to what I give up. I can assure you that I was very careful in drawing up our contract.”

“I… don’t think I would make that trade myself,” Twilight admitted, not wanting to look too deeply into the other mare’s blank and blind left eye. Galen, meanwhile, chimed happily at being summoned.

“Is there anything I can assist you with?” he inquired, floating overhead.

“I would demonstrate to our good host here how you can be of assistance to her and to me,” Eunomie said, and noticing Twilight’s discomfort, closed her left eye with practiced ease. “I hope you do not mind, Twilight, but I had Galen scan the library earlier.”

Twilight cocked her head at that, curious. “What do you mean, he scanned the library?”

“Galen,” the meticulous mare ordered, “Please retrieve for me Tanner’s Teleportation Theories, volume one?”

“Retrieving.” The glowing familiar turned to wind and blew away, vanishing for a moment.

“When I first made him, he was actually quite vexing,” Eunomie added, quickly, while the familiar was out of sight. “He kept bobbing around and getting in the way and saying ‘Hey. Listen.’ I tweaked the voice a bit and amended part of the contract and that did the trick. Initially very annoying, though.”

“Retrieved!” Galen darted back to where the two mares sat, literally appearing in a flash. With him, or it, was a tome that had to be four times the little familiar’s size. It floated easily in a magical field distinct from Eunomie’s own.

“It has its own magic!” Twilight exclaimed. “Like a homunculus!”

“As I said, Galen is quite literally a part of me, only made immaterial. Why don’t you try giving him an order?” Eunomie asked, inviting her host to give the familiar a spin. “I haven’t been able to scan your collection of scrolls yet, but he should be able to retrieve any labeled book in the library.”

Twilight thought for a moment, and grinned, giving the little construct a bit more of a challenge. “Galen?”

“Yes, Twilight Sparkle?” it chimed.

“Can you bring me Mender’s Meditations on Mana and the Journal of Arcane Science Annual for last year?”

“Retrieving…” the magical entity began to fade and turn to wind, but then sudden solidified again. “Clarification required. This library possesses two versions of Mender’s Meditations on Mana, one in Equestrian and one in the original Prench.”

Twilight’s smile widened at the familiar passing her little test. “The translated one, please. Oh, and can you also bring another blank scroll? Any one will do?”

“Retrieving!”

“Feel free to make use of Galen while I am here,” Eunomie said as her familiar vanished to perform its duties, “though I prefer to return him to my eye when I practice more intensive magical exercises. As your guest here, it is the least I can do to repay you for your hospitality and forbearance.”

“Forbearance?” Twilight waved a dismissive hoof and huffed. “I think we’ll get along pretty well!”

“The forbearance part was referring to Euporie. She can be difficult at times.”

“Oh.”

A moment passed, then, as both mares looked over at the door to the basement where Alpha Brass’s other step-daughter was still snoozing away. Twilight had only seen her for a few minutes last night, but she had looked pretty much identical to Eunomie, just with a different mane and tail color and style. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be too much of a hoof-full.

“Retrieved!” Galen appeared again, with Mender’s Meditations, the Annual Journal and a blank scroll. All three were maintained in little magical fields. As far as assistants went, Eunomie’s familiar appeared to be quite capable. On the other hoof, the whole blindness in one eye while using it thing remained a bit of a drawback.

“Close your eye, Galen,” Eunomie commanded, opening her left eye. The familiar’s light burned hot red and orange for a moment, transformed back into a rush of wind and, like on the receiving end of a vacuum, sucked into the mare’s left eye. Color returned to the orb, and with it, proper depth perception and vision. She seized the book, journal and scroll in her own magic before it could fall.

“I have to admit I’m pretty impressed,” Twilight remarked, though she studiously avoided her personal opinion that hundreds of spell repetitions was sort of excessive. “Did you go to the Canterlot Academy?”

“No,” Eunomie’s response was curt. “I required a private tutor and Mother insisted.”

“Lady Olive Branch?”

“She is my mother, yes.”

“But,” and saying it, Twilight hesitated again. “Last night, you said… the way you spoke about her…”

“My mother is dying,” Eunomie said, as blasé as always. “Do you expect me to be grieved? I have great respect for her accomplishments as a diplomat – she has done much for Equestria, and one day, it would be my honor to do the same in a similar capacity – but as a mare and as a mother, she was much less of a positive role model. Euporie takes after her in her carelessness and self-indulgent lifestyle. I must endure it in my sister, but I do not approve of it in her, and I did not approve of it in my mother. When she is truly gone, I will mourn her in my own way. Until then, I will not.”

“Lady Olive Branch,” Twilight said her name: the name of the mare she could well be replacing. Her ears drooped slightly. “She’s really dying then?”

“Yes,” was Eunomie’s churlish response, but at Twilight’s searching expression, she coolly elaborated on her mother’s life and death. “Her lifestyle, as I said before, was not a healthy one. For example, before my biological father died, she committed many adulterous acts with younger stallions. Right up until the end, I believe my father was aware of these indiscretions but said and did nothing to curb them. On his deathbed, friends of the family I had known for years mocked him as a cuckold.”

Eunomie blinked slowly and paused in her story, and Twilight imagined she had to be perturbed in some way recalling the details. She couldn’t be completely emotionless. Could she?

“You see,” she continued, “my mother’s carnal appetites were well known and even celebrated among her friends and devotees. She did not drink heavily, but she experimented with foreign practices and consumptions. She was especially fond of zebras and their hallucinogenic concoctions. For years, she employed a sadhu mystic from the black wastes, believing she could predict the future and prolong her life. Up until several years ago, she exchanged frequent correspondence with other famous libertine philosophers on the morality of excess and wrote in favor of the finding an ideal freedom of expression through pleasure.”

“In the end, her… experimentation came with a price,” Eunomie concluded, and there was a distant, repressed amusement somewhere in her voice, for just a sliver of a moment. “An unexpected price that she is now paying for. Just as Galen takes my eye, my mother’s excesses and extreme liberal beliefs sealed her fate… and those of many others around her.”

“And,” Twilight ventured. “Lord Alpha Brass was arranged to marry her. Were… were they happy together?”

Eunomie blinked, slowly, as if the question confused her.

“I would not be a good judge of that,” she finally said. “Euporie would know better. What I can say is that Mother certainly seemed to enjoy having a young husband who could better satisfy her, and Father did not hesitate to make use of his position in the family, and the new wealth and prestige that came with it.”

Twilight had read about that: Alpha Brass was the same age as Shiny and Blueblood, and his father, Duke Cruciger, had married him to Olive Branch almost as soon as he was of legal age. It would have been a good match, politically. Olive Branch had accrued a lot of power and wealth negotiating for expansion of Equestria’s colonies. She had been the most aggressive and ardent proponent of the country’s expansion in hundreds of years. The title of Marquis, and Marquesa, had become basically a Duke and Duchess in all but name.

Yet, the two had curiously never had children of their own.

Alpha Brass, like her brother, was still young. Too young, really, to be a widower. Twilight couldn’t imagine being asked to marry a pony her father’s age, and yet Alpha Brass had done just that, and at a younger age. Knowing the main line Terre Rare, he had willingly or even enthusiastically done it for the family, and probably for his own personal gain, too. From Eunomie’s laconic description, though, it sounded like a nightmarish ordeal.

“What does your father expect from this proposal, if I were to accept it?” Twilight asked, knowing this was a topic the two had to discuss in depth. There was no point assuming otherwise.

“Lord Alpha Brass will expect you to forsake matrilineal rights to the Sparkle line. Your daughters will be of Prench descent, and you will marry into the main branch rather than vice versa.”

It was the reverse of normal, where the male married into the female’s family. The Terre Rare did not put stock in traditional rules of succession, however. The biggest problem there was that it left Twilight’s mother and father without an heir. Shining would be marrying into Cadance’s line, and she would, hypothetically, be entering the main branch Terre Rare. Of course, these were also the same problems she had considered in her discussion with Prince Blueblood.

“If I have a son?” she speculated.

“He could be heir to your parents’ holdings,” Eunomie replied. “The main line prefers a daughter, but either sex will do. The most important thing is that it allows for the Blueblood succession next generation. That is the leverage we will need to win over the more recalcitrant members of the family.”

Twilight brought a hoof to her chin in thought. It was the same conclusion she had come to, with Blueblood, and it was interesting that her plan there was mirrored in the expectations of Alpha Brass. Her family was a proud one, and its identity was tied closely to the old Bluebelle and Arsenic dispute. If Antimony couldn’t secure it this generation, in the Blueblood they knew, then it would have to be the next. She had already made arrangements there, but should she reveal that card to Eunomie? Twilight wasn’t sure.

“How much support does Alpha Brass have?” she asked. “How can he be sure his father won’t oppose us? We would be taking control of the family from him.”

“Without Antimony, grandfather is not a threat,” Eunomie promised, taking a long sip of her now cooled tea. “We have much of the extended family in our pocket already, and the support of those around Lord Cruciger. Alpha Brass is his only son, we have Lady Chalice for what that is worth, and both Polished Jewel and our grandmother, Lady Twinkling Star Light, will back us. A conclave is already being called and we can petition a vote of no confidence. This is our opportunity.”

‘Their opportunity – Our opportunity…’ to turn a conclave intended to put a figurehead in charge of the Canterlot Rares into a surprise re-election of family successor. Cruciger was a powerful pony, and he had a fierce reputation, but what could he do against his own heirs taking their place by right of force and ability? It was the essence of the Terre Rare way. Once Twilight had the main line under her, she could allow the conclave to rightfully elect whoever they choose to run the family in Canterlot. Her father and her mother would be safe and protected. Everypony would get what they wanted.

Alpha Brass, she realized, may or may not have been a friend of her family in truth. Her father had described him as such, and Shining had remarked the other night that he was a friend and ally. But he had also not gotten directly involved until just now. Why?

Why the delay?

It occurred to Twilight that he must have been waiting. Crescent Moon stirred up enough trouble that Cruciger had to call a family conclave. Alpha Brass must have been waiting and mustering his allies for just such a moment. Friend or not, what Alpha Brass likely wanted was to remove and replace his father as head of the family. If Twilight could help him with that, then surely he wouldn’t object to his father-in-law running the Canterlot branch of the family as well. It would be in his own self-interest.

“I already have Blueblood’s promise,” Twilight said, revealing her ace. “That was why I was coming back from his manor yesterday.”

It was probably premature, and Blueblood would probably have gawked at her showing her hoof so soon, but Eunomie was making sense. This was an opportunity.

“He agreed?” Eunomie asked, and immediately looked for the obvious loophole. “A second or third child won’t do. It has to be…”

Blueblood’s racket swung through the air, connecting with the tennis ball.

“Oh, by the way,” he said, as Rarity ran to return the serve. “I promised Twilight Sparkle our first born.”

“YOU DID WHAT?!”

“Ha! Yes! You missed! Game, set, and match! I win again! Aaaagh!”

He collapsed as first the tennis ball, and then an angry unicorn mare, bowled into him at high speed.

“He agreed,” Twilight confirmed, clopping a hoof on the coffee table. “It was a Pinkie Pie promise.”

“…all right,” Eunomie muttered, and cleared her throat. “I don’t know what that is, or if it is really legally binding, but it would seem you have already overcome our biggest obstacle. With this information, with this promise, there is no pony who can stand against you and my father assuming control of the family in its entirety.”

“Nopony,” the red-headed mare hastened to add, “except possibly Antimony.”

Twilight recalled her dinner and her conversations with her distant cousin, the Baroness of Mareseilles. She had left soon after losing her duel with Rarity, chastened and contemplative. Since then, Twilight had no idea what she was up to.

“Antimony is proud and she respects strength.” Eunomie offered her own analysis. “Even after losing her bid for the Platinum Crown, it would be unwise to expect her to step aside as we also take control of the Terre Rare. Even if everypony else consents, she will fight. Luckily, you, Twilight Sparkle, can beat her.”

“The whole point of this was to avoid bloodshed,” Twilight reminded the other unicorn.

“Father does not wish for any of his sisters to be hurt, and he abhors violence when there are other more efficient means available,” the droll mare’s frank accounting of things rung of truth. “But, sometimes, a calculated blow must be made. If you still wish to avoid a fight with her, I do believe we can put enough pressure on her Barony to force a capitulation, but that will extend the woes of one pony to a population of thousands. A great many ponies will end up suffering for their Baroness’s stubbornness.”

“Is that really better?” Eunomie asked, and there, too, Twilight could see she was simply rational. It wasn’t right. Not when…

“I saw Antimony fight,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I can beat her.”

“You are the Element of Magic,” Eunomie agreed, though she didn’t sound impressed. Of course, she never did. “I have heard you can learn a spell by watching it cast a single time. Is that true?”

Suddenly, Twilight’s serious demeanor popped, and she blushed, embarrassed. “I’m nothing special like that! Not to downplay myself or anything, but – hahaha! I really don’t want that sort of thing blown out of proportion!”

Eunomie patiently waited for her fit of anxious giggles to die down.

“We have before us a very fortuitous set of circumstances, Twilight.” She finished her tea and fastidiously placed the cup back on the saucer and onto the table. “By blood, I am not a Terre Rare. My own say in family matters is limited. However, the Terre Rare family has achieved great things, and I believe it will achieve more in the future that is to the benefit of all ponykind.”

“I would like to get to know you,” she continued, staring at Twilight with amber eyes. “I would like to gauge for myself if you are the best mare to rule us. I am also curious, I’ll admit, to see if you can make my father happy. Princess Cadance has offered her blessings as well, if that is of some comfort. You would love and commit to one another as much as anypony can.”

“Blueblood seemed to think using love magic was a mistake.” Though the circumstances of it, as he and Twilight had discussed, were rather different than here. Here, as far as she knew, there was no Rarity or other mare who Alpha Brass loved. There was no conflict of interest.

Still, there was that lingering, niggling doubt.

“Love magic, like all magic, is simply a tool.” Eunomie still did not smile, but she did lower her eyes in what could have passed for contemplation. “It is one of many weapons in our arsenal. Either we use it, or we are used by our fear of it.”

Twilight bit her lower lip, still unsure.

“I’ll… think about it,” she said, not yet committing. “And I’ll write your father a letter expressing my interest in his proposal.”

“I can help with that,” Eunomie volunteered. “Traditional mail will not reach my father very promptly, whereas I can teleport messages to him directly.”

Shining Armor had not stayed with Twilight; not when he and his two guards would have had to indecently share quarters with unmarried mares. Instead, he had insisted on renting a room at the Silver Stable. After the mess with Blueblood and his sudden change of plans – he had ripped up his train ticket to Prance after the duel – the Guard Captain had been left a little unsure what to do with himself. Cadance was still away visiting Alpha Brass, and his trip to Marestricht was on indefinite hiatus.

He had seriously considering returning to Canterlot, but Twilight’s new proposal had convinced him to remain in town a little while longer. He had never really imagined his little Twilie getting married before, but she was of age, and anypony would do well to court her. And, if they ever mistreated her, Shining was sure he could manage a barrier spell that would suffocate the offender quite painfully.

He had largely neglected to mention much of his own wedding to Twilight before. It was a failing on his part, now that he thought about it. He couldn’t imagine her excluding him from her own espousal deliberations. So why had she been left out when he and Cadance planned their wedding?

‘I did tell her about it, but… did I forget to send her an invitation? Did Cadance forget to send it?’ it was oddly hard to remember. ‘Maybe it got sent to the wrong address? But then, if it was her old apartment, wouldn’t the invitation have come back return-to-sender? Come to think of it, I didn’t even mention it to Twilight until mom and dad brought it up. Princesses! I’m not even thirty and I’m forgetting the most obvious things.’

The day after had found him meeting Twilight as a local restaurant, the two siblings seated across from one another. Shining thought his sister to have a rather intense sort of look to her, but then, these were trying times and this was a serious matter on hoof. In comparison, his own engagement to Cadance had been carefree. He had proposed; she had accepted. Done and done.

“I talked with Eunomie earlier today,” Twilight said, folding up her menu before her. She wasn’t here for the food. “She seems nice, but…”

“But?” he asked and she began to fidget, tapping her hooves together. "What's wrong, Twilie?"

“I’d like to hear it from you,” she told him, looking up at him, to him, for advice. “Shiny, you and Cadance know Alpha Brass. You grew up together and you went to school together. Tell me about him. If this is the pony I'm going to marry, to spend the rest of my life with, I want… I want to know about him.”

Chapter Twenty Three : What You Want From Me

(23)

What You Want From Me

R: “Who else did you say was going to be in this?”

S: “Just yourself and Miss Octavia.”

R: “Octavia…?”

B: “A delightful cellist with an oh-so serious look; she enjoys yoga, has an apartment in Manehattan and finds the texture of sawdust to be surprisingly erotic.”

S: “…”

R: “… and how do you know all this, my sweet Prince? Not first-hoof experience, I hope?”

B: “You wound me, my dear! It is the duty of my noble station to know how to excite any mare. In Canterlot, my network of informants is very extensive!”

R: “Regardless, Octavia is it? Has she already given her interview?”

S: “Yes, Your Ladyship. All we needed was enough to fill a page. As our cover mare and central article, your interview must be much longer. May we begin?”

R: “I see the stenographer has already seen fit to start recording before we begin. But yes. We may as well. It may take my mind off of certain… things. Oh, is that a confused look?”

B: “Curiosity, not confusion. What do you need your mind taken off of? This isn’t that business from before?”

R: “Something else. A personal matter.”

B: “Ah. I see.”

R: “The interview, Summer Styles?”

S: “Of course, my Lady. Let’s talk about your growing up in Ponyville…”

Analysis [Interview SECTION A]
Recommended session [A] quotes for Page 2, Picture 2:

“More than anything, I like to spend time with my friends and family. I know they support me and I always support them. Even after everything that’s happened to me I’d still like to hold onto a normal life as much as I can.”

“Actually, I did enter a modeling contest in school when I was a little mare. I was terribly nervous and lost, true, but more importantly, the filly who won was wearing one of my dress designs! After that, everypony came to me if they wanted to look good on stage.”

“The most wonderful thing about being born and raised here [in Ponyville] is just how closely knit the community is, and how welcoming and kind hearted they all are. Canterlot has incredible energy, and Manehattan is a vibrant city day or night, but Ponyville has a passion and soul all its own and unique in Equestria. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Twilight Sparkle found Eunomie still at the library and still practicing her Swords to Plowshares spell. The serious mare had taken time to – just as promised – make lunch for both Twilight and her sister, leaving it under a warmth spell in the library’s athenaeum and reading room. She had also arranged all the stray tomes, but rather than return them to the shelf they belonged, she had laid them out in front of the shelf, just in case they had been removed for a reason.

Click-hiss, and the tapering double-edged longsword in front of her vanished in a cloud of magical smoke, revealing a single medium sized steel plow of the sort many small farms used around Ponyville. Click-hiss, and it turned back to the sword. Eunomie stood still as a statue save for the glow of her horn and her slow breathing. She transmuted the spell twice more before she even blinked.

‘Has she been at it all day?’ Twilight couldn’t help but wonder.

“Hello, Eunomie,” she said, greeting her guest. “Did anything happen while I was out?”

“Yes, Twilight,” Eunomie replied, blinking slowly and transmuting the plowshare by rote. “Four ponies came by to check out books, one of those four returned two books, another returned a book but did not check any out. Two young colts also came by looking for magazines. They read what they needed without leaving. For your convenience, I have kept a log of all transactions and set up a sign-in register near the door to better track all activity in the library.”

“Oh!” Twilight only then noticed the mostly empty log book on a pedestal off to the side of the front door. “That’s a good idea! So… those four must’ve been… Bon Bon, Colgate, Rain Shine and Berry? And Snips and Snails were the two young colts? What’s this mark next to Colgate’s name?”

“The blue mare returned a book late according to your records.” Click-hiss. “Thirty one hours late to be exact. So I gave her ‘one strike.’”

Twilight had heard of this sort of thing before, and frowned a bit.

“I appreciate all the work,” she offered a little carrot first; expecting Eunomie could be a little upset when the caveat was brought up. “But this library doesn’t use a three strikes system and we don’t penalize ponies for being a little late.”

“As you wish.” Click-hiss.

Twilight felt the urge to put hoof to face, but stopped herself. Naturally, Eunomie wouldn’t be upset. The pale unicorn didn’t even notice or care about pauses in conversation. Click-hiss.

“If you do not wish to penalize ponies, then perhaps you should consider incentives instead?” Eunomie suggested as Twilight approached and took a seat by the coffee table. “Rather than punish a pony who is late three times, you could reward one who is on time a larger number of times… twenty, maybe?”

“That’s a good idea!” Twilight agreed. “It could even encourage ponies to visit the library more! What sort of rewards should we use?”

“…” click-hiss. “I… don’t know,” Eunomie admitted. Still, Twilight urged her on, to try and propose something. Eunomie paused in her transmutation practice, thinking deeply. “Maybe… timely ponies could be given permission to retain books or periodicals for longer than the normal?”

“A good idea,” Twilight nodded happily. “See, not so hard!”

“My sister is better at incentivization. My specialty is really castigation. I’m sure she could come up with a more elegant form of reward.” That said, Eunomie returned to her practice. Click-hiss. Plowshares back to swords, for who knew how many times today.

“You look like you’ve got that spell pretty down.” Twilight dismissed the warmth spell with a wave of her hoof and nibbled at the sandwich that had been left for her. She had eaten brunch with her brother earlier, but skipped lunch while walking first to the Apple Farm and then to Sugarcube Corner, where she’d refrained from Pinkie’s many offers of behind-the-counter sweets.

“That is kind of you to say, but inaccurate.” Click-hiss. Eunomie’s eyebrows twitched, and she reversed the spell again. “Just fifty six transmutes earlier, I made a mistake in returning the plowshare to a sword. Please be assured that my continued work on this spell will not interfere with my duties. In addition to news regarding the library, my father sent a response an hour ago, along with a gift. Both are upstairs, outside your room.”

“He replied already?” Twilight asked, surprised, but not unhappy. “I’ll take a look at it right away. Thanks!”

Eunomie nodded, but didn’t elaborate any further.

On her way upstairs, paper-wrapped sandwich floating at shoulder level, Twilight couldn’t resist asking, “I was also wondering… how…. many of those transmutes have you done?”

The crimson-maned unicorn’s tail swished in what may have been irritation.

“Seven hundred and fifty nine, as of now.”

‘Sweet Princess Celestia! Did she just say seven hundred?!’

“You aren’t tired?” Twilight asked, growing a little worried.

“I am exhausted, but if I do not complete this today, I will do eight hundred tomorrow.” Eunomie glanced back over her shoulder at Twilight, half way up the stairs. “I really do not want to do this all tomorrow.” She turned back to her transmutes. “I hope my father’s response is to your liking, Twilight Sparkle.”

Just as she had said, there was a sealed scroll and a wax case waiting for her outside the door to her room. There was also a square wooden box on a metal tray. Quickly finishing off the tulip and cheese sandwich, she retreated into her room and jumped up onto the bed. On the verge of opening either the sealed scroll or the scroll case, she first eyed the wooden box. It then set in that these were gifts…

Gifts, from a pony courting her.

Technically, they were more making a mutually beneficial arrangement than the kind of romantic courting Rarity liked so much, but it was still courting. Nobleponies often exchanged letters and gifts before formally meeting. Twilight swallowed, put the three items down on her bed, and rolled onto her back. She had thought to have come to terms with much of this already – ever since, in just a bit of a panic, she had tried to foalnap Blueblood. It had to be her state of mind and being: she was calmer now, thinking more clearly, and therefore more attuned to her whirlpool of emotions.

These were gifts. In all likelihood, they were gifts from the pony she was going to marry.

The thought of it was weird, unfamiliar, and left a little fluttery sensation in the pit of her stomach. What would the letter say? What were the two gifts? If she liked them, then wouldn’t she have to reciprocate with gifts of her own? She had read up and researched the practical points of arranging a political match. She had a good idea what to ask for a dower and bridal token. She knew what to demand in concessions for her family. She knew what to ask about her would-be husband’s intentions and plans for resolving the growing rift between Canterlot and Prance.

She had planned less for how to get to and then beyond that point. Twilight hadn’t had many - or really any - close friends before moving to Ponyville. She definitely hadn’t had any coltfriends. She’d never dated; Tartarus, she’d never even considered it very important in the first place. Even arranged marriages, like she’d always expected to have, involved some meet and greet. There had to be some foundation there, even for love magic to take effect. That hadn’t been a concern with Blueblood, who she had grown fond of and come to know fairly well. All she knew of Alpha Brass, aside from his face and voice, was second-hoof. These were his first words… to her.

His first words, aside from a passing “Happy birthday, Twilight” once every few years.

Floating the bound scroll over her head and hooves, Twilight brought it in close to inspect the wax seal. It bore the image of an ouroboros, held up by two small unicorns, their manes savage like a lion’s and their mouths open, belching flame. A unicursal heart was below the snake and between the legs of the two unicorns, the lines for it splaying out to the sides and back in.

“Okay. Let’s do this.” She cracked the wax seal, unfurling the letter. “Dear Twilight Sparkle…”

Her eyes read every word and every sentence, twice.

Most of it was just a response to her initial offer. He had agreed to a dower of at least one castle and keep, a minimum of one hundred square kilometers of land and fifty thousand bits independent of the value of the property. He offered her choice of two possible estates. The larger one, five hundred square kilometers, was in the colonies. Heuschrecke, it was called, but it wasn’t complete yet. The other offer was smaller, only ninety square kilometers of adjacent land, forty acres attached to the castle itself, but it was both complete and much closer to Canterlot and Ponyville.

“Braemar Castle,” she said, deciding on it. Braemar passed all the criteria she had set, except the hundred square kilometer grant, but ninety was close enough. Once one got closer to the old cities of Equestria, the subdivisions of lands became much smaller and closely clustered.

“He doesn’t mention any towns,” she reasoned, “so it’s probably a conservatory castle or hunting lodge, like Ptarmigan.”

Still, it was a generous dower.

A dower she could need, in a worst case scenario. The traditional noblepony’s dower was a gift of land and other wealth directly to the bride herself, in the event of a spouse’s passing. A mare was expected, by default, to take over much of the running of a household and to head said household, but in the event of a husband’s death, sisters and mothers could and would legally dispute just how much of their brother’s or son’s riches went to his wife. Given just who Alpha Brass counted as his sisters, it was the smart thing to do to ask for a hefty dower. It also provided an independent seat of power for the wife.

After that, he made a counter offer on the bridal token. Unlike the dower, that was a gift given to the bride’s family to use as they saw fit. It could or couldn’t be used for the bride’s benefit. Twilight had proposed, first and foremost, public and official recognition and endorsement of her father as head of the Canterlot Terre Rare. It was what had dragged her into this mess in the first place. She was also tempted to ask for an investigation into Lord Wrathenow’s death, but her father’s assertion had been that her great uncle had been “silenced” while already dying of old age. She also didn’t want to force Antimony to become an enemy if she could help it, since her father believed Cruciger’s youngest daughter to be responsible.

Second, aside from the endorsement, she wanted her family to receive legal rights to Hocksbach Hall in Canterlot. It was a very prestigious building, but it had been controlled by the Terre Rare outside Canterlot, even though it was in Canterlot. They had held onto it since Lady Arsenic’s time. Her parents would appreciate finally assuming rights to it. Lastly, she wanted a transfer of ten percent of all wealth assumed as a result of their mutual takeover of the main branch Terre Rare to be distributed among the Neptunium and Kamacite branches of the family. It was about as subtle as a hoof to the eye, but it would help to win over any reluctant family, even if it was at the expense of the main branch.

Alpha Brass in his letter saw much of this, but didn’t agree to all of it. He didn’t mind the redistribution of wealth to secure the loyalty of the lesser Terre Rare, though he asserted that ten percent was too much to take from the main branch. “Bribes are subtle things; ten percent will be seen as vulgar.” He readily agreed to endorse her father, but he was a little reluctant to part with Hocksbach, which was a relic from the Founder, Arsenic herself. Twilight took out a piece of paper and began to scribble down notes for her response, and counter-offers.

“Stewardship of Hocksbach Hall instead?” she wondered aloud, putting a question mark next to the idea. “Instead of ten percent, maybe seven percent equivalent in artwork, tomes… things like that?”

That sounded fair.

Then, the letter came to her obligations. Her family was expected to provide a dowry, just as he was being asked to pay a dower and a bridal token. On her parents’ passing, their lands and titles were to pass on to one of Twilight’s foals, not one of Shining Armor’s. Alternatively, the clause existed to consolidate Ptarmigan into the new main branch family that Twilight would be creating, in which case her single heir would inherit everything. Up front, her parents were to contribute a yearly income of two thousand bits – not a problem for them as far as Twilight knew – and to swear fealty to the new main family of Alpha Brass and Twilight Sparkle. She didn’t imagine her parents would have a problem with that, either.

The final stipulation was a written guarantee of marriage into the Blueblood line. Twilight already had Blueblood’s Pinkie Promise to that effect, but after reading what a Pinkie Promise actually was, Alpha Brass suggested in rather polite terms that “it may not be binding in a court of law, save one where Pinkie herself presides.”

That was, by and large, the body of his letter.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she read on, at the very bottom of the scroll. “I am under no pretense that this is anything but an alliance intended to spare our great family from bloodshed. Though we have only spoken briefly, and I have not visited often enough to have left an impression on you, I remember you well. You were a humble and soft spoken mare in your youth, and a fair maid last I saw you, but I have discovered that beneath that lies the heart and soul of a true hero of Equestria. Starswirl himself once spoke of the virtues of ‘silence, even in a storm’ and ‘humility, even in greatness.’ I see those in you, in all you have achieved, in all you have learned, and I would be honored to support you by your side.”

Twilight Sparkle smiled, despite herself. Now, it seemed, she had come to the more personal part of the letter. She also remembered those quotes of Starswirl’s. Twilight re-read the last couple sentences again and felt her heart beat a little faster. Her distant cousin had left an impression, though he didn’t know it.

“For my part, I have inherited much from the legacy of Arsenic, and now, from Olive Branch. The weight of it sometimes seems crushing. Only a strong mare can bear the burdens that will come from leading the Terre Rare. Share this burden with me, Twilight Sparkle, and I promise I will be forever your faithful and true husband and friend.”

“Yours sincerely, Alpha Brass,” Twilight finished, and exhaled, rolling the scroll back up.

‘I have inherited much from the legacy of Arsenic, and now, from Olive Branch,’ she thought, running the sentence over again in her head, two then three times. ‘What does that mean? Every great family has secrets, but… was he just being dramatic?’

Oddly, at that moment, she remembered…

“I need to check a few references on pre-classical and classical spellwork. Specifically the structure and organization of Reinmare Star Fields, the nature and disposition of magical amplification via low density inorganic solids, oh, and I need to double check the elastic theory of aether propagation as a result of both invocation and convocation.”

“Aether propagation?” she inquired, but didn't turn around. “And Reinmare Fields?”

Both were very obscure fields of study. Antimony was an intelligent mare, though, and well acquainted with magical theory. Then again, there had been the peculiar magic she used with her eyes. Twilight had deduced that it was a means of organic enchantment, but instead of using her horn to punch the magic through the shields or resistances of another pony, she used eye contact to bypass it entirely. Combined with Antimony’s incredible illusions, it was an extremely potent form of magic.

There was literally no pony Twilight could think of to have anything like it.

That – that was strange where everything else could be explained. Ponies hadn’t invented any sort of truly new magic in centuries. Everything in the modern era was refinement and improvement on existing magical theory and practice. Yes, ponies generally kept their dueling techniques and the like a family secret, but then there was also that combined illusion-possession technique that Cruciger had used to watch the duel. Even her own words came back to her as she thought about it more.

“I knew the name from when I was little,” Twilight had said to her friends, back in Rarity’s boutique during the wine tasting. “But when I looked up more information on her - I didn't even know I had earth pony blood in me - there were some strange writings and rumors. There was a treatise on magic that she wrote... unicorn magic if you can believe it! Bridging alchemy and enchanting! Her sister didn't seem to have done much, but Lady Arsenic is mentioned dozens of times in arcane scrolls and notes. All very fascinating!”

She’d lowered her voice then, her conjured illusion dimming in response.

“She must have been a scholar or something. Everypony knows no earth pony can use unicorn magic. The Bluebloods have access to all of Canterlot's magic, forbidden or otherwise. I bet she was very knowledgeable...”

Arsenic was her great, great grandmother, and she had lived a hundred and sixty six years. Even before she died, she had secluded herself among the Bismuth branch of her family, outliving her eldest daughter. Bismuth the Second had finally succeeded her grandmother officially, but still Arsenic had lived on. Nopony outside the Bismuth line saw her outside of family conventions. Her father had once joked that, “Great grandma Arsenic could still be alive, somewhere. She’s too scary for Tartarus.”

Of course… that was silly…

Wasn’t it?

Twilight shook her head, burying the back of her mane into her bed’s throw pillow. Of course it was. If the Terre Rare had secrets, it had to mean that they had held onto some knowledge from when they split from the Bluebloods. Theirs was a family that had always valued magical aptitude, power and merit. That had to be it: the main line of the family still had some of Canterlot’s secrets.

‘Only a strong mare can bear the burdens that will come from leading the Terre Rare.’

The alternative, the wilder hypothesis, was that there was something more than just whatever Arsenic had taken from her split with Blue Belle. Antimony’s eyes… the possession spell…

And what had he meant, ‘and now, from Olive Branch?’

“I want to meet,” Twilight wrote on her scrap paper. She stared at the words for a few seconds, almost crossed them out, but ultimately left them intact. They were true. She did want to meet. Exchanging letters and gifts was nice, but time was of the essence, and things would be accomplished so much more quickly face to face.

“I want to meet you,” she repeated, but Celestia’s words came to her. She wanted to meet him, but if she did, it would be on her terms.

“I want you to meet me,” she said instead, writing it down. “It can’t be in public. Ponies would talk and we’d lose the element of surprise. We can meet in private somewhere in Ponyville.”

The big question was where?

She was tempted to suggest Blueblood’s Manor. It was secure, but there were nobles and other art festival guests arriving. It would be crowded, and it was impossible to know which guests would have loose tongues. Cruciger couldn’t know that his son planned to ally with the Canterlot Terre Rares. Twilight wasn’t even sure if Alpha Brass would still support them if that happened, or just pull out to sit on the sidelines, like he appeared to be doing now, while biding his time.

Sighing to herself, evaluating the possibilities in her mind, Twilight carefully put away Brass’s letter and floated over his two gifts. One was a scroll in a sealed tube, which meant it was a preserved document. Inspecting it, her eyes lit up when she found the label. It was an original version of Starswirl’s “Science of Sorcery,” first edition, volume one, copied by unicorn scribes on the eve of his ascending to the rank of Arch Mage. “Science of Sorcery” was a common book now, and the latest edition was the eleventh, published sixty years ago, but this was a historical treasure!

In strange contrast, the box was just… a box.

“A puzzle box,” Twilight realized, as she tried to open it.

Definitely, it was a puzzle box, which leant itself to the question of what was inside it? Just from the look of the lacquered, intricately etched and painted surface, it was obvious that it consisted of multiple sections that fit together. Experimentation proved that some could move and some were locked in place. The shapes were three dimensional pentominos – given the design, some of them must have had depth as well.

Sitting in bed, Twilight glared at the stubborn puzzle box, no longer foaling around with it. She tried to recall what movements she had already made, and what pieces moved and how. Finally, she managed to detach one, but there were more beneath it, and doing so made it impossible to move others she needed. She inserted the piece back in and continued to work at it.

“Ah ha!” she cheered, loudly, as she made a minor breakthrough. A smattering of pieces hung in the air over her head and three sheets of paper were covered by recordings of what the surface had looked like and what she had removed from it and where. She had also learned that a piece could be removed from one section and inserted into another.

Unfortunately, in the process…

“Eleven o’clock!” Twilight startled, noticing the time on her clock. “How did it get so late!?”

Rushing out of bed and back downstairs, dragging the magically suspended papers, puzzle, and sections of puzzle with her, Twilight half expected to hear the regular ‘click-hiss’ sound of Eunomie’s swords to plowshares spell practice. Given the hour, it would mean that she had been at it more than a thousand times. Instead, there was no crack of magic, only the growing beat of a record being played at the rear of her library’s athenaeum. The music wasn’t familiar, but it sounded like the sort of thing Vinyl Scratch played at some of Pinkie’s parties.

On the table, just as it had been for lunch, Eunomie had left food under a warmth spell. Twilight smiled at the gesture, relieved she wouldn’t have to make something herself or go out hunting for take-out. The music became louder as she descended the stairs and Twilight saw an empty bowl on the table. Her first thought had been that it was Eunomie’s, but then Twilight noticed a third placemat at another empty space. This dish had been cleared and left out, and little as Twilight knew Eunomie, she seemed the type to always clean up after herself.

Looking around to the back of the back of the athenaeum, Twilight saw a pale unicorn mare… with a blue mane.

She was lying on a small pile of pillows, tapping her left back hoof in time with the music playing from a nearby gramophone. Other than that, she just seemed to be lounging around. A trio of black vinyl records floated around in lazy spirals and loops over her head along with three record cases. They were moving around too quickly for Twilight to read any of the covers from halfway across the room, but she could make out the cover of the magazine hovering above the blue-maned mare’s eyes.

Playcolt

“Is that… pornography?” Twilight felt the need to ask. Perhaps she was mistaken and-

“Light porno,” the mare replied, not moving the book from in front of her face. “Nothing hard core. No colts-on-colts or anything.”

Well, that was a… relief?

“You must be Euporie,” Twilight said, taking a moment to see what Eunomie had left for her. It looked like lightly fried flower buns of some sort and smelled quite good. There were four of them in some sort of broth. A nearby plate had a single scoop of ice cream under a Chilly Willy spell for desert.

“This smells pretty good!” the librarian said, figuring it was as good a topic as any to break the ice. “My own cooking isn’t nearly as good as this!”

“Yeah. Eunomie can cook stuff,” Euporie agreed, though it sounded dismissive. Unlike her stoic sister, there was no difficulty hearing inflection or emotion in Euporie’s voice. It was exaggerated, like she wanted everypony hearing it to know just how she felt.

“So what are you listening to?”

“Phat Colt and the Dirty Trix. This is just an instrumental track.”

“Ah… I’ve never heard of this Fat Colt…” Twilight admitted. The music was very heavy on beats. “So the ‘Dirty Tricks’ are his band, or… what he does?”

Euporie slowly lowered the porno rag she had been reading. Rather than explain her odd taste in music, she smiled – revealing a crescent of pearly white teeth – and pointed a hoof at Twilight first assumed to be her purple mane. But it was too high.

“What is that?” she asked, meaning the puzzle box pieces.

“Something Alpha… something your father sent me.” Twilight took some secret satisfaction in the way Euporie’s grin melted away. The pale mare licked her lips briefly.

“Love letters and presents,” Euporie said, chuckling in a way that made it clear she really wasn’t happy or laughing. “That’s so cute. Should I start planning a bachelorette party?”

“I’m sure Pinkie will want to,” Twilight told her. “In fact, I know she wants to.”

“I hope she can keep a secret,” the other unicorn muttered.

“She can. Spreading secrets is the surest way to lose a friend,” Twilight paraphrased, leaving out the ‘forever!’

Euporie grunted, accepting that. “You gonna do it, then?”

“Do it?”

“Marry my step father?”

“I’m thinking about it.” Twilight then asked, “Why?”

“No reason.” Euporie retreated back behind her magazine. “As long as you don’t spoil my fun, we’ll get along great.”

For a minute or two, Twilight tried to enjoy the music as she ate. The instrumental track became a vocal one, though, and she just couldn’t quite get used to it. It wasn’t the sort of music she could dance to, and she liked to dance. Why Vinyl played this music at all, Twilight wasn’t sure. It had to be a Manehattan or Balitmare or downtown Fillydelphia thing.

At least the food was good.

“Your sister said you were… a libertine?” Twilight asked, as she finished her dinner.

“Kinda.” Euporie’s eyes emerged just above the top of her magazine. “I’m not into any of the philosophy junk like my mom, though, so don’t bother. He. He. He! Want to hear something funny, though?”

For a reason only her subconscious could answer, Twilight hesitated. “I… guess, sure.”

“You probably noticed Eunomie’s stupid little spell? The one she’s been doing all day?”

“Swords to plowshares,” Twilight clarified.

“Yeah, I know what it is.” Euporie suddenly rolled up the magazine, a mistreatment of printed material that almost made Twilight twitch. Luckily she remembered it wasn’t exactly high quality material in the first place. “So I came back, and she was doing this spell over and over. I asked her what she was up to, and she said: eight hundred. I made a mistake when you came inside. One hundred more.”

“Hold on, though, hold on,” she insisted, waving a hoof at Twilight. “The best part is this. She kept nodding off as she got close to nine hundred. I was just sitting there, eating, you know, and trying not to laugh. Kinda failing at it, too, since I kept snickering. While she ran out to splash her face with water, I conjured up a little sleeping powder and put it on the floor. So every time she does this transmute, a cloud of it kicks up! You should’ve seen her!”

Euporie slapped her thigh, laughing without restraint.

“Did she finish?”

“Huh?” Euporie asked, a little thrown by the question. “Finish? What? Her stupid reps?”

Twilight nodded. “Did she?”

“I dunno. Maybe? Maybe she just collapsed. I was too busy laughing!” Euporie sighed, falling back into the pile of pillows. “Don’t tell me: you don’t see how it’s funny?”

Twilight didn’t. “She was trying very hard to learn that spell…”

“She knows the spell well enough after doing it almost a thousand fucking times,” Euporie replied, unapologetically dismissive. “Even Eunomie can learn something after doing it more times than there are ponies in this town.”

Euporie took a long look at her fellow unicorn, evaluating her with amber eyes identical to her sister’s, but fiery with passion. Finally, she smirked and ran a hoof through her wild blue mane.

“I think you did find it a bit funny,” she told Twilight. “Maybe you didn’t even think of what you were feeling as ‘funny’ at the time. Maybe you felt something similar: pity. You must’ve thought, when she explained what she does, why is this mare doing this hundreds of times? Isn’t that extreme? What’s wrong with her?”

“Then,” she finished, smirk growing. “You must’ve thought: ‘I wouldn’t need to do that.’”

Twilight glanced away, a spoon full of ice cream in her mouth. It was a little galling to admit, but she had been thinking some of that. Eunomie’s idea of practice was extreme. Even for Celestia’s student, it was kind of crazy. The Princess had put her through the ringer in a lot of ways, but she never would’ve had her repeat the same spell hundreds of times and then hundreds more every time she made a tiny mistake. Eunomie didn’t even have a teacher doing it to her she was doing it to herself. It was extreme.

And… maybe… she had thought it was a little funny, in a dark way. Sword to Plowshares was hardly an introductory spell. It took some skill to even learn it, and Eunomie’s familiar Galen was an impressive arcane construct. A pony like that shouldn’t have to repeat a spell hundreds of times to learn it. Certainly not Plowshares.

“So I’m right,” Euporie commented, as if sensing Twilight’s thoughts. “You didn’t laugh, like I did, but deep down in your heart you felt the same. You were just more polite about it. That’s not a bad thing, though. Sometimes ponies get angry when I laugh at them, and then I have to go through all the work of making them feel happy, too.”

“Why does she do it?” Twilight asked, the last spoonful of ice cream floating by her cheek. She looked to Euporie for an answer.

The grinning unicorn snickered. “Back when she was still around, Mom used to tell this story…”

‘Back when she was still around?’ Twilight thought, but didn’t point out the slip of tongue.

“She was pregnant with me and Eunomie,” Euporie continued, not noticing the mistake. “And she had this witch doctor working for her - some crazy, hashish chewing zebra. One day, Mom said to the witch: I think I’d like two daughters instead of just one. Can you do that?’ The zebra looked at her and said, ‘no, but I can split the one inside you.’ Mom thought about it and figured it was probably better to carry two foals for ten more months than two foals for twenty two. So she says, ‘do it.’”

Euporie pointed to herself with both front hooves. “And here I am, and Eunomie, too. We’re one pony, split in two. Except, the way I figure it, that old zebra didn’t make it a clean cut. Instead of two equal halves, I ended up with all the magic and all the talent, and even the sexier body. Did Eunomie mention she had a personal tutor?”

Twilight nodded. “I asked about if she went to the Academy…”

“She failed the general entrance exams for unicorns,” Euporie explained, chuckling again. “He. He. He! Isn’t that funny? You and I breezed through it… I know I did it without trying, and I bet you did, too. Eunomie studied for days and still failed. So Mom got her a tutor. She practices so much because she has to. Maybe this is just schadenfreude talking, but I call that funny.”

“But…” Twilight protested, but for a moment found herself short on words. How could Eunomie be lacking in talent? She was studious and knowledgeable and hardworking. She had reminded Twilight of herself when they first met. She loved to study, too.

Study new things.

She remembered Eunomie, so focused on her practice, and couldn’t help but remember when she had practiced magic. She and Eunomie were practically the same age. How long had it taken her to learn Swords to Plowshares?

A few hours.

It had taken her a few hours, and even then, theory had taken most of the time.

“There are some things Eunomie got that I didn’t, though,” Euporie admitted, and Twilight’s mind returned to the present. “Things I don’t really think I need, but other ponies find them useful. She can sit there and do stuff long after I’d have given up and left. And… once she starts on something, she’s never once failed at it. I guess you could say, I got the talent and she got the tenacity.”

“I think I got the better deal by far,” Euporie concluded, snapping out her Playcolt magazine again. As she returned to her ‘reading’ Twilight noticed a piece of paper that had come to settle on the edge of the table. Reaching over, she gave it a look, and saw names. Quite a few names.

“Pinkie Pie Friendship Party?” Twilight read the title.

“I’m having a swinging little party for my new filly friend,” Euporie explained, nose deep in her ‘ladies magazine.’ “I’d toss you an invite, but aside from Pinkie and me, it’s couples only.”

That sounded odd. “Couples only?”

“Also, first rule of Party Club is we don’t talk about Party Club.”

“Yo, Fluttershy! Your creepy rabbit coltfriend keeps staring at me! Can I squish him?”

“Um. No. Please don’t.”

From out back behind the cottage, Ritter stared up at second story rear window, mentally counting down from five, knowing full well it would be another second or two before…

“Oh! He is not my coltfriend!” Fluttershy’s head poked out the window, her long pink mane tied up behind her back so it was out of the way while she cleaned. With the holiday over, she had moved things back into the attic and taken the opportunity to start preparing for Hearth’s Warming. It was getting cold enough that she was ready to start making the rounds to help animals prepare for the winter. As if bears couldn’t hibernate by themselves anymore. Or maybe they couldn’t? Ritterkreuz wasn’t sure.

Her cheeks colored by just a trace of stray pink, Fluttershy called down for her closest animal friend. “Angel Bunny. Please don’t intimidate poor Ritter. She’s very easily spooked.”

The big mare’s left eyebrow twitched, but rather than rise to the bait, she shouted, “You know, a lot of ponies love animals, but not so many really love animals! When was the last time you got laid?”

“Please stop being gross and get back to work!” Fluttershy disappeared back through the window.

“If he watches me in the bath, I’m gonna kick him!” Ritterkreuz yelled back up, but Fluttershy didn’t dignify her with an answer. “And if he watches me clop… I’ll LET HIM!”

For just a moment, she imagined Fluttershy bursting out of the window…

But no dice. It was too bad, too. It would’ve been hilarious. Kinda scary, but hilarious.

“Back to work, then,” she muttered, unhappy.

Angel Bunny continued to glare, too, totally ignoring his Mistress’s orders. The little prick. Ritterkreuz hissed under her breath and tried to ignore him. Fluttershy had work for her to do, and she did mean to do it. After all, it was only fair she help pay for hiding out at Fluttershy’s place; the battle mare just wished she could’ve been doing something productive, like tracking down animals who owed Fluttershy money and beating it out of them! Or finding animals who owed Fluttershy for all the food she gave then and BEATING it out of them! Or, in general, just beating up some thing for some reason. It didn’t matter what.

Instead, she was stuck with trees.

Fluttershy loved her stupid trees, too, for some damn reason, and she couldn’t bear to tear them down even when they were basically standing dead. In particular, she had an old maple tree she needed taken down, and the soft spoken pegasus had also gotten it into her head to try and recycle as much of the dead tree as possible. Just so long as she wasn’t around to actually have to watch the poor plant be chopped down and dismembered into planks, chips and firewood.

It was usually the work of a logger and sawyer team. Cutting the old maple tree down hadn’t been hard. Ritter knew the guard trick of turning a feather into a blade, and by vibrating them she could cut through bark and branch like a knife through butter. The problem was that it was as tedious and boring as anything the former Wonderbolt could imagine. If she hated one thing above all else, it was boring, and if one thing was nearly as bad as boring, it was tedious.

“Stupid tree. Stupid rabbit. Stupid tree. Stupid rabbit. Stupid tree. Stupid rabbit!!”

Stacking the cut heartwood planks up after cleaning the sides of any traces of remaining bark, Ritter opened a can of paint and began treating the ends. If they weren’t, they’d dry out much faster than the rest of the wood, ruining it. As much as she hated a job, no pony could say Ritterkreuz was a slacker. It was really earth pony or unicorn work, though. It definitely wasn’t good honest pegasus labor (like doing the exact same thing, but to clouds).

All the while, that dumb bunny glared at her, like a cat.

“That’s it!” Ritter snapped, noisily spitting the paint brush out of her mouth with a resounding ‘p-too!’ She found Angel Bunny watching her from on top of the tree’s stump. “You’re like a cat! A mean, nasty tomcat trapped in a bunny’s body! Go stare at somepony else for a while! Go rape a balloon! Whatever asshole bunnies do!”

The stupid rabbit’s face parted with a grin.

“I should stomp on you,” Ritter growled, raising a rather large hoof.

Angel Bunny opened his mouth and bit the air a few times, as if to say, ‘I’ll nibble on you.’

“You think you can bite me before I squish you?”

Pegasus and bunny rabbit stared, hard, one set of eyes beady and black, the other mellow yellow. Ritter blinked first, cursing her inability to just sit and stare. Losing to Fluttershy at it was weird, but expected. Losing to a stupid bunny was just dumb. Finally just knocking the stump with enough force to dislodge the vicious rabbit from his perch, Ritter went about the final part of her job for the day: tearing up the stump.

The planks were drying. The thickest branches were bundled and cut as firewood and the smaller branches and clumps of leaves were shredded, mostly, and ready for composting and use as bedding. All that was left was the stump. Fluttershy had said she didn’t want a ‘painful reminder’ of her lost tree sitting around like a slowly rotting tombstone, so it had to go. This was so earth pony work.

Ritterkreuz was no earth pony, but she was strong. The tree didn’t cooperate or give, so she had to compensate for her not being an in-tune-with-nature type pony by just cursing and ripping away. She snipped a few thick roots, hitched herself up, and pulled and pulled. Blowing the hell out of the stump with an explosion would have been preferable, but it would also alert any of the guards still searching the forest. Even a little boom could be heard quite a ways away.

She had just pulled the whole thing free when a buzzing sound caught her ears.

“Hey, look who it is,” Ritter remarked, stretching out a leg to catch Scootaloo with an ‘ooph!’ The little filly hung onto her leg, even as her scooter continued for a few paces and then rolled onto its side.

“Wow! You’re doing actual work?” Scootaloo asked, scrambling up the big mare’s side and onto her back. “I’m surprised! Does this mean no training today?”

“Just no fighting. Fighting is my favorite type of training, but not the only one.”

“Even after Spitfire and the others beat you up?”

“Hey! I gave as good as I got, runt!” Ritter ignored the proverbial monkey on her back for a little while longer, just long enough to kick over a wheelbarrow full of dirt into the sump left by the tree’s root ball. “That teacher of yours, Cheerleader I think?”

“Cheerilee.”

“She didn’t go flapping her gums or anything, did she?”

“Nope!” Scootaloo punctuated the word with a little jump, first onto Ritter’s wing and then down to the ground. “She can keep a secret! Miss Cheerilee’s really great and super understanding!”

“She also strikes me as the upstanding citizen type,” the gray mare grumbled. “They tend to squeal, sooner or later.”

She started turning around, to keep Scootaloo in sight, when she noticed a rustling in the bushes. Her wings tensed, expecting an ambush, but her ears twitched, hearing voices a little too high to be guardponies. She turned on Scootaloo, frowning.

“You didn’t…”

“Maybe I told one or two ponies,” Scootaloo admitted, waving her hooves. “But that’s it!”

She motioned to the bushes, and a little yellow filly with wine-red mane emerged, looking a little nervous at being called from her hiding place. She turned around, reached into the bush, and started pulling at something. A second or two of effort later, and a white-coated unicorn filly popped out, bowling the two over. They bounced back onto their hooves and gave a somewhat forced and extremely wide pair of smiles.

“More runts, huh?” Ritter asked, and the smiles instantly became wide-eyed pouts.

“That’s just the way she talks,” Scootaloo told her friends, pulling them both into a hug. She pointed to the unicorn, and then to the earth pony. “This is Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. You can call us…”

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders!” the three chorused, raising their hooves to meet in the air.

“The what.”

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders,” Scootaloo repeated. “I know I talked about them before.”

“Uh…”

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders are a sororal organization dedicated to the ad-vancement of, um, equine knowledge of cutie marks,” the little while unicorn said, obviously rehearsed.

“An’ how ta get em!” the earth pony chimed in.

Ritterkreuz blinked, not quite sure what to say. “Okay.”

“We heard you were the one giving Scootaloo flying lessons!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, either happy for her friend, or… just happy to be Sweetie Belle. “Do you think she’ll get a flying cutie mark?”

“Maybe.”

“We were wondering if we could help ya’ll out?” Apple Bloom asked, getting a little closer to the burly mare. “Maybe we could get our cutie marks, too? Like cutie mark crusader flight instructors!”

“Oh yes, that’ll end well.” Ritter gave the tree stump she had uprooted a swift kick, sending it rolling. “Where were you three when I could’ve used you for actual manual labor?”

“We were in school!” Sweetie Belle answered, not getting the sarcasm.

“…thank goodness,” Scootaloo murmured.

“Well, you missed your chance to become cutie mark crusaders lumberjacks and cutie mark crusaders unpaid indentured labor. But…!” Ritter began to chuckle, springing happily over to the side of Fluttershy’s house. “I do have your training ready, runt! And if your friends want to help me help you, more power to ‘em!”

The three unsuspecting fillies cheered, probably expecting they would be doing something like throwing Scootaloo into the air or directing her as she buzzed around, barely able to hover for more than a second or two. Even Scootaloo herself seemed ready to get caught up in the idea. It really did make Ritterkreuz giggle deep down inside.

“Ta-da!” She posed, one hoof extended towards a tree… with a bucket hanging from a rope tied to one of the lowest branches. The Cutie Mark Crusaders stopped in their tracks, staring, trying to see past the obvious bucket on a rope to the cool fight training equipment that must exist somewhere, right?

“Allow me to introduce you to your training equipment for today,” Ritter continued, prancing happily over to a nearby trough and water pump. “This! Who can tell me what this is?”

“OH! Oh! I know!” Sweetie Belle enthusiastically played along, throwing her hooves into the air. Ritter pointed to her, encouragingly, and she said, “That’s a water pump!”

“Bingo!” Ritter then twirled and scooped up a metal bucket. “And this? What is this thing?”

“A water bucket!” Sweetie blurted out, this time bouncing into the air for a second. “A metal water bucket!” she corrected herself, post-landing.

“Correct again!” Ritterkreuz replied, scooping up some of the water from the trough with the bucket. “I can see which one of you three is the smart one.”

“Hey!” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both objected to Sweetie’s left and right respectively. She little unicorn had a big smile plastered on her face, but she squeaked as her friends briefly crowded her out. “Ah’m plenty smart!” “Me too!”

“We’ll see about that,” Ritter said, the handle of the bucket between her teeth. She cantered over to the hanging bucket, stood on her hind legs and used her front hooves to upend the water from one bucket into the other. It wasn’t much. She had only taken out a tenth of a bucket for the demonstration.

“What,” she asked, pointing to the underside of the hanging bucket. “Is this?”

“I know!” Sweetie cried, but Scootaloo pushed her out of the way.

“A bucket!” the pegasus filly declared.

“Uh uh!” Apple Bloom chimed in, bumping Scootaloo out of the way. “It ain’t just a bucket, it’s a leaky bucket!”

“You got it!” Ritter clopped her front hooves together and fall back on all fours. “A leaky old rust bucket. That’s exactly what it is.”

She pointed again to the underside, where water was dripping out from around the base of the bucket. It swung unsteadily from the rope, probably making the leaking even worse than normal. Ritter trotted over to the crusaders, opened her mouth, and dropped the first – not leaky – water bucket in front of Scootaloo.

“You’re going to fill that,” she said, motioning with her head to the leaky bucket hanging from the tree. “With this…” She tapped the rim of the good bucket with her hoof. “Using water from over there,” she concluded, tilting her head and twitching an ear over in the direction of the trough and pump.

“What?” Scootaloo gawked, looking up at how high the bucket was hanging. Ritter had needed to stand up on two legs to reach it and pour. It was well out of reach of a little filly. Even the three of them standing totem-pole style probably wouldn’t be tall enough. “You can’t be serious?”

“You gonna give up then?” Ritter asked, nonchalant.

“N-no way!” Scootaloo rushed to pick up the metal bucket and tried to get used to carrying it in her mouth. Ritter had to bite back her laughing. The bucket was half the size of the filly trying to haul it around!

Right away, reaching the trough, Scootaloo filled it almost to the brim. Predictably, this made it far too heavy for her to handle. Ritterkreuz stood back and watched, first as Scootaloo struggled with the weight, and then as her friends tried to help her. The three little fillies were tenacious, too. It was several minutes and two spilled buckets before they gave up on filling it anything more than half-way.

Then they faced the rather amusing obstacle of boosting Scootaloo up so she could then upend the contents of one bucket into another. The terrible trio ended up a jumble more than once – almost soaking themselves in the process – trying to get the swinging bucket to cooperate. During one long lull, Ritter noticed the little white unicorn glaring at the rope and Apple Bloom eyeing the drying lumber stacked behind Fluttershy’s cottage.

“Now, girls, don’t think about cheating,” Ritter warned, much to the feigned innocence of the cutie mark crusaders. “I like ponies who think inside the chimney, but cutting the bucket down or building a ladder isn’t what this training is about. I’m not seeing how clever you can be. I’m seeing how badly your friend there wants to fly.”

“I really want to fly!” Scootaloo cried, slumped over the metal bucket. “You know I do!”

“Then fill up that bucket,” Ritter said, eyes level. “Here’s a hint. Use those little tufts of feather on your back. Or give up. I bet you can go and eat ice cream with Fluttershy instead of going through all this trouble.”

“Ice cream does sound good,” Sweetie added, helpfully.

“I’ll do it!” Scootaloo yelled, clamping down on the bucket and dragging it over to the pump and trough.

“Get ice cream?” Sweetie asked.

Scootaloo just paused, turned, and stared at her.

“So, that’s a ‘no’ for ice cream?” The little unicorn gave a pitiful face, wide puppy eyes and all. She then turned it on the only adult present.

“Okay, fine! I’ll get you ice cream,” Ritter told Sweetie Belle, starting to get up, only to give up and fall back on her stomach. “After you get me some whiskey. …Or some wine.”

The little horn-head’s face very quickly turned into a pout, then a look of consternation that none of her tricks had worked. Then, very likely, she started wondering how to get her hooves on some alcohol.

“Doesn’t Applejack have some of that funny water in the…?”

“Don’t even think about it,” Apple Bloom warned. “Ah don’t want a grounded fer life cutie mark!”

The two idle fillies turned back to Ritterkreuz.

“If we can’t have ice cream,” Sweetie began.

“Then tell us about that!” Apple Bloom finished, pointing to the big mare’s flank. Ritter’s cutie mark, a trio of crude asymmetrical explosions, jagged orange on yellow, stood out against her gray coat. The former Wonderbolt’s wings bristled and she snorted.

“You want one like it?” she asked. “You can be Bomber Belle and Apple Boom!”

“I’d like to hear the story, too,” Scootaloo said, a partly filled bucket between her hooves. The unicorn and earth pony fillies were only momentarily distracted by the partly conjured mental pictures of themselves with explosives cutie marks, and quickly starting nodding their heads excitedly, agreeing with Scootaloo.

“Fine,” Ritter grumbled. “We’ll make it a trade. I tell you a story, and you three… or you two do something for me.”

“Is it something bad?” Apple Bloom asked. Ritter liked her: she already knew the score.

“Nothing bad,” the mare assured her, and the more skittish unicorn filly. “I promise.”

The two gave each other a look, like ‘are you sure?’ but eventually agreed. “Okay!” they said.

“Good. Now! Once upon a time, there was a fair and beautiful Princess named Ritterkreuz…”

Three half lidded stares fell on Ritterkreuz, and she paused in her great and totally truthful story. The three cutie mark crusaders didn’t seem convinced by the likelihood of the tale thus far. One bloody sentence in, and she’d already lost them. Was it really so hard to believe she had been a beautiful, fair Princess…?

Okay, yes, it probably was.

“All right,” she started anew. “Once upon a time, I was a little filly like you three. No flank stamp or anything.”

Sweetie Bell and Apple Bloom began to imagine it, and Ritter could herself envision a little bubble-reality over their heads with a small gray pegasus filly, blank of flank, with a short green mane and tail. It was close, but not quite right.

“Keep in mind, when I say: ‘I was a little filly like you,’ I mean, I was your age but still bigger than you.” The image of the filly expanded slightly, getting taller. “I’ve always been big, and in my little filly head, I imagined I could get a racing cutie mark or a trick flying cutie mark or something cool like that.”

The little version of herself buzzed around, just like Scootaloo did.

“I never did, though. So then I thought: maybe I’d be good at sports and get a sports cutie mark? Lots of pegasi love sports and I liked to play hoofball with the colts. None of it got me a cutie mark, though, and one day… I boarded a ship and left home.”

The unmarked filly Ritterkreuz walked up a wooden plank and onto an airship. It sailed away from Cloudsdale, towards the north and east. There, through the banks of clouds, a city built into and on top of three mountain crags bustled with winged life. Terraces and tiers cut into the stone formed palace bulwarks and clan eyries.

“Because my father was a high ranked Commander of Equestria, I was sent to Crown Roc,” Ritter told the crusaders, and held up a hoof as she tried to describe it to their young minds. “Some ponies call it the Castle of the Roc, the Griffin version of Canterlot. Three mountains shrouded in clouds, with a city sprawling almost from the peaks down to the base. Unlike Canterlot, griffins didn’t use magic to make it… they cut it with explosives and their bare claws, and entire palaces are built right into mountain sides and halls. That’s where I was sent to live for three years.”

“Why?” Sweetie Belle asked. “I wouldn’t want to live with griffins!”

“Did something happen to yer family?” Apple Bloom wondered.

“It was an exchange of hostages,” Ritterkreuz explained. “Griffins go live with ponies, and ponies go live with griffins. They say it helps everypony and everyone understand each other better. My parents… my father took care of a griffin chick, and a noble griffin family took care of me.”

She smirked at Sweetie Belle, guessing it wasn’t an exchange everypony would enjoy.

“I sort of liked being around griffins more than ponies,” she said, sighing with nostalgia. “I was with an eyrie… a household… with four griffin chicks around my age. At first, they all treated me like I was delicate; like I’d break if they were too rough with me. It didn’t take too long to prove them wrong.”

The little Ritter in their shared mindscape tussled with a young griffin over a ball, the pair rolling around on a cold stone floor, growling and hissing. Another little griffin had a flag, and other chicks chased after him, one pony among them. Then the same group was perched in the trees, hanging easily to thick branches with talons and claws, the tiny Ritterkreuz struggling to do the same with her hooves.

“I learned to play griffin games… to speak the griffin language, to dance like them and hunt like them and even dress like them. I ate griffin foods, too. It made me sick at first, but I refused to be treated differently, like I was a little pony they had to coddle. Everypony can eat a little meat, but I had to learn to stomach rabbit and lamb and rat, the big three of griffin cuisine. Then there was the week I had the flux…”

Her audience shuddered, and Ritter chuckled, amused.

“You know, there’s a very special dish there,” she told them, licking her lips in an exaggerated fashion. “Qazy, they call it. Horse sausage, made out of one naughty unicorn filly, one naughty pegasus filly, and one very naughty earth pony to round out the flavor.”

“Gross!” “No way!” “Eeeghhh!”

Ritterkreuz’s chuckles broke out into full blown laughter as Sweetie Belle turned faint and started to swoon at the ghastly image. It took some rough shaking courtesy of Apple Bloom to snap her out of it. While said image was still fresh in the minds of the cutie mark impaired trio, Ritter continued her story.

“I also learned to like explosives and fireworks,” she said, and the little imagination-filly snickered as things blew up around her in colorful sprays of sparks. “Griffins have special talents with explosives and powders. That’s how they cut up their mountains, like I said before. They blow them up!”

She pounded her hoof on the ground, making a loud ‘clop’ sound.

“Boom!” Ritterkreuz shook her head. “Anyway, I learned a lot from the griffins I stayed with… but even though hundreds of ponies live all their lives in Crown Roc, they’re still not seen as griffins. They can be valued servants and friends and business partners, but they’re still not griffins and they’re always treated differently. They’re not the same clan. It was the same with me. No matter how hard I tried to fit in, I was only just pretending to be one of them. I never forgot it either. Every time I got sick eating something they told me not to eat, every time I tried to climb a wall with claws I didn’t have… every time I pronounced a word just a little bit wrong because I had lips and no beak, I would remember that I was just a guest here. That I was still a pony.”

Somewhere along the line, Ritter’s imaginary-self ended up alone. To one side of her, ponies were playing together and playing hoofball and learning from a teacher and working together. To the other side, griffin chicks were fighting: over food, over bragging rights, over where to sit and who got to speak, all while the adults egged on the competition. When the not-so-little filly reached for the other ponies, they avoided her, intimidated by her size and the way she acted. When she reached for the griffins, they edged away, never willing to really let her into their group.

“I had been in Crown Roc for more than year,” Ritter said, her eyes down and staring at her hooves. “I was fluent in the language, but didn’t have much reason to speak it. I spent a lot of time by myself, learning how the griffins made their mountain blasting explosives. There was something about it: about a big bang, reshaping the entire landscape…. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I even learned a little trick, putting some of the powder on my wings, so I could make little firecracker pops whenever I wanted.”

She closed her eyes and let out a breath. “One day, I overheard a bunch of griffins. They all knew I spoke their language, so if they didn’t like me, they didn’t dare to talk about me except behind my back. I listened in, and realized they were talking about another pony. It was the way griffins were… you had to stand up to them, to be dominant or at least to try and be dominant. This stupid pony was just sitting there with a book, while they harassed him, trying to get him to fight.”

The corners of Ritter’s mouth pinched as she grinned, just a little, remembering that day well.

“It pissed me off!!” She suddenly roared, startling Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom enough to knock them off their rumps and onto their backs. “The stupid little unicorn pissed me off because he was being such a sissy! And the griffins pissed me off for being such jerks! And I pissed myself off for not being able to just ignore it and walk away! So I jumped in, made some booms, and started kicking!”

Only Scootaloo seemed nonplused.

“Sounds about right,” she commented, the imagined little Ritterkreuz getting into a scrap with three griffins at the same time, mercilessly punching and kicking her way through them. By the time all three had been subdued, the gray filly was left scratched and bruised, but grinning happily despite her injuries.

And on her flank…

“That’s how I got my cutie mark,” Ritterkreuz said, and Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom pulled themselves back up into a sitting position. The big gray mare held up a hoof. “One. Two. Three. I knocked those idiots out. I didn’t notice I had my cutie mark yet, though. I was still angry. So I turned on the stupid unicorn who they had been picking on… a prissy white-coat horn-head, and I told him to stand up for himself, and that those three had been talking trash about him to his face.”

She snorted, but her smile made any attempt at sounding angry difficult.

“He said he knew what they had been saying, but that it didn’t matter,” Ritter raised the tenor of her voice to try and sound like a little colt instead of a gruff mare. “’I’m a unicorn. If I use magic, they’ll say I cheat. If I don’t, then I’ll always lose. So I don’t do either. I don’t do anything.’ Typical of him.”

‘Okay, then!’ the little gray filly declared, on impulse. ‘I’ll fight for you, and if some griffin challenges you to a race, I’ll race for you, too. I’ll even eat weird things if they want you to do that. I don’t mind at all! Sounds like fun.’

‘Really?’ the colt had asked, suspicious. ‘And what do you want from me?’

‘I dunno. Stuff.’

‘Stuff?’

‘Just don’t be boring. I hate boring.’

‘I’ll try and be entertaining, then. What’s your name, anyway?’

‘Ritterkreuz.’

‘Blueblood.’ The colt introduced himself with a flourish of his hoof before pointing to her rear end. ‘Did you know you just got your cutie mark?’

“That was how I got it, but later, as I thought about it, I wondered,” Ritter explained, glancing back at her cutie mark with one eye. “What does it mean? Most ponies who get cutie marks for protecting other ponies get a shield or an arrow or something, and I didn’t fight because I really wanted to protect Blueblood, I was just pissed and looking for a brawl. The marks I have don’t even look like real explosions, not really.”

Slowly, she turned to meet the curious looks of the three crusaders.

“Then it came to me,” she finished, a dark cast to her pale golden eyes. “My marks aren’t literal explosions or explosives. They represent violence! My cutie mark is the pure expression of violence and fighting itself! My special talent is raising hell and kicking ass!! That’s who I am!”

“So,” Ritter asked, stretching her neck out to loom over her filly listeners. “Who wants a cutie mark like mine?”

For a long moment, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom said nothing. Ritterkreuz didn’t blame them for their silence. The poor little runts were too probably too shocked to-

“At least it would be ‘A’ cutie mark,” Apple Bloom concluded. “And Apple Boom sounds pretty cool!”

“Huh…?” Ritter mumbled. “What?”

“I’d be Meanie Belle!” Sweetie decided, but just as quickly asked, “Is there a way to get a fighting cutie mark without actually fighting?”

More than a little confounded by the fact that her story had only encouraged the crazy little fillies, Ritterkreuz settled into being the sudden target of Apple Boom’s made up martial arts and Meanie Belle’s imaginary magic blasts. These girls really wanted their cutie marks! It was probably pretty pointless to tell them that a flank stamp was a pain in the ass – literally. Scootaloo, meanwhile, buzzed up to the hanging bucket and emptied a small stream of water, only spilling a little over the sides in the process.

Her work didn’t escape her erstwhile trainer’s eye, distracted though she was.

‘Not bad,’ Ritter thought, watching out of the corner of her eye as Scootaloo ran to fill the bucket again. ‘Not bad at all. This little runt has guts… and guts… are better than any cutie mark.’

The filled bucket hit the ground with a splash.

It was getting dark, and despite their earlier interest, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had opted to go and help Fluttershy on her census of the soon-to-be-hibernating. Each one had left with bundles of little blankets for the forest critters who had the good fortune to live outside or on the Everfree border. Only Scootaloo had remained to keep training.

Ritterkreuz stayed with her, watching but not talking. She had shed most of the bandages of the other day, even when the wounds were still a little raw. The temptation was strong to head off and do her own thing, like she usually did, but she also understood when to lay low and heal up. It wouldn’t be long before she was back in her prime.

“Hey,” Scootaloo called out, carrying the leaky bucket back over to the trough and pump. It was full, and she looked exhausted, but she still had the energy to drag it over and upend all her hard work back into the watercourse.

“Was that story true?” she asked, finally collapsing onto her side. “The story about how you got your cutie mark?”

“What makes you think it wasn’t?” Ritter asked, flexing her wings.

“I dunno,” the little filly admitted. “A feeling, I guess.”

Her would-be trainer inhaled, slowly, mentally weighing how to respond.

“It was mostly true,” she said, after a little thought. The squirt had earned an honest answer. “You want the truth-truth, Scootaloo?”

The filly nodded, tired but triumphant. Best of all, she didn’t need anypony to tell her she had done it. She didn’t need anypony forcing her or cajoling her. She had done it and stuck with it because she wanted to see herself do it. She wanted it.

“The part I left out was that I was in over my head in that fight,” Ritterkreuz said, still a little bitter about it, years later. “Those griffin boys were bigger than me, and just as mean if not meaner. There’s an advantage in claws and beaks, you know. They aren’t just for show.”

She scratched the back of one hoof with the other, suddenly self-conscious.

“After my little surprise attack, I was in trouble… hell, I had been looking for trouble in the first place, but I found it. One of the griffins had me pinned, and his back legs were on my stomach. I knew he was gonna rake me with his claws. I could feel them dig into my skin.”

In her memory, the little version of herself was struggling on the ground, outweighed by just one of the griffins she had picked a fight with, much less all three. The hind legs of a griffin were like those of a lion. The claws could retract and they were curved and perfect for climbing or scratching or mauling, depending on how much force was put into them. Above her, the griffin was smiling, his tail wagging in anticipation.

“I’d probably still have those scars on me today,” Ritterkreuz admitted, eyes closed. “But then the griffin on top of me floated in the air, upside down. I looked up and saw why. It was the stupid little colt I’d come to help. Blueblood was using his magic to help me. With the leader of the three out of the picture, the odds changed. Two on one, I did okay… and then, later, one on one, I did better than okay.”

The griffin fell out of the air and looked around, stunned. His two friends were unconscious, and a bruised and bloody filly twice as big as she had any right to be barreled down on him. On the sidelines, a unicorn colt sighed and put away his book.

“Aside from that, it happened just like I said,” Ritter finished, and as her eyes opened, her expression was relaxed and at ease and comfortable with the company. “He had my back… and I had his… until he left for home when his mother died. And that’s the real story, kid.”

“Why’d you pick a fight with those three griffins?” Scootaloo asked. It was really the biggest question of them all.

Ritter didn’t even have an answer for it.

“I just did,” she replied, honestly. “Looking back, I think I knew I’d get beaten up. It wasn’t the first fight I’d gotten into like that. Listen, kid… Scootaloo… I…”

The gray mare cut short whatever she had been about to say – exactly what, she wasn’t even sure herself – and her expression morphed into a wicked grin. The reason for the transformation became clear a second later, as a blue shape floated down from over Fluttershy’s cottage. Four cyan hooves touched the green grass, cantered a few paces, and stopped. A tail, naturally dyed in six streaks of color, snapped and relaxed.

“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo exclaimed, forcing herself back up in the presence of her idol.

“The Rainbow Bitch.” Ritterkreuz chuckled, effortlessly rising up on all fours. Her wings spread and angled upwards in a threat display mirrored, unconsciously, by the other mare’s wings as well. “What a surprise, Sparky let you off your leash!”

“Ritterkreuz,” Rainbow Dash said. She looked fine, healthy… it would be nice to say unhurt, too, except her face was sooty and caked with streaks of tenacious dirt that hadn’t been easily washed off by a dip in the lake.

“You guys… aren’t gonna fight, are you?” Scootaloo dared to ask, not sure if she should even try and prevent it. The two adult ponies glared at each other, towering over the little orange filly.

“Fighting’s fine by me,” Ritter said, her eyes not leaving her potential opponent.

Rainbow Dash shook her head, the first to break contact and meet Scootaloo’s worried expression. “That’s not why I came. I want to talk about something first.”

“Maybe I really am just bein’ a stubborn mule,” Applejack asked herself, far from where anypony could actually hear her doubts given voice. “What do you, think, girl?”

Winona, sadly, was more interested in sniffing the base of one of the farm’s many apple trees, her tail curled up slightly in excitement at the prospect of finding – and chasing – one of Fluttershy’s wayward and often garden raiding animal friends. Applejack mostly let her dog lead the way, trailing in silence as she thought about Rarity, about cider, about her farm…

A cold wind blew in from the north and Applejack sought some shelter against it by pressing her hat down flat on her head. The sky was darkening overhead, but it was a clear and shaping up to be picture perfect night. Stars were already beginning to peek out against the encroaching darkness, even with Luna’s moon not yet given permission to rise. Only Sun or Moon held sway over the heavens, never both at the same time, even during dusk and dawn.

Looking up, Applejack focused less on the sky and more on the trees.

The late blooming orchard was populated by honeycrisp cultivars, just ripening on the branch. They were typically the last harvest before winter, sweet and tart and perfect for eating raw or as a snack before the snows fell. Half would be sold as they were harvested and half would be stored to ripen for use in treats and baked goods. The bad apples would be discarded or used for pig chow, not that there was much profit in that. Almost anything made for decent pig chow.

Winona rushed forward again, starting a rabbit from a patch of thorny bush by the low stone fence and ditch that separated Sweet Apple Acres from a narrow strip of public land. Winona barked at the fleeing critter but didn’t give chase past the fence, though she was more than capable of jumping it if she needed to. Legs hanging over the edge of the stone divider, Applejack could see some of the neighboring farms: the Carrots and the Honeys.

‘Carrot Top wouldn’t have snapped at Rarity like I did,’ Applejack thought to herself, resting her chin on top of her hooves. ‘She’d have been happy for the help.’

Applejack wanted to be grateful. Getting into a screaming match with her oldest friend wasn’t what she had wanted when she went to Blueblood’s Manor.

‘Wasn’t it, though?’

She had to have known that Rarity would stick by what she had done. She was never one to just do nothing when a friend of hers was in need or in trouble. Even before she had done it, Applejack had been on the lookout for when – not if – Rarity had decided to get involved. A smarter pony would’ve acted on that and pre-emptively told the new Ponyville Baroness not to get involved.

‘I didn’t want to fight with her… did I?’ Applejack crushed her eyes shut and felt a cool breeze flow through her mane. ‘Maybe I don’t know what I want anymore.’

She wanted to save her family farm, but she didn’t want to sacrifice her principles to do it.

That was really the issue, wasn’t it? It was all her. Big Macintosh didn’t have a problem accepting Rarity’s agricultural subsidies… even though he had to know that the moment the government and nobles stuck their nose in the farm, they would never leave. Even if they didn’t, the Apple Family hadn’t needed to be bailed out in more than two centuries of operation. Two centuries! Not since her great grandfather Baldwin Apple was granted the land by the Princess herself.

‘Then, generations later, Applejack inherits the farm and bucks everything up,’ she thought, grumpily. ‘That’ll be what they say about me. Three generations later. Applejack couldn’t even run the farm without her friends bailing her out. She was incompetent and it was all her fault.’

“Was it… all mah fault?” she asked Winona, reaching out to pull the sable brown border collie into a hug. “Was it?”

“Better proud and on the street, is that it?” Rarity batted her hoof away and also took to her hooves. “Does your great grandfather’s farm mean so little to you? I’m sure your pride will be a comfort to Granny Smith and Apple Bloom when they don’t have a home!”

“It means everything ta me,” she wanted to say.

“You take that back!” Applejack bulled forward, all but butting heads with the other mare. “You take that back right now!”

“I will not!” Rarity yelled, not intimidated by the forceful Element of Honesty. “And I will not see the Apple Farm fall apart while I have the power to save it! Not when I am Baroness!”

“What do ah do, Winona? Ah can’t go back on mah word now. Ah can’t.” She buried her face in the dog’s mane; Winona didn’t talk or pantomime like some animals – except to Fluttershy of course – but she was always there, and buried in her fur, Applejack felt a little better and a little warmer.

Rarity.

What was she going to do – what was she going to say – to Rarity when she saw her again?

“Ah don’t wanna have ta fight with her over this,” Applejack said, releasing Winona and starting back to the farm house. “Ah’d just apologize, but… but I still think I’m right. It ain’t right, what she’s plannin’ ta do, and there’ll be hell ta pay if the farmers’ association finds out. She’s the Baroness now, and that means she helps everypony or nopony. No playin’ favorites. Ah know that’s how things aught ta be.”

Pinkie Pie would probably just rattle off an ‘I’m sorry’ and then start bouncing around, more interested in a ‘making up’ party than in just what she’d had to apologize for. Twilight was a reasonable pony. If she was wrong, she’d figure it out and apologize without so much as a hiccup. Fluttershy would say she was sorry even if she didn’t think she had to apologize at all; she’d just do it to avoid a fight. Tarnation, she wouldn’t have gotten in a fight with Rarity in the first place! Only Rainbow Dash and Rarity herself had the same sort of stubborn streak. Both would probably be likely to apologize without really meaning it, just to move on.

“Ah can’t just say ‘I’m sorry, ah was wrong.’ Cause I’m not wrong.” Applejack wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince, talking to herself like this. She turned to Winona. “Ah’m not wrong, am I?”

Winona glanced back at her owner and smiled, her tongue lolling out slightly.

“Ah don’t know what ta do anymore… and it’d probably be the end of Equestria before Rarity came ta apologize ta me.”

And what did she have to apologize for? For trying to help?

For going behind her friend’s back, when she damn well knew better!

Applejack felt the hot little poker of indignation from before, hardening her expression just as it hardened her heart. She understood Rarity, and Rarity understood her. Maybe that was why it stung so hard. If Twilight had done it, she probably wouldn’t have been nearly as upset. She loved Twilight as a good friend, but they had only known each other for a little over a year, and to be honest, the lavender bookworm was still a little scatterbrained sometimes.

But… was that it? Was that all these was to it?

Was it possible, just a little bit possible, that Rarity had touched a nerve already rubbed raw? It all really came back to the cider, to the farm’s strained finances, and to Applejack’s own inability to keep things solvent. The moment competition showed up in Ponyville, the moment things got rough with the market, and everything became a crisis. The farm shouldn’t have HAD to rely on cider sales in the first place! Cider wasn’t like Zap Apples. It was a supplement to the farm’s income. That’s how it had been before. Was it possible that some of her anger towards Rarity had been…?

“At mahself?” she finished, sighing.

Deep contemplation and the like really weren’t up her alley. Tangibles were so much easier to wrap a pony’s hooves around. What she needed to do was dwell less on her own problems and insecurities and get the darn farm in the black. Without Rarity’s under-the-table help.

Approaching the farmhouse, Applejack noticed a strange sight. A pony she didn’t recognize stood just outside the front door, wearing odd clothing. It was almost all white, except for a few floral patterns in blue over where the cutie mark would be. The patterns were centered around a trio of leaves sprouting from a silver arrowhead. It was a pattern that took her a moment to recall.

The last time she had seen it had been on a flag, hanging from an upside down ‘L’ shaped pole.

Picking up her pace, giving the waiting unicorn a wary look, Applejack entered her house. Inside, she saw some of the Neighponese retainers that had helped around on the farm for some room and board… mostly food. Old Antlers was there, sitting at a table with Granny Smith and Big Macintosh. White Dew and Evening Squall, the earth pony healer and unicorn barrier magician respectively, were sitting by the wall opposite. The former nodded to Applejack as she entered. Cool Breeze, the disagreeable pegasus mare who – unlike the others – had just hung out in the clouds while the others worked, stood proudly to the left of another pony, herself seated next to Shigure.

“Yumi,” Applejack remembered the name.

“Lady Yumi!” Cool Breeze barked the correction. Shigure raised a hoof to her in silent greeting.

This mare, like the one outside, was dressed in white, but it was unadulterated by any colors or patterns. She sat primly at the table in the family room, soft lambskin boots running halfway up her legs and bleached silk covering her torso. Only the upper part of her front legs was visible, and her neck, a dusky white color a shade smokier than Rarity’s white coat. Her straight mane and tail were a perfectly groomed black with a streak of dark gray.

“Miss Applejack,” the well-dressed mare said, dipping her eyes just barely enough to notice. “We meet again.”

“So we do,” Applejack replied, turning to her family members present. “Mind tellin’ me what’s goin’ on?”

“Applejack,” Granny Smith answered, her tone scolding, “Lady Yumi is a guest here, so let’s keep our tone civil, now.”

“I’ll remember that.” She made no promises, though.

“You’ve made quite the impression on my retainers,” Yumi said, sounding just as haughty as when she had put up that pas d’arms outside Ponyville. “While I came to bring them back into my fold, I have also had a mind to suggest how we can help one another.”

“Help one another?” Applejack asked, openly suspicious. “What do ya’ll mean by that?”

If this was about the cider and the farm…

“We don’t need yer money, if that’s what this is,” she warned.

“Of course not. I have heard of your farm’s troubles, yes, but as an earth pony myself, I respect your self-reliance and work ethic.” Yumi’s forest green eyes were similar to the ones that stared back at Applejack in the mirror every morning. She hadn’t noticed that before.

“I need something from you,” she explained, “I believe it to be something you can do for me that no pony else in this town can. In return, I will give you what you need to crush your competition… these Flim and Flam brothers.”

Applejack felt her heart skip a beat. Something that would crush the Flim Flam brothers? Something that could save the farm? But it wasn’t money…? Staring hard at this ‘Lady Yumi’ or ‘Yumi-hime’ or whatever, Applejack couldn’t help but wonder just what the foreign mare meant. What did she mean she could help with? What did she mean, something only Applejack could do for her? There was no way she was saying she could work on the farm, not a fancy pony like her.

“Explain it ta me,” Applejack finally said, though the demanding tone made the easily bristled Cool Breeze do just that. She seemed on the verge of snapping and saying something like, ‘show more respect to Yumi-hime!’ Luckily for her, she didn’t get the chance.

“Fertility,” Yumi replied.

“Fertility?”

“The secret skill of my family, the ruling family of Neighpon,” she explained, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Is simply that: ‘fertility.’ If you ever visit our realm you will notice that it is very mountainous, with little arable land. Despite this, we grow many crops, including rice, wheat, barley, tobacco, tea leaves, sugar beets, pears, oranges, and of course… apples. Ensuring the richness and bounty of Neighpon is the duty of the royal family, of which I am a member.”

Applejack remembered the duel, most particularly, the end of it. Three of her retainers had fallen at the hooves of Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and a mere apple farmer. Yumi had not reacted well to the failure of her subordinates. Applejack remembered standing next to her friends, the only one to notice that the grass at their feet had stopped swaying and begun pointing all in one direction: up the hill and at the Neighponese noblemare watching them from on high.

“You control plants,” Applejack reasoned.

“I do,” Yumi answered, that tiny smile of hers still in place. “It is my honor to bring prosperity to poor lands. It is also my honor to tour my realm and ensure that our crops do not fail, even in the worst of seasons. I have noticed much of your crop here is discarded… your honored elder here has a fine nose for weeding out bad apples. This is the natural limitation of what your farm can produce.”

Applejack looked over at Granny Smith, and the old mare was nodding in agreement. There was no other pony at the farm really suited to quality control, not just when it came to cider, but to basically all their apple products. Something like a third of all apples bucked were ultimately rejected for cider production and were instead used for animal feed. Still, they were producing more cider at present than ponies bought… but that was mostly because Flim and Flam had the market so darn saturated.

Taste.

That was it!

“You can make our apples taste better?” she asked, hesitant but… curious and excited at the same time. The family had reached the limit of what they could do with existing cider making techniques and still Flim and Flam’s cider beat them out in some taste tests.

“I can bring out the natural flavor in any given apple, so that every one tastes as good as the best one on that tree,” Yumi said, as if such a thing wasn’t the holy grail of farming. “For those apples still on the tree, I can use my magic to destroy imperfections. Every apple will be as high quality an apple as that tree can produce.”

She took some pains to be sure she was clear.

“I can not make apples sprout from corn stalks, nor can I do more than save diseased or dying trees,” she told the Apple family. “What I offer you can only be done to healthy, strong trees. You have many of these, and this is a well-run orchard, but you must understand that I can not work miracles. I can only have a plant reach its full potential.”

Applejack had to fight not to gawk. Of course, she couldn’t make apples grow from corn, or any sort of silly thing like that. Applejack herself knew she could influence seedlings and saplings to grow using natural earth pony magic. Even apple bucking itself was a form of magic. But the larger and older a tree got, the less a pony could do with it. If this Lady Yumi could exert normal earth pony magic on fully grown trees…!!

“How many trees could’ya do this to?” she asked. Even just ten or twenty would…

“All of them.”

Applejack blinked, momentarily stunned. “Excuse me?”

“I can feel them,” Yumi explained, straight faced. “You have two hundred and sixty two apple trees producing fruit at this moment. I can use my power on all of them.”

Applejack stared at the pale earth pony, searching for some possibility that this was a joke or trick. Any minute now, everypony would break out in laughter at Applejack, the silly filly, falling for such an obvious prank! Yet, seconds passed, and there was only silence in the room. She turned to Big Macintosh and Granny Smith, trying to read their expressions. Both seemed shocked, but not to the point of doubt or incomprehension.

“The Fujis always said they had good harvests,” Granny Smith said, recalling some incident that must have long predated the birth of anypony else in the room. Even old Antlers.

“Is there some drawback ya ain’t mentionin’?” Applejack asked.

“Only to myself,” Yumi replied, not troubled by her answer. “My magic mingles with that of the trees, and the energy for the growth comes from me. The effort will be taxing for me, and it will be days before my magic returns to normal, but that is a small price to pay. I take it this deal is something you are interested in making?”

“It is, so far,” Applejack admitted, her wariness returning, but tempered by excitement. With entire trees of perfect apples they could make barrels of their best cider in bulk, and their best cider was better than Flim and Flam’s.

Rarity’s secret subsidies had already pushed the farm in the black, but this way, she could save the farm and pay Rarity back everything she owed. Then there would be no debt between them. Everything would be evened out. Then… maybe then she could… apologize.

“What would ya need from me?” she asked the Neighponese heiress.

“Blueblood,” Yumi answered, to the farmer’s surprise. “I want to meet His Grace, Prince Blueblood, in private. I want to plead my case for being Duchess. I can bring much to Canterlot… and to the lands surrounding it. In a thousand years and more, no earth pony has ever worn the Crown of Canterlot. I wish to be the first. I would speak with him alone at the Art Festival and that is all.”

“And you think ah can manage that for ya?” Applejack weighed the noblemare’s request and just what it would mean. She already had an idea of how it could be done. She had an invitation, and Blueblood wouldn’t mind being pulled aside by her for a little while.

It wouldn’t be hard to arrange things.

“You are an Element of Harmony and a friend to His Grace,” Yumi said, and her smile widened just a little. “Yes. I think you can do this for me.”

Author's Note

AN
Topical episode tomorrow, and as always, I try for a weekend chapter release. I am pretty curious how things go with the coming episode, though. It may affect things to come.
But, before then, and maybe after depend on when you hear this... new chapter of TPC for ya!

My personal sincere apologies to PiquoPie and any others similarly upset over my previous version of the author note. I had not thought that it would spoil things in the show for my readers. It was not my intention.

Chapter Twenty Four : Plans, Partnerships and Poison

(24)

Plans, Partnerships and Poison

Rainbow Dash returned home under a curtain of darkening clouds. The last shift of weather ponies had prepared for a short shower tomorrow by corralling and collecting rain clouds above and outside the normal residential airzone. Moisture had been collected and banners hung from different sections of perforated cloud so, when the shower was scheduled, each could be moved by designated teams into place over Ponyville’s farms and fields and town. Every cloud was marked for a weather team – blue or red or orange or green – and for a location.

The orderly rows drifting overhead were a contrast to Dash’s own tumultuous thoughts.

Flying slowly, just drifting with the air currents, she eventually circled around her home: a multi-level bachelorette pad with cycling, flowing rainbow waterfalls and frostflake trellises behind coiled cloud pillars. She couldn’t imagine living her life on land, or like one pegasus, under it in a cellar. She checked her mail box by rote, though it was too late for any mail to have been delivered, and then reached for her door. Her hoof paused, then, before pulling the door open.

“You can come out now,” she said, and for a moment, Rainbow Dash simply waited.

“You are there, aren’t you?” A quick one eighty turn didn’t reveal her supposed pursuer and the brash pegasus groaned. “Oh man, I hope I’m not talking to myself here!”

“You aren’t.”

With a yip of surprise, she spun around and saw Soarin peeking out from over the lip of her roof, his hooves resting easily on the cast cloud-stuff shingles. A rainbow waterfall cascaded down to his left, just missing one of his pale blue hooves. He wasn’t wearing his Wonderbolts blues and seemed very at ease with that fact.

“You were following me,” she told him, frowning. “And what’s with surprising me like that?”

“I thought about not revealing myself at all,” he replied, with the same easy smile as always. Soarin was well known as a mare’s pony, despite his tendency to goof off, and Rainbow Dash could see why. Being so close to him in her training had brought up more than a few naughty thoughts she kept to herself.

“But, yeah,” he admitted, “I was following you. When’d you notice?”

“When I left Fluttershy’s place.” Dash leaned bodily against one of the pillars near her front door. “The birds told me.”

He nodded, seeing how that could reveal him. “Did Ritter notice?”

“I don’t think so.” Rainbow Dash sighed, coming to the question she was a little worried to pose, “Are you gonna tell me why you followed me… when I explicitly said not to? Did Spitfire order you to?”

‘Doesn’t she trust me?’ she wanted to ask. ‘Does she think I’m going to back out?’

Soarin shook his head. “Spitfire didn’t order me to follow you. And I know you said not to…” He looked away, guilty. “I was a little worried. So I lied.”

“Worried about me?” Dash asked, not sure whether she was touched, amused, or angry. “Soarin?”

“Spitfire and me… we…” he said, still looking away at the horizon somewhere, “We’re putting our hopes on you. If Ritter had attacked, if she does attack, before you’re ready… that’s another reason why I’m here.”

He slowly turned back and startled when he noticed she was flying just within reach. A cyan hoof reached out and bopped him on the head, just in front of the ear.

“Thanks,” Dash said, deciding on ‘amused.’ “But we just talked.”

“I saw,” he replied, grinning again, this time at her acceptance of his going against his word. “But what did you girls talk about?”

“Things,” Rainbow answered, evasive. She turned and flew back down to the door, her tail swishing. “Anyway, between you working me ragged and… that mare making my head hurt trying to understand her… I’m turning in. Are you headed back to the Wonderbolts mobile HQ?”

“I suppose I should,” Soarin agreed, standing up and stretching his wings.

A beat passed and, unseen by the Wonderbolt, Dash softly bit her lower lip, unsure but tempted to ask something. Sensing he was about to head off, Rainbow Dash did what she always did: she just spoke her mind.

“You can crash here tonight if you want,” she blurted it out quickly, her back to the stallion. “As long as you don’t snore. You don’t snore, do you?”

“You do have a comfy couch,” Soarin commented, and then with a smile she could somehow hear, “And crashing sounds more appealing than usual. The real question is: do you snore?”

“M-me? Snore?” Rainbow Dash laughed, totally not nervously at all. “No way! Not this pony!”

He hopped down, landing alongside her. It was much more comforting having him close by than trying to play hide and seek in the twilight sky. It almost made Dash regret that, for all his professional protectiveness, she had to tell him at least about one thing she and Ritterkreuz had discussed. He wouldn’t like hearing it.

“There was one thing,” she warned him, and saw a flash of confusion on his face. Soarin’s expressions were so often exaggerated, it nearly made her giggle to see his eyebrows shoot up.

“One thing?” he asked. “What? Like ‘don’t look in my medicine cabinet’ or something?”

“No,” she said, laughing lightly. A cyan wing slapped him on the side. “I was talking about… when I do fight Ritterkreuz… you can’t get involved. You have to promise me you won’t.”

He opened his mouth, but didn’t respond, hesitant to tell another white lie.

“This is important,” Dash told him, making sure she had her serious face on. “Soarin, this is really important. It has to be just her and me.”

“…why?” he asked, tentatively. “You don’t have to do this alone. Spitfire and I, we…”

“I do have to do this alone,” Dash corrected him, resting a hoof on his shoulder. “Not just because… of things… but because I want it, too. I want to do this alone. I have to. Trust me.”

He came close to frowning, but looked more disappointed than angry. “Even if you beat Ritter,” he reminded her, “We have to take her in. She turned against us. Don’t tell me you… that you’re sympathetic to her?”

Rainbow Dash snorted, dismissive of the implication.

“Not sympathy,” she said. “Besides, I’d bet something like that would just make her angry. Just trust me, okay? Promise you won’t get involved when it happens, whether I’m winning or losing. And no telling the others. I want you to be there…”

She was almost pleading, less with her voice and more with her eyes. She had learned so much from him, about flying, about the Wonderbolts and about the world – of air to air combat – that so many of her heroes came from. She’d thought about joining the Air Guard, like he had, but she had never been one for strict rules and regulations. She and Ritterkreuz shared that, at least.

“I do want you to see me win,” she said, “but you have to promise!”

Soarin did frown, then, and she was sure he meant it when he said, “Fine. I promise. My word as a Wonderbolt.”

“Not just as a Wonderbolt, but at my friend.” She held up a hoof to her eye level. “Pinkie Pie promise.”

He went through the motions, but did the eye-squish a little gingerly. It was his first time, after all.

“Happy?” he asked, when it was done. Clearly, he wasn’t pleased with the vow he’d made.

“No, but I will be proud to have you there, cheering me on.” She briefly touched her hoof to his, lowering it from his face. “We’re going to do it outside town to make sure nopony interferes. I can only bring one pony, and I’m glad it’s you.”

“I won’t get involved,” he promised again, closing his eyes to sigh. “I guess you never did really grasp the Dicta Boltcke’s eighth rule of combat.”

“Always attack in groups of four to eight,” Dash recalled, and opened the door of her cloud home. She headed inside, Soarin following close behind.

“So you do remember it.”

“Sure, I remember, but I told you: I’m terrible when it comes to rules. I know ‘em, I just don’t like to follow ‘em.”

“When is this fight going to be, then?”

“During the Art Festival. With town security and everypony hanging around Blueblood and Rarity, Ritterkreuz and I will finish this.” Rainbow Dash glanced back at him, for just a moment. “One way or another, we’ll finish it.”

“Good morning, Eunomie!”

“Good morning, Twilight.”

It was seven thirty, and the prim crimson-maned unicorn had already made and set out breakfast for her host and her sleeping twin sister. She seemed bright and alert, though without the usual cheer of morning ponies like Applejack or Fluttershy. Twilight thanked her again for the food and sat down to eat. Today, Eunomie had prepared eggs and waffles with fresh apple juice. It would have been a wonderful start of the day, except…

Twilight noticed the sword from the night before, resting on a mat near the back of the library. She hoped it didn’t mean what she thought it meant. Euporie’s words from last night came back, about how Eunomie had to compensate for her lack of talent by working herself to extremes. Eunomie had called her special talent ‘focus’ – but was that intense focus just a crutch for lack of natural talent? It seemed too cruel to be true, and as she eyed the longsword, Twilight realized she did not want to imagine her new acquaintance and helper transmogrifying it another thousand times.

“Last night, didn’t you…?” she led the question on, hoping for a ‘yes, I finished with that spell.’ Or most anything along those lines.

“If you mean the swords to plowshares spell, last night,” Eunomie replied, emotionless. “No. I did not get to one thousand before making another error. I will try again today. And, if I can not do one thousand today, I will do one thousand two hundred tomorrow.”

“What… what went wrong last night?” Twilight asked, and secretly, she wondered if Eunomie had practiced making thousands of waffles before she perfected it to her satisfaction. ‘If I can not prepare one thousand perfect scrambled eggs today, I will prepare one thousand five hundred tomorrow.’

“If you don’t mind me asking,” the lavender unicorn channeled a little Fluttershy, so as not to sound rude. Eunomie couldn’t somehow enjoy doing so many hundreds of spell repetitions. Could she? It seemed impossible. Even a robot unicorn would get tired of it.

“After Euporie came home, she entertained herself by attempting to distract me in various ways,” Eunomie explained, levitating a set of books around her head like tiny orbiting moons. “I was on my nine hundred and ninety third repetition of ‘swords to plowshares’ when I accidentally transmuted the plowshare into a Coltish shortsword instead of the hoof-and-a-half longsword. I finished my set, ended at one thousand and went to sleep.”

She opened one eye, and Twilight realized her other one was blank, blind, the pupil missing. Her familiar was off somewhere. Twilight glanced around, looking for the arcane construct that cost its user half of her vision. Galen was normally quite bright and easy to see… except when he was moving, and thus, immaterial. It reminded Twilight a little of Princess Luna’s spells, from Nightmare Moon’s return. Shadow magic specialized in the manipulation of the immaterial.

“Is that how you learn all your magic?” she asked, and Eunomie blinked – just the good eye. The other stared off into space. It was a little creepy, and Eunomie must’ve noticed something in Twilight’s expression, because she reached a hoof up and closed the blind eye.

“Repetition is the key to how I learn spells. Yes.”

“Is that what your tutor taught you?”

“…” There was an unusually long pause then, before Eunomie responded. “No.”

That caught Twilight by surprise. “Your tutor didn’t…?”

“My tutor was not very effective,” Eunomie answered, her one good eye skimming through a page in a hovering book. “She essentially gave up on me after a time. I developed this method on my own. It is simple, and straightforward, but it works.”

“I doubt any other pony in Equestria could do swords to plowshares a thousand times in one day like you did, even with a few mistakes…”

“Nine incorrect transmutes out of a thousand is still nine incorrect transmutes.”

“It’s only one percent.”

“If I were to rely on a spell to save my life or the life of another, one percent is still an unacceptable failure rate.” Eunomie put two books down on the table and floated the others back to their shelves across the lower floor of the library. “I would be willing to accept one failure in a thousand transmutes. One tenth of a percent.”

“Well, would you… like to study with me some time? Maybe if we study together a little…”

“Are you also learning swords to plowshares?” Eunomie asked, though she had to know Twilight’s answer.

“No,” the other unicorn replied, “but…”

“Then I must decline,” Eunomie said, deadpan. “I must focus on one thing at a time if I…” A thought crossed her then, and the serious mare’s brows lowered slightly. “No. That is incorrect. Learning swords to plowshares is an ancillary pursuit. Learning more about one another, especially if you are to lead our family, is much more important. I apologize for my rudeness.”

It was a somewhat reserved reception, but Twilight had come to see that that was just how her guest was. She offered a wide, genuine smile – enough for both of them.

“I’m glad!” she said, possibilities already running wild in her mind. Princess Celestia’s teaching methods probably wouldn’t work as well with Eunomie as they did with Rarity, but there were other ways to teach and learn, and Twilight loved them all. The most important thing, though… the one concept that united them all…

“Learning should be fun!” Twilight told the straight-faced and tight-laced mare.

“Learning should be… fun?” Eunomie repeated, blinking slowly, as if the concept was more perplexing than an armory of swords turned into plowshares. She closed her other good eye, and though her mouth never moved to smile, Twilight got the feeling she was amused by something.

“What?”

“Be enthusiastic about what you do,” Eunomie said, repeating something she had clearly been told before. “Love what you do, in your own way. My step father said that to me, years ago. I do love… what I do… in my own way. I would like to know how you love what you do, Twilight.”

Eunomie finally put on a grin, though it was clearly forced and for her host’s benefit.

“What are you studying?” she asked, and Twilight didn’t feel offended by the plastered on smile. It was just the other mare trying to be polite and normal. Twilight could sympathize, remembering how social norms had vexed her before coming to Ponyville and learning about friendship. She’d never been quite this bad (not by a long shot), and Eunome didn’t seem like a recluse, but it was similar enough for there to be some understanding between them, or so she thought.

“I was just going to compile some more of my dragon research first…”

“Dragon research?” Eunomie raised a delicate eyebrow, her curiosity not as veiled as her other emotions.

“For the Free Company Rarity’s hired,” Twilight explained, taking a quick drink of apple juice. It must’ve come from the market just this morning. “They’re working for information now as much as gold. Mostly because we have more of the former than the latter!”

“Of course,” Eunomie’s response was typically curt.

“Their Captain, Sir Germolio, was willing to make a little trade, and he understands how important knowledge can be in the right hooves. Once I finish with that, though, my transmutation studies are up to ‘apples and oranges’ … orgo-trans is a step up from plowshares, but after seeing what you can do, I bet you’ll surprise yourself by how easy it’ll come to you.”

“I am willing to try, Twilight, but I do not wish to hold your own studies back.”

“Don’t you worry about that!” Twilight was just about finished with her breakfast, and as she washed it all down with a glass of water, she noticed Galen had materialized overhead. The crystalized arcane construct was just floating there, moving slightly up and down, like a living creature would draw breaths. Wiping the corners of her mouth with a napkin, Twilight remembered Eunomie asking her to make use of her familiar as needed.

“Galen,” she said, and the floating crystal chimed in response.

“Yes, Twilight Sparkle?”

“I have a bundle in my room, on the floor and next to Spike’s bed. Can you get it for me? And please be careful.”

“Retrieving.”

The familiar turned back to wind and shadow, vanishing from sight and leaving only a faint magical tingle that danced along the sensitive skin of Twilight’s horn. She knew she couldn’t follow the familiar with her eyes… but this wasn’t just a request on her part. It was another test. So far, she had seen Galen easily navigate the open areas of the library’s lower and upper floors. The door to her room was closed; would Eunomie’s familiar be able to deal with the obstacle? If so, how? Twilight turned an eye on Eunomie herself, but the reserved unicorn opposite her didn’t seem perturbed or interested in her host gathering some additional information on her familiar’s capabilities.

Twilight’s ear twitched as she heard a noise: the door opening and closing. Galen returned a moment later, and with him, the bundle Twilight had requested. He had clearly opened the door, either in coming or going or both. She filed that information away.

“Thank you, Galen,” she said, her magic overlapping that of Eunomie’s familiar.

Eunomie glanced up, as Twilight undid the cloth, but said nothing to express her interest or curiosity. There were a few things inside, notably the pieces of the puzzle box Alpha Brass had given her. She was still working it – it was fiendishly complex! Time seemed to fly while she worked, and she wanted to make at least a little progress before she got distracted by other things during the day. As for the other objects she’d wanted brought down…

“I’ve been thinking about what to send back to Alpha Brass with my letter,” Twilight explained. “I wanted to ask first, though: how do you send things back to him? Can you only send small things like scrolls and this puzzle box?”

“No,” Eunomie replied, and for a moment, it seemed as if that was her only answer. After a moment, she explained in more detail, “There is no weight limit, only a limit of volume. The largest space I can teleport is a cylinder of roughly one thousand cubic hooves.”

Twilight did the math in her head in a split second. “So, a little less than eleven by eleven hooves?”

“Correct.”

“And how do you do it?” she asked, standing up to put away her dishes. “Can you teach it to me?”

“It is possible to teach you the technique, and I am willing to do so, but it will not function without a contract,” Eunomie replied, following Twilight with her good eye.

The librarian and Element of Magic left the dishes in the sink and cantered back into the athenaeum. “A contract?” she asked, “A magical contract?”

“Correct.”

“You know contract magic?” Twilight was more than a little surprised. How could Euporie call her sister unskilled, when she practiced one of the most difficult of arcane arts? Contract magic required very high level magical understanding and a keen, disciplined mind. Then again, that was to compose the initial contracts and runes… once made, anypony could use it…

“Correct, again.”

“Can you show me?”

Eunomie nodded and stood up. Her horn shimmered as much as it glowed, and she summoned up a small brown and green case. Opening the lid, she retrieved a paper slip and the closed the box again. Walking slowly over to the clear area in the athenaeum where she had been practicing swords to plowshares, the pale mare ran a hoof along the floor. Twilight followed and watched, closely, as the other unicorn ripped open the paper slip, and a trickle of white powder sprinkled from it onto the ground.

“Ash and salt?” Twilight asked, sniffing the air.

“Volcanic ash and common magnesium sulfate.”

Eunomie first drew a circle, and then within the circle, a triangle, and within that triangle another triangle. The circle was ubiquitous to any sort of transformative magic, and the triangles were ways to denominate bracing glyphs from controlling glyphs. With the ash and salt in place, Eunomie’s horn began to heat up with light, and a second glow formed, etched into the floor. On the corners of the first triangle, where they met the circle, the pictographic characters for ‘matter,’ ‘power’ and ‘movement’ appeared. Between them, facing the sides of the triangle, were ‘pass,’ ‘wall’ and ‘key.’

“The ash and salt are only required for larger or more static transportation circles,” Eunomie said, and the glow of her horn faded slightly. “This one will continue to function for several hours. Feel free to study it. As you can see, it is not very complex; however you will need a contract with myself or my father to actually cast it yourself without my aid.”

Before Twilight could ask just why a contract was needed, rather than the essential intricacies of the spellwork itself, Eunomie asked, “May I ask what you wish to send back to father?”

“Oh! That!” Twilight trotted back to the bundle unwrapped on the table, also eager to see what her suitor’s step-daughter thought of her return gifts. She first floated over a small wooden case, opening it to reveal a quill pen with bright orange plumage, the color and intensity of living flame. Eunomie’s amber eyes widened a little as she realized just what she was looking at.

“Oh,” she replied, the first surprised sound Twilight had heard her make. “Is that…?”

“A phoenix feather quill,” Twilight answered with a happy grin, glad to have shocked the normally implacable and emotionless mare. “I don’t have anything like a first edition Starswirl treatise, but Princess Celestia gave me two of these when Philomena died and resurrected a few months ago. I read that the only time phoenix feathers don’t turn to ash is when they’re near death, so it’s pretty rare. Do you think Alpha Brass will like it?”

“I am confident he will,” Eunomie said, nodding. “This is a fine gift.”

Twilight was personally rather proud of her first choice of courting gift. It was hard thinking of things she would have on hoof that her would-be husband did not. The two Phoenix Quills in her possession were probably the most materially valuable items in her possession. It was the second gift, though, that she considered more personal and meaningful.

“I also copied some of my research on the magic of friendship,” Twilight explained, a sealed scroll of her own wrapped protectively in wax and parchment drifting behind her and then over to Eunomie. “I’ve learned so much since coming to Ponyville and… and I thought...” She blushed a bit. “Well, maybe it would help provide some insight into me as a pony and how I feel.”

Eunomie examined the sealed scroll for a moment, tilting her head to the side. “You as a pony? Yes. I can see how that would be an emotional investment. One material gift and one personal one. Very good.”

“When you put it like that it sounds really contrived and pre-planned,” Twilight complained, her maidenly blush quickly receding.

“But it is pre-planned. You planned it last night, did you not?” Eunomie asked, and shook her head. “We already have one dangerously impulsive member of our family, I do not think we need another. My father will understand and appreciate this, Twilight Sparkle. He is much better with feelings than I am.”

“I look forward to meeting him,” Twilight said, and Eunomie blinked in momentary surprise.

“I can teleport you to him if…”

“I want him to meet me here,” the librarian insisted. “I know a good place.”

“But – but…” For the first time Twilight saw the pale mare stammer. “But, he… here? In Ponyville? On the surface?”

“Is that a problem?” Twilight asked, taking note of how Eunomie had said ‘on the surface.’ What did that mean?

Eunomie reached up to her eye, her blind one, self-consciously. “Father will be reluctant to leave his home for Ponyville on such short notice. I was instructed to take you to him when you were ready…”

“Plans are good things to have,” Twilight agreed, floating over her response to Lord Alpha Brass. “But sometimes they have to change.”

Granny Smith ‘hmmed’ and hawed as she inspected the ripe fruit, rolling the apple in her open hoof, feeling and gaining and testing the weight, the glossy shine of the skin and peel, the healthy spring of the stem, and of course the blush red color. She sniffed it, gave it a tiny, tentative lick, and then went back to checking for sore spots. Hers was the eye of a wizened and time tested master – a true apple connoisseur.

Applejack just bit into hers and finished it in two bites.

“That’s pretty good,” she concluded, after exhaustive scientific-al study and analysis and all that bookish stuff. The taste buds told the truth. “Pretty darn good!”

“And shiny!” Apple Bloom reflected the rays of the just risen sun off the skin of her apple. Applejack frowned and stepped back to avoid her little sister’s attempt to get the light into her face. That was unnaturally shiny!

She turned to her older brother. “What do you think, Big Mac?”

Big Macintosh was a stallion of few words, especially when his mouth was full. He chewed his bite of apple slowly and methodically. Applejack watched his jaw move, chewing… and chewing… and chewing…

And chewing.

“Just swallow it already!” Applejack growled, not one for waiting. Not when it came to this.

Big Mac chewed one or two more times and then gulped, licking his lips.

“Well?” His sister prompted. “Was it good? Did it pass muster?”

“…eyup.”

“So far, so good!” She exclaimed, patting the big workhorse on the back. “Now we just need Granny Smith’s stamp of approval.”

“Eyup.”

The eldest of the Apple Family still seemed to be inspecting her apple, and the remaining basket full besides. It was lying next to the tree that had born and delivered the fruit for them: Maggie. Poor Maggie. She hadn’t handled the frost too well a few years back and her harvests had diminished year after year in both quantity and quality. Applejack had picked Maggie to be the tree Lady Yumi proved her magic on, and the Earth Pony Princess hadn’t disappointed. In the span of an hour, Maggie had sprouted new foliage, a fresh and healthy green against the sea of fading orange and tan. Her apples had morphed right before Applejack’s eyes, too, growing fuller and richer than she could recall Maggie ever producing.

Lady Yumi, her job done for the moment, did not partake of the apples herself, though she had permitted her retainers to try some. Instead, the aloof foreign mare had sat down on a clean white cushion, itself on top of a mat rolled out over the grass. One of her silent unicorn servants was floating a brush down her back and combing out her pitch black, straight mane. Nopony could say she had a very warm or outgoing personality, in Applejack’s opinion, but when she said she could do something… she sure as heck did it!

“Crush up a quarter barrel of cider,” Applejack told her brother, once he had finally finished his apple. “Let’s see how the end product turns out.”

Rather than another ‘eyup,’ Big Macintosh nodded slowly and picked up the basket of apples from next to the STILL ‘hmm-ing’ and hawing Granny Smith. It took her a few seconds to realize her oversized grandson had come and gone, only noticing when she reached for another apple to inspect and finding them all gone. She called out to Big Mac and with surprising vigor headed over to the press to make sure the cider turned out to Apple Family Standards.

Applejack kept an eye on that, but she also trotted up to the tree to run a hoof along Maggie’s bark. It was rough and thick to the touch, and snapping off a tiny chuck had taken some work. Despite her injuries, Applejack herself had bucked the applies from Maggie after Yumi used her magic on the old cultivar and it had been like taking the apples from a young, vigorous tree mid-season. She’d actually needed to kick twice to get them all!

“Amazing,” she muttered, turning away from the tree.

Still, she was a little wary. It was probably smart to test this on one tree first before she had Yumi go over half the farm. Yumi’s retainers were also milling around: the pegasus, Cool Breeze, was standing protectively near the dark-maned heiress, the unicorn, Evening Squall, was sitting opposite the other unicorn servant brushing Yumi’s mane. White Dew, the other earth pony besides old Antlers, was watching the Apple Press in action. Applejack had learned that his family had been farmers, generations ago, before they swore service to the Neighponese royal family. He found the whole apple-farming thing fascinating.

As for Late Rains, or Antlers, he seemed to be fielding a few questions from Apple Bloom. Watching him, it was sort of hard to recall how he had stood in that spot behind Sugarcube Corner, shrugging off everything Applejack had thrown at him. Even if she had earned the unwanted nickname ‘she who moved a mountain,’ Applejack could hardly believe what Shigure could do. Now, she had to add Yumi to that too. Theirs was earth pony magic, but taken to an extreme she hadn’t imagined before.

“Mind if I jump in?” Applejack asked, approaching her little sister and the older earth pony – ‘my father’s age,’ she thought for a moment.

“Hey! Applejack!” Apple Bloom stood on her hind legs and pressed her forehooves into Shigure’s upper leg, pointing at the white capped mountain that was his cutie mark. A three chain link stretched behind and through the triangular peak. “Mister Shigure here got his cutie mark by being a cutie mark crusader, just like me and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo!”

“Really?” she asked, smiling.

“Yep!” Apple Bloom spun around, looking at her flank and probably imaging the same cutie mark on her rear. “And if he got it from Miss Yumi’s dad, then Ah bet ah could get it from him, too! All ah gotta do is sit under a waterfall fer a few days and maybe smash mahself with some boulders… and…!”

“Let us not go overboard,” Shigure suggested, patting the filly on the head with a fatherly smile. “Remember, this cutie mark is meaningless without something to protect. Do you really want to spend your life doing that? To get this cutie mark, you must accept and understand that ‘life is a mountain.’”

“How is life a mountain?” Apple Bloom grumbled, pouting. “Ah don’t get that part.”

“I didn’t either, at first.” Shigure turned to Applejack. “Was there something on your mind, Miss Applejack?”

“Actually, yeah.” Applejack sucked in a deep breath of the morning air. It almost made her forget the aches and pains she still had from their sort-of duel. “Ah don’t mean no offense with this, but… well, I kinda trust you more than I do Lady Yumi…”

“No offense is taken,” Shigure replied at her lengthy pause. “Lady Yumi’s first impression on you was not her best, and you have not known her long.”

“Ah haven’t known you that long either, sugarcube.” Applejack grinned a little, glad that he wasn’t so easily offended. “Ah just need ‘ta hear it from you: what Yumi’s doin’ here… it’s on the up and up, ain’t it? I mean, it looks good, and the apples off Maggie came out… great… but…”

“It seems too good to be true?” Shigure guessed, Apple Bloom still looking up at him and then at her sister. “I can assure you: the cost of this magic is born entirely by Lady Yumi. It is the burden, responsibility and honor of the Neighponese royal family to bring prosperity to the land and to give of themselves for the good of all.”

“She bears the burden…?” Applejack asked, looking off to the side at the uppity noblemare on her pillows. She reminded the apple farmer a little of the hoity-toity Oranges in Manehattan: privileged and pampered and so emotionally and physically removed from the earth and dirt that was an earth pony’s calling.

“Apple Bloom,” Shigure said, and it was a bit of a surprise to hear him address the little sister instead of the older. “Would you like to hear another cutie mark story?”

“Sure!” Apple Bloom agreed. “That last one already gave me plenty’a great ideas ‘ta try out!”

“Yes, just be mindful not injure yourself,” the old stallion cautioned. “Now, around ten years ago, there was a small crisis in Neighpon. One of our most important crops is the sugar beet. We process it to make much of the sugar Equestria enjoys, and the trade earns Neighpon many hundreds of thousands of bits. Well… one day, a friend of the royal family came to the citadel and requested an audience. I was already a Mountain, then, and listened in as Lord Yama’s retainer.”

“The petitioner was a very wealthy tradespony and her beet crop was in dire straits because of a withering sickness. She had tried other remedies, but all had failed, so she called on her lords for help. Lord Yama deigned to answer her plea. While Lady Kai reigned in the capitol, he and his young daughter Yumi left to use their family magic to heal and recover the sugar beet crop.”

“So Miss Yumi got her cutie mark for healin’ up some sugar beets?” Apple Bloom asked, jumping the gun but making a pretty accurate guess, in Applejack’s opinion. This was a cutie mark story, as Shigure had said, and the only one who would be needing a cutie mark a decade ago was Yumi.

“Now, let me finish,” Shigure asked, chuckling good naturedly. “Normally, I was retainer to my sensei and master, Lord Yama, but since his daughter was to leave the walls of the citadel, he put me in charge of her safety. Lord Yama himself went to handle the bulk of the crop, and Yumi was sent to handle three small villages. All had large beet plantations owned by Lady Sweet and Lord Sour. A week passed, and Lady Yumi did as she was asked, using her magic on the two outlying towns and saving the beet crop.”

“I saw that Lady Yumi, even as a young age… at your age, even,” he said to Apple Bloom. “Had great talent in her family’s secret art. However,” he added, growing a little more solemn. “At the third village, in addition to the sugar beet failure, the rice crop had also turned bad. It was believed to be something in the water… acidic fumes from below the earth…? I am not entirely sure, myself. Worse still, an infestation of pests had invaded, devouring what was left. Rice and oats and even imported corn, all were in very bad condition.”

“Lady Yumi saw this as we traveled the countryside in her norimono… what you would call a ‘sedan chair,’ I believe. She saw the suffering of the smallfolk and, on receiving lodging at the third plantation, asked for my advice. Her father had entrusted her to see to the sugar beet crop, but I could tell she was torn between doing her duty and averting the suffering before her eyes. I did my duty, and reminded her of hers.”

Shigure’s smile widened and he chuckled at himself and the him he had been, then.

“She did not listen to me,” he explained. “She went out to the small fields owned by little ponies – plots a tenth of what you have here in Sweet Apple Acres, Miss Applejack – but there were hundreds across the mountainsides, built on half flooded terraces. For five days, Lady Yumi used her magic, sleeping only a few hours every night in her norimono.”

“I saw with my own eyes… imagine it, if you will: the leaves of plants curled and crushed caterpillars, and roots choked and mangled beetles… the pests that infested the fields themselves became fertilizer for the crops there…”

Applejack recalled the grass, bowing and angling towards Yumi on her hill. Yes: she could imagine it.

“The soil itself glowed with her magic,” Shigure continued. “And by the end of the fifth day, the mountain was green and rich, the crops alive and plentiful.”

“One crop of sugar beets failed that year,” he said, shrugging. “Lady Yumi swore to repay it for her failure, and she did in time. But to this day, the smallfolk of that mountain pray for her and honor what she did for them, putting their needs before that of their wealthy lord and lady. It was also on that fifth night, as Lady Yumi lay exhausted in her litter, that I noticed she had earned her cutie mark. It was a blade, an arrowhead, wreathed by three leaves.”

“It became her banner,” he concluded, swelling in pride. “And I swore to serve it as long as I lived. That same village… before we left, the daughter of a local dam came and pleaded for us to take her with us. Her father had served Lord Yama, she said. That little filly was Suzukaze, and she had watched Lady Yumi from up in the clouds. She had also sworn to serve, though as you can see, she still has the zealousness of youth to overcome.”

“She did all that?” Applejack asked, still finding it hard to reconcile the Yumi in the story from the stuffy mare on the blanket and pillows.

“Lady Yumi is still young… and with that youth comes pride, a hot temper and ambition, but her heart is in the right place and she is gifted. She will grow up into a great Lady Lord,” Shigure assured the apple sisters, and Applejack could sense the conviction in his voice. “I know she will.”

“So Miss Yumi got her cutie mark by workin’ real hard,” Apple Bloom concluded, hoof to her lips in thought. “Hmm. And by makin’ plants crush bugs and stuff. We haven’t tried getting cutie mark crusader exterminator cutie marks yet… ah wonder where ah could get some industrial strength pesticide… maybe some’a them killer plants from Everfree…?”

“Don’t even think about it,” Applejack warned, leaning down and surprising her little sister. Apple Bloom jumped back with a squeak.

“Ya gotta know that Blueblood ain’t gonna change his mind,” Applejack said to Shigure, and she had said as much to Yumi, too, the night before. “That’s the truth. No point otherwise. He’s in love with Rarity, and you can’t reason with a pony in love.”

“I know this,” Shigure replied, nodding slowly. “Nonetheless, Lady Yumi is convinced she must try. It is her dream to be the first earth pony to wear the Crown of Canterlot – to prove that earth ponies can rule as well as unicorns and alicorns. I had thought that dream crushed when Lady Antimony visited our realm and talked Lady Yumi into a duel. Now, I almost wish it had stayed that way… but…”

He shook his head, dispelling his doubts.

“I have faith in Lady Yumi, and I will protect her. That is all.” He turned to Applejack. “What faith you have in me, have in her as well.”

“Cider’s ready!” Granny Smith called. Over near the Apple Press, Big Mac was stepping down from the driving belt and squeezing out a mug of cider from a tap. He passed it on to Granny Smith first, and then poured for himself and the others. Applejack, Shigure and the still plotting Apple Bloom headed over, but Applejack could tell just by the look on granny Smith’s face when she took that first sip…

It was good.

They had a product.

“We’ll give out free samples,” Applejack said, already thinking up plots of her own, all of them ending with her driving the Flim Flam brothers out of town by the time the Art Festival came around. The two idiots had spurned her offer to work together; that only left them as competition. Hostile competition. Again and again, she had tried to play nice. Now?

“We’ll crush them.”

“I hate to have to ask you this a third time,” Blueblood said, his features shaded by the awning of a parasol. “When the Emir gets here, you remember the order you have to greet his party in?”

“Of course I do. And this is the fourth time you’ve asked me,” Rarity replied, a little cross with the Prince. “First his wife, Gentle Stream: pink, blue mane. Then the Emir himself, then for some reason I must greet his mother, the Padishah – even though she is not here – and then his second wife, Soft Melody: white coat, blue mane, and then his first concubine, Swift Stroke: white, purple mane, and armor. Blueblood, how many mares does this stallion have and how many are we housing? And why do they all have blue manes?”

“My dear friend the Emir only has three wives,” he replied, chuckling a little under his breath, “Though he beds all his concubines, who make up his personal guard. There will only be two wives and four concubines. We’ll still have plenty of room for our other guests.”

“And the blue manes…?”

“A fetish, I believe,” Blueblood responded, winking at her. “I prefer purples, myself.”

Rarity blushed and huffed dismissively at his lecherous smile and bright eyes. “A fetish, is it?”

“The last time Golden Star visited he…” Blueblood, for once, wisely knew when to shut up. “Suffice to say, it is a fetish. Are these the first Marabians you’ve met?”

“Face to face, yes,” Rarity admitted, feeling a little uncomfortable with a silk and cloth-of-gold cap between her usual curled mane and her scalp. It was apparently considered uncouth for a pony’s bare mane to be revealed in Marabian culture.

“Ah, and here they are!” Blueblood announced, puffing up a bit.

Their guests arrived in a painted wooden wagon, trailing white and ocean blue silks. A hundred tiny strips of cloth dangled from the seams, each with a pearl at the end that caught the light. It was a magnificent carriage, not just in appearance, but in size. Marabians were larger and taller than all but the largest ponies and, among alicorns, only Celestia herself stood taller.

There were no Equestrians among the procession. Bronze and iron scales polished to a high sheen reflected off the backs of tall, proud mares – Antimony’s bodyguard, Gewitter, came to Rarity’s mind for a size comparison, but these mares were slimmer and taller with long, graceful necks. Laced breeches and shoes covered their legs and hooves as they trotted forward, and thin spear-like lances stuck out from beneath the barding that draped over their sides, resplendent in exotic hues of purple and blue, gold and milky white.

Three ponies – not that Marabians considered themselves ponies – eventually emerged from their silken wagon. The first was a pink mare, with a long, wavy blue mane. Rather than a dress, she wore a heavily accented and delicately constructed mesh of cloth from around the base of her tail, to under her gem encrusted violet barding, to around her chest and collar. Amethysts set in sequins and dangled from tassels around her neck and in front of her eyes like a veil, and behind them, greenish sea-blue eyes blinked against the sun. Like all Marabians, she wore a cavesson noseband, though the four escorts outside the carriage wore full bit-less bridles.

She was followed by the first and only stallion of the group: a slightly taller pony, cream brown in color with a neatly trimmed golden mane. His barding was blue and gold, less intricate, and studded by a jeweled star and crescent. Behind him came another mare, with a white coat and rose and crimson schemed clothing. Embroidered breeches covered her front legs halfway to the torso, glittering with pearls.

Rarity quickly overcame her initial surprise and cantered forward with practiced grace to make introductions. First, the First Wife: Gentle Stream. Then, the husband, the Emir Golden Star. Then, she bowed to the empty space to the left of the Emir, imaging the illustrious Padishah was in said place. Finally, she welcomed the Second Wife, standing behind and to the right of the first: Soft Melody. Finally, she greeted the First Concubine, Swift Stroke – a tall and fierce looking mare with a dark coat and cold, blood-red eyes.

She felt… unusually small and vulnerable around them.

Marabians were not true ponies, like unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies. They were like zebras, and the disconnect within that similarity created an unintentional sense of unease. Blueblood had warned her it would take a little time to get used to them. Their faces – their snouts – were just so exaggerated, and they were so uncannily tall! They were like alicorns… but like earth ponies, too. It was all very strange, and Rarity silently longed for more familiar faces.

Blueblood’s Manor was becoming so full of strangers…

“All for my Art Festival,” she reminded herself, as Blueblood chatted easily with the Emir. It was so odd seeing a pony larger than Equestria’s Prince. Blueblood himself was very nearly at the limit of how large most ponies got, and Golden Star towered over him easily on those long, thin looking legs.

Rarity spent the next few hours checking in with Photo Finish and Sapphire Shores – both mares were beginning to frustrate the household staff with peculiar demands like bouquets of orange blossoms to eat, even though the season was months over, and nitpicky complaints about seating arrangements during meals. Then she had to attend to real business, like finalizing where all the displays were to be in the three sections of the festival and seeing the pavilions raised…

And still, through it all, she couldn’t stop thinking about the argument she had with Applejack.

‘I should have been less unkind,’ Rarity thought to herself as she descended a long, broad curving stair. ‘Fluttershy would have been firm, but kind. I should apologize and just get it over with.’

But, really, what did she even have to apologize for?

Sweet Apple Acres wasn’t just important to the Apple family, it was important to all of Ponyville, and Ponyville was her domain now. It was her responsibility. Princess Celestia herself had recognized her as Baroness of Ponyville, the very same position Applejack’s great grandparents had eschewed so long ago. She had made vows before the Stable of Lords; before both Princesses! Why should she have to apologize for doing what a Baroness should do: protecting the interests of her town and her ponies and her friends?

‘Then why do I keep thinking of it? Why does it keep bothering me?’

She had reached the bottom of the stairs, paused in thought, when one of the household staff approached her. “Lady Rarity?”

“Yes?” she asked, snapping out of her thoughts.

“The front gate has announced the arrival of more guests.” It was the castellan, a dour, bristly moustached gentlepony with a Canterlot bearing. Bushy white eyebrows framed the base of his horn. Rarity hated that the announcement of more guests only lowered her spirits where she had hoped they would be raised, just days earlier.

“Who is it? The Riches?”

“Lady Fleur-de-lis and Master Fancy Pants, Madame.”

Rarity was secretly dreading having to force Sweetie Belle to attend to Diamond Tiara, when the promised Canterlot shopping spree and play date came around. Yet, promises had been made to the Rich family, and they were bankrolling many of her projects in Ponyville. It was a commitment. One made more dire because of all she had needed to do to save Sweet Apple Acres. If only Applejack had – if only she could – understand that.

“Fleur and Fancy…” Rarity said, and smiled a little. “I will meet them out front.”

She cantered towards the front door even before she heard a response. It would be good to have somepony to talk to, and it would be a relief to see Fleur and Fancy Pants again. She normally had no problems talking to Blueblood of her problems, but this… this was Barony business that she should be able to handle. She could not allow herself to rely so much on her Prince, and she did not want him to think less of her for her difficulties.

Opening the door, she only needed to wait a few seconds for a stylish open-air carriage to come up the road and park before the statue of Pegasus Victory out front. Fancy Pants emerged, wearing a vest suit and bow-tie, and Fleur – being Fleur – proudly wore nothing. Her amazing alicorn-like figure was all she needed.

“Fleur!” Rarity greeted the other mare, taking her hooves in her own. “Fancy Pants. I am so glad to see you again! You can’t imagine!”

Fleur pulled her into a quick hug. “It’s wonderful to see you, too!”

“Indeed, a pleasure as always,” Fancy said, kissing her hoof. He adjusted his monocle, and noticed something about her. “Is there some distress?”

Rarity smiled, relieved, but a little sad it was so obvious.

“A little,” she admitted. “Come inside, please.”

“Are you asking me out on a date?” Pokey finished levitating a box of Nightmare Night costumes out of storage, setting it down on the carpeted floor. He owned and operated a number of party supply stores in the greater Canterlot area, but the Ponyville one was his favorite… for several reasons.

“Yep!” Pinkie said, but was immediately distracted by the box full of masks. “OH! Look at all these! Do you have a beak in here? I was thinking about being a chicken this year, or if not a chicken, then maybe a chicken disguised as a pony! But nopony can tell that I’m a chicken disguised as a pony, except maybe one pony nopony will believe, so I’d actually need a chicken costume and then over that a pony costume! Oh! Or a Fluttershy suit! Do you have a Fluttershy suit? Tell me you have a Fluttershy suit!”

“A Flutter – wait, a, what?” Pokey sighed at the sight of Pinkie half buried in the box, rummaging around like a dog digging for a bone.

“Hm. Oh! Rarity suit. A whole bunch of Rainbow Dash costumes?” Pinkie briefly stuck her head up out of the box. “That’s weird!” Then back down again. “Where’s the Fluttershy suit?”

“We don’t have one of those,” Pokey said, and used a little magic to yoink the hyperactive pink pony out of his party supplies. “We do have a chicken costume, but… a chicken disguised as a pony? Where do you get these ideas?”

“Just here and there,” Pinkie replied, hanging upside down thanks to Pokey’s magic. She snapped her hooves - a gesture he had never seemed to figure out how she managed. Hooves didn’t normally make snapping noises.

“So, what-do-ya-say?” she asked again. “Wanna go to a super fun party with your favorite pony?”

Pokey only really needed to think about it for a second. “Sure. But is this an actual date or just… I need somepony to help me carry things and I’ll call it a date-date?”

“Totally a date-date! I think. Which one was which again?” With a little twirl, she slipped out of his magical grip and rushed up to envelop him in a bone-crushing hug. “Thanks Pokey! You’ll have a great time, I promise!”

“I usually do, even when I’m just being a workhorse.” The unicorn stallion chuckled, not really minding the overly enthusiastic crushing Pinkie was giving him with all four of her limbs. “So,” he asked, “What’s this next party of yours for? You haven’t stopped by here to buy any new supplies…”

“Oh, I’m not hosting this party,” Pinkie said, releasing him but still filling his vision with bubbly pink smiles and bright blue eyes. “My new friend is! And she’s hosting it for me!”

“A new friend?” he asked, mentally going over who could possibly-

“Her name’s Euporie, and she’s from out of town!” Pinkie explained and started tearing into the box again. Somehow, every article of costume she threw behind her stacked into neat piles. A few even ended up hanging on hooks, somehow. How she did things like that without magic… well, Pokey had basically given up on trying understanding it. He wasn’t even sure if she was sorting all the items perfectly on purpose or not.

“Euporie?” That was an odd name. Most ponies had compound names.

Unless…

“Mosaic,” he said, one instance of the name coming to mind. But that was impossible. “You aren’t talking about Euporie Mosaic, are you?”

“Mosaic?” Pinkie asked, standing up in the box, a chicken beak hanging from a thread over one ear. “Oh! Yeah! That’s her! You know her?”

He was a Canterlot socialite as much as a Ponyville entrepreneur. Yes, he had heard of her. But – but Euporie was here? In Ponyville?!

“Euporie is…” he hesitated a few seconds, and Pinkie sensed that something was wrong.

“What?” she asked, ear flicking at the chicken horn hanging from it. “What’s wrong, Pokey?”

“Euporie is, well,” he struggled with just how to say it. “I’ve heard stories about her kind of parties in Canterlot. Ponies who go there eat and drink and…”

“And?” she led on, big blue eyes blinking in innocent curiosity. “Eating and drinking is fun! What else?”

“And…” Pokey had to sigh and just force it out. “And they have sex, Pinkie.”

“Sex,” Pinkie Pie repeated, her lips pursing together. “Ponies have sex at Euporie’s parties?”

“Uh, yes, supposedly,” Pokey said, a little flustered. Not that he and Pinkie hadn’t… from time to time… but they usually didn’t talk about this sort of thing. Fun was just fun, and ponies you liked were ponies you liked. They were good friends, that was the point, so there was no problem. He thought. Then again, at that moment, Pokey Pierce wasn’t sure what he thought.

Pinkie blinked again and finally asked:

“Do you want to have sex at Euporie’s party?”

“GAH!” Pokey gasped, hiding his blush with a raised foreleg.

“Do you?” Pinkie asked again, lowering his leg with a pink hoof. “I wouldn’t want you to go and be uncomfortable. That’s not fun.”

“I don’t have… a problem with it, I guess? I’ve never been to that kind of party,” he admitted, now a little ashamed that he seemed more flustered by it than Pinkie was. “Do you have a problem with it?”

“It does seem sort of strange,” she said, ear flicking on and off. The chicken beak part of the costume she had been looking for was still hanging there. Distracting. “Usually, if you’re going to have that kind of fun with somepony, you do it after the party. Not during the party.”

“OHHHH!” Pinkie Pie suddenly cooed, her eyes wide with excitement and realization. “That’s why she wanted me to bring a cute date! And why she only wanted pretty ponies to come!”

Seemingly lost in her own little world, Pinkie nodded to herself, eyes squinting as she pondered.

“I’m still not sure I get it,” she decided after a few long seconds, during which Pokey wasn’t really sure what to say. “But if everypony’s having fun and no pony’s feelings are hurt, I guess I don’t see any problem with it… everypony is bringing ponies they care about and like after all, and if they want to do that there, then I guess that’s their business, isn’t it?”

Pokey opened his mouth to ask-

“As long as they stay out of the cake!” Pinkie decided, slamming her hooves together. “No super special fun time in the cake!”

“Ah…”

“No making woopie in the cake either.”

“I…”

“No bedroom ball dancing in the cake.”

“Yes, b-”

“No tying each other up and playing wrestle the cowpony in the cake.”

“…”

“The cake is a sacred trust,” Pinkie concluded, and tilted her head in wonder. “Wait, are we having cake? There has to be cake!”

“...I-”

“I’ll bring cake,” Pinkie finished.

“Well, with that-”

“As long as no pony has sex in it.”

“…”

Pokey waited… and waited. Pinkie remained where she was, staring at him, her ear occasionally twitching. Not saying a word, he reached out and plucked the costume beak off her ear. Naturally, she saw it and gasped loudly in surprise.

“Hey! You found it!” Pinkie cheered, crushing him with another full body hug. He was on the verge of sighing when the pink pony whispered something into his ear. A certain something that caused his horn to light up a bit.

“In the cake… really?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Pinkie hugged him even harder, somehow eliciting a toy-like squeak. “Oh! I can’t wait for the party now! We’re gonna have tons of fun!”

“Our good Princess fails to find the banquet to her liking and now raids the pantry?”

Cadance demurely hid her face behind a napkin, her appetite seemingly lost. Hiding half in the darkness of a fading oil lamp light, draped in the concealing safety and anonymity of the scullery shadows, the pink alicorn stiffened as she turned towards the voice. A voice that had been but a whisper in the darkness. The sweet and loving couple she had followed – a pair of female servants seeking refuge in the scullery - did not seem disturbed, if they had heard it at all. They continued their secret lovemaking.

The Princess’s amethyst eyes flashed green as they narrowed, annoyed but not concerned that her privacy had been lost or that her voyeurism had been revealed. She quickly gleaned the identity of the offender: her erstwhile partner and ally. The lean and hungry looking stallion stalked through the half-light more like an inquisitive jungle cat than a pony. His golden coat and mane slipped all too easily into the shadows for how bright it had appeared in the lights of the ballroom, or even the dimming fires of a bedroom.

“Brass,” she whispered, not bothering with his full name in private.

“Or perhaps our young Princess seeks to whet another appetite?” The Marquis smiled but didn't laugh. He craned his neck to show her that he caught sight of the couple in the pantry. “Ah. Our Lady has fine taste. They are a pretty pair.”

“Their affection for one another,” Cadance whispered in reply. “It is fresh, young, and sweet, with hints of fear and confusion. It has a delicious texture.”

“I prefer wine, myself.”

“One of them would be a wonderful candidate for replacement, should the relationship deepen…”

“My servants are not yours to prey upon, ‘Princess.’” Alpha Brass was not a large stallion, nor was Princess Cadance’s form that of a small mare, yet he succeeded in cornering her in her hidden oriel of shadows, his body blocking her means of exit.

“No, not your servants,” Cadance replied, lips parting in a sensual smile. “Only your guests.”

“I am a protective and jealous creature,” he told her, their chests inches apart. “As you know.”

The breath of the two mingled for a moment, but ultimately, Cadance drew away. Alpha Brass had no taste to him, not when her palate had been teased by the potent cocktail of love and life. As useful as he was, as useful as he had been, he was not food. He was loved, but gave no love in return. It had been impossible to coax it out of him, not since Olive Branch had ‘died,’ and even then, it had been a dry, bitter, dutiful love of family and country. Cadance did not miss that bitter milk; it still left a foul taste in her mouth. There was so much richer and more wonderful emotions to experience in the world…

Equestria was a banquet, and soon, she and all her brood would feast.

“You always flee from the parties to feed,” Alpha Brass observed, whispering into her ear.

“I prefer these sorts of tastes now,” she explained, watching the pair of mares in love. “Call it… quality… over quantity. Even with that vile step-daughter of yours gone, simple flavors like lust and friendship bore me.”

“Euporie will be so sad to hear it.”

The ravenous Princess’s eyes disappeared before the napkin that inched a little higher over her face. Feeling this much affection, feeding on it, always tested her control over her shape. Had she stolen the form of one of the mares, she doubted she would have been able to maintain her normal level of control. Luckily, like all changelings, she had the ability to influence the minds of those whose partners she replaced.

It really did make feeding on their love so much easier, like a mosquito drawing a painless bite to suck blood, or a leech numbing the pain of a bloody incision. Evolution was just such a wonderful thing. What poor creature had to feed on an unwilling host? Cadance had always imagined it to be an unduly terrifying experience for the predator in question. Prey should be willing and compliant before their predator, giving of themselves to sate the desires and hungers of their betters.

“Be quick with your meal, Princess,” Alpha Brass teased her ear, and then backed off, slowly. “Gluttony is unbecoming of a Queen and there is much to do.”

He vanished back into the shadows as easily as she herself could.

Cadance let him go without a word, taking her fill from the two ponies in the scullery. Siphoning off affection was less satisfying than receiving it directly, unfortunately, and the supposed Princess knew that her hunger would quickly return in a few hours. She longed for Shining Armor: his touch, his mouth, his words and his bottomless well of love for her. For the ‘her’ he imagined her to be, anyway.

Secretly, she laughed.

Shining Armor’s love… it was perfection. It was all she ever needed! The flavor of it was rich and thick and sophisticated with notes of jealousy and protectiveness, the sharp tang of long repressed desire, and soothing notes of relief and joy. She could drink it in night after night, reveling in how it brought her personal power to new heights. No other Chrysalis could have imagined just what could be gleaned from these seemingly insignificant ponies.

She had devoured her forebear, of course, but had she been alive, Chrysalis would have laughed to her face. A great many races had been seen fit to feed the Hive, from lowly Diamond Dogs baying for lost loved ones in the echoing, fiery depths of the earth, to young dragons who roared for their mates and set the sky ablaze in their passion. Changelings, as the other races called them, had followed starving tribes of camels across endless desert dunes, naked under the merciless heat of the sun; they had infiltrated ancient cities lost to jungle, dwelling in canopy and shadow and the recesses of the world.

From sewers and crypts to palaces and temples, they had fed.

Yet, before her, none had found the land of ponies, this “Equestria.” It was rich and untapped: a bountiful harvest, waiting for the reaping. Since her ascension, her Hive had grown without check, without predators of their own, their numbers swelling. Cadance… Chrysalis… herself had held off the growth for a time, knowing that secrecy was their ally, refusing to lay more eggs, but even she could not hold back the swarm. If she did not soon lay, as all Queens must, then another of her offspring would turn, as she had once turned, and try and supplant her. Who knew what chaos that would cause?

Disappearing into the darkness, letting it consume her, Chrysalis left the scullery and kitchens behind, escaping the notice of the sleepy and distracted staff. The air was thick with the smells of baking foodstuffs: pastries, pies, meals for dozens of their kind throughout the Gardens, but none of that interested the faux Princess. Only the ones preparing the meals. They were all just food to her, and she could feel the warm ambiance of their friendship and kinship towards one another.

Equestria… Canterlot…

Soon, it would be her banquet. She would feast and lay and the Hive would grow and be content. For a time, anyway. The other great cities and realms of Equestria would follow in the years to come. Then all the world would be painted black with her Hive. They would hunt down their own predators in numbers never before seen, and all the world would become her larder; all the creatures under the sun and moon her nourishment.

“Gluttony? Unbecoming of a Queen?” Chrysalis laughed under her breath, passing by two of Brass’s stoic guardmares. “We shall see.”

“…your faith in me is not misplaced, your Lordship,” the tail-end of the conversation came from a barrel-chested, balding unicorn stallion, standing to the side of a desk with Alpha Brass and shaking hooves with the smaller, younger pony. The two stallions had smoking cigars in their mouths from a box of the vile things on the Lord’s desk. To her distaste, Chrysalis, as Cadance, recognized the stink: imported Mareabian tobacco.

Why ponies indulged in such things, she couldn’t imagine.

“Cadance!” Alpha Brass called out, waving her over. “I was just concluding some business with my good friend, Broad Way, the future Mayor of Manehattan.”

“Charmed, my Lady,” the bull-like unicorn said as she drew closer, taking one of her hooves in his own to kiss it.

“The pleasure is mine, I assure you,” she lied.

The three made some small talk, the business of things already concluded earlier, chatting about the ornate fireplace and some varied trophies Alpha Brass kept about his study. Cadance had seen it all before. She had virtually grown up around such. To her, the beautiful white marble looked poisoned by veins of blue, the roaring fire smelt of dying shadows and places to hide, and the delicate pillars that rose from floor to ceiling were like thin bones stripped of flesh.

She imagined it all covered in a thick coat of green slime and wax, and smiled.

That time would come. Sooner than any thought.

“The Mayor of Manehattan?” she remarked, after the pony had left Brass’s study. “We should replace him when he is elected. Or even before, to be sure nopony notices.”

“There is no need,” Alpha Brass assured her, trotting over to the fire to stoke it with a poker.

“No?”

“Even ponies lacking ambition will strive to do much for their children,” Brass explained, staring into the rippling flames of the hearth. “Between gold for his election campaign, and the possibility of a noble life for his daughter, a pony like our friend Broad Way can be very tempted… and attached, to certain powerful new allies. Unlike my father, I care nothing for high birth or the proper social strata. It is a trifling thing to me, to raise a lowborn pony up to high station.”

“Is that what you promised him?” Cadance scoffed at the obsession ponies had with material things. “Gold? Titles?”

Trinkets and words. Worthless baubles.

“Opportunities,” Brass corrected her. “I only gave him opportunities.” He floated the iron poker over to a rack by the side of the marble fireplace. “Have your changelings finished putting on their new clothes?”

“They are in place,” Cadance assured him. “I have also set one to work on my new Bridesmaid.”

Alpha Brass paced around his desk and past her left side.

“Is something the matter?” she asked, sensing his ire. “Some trouble?”

“You could call it that,” he replied, and with his magic, he retrieved a small brown package. It had already been opened once, and plucking it out of the air with her own magic mimicry, ‘Cadance’ saw for herself what was inside. Her eyes widened and, for a moment, they reverted into narrow slits.

Before her, she held the edge of a wing.

Not a pony’s wing, but a thin, delicate diaphanous wing. Like her own.

“Who?” she asked, only that one word. Disturbed, she folded the wing back up and returned it to the package. Without a doubt, it had belonged to one of her kind, perhaps even one of her children. The smell was gone, so it was impossible to tell for sure.

Brass poured himself a drink of softly glowing ambrosia, quick to dispose of the half spent butt of his cigar. His lengthy pause began to test Cadance’s patience. Swirling his drink, he took a tentative drink, but still didn’t answer her question.

“Who. Was. It?” she repeated.

“My little sister, Antimony,” Brass finally replied, glancing back at her over his shoulder with one eye. “It seems she has learned some … unfortunate things. I had wondered about the rumors of her mobilizing her guard.”

“Impossible!” Cadance snarled, hurling the package across the room to skid into a corner. “How could she have found out? How could she even find…?”

“Finding one or two of your children isn’t as difficult as you imagine it to be,” he interrupted, slowly walking back to his desk. “The Princesses still don’t know, so whatever my sweet little sister discovered, she only wants me to know that she knows. You understand what this means?”

“Yesss.” Chrysalis let some of her true self slip through her façade. “She has to die.”

“She always did,” Brass commented, neither excited nor disturbed by the prospect. “She would never just sit idly by while some calamity befell her birthright of Canterlot and her idols the Princesses. I must have the armies of the Terre Rare before she does.”

“Send me to her.” Cadance’s mask returned, but it was streaked by cruelty and thirst for blood. “I will kill her myself.”

Alpha Brass sighed, as if he had long since dismissed the idea.

“Antimony may treat other ponies with some honor, but if you come to duel her… Changeling Queen… she will laugh at you and call up her guard in their hundreds. And,” he concluded, chuckling dryly. “Before the night is out, she will have you stewed in a pot and hung in a cage for peasants to throw rotten apples at. She will hammer chains into those holes in your legs, and then, when you have suffered enough, she will present your preserved head to Princess Celestia in a silver box, stuffed with flowers.”

Cadance hissed, a ripple of energy running through her alicorn disguise, momentarily revealing the black chitin and punctured carapace beneath. Shining Armor’s love had given her great power… power above and beyond that of a mere unicorn… but a thousand ants could still kill a spider. Especially one that left the safety of her web.

“It would be inconvenient for me to have to deal with another would-be Queen Chrysalis,” Brass continued, only momentarily amused by her rage. “So, no, I’d prefer you remain here, or close to here. I already have a counter to Antimony and all other threats in the works and things are not as dire as they seem.”

“How can things not be as bad as they seem?” she asked, still stewing in anger. “One of my children is dead! Revealed!”

“Revealed, but with no real proof,” he assured her. “Recall the eight changelings we sent to my sister’s realm?”

‘Yes, eight… that you know of,’ Chrysalis thought, but nodded. “Yes. I remember that you put some sorcery on them.”

“A failsafe, in case my sister were to catch one with her eyes,” Alpha Brass explained, and motioned back to the case with the wing in it. It was still on the floor where she had thrown it, and he used a spark of magic to float it back to him. “The spell I had cast on those changelings was to burn them should they be revealed. The end of this wing is singed. I’d say it was ripped off just as the magic consumed the owner.”

The thought of one of her precious children in flames made Chrysalis want to scream, but she choked down her rage and disgust. It was foolish and naive. Of course, some of her children would perish, bringing about their new utopia of flesh and sensation. More would perish when they reclaimed their original homeland beyond the mountains of the south. Growing too attached was unwise. Still, it rankled.

“So we are not exposed?” she asked, after a deep breath.

“No, or else the Princesses would have been informed,” Brass told her, holding the case in one hoof. “What is a single wing? Nothing. Except to those who know what it is. As I said, I have things in motion to deal with Antimony and all the others.”

“The unicorn you mentioned?”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Alpha Brass said, and his smile returned, small, smug and always deliberate. As if he knew very many things she did not. “For your information, you foalsat her when you were younger. ‘Cadance.’”

The would-be Princess cocked her head. “Did I?”

“You did,” he replied, staid, “so please don’t act surprised when you see her. She is to be my wife. After you take Canterlot, we will need a replacement for Celestia and perhaps Luna as well, though I still hope Chalice to be capable of filling in for the latter.”

‘As if I would allow that,’ the changeling Queen thought, but she guarded her expression well to let no trace of her innermost desire betray her. Just as her partner did. They were each consummate liars. For most of their life, lies had meant survival.

So she lied again. “So long as she is under our control, so be it.”

“I’m glad you agree,” Brass said, simply. “This is how it must be.”

Chrysalis nodded and craned her neck to look back at the door Broad Way had exited through.

“You know, I always felt rather sad for you,” she remarked, sniffing. “You don’t smell much like these other ponies, and the flavor of love has been drained from you.”

“Ah, well, I do have you to thank for that,” he replied, finishing his drink and placing the empty glass on his desk. “You, my former wife and your predecessor.”

“Yet,” Queen Chrysalis continued, trotting up to the desk to rest her front legs on it, close enough to touch his hooves with her own. “Here I am, a monster pretending to be a pony, and there you are, a pony pretending to be a monster. You would make a superb changeling. Except you have no Hive. No real family. Not anymore. Should I replace you, too, some time? Would you be happier in a woven cocoon?”

“If I were to become a cocoon…” Brass’s response was strange, enigmatic. “What would I emerge as? Perhaps-” And he smiled, darkly. “I would become the monster I pretend to be. Would you like that?”

The creature that was Princess Cadance felt an unwanted tingle run down her thorax.

“No,” she decided, tasting a bit of her own fear. It was bitter and unfamiliar. “I wouldn’t.”

“Good!”

Alpha Brass pushed off from his desk, breaking contact with the Changeling Queen. He headed for the door, floating over a black-velvet cloak. Before he left, however, he gave one parting piece of advice, “You should know my plans have changed and my would-be wife wishes me to come to her. Expect my absence.”

“But,” he cautioned, just before he left. “In the meantime, please remember: you would be wise not to underestimate ponies. We could well be the most terrifying monsters of them all.”

Chrysalis let him leave, and with a thought, snuffed out the fireplace.

‘We shall see.’

Chapter Twenty Five : Brass and Twilight

(25)

Brass and Twilight

“Euporie, you know I have reservations about this party of yours,” Eunomie said, repeating herself for the benefit of her sleepy sister. The methodical mare was already dressed and waiting; today was the all-important day when Twilight Sparkle finally met with her father at an unknown location of her choosing. Everything, she had been told, was as ready as it could be for the occasion.

Eunomie had eaten, washed and brushed herself down, and now a white and lilac cloak was secured around her shoulders with a plain bronze and steel clasp. Beneath it, her saddlebags were already lightly packed and ready. If things went well, they would have a new ally by the end of the day, and father’s dreams would be one step closer to fruition.

“Yeah, reservations, do tell,” Euporie grumbled, drowsily rubbing her eyes with a hoof even as he magic pulled a plush sapphire and silver cloak over and around her shoulders. The color matched one of the hues native to her wild blue mane. If she had a choice of color to wear, it tended to be blue.

“I worry,” Eunomie explained, impassive despite her own words. “Father asked us to keep a low profile and to stick to the task at hand. I know what kind of parties you prefer… and it would be less worrisome if you hadn’t invited one of Lady Sparkle’s friends. If you upset one, you will upset the other, and this Pinkie Pie is an element of harmony herself. You know what happens with you push on Aunt Chalice, and an element of harmony is similar. The last time you went too far, father had to…”

“I remember it,” Euporie cut her sister off. “I was there.”

“You could have been killed,” Eunomie reminded her.

“No. Dozens of others would have been killed… but not me.” Euporie had the good sense to whisper that instead of say it out loud where Twilight could overhear them from upstairs where she was still packing and changing. “I already ran a little test on how far I can push the element of honesty. I’ll be fine.”

“Father will be unhappy to hear of this,” Eunomie warned, when nothing else seemed to work.

“Let him be unhappy,” her twin sister tossed her mane as the cloak settled over her body. “If you tell him, which you won’t.”

Eunomie sighed, defeated.

“Eunomie,” Euporie whispered, cupping her sister’s chin with her hoof. “I’ve seen you and Twilight Sparkle getting close, studying like a pair of little bookworms, your noses in some leathery tome. Don’t think I haven’t. But you should never forget – never! – that if she knew the real you as I do, if she knew what you had done and yet planned to do, she would hate you and fear you. Daddy talks about friendship, about gathering allies and binding others to you, but when the hooves hit the ground, all of it is just… lies. Friendship is a game of pretend.”

“The only one who accepts you for who you are, the only one who embraces you even with all that blood on your hooves… is me,” Euporie said, kissing her sister just where her cheek met the corner of her mouth. “I know you’ll always be looking out for me.”

“Somepony has to, when you won’t look out for yourself,” Eunomie replied, stepping back and away from her twin. She lowered her eyes. “Please make an effort not to go overboard. That is all I ask.”

“Yes, yes. I will ‘try’ not to go overboard with the party,” Euporie promised, though the smirk on her lips made it hard to put much stock in her words. She was about to say more, when the sound of hooves on the library’s stairs cut her short. The white-coated Mosaic twins turned to see Twilight Sparkle descending, a plain brown cloak wrapped around her frame. It was chilly out, and still wet from the scheduled rainfall that had come down during the night and early morning. The only adornment she wore was an iron and gold clasp and a necklace with her family crest on it: the asymmetrical eight pointed star.

“Sorry for the wait,” Twilight apologized, tucking a brush away under the cloak and into one of her saddlebags. “I was thinking about parting my mane down both sides, but it just wasn’t coming out like I imagined it would… anyway, are we ready to go?”

“We are,” Eunomie replied.

“Eight o’clock is an ungoldly hour,” Euporie complained, yawning unabashedly. “Good ponies were not meant to wake up before eleven.”

“Early to bed,” Eunomie sang an old tune.

“Early to rise!” Twilight agreed, and the two morning-friendly unicorns all but pranced to the library door. Euporie followed, glumly, clearly not built for this or any morning routine.

Outside, a faint fog lingered between the houses and along the streets of Ponyville, the gray clouds overhead still drizzling half-heartedly, most of their fury spent before the shops and market stalls opened at seven. A pony could see weathermares already sectioning off clouds to return to storage, their supervisors checking water levels left in each cloud and – if needed – prompting the cloud to drain itself down to the proper level. In parts of it, the sunshine gave the sky an almost grid-like appearance.

A smattering of fat raindrops fell on the cloaks of the three mares as they trotted out of town and south towards the Everfree forest. Cobblestone squares and market streets became sett roads that intersected the town, inns and shops growing alongside. Once outside the town limits, the sett became gravel, and the gray unpaved roads wound their way across hills and bridged streams until they linked the farms to the town. The trio made good time along one of those roads until it branched off into a dirt road that was little more than a path.

A sign planted between dirt and gravel warned against entrance to the Everfree.

They were met there by three other ponies, also cloaked to appear more inconspicuous. Stallions all, the tallest one in the lead waved to the approaching mares. A hint of magic tugged back the hood of his snow white cloak, revealing a blue mane in three tints, a long white horn and a strong jaw.

“Twilie,” Shining Armor said, greeting his little sister. “I hope nopony minds, but I brought Sir Arrow and Sir Gale with me.”

“Twilight,” Eunomie began to protest, apprehensive about the two surprise additions to their entourage. “Such a large group will be… conspicuous.”

“Those two just won’t let you out of their sight, now will they?” Euporie asked, smiling at the two pegasus royal guards. They did not wear hoods with their solar-white cloaks, and one of them visibly shied away from the grinning unicorn mare.

“Like ticks on a dog, almost,” she drove home the point with little subtlety.

Still, Shining Armor was oblivious. “Lady Euporie, these are good stallions whom I can vouch for personally. We are all friends here.”

“Right. ‘Friends.’”

The pegasus weather-making ended well before the border of the wild-lands, briefly allowing the sun to shine down unimpeded. That only lasted until the six ponies came under the canopy of the dark forest. Only a filtered fraction of the sun’s radiance permeated to the bottom level of the forest floor, and nothing else of it made it through the gritty layer of fallen leaves that came with autumn. There were no ponies to rake up and mulch or compost the leaves in Everfree. Instead they rotted on the ground, strangling grass and littering the ground in a thousand different shades of brown and red, mud and russet, shadowed black and bloody crimson.

The dirt path was broken only occasionally by a T-shaped pole jutting out of the ground, weeds thick and clinging to the base. The lanterns hanging from each were unlit. There would have been a dire need of them at night or even in the afternoon, but it was easy enough to see the worn path during the day and to keep on track. Eunomie followed Twilight closely, only occasionally pausing to look around at the strange forest. Euporie trudged along, not minding the effort, the weather or the dirt, but otherwise bored. Shining Armor and his two guard companions held the rear.

“Twilight,” Eunomie finally spoke up to give voice to another of her concerns. “How deep into the Everfree are we to go?”

“We’re almost there,” Twilight promised her. “Come on!”

The librarian’s steady trot became an easy gallop, and the two Mosaic twins picked up pace to follow. From out of the bush, the path lead up to a large, misshapen tree – a sallow yellow and orange tree with wildly gnarled roots and limbs. There could hardly have been a stranger counterpart to Twilight’s own Golden Oaks library: the Ponyville tree was straight and tall with immaculate lines and smooth bark, while the Everfree tree was twisted and warped, squat and wide as if it couldn’t make up which way to grow. Vines hung from the branches all around it like a deep green gallows, and here and there, buried partly into the ground, strange wooden masks jutted upward with only vaguely equine faces.

One such mask hung over a door in the crooked tree.

Twilight walked boldly up to the door and knocked, as Euporie and Eunomie slowed to a trot behind her. It would hardly have been out of place for some monstrous creature to open the door to such an ominous lair, but their host was instead shown to be a zebra. Five copper dzilla rings coiled around her neck, and a matching loop hung from each ear, her black and white mane done up in a neat mohawk. Euporie ‘ooh’ed and Eunomie stared; both mares were seasoned from contact with various other races, both within and without the colonies their mother and father governed, but neither had much experience with zebras. This one was a very, very long way from home.

“Everypony, this is Zecora.” Twilight was kind enough to make introductions. She gestured back to the two girls with her, and then to her brother’s party. “Zecora, this is Eunomie, and Euporie, and my brother Shining Armor, and Sir Gale Force, and Sir Arrow Head.”

“An honor to meet you, ma’am,” Shining Armor said, bowing his head courteously.

“Yes,” Gale Force muttered.

“An honor,” Arrow Head finished.

Euporie and Eunomie bent their front legs slightly in a polite curtsy.

“As long as nopony minds, I thought we could use Zecora’s place here for the meeting,” Twilight explained. “You can all trust her to keep her confidence, and we’re as secluded as it gets.”

“You will find no prying eyes here, nor anypony chance to overhear,” the zebra rhymed, welcoming the three ponies inside. “Please - my new friends - come inside; I have a hot brew I am happy to provide.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Eunomie said, wiping her hooves as she entered.

“Hey! Mom once had an apothecary who kept a room like this,” Euporie said with a soft ‘he.he.he!’ “Check it out! Is that willowshade?” She zipped over to a shelf lined with herbs, poultices and glass vials. “And blue leech? Oh-ho! Milk of Sorrow! Awesome! Is this cockatrice venom? You can stabilize it longer with a touch of mercury, you know?”

Twilight and Eunomie stared at the blue-maned mare, the latter looking very much like she wanted to introduce face to hoof. Shining Armor and his two guards entered last and also wiped their hooves as they left the Everfree behind them. The two pegasus ponies frowned as they took in the ambiance, or maybe, the company. Zecora quickly trotted over to guide the giddy Euporie away from the shelf.

“You know your… tonics and potions,” she conceded, leading the noblemare to a rug on the floor. “But please let me disavow you of these notions. Blue leech I use, to soften the pain and bleeding of a bruise. Milk of Sorrow is dangerous to imbibe, but as an ointment I can prescribe. Cockatrice venom is deadly in most forms, but when boiled with ammonia, it quite literally transforms. Aches and pains suffered by the elderly, such a brew can remedy.”

“And a drop of Milk of Sorrow, brewed in a bitter lemon tea, can make a pony mad with glee,” Euporie rhymed, but sat down without further incident. “I didn’t know Ponyville had a witch doctor on call.”

“At first ponies assumed me hostile, and for the time being, I still prefer a low profile,” Zecora explained, trotting past a bubbling pot and towards a much smaller black kettle hanging over the embers of a small cooking fire. She poured the dark brew inside into cups made of river clay, decorated at the rim with carefully hoof-painted geometric shapes.

“I was told a second group would soon also attend,” the zebra mystic said, presenting the cups to her guests. “One of them Twilight’s new colt-friend.”

Zecora laughed politely and Twilight blushed hotly at the zebra’s little rhyme. She didn’t argue to the contrary, though. Instead, she took a long sip from the cup in front of her. She had led them out here to Zecora’s hut, far from any prying eyes, and far from either of their power bases. Alpha Brass would have his step-daughters in attendance, and she would have her brother and his companions from the royal guard. She hated having to be deceptive, but it really couldn’t be helped. A little caution could go a long way.

“Lord Alpha Brass will require a summoning circle,” Eunomie explained. “I can-”

“I’ll do it,” Euporie interrupted her, quickly finishing off her drink. She licked her lips. “You’ve been ferrying messages back and forth, right? So it’s only fair I bring daddy over.”

“Very well,” Eunomie consented.

“You know this spell, too?” Twilight asked, sounding surprised.

“Of course!” Euporie answered with a laugh. She trotted over to an open area inside Zecora’s hut, stopped, and spun around once. Her horn glowed as she jumped out of the circle that materialized where she had done her turn. It glowed white-hot and an otherworldly blue, rippled by fiery orange. A silhouette appeared first, and it moved as it took bodily form and substance. Then the magical energies turned to short lived sparkles, small as particles of dust.

The hooves of a stallion fell, a half inch, to the floor.

Alpha Brass was cloaked in burgundy velvet with golden patterns like scales stitched into the lining and along the edges across the upper torso. The bottom half was lined with black leather. A chain of alloyed rose gold circled his neck and looped around a second time to cross his chest. On either side, clasps in the shape of rearing, roaring unicorns belching fire held fabric in place. The roaring pony, Twilight had researched, was the emblem of the Mosaic line that Alpha Brass had married into.

Beneath the cloak, he was much as she remembered from her birthday party at Ptarmigan, when he had visited and before she had met her friends in Canterlot. Alpha Brass had turquoise eyes, and while he was smaller in chest and height than many Canterlot bred unicorns - like her brother - he was taller and more heavily built than most of the stallions in Ponyville. His fetlocks were neatly trimmed, but still on display as was the noble fashion. They were kept trim, more like Shining Armor’s than Blueblood’s. His coat was a deep golden hue that was normally only seen in pony’s tails and manes, and his mane was burnished gold with faint white-gold streaks.

He glanced around for a moment, taking in his surroundings.

“Most unusual-”

“Daddy!” Euporie all but slammed into him with a bone crushing hug. Eunomie merely bowed her head in due respect. “Welcome father. We are in the Everfree forest.”

“The Everfree? Well, that presents certain possibilities,” he said, in a rich confident voice. He immediately singled one mare out of the three and smiled at her. “Twilight Sparkle… it is a distinct pleasure to see you again.”

“And you as well,” Twilight said, smiling back. Rarity had always said that the stallion of her dreams made her heart flutter, just thinking about him. Alpha Brass was interesting and exciting, and Twilight found herself eager to speak with him beyond just exchanging letters, but her heart was still beating calmly, not fluttering.

‘Maybe,’ she wondered, ‘I’m just not a flutterer? But he is… cute. Or maybe ‘pretty’ is a better word.’

“This is Zecora,” she introduced their host for the day. “And you know my brother. The two ponies with him are Sir Gale Force and Sir Arrow Head.”

“It is always a pleasure to meet a mare of the sun-touched savanna,” Brass said, approaching the host of their meeting. However, he did not take Zecora’s hoof in the Equestrian custom. Instead, he bowed his head quickly; dipping it down in a smooth motion. Zecora reciprocated a moment later.

The zebra smiled at his courtesy. “No pony comes to the sunset lands; do not tell me you have braved the white bone sands?”

“The White Bone? Oh, no. I wouldn’t dare! But I did travel by ship, once, to the great port at Zebrabar,” Alpha Brass told the zebra mare, chuckling sprightly at the memory.

“My wife sent me to negotiate trade and discourage pirates,” he explained, both to Zecora and to the listening ponies around them. “I spent two months in the stone city but was unfortunate enough to catch a sleeping sickness. A zebra nurse with a singing snake for a life-mark nursed me to health again. For a week, I drank Kiss of Silence, washed myself with holy water, and emerged scoured and purified.”

“To survive the sleeping and speak of Kiss of Silence? I wager you would not wish to return to those islands,” Zecora said, and took his hoof to shake in the Equestrian way. “The singing snake is a healer true; it is good that she was there for you. But if singing snake you’ve seen before, I trust my own mark is not too obscure?”

“The spiral wall,” he said, “Outward facing and ever expanding. I know of the symbol, but I’ve never met a zebra with it before. You’ve traveled further than I have, and I suspect you’ll travel further still, my Lady Traveler.”

Zecora actually blushed, and excused herself to bring him a cup of herbal tea. Alpha Brass took the opportunity to clasp hooves with Shining Armor, the two embracing like… like brothers, Twilight guessed. Shining then introduced his two guard companions, and though Brass greeted them warmly, Twilight sensed his tension to move on. It was flattering to think that he was eager to talk to her, too… but there was something strange about Shining’s two guards, and how Euporie and now her father acted towards them. Only Eunomie, typically, was unmoved and detached.

“You know, I just had an idea,” Alpha Brass declared, as he patted Shining Armor on the shoulder. He stretched a hoof out to Twilight. “Lady Sparkle, what would you say to a friendly magic duel? They say unicorns know each other best through their magic.”

A magic duel - just for fun?

“You’re on!” Twilight agreed, and meeting the golden stallion’s eyes, she felt a little flutter inside her chest. But it was probably just an eagerness to see his magic first-hoof. Probably.

In the open yard in front of Zecora’s tree, three unicorns, two pegasi and a lone zebra made themselves comfortable. Euporie had transformed a log into a gently sloping couch, and though Zecora had earlier dissuaded her from thinking of the many potions and alchemical ingredients in her home as having poisonous (or narcotic) applications, the two had quickly gotten to talking about the fine line between healing and harm. Instead of reclining on her side like the hedonistic mare, Zecora sat with her legs crossed beneath her, leaning on the couch enough to also watch the duel. Eunomie and Shining Armor - acquainted with one another already - made polite conversation, most of it involving the resolution of the Terre Rare family split. Sir Arrow Head and Sir Gale Force remained close by their off duty Captain, but only spoke when spoken to.

Twilight Sparkle, meanwhile, found herself a little preoccupied by imagining just what spells she should use in her upcoming duel. There were just so many!

As she thought about it, though, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was best off just showing Alpha Brass her best or favorite spells. She wanted to impress him, but would he hold it against her if she upstaged him? Just how much magic did he know? Eunomie had clearly been exposed to magic most unicorns would have to beg a professor or magister to teach them. Euporie, too, though she didn’t make it as obvious. They both knew static translocation spells and Eunomie had an advanced familiar spell…

‘Maybe I should start with a Prancing Pyrotechnic spell?’ she wondered. ‘Or… maybe or a Reinmare’s Reversal? No, no! Gravity spells out in the open? Are you crazy? Mercurio’s Moustache? Conn’s Comprehensive Comprehension? That’s a good one…! But it doesn’t have anything to do with dueling… Oh! There are just too many options to pick from!’

Alpha Brass had removed his cloak and stood, waiting patiently for her to begin. He had also removed a saddlebag that had hung from his left side. If he had kept some of his clothes on, she could’ve used an alteration spell to change their color or do some other flashy, cosmetic change. Twilight figured that was what Trixie would have done, and though it was a little odd asking herself, ‘what would that boastful showmare have done?’ It was probably a good guideline.

“Let’s just start with something simple?” Twilight asked, chewing her lower lip. Her magic found and seized a trio of rocks from within the soft earth of the Everfree forest, the rubble bursting out from the soil, hovering behind her for a moment, and then arcing lazily towards her target. It would be easy to jump out of the way, if he wanted.

“Simple won’t entertain our friends, Miss Sparkle,” Alpha Brass said, holding up a hoof to intercept the falling stones. They veered inwards, towards the base of his hoof, one and then the other… compacting together on impact.

‘A material re-composition spell?’ Twilight guessed, releasing her lower lip from her nervous nibble to smile. ‘He knows Sommare’s Sequential Stone-Softening!’

“Ho!” Alpha Brass said, announcing it as he pushed forward, launching the now three-times larger stone back at her.

“Ha!” Twilight laughed, jumping back as her horn glowed to ensnare the projectile. The shape of it warped, flattened, and became a boomerang. It began to spin and deviate from its course, past her and around her back, and then towards her opponent.

“Good one, Twilie!” Shining Armor cheered, hooves clopping in approval of her counter-counter.

“You work well with solids,” Alpha Brass admitted, and took a step back as he weaved another spell. A bone white aura encapsulated the incoming boomerang and it turned blue; just a moment later and it came apart into two long streams of water. Like a pair of snakes, they twisted around, their spin conserved and turned into a corkscrew-motion.

“Earth to water?” Twilight asked, standing up on her hind legs to gesture with her hooves to her mouth. “Too easy! Water to air!”

Magic coalesced around her hooves from her horn, and then into her mouth. Inhaling deeply, she sucked up the two violent streams of water, a sparkling funnel opening and tapering off. Her cheeks puffed up in a way only Pinkie Pie could emulate, and then Twilight Sparkle fell onto all fours, her lips parting and unleashing a torrent of nearly invisible power. Grass uprooted and fallen forest leaves kicked up on the edges of the yard, the foliage of trees and vines shaking from the bleed off of powerful wind.

“Water to air isn’t bad,” Alpha Brass commented, back peddling slightly as the forefront of the hurricane whipped back his carefully brushed mane. “But… did you forget the fourth classical element?”

He inhaled right back, and the winds didn’t just die, the yard took on a frightful calm.

“Fire,” he whispered, tilting his head upwards.

Twilight was reminded of the sigil she had seen on his letters and again on his cloak’s crest. A swirling, angry maelstrom of flame escaped his open mouth, licking the canopy of the forest with orange and gold… leaves and branches turned to ash, just like the black smoke that curled from the stallion’s blazing nostrils. The flame belched ever upward like a pillar, and had the color been slightly different, it could well have been mistaken for a strangely silent dragon venting into the morning sky.

“Whew!” Alpha Brass gasped, as the flames tapered out. He held out his hoof, flat up, and a glass of water poofed into existence. The noblepony drank slowly, a few contrails of smoke still rising from his nose. Twilight found herself bouncing on the balls of her hooves as she waited, eagerly, for what he would follow up ‘Air to Fire’ with.

Alpha Brass dropped the empty glass of water.

“Another transmute spell!” Twilight realized, guessing, even before the glass hit the ground.

She was proven prescient as, instead of shattering, the glass melted into the ground like water… and just as ripples spread across the surface of a pond, earth and soil turned to glossy crystal. Twilight giggled, impressed, and started concentrating. Her tongue sticking out from between her tightly pressed lips, she closed her eyes, building up magic in her horn…

The ripple of earth turned glass was at her front hooves when her horn began to vibrate.

“Euphony’s Bauble Breaker?” Brass recognized the spell. “How about this, then?”

He lowered his head, and his horn began to vibrate, too. Twilight wondered, momentarily, why he would bother using a spell designed to destroy glass and undo his own earlier spellwork. Then, she realized his sonic spell was identical to her own in amplitude and frequency… but the exact opposite in phase!

‘He’s using Euphony’s Bauble Breaker to counter Euphony’s Bauble Breaker!’ Twilight thought, momentarily aghast. That wasn’t how you were supposed to counter spells in a duel.

But it was smart! It was really very smart!

‘He can use spells to do things they aren’t originally meant to do!’ she realized, ‘Or even to do the opposite of what they were intended!’

“They’re canceling one another out,” Eunomie observed from where she sat next to Shining Armor.

“If the contest is raw power, Twilie won’t be outdone,” Shining Armor promised. “Watch and see.”

Twilight, hearing her brother’s words, felt a surge of confidence. ‘That’s right! I won’t lose! Not when it comes to magic!’

She doubled the amplitude.

Deep in the Everfree forest, Timberwolves threw back their heads and howled, birds took to the air to escape the noise and Manticores yowled; the otherwise inaudible high frequency waves only able to be heard by a hoof-full of species. The ossified ground beneath Twilight’s hooves began to violently vibrate, on the verge of shattering and turning to magical dust. She could feel herself approaching the threshold to do it…

Except, without warning, Alpha Brass also doubled the amplitude of his inverse sound wave. Gritting her teeth, Twilight Sparkle immediately doubled the amplitude again. Leaves began to shake in the boughs of trees, and a whine - like a thousand buzzing parasprites - hurt her ears. Watching the duel, the two pegasus guards were in pain, hooves pressed hard into their ears. Euporie, Eunomie, Zecora and Shining Armor were still discomfited, and at the sight of his subordinates in pain, Shining Armor quickly erected a purple barrier around the entire group.

Protected, the two guards groaned in relief.

“He. He. He!” Euporie chuckled, glancing over at the duo. “Was that uncomfortable, noble sirs?”

Shining Armor opened his mouth to protest, but even he had to have found it a little odd. “Their hearing must be… very sensitive…”

Zecora’s eyes narrowed, but then Twilight finally felt a breakthrough, and her attention returned to the duel. Alpha Brass had finally given up with a grunt, and at the frightful amplitude she was projecting her sound spell, the ground-turned-glass immediately ruptured and exploded. If it had turned to actual flying glass, that would have been… unhealthy, but just as Twilight had expected, Euphony’s Bauble Breaker destroyed the converted material utterly and undid the magic changing its natural form.

A blast of magical particles blasted up from all around them, shimmering and sparkling briefly in the air. It was Alpha Brass’s original magic given momentary material form. Twilight took a breath and inhaled some of it. His magic tasted sweet and strong, like a drop of apple molasses on the tip of her tongue.

“My turn again!” she said, grin wide enough to show him her teeth. Her eyes squinted and she projected, a double glow catching the noble stallion by the corners of his upper lip.

“Eh?” he gasped, an incredulous hoof reaching up to feel the new blonde-yellow beard and moustache that covered his cheeks and jaw. “Muttonchops?!”

“You look a little like grandpa, Daddy!” Euporie chimed in with a giggle.

“I much prefer being clean shaven,” Alpha Brass said, frowning behind his new beard. His horn glowed white and Twilight felt a tingle in her scalp.

She quickly conjured up a small mirror, gasping at her mane. Purple, red and blue threads had all been clumped together and spiked up. She looked like… like…

“You look like an otter!” Euporie declared, pointing and laughing hard enough to tumble off of her chair. “A big purple otter!”

“Oh, Twilie,” her brother lamented, slowly shaking his head in sympathy. “That is pretty bad.”

“I’ve only gotten started!” Twilight promised, and her horn lit up. Alpha Brass’s horn did as well, but she didn’t worry much about it, not until her spell had been cast. She hadn’t felt any magic at work on herself, so -

“NOO!” Shining Armor cried, likely regretting dropping his barrier after the sonic attacks had died down. The proud knight and Captain of the Royal Guard was in a bad state. Twilight accessed the damage she had done to him with huge eyes, only to break down into a laugh.

“A fluffy pony!” Euporie cried, tears in her eyes as she pointed at the now fully puffed-up Shining Armor. “You look like a huge, white hairball! With hooves!”

“Euporie,” Alpha Brass said, and it was poor warning, especially since he didn’t exactly sound vexed with his step-daughter. His horn glowed, and suddenly Euporie’s laughter died.

“Oh,” Eunomie said, dryly. “Your hooves.”

“PIINKKK!!” Euporie wailed, legs flailing wildly as she ran around like a mare on fire. Her hooves had been colored in a gaudy, neon pink, brighter than even Pinkie Pie’s favorite balloons, and they left bright streaks in the air as she waved them in every direction. Finally, the poor mare fell to her knees, eyes glimmering with tears, staring down at her pinkified appendages. “Dispel already! Dispel!”

“I see we’ve come to the part of the magic duel when the audience is used as target practice,” Eunomie dryly observed, noting that Arrow Head and Gale Force had made a hasty retreat into the forest rather than stick around. She turned to Zecora. “I suggest we relocate.”

It only took a moment for the zebra to see the wisdom in the pale mare’s words. The Fluffy-pony Shining Armor and Neon-Euporie did not bode well for the two remaining mares. Lo and behold, both Twilight and Alpha Brass were eyeing them, planning up some new spell to one-up the other.

“Relocation,” she agreed without a rhyme about how they should probably ‘hasten.’

They were already breaking into a run.

“Zecora! Come back!” Twilight called out. “I just want to try one more spell!”

“I’m impressed,” Brass admitted, stroking his now thickly bearded jawline. “I didn’t know Eunomie could run that quickly.”

“Don’t just stand there! Let’s go get them!”

In olden times, it was said that unicorns would live nowhere else than in the mountains, and that they were the most sure-footed of all ponies. Twilight giggled at the thought that some of her ancestors could see just how unsure she was, almost jumping with every rustle of rocks beneath her hooves. She could see well over the canopy of the Everfree forest from the windswept cliffside she clung to; it was like an ocean of dirty, discolored greens and browns, rolling and tumbling with hills like frozen waves. There was no order or reason to it. Bogs and swamps could appear suddenly to ensnare the unwary traveler, and sudden crags and steep falls could lurk behind the bushes and undergrowth.

Nature and previous denizens had carved a stony path for the two unicorns, though, and Twilight only paused to take in the sight for a moment. She had a story to tell.

“So, Pinkie Pie starts to twitch and tremble,” she said, holding out a hoof to help steady her partner. “If she were anypony else, I’d swear she was having an epileptic fit. But this was just her Pinkie sense going crazy again, so I could only stand there and dread what was going to happen next.”

Alpha Brass was a little dusty from their race through the forest after Zecora and Eunomie, and they both had more than a few smudges of dirt in their coats and on their manes and tails. The magic duel had ended in laughter and the sudden, spontaneous decision to show him one of the places that had been included in her friendship letters. From this far up, she could already see where the landslide that had nearly buried and scattered her friends was now crawling with moss and dirt, wild rainfall eroding the side of the mountain and covering boulders with mud.

“Suddenly she stops,” Twilight continued, laughing at herself in retrospect. “And she tells me that her Pinkie sense must’ve been warning her that I’d give up trying to understand her Pinkie sense. And that was it. All of that, and that was it!”

“At least you were spared another piano falling from on high,” Alpha Brass joked, but shook his head. “I’d be furious in your place, or at least at a loss for words.”

“I remember thinking maybe I should go back and vent my frustration on the hydra,” Twilight admitted.

“And did you?” Brass asked, and from the look she gave him, he needed to clarify, “Not the Hydra, but did you give up on investigating this Pinkie sense your friend has?”

“I did,” Twilight replied, and she started back up the crude path. What they needed was good line of sight on a place to teleport to.

“You did… for the time being, I would guess.”

“It is important to trust your friends and have faith in them. I was probably going a little overboard in obsessing over it.” Twilight coughed, adding, “Our science isn’t quite ready to explain the mysteries of Pinkie Pie. Maybe someday, but not yet.”

He chortled, a rumbling sort of laugh, and a few pebbles tumbled off the side of the sloping path underhoof.

“That reminds me,” Twilight said, one hoof on the side of the cliff wall, guiding her as she minded her steps. “I finally opened that puzzle box you sent me.”

“Ah!” Brass gave an only partly repressed sound of amusement, like a chuckle cut short. “It took me several days to open it myself. I trust you weren’t too disappointed with what was inside?”

“It was empty!” Twilight told him, glancing back over her shoulder at the stallion. “So, yeah, I was pretty disappointed at first!”

She faced forward again, and the path widened slightly as it turned inward and upward.

“But then I thought about it some more and I wondered if maybe that was the point.” She skipped easily over the root of a withered tree, clinging tenaciously to the path and the rocks below. “The prize was the puzzle itself. There didn’t need to be anything inside.”

“I’m relieved you think so,” Alpha Brass said, also stepping over the root. “Many other mares would have taken offense. I’ve always felt that, to do a thing for the sake of doing it; to unravel a mystery simply because it is there… the reward for such an effort cannot be measured except in the heart of the one who solves it.”

Twilight agreed. “I hope you have harder puzzles for next time, though!”

“I do believe I can find a few.”

The path carved roughly through a cleft in the rock, and soon sloping hillsides penned the two in both left and right, worn by wind and water. Loose pebbles rolled beneath their hooves, the remains of landslides that probably predated either of their being born. Twilight jumped up onto a rock as the path ended, and Alpha Brass followed, and soon they were at the top of the slope.

“There,” Twilight pointed. From their new perch, they had an easy line of sight to the lip of a path leading up to the top of the mountain. It would be a challenging teleport for most ponies, but Twilight Sparkle held out a hoof, unconcerned and confident in her ability. Brass took her hoof and a moment later, emerging from a pop of displaced air, and the two unicorns were a hundred meters higher than they had been before.

“The puzzle box you got me,” Twilight remarked, as they ascended the wider path. A few blocks of rock had even been carved here into wide, flat, and irregular steps. “Did you have it made yourself?”

“The one I gave you?” Brass asked. “No. That one was actually a gift from my mother.”

“Your mother… Lady Star Light?”

“Yes, she was always fond of mathematical puzzles, arcane curiosities, and anything that could not be easily known or understood,” he explained, and it was finally wide enough for the two ponies to walk side by side. “Ah ha. I just thought of something you may find amusing. About my mother and myself. When I was very little, she would take me with her to this place or that. You know the story: fathers favor their daughters, mothers their sons…”

“She took me to an auction, when I was a little colt, and had me guess at what various things would go for. To help me develop a keen eye, she said. I knew the value of copper and silver and gold, and I made as accurate a guess as I could when I saw the jewels and finery and goldsmithing on display. But, when I came to a painting, I thought for a moment, and told my lady mother: the oils must have cost at most two bits, the canvas half a bit, and the brushes another half. The painting was of a plain looking mare and not a Princess or noble. Assuming as I did that it had taken about a week to make, I placed the value at a very generous fifty bits.”

“Let me guess: you were a little off?” Twilight predicted, and he grinned, nodding in good cheer.

“Oh, just a little,” he conceded. “The painting was an original Reneigh, and it sold for one hundred and sixteen thousand bits.” Alpha Brass rolled his shoulders and the movement tossed his mane slightly behind him. “I learned then, that many things in Equestria were of subjective value. It was all in the eye of the beholder. For many ponies, that piece of oil and canvas was worth more than a chest of gold.”

“An original Reneigh?” Twilight was no artist, but she knew the name of the famous pony painter. “Princess Celestia has several of his paintings. I think she’s a fan.”

“Supposedly he painted her, as well, and then never touched a brush again. His ‘Last Work,’ it is called.” Alpha Brass glanced at the Princess’s apprentice. “There wouldn’t be some truth to that, would there?”

“I probably wouldn’t know it if I saw it,” Twilight replied, thinking back for a moment. “A painting of Princess Celestia…?”

There were a few in the Palace.

“Then as now, our fair and radiant Royal Highness,” Brass said. “As for the Reneigh’s ‘Common Mare,’ I eventually purchased it for a hundred and eighty thousand bits and gave it to my mother as a gift for Hearts and Hooves Day. Father called it a colossal waste of money and said he was tempted to throw it in a fire.”

The pair shared a laugh as they walked, but the mention of Brass’s father raised a question that needed to be addressed, sooner or later.

“Alpha Brass, if… we do…” Twilight balked a little at describing it. What she meant to say was, ‘if we do go through with this and become engaged,’ “You said you had your mother’s support, but you’ll be going up against Lord Cruciger.”

“It was always my father’s dream to have one of his children wear the Platinum Crown,” the noble stallion said, rueful. “I call it his obsession. Lady Arsenic, ancient as she was, is dead. Getting the crown in one year or one hundred won’t impress her any more or any less.”

Twilight glanced away from him to hide her smile; she couldn’t agree more, and she didn’t think she could have put it better either. The path ahead of them narrowed slightly - that was it - and the two walked a little closer. It was a good excuse, though it sort of lost credibility as they approached the wide mouth of the cave and the smoothed surface of the precipice that provided easy access. Here, the flat footing was wide and accommodating enough for a fully grown dragon to land and stretch out.

“Don’t tell me you girls really managed to resist helping yourself to just a little of that dragon’s hoard?” Brass asked, this time taking the lead as they entered the cavernous hollow in the mountainside. It had all been dug and shaped and smoothed by the dragon who had roosted here. It was safe as anywhere in the Everfree now, but the gloom was much deeper now that it was unoccupied. Twilight was a little thankful Brass had gone ahead, his horn lighting up.

His horn swished to the left and right, leaving contrails of light behind.

A moment later, and the light drifted off and bubbled together into an illuminating orb. Twilight quickly mimicked the spell, producing a pair of faintly purple globes that helped to fill the massive chamber with a soft glow. Gone were the piles of gold and treasure that the mature wyrm had once gathered together. All that was left was a polished smooth floor, like obsidian glass, that felt strange and pliant underhoof.

“After he found a new roost, he came back and took his hoard with him,” Twilight explained, looking around the cave. “And I’m pretty sure he would have taken offense if one of us had helped a few rubies disappear. I do think Rarity was pretty badly tempted, though.”

“Your description painted it as hills of gold and piles of treasure higher than a pony,” Brass said, taking in a deep breath as he tried to imagine it. “What a sight it must have been: the great beast sleeping in a bed of gold! We have dragons in the colonies, and we’ve sometimes had to dislodge them from roosts, but nothing like what you must have had here.”

“Hard to believe they start off so small.” Twilight held one hoof up off the ground, to less than chest height. “Spike’s egg was this high. Maybe even smaller… and one day, he’ll be big enough to fill half this cave.”

“Not to dispute his claim to such a lofty roost, but I think this cave has had some more recent visitors,” Alpha Brass said, trotting over to a dusty patch of ground. It was glassy, like most of the dragon lair, but on close inspection Twilight could see some signs of charring.

“Juvenile dragons enjoy warm surfaces, and often burn a spot before sleeping on it,” Brass said, demonstrating a bit of dragon lore Twilight was not familiar with herself. “Before you ask, most of our problems on the border come from juveniles, rather than adults. My guardsponies have learned to look for signs of their coming and going.”

“That doesn’t explain how you recognize it,” Twilight argued, but she could see what he meant about the floor. It was glossy and charred, in a way that recalled how Spike’s fire could burn things when it didn’t translocate them to the Princess.

“I’ve gone on patrol with my guard from time to time and lent my aid to the common ponies,” Brass replied with an easy shrug. “I’m of the view that ponies like seeing their lord or lady active and interested in their problems. A lord is only as powerful as his subordinates let him be, and a powerful pony with no friends is … nothing more than an outlaw, really.”

He smiled at her again, in a very personal way that drove home the fact that they were alone together. Two unicorns, engagement on the table, in a secluded cave, and this was a date. Albeit it had started out as a very formal one. They had already held hooves, and her “Novice’s Guide to Dating” (volume three) did say that many couples tested the waters of a new relationship with a kiss or two. Or-or was that going too fast? It was one thing to write up a marriage contract, but k-kissing…?

Twilight felt her heart pick up again, and quickly spun around. “Maybe we shouldn’t… stick around…”

“I wouldn’t worry. These dragons came and went. The ground is charred, but cold.” She heard the stallion’s hooves clop-clop as he walked past her. “This is also a good spot to discuss certain things.”

“Certain… things?” Twilight asked. “What do you mean?”

“I really have enjoyed speaking with you casually, Twilight Sparkle,” he said, facing her again and standing between her and the exit. “I wish we could spend all day here with you, without broaching darker things. But that isn’t to be. While we are … nearly alone, we must talk about a threat to Equestria.”

It took a second for his words to settle in, and then she had two questions on her mind.

“Nearly alone?” she asked, backing up a step. “And… a threat to Equestria? I-I don’t understand.”

“Eunomie,” Alpha Brass said, letting out a long breath that wasn’t quite a sigh. It was as if he dreaded what saying that name meant. “Please, reveal yourself. I understand your reluctance to show off this trick of yours, but this is the place to make our move, and I intend to trust Lady Sparkle.”

“I still don’t-” Twilight’s statement was cut short as she saw a swirl of wind take form, becoming crystal. “Galen?”

The arcane familiar winked and bobbed, and a second later, Eunomie appeared in a flash of light.

“You… teleported?” Twilight asked, mind racing not just in surprise, but academic fascination. “You did! But how? We left everypony else down near Zecora’s place!”

She tapped a hoof against the smooth cavern floor.

“Of course! Galen!” she reasoned. “You can teleport to wherever your familiar is? Or was it… Yes! That has to be it! A recall spell… but used in reverse!”

“You are as sharp as ponies say,” Alpha Brass complimented her, even as he erected a transparent and nearly invisible barrier over the mouth of the dragon’s cave.

“A reverse recall spell,” Eunomie said, bowing her head to the librarian and element of magic. “That is correct. Just as I can bring Galen to myself, Galen can bring me to him, over any distance. To have deduced it so quickly, you are truly impressive, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Oh, but! But how did you resolve the mass discontinuity?” Twilight sat down with an introspective grumble, head rocking back and forth as she tried to solve the mystery. “Shade’s Shadowy Summoning could do it, but…”

“I can explain more later,” Eunomie said, and she began to walk around until she was standing to Twilight’s left. “I believe my lord father wishes words.”

“Thank you, Eunomie,” Alpha Brass said, and he trotted closer to Twilight, reaching out with a golden hoof. “Twilight, as I said, there is a threat to Equestria. A grave one. I would have brought it up earlier, but I needed to separate us from your brother and his guards... first by threatening them with our magical duel, and then by escaping into the mountains here.”

“But - but I thought we were just…” she wanted to say, ‘having fun’ or ‘getting to know one another.’

“There was that, too,” he promised. “I also wanted to understand you better.”

Twilight took his hoof, letting him help her back up onto all fours. “This threat to Equestria,” she said, growing serious. All the other stuff could be put aside. “What is it?”

“My story is rather fantastic, so… it is best if your eyes will believe me first,” Alpha Brass told her, holding out a hoof. Just as Eunomie had, he conjured up a packet of salt and ash, and as the grains fell, they formed a circle. It was identical to Eunomie’s.

Matter. Power. Movement.

Pass. Wall. Key.

Twilight had expected that to be it, except the stallion stamped his hoof down in the center of the circle. When he raised it up, there was a new glyph burning orange and yellow in the impression left by his hoof.

“Secret,” Twilight said, reading the previously unused rune.

“I control all means of entrance and egress to my domain,” Brass explained, “Including a few back doors.”

There was a brief wait, on the other end of the circle, and then it burned hot and white. Now that she had seen it, tasted it even, Twilight recognized the color. It had been there, even when Eunomie used the spell. It was the magic of Lord Alpha Brass, blazing within the blackness of the in-between and the fire of the physical, chemical plane. What emerged from the summoning was not what Twilight had expected.

It was a cage.

And within the cage, a one-winged pegasus glared balefully at the three unicorns. She was clearly malnourished, her coat a faded gray with patches of dirty black. Her mane and tail were sparse and limp, the color and likeness of seaweed as much as hair. Her one remaining wing snapped, angrily, against the bars of her cage.

“What… what is this?” Twilight gasped. She turned to the pony she had spent hours talking to, casting magic with, and climbing a mountain alongside. “Alpha Brass, what is this? Who is she? Why is she in a cage?”

“Assume this one’s form,” Brass commanded, directing his gaze down at the caged pony. She hissed, and Twilight saw sharp pointed needle-teeth behind her lips.

“Now,” Brass’s voice was soft, but it echoed in Twilight’s ears. It reminded her of how Celestia could whisper, and silence a throne room full of squabbling. It was the Royal Canterlot Voice. But this was the first time Twilight had seen it performed outside of the royal family of the Princesses and Blueblood.

Then, to Twilight’s shock…

The pegasus transformed. Her coat shifted somewhere under the skin, the color changing like the hide of an octopus, purple spots expanding and meeting until they filled in completely. The former pegasus took on a familiar shade of lavender and a horn materialized on her head. Her single wing melted away after folding back to her side, until it was as if it had never been there.

It was eerie, surreal, and even a little sickening when a ripple went through the creature’s blue mane, adding in her trademark violet and blush colored highlights.

“What - what on Equestria are you?” Twilight asked, staring at the caged unicorn.

“What on Equestria are you?” the other-Twilight Sparkle mocked, replicating her voice perfectly. “I’m you.”

“No. No you-” Twilight, the real one, spun on Eunomie for an answer, and then her step-father. “Who is this? How can she do that? It isn’t an illusion spell…!”

“They are called ‘changelings,’” Eunomie said.

“Now,” Brass said to the creature, still quiet, and still irresistible. “Show Lady Sparkle your true form.”

The lavender unicorn made a sound that Twilight never imagined could come from a pony’s lungs. It was like chattering. Like a mouth making a sound inside a mouth. The Changeling did as Alpha Brass commanded it, however. This time, when the creature’s body shifted and rippled, nothing took the place of the previous disguise.

What was left was black chitin and membranous wing, pockmarked by holes and linked by green-black segments. The legs seemed barely functional for holding the creature up, perforated at they were, and this was exacerbated by the previous almost skeletal condition of the so called ‘changeling.’ A crude curved horn - inky black - jutted out from its head; the mane completely vanished, and the tail only existed as a flap of web-like membrane. The wing that had folded back stretched out, and Twilight could see the individual cells of it - like those of a parasprite or horse-fly, but writ large. The eyes were pupil-less and light blue, reflective like a lagoon’s surface, and as the changeling opened its mouth, the librarian could see vicious fangs amid the needle-like dentition.

“Equestria, our beautiful Equestria, has become infested with these parasites,” Alpha Brass began.

“What happened to the other wing?” Twilight asked, before he could say more. It looked like the joint where the other wing had once been attached had been cauterized.

“I removed it,” the stallion explained, his deep turquoise eyes turning cold as they settled on the changeling. “It was a necessary deception, just as keeping this one captive was also necessary. If I had told you, without proof, that thousands of creatures across Equestria were impersonating ponies… would you have believed me? An example was needed.”

“If this changeling can impersonate anypony,” the element of magic asked, needing answers now. “How did you catch him? Or her? Or it?”

“Her,” he replied. “The drones are all female, though they can impersonate a stallion as easily as they can a mare. As for how…”

“Father,” Eunomie warned, “Is it wise to reveal-”

“I spoke with the Queen of the Changelings less than twenty hours ago,” he told Twilight Sparkle, not smiling, but not frowning either. His mouth was clamped in a tight line. “You see, she and I have been working together for years.”

Twilight shook her head, unable to believe it. “You… couldn’t…!”

“I married Lady Olive Branch when I was barely in my teens,” Alpha Brass said, his eyes drifting up to the ceiling above them. “For my family, of course: for glory and prestige and power. The Terre Rare were to control Equestria’s borders, and I gladly took the task to heart. Olive Branch was older than my mother, but she was respected as a peacemaker and negotiator. It was a convenient match.”

“Imagine my surprise, then, when I found myself webbed one morning to the bed, restrained.” He held up one hoof, and then the other. “Black threads bound me to the bed. Breathing itself was a labor, they were so tight. I turned my eyes upward, and there saw my new wife… shedding her skin. A creature like you see here then deposited an egg on me.”

“What I beheld was the changing of the guard, as one Queen gave birth to another. That very night, I was made to take the egg, and find it a host to imprint on: an alicorn, who was sleeping just down the hall, a guest in our home. I did not love my wife, Lady Olive Branch, but what feelings I had were enough to bind me. I took the egg, squirming and wet, to the room of my friend… and there it bonded and created a new Queen Chrysalis, more terrible and powerful than any other before.”

“She soon assumed the form of my wife as well, and as mother and daughter fed on me, the love I felt for the world began to fade, leaving only emptiness and despair. But I am no cup to drink from! I am no blood meal! I am Terre Rare, as you are, Twilight Sparkle.” Alpha Brass smiled and his green eyes shone bright with an inner fire. “I am poison, and as she found other sources to feed on, I regained my freedom.”

“I learned that there were other changelings in Equestria: hundreds, in hiding, moving from host to host, from ruined relationship to tainted friendship. I promised to aid the egg that became the new Queen. I promised her what she desired: to be greater than any before her. I promised her power and I seeded changelings in the inner circles of Equestria, because I knew it was better to have enemies in places I knew about than ones I did not. I took Euporie and Eunomie, my new step-daughters, and I raised them, ensuring that they, too, were poison for changelings.”

“The Princess,” Twilight muttered, floored by all she had heard: changelings, hundreds or even thousands of them, all across Equestria? Aided by… by this stallion? She imagined what he had described, that she was webbed helpless to a bed, while the one she had married and sworn vows to turned into a insect-like monster. It was too horrible. It was just too horrible.

“We have to warn Princess Celestia!” she said, stamping a hoof. “She has to know!”

“If you do,” Alpha Brass warned, leaning down. It was only a few inches closer, but Twilight felt like he was whispering in her ear. “Chrysalis will know that she knows, and the changelings will go deeper into hiding.”

“If - if the Queen is the one doing all this-”

“Then I just need to kill her?” Brass asked, and shook his head. “As long as a single drone exists, it can turn into a Queen, and all this will repeat, a century later. Queen Chrysalis must not die, because without her no pony will have any control of the changeling swarm. It will run wild. A new Queen could rise, or two, or a dozen. Generations of ponies will be plagued by them.”

Twilight was momentarily at a loss. He was right.

If what he was saying was true, this ‘Queen Chrysalis’ was keeping things under control. They needed the changeling Queen. Twilight watched the caged changeling, and how it glared and listened, watching and waiting. She had no doubt that if it escaped, it would take somepony’s form. It would find a way back to other changelings, and Chrysalis would know everything they had talked about here.

“You have a plan,” she stated, knowing that everything he had said was to lead up to this.

“I do have a plan,” Alpha Brass said. He held up his hoof, high. “All the changelings must converge on one place. Every. Single. One. They must swarm, together. And together as a swarm-” The Golden Marquis slammed his hoof down with a crunch. “We destroy them.”

Twilight could understand the terrible simplicity of the plan. It was like dealing with parasprites. Nopony could deal with them individually. They multiplied and spread too fast. Just like Pinkie Pie had done, they needed to be rounded up and removed, en masse. But - but was killing them really necessary? They were monsters, but…

“Is that the only way?” she asked, looking to Eunomie and Brass both for some hesitation.

“It is the most efficient solution,” Eunomie said, emotionless.

“Nopony knows these creatures better than I,” Alpha Brass said, lowering his eyes and taking a step towards her. “They are parasites, and left unchecked, they will drain Equestria of love… and friendship… and even the passion that brings us art and beauty. They will consume it all and turn on our neighbors like a plague. Chrysalis is not like her predecessors.” He looked up, and Twilight could see the truth in his eyes as he spoke. “I know her dreams, and they are black… and deep… and they frighten even me.”

“To draw them all to one place,” Twilight consented, finally nodding in agreement. “It would have to be something too tempting to pass up.”

“It will be blood in the water that draws them. It will be the royal wedding,” he said, standing tall and placing a comforting hoof on her shoulders. “It will be nothing less than Canterlot itself.”

“Canterlot!” Twilight gasped. “But the Princesses…!”

“Will be our greatest weapons!” Brass agreed, “But they cannot know. Not until the last second. Not until all is in place.”

“I can’t… keeping this from Princess Celestia…?” Twilight struggled with it: with the very idea. How could he be asking her to keep something this big, this terrible, from her mentor? From her Princess?

“Do we have to?” she asked, almost desperately. “Can’t we tell her in private? I could talk to her, alone, just like you and I are doing now! Or write to her once Spike gets back. Nopony else will know!”

“And what would we gain from that risk?” he asked her, and Twilight didn’t have an answer. The Royal Guard came to mind, but any alert there could in turn alert the changelings. She remembered that Brass had specifically mentioned the two pegasus ponies with Shining Armor.

“The Royal Guard is compromised,” she realized, and it hit her like a hoof to the stomach.

“Very much so,” Alpha Brass confirmed her suspicion. “Princess Luna’s guard as well. The circle that knows must be kept small. I am trusting you with my life, Twilight Sparkle. If Chrysalis learns of my treachery, I will die first, and then my step daughters. You will see us again, but we will not be us. We will be them, and Equestria will be in greater danger than ever.”

He then did something she never would have expected.

He bowed his head to her, until his horn almost touched the floor.

“Keep this secret,” he pleaded, and a quick glance over at Eunomie showed that the stoic mare was almost visibly shocked by her step-father’s actions. “You are the Element of Magic, Twilight Sparkle. If there was doubt before, I am now willing to bet my life on it: I know you are a good mare, with the heart of a hero. Help me save Equestria! Work with me!”

“I… of course I will!” Twilight assured him, and reached down to help him stand straight. “You don’t need to bow to me… or - or beg me to help. Please, get up. I’m with you. I’ll help you.”

Alpha Brass smiled, and Twilight had the feeling that it was tinged with sadness. She could only imagine all this pony had been through: married off at such a young age, only to find horrors waiting for him that he could not have been prepared for. What impossible odds had he struggled against; what had he sacrificed and lost? She had never known. She had seen him visit her family from time to time, but she could never have known what he was escaping from in those days spent with her parents and her brother and the other relatives who were the Terre Rare in Canterlot. She wanted to help him.

She needed to help him.

“You have no idea how relieved that makes me,” he said, cupping her hoof in his own for just a moment. “Together, we will save Equestria. I swear it. And if the Princess is upset, I will gladly bear all responsibility for what was done. I will accept any punishment for my actions, but only after my country and the ponies who rely on me are safe and sound.”

Twilight understood, though she secretly vowed not to let him take all the blame, when the time came. If Rainbow Dash had taught her anything, it was loyalty, and that meant never hanging your friends out to dry.

“I’ll do whatever I can,” she promised.

“Thank you.” Alpha Brass raised the back of her hoof to his lips and gave it a quick, chaste kiss. “There are only two other matters… the most pressing of which requires the help of my step-daughter. Eunomie?”

“Yes, father.” The quiet mare stepped forward, found a spot, and sat down. “I will only need a moment to concentrate.”

Twilight watched, intrigued, as Eunomie displayed yet another trick… even if it was one she had seen before. The last time, though, it had been three mages working in tandem. That had been during Rarity’s duel with Antimony, when Lord Cruciger had been present via a magically possessed proxy. Alone, Eunomie needed time to gather the magic required, but like everything she set her mind to doing, she did it… eventually.

The pale mare’s body took on a mirage-like overlay.

Eunomie’s amber eyes opened, but quickly became shrouded over by light purple and lilac. Her white coat tinted rose and then pink. Her legs elongated as the illusionary image around her solidified, bit by bit. A gasp escaped her lips, along with a faint ‘aaaaah’ but it didn’t sound like the Eunomie Twilight had come to know. Finally, color overlaid her mane, dying it in white gold and then purple and rose… and when feathered wings stretched out from the sides of her body, Eunomie vanished entirely into the illusion.

‘No, not just an illusion…’ Twilight reminded herself. ‘This spell… is a possession spell.’

“Twi-light,” the alicorn image said, eyes fully open. “Is that really you?”

“No,” the changeling hissed within its cage, bodily throwing itself against the bars. “No! Not you! You can’t be!”

Twilight Sparkle barely registered the creature’s fits. She murmured a name, barely loud enough to hear her own words.

“Allow me to introduce the fifth member of our inner circle,” Alpha Brass said, and this time he did whisper the secret gently into Twilight’s ear. “Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.”

Chapter Twenty Six: Party

(26)

Party

It was known that good and noble stallions of gentle birth and fine pedigree would oft spend a day at the lists, tilting for valor and prestige. It was a most honorable sport and jest, harkening back to bygone days of Equestrian glory. To the esteem of all, it demonstrated respect and due reverence for one’s ancestry and ancient traditions. Together with polo, fencing and badminton it was truly the preferred physical activity of the patrician classes and those who aspired to join them. Sadly… for the common pony, however, few things could compete with that other all-Equestrian sport:

Hoofball.

Blueblood winced as his face met a quarter ton of charging apple farmer; throwing his weight to the side and pushing himself upwards with his back legs the pair tumbled off to the left and onto the grass. Feeling his otherwise magnificent white coat rub up against the sod for what had to be the hundredth time of the afternoon, Blueblood momentarily longed for facing an opponent with a lance or dagger in the lists. Surely it was better to risk getting impaled to the quiet applause of one’s wellborn peers than to get positively filthy to the cheering of one’s subjects.

“First down!” “Yes!” “Nice one, Mac!”

“Eyup.”

Stupid farmer. What insane earth pony came up with a sport where ponies had to tackle one another? Physically. With their hooves of all things!!

Without even a word, Blueblood took Big Mac’s hoof and pulled himself back up onto all fours. A hearty, all-too-familiar blow to the shoulder followed, in lieu of actual words. Probably something along the lines of “nice hit” or “keep tryin.” Then the red stallion was trotting back to the other bachelors on his team while a mare set the new line of scrimmage.

Hoofball.

Fie!

Why his Auntie Celestia loved this crazy sport so much, Blueblood couldn’t fathom. He’d learned to play it, of course. All colts did. It was Equestria’s national sport. Even noble colts were expected to join little colt teams, usually ones sponsored by guard regiments or other companies, demonstrating teamwork and friendship and camaraderie and all that bollocks. Blueblood hadn’t played in years and wouldn’t have been playing it now… if not for a less than subtle desire to impress one pony present.

He spotted Rarity talking with Fleur and a small gaggle of other noblemares by the patio. Were those scones? They were scones! Blueblood glared at the mare. Was it so wrong that he wanted to trade places with her? Then again, if she did, Big Mac would’ve run roughshod - even more roughshod - over the non-bachelor stallions’ team.

Well, he wasn’t aiming to impress her anyway. Let her enjoy her scones and tea under the shade of a parasol. Lucky curly-cue-maned marshm--

“Blueblood!” The name was punctuated by the feeling of a hoof batting his helmet. It would’ve hit him where his horn would’ve been, too, except part of the reason they had helmets was so the unicorn players didn’t kill anypony.

The royal pony glared at the source of the indignant interruption.

Magnum, the stallion who also just happened to be Rarity’s father and sire, didn’t wilt under the gaze of his noble lord. On the hoofball field, every stallion was just a stallion, no more and no less. It was more of that nutty earth pony egalitarianism, Blueblood supposed.

“Head in the game!” Magnum reminded him. “Cake! Watch the flea-flicker to Pierce. Caramel-” he batted that same hoof onto the shoulder of a large orange stallion with the same name as his smaller brother on the other team. “Break off Little Caramel and blitz with the front four.”

“Yes, sir!” the stallion had enough size, but still tended to crumble when his red cousin bowled him over. He had enthusiasm at least.

“Let’s show these mare-less pups!” Magnum, Blueblood had quickly learned, took his hoofball rather seriously. Everypony minus one aristocrat excitedly bumped hooves. “Break!”

Sighing discretely as the two teams began to line up, Blueblood took a look across the opposing offensive line: a black pegasus, Thunderlane he thought the name might have been, was on the far left. The center was anchored by another pegasus, a huge white fellow with tiny wings - wings Blueblood vowed not to make light of within the other stallions’ earshot - and on the right was a normal looking stallion, blue, with music notes for a cutie mark. Blueblood had been roughing him up the entire game, which was a small and much needed ego boost for the Prince, since behind the line was Big Mac, the bachelor team’s quarterback and running back and bulldozer all in one. The smaller Caramel and the little unicorn stallion Pierce hardly had to do much more than open up the field while Mac ran through the line.

‘I should be on that team,’ Blueblood thought, snorting into the single bar grill of his helmet. ‘I am still a bachelor myself, technically speaking.’

Maybe if he had been playing this crazy game simply for fun…

No: the point of it was to try and forge a bit of tête-à-tête, a repertoire really, with the stallion he expected to have as his father-in-law. Father-in-law. Blueblood snorted at the admission. It was very much his plan to ask this Magnum fellow for permission to propose to his daughter, but the pony was hardly what he had expected in an in-law. He had been raised to expect to marry he daughter of another Duke, or at least a noble Lord or even a Commander from Cloudsdale. No so much a retired hoofball player turned sports writer.

The bachelor team snapped the ball and Blueblood surged forward along with the rest of the blitz. His team was, with one other exception, composed of all married stallions. Blueblood had met many of them before when he invited the male residents of Ponyville to his manor for a night of smoking, drinking, and raunchy theater. It had been a fun stag party, or bull’s party as it was called in some parts of the country, but it had also proven that he didn’t have much in common with his would-be father-in-law. …Aside from their eerily similar coat and eye colors anyway.

Noteworthy! That was notes-on-his-flanks’ name!

Blueblood rushed past the pony whose name he had so fortuitously recalled, raising his hooves as Big Mac balanced on two legs to try and pass. Seeing the rush, the quiet red stallion huffed and backpedaled. He got the ball off moments before Blueblood and Magnum slammed into him. The apple farmer was like a stack of bricks on all fours, but on just two legs, he fell over as easily as any other pony.

The ball, meanwhile, arced through the air towards the slender fellow, Pierce, who Blueblood had heard frequented the Canterlot upper crust. Like the Prince, however, Pierce seemed to find himself drawn to Ponyville. Given the cheering section, it was probably due to a certain mare. He was a little pony, but he and the Prince had that in common. Ponyville mares.

“Go Pokey! Go Mister Cake! Go Pokey! Go Mister Cake!”

A yellow hoof reached up and nicked the ball before it could reach Pierce, sending it flying end over end off the field. Carrot Cake pumped a hoof, and pointed at a rather homely mare, his wife Cup Cake. Blueblood knew the two of them rather well, actually, if only due to the Gala loops and his time spent trying to teach their pink terror of an apprentice how to dance like a proper mare.

“Still got it, honey bun!” he declared, waving his hoof happily.

“You go sugar cake!” The Cake matron blew him a kiss in between trying to keep her two foals calm. One of them was an infant unicorn, too. Blueblood did not relish what those two earth ponies had to be going through.

“Yea! Mister Cake! Better luck next time Pokey! But not too much luck!”

“Thanks ever so much, Pinkie. Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“Everypony’s side! I want you both to win! Or lose.”

Pierce repeatedly met face to hoof as he walked back to his team. Pinkie, meanwhile, continued to alternate between cheering for one side and then the other. She even - somehow - managed to get her hooves on a cheerleader uniform that had blue on one side and pink on the other. Blueblood tried to ignore the loony mare, though half the eyes on the field wandered when Pinkie started doing high kicks in a scandalously pleated mini-skirt.

A self-conscious round of coughing later and the married stallions all huddled up again.

“Watch the run everypony,” Magnum coached, gathering up his team and distributing another round of cuffs to the helmet for good measure. “Hayseed can’t put the ball between the uprights at thirty yards to save his life. We stop them here, they’re finished.”

No sooner had the older stallions lined up along their side of the line of scrimmage than Big Mac barked for the snap. Blueblood cursed and threw himself into the press only to catch a glimpse of something move to his right. He pointed with his hoof even as he pushed Noteworthy back to block the run, clearly coming in from the side. He pushed and glanced to his left, where Big Mac had his hooves back as if to pass, but without the ball.

A loud ‘oomph’ came from a few yards past scrimmage, and breaking away from the melee, Blueblood caught sight of Magnum standing over a dazed looking Caramel. The straw colored workpony was on his back, still clutching the hoofball, eyes spinning dizzily. The officiating mare yelled and threw up her hooves to mark where the stallion had been tackled and Magnum helped the bachelor back onto his hooves. Their own Caramel, the larger one, came over to briefly check on his little brother.

“Third and four!” the officiating mare announced, tossing the hoofball back to Big Mac.

‘That poor foal got rather thoroughly laid out! I suspect Auntie probably only enjoys this silly sport so much because she doesn’t have to play it. Though… there is a certain visceral, vulgar charm to it…’

Blueblood grunted as the red train that was Big Mac broke through the left of the line, surging forward despite two other stallions trying to dog pile him. Turning away from Noteworthy, Blueblood threw himself towards the slow moving mass, his weight helping to bring it down.

“First down!”

“Yes! Big Mac!” “The Mac Truck!” “Way to go, Mac!”

‘I’m absolutely filthy. I can feel the dirt in the cracks of my hooves.’ Blueblood’s mood soured in the huddle as Magnum barked out their formation for the new first and ten. ‘I shouldn’t have bothered with this plebian shoving contest. I should’ve just presented her family with Miss Rarity’s dower and bride token and been done with it. This is… this is… rather not what I would prefer. I am a gentlestallion, after all.’

“Fancy-boy! What’s your name? Pants? Get in here!”

“Jolly good! I’ve been positively itching for some action!”

Face to hoof, Blueblood groaned. ‘Fancypants!’

The Canterlot socialite was bouncing on his hooves, happy for another chance to play and indulge his inner bucolic earth pony. With a helmet instead of a monocle, he looked positively bourgeoisie, like a regular local. Fancypants. He would genuinely enjoy this sort of exercise.

“Perhaps I shall finally knight you, if only so you can squirm in a suit of armor while somepony has at you with a lance,” Blueblood muttered under his breath.

“What was that now?” Fancypants asked, adjusting his helmet strap with a hoof. It was hard to use magic with one’s horn not only covered, but magically concealed.

Blueblood sighed. “Nothing.”

“Very good!” Fancypants patted the lord Duke on the shoulder with a grin. “Let us do this ‘blitz,’ together, then! It should be positively bully!”

Mac’s lackadaisical hut broke the tension of the line as everypony clashed, the bachelor stallions making another attempt to plow through the middle. A cry came up from both sides as bodies clashed and strained. Blueblood lifted one front leg and pushed in with his left, bringing the right around and then down to send Noteworthy face-down. He caught sight of the ball, and Big Mac, but not together. Before he could close, the apple bucking workhorse slammed into him, nearly knocking him off his hooves.

A whistle signaled the end of the down, and the mare in the white shirt - by now nicely stained - called the ball: “Second and eight!”

“Back! Back to the line!” Magnum suddenly yelled, as the bachelor herd broke early and took up position on the line. “No huddle!” There was no time for a nice chat, it seemed, nor for a strategy. The other team would overhear any explicit orders on the part of their team captain. “Watch the pass!”

No sooner was it out of Magnum’s mouth than Mac snapped the ball and fell back.

“Pass!” Everypony started yelling, the stallions in the line both pushing forward and raising their hooves. “Pass!”

Blueblood did the same, but watched helplessly as Mac’s pass soared well overhead. He turned to try and follow the trajectory. It was another pass to Pierce, who had been closely covered stallion-to-stallion by Mister Cake for half the game. The two were feuding like a pair of angry oatswives at the market, hooves flailing as they jumped for the pass.

“Go Pokey! Go Mister Cake! Both of you catch the ball!!”

The hoofball did brush the hooves of both Cake and Pierce, before ending up in the grip of the latter moments before they both tumbled out of bounds. The dirty mare rushed out and waved her hooves.

“Out of bounds!” she yelled, and more than a few in the crowd voiced their displeasure. Pierce had been just at the edge of the end-zone. “Third and eight!”

“He had his hooves all over me!” Pierce complained, calling for pass interference. Tossing the ball to the mare he grumbled, rather loudly, “Unbelievable. I’m not Misses Cake, sir. Watch those sticky hooves.”

“Please, Pierce,” the lanky pastry chef snorted and the two stallions glared at one another.

“Oh! I love sticky hooves! You should have sticky hooves, Pokey!”

Both stallions stared at Pinkie for a long moment - still in her bouncy two-toned cheerleader outfit - then, the tension diffused, trotted back to their teams. Magnum in particular took a moment to congratulate Carrot Cake.

“Sticky hooves!” he said, and the two fathers laughed and bumped hooves. “Just like old times, Carrot. Those long legs of yours always did get you into trouble.”

“Just thank Celestia that ball was out of bounds,” Carrot Cake said, snickering.

“Fancy. Blueblood. You’re both with me. Take Mac down.”

Fancy enthusiastically agreed and Blueblood groaned, but agreed. They lined back up, and this time Big Mac barked out a series of audibles… only slowly. Maddeningly slowly. Blueblood kept his eye on the ball and when it snapped, rushed forward. Noteworthy, despite being a smaller stallion, put up a fight and held his part of the line better than usual. In the push it was always hard to see what was going on, but when a flash of red appeared heading his way, he guessed it to be another run. Breaking away from Noteworthy and running to the right, he saw Big Mac trying to break away. He was already a yard or two past the line of scrimmage.

He wasn’t, however, out of reach.

Jumping, he managed to catch the charging apple farmer by the waist. A lifetime’s worth of expensive physical trainers - a good physical trainer in Canterlot could earn enough to retire in five years and had his or her pick of clientele - combined with the mass of a stallion who always ate well dragged Mac down just enough for Magnum to stand the big stallion up on his hind legs with a hard hit. Then a similarly large weight crushed Blueblood and added to the force knocking Big Mac onto his side.

Three of the four stallions hit the ground in a tangle of legs and hooves.

Snorting grass out of his nose, Blueblood tasted something… unpleasant and stringy. It took a second to realize it was grass. From the ground. He gagged with an audible ‘bleegh.’ Luckily, he wasn’t crushed for much longer than the fates deemed it necessary to impugn on his dignity. Grabbing the closest hoof, he felt himself lifted up and back onto his hooves. Fancypants - of course it would be Fancypants - was beaming with excitement and triumph at their play. He pointed to where the officiating mare had set the ball.

Fourth and two.

“Very nice, boys!” Magnum complimented the two Canterlot unicorns, hurrying them back to the huddle and then to the line. A rather unpolished young bachelor by the name of ‘Hayseed’ - a name Blueblood had to check twice to be sure he heard right, as it certainly sounded like some sort of joke - one of the Apple clan, took to the field to make the three-point kick attempt. There was less to do here but crowd the line, reach for Celestia’s sun, and hope.

“Wide!” the mare called, as the kick sailed through the air.

“Aw, shoot!”

Blueblood listened, a bit surprised, to the cries of the bachelor team. More than a few, caught up in the game, were throwing their hooves up in overwrought despair. It was a spectacle Blueblood had seen before, many times, really. It wasn’t just hoofball. Stallions were usually deemed to be more competitive than mares - often by sociologist ponies who no doubt didn’t know the kind of crazy nut-job mares that ran in his social circles - and spirits tended to run high in most any game where more than five of them got together.

“Studs! Studs! Studs!” The married stallions picked up the call, high-hoofing one another. For once, Blueblood felt a moment of companionship with Fancypants, hoi polloi upstart though he was. Well, that was a tad unfair. The stallion had excellent taste in most things and a lot of bits besides. Just: did he have to be so obviously pleased with acting contrary to the habits and preferences of his peers? Did he have to always fit in so easily, no matter where he went, the lucky sod?

He and Blueblood were both bachelors, too, though - the odd stallions out on the team of married ponies.

Suddenly, the usually refined stallion chuckled. What amused him all of a sudden, Blueblood didn’t see. Was it that they’d managed to eke out a win at this rough game, thirty four to thirty one?

“You’re planning to propose to her, aren’t you, old boy?”

Fancypants’ question was unexpected and Blueblood undid the buckle of his helmet to avoid answering. It felt good to have his horn free again. He sent a ripple of magic into his forehead, just to make sure everything still worked up there. One couldn’t be too safe, not given how often he’d had to collide with a brick red wall over the last two hours. Blue eyes meandered towards the garden patio and the group of mares there. One in particular noticed his attention and waved a creamy hoof.

He still wanted to trot over and take some of her scones.

“The thought crossed my mind,” Blueblood finally admitted, watching as Fancypants also removed his helmet. “I assume you asked Fleur’s family for her hoof some time ago.”

“Naturally,” Fancypants replied with a confident grin. “I took them for a tour of one of my estates, broke open a case of the most expensive imported cigars, and told them I wished to wed their daughter. There we no objections. I had thought they’d ask for my knighthood first, but not so much as a peep.”

Blueblood snorted; yes, he could see them not objecting. Fleur’s family was noble, but poor. “I doubt overawing Miss Rarity’s parents with wealth will serve me as well as it did you.”

“You don’t need their permission at all, really,” Fancypants reminded him, but carefully. With the game over, he was quick to remember who they both were in the world off the field.

“I don’t,” Blueblood agreed, trotting towards where the teams had gathered to shake hooves. “But I want it.”

‘I want them to approve of me,’ he didn’t say. He didn’t have to say it. Fancypants was likely smart enough to see the meaning as it was. ‘They’ll be my new family. This one should like me. Only in-law, but still, a mother and a…’

The bachelors and studs shook hooves, all in agreement that the game had been fair and fun. Blueblood watched, from a short distance, as Rarity and her mother - the later fitting into noble company much more poorly than her daughter - descended to mob their father. Even Sweetie Belle was present, fresh from school. He watched, grinned, as Rarity refused to hug her father, pointing at all the dirt and grass on him. The mares around them tittered, amused, and Blueblood found himself wanting to chuckle a little, too. It was so sickeningly sugar sweet: a loving family like that.

Even if he got permission, and he was ever-confident he would, he honestly couldn’t see himself fitting in with them. The thought was an unwelcome one, but not unexpected. Even if he never fit in, even if Rarity’s parents never really saw him as much more than their daughter’s precious Prince, it didn’t have to be completely awkward. It could even be…

Nice.

It could be nice.

Bachelors and married stallions, all quickly retired first to the stable showers. As expected, there were drinks and a light buffet waiting for them, courtesy of the manor staff. The egalitarianism of the field persisted, just a little longer, as they ate and washed off together. Many were already talking about a party in town set to begin at sundown. Others muttered about relaxing before the art festival tomorrow. Fancypants soon lit up a cigar - one of his few vices - and invited some of his new burgher comrades to help themselves as well. Soon they would be returning to their families or their mares, or both, depending.

He took a seat close by the stallion he needed to talk to, waiting for a moment of polite introduction. It came as Magnum, a drying towel around his shoulders, blew a trail of smoke from one of Fancypants’ cigars.

“My little Pearl would be quite upset if she saw me now,” he said, holding the cigar in his right hoof. He gestured both to it and with it, the burning tip leaving a little trail of embers in the air. “Disgusting habit, smoking. You don’t smoke, do you, son?”

Blueblood bit back the momentary urge to correct the stallion. ‘Your Grace,’ was the proper title or ‘My Lord.’ He shook his head.

“Only as social needs demand,” Blueblood replied.

“Social needs,” Magnum repeated, the crook of his mouth curving into a half smile. “So you only smoke when others do.”

“It is considered polite, at times,” the noblepony explained. “Just as one typically does not smoke unless one’s superior has already lit up.”

Magnum raised an eyebrow that seemed to indicate he was amused, but not much more. He glanced down at his cigar, took one last tiny inhale of it, and dropped it. A stamp of a hoof and it was out.

“I played four years in Canterlot,” he said, before Blueblood could begin to broach the reason why he had arranged all this. “It was before your father died, Celestia light his path. He ran things well enough, as far as I could see.”

It was a kind form of nostalgia, Blueblood figured. His father had left his son a Duchy in slow decline. He had kept it level, which was something, but it was far from the prestige and glory and power Canterlot had once wielded. It was also possible the Fifty First Blueblood was remembered fondly by many because he had died young, before he could get old and indolent enough for ponies to resent him and wonder how the years and thousands of bits they paid in taxes ended up wasted.

“Not too long ago,” Magnum continued, the older stallion’s eyes fixing Blueblood with a stare. “I ran into my little Rarity in town. Trainin’ for some kind of fancy unicorn duel… she said she was a noble mare now. It was because of you. I didn’t know what to think before that, not about you two. I sort of figured it was a fling on your part. But my Rarity actually fought another mare for you.”

It was… more complex than that, but Blueblood kept quiet. Courtly politics weren’t the issue here.

Instead, he nodded, understanding.

“This isn’t a fling,” Rarity’s father concluded, sighing. “I guess that’s a good thing. Pearl always said she had a bit of noble mare in her, so she’s happy. She thinks all this is so damn cute, like one of those romantic radio dramas, except when she thinks about Rarity having these duels. Then she can’t stop fretting. But my little Rarity? Did she ever tell you? She saw you once, when you both were small. You came to Ponyville to meet the more prominent families here and darned if she didn’t fall in love with you from afar. All these years and I never was able to talk her out of it.”

Realizing he was rambling a bit, Magnum sucked in a breath.

“Go ahead and ask me, son,” he said, finally, resigned.

So: he knew, too.

“Your daughter Rarity,” Blueblood began, straightening in his seat in the stable. Around them, other stallions relaxed and chatted, either eating or being groomed by mares from the household staff. Blueblood silently wished one of them had taken the initiative to start on his tangled blond mane. It would’ve helped him relax.

“Your daughter,” he said again, meeting the older stallion’s gaze. “I mean to marry her. With your permission, sir,” he added, after a pause. It was a long enough pause, too, that Magnum grinned.

“With my permission,” he repeated, but didn’t give it. Blueblood grinned, too. This was more familiar territory. He was certain he had that permission, but it was customary to at least bargain a little, especially when both parties were wealthy. Or at long as one was.

In fact, it would have probably been construed as rude had Magnum accepted right away.

“Eighty thousand bits over the next ten years,” Blueblood rattled off the massive sum without preamble. “One fourth of it to remain in an account for Sweetie Belle, who shall have her education provided for in any way she wishes. I will personally provide for any mentor she desires once her special talent develops. I would give you land, too, but Ponyville is your daughter’s demesne at the moment and I doubt you want to live far from town.”

“The house we’ve got is just fine,” the older stallion replied, and a hoof of his reached up to scratch his forehead. He’d been quick to grab a curious straw hat from his wife and wore it now, even indoors. “Eighty thousand over ten years? How many barrels of apples is that, I wonder?”

Blueblood couldn’t begin to guess. “A great many.”

“Pearl joked the other day that if this comes up, I should ask you to introduce Sweetie to some fancy colts in Canterlot. I said I’d think about it.” Magnum shook his head. “I thought about it, and realized I don’t like thinking about it.”

“And so a new dynasty was born,” Blueblood joked, and held out a hoof.

“Right,” Magnum decided, and the stallions firmly shook hooves. “You have my permission, our permission, I guess, to propose to our daughter. You treat her right, now, son.”

Son?

Son-in-law, of course. But it still had a nice ring to it.

“If I don’t, I’m sure she’ll hit me with a cake until I learn better,” Blueblood gave the older stallion’s hoof one last shake, sealing the deal. “Now I just need to figure out how to ask her. She’ll want it to be something fancy and romantic, of course.”

“So?”

“So I’ll probably ask her next time we’re in the bath.”

The two stallions laughed.

It was a little surreal trotting alongside Pinkie Pie without her bouncing instead of walking. Usually only long walks tired her out enough to put the spring in her step on reserve. This time, though, the culprit wasn’t fatigue. It was her mane.

Pinkie’s mane had always been a volatile thing that often reflected her moods. Pierce knew this from experience. Any moment it could expand without warning, growing or losing body or even turning limp when she was feeling melancholy or upset. Tonight, it was neatly curled and dressed with a hoof-full of little pink ribbons. It still appeared pretty chaotic, but a closer look showed that all the curls in her mane flowed in the same direction, and all the curls in her tail were roughly the same size. She’d put some actual effort into it this evening.

“You look really nice, you know,” he slyly whispered and Pinkie beamed, just barely stopping herself from a mane-style damaging bounce.

She pointed a pink-glossed hoof at him. “You almost had me there!” She touched one of her mane’s curls. “I am not messing this up. Not yet anyway!” Cue the fit of giggles.

“I don’t recall if you ever styled your mane at all back when we went out,” he mused, teasing her.

“You just never noticed because you spent all night fussing about your own mane, Pokey!”

Pierce tossed his head and in the process his own short mane of wavy alabaster and baby blue curls. Pinkie giggled again and reached up to flick the foremost of his curls where they flowed around his horn. More than once she had jumped onto his back to have an easier time of it, playing with his mane. It was a little embarrassing when she did it in public, but he didn’t mind. He’d returned the favor a few times in private, after all.

“Ohhhh!” Pinkie gasped as she caught sight of their destination. “My party senses are tingling!” She briefly floated into the air, her entire body shivering. “As if a hundred ponies cried out all at once, and then were silent… and then they danced.” She hit the ground and started to pre-emptively shake her rump. “Dancing! Dancing! Every-pony’s Danc-ing! This is gonna be super fun!”

“Down, girl,” Pierce said, bumping her with his own flank. “Let’s at least get inside first.”

“Oh! Oh yeah! Righty-reeny-roo!”

It was quite a sight, for Ponyville.

Euporie had apparently bought out the entire Ponyville Mareiott Hotel, converting the lobbies and lower floor into a dance floor. A pair of suited bouncers, local Ponyville stallions hired for the job, seemed content to let anypony in. Ponies in singles and groups were entering or milling around, waiting for friends, some clothed and others not. Pierce and Pinkie were both bare, aside from little things like Pinkie’s mane ribbons, but that was by request.

The roar and beat of dance music met their ears as they approached the entrance. The Ponyville Mareiott was only a fraction the size of either of the two in Canterlot, but at four stories high it was one of the taller buildings in Ponyville. Located just down the street from the train station, it was on the corner of the village’s small downtown area. The roof was flat, unlike most of the roofs in Ponyville which were steep and often thatched, with stylistic corbels and cornices. Pedimented Reinitian windows and a half-again higher than normal ‘piano nobile’ first floor gave it a classical, Bitalian appearance uncommon to the more rustic buildings that made up Ponyville. Decorative wrought-iron railings led up to a raised belvedere on the second floor, and it was here that the building also accommodated more of the local styles with hearts and gentle curves.

The whole building had been lit up with a warm orange glow.

Pinkie and Pierce were about to enter, personal guests of Euporie, when one of the bouncers stopped them with a raised hoof. “Pinkie!” he said, cheerfully. “And guest?”

“And guest?” Pierce asked, annoyed. “I have a name, you know.”

“You remember Pokey, don’tcha Tough Stuff?” Pinkie asked, and of course she knew this stallion’s name. As she said herself: she literally knew every pony in Ponyville. “He’s my date for tonight!”

The big black coated earth pony narrowed his eyes at Pierce, clearly not remembering him.

“Like I said, Pinkie and guest,” he repeated, and reached into one of his suit pockets to hoof over a pair of glowing neon bracelets. “Lady Euporie said to give this to ponies on her list. They’ll let you up into the VIP area.”

“VIP passes!” Pinkie exclaimed, and in a blur, she quickly slipped them onto her right front leg. Pierce blinked, and realized that his neon bracelet was on, too. Four years he’d known this mare, and he still didn’t get how she did that.

“Oh! I wonder who else made it onto the list?” Pinkie asked, dragging Pierce bodily into the hotel lobby. “Euporie said I gave her waaay too many names, and I bet she didn’t just invite everypony! Actually, I guess she DID invite everypony! But not to the special party upstairs! Hey! It’s Vinyl! HI VINYL!! This is much more of a DJ party than the artsy party tomorrow, not that I’m not looking forward to that party, too! OH! Let’s dance!”

“W- ah- if you want--”

Pokey Pierce always found it hard to say ‘no’ to Pinkie Pie.

Mostly because she never let him get the chance.

As she dragged him onto the dance floor that had once been the hotel lobby, he also caught sight of the party’s DJ. Vinyl had been hired to play, in a much more sedate capacity, for Rarity’s - Lady Rarity’s, Pierce corrected himself - art festival tomorrow. It had been at Pinkie’s insistence, as the two mares were good friends, but Pierce still wasn’t sure it was all that wise. DJ Pon-3, as she was billed, was well suited to a party like this: mixing records while flanked by loud speakers and pumping out the jams or ‘wubs’ or whatever the parlance was. This certainly wasn’t going to fly tomorrow, where the idea was to provide ambiance, not dance music.

Pierce shook his head to dispel his worried about the festival tomorrow. Pinkie Pie was organizing it, too, and she sure wasn’t worrying about it. They’d all done everything they could to prepare for it. Tonight was a night to have fun and unwind!

Bouncing, albeit carefully, Pinkie swayed to the music and reached out to grab his hoof with her own; Pierce smiled and joined in and the two danced around in a jaunty circle. Pinkie’s smile grew even wider and she threw away just a little bit more of her inhibition - inhibition itself being rather difficult for the pink party pony - messing up her carefully curled mane as she stood up on her hind legs to jam. Then, as a new song started, she whipped around and stuck her rump in the air, waving her tail back and forth.

“Put giraffes in the air! Put giraffes up in the air!” she sang, bouncing briefly to spin a hundred and eighty degrees around. Then she was back to the flank wagging. “Put giraffes in the a~i~r!”

“I don’t think that’s how it goes, Pinkie.”

“Whatdoyamean?” Pinkie asked, ass in the air. “It makes sense to me!”

Pierce raised a hoof to try and explain, and then thought better of it.

“The song is definitely about putting giraffes in the air,” he agreed with the swaying pink tail. Rolling his eyes, he spun around and mimicked his date. There were certain responsibilities that came with being partner to Pinkie Pie: balancing out silly with yet more silly was one of them.

If only he could hide his grin - he wasn’t enjoying it that much, was he?

The two ponies danced after that song ended, too, and then after the next one. Only a reminder that they needed to head up to the VIP area limited Pinkie to “just one more dancy wancy, please? Pretty please?” Which, of course, turned into two more dances. Then, on the way up, they ended up taking a quick snack detour during which Pinkie thoroughly raided the buffet table and first spiked the already alcoholic punch, and then drank enough to earn the ire of Ruby Punch who had taken on ‘Master of Punch’ ceremonies.

A normal pony would probably have been exhausted or close to passing out, but for Pinkie Pie, it was a nice, light buzz to start the evening. Her bounce was back, though she kept it to just an inch off the floor to avoid further messing up her mane and tail. Not trying to keep pace with the mare and her nuclear powered metabolism, Pierce nibbled on some of the free food and helped himself to one, then one more, glass of the discretely-spiked punch.

Euporie had laid out a rather impressive spread.

Just as she had invited anypony in town to attend the party - the lower party anyway - she had brought in enough food and drink for half the town. Lady Rarity had already reserved a great deal of local produce for her art festival, Pierce knew that personally, so much of what Euporie had here must have been imported overnight at considerable expense. The only guaranteed local product in sight was that new Apple Family Cider… the one everypony was raving about. “Granny Smith’s Personal Reserve” it was called. Pierce had a cup on tap - he’d had Apple Family cider before, but this was really something else!

As some point, though, he noticed Pinkie taking a long, appraising look at the party. They had been on their way to one of the curved staircases leading up to the second floor and the VIP area when they’d paused to finish their cider. Watching the pink mare, Pierce noticed an intense look in her blue eyes.

“Pinkie?” he asked. “Are you alright?”

“This is a good party,” she said, breathlessly, like she wasn’t sure whether to be happy or not about it. “There are one hundred and sixteen ponies here and they’re having so much fun. Twenty three came in since we showed up and only two left.”

“How you even know these things…”

“Pinkie sense!” she assured him, bumping shoulders with the stallion. Her eyes remained on the party they were about to leave behind. “I’d have set up more balloons and more party games, but this is a good party.”

“It isn’t bad,” Pierce agreed. “But I still like your parties better.”

There was only a moment’s pause before Pinkie spun around and glomped onto him, rubbing noses with the stallion. “You always know what to say to make me smile, Pokey! Besides-” She kissed him quickly on the cheek. “One of the reasons I need so many balloons is because somepony keeps popping them!”

“If I find him, I’ll give him a piece of my mind,” Pierce promised, winking.

“Silly pony,” Pinkie declared, bonking him on the forehead and heading for the stairs. “Let’s go see what this super special VIP party is like!” Seeing him lingering, Pinkie batted her eyes in a surprisingly coy way. “Coming, Pokey?”

“Somepony has to keep an eye on you,” he agreed, chuckling as he followed the element of laughter. They were halfway up the stairs when suddenly the DJ started playing an upbeat tune.

“Stomp to my beat?” Pinkie asked, leaning over the railing. “No! I love this sooong!”

“You love any song you can stomp to,” Pierce reminded her, grabbing onto the pink mare’s foreleg to drag her along.

“I know! I do! It’s like my hooves have a mind of their own!” She stuck one of said hooves in his face and wiggled it. “You know, Mommy Pie used to say that idle hooves are Nightmare Moon’s servants, but I met Nightmare Moon, and my hooves didn’t try and do anything more naughty than usual!”

“Pinkie Pie and guest,” Pierce announced as they came to the top of the stairs. Below them and past the bannister, Vinyl continued to play for the first floor of the hotel. A few ponies noticed the pair of guests allowed up on the second floor and pointed. Despite the identical black suits and white bowties, the pair of guards up top here weren’t locals: they were barrel chested unicorns from Canterlot.

The guard checked the names on a list, and the neon bracelets on their forelegs.

“Rooms are reserved to the left and right,” one of the guards explained, satisfied that they were who they said they were. He then handed them a pair of envelopes and ushered them inside.

The dance music below faded as Pinkie and Pierce walked down the luxuriously appointed hall. The lights were low, the chandeliers overhead only half lit. It made the dark mahogany wood of the carved door frames look even darker and richer. It only grew quieter as they walked, until the party on the floor below them became a faint background drum.

Pierce opened his envelope, curious about the contents, revealing a heart shaped piece of parchment.

“What do you supposed this is…?” he almost jumped as the neon bracelet around his foreleg moved, turning into a sparkling cloud of magic. Checking on Pinkie, he saw the same had happened to her. They stopped trotting and watched, mesmerized, as the light seeped into the heart shaped paper.

A trio of balloons appeared on Pinkie’s paper then, and a safety pin on his.

“Hi there, Pinkie Pie!” her card suddenly declared.

“Hi!” Pinkie replied, as if talking to a piece of paper were second nature. She even waved to the copy of her cutie mark.

“Hi there, Pinkie Pie’s guest!”

“…uhm…”

“These are your VISSP cards!” the paper continued to say in Euporie’s voice, clearly pre-recorded. “What’s a VISSP you may be asking yourself? A Very Important and Super Special Pony, of course!”

Pinkie gasped, drawing in enough of a breath to float for a moment in midair.

“Of course!” she exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that?!”

“You’re both my very special guests tonight,” the card continued, the first few words drowned out by Pinkie’s muttering about how much neater it was to be a VISSP than just a ‘plain ol’ VIP.’ “Make sure you hold onto these cards until the time comes to collect them and don’t let anything happen to them! Guests who break their cards will be ejected from the VISSP party! Oh, and one last thing: your cards are partnered together, so if either of you break your card, both of you have to leave!”

Pierce turned the card over. It did look like there was a crease in the paper where it could split down the middle. “That’s… odd. I wonder if-”

Mid-sentence, he noticed Pinkie Pie had her card in her mouth, bending it like somepony checking to make sure a bit wasn’t a counterfeit.

“Don’t do that!” he cried, and Pinkie Pie spat the invitation out and into her hoof again.

“It isn’t normal paper,” she stated, examining the card. “I don’t know what this is. I bet Twilight would know, though!”

“It’s clearly magic or enchanted,” Pierce explained. “Breaking it probably teleports you out of the room. Seems like a very roundabout way of doing it, though.”

Considering the unusual cards with their cutie marks imprinted on them, Pierce and Pinkie made their way to the end of the hall. A pair of gilded doors opened at their approach, and inside they saw a smaller private lounge. There were already a dozen ponies waiting there, tended to by half as many maids and stallions in frilly servants attire. This was the VISSP party: Euporie’s real party.

A glass pony sculpture of a mare on her back dribbled a stream of chocolate from her breasts into a fondue moat resembling a shallow bath. A few ponies were nearby the erotic glass sculpture, dipping and sampling an assortment of sweets and fruits, cookies and cakes. An elderly mare - none other than Mayor Mare herself - chatted with a confident looking earth pony stallion with a slicked back black mane: Filthy Rich. Picking from a platter of cantaloupe, stemmed cherries, honeydew, strawberries, pineapple and bananas, oranges and apples, she speared a fig, dipped it lightly in the dribbling chocolate milk from the glass mare, and ate it with more than a little sinful delight.

At another table, an edible sculpture was still mostly intact: this one even more enticing than the chocolate mare. It was of two ponies locked in an embrace, the stallion a muscular earth pony and the mare a lithe unicorn. The entwined lovers were made of sponge cake; angel food and layered butter cake… their manes and tails of amaretti, ladyfingers, and wafer cookies. Their coats, white and black, were chunks of biscotti. Whipped cream pooled around them like fluffy cloudstuff.

A third table was heavy with liqueurs and fruit brandy, and though the glass sculpture that was the centerpiece of this table did not - thankfully - produce anything, it was rather enough that it was an anatomically exaggerated stallion, reclining on a chair, two mares holding lasciviously onto his legs. Below the sculpture bar and the sweet alcohols, a more conventionally stocked bar was built into the base at an angle to allow easy access.

Finally, a fourth table was set away from the others, but behind the glass Pinkie and Pierce could see small vials and carved wooden boxes. One item, too large to fit under glass, was also the most obvious to the eye: a Neighpalese or maybe Saddle Marabian Hookah of silver and porcelain, inlaid with flowers and tiny geometric shapes.

Perhaps without even thinking of it, Pinkie backed up a step…

“Oh, Pinkie Pie!” Mayor Mare noticed the mare, and her guest. “And Pierce! Lovely to see you joining us!”

“Mayor!” Pierce welcomed her, and hearing a familiar voice also seemed to snap Pinkie Pie out of her momentary hesitation. She bounded over to the gray-maned mare.

“Hiya Mayor Mare! Oh! And hiya there, Mister Rich! I didn’t know you two were, uhm…!” Pinkie looked innocently between them. “I didn’t know you two… were that kind of special friend!” she said, eyes wide. “Aren’t you both married?”

Filthy Rich chuckled and pointed over to another small group of ponies, one of which was a mare with a pink coat and a snowy mane, bundled up high behind her. It was Patent Pending, Mister Rich’s wife; Pinkie recognized the inventive mare from when she had planned Diamond Tiara’s last birthday party. Looking at the ponies chatting by the wealthy pony, she saw a multitude of familiar faces come into focus: couples she had seen around Ponyville, and all ponies from her ‘pretty ponies to invite’ list.

Mayor Mare’s husband, Mister Domain, was at the bar table, chatting animatedly with Doctor Stable Condition, the oldest of the Caramel Clan. Pinkie had it on good authority - which was to say her own authority, since she had somehow ended up in the Mayor’s bathroom one morning - that Mayor Mare dyed her pink mane gray to look older. Mister Domain was genuinely in his forties, though, and was probably the oldest pony in the room, with a streak of white across his graying mane, the same color as his coat. They were colors inherited by his daughter, Silver Spoon. Pinkie knew him mostly because he was one of the few ponies with little to no sweet tooth. He did like a nice drink, though, and he sometimes stopped by Sugarcube Corner to pick up rum-gum-drops for the Mayor.

Elsewhere, Pinkie recognized one of Ponyville’s most well-known pegasus stallions - well known in mare’s circles anyway. Thunderlane had shown up with Cloudchaser, the shyer mare eyeing the rest of the room with some trepidation. Seeing Pinkie looking his way, he waved with a friendly smile and eyes that lingered just a bit longer than she was used to. Usually, he only came by Sugarcube when he bought some treats for Rumble, who Mrs. Cake always gave free cookies to just for being cute. Cloudchaser also waved, and then blushed pretty fiercely.

The pegasus couple was sitting on some pillows next to Dizzy Twister and Cappuccino. Then there was Well Spring, who must have come with Doctor Stable, and Miss Amethyst Star and Mister Comet Tail… who Pinkie just saw entering, a heart shaped card in hoof.

“It is more complicated that, Pierce,” Filthy Rich said, and Pinkie snapped back to the present. At some point the four of them had migrated to between the drinks and chocolate fountain tables. “No mare has ever stimulated and challenged me as… intellectually… as my dear Patent, but to let you in on a little secret - since we’re all soon to be quite close here - I very nearly married our own Mayor Mare. We were quite close in business school.”

“Though I wouldn’t tell our little girls that,” Mayor Mare said with a little laugh.

“If the two of you hadn’t been such alpha mares, they could have almost been sisters,” Filthy Rich replied, and so Pinkie’s surprise, and more than a little embarrassment, Ponyville’s wealthiest stallion leaned over to pluck a piece of chocolate covered kiwi from between the Mayor’s lips, their tongues touching for just a moment.

“Delicious!” Rich professed, licking his lips. “I’m tempted to put aside the drinks and appetizers and get to the main course. Everypony should be here… except our honored hostess…”

“Ask, my little ponies, and you shall receive!” A voice announced, as if waiting for her cue. Immediately, the music stopped playing, and all the serving ponies bowed their heads. A whip tail of wind rustled the manes of chatting mares, and all eyes turned to where the winds began to swirl together. With a flash of light, three ponies appeared.

“Flim! And Flam!” Pinkie exclaimed, recognizing the two unicorn brothers. Rather than their usual trademark blue pinstripe vests and black bow ties, they like all the guests at the party, came minus clothes. Both brothers bowed their heads, their forelegs supporting the third pony.

“My own dates for the evening,” Euporie said, reclining on the two stallions. Her wild blue mane was the same, albeit with a slightly purple sheen that shimmered as it caught the light.

“I couldn’t pick just one,” she admitted, running a hoof through Flam’s peppermint mane. She ended the caress by patting him on the head, like a well behaved dog. “So I just picked both!”

With a laugh, she bounced out of the stallions’ hooves and onto the floor. By now, everypony had their eye on her. She smiled, imperiously, and soaked in the attention and anticipation.

“Welcome,” she said, after a long moment, savoring the smells and emotions in the room. Intense, amber eyes roamed over her guests. “Welcome, to my garden of sinful delights, my very super special ponies! I am Euporie, your hostess! Your Mistress of Ceremonies and Princess of Pleasure!!”

Her eyes settled on one couple in particular.

“Let the party begin.”

Twilight Sparkle glanced back over her shoulder. “You’re going out? At this hour?”

Eunomie was already dressed, a wool cloak covering her body, the hood drawn back. As she turned, Twilight saw that one of her eyes was open, the other closed. The quiet mare dipped her head in apology.

“I don’t mean to be rude.” She blinked her one eye, as if it was perfectly natural to do so. “I merely wish to check on some things in town.”

Twilight could guess what. “Euporie?”

“Yes.”

The pale mare flipped the hood over her head, leaving only a single amber orb visible in the darkness. She opened the library door and left without another word. Perched on a window sill nearby, Owloysius hooted and also took the opportunity to take flight and leave for the night. Twilight knew her pet, like a cat, needed to prowl for a few hours every nightfall. Eunomie didn’t have that same excuse, though it made sense she would want to keep an eye on her troublesome twin sister.

“Oh well!” she decided to let sleeping ponies lie and concentrate on more important and pressing business. Eunomie was pleasant company, especially during a study binge, and she had done a wonderful job organizing the library, but she had already contributed everything she knew towards Twilight’s current project.

Before her, Twilight took in the sight of the torc.

It was Lyra’s torc… supposedly. Alpha Brass claimed that it had been his, or his family’s, before being stolen. He had also spoken about what the torc was. Holding one of the delicately carved and braided golden coils, meant to fit around a pony’s chest, Twilight thought about Celestia’s own regalia. She had seen the Princess in it before and knew it had ceremonial value. These torcs were more primitive precursors, maybe even the models for what Celestia now wore, and harkening back to magic ponykind had forgotten or hoped to forget.

Rarity had discovered the identity of the missing gems and Twilight had repaired them. The secret then had been water: pure to one part in a thousand-million. A droplet of it had crystalized on contact with the vacant settings in the torc, forming a type of gemstone called a Captured Star. She had studied it very carefully after that, and on many long nights since. Lyra had written to say she would be some time in picking up her torc, due to an extended stay with a client, and that Twilight was free to continue to hold onto her newest find. Unusual for the minty mare, there hadn’t been even word-one about if Twilight had found anything about the “hands” - spade shaped leaves, really - that wreathed some of the gems on the torc’s circlet.

“Lenses,” she muttered, looking into one of the ice crystals.

Once set, the ice had become impervious to any and all attempts to remove or melt it. Close study had also revealed a thin latticework of iron within the gold. If magical energy were being channeled through the crystals, then the iron could well be acting as a conduit, and the gold an insulator.

“Except somepony broke it,” Twilight lamented, frowning at a crack in the iron lattice embedded within the gold. “How, though? And why?”

Repairing the goldwork had been easy, but repairing the former…? That was more difficult. New iron couldn’t just be soldered in. It would disrupt the spells in the metal, and unless she was mistaken, the iron used was meteoric in origin. That was a problem. Meteoric Iron was touched by the cosmic aether beyond the horizon’s veil, and once enchanted, it took on unique properties, including near indestructibility. Forging or even repairing Enchanted Night Iron was a real challenge - could ponies even do that, anymore?

Twilight closed her eyes, deep in thought.

There was one family who would still know: one pony who would still have that forbidden knowledge hidden away in the name of Princess and Country. Would it be so hard to look for it? He had given her free access to his secrets, hadn’t he? Tomorrow, she would even be at his home. How hard would it be to sneak off to Blueblood’s archives and… see if there was anything there?

‘Not hard at all,’ Twilight decided.

“While I’m at it, maybe I should ask Alpha if he can bring down one of the other two torcs…”

Tempted, she held the device over her head. She had tested it very thoroughly, after all, but never tried wearing it. What did it feel like? Against all reason: would it react, somehow? Brass knew some. Cruciger and Lady Twinkling Star Light knew more. It was Brass’s mother, or so he said, who had first somehow reconstructed the torcs. She was the one who had discovered, or rediscovered, their magic.

“Do what you can; see if you can repair it. I would not object to having more weapons on hoof for when we confront Chrysalis,” Alpha Brass had told her, before he returned home. He had then reached out to gently touch her shoulder. “You are the very Element of Magic. If anypony can decipher it, I believe that pony to be you...”

A warm blush turned the lavender mare’s cheeks pink.

“No. No no no! No wearing it!” She told herself, putting the regalia back on the mannequine. “Not until you know what to do with it! The only thing more dangerous than a magical artifact is a broken magical artifact!”

Celestia’s Rules.

“Celestia’s rules,” she gave voice to her thoughts. “Just like…”

Don't panic. Cause it.

Twilight’s expression fell, remembering those words from her teacher and mentor. Wasn’t that what she was doing? Nopony would be expecting her to pick up Alpha Brass of all ponies as an ally. She had Blueblood secretly supporting her, too. The only ponies not behind her were the main branch Terre Rares, and they would fall in line when either Antimony or Cruciger gave in. There was Chrysalis, too, but it wasn’t as if she could have planned for a changeling invasion when she wrote that letter to Princess Celestia.

Don't panic. Cause it.

“Isn’t that what I’m doing?” she asked, raising her voice… but there was nopony to overhear. No Eunomie. No Alpha Brass. No Spike. No Owloysius. Twilight fell forward onto her hooves, head lowered.

“You understand, don't you?” Blueblood asked, and Twilight slowly lowered the scroll between them. “Auntie is our beloved Princess. We love her because she doesn't abuse her power and because she doesn't make sweeping changes to things. She is the steady rock, the very foundation of our world.”

“The sun that rises every morning, without fail,” Twilight agreed, and the scroll rolled up with an audible whorl. “She makes the ponies who make the changes.”

The Prince of Canterlot leaned forward until he was balanced on his front hooves. “Are you that kind of pony, Twilight Sparkle?”

A lavender hoof lifted, and a feather quill shot across the room, followed by a scroll.

“If all of you want me to act on my own so badly,” she said to herself. “Then maybe I’ll do just that.”

Spike wasn’t around, and letters to the Princess weren’t about to write themselves.

Downy soft cushions may have been available, but Pinkie Pie didn’t need them - she’d brought her favorite pillow with her when she arrived! Pokey shifted under her slightly, his hooves running freely through her mane. He tasted like chocolate and smelt like sugar, though that was probably mostly because she had upended half a shaker of the latter into his mane and because they’d been eating the same piece of angel cake, drizzled liberally with sinfully thick chocolate.

Her tongue darting out, just the tip of it, she licked a smudge of frosting and sienna from Pokey’s cheek, nuzzling their noses together. She ‘ooh’ed dreamily as he reciprocated, dipping his head to nip at her neck. One of her hooves slipped up to clandestinely cradle his horn, running up to the unusually sharp tip. He hardly seemed to notice - unicorn horns were insensitive unless channeling magic - but Pinkie enjoyed the feel of it. Unicorn horns were just so pointy and hard, while most of a pony’s body - even a stallion’s - was soft and pliant. It reminded her of a long, sexy, faintly ribbed piece of… rock candy!

“Mmmm. Rock candy,” she murmured, a pleasant buzz of drink and salt and sugar making her head swim. “I’m the only mare here with rock candy…”

“And I’m the only one with pie,” Pokey whispered into her ear.

A few more playful nips and they relaxed into the floor pillows, or rather, Pinkie relaxed on top of her date. Pokey made due with the floor pillows. Only a hoof or two away, Thunderlane and Cloudchaser were in a similar state… actually, now that Pinkie took a second look, the pegasus couple were getting a little ahead of themselves, their hooves straying more boldly than Pinkie’s or Pokey’s had, yet.

Shadows moved behind a silky blind: servants and the musicians, playing and taking away dishes or platters out of sight so as not to distract the guests. The music was languid but melodic, and a faint haze of smoke could be seen drifting about the room. Two ponies, Patent Pending and Cappuccino, were smoking shisha, or honeyed tobacco, from the beautiful Saddle Marabian water pipe. Pinkie had tried a little herself, despite an aversion to smoking; the flavor had been gummy apple, strange but not initially unpleasant, but it had still made her cough.

Euporie didn’t seem to have the same problem, as she inhaled felicitously from the water pipe’s embroidered gold and sapphire smoking tubes. She had the only chair in the room all to herself, everypony else making due with luxuriously soft floor pillows. Playing up her Marabian affection, she had dressed in a bit, bridle and saddle festooned with ivory lace and delicate silvery tack. Flim and Flam, meanwhile, had been given black veils to wear over their faces as they attended to her. Despite the pleasurable haze drifting through her head, Pinkie felt a little pang of pity for the two cider brothers. Euporie wasn’t kissing them at all, and they were her dates and everything!

Other ponies were sure having a lot more fun!

Not the kind of fun Pinkie usually saw at parties at all, but Pokey had said that Euporie’s parties had a reputation… and a little sexy time kissy fun was why they were here, wasn’t it?

Feeling Pokey’s chest rise and fall under her, she still blushed hotly at how, er… enthusiastic… Mister Rich had become. Pinkie wasn’t sure she’d be able to look at him or Mayor Mare quite the same after today. She had voted for Mayor Mare just last year, and now the esteemed mare was by the chocolate table, Mister Rich making good on his earlier promise to rekindle their old flame. Mrs. Patent Pending didn’t seem to mind, either. Together with a bright faced Dizzy Twister, the two mares were urging the richest pony in Ponyville on, occasionally jumping in to hold a drink or a stemmed cherry or other treat just out of reach of the two pony’s mouths.

“This is so…” Cloudchaser muttered within hoof’s reach. She was looking at the same thing that had caught Pinkie’s eye, to the amusement of her coltfriend.

Thunderlane chuckled at her lack of words. “So hot and sexy?”

“No!” Cloudchaser objected, batting his chest playfully with a hoof. “Okay, yes! But kind of surreal, too. Maybe. I dunno…”

Cloudchaser and Thunderlane had sort of migrated close to Pinkie and Pokey, maybe feeling more comfortable around the young couple they sort of knew. Cloudchaser in particular still seemed a little embarrassed being this kind of affectionate in front of other ponies, despite her normally outspoken and outgoing personality. She seemed to be working herself up to daring to try the sort of thing Mayor Mare had been ready for, right away. But then, Mayor Mare also had somepony, her husband asides, she wanted to… be with.

“We’re both glad you two are here,” Cloudchaser said, a lilac hoof brushing back a few of her snow and sky blue bangs.

“Thanks!” Pinkie replied, smiling and eliciting a smile from the other mare. “Though I don’t think we’ve really done anything? Except some smooch smooch!” She stuck out her lips and made kissy sounds.

Slowly, the ambrosial music solo tapered off, allowing a flute to play with a more upbeat tempo.

“Everypony!” Euporie announced, and soon all eyes were on her. Even the Mayor and Mister Rich paused… mostly. They averted their eyes upward, at least.

“You two are actually just fine,” the presiding unicorn mare said, pointing at the pair. “I think everypony is enjoying my party, aren’t you?” She didn’t give time for anypony to answer, as Euporie slid out of her seat to trot around the room. “Drink, eat, smoke… enjoy yourselves! Those are my commands. More than that: drink in me. Your pleasure is my pleasure. I want nothing more than to see it in your eyes.”

Approaching Dizzy Twister and Patent Pending, Euporie gently ran a hoof along the younger mare’s cheek and down her neck. She shivered, almost melting at the touch. Patent Pending laughed but quickly blushed as Euporie met her eyes. Their hostess was younger, but the lively and apparently rather lusty wife of Mister Rich was caught breathless as a wispy loop of magic reeled her in. The two locked lips, to the delight of Mister Rich who clopped a hoof against the floor in applause. By the time the two mares parted, Patent Pending’s legs gave out and she slumped down to the floor.

“That’s the look,” Euporie said, only glancing down at the sighing older mare for a moment. “Pure pleasure! There is nothing to compare to it in this world. All the values of Equestria: love, friendship, harmony… all are just different shades of pleasure and desire.”

She looked around, trotting from group to group, and as she passed by Pinkie felt a strange surge of energy, beginning with her hooves and ending with a fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach. The music from the flute became a gentle warble and she sighed, softly, and felt Pokey stir beneath her. He rolled onto his side and tried to deftly stick a leg between them, a little too slow and a little too clumsy to really be anything close to discrete. It wasn’t exactly virgin territory to her, but Pinkie felt unusually bold as she smacked away his leg.

‘There was no point playing hide and seek, was there?’

But, even that thought felt… funny…

“Revel in me,” Euporie commanded them, a musical pulse flowing from her pale horn. From across the room, heart shaped cards magically imbued with cutie marks began to take to the air, floating out of reach and overhead. They slowly circled within the room; they slowly circled the mare named Euporie.

“Revel in me,” she said again, holding up a polished, alabaster hoof. “And in each other! Tonight is a night for exotic desires, is it not? For fruits rare and forbidden, for desires not given voice… do you wish to feel pleasures new and exciting? To taste that which you have never put lips to, my little ponies?”

“Yes!” “We do!” They responded, calling to her. “Show us!”

“Any one of you can find pleasure in the embrace of your friend or lover,” Euporie explained, and two of the heart shaped cards settled in the flat of her raised hoof. “You do not need me for that. But if it is a delicious, new pleasure you want to feel…your Princess may be able to help with that.”

Her horn glowed softly, projecting an image of the two chosen cutie marks: a gray cloud sporting a bright yellow bolt of lightning and a trio of emerald tinted gemstones in profile.

“I have a game I’d like to play with you, my special little ponies. Would anypony like to play it with me?” Euporie called to them, and two ponies rose up to answer, looking first to her and then, to each other. Voices answered her, crying “Yes!” “Yes!”

“Good,” Euporie said, eyes a glow. “But first, before I tell you about the game. Let me tell you a little story, to set the mood…”

Together with the soft music from behind the curtains, Euporie’s magic began to cast a warm and inviting illusion along the walls: that of a rolling and fantastic desert, with a golden castle and streaming blue pennants and tents the color of the clear, azure sky in the day, and the dusky smoky blue of midnight. Smoke rose from one of the walls, revealing a handsome but tall and thin pony, riding across the desert and streaming silks from his shoulders and neck to mingle with his mane.

“A long time ago, they say, there was a fearless and bold Saddle Marabian Prince. Craving adventure, he cast aside his throne and turned raider lord. What was less known, at first, was that this Bandit Prince was possessed of a lust… for gold, for silks, and for the fairest Equestrian mares. From his desert castle he would ride out and capture only the most beautiful maids to add to his harem, to make love to them in his moonlit garden of forbidden fruits.”

The Bandit Prince rode on, until he came upon a small caravan on the road, lit by the setting sun.

“One day, he happened upon a Princess of Equestria, traveling the roads by the desert… she was the most beautiful pony he had yet seen, and so he captured her…!”

Four pale, well-manicured hooves paused outside the canvas drawn around the market stall. They lingered there a few seconds, perfectly still, before resuming their measured pace. It was dark, late enough that most every shop in the town market was closed or in the process of closing up. No pony noticed the faint trail of sparkles briefly left behind by one of the white hooves.

Ducking her head, Eunomie entered Shady's Curiosities and Antiquities.

The plain brown canvas clearly indicated it was closed for business, but the shelves and tables within were still piled with locked glass and wood cases. Racks of carefully labeled antiques hung from hooks or by carved displays. A thick crystal case showed off an array of watches, most gold and a few sporting a gem or intricate scrollwork. The case was next to another, similar, one displaying a variety of jewelry with little or no organization or similarity besides the shared background of being purchased second-hoof.

Behind the counter of the market stall, a pegasus pony with a crimson coat and sleek orange mane had his back turned, attention focused on a brass scale, measuring bits against tiny blue bags. Over his head loomed a rather frightful looking zebra mask: a totem. Also close by was a mechanical bird in a little golden cage, chirping away noisily. It wasn’t a sound Eunomie had heard outside, and the bird itself was not producing a particularly sweet melody.

“Please excuse me,” she said, knowing the pegasus was already aware of her presence in the closed shop. Under her hood, one amber eye nestled in shadow.

“We’re closed,” the pegasus grumbled.

“I apologize again,” Eunomie said. “But I need to speak with you. You are Shady Deal, are you not?”

“Maybe I am.” He kept his back to her, fiddling with the brass weight scale. “Maybe I’m not. Depends on who’s asking.”

“Eunomie, of the Mosaic Family.” She pulled back her hood so he could see her face and extended a hoof.

He turned, glanced at her hoof, but didn’t shake it.

“I might be Shady,” he admitted, at length.

“Shady Deal.”

“Yeah.”

Eunomie blinked slowly and nodded, once. “Good. Please allow me to ask you some questions, Shady Deal. Then we can part company, if you like.”

“Talking is fine and dandy,” he said, and waved a hoof for her to leave. “But unless ya wanna buy me dinner, sweetie, we’re still closed for the day.”

The mechanical bird continued to chirp, an incessant little warble-song.

“The torc you sold Lyra Heartstrings,” Eunomie asked, persisting despite the lack of cooperation on his part. “You were instructed to sell it to her, were you not?”

“No. She was only a means to put it in the ‘ooves of Twilight Sparkle.”

Shady’s ears perked up as he processed his own words. He turned on Eunomie, blinking in confusion and a hoof shot up to his mouth. It appeared that he couldn’t quite comprehend that he had answered the question; much less that he had done so candidly.

“The torc was always meant to be studied by Twilight Sparkle, then,” Eunomie reasoned, and asked, “Did Princess Celestia give it to you?”

“No. We never meet the Old Lady face to face and-” Shady hissed, trying to press his hoof into his mouth, but it stopped, quivering, just in front of his treacherous lips. “My orders came from a ‘andler. Time Keeper. D-damnit! What are you doing to--”

He gasped, falling forward onto the counter, upending the carefully balanced weight scale and sending bits and small bags full of tiny gems falling to the rug on the floor. Failing to seize his mouth, he went for his throat, but it was clearly not going to suffice for keeping quiet.

“Please don’t struggle or hurt yourself,” Eunomie suggested, calm and sympathetic as a pony cut from stone. “You no longer have control of your words. At the moment, they belong to me.”

“Like pony-hell they do!” Shady Deal reached under the counter, bringing out a sealed scroll. Spreading it across the counter with surprising speed, unfurling it with the side of his foreleg, he pressed a hoof down into the vellum.

“Get out of my store!” he spoke, but not with his voice. This was a borrowed voice: powerful, overwhelming, magical and irresistible. It was literally Celestia’s Voice: Celestia’s Celebrated Commanding Castigation.

“In fact,” Shady roared in Her Voice. “Get the hell out of Ponyville!”

Eunomie’s one open eye crinkled; a wave of magic washing over her.

“I already know about Time Keeper,” she said, simply. “Tell me who gave you the torc you sold to Lyra Heartstrings, as well as when and how that pony acquired it, to the best of your knowledge.”

Shady Deal stared at her in mute shock.

“I- I--”

He gagged, and the magic of the compulsion scroll ripped away from his body, leaving canvas fluttering around them and dangling trinkets chiming. Eunomie’s hood rustled behind her mane, but she otherwise stood perfectly still. Waiting.

“-picked up my orders on the third day of the month of the moon,” he said, eyes still wide, mouth moving of its own accord. “It said to meet a pony at the Courier Inn, on the road to Gaskinring. To follow her orders…”

Shady slammed a hoof on the counter, struggling not to say any more--

“Never got her name,” he choked out. “She was a pegasus. Big. Real big. Looked like a fighter or… or bodyguard. Light purple coat. Blue mane, like a royal guard’s, cut short. Red eyes. Couldn’t see her cutie mark. Gave me the torc. Said it was broken. Smuggle it into Ponyville, near Canterlot. Twilight Sparkle! Used Lyra. She was always getting her purchases appraised or inspected by- by Twilight Sparkle! Less conspicuous this way!”

Eunomie listened, but as Shady described the mare he had met, her one open eye narrowed in just the slightest shadow of displeasure. A bodyguard? A pegasus?

“Red eyes. Blue mane. Light purple coat,” she repeated, sighing at the picture it painted. “Sirocco? How are you still alive, I wonder?”

That brief blink was all the time Shady needed.

Turning around, mouth clenched tight, he pulled down the zebra totem mask. It was long, in mockery of a normal pony’s facial features, with black striations and shadows around empty eyes and a snarling grimace. Foreign tattoos were both carved and dyed into the cheeks and sides of the mask. Shady Deal gasped once for air, put the mask over his face, turned, and breathed.

On the wings of his breath flowed pure terror.

A twisted pony with six eyes howled, pencil-thin legs wrapping around one another like mating serpents. A beast with seven jaws surged from a black portal, a living maw wide enough to swallow a pony whole. Eggs spewed from eyes in the mask, tumbling over the counter and onto the floor like rolling tears, splattering and hatching into a swarm of ravenous spiderlings. Out of the mask’s mouth, twisted, clawed arms stretched and branched at a dozen elbow joints, like the legs of a warped centipede. Skeletal hooves ripped out from under the floor, wading through the rising tide of arachnids, empty eye sockets glowing with a pale blue luminescence.

Eunomie stood still, the illusions, the horrors, all flowing through her. Magic poured from the mask, and as one of the twisted claws grabbed hold of a bronze vase, it pulled it down from its shelf. Another ripped lines in the canvas around the shop. The seven jawed maw closed around Eunomie, engulfing her. The floor beneath her tore as the teeth passed through it.

She took a step forward, through the tidal wave of nightmares.

…Then another step, passing through the tide of hungry spiders. Dozens launched streams of webs up at her face, but they arced and fell through without purchase. Claws reached for her legs and body, ripping her cloak, but passing harmlessly through the body beneath. Two more steps, and her hoof reached up to touch Shady Deal’s enchanted mask.

CLACK

Face down, on the counter, the wave of horrors emanating from the mask vanished into thin air.

“A four-alliteration charm compulsion and then an alchemically enhanced horrify spell,” she said, the tip of one pale hoof still on top of the mask. “That last one was extremely potent, but still useless.” Shady Deal stumbled back behind the counter, breathing frightened and frantic.

“You are well prepared. Please take that as a compliment.” One amber eye drifted to the side, where the mechanical bird continued to chirp. “Interesting. This bird… is it an early warning system? Does it detect ambient magic?”

“Yes,” Shady blurted out and crushed his eyes shut in shame. With a groan, he fell back onto his tail. “It started chirping right before you entered.”

“Oh?” Eunomie asked, eyeing the bird carefully. Letting go of the mask, she reached for the clockwork canary. “It must have detected my ‘inscription.’ That is a very useful device, Shady Deal. How much to purchase it?”

“Not for sale.” He shook his head, but smiled at the phrase that came to him then, even lost as he was to Eunomie’s magic. “Don’t touch it.”

Her hoof stopped, and pulled back, doing as he asked.

“Sorry,” she apologized, and it seemed rather ridiculous given the situation, with him at her mercy.

“How?” he asked, at least able to ask questions of his own. “How on Equestria are you doing this?”

To his surprise, Eunomie answered him. “You currently exist within a zone controlled by me, as a being with which I have a contract.”

“Zone? Contract?” Shady tried to scramble back, but his back hit canvas, and behind it, something hard and immobile. He was trapped. Trapped in his own damn shop!

“Please don’t be afraid. I swear am not going to hurt you, Shady Deal,” Eunomie promised, and a small smile formed on her face but didn’t quite reach her one visible eye. “The Princess would hear of it, if you came to harm. I only want to ask you a few more questions and then you can sleep and forget me, this, even the chirping of your bird. I promise.”

“If - if I won’t remember, then tell me,” Shady asked, one last question, of this mare. “What are you doing? Just what are you after?”

“After?” Eunomie inquired, still smiling, but only skin deep. “If you mean, ‘what do I want?’ I want what you likely want: to protect Equestria… from her enemies and even from herself.”

So she asked.

And he answered.

“They fought for the entire day, across desert and dune and the Princess was in awe of the Prince’s courage and skill. In the end, for all her magical power, the Princess was no match for the Bandit Prince and she collapsed,” Euporie’s story continued, illustrated by the gorgeous figures that moved along the walls, lit and animated by streams of magic.

“He stole her away and escaped to his palace in the desert. There, the Princess first entered his moonlit gardens, where fruits forbidden to all ponies hung ripe from the vine, and where the rest of his harem waited on his insatiable appetite. The Princess cried, her magic exhausted, and the other mares of the harem took pity on her.”

The ghostly Princess, a snow white alicorn with a gold and crimson mane and green eyes, moved among a dozen other beautiful mares, all with the same sort of lithe figure. They hugged her as the sky above turned from sand blown day to falling night.

“That night, the Princess and the others hatched a plan. The Princess prayed to the Mare in the Moon for mercy, and for clouds to obscure the moonlit gardens. That very night, a strange darkness fell, and the moonlit gardens - where no other lights were permitted - became shadow. Her prayers had been answered! Nonetheless, despite the darkness, the Bandit Prince hungered for his new concubine.”

The handsome Saddle Arabian stallion burst into the room, a silhouette, and behind him a fleeting glimpse of light in the deep darkness that had fallen over the room.

“But he could not see her!” Euporie declared, as the Prince closed the door behind him, plunging them all into deepest shadow. “Yet, he hungered for her. So he groped and felt his way through the harem, trusting in his hooves and his nose and his mouth to tell him where his prize could be found. Feeling a mare that fit his ideal, he grabbed her, kissed her, and made love to her. ‘Got you!’ he would murmur to her.”

Pinkie Pie blushed as Euporie’s story came with a rather… realistic soundtrack. The strange foreign music played on, fuel to the fire for the fantasy story. In the darkness, she could almost make them out, and imagine which of the many mares the Prince had come to claim. Had it been the Princess?

“The Bandit Prince left in the night, but returned again the next day. Again, the Princess prayed to the moon, and again it answered her prayers. For five nights, the Prince came to his harem to find his Princess, only to leave, exhausted, spent, and satisfied.”

The crack of the door opened, but this time the silhouette was of a mare.

“On the sixth day, the Princess managed to unlock the door to the Moonlit Gardens and escaped into the castle compound. Her magic rejuvenated, she stole through the sleeping hallways and past the complacent guards, her fellow concubines behind her. At last, she found the Prince, resting amid his treasures.”

Across part of the room, the dozing stallion could be seen, on a lavish bed decked in finery.

“The Princess jumped him and subdued him with little struggle, taking him with her back to Equestria, there to live out his days as her servant and… some say… her lover. That night, as she bound him in her magic, she whispered to him: ‘Got you!’”

“This is to be our game, my special little ponies!” Euporie said, and the room’s lights slowly returned to their former luminescence. Still, the music played and still, the fantasy of the story played on in the minds of many.

“Got you.”

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Games We Play

(27)

The Games We Play

“The game is simple,” Euporie explained, enjoying the rapt attention of her very important and super special ponies: the guests of her lovely, lively party. “Look here. We have two cutie marks.”

She directed their attention up to the projection of the two chosen marks, drawn from their invitation cards. The cutie marks were recognizable to anypony who knew everypony, and Pinkie Pie knew everypony in Ponyville! The gray cloud with the bright lightning bolt belonged to Thunderlane. The three emeralds in profile were those of Amethyst Star.

“Thunderlane and… Amethyst Star!” Euporie announced, the glittering images of their cutie marks filling the air. “Come to me. Your night of pleasure has only just begun… my very super special ponies.”

“M-me?” Thunderlane, for the first time that night, seemed to embody some of his marefriend’s earlier bashfulness. The black stallion glanced down at Cloudchaser, as if to ask for permission. Pinkie, watching them, tensed to stand up. Cloudchaser wouldn’t--

“You heard her,” she said, nudging him up onto his hooves.

“A-alright!” He trotted over, glancing back a second time, then slowed as he approached the waiting Euporie and Amethyst Star. The eyes of the unicorn mare were following him with obvious interest, her face graced by a small smile. Thunderlane was well known in Ponyville, and many mares thought him to be one of the cutest pegasus bachelors in town.

Euporie’s story of the Bandit Prince and the captured Princess still ran wild in Pinkie’s all too fertile imagination. Was Thunderlane the handsome, lusty Saddle Marabian Prince? Was Amethyst Star to be his captive Princess? This was a game Pinkie Pie hadn’t played before, and she found herself surprisingly eager to hear the rules. She found herself winding a hoof through Pokey’s mane as she listened, hungry to learn more about how to play this new game.

The pale mare didn’t disappoint.

“As you may have guessed, friends, right now Thunderlane here is our daring Prince, and Amethyst Star our fair Princess.” She trotted up to the eager but a little overwhelmed stallion, running a hoof among his mane and eliciting a shiver of pleasure. “You get to go first, Thunderlane. Before that, though, I am going to cast a little spell… just like the Prince in our story’s moonlit garden, you can’t see your Princess.”

“You will have to find her with your hooves.” Euporie lifted one of his dark forelegs, running his hoof along her own flank. “Your nose…” She turned around and nuzzled close to him, so he could smell her mane. “And then, if you’re sure you’ve found her,” she concluded, leaning in and brushing her lips past his. “Your mouth. Understand?”

“Y-yeah!” Thunderlane murmured, and then more loudly repeated, “I got it!”

“Good!” Euporie said, quickly turning away from him and leaving him breathing heavily. “Bear in mind, Bandit Prince, there is a price for picking the wrong mare. If you do find Amethyst Star, she is to be yours for the night: to submit to you as your play mate. Pick another mare, though, and the reverse will be true. That mare will have you, and you will obey her.”

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Pokey gave voice to Pinkie’s own concerns, though the question was directed at Cloudchaser. The lilac mare bit her lower lip, but nodded, her attention on Thunderlane. “I know he sees… other ponies, sometimes. Like Blossomforth. I never wanted to… be around that before, but this time, I don’t know. It’s different. And - and I actually think… I might enjoy it.”

She turned her eyes on Pinkie and Pokey, especially Pokey.

“I guess it’s kind of exciting,” she admitted, and Pinkie involuntarily gave her favorite pillow a tight, protective squeeze. “Isn’t it? I feel… really…” She blushed and turned away. “I think this could be fun!”

“Mares and stallions, gather up!”

Heady from the story they had been told and excited by the prospect of Euporie’s new game, ponies were quick to congregate into groups: mares by the cushions and stallions by the hookah table. The lights dimmed, as though replicating the sensation of moonlight, in that desert garden. Thunderlane and Amethyst Star were the exceptions, remaining at the center of the room with Euporie. Flim and Flam, too, stood just off the side, helping their mistress work her magic.

Pinkie felt a little bounce in her hooves and indulged it, excited in more ways than one; excited in ways she hadn’t imagined she would be. The other mares around her were laughing and primping, knowing full well what was to come. More than a few teased Mayor Mare, knowing full well who would be feeling for her when the time came. Mister Rich was still staring at her with smoky, hungry eyes, even as a few stallions jostled and teased him as well.

A pony never knew if they’d be chosen, after all.

Then Amethyst Star and Thunderlane were blindfolded, purely for the pleasure of being blindfolded, and then the spells were cast. No peeking was allowed. In the dimly lit room they were guided around, Thunderlane to the other stallions and Amethyst Star to the mares. A cheer started up, one that Euporie encouraged for a few moments and then silenced with a hoof raised to her lips, and a lengthy, “ssssshhh!”

The Bandit Prince went first.

Pushed forward and egged on by the other stallions, he stumbled towards the mares for a moment, and then quickly tried to recover and assume a more casual, easy disposition. Tentatively at first, he reached for the closest body…

Pinkie Pie giggled as Thunderlane found Dizzy Twister, his hoof brushing lightly across her upper foreleg, and then feeling along the side. For the wings, of course. Thunderlane was a clever pony: the easiest way to tell who was who was to find the one with wings. Dizzy and Cloudchaser were the only two pegasus mares in the group.

Dizzy’s wings were already fully extended in excitement as Thunderlane ran his hooves through the feathers, probably for longer than he ever needed to. With his other hoof he ran along her chest and then up to her cerise colored mane. She didn’t have the large thick curls that Pinkie had, her ‘cotton candy mane’ but the more common faint rounded curls, thicker but with less overall body. Thunderlane chuckled as he felt his way through her mane, and put together who she was.

He quickly moved on, growing more comfortable and ever bolder as he moved from mare to mare, the girls starting to crowd around him, giggling and, in a few cases, touching him back. Pinkie squeaked and jumped when he finally got to her - probably making it obvious who she was, since he laughed - but he took the liberty of investigating her a little anyway. Pinkie Pie could admit that he was a very cute stallion, and as he checked to make sure she was who her sudden hop made it seem she was, she found herself rather liking this game.

Not just that: she wondered when it would be her turn.

Amethyst Star was the second to last of the mares, and she licked her lips, anxiously, as Thunderlane approached, blind but now almost recklessly and impulsively curious. He was narrowing it down, and he knew it. She shuddered as he felt his way along her flanks, boldly through her mane, and then finally to the horn on top of her head. He smiled beneath his blindfold and, showing the first little hint of hesitation since he had started, found her cheek and tried to move in for a kiss. Pinkie found herself watching with baited breath for it, too, along with all the other mares. She could smell the excitement and the arousal in the air.

“Got ya,” Thunderlane finally said, and with a little help on the part of Amethyst Star, claimed his kiss. Just a quick one, but ponies clapped for them excitedly, hooves rapping against the floor.

“Very good!” Euporie joined the cheering, and with a whisk of magic removed both blindfolds and shadow magic. Thunderlane and Amethyst Star saw each other, then, and blushed… but didn’t break eye contact.

“You found your Princess,” their hostess extolled, moving seductively over to Thunderlane’s side. “And now… she’s yours. Go ahead. Don’t be shy.”

Her words were compelling, enthralling, magnetic.

Euporie guided the two ponies together, and tentatively at first, Thunderlane leaned over to touch lips again with his new partner. It was almost a chaste kiss at first, but then Amethyst Star raised a hoof to touch the pegasus stallion’s bristly mohawk of a mane. It seemed to stir the both of them and before anypony could even express their surprise, the embrace became passionate. Euporie watched and laughed as they bumped into one of the vases of tobacco leaves meant for the Saudi Marabian hookah, knocking it over and breaking it open. No pony cared, certainly not the pegasus and unicorn as the former pushed the latter backwards and then onto her back, clearing the space around them with a frantic urgency.

“Our first Prince proved quite skillful!” Euporie said, trotting over to circle the pair, her wild blue tail swishing excitedly side to side. One of her hooves lingered, just an inch from Thunderlane’s shoulder, trailing down his side, and then past his cutie mark. “Exciting. I’m excited - I am! - and this is only the start!”

She skipped forward, waving with her hoof and slicing it through the air. Two more cutie marks descended, spinning around one another, and then erupting into an illusion. Euporie licked her lips, pleased by the random luck of the draw.

“The stars shine on Mayor Mare,” she said, beckoning the esteemed pony over to play. “And a lucky stallion… Comet Tail, I believe!”

This stallion seemed to need little encouragement. Putting down a salted glass of amber liqueur, the citrine unicorn ran a quick hoof through his short, emerald mane and trotted up to Euporie. Soon he and the Mayor were blindfolded, their sight shadowed for good measure. Rather than approach the rest of the mares, however, Comet Tail singled one out where she stood, a short distance from the rest.

Fearlessly, this second Bandit Prince approached Euporie, running a hoof up her front legs and then her neck. She smiled, then sighed as he ran both of his hooves through her wild azure mane, and then dipped her head. Comet Tail kissed her quickly, and a little sloppily, the lust he had for their hostess rather plain to see. His ardor only got him so far, however.

Euporie gently touched his chest, and then suddenly pushed, knocking him into his tailbone.

“Comet Tail… you’re my little Prince for tonight, then,” she declared, and everypony laughed. The way the game was set up, anypony could just choose their partner, albeit blindly, but there was a price to be paid.

Euporie held out her hoof, and Comet Tail paused for a moment, a little surprised by the gesture. He quickly grinned, bowed his head and kissed her hoof. Clearly in charge, dominant even now, Euporie only then cupped his chin and raised him up. She kissed him shamelessly, and even began walking, circling him, forcing him to walk too, their lips still locked and tongues entwined.

Another push and he had to back away.

“Mmmm! You have a nice taste, but first things first!” there remained the matter of their new Princess. “Mayor Mare? Would you care to find your Prince?”

“I know just who I want in my hooves!” she agreed, and even blindfolded, made her way over and through the male ranks. Though she was the first mare to put this part of the game through its paces, Mayor Mare quickly made up for any inexperience with confidence and enthusiasm. It wasn’t long before she claimed her Prince and stole him away.

Filthy Rich seemed all too happy to comply with the dominant mare.

So it began.

Euporie called for another Prince and Princess, and Pinkie wondered what she would do when her name came up. Probably, she wouldn’t end up with Pokey as her Prince if she went by the lottery. Either he would end up with another mare or she would get picked with another stallion. Which was, really, the whole point of the game… but just like Mayor Mare, she could buck the rules a little and pick the one stallion she wanted most. Or he could do the same and pick her. All she had to do was play the part of the captive Princess by picking the ‘wrong’ partner. Or, taking the ever-present and increasingly appealing alternative, Pokey could pick her, and become hers for the night.

So could any other stallion, too. Just the thought of it was exciting in strange ways, and as Doctor Stable ran his hooves over her in ways she never would have imagined him doing, she felt that building excitement - that strange excitement - transform and coalesce. It was hard to place at first what it was. The sights, the sounds, the music, the panting, the touching, the feeling, the smell and maybe most of all, the anticipation…

Pinkie Pie realized what it was, just then: she felt sexy.

Not just beautiful, like Rarity always tried to be, but sexy and an object of desire. She wanted somepony to pick her. She wanted it soon. Like when she used to wait under the Hearth’s Warming tree, forced to leave her present wrapped while her parents slept, all because it was four in the morning and for some lame-o reason that was too early to open her presents. Desire! Pinkie felt it like a physical force, rising up inside her: giggling and tingly and warm in the one place her Pinkie sense didn’t reach.

‘I want… somepony…’

She looked through the darkened room and locked eyes with one pony, the one in control of it all. Euporie grinned, but it wasn’t a happy sort of grin. It looked… it felt…

Euporie swirled her hoof in a little circle, and another pair was formed for her approval. “What do you ponies say we wrap things up with a bang?” she asked. And two more cutie marks swept down!

“Oh, look at this!” She announced with glee in her eyes. “The first of my good little dogs! Flim, and since I hate to break up my pair, I thought I’d bring down Flam as well. Twins are just so sexy, aren’t they? I hate to part with them, but fair is fair, isn’t that right everypony?” Euporie turned on the two surprised brothers, who stood shock-still.

Blindfolds slipped around their eyes.

“I can feel your anticipation,” Euporie said, licking her lips. “So I’m going to switch around the rules. Girls go first! Patent Pending. Pinkie Pie. Can you two Princesses take these two away from me?”

Pinkie watched, enraptured, as Euporie’s magic conjured up a riding crop and leash around the neck of the first the clean shaven Flim and then the mustachioed Flam. There was a slight resistance on the stallion’s part, but none from Patent Pending. The last thing Pinkie saw before the blindfold took her sight was the older pink mare and mother prowling towards her prey. Cappuccino was left, too, but Euporie had all but challenged the two mares.

Behind her, Pinkie heard Cloudchaser’s breathing, and then felt a little push.

‘I should… who should I… maybe I should…?’

(You really want this? Huh?)

“I think we have a shy pony!” Euporie announced, and she started tapping her hoof on the floor. “Come on, everypony! Pinkie Pie, come out and play. Pinkie Pie, come out and play. Pinkie Pie! Come out and play!”

A part of her really wanted to, Pinkie realized. But, who did she want again?

(Don’t you remember?)

Flam was a little like Pokey, tall but not too tall, and thin and he had a nice horn, and even the moustache was kind of cute and furry and fluffy and bushy. She’d never kissed a pony with a moustache before and when she heard more voices joining Euporie: “Pinkie Pie, come out and play! Pinkie Pie, come out and play!” She almost bounced, springing to her hooves. As it was, she could hear the beating of their hooves on the floor as loudly as their voices, like the beating of her heart, racing a mile a minute.

“Let’s add a little urgency to those choices!” Euporie announced, even as Pinkie began to make her way over to where she knew the stallions to be. “Cappuccino. Cloudchaser. Come and take your partner for the evening! Don’t get left behind, anypony!”

The siren song of the pale mare was irresistible.

(You won’t get anypony at all if you don’t hurry.)

Pinkie heard Cloudchaser start to trot, walking past the pink mare towards her waiting mate and Euporie, the Mistress of Ceremony. Sensing the pegasus mare move ahead of her seemed to stir something in Pinkie; she picked up her pace to match. One spring led to another and soon Pinkie bounded past Cloudchaser, blind as a bat, but playful as a pussycat, energy that could only be released by tackling her new toy to the ground.

“You remember me, don’t you?” Pinkie Pie asked, mouth running at high speed as she stood over the slightly stunned Flam. She could tell by the moustache, and after feeling it with her hooves, she moved in to nuzzle it with her nose. “I’m one of your Platinum Club members!”

“Miss Pie? I--” Flam’s voice became muffled as Pinkie kissed him, knowing and claiming him. No more touching and feeling. It was a race now, to take what you wanted.

(We’re both wound tighter than a spring.)

The blindfolds came off.

Beneath her, Flam looked… confused. “Miss Pie…”

“What’s wrong?” Pinkie asked, leaning in closer. She felt… so in control, with him below her like this. So dominant. So powerful. So free. Euporie had given him to her, hadn’t she? The fierce beating of her heart and the lusty sweet cider smell in the air made it hard to think and harder to hold herself back. She could hear all the other couples kissing and smell them touching. “Don’t you like me, Flimie?”

A tingle that was beyond Pinkie sense ran down her spine.

“He’s all yours, Pinkie Pie,” Euporie’s whisper caressed her ear, and with a twinkle, she lifted up the little leash around the stallion’s neck. The so called Princess of Pleasure gently lifted one of Pinkie’s hooves, slipping the end of the leash into her grip.

“All yours,” Euporie repeated, leaning in so close Pinkie could feel her breath on her lips. If Flam smelt like sweet cider, Euporie tasted like peaches and a hint of sugary tobacco smoke. Their lips almost touched, just brushing. “I know you want this. I want you to want this. Do you hear me, cider-boy? You’ll do anything she says; anything you want, Pinkie Pie, as long as it makes you smile.”

“To make me smile,” she said and asked, breathlessly, “anything?”

Pinkie felt her lungs fill in heaving sighs. Anything! Anything to make her smile? That sounded super-duper fun - the kind of fun she hadn’t had before!

“First,” Pinkie decided, bringing her left front hoof down on Flam’s chest, gently, and then with just a little force. He grunted, and she knew he had to be enjoying the pressure. She could see it in his eyes. He was hungry, and not for a sticky bun. He was hungry for her, but first he had to make her smile.

“First!” she declared, as Euporie withdrew. “You’re finally going to tell me what salesponies nonpareil means!” She leaned in before he could answer. “And then we’re going to play a game of pin the tail on the pony with a few super special rules.”

“Eminent Domain!” Euporie announced, but Pinkie ignored her. She raised her head, chest swelling as she inhaled. Already, ponies were exploring one another. “Well Spring! Come, my little ponies!”

“Miss Pinkie Pie,” Flam said, moustache twitching. “A traveling salespony nonpareil means-- mmffg!”

She decided he could explain later.

Pinkie heard Euporie laugh as the room spun between the music of the hidden musicians and the steady beat of the party downstairs. It all drifted into the background, a world of sighs and laughs and moans and cries of pleasure. Her pink hooves and mouth were busy, far too busy to care about anypony else. For once, everypony else could see to themselves! This night and this pony were for her. Euporie had said that he was hers - that this pony was here to make her smile and sigh and giggle and laugh and moan and cry out. Flam hissed as she roamed over his body, inspecting her gift.

What a super great friend Euporie was! What a super awesome pal! No pony had ever given her a pony of her very own before!

Tiny ribbons fell from her mane as her curls fell apart…

Grinding against the prone pony beneath her, Pinkamena didn’t even notice her mane fall limp around her shoulders. “Good! Good! It feels so good!” Everything. It all felt so… “So good!” Every fiber of her being!

“Miss Pinkie Pie-”

“Quiet,” Pinkamena hissed, chest still heaving, straddling the cider maker’s abdomen. A trembling hoof reached up to her chest. “I’m missing… something.”

Blue eyes fixed on Flam’s horn. She touched it, running a stray hoof along the length, up to the tip. The dull tip. Her body was streaming for her to hold him down by that horn, to make him… to…

“I’m missing something!” Pinkamena realized, knew it, deep down past all the pleasure. Brushing back part of her mane - since when did it get in her eyes like this - she pivoted to look behind her.

Pokey.

Where was he?

Blue eyes searched frantically before finding him by his color: the bluest pony in the room, with that mane she loved to play with, and that silly horn that always popped her balloons. He was sitting, alone. Why was he alone?

“Don’t tell me there’s a problem, Pinkie Pie?” It was followed by a soft, distinct giggle. ‘He. He. He!’

“Pierce…” Pinkamena said, still straddling Flam; she reached one hoof for the pony she had brought to the party with her. Pinkie Pie and Guest. That was what the invitation had said. Pinkie Pie and Guest!

“Ohh,” Euporie said, her voice tickling Pinkamena’s left ear. She pulled back, speaking loud enough then for everypony to hear, “I knew I forgot somepony! Since I brought two toys to the party, I guess that means we were left with a spare.”

More than a few of the ponies, despite their intense occupation at the moment, glanced up at Euporie with rapt attention. The mare had only to stand on her hind legs to draw a dozen eyes, feasting on her presence. A long blindfold snapped around Pokey’s eyes.

“Silly pony! Silly pony!” She chided herself, slowly running a hoof down over one eye in mockery of a face-hoof. “Your Princess of Pleasure will have to correct her mistake, but how? How, everypony? How should I make this right?”

“Ah!” she exclaimed, clopping her front hooves together. “I know! Ida!”

‘Ida?’

“Coming, Mistress!”

Pinkamena turned her head again, pink mane whipping around her upper body, at the sound of the voice. It wasn’t anypony she knew? No: it wasn’t any-pony at all.

Euporie giggled, ‘He! He! He!’ as a donkey jenny scrambled into the room from behind the servants’ curtain. There was no mistaking her for a pony: her coat was brown, as all donkeys’ coats were, and bereft of cutie mark. Her ears were twice and again too long, her legs too thin, the knees too prominent, and her tail almost hairless except for a black tuft at the very end. She moved with the ungainly sort of trot donkeys had, bowing deeply to the still standing Euporie. A white apron hung from her neck.

“Ida,” Euporie said, imperiously. “I’ve made a terrible mistake and I need your help.”

“Of course, Mistress,” Ida agreed, seeming to not care that half the ponies around her were in the middle of some rather intimate festivities.

“Good girl.” The pale Mistress dropped down to all fours and pointed at the still seated, blindfolded and rather worried looking, Pokey Pierce. “See to that stallion’s needs.” She turned to the rest of her guests, laughing. “There we go, everypony! Problem solved! Your Princess comes for you, my Prince!”

Pinkamena heard everypony laughing, laughing, even as Pokey sensed something was amiss, even without being able to see. He could hear it in their laughter. It wasn’t… it wasn’t the kind of laughter she liked, that anypony liked to hear. Not when it was directed at them.

“W-wait,” he said, hooves feeling the air around him, “I--”

Whatever he had wanted to say was drowned out by the laughter.

Watching him, watching Ida walking towards him, watching the shocked expression on his face, Pinkamena felt her body move, the smile parting her cheeks into a wide grin. Her ears twitched, hearing that sound: the sound she loved more than any other in the world. Laughter. A room full of laughter! Even if it was a mean, mocking laughter.

Then it struck her:

Like a slap to the face, it struck her: she was… laughing… too.

It took a moment to really dawn on her. She was laughing too. As Pierce - at… Pokey and--

Pinkie Pie and Guest.

“Stop.”

The laugher only seemed to grow louder as Pokey tried to wave Ida off with increasingly frantic but polite excuses, his movements uncoordinated and his voice frightful. Pinkamena knew he was trying not to be too rude, knew he was embarrassed by the fact that a room full of horny ponies had gotten him as aroused as anypony, knew that--

(Stop this right now!)

“STOP!” Pinkamena roared, and in that split second, everything became deathly silent.

“He. He. He!”

Almost, deathly quiet.

“This isn’t funny!” Pinkamena snarled, glaring at the rest of the room. “This isn’t… this isn’t funny…! Why are you laughing? I know you ponies! This isn’t… this isn’t like you!”

“Isn’t like them?” Euporie bounced from out of nowhere to stare right into Pinkamena’s angry eyes. “Maybe you don’t know these ponies as well as you thought you did.”

She pointed at the pink mare. “Tell me: why were you laughing just now, Pinkie Pie?”

Pinkamena shook her head. “Don’t…”

“You were laughing too!” Euporie reminded her, using a hoof to keep the pink mare from looking away. “You found it funny. Just like when I made a halfwit of that other donkey the other day. You held it in then because you didn’t want to be mean; because you thought you had to be polite and nice! But I can see through the mask you wear. The mask all ponies wear. I mean, my own cutie mark is a mask, too. So laugh, Pinkie Pie. Be the real you… beneath the mask.”

Pinkamena locked eyes with the mare, Euporie’s blue mane like a crashing wave of blue behind her.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she finally decided. “That was a mean prank.”

“He. He. He! Was it?” Euporie asked, amber eyes meeting Pinkie’s blue. “That fellow got what he wanted. To him, that was one of the tastiest cookies he ever ate. And to everypony else, it was funny watching him eat something gross. Everypony wins, right? Where’s the harm?”

“I… I don’t know…”

“Laugh at him,” Euporie commanded. “Go ahead and laugh.”

‘Everypony wins, right? Where’s the harm?’

(I still don’t like it)

(I don’t like it either!)

“No.”

“No?” Euporie repeated, eyes wide, as if she couldn’t believe what she had heard. “No?”

“It isn’t funny,” Pinkamena said to the noblemare’s face. “I don’t like your jokes… and right now… I don’t like you!”

Then, tonight being a night of surprising firsts, Pinkamena Diane Pie did something she never had before in her life: she reached back with her right front hoof and decked Euporie Mosaic, clean across the unicorn mare’s smug face.

Euporie yelped in pain and alarm, staggered back, stumbled over another pony’s tail, and fell into the chocolates table with a crash. The glass sculpture hit the ground and cracked, and a weak fountain of chocolate spurted wildly, coating everything in rich, milky brown. Fruits splattered and flew, further ruining the carpet. Comet Tail, who had been partnered with Euporie and remained close by, shied away from the mess.

“C-Celestia’s graces!” Flam said, still beneath the heavily breathing Pinkamena.

The rest of the guests were still aghast, stunned by the sudden turn from pleasure to violence.

It was Ida, of all the beings in the room, that spoke next, crying as she ran towards the pool of spilt chocolate and ruined confections, “Mistress? Mistress! Oh no! Are you--”

“Heh. Heh! Heh!”

A filthy, chocolate covered leg reached up from the wreckage, and a cracked glass statue of a naked mare flew across the room. Pinkamena barely had time to desperately shield herself with her legs--

Except the glass stopped, caught in a faint blue magic field.

“Pierce…?” Pinkamena gasped, seeing the thin unicorn, horn aglow. He had raced to get close enough to help her, having found a way to remove his blindfold and the blinding spell to boot.

“You always call me Pokey, Pinkie,” he reminded her, and frowned. “Your mane is…?”

“Ha. Ha. HA!”

Euporie emerged from the smashed table, lightning crackling around her horn like a thunderstorm in miniature. The chocolate staining her white coat there bubbled and hissed and the lights in the room waned and sputtered. She wiped her lower lip with the back of a hoof, staining it with flecks of crimson.

“Nice punch,” Euporie said, licking the blood and chocolate off her hoof. “Pinkie Pie.”

She began to walk forward, magic surging around her, flinging everything from her path without discrimination, hesitation or remorse. Ponies scrambled to get out of the way, their night of revelry forgotten as the unicorn mare’s magic bucked and surged through the air. The same magic that had painted haunting images and life-like scenes from the tale of the Bandit Prince now caused the walls to creak and moan, the wallpaper ripping and coiling and smoking as if touched by a match head. Fixtures in the ceiling shook enough to see; enough to feel.

Pinkamena and Pokey, now both standing side by side, nonetheless obeyed an animal instinct that screamed: ‘back away!’

“Violence is a form of pleasure, too, isn’t it?” Euporie asked, laughing lightly as she advanced on her prey. “Your body screams for you to fight or fly and endorphins flood your system, producing a sort of euphoria. A pure form of pleasure! I can appreciate that, Pinkie Pie. Can you?”

“No. No I can’t!” Pinkamena yelled back, her mane stirring behind her. “I don’t… I don’t want to…”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Euporie said the words, any attempt as passing it off as genuine laughter long forgotten. “If you won’t play my way, then I’ll eject you from my party.” She lowered her horn, and a prism of light narrowed into a beam. It streaked, hissing like a snake, before slamming into a faint blue wall in mid-air.

Pokey winced, falling to his knees. “C-can’t…”

Pinkamena tensed to push him away when a green field also emerged, behind and supporting the blue.

“Flam?” Euporie yelled, genuinely shocked by the intrusion. “You? That’s impossible. You can’t--”

The unicorn twitched his moustache and grinned as he rose up, horn glowing forest green.

“You told me to obey Miss Pinkie Pie, didn’t you?” he asked, one corner of his mouth rising in a smirk. “To make her smile? I’m just following orders, Miss Mosaic!”

“I gotta hand it to you, brother!” Flim joined in, Patent Pending still clutching frightfully to his side even as he trotted in to join Pinkamena, Pierce and his twin. “You found us a rather convenient loophole! What applies to one--”

“--applies to both!” Flam agreed.

Euporie’s amber eyes widened.

“Then I’ll bury you both!” she snarled. Her horn shimmered, layering and casting a spell even as she maintained the prismatic beam of magic and whatever was shaking the room around them. “I’ll-- AGH! Damnit! DAMNIT!”

The pale mare grimaced, painfully, as her magic backfired, tearing open a bloody rent in her horn.

“Eunomie,” she hissed, raising a hoof to the burning, sparking wound. “You and your fucking rules! Don’t protect them now of all times!”

“Brother! Retroreflector! Mind the angles!” Flim yelled, and Flam nodded. Their magical shields tilted inward, forming a shallow three sided corner.

“Eh?” Euporie’s lips curled back as her own beam shot past her shoulder, punching into the wall behind her before sweeping in and hitting her across the chest. The energy from her horn petered off as she fell to the side and against the wall, though what continued to shoot out was still enough to carve a line in the ceiling. Bits of plaster fell like flakes of snow.

“Bloody engineers!” the noble mare growled, a black mark that had little to do with chocolate now staining the white coat between her neck and left foreleg. “It seems I can’t discipline you like I planned. Pinkie Pie… you’ve caused me a lot of trouble. Why didn’t you just laugh like everypony else? What’s wrong with you?”

“You’re asking the wrong question,” Pinkie replied, her mane and tail starting to puff back up as she helped Pokey back onto his hooves. “Why wasn’t I laughing? Why were you?”

“Why was... I?” Euporie said the words, her false laughter discarded, her smile replaced by a frown. “I was laughing because it was funny, you idiot!”

“Is that really why?” Pinkie asked, eyes trailing around the room, taking in all the shocked party guests. “You did all this, just to make me laugh at Pokey, didn’t you?”

“Don’t flatter yourself!” Euporie shot back. “That was just the icing on the cake. I was going to have some fun anyway, so I thought: I’d help you find your sense of humor. I just want you to laugh, Pinkie Pie. Laugh like I do.”

“And I want you to smile,” Pinkie Pie replied, raising a hoof to her cheeks. “Like I do.”

Euporie didn’t return the gesture.

She sneered but kept some modicum of calm, enough to look around and take in the terrified party guests around them. “Look at this. Not only did I break two of my toys, but I ruined my own party. That’s the real tragedy here. At least the foals downstairs are still having fun.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“You’re all very tired,” she said it barely above a whisper, but everypony in the room heard and felt her words, down to the core of their being. “SLEEP.”

Pinkie felt her legs wobble, the energy instantly drain out of her. Eyes closed, she still heard the dull thump-thump of bodies falling to the floor. Her tail twitched. But she stood, even though when she opened her eyes, everypony else was sound asleep, some wrapped in other’s legs. Even the servants and Ida had collapsed on the spot.

“You and the apple farmer,” Euporie said, even as Pinkie’s vision blurred. “You’re both quite resilient. I told you once, Pinkie Pie, that we are more alike than you know; that my special talent is making ponies smile. Actually, that was a lie.”

The clop-clop of Euporie’s hooves coincided with her voice getting closer and closer.

“I can make ponies smile, and I enjoy making ponies smile… but I can just as easily take those things away. The exhaustion you feel now is just a fraction of that.”

Hooves reaching, Pinkie managed to grab hold of a heart shaped card, fallen to the floor.

“The opposite of a smile is a frown and the opposite of a laugh?” Euporie asked. “The opposite of a laugh is a scream. And the opposite of joy and pleasure? Do you want to know what that is, too?”

Chin on the floor, Pinkie could just barely see one of the mare’s chocolate-stained hooves. Squeezing the VISSP card with some of the last of her strength, she was rewarded with an audible crack.

“Why did I laugh?” Pinkie barely heard the words as she lost consciousness. She never heard Euporie’s answer or even if there was one.

There was only a flash of light, the sensation of movement, and then darkness.

Queen Chrysalis tittered as she entered the white, stale medical room.

“What a surprise, to find you here,” she said, in what passed for a greeting. “Are you growing nostalgic, Alpha Brass?”

An aquamarine orb, just the corner of his eye, glanced back over his shoulder at the unexpected visitor. Then it returned to its previous occupation, Alpha Brass’s attention once more on the bed before him. The regal golden stallion was sitting before a large, plush, four poster Princess-sized bed with white satin sheets. It was a sea of beauty in the otherwise stark, unadorned room.

Next to the bed, a small suite of medical equipment pumped and clicked, providing a steady beat of similarly sterile music to go with the aseptic mockery of a master bedroom. Brass’s consideration was not on the medical suite, however. It was entirely reserved for the withered, pale looking mare in the bed, her coat and skin crinkled by age and wasting disease, her mane little more than wispy scraps of hair.

This was his wife: Olive Branch.

Or so the world thought.

“Nostalgic?” he asked, as she approached. “I did come here to think, but not to dwell on the past.”

The creature that wore the guise of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza clicked her tongue in disapproval. “If it isn’t nostalgia, then I would guess you are thinking: ‘things went well meeting that young mare, Twilight Sparkle. I wonder if now is a good time for Olive Branch to finally die and leave me a widower.’ Is that it?”

Alpha Brass didn’t smile, but he did nod his head. “You have the essentials of it, my dear. Twilight Sparkle is everything I could have asked for and more: intelligent, driven, powerful, patriotic, and even pliable. I do believe she is the most likely to follow in Princess Celestia’s hoofsteps, once you remove her. Naturally, she will be upset at the death of her mentor, but I can keep her off your back and focus her attentions on guiding the sun and moon for the new Equestria to come.”

“I would be terribly upset if you were to turn her against me,” the false Princess admitted, sitting down to his right. Cadance may have been a young-adult alicorn, but in her guise Chrysalis was taller than most mares and eye to eye with all but the largest stallions. She and Brass sat shoulder to shoulder.

“And risk my most important piece?” Brass inquired, giving her a curious look. “I have many others I would use against you first, were I planning some betrayal.”

“Of course.”

He went back to watching Olive Branch in the bed, an act that began to draw some of his guest’s ire.

“The changeling does a fine job, impersonating her. The flesh is a little too shallow, though. She’s playing up the ‘sickly pony’ bit too much.”

One of Olive Branch’s eyes opened, green and slit and worried.

“My Queen,” she protested. “I---”

“Oh hush,” Cadance demanded and the changeling shrank a little into the giant bed. “You must have the easiest job in the entire swarm, lying there all day and all night.”

“Come now, it can’t be that easy pretending to be a near corpse for more than a year,” Brass defended the shape-shifter. “Please, show my poor wife a little consideration.”

“Coming from you? You? Of all ponies?” Cadance chuckled, and waved a dismissive hoof at the changeling. “Be fortunate he sends you nurses to care for you. You would be a real corpse, waiting for love from your grieving husband.”

The changeling nodded and closed her eye again, resuming the masquerade of the comatose Olive Branch.

“This pale imitation…” Cadance muttered. “Maybe it is time to retire this character from our little play. We still have the original’s cremated remains, fortunately.”

“Nopony will question Olive Branch passing away at this point,” Brass assured her. “The papers and the small ponies have been expecting it for more than the year she has been bed-ridden. I have taken care of everything.”

“I know you must have.”

For a few seconds, they sat in silence, before a thought crossed the mind of the changeling Queen.

“It must be rather galling,” she decided.

“Hm?”

“For you, I mean,” she said, smirking. “You said ‘I do’ to a mare you never even met. You never once saw through my mother’s disguise. All that time before the marriage, and you were oblivious. It must be galling, looking back. It must make you feel quite the fool.”

“Quite the foal, you mean?”

“No: I mean quite the fool,” she insisted, avoiding the common pun. “Like a jester or one of those street performers who pretend to be a puppet with strings attached. How does it make you feel, thinking about that?”

Brass shrugged.

“I do not regret the decisions I make,” he replied. “I merely make the best of them and attempt to grow wiser from every setback.”

“Just the sort of empty response you love to prattle on about.”

“Every colt should lose some small battles when he is young,” Alpha Brass told her with a small smile of his own. “That way, when he is a stallion, older and wiser, he will win the war.”

“That seems like the sort of saying those who lose would tell themselves to assuage their egos and excuse their failures,” Cadance argued.

“Think of it what you will,” Brass settled on. “You mother did much to make me who I am today.”

“Yes, when she looked like this,” Cadance said, and her body shifted. The wings melted into her torso and her coat rapidly changed colors. Her entire physical shape warped, becoming more stout, her snout receding slightly, her horn shortening. She became a copy of the mare in the bed, but younger, with a light jasmine complexion and flowing purple and blonde mane. Yet, even then, she was older looking than Brass himself was.

Old enough to be his mother, as Olive Branch had been, when they married.

“Your mimicry of her is still flawless,” Brass complimented the changeling Queen.

“Well, I was her for several years,” Chrysalis said in a throaty mare’s voice, not like her own or Cadance’s. “Juggling identities is so tiresome. I much prefer… this form…”

She let out a breath, and shifted again. The horn grew, the colors changed back to those of Princess Cadance, except this time, the body was a little smaller and rounder, the mane done up in a ponytail, the tail possessed of only a single swirl at the end. When she was finished, Chrysalis no longer sat shoulder to shoulder with Alpha Brass, but noticeably shorter.

“Oh, the voice, too,” Chrysalis added, and when she spoke next, it was with a higher pitch: a teenage mare’s voice. “It has been a few years and… yes, this is it!”

Alpha Brass’s eyes narrowed at the teenage alicorn, but he said nothing.

“I have fond memories of being like this,” Chrysalis continued, raising a pink hoof to eye level. “I wore this skin when I first began to feed on you like a mature changeling, and not just a little pupa. Do you remember those nights, Brass? Mother would finish with you first, drawing out your love, but she would always leave a little trail of it for me afterwards. Like a string of that pasta you ponies enjoy. And I would pluck at it… and drink in your emotions. I wouldn’t have been able to draw them out from you by myself back then. Mother had to help me. She was a good Queen and you were my favorite food in the entire world, not that I had anything to compare you with.”

“I would watch you two, and wait, like a good daughter. Until she finally said, ‘Come and eat, Chrysalis.’ And then I would climb up this very bed.” The young Cadance patted the side of the bed, her hoof trailing over the embroidered sheets. “And take you. I was such a little pupa! I do apologize for some of the bites, Brass. You don’t hold it against me, do you?”

“The bites?” he asked, voice not betraying a hint of emotion except some slight condescension. “No. I didn’t mind them.”

“But my favorite memory, of both you and mother, had to be that night.”

“That night?” he asked, and looked back at the bed. “You mean…?”

“You remember!” she exclaimed, giggling in a teenage voice. “How could you forget? I delayed mother that night and came for you first. I looked like this, like the Princess Cadance you’d always dreamed of, and you fed me better than you ever have. Probably because mother always took the best parts for herself or, maybe, was it because you were happy to see me, your Princess? You were a little thinner then, too, I might add.”

She poked him in the side, playfully, and he grunted.

“But then mother caught on, and she stomped in…” Chrysalis’s eyes were alight with the retelling of the story. “Her disguise dropped and she told me to leave. But I didn’t leave. So she came closer and told me to go to my room. But I didn’t go. And then… she came a little closer. And do you remember what happened?”

Brass nodded, eyes shut. “Of course I do. You cut her head off.”

“Only mostly off,” Chrysalis reminded him, running her hoof across her throat. “There was still a flap of skin and muscle on the back part, so her head just kind of wobbled left and right. I remember staring at it, and at the blood everywhere… on me, and all over you. It was so wonderful!”

After that, some instinct had kicked in. Maybe because of the gore, maybe because of some scent in the air. Chrysalis had pulled the body of her dead mother onto the bed, finished removing the head, and then started digging around in the hole in the neck. It must have been instinct: the instinct of a daughter following her mother, or a Princess becoming a New Queen.

“I took the royal jelly gland out,” she continued, and holding her hoof up, waved it in front of Brass’s face. “And I thought: Isn’t that funny? It was so small. Before that, I’d imagined the royal gland to be bigger and more impressive. But I knew what it was and I knew I had to eat it. But then I saw you… covered in mother’s blood… and I crawled over to you and put it in your mouth.”

“I remember,” Brass told her, eyes following the hoof in front of his face like a charmer would a snake.

“It was pretty… foolish of me, now that I think about it,” Chrysalis admitted. “But all I thought was: I want to eat it out of your mouth. I want to taste mother’s blood and your blood mixed together. The two beings in this world who made me Queen. My father and brother and lover all wrapped into one.”

She tapped his chin and laughed.

“You’re still missing the tip of your tongue,” she concluded, and he finally, finally scowled.

That was, sadly, as much of a response as he was prepared to give. They sat in silence for a while, before he tensed his shoulders and stood. Without a word, he headed for the door.

“Why didn’t you bite down on the gland?” Chrysalis asked, and when he turned around, he could see that she was back in the stolen form of the adult Princess Cadance. “Even then, you must have known what it was. You were studying us even then.”

“Without the gland passing to me, weeks would have gone by as the swarm realized that mother’s scent was gone. Other would-be Queens would have grown their glands even as I grew mine. You could have plunged us into chaos and set us back a decade or more.” She watched his body language, his face, his eyes… but there was no tell. No language to read. Not anymore.

It wasn’t that Alpha Brass had no emotions, just that they were twisted beyond the ability to express.

“Why didn’t you bite down?” she asked him again, and it wasn’t a request. “Answer me.”

“I don’t have an answer,” he admitted, his own eyes boring into her like unflinching drills. “It may have been relief, that your mother was dead. It may have been desire, to see you become Queen in her place. It may also have been simply because all of it suited my purposes as much as it did yours.”

Chrysalis smirked at that last answer, the most likely of them all.

“Before I leave this place, to become a happily married mare, I wish to relive some of our fond memories,” she said, and there was to be no dispute. She didn’t need to say what memories she wanted to relive or experiences she wanted to reenact. “Tell your guards to expect a visit from my new bridesmaid. I will come to your quarters as that Lyra mare.”

He paused, halfway to the door.

“Why bother?” he asked, sounding bored. “There’s nothing you can feed on.”

“Worse than that, your emotions make me want to gag,” Chrysalis admitted, but her smirk only grew. Her body changed again, taking on more lavender, until a purple and red stripe parted her now-midnight blue mane. “Fortunately, I neither need nor want your emotions anymore. I have Shining Armor for that. But I will be perfectly content with your body and with the knowledge that you are still mine, to do with as I please.”

His frown from before lingered, but didn’t deepen.

“I’m compromising!” Chrysalis said, gesturing to Twilight Sparkle’s body. “You clearly like this new mare, so why not? This will be my way of making it seem less of a chore!”

Alpha Brass ran his eyes over the body she had mimicked. It probably wasn’t a perfect copy, since she hadn’t met the mare herself, but she had descriptions and even a newspaper picture of the elements of harming together. It was enough for a rough facsimile.

Brass’s eyes leveled, but then the stallion did something unexpected: he chuckled, softly.

“What?” Chrysalis asked, examining her sides. “A wing isn’t showing, is it? Did I get the tail wrong?”

“No,” Brass assured her, shaking his head. “But that isn’t the issue. Twilight Sparkle’s body isn’t of much interest to me. Her value to me is in here,” he said, pointing to his own head with a golden hoof. “In her mind. You can’t copy that, even if you had the opportunity to duplicate her magic. So transforming into her does nothing for me.”

“Oh?” the changeling Queen growled. “Then perhaps this will be better?” she mocked and became taller, paler…

She assumed a half-lidded stare, so characteristic of Lady Antimony. Alpha Brass’s cheer melted away and he rolled his eyes. Chrysalis laughed again, this time switching to Chalice’s smaller, pink body.

“Is this what you want me to look like tonight, big brother?” she asked him in Chalice’s soft, timid voice.

“If you must occupy yourself with me tonight,” he replied, turning around again to head for the door. “Come as yourself.”

“Myself?” Chrysalis asked, and involuntarily shifted to Cadance.

“Yourself,” he repeated, hoof hovering above the door handle. “The you I saw the night you killed your mother. Come to me as her.”

“You would be the one pony in this world not terrified of my real form,” Chrysalis admitted, and her smirk returned with a vengeance. “And the only one sick enough to sleep with me, as the real me. It is fun to imagine it! Are you certain you don’t want me to bed you as that purple mare?”

“I’m not about to repeat myself,” Alpha Brass concluded, and left. Chrysalis leaned back against the bed after he had gone, still smiling to herself.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she muttered, licking her lips. The mare was clearly a threat, and Chrysalis knew why: the so called Elements of Harmony. No doubt Brass expected to have all six of the little ponies in his pocket by seducing their leader.

Little did he know!

The Elements of Harmony were already being taken care of.

“It goes without saying that this news is upsetting.”

Euporie sulked in silence as her sister wrapped a bandage around her horn. Eunomie was methodical and effective enough as an impromptu nurse, but rather lacking in bedside manner. Ten minutes of filling her in on what had happened, and the stoic mare had summed it all up with ‘this news is upsetting.’ At least it wasn’t--

“Don’t even think about saying you told me so,” Euporie growled, warningly.

“In fact, I did not predict this exact set of events so it would be…”

Euporie glared at her sister.

“Suffice to say that recrimination serves no purpose,” Eunomie concluded, and lay down on the bare, basement floor below the library. She sighed, primly crossing her front legs on front of her. “We must deal with the consequences.”

“We should deal with the consequences by, A, finding those two snake oil salesponies, and B, turning them into snake oil!” Euporie snarled, slamming a hoof down hard onto the hardpacked floor.

“Please keep your physical interaction with the environment down to a reasonable level,” Eunomie asked in her usual level tone. “Only our voices are enchanted, not our bodies. Remember that Twilight Sparkle is asleep only two stories above us.”

“To Tartarus with--”

“We are guests in her home and if father has his way, she will become our step-mother,” Eunomie reminded her. “Please do not wake or antagonize her. I worry enough what she will hear of your activities this morning.”

“If father has his way,” Euporie replied, stressing the ‘if.’

“Yes,” was Eunomie’s impassive response, “If.” She shook her head, slowly. “You know I cannot break a contract. Rules are rules. Flim and Flam are technically following the letter of their contract by following Miss Pinkamena. So long as they do not break the contract, they are subject to its protections.”

“Your contract nearly ripped my horn open.”

“I apologize. It was not my intent to cause you harm, Euporie.” Eunomie blinked, eyes trailing down to her hooves. “Out of curiosity, what were you attempting to do to them to cause such a traumatic backfire?”

Euporie snorted, angrily. “There were four of them. You can guess.”

Eunomie closed her eyes, slowly breathing in and out. “Well then. It is troubling to have lost some measure of control over them, but I do not think we need to panic. As far as those two know, our intention was always to put financial strain on Sweet Apple Acres. They know little, and they will be able to say even less.”

“We don’t need them anymore,” Euporie argued. “We accomplished everything we set out to. I say we get rid of them. All of them.”

“And you would rather we do not tell father about tonight.”

“’A tiny leak can sink any boat,’ or so he says. But we can handle this, Eunomie,” Euporie reached out to touch her hoof to her sister’s. “I’ll even… write an apology to Pinkie for tomorrow.”

“You mean, I will draft the letter, and you will sign it,” Eunomie reasoned and sighed. “Yes, that would be wise. As for father, he does not know of Flim and Flam, so there is no need to tell him about this impropriety. He asked us to see to an objective and we have. Miss Pie will learn or infer some of what we did, but there is no way she will grasp our full intent or our plan. I assume you still wish to go forward with…?”

“You bet I do!” Euporie said with a vicious grin. “Daddy never puts all his eggs in one basket! When the time comes, I will be ready. And Canterlot and all those changelings…?”

She raised one hoof, an iron horseshoe floating in a glowing basic telekinetic field. With a grin Euporie bent it into a twisted pretzel.

“Just tell me this.” Eunomie slowly rose to her hooves. “What is it about Miss Pinkamena Pie that caused you to attempt this recklessness?”

“I think you of all ponies would know the answer to that, Eunomie.” Euporie sneered at the crumbled iron horseshoe. “She says her special talent is making ponies happy. Making them smile? But it’s just skin deep. She just prances around, acting like a clown, and they laugh at her and she sucks it up, grinning like a stupid foal. And then she has the audacity to lecture me? ME!”

“And I want you to smile,” Pinkie Pie replied, raising a hoof to her cheeks. “Like I do.”

“Just what is a smile worth, anyway?” The blue-maned unicorn flung the balled up horseshoe into a corner with a clang, the unnecessary noise prompting Eunomie to frown.

“Nothing,” Euporie spat.

Apple Bloom yawned as her cup slowly filled with water from the kitchen’s pump faucet.

She tried to be quiet as she got her late night drink, just like she’d tried to be quiet sneaking down the stairs. The house wasn’t usually this crowded, not unless there was an Apple Clan gathering. Having tried, and failed, to get a Cutie Mark Crusader Ninjas cutie mark, Apple Bloom knew that stealth wasn’t her strong suit. Also, that her skill with throwing stars was pretty sub-par. It wasn’t an issue most nights, since her brother and sister slept like logs and Granny Smith like an old log.

Tonight, though, they had a lot of company, and in Apple Bloom’s limited experience, company made for light sleeping in a house with sturdy wooden walls and floors that seemed to make every hoofstep louder rather than softer. Every step down the stairs produced a creak and whenever Scootaloo or Sweetie Belle slept over, one of them usually ended up waking up when Apple Bloom snuck out to get a drink or go to the bathroom. She didn’t want to do the same to the ponies helping them out in the farm.

Mister Rains and Mister Dew, the two earth ponies from far away - Apple Bloom had asked Miss Cheerilee how far away Neighpon was, and it was really far - were both sleeping outside in the barn with Big Macintosh. Poor Big Mac. He’d been real nice, offering his room to Miss Breeze and Miss Dust, though the pegasus mare had refused to share a bed with the unicorn lady. Apple Bloom wasn’t sure why. She slept with Sweetie Belle all the time, and only got poked by her horn a few times.

Actually, maybe Miss Breeze had a point about sleeping with unicorns…

At least Scootaloo’s wings never jabbed anypony when she rolled around in her sleep!

Miss Yumi - she didn’t like being called Miss Bow - was in the guest bedroom upstairs. Taking a quick little sip from her glass of water, Apple Bloom looked straight up. The guest room was right over the kitchen. Miss Yumi was up there right now, sleeping.

She was a funny mare. She didn’t act like any of the earth ponies Apple Bloom had met before. She was a little like Rarity. Even when she was outside, using her magic on the apple trees, she didn’t like getting dirty and she still wore her white clothes. Which was really weird, too, since her coat was whiter than Sweetie Belle’s! Why wear white when your coat is white? Apple Bloom didn’t understand it, just like she didn’t get why the foreign mare had ponies constantly cleaning her hooves or carrying her around or putting down carpets for her to stand or lay down on. What was wrong with just laying down on the grass?

She was a weird pony, but what she could do was really amazing!

Her cutie mark was three leaves cradling an arrowhead, and she could use magic to heal up trees and make their apples super shiny and tasty! Apple Bloom had tried to get her to explain how she did it, but she’d refused, saying it was her family’s secret. That was really a kick in the flank, since it seemed like a totally cool special talent, but the Apple Family had secrets of farming and cooking that Apple Bloom knew she wasn’t supposed to tell anypony, not even her best friends, so she didn’t really hold it against Miss Yumi. It was neat just seeing her make a sickly tree grow straighter and stronger right before her eyes, or watching as dozens of apples on the branch filled out, growing plump and sparkling.

Applejack was already excited about how their new cider was selling. To hear her sister tell it, Miss Yumi had really helped save the farm. Plus, she was royalty or some-such thing, back home, so it was right and proper giving her the guest room and even fancying it up. It wasn’t every day a pony like that stopped by, even if she refused to do any other chores and insisted on ponies serving her food and filling her glass of water and all that stuff.

The other two mares sleeping over, Apple Bloom was less sure of.

Miss Cool Breeze, or Suzukaze as the other foreign ponies called her, was kind of mean and frowny and bossy. Miss Yumi was bossy, too, but Miss Breeze wasn’t polite about it. She ordered around everypony except Mister Late Rains, and during the day she mostly just flew up into the clouds and slept or did weird tricks with lightning. Applejack had said to not bother her, and Apple Bloom had followed her sister’s advice. Applejack had said the same about Zecora, but nopony had even given Zecora a chance. Miss Breeze was just grouchy. She had a nice cutie mark, though: two thin yellow lightning bolts, hitting the same spot.

Miss Pixie Dust was a unicorn, white colored like Rarity or Sweetie Belle. She wasn’t from Neighpon, though, a pony could tell just by looking at her eyes and listening to her accent, or lack of an accent. Mister Rains had said that she was a friend of a friend, and that her job was to carry around Lady Yumi’s flag-thing and use teleporting magic to help them get around. Under her clothes, her cutie mark was a pretty generic hourglass with a green outline. She seemed nice, but quiet, and when Big Mac had offered his room to sleep in, she hadn’t put up much of a fight over it, accepting a roll-out bed downstairs.

Apple Bloom passed by a window, and hopping up onto her hind legs, saw the barn outside.

Big Mac was in there, with Mister Late Rains, Mister White Dew, and Mister Evening Squall. The three stallions all seemed pretty nice, too, especially Mister Rains and Mister Dew. Mister Late Rains was big and strong, like Big Mac, and he had lots of stories and never seemed to mind helping around the farm or taking time to talk. He’d even helped to come up with some plans to crusade with! He was probably even stronger than Miss Ritterkreuz, though Scootaloo disagreed, saying that only Rainbow Dash was that strong.

Still looking outside, Apple Bloom wondered if Mister Rains had a family. He was older than all the other ponies who followed Miss Yumi. He was probably a little older than Sweetie’s father, Mister Magnum. He’d never talked about having a son or a daughter, though. Mister Rains didn’t have rain in his cutie mark, not like Apple family members always seemed to have an apple. His cutie mark was a mountain with a white cap, with three chain links behind it.

Mister Dew was probably Big Mac’s age, and Apple Bloom kind of thought that he had a thing for Applejack. He was always asking her if he could help around and smiling and showing her some kind of magic in his hooves. He wasn’t as strong as Big Mac or Mister Rains, though. Applejack seemed to kind of like him, too, though Miss Breeze would always try and break them up if they were doing something, even just talking. His cutie mark was a horseshoe with a red plus sign in it, which was kind of neat.

Then there was Mister Evening Squall. He was a unicorn, like Miss Dust, but foreign looking. His coat was a bluish-white, and he had red eyes more like a pegasus pony’s than a unicorn’s. He was pretty quiet, and Apple Bloom wasn’t sure what kind of magic he could do. Big Mac got along with him pretty well, and sometimes they played some kind of board game with little white and black stones. It didn’t look very fun, not like Robber Baron or Galloping Squares. He had a bunch of small round bubbles for a cutie mark, kind of like Miss Doo’s cutie mark, but there were only five of them and they were orange.

They all seemed like good ponies, except for Miss Breeze, who was kind of a… b-word.

Apple Bloom finished her drink, carefully put the empty glass onto the counter, and headed back for the stairs. It was kind of fun, having company around the house, hearing them talk funny, and listening to stories shared in the fields or at the table at breakfast or dinner. They probably wouldn’t be staying too long, but--

“Oh!” Apple Bloom, head lowered, concentrating on making quiet hoofsteps, didn’t notice as she bumped into a much larger body. “S-sorry!”

Looking up, she saw a tawny, feminine chest and neck, and a pair of green eyes looking back down.

“Applejack?”

Applejack smiled down at her, a little drowsily.

“Still up, huh?” She reached out and ruffled Apple Bloom’s deep red mane, bereft of its usual ribbon. “Ya’ll better get back ta bed.”

“Sure thing, sis!” She tried to keep her voice quiet, and turned to head back up the stairs, but…

Looking again, Apple Bloom narrowed her eyes.

“Sis… yer cheeks…?”

“What?” Applejack asked, quietly. Apple Bloom blinked, and noticed the three little white freckles at the corner of her sister’s smile.

“Nothing ah guess. Ah better get back ta bed!” She started quietly climbing the stairs back to her room. Taking one last look back, Apple Bloom smiled at her big sister. “Ah’ll see ya tomorrow.”

“Ah’ll see you tomorrow,” Applejack replied.

Soon back upstairs and out of sight, Apple Bloom never saw Applejack’s coat shimmer, the mare herself sighing in pleasure. Her smile widened, revealing sharp teeth no pony had a right to have.

“We all have a big day, tomorrow,” she said, and melted back into the shadows.

Chapter Twenty Eight : A Celebration of Art and Culture

(28)

A Celebration of Art and Culture

“Pinkie Pie!” Cup Cake lightly rapped on the door. “Pinkie Pie! Time to get up, dearie. Pinkie Pie?”

Nothing.

Staring at the door for a few seconds, Mrs Cake looked a little shiftily side to side and pressed her ear up to the door itself. Ear twitching, she tried to listen in, but frowned at the lack of noise. Was Pinkie even inside? Was she still asleep?

Usually, Pinkie Pie was up well before the morning rush of customers. Sleeping this late wasn’t like her, and today of all days? Lady Rarity was having her art festival in a couple hours and Pinkie would need to be there to help oversee things. It wasn’t like most her parties, either, which were held pro bono. Pinkie Pie, not to mention Sugarcube Corner, were all being paid handsomely to organize and cater the event! This was no time to stay in bed!

“Pinkie Pie!” Cup Cake repeated, knocking a little more loudly. “You need to get up! I’m coming inside!”

Hesitantly, she opened the door.

“OH! Oh my!” A quick gasp, and the door shut again, Cup Cake’s face flashing pink. “Oh dear!”

“Honey muffin!” Carrot called from downstairs. “Is Pinkie Pie up yet?”

“N-no! Not yet!” she called back, and furtively opened the door just a crack to peek inside, a rosy blush on her cheeks. This was just too good!

Yawning languidly, Pokey Pierce stretched out his front legs and rolled to the right, a strange weight shifting on his lap. Feeling his hooves gently brush against something warm and soft, he murmured and drowsily opened his eyes. It felt like he was in bed, and he could smell Pinkie Pie close by. She usually didn’t mind a little early morning friskiness either, so--

Pierce’s thoughts hit a dead stop when he noticed the color of the pony sleeping next to him.

“You’re not Pinkie Pie,” the baby blue stallion said, shuddering involuntarily.

Flim, also just awake, shook his head. “Afraid not.”

Rolling over to his other side, Pokey Pierce saw an almost identical face as before, except with a moustache. So, basically, if anything that was even worse.

Flam simply smiled.

Rolling again, facing upward, Pokey finally looked down to where a familiar mat of pink had itself draped across all three stallions. An awkward moment passed, and then passed again, until Pinkie Pie muttered something in her sleep - “that’s right, everypony, get all the marmalade out” - stretched her forelegs and somehow managed to grab all three stallions into a drowsy hug. “Mmm! That’s right. We’ll need it to make peach fruitcakes! Mmmmm.”

Pinkie licked her lips hungrily, squeezing the four of them even more tightly together.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

Pokey Pierce, crushed between Flim and Flam, finally did what any dignified stallion would do. Actually, he whimpered a little, but after that he did what any dignified stallion would do. In this situation. He opened his mouth and--

“AAAGGGGHHHH!!!”

“You know, I never ended up in these sorts of situations before I met you,” Pokey grumbled, forelegs crossed. He was pretty upset.

Pinkie jammed a cinnamon bun into his mouth.

Everything was better with cinnamon!

At first his cheeks puffed up, but then he slowly chewed and the upset look faded away. Pinkie Pie patted him on the head. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

“I’m not a wild animal. You can’t just placate me with food.”

“Cinnamon bun?”

“…okay, yes. I’ll have one more cinnamon bun.”

Pokey grumbled a little while he ate, and before Pinkie Pie went back to sitting down herself, she pecked him quickly on the cheek. His eyes widened a bit as the gesture.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“For being my friend and special somepony,” she replied, her bright blue eyes a little downcast. “And for last night.”

Pokey paused in his cinnamon bun munching to meet her eyes. “Pinkie. I don’t remember all that much, but I do seem to recall you punching Euporie in the face last night. Something tells me that’s all the thanks I need.”

“Yes, indeed! You socked her good, I’d say!” Flam chimed in, also sitting down on the floor in Pinkie’s room. Pokey glared at the other stallion, one or two memories of what he had done last night still rather vivid despite the haze of alcohol, sugar and sex. Pokey Pierce may not have been the most aggressive of stallions, but he was still a stallion. Bereft of Euporie’s overwhelming alpha mare presence, he wasn’t inclined to take much from the other bachelor.

On the other hoof, Flim and Flam had apparently helped save both their hides from Euporie last night. Celestia herself knew how or why they had all ended up in Pinkie’s bed. Frankly, Pokey didn’t even want to think about it.

“Well, she did,” Flam amended, turning away from Pierce’s glare. “Miss Pie saved our hides, too, isn’t that right, brother?”

“Almost got us killed, too, brother, don’t forget that,” Flim said, using his magic to hold up half of an eaten cinnamon bun. “If not for you know what, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Why can’t we ever get involved with nice twins, like those two mares at the spa?” Flam wondered, sighing into his cup of coffee.

“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Pinkie said, bouncing back over to her spot on the floor. “Now that everypony’s here and not so grumpy or panicky or freaking-out-y, I had some super important questions and stuff!” She pointed to Flim and Flam. “What’s the really-reeny-roo reason you two were at that party? And don’t lie to your Auntie Pinkie Pie!”

“Auntie?” Flam asked, moustache twitching in amusement.

“We can’t really answer that,” Flim replied, taking another small bite of the complimentary cinnamon bun.

“I thought you guys were supposed to make me smile or something?” Pinkie asked, leaning way over until she somehow managed to invade Flim’s personal space. One of her eyes focused on the stallion and almost seemed to bulge out of the eye socket. He shrunk back slightly.

“Well, um…”

“That’s basically true,” Flam spoke up for his brother. “That’s why we’re still here, after all. But--”

“But we can’t talk about certain things,” Flim continued.

“No matter how much we want to,” Flam added.

“Rules--”

“--are rules.”

“Unfortunately,” they both concluded.

“Are you following any of this?” Pokey asked, still frowning at the twins. “Rules are rules? What does that even mean?”

“It’s a groovy mystery,” Pinkie agreed, retracting back to her seat. She popped a warm cinnamon bun into her mouth and gobbled it down in one bite. “Okey dokey lokey. Let’s say I accept that you two can’t talk about some things. At least you can say why you didn’t agree to my friend Applejack’s proposal the other day!”

“Can we?” Flam asked.

“We might,” Flim said, and took a deep breath. “We rejected her deal because we aren’t in Ponyville to make money. Hey! Looks like we can talk a little about our deal with--” His lips moved, but his voice instantly gave out.

Hanging his head, Flim waved a hoof to his brother.

“We came to Ponyville to take over Sweet Apple Acres,” Flam explained, a little more cautiously than his brother had been. “If that meant operating in the red for a few weeks, that’s what we were going to do; we could afford to take a short term loss for a long term gain. Are you alright, brother?”

“Better,” Flim replied with a cough.

“We didn’t have the bits to do all this by ourselves…” Flam continued, and gestured to Pinkie and Pokey. “So, we did what ponies do when they need money. Do you see what I mean?”

“OH! You sold lemonade!” Pinkie guessed, hopping up and down. “No! You danced your way through college! Donated your bodies to science? Kept buying lottery tickets until you finally won? You didn’t work at a rock farm, did you?”

“I think he means they looked for an investor, Pinkie Pie,” Pierce said, deadpan.

“Awww!” Pinkie turned around, to where a whiteboard now hung from the door with the names ‘Pinkie’ and ‘Pokey’ written on it. She made a line under his name in black marker.

“Euporie must have been one of their investors,” Pokey continued, and Flam didn’t move a muscle, not even nodding or shaking his head to confirm or deny the speculation. “So she basically forced you to go to the party as her dates because you owe her money?”

Flam’s jaw set, clenched, but he didn’t dare to speak.

Flim, meanwhile, cleared his throat. “I think what matters the most right now is what our options are, brother.”

“What do you mean, brother?”

“We still can’t accept Miss Applejack’s offer, no matter how much we may or may not want to,” Flim said, eyes closed in thought. “Either we bankrupt Sweet Apple Acres or they bankrupt us. Given that new cider they started making… I believe, from the very start, we were always meant to fail.”

“Brother?”

“We were just pawns,” Flim realized, frowning deeply at the implications. “At this rate, we’ll owe our investors thousands of bits. We need a way to sell out without… breaking our word to our investors.”

Flam nodded gravely. “We really got in over our heads this time, brother.”

“Hey.”

The two stallions turned at Pinkie’s relatively sedate outburst.

The pink pony was grinning, not with a silly smile, but with a sly one. “You should try thinking inside the chimney! I just got a super neat idea.”

“It doesn’t involve a song, does it?” Pokey asked, pointing to his wrist and the nonexistent watch there. “We really need to meet Miss Rarity before noon.”

“Pokey, Pokey, Pokey!” Pinkie tut-tutted. “Of course it involves a song! And!” She held up a hoof, smiling broadly. “A little bit of a show!”

Flim and Flam exchanged looks.

“We’re listening,” they said, as one, “but what about Miss Mosaic?”

“What indeed?” Pokey asked as well, scowling. “I need to check with some of her other guests before the art festival anyway. Perhaps we should contact Lady Rarity to arbitrate things?”

“Leave Miss Meanie Mind Magic to me!” Pinkie insisted, and none of the stallions present dared to argue with her. “I think I know just what to do with her!”

Pokey Pierce narrowed his eyes at the zany mare. “It doesn’t involve cupcakes, does it?”

Pinkie Pie just smiled, an expression trotting the fine line between adorable and frightening.

Applejack arrived early to set up her family’s exhibition under the local produce pavilion. The art festival was still a few hours away, but already much of the Blueblood Manor outside town had been transformed. Having visited several times before, Applejack knew the front of the villa to be an open air expanse, all the better to awe visitors with the statue of lady victory on her raised platform and with the grand façade of the house itself. It was pretty darn fancy for not being a real castle with towers and parapets or anything.

Now, though, earth pony landscapers had been all over the place.

They were still all over the place! Short spruce trees, trimmed narrow like green pillars, were being watered and coaxed into place while other ponies put the finishing touches on the ring of black mulch beneath each tree. All the decorative trees were the same shape, but different heights, giving the appearance of a fantastic forest of pillars, higher in the back than near the front.

Other trees were flowering and in places entire streams of petals had been laid down on stonework and gravel paths through the immaculate green front lawn. A half dozen large pavilion tents had been erected before, and many of those ponies set to put their wares - and the creative energies of Ponyville - on display had arrived at the crack of dawn. The pavilions themselves were thematic, spreading radially from the statue that was by necessity the center of the front acre of the manor. Pendants and flags and streamers in a dozen colors waved in the air.

Prominent among them were the three diamonds on a field of white and blue - Rarity’s personal sigil.

“Boy howdy, she’s really outdone herself with this,” Applejack couldn’t help but remark.

Big Mac’s assessment was a little more succinct: “Eyup.”

Pulling their cart into the voluminous produce pavilion, Applejack saw one of the sculptures defining the various wings of the festival: in this case, a tree made of delicate iron latticework, through which a collection of vines and flowers grew and sprouted. Applejack even remembered when Rarity had first described the commission, calling it a ‘living sculpture, part topiary, part metalwork.’ The finished product was rightly impressive, towering well over a pony, the branches of iron and vine thick with flowers red and gold and white and purple.

“Commerce,” was the name of the sculpture, and the pavilion.

Applejack tipped her hat as she looked up, and then hurried on to keep up with her brother. Big Macintosh was already parking their cart at their assigned space, while Apple Bloom rode on top, looking at the festival-in-being with wide eyes. No doubt she’d be quick to run off as soon as things were set up. Sweetie Belle would be here, soon, too, and Scootaloo would likely come by later. Applejack just hoped they didn’t cause too much trouble. Granted: they always caused a little mischief, but poor Rarity would have a heart attack if something went wrong today.

“Alright, let’s get things set up!” Applejack said, picking Apple Bloom up and off the cart.

Big Mac’s reply was his usual laconic “eyup” and together they unloaded barrels of their best, signature family ciders, including two of the new batch produced from apples sharpened by Lady Yumi’s magic. They had their usual country mugs all stacked together and a decorative tap for the festival with a little steel apple on the top for a handle.

Applejack’s preference would have been to use the classic cider stand, too, but this was an art festival, which meant things had to be artsy and fancy. Everypony had been given stands to use designed by artists in town, and the Apple family had one made of white-grey limestone with planter’s inlets built into the sides. Miniature apple trees sprouted from within little plots of earth, and a mural along the front depicted a sunny countryside of rolling hills, capped by a rustic home and a barn, set against the blue sky. Behind the limestone façade, most of the back was polished wood, including two wings that swept out wide to the left and right.

“Just like we practiced,” Applejack said, directing her brother. “Stack up the barrels back there. We’ll rotate the ones on tap and keep them on the top. When they get empty, we’ll swap 'em with the ones on the bottom. There should be a little nook with a cold spell on it. I’ll take care ‘ah that stuff. Apple Bloom, you help with the apple baskets. Use the little hooks at the bottom there ta keep ‘em in place and then start fillin’ 'em up with apples.”

“Eyup.” “Right on it, sis!”

“Once we’re done, I figger we can get a quick bite ta eat, then I wanna see both of ya’ll dressed up,” Applejack continued, and the mention of ‘dressing up’ evoked a disgruntled mutter from both sister and brother. “Hey now, this is important! And that goes double fer you, Big Mac.”

The workhorse shrugged, picking up another barrel off the crate in his bare hooves.

He was without his usual yoke, having left it behind when he took off the cart’s harness, but if he looked out of sorts without it, he would look even stranger in the vest and jacket they’d gotten for him - Applejack thought he looked a little like a big, red Braeburn. This wasn’t going to be like the Gala, but they still had to look they very best when all the bigwigs and tea-drinkin’ types came in. A certain “country style” was expected, but Rarity had stressed to everypony at the festival that it be at least a “classy” country style. Since ol’ Mac just had to have something around his neck, Applejack saw he’d brought a buffalo-style bolo tie Braeburn had given him last year. At least it was better than the frilly thing Rarity would probably be having Blueblood wear, the poor pony.

“Lookin’ good,” she remarked, taking a second after setting up an area for slices of family style Dutch apple pie. Not just their own area, but the whole setup. The whole festival. It was looking pretty good. Fancy, but not too stuffy-fancy: Ponyville-like, but dressed up a bit.

She also remembered her promise to Lady Yumi…

“Welp, that can come later, I reckon!” She went back to unloading the cart. They’d take their clothes out of storage last, and then wheel the whole thing away to a designated lot out of sight. Yumi wouldn’t be showing up until the festival really got underway. Applejack would make an arrangement for her then, settling all debts. Once the farm was in the clear, it’d be easy to sort out Rarity’s insistence on bailing the family out.

Today, Applejack decided, was going to be a good day.

Sandy held up the hoof-mirror for Rarity to examine her mane, moving it to the side to better provide a good look at the top where it pooled behind her horn before curling off to the side. Rarity nodded, and Sandy vanished off to the side, providing a clear line of sight for Rarity to examine herself in the three tall vanity mirrors. She closed her eyes and felt Sandy touch up her hint of eyeshadow. That done, Rarity fluttered her eyelashes at her reflection, making sure the lashes were firmly in place and to her liking - there was no margin for error.

“Hmm,” she mused, lifting a leg and tilting her head.

“My Lady looks wonderful,” Sandy said, bowing politely but offering a shy smile. Rarity returned the smile. Light Touch and Sandy were both wonderful hoofmaids - discrete, soft spoken, attentive, loyal and possessed of keen eyes and a fine fashion sense. Rarity had taken a liking to both mares very quickly, though she had initially been a little wary of them. They had been dressing Blueblood for years and it seemed to have prepared them very well for attending to a mare’s needs.

Rarity giggled a little at that thought.

Sandy was the shyer of the two, though not on Fluttershy’s level. She and Light Touch seemed very close, but there was always a perceived difference of station between her and the Lord and Lady she served. Light Touch had steadily become a bit bolder around Blueblood since the Gala, or so it seemed to Rarity, but Sandy was demure as always. With her dark brown coat and a mane just a little darker than Applejack’s, she didn’t stand out very much among a crowd of colorful equines.

“I believe I am ready to see just how much of a disaster this dress looks, now that it is too late to make any modifications to it. I pray it doesn’t explode or fly apart while I’m near anypony too important.”

“As my Lady wishes,” Sandy said, and so the process of putting on her newest creation began.

The art festival was HER big event, and it required a new and special dress for the occasion.

Becoming a Baroness of Ponyville may have made it faux pas to sell dresses anymore, but there was no affront to her making them or her wearing what she made. She could even continue to give them away to her friends. So long as not a single bit was made in the exchange, and no pony could accuse her of holding a mercantile or artisan’s “job” then it was just another lavish indulgence, one of many among the aristocracy.

For the festival, she had designed and prepared a gorgeous dress of white beaded lace, reminiscent of a bleached garden. All white sea-shell lace, it was lavishly embellished with imported white pearls woven into the fabric; around the collar, neckline and shoulders, the upper part of the dress, bugle beadwork had been stitched in depicting a great wreath of flowers, each one unique, all around and down along the legcyces and hemline. A gap in the design had been made at above knee level up to where her torso would move beneath the dress, pure white except for a faint wave like motif. Then the floral patterns returned as the dress neared her hooves and the floor. Her front hooves were also circled with silk cuffs. With how tightly it hugged her curves, two kick-pleats had been necessary to either side, around her tail. A simple black and white ribbon curved around the front, like a bodice, coming together as a zeppelin bend knot.

Satisfied with the dress, for the time being, Rarity then indulged her inner milliner by trying on the matching hat. It was something of a sinful pleasure of hers: finding a hat for most any occasion. It was nice to think she hadn’t developed the minor obsession because of her father’s rude attachment to his single natty straw hat, which he wore whenever the occasion arose, but a more realistic look back on her life probably pointed to that being the case. Lamentably, efforts to wean her father off his old straw hat and onto something fashionable had met with as much success as her attempts to part Applejack from her Stetson - which was to say, none.

The hat she put on now was large, black velvet, with an almost invisible obsidian braid trim. Silk chiffon ribbons adorned the top right side of the hat, opposite the curl of her mane. Pivoting, posing a little, raising and lowering a leg as she examined herself from the angles provided by the vanity mirrors, Rarity’s coy smile became increasingly genuine. It wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it could well be fabulous!

“What do you think?” Rarity asked her attendant. “I didn’t overdo it with the white, did I?”

“No, my Lady,” Sandy replied, holding a hoofmirror up with a little magic. “The weave is very… complex… um, ornate, I mean. It looks very pretty on you.”

The compliments sounded heartfelt and honest, not just telling her what she wanted to hear, but there was something to Sandy’s downcast eyes. It was like she didn’t want to look the other mare in the eyes.

“Is there something wrong?” Rarity asked, putting aside her own concerns about the festival and her appearance. She reached for Sandy’s hoof and took it gently in her own, hoping to coax her out of her shell a little. “You can tell me.”

“My Lady, you and… his Lordship… have been very kind to me,” Sandy began, and just as quickly faltered, looking away and snapping her mouth shut. It was an expression Rarity had seen many times in a very dear friend of hers.

“You have been wonderful company,” Rarity told her. “If there is anything I can do for you, darling, you need only ask. I know Blueblood feels the same way.”

Sandy hesitated, swallowing some of her doubts, and nodded.

“My Lady, it isn’t… I’m not the one to worry for,” she said, eyes still fixed on her hooves. “I worry about you.”

Rarity was a little surprised by that. “Me? Whatever for?”

“I received a letter in the mail…” Sandy whispered. “From my family. Somepony is coming… here, to meet you.”

“Who?” Rarity asked, and she felt a little worry rise up from within. Sandy’s family?

“Sand Dune,” she said, and her eyes met Rarity’s. “Lady Sand Dune is coming here.”

Sand Dune. Blueblood had mentioned her: that she had left Bitaly, but that his agents had lost track of her. Antimony had mentioned her before as well. She was the daughter of Desert Flower, the Southern Princess of the Quartz Clan. The Salt Princess, too, as her family controlled that resource that was essential to pony life in Equestria. Lady Sand Dune. Her magic was the hourglass: the ability to manipulate time itself.

Coming here?

“I think she only came to talk, but… but please be careful around her,” Sandy insisted, and there was real fear in her voice. “She’s dangerous.”

It was such a simple statement, but the weight behind it--

“I see before me a vision of beauty,” a stallion’s voice interrupted, chuckling as the owner entered the room unannounced. “More beautiful, still, beneath all this wrapping.”

Blueblood gave her a playful nudge with the side of his head, and Rarity rolled her eyes.

“You describe a present under a hearths warming tree, not a pony,” she admonished him but gasped a little when the tip of his hoof brushed teasingly up her foreleg. She batted him away with a huff.

“Don’t you dare mess up this dress!” Rarity wrestled a second with his wandering hoof. “If you must unwrap, do it with your eyes.”

“Done and done!”

“I spend two hours getting dressed and all you can think about is undressing me?”

“You do look positively dazzling,” Blueblood assured her. “You usually wear so much color, all that white and black draws the eye to the blue of your eyes and the indigo of your mane and tail.”

Rarity blushed and quickly went back to looking at herself in the mirror. “You are an accomplished flatterer, sir.”

“I practice on myself,” the Prince admitted.

Rarity took only a second or two to really admire herself in the mirror, more than a little pleased by the stallion’s description of her ensemble. It really was nice - she had to admit - having a pony around who actually appreciated her love of dresses and other fine attire. She spent a much longer time discretely looking him over in the mirror.

He was handsomely dressed in a light sky blue wool mohair blend waistcoat, a dark silk back panel visible against his pure white coat and pearl shirt. A silk blend 1-button jacket dangled from a hanger, suspended by his magic. Unlike her, Blueblood did not include hats in his normal repertoire of haberdashery. Which was a shame, she suspected he’d look rather dignified in a matching, proper, woven straw hat with ribbon detailing. The sort her father dismissed as not being ‘rough enough’ around the edges. A pleated satin stock tie rested loosely, untied, around his neck.

Rarity sucked in a deep breath, looking at the two of them side by side, reflected in her mirror.

“Your friend Applejack is out there.”

“Is she?”

“You know she is,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I’ll speak with her,” Rarity promised, teasing one of the curls in her mane. “This situation between us must be resolved. I just… just give us some time. We will sort it out, you’ll see.”

“Good! They’re about to start announcing our honored guests,” Blueblood leaned down to remind her. “I’ll hold down the fort while everypony holds their breath, waiting for their hostess to appear. Golden Star and Fancypants have, of course, hit it off already… so I plan to flirt shamelessly with both their wives until you show up to put them in their place.”

She stared at him, eyes half lidded.

“Take too long and there may be a diplomatic incident,” he warned, and leaned in to kiss her lightly on the cheek. Trotting happily back to the door, he hesitated, almost as he was about to leave. Rarity didn’t fail to notice as she examined a case of tiny earrings.

“Blueblood?” she asked, and he shook his head.

“Nothing,” he assured her with a smile. “Just a question I’ve had on my mind. I’ll ask you another time.”

Once he was gone, Rarity sought out the ever unobtrusive Sandy. The younger mare was sitting by the dresser, trying to be inconspicuous while she and Blueblood spoke. It was likely all part of her training: good maids and personal servants were often privy to secrets. They were trained to be quiet and discrete. This time, though, Sandy seemed to know something - something Rarity needed to hear more about.

“Sand Dune,” the former dressmaker said. “She’s a relative.”

Sandy nodded, shyly, as if the admission might get her in trouble.

“Tell me everything you know.”

“Rainbow Dash! Rainbow Dash! Hey! Rainbow D-”

Despite being tempted to just fly higher to escape the noise of her own name being called, over and over again, Rainbow Dash instead dipped down and cruised towards the ground. It wasn’t that there was no avoiding this little run-in. Scootaloo couldn’t have caught her if she had genuinely not wanted to be caught, but today? Today she could guess and even understand why the little flightless filly was after her for a word or two.

Soaring lower, she caught sight of Scootaloo on her scooter, doing her best to keep pace along a packed dirt road. The filly could actually build up a surprisingly good head of steam on those wheels. Dash had expected her to eventually just give up after a minute of following, but the filly’s endurance had clearly improved. Rainbow Dash frowned to herself at that realization and her own guess as to the reason for it.

Touching down into an easy canter, Dash narrowly dodged a small column of smoke as Scootaloo zipped by. The filly came to a skidding stop and hopped off her scooter and onto her hind legs by the edge of the road, nimbly avoiding planting herself face first into a bush. Hastily pulling the helmet off her head, she trotted over. Normally a huge smile would have been threatening to split her cheeks, but this time, Scootaloo seemed more focused than excited to see her.

“Heya, Scoots,” Dash greeted the filly with a little salute.

Scootaloo stopped just in front of her, looking up at the grown mare. She seemed to mentally debate something before dropping her eyes, looking abashedly down at the ground underhoof.

“Rainbow Dash,” she said, haltingly. “Please…” Scootaloo shook her head and looked back up at her idol. “Please don’t kill her, Rainbow Dash!”

A moment of shock hit her, replaced almost instantly by a frown.

“Scoots, I’m not going to kill anypony,” she promised, offering the filly a confident smile. “Geez! What even gave you that idea?”

“Ritter.”

Of course. Dash groaned.

“Ritter said she wouldn’t be ‘so bad’ if you killed her with a rain boom,” Scootaloo explained, her speech running fast to cover her anxiety. “I don’t - I don’t really know why she wants to fight with you… I don’t know why you’re going to fight with her… but you shouldn’t be trying to hurt one another!”

Rainbow Dash stared forward, not letting her own doubts or fears show. What Scootaloo had said - how could she explain to the filly that she felt the same way? That she didn’t want to fight anypony or hurt anypony. How could she explain how Ritter’s stupidity and bull-headedness had torn the Wonderbolts apart? How could she explain that this wasn’t about just what she wanted, or what Ritter wanted? How could she explain that, even in light of all that, her heart was still racing at the thought of what would happen when she did get to the meeting place this morning?

How could she explain that, deep down, as much as she hated it, a tiny part of her she wanted this, too?

“You two…” Scootaloo cried, but to her credit didn’t cry or plead. “Can’t you just be friends?”

Dash closed her eyes, but still didn’t have a response. Ritter and Spitfire had probably been close to friends, hadn’t they? It sounded like it, and yet…

“She isn’t bad,” Scootaloo argued, and Dash could see she was passionately trying to make her case, even though she only had her instinct to rely on and few of the real facts. “Maybe a little bad, but she never really hurt anypony too badly, did she? She - she was nice to me…”

“Scoots,” Dash interrupted, reaching out to pat the filly on the head.

She looked up at her idol with wide eyes: hopeful eyes.

“Trust me,” was all Dash could say. “Trust me, okay?”

Scootaloo sucked in a breath and nodded. “Okay.”

“Good!” Dash spread her wings and tensed to fly. “And, uh, shouldn’t you be in school?”

The filly smiled a bit. “Nope! We got the day off on account’a the festival!”

“Oh, Rarity can cancel school, too?” Dash asked and laughed. “Being Baroness suddenly sounds pretty cool.”

As she took off, she caught one last cry from her biggest fan.

“Be careful, Rainbow Dash!”

‘Yeah,’ she thought, rising up over the clouds. ‘Careful. I will, Scoots. And I’ll win, too, without killing anypony.’

Breakfast was a quiet affair.

Cheerilee was the most talkative of all of them, but she was gone. Only Ritterkreuz and Chalice were still hanging around, the former to hide in her root cellar and the latter to chase off the curious. Whenever a guardpony happened to come by, they would find Chalice staying with her friend and assume she was the only out-of-town character to be found. Fluttershy herself was a friend and gendarme of Rarity, and Chalice was a noble mare. No pony dared to press them, not since that one scarred unicorn mare from Rarity’s Free Company had left.

Fluttershy understood that today was the day when her half-sister left to settle some score with the Wonderbolts, and with Rainbow Dash. She was shy, not oblivious. There just seemed to be nothing she could do about it. Ritterkreuz was so much like their shared father in that way: nothing ever changed his mind and nothing ever changed hers.

Angel Bunny squeaked from his side of the table, the furthest from Chalice, and the big pegasus mare batted a salt shaker over in his direction. He caught it and soon started unloading the contents into his minced carrot oatmeal.

“Angel, you know all that salt isn’t good for you…” Fluttershy tried to object. “You promised you’d try and cut down. Remember your blood pressure…”

Angel just glared at her for a second, rattled out one last load of the stuff, and put the shaker back down.

Ritterkreuz and Angel both finished eating around the same time, the irate bunny hopping off and giving the still seated Chalice a wide berth. He hadn’t tried to bite her again, after a good, stern talking to, but something about the mare still seemed to upset him. Fluttershy wasn’t sure what. Chalice seemed quite nice and she had tried to be helpful around the house, though all the animals were scared or upset with her. Only the birds and butterflies could be talked into giving her a chance and even they flew away rather quickly.

Sensing Fluttershy’s attention, Chalice primly returned her fork and dabbed her mouth. “Fluttershy, I wanted to tell you… I’ll be gone for much of today. Would - would it be alright if I came back later? I could come back with some oil paints and we could practice landscapes or animals?”

“I’d like that,” Fluttershy replied and Chalice’s smile grew, only to recede just as quickly. “Are you going to Rarity’s art festival? We could show up together?”

“Oh. Oh, no, I… can’t.” Chalice found her small, mostly empty bowl of greens rather interesting. “I have something to do.”

“Something to do, huh?”

“Ritterkreuz,” Fluttershy said, scolding. Why did the big mare always have to sound so suspicious?

“This b- this mare is Antimony’s little sister,” Ritter said, picking her teeth with a thin wooden splinter. “Don’t forget that. I wonder what it is you need to ‘do’ all of a sudden.”

“I--”

“She and Lady Antimony have as much in common as you or I do,” Fluttershy said, her protective instincts starting to emerge from slumber. “Please don’t judge her so quickly. She has kept your secret, hasn’t she?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Ritter shrank back a little under Fluttershy’s chastisement. She turned to the soft spoken unicorn with a shrug. “My bad.”

For some reason, Chalice only nodded, still looking down at her breakfast.

“Anyway,” the former Wonderbolt quickly swapped topics. “I guess I should probably thank both of you too. You know, for not ratting me out. And… Tartarus, I wanted to say…” She made as if to flick the toothpick away, noticed Fluttershy’s disapproving stare, and put it down on her plate instead.

“I wanted to say: I probably won’t be coming back, not after my little run in with your buddy Rainbow B- Dash,” it was clearly a constant struggle to keep her language in check. “I don’t think I’ll be that welcome around here if I wreck her, and if she wrecks me, well, that’ll be the end of that. So before either, I wanted to thank you for, you know, helping me out and covering for me.”

“I know we were never close or anything,” she hastened to add. “I didn’t really belong, once…” Ritterkreuz stole a look at Chalice and didn’t say much more on that. “Anyway, we had Dad in common, but nothing else. I didn’t mind it, but maybe I should have dropped by anyway. At least a few times or something.”

She rapped a hoof on the table, trying to get to the point.

“You didn’t have to help me at all,” she said, getting it out. “No pony would’ve blamed you for not wanting me around. Pony Hell, the Wonderbolts would probably have been happy if you sold me out to them. So I wanted to thank you for that. I don’t know any other pony who’d have done the same. Maybe one, but he…” The big mare set her expression to neutral and pressed on. “Anyway, thanks.”

Fluttershy smiled comfortingly at her half-sister. It was true, they’d never been close. They had different mothers, and more than that, different lives, as different as night and day. But that didn’t change anything: sheltering Ritterkreuz hadn’t been a family obligation.

“I did it because I thought you needed it, and because it felt like the right thing to do,” Fluttershy said, feeling a bit of her inherent shyness kick back in, even inside the sanctuary of her own home. Her mane fell across her cheek as she averted her eyes. “I mean, it was… I think it was the right thing to do, even though…”

“Right or wrong, I’m glad you did it,” Ritterkreuz told her, and slowly spread her wings, flexing them. “I’m feeling good. This’ll be a good day. But before I head out, Fluttershy: this may be asking a lot, but depending on how things go, I’d like you to send Dad a letter… or tell him this, or something.”

“What is it?” Fluttershy asked, looking up again.

“After this, if I’m still flying, I’m gonna leave Equestria for a while,” Ritter admitted, though she didn’t sound all that happy about it. “Dad used to take down monsters, protecting villages and tribes on the borders. I thought I’d be good at that, like I could do my part for Equestria and cr- and stuff, but… things didn’t work out. He’d know that. So I think the best thing is for me to just fly around on my own for a while. Kill some strong creatures way out there. Stuff ponies haven’t tangled with before! If I beat the rain boom today, tell him I’m leaving to get stronger. Someday soon, I’ll come for him, first, then the Princesses. Tell him not to get flabby.”

“You actually want to fight Princess Celestia?” Chalice asked from her side of the table, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Sure I do!” Ritter responded with a boisterous laugh. “Unless I can find somepony or something more powerful than her. Then she’ll be my target instead!”

“Why?” Chalice insisted. “Why bother?”

“A pony like you probably couldn’t understand,” Ritter said, standing up. Her wings spread and then snapped closed with an audible ‘fwsshp!’ “When I see a cloud, I want to fly up to it and kick it. When I see a wall, I want to break it down and see what’s on the other side. When I find a pony with a strong body and a strong will, I wanna fight them. Everypony and everything in this world is just another cloud or another wall to me. That’s all.”

Fluttershy sighed, but let her half-sister say her piece. Without another word, the big mare was gone.

“Fluttershy?” Chalice asked, seeing the butter coated mare also stand up. “Are you--?”

“Going out today?” Fluttershy asked, shaking bodily despite her resolve. “I - I don’t want to, but… I think I have to.”

Soarin saw Ritterkreuz first.

He held himself back, too. For the honor of the Wonderbolts. That was what this was about, after all. There were no Royal Guards or Free Company ponies this far into the hills of the Rambling Rock Range. This was, he reminded himself, what Spitfire wanted. What the Captain wanted, since she was now their leader. Just as important, this was what Rainbow Dash wanted. So he held himself back.

He watched as his former teammate rode an updraft from the rolling green lands below and leapt off his cloud to intercept her. The ground rushed past in a blur as he dove and pulled up, his body lining up with the other Wonderbolts as they fell into a familiar pattern. Though the Wonderbolts were further subdivided into flight teams and squadrons, they all practiced and flew together. They knew one another: how they moved and how they reacted to the wind, to the glare of the sun, to each other.

For a few seconds, Soarin felt that familiarity and camaraderie again…

Then it was gone.

“This way!” he yelled, to be sure the other pegasus could hear him.

He turned, wings wide and carrying him effortlessly across miles of empty land below. A quick check, just a glance out of the corner of his eye, confirmed that Ritterkreuz was following along. They flew in silence, little to say to one another at that point. Both of their thoughts were focused on what was up ahead.

The Rambling Rock Range.

It stretched on into the horizon, growing higher and taller to the east and south, forming part of the border with the Everfree and containing the wild forest, but here in the lowlands it was something else entirely. Here, ragged and rough serrated peaks - a fraction of the size of a real mountain - stuck out of the broken and irregular ground. It was still rubble strewn, despite a thick blanket of green attempting to obscure and eventually wear down the obstructions.

It was not a naturally occurring formation on the land. In this part of the range, the earth had been excavated in ancient times. Back then, a process called “ruina montium” had used water pressure to literally demolish mountains, shearing and splitting them apart for gems and gold. Equestria was a gem rich country, and the early settlers - unicorns, earth ponies and pegasi - had all rushed to exploit the most abundant veins.

The ancients called the process literally “wrecking of mountains.”

“She’s here,” Ritterkreuz said, accelerating.

Soarin angled his wings and kept pace as his former team mate spotted a speck of blue perched on top of one of the shattered mountain monoliths. Though spade shaped, it was still large and flat enough on top to support a few pegasus ponies coming in for a landing. Rainbow Dash eyed them both as they approached. She had packed something with her in a small saddlebag that now lay at her hooves on the ground.

The two mares met each other’s eyes, wings spread.

Ritter, the first to speak, chuckled darkly. “You’ve got a confident, fierce look. The kind that says: I won’t run away, this time. Am I right?”

“Yeah,” Dash agreed. “I’m not going to run away this time.” She then pointed to Ritter’s wings and the remaining bandage around her left foreleg. “Are you still hurt?”

“I’m always a little scuffed up,” Ritterkreuz replied, unconcerned, and pointed over to Soarin. “You aren’t all tired out from your intense training with cutie here?”

“Hey!” Soarin yelped. “We never--”

“I hope you enjoyed your time with him,” she continued, ignoring his outburst. “Sparky is so overprotective, I never got to give him a ride myself. Such a shame!”

Rather than rise to the bait, though, Rainbow Dash just shrugged. “I didn’t make him sleep on the couch, if that’s what you mean. How has that been, by the way? Sleeping in the hay by yourself?”

“It’s pissed me the fuck off, actually!”

The two mares closed, the gray towering a good head over the blue.

Rainbow Dash lifted a hoof, not saying a word. Ritter looked down, saw it, and raised her own hoof as well. There was a soft ‘clop’ as they touched, bumping hooves. Both mares were grinning.

“You talk the talk,” the former Wonderbolt said, backing away, large wings flaring out wide to find purchase in the air. “Now let me see you fly. Let me hear you Boom.”

“Sure,” Dash replied, and shot forward. “I never disappoint a fan!”

“Twilight Sparkle! Always a pleasure to see you again.”

“Mister Fancypants! Hello again!” Twilight Sparkle graced the multi-millionaire socialite and industry mogul with a charming smile. She dipped her head respectfully to him, and then to the other pony he was in conversation with. “You must be… Prince, I mean, Emir Golden Star? Was that right?”

“Charmed, my little lady,” Golden Star stood taller than his companions, and inclined his head just a fraction as he greeted her. There was strange accent, a mild affectation, to his speech. “We were merely reminiscing about our youths in Canterlot. You must be Lady Celestia’s apprentice?”

It was the first time Twilight could recall a pony referring to Celestia as ‘lady’ instead of ‘princess.’ She recalled that Saddle Marabians saw the Princesses differently, less reverently, than normal Equestrian ponies.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she introduced herself, rather humbly. There was no need to tack on ‘apprentice to the princess’ or her family relations or her technical gendarme status to Rarity. She angled two of her legs in a polite curtsy, her purple and fuchsia dress gliding around her back hooves.

“Gentlemen,” she said. “Prince Blueblood, I was wondering if I could…?”

“It seems I am needed, my friends,” Blueblood told them with a suave smirk. “”You’ll have to excuse me a moment or two.”

They exchanged a few more polite greetings and a few jibes about a certain Prince being at the beck and call of the mares of Ponyville and then Twilight lead him a short distance away. The Art Festival itself was in full swing around them: well to do guests visiting Ponyville by train and elegant celebrities and nobles given the courtesy of staying at the new manor itself, all mingling with Ponyville residents in a mix of social strata and Equestrian classes. The overall atmosphere was still kept rather highbrow by Ponyville standards - even the ‘hoedown’ that was planned for later was fairly tame and billed as an exhibition of local dancing and musical traditions - but it was a remarkable middle ground in being.

“Well then, Miss Sparkle,” Blueblood asked, “what can I do for you?”

“You can just call me Twilight,” she reminded him.

“In private, I would be happy to,” he said it with a charming smile, but Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes. She had spent enough time with him in private to know when he was being his real self. But, that was probably a masquerade all ponies in his position felt the need to engage in. Even her brother, at times.

“Alright. Twilight,” he relented a bit and she brightened.

“Good!” she said, but quickly came to the point. “I need to ask you a few things.”

“So long as you do not mean to foalnap me again,” he joked. “Ask away.”

“Night Iron.”

Blueblood’s smile remained, but no longer quite reached his eyes.

“You mean enchanted meteoric iron,” he asked, after a few seconds.

Twilight nodded. “Do you know how to break it or how to reforge it? Or any way to fix it?”

“Why… would you ask?” he was hesitant, but as a few pregnant seconds passed between them, he let out a soft ‘hmm’ and remembered who he was speaking to and how he trusted her. “Night Iron is only found in old magical arcanery: ancient amulets, talismans … the odd clockwork apparatus. You know better than I that these things are not meant to be reforged once cast and empowered.”

“There has to be a way to repair them when they break,” Twilight argued.

He tapped a hoof against the decorative gravel floor. “That would stand to reason.”

“Blueblood--”

“Yes,” he admitted, before she could ask. “Yes, I believe we do have information on that. I never read it myself - the books and scrolls are forbidden for a good reason, I assume - but we do have copies. Those things are not strictly Black Arts, though. Auntie should have copies in her royal archives in the palace, too.”

“I’d rather not rely on the royal archives or a palace courier,” Twilight told him with a pleading look. “Not for this. Ponies would notice if the books went missing, wouldn’t they?”

“They would, yes,” Blueblood agreed, scratching his chin. “The royal archives are semi-public, whereas the Blueblood archives are entirely private. But, as I said, the tomes are forbidden. We have them for the sole purpose of keeping ponies from reading them or rediscovering their secrets. Do you really need to look into this?”

“I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important,” Twilight replied. “I need… help with something.”

“Ah.” Blueblood nodded again, his mind made up. “Say no more. I just wanted to be sure. I promised to help you before and I meant it. In fact, I expected something like this to happen, sooner or later. Do you remember that book I gave you for your birthday?”

“Hiding in Plain Sight,” she recalled. “The Art of Invisibility. I had to find a special place for it in the library to keep it from getting lost!”

He smirked, hearing that. “Do tell.”

“Spike can’t see it,” she explained, without wondering why he would ask. “I mean, obviously he can’t. Only I can see it! So I kept it in my room.”

Actually, now that she thought of it, Eunomie hadn’t noticed it either. She had catalogued and referenced every book and journal and scroll in the library as part of her reorganization in Spike’s absence. Using Galen, she could retrieve any one of them faster than Spike or Owloysius ever could. It was really very impressive. But … “Hiding in Plain Sight” hadn’t been on the complex library index Eunomie had given her for reference.

It was her own private book, not part of the library, but Eunomie had also scanned and recorded other books: even the very private ones that Twilight kept under her bed, and that one novel she’d tucked away in the closet under a blanket and even those magazines she’d hidden inside her old dictionary! Eunomie hadn’t seemed particularly interested or perturbed by the find and had simply omitted the books from the publicly available index.

Nopony knew “Hiding in Plain Sight” was in her bottom dresser drawer.

Twilight gave Blueblood a sidelong stare. “I guess it makes sense you gave that book to me so I could hide it…”

“Naturally,” he replied, a little amused. “Don’t tell me where you keep it. Don’t tell anypony. What matters is both that the book is kept secret and that you read it. You did read it?”

“… I did.”

The book was invisible to all but Twilight, the owner, bound to it by a seal the moment she touched it. It had been a fascinating read, too: all about the historical development of invisibility spells and their various foundations in illusion, enchantment and even transmutation magic. But what--

“Did you read between the lines?” he asked, pointedly.

“I… I just read it normally,” Twilight replied, a little confused. “Was there…? Oh! There was!” She put hoof to face as realization sunk in. “Hiding in Plain Sight! There was something invisible in the book! Something I couldn’t see just because I could see it! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

By the time she finished upbraiding herself, she saw he had grown rather amused.

“It was supposed to be a timely secret of sorts,” Blueblood admitted, keeping his voice low as a couple passed by on their way to the commerce pavilion. “I got the idea from Auntie. She always sets these things up so they look obvious in retrospect, and so ponies only catch on to them when they need to. Maybe this one was too difficult? Or maybe the timing was just wrong?”

He shrugged. “I am rather new at this, but yes, I suppose I should just as well explain it. There is a spell hidden within the book to give you access to the - shall we say - sensitive archives under my family’s care.”

“Invisible books in the library?” Twilight guessed, already imagining where a few could be hidden.

Blueblood chuckled, shaking his head. “No. Not in the library, though you could say through it. I won’t ask that you go look up the spell now, of course. I’ll retrieve the books when I have some time. You don’t need them this moment, do you?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, I can wait for later; I just wanted to check with you first.”

“A little later then,” he promised and craned his neck to look around. “By the way: is she also hiding in plain sight, or has Rarity run off somewhere? I haven’t seen her in some time.”

Twilight thought back to the last time she had seen her friend. “I saw her a few minutes ago,” she remembered, “before I went over to talk to you. I think she was meeting with this other mare…?”

Sand Dune.

“My Lady, she’s here.”

One of her Free Company pegasus mares had come to her with the news, alighting next to Rarity in dress uniform: a steel cuirass polished to a high sheen with a linen shirt beneath, the collar and wrists of the front legs all done in ruff. All those appearing at the festival also wore their beautiful nickel-plated pickelhaube helms. They were representing her, after all. It would not due for them to appear either unprepared or unfashionable. Whispering the details in the former seamstress’s ear, Rarity listened to the companypony and then motioned for her return to the air.

“So Lady Sand Dune actually came?” Fleur asked, having stood by while Rarity attended to the news. “Do you mean to make her wait?”

“Only a short time,” Rarity replied, brows knitted in worry. “I find it hard to believe she is as dangerous as you and… my other source paint her to be.”

“The Quartz family is not to be trifled with, though I have heard they place more value on bits than titles.” The two mares slowly turned to walk back to the manor overlooking the art festival. “They are also staunch rivals of the Terre Rare. They could make strong friends, if you can find common cause with them.”

“Perhaps.”

“Have you talked to His Grace about this?”

Rarity shook her head. “No. I do not wish to trouble him with it and he has already cautioned me about Sand Dune before, weeks ago.”

“What did he recommend?”

“Blueblood recommended that I bribe her with gifts, promises and gold,” Rarity answered with an upset exhalation, a sound that built up in the back of her throat but never made it to her lips. It was clear to Fleur that the option left a bitter taste in the mare’s mouth.

“I would recommend the same,” the graceful model agreed with her liege lord. “Gifts and gold for friendship.”

“Friendship cannot be bought, Fleur. Not even with gold.”

The taller mare dipped her head at that. “I see what you mean, of course. But this is how things are done. She will not have come all this way to make friends in the manner to which you are accustomed. She will have come here to flesh you out, as either an ally or an enemy.”

“You know I do not wish to be anypony’s enemy,” Rarity argued.

“I know,” Fleur agreed, sparing a moment and a friendly smile for two passing gentlecolts from Manehattan. Both bowed their heads in greeting to first Rarity, and then her friend. Fleur - Fleur was one of Rarity’s friends, despite a rocky start and a difficult misunderstanding. Some mares, though, would not be so charmed. By all accounts, Sand Dune was of this variety. Lady Antimony had been as well, and that had culminated in a duel that Rarity did not care to repeat. Not if it could be avoided.

Soon, the two mares ascended the long, winding white marble staircase up to the upper front door of the mansion. Two Free Company ponies stiffened at attention at their approach, having escorted Sand Dune personally. Not that she distrusted Blueblood’s Royal Guards, just that she wanted the other mare to know the she had teeth of her own as well.

“I would very much appreciate your insight, Fleur,” Rarity said, taking a deep breath.

“It would be my pleasure and honor to assist in any way.” The supermodel righted one of her pink mane’s gentle little curls with her hoof and, naturally, struck a little pose in the process. “I am also rather curious! They say Lady Sand Dune is the most beautiful mare in all of southern Equestria. We should compare notes!”

Rarity - considering herself no slouch in that department either - spared the model a knowing smile.

“And perhaps I can design a dress for her as well,” she joked, partly. Nodding to the guards, they opened the door for the two mares. “Let us see what Lady Sand Dune came so far for.”

Rarity and Fleur had greeted the other mare in the drawing room on the first floor, east wing of the manor. Upon hearing that Sand Dune would be making a surprise visit, Rarity had quickly sent a servant down to prepare the room to receive company. Blueblood’s manor actually had four drawing rooms or parlours meant for relaxation, two on the lowest floor and two on the highest. The uppermost ones were the sunrise parlour and the sunset parlour, facing in different directions and meant to provide views of the dawn or dusk, but to be smaller and more intimate than the regular solarium.

The two lower parlours were the smoking room for the stallions and the withdrawing room for the mares, though either sex could and did make use of either parlour. The naming was mostly due to tradition and convention and the style of each. The manor’s drawing room was one of the more opulent in the villa: the walls were adorned with paintings set in golden mercury-gilded ormolu-style frames and were complimented by other ormolu decorated devices, from a clock to a multitude of porcelain cups. A large and beautiful marble topped table with cabriole legs took up the center of the room. Bergère legchairs, a trio of fainting couches and a plethora of luxurious floor pillows provided ample room for guests to sit, recline or relax.

The hope had been to overawe the Bitalian Princess, at least a little, and put her off balance with the assumption that she had come, expecting to meet with a new Baroness strapped for bits and political capital. Granted, Rarity knew she was - in fact - a brand new Baroness strapped for bits and political capital… but she had no intention of advertising that fact to anypony she didn’t trust with the truth. Especially not this mare.

“Lady Rarity,” a dulcet voice greeted them, belonging to a tall, graceful mare in her late twenties. “I am afraid I do not recognize your friend.”

Rarity inclined her head, giving Fleur a moment to introduce herself, as confident and self-assured as always. She extended a dainty, delicate hoof and bowed her head. “Fleur, of the Iris Family, if it please.”

“It pleases,” Sand Dune replied, inclining her head just as Rarity had done.

It was all rather vexing: Lady Sand Dune was as fetching as her reputation had led Rarity to believe. The southern mare wore a rather simple gauzy white muslin-cotton chemise with a wide embroidered pink sash - Rarity recognized the design and the style right away. It was a new fashion twist on the popular neoclassical look, with the skirt of the dress beginning further towards the front of the chest rather than around the waist. The resulting dress was worn loose and light, without a corset, and the fabric clung snugly to the body, almost as if both clothed and nude as the same time. Golden netting covered her bared shoulders and neck.

With a stylist’s eye, Rarity imagined Sand Dune entering her boutique in that dress, and what it could say about her as a mare. It was a modern take on an old style, not very popular in Canterlot yet. It was probably a Piuttosto design from her shop in Reinice, though that was only an educated guess. She would not have traveled in it, but would have packed it for this one appearance. As a noble mare to one of Equestria’s richest families, she could certainly have afforded something more expensive. Sand Dune wore no jewelry: no necklace or ear-rings or bracelet. Even her hooves were bare and natural, revealing the trim of her glossy hooves and her neat feltlocks.

She was, Rarity also saw, just the type of mare to turn quite a few heads on her way over.

Sand Dune’s coat was a luscious light peach, flawless as far as Rarity could see. Her mane was a deep sky blue that bordered on midnight, done up in an elaborate bun that was never higher than her horn, though that horn was - Rarity noted with some annoyance - longer and taller than her own. Standing close to the southern mare, Rarity had to tilt her head slightly. Not only was Sand Dune’s horn a little longer, but she was taller as well, with perfectly proportioned legs. Her neck was graceful, but not noticeably longer than normal, like Antimony’s had been, back when Rarity had first met that mare. Her tail also had perfect little half-curls in it and her eyes were a frothy gray-blue.

‘Never in my life have I thought about kissing another mare, but… my word! If Bon Bon or Lyra… or even if Applejack were here, she’d probably be drooling.’

Rarity hastily put those thoughts aside and returned to her assessment of the mare based on her dress. Appearance: meticulous and calculated. Vanity: little, enough to impress, not enough to show off. Physically beautiful, and she would know that. More than that, she would use it, exaggerate it, play with it. No need for necklace, rings, other things. Pride: this mare would have plenty of it. She would be proud of her looks, proud of her accomplishments, proud of her magic. Height: taller than most mares, taller even than Fleur, she would be used to looking down on other ponies and especially other mares. Expression: not haughty, but cautious, explorative, calculating again.

Not so subtly, Rarity checked her cutie mark.

It was partly covered by a thin enough strip of cotton to still be visible as a whole for what it was: an hourglass. However, it was not the normal and fairly common hourglass cutie mark, within which there were as many small variations as there were ponies. This hourglass was two tear shaped ampules, covered with an intricate golden framework, more like a pair of Fabergé eggs, set within a thin golden cage. A pair of wings extended from the middle, where the two halves of the hourglass met, and Rarity could see that they were actually sand, escaping from the hourglass itself.

“Lady Sand Dune,” Rarity said, after more cordial introductions. “Please, have a seat. Is there anything I can get you? You’ve traveled a terribly long way; I would extend every courtesy to see you at ease.”

“A glass of water would be wonderful,” Sand Dune replied. “With ice. More ice than water, if you please.”

“Of course,” Rarity agreed. She rang a small bell, and soon one of Blueblood’s house staff went to the request. The three mares made a little small talk while they waited, mostly discussing the various pavilions of the art festival outside and the other guests in attendance, some noble and some ‘merely’ famous. The starlet, Sapphire Shores, had also recently arrived, and Rarity regaled her company with how she had made dresses for the pop singer and media sensation. In the process of hunting for gems she had been abducted by Diamond Dogs, too, a fact that seemed to light up Sand Dune’s eyes with surprise and interest.

“Diamond Dogs!” Sand Dune exclaimed. “I was not aware they ranged so far north of the Macintosh hills and the Badlands in general.”

The visiting noblemare accepted a glass of ice and water without offering her thanks, and soon the servant left the pitcher on a tray on the table, leaving quietly and without disturbing the trio. Raising the glass not with her hooves but with a bit of telekinetic magic, she took a small, experimental sip of the freezing cold water.

“We have them all over our border opposite Saddle Marabia,” she explained. “They do occasionally ponynap, but most are fairly civilized. They mine gems and precious ores… they used to trade with the dragons, back before we chased them off. Now they trade with us.”

“They mine salt for you as well, don’t they?” Fleur asked, having claimed a few pillows on the floor to lounge on. Rarity had, by necessity, chosen a couch. Sand Dune had also reclined on the floor, and as hostess, Rarity felt it appropriate she remain a little higher than her guests. As Blueblood had told her once, there was an instinctive confidence that came from one’s height, and an instinctive compliant reaction to it.

“Yes, yes they do,” Sand Dune replied, swirling the water in her glass. “When my ancestors discovered the salt, the dogs had been there for centuries. The ones who mine our salt, all of Equestria’s salt really, are a different, more civilized breed than the ones you must have encountered. The ones I know of wear clothes, speak Bitalian and often common Equestrian, hold council and court, and even serve in some guard companies. They have been loyal and staunch allies for a thousand years, content with their underworld realm. ‘Canida’ they call it: a curious place, but a good neighbor and mostly harmless.”

“Food for salt must be a good deal,” Fleur continued, feeding her own curiosity a little. “One that has benefited the Quartz Family greatly.”

“We do pay another price for the bargain,” Sand Dune explained with a tiny grin. “Unlike ponies - in fact, much like the griffins up north here - our allies eat more than what our earth ponies grow. We have had to create far larger wild areas with untamed animals for the dogs to hunt. Areas that are dangerous to ponies as a result of these untamed creatures. A wild boar, for example, is not like a domestic pig. It will not speak to a pony, not even one whose talent is in animal care, and every year some poor pony is killed approaching a beast that wanders into a civilized area. The tusks are quite terrible, and they can disembowl even a grown stallion in but the blink of an eye.”

“Dreadful!” Rarity shivered at the thought. Applejack had quite a few domestic pigs at Sweet Apple Acres. It was hard to imagine their untamed cousins could be so dangerous or so vicious!

“The dogs hunt them with long spears with a sort of spar near the tip,” Sand Dune said, and used a slim hoof to demonstrate, as she jabbed it forward. “The beast is stuck on it, but then meets the spar and cannot continue to charge. If it cannot come in close and use those tusks then it cannot do you harm. I would not try it myself - a ghastly occupation, truly - but often the dogs invite stallions along to help them. One of my brothers was once wounded grievously in the leg on such a hunt.”

She shook her head in disapproval.

“Some enterprising ponies actually trade in imported meats that they then sell to the dogs, or to the occasional young dragon or minotaur or what-have-you. You know minotaurs, don’t you? They come from an island off the coast. Well, once we have the salt out, all we need do is transport it across the San Palomino desert, by rail or by sea mostly, and then to you.”

“The salt is much appreciated, of course, but as a mare of fashion, I must express my appreciation for your silks and other wonderful fabrics!” Rarity meant it, too. “I still have some reams that Blueblood sent me after his visit to your land. I haven’t the heart to use them, they are simply so lovely! I just touch them once, or see them in the light, and can’t bear to begin cutting!”

Lady Sand Dune tipped her head in thanks for the compliment. “Our textile industry is one of our pride and joys. Many of our most revered ponies are those who discovered new fabrics, dyes, prints or other techniques. I am actually glad this topic came up, as it did, as I brought you a gift from my holdings.”

“A gift?” Rarity asked, and she had to keep from sounding too excited.

Sand Dune’s smile was friendly and warm. “Yes. I knew of your background, Lady Rarity - that should come as no surprise - and I thought it might please you to present six rolls of some of our finest silk, two bleached and four hoof- dyed. They are gifts from me, and from the hard working artisans of our Bitalian villages. I have also brought four phials of some of our rarest dyes, all shades of indigo, from the murex, so you might make your own in your free time.”

“That… is a wonderful gift!” Rarity could already imagine what she could make with it - assuming she finally felt up to cutting up some of her tiny supply. A single roll of silk would have been generous enough, but six, and four of them in shades of murex indigo? It was altogether too much!

In fact… it was suspiciously much.

That thought, in turn, made her regret how her dealings had made her so paranoid. Was a gift not simply a gift? Even a generous one? Surely, it could be… just as surely it wasn’t, in this case. Sand Dune was altogether too intelligent and shrewd made to not make a statement out of her generosity. That statement was very likely: ‘I do not need to flaunt my wealth, I can freely and easily give it to those I call friend.’

“You have my deep thanks,” Rarity said, and meant every word. No matter what else it was, it was a truly magnanimous gift. “I will have to think much on what to give you.”

For just a moment, she remembered Antimony’s dress. She still had it. Finished, even. All that was missing was the owner, but who knew where that mare was, these days.

“Perhaps I could make something for you?” she wondered. “Indigo is more my color than yours, but white looks marvelous on you and two rolls of bleached is plenty! Perhaps a new shawl, as thin as the one you have now, light as gossamer but beaded with tiny gems? I have a great deal of experience working with jewels, both large and small.”

“I believe I would like that,” Sand Dune replied, and raised her glass in agreement. Fleur pouted, noting that she had ‘so little to wear’ and that the world seemed to fancy her that way. Rarity and Sand Dune tittered, feeling the ice break among them, and as if to celebrate that, Sand Dune floated out one of the many ice cubes from her drink.

Placing it between her lips, she sucked the ice cube into her mouth with a happy sigh.

“I do so love ice,” she remarked, rolling the cube around with - Rarity couldn’t help but think - a rather nimble pink tongue. “Especially flavored ice. Do you have that here?”

“We have ice cream,” Rarity said.

“Not the same texture.” Sand Dune shook her head. “What say we come to the matter of my visit, Rarity? I may call you Rarity?”

“Rarity is fine. May I call you Sand Dune?”

“Yes, please.” The beautiful mare bit down on the ice cube with a crunch. “I came to tell you that I do not need the Platinum Crown or the Duchy of Canterlot. I am not like Antimony. Unlike the Terre Rares, the crown and the throne have no ancestral or emotional significance to me. You may have both and you may marry His Grace. I will not interfere, so long as you grant me a few… favors.”

Favors.

Rarity kept herself from sighing or wincing; she had known it would come to this. It was no surprise.

“Favors, then,” she acquiesced. “And what might these favors be?”

“My youngest brother is a gentle, scholarly soul,” Sand Dune explained, “a sweet young colt who has only recently acquired his cutie mark. We would see him toughened up into a proper stallion by joining your Canterlot Royal Guard for a period of no less than five years. You may also see him as a hostage to guarantee my family’s cooperation and good behavior.”

Rarity frowned as she thought. So far, this mare was promising to give much and ask for little, but it already left a sour taste in her mouth. A ‘hostage’ in return for cooperation. She was moments from objecting on principle, telling Sand Dune that a hostage was entirely unnecessary but that she could and would gladly see to her little brother’s guard apprenticeship, when--

“Naturally,” Sand Dune continued. “After say, a year or two, I will expect a token hostage of my own. Your little sister is the same age as my brother. When she has blossomed into a young mare, she is welcome to learn magic and courtly manners from her sister’s good friends and allies in Reinace. She will have the finest tutors, of course, as befitting a young noblemare.”

Rarity had to grit her teeth to keep from snapping at this mare. There was the rub.

She closed her eyes and thought of Sweetie Belle. In a few years, the little filly really would need to be apprenticed to somepony to learn magic appropriate to her special talent, whatever that ended up being. Despite funding the construction of Ponyville’s new and only mage tower herself, Rarity still expected Sweetie would spend a year or two in Canterlot. It was the place to go for a unicorn to learn. Then again, Bitaly was also renowned for its academies and ancient centers of learning. But calling it an exchange of hostages, settling all this for Sweetie instead of with her…!

Rarity tried to remain diplomatic; this mare, though her offer rankled, was not an enemy she could afford to make right now. “Your offer is generous. I will need to consult with our parents as to any deal involving Sweetie Belle.”

“Yes, I forget you are not yet head of your household,” Sand Dune replied, but did not laugh or even smile. She merely nodded, once. “Consult with your mother, as you need to. If there is issue, I will gladly speak to her myself.”

Rarity was smart enough to see that as the threat it was: her mother was a lovely mare, a kind mother, but she would wilt if faced by Lady Sand Dune. Worse, she would accept what the other mare said completely and utterly at face value. Sweetie could end up in Bitaly for four years out of eight instead of two out of the same.

“There is more?” Rarity guessed.

“There is more,” Sand Dune confirmed. “I have numerous younger sisters, some legitimate and many illegitimate, in the way Canterlot defines these things. I would see one of them, chosen from a list I provide, given high station. It need not be a challenging duty. Under-Minister of Aqueducts for the city, for example, would be fine. The prestige and the station are all that matters. A second one of my younger sisters shall serve you as an honored hoofmaiden.”

Nepotism. Blueblood had told her about the Quartz Clan and their fondness for it.

“I can make arrangements,” she agreed. It was ugly, but not a problem. She could assign one of the sisters to some menial job, or even ask Blueblood to make her his Under-Minister as Grand Veneur. The younger one could be a hoofmaiden and attendant, so long as she wasn’t a bumbling foal… and so long as she had somepony to watch her. Sandy had asked to be kept hidden from much of the rest of her family, however, so an arrangement there would also have to be made.

“When you are crowned, we intend to raise the price of salt by two percent. Canterlot will not object when we do this.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” Rarity admitted, frown deepening. She was a businessmare, but this sort of economics was out of her hooves. “Your family already makes millions of bits exporting salt. Why raise the price…?”

“The bits are needed to combat smuggling, of course,” Sand Dune’s response sounded rehearsed, but Rarity nodded.

“I will see what can be done, but I cannot speak for Canterlot’s merchants nor can I stop them seeking redress with the Princess, Privy Council or the Stable of Lords should they object.”

And most certainly they would object, and loudly. Two percent didn’t sound like much, but it could and would add up. No doubt it would end up debated for years as each side brought complaint after complaint to various ponies in high places. It would probably end up as a one percent hike, years down the road. She suspected Sand Dune knew that, too.

Lady Sand Dune smiled, then, as if the salt concession was what she had expected to argue about the most. “Then, lastly, I need only one more thing.”

“And that is?” Rarity asked.

“Shortly after you find yourself with foal, if you are not already…” Sand Dune gave Rarity’s middle a narrowed look, prompting an indignant huff from the element of generosity. “Your husband is to sire my own first born.”

Rarity’s mouth, caught gawking, quickly clenched shut. Anger rose up in her throat. “I will not--”

Fleur picked that moment to cough, interrupting Rarity’s outburst. The lithe model reached for a glass of water, acting as if the cough had not been entirely intentional. Rarity was secretly thankful to her friend for diplomatically preventing an outburst. She also floated over a glass of water to conceal her frown and her thoughts while she drank.

“I am not asking to be part of your household, nor do I wish to attempt to usurp or undermine your position in Prince Blueblood’s heart,” Sand Dune hastened to explain, seeing the rising tide of indignation in the other mare. “The stallion is yours. I merely require his seed.”

The blunt assessment did little to assuage Rarity’s concerns or her ire. “Of all the-” She sputtered, despite really trying to keep cool. “Why, I never! I am not his breeder and he is not some - some pedigreed dog!”

“No, he is a pedigreed stud,” Sand Dune countered, her voice level against Rarity’s higher pitch. “He is also a Prince of Equestria and a stallion. He knows his worth and his value includes what is between his legs. You may have all the rest of him, to love and cherish for all the days of your life; I only need that one little part for a night or two.”

A thousand questions, and just as many angry accusations, raced through Rarity’s mind.

“Why?” she finally settled on, as her thoughts went back to the other noble mares she had met since the Grand Galloping Gala. There was, she realized, no chance that this mare wanted Blueblood in a personal sense. They were after his legacy. All they wanted - all any of them wanted - was his bloodline. His all-important pedigree.

“Do I need to spell it out?” Sand Dune asked, primly crossing her legs as she put down her glass of ice. “Though weakened and diluted these last couple hundred years, the Bluebloods have always been Equestria’s most powerful unicorns. Their blood is the blood of ponies who once moved the heavens themselves! I have some of it myself, but I want my child to have more. In this part of Equestria, the foal would be a bastard, born outside of wedlock or even mistress-ship, but in Bitaly, this is not a stigma. His or her pedigree and lineage will instead be an asset in their rise to power.”

Rarity closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It was shameful to admit, but the moment Sand Dune had proposed this last stipulation to their alliance, she had thought of the beautiful mare in the arms of her Prince and burned with jealousy. This mare was not her friend. She did not trust her. She did not want her to lay one hoof on Blueblood. Just as damning as the thought of agreeing to this deal was the last knife to the back it would deliver to her notions of a gentle and fanciful world of refined, delicate noble mares and selfless charming princes. What would it say about her, if she accepted this? That she had become one of them?

One of the snakes, eating other snakes, begetting other snakes?

“My demand makes you uncomfortable,” Sand Dune observed, dryly. “How strange. Were you not prepared to accept the role of an alpha mare? Your husband is both a weapon and an asset, and a bargaining chip. You handicap yourself. I am sorry, Rarity, but I will not compromise on this. If you do not wish to see me as an enemy or a rival, then you will give me this concession.”

“Blueblood will never--”

“His Grace is a noble stallion who knows his duty,” the foreign princess cut Rarity off. “He will do as you tell him, and you will tell him that you need my cooperation. This is the price of that cooperation.”

Rarity was quiet for a moment, the seconds ticking between them.

“Did you propose this deal to Antimony, before the two of you fought?” Rarity asked, finally.

“No.”

“Why not? Why me and not her?”

“Antimony was inflexible,” Sand Dune explained, a scowl beginning to form, etched on her oval eyes. “She would die before she compromised with me, and I knew she wanted Blueblood for the same reason I do… only she needed both his crown and his bloodline. Whereas I only require the latter. Also, while I reasoned that she would adhere to a pact made in good faith and honor, her family would not. It is well known that the Terre Rare covet Canterlot. Where Antimony herself would not act, a dozen others would plot and scheme for her. I fear no pony in Equestria, but I know when to deal and when to fold.”

“And if something were to happen to me, or my foals?” Rarity asked, raising her chin to look down at the noble mare, lying down on the floor.

“By certain laws, if such a sad scenario were to develop,” Sand Dune replied, unperturbed. “Then my son or daughter would be next in the line of succession.”

Fleur felt the need to interrupt. “The foals of a legal mistress would take precedence over--”

“Yet, will there be one?” Sand Dune asked, her smile morphing into a smirk. “You are the very Element of Generosity, Lady Rarity. However, if I have gauged you correctly, you are a jealous mare when it comes to love. Blueblood may also love you in return. I therefore consider it unlikely the two of you will ever have a legal mistress. So, yes, my foals will also have the right to succeed you, should you die or fail to conceive.”

She laughed, demurely, her mouth hidden behind a gilded hoof. “That isn’t a problem, is it?”

Rarity took a long, slow breath before responding.

“The strongest alliances are those of mutual self-interest,” Lady Sand Dune reminded her. “Make it in my interest to see you wear the Platinum Crown, and I will act accordingly.”

“I dreamed, once, about being a mare like you,” Rarity said, at last. Blue eyes met golden yellow. “Like Antimony, like Fleur… your lives seemed so wonderful and carefree. You lived in castles, went to the finest parties, you wore the most beautiful gowns and you made fine friends from foreign lands. By day you charmed envoys and suitors with grace and wit. By night, you sang and danced. That was the dream I had of you, Lady Sand Dune, and those like you.”

“It is a pleasant dream,” the noblemare replied, a little shiftily. “It is also an image we all cultivate, to please the common pony.”

“But it isn’t real,” Rarity concluded. “It never was. Do you even know what real friendship means, Sand Dune?” She didn’t wait for an answer, only shook her head. “Maybe it falls to me to teach you, as I taught it to Lady Antimony.”

“Is that a threat?” Sand Dune asked, and there was sharp steel beneath the velvet of her perfect voice.

“No,” the Ponyville seamstress assured her. “You are not Antimony. I will not treat you like her. Do you want my answer?”

Sand Dune nodded. Listening on the side, Fleur looked worried.

“Very well,” Rarity replied. “Then I shall give it to you.”

“Hey there, sugarcube!” “Hiya, Twilight!”

“Applejack! Apple Bloom!” Twilight waved to the pair as she approached the Sweet Apple Acres stand in the commerce pavilion. “Hello, Big Macintosh!”

The stallion merely nodded, tilting his chin in greeting.

“Who’s that with ya?” Applejack asked, leading over onto the stand, her Stetson tipped back to show a little forehead.

“Eunomie Mosaic,” the mare introduced herself, bowing just a few inches, “I have been helping Twilight with the library. It is nice to meet you.”

“Likewise!”

“Ya’ll want some apples?” Apple Bloom asked, quick to hop up onto a stool and point at the many treats available, free of charge of course, for anypony visiting the festival. “We got all kindsa great stuff!”

“Why don’tya try some of our new cider?” Applejack suggested.

“Sure!” Twilight agreed, but Eunomie shook her head.

“Oh, sorry,” she apologized. “I don’t drink.”

“Not even cider?” Apple Bloom was incredulous. No pony turned down cider! No pony turned down free cider! She looked at the stoic mare with large saffron eyes. “Are you sure?” she asked, sounding hurt.

“I could drink… a little, I suppose,” Eunomie relented.

Applejack affectionately bopped her little sister on the head. “Yer startin’ ta abuse that look’a yers, ya know.”

“Hey! Ah’m not half as bad as Sweetie Belle!” Apple Bloom whirled around, collecting two steins and bringing them over to Big Mac. Taking two in one oversized hoof, he opened a tap and filled one most of the way up and the other partway.

Applejack noticed Eunomie watching her brother a little intently and grinned. Big Mac always was a good draw with the mares in town. When he brought the filled steins back to the stand and tipped his head to the two unicorn mares with a wink Applejack almost burst into laughing. Her big brother could play it up, too, when he wanted to.

“So how’re you two likin’ Rarity’s artsy stuff?” Applejack asked, mostly directing the inquiry to Twilight. “There anything ya think I’d like in there?”

“A few things,” Twilight ventured.

“The art on display is mostly impressionist,” Eunomie explained, “Of those, most are oil on canvas. A few works stood out on my review of them. I was particularly interested in ‘A Study of Shadows’ and the exploration of the various mediums and backgrounds and the reflection of color. Many of the realist pieces were also quite nice, especially ‘Dawn on Everfree.’”

“My favorite had to be the picture of the dancing mares, the one without anypony wearing clothes? I think it was ‘Ballroom in Nude?’” Twilight guessed. “Yes, that had to be it!”

“Nudes?” Apple Bloom asked. “Ain’t we always naked?”

Applejack nodded. “Ah’ve been sayin’ that fer years. I figure I’ll give that tent a look see when ah get my break. Ah do kind of like some of the lighter colors they use sometimes. Pretty different from the serious lookin’ paintin’ mom and dad and granny and grandpa had made back in their day. That’s about all the art ah know, though.”

“You must’ve met a bunch of out of town ponies, though, right?” Twilight asked. That was one of the promises of the festival. It was a chance for Ponyville businessponies and artists to all get to show their stuff and meet ponies from Canterlot and elsewhere. The librarian took a healthy chug of her cider and her friend sipped at it, rather daintily.

“Actually, we did!” Applejack chuckled, heartily. “A couple ponies form Canterlot came by and left wantin’ ta order a barrel or two of cider, and another gave us some information fer a regional grocer up north who’d carry our apples and other products. One’a them Saddle Marabians even said he’d buy a whole wagon load ta bring home. That tall fella wanted ta buy a few cultivars - a few trees - offa us, too, but ah don’t think we can oblige that much.”

“That must have been the Emir, Prince Golden Star,” Eunomie whispered to Twilight, but not so softly Applejack couldn’t overhear.

“Ah was gonna ask him if he wanted ta be interviewed fer the Foal Free Press!” Apple Bloom interjected, also overhearing.

“The what?” Eunomie asked, quietly finishing her stein of cider.

“The local school newspaper,” Twilight explained.

“We’re tryin’ ta find somethin’ good ta write a column about,” Apple Bloom said, crossing her forelegs in an upset pout. “This might be the only chance we have ta get our investigative journalist cutie marks! Or even yellow journalism cutie marks would be somethin’! Scootaloo said she had a bat-colt for our newspaper but it was just a plain ‘ol bat. We need a hook to draw in readers!”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Twilight told her, floating her empty stein back to the table. “If you need any ideas, we have periodicals and some historic newspaper copies at the library.”

“Ah told her ta just write about what ya know,” Applejack added. “What’s wrong with interviewin’ yer big sis and writin’ a column about apples?”

“Really?” Apple Bloom asked, sarcasm dripping from the word.

“What?” Applejack snickered, hiding her mouth with a hoof. “You need some juicy news? Apples are plenty juicy!”

Apple Bloom groaned and stomped off.

“By the way, Twilight,” Applejack asked, still snickering a bit at her bad play on words. Apple Bloom and the other crusaders would come around. At least this newspaper thing would keep them out of trouble! “Ah wanted ask if you’ve seen Blueblood around? Ah saw him an hour ago, but he looked real busy.”

“I think he’s in the ‘progress’ pavilion,” Twilight suggested, pointing over to a black and gold tent to the right of the ‘commerce’ pavilion they were all in.

“May I ask why you wish to see him?” Eunomie inquired, also returning her stein.

Applejack eyed the mare for a moment but shrugged. “Ah’d just like him ta hear out a new friend ah mine. She’d been waitin’ ta meet him fer a while and I kinda agreed ta play middle-pony. Ah need to catch Rarity, too. We gotta have a little talk ‘bout the farm.”

“I see.” Eunomie smiled. “Then I wish you luck, Miss Applejack.”

Applejack found Yumi and her retainers easily enough. All one had to do was look for old Antlers; Shigure was hard to pry away from the Neighponese mare’s side. Evening Squall was with them as well, and the two stallions were dressed formally in tuxedos: the type that really only covered the front of a stallion’s torso, with a little bow tie and a plain collar. It was the first time Applejack had seen them wear anything both mundane and classy.

Yumi, as a pony could expect, was dressed in a white and light blue dress with high boots on all four legs. Lady Yumi was no Rarity, if only due to her personal color scheme being entirely black and white. She didn’t play around or do anything exotic with her straight onyx mane, and her tail ended in a small black bow around where Applejack had a band on her own blonde tail. She looked very prim and proper and serious, but not what Applejack imagined most stallions would consider seductive. She was a pretty pony, or at least most would probably think so - Applejack figured - but she was probably too intimidating and severe to ever pick up the kind of allure plenty of noble mares here cultivated, day in and day out.

Luckily, Cool Breeze - far from Applejack’s favorite pony and house guest - was absent, along with Pixie Dust and White Dew. She wasn’t sure where those three were.

“Lady Yumi,” Applejack said, calling out to the mare as she trotted over.

“Miss Applejack,” Yumi replied, returning the gesture with some discomfort. Ponies didn’t shake or wave hooves all that much in Neighpon, it turned out.

“I got ya yer meetin!” the apple farmer told her, showing quite a little pride in fulfilling her end of the bargain. “Just ask one’a them fellas inside ta point ya ta the study on the top floor.”

Yumi’s normally stern expression melted with an uncharacteristic grin. “You have done me a great service, Applejack. One I will not soon forget.”

“It was the least ah could do, but…” Applejack own smile became more pensive, as she felt the need to, as always, embody her element of harmony. “But ah gotta be honest with ya, Lady Yumi. Ah hope ya won’t hold it against me fer sayin’ so, but Blueblood, from everythin’ I’ve heard… heck, from all the times I’ve seen him starin’ or just lookin’ at her real quiet like… I’d bet bits to barrels that he’s head over heels fer my friend Rarity.”

Yumi blinked, but didn’t seem upset by the news. Maybe she already knew?

“Rarity and I have bumped heads a few times,” Applejack hastened to say, just in case the other mare tried to interrupt. “Well, actually, we’ve bumped heads plenty a times. Like two bulls in a corral. But she’s my friend, my good friend, and ah know she loves him, too. Ah got you yer meetin’ with him, alone, but ah really don’t think yer gonna be able to convince him ta feel about you the way you feel about him.”

The Neighponese heiress nodded and walked past her.

“If he rejects me, then so be it,” she said, and didn’t look back.

“Yumi-hime,” Shigure objected, starting to follow. “I really should--”

“Stay outside and wait for me,” she ordered, and as she turned away, her hidden grin revealed a hint of fang. “I won’t be gone long.”

Chapter Twenty Nine : Drawing Blood

(29)

Drawing Blood

Sand Dune smiled as she passed Blueblood in the mahogany hall. “Nice to see you again, Your Grace.”

“Dune?” he asked, betraying his very real surprise at her sudden appearance. “Since when did--”

“Don’t have a heart attack. Your paramour and I just needed to have a little talk,” the breathtaking mare explained, swaying her hips as she walked away, tail gently waving back and forth. She added, over her shoulder, and just before she left his sight, “She’s rather hardnosed, it turns out.”

He raised an eyebrow at that.

But ultimately, he let the Bitalian mare go. There would be time to look into that a little later.

Then again, it was also possible that this ‘friend’ Miss Applejack wanted him to speak with was actually Rarity herself, in which case he could bring it up sooner rather than later. It seemed like a roundabout way of bringing him in for a private conversation, but it would be somewhat less suspicious than relaying the request to him via a highly visible guardpony.

As Blueblood began ascending the stairs to the second and then the third floor, he began to favor that interpretation of events. It implied that Rarity and Applejack had already talked over this whole Sweet Apple Acres Bailout business and returned to their usual positions as friends, albeit friends who tended to argue a lot. Rarity would have also just recently met with Sand Dune, which meant they likely did have some serious matters to discuss.

Passing by the stairwell guard, Blueblood nodded once to the stoic pony; the response being little more than a blink and an almost imperceptible smile. The Royal Guards were ubiquitous, but they had proven absolutely invaluable during the Gala time loops. Sir Mercury, especially. Blueblood had taken care, since the Gala loops ended, to treat his guards as well as he was able. Much of the company business was dictated from Canterlot and the Guard Captain, but it wasn’t too much for Blueblood to provide well-appointed bunking quarters for his stallions or to give them a yearly bonus for serving on his rotating staff.

‘It is just a small reward for all they did for me, that nopony else even remembers,’ he thought, nodding again to the guard stationed outside his personal study. With a click, he opened the door.

“Hello?” he asked, looking around. Then his grin widened as he saw a special somepony emerge from behind the closed window curtains. “Rarity!”

She had shed her dress from before, and he didn’t see any sign of it anywhere, but thoughts of gowns and guises quickly evaporated as he caught the look in her eyes and the way she approached him. Even in his line of work, and his particular line of play, he had encountered few mares more practiced in the art of the ‘come hither’ hooded look than the little dressmaker from Ponyville. She stalked towards him, eyes on him like a cat fixating on a particularly handsome canary.

“Well! This is a surprise!” Not one to shy away, despite his curiosity and a bit of confusion to boot, Blueblood trotted forward with his usual confident swagger. “I had thought you asked me up here to talk? The guests will--”

“Don’t worry about our guests,” Rarity told him, she inhaled deeply, drinking in some non-existent scent, and a faint glow appeared over her horn. “Don’t worry about anything. I want you thinking about me, and only me.”

“That really isn’t very difficult at the moment,” he quipped, and raised a leg to give her a perch to step up and rest her front legs around his shoulders. The job done, he then snaked that same foreleg around her back. Rarity’s lips hovered just above his own for a split second before crashing into him with almost frantic urgency. Only seconds passed before her tongue teased his upper lip, and mouths widening, the two intensified their embrace.

Rarity shielded her eyes from the light outside as she and Fleur descended the stairs from the upper front door of the villa and down to the front yard. A quick swirl of magic and a small parasol shaded the two mares. It wasn’t warm out, this late in the fall season, but the sun was rather bright and the skies were clear. A light breeze caressed the ornamental pines around the festival, the DJ spun up a new track with an energetic violin duet from her table close by, and the two mares took a moment to look around the pavilion grounds.

“I don’t see him,” Fleur said and her expression brightened. “I do see my Fancy, though!”

“Please keep an eye out, and if you run into Blueblood, tell him we need to talk,” Rarity asked, and Fleur readily agreed.

“Of course!” She began to trot away from her hostess and friend towards her fiancé.

“Fleur!”

“Yes?”

“Do you think I made the right decision?” Rarity asked, and the parasol hovering over her dipped slightly. “About Lady Sand Dune?”

Fleur thought a moment before answering.

“I pray so,” she said, and cantered towards a small group of ponies outside the art pavilion. Even hurried, she was so effortlessly graceful. She and Sand Dune, both. They had been raised to be noble mares since birth. Rarity still envied them a little for that, but having seen so much of the world they must have lived in since foalhood, she felt rather sorry for them, too. Fleur had come around and become a trusted friend in noble circles. Rarity hoped Sand Dune would, too. One day.

“Now… if only I could find that royal pain,” she muttered, continuing her search. “Where on Equestria is he?”

Blueblood felt himself pushed back and away from the door as Rarity’s hooves and magic worked in tandem to unbuckle his jacket and vest. One of the study chairs fell onto its side as the two spun, their mouths wrestling for dominance. Blueblood felt his back slam against a wood and reinforced glass cabinet, and then with a spin, Rarity had him in the remaining chair. She had always been a rather aggressive lover, once the mood struck her, but never during mid-day!

“Rarity,” he gasped, as she straddled his lap on the chair. “You do know one of our guards is just outside?”

“I know,” she whispered, biting his ear. A little hard, too. “I’m counting on it.”

“Yumi-hime?” Shigure was not an easily confounded pony, but seeing his charge approaching from the opposite direction she had left, minutes earlier, had to cause some initial confusion. He wouldn’t have seen her at all, if not for his decision to leave his post for a closer one near the manor estate.

Just in case he was to be called on.

She didn’t seem to hear him, however, and continued on her way to the front of the villa. Close behind her were two stallions. One of them, Shigure recognized as Shining Armor, the Captain of Canterlot’s Elite Royal Guard. The other was another, lower ranked knight in that same esteemed guard unit.

“There must have been some mistake!” he overheard Shining Armor say, ashamedly apologizing to the foreign mare. “Once again, I’m sorry for the mix up! Arrow Head, assist the Lady, would you?”

“Entirely my fault,” the second stallion said, but Yumi brusquely waved him off with an offended hoof.

“You have both made me late for an extremely important meeting with His Grace!” Yumi snapped, and Shigure knew that once roused, the heiress’s anger was something to behold. “Do not seek me out again, sirs, or I may begin to suspect that you are merely trying to delay me.”

Without another word, she stomped angrily up the stairs and into the building.

“Arrow Head! See how upset you’ve made her?”

“My apologies, Captain.”

Shigure frowned at the two, and at the manor itself. ‘I thought… no, I could have sworn Lady Yumi had headed straight for the castle. What in Equestria is going on?’

“Rarity? What--”

“Don’t spoil this with words,” she hushed him, and their lips met again until her teeth found and nibbled on his lower lip. He really didn’t mind her being so assertive in bed, but they had guests outside! At this rate, they’d both end up looking like they’d literally had a roll in the hay, instead of a proverbial roll in the hay, which was usually less messy. It took hours for him to look presentable! Both of them!

Sand Dune must have really riled her up to be acting like this.

“You love me, don’t you?” Rarity asked, and her kisses trailed down his throat and to his collar. “I can feel it. I can feel her love for you, too. If only I could have them both!”

“Eh?” Blueblood opened his eyes, though a greenish haze, but his ears still worked. “What?”

Rarity just giggled into his chest.

He ran a hoof through her indigo mane, to try and coax her into showing him her eyes, but when she looked up at him again it was with black and green slits in place of cerulean blue. He barely had time to boggle at that - to wonder why - when she lunged, mouth wide, to bite down on the junction of his neck and shoulder. A bright, white-hot flash of pain was followed by a swiftly creeping patch of numbness. His magic tried to coalesce, to knit together the patterns and spells and fields necessary to teleport away--

But it fizzled.

“I… don’t… understand?” he asked, faintly, weakly, as the chair beneath him teetered and fell backwards. By the time it hit the floor, he was too far gone to hear or feel it.

Standing over him, Rarity licked the blood off her lips, a thin black tongue hungrily circling each of her two longest venom filled fangs. It took a moment, but then the rush of magic surged through her. Rarity’s skin-deep disguise rippled away, revealing the earth pony, Yumi… and then that, too, melted away. Her body grew, taller, wider, more muscular…

Until Blueblood stood over Blueblood.

With just the slightest flexing of duplicated magic, the changeling lifted the Prince’s unconscious body into the air, closer, and closer. Putting a hoof to the aristocrat’s chest, the two stallions teleported - just a few feet - just to test out the newly acquired magic. A sabre toothed grin emerged on the face of Equestria’s New Prince.

“Fantastic,” ‘Blueblood’ exalted, poisonous fangs still tinted with red, even as they receded into a pony’s smile. “This body and this magic are everything I was promised… and more.”

Yumi only passed a single guard on her way to Blueblood’s study, the one outside. It was a rather chilly reception, and in light of how that oaf Arrow Head and that bumbling foal Shining Armor had conspired to delay her, the Neighponese Princess was already in a foul mood when she approached her rendezvous. Seeing the door to the study - having followed the directions to it as well as she could - Yumi slowed her trot to focus her mind and try and at least appear less vexed than she actually was.

This moment was the culmination of so much time and effort and work.

She knew Alpha Brass was still skeptical of her ability to convince the Prince to marry anypony aside from his Ponyville paramour. He had always considered it a gamble and Yumi suspected that Miss Applejack felt the same way. The Prince was taken by this new Lady Rarity. He loved her. Not that Yumi had ever imagined that could be the case when she had left her homeland on this belated trip. She shook her head as she passed by a series of landscape pictures, hanging neatly from the wall to her left.

It had all begun with that letter she had received…

Antimony had been defeated, it said, all but inviting her to a party in Ponyville, with the crown of Canterlot as the prize. She still recalled when Antimony had defeated and humiliated her. It was a slight Yumi intended never to forget or forgive. Like so many others, she had been lured into challenging the Terre Rare’s family successor and had swiftly run afoul of the ruthless mare’s evil eyes. She had tried to fight on, even after realizing that she was trapped in a small sea of enchanted illusions, but for naught. It was galling! Yet, now, somepony - some little pony from a no-name village - had beaten the demon herself, Antimony?

It was too good an opportunity to pass up, so she had gathered a few loyal retainers and headed for Canterlot to press her claim anew. It was during that trek that Alpha Brass had contacted her, suggesting that they were not at cross-purposes. It was well known that there was a rivalry within the ranks of Cruciger’s heirs. Chalice, the pawn that she was, was proof of that. Alpha Brass could never inherit Canterlot himself, but he wanted a hoof in its affairs.

‘I’m backing a few ponies in this little race. I would make you one of them.’

In return for his assistance, if she were to succeed, certain arrangements would be made to secure the friendship of Neighpon and certain concessions made on the part of Canterlot. Notably, that Terre Rare ‘honor’ be restored by clearing the name of Lady Arsenic. He didn’t seem overly concerned about re-integrating the Blueblood and Terre Rare bloodlines, just clearing his ancestor’s name and eking out an apology for how she was exiled from Canterlot. It was a face saving measure, Yumi figured, and one she could sympathize with. Brass would be happier to salvage at least something from the situation, and this token would be better than nothing. Nothing being exactly what Antimony had garnered, for all her years of effort. Yumi had agreed, especially given that it would end up spiting the mare that had humiliated her, but also because it was clear she would need support from unicorns to rule unicorns as an earth pony. It was a pragmatic alliance.

Alpha Brass had provided logistical support from that point on, though he had left her to her own devices otherwise. The pas d’arms had been her idea, one that ultimately became a debacle when her retainers were bested by a duo of barnyard locals and the freshmare Baroness herself. Yumi still seethed a little at that memory. She had been forced to teleport away to avoid more complications after that.

‘See my daughter, Eunomie,’ Brass had suggested, on hearing that her attempt to humble Rarity had fallen through. ‘She has a little project you may be interested in.’

Yumi did not particularly like Brass, despite his cooperation, but she liked his step-daughters even less. Euporie was a hedonist and a libertine, embracing just the sort of vices Yumi intended to quash if ever she ascended to the Princess’s side in Canterlot. She was also cruel, especially towards her useless doormat of an Aunt. Eunomie was different, but still somewhat unsettling. Yumi had cooperated with the mare, but she was strange: methodical and hard to read. She never seemed upset or excited, happy or sad. She merely acted, devoid of any sort of passion, and that struck Yumi as fundamentally un-pony-like. Ponies were creatures of passion, emotion, and - yes - duty, but what good was devotion or dutifulness without the driving fire within? Eunomie seemed more an animated statue than a mare.

Still, she had listened to her plan and decided it could be made to serve her ends as well.

‘The Ponyville Barony is in poor financial straits,’ Eunomie had explained in her usual bored monotone. ‘Our target is Sweet Apple Acres, also in a tenuous financial position. The town was founded by the family there, so it has historic and cultural value compelling the government to preserve it. Additionally, the current owner of the property is a personal friend of the Baroness. I have determined that if the farm is stressed by competition during the cider season than the likelihood of Lady Rarity being forced to act to protect it is… almost one hundred percent.”

Later, Yumi had seen the ponies the twins were using to test the farm and the Barony: two traveling tinkerers named Flim and Flam. Yumi had been asked to wait a short time before offering to help Sweet Apple Acres with her special talent. If the plan had been her own, she likely would have needed some time to first be sure the Barony had borrowed to secure the bailout of the farm and then to seek out who Rarity was using as a creditor. Squeeze the ponies lending the Baroness money and she would quickly lose face, if not title, in the eyes of the Stable of Lords. An unintended - or perhaps intended - consequence was also to stress the friendship between Applejack and Rarity.

Yumi felt a little guilty over it, now, but it was part of her new plan so she had pushed forward. She had played her part in saving Sweet Apple Acres, after all, thus making things roughly even in the grand scheme. Yumi had even gone above and beyond just what she had bargained for, using her magic to heal and bolster the life force of as many of the trees as she was able. The farm would thrive for years. Despite being somewhat rough around the edges, Applejack was a good, honest earth pony - she deserved that much. The heiress from Neighpon never expected to apologize for her part in the deception; her actions would simply have to speak where words could not.

It had all been for this.

All for this meeting with Prince Blueblood and this chance to plead her case for being Duchess… the trip, the alliance with Brass, the pas d’arms, tagging onto Eunomie’s deception… it was all for this. Directly dueling with Rarity, she was convinced, was not the right course to take with Blueblood. Yumi didn’t expect Rarity herself to bend on the issue, and meeting with Blueblood outright was also out given how few cards she had in her political deck. Now, though, she could say she had helped to save Sweet Apple Acres. Now, she could prove that the Barony and even the Duchy would benefit from her talents. Blueblood could well love Rarity, but the Duchy itself would be better off in Yumi’s hooves. He had to see that!

‘I must be convincing… and attractive. Rarity is prettier than I am, and she’s a unicorn.’ Yumi paused, briefly, at a small mirror. She gently evened out her mane behind her ear with a hoof. It was so straight it was hard to do anything with it. Putting on a small smile, she also patted down her dress over her flank, smoothing it out to better hug the curve there. Stallions liked that.

‘He must listen to me,’ she thought, taking a breath and opening the door t the study. ‘He must.’

She found Blueblood, back turned to the door and looking outside the window. A snifter glass floated by his side a thin layer of amber liquid on the bottom. Nearby, a small, square bottle of copper colored cognac sat invitingly next to an empty glass. The study was well lit, though Blueblood turned and kept the curtains closed. Yumi noticed one of the chairs, slightly out of position given the dimple in the carpet, and moved it back with a gloved hoof.

“Your Grace,” she said, bowing her head with due respect. “Thank you for meeting with me like this.”

“I would be remiss not to give Lord Yama’s daughter my attention,” he replied, swirling the cognac in his glass before bringing the snifter to his lips for a little drink. “You took your time in requesting an audience. Feel free to help yourself to a drink while we talk.”

“Thank you,” Yumi replied, but only gave the glass a passing glance. “I only wished to demonstrate that Lady Rarity, with all due respect, is not the right mare for the job of being your wife.” She saw quiet contemplating in his eyes, and taking that as consideration for her to continue, did just that.

“I know that the two of you feel strongly for one another, but is it wise to thrust her under the crown so abruptly? She did a passable job of defending Ponyville, I will grant her that, and she is an Element of Harmony, but neither of those things will help her when her coffers dry up. I have seen first-hoof how even the bedrock of this area’s farming community struggles to stay solvent, year after year. This is an earth pony town, my Lord, and as an earth pony myself I understand their needs intimately.”

“You have lent your talents to Neighpon for many years,” Blueblood observed. “You have personally saved many harvests, have you not?”

“I have!” Yumi replied, glad that he was seeing things her way. “I can do the same for Canterlot. Canterlot and Neighpon are very similar…! Geographically, both realms are mountainous, making productive farming difficult. Both realms must strike a balance between trade and agriculture. I have experience dealing with this that Lady Rarity does not. I… may not be as experienced as some, like Lady Antimony, when it comes to managing guard regiments, but Canterlot is in no danger. It is far from any border with any neighbor.”

“Marry me, my Lord!” Yumi pleaded, and he smirked, tellingly. Still, she pressed on, “My family is known for our fertility, not just in what we can coax from the land. With my magic, I swear I can bear as many heirs and heiresses as the Blueblood line needs. Enough to secure a dozen alliances! Enough to push back the influence of the Terre Rares!”

It wasn’t a card she had thought she would need to play, but it was out there, now.

“If - if you are worried about our foals being earth ponies,” she quickly added, for good measure. “I can control that, as well. I can guarantee that they will all be unicorns, as you are.”

“Yet,” he said, tilting his head to the side in amusement. “You are an only child, yourself. Why is that, if your family’s specialty is fertility, as you say?”

Yumi shrank back an inch at the question. “It… that is to say, the ability is unique to mares: to control what grows within our womb. My Lord, my mother is a good and worthy Lady, but she does not have my abilities. With the passing of my grandmother, no other living pony can do what I do. That is why I am an only child.”

“Ah.”

“Additionally, Your Grace, wedding me would secure the friendship of Neighpon.” Yumi took a few steps closer to the Prince, trying to sound as confident as she usually felt. “We are a wealthy Duchy, and industrious. We supply a majority of Equestria’s shipping, along both coasts. Neighpon is a natural ally and friend of Canterlot.”

Especially with the encroaching Terre Rares to the north and the avaricious Quartz clans in the south.

“Unlike other mares, I promise to be your wife and Duchess first. Neighpon can pass onto one of our younger daughters… and - and if you prefer, I can further vow not to interfere if you make Lady Rarity your first mistress. You may think of me as an... administrator…”

“An administrator?” he asked, and rolled his shoulders, amused. “That could be convenient.”

Yumi bowed her head, eyes down. He could see it, too! He had to see that this was what was good for Canterlot! He pouring out a little more cognac, for himself, and for her.

“Prince Blueblood,” Yumi began again, picking up the offered sniffer glass, but not drinking. Alcohol. It was another common vice here in Canterlot. “I’ve wanted to be your wife for years, and not simply because… because it will bring honor to my family. I always thought of you as a handsome stallion, and -and we met once in Canterlot. I was vising the Stable of Lords with my father, and I met you briefly and…”

“Yes, yes,” Blueblood interrupted, coughing into a raised hoof and clearly growing a little impatient. “Frankly, I am much more interested in just what Neighpon will do without you, Lady Yumi.”

“I beg your pardon?” Yumi asked, not quite understanding. “Without me? I will rule Canterlot first, of course, but we are not at odds. The two realms can be as close as…”

“You still don’t understand,” Blueblood said, smiling amiably as he reached over to rest his hoof on her shoulder. His magical hold on his glass of cognac vanished, letting the glass fall to the floor and shatter.

Yumi blinked, now terribly confused. “Your Grace--?”

Still smiling, Blueblood pushed into her shoulder with sudden and unexpected force, sending her stumbling back. Eyes wide even as she fell back over a chair hard enough to break one of the legs, Yumi hardly believed it when Blueblood turned to the window and roared.

“GUARRDDDS!”

“W-wha--?”

Curtains fluttered wide, bright light streaming in as a pair of Royal Guards answered their lord’s summons and rushed in through the window, shattering the lock in the process. Blueblood fell to his side, pointing across the study at the still stunned and staring Lady Yumi.

“Poison! My throat…! I - I have been poisoned!” Blueblood gasped, his face turning blue. “Fetch me a doctor and seize that mare!”

“N-no!” Yumi cried, the two pegasus guards advancing on her, expressions stern and wings wide. “I didn’t! I would never! I - I have always…!”

Strong hooves grabbed her by the forelegs, roughly hoisting her up.

It almost seemed to be happening to another Yumi. She couldn’t believe it. Poison? She saw Blueblood, gasping and choking, his face blue ad his throat constricted. There was no faking that. He must have been poisoned, but she wouldn’t… she’d never…! Dark eyes zeroed in on the bottle of cognac. Blueblood had been drinking it. He’d been drinking it even when she came in. The glass he had dropped. He’d dropped it right after pushing her. He hadn’t looked poisoned then. It didn’t make any sense!

None of it made any sense!

The halls… why hadn’t there been any guards posted? There should have been at least one in the stairwell, given all the ponies milling around on the grounds outside. ‘Frankly, I am much more interested in just what Neighpon will do without you, Lady Yumi.’ Why? Why had he said that? Was this… was this because of Lady Rarity? Had she planned this? Had both of them planned this?!

“No,” she muttered, still in the grip of the two pegasus guards. “No, I… I won’t…”

“Put a gag on her,” Blueblood demanded, his voice strained but still clear. “She can confess after the party. I am most curious to hear about her no-doubt numerous accomplices in this crime.”

Red, hot, boiling rage bubbled up within the mare at those words.

“SHIGURE!” she screamed.

And, to her satisfaction, it was the wall that crumbled next, not just the window. The two Royal Guards barely had time to mutter a curse. In the span of a second, it was over, and Shigure stood over them, one back hoof planting the helmet of a guard into the floor, and one front hoof lowering from having sent the second flying. The old pony’s eyes were fixed on her.

“You called for me,” he stated.

“I did,” Yumi replied, brushing herself off. “We’re leaving.”

Blueblood watched the pair jump from the third floor. He heard the screams and shouts from below.

He ignored them.

“You pathetic silk chewing grubs,” he growled, and a pulse of magic ripped one of the stunned guards from the hole his face had made in the wall, and the other one off the ground. Both were flung into a cabinet hard enough to rattle the books within.

“She didn’t…. drink…?” one of them moaned, struggling to keep her disguise intact.

“No. An attempted murder-suicide would have been too easy,” Blueblood snapped and Arrow Head and Gale Force slowly came to.

“What do we do?” Gale Force asked, looking worriedly at the smashed wall.

“Chase them down,” Blueblood snarled. “Take as many of my guards as you need. Our Queen still has a use for her. Go! Now!”

“Yes, sister!” “As you command, sister.”

Blueblood sneered at the two drones took off. Already there was chaos outside. The Queen had hoped to either replace Yumi, or use her to undo Alpha Brass with some trumped up charge. Or both. The stupid little pony should have drunk the poison, too. Then she’d be on the floor, choking and clinging to life, and the others could have been neatly disposed of, one by one. Still, this could do. If she was captured, she would be replaced. If she escaped, knowing what she did, she would prove a thorn in the side of both Canterlot and Alpha Brass.

Standing on the edge of the ruined wall, looking out, Blueblood noticed a shape below.

Eunomie was staring up at him.

Blueblood smirked again, and headed inside. His face paled on command, perfectly mimicking the symptoms of the poison in the cognac. Things were about to get entertaining.

Roseluck, Lily and Daisy were three perfectly normal Ponyville earth ponies. All three had lived in Ponyville all their lives, and until relatively recently the town had never once been swarmed by ravenous parasprites, used as a back scratcher by an Ursa Minor, threatened with eternal night, or cursed by more than the occasional inquisitive Timber Wolf puppy. The Mayor may have been rather incompetent, and the local nobles’ non-existent, and yes, that was a wild forest full of untamed and possibly terrifying creatures next door, but in general life in the town had been safe, routine, and delightfully mundane.

“Now this is the kind of adventure we need more of,” Roseluck said, clopping her hooves happily in applause as the trio of musician ponies on stage finished their piece.

“I know! Rarity’s done a really great job today,” Lily chimed in, nibbling on one of the complimentary chocolate chip brioches provided by Sugarcube Corner’s stall in the commerce pavilion, and paid for by their lovely new Baroness.

“There are so many nice ponies from all over Equestria!” Daisy had her eyes on a few of the Canterlot stallions in particular. “A day off, free food, free entertainment, the chance to meet new ponies…! And best of all, nothing weird!”

“Nothing crazy!” Roseluck agreed.

“Nothing scary!” Lily concluded, and the three mares smiled and laughed together.

The band on stage began to play a new song, airy and alive with the notes of spring, but just as they began, the sound of a crash caught everypony’s attention. The musicians paused, turning around to try and pinpoint the source of the noise. It seemed to be coming from one of the sides of the Blueblood manor out of sight. Had somepony broken a window? Everypony seemed to pause and hold their breath, but there was no commotion following - though a few guards were buzzing around the building now, agitated by the noise. After a couple seconds, the band decided it was best to try and continue.

“What do you suppose that was?” Lily asked, craning her neck, but unable to see anything of the east or west sides of the large manor house.

“You know what?” Roseluck asked, forelegs crossed in a confident pose. “I’d bet somepony was moving something around, or maybe even up on the roof, and it fell. A statue maybe?”

“That could be it,” Daisy agreed after a moment’s thought.

The band continued to play.

“Oh, and look!” Lily pointed to a one of the ornamental spruce trees set down around the festival pavilions. They were artfully arranged in varying heights, like a green sea of undulating pillars. The trio of lucky mares all watched as a few small red dots of color emerged on the tree.

“Pollen cones?” Daisy guessed. “They must have a skilled horticulturist somewhere to cause them to bud out of season like this!”

“Do you suppose this is one of the art displays?” Roseluck wondered, and gaped as more and more of the red buds formed, growing into beautiful clusters of juvenile pine cones.

Ponies around them ‘ooh’ed and ‘aah’ed and, figuring it had to be another artistic exhibit, somepony began to clap, rapping her hoof together. It quickly caught on, and soon almost everypony was on their haunches, clopping in praise and giving a sitting ovation. Then, just when it seemed like the display was done, the crimson cones all sprouted and opened, all at once, filling the air with sparkling pollen.

“Amazing control!” Daisy commented, duly impressed.

“And so pretty!” Lily said, holding out her hooves to catch some of the drifting pollen.

“As long as you don’t have allergies,” Roseluck noted, with a petite sneeze. “Excuse me!”

“Princesses bless… you?” Lily replied, and also sneezed. More than that, she blinked, extremely slowly, her vision starting to get strange. Blurry.

Funky.

Trippy.

Why, it was DoWnRIghT biZzZzzare.

Looking down at her hooves, Lilly was suddenly struck by a question. It was an odd question, but one that never seemed to have come to mind before. It was so silly. Why? Why was one hoof larger than the other? Shouldn’t they all be the same size? That was… weird…

Roseluck, on the other hoof, fell onto her back. What funny clouds they had today? They were all blue… wasn’t the sky supposed to be blue? Clouds were - they were white or something, right? No. A cloud could be any shape, right? So it made sense that it could be any color, too! She reached up and found, to her pleasant surprise, that she could touch the clouds way up in the sky. She giggled as she batted them around. This had to be what it was like being a pegasus. A big, super pegasus!

Daisy just sat there, stroking Roseluck’s belly. “You’re a big, fluffy kitty, aren’t you? Who let you out of the zoo?”

“Ooohhh! Everypony’s acting really silly!” Pinkie Pie observed, deeply inhaling the fresh, clean air... and another mouthful of pollen to boot. “In fact, they’re acting even sillier than … oh no! They’re acting sillier than me! If this keeps up I’ll be out of a job!”

She glared at Bon Bon as the mare walked by, swaying like a drunk pony at a Karaoke bar. It wouldn’t have been that bad, except she was walking standing up.

“That’s Lyra’s bit!” Pinkie complained, pointing angrily at the mare. With a flash, she ran up to Berry Punch and the often tipsy mare started to freak out.

“Bats!” she exclaimed, grabbing Pinkie by the frontal curl of her mane. “Bats making love to parasprites! Sweet Celestia! What will the babies look like?!” She pulled Pinkie closer, eyes wide as saucers. “What will the babies look like?!”

“Miss Pie?”

Pinkie let Berry Punch go and slowly turned around. “Oh!” she quickly recognized the red mane and tail, bundled up like a bun. It reminded Pinkie of how her mommy Pie always did up her mane. “Hi there!”

“Hello, Miss Pie,” Eunomie said, deadpan, despite the pony on the grass trying to suck on one of her hooves. She dislodged herself without comment and moved to the side, just out of reach of the inebriated and trippy mare.

“Are you feeling alright?” the pale mare inquired. “Curious. You don’t seem to be adversely affected.”

“Affected by what?” Pinkie asked, blinking cutely.

“The psychoactive pollen currently filling the air,” Eunomie explained. She slowly reached up to her mouth, where Pinkie noticed a small bubble of magic. “We are rather fortunate that the pollen requires inhalation to affect a victim. I was going to offer my assistance… but you do not seem to need it?”

“Psychoactive pollen?” Pinkie sat down for a moment and pondered that possibility. There was a lot of the stuff all of a sudden. She looked to her right, where a dozen ponies were muttering to themselves or prancing around in a haze. She looked to her left, where a few ponies were talking to one of the paintings and another was trying to dance with a statue. Then she leaned back and looked behind her - and upside down - where the bright red pine cones were still clinging to the ornamental trees.

“Ah HA!” she declared, jumping onto all fours. “The trees are making the pollen!”

“They are,” Eunomie confirmed, watching Pinkie sidelong. “Are you sure you’re unaffected by… actually, I have been told to just accept these strange occurrences around you, so I will do so. Would you like to come with me to find Twilight and the others? We have a problem.”

“Okey dokey!” Pinkie agreed, bouncing merrily alongside the trotting mare.

“By the way, about my sister--”

“Euporie, right?”

“Ah, yes. I don’t know if you got her apology.”

“I did,” Pinkie replied, still bouncing.

“Good.”

“It was in the mail and I read it before I left,” she explained. “But I know she didn’t write it.”

Eunomie was silent for a few seconds, her gaze drifting over to the mare hopping next to her. “My sister’s signature was on the apology.”

Nothing in Pinkie’s expression indicated she noticed the look. “Are you saying you wrote it, Nomey?”

“I did,” she admitted, after a moment. “My intent was that…”

“You apologize for her a lot, don’t you?” Pinkie asked, deftly bounding over a stallion deep in thought. So deep in thought that he didn’t even seem to notice Pinkie jumping over him.

“Why are we called little ponies?” he wondered, holding his head in dismay. “We aren’t little, are we? I always thought we were normal sized? But if we’re little ponies, does that mean there are big ponies out there, too?”

“Euporie is rather impulsive,” Eunomie replied, moving around a pony dancing to music only she could hear. “She told me what happened last night. I would not like this to cause problems for us and she has promised not to repeat the experience or to cause you further trouble.”

“I want her to apologize,” Pinkie told her, and finally she met the mare’s glance with her own. “Her. Not you. And I want her to say ‘sorry’ to the other ponies at the party as well.”

For a moment, Eunomie didn’t know what to say.

“I - I will try to convince her to do so,” she finally managed to respond. “But,” she had to ask, “wouldn’t it simply be easier to let the issue be? We would not be averse to some sort of monetary compensation for any hurt feelings…”

“Smiling makes me happier than bits,” Pinkie answered, and Eunomie assumed it was an odd but politely worded rejection.

“Very well.”

Up ahead, a number of ponies were sheltered under both the commerce pavilion and a large, purple bubble of a barrier. Flecks of accumulated pollen stuck to the barrier and fizzled but Eunomie entered it without resistance, and so did Pinkie… though as soon as she did, she sneezed. A couple sparks also shot off of their coats, as residual pollen on their bodies also vaporized against the lavender shield.

“Hiya, Twilight!” Pinkie greeted the foremost of her friends in the little tent bunker. “Hiya Rarity! Hiya Applejack!”

“Pinkie Pie,” Applejack groaned. “How did you…?”

“Please tell us, both of you: what is it like out there?” Rarity asked instead. Behind her, two dozen ponies were clustered together, clearly not eager to try leaving Twilight’s shield spell. They were Rarity’s guests, but there were more ponies outside than inside.

“The air is a little dry,” Pinkie replied, helpfully.

Eunomie provided a little more information. “This pollen storm was definitely produced by Lady Yumi. One of her ancestors used a similar technique six hundred and eleven years ago before their absorption into Equestria. From what I have seen, the effects are not overtly harmful. I did not see anypony having an allergic reaction or acting violently. It is not dissipating, however.”

“Yumi? So she really did this?” Applejack was aghast. “Ah can’t believe it. Why?”

“I noticed a commotion in the manor,” Eunomie told them, simply. “I believe there was some sort of altercation. This sort of magic would be excellent cover to stage an escape or to otherwise deter pursuit. I did not see any Royal Guards in the air. They appear to have either left or been incapacitated by the pollen.”

Applejack lowered her hat and gritted her teeth, keeping whatever questions she had at that to herself. A quick glance behind her reminded her that Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were all still safe under the shield spell. Not that they seemed entirely pleased by it. The curious fillies were sitting dangerously close to the edge of the barrier, pointing at the ponies outside acting… out of sorts.

“If the pollen isn’t dissipating by itself, then we need to blow it away,” Twilight reasoned.

“Do we have pegasus ponies capable of dispersing a particulate cloud of this size?” Eunomie asked, examining the ponies sheltered in the pavilion. She didn’t need to say it for it to be clear she considered the prospects of that option rather dismal.

“Twilight, you must have a spell to blast all this stuff away, right sugarcube?”

“Maybe, but I’d have to drop the shield, too, and we’re in the middle of the cloud, not the edge.”

“And those tasty pine cones are still up there making more! They’re all like poot-poot, right, and - hey! Isn’t pollen just plant j--”

“Please don’t finish that sentence.”

“Sorry, Rarity.”

“Wait a moment,” Rarity amended, eyes darting between Pinkie and the silent Applejack. “We clearly need to be rid of those nasty pine cones. Pinkie, can you jump high enough to reach them?”

Pinkie snaked a foreleg around Rarity’s shoulder, shaking her other leg eagerly. “You betcha!”

Twilight quickly caught onto Rarity’s thoughts. “That’s right! Applejack, do you think you could buck the cones off the trees?”

“Y-yeah,” the farmer replied, and then more forcefully, “I’m sure I can, yeah!”

“If I’m guessing right, Rarity, you think we can move everypony here inside?”

“Yes, your shield will follow you around, won’t it?” she asked. “Like your brother’s does?” Twilight nodded, and Rarity decided. “Good. Eunomie, you said Shining Armor was close to the manor?”

“He was before, though I did not see him when I went out to find Miss Pie.”

“Actually, I’m Ser Pie, since Rarity made us all gendarmes and stuff!”

Eunomie’s expression remained unaltered, but a slight tilt of the head meant that she understood the implications. “I was unaware…”

“We have not exactly advertised that fact,” Rarity cut in. “Twilight, is this plan doable?”

“I think so,” the magical prodigy replied. “Eunomie? Can you…?”

“Three remote, gas permeable, skin-selective micro-shields are my maximum,” she reminded them, and without preamble her horn lit. Applejack felt a tingle around her muzzle as a bubble formed and attached. She reached up to it, instinctively, poking it with a hoof. It wasn’t hard like the sort of magical unicorn barriers she had encountered before. It felt membranous and pliant.

“Gas permeable shields are inherently weaker than impermeable ones,” Eunomie explained, seeing Applejack investigate the new addition to her face.

“And if this were an, uh, impermeable bubble…?”

“Then it would suffocate you, of course.” Her blunt response prompted a grimace from the apple farmer. “But then, the skin-selective part of the spell would have to be different, as you would attempt to reject the magic placed on you. As it is, you can dispel the bubble any time you wish.”

“Yeah,” Applejack muttered, giving the barrier around her nose and mouth one last poke. “Alright, Twilight. Ah’m ready.”

“I’m always ready!” Pinkie was already headed for the edge of Twilight’s shield.

“In that case,” Rarity said, turned and addressed the festival guests with a raised voice, “Excuse me! Everypony! Yes, over here! Hello!”

The curious mix of Centerlot nobleponies, Manehattan businessponies and socialites, Ponyville residents, two Saddle Marabians, one pop singer and one DJ quickly turned their attention to the well dressed and well-spoken mare calling to them. They all knew who Rarity was, and like most ponies, they were quick to defer to who they perceived as the ‘mare in charge.’ A few cried out in complaints, but Rarity hushed them with a raised hoof and a few soft words.

“I know you are all quite perturbed by this unexpected interruption in the day’s events, but we will soon have things under control,” Rarity assured them. “We just need everypony to keep pace with my friend Twilight Sparkle here. We are going to take shelter inside the manor while my good friends assist in clearing out this mess. Everything will be back to normal soon, I promise.”

The various clusters of ponies seemed amenable to the idea and began to mull around, eyes on the purple barrier surrounding them. Rarity broke into a quick trot herself, to find her little sister and her friends.

“I would be grateful if you three helped as well,” she said, and the trio of fillies literally vibrated with excitement - and a chance to get their cutie marks. “I need you to make sure everypony keeps pace as the shield moves. Can you do that?”

“You can count on us, Rarity!” Apple Bloom was the first.

“Sure thing, sis!”

“But those ponies out there look like they’re having so much fun…” Realizing what she had just said and to who, Scootaloo shook her head and said, “I mean: sure! No problem!”

“I’ll be counting on you three,” Rarity said, choosing to ignore Scootaloo’s little outburst. She waved to Twilight, and the town librarian began to walk.

As the epicenter of the shield, the glowing purple barrier moved with her.

Soon, they were out from under the pavilion and into the open area in front of the manor. Even through the purple haze of the shield, it was clear that the pollen storm hadn’t just settled close to the ground. It had drifted upwards as well, high enough to snag pegasi, higher even than the chimneys of the house and the tips of the tallest of the ornamental trees.

Ponies fortunate enough to be under the moving shield were quick to start to recover, as the barrier burned away the pollen around them. They were soon helped up by others, though a few were able to stumble along by themselves, their motor control coming back in fits and starts. Most were disoriented, but not complaining. One claimed to have ‘seen the face of Faust’ but then soon forgot what he had seen (‘she looked, um, uh… I can’t remember?!’) and fell glumly in line.

No pony was hurt; it was a small saving grace.

Outside, Pinkie Pie and Applejack began clearing the trees, the former jumping up to snag clusters of male pine cones in her hooves or teeth while the latter kicked a tree at the base, sending a dozen bright red cones falling. Just as they had hoped, removing the cones prevented the release of more pollen. Once the trees themselves were cleared, then they could work on blowing away or zapping the entire cloud clean.

“I can’t believe this had to happen, today of all days!” Rarity, seeing things going along well, felt the need to vent, if only a little, of her growing frustration.

“It’ll be over soon,” Twilight reminded her.

“Even if it is, my perfect day has been absolutely ruined! What will all these ponies think of me, after this?” Rarity watched her guests, huddled together as they kept under the shield spell, herded by the three overly enthusiastic fillies.

“I know I say this often,” she continued, and she had to remind herself that a proper lady should not sigh, no matter how much she wanted to. “But this really is the Worst. Possible. T--”

“Rarity!” Twilight yelled, as a speeding blur plowed into the fashionista, carrying her out through the shield. “RARITY!”

Caught in a pony’s hooves, Rarity had to remember to try and struggle. She had to remember, too, not to inhale. The pollen cloud was all around her. But what had - who had --

Fierce yellow eyes filled Rarity’s vision, a teal colored coat belonging to a pegasus. “We meet again, Baroness.”

“You!” Rarity snapped, recognizing the face instantly. One didn’t easily forget the face of a pony one had fought with before.

“You remember me. Good!” Suzukaze, the pony known as Cool Breeze, released her catch, and Rarity fall helplessly into the pollen cloud, a scream in her throat. “Yumi-hime sends her regards.”

Twilight felt the barrier around her lurch and waver as something - another barrier! Collided with it!

“What’s going on?” Twilight spun around, still spooked from how Rarity had been grabbed. “Are there…?”

An orange barrier grew upwards, engulfing the purple and pressing inward… until cracks began to appear.

“Lady Yumi’s retainers,” Eunomie reasoned, forming a protective barrier should her mouth, and Twilight’s. “It appears that they are immune to the pollen’s effects.”

Applejack was halfway to the next tree when a pony emerged from behind it. Skidding to a stop, figuring it had to be another pollen-addled festivalgoer, it was only when she got closer that she could make out the identity of the pony in her way. Copper eyes and a brown coat emerged from the swirling magical pollen along with a mane the same color as her own, perhaps a shade lighter.

“I’m sorry about this, Miss Applejack,” White Dew said, holding up a hoof. “But Lady Yumi’s orders are absolute. I cannot let you interfere until she is safely away from here.”

“Ya know?” Applejack replied, brows knitting into an angry scowl. “After what you pulled, I was hopin’ I’d run inta one of you fellas! Lucky me.”

“How long can Yudachi, Suzukaze and Shiratsuyu hold them, do you think?”

“As long as you need them to, Yumi-hime.”

Master Shigure’s words were encouraging, and running alongside the weathered old retainer, she felt secure enough to begin planning her revenge. Blueblood would not get away with this - she vowed it. To think that he - and no doubt that vile mare of his - that Rarity, would sink so low? It stretched the imagination and beggared belief. She had always heard that the Equestrian Prince was vain, but nopony had ever mentioned him as being violent or dangerous.

No matter. Once she returned to Neighpon, there would be Tartarus to pay for this affront!

“Yumi-hime…” Shigure asked, as the two ran across the rolling hills surrounding Ponyville and the Blueblood estate. “What happened? I can only guess…”

“Blueblood poisoned his own drink to frame me.”

It was the only explanation that made any sense. She had seen the symptoms with her own eyes. He must have developed a resistance to it before. He did not seem the type to put himself in danger, but… what other explanation was there? He had been all but jumping at the chance to accuse her. Yumi shuddered at the thought of how she had considered sharing a drink with the stallion. Only fate had kept her from it.

“Where is Pixie Dust?” Yumi asked instead of dwelling on what may have been. “Do not tell me she fled?”

“I am afraid so, Yumi-hime,” Shigure replied, frowning in displeasure. “I could not find her. The others had not seen her either. Did you intend to return to Lord Alpha Brass?”

“No!” Yumi snapped, angrily. “I do not trust him, and I can feel the… the wrongness in that lair of his. It is just as well that Pixie abandoned us. We shall return to Neighpon. If the Stable calls me to answer for a crime I did not commit, it will be with a thousand spears at my back.”

“As you say, Yumi-hime.” The two earth ponies raced across a stretch of gravel country road, then back over another hill. Shigure still wore his shirt and bow tie, but Yumi had torn her dress, the better to gallop to safety.

“We are being followed,” he remarked, eyes forward. “I believe it to be more Royal Guards, but some of the Free Company ponies may also be chasing us instead of trying to rescue Lady Rarity.”

“Can we outrun them, Master Shigure?”

“Not for long, no.”

Yumi slowed slightly, and he did the same to keep pace with her.

“The Everfree is close enough,” she said, and as the two crested a grassy hill they could see the thick vegetation of the wild forest in the distance south of town. “It truly is an ugly forest.”

“Yumi-hime, are you sure--”

“I am,” she interrupted him, her ire still raised from what had turned a hopeful day into a disaster of truly epic proportions. “You may need to carry me for a time, but I can do this. How large of a distraction do we need?”

“As large as you are able to provide,” Shigure told her, expression betraying his concern.

Yumi stopped, then, still facing the forest.

Closing her eyes, she let out a breath and the grasses around them rippled. Inhaling, the grass rippled again. Shigure took up a position behind her, towards the direction of their pursuers. Yumi breathed again, in and out. Past the hills and in the forest, birds took to the sky, squawking in outrage.

“Yumi-hime…” Shigure whispered, feeling her thrum with earth pony magic.

“What an ugly forest,” Yumi repeated, slumping forward and needing to be caught by her protector. “But it has answered me.”

From within the Everfree, an ear splitting howl pierced the air.

It was followed by another howl, and another, and another…

Yumi glared over to the forest, knowing what was coming to answer her call. “Get me out of here, Master Shigure.”

“Which way?” Shigure asked, gently lifting the weakened mare onto his back.

“Around and into the edge of the forest…” Yumi closed her eyes to try and rest. “Let them follow us, if they dare.”

Shigure ran.

Galloping as fast as his old hooves could carry him, he had the honor of seeing the first of the Timber Wolves emerge from the Everfree. It was three times the size of an adult pony: a nature-spawned golem of wood, with vines for veins and splinters and leaves for fur. Bright green fire burned in place of eyes, like a macabre facsimile of a jack-o-lantern, and the creature sniffed the air as the two ponies sped by. It tensed for a moment to give chase, but recognizing something - the smell, the magic, Shigure didn’t know - it ignored them. As he knew it would. These creatures were now Yumi’s.

As he galloped away, more emerged… one, two, until a dozen started to lope out of the forest and into the hunt. Shigure never saw the result of the wolves crashing headlong into their pursuers, but he could hear the sounds of battle far behind him. Against so many forest golems, the Royal Guards must have called up large numbers of Free Company ponies to fight for them.

Yumi still half asleep on his back, he kept galloping, skirting the Everfree border.

Even during the day, the forest canopy here was thick and dark, casting a pall over the rough ground below. It was like stepping hours into the future: the sun disappeared from the sky and the gloom could have fooled anypony into thinking it was caught perpetually setting. Thick webs blanketed the upper branches overhead, some boasting cocoons far too large to belong to just captured insects. Broken trees rotted where they had fallen in this forest, and the floor was slick and matted with moss and decomposing leaves. Large, gnarled roots forced a pony to constantly be wary of galloping too fast or too recklessly.

Slowing as he moved around another root, seemingly placed just to trip somepony or break a leg, Shigure came face to face with a creature - a frozen creature - with a serpent’s body and the head of a rooster. The beak was open, as if screeching, and the eyes wide with fright.

“A cockatrice?” Shigure knew of the beasts.

Still on his back, Yumi reached curiously for the creature… only for it to crumble at her slightest touch.

“Master Shigure,” she whispered. “Up ahead.”

Gently, the old stallion lowered his hindquarters and let Yumi dismount and back away. He had noticed it, too, but too late to try and avoid it. Somehow, somepony had caught up to them… or been waiting for them.

She emerged from beneath a low hanging branch, tentatively moving it out of her way with a small pink hoof. Their surprise obstacle was a unicorn, petite, with a rust colored mane bundled up behind her head. Soft violet eyes studied the two Neighponese ponies as she walked closer. Both of them knew this unicorn.

“Lady Chalice?” Shigure asked.

“Sir Rains,” Chalice greeted him with a respectful little bow. “Lady Yumi. Sorry to scare you.”

“What are you doing here?” Yumi demanded to know. “If you’ve come to bring us back to your brother--”

“Oh, um… no,” Chalice replied, shaking her head sadly. “That isn’t why I’m here.”

“This isn’t a safe place, my Lady,” Shigure tried to warn her. “You should not be here.”

“I wish I did not have to be,” Chalice told him. “I really do.”

She took a step towards them, lowering her eyes.

“And I’m really sorry, but… I’m not here to talk to you,” she admitted, and the already dim light in the forest seemed to deepen. Previously light shadows became pools of glittering black oil and some-thing began to form first around Chalice’s horn, and then across her entire body.

“By Lord Blueblood’s command,” Chalice said, and when she looked up, her eyes were gone, replaced by a sea of stars. “I’m here to kill you both.”

In an abandoned building outside Canterlot, Princess ‘Cadance’ stood over her comatose brother.

“Oh, Blueblood,” she said, turning the drooling stallion over with a hoof until he was face up. The oaf had been stripped bare, and rendered insensate by a rather generous dose of paralytic changeling venom. “It really did pay off, waiting to replace you.”

Kneeling closer, she sniffed the air, tasting the residual emotion around him. There wasn’t much left. Just enough to detect the traces of his last emotional state: tart confusion and sour fear mixed with notes of berry-sweet love. It was an exquisite vintage.

“To think, big brother, we wouldn’t have bothered replacing you at all if you hadn’t found your… what do they call it?” she asked one of the unmasked changelings around her, but never expected an actual answer. “Your ‘special somepony?’ How fortunate for us that you not only fell in love with somepony, but that somepony fell in love with you! I really did have to see it with my own eyes, hear it with my own ears, smell it with my own nose, and taste it with my own tongue.”

A black, forked tongue snaked out of her mouth at that comment, waving teasingly while she laughed.

“Today, I capture a Prince’s skin and put the first dagger in Alpha’s back to boot!” she exclaimed, rather pleased with the day’s activities.

The timing was excellent, too. It would have been too risky for her tastes, trying this while staying with Alpha Brass. The canny stallion would be expecting some sort of betrayal, naturally, but would not see one coming just hours after their parting company.

The poor foal had no idea that his own teleportation guards had been infiltrated by the most skilled of her changeling swarm. Brass’s influence on all those in the gardens made infiltration difficult, but the teleportation specialized unicorn mares he relied on came and went so often that they could be replaced without him noticing the substitution. She knew the ponies who came and went from the gardens, and though it had taken some doing, she had even gotten one of her own to replace the teleporter assigned to Lady Yumi.

It was only a shame that the swarm was no true hive mind; she could not see what her underlings were up to, exactly. A scrying mirror could be set up, though with all the moving around she had to do as well, it was impractical. No: she had faith in her underlings, especially her fertile sisters and daughters - her potential replacements - and this was the result! Success! She had traded a Pixie Dust for a Yumi and a Yumi for a Blueblood.

It would be simple, now, for the changeling-Blueblood to control this Rarity mare, just as she herself controlled Shining Armor. The Elements of Harmony were already broken, but she would go one further and replace one of them with a changeling as well. Just to be one hundred percent sure. All the while, Brass would think them in his pocket and, even if he suspected they were not, what could he do about it?

All she needed now was her Yumi, back. That was a valuable piece to have.

“Where should we keep this one, my Queen?” one of the changeling drones asked, slinking around the unconscious Blueblood. He had been delivered early, ironically enough courtesy of his own surprisingly impressive teleportation abilities. It had apparently been pupa’s play to clandestinely move him far from the mansion and to the pick-up point.

“The crystal caverns will do,” Chrysalis decided with another cruel laugh. “Yes. I like the irony of it! Let him rot in the cell next to his sister. But keep him unconscious, understood?”

“Next to… that cell?” the changeling asked.

“You heard me!” ‘Cadance’ snapped at the drone, dismissing her with a slash of her hoof. “I will relish the look of despair on her face when she sees that even he is not beyond my reach! No pony is!”

The changeling bowed, and together with a comrade, dragged the Prince of Equestria away.

“Brass, Brass, Brass,” Chrysalis repeated the name in a sing-song of mockery. She licked her lips; too, remembering what was pre-destined to be their last night together. He was a poor lover compared to Shining Armor; no matter what she did to him, no matter how she pleased him, no matter what pain she caused, he was indigestible. Even in that one instant of release, where every stallion’s barriers fell, and where Shining’s emotions presented her a banquet of lust and possessiveness and pure unbridled love and hope, Bass’s emotions were like oil and sand and ice. Grit and poison and freezing cold.

Still, she resolved to remember the night fondly when he was dead and Equestria reduced to fodder for the swarms. When he was gone, she really would be Queen, and for the first time in her life, alone in that lofty station. It was almost… sad… to think of it.

“What are you going to do now, Brass?” she wondered. Turning around, she motioned to a pony in the shadows behind her. “Come along, my little pony. A bridesmaid should attend to the bride-to-be. I will introduce you to your two new friends.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

Lyra Heartstrings followed, her eyes subsumed by dull green.

“Lady Olive Branch is dead, my Lord.”

“She is?” Alpha Brass asked, spearing a slice of red potato with his fork and briefly submerging it in a thick cremini mushroom sauce. “I see. Thank you.”

Despite the news delivered by the head nurse, the musicians did not even pause in their rendition of Valse des Fleursat. Nor did the Marquis of the Equestrian Frontier, a Duke in all but name, pause in his late lunch. Taking a bite of the potato gratin and washing it down with a tipple of white wine, he dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and took a small note on a scroll unfurled across a quarter of the length of the long wooden dinner table.

“Sir?” The nurse insisted. “I know this news must be… unsettling, but wouldn’t you like to see…?”

“I have seen enough dead bodies to know what they are like,” Alpha Brass reminded her in a conversational tone. “More than you ever will, I dare say.” The nurse shrank a little at the reproach, fiddling with her white scrubs and feeling out of place among the other servants in the room. Not a one seemed disturbed by the news either.

“Follow my orders,” he told her, savoring the music. “You know what to do, don’t you?”

“Yes, we - we are to let your guards cremate the body,” she said, and backed away towards the door. “I merely thought you should know.”

“Thank you again. You and the other staff have done a wonderful job.” Brass spared her a charming smile, and the nurse nodded eagerly.

“It was an honor, sir!” she replied, trying to remember to be somber as she exited, gently closing the door behind her. “Enjoy your meal.”

“I will,” Brass replied, more for his own sake than hers. He looked out over the gardens and the musicians and speared another cut potato.

Elsewhere, three hard eyed mares in armor struggled with a panicked and supposedly sickly - supposedly deceased - Olive Branch. She kicked and struggled and hissed as they dragged her off, shedding her disguise in panic, screaming as they stuffed her into a metal incinerator. The changeling tried turning into other shapes, other ponies, using other voices, but the Amazonian guards may as well have been deaf for all that they heeded her pleas.

One of them slammed the furnace breech shut, locked the handle, and nodded to another by a switch.

Alpha Brass watched the small coil of black smoke rise from a distant chimney in his garden.

“The music,” he whispered to himself. “It really is quite lovely.”

Yes, it was lovely, even though he had lost his new harpist, the young Miss Heartstrings. It was a terrible shame, but in the long run, the loss was a necessary one. A dagger was of little use without a handle to hold it with. Alpha Brass nibbled on another slice of gratin and smiled. In one garden courtyard, two mares flew silken kites, like streaks of gold and red against green and gray and a false dome of blue. Their laughter reached his ears as he ate, mixing with the melody of the music to create a pleasant ambiance.

Well beneath them and out of sight, other so called ‘ponies’ soon joined the first in the fire.

Chapter Thirty : Friendship is a Battlefield

(30)

Friendship is a Battlefield

“Now, little sister… open the bars of your golden cage.”

“Sweet Celestia’s Mercy.”

Shigure was not a young stallion. He was not a sheltered noble. He had been born in a family bred to serve and to protect. He was an earth pony, and he had trained and fought and bled for those he swore fealty to. Passing through, even skirting, the Everfree was not his preferred means of escaping the realm with Lady Yumi, but it was not what he would have considered frightfully dangerous. There were nature preserves like the Everfree in Neighpon, after all.

He had survived in one for four months, once.

But this…?

He wasn’t even sure what he was seeing.

Chalice - the small, timid mare - bubbled and seethed with a dark, writhing mass of raw magic that could only be what the unicorns called “aether.” Shigure had only seen it once: a tiny amount, just a few drops, bottled in a thick-walled jar and locked behind crystal in an alchemist’s shop. This mare, if she was even a mare, now wore a sheet of it like an ever expanding, living blanket.

She cried out, almost like she was in pain, a short agonized gasp for air.

“Show them your special talent; show them what you were born to do.”

The two Neighponese ponies could only watch, frozen in place, as the last patch of Chalice’s pink coat vanished. As it did, the darkness of the aether seemed to recede, gradually turning an otherworldly purple-transparent hue. Yet it continued to expand and grow. A blast of cold stole the air from their mouths, and Shigure saw his breath turn to visible vapor, like in the dead of winter.

Lights twinkled within the now semi-transparent mass of… was it even flesh?

Whatever it was, whatever Chalice had become, it now stood twice his own height, and Shigure was not a small stallion. Star strewn wings fountained from the back of the celestial pony, flapping and glittering, and as they passed through a thick net of spider webs, those same webs fell to the earth and shattered like glass: frozen solid. Branches creaked and followed soon after, also shattering on impact with the ground.

A transparent mane and tail were the last to take form, completing the visage of the unearthly pony. Eyelids opened, but there was nothing inside them: just more shifting aether. Even the twinkling stars within had now migrated throughout the body. The otherworldly being turned her, his, its head - facing the two stunned foreigners.

It extended a hoof, and something extended vertically.

A bow.

“The Bow of Sagittarius,” Yumi muttered, voice hushed with terror. She covered her head with her hooves, struck mute to the point where she could only shake her head.

Shigure walked in front of her, glaring at the glowing being. “No matter the bow, it only has a single arrow. Yumi-hime! It only has a single arrow. I will be your shield, you must be my bow.”

“My… shield?” she asked, and slowly seemed to emerge from her dazed state. “I’m so tired, Shigure. I don’t know if I can…” She forced herself onto her hooves. “But I will! I will be behind you. I will try!”

Sagittarius clutched the now fully formed crystal bow, a single blazing ember stretched out across it like an arrow drawn from the sun itself. Shigure steeled himself and charged headlong into the glowing being. With every hoof-fall, he felt the earth reverberate and respond to him. His first few steps were light.

His third and fourth left deep imprints in the packed ground of the Everfree.

His fifth and sixth left cracks in their wake.

His seventh and eighth thundered, the trees around him shaking like plucked strings.

His heart pounded hard in his chest as he charged, the weight of his legs growing with every gallop. This was the other side of what he had shown Miss Applejack. Just as one could be anchored and dispersed into the earth, so could the earth be drawn in and added to the self. Master Yama, Yumi-hime’s father and his own noble teacher, had once said that the ultimate expression of an earth pony was to embrace all of the world. It was too much to ask of any pony, of course. But a minute fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the world?

That was doable.

Like treading water, the simulacrum that Chalice had become reared up and brought down a hoof to try and drive him into the ground. Shigure let it come, squaring his shoulders and raising one foreleg to block it. The impact was crushing, murderous, but Shigure let it slide off him. He didn’t need to fight it, he only need to get under it. Even then, his foreleg came back numb and chilled from the brief contact.

Then, finally, he was inside the guard of the being. With all the force he had built up, with all the mass and energy borrowed from the earth and the forest, Shigure plowed his left shoulder, left hoof and the side of his head into the right front leg holding the Bow of Sagittarius. The bone-jarring impact was enough to knock the creature off its back hooves and into the air, and though it would have shattered the ribs and shoulder of any pony it had hit, and though Sagittarius’s foreleg was thrown wide, it did not dislodge the crystal bow.

‘Yumi-hime… I’m sorry. Was this was the best I could do…?’

Falling away from his target, a freezing pain mixed with the strain of muscle and bone, Shigure saw the forms of two Everfree trees begin to warp. From out of wood and root, two new Timber Wolves literally sprouted from the brush, ripping free as two twisted old trees split open, giving birth to the nature golems. Splintered maws stretched out and bit down on the front legs of the pony turned Sagittarius, wooden fangs sinking into empyrean flesh.

Shigure’s back hit the hard, unyielding ground --

And above him, he felt a rush as a thousand pieces of razor sharp bark filled the air, shed from a half dozen trees. He could imagine entire faces of trees laid bare, as they released their bark like the quills of a porcupine. To think that Yumi-hime still had the strength to not only create two incomplete Timber Wolves out of nothing but forest debris, but call on the Honey Locust Tree, too? Shigure’s heart swelled with pride. Yumi truly had earned her name: there was no match in ranged combat.

Yet, as the rain of razor sharp spines closed in on the pinned celestial pony a thunderous boom shook the canopy, and a shockwave scattered the flurry of spines. The force of it sent Shigure rolling, and tore the leaves from branches and bushes all around them. Dirt and debris pelted the grizzled old earth pony, even as he scrambled to stand back up.

With a thud, the huge star strewn pony tore free of the two Timber Wolves, landing on three legs. Pieces of wooden skull rained down, a chuck with a still faintly glowing eye crashing to the ground just a hoof’s length away from Shigure’s face.

Looking up, he saw that Sagittarius’ crystal bow was empty and un-notched.

Had it scattered the entire barrage with one shot? How had it even taken aim? He had forced the foreleg back and out of the way! A softer ‘thud’ sound demanded his attention, and Shigure whirled around only to see Yumi face down in the dirt and leaves of the forest floor.

“Yumi-hime,” he hissed, “No.”

There was a displacement in the air, and Shigure turned back to the pony with the crystal bow. The arrow was back, notched and vibrating, literally humming with power.

“S-Shigure…” He ran to her at the sound of Yumi’s voice, tried to pick her up to run away. She was as limp as putty, too exhausted to even move more than her lips. “Shigure… Sagittarius’s arrow…”

“I only have a single arrow.” The giant pony spoke for the first time, in a distorted mare’s voice. It was Chalice’s voice, but strained, stretched, deepened. “It always returns, and it never misses.”

Inexorably, the celestial pony aimed its bow at them, and the arrow drew back of its own accord.

“Return to Dust.”

A huge gray hoof filled Rainbow Dash’s world for a split second before everything turned upside down and topsy-turvy. The ground rushed up treacherously fast - her old foe and her favorite crashing place all in one - and she barely had time to spread her wings enough to avert her make-out session with the cold, hard earth. Hooves hit the ground instead and she pushed, bouncing off the side of the rocky outcropping moments before it exploded in her face.

Body smoking, Dash spun around, letting her momentum carry her in one direction while she kicked out in the other. Anticipating an enemy’s point of attack was the first thing Soarin had drilled into her skull, and like any good combat flyer - or any good predator for that matter - in the heat of the moment Ritterkreuz would aim for where she was most vulnerable and lunge for any available blind spot if she thought she could get away with it. And she did.

Or, she tried.

A pair of cyan hooves slammed into the swooping gray pegasus, hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. Not enough, unfortunately, to actually stun her. Ritter locked her forelegs against Dash’s extended hindlegs and spun around, hurling her back into the rock face she had just bounced off of. This time she hit the rock hard, bounced in an uncoordinated way, and tumbled down until she landed on a ledge.

It was tempting to just lie there for a few seconds, or maybe the rest of the day, but instead she rolled to the side and launched herself into the air. A gray streak followed close behind her, cantering two steps and taking off as well. It was suicidal to stay on the ground in a ‘race’ like this - a race to stay conscious with a brute of a pegasus nipping at her heels. The cold wind blowing in her face as she gained altitude, Rainbow Dash rolled and pulled tightly upward into a loop, diving into her opponent, still behind her.

A quick jink and Ritter swerved, taking a swipe at the bombing pegasus. She wasn’t much for diving herself, but she loved to use any opportunity to close and strike back. Dash got in a good hit, pushed off before they could become entangled and dove down and away, trading altitude for a quick boost of speed.

Flying was always a game of trading energy for height, height for speed, speed for more energy.

The two streaks knitted a double helix across the air, fighting for altitude and lancing through clouds in their path. Pass after pass, they clashed before soaring back down, two blurs in parallel, buzzing across, past and around jagged spades of broken, mined-out mountain. The ground here was a lethal obstacle course of uneven ground, thorny trees and sudden up-thrusts of stone like brick-red waves.

Soarin took wing himself, if only to keep the pair in sight.

A blue zag shot away from a ninety degree cliffside of sheared stone before curving away and around another outcropping. Rainbow Dash was the lighter, faster, more maneuverable flyer. He had expected that much. In fact, she was even lighter, faster and more maneuverable than Spitfire herself. He’d seen a few glimpses of that when Spitfire had taken the weathermare aside to test her personally. Dash had an incredible ability to cut and turn at almost ninety degree angles without a push-off surface, and defying expectations, she actually seemed to become more maneuverable the faster she went.

Ritterkreuz, on the other hoof, was stronger, had better climb with larger, stronger wings, and she was far and away more experienced. That was where one of Rainbow Dash’s intangible skills came into play: her instincts. Good instinct and quick thinking on the wing was the only counter she had to Ritter’s experience advantage. Experience, after all, couldn’t be taught. It could only come from racing, fighting, competing with and going face to face with another pegasus.

Soarin shielded his face as the air stitched with explosions, Ritterkreuz’s trademark special talent manifesting itself in the most obvious of ways. If this had been a few hundred years ago, it was a skill the Wonderbolts would have been happy to cultivate. Back when the unit valued aerial combat skills over stunt flying and entertainment, it could have earned her praise instead of notoriety. In modern times, though, it was out of date and out of style. The only thing close was the lightning and smoke trail all Wonderbolts picked up. Fighting was still part of the unit’s history and glory, and they were still sometimes called to fly into a battle with some monster or another, but those times were few and far between. Equestria was just too peaceful.

Instead, Ritter had been told to make it into something ‘showmare’ like.

Soarin hadn’t been present for her response, but he suspected she had never once actually considered it. Spitfire had tried to help, he knew, and the two had developed a new maneuver: the Twisting Cloud Carver. Fire and Thunder. Soarin couldn’t help but wonder if it had only delayed the inevitable. Ritterkreuz was a Wonderbolt, but she was also the pony she had been before she joined up. That would never change.

The air shook, and Rainbow Dash hit the ground, galloping hard, blossoms of blasted earth erupting along her multi-colored trail. Rather than keep moving in a straight line she cut to the left, around and around until her hooves left the ground. Soon even her distinctive color palette disappeared into the winding twister she kicked up. Alighting on one of the dozens of rocky outcroppings that had were all that remained of the mined-out mountain, Soarin grinned, recognizing what she was trying to do.

“Smart,” he said to himself. “This is good ground for that move.”

Flying out of range of the twister, Ritterkreuz came to a stop, large gray wings leisurely flapping. Only a keen eye could catch some of her feathers scraping together and the little push they made, though the result was clear to anypony watching her. Her Galloping Grenadier exploded harmlessly against the tremendous wind shear of the tornado.

It was the best counter they could come up with: Ritterkreuz’s explosions were highly condensed packets of fire and air magic, formed by the feathers of her wings and pushed forward at high speed: faster, in fact, than any pony could fly. Anypony that wasn’t named Rainbow Dash, anyway. They would explode on contact or at a given distance, and high wind shear would disrupt and detonate them prematurely.

‘As long as she’s inside that tornado, Ritterkreuz can’t touch her with the Grenadier,’ Soarin thought. ‘And…!’

“And!” Deep within the tornado, Rainbow Dash seemed to be keeping similar thoughts. “Since you can’t hit me in here, how about I hit you?”

The ground at the base of the tornado began to churn, and soon rocks began to fly, shot out from inside like a hail of bullets. The debris ripped up and into the spinning winds was ammunition for the weathermare inside, as Rainbow Dash kicked an ever increasing number of rocks up at her opponent. Ritterkreuz snarled, swatting the first rock away, and the second, only to get hit in the face by the third. Another series of explosions detonated harmlessly on the outside of the tornado, and another trio of missiles battered the gray pegasus mare.

Quickly growing tired of being a hovering target, Ritter shot away to the side, bobbing and weaving. Rainbow Dash’s aim was uncanny, however, even against a fast-moving target. A smarter pegasus would probably have flown further away, out of range of Dash’s ability to kick a rock the size of her head. Ritter, however, was too stubborn to listen to whatever Celestia-given smarts she had. She refused to back off.

The duo only intensified their two way barrage.

More and more rocks pelted Ritterkreuz, in the face and trunk and wings, but she shrugged off or batted away every one that came close. In return, her wings flapped faster and harder, projecting a constant stream of smaller explosions. They flowered all across the tornado, budding and blooming and dying, a dozen of them at any one time. Gradually, the tornado itself seemed to change color, briefly taking on shades of blush red and orange amid the gray.

‘What’s… going on?’ Soarin wondered, leaning closer and narrowing his eyes. ‘What’s with that color?’

“What do you think, Rainbow Dash?” Ritterkreuz roared, backhoofing another block of stone. “Can you knock me out of the sky before you roast alive in there?!”

‘Roast alive?’ It all suddenly clicked. ‘Fire and wind magic! If she uses enough fire, though, then the tornado will become hotter and hotter.’

Finally, the whirlwind came apart, a few remaining rocks and a half a ton of gravel flying in every direction. In the middle of it all, Rainbow Dash hovered, trying to catch her breath. Her mane and tail were frazzled and beads of sweat trickled down her neck and forehead.

“That was fun! Do you have more tricks like that?” Ritterkreuz asked, descending and flying closer to the weathermare. “I bet if you worked on it some more, brought down some clouds, you could generate enough lightning to hit me with bolts of it instead of just rocks. That would be even more fun!”

Dash exhaled slowly and smiled. “Maybe I’ll do that then.”

“I am glad you aren’t just flying away, though you’ll probably try it again later.” Ritterkreuz crossed her forelegs, still grinning happily. “You hit hard, too - harder than Sparky did, though not as hard as that cranky old bitch, Raging Storm.” She craned her neck enough to look over at Soarin, perched close by. “I still don’t mind if your coltfriend joins in, too. Like I told Spitfire. I don’t mind being double-teamed. In fact, if it were you two, it’d be kind of hot.”

“He’s just here to watch,” Dash assured her. “Eyes on me, okay?”

“If that’s what you want,” Ritter complied, “Since I’m waiting for you to catch your breath, how about--”

“Actually!” Dash interrupted, and the former Wonderbolt gave her a questioning, curious look.

“What?”

“You said before that you never thought of the Wonderbolts as your team mates, right?” She waited to see Ritter nod, just once. “See, that just doesn’t make sense to me,” Dash admitted. “Why did you wait so long to quit, then? You could’ve done it any time.”

For a few seconds, Ritterkreuz simply hovered in place, her grin replaced by a tight line.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Dash insisted.

“The timing… it isn’t really an interesting story, but you’ve been fun, so I guess I can tell you that if you need to know so badly.” The big gray mare rolled her eyes, her lime green mane flapping behind her in the breeze. “I got this letter, you see. It said that Antimony - that bitch - had finally been beaten by somepony, and that my old pal Bloody was back on the market. I wasn’t about to just let some other evil bitch walk in and take him, so I figured I’d try picking up where I left off.”

“Where you left off?” Rainbow Dash asked, her breathing returning to normal as she recovered. “What does that mean?”

“It means… Blueblood and I were fuck buddies back in the day. It was a good thing!” Ritter grinned again at the shocked or maybe disgusted look on her opponent’s face. “Deep down, he’s always hated all the other mares around him, and we shared that contempt. The prissy daughters of rich families, the scheming witches in gala dresses, the ambitious whores with noble titles, even the star struck idiots from backwoods villages who bought into all that romance bullshit. All of them could go right to Pony Hell. We had each other’s backs, and with Antimony gone, I figured I’d hop back into his bed. What would the Wonderbolts be able to do then?”

She glanced back over as Soarin, but just for a moment.

“Nothing. It’d be like the old days!” Ritter groaned and spat off to the side. “Except, go figure, he’s actually in love with this Rarity mare. I don’t like the smell of her, but at least she isn’t a murderous bitch, so I figured I’d let things be. It left me in a bit of a bind, really. I couldn’t even get one last ‘see you on the flipside’ lay off him. So that was one reason.”

Dash started to gain altitude, eyes scanning the area around them. “And the other one?”

“The Wonderbolts were getting boring!” she explained, shrugging. “I told you this before, and it’s true. The racing and the flying and the crowds… it was kind of neat, to start with, but after a while it got boring. Nothing pisses me off more than being bored. Where was the challenge? How can you go from risking your life, risking your body, spilling blood and having your blood spilled, and then settle for a life of entertaining snot nosed foals?”

Ritterkreuz shook her head, forcefully: no.

“I joined up after Antimony beat me with those damn unicorn tricks of hers, and I still plan to put paid to her one day for it, but after that there wasn’t anypony left. All my real comrades were dead and gone. All the ponies who were anything like me. I should never have joined the Wonderbolts. They’ve lost touch with what they used to be. I should have just left Equestria… started a group of pirates… or a Free Company. Kill and kill and kill until somepony or something kills me.”

“How can you even think like that?!” Dash yelled, now at the same height at the other mare. “What do you mean your comrades were--”

“That’s enough talking about that,” Ritterkreuz snarled. “I assume you’ve caught your breath. Fight me! Throw more at me! I don’t care what! Just do it!!”

There was no point arguing, so Rainbow Dash did just what the mare wanted of her.

“Captain.”

“Captain!”

Thunderhead inclined his head respectfully to his team mates as he walked past them. His heart ached at the sight of a few injured Wonderbolts, stopping briefly to check on them, even if they were well enough to stand outside their tents and gawk as his return. He wasn’t much of a sight himself, really: bandages wrapped tight around his chest, neck and the foundations of his wings. His entire right wing was still in a sling, hanging by his side. A long stitch in his forehead had necessitated cutting a small strip of his distinctive snow white and silver mane, the latter the same rare color as his coat.

“Wild Rider, good to see you up and about,” he said, patting the shoulder of a mare with a black eye and a patch over her right cheek.

“Misty Fly,” he answered another call of “Captain!” and assured the wheat colored mare that he was fine and that he’d fly again, sooner rather than later.

“Silver Lining. High Winds. I heard you two had a rough time of it. Heal up quickly, the both of you.”

“Captain!”

“Blaze. How’s the leg? Good. Good. Wind Shear. Gah! Surprise! I need to breathe!”

“Oh, sorry!” The seemingly unhurt mare released him and he smiled at her, at all of them.

“Hey, everypony! The Captain’s back!” Surprise yelled, quickly flying off to rouse anyone else who could hear or stand - or just hear - to come and see for themselves. Thunderhead chuckled. Surprise had always been one of his favorites, though he doubted she’d ever be promoted beyond lieutenant. Just the threat of paperwork usually sent her packing off on a hastily assembled training trip to the gym.

Thunderhead stopped a few more times on his way to one tent in particular.

The Wonderbolts Mobile Headquarters was a cloud, naturally, but one built to provide the unit with facilities far from Cloudsdale or to foreign countries where manufactured clouds weren’t readily available. The large, rectangular cloud base had three levels to it in some parts, though much of it was storage. Living quarters were just lots on the topmost level, organized by rank. At the head of the unit, in large tent designed to be both quarters and office, was the lot reserved for the Captain of the Wonderbolts.

As Thunderhead got close to it, he saw the Captain herself: Spitfire. She was already out front in her uniform, hoof raised in respectful salute. He grinned at the sight of her and returned the salute. Spitfire had always been a model Wonderbolt. She worked hard, she trained hard, and she was creative and excited both by flying and by organizing routes and routines. She never balked or abused any responsibility given her. By any standard, she loved the Wonderbolts - both the long and storied company and the ponies who made it up. That was always the most important thing: the ponies who made up the Wonderbolts. The name was nothing without them, and without the trust and love they had for their Captain.

Raging Storm, his own Vice-Captain, was sadly lacking in that respect. It was poor taste to think ill of her, especially with her lying wounded, but Thunderhead had long since decided not to pass on the Captaincy to her. She loved the Wonderbolts, too, in her own way… but to her, the reputation and name of the company were all-important. He would not have driven them against Ritterkreuz so recklessly. Most Wonderbolts were not trained for combat anymore, and furthermore many didn’t even have the mindset for it. He would have pursued the rogue Wonderbolt more cautiously, and with only picked squads.

Though, the ‘wear her down with numbers’ strategy did have some merit… it had costs, too.

Spitfire, though? Spitfire. He remembered when she joined as a young, bright-eyed mare striking it out on her own for the first time. The fiery scrub had quickly earned the respect of the other recruits. It occurred to Thunderhead, as he watched her lower her leg from the salute, that she probably never knew how he had been grooming her to be Captain one day.

‘The one pony I secretly favored, and I think I was hardest on her,’ he thought, but put that aside. There were other matters to deal with on his visit than to reminisce or regret.

“Captain!” she said, “You’re back?”

“I am, Captain,” he saw her surprise at his using her ‘acting’ rank. “Back for a little while, anyway. We need to have a little talk.”

“Of course, sir!” Spitfire stepped aside, and pulled open the flap of her tent. He walked inside, ducking his head, and as he did he heard her cough and start to ask something: probably about filling the Vice-Captain seat. It was a polite way of asking what role she would have, now that he was back.

She needn’t have worried.

“Spitfire,” he said, motioning for her to be silent for a moment. “You are Captain of this unit. My being here does not change that.”

He took a moment to look around the tent. It was his, had been his, but she had moved one or two things in. Her name was on the grill on top of the fold-out desk.

“Sir, no pony will ever replace you…” She bowed her head and sat behind the desk, a little uneasily. “But I will try, sir, until your wing heals. If that is what you want.”

He also sat down, in front of the desk. It was a position he hadn’t occupied in many years, not since Winter Bora’s short tenure as Captain. And now here they were, dealing with his daughter. One of them, anyway.

“How’s the team?” he asked, first.

“We’re down to only two active flights,” Spitfire replied, and it was much of what he already knew. “Of those, I would only consider one to be combat capable at the moment. I’ve organized training exercises to try and improve responsiveness and familiarity in combat among those still fit enough to go up against Ritterkreuz. Most of our wounded were caught in ambushes. Many of our flyers have the skills, but not the experience. Most… most signed up to fly, not to fight, sir.”

Thunderhead nodded, gravely. “One thousand two hundred and fifteen years have passed since we were first formed as a flying company. Our numbers have dwindled to as low as five members and ballooned to as many as three hundred. The Wonderbolts evolve to reflect their times and the needs of the ponies who embrace our ideals and our mission to serve Cloudsdale and the Princess.”

“Princesses,” Spitfire corrected, and her snout scrunched up a bit, “sir.”

“Princesses, yes!” Thunderhead said with a friendly chuckle. “My age must be showing. I’m so used to the one… one of these days we’ll need to amend our charter. Re-amend it, actually, since it was Princesses, then Princess, and now princesses again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Point being: that the Wonderbolts change and sometimes, those we call Wonderbolts change as well.” Thunderhead let a breath escape through his nose, just enough to curtail a sigh, and stile a glance at his broken wing. “Regardless: Ritterkreuz. We need to talk a little about her, Captain Spitfire.”

“What is there to talk about?” Spitfire asked, balancing a pair of polarized sunglasses between her hooves. “If you mean, what is our current operation against her? We’re using the Rainbow Dash option. I sent a brief to you in the hospital.”

“That’s partly the reason why I am here now,” Thunderhead replied. “This involves Miss Dash as well.”

Spitfire gave him a wary look, as if he had come to pull the plug on things. “How… how so? Sir?”

He closed his eyes, and did genuinely sigh. “This is really my fault, you don’t know. I should have compiled a brief for my replacement. If you had been promoted like I intended, then I would have told you the day you got your pin and wings.”

Spitfire’s ears perked at his admission that he had intended to promote her, but she remained cool. “Sir? What is it I need to know?”

“Roughly eight years ago, the after effects of a strange weather phenomenon were detected just outside Cloudsdale. Barometric meters and Cumulonimbus seismographs recorded the event as it stretched out over several small villages and even Canterlot itself. While dismissed by many as some sort of fluke or natural occurrence, there were many pegasus ponies who recognized the event for what it was. They understood that somepony out there, likely somepony in Cloudsdale, had rediscovered the legendary Sonic Rain Boom.”

“Rainbow Dash,” Spitfire said.

“None other,” Thunderhead replied, nodding. “The Rain Boom used to be a weapon in classical times, used to inspire one’s allies and decimate one’s enemies. Commander Hurricane himself was the last to use it in combat, and since that time is had been considered a lost skill and passed into legend. That one could occur just outside the bounds of Cloudsdale and go un-investigated is unthinkable.”

Spitfire could see where this was leading. “Who was it?”

“The Princess’s stallions got to her first, but the ones looking were the Weather and War Department’s Research Division. By the time they identified the filly responsible, the Princess already had an order issued not to interfere with her. She was part of another project, and not to be disturbed or kept from naturally developing her talents.”

“Another project. The Elements of Harmony?”

“That would fit, yes.” Thunderhead paused a moment, with that information out of the way, contemplating how best to bring up what came next. “You’re still young, but one thing you’ll learn after a few years as Captain is that the WWD is not easily dissuaded. Not even by a Princess and a secret royal decree. Research Division knew that the Rain Boom was possible, and clandestinely watched Miss Dash for many years. I’d bet they’re still watching her, even after…”

He shook his head, not wanting to fly off on a tangent. “They knew that the Rain Boom could be done and they even had an idea of how. A secret study was funded to investigate and identify other candidates capable of producing or reproducing the effect.”

“The blank slate in Ritter’s background?” Spitfire guessed, raising a hoof to her chin as she considered the implications of what she had heard. “She can’t… do it, can she?”

“No,” Thunderhead replied. “Four candidates were chosen and sent to Boom Lake outside Los Pegasus. Ritterkreuz was one, as you guessed, but all four were failures. Different attempts were made with both assisted and unassisted flight, altered control surfaces by modifying the wing, and feather enchantment and rigidity experiments to mitigate shockwaves and the imbalance of partial trans-sonic flow as a pony approaches the sound barrier. Two of the candidates were wounded, too badly to continue.”

“With the final two, a wind tunnel study concluded that the barrier could only be broken by a pony in a steep dive. The problem being that high speeds already cause a nose-down pitch and increasing negative-g loads across the entire body…”

“I’d say it was suicide, sir, but I’ve seen Rainbow Dash do it,” Spitfire stared down at her sunglasses. “At the Best Young Flyers competition. She saved my life and the lives of two others. I don’t know how, but she did.”

“Supposedly, control over one’s flight improves once though the barrier,” Thunderhead replied, but he wasn’t entirely sure himself. Except for what one pony could do, it was all theoretical.

“The last two tests… that focused on dives…” Spitfire asked, though she had an idea. “What happened?”

“They crashed, of course.” Thunderhead clopped a hoof onto the fold out table for emphasis. “The dive is impossible to pull out of, and no pony - except maybe Miss Dash - can achieve that sort of speed in level flight. There was an incident following the first two tests… the other candidate became convinced that only ‘extreme duress’ could enable a pony to pull the move off. She jumped off the cloud base, went into a dive, and died when she hit the ground.”

Spitfire was silent, her hooves crossed over her desk.

“The Princess found out, demanded that the project be canceled, and then - and this is the really unusual part - recommended that we take Ritterkreuz in.”

“The…!” Spitfire almost surged out of her chair. “Princess Celestia sent Ritter to us? I thought it was Commander Bora!”

“No. The Commander actually disagreed,” Thunderhead told her, told the new Captain of the Wonderbolts. “It came down to me: to my decision. I thought about it and about what I had been told. In the end, I sided with the Princess over my old mentor and I approved her admission into the company. I had hoped… that our values, that our ideals of teamwork and duty… would rub off on her.”

“This has been a long time in coming,” he said, rueful. “I brought this on the Wonderbolts. I wish… I could have left you more, Spitfire. A Captain should never have to pass on his failings to his successor.”

“Sir!” Spitfire stood up, and Thunderhead started at her sudden outburst. “We will look after our own, sir. And I will take care of this company. I…” She shuddered, but took a breath and composed herself as an officer shoulder. “I will take care of this matter, sir. You needn’t worry about it.”

He raised a hoof to salute, his broken wing not feeling quite as heavy as it did before he entered. “That is good to hear, Captain. Now tell me about this Rainbow Dash you’ve put so much faith in.”

Applejack’s back hit the base of the ornamental spruce, a painful grunt escaping her lips as she quickly crouched low, avoiding Dew’s hoof as he tried to punch the protective bubble off her mouth and nose. Swirling wisps of pollen circled the two ponies as Applejack kicked off and to the left, turning her back on the stallion and kicking back. Dew deftly bounced away under threat of being apple-bucked. Unlike the Element of Honesty, he had no need for a magical shield around his muzzle. He breathed the pollen as easily as Pinkie Pie did, and without the excuse of being naturally too doggone crazy for it to affect.

Blood pumping, Applejack quickly switched from balancing on her two front legs to her two back ones. Grabbing hold of the pillar-like tree, she could feel the potent mix of earth pony magic flowing through it. Horticultural specialists had only put it in the ground here this morning for the festival and all the roots were still in the ball. Yumi’s magic was flowing through it, too, and Applejack added a bit of her own. Rearing back, she slammed her front hooves into the trunk, easily dislodging it from its shallow bed and sending it flying.

“Uh!” White Dew grunted as it slammed into him, sending him onto his back.

Given a moment to breathe, Applejack picked her lasso up off the ground, the shield around her mouth flashing as it rejected the pollen that had accumulated on it. Trotting towards the downed Neighponese earth pony, she jumped back as the tree upended and tumbled like a log over her crouching form.

The ornamental tree crashed to the ground behind her, hitting another of its kin.

Applejack ignored it, spitting out the loop of her lasso and starting to spin it. She aimed for White Dew’s exposed left back leg, but he rolled away and then bounced, nimbly, to the side when she tried to catch him by the neck. The pair circled - each recalling when they had previously fought during Yumi’s pas d’arms outside town - and then Applejack growled and resumed her attack. White Dew jumped, suddenly, avoiding a crack of the lasso.

Applejack smirked to herself, bringing the loop up, wide, to catch him in mid-air--

Only to have it close around a dazed and murmuring festival goer instead. Dew must have picked her up to use as a shield! Applejack cursed under her breath, pulling on the lasso to get the bystander out of the way.

“Sorry, Flashy!” she apologized to the tipsy earth pony mare. “Shoot!”

White Dew was already rebounding back from his landing, front hooves extended to stamp down while she was distracted. Thinking quickly, Applejack spun around and her tail lashed out instead of her lasso, catching the stallion by the left hoof and flipping him head over hooves. He hit the ground, tumbled, a spray of glittery red and yellow pollen kicked up in the process, and landed on all fours. A shake of his mane, and more of the psychotropic pollen took to the air around him.

Behind him, lightning sliced down from above, chasing an erratic blur of pink.

“Stand still, Celestia DAMN IT!” Cool Breeze roared, anything but cool headed as she punched a hoof repeatedly into a large cloud floating to her right side. With every blow, the crackling cloud discharged another arcing bolt of electricity.

Pinkie Pie cartwheeled through a grove of the pollen generating trees, emerging impossibly unscathed a few seconds later as bolt after bolt struck, splitting open trunks and blasting away branches. Running straight up the trunk of one of the taller trees, she grappled onto the top, pulling it back like rubber band.

“You can’t DO that!” Cool Breeze yelled, shaking a hoof. “Trees don’t bend that way!”

“Sure they do!” Pinkie yelled back as the tree sprang straight, propelling her into the air. “WEEEE!!”

The pegasus spread her wings to fly away but was a heartbeat too slow, and the pink terror slammed bodily into her like a living cannonball. Pink and teal, they spun together like a two-toned beach ball before hitting the ground and coming apart. After tumbling and skidding across a long patch of grass, Cool Breeze finally came to stop, face-first, in the bosom of a giggly Mrs. Cake. The mare and her husband were reclined next to one another on a small rise in the property, the male of the pair intently studying a framed piece of art.

“I- I- I still don’t see the sailboat, honey badger,” Carrot Cake said with a frown. He slowly turned to his giggling wife only to gasp. “Don’t look now, dear… but you have a pony in your lap.”

“She’s so cute, too!” Mrs Cake pinched the grown mare’s cheeks.

“Get off me!” The irate Neighponese pegasus snarled, disentangling herself from Mrs Cake’s hooves. Standing back up and turning around, she barely had time to raise her wing to block something thrown at her face. It -

It splattered?

“Guess where I landed!” Pinkie Pie called in a sing-song voice, her forelegs weighed down by various cakes and pies and pastries. Not even waiting for an answer, she tossed one of the pies into the air and spun around, kicking it with a back leg before landing on two legs again.

“How do you DO that?!” Cool Breeze snarled, wings conjuring up a cloud to hide behind.

The sweets began to fly in one direction, and lightning soon cracked in response.

One of which flew wild and slashed into a wavering lavender barrier, drawing a wince from Twilight Sparkle as she struggled to hold the shield up… all while small bubbles of orange threatened to puncture the barrier entirely. It wasn’t just the infiltration of orange, either. A marble statue flew through the air and shattered against the barrier - it would have passed right through and plowed into her, if not for her seeing it at the last second and solidifying the shield. She’d have kept it solid, too, except there were trippy ponies underhoof and all around her who could get hurt in the process.

To her left, orange bubbles began to accumulate, piled one atop the other to form a wall.

Gritting her teeth, Twilight focused on pulling on just one of them. It was a lot harder to move or alter another unicorn’s shield spell, especially with so much already on her plate. Extending a hoof to help concentrate, she felt the bubble begin to give, stretching from a sphere into a distended oval, until it finally popped. The ones next to it interlaced with the original bubble, also popped, and soon half-a-dozen others fell and burst. Through the crack in the orange wall, she could see her objective: the Blueblood manor.

Through the gap, a pale mare ran through and into the shield.

“Did you find him?” Twilight asked, seeing Eunomie appear.

“Still no sign of your brother,” she replied, shaking her head but neither excited by her ordeal on the outside nor dissuaded from going back out again. “It stands to reason that, if given the opportunity by his incapacitation, our opponents would sequester him away so we would not be able to revive him. Lady Rarity is also still missing somewhere in the pollen storm.”

“And--” Twilight winced again, horn blazing bright to seal up another widening hole in her lavender shield spell. A trickle of pollen from outside managed to get inside before the gap could close, but a telekinetic push pressed it back into the inside of the barrier where it disintegrated.

Eunomie’s horn dimmed, the only clue to her participation in the move.

“Thanks,” Twilight told her, “So, no Shiney, no Rarity… what about the guy doing all this?”

“Yumi’s barrier mage has concealed himself as well,” Eunomie replied. “I suspect this was set up as a contingency beforehoof and that he or she has erected a transparent barrier to hide within.”

“A transparent barrier?” Twilight asked, gritting her teeth. “An invisible bubble, then. If only we had a general idea of where this pony IS!”

“Uh, hey?” another unicorn from one of the groups huddled under Twilight’s shield clearly overheard. She approached the two mares with a nervous, though not exactly shy, grin. A pair of tinted oval glasses concealed her eyes. “Hey there, I uh - couldn’t help but overhear. I might be able to help find this guy.”

“How?” Eunomie asked, bluntly.

“I remember you!” Twilight exclaimed, but quickly had to divert her attention to her barrier and the wall between them and the manor. “It was, um… the DJ…?”

“DJ Pon-3!” the unicorn mare said. “That’s me! My friends call me Vinyl Scratch, so - anyway, I can find this guy if you can get me my subwoofer. I’ve got a spell that I bet will work!”

“Your subwoofer,” Eunomie repeated, evaluating the DJ. “That would be with your other equipment near the mansion, would it not?”

Vinyl’s grin turned bashful. “Yeah. That’s where I was set up.”

“No pony can approach the mansion without being targeted,” Eunomie told her. “There is some sort of proximity alarm…”

“Then, might I make a suggestion?” a stallion inquired, leading over the group that had clustered around him and the DJ. Fancypants reached up to adjust his monocle. “You need a pony light on her hooves, is that it?”

“Mister Fancypants?” Twilight asked, glancing back over her shoulder. “You don’t mean...?”

“Me? No, no, no!” The Canterlot socialite reached a leg over to pat a lithe mare on the shoulder. “Fleur. Would you be so kind as to try?”

“What?” she model asked, hoof to her own chest, “…Me!?”

Fate chose that moment to further startle the starlet by nearly dropping a pegasus onto her head.

Fleur-de-lis yelped in fright and surprise as the steel plated body of a Free Company flyer tumbled through the ceiling of Twilight’s barrier, crashing just a few hoof-lengths from her nose. A dozen eyes turned upward, where the sky was now streaked by cracks of lightning and the shadows of partly gathered clouds. A few raindrops fell, through the shield, to land on noses and outstretched hooves.

Up in the air, Cool Breeze blasted through a half-formed raincloud, dispersing it and gathering a crackling cloak of lightning around her. Busy trying to wash away the pollen cloud below with a hastily improvised rainstorm, a second Free Company pegasus was caught unprepared as Breeze circled around and plowed into her. A crack like thunder split the air, and the accumulated charge instantly discharged.

The pegasus was sent flying in an arc, crashing into and through one of the manor windows.

“Ha-ha!” she snarled, rubbing her hooves against the cloud below her to build up electricity again. There was one other flyer left in the air, another steel-cuirassed company-pony, his hooves full gathering together moisture enough to form a raincloud.

“Now I’ve waahahhHH?!” Cool Breeze yowled in surprise and pain as something yanked her back and down, through the thin cloud beneath her. Lightning discharged from her front hooves, shooting harmlessly up and into the air in a wild and barely coordinated spray of silver sparks.

“Come on sugarcube!” Applejack yelled, lasso wrapped around one leg and clenched between her teeth for good measure. “Get down here!”

Still spraying lightning, Cool Breeze crashed into the tree Applejack had jumped off of, setting half the ornamental pine on fire as she barreled through branches, breaking dozens on her way to hit the ground. Applejack fell, too, but landed on four hooves and broke into a gallop, spinning around in a tight circle and yanking Cool Breeze out of the muddy ditch she had dug with her backside. The Neighponese pegasus screamed as she whirled around, hooves flying up to guard her face as she slammed into and through a sculpture of Princess Celestia’s shapely behind.

Momentarily dazed, she groaned just in time to see Applejack push aside Celestia’s broken rear end. Then the earth pony had her by the mane, and she flew halfway across the pavilion and into another exhibit. She crashed through that too, and then out the back of the tent, between a pair of battling earth ponies.

“I AM the great mighty Pie,

So don’t ex~pect to run right by,

I have here no lack of cake,

Picking a fight was a mistake!

How ‘bout a tart?

It’s a la carte!”

A whole cake exploded against the ground, sending White Dew diving out of the way of the huge, sticky projectile.

Don’t think I’ll ever let you get away!

Not when I have so much stuff to throw!

I’ll help myself to this wonder-ful buffet

And give you yours to go!

Here! Let me noose

Another mousse!

Prowling on top of the pavilion tent, Pinkie let fly another cake, this one with curiously bearing a dozen still-lit candles and the words ‘happy birthday’ on it. Her opponent couldn’t avoid this one, as he ended up in a field of pollen-loony ponies who promptly grabbed his legs and kept him from moving.

“Now I’m real~ly get~ting kind of sad!

Don’t you see this swirl~ing sea of treats?

From up on my launch pad,

I can serve up all the eats!

Have a souvenir!

It’s ginger beer!”

White Dew wiped the cake from his eyes and glared up at her. “Ginger beer?”

“Ginger Beer!” Pinkie cheered, spinning a hose around in one hoof and taking aim. “Ginger BEEEEER!”

But before she could hit him, the pink pony lost her footing as one of the poles holding up the multicolored pavilion tent gave way. Front legs flailing uselessly, and worse, spraying ginger beer in every direction, Pinkie Pie ended up taking a swan dive off the roof with a high pitched “WAAAAHHH!!”

More than a trickle of that same beer arced high over Twilight’s barrier, barely missing Fleur-de-lis as Fancypants gave her a boost by bodily hurling her out of the shield. Landing nimbly she started prancing towards the manor, a bubble filter over her mouth. The graceful noblemare and model par excellence struck a brief pose as another streak of beer narrowly avoided hitting her mane. Leaping forward like a ballerina, taking a few tiny steps and then jumping, Fleur just barely escaped an orange bubble barrier that formed beneath her.

Shying away from the barrier that now lay between her and the safety of the lavender shield, Fleur grimaced… only to suddenly hear the distinctive click-click-clicking of a camera. Turning around for just a moment, she saw Photo Finish on Fancy’s back, a camera in front of her face. Fleur’s momentary anxiety instantly vanished in the shutter light of the camera, and she zipped backwards with a flourish, avoiding another forming orange bubble.

Striking one pose after another, she avoided one encapsulating, ensnaring barrier after another on her way to the mansion, following a walkway that zigged and zagged along an erratic path that only she could see. Then, at last, she was close enough to use a little unicorn magic to scoop up Vinyl’s subwoofer. Prancing away, the barrier mage seemed less inclined to pester her on the way back to the purple shield.

Finally, the breathless model of a mare returned, carefully placing the subwoofer on the ground.

“Jolly good work, my dear!” Fancypants was the first to greet her, only for Fleur to give him a dark glare.

“You threw me, Fancy.”

“Ah, yes, quite. Was actually rather fun, too.”

The bubble over Fleur’s mouth vanished, returning to Eunomie.

“Alright, Vinyl Scratch,” Twilight said, looking behind her back. Next to her, Eunomie nodded, once, her feelings identical to Twilight’s. “Show us what you can do.”

“What I can do is lay down a twenty-hertz bass beat that you’ll hear in your bones!” Vinyl’s horn lit up and she placed both front hooves on top of the subwoofer. “Just make sure you keep that shield up! If I end up tripping out I’m charging double!” She tilted her head slightly as she reconsidered that. “Or half, depending on how I feel in the morning!”

And then her magic surged into the subwoofer and a deep rumble filled the air and rippled through the ground. Everypony near her felt it as much as they heard it, like a warble in their stomach that made their hooves tremble. It wasn’t alone, either: the subwoofer drummed out a beat to an unheard song. Twilight’s shield shook, too, vibrating slightly from the sound waves.

So did the orange bubbles around them.

So did something transparent up on the roof of the manor.

“There!” Twilight yelled, pointing up and horn fiercely aglow. “I’ve got him!”

Applejack raised a hoof to her eyes as something bright exploded - or maybe popped was a better word - to her right side, and way up. Then she turned her focus back to what was in front of her and spat out the burned remnants of her lasso. She had other problems to worry about, starting with the fires spreading around her. Luckily, she and the little firestarter who had caused the blaze in the first place were well away from most other ponies. Even the pollen-addled ponies that were up and about knew better than to get near ‘hot hot ouchies.’

Ducking away from a burning piece of debris, she broke into a quick trot, jumping in time to bite down on a straight combed blue tail. She’d done this quite a few times to Rainbow Dash, and Cool Breeze wasn’t half the flyer Ponyville’s premier weatherpony was. She tried to gain altitude, reaching for the gathering clouds overhead, but Applejack thought heavy thoughts and started to swing her lower body. Her hooves brushed the ground for just a second and it was all she needed to gain traction and, with just the muscles in her neck, flip the pegasus mare down and into the ground.

The teal pegasus glowered at her with murderous, desperate eyes.

“D-damnit…!” she cursed, trying to scramble away from the far stronger earth pony. “A cloud! I need a cloud!”

“Ain’t none of those down here!” Applejack raised a hoof to knock her out for good--

Only for an invisible force to seize her by the tail and pull her away from the pegasus!

“Suzukaze!” a stallion cried out. “Forget her! Take out the purple barrier!”

Applejack cursed as the pegasus took off, laughing.

--only to be intercepted by a pink blur from out of nowhere. “BANZAIII!!”

“Get off me, you lunatic!”

Slamming back onto the ground, Cool Breeze grabbed a hoof-full of pink mane, tucked in her legs and kicked, sending Pinkie spinning through the air --

“Watch it!” And right into Evening Squall as he started throwing more orange barriers, both towards Twilight - now almost at the face of the mansion - and up into the air.

“What is this, Pinkie Pie Pinball?” the party pony bounced off the unicorn’s side and scrambled around and between his legs, avoiding an enveloping orange barrier. Grabbing onto his left front leg, Pinkie made a little jump, not into the air, but onto the stallion’s back, still holding one of his front legs behind his head. His horn flared as he began building up magic for another barrier, but hesitated with how she was practically clinging onto him.

“Gotcha now!” Pinkie giggled.

At least until Evening Squall reared up, and eschewing magic entirely, fell onto his back, crushing her under him.

“Oh oh,” she muttered as the ground shot up under her.

“Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!” Applejack cursed, hooves full subduing a flailing Cool Breeze. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a dirty and pastry-stained White Dew jumping from one falling orange barrier bubble after another, higher and higher, towards where the sole remaining Free Company pegasus had almost finished preparing a rain cloud to start washing away the pollen.

“Get her!” Cool Breeze yelled, one of her hooves pressing into Applejack’s eye and dislodging her Stetson.

White Dew jumped, hooves outstretched.

Only to stop in midair as a long pearl white ribbon wrapped like a starving snake around his left hind leg. Eyes wide in determination and frustration, foiled by just how close he had come, a grieved yell escaped White Dew’s mouth. And then the ribbon tugged, hard, and he fell back down to earth.

Still struggling in Applejack’s hooves, Cool Breeze sneered, bearing teeth, as she saw a pony emerge at the other end of that ribbon. “How? You didn’t have…!”

Rarity ducked her head as the ribbon, torn from her own dress, retracted back into a neat ream.

Around her mouth, a blue bubble protected her from the pollen storm.

Applejack whistled and laughed at the sight. “Well I’ll be a horse’s--”

“Don’t finish that,” Rarity interrupted, ribbon lashing out again.

Cool Breeze snarled like a cornered animal, flapping her wings and twisting around, bringing Applejack between her and the incoming spool of magical fabric. It weaved right around the apple farmer, who let Cool Breeze go, and then corrected course, heading for the pegasus again. Yelling now, the Neighponese lightning-trained mare skipped back on her hind legs, juking to the size to avoid one snap of the ribbon and then taking into the air to avoid the next. Then she slipped into a tight nettle of ornamental trees and the ribbon quivered… extended as far as it could go.

“I suppose it would be too much for the same trick to work twice,” Rarity said with a huff.

“You’ve got no idea how glad ah am ta see you, sugarcube!” Applejack saluted the unicorn mare. She turned back to the copse of trees. “Go help Pinkie Pie. Ah’ll keep this one grounded.”

“Don’t count us out yet!” Evening Squall rolled a bubble barrier away towards the two mares, a trapped Pinkie Pie inside. She seemed to be altogether enjoying being a gerbil in a ball, scurrying in place.

“We are the chosen retainers of Yumi-hime!” White Dew agreed, also standing up. Despite the literal pasting Pinkie Pie had given him, and despite being body slammed into the ground just a moment ago, he was practically unscratched, compliments of his enhanced earth pony vitality and healing.

“We won’t fail her!” Cool Breeze burst out of the trees, plowing right into Applejack rather than even trying to get around her. The force of the impact sent the apple farmer stumbling back, closer to where Rarity stood.

Pinkie Pie’s bubble had stopped too, and she had struck a pose to make some sort of determined declaration… except the bubble muted her, so no one heard it. Seeing everyone stare at her, the party pony sighed and unrolled a piece of paper from her tail. And then a crayon. Sitting down, she hastily scribbled out a note and boldly pressed it up against the barrier.

“Is there any apple bread left?” Applejack read, and the five gathered ponies leveled a half lidded stare at Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie quickly turned the note around.

“I’ll never give up!” Rarity read. “Much better.”

Pinkie turned the note around again.

“But, seriously, is there any apple bread left?” Rarity read that, too. She hung her head in undisguised exasperation. “Oh, Pinkie Pie…”

Evening Squall, however, laughed. “What she’s saying makes sense you know!” he yelled, tiny orange bubbles circling his horn as he extended a hoof. “Wishing for apple bread is all any of you will do once I have you in one of my--”

A large white hoof grabbed him by the wrist and lifted, until the stallion’s foreleg rose over his shoulder. “Barriers?”

“Tch!” Evening Squall clucked his tongue, looking back at a freshly revived Shining Armor, an anti-pollen bubble around the guard captain’s mouth. “So they found the bush I tossed you behind.”

“Thanks to Twilie and her friends, they did.” Shining Armor’s eyes glowed in tandem with his horn. He raised his voice to shout, “You two finished out there?”

“Just about!” Twilight called back, and she and Eunomie both ran up, levitating twin clusters of picked pine cones. “Between the ones Rarity got, too, I think we’ve got them all!”

It was then that, through the haze of pollen, the Neighponese trio noticed that the ornamental trees were all bare. Some were still on fire, a few others knocked down or uprooted outright, but there wasn’t a single reddish pollen-spewing pine cone left. Overhead, a raincloud rumbled, waiting for the signal.

Cool Breeze recovered first, glaring past Applejack at Rarity, the mare who had first humiliated her at the pas d’arms, back when they’d first visited Ponyville. “All this time, you were…?”

Rarity’s magic brought up another thin line of ribbon, dotted by dozens of impaled pine cones. They had been neatly threaded and plucked and now hung like beads on a gossamer necklace. Once detached they were a colorful, but harmless, ornament themselves.

“I think I might hang these over my door for hearth’s warming,” Rarity said with a knowing, confident smirk. “They’re actually quite beautiful when not poisoning everypony.”

“You guys are surrounded,” Twilight added, scowling at the foreign-born ponies.

“I’d listen to her if I were you,” Shining Armor agreed, and with the trees de-coned, finally released his own shield spell. A similar purple barrier expanded out and away from him at the epicenter, crackling and hissing as it slowly neutralized the particulate pollen cloud. Unlike Twilight’s barrier, that disintegrated the pollen on contact, Shining’s merely pushed it all back while canceling out the spell within each particle. The barrier expanded enough to engulf the entire festival and beyond before petering off.

The air cleared around them.

Revealing the large, wooden, snarling visage of an alpha Timber Wolf, the trunk of it alone large enough for a pony to live in. Parts of the nature golem looked chipped or damaged: there was a long black streak burned along one leg and a crack in the cheek below one eye smoked with more of the same green inner fire that smoldered within the eye sockets. In the distance, now made visible by the dispersal of the cloud, the hills between the manor and Ponyville - at the very least - were a battle between yet more of the wolves, tiny at this distance, and fast moving specks in the sky.

“Oh. I wasn’t aware they grew that big,” Twilight stated, fascinated by the slowly approaching behemoth.

The massive Timber Wolf opened carriage-sized jaws, a blast of hot breath visible in the air.

“Study it later, darling!” Rarity called to the pair. “Sir Armor, would you please remove that beast from my yard?”

“Right!” Shining Armor let go of Evening Squall and met the charging Timber Wolf with a wall of magic.

The fight wasn’t over yet.

Rainbow Dash rolled halfway into her dive and pulled up and into a bank of wild clouds.

Laughing like a madmare, Ritterkreuz followed right behind, a series of explosions shredding the cloud to pieces before she even came close to it. She rolled herself, curving around to the side and gaining altitude as she passed by a cyan streak. Her foreleg came away from the brief dust-up with something attached.

A dark black cloud hugged her right hoof, and a second later, it began to unload pulses of lightning into her body. For a second, Ritter’s wings froze up along with half the muscles in her body, but she only fell a pony length or two before reasserting control. Rainbow Dash was already circling her at high speed, throwing a second cloud to stick to Ritter’s back left leg. A third followed seconds later, latching onto her right shoulder.

Grabbing onto the cloud behind her shoulder with her left hoof and biting down on the one around her right hoof, Ritter began to rip them free. While she did so, however, Rainbow Dash blasted away and into another wild cloud. She quickly returned with more charged material to throw. The next one, Ritter saw coming and tried to swat away with her wing. Except it caught there, too, and a fresh round of electroshock therapy began.

Roaring as the current tore through her body, Ritterkreuz suddenly lunged. Dash stopped to throw, and crashing right through the charged cloud - letting it stick to the side of her face - the big gray mare seized the Element of Loyalty by the throat. Using the very same hoof Rainbow Dash had first ensnared. The pulses now found two bodies to torment instead of just one, and Dash screamed as the two plummeted, wracked by shocks that arced between their bodies and out into the air in dancing forks of lightning.

A thick canopy of branches and leaves and webs cushioned their crash and tore off the electrostatic clouds, but also ripped away feathers and cut lines in their skin. Rainbow Dash just barely managed to angle herself so they both hit, side to side, instead of her underneath. She tucked in a hind leg, placed a hoof against Ritters’s midsection, and pushed, again and again until she came free of the other mare’s grip.

Hitting the ground and rolling on her side, her wings spread to catch some air and keep her from slamming into anything worse than just the ground. They were in or near the Everfree now, opposite the Rambling Rock Ridge, which meant there literally were much worse things to crash into.

She pushed herself higher as a roaring gray form passed below her.

Ritter’s hoof slammed into a tree behind Dash, taking a chunk out of it like Pinkie Pie would leave a perfect, circular bite-mark on a whole cake. Enraged at missing her target, Ritterkreuz still had the presence of mind to spin with her missed blow, the tip of her wing brushing by - and catching - Dash by her long, chromatic tail. The freakish thing about Ritterkreuz was that, even with just one wing, she had more than enough strength to manhandle even another Wonderbolt.

The large gray wing snapped back, and Dash felt herself reeled in like a minnow on a fishing line. She slammed bodily into the ground and, as Ritter fell onto four legs again, the former Wonderbolt’s wing snapped in another direction, taking Rainbow’s tail - and the rest of her - along for the ride. Covering her face with her forelegs, Dash plowed into another tree, bounced off, and then crashed into another, and then a third…

Until, finally, the hairs in her tail had enough and tore apart.

Ritterkreuz glared at the hoof-full of ripped off hairs, red and orange and yellow and green, still gripped by her wing. Sniffing disdainfully, she discarded them and stalked through the brush in the direction her prey had ended up thrown. While she did so, she also reached up to her face to tear away the cloud that was still stuck over one eye and still blasting her with lightning. Ripping it away also removed all the eyelashes over her left eye and a few strands of her lime green mane.

“This isn’t hide and seek, Rainbow Dash!” she snarled, utterly unconcerned by any injury she could have caused herself.

Jonquil gold eyes narrowed in disgust as one of her hooves came back coated in mud.

“A swamp?” she wondered, surveying the bog that lay through the bush. Thin riparian trees, distinct from the thicker forest conifers, lined and demarcated raised areas above water level. Reeds and thick blankets of slime and moss dominated everything below that level, water-logged and mired except for a few tufts of tall, hardy grass that clung to life, floating on the surface.

“YAAAAHHH!” The cry preceded a pony-like form emerging from the muck, swinging a piece of flotsam like a baseball bat. The old wooden log shattered on contact with Ritter’s rock-hard skull and her wing flexed, an explosion sending both mares flying apart and into the fen.

Galloping for the water, Rainbow Dash and Ritterkreuz both dove in to try and wash the mud out of their wings. At the same time, both breeched the surface of one of the medium-sized pools - the ones more mud than mire - and flew right at the other. Dash, the quicker, got the better of the first clash, turning and bucking Ritterkreuz in the ribs. The big mare nearly hit the water again, but a single flap of her too-large wings kept her aloft.

Her feathers vibrated and the explosions began again.

Rainbow Dash banked hard as a series of the blasts etched a sloppy line along the shore of the largest blue-green lake. Messy chunks of mud and reed rained down, but both mares ignored the property damage as Dash found a floating sedge mat and, skimming close to the surface, ripped away a chunk of the floating ecosystem to hurl at her opponent. Predictably Ritterkreuz blasted it to smithereens, but in blocking her view, she made it harder for her to see Rainbow Dash reverse course and plow into her.

The two mares skimmed the surface of the lake, skipping like stones as Dash tried to push her opponent back into the water. Ritter’s wings made a widening streak against the surface of the lake, ripping through another thick mat of floating moss and grass and even a small tree. Back out over the water for a second after that, they twisted up and into the air, still wrestling.

Below them, the surface of the water exploded as serpent-like head and a fat round body emerged. Another head followed the first, and then a third, as the Hydra, disturbed by all the movement on the surface, zeroed in on the culprits. Two stubby legs pulled the stump-like body of the creature halfway out of the swamp, and four long necks extended upwards, flat, armored heads snapping at the coiled gray and blue streak.

An explosion deflected one of the jaws and the monster howled in anger and pain.

Then the streaks came apart, gray chasing blue, as they wound around the side of the creature. Water cascaded into the air from another blast, a brief rainbow lingering in the air before being blown away, too, by another explosion. One head chased the gray streak and another the blue, but when the two pegasi began twisting around each other both ended up momentarily tangled.

Roaring, the remaining two heads directed the body further out of the water while spinning around. Rainbow Dash saw a raw red mouth open ahead of her and cut in towards the wall of light brown that was the monster’s thick torso. Ritterkreuz also ignored the Hydra’s snapping, and a trio of explosions missed the evading weathermare, one hitting the monster’s body and another two a pair of long necks. Dash weaved through them, like swaying trees, and out the other side. Ritterkreuz was right behind her.

Skipping across the surface of the water, she purposefully kicked up a long trail of droplets behind her as she circled wide around both Ritter and the Hydra. These, the former Wonderbolt ignored, and Rainbow Dash grinned to herself. Her tail snapped, cropped and messy though it had become due to the other mare’s rough treatment, and a long rainbow trail developed in her wake.

A bit of magic, and the rainbow itself solidified.

Rainbow Dash pulled up, sharply, and the rainbow itself came with her, detaching from the surface of the lake. Another of the Hydra’s heads ducked down to intercept her, but Dash made a deft corkscrew, winding around and avoiding the hungry jaws. The Hydra’s head produced a guttural growl as it missed its prey, and then found itself caught in a vice of rainbow magic. Another head swooped down, snapping hard and fast to catch her in mid-air, but it was a heartbeat too slow, missing the pony and tasting the rainbow.

Rainbow Dash pulled up and then into a wide dive, wrapping a loop around the Hydra’s neck; banking and weaving between the other two… she kept going until her hooves skipped along the expanse of the monster’s back. Galloping, now, she pulled the rainbow taut and zipped across its back, past its flat tail, and then under its legs. Letting the rainbow go as it became too tight to keep holding onto, she turned around and saw a gray streak pick up where she left off.

Grabbing onto the exposed end of Dash’s rainbow trail, Ritterkreuz banked left and around one of the beast’s legs. It twisted painfully and the monster’s four heads all howled in mutual panic. With a warble, the unbalanced monster fell onto its wounded side and rolled, like a pig in the mud, back and into the safety of the water. The heads were frantically biting at the other heads, now, trying to free each other as they all slipped beneath the waves.

Gliding down to a patch of bushes, the two pegasus ponies watched each other warily, trying to catch their breath. Both also kept an eye on the lake nearby, just in case the Hydra came up for a second round.

Ritterkreuz laughed, suddenly, ripping a sprig from a nearby bush. It was ripe with reddish-orange berries nestled between small jagged leaves dotted with burgundy, and she tossed it at her opponent without warning. Dash caught the sprig, but eyed it with some trepidation.

“Cloudberries,” Ritter said, plucking a fragile branch from the bush and sucking up a half dozen of the berries. “They taste a little like apples.”

“This is the Everfree forest,” Dash reminded her. “I wouldn’t eat the grass out here. It’d probably try and eat me.”

Ritter shrugged.

Not one to let even an unspoken challenge go, Rainbow Dash went against her own advice and ate one then another of the berries. They were tart and juicy, and they didn’t immediately shrink her or grow another head, so she cleaned off the rest of the branch in a hurry. It was just a quick little snack, but it felt invigorating to have something in her stomach. Even though Soarin had always said not to eat during a flight… or, presumably, a fight…

“I used to know a pony who could make these into a drink,” Ritterkreuz said, momentarily ignoring Dash to look out over the still lake. “It was good, too. Stupid bitch should’ve told me how she did it before she died.”

“She a friend of yours or something?”

Ritter glared at her in response.

“What?” Dash asked, tossing aside one sprig to pull out another. The leaves weren’t that great, but the berries were alright. It was kind of a waste that they grew out in a swamp of all places. Most sane ponies - minus Fluttershy - avoided swamps like the plague.

“She wasn’t a friend,” the gray mare explained, reaching up to the mess around her left eye, where she’d torn off the static cloud. “She was… just somepony I worked with, once.”

“And what job would anypony hire you for?” Rainbow Dash asked, and Ritter smirked at the insulting tone. “Demolition? Insurance fraud?”

“Actually, Rainbow Bitch…” She pointed at the weathermare. “Our job was to copy you.”

Dash spat out a berry and nearly choked on another. “W-what?!”

“It was supposed to be a secret, but what the Pony Hell? I’m a wanted mare anyway, so I’ll tell you.” Ritterkreuz shook out her mane and, in the process, stretched her neck and shoulders. “After you did that first Rain Boom of yours, those old farts in Weather and War decided they wanted to be able to do it, too. I got picked up for it. They let us get away with just about anything to try and make our own Boom. It was me and three other mares. Two of them washed out quick, but this other one…”

“Merry Weather,” Ritter said the name with a scowl. “She was an idiot. Merry thought only a moment of extreme stress could give a pony the rush she needed to make a Rain Boom. But she was wrong, and it cost her… her dumb life.”

“That doesn’t matter anymore, though!” The former Wonderbolt spread her wings and with a single flap, took to the air in an effortless hover. “We’ve had a real fun time, but I want to see your Rain Boom again. This time, I’ll wreck it… and you.”

Rainbow Dash sighed, throwing away the branch she had been nibbling on.

“Don’t hesitate!” Ritter goaded her on, and grunted. “Maybe I’ll have to tell you something, then, to get you properly riled up. All this time, and back during the other fight, too… you must have been watching my wings and how I can use them to make explosions? My Galloping Grenadier. Sometimes I’d use my left-” She flapped her left wing for emphasis. “-and sometimes I’d use my right.” She flapped her right.

“What do you think happens?” she asked, rising up a little higher. “When I use both at the same time?”

Dash recalled an explosion large enough to level half a dozen trees, sending them flying like toothpicks. She had been flying away from the madmare at the time - it hadn’t been possible to see which wing she had used for that massive blast. She also hadn’t seen whatever Ritter had used to demolish half the quarry outside town. Was it possible that she had done both of those things with just a single wing?

Ritterkreuz flapped her wings, but the motion was different than before. It was like the difference between a pony walking along at a casual pace, and a pony actually working hard to gallop. She could feel it in her ear: the air pressure was rising. They were at sea level with the swamp, and Ritter was changing the air pressure around them by flapping her wings. Gone was the grin on her face, replaced by a look of concentration.

‘It would take a dozen weatherponies to affect such a large area! Is this the radius of the explosion she can cause?! It was bad enough before! I can’t let her get anywhere near anypony else like this!’

Rainbow Dash took off, and the disgraced ex-Wonderbolt followed.

Shining Armor’s shield began to crack as the Timber Wolf battered at it with swiping claws and furiously snapping teeth. The golem itself was taking far more damage than it could mete out, but the pieces that broke off - dozens of root-like teeth, shards of bark and hardened claw, even an entire shattered leg turned to a stump of vinelike ligaments and wooden muscle - all regenerated nearly as quickly as the damage appeared. Just touching the stump to one of the de-coned trees, the Wolf absorbed it, branch and trunk and root, forming a new replacement leg.

Behind him, Twilight levitated White Dew, the earth pony rendered helpless by unicorn magic, only for her to end up knocked off her hooves by a speeding Cool Breeze. Applejack danced away from Evening Squall as he started throwing around formed barrier bubbles instead of just making more. Sweat had matted his two-toned red mane, now limp around his straining horn. Like all of the Neighponese trio, they were nearly exhausted, but fought on regardless, calling on the last few dregs of stamina.

Almost a hundred ponies watched the fight from the relative safety of the manor steps, most having recovered their wits enough to either get out of the way or be herded out of danger by one or more of Ponyville’s Elements of Harmony. Unseen by all, one pony watched with a frown from behind one of the manor’s large windows, up on the third floor. The female changeling in the guise of Prince Blueblood narrowed ‘his’ eyes at the battle, her mind on another contest, out of sight.

‘These damned wolves…’ she thought, as Shining Armor pushed the largest one of them all back with his shield, trying to remove it from the castle grounds. ‘Don’t tell me those two grubs haven’t caught Yumi yet? You’d think the Queen would have sent competent changelings to escort her pet pony around. I gave them Blueblood’s entire guard! Just where are they?’

A pie splattered against the window and started to slowly creep back down, leaving blueberry in its wake.

‘Things are a mess down there. I’m tempted to… no. Our intelligence is that Blueblood, despite this teleporting ability he’s recently developed, isn’t a fighter. He wouldn’t get involved, so it would be suspicious if I did so.’

Snorting, the false Prince turned from the window and walked away.

Down below, Rarity yipped as a thick mass of wood and brush flew from the side of the alpha Timber Wolf, crashing at her hooves. Two rolls of fabric floating to her left and right, one white and torn from the side of her dress and one blue, formed from her own mane and tail, she backed away from the knot of wood as it developed a quartet of limbs and a pair of glowing green eyes.

“Oh! I’ve heard about Timber Wolf reproduction via architomy!” Twilight remarked, taking a second from firing streams of purple energy from her horn at the flying Cool Breeze. “They use asexual fragments called polyps to--”

“How do we stop it?” Rarity cried, hastily wrapping the proto-wolf up in white cloth. “Twilight! How do we stop it!!”

“I - I, uh, I’m not actually sure!” The studious unicorn babbled. “I think I remember them being a colony organism, so, um, uh… capable of… of… morphallactic regeneration… and, uh…!”

“Equestrian, sugarcube!” Applejack pounced, knocking her friend out of the way of a stray lightning bolt. She gave the unicorn a quick shake. “Come on, you got this!”

“S-s-sectioning, won’t work… fire, no… OH!” Twilight gasped, eyes lighting up. “OH! I’ve got it!”

Applejack helped her up, and nodded.

Twilight ran over to Rarity, yelling, “Rarity! Lift it up! Into the air!”

“What? This little brute?” Rarity gestured to the struggling Timber Wolf polyp she had trapped. The little wood and shrub monster was snarling and struggling against its fabric prison. Frowning at the creature, Rarity willed the cloth up into the air, taking the just pony-sized Timber Wolf with it.

“What now?” Rarity asked, glancing around and wary of the ongoing melee around her.

“If I remember Biruni’s Blue Book of Bizzare Beasts, the polyp should have--” She reached for the snapping baby Timber Wolf, recoiling at its toothy little jaws. A bit of magic, and she forced the mouth open. “Here!”

She reached in, extracting a leafy green briar, like a thorny nut.

The rest of the Wolf continued to struggle… for only for a few seconds. Then it went limp.

“Whatever is that thing?” Rarity asked, releasing the body of the Timber Wolf polyp from her fabric prison.

“This is the actual polyp that broke from that,” Twilight explained, pointing back at the huge Timber Wolf her brother continued to struggle with, now with the help of two errant Free Company ponies, the pegasus from before and a newly arrived stallion. “If I dropped it and let it hit the ground, it would reform the body back there around itself. All we have to do is…”

“Is this?” Rarity asked, cutting off enough white fabric to encapsulate the polyp. Testing the theory, both mares watched as Twilight dropped it onto the grass.

The tightly wrapped polyp vibrated, shuddered, but then went motionless.

“Wa-ha-ha!” Rarity clopped her hooves happily. “So,” she said, turning to the big one. “We just need to do the same to that one, then?”

“Actually,” Twilight replied, with a groan. “That one probably had dozens of polyp colonies.”

Rarity moaned and fell dramatically onto her side. “Of all the possible things!”

“We’ll need to break the big one apart and just keep trying to find the polyps inside, isolating every single one until it can’t reform,” Twilight explained. “All while fighting off these other ponies and maybe any other ones that break away, too.”

“MAKE WAY! COMING THROUGH!!” Pinkie yelled, racing between the two mares with a table full of food over her head.

Evening Squall, her target, whirled around just in time to see what was coming. “Not more cake!”

Too late, Pinkie upended the entire table over him. “Say hello to my little friend!!”

“That isn’t little at all!” Whether it was the cake, or the heavy wooden table he was more afraid of, neither unicorn could guess. Given that Pinkie Pie then began bouncing up and down on top of the overturned table, it was probably the table.

Twilight and Rarity were still debating just where to head to next and how, when they overheard voices from the ponies by the manor. A dozen of them were pointing up. Rarity and Twilight were about to also look up, when Cool Breeze crashed do the ground behind them, certainly not for the first time…

Only this time, she didn’t get back up.

A red and orange dragon, twice as tall as a pony, also landed near the fallen pegasus mare. He snorted a gust of fire above a mouth full of mismatched teeth, displayed by a prominent overbite. The flying silhouettes of a hoof-full of other dragons crossed the sky, and one followed the red drake down. Purple with a bright green frill of round scales, sporting small wings with green membranes that seemed utterly inadequate for keeping him in the air, this particular dragon was immediately and instantly recognizable.

“Spike!” Twilight called, and conjured up a catcher’s mitt of magic when she noticed he was coming in at a high speed. She stumbled back as he landed, face first, in her magical field.

“Spike?” Rarity asked, slowly smiling as it proved to be him.

“Still… need to work on landing,” he muttered, rolling out of Twilight’s magical grip and onto the ground. He rubbed his squished nose with an errant claw. He hadn’t grown much, except for the wings. “Geez, I guess I’m the new Rainbow Crash now…”

He laughed, nervously, as he stood up on his little legs and looked up at the two mares.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, pointing up at the two other dragons overhead, not counting the one on the ground. “But I brought some friends over? I think they’re, um, friendly dragons or something now? Or at least they want to see Ponyville for themselves.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at that. “How’d you manage that? A friendly dragon, huh?”

Rarity ‘hmm’ed as the red one and a large brown dragon mobbed the alpha Timber Wolf.

“Rather useful, I’d say,” she concluded, and bent over to give Spike a quick kiss on the cheek. “Welcome back, Spikey-wikey. Your timing is impeccable!”

The little dragon swooned, a goofy smile on his face.

Twilight patted him on the head, affectionate but not up to trying to top Rarity’s kiss. “Now we just need to--”

A faint tremor passed underhoof, and both mares looked up towards the horizon, and the outline of the Everfree forest. They were just in time to see a rising plume of ash and fire, tiny from so far away, but what must have been massive to see from miles away. A strange glow emanated from the blast, and then something streaked against a rising hill, shearing a glowing line across it, like a knife drawn fast over a sheet of paper.

“W-what on Equestria was that?” Twilight gaped, but then her eyes tightened. “It came from the Everfree.”

Rainbow Dash could actually see this Galloping Grenadier as it moved through the air: a lumbering, flickering cannonball of compressed air and fire. Wings slanted, she rushed from it as far as she could, and the shockwave from it still buffeted her and sent her careening through the air out of control. Half her body turning numb, Dash felt a much more acute pain. Tiny bits of debris from the ground had been ejected from the explosion below, and had hit here even a race-track’s length away.

Below, trees were flattened in a perfect, smoking circle, an expanding ring of dust and leaves and dirt and forest debris roiling through what was still standing. As the pressure shifted, that ring of debris lifted off to hover, ghost-like, in midair over the crushed forest and swampland. Part of the circle of destruction had included the edge of the lake below, and water rushed in to flood the slightly depressed earth, turning dirt into soggy mud.

Shaking her head in dismay, she turned to the sky and flew higher.

Ritterkreuz gave chase, but she seemed to be moving slower than before. Turning around while letting her momentum carry her on course, Dash quickly saw why - the crazy mare couldn’t both fly at top speed and compress enough air for her two-wing grenadier. Not that she even needed to fly that quickly when she could just rely on the air-blast’s ludicrous radius to knock anypony and anything out of the sky.

Facing forward again, she accelerated, climbing even higher… towards the sun. This was another bit of practical advice Soarin had taught her. Disappearing into the sun, he had called it. A pony could keep her back to the sun, too, but that was for attacking. Even Ritterkreuz wouldn’t be able to see her target when the sun was in the way.

Not that Dash expected a lack of ‘seeing’ something to keep Ritter from trying to blow it up anyway.

Reaching her apex, she turned nose-down and dived at top speed. The sky shuddered and roared seconds later as the massive grenadier exploded high in the air. Not only had it overshot, but the extra speed of the dive and the fact that it had been fired upwards all gave the weathermare more time to get out of range. The shockwave buffeted here again, but there was no debris this time, and it was too far away to be a threat.

‘Now I just need to figure out how to get away from the next one, too!’ she thought, but chuckled to herself. There were a few wild clouds far to the left of her, but up ahead was a cloud depot just stuffed full of mass produced clouds, some still with the Cloudsdale tag on them.

She’d called in a few favors with her friends the other day.

What she needed now was difficult: delicacy.

Flying into the neatly packed rectangular grid of labeled clouds, Dash began to kick, scattering the ones in the center into smaller packets. Others, she hit with the back of a leg as she flew by, sometimes once or twice, but didn’t disperse. Looping out of the formation again, she caught sight of Ritterkreuz approaching and drew her into firing a third grenadier clear. Using another well-timed dive, Rainbow Dash escaped the blast wave from that one, too.

‘That’s two!’ she told herself, pulling up and into the now slightly scattered grid of clouds. ‘I don’t have enough altitude for that trick again!’

Hitting more of the clouds as she flew past, Dash saw Ritter watching her with fascination… and annoyance. This wasn’t the move she had demanded to see.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Ritterkreuz growled, and this time only used one wing.

It was the regular grenadier, the fast one, and it caught Dash unprepared.

The cloud she had just passed by came apart and the blast nearly bent her wing backwards. Still, she recovered, pushed herself harder, and flew by another trio of clouds, kicking one into pieces while hitting the other two in passing. Growing increasingly annoyed, Ritterkreuz’s left and right wings alternated now, unleashing a machine-like barrage of Galloping Grenadiers, blowing apart clouds and exploding in a cascade of fire in the air, a patch of destruction just behind a high speed cyan blur.

“You destroyed all my hiding spots!” Dash yelled, hooves clutching her mane in panic.

“I told you to hit me with your Rain Boom!” Ritter roared, slowly turning to keep Dash in sight. She flapped both wings, the air pressure in front of her rising in a little point of compressed fire and wind.

Rainbow Dash just kept circling, and praying that Ritterkreuz didn’t fire that grenadier off in the direction of town. It wasn’t good being this close. They were literally as far from Ponyville as Dash could’ve had these clouds moved and that was still uncomfortably close. The potential victims probably wouldn’t even be on the ground. With the way she was circling around Ritter’s axis, it would more likely be Ponyville’s relatively few cloud homes that got demolished. It was better than the town below, though. Dash shuddered. All that was a worst case possibility.

Ritterkreuz, so far, hadn’t killed even one pony. Not a Wonderbolt and not a civilian, though she had terrorized more than a few… apparently mostly stallions. Stallions who then described the frightful encounter to their irate marefriends, so, based on that and a dash of her own judgment, Rainbow Dash was fairly certain Ritter wouldn’t just level half the town out of spite. Probably.

‘Do you want me to blast the town instead?’ Was what she almost expected the big mare to say, even if it was a hollow threat. Instead, true to form, Ritterkreuz just growled, spinning faster to get a bead on her one and only target.

She was smarter than she looked, too, as she paused and led Dash zip around her back.

“What the hell is this?” she asked, not even bothering trying to follow Dash’s circular flying. “This wind… you’re making another tornado?”

At that point, any sane mare would probably have flown away.

Any sane mare would have seen that her opponent was up to something and decided to put distance between them.

Any sane mare would have tried to counter the move with something of her own.

‘But I’m not dealing with any sane mare,’ Dash thought, and Ritterkreuz began to laugh.

In a matter of seconds it was too late for her to do anything, anyway. By then the winds had picked up and taken on a life of their own, swirling around the former Wonderbolt and stretching vertically, both upwards and downwards. The tornado was up and running, the largest Dash had ever created. She put more and more pegasus magic into it, going faster and faster until she reached her limit. Even she couldn’t get nearly up to Rain Boom speeds while circling something.

‘I could probably lift Rarity’s boutique out of the ground with this twister!’ Dash felt a spike of pride at her accomplishment. ‘Do you see this, Soarin? You’re out there watching, I’m sure of it. Well, check this out and make sure you tell Spitfire, too, and all the other Wonderbolts! Who made this totally awesome, super tornado? Rainbow-freaking-Dash that’s who!’

Ritterkreuz remained in the tornado, eyes darting as she tried to keep track of where Dash had disappeared, deep into the vortex of winds. The tornado was getting thicker and thicker as it gained strength, and as the former Wonderbolt looked up, she could see that the funnel had tapered to a point, closing off any exit from the top. Likewise, she saw that the bottom was also now a dead end.

A quick Galloping Grenadier exploded against the swirling wall of wind, doing no damage to it.

“This isn’t the Rain Boom,” she said, her grin reappearing. “But it’s fun, too! Are you trying to lock me up in here?”

“Nah!” Dash’s voice came was distorted by the wind and her speed, still circling around the big mare. “What good would that do?”

“Not much, though I’d hesitate to use my full powered grenadier inside here,” Ritter explained. “Are you trying to tempt me into blowing myself up?”

“Nope! I’ve got another idea!”

“Yeah?” Ritterkreuz’s eyes lit up as she saw it, too. “OH HO! I see! I see!”

The darkening of the tornado wasn’t just due to the wind.

All the clouds from the depot were being sucked in, too. The tornado turned a smoky white and then it began to buzz, like a chorus of crickets. Brief white and yellow flashes crackled along the interior of the funnel, a product of all the micro-clouds rubbing up against the larger charged cloud packets. All were caught in the dynamo-like vortex, generating ever increasing amounts of electricity.

It wasn’t long before they began to discharge. A bolt missed Ritterkreuz by a few hoof-lengths, but another hit her in the side a second later. Flying away, she dodged another shock, but as the walls of the tornado widened, the ceiling and roof of the enclosure came together, trapping her in a vice. The tornado was almost like a capacitor in the making, as it turned into a whirling saucer, very wide and very thin. Soon, it would almost come together, and there wouldn’t be anywhere to go or anyway to avoid the lightning.

Rainbow Dash was still circling the warped tornado, her wings straining with effort.

“So far, so good! Any second now she should--”

The tornado swelled, strained, and exploded.

In the epicenter of it all, Ritterkreuz hovered with wings fully extended, legs tucked in around her face and vulnerable stomach. Her entire body was blackened, her gray coat tarred by streaks of ashy slate. Her mane and tail, scored and torn, crackled with static electricity. Slow moving fragments of cloud and gusts of encircling wind still clung to life, orbiting around the mare and seething with lingering charge. The air around her was a ruddy russet red, so tightly packed with dissipating magic it could be just barely perceived with the naked eye, almost to the point that it matched unicorn magic in thaumatic concentration.

“Is that ALL?” Ritterkreuz trumpeted, feathers falling away from her as she hovered.

Her eyes narrowed to slits and her grin grew wide enough to bare teeth when she saw a blue speck heading towards her. The disgraced Wonderbolt licked her lips, guessing that the entire point of the tornado trick must have been to soften her up and keep her from forming a full power grenadier blast.

“SEE! Much better than rocks!” Ritter laughed, her bruised wings beating, fast, rapidly forming a new full-power grenadier. “Come on!”

Jasmine colored eyes watched the blue speck, now surrounded by a cone of water vapor.

‘That’s it,’ she thought, no more time for words. Everything around her began to slow, thoughts racing as she prepared for the one instant she’d have to act. ‘She’s approaching the barrier. I know that cone. She’s doing it.’

The grenadier began to fluctuate, releasing a droning warble.

‘Her wings,’ Ritterkreuz remembered. ‘I need to wait for the front of her wing to break the barrier, but not the back. I’ll hit her in the split second the Rain Boom forms around her center of gravity! That split second is...!’

Ritterkreuz saw it.

Suddenly flying backwards, both of her wings came together, propelling her galloping grenadier. The sphere of compressed air and fire shot forward, and Ritterkreuz waited a full second before snapping her wings back and lunging forward. It wasn’t a full powered grenadier - it couldn’t be, not this close - the full powered shot was already too slow, and a big blast would only knock the two mares apart. To beat the Rain Boom was to strike a blow that was both precise and overpowering.

The cone of Rainbow Dash’s forming Rain Boom hit the grenadier and detonated it prematurely.

Which was exactly why Ritter had flown back before releasing it. The shockwaves across Dash’s wings were already too much for her to maneuver with. When the pressure from the explosion surrounded her, wrapping around her with the ring of the blast, she crumpled and spun out, nose down and head over hooves. A ripple of rainbow light spread away from her and then cracked, shattering into shards of dazzling multi-colored magic.

“YEESSS!!” Ritterkreuz howled, already rushing in for the kill, one hoof reared back to deliver the final blow. ‘The Sonic Rain Boom is broken! Do you see that, Merry Weather, you idiot? Do you see that, Soarin?! Make sure you tell Sparky and the other Wonderbolts! Tell them that I beat the Rain Boom! Tell them no pegasus is the equal of Ritterkreuz!!’

Except, just then, Dash tumbled forward and her wings snapped out.

‘Her wings - her wings were tucked in?!’ Ritter realized, committed to her lunge. ‘The bitch tucked in her wings! She broke her own Rain Boom!!’

There were exactly ten pony lengths between the two mares.

‘She can’t possibly gain enough speed in that little space,’ Ritter told herself, still closing in. ‘No pony is that fast!’

Yet, impossibly, a vapor cone began to form around Rainbow Dash, and a prismatic wave began to flow around her periphery.

‘The bitch is actually doing it!’ Ritterkreuz realized with a spike of panic. ‘I should… I should alter my course. Try and avoid her. Come around from behind with a grenadier. At least I could slow myself and create a packet of wind to absorb her Rain Boom. I should…!’

Ritterkreuz mentally kicked herself.

‘What am I thinking? Avoid it? ... Cushion it?’ She roared, spittle trailing from the corner of her mouth as the deluge of rainbow light became all she could see. ‘Break against me or kill me. There is nothing else.’

The two came together in a blast of wind and magic and light.

Rainbow Dash regained consciousness as she fell.

She could feel the wind at her back, and up in the sky… there was only the blue expanse, marred by faint remains of destroyed clouds. It took a second - a very long second - to piece together the last few conscious moments of her life. The tornado. It should have killed virtually any pony, but she had known Ritterkreuz would somehow still survive. The crazy mare was like an earth pony with wings. She was like an angry, psychotic Big Macintosh with wings… in estrus. She’d still been flying, even after tanking that insane tornado.

Which was why Rainbow Dash had never intended to rely on just that one move. Soarin had said it before, so many times, in training. It was the second principle of the Dicta Boltcke, the document that was the foundation of air combat, written by the founder of the Wonderbolts himself. “Always continue with an attack you have begun.” Of course, the fifth rule was always to attempt to attack from behind and to avoid a head-on-head clash whenever possible, but - well - Dash had to admit she had a hard head for rules and books. One out of two principles wasn’t bad.

She briefly closed her eyes, remembering the clash.

She had built up speed, felt the Rain Boom form around her, and noticed Ritterkreuz also attacking. Some sort of instinct had screamed to tuck in her wings, to try and absorb the blast that had to be coming. The explosion had washed around her as she fell through it, like a needle through a bull’s-eye. Then - then everything had gone white, until it all turned into noise and pain.

Eyes snapping open, Dash spun around. Wings angling back, she dived, searching for and finding a gray body in free fall. Ritterkreuz was limp as a rag doll and falling fast. Dash pushed harder to close the gap between them, vapor collecting around her shoulders and outstretched legs.

Eyes also open, still conscious, Ritterkreuz saw it, too.

‘Ah. Stupid… Rainbow Bitch…’ she thought, amid the fog of agony that was her broken body. ‘What is she doing? You don’t need to chase after me anymore. You got me. Just relax and watch me fall. Idiot.’

She willed her wings to move, to try and form an explosion, but they were totally numb.

‘Stupid wings. I guess I’m spent. Sorry, Rainbow Bitch, I would’ve liked to blast you one more time, just for being so damn persistent.’ She saw Dash reaching for her, the sky far above them. It was impossible to see the ground, but it had to be close.

‘I’d kinda hoped to die in the air. Splattering against the ground like an egg somepony dropped? Just like Merry Weather.’ Ritter closed her eyes. ‘Oh well. Sorry, Blueblood, you prissy idiot, I guess you’ll have to watch your own back again. Spitfire… Sparky, I guess I’ll see you in Hell. We can do a Cloud Carver down there, if they have clouds in Hell, which they probably don’t. I’ll make some, in case you show up. Fluttershy… you’re probably the last pony who’ll end up in the fire, but if you visited me, too, I guess I wouldn’t mind. If you can help out that runt, once I’m gone, then that’d be perfect.’

The wind was deafening, now.

‘Come on, earth. Come on, ground. Give me a hug, you rock hard bitch… catch me one last time…’

A mare’s cry drowned out the wind, and Ritterkreuz felt her body lurch. Everything seemed to shift around her. Eyes opening, she saw the sky, and more than that, she saw colors: all the colors of the rainbow. They were flapping in the air, garishly painted on some mare’s mane, and they were etched onto the sky just behind them. The ring-like wave of rainbow light spread, slowly, across the sky at a low altitude just above the trees.

‘That light... is that…?’ she closed her eyes again. ‘Fuck me.’

Soarin landed just moments after Rainbow Dash dumped Ritterkreuz onto the grass outside the Everfree forest. He had been watching from afar, and despite what some Wonderbolts may have wanted, he had tried to dive in after the two mares had collided. In the end, he had been too slow.

He had needed to stay far away.

It would have been too tempting to get involved, especially when it looked like Rainbow Dash was in trouble. Only distance had let him keep a cool, detached confidence. When Ritter had begun using those larger explosions, he had… he had almost broken his word. There was no need to tell anypony that, however.

“You did it,” he said, awed.

Motionless at their hooves was Ritterkreuz. The mare who had disgraced and terrorized the Wonderbolts. Entire squads had failed to bring her down. Looking down at the grim, bruised and bloody pony, a pair of hoof prints pressed into her chest, Ritterkreuz looked… almost asleep. Almost at peace.

Then she grabbed his leg.

“GAAHH!” He recoiled, jumping into the air.

Coughing up berry coated phlegm, Ritterkreuz gave an inarticulate snarl and reached upwards with a trembling hoof. “R-rr-aa--!”

“Give it a rest, would you?” Dash said, and kicked the gray mare on the side of the head.

Ritter lowered her leg, and, eyes open and lucid, stared up at the blue sky. The Rain Boom was still expanding, lighting up the sky even as it began to dissipate.

“Why?” she asked, after a few labored breaths. “Why didn’t you let me fall?”

Rainbow Dash stood over her, haggard and bruised, but still ultimately standing.

“Because,” she told the beaten mare. “I wanted you to see a real Rain Boom. You wanted that, too, didn’t you? Here it is.”

Ritterkreuz’s brows drew together in a pained frown. “I wanted to break your--”

“What I hit you with wasn’t a Rain Boom.”

The former Wonderbolt’s eyes fixed on the weathermare. “Eh? But--”

“I tried to hit you with the Rain Boom,” Dash admitted, and turned her eyes upwards. She pointed up, too. “See for yourself. There’s only one ring. If I’d hit you with the Rain Boom, there would be two.”

Ritterkreuz blinked, her confusion at war with the default anger bubbling up from inside her crushed body.

“Like I said, I tried to hit you with one.” Rainbow Dash ran the hoof she had pointed up with through her matted, filthy mane. “I really did. I was scared. Scared like when I first had to fly away from you. But I couldn’t do it. It was sort of close, but it wasn’t a Rain Boom.”

“So…” Ritter groaned, forcing her eyes closed in shame. “You beat me, even without the Rain Boom. Is that it?”

“That’s wrong, too.”

Rainbow Dash collapsed onto her side next to the fallen Wonderbolt.

“You said you’d tried to copy the Boom, and you thought it was a weapon, right? Like your Galloping Grenadier?”

Ritter slowly opened her eyes again. “…yes.”

“How do you know the Rain Boom is a weapon?” Dash asked, simply.

“I - I…?” Ritterkreuz stammered, a strange, disconcerted look on her face. “I thought…? We thought…”

“I think the Rain Boom is something you use to save ponies' lives, not take them,” Dash told her, and gently poked the beaten Wonderbolt with a hoof. “Just like I saved you.”

Ritter didn’t respond, preferring to shake her head in dismay.

“Soarin? Do you have my saddle bag?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Toss it here. Gah! I’m injured you know! You could at least have tossed it under-hoof!”

“Oops!”

“Let me see… let me see… ah! Here it is!”

A picture suddenly filled Ritterkreuz’s vision.

It was a picture of her: a few years younger, at a race track. The lithographic print had captured her racing towards some goal, grinning confidently. Her wings were spread wide, not in malice, not to use her grenadier, just to push forward, whether her opponent was another pony, or just beating her own best time on the clock. The print read: Squadron Four, Rookie All Star. Ritterkreuz.

“You recognize this trading card?” Dash asked, holding it over the beaten mare’s face. “Check it out. Mint condition, too! Almost mint. Maybe there’s one or two stains. Anyway! This!” she said, shaking the card slightly. “This is who you were to me. I looked up to you. I still sort of do.”

Rainbow Dash placed the card in Ritterkreuz’s hoof, patting it to make sure she had a grip on it.

“I’m letting you borrow this,” she said, and spread her cyan blue wings. “Once I’m a Wonderbolt, once I’m Captain of the Wonderbolts, you can give it back to me. I’ll fly with you.”

Ritterkreuz closed her eyes again.

“Soarin? That honor of the Wonderbolts stuff… I was kinda wondering if…?”

“I’ll probably get yelled at, but I never was good at saying ‘no’ to pretty mares. We’ll see how your way works.”

The pair took off, vanishing into the clear blue sky.

Her leg and hoof unsteady, Ritterkreuz brought the card back up, staring hard at it.

‘You can give it back to me. I’ll fly with you.’

Letting her hoof fall across her chest, still holding onto the card, she muttered a soft curse. There were tears in her eyes, and she didn’t have the strength to wipe them away.

“Spitfire’s gonna be pissed you let her go like that.”

“I know,” Dash said, her wings struggling to keep her up. She’d put up a particularly tough front, but it was all she could do to get out of earshot of the fallen Ritterkreuz. “Ugh…”

She felt something warm slip up under her, and a moment later Soarin was beneath her, carrying her through the air. Blushing, but making sure he didn’t see it, she wrapped her front legs around his neck. She’d seen Pinkie lying on the backs of one of her stallion-friends and it had always looked a little fun, not that she’d ever want anypony to think she needed to be carried around. Letting her wings fold up on her sides and rest, though… was pretty nice.

“I guess getting chewed out is better than what you went through,” Soarin reasoned, not that he really had to bother. “So this is the least I can do.”

“Just this one time,” she told him, still blushing into his back, “Since you’ll feel guilty if I don’t play along.”

The two flew for a few seconds in silence.

“You were pretty awesome back there, you know.”

“I know! I was!”

They laughed… until a flash of light briefly blinded them.

Stopping in midair, Soarin shielded his eyes. Still holding onto him, Rainbow Dash did the same. The eyes of the two pegasus ponies just barely caught the source of the light: a tiny flickering lance of fire out on the other side of the Everfree opposite the town. It vanished for a heartbeat, and then returned, piercing the forest with a hellish glow.

From that pinprick, everything seemed to leap up and into the air, an instant before a bright pure-light - not fire, but something else - expanded like a bubble. It wasn’t like Ritterkreuz’s magic, both ponies could see. It was more like a unicorn barrier, expanding outwards and simply disintegrating everything in its path or sending it flying. The barrier wasn’t dome shaped, though… it was, itself, coming apart as it spread.

“It’s a shockwave!” Soarin realized, gaping in wonder. “A magical shockwave?”

“From what?” Dash asked, and no sooner did the light fade there, than it erupted far to the left.

“There!” Soarin yelled, pointing.

A rise of hill was now glowing. A yellow-white blight was spreading there and upward, slashing across the hillside. It took a moment to process - to realize - that it wasn’t just a color of magic. A spray of bright red droplets flew from the conflagration of yellow, bright and hot like sparks from steel striking flint. The analogy was surprisingly apt, as Dash and Soarin both noticed, at the same time, that the yellow was not just a fading magical aura.

The slash on the hill itself was yellow: melted, molten yellow, rapidly cooling to orange.

Fire burst out around the slash in the hill, and in the cleared space there, it became clear that a line had been cut into the hillside. A tree tumbled into the gap, falling its entire height downward before hitting the bottom and catching fire. The air around it wavered, mirage-like, from the heat.

Then, impossibly, a flickering light like a star shot back to where the first blast had come from. It was fast - faster than a pegasus could fly, almost too fast to see - and its passing left a faint light trail in the sky. It was no coincidence. There was no mistaking it.

There was something down there.

There was something terrible down there, on the outskirts of the Everfree.

Author's Note

This is, by the way, the longest chapter in This Platinum Crown, at around 19k words.
And we finally got some action! Who doesn't love some action?

I've altered the description of the fic, too, as some may have noticed. This is to better reflect the direction of the story as a whole and because we are entering the final phase of the fanfic. My thanks and appreciation go out to all my readers who have stuck with me in TPC for what will be about 400,000 words now. I suppose, like many authors, I feel the need to contribute my epic-length fic to the fandom. This is a nice little milestone, though! I hope you'll be there for the final chapter, too, when I get there.

And special salute to Jorlem and Ponydora, for giving me some proofin' and pre-readin'

Chapter Thirty One : Escape

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Escape

The sky was overcast as the sun began to set, pregnant clouds spreading dark tendrils on wild northern winds. The curtain on high began shedding a slow but steady trickle of flurries; Chalice, second daughter of the proud Terre Rare family, wrapped her cloak tight with a stray hoof, mindful not to dirty the soft black trim of the warm garment. It was of griffin make, tough and fit for use on the road and well-made to protect against winter chill. Leather and leather-worked products were one of the great exports from the griffin people into Equestria, where so much of the wildlife had been ‘tamed’ and thus made unsuitable for… well… that sort of enterprise.

For those who lived in colder climes, it was a comfort born of necessity. Not everypony could be a magically insulated Pegasus. Chalice’s constitution had always been more delicate than her sisters’ – Polished Jewel, despite appearing the very picture of a svelte and delicate noble mare, had no problem braving the biting cold that could settle over much of Prance and Germaney. Antimony, too, though only a young mare out of fillyhood, had a proper constitution: their father’s constitution. The two sisters Rare were like bears, but the middle daughter was not so blessed. She shivered and caught cold too easily.

It was just one weakness of many to plague her, it seemed.

Her hooves made soft crunching sounds as she and her escort rounded one of the castle turrets. The stone provided a bulwark against the wind, and Chalice’s ears prickled at the sound of excitable barks and yips. She glanced to her side for a moment, reassured by the presence of her companion, Virga.

Good, proud, Virga, her personal bodyguard and closest friend.

As far back as Chalice could remember, Virga had always been by her side and always would be. Just as Antimony had Gewitter, Polished Jewel had Marin, and Alpha Brass had Sirocco. All four were bound mares in service to the Terre Rare dynasty and her father, the Great Duke, Lord Cruciger. They were bodyguards for his children, to serve and protect them at all times and in all things: stalwart companions that could always be relied on. They were, perhaps, the greatest gift the noble Lord had ever given his progeny.

Virga was a large, muscular pegasus mare of mixed Germane and Marabian-Equestrian stock, with a short snout – more square-ish than rounded – and coal black eyes. Her mane and tail were a close-cropped yellow-gold and her coat a muted dark-blue. She was not wearing armor today, only the distinctive crimson dolmen that was common among those who served the Terre Rare house. Virga, like her three sisters, would not be winning many Equestrian beauty contests, but she was as well trained as any guardpony in Equestria or beyond.

Chalice recalled, as a young filly, watching her playmate train under the claws of griffins and the iron-shod hooves of veteran ponies. While she and her sisters learned court politics, geography, economics and etiquette, Virga had learned to fight and kill. Yet she had always been gentle and kind towards Chalice. The two had been friends and companions since their mutual youth. She had to think hard to remember a time when Virga was not a part of her life. Virga’s mother had guarded Cruciger himself, and she had given birth to her daughters at the same time Chalice’s mother, Twinkling Star Light, had foaled her own children. Jewel had sometimes whispered that their bodyguards were their half-sisters, and it was possible. Their mother seemed content with the arrangement, no matter how it came about.

Chalice returned to the present as she saw her brother and Sirocco by the pens.

“Brother!” Chalice greeted him, raising a hoof.

“Chalice!” Alpha Brass replied, motioning her closer. “Come. Come!”

Her brother was still a handsome stallion, though in the twilight of his teenage years and already married to Lady Olive Branch. He wore no cloak, unlike her, though a brown scarf was wrapped around his neck and shoulders. It lacked his usual flair for finery, gold in particular, the better to match his coat and mane. He looked up at her and smiled, though the expression didn’t quite reach his turquoise eyes.

He was seated on the hardpacked ground, running a hoof along the back of one of the barking dogs that surrounded him. It turned a large, black and gray head to lick him affectionately, and Alpha Brass chuckled. When he stood, he was only a hoof or less taller at the withers than the dogs around him. Equestrians were ‘little ponies’ as it was said, and these were good sized dogs. They weren’t the largest Chalice had seen – her father had a pair of guard dogs taller at the shoulder than most all of his subjects – but they were close, and there were five of them.

At least they seemed friendly.

“Chalice,” Brass said again, beckoning to her. “Don’t be afraid. These are my girls,” he explained, tousling the head of each dog in turn. “This is Pride. And Fearless.” He patted two of the dogs, ruffling the cropped ears of the latter one. “Pursuit and Harrier,” he continued, turning around to indicate two more of the dogs. “And that one over there, the lazy one, is Tigress.” Tigress, a large mastiff with the lightest gray coat and white tipped stripes along her sides, perked up at the sound of her name, though she still remained reclined by a large wooden crate.

“You’re Fearless, right?” Chalice asked, as one of the dogs sniffed her, front and back. Chalice gently patted the big black hound from shoulder to flank. Her coat was short, furry, not quite like a pony’s. She was a little surprised that they didn’t seem to mind the cold.

Fearless appeared to finish her inspection and moved quickly to Virga. The pegasus bodyguard raised an eyebrow at the canine inquisition but remained silent and cooperative. The other dogs soon approached to smell their master’s new guest.

“Looks like you passed the test,” Brass said, cryptically, his smile widening slightly. “I’m glad.”

“Test?” Chalice asked.

“Nothing you need concern yourself with,” he assured her and motioned to the fourth pony present. “Sirocco?”

“Yes, sir?” Sirocco was, like Virga, another of the family’s hoof-picked bodyguards. Her coat was a dark blue, like Virga’s, but her mane and tail were a platinum-blonde and her eyes an alert, inquisitive shade of green. She was a little smaller in pure body mass than her sisters Gewitter and Virga. Marin, Polished Jewel’s personal guard, being the largest of the four, as befitted the oldest sister guarding the oldest child of the Terre Rare.

“I wish to take a short walk with my little sister,” he informed her. “Why don’t you and Virga catch up a short distance behind us?”

“My lady?” Virga asked Chalice’s permission.

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Chalice asked, still enjoying the attention of her brother’s hunting dogs. She giggled when one, Pride she thought, licked her chin. “Brother and I won’t be far ahead of you.”

“Yes, my Lady,” Virga replied with a nod, and smiled to her sister at last. “Sirocco.”

“Virga,” Sirocco answered, also grinning happily, relaxed.

Alpha Brass whistled, three quick notes, and the dogs hurried to follow him. Chalice tightened her cloak around her and followed as well, quickly catching up to her older brother. Three of the dogs quickly fanned out as they entered the woods adjacent to the castle, sniffing and searching for anything potentially interesting.

“They’re handsome dogs,” Chalice said, eyeing one that remained nearby, protective of her master. “They don’t seem like one of fathers’ breeds?”

“No,” Brass replied, his smile faded but still present. “All five are hunting dogs from Whinnychester. Mastiffs. Specially trained. Very loyal and more pack oriented than the big dogs father prefers.”

“Were they a gift?”

Nobles would often make gifts of dog breeds native to their domains, especially hunting and tracking dogs. Their own father, Lord Cruciger, had occasionally given one of his prize dogs to allies or exceptionally loyal or accomplished subordinates. It was a token of great affection. Many nobles, especially stallions, loved their dogs and hawks almost like children. Quite a few never went a day without a loyal hound by their side.

“I had to purchase them, actually.” Brass didn’t frown, but there was a note in his voice that Chalice recognized. “For a rather exorbitant fee.”

So, they weren’t a gift. Making another noble pay for a dog, or a litter of dogs, implied that the other party did not wish to make an enemy, but also that he or she did not consider the other pony a friend or ally. It was a step up from a rejection, though.

“It was worth the price,” Brass told her, and his smile briefly seemed to become a smirk. “They have keen noses, strong legs, and stronger jaws.”

“I wasn’t aware there was sanctioned game to hunt here? Aren’t all the animals tamed?”

“Some of the most dangerous game these days is indoors, in plain sight, not in some deep forest,” Brass said it with a growl, but then he sighed and shrugged. “I keep them mostly for company, of course, but they can intimidate potential troublemakers as well.”

“I suppose I could see that, yes.” Chalice was not a big pony, herself. Any one of her brother’s dogs would be frightening, growling and bearing all those sharp teeth. Five would be frightening, indeed.

“I’m glad you came, Chalice,” Brass said, flashing that smile of his: the sort that seemed so confident, like he knew things nopony else did, hinting at just a little bit of mischief and mystery.

“I am, too,” she replied, but her ears folded back at the context of her statement. “I wish it was under better circumstances, big brother.”

“Yes, that business I heard of.”

“Before I get into my problems, though, you – Brass, is there something wrong?” she asked and he raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Wrong?” he wondered.

“Well, I… I don’t mean to pry,” Chalice muttered, even though she very much did mean to pry. It was one of the reasons she had come to visit him. “But shouldn’t you be with Lady Olive Branch? You said she isn’t here, and… and um… father… father, I assume, is probably wondering…”

She took little steps as she stammered, hooves touching nervously.

“He’s wondering when I’ll get Olive Branch pregnant,” Brass finished for her, and Chalice nodded meekly, embarrassed.

“She’s mother’s age, you know; it isn’t quite so easy as he thinks,” he explained, his eyes taking on a hard edge. “Mother knows I’m not sterile. I’ve been through the tests and the genealogists. We all have. But Olive…? Olive is a special case. No. I’m afraid I would not expect nieces or nephews any time soon if I were you.”

“Why not?” Chalice asked, not quite following. “We’ll need an heir to replace… um… not ‘replace,’ but… to succeed Lady Olive Branch. And you always said you wanted children…”

“Euporie and Eunomie are my step-daughters,” he reminded her. “They will be my only children for the foreseeable future. It hardly matters,” Brass assured her, and his smile was gone, replaced by a serious, neutral look. “I will have control of the borders, the colonies, the seas and the reach. Children would make it easier to solidify my claim, but I have other ways of making ponies bend the knee and the neck.”

It was her father’s look, then, on her brother’s face: the smile was gone, replaced by edged steel. Cruciger was like iron, hard and brittle, uncompromising. Brass was softer, more pliable, at least at first. But he was not brittle, and he did not break. Instead, where Cruciger would snap and rage, his son would bend and then, without warning, snap right back into place. It was little surprise; he took after his mother more than his father in many respects.

“Do not concern yourself over me, Chalice. I have things well in hoof,” he promised her, facing forward. One of his hunting dogs growled and sprinted off into the bush, kicking up a frosting of snow that had settled on the forest floor. “Tell me: what happened with Lady Slatestone?”

“Oh! That? That awful, good-for-nothing mare!” Chalice growled, though it came out as more of a callow huff. “You know about how she promised a title to anypony who could deal with those griffins and diamond dog bandits along the border? I know news of it must have traveled far and wide by now.”

Brass nodded but let her continue.

“Father has us in this… this accursed race to ‘earn’ a Barony and become his successor. Lady Slatestone must have heard of it. I’m sure, now, that she baited me from the very start, that cruel… nasty mare.” Chalice shook her head, angry but poorly equipped to properly vent it. She settled for kicking a rock, and it rolled lazily a few hoof lengths. “It makes me oh so angry.”

“So I see: you are a veritable paroxysm of rage.” Chalice frowned at him, and he smirked in the effort of making good cheer.

“I hadn’t had any luck at all until then,” Chalice continued her tale, rolling her eyes. “So I thought this business with Lady Slatestone could be just the break I needed. Once I had some land under my hooves again… I… I could do something! It would be a step in the right direction. So I took Virga and all the ponies I took from father when I left, plus those I managed to pick up over the last year and a half. These were ponies who believed in me. I even hired a small free company, out of what little I had.”

Chalice sighed, sadly, hating having to retell her failure.

“We had success, at first. More due to Virga than anything I did,” she admitted, hanging her head. “She was the one who really led them. She fought with them and she coordinated the scouts and the searching. She was the one who found where the thieves were hiding: in an old gem mine. It made sense, too, since – you know – diamond dogs, and we learned that one of them was running things. Most of the griffins roosted outside.”

“I mostly watched,” Chalice said, still ashamed. “I’m no good in a fight. You know that. Virga did everything. We captured the griffins and ransomed a few of them. Two had bounties that helped offset the cost of things, but it was just a few drops in the bucket. There was nopony to pay for the diamond dogs, and most of the griffins had no family or clan to pay for them. I tried to negotiate with Slatestone, but she said she would have to charge me to hold them! I did the job for her, to get a title, and she just kept writing me letters about… I don’t know! It didn’t even make sense.”

Chalice looked up, and her eyes narrowed in a scowl. It was hardly a very dark look. Mostly, she was just upset and sad at how things had turned out: that she had been betrayed by a pony she had trusted and believed in.

“I didn’t know what to do, and the longer I held onto them, the more gold I lost. The free company ponies all left as soon as their contracts ended and as soon as they realized there wasn’t any more ransom bits coming in. They wouldn’t even hear my offers. I finally told Slatestone that I’d hold the prisoners myself, to keep the lands safe, for a castle or a keep and some lands. Like she promised!”

“And?”

“And she lied!” Chalice cried, turning to her brother for help or advice or just some sort of explanation. “She lied to me! She said the job wasn’t done! That there were more bandits somewhere else and that I had to cross the border to catch them, too! I can’t believe she used me like that!”

Alpha Brass nodded, slowly, letting out a breath that turned visible in the cold air. “Our family has a long memory. Slatestone and her daughters and her daughter’s daughters will be punished for her deception, in ten years or a hundred.”

“That doesn’t help me now, though,” Chalice cried and groaned as she walked apace with him. “I’m almost out of bits. My ponies are still loyal, but I can see that they’re tired and hungry. I can’t even treat them to good food and drink anymore. What kind of a leader am I? Polished Jewel and Antimony must be laughing at me, even now.”

“I just,” she stuttered. “I just can’t fathom why Slatestone would do this to me? What did I ever do to her to deserve this? I helped her! She looked me in the eye and she lied to me.”

Brass was quiet for a moment, stepping carefully over a small stream.

“Chalice,” he finally replied, glancing back at her as he helped her over the water. “You are my little sister. I love you. You are kind and caring and gentle, all very worthy traits, but you offset them by being…” Alpha Brass sighed softly and shook his head. “By being weak, Chalice.”

“I know,” Chalice said, bitter. “I know…”

“Knowing you, you very likely marched those prisoners of yours off to some far off location and set them free.”

“I sent them on a train to Bitaly. The diamond dogs there agreed to take them and put them in the mines.”

“Yes, and who paid for that?”

“…I did.”

“And do you know what Antimony or Jewel would have done?” Brass asked, though the question was entirely rhetorical. They both knew, because Antimony and Polished Jewel were their father’s daughters. Everypony knew what Lord Cruciger did to bandits.

“They’d have worked out a deal beforehoof to transfer the prisoners to the deepest pits in the darkest mines,” he said, his voice hard even though his hoof was gentle in helping her over the stream, like a true gentlecolt. “Probably in the griffin lands. It would be a short life of hard labor. The ring leaders would have been executed to make a point.”

“In fact,” Brass continued, thinking again on it. “Jewel would have done that. Antimony, on the other hoof, would probably have had all of them killed on the spot, pickled the bodies and string them up just outside the Equestrian border. She does seem fond of making examples of those who threaten her.”

“And is that what you would have done?” Chalice asked, looking him in the eye. “They were bandits and thieves. A few of the Diamond Dogs even tried to trade in pony slaves. Would you have killed them, big brother?”

Brass offered her one of his knowing smiles. “No.”

Chalice smiled back at his response, as if vindicated.

“I’d have released them in Lady Slatestone’s keep, to deal with as she pleased.”

“You wouldn’t!” Chalice argued, as the two laughed. “The small ponies could be hurt.”

It was the universal rule all nobles knew to abide by: no matter what they did to each other, none were to disturb the peace and harmony of the common pony. To do so would be to incur the wrath of the Princesses themselves. The two nobles passed by one of Brass’s dogs, barking at some critter cornered under a tree stump. One dog was barking and digging to get at it while a second was sniffing around behind the stump for another way in. Alpha Brass whistled to them, and they immediately abandoned their prey to attend to their master.

“You’re right, of course,” Brass said, affectionately patting one of the dogs with a stray hoof. “You put yourself in a bad situation, but were I in your horseshoes, I would likely have magnanimously handed the bandits you caught over to those they victimized. Perhaps even whipped them into a little frenzy with a few choice words. If the small ponies kill them, then the problem is solved. If the small ponies lock them up, then they pay for it themselves. If they let them go, and the raids continue, then the fault is theirs and not yours. No matter what, your duties are fulfilled, your name known, and the blame shifts from you to others, especially Slatestone, who would be forced to intervene. There is advantage to be had in any situation, no matter how dire.”

Chalice pursed her lips in thought. “Give them to…? I guess… but wouldn’t--”

“More importantly,” Brass interrupted. “The prisoners were not even the real issue at hoof. The moment Slatestone turned on you, you should have crushed her. Hers is not a name to fear. Hers is not a great house. You must understand, sister, that one’s image is a weapon as great as any magic.”

“You think I should have dueled with Lady Slatestone?” Chalice asked. “But she’d beat me.”

“Even if you lost, you would have defended your honor. It wouldn’t have helped you this time, but it would have made later betrayals less likely.”

The timid mare shook her head. “Slatestone wouldn’t have done what she did to me to Antimony. Or Jewel. Or you.”

“Of course not,” Brass replied, and he reached out to lift his sister’s chin. “Jewel has a legion of ponies chomping at the bit to defend her name and honor. Our baby sister Antimony terrifies grown stallions with her eyes. It is one of the reasons why they work well together… one is the carrot and the other the stick.”

Chalice frowned, knowing there was no place for her in that dynamic. Soon after the contest between sisters began, Antimony and Polished Jewel had struck up some sort of arrangement. Jewel already had a small keep of her own, and Antimony to act as her enforcer. The youngest daughter of the family was still a filly, just barely in her teens, but she was said to have a reputation… nopony crossed her. The free company ponies that had abandoned Chalice would have fought each other to work under Antimony.

“Don’t fret,” Brass said, kissing her on the forehead, just to the left of her horn. “It is only a matter of time before they rip into each other.”

“How do you know?” Chalice asked, blinking.

“I know, because I have made arrangements,” he replied, returning to his walk. His hunting dogs hung around him, huffing and looking up to the golden pony. “I suspect Polished Jewel was the one who put Slatestone up to this scheme. You see, she wasn’t betraying you, so much as she was currying favor with our older sister.”

“What!” Chalice snapped out of her momentary daze, running up to him. “Are you sure?”

“Certainty is rarely a sure thing, but I would place money on it being her doing,” Brass answered, shrugging as if it was just business as usual. “Antimony is a possibility, too, but so far everyone expects Jewel to be father’s successor. She is the oldest.”

Chalice followed her brother in silence until they began heading back to the castle. Everypony thought Polished Jewel would be the successor – that she would be the one to take Canterlot for the family. Chalice could see why. Jewel was the pretty one. She was sophisticated and beautiful and stallions who heard her voice were enchanted by it. She was gregarious and outgoing and ponies loved her, great and small. It didn’t hurt her that, traditionally, it was the eldest who inherited. Her magic wasn’t weak, either. It was all just so much… so much in her favor… it seemed too unfair.

“Brother?”

“Hm?”

“Do you think Polished Jewel will win?” Chalice asked, though she trailed a few steps behind him.

He craned his neck slightly, and glanced back at her. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Really?” Chalice asked, hopeful.

“She is the obvious choice,” he admitted, facing forward again as he spoke. “Like the racer who emerges first out of the gate to take an early lead, exhausting herself in the process. What she has done is make herself a target. She has gathered a great many small favors and, in doing so, she’s become confident. Too confident. Small favors will not earn loyalty. Loyalty comes from taking risks with others. When other ponies risk much to ally with those who oppose her, gambling their future on the long odds, those will be the ponies who will decide the succession. They will fight because they cannot afford to fail.”

“I don’t understand,” Chalice admitted. “So, um… a few allies, who can’t afford to let you down... that’s better?”

“You’ve seen it yourself. The ponies who came with you from the start are still with you, while the ones you paid for with mere bits have left. Fair-weather friends have their uses, but friendship… the kind that develops out of necessity and mutual interest and opportunity… that friendship is magic, and it can move heaven and earth.”

“But,” he hastened to add, glancing back at her and motioning her forward. “I know you didn’t come all the way out here to listen to your big brother lecture you. You want help. If the choice is between you, Antimony, and Jewel, then there is no choice at all. It was always my intention to support you as heir.”

Chalice smiled broadly and hastened to walk alongside her brother again. “What should I do?”

“You don’t have the sort of forceful personality that works for duels,” he said and she retreated into her shoulders a bit. “That isn’t a bad thing. You are kind, Chalice, but timidity will not earn you favor with father.”

“But you can help?”

“I can help,” he promised. “I recently acquired a certain artifact.”

“An artifact?” Chalice asked, intrigued but a little cautious. “Where--”

“Mother restored it, actually. It is part of your inheritance.” Brass chuckled and explained, “No doubt you’re thinking: if mother restored it, then why do you have it? I anticipated you coming to me and arranged for it to disappear.”

“You stole it?” Chalice was scandalized, and deep down, a little afraid. “From mother!?”

Lady Twinkling Star Light was, first and foremost, a researcher and arcanist. She had never been all that close to her three daughters. Cruciger raised his girls, and Star Light raised her son. Not that Chalice ever remembered her mother being cruel. Chalice had fond memories of her mother… but, most of the time, she was isolated and distant. Not emotionally distant, really, just physically. For most of Chalice’s foalhood, she had only really spent one day out of the week with her mother in any real way. Her father had been the one who taught her and raised her and saw to her education.

“The torc was always meant to be used by you, Chalice. After the heir was determined,” Brass said, snorting dismissively. “Mother restored three in total. One for each of you.”

“What about you?” Chalice asked him. “Don’t you get… one of these… what was it?”

“Mother dubbed it a ‘star key,’ and no. It isn’t meant for me.” His expression was carved from steel again, his eyes fixed forward. “They are meant for Princesses.”

“Oh.” Chalice wasn’t sure whether that fact upset him or not. It was hard to tell, with stallions… even with her big brother. Her big brother and best friend. She had always been closer to him than to her sisters, and the same in reverse. Yet, lately…

“Is it a weapon?” she guessed.

A tiny pull at the corner of his mouth drew out a smile, but only for a moment. “It is a… means of communion.”

“Communion?”

“Yes,” he replied, moving ahead. “Chalice, you never really grasped this… but I’ll tell you again: you are the strongest of us. Your potential is greater than Polished Jewel’s, greater than Antimony’s, despite her eyes. There may be only one mare in the world who is your equal. The problem lies in drawing out your power and fashioning it into something productive.”

“This… communion will draw out my power?” Chalice still didn’t quite understand.

The wind blew, revealing the cutie mark beneath her cloak: a golden cage.

An empty cage.

“Chalice, my sweet sister.” Alpha Brass chuckled again. “It will make you into something this world has not seen… in an age or more.”

“Now, little sister… open the bars of your golden cage.”

It was terrifying.

Fluttershy didn’t have any other word to describe it.

She’d been hesitant about following Chalice from the start. She probably wouldn’t have dared to at all if not for Angel Bunny’s insistent poking and prodding and her promise to Rarity. A gendarme, her, of all ponies? It was just silly. Rainbow Dash and Applejack were the right ponies for this sort of thing. Fluttershy knew she had only been included because it would be rude to exclude her. Rarity was their friend and they were all happy to support her, even if it meant taking a small title and a little more responsibility around town.

No pony had said anything about this!

Fluttershy whimpered as the air rippled, sending chills along her back and down her wings. It wasn’t a normal cold, like from a chilly wind or a high altitude. This wind set her hair on end and made her eyes water. Hiding her head under her hooves, squeezing her eyes shut tight enough to clamp in the tears, Fluttershy tried her level best to melt away and disappear into the foliage and forest detritus.

‘Like a chameleon! I’m just a chameleon! Please don’t see me! Please don’t see me! Please don’t see me!’

She’d been so - SO tempted to follow Ritterkreuz instead.

It was probably what Chalice thought she would do. Instead - Fluttershy, you silly pony - she had foalishly decided it was safer to keep an eye on her new friend instead of her half-sister. After all, Ritterkreuz was flying to meet up with Rainbow Dash and Soarin, and Chalice was all alone. Fluttershy had been convinced she had made the right decision when she cautiously discovered her friend entering the Everfree Forest. It was a dangerous forest, after all!

Angel Bunny had pushed her, forcing her to keep going, to keep watching. He had jumped on her head and stamped, pointing, when she noticed how all the wild animals in the forest fled from Chalice. The noblemare hadn’t even batted an eye as she carelessly wandered close to Marty the Manticore’s nest, some sort of black magic leading her through the forest. She had made no attempts to tread lightly. Marty wasn’t the most foul tempered of the forest’s manticores – he lived the closest to the border, and Fluttershy had met up with him a few times – so she had expected him to at least make a few warning growls. That was enough to scare anypony out of his territory and avoid a confrontation. Marty was such a nice kitty like that.

Marty had abandoned his lair at the first whiff of Chalice getting close.

‘Oh, Fluttershy, why didn’t you listen?’ she thought to herself as the forest surged with an earth pony’s desperate power. A root ripped up from near Fluttershy’s left front leg and she had to clamp a hoof over her mouth to keep from mewling in terror. ‘Why didn’t you listen to Angel Bunny? Or Mittens the Mouse? Or Tabby? Or Penny Porcupine? Or any of the other critters? Was this what scared them? What…’

Fluttershy heard a crash and squeaked, debris raining down on her, a shard of it sharp enough to cut painfully into her flank, scoring a thin red line across the butterflies of her cutie mark. She winced, instinctively, and perked her head up enough to see for herself how bad the cut was. It was only skin deep, or so it looked and felt, but--

‘What is this?’ she wondered, and her eyes already wide again, she turned towards the battle she had become an unwitting spectator to. ‘What am I seeing? Just what on Equestria am I seeing?!’

Chalice.

“I only have a single arrow.”

With her own eyes, Fluttershy had seen Chalice turn into something monstrous. She had confronted two ponies Fluttershy didn’t know and, with the same voice she had used to talk about her paintings or her love of birds or her determination to keep Fluttershy’s secret about Ritterkreuz… with that same voice, she had apologized for having to kill the two ponies in the forest.

“And I’m really sorry, but… I’m not here to talk to you,” she had said, in a voice all the more terrible for how soft it was. “By Lord Blueblood’s command, I’m here to kill you both.”

It was nothing like the Chalice Fluttershy knew.

“It always returns, and it never misses.”

The voice now was like her friend’s, still, but warped and distorted and amplified, and then replayed over the original. The source was not a petite unicorn mare with a pink coat, shy and reserved except when she had to scare off too-inquisitive guards from poking around her friend’s house. What stood in her place was a giant of a pegasus pony, the size of a barn…

‘The size of an Ursa Minor,’ she thought, with sudden realization. ‘Maybe bigger.’

Fluttershy had heard about the creature Twilight had fought with, but it wasn’t an animal of the forest, and she had never dared to try and seek it out for a chat or some tea. Ursa Minors were Star Beasts. They did not keep company or make conversation with mortal fauna. They ate and slept and, occasionally, they raged through the countryside, and there was little anypony or anycreature could do about it.

Like an Ursa Minor, Chalice’s new body was a star-strewn, semi-transparent black, tinted slightly purple and blue, twinkling with lights that appeared to be recessed deep within. There was no hint of anything else. Chalice’s body was gone, and Fluttershy didn’t see any place for it in this otherworldly Pegasus’s almost transparent form. Fluttershy’s eye was drawn to the right front leg, and the strange… bow and arrow… there.

“Return to Dust.”

The ethereal giant slowly shifted aim towards the two exhausted earth ponies. Fluttershy could see them clearly: the older one was still trying to stand, to desperately interpose himself between this threat and the younger mare with the white coat and dark black mane. His gray mane was unkempt and messy as it fell around his withers and his blue eyes were both frightened and fearless. It was a look Fluttershy had seen before, in wounded animals defending their mates… or children.

The two ponies were going to die.

“By Lord Blueblood’s command, I’m here to kill you both.”

Chalice was going to kill them.

Fluttershy’s vision turned blurry, and it took a moment to realize the tears from before were back, and not just because of the frightful magical cold emanating from the giant star spawned Pegasus. She wanted to run. She wanted to turn away. She wanted anything but to have to watch this – to even be here for this. Chalice’s words echoed in Fluttershy’s ears. Whatever monster had taken her place now, Chalice had been party to this. She had wanted this. She had come here to do this. It didn’t make sense.

Fluttershy could hardly believe it when her legs started to move.

It was like her body had suddenly taken leave of its senses and made up a mind of its own, separate from the indecisive and frightened mass behind her eyes and between her ears. Her body was running. That was probably smart. It was smart to run from this.

Which did nothing to explain why she was getting closer to it.

Her body was clearly insane or maybe suicidal. It must have some serious problems at home to want to throw itself in the way of … of whatever this was! Fluttershy fought herself for control, tried to get a grip on what was happening to her. Just her luck. Just her terrible, terrible luck! By the time she had control again, her knees shaking almost as much as her spread wings were trembling, she was in front of the two earth ponies.

“s-ss..s…”

“W-who?” the older earth pony muttered, forcing himself onto his back hooves with a pained grunt.

Fluttershy glanced back at him, momentarily interrupting her stuttering and stammering. Collapsed on the forest floor, the young mare the stallion had been protesting wasn’t unconscious like Fluttershy had assumed. Her forest green eyes were open and staring upward, wide and shocked and afraid. Something about them set Fluttershy’s trembling to pause. She didn’t know this mare or this stallion.

But she sure as Tartarus wasn’t going to watch somepony or anypony or anything murder them in cold blood.

“STOP THIS!” Fluttershy yelled, turning back to the star strewn titan. “Leave them alone!”

For a long moment, her words seemed to give the entity pause.

Then it answered, in that terrifying, distorted voice. A single word was its reply.

“NO.”

“No?” Fluttershy asked, and the world trembled where once her legs and resolve had seemed so steady. It was just the blink of an eye. Yet, that moment saw the world turn. Where once there had been blasted but still standing forest, now, there was nothing but fire and white hot light everywhere. It filled Fluttershy’s front and left, right and up. It was everywhere. It surrounded her.

Her skin and hair prickled.

Fluttershy’s heart skipped a beat, and in that instant, she was sure – beyond a shadow of doubt – that she was about to die and that the light was poised to swallow her whole and pass through her as easily as Pinkie Pie would devour a line of cupcakes. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the star brought to Equestria moved, sharply, to her side. Faster than it took to think about it, Fluttershy turned her head to try and keep it in sight.

She could see, just a bit more clearly…

It was curving around her.

It was curving around her to hit the ponies behind her!! How could it DO that?!

“NO!” Fluttershy cried, seeing the glowing white streak slip past her. It headed straight for the prone mare, and would have hit her, if another body hadn’t interceded at the last possible second.

The old stallion placed himself, kneeling, in front of the mare.

The beam of light pierced his chest with a thunderous, deafening sound: like a huge iron bell being struck with enough force to crack. The ‘clong’ reverberated through the forest and the ground underhoof shook and kicked upwards, knocking the prone mare away and bowling Fluttershy over to fall to her side. The stallion reached a hoof up to the light, now jammed into his chest, flickering with the faint outline of a spear or arrow shaft.

“Shigure!” the fallen mare cried, reaching up to him.

The old pony forced himself back up and then onto two legs. The molten bolt of star forged fire inched deeper into his chest, and Fluttershy gaped as she saw the burning tip emerge from his back.

“Yumi… hime,” the stallion said, glancing first to the mare on the ground, and then to the pegasus who had tried to protect them. He grimaced and instead of blood, a cloud of dust left his mouth. A trickle of it mixed with spit to run down his chin. “Both of you… get away…”

With a thunderous step, the bow wielding pegasus giant advanced on them. It had no face, but two recesses were the eyes would be shifted and formed into a twinkling sea of stars, like in the rest of the body but condensed. A white light, brighter than the rest, seemed to approximate a pupil within the eye. Both, in this case, were narrowed dangerously.

“No pony, mortal or immortal, can survive being struck by my arrow,” the titan declared.

“I am no pony,” the old pony - Shigure - replied, clutching the shaft of the arrow with both hooves. He still wasn’t bleeding, and Fluttershy saw why: the area around his chest was more like stone than flesh.

“I AM A MOUNTAIN!” the old earth pony roared, and fell forward, still trapping the arrow in his own body. “And I will… protect…”

“No.” The celestial pegasus raised her bow, and it thrummed with power. “You are mortal. All you will do… is die.”

Shigure turned to Fluttershy, dust flaking away from his mane and shoulders. “Miss. Please. Run.”

“Shigure?” On the forest floor, the mare’s voice was quavering, almost a whisper, but she yelped when Fluttershy grabbed her and started to run away. For an earth pony, she was fortunately lighter than Pinkie Pie or Applejack. It wasn’t hard for Fluttershy to grab hold of her and start to fly. Not with adrenalin and fear for her own life driving her flight instincts into high gear.

Watching her go, Shigure smirked. The pressure on his chest intensified again and an inarticulate scream escaped his lips as his hind legs sunk into the earth, until finally, inevitably, it gave way and crumbled. His connection with the ground - with the earth - broke, and there was only the peal of screaming air, the heat of the celestial arrow piercing his chest.

When he hit the hillside, the hillside cracked, cleaved, and melted into a parting sea of liquefied rock. A wave of it rushed up over the lips of the ravine created in his wake, spilling out into forest and copse, instantly igniting trees and disintegrating low-hanging foliage, brush and scrub and forest floor. Black ash clouds split as a bright light circled up and around.

The arrow returned to the hoof that had fired it, still burning like the heart of a star.

Bushes and branches slapped and slashed at Fluttershy’s face and franticly beating wings, but she dove deeper into the forest she could’ve sworn she could hear cracks and peals of thunder. It was only a moment later she realized what the sound had to be.

Hoofsteps.

That thing was chasing them. It hadn’t moved before, standing still and letting them make an escape as the bright light flew off, taking that poor old stallion with it. Whatever had caused it to remain in place was no longer a factor. It was chasing them, but the pause had brought them time. Fluttershy had a head start, and she knew the forest.

The hoofsteps were slow, increasingly distant, and the Everfree Forest soon swallowed up the two mares.

It was a dark and lightless place.

Chalice curled up, alone, naked, her eyes closed. She was not a big pony, even for a mare, and the seat of the throne she used like a bed easily accommodated her. It was alive with her magic, unlike the others next to it: the thrones of the sea-goat and the eagle were empty and so were the dolphin and the fish next to them. There was nopony nearby she could feel. Not even Antimony.

She hated sitting on the too-huge throne; she hated being in this place.

It wasn’t a place for living ponies.

The Empyrean Vault was so empty and alone. It was always so cold and it was hard and even painful to breathe, like there was almost no air at all. Chalice’s legs shifted, but she could barely move, even with all the room she had. She was bound tightly by the throne she sat on, just as the throne was bound to her will. Nopony else looked as uncomfortable on their thrones. Why was it so hard for her?

It didn’t matter.

She deserved to suffer for this, anyway. How could she complain about it, when she had just taken a pony’s life? It was for Brother. For the family. It was to bring an end to Equestria’s enemies. She had accepted that, but doing greater good did not absolve evil deed. Brother had said that, hadn’t he? Chalice thought she would worry for her soul, if she didn’t already know what would happen to it when she died.

‘They fled,’ she thought, directing her second body. ‘Chase them, please.’

Fluttershy felt a true love-hate relationship towards the Everfree Forest.

As long as she had lived in Ponyville, the Everfree had been a constant source of new natural wonders, a challenge in the sheer numbers of wild fauna it boasted, and because so many tame animals wandered inside, prompting their untamed relatives or children to stream back out. Fluttershy knew many animals that had moved out of the Everfree and many more than still lived inside it, crossing the pony-made border with little concern for the trouble ponies had in maintaining it. It was an invigorating and fascinating challenge, in that respect.

It was also terrifying and threatening and a never-ending source of stress and fear! There were predator species - untamed predators - that lived in the Everfree. These had to be gently coaxed into not sneaking into the lands around Ponyville for an easy meal. Fluttershy was not the type to enjoy exploring dark and forbidding forests, but she had done so anyway. Few ponies knew the wild and frightening forest like she did, or at least, the outskirts of it. No pony was insane enough to venture too deeply inside the Everfree and certainly not alone.

“Oh, oh no, oh no, oh my…” Fluttershy clamped a hoof over her mouth to cut short her nervous chattering. “We really - we really, really, really shouldn’t go any deeper than this…!”

Still holding onto the nearly insensate mare – Yumi, was her name – Fluttershy groaned as she tried to figure out what to do. Her every fiber and feather was screaming for her to head back or find a way to circle around. Her nose twitched, taking in the smell, and her eyes scanned the forest floor, noting the broken twigs and trampled flat brush.

This was not a good place.

This was really not a good place to be!

The sound of approaching thunder elicited a worried whimper from the pegasus as she forged onward, regardless. Glancing back, terrified of seeing a star-strewn pony the size of a house smashing through the trees, Fluttershy found herself thankful she could barely hear the hoofsteps of the behemoth. It had to be tearing a swath through the forest as it moved - exactly why Fluttershy had tried to escape from it by going into the thickest part of the backwoods.

There was no way she could face down that… that thing… and there was no flying away, not when it could just shoot down somepony with that bow and arrow it had. Fluttershy certainly couldn’t risk it while carrying somepony. Tightening her hold on the stranger she had risked her life to save, the Element of Kindness carefully circled around and past a large dung heap. She could tell by the composition and the smell what had left it: a jaculus. A large one, too. There was only one that large in the Everfree.

Yumi, drifting in and out of consciousness after her fight, smelt it, too.

“Awwh,” she groaned. “What in the Princess’ green pastures IS that reek?”

“You probably don’t want to know,” Fluttershy whispered, landing and pulling the mare down. “I can’t fly anymore,” she stated, but it wasn’t because of fatigue. Flying here would be dangerous.

“Shigure…” she heard the foreign mare mutter sorrowfully, before asking, a little more loudly, “Who are you? Why… why are you helping me? Where are we going?”

“Oh! Sorry! I didn’t introduce… myself. I’m, um, Fluttershy…” she spoke her name softly, but luckily the other mare heard it well enough that she didn’t have to repeat herself.

“Fluttershy,” Yumi repeated. “I thank you, sincerely, for your assistance. My name is Yumi, of the Duchy of Neighpon, I…”

Fluttershy held her hoof up to her lips, motioning for silence.

Yumi blinked in mild distress as being cut short, but she nodded, not having forgotten that they were running and hiding, not exchanging introductions over tea. Crawling through the bush, Fluttershy held up her hoof again - stop - giving her a chance to test the ground up ahead. It was dry, dusty. She quickly rolled over it, turning her back and the upper expanse of her wings a brownish butter yellow. She sniffed the air again, craned her neck up to look around for a second, and then motioned forward again.

Feeling the need to explain, given Yumi’s curious look, she said, “There should be a muscaliet den somewhere close by.”

“A what?”

Fluttershy paused, pointing up ahead. “There.”

Not waiting for a response, she crawled forward, inching along and through the thick groundcover. A rustle in the branches well above them prompted the two mares to glance up. A few stray leaves fluttered down from on high.

“We need to go faster.” Fluttershy felt the tremor in her voice and the little bit of urgency seemed to be enough to get the two to scramble through a pair of particularly thorny bushes. Fluttershy could feel her fear mix with a real sense of impending danger as she hurried forward, mindful of the fact that she had to keep low to the ground. Standing up now would be unwise – she wouldn’t even have a chance to try and explain herself before the jaculus struck at her. For all the noise it could make, it wasn’t a very talkative species… probably because it had no ears.

Reaching forward, she pulled herself into a concealed burrow in the base of a tree, turned, and grabbed Yumi’s hooves. Pulling hard, she yanked the mare inside the cramped sanctuary as quickly as she could. The lair was empty, vacated by the original inhabitant, but still warm. From the ambient temperature alone, Fluttershy was confident it was a muscaliet den. At this season, most would be living further south, but the den itself would still provide refuge.

“Oh!” Yumi gasped, and Fluttershy turned her head to see what had caught the mare’s attention.

The Neighponese pony was glaring at a black dot fixed to her front leg.

“A - a tick!” she hissed, outraged as much as she was disgusted.

“You should probably just ignore it,” Fluttershy whispered, blushing a bit at the revolted look shot her way. “We’re probably covered in them.”

“My imperial blood is not meant to be sucked by vile insects,” Yumi growled, glaring harder at the tick. Parasites didn’t exist in tamed Equestrian areas, only wild lands. That went for mosquitos, too, though they could often fly from a protected wetland to bit the occasional pony a few miles away.

Yumi reached out to rip off the offending arthropod.

Fluttershy gently batted away her hoof and used both free hooves to squeeze the arachnid. It took a little physical coaxing to get the head out, but it was something she had done many times on herself and her animal friends. Ticks and mites were common in the Everfree. Animals moving out of the forest needed tick baths and careful grooming. Holding the parasite up, its little legs kicking as it tried to find something else to latch onto and bite, Fluttershy narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t suppose you’d listen if I asked you nicely not to suck my blood?” she asked, quietly. The tick didn’t seem to notice or pay much heed to her words. Not only was it wild, it was a wild blood-drinker and disease carrier. It wasn’t like a butterfly or an inchworm. Wardens and animal Caretakers were supposed to kill them. She should probably just squish it.

Fluttershy reached outside and flicked the tick away, hopefully far enough that they’d not bump into it again.

“You’re an animal speaker,” Yumi said.

“I take care of animals around Ponyville,” Fluttershy replied, retreating back into the den and trying to keep from shivering.

“I’ve never seen a pegasus animal speaker before,” the earth pony blurted out, regretting her words a moment later. “Not to disparage you…”

“I, um, I don’t mind. I don’t know any other pegasus ponies who do this either.” Then again, she didn’t know any other pegasus ponies who were afraid of heights. It wasn’t something to be all that proud of.

“Are we safe here?” Yumi asked, diplomatically switching topics. She had a justifiably worried look to her, and coupled with her exhaustion, it softened what were probably severe and strict features on a young mare her age.

“Mostly, for now,” Fluttershy replied, and felt a question of her own rise up in need to addressing. Normally, she wasn’t one to pry or make demands, but - but--

“What happened to Chalice?” she asked, turning down her eyes and worrying away at a long strand of dirty pink mane with her hoof. “I overheard some… and it sounded like you two knew one another…”

Yumi frowned, but replied after a moment’s hesitation and thought. “I knew her through her brother, Alpha Brass. He provided some assistance to me in reaching Ponyville. I only ever met Chalice at his Hanging Gardens.”

“His what?”

“It is…” Yumi opened her mouth and just as quickly closed it. “It is difficult to describe. It is a place one can only reach with a teleportation spell of some sort. It is like a circle of buildings – two concentric circles, I believe – some of them hanging upside down above the main level. The ponies there said it was a floating palace in the sky somewhere, but… I could not say for sure. There was a magical shield around it that projected an illusion of sky above and ground below. It could even be underground, I suppose.”

Fluttershy tried to imagine such a strange place. Why would anypony want to live there? In the sky or underground there weren’t any animals or even any plants. It seemed totally disconnected from nature. Even if it was a garden, it didn’t sound all that nice.

“What happened to Chalice?” she asked again, sensing that the other mare knew something.

“I cannot begin to fathom how, but what tried to kill me… what she turned into…” Yumi shook her head in dismay. “That weapon was the Bow of Sagittarius. Did you notice the wings? Sagittarius is often depicted as a pegasus though Chalice herself is a unicorn. It is not merely her wielding a divine weapon. Somehow, she is… something like a font for Sagittarius. A star god himself.”

Fluttershy thought back to what she had heart about the Ursa Minor that had briefly rampaged through Ponyville. “Why would a… thing like that want to hurt us?”

“Chalice said the Prince” – Yumi spat the title – “wants me dead. I was running from him when she ran into me, and you ran into us. Chalice clearly had some means of controlling her new form. Maybe… maybe she’s taking the powers from the stars, or - or maybe she has some sort of magical contract with Sagittarius? I don’t know!” the Nighponese mare admitted with a frustrated snarl, slamming a hoof down onto the packed ground of the animal den. “This is the oldest and vilest of unicorn magic, the very same my ancestors fled from a thousand years ago. I never actually thought any of this was even possible!”

As if on cue, both mares quickly hunkered down and turned deathly quiet as a thundering sound heralded the approach of the threat itself. It was followed by a few tense seconds of silence. Then the peals of hoofsteps came closer, more slowly, more cautiously… more inquisitively.

“Fluttershy!” A discordant voice boomed, and the mare in question tried to hide her face under her hooves. “I mean you no harm, Fluttershy. The mare you protect now is a criminal and a murderer. She made attempt on both the Prince’s life and the life of your friend, Rarity. Give her to me.”

Another thunderous hoofstep, closer than before.

“My patience is not limitless. She is a traitor. Give her up. NOW!”

The final word, roared, shook the boughs and trunk of the tree above them.

“It is a lie,” Yumi hissed, afraid of being overhead, but afraid even more of saying nothing in her own defense. “You must believe me! I - I would never…!”

“No matter what it says,” Fluttershy whispered back. “That can’t be the pony I know. That isn’t how she speaks.” She gave a relieved sigh. “Thank goodness.”

“Thank goodness for what? We--”

The hoofsteps paused, and a second later, something huge crashed to the ground. The shocks of it could be felt in the ground and through their bodies, pressed in fear to the sides of the sturdy muscaliet den. The otherworldly voice from before, turned to an enraged roar, was met with an ear-splitting shriek. The ground rumbled a second time, and from outside, both mares could hear the sound of trees snapping like dry firewood.

“If that isn’t really Chalice, then I don’t feel so bad about leading her into a jaculus lodge,” Fluttershy explained, grabbing one of Yumi’s hooves in her own. “Be ready to run.”

“What is this jaculus? I have never heard of such a cre--”

Fluttershy abruptly pressed her face down into the ground, as a whoosh of air kicked through the mare’s mane. Snorting out of her nose, intending to at least finish her sentence, Yumi gaped as she realized the tree they had been hiding beneath had been uprooted right over their heads. It was still pirouetting through the air, even then, shedding leaves and branches, before finally disappearing into a copse of other trees that made vain attempt to catch their somersaulting cohort.

Overhead, too, she caught sight of what had to be the jaculus.

A great muscular tail whipped through the air, snapping back from the pass that had uprooted and dislocated the tree before. At the end was a spade shaped tip, bristling with hooked spines that tapered in length further up the tail. Dark feathered wings concealed part of the body of the giant reptile, if it had a body that was distinct from its tail at all, and a horned serpentine head roared as a huge, hinged jaw snapped wildly at the Sagittarian avatar’s raised foreleg.

Teeth as half as long as a pony’s leg broke against unyielding aether, but this was one of the few creatures in the Everfree that did not flee at the mere smell of the foreign interloper. The jaculus instead attacked with an even more savage fury, coiling and thrashing to defend its territory. The pair of gladiators spun around as one the giant pony’s hooves smashed into the mouth of the colossal serpent, the tail of the aether-born avatar briefly forming a canopy over the heads of the two mares.

Fluttershy and Yumi made a break the moment their pursuer put them to her back, jumping over a fallen tree and through the twisted netting of broken branches and leaves it had attached to it, like a fence keeping them from freedom. Pushing through, nearly stumbling on the uneven ground, the pair weaved around another tree, this one upright. Yumi had to follow, having no idea how far into the forest Fluttershy had lead her. Behind them, another ear splitting howl filled the air.

Yumi chanced to turn around, and immediately threw herself at Fluttershy, tacking her to the floor.

Four and a half tons of slithering predator flew overhead, crashing to the ground ahead of them. A wall of muscle and bone and scales writhed, only stunned from the impact, and a huge wing furiously slapped the ground where they had almost been standing. Each primitive, scale-like feather was the size of a pegasus pony’s entire wing, and the two mares cringed as the enraged jaculus let loose another cry, along with a torrent of corrosive, digestive spittle from its fangs. Gleaming yellow eyes set into armored pits beneath the horns went momentarily dark as a huge pony charged right into and through the toxic stream, grabbing hold of the toothy mouth and twisting, like it was trying to open a particularly stubborn jar.

The massive body of the winged snake whipped about, not so easily broken, but proving more than capable of breaking darn near everything around it. The end of the monster’s tail, the very one studded with massive flesh-rending spines, clapped against the ground nearby. Yumi and Fluttershy had no choice but to give it a wide berth as they galloped for their lives.

“Wretched VERMIN!”

A flash of light and a wave of heat nearly kicked the ground out from under them.

Stealing a look back, just before she escaped into the thick fastness of the forest, Yumi saw the great winged star-pony pinning the head of the serpent with one hoof, the other slamming the head of it into a pillar of white-yellow light, spearing it over and over, the ground thrumming with every resounding blow. The body of the beast was still wrapped tight around its would-be prey, even as the head turned to a bloody, burned pulp, a ragged mass of flesh and flying teeth. The last thing she bore witness to were a hundred smaller forms, like worms, erupting from the corpse’s wounds.

She faced forward, trying not to think about what she had seen. “I knew this vile forest was ugly, but I had no idea--”

“But isn’t nature fascinating? A jaculus is only born when the mother dies,” Fluttershy explained, daring to take to the air again, though not to go above tree level. Instead, she kept to just over the ground. “It was the only animal that wouldn’t run away.”

“Fascinating,” Yumi repeated, as if trying to convince herself. “Yes, very,” she agreed, “Now, if we can get to the edge of the forest again…”

“Oh dear!” Fluttershy gasped, suddenly landing. She shied backwards, seeing something emerging from the forest up ahead. “Oh no! I didn’t…! Who?”

“A pony?” Yumi asked. It was, and it wasn’t. No pony had stripes.

Zecora motioned them to follow her. “A fright I did not mean to give, but come with me.” She smirked. “If you want to live.”

It didn’t take much coaxing; they followed her.

“Did you see that?” Soarin circled wide over the forest, mindful not to get anywhere near the ominous sea of dark trees below.

A second later and Rainbow Dash came to hovering stop close by. She was clearly still worn out by her fight with Ritterkreuz. She could fly, and she put up a brave front, but she had collapsed onto his back before, and probably not just because it was comfortable. It wasn’t, was it? No, it couldn’t be. Soarin shook his head, knowing that was the last thing to be thinking about. He could see how tired she was. There was no way he was about to let her dive down, exhausted, to investigate whatever monsters were ripping up the Everfree Forest.

“I thought I saw somepony down there,” she told him, reaching for one of the wild clouds and having a little trouble coaxing it into solidity. After a few seconds of it doing little more than making her hooves wet, she kicked it with an angry grunt and concentrated on just hovering in place and not building a spot to rest.

“Well, there was some-thing down there, if not some-pony,” Soarin reasoned, dipping a little lower in case she did want to collapse onto him again. They were supposed to be heading back to the Wonderbolts Mobile HQ.

“I don’t know any Everfree monster that can do what we saw back there,” Dash reminded him, crossing her forelegs and frowning. “Whatever did that… if it had hit Ponyville…”

She let the statement hang, but he knew full well what that ‘what if’ would result in. Ponyville was not a large town. The gash blasted into the hillside - still half molten when the pair of pegasus ponies left it - was as long as the town was wide. Nopony would survive being near something like that. Right down the middle of it, a fifth of the town maybe, would just be gone.

“Whatever it is, it’s made a new friend,” Soarin said, looking down at the smashed and bloody battlefield they had caught up to. There had been an on again and off again trail through the forest, made by something big moving beneath the canopy of the trees.

The trail ended in carnage: some sort of huge dead snake with wings.

By the Princess Celestia’s faultless feathers, if that monster could fly, and if those huge wings weren’t just for show, then what did it say for a pair of pegasus ponies loitering overhead? There looked to be small ones down there, too, squirming around and out of the body. This forest was definitely not going to make it onto many summer catalogues for family friendly vacations.

“What need to find out what did this,” Dash insisted. “And if there was somepony down there!”

“Are you sure you don’t want to leave me to--”

“I can fly! I just need a second to…” Dash trailed off as Soarin zipped off to corral the remains of the wild cloud she had snuffed before. It took some doing, but he was soon able to fashion out a rough albeit serviceable cloud from the wild water vapor. It wouldn’t win many awards in Cloudsdale, but a pony could at least stand on it without falling through or getting soaked to the bone.

He then flew under it and snagged part of it with his tail to drag behind him.

“I’m not tired,” she insisted, landing on the cloud.

“And I’m not your chauffeur,” Soarin joked. “But here we are. Keep an eye out for any town-destroying monsters that will probably blast us to bits.”

“Yeah, okay, if you insist! I’ll do all the work,” Rainbow Dash collapsed with a relieved sigh onto the cloud, the ends of her forehooves sticking over the edge. “Thanks.”

“Hang on.”

“Z-Zecora? Not to sound ungrateful or… um… anything… but…”

Fluttershy gently drifted down from one stony ledge to the next, following Zecora while Yumi followed her in turn. The thundering hoofsteps were gone, and there was no sign of Chalice, or the thing Chalice had given her body and magic to. Zecora had led the two mares in silence since their run-in with the zebra, saying little more than to keep quiet and keep close. After all they had seen and been through, neither complained.

Until now, anyway.

“I, umm… don’t recognize this place at all,” Fluttershy admitted, chewing her lip at having to so rudely ask, “If you don’t mind me asking, where are we going? I thought, maybe, that we’d… sort of… try to go around and then out of the forest…?”

“There no need to worry, so long as we hurry,” Zecora replied in cheerful sing-song. “Just a little further and you’ll find some rest, away from the monster you fear to contest.”

Fluttershy felt a word of protest touch her lips, but she bit it back. Zecora had to know what she was doing, and it was a relief to be able to just tag along and follow. It was frightening enough trying to imagine how she could get herself out of this mess. It was just too much to have the added burden of leading somepony else to safety, too. Zecora would be able to take things from here, and Fluttershy could wash her hooves of the whole nightmare and fly home.

Angel Bunny had run off, but he was probably back home by now. He was familiar with the outer parts of the Everfree, and there was no rabbit savvier; none of the other critters would dare to waylay him. If she was a lucky pony, and if he was in a good mood, Angel could even have some tea on for her when she got back, to help calm her frayed nerves. On top of everything else, she still didn’t know what had happened to Rainbow Dash and Ritterkreuz.

‘One crisis at a time, Fluttershy,’ she thought to herself, flying over a tangled knot of roots, bulging out of the forest floor.

Yumi was close behind, dirty and miserable, but probably much less distraught about her own suffering than what she and Fluttershy had seen before: that old stallion, the one they had called Shigure. Was he this mare’s father? He looked too old to be her brother or anything, and he had - he had died protecting her. Fluttershy wished she could have met him and talked to him before. He had to have been a good pony.

‘But if he was a good pony, when would he really die to protect Yumi, if Yumi had really tried to hurt Rarity and Prince Blueblood? Maybe he didn’t know? But they seemed so close. There was no hesitation in it for him; I’ve never seen a pony move that fast. Maybe… maybe Chalice is the one who is wrong. Maybe somepony lied to her to get her to attack Yumi? But who would do that? She said Blueblood sent her.’

Fluttershy shook her head: that didn’t make sense either.

“He wouldn’t do that,” she whispered to herself. ‘He wouldn’t lie to send some poor mare to hurt another one.’

She still remembered how he had caught her setting traps for the animals at the Gala, and how instead of being outraged or calling for the guards to arrest her, he had calmly talked to her and helped her. He had explained why the animals were so flighty, encouraged her to be patient with them, and promised she could come back any time and visit them. He had been true to his word, too! Time and perseverance had won her new friends among the skittish palace animals, and, just as important, she had learned some important lessons about friendship and about herself.

Blueblood had been kind and soft spoken and gentle and nice, and he was the only other pony she knew who was into falconry, too. Even though he himself wasn’t cuddly like a bear or a marmot, she liked him. He was a nice pony. Fluttershy was sure of it. He wouldn’t do something horrible like… like what Yumi and Chalice were implying.

They had to both be wrong.

That just had to be it.

A rustle in the bushes brought the trio short, Zecora in particular motioning for the two to stay still while she investigated. She never left their sight, and, after taking a few seconds to indulge her caution, continued leading them. The problem was, she was leading them in the wrong direction. They were going deeper and deeper into the Everfree. Did Zecora think to take them clear through the forest? What good would that do?

Catching sight of some of the markings on the nearby trees, she recognized them. They were territorial rubbings - a parandrus was nearby. Nothing to be worried about, thank goodness, but it was one familiar sight in a sea of frightful unknowns. Fluttershy wondered, for just a moment, if Zecora knew some of the animals around here? Maybe she could call up some giant eagles to take them to safety?

Or would that be too convenient to hope for?

Down another long incline and over a broken ridge, the trio finally came to a slowed trot, and then a complete halt. There was somepony up ahead waiting for them. Somepony Fluttershy recognized!

“Twilight!” she cried, actually raising her voice in surprise and joy as she started running towards the unicorn mare. “What are you--” She slowed, realizing her question was actually sort of a pressing one, and not just the first thing to come to mind. “What are you doing out here? Not…that I’m not happy to see you… but… um…”

“I teleported out here, of course!” Twilight replied with a disarming smile. “Anyway, I was hoping I could talk to you in private.” She raised her voice, to make sure Yumi could hear, too. “Don’t worry, I know what happened back at the villa. We’re going to get you back to Neighpon, I promise. I just need to talk to Fluttershy for a minute.”

Yumi, who had been trotting along to keep close to her pegasus rescuer, frowned in obvious reluctance. She gave Zecora a wary look and sent one Twilight’s way as well. Fluttershy smiled, silently reassuring the mare.

“Don’t worry,” she said, confidently. “Everything’s going to be fine. Zecora and Twilight are good ponies. They’ll help us set things right.”

Yumi nodded, slowly, and backed away. “Don’t go far.”

Zecora’s smile widened and Twilight signaled with a bob of her head for Fluttershy to follow. They came up to a babbling brook, dotted with black stones and creeping moss, like a patchwork carpet on the ground. The thick, dark canopy overhead only let a few dappled rays of light through to the forest floor. Even then, it was darker than it should have been. Fluttershy wondered what time it was and how long she had been running and creeping through the Everfree.

“I’m so relieved to see you, Twilight,” Fluttershy said, breaking the silence. “I was so frightened! You won’t believe what… what I saw… I still can’t believe it.”

“Mhm,” Twilight muttered.

“Not just that… I - I saw a pony die… he was, he was…” She struggled to put it in words. “Twilight, something’s very wrong with - with, well… Chalice said things, and - and Yumi, too. I think somepony’s been lying to them.”

“You’re thinking too much,” Twilight grumbled, leading her further from Zecora and Yumi.

Fluttershy’s hooves paused, unable to keep going. “I’m what?”

Twilight stopped, too, her back to the Element of Kindness. Her tail flicked to the left, anxiously, and abruptly she spun around. Smiling. Her smile was so wide, really, it was downright unnatural. Twilight didn’t smile that wide without showing her teeth, and usually that was a bad sign, too, given how eccentric the bookish unicorn could be. Skittish by nature, Fluttershy ducked her head and shied back a step as Twilight approached her.

“Fluttershy, relax. It’s me, Twilight. You must’ve seen some very strange and scary things.” Close enough, now, she placed a comforting hoof on Fluttershy’s left shoulder. “But that’s all over now. No more scary things. I promise.”

She lied.

Twilight’s mouth opened, a sibilant hiss parting her smile and revealing fangs. Fluttershy squeaked, falling backwards in a panic, as he friend lunged towards her--

And then the face was gone, replaced by a placid white and charcoal wooden mask. The hissing Twilight Sparkle came up instantly short, falling onto her front hooves and then onto her knees. All the energy seemed to ebb quietly out of her, and Fluttershy opened her mouth to try and scream – to call for help, despite the vice-like grip her fear had on her throat – when she noticed the thing on Twilight’s back, helping to bring her down.

As ‘Twilight’s’ body hit the leaf strewn forest floor, a black-tipped hoof slipped off the wooden mask that had so quickly subdued her.

“For those a deep sleep does elude, I have a solution both potent and crude,” Zecora stated, holding up the wooden mask before slipping it back into her brown traveling cloak. “A sleeping mask that clears up snoring; this is also market I’ve been exploring.”

Nudging over the sleeping unicorn, the lavender coat began to fade, gradually replaced by plates of ink-black chitin and green membrane. Before the eyes of the two mares, the form of their friend fell away, leaving behind an insect-like creature in the form of a pony.

Zecora raised an eyebrow at the sight, otherwise unruffled.

Fluttershy fainted.

Zecora sighed, reaching back into her cloak. “Luckily for you, I have a brew for that, too.”

Gale Force snickered under her breath as she watched her prey. Yumi was still frustratingly cautious, and, though the day’s events must have lead the Neighponese mare to a state of near exhaustion and stripped her of all her protectors, she was still dangerous. She was quite possibly the most dangerous earth pony in the world. Taking her, holding her, replacing her fully… it would have to be done carefully, at least until they got the poison in her veins.

A unicorn could be subdued by blocking or even handling the horn, and a pegasus was nothing once the wings were webbed up. An earth pony, though? That could be more difficult. Yumi was still on edge. She wasn’t letting ‘Zecora’ near her.

That only meant a little patience was required.

Once Arrow Head came back wearing the skin of that little pegasus, the one Yumi did appear to trust, then they’d have one changeling at her back and one at her front. They’d both lunge, sink their teeth in, and there would be no stopping both of them. Gale Force only hoped her sister didn’t waste all her poison on the pegasus. Just knocking her out with hooves would do it. Yumi was the more dangerous one.

How fortunate they were! Everything was turning out splendidly! Thanks to that butter yellow pegaus, Yumi had managed to escape from Chalice and gallop right into their web, tired and nearly helpless. It was perfect. Just perfect!

The heiress to Neighpon and the Element of Kindness would both vanish in the Everfree, far from prying eyes, along with the tragic loss of the two Royal Guards Gale Force and Arrow Head. It was a true tragedy, no doubt. The ponies probably would rejoice when, a few days later, both mares miraculously re-emerged from the dangerous forest. A miracle indeed!

Gale Force felt another contented chuckle almost break past her lips.

The only question was which one of them would replace the Element of Harmony and which the Neighponese Princess? Both were prestigious skins to wear. Both would mean being directly under the command and eye of the Queen herself. Replacing the pegasus would mean infiltrating that group of six mares and staying here in Ponyville. That could be amusing, but not particularly empowering.

Replacing the earth pony would mean being under confinement for a time and playing along with the scheme to blackmail Alpha Brass. The masquerade would be more fun with the skin returned to Neighpon, to keep it from helping Canterlot when the invasion began. It would be the more uncomfortable job, certainly, at least at first. In the long run, however, the changeling who took Yumi’s skin would have her power as well. It was a job the Queen would give to a breeding changeling and not a mere drone. So: it would difficult at first, but potentially very rewarding.

Gale Force just wasn’t sure just how to settle which changeling would get which job. What was the fairest way to divide things up? Maybe a game of ‘Stinger-Pincer-Mandible’ would settle things amiably? Best two of three. Yes, that was the fair thing to do! Winner takes earth pony.

A rustle in the bushes preceded Arrow Head’s return in the form of the timid little pegasus mare.

“Oh, um, hi,” Arrow Head muttered in a soft voice. “I mean, um. I’m back.”

She was really playing her part to the hilt.

“What of Twilight, our friend?” Gale asked, “I assume there was business she had to attend?”

Damned clunky rhyming; how did that crazy zebra manage it?

Fluttershy scraped her hoof against the ground. “Umm. I guess so. I mean, yes.”

“Lady Yumi still seems most distressed; you should provide company and see her worries addressed,” Gale Force said, licking the inside her mouth, her black tongue tracing along the curve of her fangs in anticipation.

“Fluttershy,” Yumi said, still plainly wary of some treachery in the shadows. It was foalish paranoia, of course. It was also rather justified, though she had no way to know that fact.

Perhaps the Neighponese noblemare would feel some vindication in being so cautious, once they bit down on her and as her body turned numb and unresponsive. There was always something so delightful in the eyes of ponies once they were rendered helpless: that flavor of fear that they produced, topped with the whipped cream of shock and realization and regret.

Stupid, stupid ponies.

Gale Force turned her back on Arrow Head and stalked towards Yumi. It was time.

“S-sorry… about this!”

The sound of hoofsteps galloping forward warranted a moment of confusion from the changeling. Was Arrow Head running past her? She turned her head slightly only to feel a weight land on her back. She caught sight of a yellow wing and realized it was Arrow Head. The other changeling had jumped onto her back. What was she doing?!

Then the mask covered Gale Force’s face.

Only in the split second before she fell asleep did Gale Force realize her error. “You… tricked…?!”

Hitting the forest floor, face-first, the changeling in the guise of Gale Force never appreciated the irony of just how she had been felled. She never felt the hooves grab onto her and drag her away or the ropes that bound her legs. Time did prove her right about one thing, however.

The Royal Guards Gale Force and Arrow Head never did return from the Everfree Forest.

Chapter Thirty Two : Reveal

(32)

Reveal

Poison.

Blueblood, Her Prince, had been poisoned.

It was disgusting. A low and vile blow if ever there was one. And the sickest thing was… that Rarity wasn’t even surprised by it anymore. These ‘ponies,’ if they could even call themselves that, were simply… simply…!

A true lady did not even have words to describe them.

“My Lady?” a voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “Are you alright?”

“My… my apologies, I fear a headache may be coming on. Please continue, Germoglio. Tell me what happened,” Rarity demanded, her head held high and her steely voice betraying none of the knot of worry and insecurity and genuine fear that churned within her.

Like a poison of her own, the unsettling feeling was fighting to the surface against the creeping post-battle exhaustion that demanded she lie down and sleep and forgo waking up for a small lifetime. Her once beautiful sea-shell lace and pearl dress was in stained tatters from the fighting, the alabaster smeared with streaks of brown dirt, green grass and dried, rust-red pollen. The gold and silver passements were still intact but in some places had been ripped loose to dangle around her body like slack vines from a tree branch.

Rarity wore her gown, regardless, like a beaten and ruined badge of honor.

“As my Lady commands,” Germoglio Bianco replied, head bowed. The handsome unicorn straightened up and reached a hoof up to stroke his dark, perfectly cut vandyck beard. He was still in the armor of his Free Company: white and red over polished steel cuirass and greaves.

“We have secured your prisoners in fetters and placed a magical restraint on the barrier user,” he began, first, reiterating what she already knew. “For now, we have kept them from His Grace’s royal guards in case you wish to interrogate them first.”

“Keep them confined and under guard,” Rarity ordered, but added a warning: “No harm is to come to them, you understand?”

“Of course.”

“Now, tell me about Yumi and my town.”

“A dozen floral golems emerged from the Everfree Forest, to the south and west of the town. Two were of the largest variety, one being the beast that broke through our lines to attack you here. The rest were kept from the town proper. As of several minutes ago, six have been destroyed, three fled and three more are being chased down and literally run to ground. We do not believe Ponyville to be in any further danger.”

Rarity nodded, the information helping to frame her own experience as the festival turned into a melee around her. Still, there were questions that needed answering. “And why, pray tell, were they giving chase in the first place and not defending my party guests?”

“My men,” the condottiero explained, “were following Sir Arrow Head and Sir Gale Force, under orders from His Grace and Sir Shining Armor.”

Rarity’s blue eyes narrowed reflexively. “The White Company is in my employ, not Blueblood’s and certainly not Sir Shining Armor’s.”

“As you say,” Germoglio admitted. “In their defense, Lady Yumi and Sir Rains would require a sizeable force to take down, and both were on the run. Privately, I must also admit that… when given an order from an esteemed knight, especially a Royal Guard like Sir Gale Force or Sir Arrow Head, most ponies will heed him and follow. I will have the sergeants disciplined and reminded of the chain of command.”

Wilting slightly, the newly appointed Baroness of Ponyville shook her head. “Please don’t. I am upset, this is true, but there really is no need to be harsh. Those ponies fearlessly protected Ponyville. I can ask no more of them and do not wish them to be punished. But… where are Sir Arrow Head and Sir Gale Force? And where, if so many gave chase, is Yumi?”

Germoglio lowered his eyes in deference to his employer. “I do not know, my Lady. They fled into the Everfree Forest.”

“Yumi?”

“All four,” Germoglio explained, and when he looked back up at her, the Bitalian stallion was scowling. “Sir Arrow Head and Sir Gale Force were quick to abandon the melee with the Timberwolves and to pursue Lady Yumi and Sir Rains. I have sent scouts to seek them out, but none have returned as yet.”

“I see,” Rarity replied, running over the facts in her head.

Yumi, she had been told, had poisoned Blueblood after the two had a private meeting on the third floor of the manor. Exactly how she had arranged it, nopony seemed to really know. In a stunning feat of incompetence, nopony seemed to know who, if anypony at all, was on guard with the Prince at the time! A scuffle may have broken out when Blueblood realized what was happening to him, at which point, Yumi and her bodyguard, Shigure, made their escape by rather rudely blasting open the wall to Blueblood’s study.

Before leaving the premises, however, the fiendish mare had used her magic to create a distraction: the hallucinogenic pollen that had blanketed the garden party and art festival. To make matters worse, she had also sent her retainers to cause chaos and prevent anypony from undoing the pollen attack. Then – then on top of all that – the mare had the nerve to summon up those awful Timberwolves to attack the town?! Rarity had to fight herself to bite back a rather un-ladylike curse.

Lady Yumi had better run and hope she was never caught!

“Did we…” Rarity hesitated a little to ask. “Was anypony hurt, Germoglio?”

“A few were wounded,” the Free Company Captain answered, a sound rumbling out of his throat, half snort and half growl. “One dead.”

“Dead?” Rarity asked, foalishly in retrospect. She felt her hoof raise to her mouth in shock. “Dead as in…?”

“Dead, my Lady,” the mercenary captain repeated.

“Who was it?” She felt she had to know.

“Her name was Timely March, my Lady. She was one of our flyers, proficient in the light lance.” Germoglio chewed his next few words for a moment, hesitating to say more. “Sir Cliff Chaser is also missing. He supposedly pursued Sir Arrow Head and Sir Gale Force once the tide turned in the fight with the Timberwolves.”

“I- I’m sorry,” Rarity said, her façade cracking at the news. A pony was dead because of all this. “I…”

“There is nothing to apologize for,” Germoglio interrupted before she could try and say more. “Timely March protected your town and your interests. It is why we are being paid. Her name will live forever in our rolls and in the lists of the Free Company of the Dove and Cross.”

Rarity opened her mouth, a half formed response on the tip of her tongue, but the words failed to take form as the enormity of it all sunk in. No pony had died when Nightmare Moon took the town. No pony had died when the parasprites swarmed the village. No pony had died when the Ursa Minor rampaged through. Now, a pony she had never even known, whose face she couldn’t remember, whose face she had likely never even seen, had died in her employ. Rarity hung her head and looked away in shame. Could she have done something to prevent this? Why – how – had the town gone from crisis to crisis, each time emerging without any real harm done, only for it to occur on her watch? Under her responsibility?

“My Lady,” Germoglio’s voice momentarily drew her out of her self-imposed shell.

“Yes, Germoglio?” Rarity asked, forcing her voice to remain composed and at least passably and superficially confident.

“Do you know what our Dove and Cross stand for?” he asked, but didn’t wait for her response. He gestured to the insignia on his cuirass: a red-on-white cross, emblazoned by a five pointed star in the center, and a white dove in the upper left corner.

“The Dove represents peace, as all ponies know, but the petals of the Floriated Cross represent faith, wisdom and chivalry, spread to all corners of Equestria. It is for these three values that any sworn pony must be ready to lay down his or her life. We uphold the principles of Equestria, we look after our brothers and sisters and lead them as best we can, and we put our faith in the Princesses and in our employers not to waste our lives or abuse our vows.”

He fixed Rarity with a calm and almost disarming stare.

“Timely March’s life was not wasted,” he assured her. “And the Dove and Cross have faith in you, Lady Rarity.” He smirked and leaned a little closer to fix her with a wink. “So long as you have the means to pay us, that is…”

“Duly noted, Sir,” Rarity replied, a small smile creeping up the corners of her mouth. “And what of the star, then? What does that represent?”

“Our star?” he asked, still smirking. “It is the mullet, the five pointed star. It represents the third child: the foal who never inherits and who must seek out adventure to prove him or herself. A pony doesn’t join a Free Company or dive into a battle without something to prove, now does she, Lady Rarity?”

Rarity shook her head, remembering her own battle not an hour before. “I suppose she does not.”

“I would also ask, my Lady, what of our newest arrivals?”

At his mention of her newest ‘guests,’ Rarity glanced past the unicorn stallion to where a cordon of armed and armored ponies loosely surrounded a milling group of teenage dragons. Her Free Company had been hired for their experience with dragons, and to their credit, none of the ponies seemed nervous around the flying lizards. The issue at hoof was primarily keeping them from the more delicate and excitable guests present. Already, the two Saddle Marabians were eyeing the dragon clique with undisguised fascination, as if they were an exotic new attraction to the festival. That would have to be her next stop, before somepony or somedragon created an incident.

“I will see to them,” Rarity promised, eyes returning to her sellsword.

“As my Lady wishes,” Germoglio replied with a flowery bow of his head. “And I shall continue to watch the town,” he assured her, stroking his short beard again, and adding before he left: “I shall watch your guests, as well.”

Then the condottiero vanished with a wink of light.

Her business with him done and her assurance that the festival and her guests were again safe, Rarity let out a breath just short of a sigh. Looking over the milling ponies in the front of the yard, mingling anew amidst the ruins of her art festival, Rarity felt her smile fade but then return, tentative, hopeful. Yes: the grounds were an absolute mess. One of the pavilions had collapsed entirely, another tent was half sagged, there were broken or uprooted trees all around, and globs of cake mixed with lingering smears of neutralized pollen. It was truly a disaster.

Yet, even in disaster, her guests were not cowering or even eager to leave. Circles of them were chatting animatedly about their experiences in and out of the battle and the haze of pollen. Pinkie, Fleur and Fancypants, she knew, were among them and no doubt playing a part in keeping spirits high. It was a sight, too, realizing how the ponies were mingling. She saw Pinkie Pie amid one group, retelling part of the fight with exaggerated movements of her legs, eliciting laughter… in and of itself it was nothing unusual, except that the group before her was composed of Canterlot nobles, Manehattan socialites, and common ponies from Ponyville.

It was as if… in so catastrophically and irreparably destroying her Art Festival, fate had also seen fit to make it succeed where she had most hoped it would: in bringing ponies together. They were not really appreciating beauty with shared eyes, as she had dreamed, but they were together, laughing and talking and interweaving. Many appeared to be treating the whole horrible incident as a wonderful spectacle of sorts! Quite a few had even found one of the pinecones that has caused the whole mess and held onto it as a souvenir or the like.

It was a silver lining, at least.

‘I survived Rarity’s debacle of an Art Festival, and all I got was this lousy pine cone,’ she thought of the headline and shook her head. As she mulled over her own state, a few ponies kindly approached to offer their thanks and appreciation. Rarity almost wanted to ask them what for. No matter how she and her friends had acquitted themselves and no matter how Rarity looked at it, this whole disaster had happened under her watch.

Trying to remain poised and composed, Rarity approached the group of dragons.

Before today, the group of brutes had only stuck out in her mind for what they had tried to do to Spike during the migration. Not having any brothers herself, or even very many friends who happened to be male, Rarity had only a vague idea of how stallions spent their time or formed their little cliques, and most of what she had initially observed with Rainbow Dash and Twilight had seemed harmless enough. The teenaged dragons at the migration had wrestled and fought over treasure, swam and rough-housed in lava, chatted endlessly about getting a horde and pined fervidly for the adult females overhead.

The females, naturally, overlooked the squabbling teenagers to find much larger mates for the migration. Rarity couldn’t recall seeing any young female dragons at all in the crater with the teenaged males, and for a moment she wondered how they acted amongst themselves. Was it anything like how mares were, at that age?

Taken as a whole, though, the dragon boys had seemed immature but harmless enough... until that mess with the phoenix eggs. Thank the Princesses that Spike had kept a cool head and talked them out of an altercation. Rarity had been prepared to jump to the defense of her sweet little Spikey-wikey, but she honestly did not fancy her chances against an angry dragon three or four times her weight. Even Twilight and Rainbow Dash had been inclined to run – or fly or teleport – away if it came down to a fight.

Now they were here, at her home…

As she drew closer to the group, Rarity noticed Spike nudge the large red fellow who seemed their de-facto leader, pointing him towards the approaching mare. Rarity was thankful for the unspoken re-introduction, pointing out to her which dragon she had to deal with. She was naturally thankful as well for the dragons swooping in to help in the melee with the Timberwolves and Yumi’s retainers. She tried to gauge the expression of the crimson drake, her ears twitching as she could almost overhear what he and Spike were saying to one another. Unfortunately, dragon’s faces were less expressive than those of ponies or even diamond dogs. The eyebrows were articulate, but once they grew older and larger, their jaws seemed to become too heavy and solid to reveal much of their mood beyond ‘roaring with rage’ and ‘may roar with rage at any moment.’

“Hiya, Rarity!” Spike waved to her, friendly as always.

She had honestly expected him to at least put on a few pounds or gain a few extra inches, running around with his new friends for so long and ‘learning to be a dragon.’ Aside from his new set of membranous wings – supposedly the dragon equivalent of a pony’s cutie mark – he was much the same.

“Sir Spike,” she replied, suspecting ‘Spikey-wikey’ wouldn’t go over that well in front of his new friends. “Now that we’ve all had a few moments to catch our breath, why don’t you introduce me to your lovely new compatriots? I recognize Garble and, I believe, Spear and… Chunk, was it?”

The circle of guards wordlessly parted for her as she trotted up to the four large drakes.

“You remembered!” Spike replied, still sounding chipper. Walking between them, though Rarity couldn’t help but feel he was purposefully putting himself protectively in front of her, he gestured to the other dragons.

“Yeah. This is Garble.” The red one with the orange frill.

“Fizzle.” The second largest, a white dragon with a pink frill and similarly tinted eyes. “You didn’t meet him before.”

“Chunk.” The largest of the bunch, a chubby brown fellow with a stubby knot of a tail.

“…And Spear,” Spike concluded, pointing to a lanky purple drake with a messy blond mane.

It was fascinating: hair, on a dragon! It reminded her of Stephen’s glorious moustache. She hated to be so gauche as to draw superficial comparisons between species, but the range of body types and appearances just among these four was rather remarkable. Compared to ponies, dragons were a diverse lot. She even recalled seeing one dragon at the migration with eight stubbly, little legs. That couldn’t possibly be normal, could it?

“Guys, this is Rarity,” Spike added, snapping his claws as he remembered to introduce her as well. “You met her before.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Garble spoke up, lifting a clawed finger to rudely pick at his ear, just behind the web-like red scales that stuck out behind his eyes. Plucking something free, he casually flicked it off to the side, earning a grimace from the refined seamstress.

“I would thank you again for your assistance this evening,” Rarity told them. “If there is anything I can do to repay you, you need only--”

“About that!” Garble approached her, quickly looming over the mare. Rarity heard her guards shuffle uneasily, but she raised a hoof to wave them off. No matter how she felt on the inside, she had to remain in charge on the outside. That meant not betraying any of the fear she felt as the dragon came to within grabbing range, leaning down to stare her in the eye.

“We want stuff like that!” he said, pointing to a jeweled broach hanging from her ruined dress.

“This?” Rarity asked, using a bit of magic to float the silver and sapphire jewelry off her chest and into the air. “It really doesn’t suit you, I’m afraid. A ruby would be much more--”

“I’m not gonna wear it!” Garble snapped and flicked the broach out of her telekinetic field with one scaled finger. It rested in his palm, and he grinned. “Spike here says you ponies think this stuff is valuable, right?”

“Well, yes.”

“And those dogs find it valuable, too?”

“Dogs?” He had to mean the diamond dogs. “The gems, yes…”

“Then this is the kinda stuff I want!” Garble declared, though as he looked at the broach in his palm, he looked more confused than appraising. “Doesn’t look that impressive to me, but if it’s valuable, we want it. Gold and gems and, uh, art…”

“Art?” Rarity inquired, trying and failing to imagine these brutes having much appreciation for subtlety or nuance. Just the idea of the four of them critiquing a piece of art like a group of scaled debutantes almost made her giggle.

“Yeah, art stuff is valuable, too, right?” Garble scratched his frill, as if not sure. “Oh, and statues and, like rugs and, uh… all that rare and valuable stuff!”

“They want stuff for their hoards,” Spike explained. “It doesn’t matter what you give, as long as it’s valuable to somepony. Umm, this is sort of hard to explain, but, basically, dragons don’t have a sense of taste.”

“Whatever do you mean?” Rarity asked, glancing around the assembled dragons. They all towered over her, all of them except the purple one. He appeared to be staring rather intently at one of the guards in a way Rarity didn’t necessarily find comforting.

“Give her some room, guys!” Spike yelled, and despite being just a fraction of the other dragons’ size, he bodily pushed the brown and white ones back a few steps.

“You explain it to her,” Garble declared, bopping Spike on the head.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” he grumbled and crossed his arms.

“So, it’s sort of like this,” he began anew. “Dragons don’t have clothes or marketplaces or banks or, you know, stuff. Like the sort of stuff ponies have. The sort of stuff that comes with a society, I guess? And they don’t really use their hoards to buy anything. You can eat the gems, if you want to, but mostly dragons just have stuff for the purpose of having stuff. The more stuff a dragon has, the bigger he gets. When he loses things, he gets small. I don’t really understand it myself, since how can anypony… or any dragon… know how valuable their hoard is? But that seems to be how it works.”

Rarity nodded slowly, recalling the rather extravagant treasury of a hoard that she and her friends had seen when that adult dragon had attempted to roost near Ponyville. There had been objects there of clearly minimal value to a giant dragon: pony-sized amulets and crowns and tiaras, piles of golden bits, expensive-looking tapestries, rugs and furs that did little to suit the cave’s natural ambiance, and at least one terribly tacky pile of clothes that were definitely not meant for a lady dragon’s svelte form and razor-scaled coiffure.

There was a project! What would a dragon look fabulous in?

“Let me see if I understand,” Rarity said, raising a hoof to her mouth to conceal a small grin. “Your friends here have no actual sense of what is or isn’t valuable, so what they want to do… is to just pile up a lot of what ponies and diamond dogs and other groups consider valuable?”

“Pretty much,” Spike answered with a shrug. “That’s what the other dragons do.”

“And the more you have, the bigger you grow?”

“The bigger you are, the bigger the girls you get!” Garble explained with a toothy grin full of mismatched but undoubtedly sharp teeth. “The biggest guys get the biggest girls with the sharpest spines!”

“Real sharp spines!” the big brown one, Chunk, provided that bit of insight.

So, sharp spines were akin to, what, a well-toned flank? Perhaps female dragons would have a use for some sort of make-up, even if clothes were out of question. These were teenage dragons, after all. If they were anything like teenagers of all species, they would have fairly one-track minds.

Princesses knew she certainly did at their age.

“Sharp spines are attractive?” Rarity asked, testing the waters of her hypothesis. “You boys like that sort of thing?”

Chunk nodded eagerly. “Oh yeah!”

“Long, sharp spines and shiny scales!” Fizzle elaborated a bit more, gesturing with his hands. “And... and long, pretty tails!”

“Like your tail, but with scales, not hair,” Garble said, tilting his head to glance at her frayed but thankfully mostly intact tail. “Hair is kind of gross.”

“Hey! Hair isn’t gross!” The purple one snapped, tearing his eyes away from whatever fascinated him on the guards’ armor and uniforms.

“Hair is totally gross!” Garble declared, and the other dragons all shared a laugh at the expense of the purple fellow. Spear, was it?

“Hairs and scales aren’t so different,” Rarity spoke up, regaining control of the conversation and forestalling what could have become a fight among the drakes. Or was this the ‘good natured ribbing’ she had heard stallions did so often? Her eyes skimmed over the teenage dragons, who seemed to still be nudging or even tousling the hair of the purple drake. He was frowning, she thought, but he didn’t seem truly hostile. Perhaps these boys weren’t quite as violent as they liked to appear?

More importantly, if female dragons had certain traits considered more attractive than others, then it was likely the males did as well. This presented certain creative opportunities… for another time.

“To step back a moment,” she continued to say, having the attention of the dragon boys. “I would be pleased to reward each one of you for your assistance today.”

“We want to stick around, too,” Garble said, hardly waiting for her to finish her sentence.

“Ponies have lots of stuff, right?” Fizzle explained their reasoning, in a fashion. “Lots of valuable stuff! We want it.”

That set off a few warning alarms in Rarity’s head. “You want it,” she stated.

“We can trade for it and crap like that,” Garble said, swatting the white dragon with the back of his clawed hand. “Spike here says that just taking stuff we want is no good.” He reared up to his full height and passed a critical eye over the numerous armed and armored guardponies around them. “So I guess we can try and get valuable stuff from ponies the way you ponies do. For now.”

Behind him, Spear snorted in disgust, a lance of orange and red fire blasting out of his nostrils. “Yeah. Fer now.”

Rarity put her hoof down, right there.

“Unless you’ve lost the use of your eyes, you gentledragons can see that this town is not defenseless,” she told them, and all more than a few of the boys narrowed their eyes at the perceived challenge. In fact, all of them did, all save Spike, who sighed. “I am more than willing to extend my welcome to all the civilized creatures in Equestria, dragons included, and I wish you well in building your hoards, but understand this: I will not stand by should you attempt to rob or accost any pony under my protection. If you want something in Ponyville, you must earn it.”

The big, brown fellow growled at that, but like the rest, he deferred to their leader.

Garble crossed his arms, staring down at the little white mare. “Some of you ponies have stones. Yeah. Okay. Like I said, we’ll play by your rules. Spike says you’re the leader of the ponies here, right?”

Rarity almost stammered at that statement. Her eyes sought out Spike for an explanation, but Garble was right. She was in charge, now. These dragons wouldn’t be Mayor Mare’s responsibility. They would be hers. As Baroness, she had to defend Ponyville and ensure that laws were enforced. It was just one more burden on her already trembling shoulders. Rarity sucked it up, betrayed nothing, and nodded.

“I am the leader of sorts, yes,” she replied.

“Are you the strongest pony here, then?” Garble pressed, and only a moment later, Rarity realized he sounded genuinely curious. “Like one of those prissy pony Princesses?” He gave her an appraising look that had nothing to do with her beauty. “You don’t look very tough.”

“There are other ponies here much stronger than I am,” she answered.

“Ehhh? Then why are you in charge?” he asked and rudely prodded her chest with a claw. “I thought da biggest pony would be da boss.”

“That isn’t how it works, darling,” Rarity replied with a smile and gestured with a hoof to Chunk, “and if the biggest rules, then wouldn’t I be talking to your friend there?”

Grable laughed, opening his toothy jaws wide and putting his rather wide array of mismatched dentition on display. Two of the other dragons gleefully mobbed the sullen and silent Chunk with a series of rude pushes and even a cuff to the back of the head. Rarity shook her head in dismay. How on Equestria did Spike get along with these ruffians?

It had to be a Y chromosome thing.

‘Actually, Rarity,’ her often-unwanted inner-Twilight appeared to remind her of a long-forgotten conversation, ‘from what I’ve read, dragons have Z and W chromosomes, not X and Y.’ Followed quickly by a tangential and one sided discussion of mammalian and dracopodomorphic anatomy. And now her head hurt, just having to recall that word.

Bad inner-Twilight. Bad.

“Maybe not the biggest,” Garble admitted, picking at his teeth with a rather sharp looking claw. “The one who wants it the most, I mean.”

“In that case, ponies aren’t any different,” Rarity replied, though it was partly a lie.

As far as she could tell, every other mare of her station fit his model: they wanted it, they wanted to rule, and they bent necks until they became the proverbial alpha mare. Antimony did it because she had no other way of giving her life value or meaning; Sand Dune did it because it was the pragmatic way to make herself and her family richer… but Rarity? Why was she the one staring down this brute with a false face, hoping nopony saw through her disguise?

“Then we’ll deal with you, Princess,” Garble decided and slowly reached to his side to pat Spike on the top of his head. “I’ve heard you’ve got diamond dogs around here, too. Can we take stuff from them for our hoards? Or are you protectin’ them, too?”

“Yeah, I told them about those guys,” Spike admitted, his question covering up the fact that Rarity was initially at a loss for words. The diamond dogs? “Sorry,” Spike apologized. “I figured you wouldn’t mind...?”

She remembered her conversation with Sand Dune and how her family in Bitaly did, in fact, control a faction or two of diamond dogs they used for mining. Rarity hadn’t given much thought to her own local dog population except to have her Free Company guards keep ponies away from their gem fields. But… if something could be worked out there, it could help alleviate her almost perpetual debt problems.

“I will consider it,” she deigned and fixed Spike with a warm and genuine smile. Floating off a string of pearls from her tattered dress, she reached out and held open Spike’s palm with her hoof. Settling the pearls there, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“A reward for a very brave and very diplomatic dragon,” she explained, but gasped as Spike’s eyes flashed a brilliant green and, more importantly, as his head shot up an inch, bumping her on the nose. “Ow! My word! What was that?”

“I think it was this,” Spike said, holding the pearls in his hand. “Or maybe it was…?” He grinned and gently touched the cheek she had just kissed. “I don’t suppose I could get another kiss to see which one worked?”

“Don’t push your luck, Sir Spike.” Rarity touched him lovingly on the head.

“Oh, hey, could I borrow a chest or something?” he asked with a boyish grin. “Now that I’m back, I need to start on my hoard! I gotta introduce the guys to Twilight, too, and find ‘em a place to stay and check on that egg I saved and…!”

“They can stay here for the time being,” Rarity promised him, promised them all, actually. It would keep them away from Ponyville until she was ready to cross that bridge. “And I’ll have a beautiful chest set aside for your hoard, and the egg is safe, I promise.”

“Hey. Pony. I want that spear!” Behind Garble, Spear, the lanky purple dragon, pointed at one of the weapons held by a Free Company pegasus. “That one with the red engraving on it, those red marks in the metal! And the wax seal. It’s got magic on it, and I want it.”

“I want gold!” Chunk jumped in, gleefully thumping his fists together in front of his belly. “I know you’ve got lots of gold!”

“I just want gems,” Fizzle added. “I don’t care what kind. Lots of gems!”

“I will make arrangements, gentledragons,” Rarity assured them, imperiously agreeing to their demands with a wave of her hoof in each of their directions.

A few more comforting, soothing words and she felt confident in leaving the dragons in the courtyard. They were still under watch, but Rarity was rather sure they wouldn’t cause undue trouble, even if the other guests approached them. Battles and melees with Neighponese retainers and psychedelic pine cones and now dragons…?

This art festival truly had gone places she had never would have imagined. Glancing back over her shoulder as she headed towards the villa, Rarity noticed the Emir Golden Star and his first wife Gentle Stream approaching the dragons, followed closely by the Emir’s first concubine, Swift Stroke. The curious Marabians were the only ponies present tall enough to meet the dragons eye to eye.

‘If something happens to them, I’ll have a diplomatic incident to add to the day’s activities,’ Rarity thought but continued on her way. ‘Then again, that would be treading trampled ground, wouldn’t it? Lady Yumi is heiress to all Neighpon, and if – when – I get my hooves on her… well, what will you do, Rarity? Do you even know?’

It was all just…

Away from prying eyes, finally, Rarity felt her heart flutter and clench in worry. She had to keep up appearances, but the closer she got to being indoors, the more she felt her façade crumble away. Passing by her guards, she walked down a marvelously gilded and adorned hallway and primly took a left turn into one of the side passages towards the pantry and kitchens. Head held high but her eyes closed, opening a door and trying to rush through, she nearly bumped into one of the household staff. The surprised maid, a tawny earth pony mare with a curly, red mane, gasped and quickly apologized for being so careless, even though she hadn’t been the one stumbling around the villa in a foalish daze.

“Find Sandy or Light Touch,” Rarity demanded. She couldn’t remember the filly’s name, not at the moment. “Bring them here, but knock before you enter.”

“Yes, my Lady!” the maid agreed and hurriedly left.

Finally, blissfully alone in the pantry, Rarity inhaled deeply to try and set to rights the maelstrom of emotions churning inside her chest: worry and shock and fear and the low of ebbing adrenalin. It was an effort only partly successful. Hanging her head, she felt tears on her cheeks, blurring her view of the shelves of expensive, imported silverware and fine china.

Behind closed eyes, she could remember a pegasus pony dragging her through the air, sneering as she dropped her into the cloud of toxic pollen. She recalled Antimony locking her in a panic, her illusionary disguise as Dewdrop Dazzle unraveling but only in her own mind. Rarity remembered the look of smug superiority that same mare had, the threats she had leveled – broken legs and broken minds – but more than that, the utter lack of understanding Antimony had for what it meant to simply love another pony. To be with them and fight for them, not for power, not for any gain, but just to be with them. She remembered Yumi, sitting on a hill and looking down at her defeated retainers, her face calm but her body radiating indignation and rage. She remembered Sand Dune, callously negotiating bloodlines and breeding rights, as if Blueblood – and even the mare herself – were just livestock on a farm, or pedigreed cats!

Eyes closed tight, Rarity could imagine one of those same mares slipping poison into a cup, smirking as Blueblood drank… the look of satisfaction and triumph as he collapsed…

Rushing over to one of the wash basins, Rarity felt a heave that – thankfully – didn’t grow into a full on bout of sickness. Instead, she shuddered as she hung her head over the basin, her breath slow and ragged. Sickness slowly turned to anger: anger towards the mares who called themselves noble, but who were anything but; anger towards all those foalish authors who fed the fantasies of young fillies with tales of gallant knights and fair, gentle ladies; anger towards herself for being so stupid as to believe what she had read and what she had wanted to see, not what actually was. Anger, as she slowly came to realize she couldn’t stand the company of the ponies she had – all her life – aspired to be around.

The shallow, self-serving sycophants that had so secretly disgusted her in Canterlot, the Upper Crusts and the Jet Sets, now looked refreshingly tame. Above them, a society of coiled serpents slithered in the upper echelons of power, fighting and scheming in the darkness where nopony could see them bite and choke one another. Worse: nopony would even care, even if they knew! So long as the country ran like clockwork, so long as the trains were on time and the harvests were bountiful and the festivals were bright and the sun and moon marched on, so long as they themselves were happy, they didn’t care what the ponies in the castles did to one another! What other choice was there? For them or… for her?

In her mind’s eye, Rarity imagined herself, one hoof planted firmly on the side of Yumi’s face as she triumphed over the upstart mare. Ripples of magic set her mane flowing as she laughed, beautiful and powerful and terrible to all those who stood in her way. Wasn’t this what they wanted from her? Wasn’t this what the others must already imagine her to be like? It was what Fleur had thought her to be! It was what they were, so maybe it was what she had to become!

Except…

“I can’t,” she groaned softly, hooves covering her face as her breathing slowed and calmed. “I refuse. I refuse to let them turn me into that.”

Fleur. She had won over Fleur with friendship and patience and understanding and forgiveness. Even Antimony – she reminded herself – even she wasn’t an enemy anymore, and that had been done without cruelty or animosity. Just as surely as they could change her, she could change them. Rarity believed that. She had to believe that, because if it wasn’t true, than… than she didn’t see how she could be a part of Blueblood’s world, no matter how much she wanted it.

‘She poisoned him,’ a thought betrayed her resolve. ‘She tried to kill you. How can you change ponies like that?’

“My Lady?” A gentle knock on the pantry door blessedly interrupted Rarity’s thoughts. “I have Miss Light Touch here. May I let her in?”

“Yes,” Rarity replied, “Please do.”

The door opened only briefly, followed by the gentle clip-clop of Light Touch’s hooves on the stone floor. Even before entering, the light blue unicorn mare must have sensed that something was amiss, and without a word of surprise or distress over the unusual circumstances or her mistress’ disheveled state, her horn lit up, and Rarity felt herself float bodily away from the basin she had very nearly lost her stomach to. Water ran, and a damp towel soon began to clean Rarity’s matted hair, magic removing her tattered dress and folding it aside.

There was something remarkably soothing about Light Touch’s ministrations. Rarity felt herself relax onto the floor, the cool embrace of it sending a chill up and away from her stomach. The towel and a scraper soon found her hooves, removing packed-in dirt and grime. It must have been her imagination, but just being a little cleaner and more presentable almost made her feel physically better. It wasn’t vanity, was it? Sometimes, she wondered.

Blueblood… she had wanted to see him, to be sure he was fine, to hold his hoof and hear his voice… but where was she? He had been poisoned, and where was she? Having a panic attack in the pantry? Refusing to leave without being cleaned and brushed down? Wasn’t that the very definition of being vain and callous, narcissistic and spoiled beyond belief?

“You must think me a terrible pony,” Rarity said, without having meant to give voice to her thoughts. “Oh. I mean--”

Light Touch ran a fine toothed brush down Rarity’s neck, smoothing over the hairs in her coat and sending a relaxing tingle down her spine. “Ponies deal with stress differently, my Lady.”

“Stress,” Rarity agreed, trying to convince herself that that was it.

“Does… does my Lady wish to speak of anything?” Light Touch asked, a little hesitance in her voice. Rarity glanced back at the mare, her short pink mane done up in a neat curl. She was a few years Rarity’s senior, and her green eyes were refreshingly honest and unguarded. At the moment, they watched her with a little hint of worry at having spoken out of turn, but just enough confidence and familiarity that she knew the offer would be accepted.

“Have you seen Blueblood yet?” Rarity asked her.

“No, my Lady. He has not called for me.”

Rarity sighed softly, deciding that – maybe – she did want to talk about a few things with somepony. “He was poisoned.”

Light Touch’s response was quick but revealed little. “I heard.”

Rarity felt her head tilt as Light Touch attended to her horn, cleaning it with tiny circular strokes.

“They say His Grace is recovering very quickly,” the maid continued. “We all pray for his good health.”

“But how could she do it?” Rarity asked, desperate for some sort of answer. “How could she poison him, Light Touch? What kind of mare would do that?”

“I do not know, my Lady,” Light Touch admitted. “A desperate and frightened one, I think.”

Before Rarity could say more, another knock sounded against the pantry door. This one was not the discrete tap of the tip of a hoof on the wood, but a whole-hoofed clamor. Even before a voice spoke up to give an identity to the pony, Rarity had a good guess as to who – of all the ponies in the manor – would knock in such a cloddish manner.

“Rarity? Ya’ll are in there, ain’t ya?” There was one last knock, and Applejack softened her voice slightly. “Ah dunno if’n yer decent or whatever in there, and – and I know this probably isn’t the best ah’times ta bring this up, but… I figured we should talk about a few things.”

Rarity adjusted her forelegs, crossing them from where she lay on the floor. Applejack. They did have things to discuss, of that there was no doubt. On the other hoof, she did not want her friend seeing her in such a sorry state: disheveled and unsure and needing to be brushed down to face her fears, like a little filly with stage fright. On the other hoof, this was Applejack. Of all ponies.

“Enter,” she said.

After all, this was ‘AJ.’ Though everything, and no matter how low she sank, Rarity believed in her friends, and for all their faults and disagreements, Applejack was one of the ponies she had known the longest, though they had not always been the friends they were now. There was no point hiding from her.

The portal opened a crack, and, with surprising discretion, Applejack slipped inside, closing the door behind her. Despite being in the thick of the fighting earlier, literally going hoof-to-hoof with Yumi’s retainers, her resilient friend appeared unharmed. Frazzled, perhaps, but not harmed. Rarity was so very thankful for that. All her friends had wonderfully and courageously stepped up today to support her and protect her guests. Applejack kept her eyes low, one hoof fidgeting anxiously with the rim of her Stetson. Rarity imagined her doing much the same for some time outside the door before finally mustering the courage to knock.

“Applejack,” Rarity said, taking in the appearance of the other mare. “Are you alright, darling?”

“Ah, yeah, just dandy,” Applejack replied, her snout crinkling up at her words, an expression that reminded Rarity of distaste, like she had picked up the smell of something foul. It was hardly an attractive look.

“They say the worst should be over,” Rarity assured her and tried to relax again as Light Touch continued her work. The brush was, by this point, making a repeat visit to the same few spots, working out knots and tension in muscle more than tangles in hair. “My ponies and I will see to the rest.”

“Is…!” The urgency in Applejack’s voice gave Rarity a moment’s pause and Applejack herself seemed both shocked and embarrassed by her tone of voice. She quickly covered her mouth with a hoof. “I mean, is, uh, Blueblood… he’s gonna be okay, won’t he?”

“I think so,” Rarity replied, a little too hastily for her tastes. “It did not sound dire before, and you know how thorough Twilight is. Nopony seems worried. Isn’t that something?” She gave Applejack a small smile, as if to explain her own absence from the stallion’s side. “A pony is poisoned, and things go on, business as usual. Doctor Pill is here, too. Blueblood is in good hooves.”

“That’s, well, that’s mighty good news…”

Rarity said no more on the subject, straightening her sitting posture as Light Touch went to work on her mane. She had torn up not only her own dress to fight but used her own mane and tail as haircloth. She had a way to return the haircloth back to her, restoring her luxurious tail and mane, but it damaged the hair and left it a tangle. Light Touch offered no complaints as she ran a comb through it, bit by bit working it out. No pony was better at her job. Except Sandy, perhaps, but she was likely still keeping herself hidden for the time being.

Applejack sat down nearby then lowered herself onto the floor to join her friend. Uncharacteristically, she kept silent, alternating between watching Rarity out of the corner of her eye and being lost in her own thoughts. Rarity suspected that it was simple reluctance on the farmer’s part in discussing their problems in front of Light Touch. That was the simplest and most likely explanation for her behavior, yet Rarity couldn’t help but think something else was amiss as well.

“Has Blueblood ever been poisoned before?” Rarity asked Light Touch after a particularly soothing bit of brushwork.

“No, my Lady.”

“Do you know of any other pony being poisoned?”

“No, my Lady.”

“Thank the heavens and Princesses for that, at least,” Rarity muttered. “This isn’t a common occurrence.”

“Yeah,” Applejack spoke up, her eyes resolutely fixed on a far wall. “Things weren’t so bad, right?”

“Such vile attacks may not be commonplace, but that does not excuse them!” Rarity told her, her brows drawing down into a clear and unmistakable scowl. “I – I’ve thought before of just how bad it could have been, and it is hard to think about how glad I should be or how relieved I should be that he is able to recover. What if Yumi had used a more deadly poison? What if Blueblood had died?”

Applejack lowered her eyes again, looking guilty, though Rarity couldn’t imagine why. Her old friend was being unusually reserved. She was much more the sort to say what was on her mind, be it good or bad, leaving the truth to stand on its own merits. Applejack wasn’t the sulking sort of pony.

A thought stole Rarity’s attention, just then.

“Light Touch,” she addressed the other unicorn mare. “What would have happened if…” Did she really have to say it? What if Blueblood had been murdered, while everypony blithely enjoyed themselves in the festival, fifty hoof lengths away? “What if things had been worse?”

“If Lord Blueblood passed on,” Light Touch answered, not skipping a beat, “then the Stable of Lords would elect a replacement from the extended Royal Family. Prince Leon is the most likely. His pedigree is impeccable. Lord Alpha Brass also has a claim; as the son of a Duke, he is not due to otherwise inherit. Lord Warmblood is also a strong possibility, despite his advanced years.”

“And you would serve him instead,” Rarity guessed.

“Or her,” Light Touch corrected the newly noble mare. “I serve the Prince or Princess, whoever that may be.”

“You’d just shuffle yerself around like that?” Applejack asked, sounding as appalled as Rarity rememebred her friend ever being. “Don’t it matter at all who you comb down?”

Rarity felt an almost indistinguishable tremor in the brush running down her back as Light Touch’s magic wavered in response to her emotional state. It was the same sort of minuscule mistake that could ruin a stitch with a needle and thread in her own business – her former business – Rarity corrected herself. Most ponies likely wouldn’t notice the difference, but she could and did.

“Miss Applejack,” Light Touch replied, regaining her poise as well as any noblemare. “Of twenty-eight applicants, I alone was chosen to apprentice under Miss Tanen Balm, who herself apprenticed under Miss Genteel, who learned from Miss Ways, who learned from Miss Comb, and so forth. I can name every pony in the line of my profession, and when my time comes, I pray I will mentor the mare who will serve and prepare Lord Blueblood’s foals and grandfoals. Make no mistake. I love this job, and I am proud to serve the Blueblood line.”

“Do I care who I serve?” she asked, rhetorically. “Of course I do. When I was very young, I helped my Lord’s father prepare for the duel that cost him his life. I cared for his mother on her deathbed, even when her mind… slipped. This has always been my dream, and I refuse to let a few dark moments tarnish it. It matters greatly to me who I serve, but it also matters little. That is the life I have chosen to lead, and I do not regret it.”

Applejack said nothing at first, slipping back into the strange mood Rarity had noticed before. There was definitely something wrong with her, something eating away at her. Was it the Sweet Apple Acres bailout? Had going behind her back really struck her so hard? Or was it something else?

Moreover, Light Touch’s words stuck a cord in Rarity’s own thoughts. ‘This has always been my dream, and I refuse to let a few dark moments tarnish it.’ Hadn’t she told herself as much before?’

It was just so hard to reconcile.

“If I may, my Lady,” Light Touch said, deftly twirling her paddle brush before it vanished in a sparkle. She swapped it for a magically heated, fine-toothed roller brush.

“His Grace the Prince has not always been as you know him to be,” she continued, for once not waiting for permission. “As I said, I have known him for much of his life and my own. He was never cruel, but he was at times unkind or… demanding, is a kind way of describing it. I did not mind that. However, until the Gala, just recently, I suspected that my Lord did not even know my name; he never once spoke it.”

The roller brush found the base of Rarity’s mane, inching teasingly up and along the natural curl, fixing and emphasizing it as it peaked and fell over the side of her face.

“I do not know what happened at the Gala, or if his meeting you prompted this change… or the other way around. All I can say for certain is that he is different now from how he was before, and I believe you to be part of the reason why. Around you, he smiles more, laughs more… he has someone to humble him and correct him, but also support him and encourage him. You bring out the best in him, my Lady. I have seen you do the same with Lady Fleur as well. You have opened hearts once closed.”

For a few strokes, Light Touch was silent.

“I believe you can change ponies, Lady Rarity; you can change them for the better and do much good,” she concluded, and the brush vanished again. “Know that many ponies admire you for that.”

Rarity took in a slow breath and realized her mind and thoughts were the most serene they had been since the end of the fight with Yumi’s retainers. Perhaps it was a selfish indulgence, but a little cleaning up had indeed left her feeling refreshed and ready to face the future, even a future that included venomous mares like Lady Yumi and her ilk. Her foalhood dream of being a beautiful Princess, married to a fair and chivalrous Prince, living in luxury in a great castle… it was gone. She was sure of that now.

In place of that dream, bit by bit at first, something else had come to take its place: something less fanciful, but no less idealistic. She would have her Prince, not so conventionally chivalrous, but with his own unique charms, and she would have her castle and wardrobe. She would share both with the mares who thought to crush her and make her into their shadow. They would meet and eat and drink and chat – and yes, they would scheme – but they would never again fight one another.

She’d make them into her friends or kill them trying…

And Lady Sand Dune would be the litmus test.

“It seems my work is done, my Lady,” Light Touch said, and Rarity heard Applejack give a startled yelp as the hoofmaiden started on the apple farmer’s tail. Applejack was quick to jump to her hooves and defensively clutch her tawny tail close to her chest, warding the beautician away with a glare and a flailing hoof.

“Hey now, wait just a second! Nopony said nothin’ about you messin’ with my tail!”

“But Miss Applejack, don’t you want me to smooth out your tail a little? Or add lift to your mane?”

“No! Stay back! Watch it!”

“Stay still, Miss Applejack. You must know there is no escape.”

For a few seconds, Rarity let the two jump and prance around the room, playing cat and also-cat. The sheer silliness of it all even brought a smile to her face. Standing up, Rarity lightly tapped her hoof on the tiled floor. Light Touch immediately ceased her pursuit of the apple farmer with the terribly maintained hair and spun around to face her mistress.

“Light Touch,” she said, still smiling. “Thank you for your assistance and discretion.”

“Of course, my Lady!” The other mare bowed her head respectfully, adding with a teasing grin, “Miss Applejack.”

“Ah-about what ah said before--” Applejack began to say, as Light Touch made to leave the pantry.

“No harm was intended,” the beautician agreed. Without further aplomb, she discretely opened the door and darted back outside, leaving the two friends in silence. For want of a mirror, Rarity took just a moment or two to check her reflection in the flat of a highly polished metal plate. She was bereft of makeup and the other products she preferred, but she was more than presentable. Seeing the pony smiling back at her, it really was as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

‘Light Touch. Germoglio. Spike. Thank you.’

“Now then!” she declared, a bit of spunk back in her tone. “Applejack, darling, whatever is on your mind?”

Her friend glanced down again and gave a small, labored sigh. “Rarity. Ya… ya ain’t gonna like what I gotta talk to ya about. But before ya go seeing yer beau, ya gotta know about it anyway…”

“Whatever do you mean?” Rarity asked, growing a little worried for the other mare. “What’s wrong?”

Applejack nibbled her lower lip, taking a deep breath and steeling herself as she looked up. “It’s about Yumi and… and me. Cause a lotta what happened here today is mah fault.”

“I can’t believe I missed all this fun! You’re so lucky!”

“I would not consider it fun, Euporie.”

“That’s because you don’t consider anything fun, Eunomie.”

The two sisters sat before a statue of a pony missing two of her four legs and half of her face. She had formerly been a triumphalist representation of the hard working farmer, a seedling in one hoof and a hoe in the other, raking it back with a motion from both leg and mouth. The fighting had seen somepony tumble into the statue, breaking off the two front legs. The pony was beggared, now, with no seedling in hoof, the thin pole of the hoe being all that seemed to keep her front from falling forward.

Not too far away was a statue of Princess Celestia, missing the front. It had been propped back up, but all that was left was the great alicorn’s luminescent rump. Surprisingly, it had suddenly attracted quite some interest from a multitude of ponies who found it much more evocative now than it had been before the battle. Then again, perhaps it wasn’t that surprising.

Euporie, though, found the amputated statue more interesting. She stared at the broken stumps where the farmer’s legs had been with naked fascination. It was, after all, rare to see a crippled pony. Three legs was a rare enough sight, in flesh or in stone, but two was almost unheard of. Even Eunomie found herself feeling some… sense of disquiet… at the sight.

“How frightful it would be,” Euporie mused, a ghost of a smile creeping up the corner of her mouth. “It is so… macabre. Yet everypony seems to shy away from it. Do you know why, Eunomie?”

The soft spoken mare did not. “Why?”

“Because it is in the nature of ponykind to pretend that what makes us uncomfortable does not exist.” Euporie reached up to brush a strand of bright blue mane away from her face, tucking it back around the base of her horn. “Ponies are such deluded creatures, and they become blinder the more of them experience the same thing. Herd mentalities. How sickening they are.”

She grinned fully, looking around to be sure they had no company.

“Yumi isn’t dead, is she?” Euporie asked, simply.

“I do not know,” Eunomie admitted, one eye closed and the other blinking, slowly. “Galen and my other eye followed her up to the rendezvous with Aunt Chalice. I saw Miss Fluttershy, but I could not follow her through the forest. I lost them.”

“They survived Auntie Pushover?” Euporie whispered with a little giggle. He. He. He! “I told Daddy. I told him. Didn’t I? Send me, I said. I would’ve killed her. Maybe I’d even have used this Fluttershy mare to do it.”

“Please mind your words, sister.”

“Plegh meh menemh!” Euporie mocked, garbling the words foalishly. “What does it matter? Nopony can understand what we’re saying outside this bubble.”

“Not unless you raise your voice. I’ve said this many times.”

“And I’ve never once forgotten it. Am I raising my voice now? Am I?”

“No.”

“Then, exactly when I do raise my voice loud enough for everypony to hear us conspiring, breaking your little ‘zone of silence’ spell, then you can remand me, Eunomie.”

“My apologies, Euporie. It is in my nature to worry.”

Eunomie remained as calm as she always did, and for a few seconds the twin sisters sat side by side in front of the hideous sculpture. Eunomie found herself wondering if her sister had been correct. Did ponies turn from what they found uncomfortable? Nopony else seemed to be giving the damaged statue even a cursory look. It was as if it was invisible to them. Not a one even took the time and effort to point or gawk.

She took a long look at the statue, and felt… only that little flutter of emotion. Eunomie didn’t like it. It was hard to tell what the feeling even was. Some thing. Some sense of… discomfort.

This was now an incomplete pony, without her legs, without half her face.

An incomplete pony…

“It is very likely that Yumi is still alive,” Eunomie explained, her voice emotionless, as if reading from a spreadsheet or a script. “From what I’ve uncovered, Miss Fluttershy is among the most adept of ponies in navigating and surviving the Everfree. Aunt Chalice did fail to kill her, but she did kill Master Shigure, and most important of all, she conveyed the message she was told to.”

“The one saying ‘Blueblood sent me?’” Euporie inquired, nodding to herself and crossing her front legs. “I have to give you props for that, Eunomie. It was pretty cunning.”

“It was only prudent.”

“Yeah, yeah. So, as long as that idiot keeps out of changeling hooves, she’ll bring home the news to Neighpon. They’ll be outraged. They’ll demand their ponies back.”

“And Canterlot will deny them, because Chrysalis will wish to fan the flames between the city she means to attack and that city’s only reliable ally. Again: as long as Yumi is not replaced by a changeling, we stand to benefit.”

“Daddy stands to benefit,” Euporie corrected her.

“Father’s benefit is ultimately ours. Our plans also require the Neighponese to remain on the sidelines.”

“I guess,” her sister relented, scratching her chin. “And Daddy is probably happy. His little plan ferreted out all the rats in his larder. I wonder how many changelings that Bug Witch had among the teleportation unit?”

“Three or four is the most statistically likely, given known trends in infiltration.”

“Daddy probably burned them.”

“That is also likely.”

Eunomie did not feel any pity for the changelings. Put another way, she did not feel anything much towards them but certainly not pity or guilt for those Father burned. Their fate had been sealed by their Queen if not her step-father. Alpha Brass’s preferred form of plan was what Eunomie thought of as ‘baiting.’ He presented the illusion of choice, when, in fact, one or two of those choices were made so irresistible that it was impossible to ignore them. His skill was in determining how to present the lure and how to tailor the trap towards a given pony… or non-pony. Even if a pony where to be wary of any such opportunities, seeing them all as traps, then they would cripple themselves with anxiety and insecurity, allowing others to move against them and take advantage.

Both Lady Yumi and Queen Chrysalis had taken their respective bait.

Yumi, the poor mare, had so wanted to be the first earth pony to become Duchess of Canterlot. Her desires were well known. The moment Antimony had crushed her dreams by defeating her, years ago, Alpha Brass had kept an eye on her, waiting for when and if she could have use. The possibility of the winning the Duchy again had proven irresistible bait for her, and Brass had planted the seeds of their meeting years before. Yumi had readily agreed to “assist” him, assuming he wanted a modicum of control over Canterlot via favors she would owe him for his help. It was all a ruse, of course. Father had never really expected Yumi to win Blueblood’s hoof, by hook or by crook.

Yumi herself… she had been Chrysalis’ enticement.

This bait had proven irresistible to the changeling Queen. Chrysalis could not and would not resist being able to subvert the heiress to Neighpon, suddenly left exposed and vulnerable by leaving her nest. The changelings had very little to no presence in the often insular island Duchy. Yumi was also a tremendously powerful earth pony in her own right. Chrysalis would make a move to have her.

It was as Father had expected. Allowing changelings to infiltrate the teleportation unit had emboldened Chrysalis. She thought she knew all who came and went from the Hanging Gardens, but she did not know that there was a backdoor to the spell. It was her greatest flaw, indeed, likely the greatest flaw of all changelings: they did not expect to be, themselves, deceived.

Yet, to let changelings infiltrate the teleportation unit was a terrible risk.

One of them needed to be revealed, and the one that emerged was Pixie Dust. The moment she left with Yumi, she had been identified as a changeling. Now that same changeling had traded up, exchanging Pixie Dust for Yumi and then Yumi for Prince Blueblood himself. This had also been considered possible, as had the outright murder of the Prince to drive home the animosity between Neighpon and Canterlot. Both options, still, presented opportunities.

Father’s fear had, simply, been losing both Blueblood and Yumi to replacement. Losing Blueblood was not a problem. Losing Yumi was. That could not be allowed. Better she die. Chalice had chosen to kill her, or to try to. It was the simplest route, so it made sense Auntie would pick it. A dead heiress, accused of being a traitor but with little proof – together with a changeling-Blueblood who would only make more enemies in a misguided attempt to isolate Canterlot for invasion – would lead Neighpon, ring-in-nose, into the bosom of the Terre Rare faction in court.

It had been a bit touch-and-go, for a while, orchestrating things on the fly to follow Father’s rough outlines.

“Plans are delicate things, Eunomie. Like flowers, plucked from the vine. They wilt with time, and the merest touch can scatter them. I put less stock in flowers and plans than I do in intelligent ponies like yourself. I trust you to handle things on the surface for me. I trust you, implicitly.”

Eunomie reached a hoof up to her shoulder, where her father had touched gently her in passing back when he had told her how much he trusted her. He trusted and relied on her. He loved her, though he wasn’t really her father. Changelings had killed and replaced her true mother. There was no pony else.

“I wish I could truly love you back, father,” Eunomie whispered. “The way Euporie loves you. But my heart is…”

“What’s that, Eunomie?”

“Nothing, Euporie.”

Her sister sucked in a breath and pursed her lips. “Yeah, well, I’ve been thinking, and pretty much… things turned out okay, overall. Canterlot will be alone, and alone, Canterlot will crumble down the mountainside.” She lifted a hoof to pantomime the city’s destruction, coming apart and tumbling off the edge into oblivion. “And the changelings? He. He. He! Oh, that will be fun!”

“If our plan bears fruit. Bear in mind that Father’s plan will have a different outcome. So will Lady Cadenza’s.”

“Three different outcomes,” Euporie agreed, still chuckling darkly to herself. “The only one just following orders is Auntie.”

“Yes. Perhaps.”

“Perhaps?” Euporie asked, growing serious for once. “You would know, wouldn’t you?”

“I know the other plans because I am the only pony who can function as an intermediary,” Eunomie explained, though it was obvious. “Aunt Chalice does not have… I am told that Aunt Chalice does not have the personality type to pursue her own course of action, but she is in a position to do so, if she wished to. For that matter, Lady Twilight Sparkle is also certain to eventually develop some scheme of her own as an alternative to the one posed to her by Father. She will present us with a fourth and final outcome.”

“You don’t think she’ll be okay with just killing the changelings?”

“The one to best determine that is you, Euporie,” Eunomie reminded her fair sister. “You must have gotten a feel for her emotions.”

“She hasn’t killed any changelings yet, and I wasn’t there when you and Daddy made the sales pitch,” Euporie grumbled, taking a breath and licking her lips as she thought. “Probably… right now… she’s convinced herself it is a necessity. A bitter pill. That sort of thing. She’ll waver in her conviction, though. She’s the sort who thinks she knows more than anypony, but she’s also insecure about herself. She badly wants to be acknowledged by the ponies she respects… she’s a lot like you in that, Eunomie.”

Eunomie was unmoved by the remark. “And?”

“And I think she’ll start to think her ideas have new perspective. She won’t follow our plans for very long.”

“I see.”

“She might even come to the conclusion that you and I did, Eunomie!” Euporie said that with a savage grin. “Imagine that! Wouldn’t that be interesting!”

“It would potentially be catastrophic,” Eunomie replied, deadpan. “Both your outcome and Lady Cadenza’s rely on your unique skills. Lady Sparkle attempting them would be very dangerous for all involved.”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what she does with Daddy’s spare torc, then.”

“Yes.”

“So all this time, Sirocco’s been alive, too?”

“Yes.”

“Geez! What a waste of money! All those assassins sent after her… all for nothing!”

“It is remarkable she yet lives,” Eunomie agreed, feeling a twinge of admiration for the pegasus bodyguard her brother had lost the service of.

Her defection was all that monster... that Discord’s fault. Even now, after being returned to stone, that one snap of his fingers continued to sow chaos where once there had been harmony. Of all the Star Keys to steal, too, Sirocco had chosen the broken one.

It was the gamma Key. The one on which so much turned.

The alpha and beta Keys couldn’t be shattered, not now, not so late in the game. They had exactly one spare to run the test on – the torc that would have been Polished Jewel’s – and Sirocco had stolen it. Eunomie doubted the bodyguard had even known exactly what it was or why it was so important. She had simply taken it, knowing it was important in some way, and fled. Eunomie had never seen Father in such a rage, or then so depressed, before or since. It was not just the torc, either. What had struck Father so hard had been losing Sirocco; the mare had served him since both were foals.

It was all because of that one horrible day.

“So,” Euporie summarized, lip rising into a sneer as she spoke, “we still have Sirocco trotting around somewhere. She may or may not be in contact or even working with Princess Celestia directly. We’re counting on an obsessive-compulsive unicorn librarian who may or may not turn against us at the worst possible time. We’ve lost track of Yumi and, I hate to remind you, Flim and Flam have found a loophole in your stupid contract, the one you refuse to just break. Oh! And on top of everything else, I’d bet chips to bits that Ritterkreuz is alive, too. That lunatic took the Wonderbolts out for us, but she was supposed to end up dead. What next? Shall we have Sand Dune breathing down our necks? Or Auntie Antimony showing up to try and kill us?”

Eunomie’s expression was serene and unconcerned.

“Our enemies are the changelings first, the rest of the world second,” she said, simply. “Remain poised, observe the situation, and only then make big moves.”

She lifted a hoof, almost touching the stump where the statue’s leg had been.

“Sirocco will reveal herself, and when she does, she will cease to be a problem. She has fled through five countries, but she is cornered here in Equestria. She knows the endgame is fast approaching. Princess Celestia will be handled by Chrysalis for us, or at least distracted by the invasion of her home. Twilight Sparkle is both asset and liability. I personally see her as more the former… I…”

She recalled Twilight, patiently studying with her. The other mare was methodical, but kind. She was reasoning, but she had feelings. Twilight Sparkle was… she was, in some ways, as Eunomie wished she herself could be. And she was so talented. So gifted. There was no denying that, or that she was the Element of Magic.

“I think I would like her and father to be together,” Eunomie told her sister, and Euporie rolled her eyes. “She is a good pony.”

“Yeah, maybe, but like I told you before, she’d hate you if she knew the real you,” the blue-maned mare reminded her, wrapping a leg around her sister’s shoulders. “You can’t count on her or anypony but me… and Daddy, of course.”

Eunomie felt the strangest impulse to knit her brows together into a frown.

“This is likely true,” she admitted, and continued. “The rest are minor players. Flim and Flam know nothing; keeping their contract ensures they remain silent whereas killing them presents problems. We will watch for Yumi, but I expect she will flee to Neighpon. Once there, her actions will determine whether she is real or a changeling. Ritterkreuz should be dead, you are correct in that, but without the Wonderbolts, Cloudsdale is toothless. Their common guard is useless. We have decapitated them. What is left will be removed as a threat. Father will see to it.”

“As for Sand Dune and Auntie Antimony,” she concluded with a snort. “The Quartz Clan is unlikely to stick their neck out, not without some profit to be made, and Auntie Antimony will be dealt with when Grandfather is. Father has pointed both Chrysalis and Twilight in their direction. We have nothing to fear from them.”

Euporie nodded, accepting that. “And the little dress maker?”

“I fail to see what difference Lady Rarity can make in the grand scheme of things.”

“I’m sure Auntie Antimony also thought that, too. Where is she now?”

“This is true.”

The two mares sat before the broken statue, their thoughts their own. Euporie was still grinning, though she didn’t say any more. Eventually, she muttered something about finding Pinkie Pie and Eunomie had to reiterate that she expected her to behave and play along, even if it meant making apologies or amends. Euporie grumbled and cursed but relented. Eunomie simply continued to study the statue. It evoked something in her, a faded, weak shadow of an emotion, but she couldn’t tell what. It was hard to tell how to feel, sometimes.

‘A broken pony,’ she thought to herself, one eye still closed, the other amber orb examining the sculpture. ‘She’s a broken pony. An incomplete pony. A pony like that… it shouldn’t exist, should it?’

It made her feel…

It felt like…

“Euporie?”

“Yeah?”

“How does this statue make you feel?”

“Disgusted… but also a little excited.”

“Ah. I see. Thank you, Euporie.”

“Anytime, Eunomie.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well!” Applejack repeated, glaring at Rarity’s hindquarters as the mare slowly trotted through the manor. “Ain’t ya upset? Ah just told ya that it’s all mah fault that yer beau nearly got killed! If I were in yer horseshoes I’d be madder than a red ant!”

“Hm.”

“Hm? That’s it?!” Applejack gritted her teeth and picked up her pace for a second so she could circle around in front of the former dressmaker. “Rares, ain’t ya gonna… yell or… anything? Ain’t ya gonna chew inta me?”

Applejack opened her forelegs wide, as if to embrace the incoming storm.

“Come on, ah deserve it! Go ahead!” Still, the mare did nothing. Searching desperately for a better way to get through to Rarity, Applejack bodily grabbed her by the withers, summing up her feelings in one simple question, “Ain’t ya mad? Say something! Come on! Ah can take it!”

“You want me to be upset with you,” Rarity stated, and Applejack nodded.

“Yer darn tootin!”

“You want me to yell and decry how one of my oldest friends could do this to me?”

“Basically,” the honest apple farmer admitted. “Ah mean… After what ah said, what ah told ya I did…!”

“Applejack,” Rarity interrupted, Applejack’s hooves still on her shoulders. Without prompting, the earth pony dropped her powerful hooves to the ground again. She hadn’t really meant to just grab her friend like that… but…

But she had admitted to helping Yumi. She had been party to attempted, what was it? Regicide? Something like that. Worse than that, she had turned against her friend and even against the promise she had made when Rarity had asked her to be a gendarme. Not that she had wanted any fancy titles or anything, but protecting Ponyville was already on her daily to-do list and a promise was a promise. Always.

It was her fault this had happened.

“Don’t ya get it? It’s mah fault!” Applejack blurted out, sniffing and hiding her face behind her right front hoof. “It’s all mah fault!”

Rarity parted her lips but closed them a second later and shook her head.

“Nunna this would’ve happened if not fer me being such a… such a stubborn, crab-apple of a pony! Ah’m the one who set up the meetin’ between Yumi and Blueblood,” Applejack admitted, quickly, her words coming out in a torrent as she tried to finish with them as quickly and painlessly as possible. “It wouldn’ta happened without me! I told ya she helped me out on the farm, and we made a deal. That’s how we came up with that new cider we’ve been sellin… we made a deal, and all she wanted was a chance ‘ta talk to yer beau. Ah didn’t really see much harm in it, ya know? What could she say ta him that’d make much’ova difference, right?”

Rarity stared at the other mare, the fellow daughter of Ponyville she had known longer than any other.

“Ah just – ah just didn’t think!” Applejack cried, reaching for and grabbing onto Rarity’s leg like a hoofhold or a lifeline. “Ya gotta believe me, sugarcube! Ah never imagined any’ah this would’ve happened! Ah just thought they were gonna talk and… and he’d tell her ta give up… cause we all know he’s head over tails in love with ya… and-and ah thought she deserved a chance. Ah mean... she came all this way and-and it just seemed fair, ya know? That he could let’er down, gentle-like.”

“Yes, and she poisoned him,” Rarity said it in a frigid tone of voice.

“Ah still can’t believe she’d do that,” Applejack repeated, shaking her head, her eyes still fixed on the floor. “Ah’m so sorry… Rarity, ah… ah’m just so – so sorry! Ah’ve never messed up this bad before. Ah’m just so sorry.”

“Applejack,” Rarity said and batted down the other mare’s hoof. In the same breath, she reached out to pull her friend into a tight embrace. “Applejack. I understand.”

“Ya do?” she sounded shocked and stiffened in the hug before relaxing and wrapping her forelegs around the other mare. “Or are ya just sayin’ that ta be diplomatic and stuff?”

“Alright, perhaps I don’t entirely understand,” Rarity conceded, holding the other pony at leg’s length but smiling, encouragingly. “But… you’re also wrong. The fault is not entirely your own, and all this is not all on your shoulders.”

“Tell me,” she prompted. “Even now, do you still think I was wrong to go behind your back to ‘bail-out’ Sweet Apple Acres?”

“Uh, well!” Applejack’s snout scrunched up as she resisted having to answer.

“Go on,” Rarity asked. “Please, tell me.”

“Ah… ah guess I do. Ah do still think so,” Applejack replied, guilty. “Sweet Apple Acres is mah farm, mah family’s farm, and fer better or fer worse, we do things the Apple Family Way.”

“Yes. I was looking at the Ponyville Barony crest the other day,” Rarity said, and Applejack was momentarily thrown by the slight veer in topic. “Do you recall what the crest looks like?”

“There’s… there’s a book and a star next ‘ta a tree,” she answered, recalling the insignia most vividly from when she had seen it during the pas d’arms outside town. It was all over the place outside, too, but mostly just blurred into the background. “The tree’s an apple tree, too. With three apples.”

“I picked that tree because earth ponies – and your family specifically – are interwoven with the past founding and continued good fortunes of Ponyville as a whole,” Rarity explained. “And in honor of your great-grandfather, who was however briefly, my predecessor as Baron. Put simply, Applejack, you would not have been in the position you were in if not for me.”

Applejack opened her mouth to protest, but Rarity held up a hoof for silence.

“Let me finish,” she asked, and seeing her friend close her mouth and nod, however grimly, Rarity continued. “I said very unkind and unladylike things to you. We may have said them to one another, but that does not excuse me. You and I will always have very different views of the world, Applejack, but I should not have so readily dismissed yours.”

“If we had just talked things out… worked out a compromise, like you ended up doing with Yumi, then none of this would have happened. Then you would not have needed her help or the help of anypony else who would think to abuse your trust.” Rarity gave a soft, ladylike sigh. “Even before all this… I had begun to come over to the thought that I should not have forced my solution on you against your will.”

“Rarity…”

“It was and it is my duty now, to protect and see to the well-being of Ponyville,” Rarity forged ahead, despite the momentary interruption. She shook her head, saying what she clearly felt had to be said. “This was even something Antimony told me about… back before our duel. I realized that what I did to you was just what she would have done: decide, by herself, what was best for everypony. Maybe it was the right decision, maybe it was the wrong one, but I made it because it was my call… my authority over you…”

Rarity shook her head, sensing she was starting to ramble and avoid the point.

“What I’m saying is that I was wrong, too. I was wrong to dismiss you and push ahead with what I felt was right. We should have talked – all day if we had to – to work this out.” Rarity now had her blue eyes downcast in regret.

Applejack found she was holding her breath. She had come here to admit her part in Yumi’s scheme, to ask for forgiveness, but now...? Rarity had turned everything over, and... and was it really that easy? Was it really that simple? Maybe the sad truth was that they were a pair of stubborn mules, cut from the same cloth and picked from the same tree. They had their ways, and they were stuck to them, like a particularly tenacious stem on an apple. Of all of Applejack’s close friends, she knew she was most likely to butt heads with Rarity, and that probably should have driven them apart more… in fact, it had for years… but now, ever since Twilight and that sleepover party, that difference of opinion was something she not just accepted, but something she cherished, in a strange sort of way.

‘We’re so different… but we’re the same in some ways, too, and we’re friends.’

“Ah shouldn’t’a stormed out like ah did,” Applejack admitted, and Rarity looked up with relief in her eyes. “We should’a talked about this.”

“You see, then, why I am not yelling at you or even all that upset with you?” Rarity asked, pointing to herself. “This is my fault as well.”

“I need you, Applejack,” she said, reaching out to gently brush the other mare’s foreleg. “Never hesitate tell me what is on your mind, and I swear to the Princess I will always listen. I need ponies, honest ponies, to keep me grounded and tell me what I do not want to hear. I need my friends.”

“Ya don’t even need ta ask!” Applejack replied with a grin, quickly wiping away a lingering tear from her earlier confession. She patted Rarity’s hoof with her own, nodding forcefully.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Rarity told her, and the two mares quickly shared another hug.

“And I’m glad all that feuding and confession-stuff is over with!” As they came apart, Applejack sighed in relief but also gave her friend a sidelong, suspicious look. “But really, ya ain’t mad? Not even a little?”

“Actually, I am positively furious,” Rarity stated, voice deceptively calm even with her blue eyes narrow and darkening. “But not with you.”

Applejack grimaced but quickly recovered from her shock and whistled. “That there’s one scary look, sugarcube.”

“I’m sadly becoming quite practiced in it,” Rarity explained, groaning as a stray lock of her mane came free to fall across her nose. She snorted at it and meticulously fixed her hair in the reflection of one of the hallway mirrors. “Now, what do you say we see how my great lummox of a Prince is doing?”

Rarity listened as she walked, the two mares making their way deeper into the manor house. Applejack described in greater detail – provided by divorcing her complicity from the raw facts Rarity was more interested in – including how she had met Yumi in the first place. She reiterated her run-in with Shigure before that and how she had won her hat back after losing it during Yumi’s pas d’arms.

She described her deal with the Neighponese mare: to have her magic enhance the flavor of the apples, to bring out their ‘best’ and basically cut out the quality selection process of cider making. If every apple was made as delicious as the best from an individual tree, as Applejack described the technique, not only would it be cheaper to make cider because there were no wasted or rejected apples, but the whole product improved. There, though, things took on a somewhat unexpected turn, though Rarity kept her concerns to herself.

As far as anypony knew or could tell, Yumi had at least been true to her word in her deal with Applejack.

She had healed and rejuvenated ailing trees on the farm and helped Sweet Apple Acres make barrel after barrel of their new cider. There was nothing the Flim Flam brothers could do to compete with it. They did use some second-hoof acquired local apples, but most of it was imported by train. Whatever production advantage they had was offset by the Apple family no longer needing to worry about sorting the quality apples from the chaff, and their imported apples couldn’t compare to the new local product. Yumi had single-hoofedly put the brothers out of business and saved the Apple family farm.

Rarity could see how her friend felt obliged to help the mare with a simple and seemingly harmless request.

As she listened more, Applejack describing how she thought she had a good sense of Yumi’s character, Rarity resisted the urge to shake her head in dismay. Unlike the apple farmer, she did not know this Yumi mare except for what little she had seen of her at the pas d’arms outside town that one time. She hadn’t left the best impression then, though notably, Blueblood had not singled her out as a particularly cruel or desperate mare. Certainly, he hadn’t suspected she would be a jilted lover or poisoner! It raised a concern that had started cropping up earlier in Applejack’s description of events.

Had everypony here misread Yumi so badly?

Rarity still listened to her friend, but her mind also drifted back to another mare she had met and come into conflict with. A mare who was now increasingly on her mind: Antimony. Antimony had also seemed like a fair and even-hooved pony, even moreso than Yumi, but Rarity had seen into her mind and her illusionary world. She had seen the dark side to Antimony that she kept deeply buried and hidden behind a well-maintained veneer of amiability. She had seen Antimony’s world, devoid of anypony but herself, born of her own sense of isolation and her twisted view of what it meant to be a strong and independent mare. And Antimony was no friend of the Bluebloods.

Rarity’s mood darkened considerably as she asked herself if she could imagine Antimony poisoning the Prince. It was sobering that, yes, she could imagine it. It was even likely that Antimony never intended Blueblood to be long for this world, had she become his wife. Poison would have been the gentlest means of carrying out such a black deed, and Antimony did seem to prefer to be gentle even when she was being cruel.

Rarity paused to brush a hoof across her cheek, where the magical barrier had once tingled against her skin, protecting her from Yumi’s pollen storm. Antimony. Antimony was a killer. Twilight had said she had killed ponies in duels before. Could a pony like that even have friends?

‘She could do it, I think, but she wouldn’t do it here, during a party. She wouldn’t do it where she could get caught, and she wouldn’t do it without something to gain. What did Yumi have to gain here?’ Rarity asked herself that again and just couldn’t see anything the mare had to gain at all from such an act.

She frowned at her inability to even grasp that sort of thinking.

Had Yumi simply been distraught by Blueblood’s rejection of her? Rarity had read many books about forbidden love and jilted lovers. She recalled how, in “Red Horseshoe Diaries” (volume four, ‘lost palace loves’) Desperate Measures had poisoned Prince Stalwart so she could keep nursing him to health and to prevent him from returning to his wife. Nopony suspected her to be anything more than his confidant and nurse, but Stalwart never bent on his commitment to his vows, and so Desperate Measures just kept poisoning his food or his tea or his water, until he finally wasted away in her forelegs. Naturally, when she realized what she had done, she poisoned herself as well, to complete the tragedy.

That was… just a story, of course.

A stupid romantic story, definitely nothing like real life, after all! Even a crazy, desperate mare wouldn’t poison a Prince just to keep him out of the embrace of another, right? Oh, Sweet Celestia! Of course she would! Who knew how many former lovers Blueblood had? That stupid playcolt must’ve had dozens! He was as good as dead at this rate!!

“Get away from him, you harlot!” Rarity yelled, pointing accusingly at the nurse by her Prince’s bed. For a long moment, everypony in the room Rarity and Applejack had just entered simply stared at her. The nurse still had a small, wet towel in her mouth, looking for all the world like she was about to break into tears.

“Uh, sugarcube?” Applejack asked, nudging her friend.

“Oh. Oh!” Rarity snapped out of her momentary drama-fueled daydream. “So sorry, darling!” she assured the nurse, who now watched her carefully and with the sort of wary expression one would direct at a crazy pony.

She carefully put the wet towel down into a basket and backed away.

Sitting on the guest bed, Blueblood raised an eyebrow at the spectacle. “Did I miss something?” he asked, glancing between the three mares.

Rarity blushed and waved a hoof at the retreating maid.

“Ah reckon she must’a zoned out for a second or two back there,” Applejack explained with a smile. “Ya look good, there, Yer Grace.”

“Yes, I’m rather more resilient than you may expect,” Blueblood answered with a cocksure smirk.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Rarity asked, approaching the bed and reaching for one of his hooves. Grabbing hold of it to assure herself that he was still intact and unharmed, she reached her other front hoof over to brush past his forehead. He felt… warm... but not feverish.

“Snakeweed doesn’t affect core body temperature,” Twilight informed them as she entered the room, glancing quizzically at the fleeing nurse that rushed by her. Then she focused on her friends again, a magenta glow holding up a small vial of smoky liquid.

“Snakeweed?” Applejack asked. “That what Yumi used or somethin’?”

Twilight nodded somberly. “He has all the symptoms of snakeweed poisoning: elevated heart rate, burning or teary eyes, nausea, and painful breathing or shortness of breath. It works like this: the leaves of the plant, when dried and rendered into a fine powder and then ingested, cause constriction of the throat and spasms among the anterior thyrohyoid muscles and--”

“Twilight,” Rarity interrupted.

“Oh yeah! Sorry!” Twilight grinned and gave the vial held in her magical grip a little shake. “I was going to say, after a brief segue into the historical use of snakeroot and a short review of the chemistry involved… Uh, I mean: it makes you choke, but Blueblood didn’t drink enough of it to do any real damage.”

“Thank goodness,” Applejack said, and Rarity gave a sigh of relief at the news.

Blueblood himself seemed disinterested but nodded slowly. “The foalish mare put it in the liquor… as if I would not taste it.”

“The book says it is a little bitter, so putting it in something with a strong taste was probably pretty smart!” Twilight chuckled again and let Blueblood float the vial out of her hold and into his own. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. We’re all just glad you found out in time!”

“Yes,” Blueblood replied, his voice a little strained. “And this is the final counter-agent?”

“Mixed it up myself!” Twilight said with a wide smile. “Triple checked all the ingredients and volumes! You seem to have some resistance to snakeroot anyway, but it wouldn’t hurt to--”

“Safety first,” the Prince agreed, magically snagging a nearby glass of red wine and adding the potion in. He then downed the glass in one gulp.

“Because of the taste, I was… just about to suggest mixing it with something...” Twilight finished lamely and shrugged. Eyes darting from her clipboard to Rarity and Blueblood, she ‘hmm’ed and watched the Prince drink, licking her lips as she eagerly waited for something to happen.

After a few seconds, she couldn’t hold her silence any longer.

“So!” Twilight exclaimed with a wide smile. “Say something! Is it working? Huh? Is it? This is the first time I’ve gotten a chance to make a counter-poison, and I’m really curious how I did! I know Zecora is really good at this sort of thing, but I took a whole bunch of alchemy and chemistry classes back in school, so it’s great to get to use them! Not that it’s great that you’ve been poisoned, I mean! But it is great to put some of this stuff to use! If you get poisoned more often, I mean, then maybe--”

“I think we get the idea,” Blueblood grumbled.

“Thank you so very much, Twilight,” Rarity said, still holding Blueblood’s right hoof. “It was a real relief to know you were here and able to help.”

“You know me! I’m always happy to help!” The eager – some would say overeager – unicorn savant giggled and floated out a rolled up scroll to join her clipboard and quill pen. “So, uhm, if you get the chance… can you just fill out this form for me? Just in case I did make a mistake, you know, you can put a check next to ‘still choking to death’ or one for any symptoms you might have, like ‘pupil dilation’ and ‘sleep deprivation’ and ‘diarrhea.’ I don’t know why anything I put in the cure there would cause diarrhea, but since everything seems to cause it when it comes to medicine, I put it on the list anyway…”

Blueblood eyed the scroll like it was a snake.

“Yes, quite,” he muttered, floating it out of the way.

“Oh, and, about that thing we talked about?” Twilight asked as she headed back out to give Rarity and Blueblood some privacy. “The library thing. Do you want to do that tomorrow or…?”

“You have full access to the library, Miss Sparkle,” Blueblood stated, dismissively. “Go. Do whatever you wish.”

“But,” Twilight stammered, pausing in mid-step. “But, you…”

Twilight Sparkle turned, slowly, and examined the prone Prince with slowly narrowing eyes.

“I… what?” he asked, patting Rarity’s hoof on top of his own.

“You,” she began anew, eyes darting from Blueblood to Rarity and then to Applejack. “You said I’d be undisturbed while I did my research.”

“Yes, I recall,” Blueblood told her with a cordial smile. “Today is as good a time as any. I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.” Twilight bowed respectfully, gave Rarity one last look, and left.

“What do’ya suppose that was about?” Applejack asked, scratching behind her mane.

“Some other appointment perhaps?” Rarity wondered. Twilight certainly had her moods from time to time, and they often struck when there was something book-related at stake. Whatever had she and Blueblood talked about before?

Something about her poking around the library downstairs, was it?

“More importantly,” Blueblood spoke up, putting the empty wine glass down on the table next to the bed. He sat up and shook out his long, blond mane. “Rarity, my dear.”

“Should you really be up, Blueblood?” Rarity asked with a delicate huff. She reached out to try and gently lower him back down to rest. “You--”

“I’ve rested enough, I think,” he told her, brushing past her hoof and standing on all fours on the floor. “We must pursue Lady Yumi. She must be caught and punished for this most egregious and perfidious attack on my Royal Self.”

“Sir Shining Armor is finishing up with the Timberwolves, but I have Germoglio’s scouts searching the Everfree Forest…” Rarity informed him, still frowning at his bull-headed insistence on being up and about.

“No need,” Blueblood cut her off, raising a hoof to further prove the point. “Recall your Companyponies. I have my Royal Guards on the case. They will find her and bring her to me.”

Rarity gaped for a second at him and at his dismissal.

“But--”

“There is no need for you to be involved in this affair,” he explained with a smirk that, to her shock, took on a cruel and condescending appearance and tone. “Sir Arrow Head and Sir Gale Force will not fail me.”

“Are they not Sir Shining Armor’s escorts?” Rarity asked, and Blueblood stiffened at the statement, as if uncomfortable. “Surely there are more appropriate--”

“My dear, do you wish to punish Yumi yourself?” he asked, abruptly. Bluntly. He was facing forward and only glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “Is that it?”

“No!” Rarity objected. “Of course not! I merely wish to… I mean, she…”

Again, he dismissed her with the wave of his hoof.

“Leave this matter to me. You should not sully your hooves with it.”

He tried to soften the statement with a smile, but it seemed… insincere. Then again, he was much more accustomed to this sort of thing than she herself was. Perhaps he was right? She trusted his judgment in these matters, and though the thought of Yumi – that poisoning madmare – made her furious, there was something in the Princes’ tone of voice she didn’t like. It wasn’t even as if Blueblood was mad at the mare. He just wanted her in his hooves. It was too cold-blooded.

But, above all else, she trusted him.

“If you think that the best course of action,” she relented, finally. “I’ll contact Germoglio.”

“Good,” Blueblood stated with his smile unchanged, unwavering. “I’d like her conspirators as well. I think I know a pony or two who can loosen their tongues.”

Rarity just stared at him, hardly able to process what he had said.

“Loosen… their tongues?” she whispered the question, but he was already waving farewell to Applejack.

“No hard feelings, right, sugarcube?” the farmer asked, biting her lower lip. “Ah never meant ta put ya in any kinda danger…”

“No hard feelings at all, my dear,” Blueblood assured her, even placing a comforting and friendly hoof on her shoulder. “You were deceived by a true snake in the grass. Rest assured, Yumi will pay for deceiving us both.”

“If you say so, Yer Grace,” Applejack replied. “Ah wouldn’t mind givin’ her a piece of my mind, if the chance arises.”

He nodded, his smile growing just enough to notice, and then Prince Blueblood took his leave.

Rarity frowned as she watched him go.

“Here it is!” Twilight whispered to herself, finding the object of her search just where she had left it, in the bottom drawer of her bedroom dresser. To her eyes, it was a small, square, ostensibly plain looking book. The cover was treated black leather, the spine pinched by tiny metal studs. Yet, to any other pony, this book would be invisible to the eye.

This had been Prince Blueblood’s birthday present for her: Hiding in Plain Sight: The Art of Invisibility.

“Did you read between the lines?” she repeated the question he had asked her, not more than a few hours before, during the Art Festival. She hadn’t. She’d read the book, naturally, and found it fascinating! But she hadn’t expected there to be something hidden within the book.

Even though, in retrospect, the title alone was a dead giveaway.

There was something in the book… something ‘between the lines.’

“I am rather new at this,” he had gone on to tell her, “but yes, I suppose I should just as well explain it. There is a spell hidden within the book to give you access to the - shall we say - sensitive archives under my family’s care.”

“Invisible books in the library?” she had guessed.

“No. Not in the library,” he had answered, stressing the ‘in.’ “Though you could say through it. I won’t ask that you go look up the spell now, of course. I’ll retrieve the books when I have some time. You don’t need them this moment, do you?”

And now, just a few hours later, he had forgotten their conversation. It was probably nothing. Exhaustion, maybe. He had just been poisoned. Or… if a pony were suspicious… if a pony knew there were shape shifting monsters living among ponykind, for example… that pony might be careful what she said and did. That pony might start to wonder.

It was probably nothing.

But it could be something.

“Hey, Twilight! Boy, look at this place!” Spike’s voice prompted the librarian to slip the invisible book into her saddlebags, among other more visible papers and scrolls.

“Is there some problem, young sir?”

“A problem! Usually this place is a mess! I thought Twilight would be living in total chaos without me around. You know, for such a crazy organized pony, she forgets to put books back a lot!”

“I’ve noticed this.”

“And call me Spike. ‘Young sir’ sounds weird.”

Closing her door behind her, Twilight smiled down at Spike and Eunomie. She had brought the two back to the library from the festival to work out sleeping and working arrangements. That had been her excuse, anyway. She also wanted to retrieve her invisible present. Though, while they were here, it would be convenient to work a few things out.

“It looks like you two are getting along without me,” she said, trotting down the steps.

“I see no reason why we would not,” Eunomie answered, as she always did, with a dry tone of voice.

“Actually...!” Spike was much more animated, something Twilight had missed. He scratched the scales atop his head and glanced upwards in the direction of her room. He had one arm resting against a large treasure chest: a gift from Rarity.

Treasure chest was something of a misnomer, but it did fit the part out of fantasy. The exquisite steamer trunk was walnut and cedar, decorated with leather and brass fittings and rings. A reinforced metal band built into the frame bore a large combination double-lock on either side. The chest itself had to be worth quite a few bits, never mind what Spike put inside!

“So,” Spike continued, “if Eunomie here and her sister… if they’re sleeping downstairs, do you still want me to sleep in my basket upstairs with you? We only have the one room up there, but if I do get bigger by building up a hoard, then I’ll probably need a new bed or something, right? I guess there’s the guest bed, and we used to have a futon… but you’re probably using that downstairs...”

“That should work for now,” Twilight agreed, joining them on the ground floor by the time Spike finished speaking. “But what about your friends?”

“They don’t sleep on beds,” Spike explained with a shrug. “They wouldn’t want to, even if you gave ‘em one. They’re used to hard, hot surfaces.”

“Curious,” Eunomie observed. “Dragons aren’t cold blooded. Why would you need a heated surface to sleep on?”

“We don’t. I don’t!” Spike remarked, throwing up his hands. “That’s just what they’re used to, I think. Plus, they’re too big for pony-sized beds anyway, so I wouldn’t bother. They’ll find a nice spot somewhere, scorch it, and that’ll be where they sleep.”

A thought crossed Twilight’s mind at Spike’s description. Alpha Brass had made the same observation.

“Spike,” she asked, “did you and your friends… did you stay at the red dragon’s cave, near the Everfree?”

“Yeah, we did!” he confirmed with a smile. “We hung out there for two nights. How’d you know?”

“Just an educated guess,” Twilight assured him. Eunomie, as always, listened silently but intently. “Anyway, I need to get back to the mansion and keep an eye on Blueblood and Rarity.” She frowned for a moment, not liking the secrecy behind her real reasons for the trip, but it didn’t deter her from the job at hoof. “Spike, will you be okay setting up here with Eunomie and Euporie? Eunomie’s done some rearranging of the library…”

“I shall fill young Spike in on the details of my methodology,” Eunomie offered.

“I guess I’ve got some catching up to do,” Spike admitted and Twilight – before she headed back out – pulled him into a quick hug.

“I am glad you’re back, Spike!” she said, giving him one parting squeeze. “This place wasn’t home without you! My number one assistant is back!”

“See, to my ears, that translates to: ‘I’ve got a lot of work for you to catch up on, Spike.’”

“That, too.”

Trotting back outside, confident that things would be handled back at the library, Twilight’s thought sobered as she headed back to the outskirts of town and the Blueblood manor that could be seen peeking out from behind a thickly wooded veil to the north. She had been among the first ponies on the scene to check on the Prince after the fight. But, at the same time, that didn’t really make her the first one on the scene by any means.

How much time had passed between the initial incident with Yumi and then?

Thinking about it, no pony she knew had actually been in contact with the Prince until after the fight had died down outside. Had Blueblood gone untreated all that time? Doctor Blue Pill was on call, but he hadn’t been there until after she had showed up. Blueblood had ordered his Royal Guards to pursue Yumi and then… what? Had he just fallen into bed?

It was strange, especially in light of his symptoms. He did have all the textbook symptoms of snakeweed poisoning. At the same time, he had been fortunate that the dose he had ingested had been minor enough not to leave any lingering side effects. He should not have been completely impaired while everypony else was fighting with Yumi’s retainers. Twilight had also taken the liberty of testing some of the alcohol spilled in the Prince’s study. The snakeweed was highly concentrated. Blueblood must’ve taken only a small sip… or been very, very lucky…

Or, maybe, he wasn’t a pony at all. Maybe he was something pretending to be a pony.

Could changelings do that? Could they fake being sick? Did they have that much control, not just over their body, but their physiology? Was Rarity – at this moment – worried over the health of a changeling? And if it was one, then what had happened to the real Prince Blueblood?

‘I need more than just a bad feeling, more than just a hunch,’ Twilight thought to herself as she came to the outer gates of the manor. The guards let her in without fuss. She eyed them with what she hoped was less than naked suspicion. They saw through her in a second, she was sure. Twilight Sparkle was not the most subtle pony, and she was not particularly skilled at guarding her expressions.

‘Great. I’ll stick out like a sore hoof!’ She passed by some of the remaining guests, a broad smile plastered to on her face, one so fake that more than a few stared her way. ‘I need to get to the library. Clear my head!’

She broke into a run and soon, mercifully, the staring ponies were replaced by nice, safe, wonderful, non-judgmental books. Books that would never point and laugh, or snigger behind a pony’s back, or give that sort of scrunchy-face look while leaning back, as if to say, ‘that’s a crazy pony right there, I tell you what.’ Books were terrible conversationalists, but good listeners.

“I really am going a little crazy,” Twilight realized, shaking the silly thoughts out of her head. She clopped her hooves together, took a good look around to make sure she was alone in the lavish athenaeum, and started unpacking. A comfortable pillow and a lectern invited her to sit down and read, and she gladly took up the offer with a contented sigh.

This was her element, magic aside.

The Element of Study!

Keeping two regular – visible – books open nearby, including one on the lectern itself, Twilight then put her invisible book on top of it. Just to be safe. She then proceeded to skim through the book to look for any obvious clues. There wasn’t anything obviously strange that she recalled reading, like mixed up words or other obviously coded gibberish. Eight chapters long, it read like a treatise on invisibility magic, starting with the history and theory, then the various schools of study and applications of magic, then an overview and summary of the thaumatological principles, and some charts and other reference materials at the very end.

There was nothing that stuck out as being some sort of secret code. Not off the bat, anyway. What had Blueblood asked? ‘Did you read between the lines?’ Twilight rather vividly recalled how Princess Celestia, who Blueblood had admitted to trying to mimic, had told her to make some friends in Ponyville and not worry about Nightmare Moon, because according to her plan, if Twilight made those friends in Ponyville than the Nightmare Moon situation would end up resolved anyway. One was already the answer to the other, even if it wasn’t what it seemed at first glance.

“Skipping letters doesn’t do anything,” Twilight mumbled to herself as she stealthily re-read the book, “and I don’t see a pattern in the corners or the beginning or the end of pages…”

Checking the beginning and ends of the chapters, jotting down notes on the side…

“Nothing,” she grumbled, allowing herself a brief breather. “I can’t find anything unusual.”

Or any clue to…

Twilight Sparkle blinked, just then, her thoughts half-formed as her eyes fell on a large stone plaque that hung from one of the walls. “That… what is that?”

Shifting in her seat, she looked around, and saw more plaques hung around the library.

Blueblood’s Manor Athenaeum was a large structure: larger in fact than her own Golden Oaks Public Library in town. Two stories high, the room had a great vaulted ceiling and a circular design, all reminiscent of pegasus styled architecture. It was a stark divergence, now that she thought about it, from the rest of the building. Everything else was very much unicorn centric, from the statues to the art to the stairways to the basic architectural layout, with upper and lower sun and moon rooms for viewing the stars and the setting or rising of the sun.

Why was the library, alone, done in a different style?

The ceiling was imitating an open sky, clouds and rainbow fountains matched up with white pillars that receded into the ground. The room wasn’t perfectly circular, though. It was an octagon. Eight sides, to go with eight of the unusual stone plaques that hung – clearly visible – against the walls covered with books and artwork. The spaces had been explicitly cut out from the walls to house the circular disks. It was a stylistic choice. There were lower clear crystal cases and wooden shelves of books all radiating around the center of the room, recessed into the floor, as if all the knowledge in the world were erupting out of a splitting cloudbank. But these eight stuck out.

“Eight sides… and eight chapters…” Twilight realized, staring down at the book for a moment and then back at the walls. “Is it a coincidence, or…?”

Trotting up closer to one of the stone disks, set in the wall just above eye level, Twilight examined it personally. Touching it with a hoof, she found it set firmly in place. It was pietra dura, a beautiful form of decorative stonework that involved inlaying a surface with carefully cut and finished glass, stones or gems to create images. The base material was usually marble, white or green or black. This particular one…

It was an eye, surrounded by an escarbuncle, a symbol representing supremacy.

It was also a symbol she had seen on the cover page of the first chapter. Could it be that simple? Twilight brought open the book, flipping to the chapter cover pages and scanning the room. There! The eye and the escarbuncle: the motif for the first chapter on illusionary history. It made sense! The combination of the eye, for sight simply, and the escarbuncle, for power, was that “perception was power” and the chapter discussed how illusionary magic helped to shape history.

There, across the room, she saw the Fret, an interlacing design of a bendlet and a bendlet sinister passing over and through a diamond shaped mascle. The intersection of the saltire, or diagonal cross, and the voided lozenge, the diamond, implied “Persuasion.” It also adorned the cover page of chapter two.

Twilight soon saw the motif of the third chapter as well: three inkhorns in chief with a quill below, in an orle or border. The inkhorn represented the art of writing and the mark of the educated. Repeated in triplicate, the meaning was enhanced. It represented great education of the third rank. In unicorns, that would go from basic schooling, to an apprenticeship, to a mastery of the arcane.

Near the door where she had entered she saw the mark of chapter four, the Gorged Goat. To most ponies, goats were synonymous with Minotaurs, but in unicorn symbology, they represented victory through politics rather than war. The collar represented dignity, curiously enough.

“These are all unicorn symbols… the only unicorn symbols on the entire room,” Twilight realized, as it all came together. “They stick out if you know what to look for! And the whole room is built in a pegasus style to make sure they stand out…!”

There. The Holly and the Horseshoe, representing good luck and a safeguard against evil spirits, combined with Truth. Chapter five!

There. The Ladder and Keys: fearlessness in the face of great odds, along with dominion and leadership. That was the symbol for the last of the ‘applications’ chapters in the book, chapter six.

There: a moon within an ornate lozenge, representing mysterious power and constancy. That was chapter seven, the overview of the book.

Finally, set between a ticking grandfather clock and a bookcase, was the last chapter’s motif. It was a golden harp imposed over a shield with flaunches, symbolizing tempered judgment and continued contemplation.

Eight chapters and eight symbols on the wall, arrayed in a seemingly random order! This was it, but… what to do with them? Examining the harp and the shield, she saw it was expensive and finely worked pietra dura, just like all the others. It was set firmly in the wall. Pressing it or trying to move it didn’t have any affect, and Twilight was extremely reluctant to risk breaking the delicate stonework. The clues were there, matching up, but she couldn’t quite grasp what to do next.

Trotting backwards, she slowly shook her head.

“Hiding in Plain Sight,” she quietly repeated the title of the book, a smile slowly growing on her face. “So that’s it?”

Magenta lit up her horn as Twilight Sparkle realized what she had to do.

Turning to the first stone disk, she cast a basic invisibility spell at it. It shimmered, but didn’t disappear. Twilight turned to the next, cast the spell again, and noticed it shimmer, too. The third followed, the inkhorns, and then the goat, then the holly and the horseshoe, then the ladder and keys, then the moon, then finally the harp and the shield. Casting the spell that eighth and ultimate time, she felt a surge of excitement and accomplishment pass through her body. She didn’t even need to wait and see if she would be proven correct. This had to be it.

This had to be it!

Her spell hit the final disk and it shimmered. For a moment, it appeared as if nothing changed. For just a moment, it seemed she might even be wrong. Her heart skipped a beat.

Twilight Sparkle collapsed, slumping bonelessly to the floor.

Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes.

One thought immediately dominated all others. ‘This isn’t the Athenaeum.’

The second thought, when it struck, almost caused her to scream.

‘This doesn’t feel right! This… this isn’t my body!!’

“Hello, Twilight Sparkle,” a familiar voice interrupted her moment of panic. The source of it was a gramophone, and to her complete lack of surprise, it was as ornate as anything Blueblood would insist on using. Tiny swirls and designs were lovingly carved and engraved into the mahogany wood and polished bronze surface of the machine.

“Knowing you,” the recording continued, “you’ve probably noticed this gramophone and, together with the voice, realized that I set this whole thing up. Which I did. You’re probably also feeling a little strange, while at the same time trying to figure out just what spell you triggered in my little home library.”

Twilight felt a frown coming on. “I’m not that predictable, am I?”

“First, let me explain your situation,” the recording said. “You’re in a room. This recording is set to play automatically whenever anyone uses the library. That includes me. In the future, you can just turn this off. I wasn’t sure when you’d work out the little secret in the library, so I just have this play by default, every time. Rather annoying for me, you see, to be greeted by myself, assuming I’m speaking to you! Anyway…”

The Blueblood on record coughed, realizing how sidetracked he was getting. Then again, the Prince did like the sound of his own voice. ‘Melodic’ he called it, ‘and enchanting.’ Usually that was around the time Rarity told him to get over himself or pointed out somepony Twilight had never heard of with a much better voice.

“The magic you triggered was a consciousness transference spell. Your mind has basically been shifted across the duchy of Canterlot to a little known location beneath Hocksford University, founded, funded and managed by… you guessed it! My family. That body you’re in, that you’re probably exploring now…”

Even as the recording ran on, Twilight was already looking down at her pale white legs and slim, androgynous body. It was with some rising panic and embarrassment that she realized a few things were lacking in the otherwise functional form she now occupied. There was nothing of note between the legs! It was like the molded rear end of a foal’s toy! This wasn’t somepony’s body!

“That body is far from normal. It is what most scholars would call a homunculus or artificial pony,” Blueblood’s recording explained with a little chuckle. “Now, you’re probably about to say…”

“That’s impossible!” Twilight objected. “No pony can--”

“Make an artificial pony, because the spells required were banned eight hundred years ago,” the recording raised its voice to cut her off, and the timing of it made Twilight pout. Stupid recording. It was just lucky. She was sorely tempted to say something totally random just to... fool the recording... Okay, maybe that would be going a little overboard...

“In fact,” Blueblood went on to say, “if you find this within the year I recorded it, the spells were banned and the last artificial pony was created exactly eight hundred and twenty six years ago. That body you’re in now, by the way? Give those legs a little kick! That body exactly is eight hundred and twenty six years young. How does it feel to be almost as old as my dear Aunties?”

Twilight gawked at the fanciful gramophone. “Eight hundred years… this body is… eight hundred years old?!”

“I know! It doesn’t feel a year over four hundred!” the recording joked, but Twilight only huffed in annoyance. “Alright, jokes aside, when all the other homunculus pony constructs were ordered destroyed, my family created this one. I hate to admit it, but that’s sort of how we are. The knowledge was entrusted to us to guard, for all time, and the first thing my ancestors do is use it so that they have the only one in existence. Regardless, the body you are in, Twilight Sparkle, is indeed over eight hundred years old.”

“It has been used for body transference by dozens of Bluebloods, myself included. Though it really is more of a mare’s body… the Blue Belles always did have better representation in the family… but that’s getting off track. It is a soulless and mindless magical construct. But it feels quite real, doesn’t it! Right now, it is housing your mind while the real you takes a nap in the library back in my manor. In the future, you may want to pick a cozy spot before you body swap. Nothing worse than returning to your body and getting cramps in your legs, am I right?”

“Mind transference magic into a blank body,” Twilight summed up things, mostly for her own benefit since she was also the only pony present. She tested the legs of her pale white form and felt the ghostly white mane and tail it came with. Oddly, her cutie mark was in color and adorned the flanks of the artificial body!

“The canvas you now inhabit has been called a few things according to family records. ‘The Doll’ or ‘The Blank’ or ‘The Curator.’ One called it ‘The Dummy’ which I thought rather amusing. The Dummy! You probably want to know how to jump back to your real body, though. So let me get to that. There is a small blue crystal in the chest. Do you see it?”

Twilight looked down and saw it just between her front legs. It looked like a tiny sapphire.

“That is basically a reset switch. Focus some magic into the gem to activate it and poof! You’ll be ejected from The Dummy and zip back through time and space into your home body. Ideally, no one will think twice about you power napping in my library, so when you get back, I’d recommend yawning and stretching and remarking to anypony present that you had a lovely nap, and that you definitely didn’t end up in the Secret Blueblood Family Archives. Because right now, you’re in the Blueblood Family Archives, home to all of our secret lore and forbidden knowledge. Huzzah.”

Twilight stared at the door, the only door, to the tiny room where ‘The Dummy’ body had been kept stored. There was little else here except the gramophone. There was a small metal alcove of gilded iron and brass and a select few amenities on an unnecessarily luxurious table nearby, things like brushes and even a small wardrobe. Clearly, some of the Bluebloods insisted in dressing up even when in another body, far from anypony who could or would even see them. At least none of them seemed to have bothered bringing jewelry down here.

“The family archives,” she muttered, gulping.

All the forbidden spells, all the dark magic, all the arts hidden from ponykind… it was all here. No pony was supposed to be here except the Bluebloods. Unicorn families guarded their magical legacies like earth ponies guarded their family recipes, and no family in Equestria had more to hide than the Dukes and Duchesses of Canterlot, the heirs to Princess Platinum herself.

“Why are you here?” the recording asked, after a long, pregnant silence. “If you aren’t asking yourself that, you seriously should be right now. Why are you here, Twilight Sparkle?”

Her eyes darted over to the gramophone for the answer. She had figured out the spellwork in the library, she had found what was ‘hidden in plain sight,’ but this was something only Blueblood could answer. Why was she here?

Why wasn’t Rarity here?

“…This…” The recording paused again, as Blueblood must have paused when he made it. “This will all be Rarity’s one day. It will be hers because I intend to marry her. Because I love her. Because when I was hopeless and afraid, when I didn’t know how to pull myself out of a bad place, she cared about me and she saved me. I know I can tell her the truth about what happened to me. I know I can give her the keys to this place and not once worry that she will abuse the power that is within… and be assured, Twilight Sparkle, there is power in the room you are about to enter. So many… too many… would abuse it if they had just a glimpse of it. Even I…”

There was another pause, shorter than before, but still noticeable.

“Even I abused the power of this place once. I abused it to terrible effect.”

The admission was troubling, but Twilight had to wrack her brain to try and figure what Blueblood meant. It sounded like he had done something major, like destroy Canterlot or something, but that was silly. As far as she had known, Prince Blueblood hadn’t done much of anything… ever. Maybe he was just being over dramatic? He and Rarity sort of shared that quirk.

“But,” the recording went on, and Blueblood found his voice again. “Rarity, as wonderful a mare as she is, is not and will not ever be a magical powerhouse. She will never master or even research any of the spells in the Archives. I doubt she will ever be proficient in a five-alliteration spell, an act my ancestors took as an old rite of passage. She’d probably have trouble with the fours. This is not a bad thing, really, as virtually all of the magic here is not meant to be used, ever, by anypony. But... troubling times may be ahead.”

Another pause.

“I met somepony not too long ago… a filly… Let me describe her here as an oracle of sorts. She said things to me, told me about things… things I would not see come to pass in Equestria. I thought about much of it and on what it meant to have the Elements of Harmony return to the world. The six of you are united in friendship, and you are all heroes of Equestria. I’ve met you, Twilight, and I like you. I trust you. Rarity trusts you. Auntie Celestia trusts you. So that is why you are here.”

“You are here, Twilight Sparkle, because you may need to save Equestria with the knowledge in these walls.” At Blueblood’s words, Twilight lowered her head and closed her eyes in thanks, though the stallion was not present. He must have recorded this before she had tried to foalnap him and all that other craziness. Yet, even after that, he had trusted her.

“I believe in you, and I have faith in you,” the record concluded. “Twilight Sparkle. I will only ask you this: use the knowledge here sparingly. Seek what you need to know and no more. Now, if you have not already, open the door. The Archives are waiting for you.”

The record ran and ran, but there was no more.

“Blueblood,” Twilight said, bowing to the skipping gramophone. She removed the needle and turned it off. “Thank you.”

‘Princess Celestia trusts me. Blueblood trusts me. Rarity trusts me.’

She reached for the door, and it yielded, opening wide.

‘I won’t let you down. I won’t let anypony down!’

It was hours before Twilight Sparkle returned to her body. Hours that changed her life forever.

Author's Note

--
Oh snap, using the actual author notes section!

I really have to give props to "q97randomguy" for some great work helping me proof this chapter! Thanks man!

Chapter Thirty Three : Friendship is an Alliance (I)

(33)

Friendship is an Alliance (I)

Lyra Heartstrings trotted slowly through the Crystal Catacombs, her eyes unfocused.

A mild headache threatened to disrupt her concentration, so she honed in on Bon Bon. She followed Bon Bon. Bon Bon knew where they were going and what they had to do. The earth pony’s familiar, soft yellow coat put her at ease among the otherwise strange surroundings, the swishing pink and blue tail soothing as a metronome keeping time. Lyra barely even felt the golden lyre strapped to her back in lieu of a saddlebag.

It had been a surprise to find Bon Bon waiting for her here, of all places, in the vast network of crystal caverns beneath Canterlot. Queen Cadance had introduced them and told them that they would be living and working together in the caves. Lyra was to be a bridesmaid for the Queen, and that entailed certain responsibilities. Lord Brass… Lord Brass had… had…

Lyra shook her head again.

Following Bon Bon, she shied away from a beautiful but dangerous-looking cluster of crystals, the cavern around them like the inside of a geode, all glittering sharp edges and tapering points. A bead of sweat ran over and down the side of her horn. Shades of pink were everywhere, all around them, and it would probably take some time for her eyes to fully adjust.

Even her room – her room and Bon Bon’s – was made of crystal. It was pretty to look at, but nopony wanted to sleep on the stuff. Fortunately, somepony had brought down a large roll-up bed and some basic furniture to make things livable. The most important things were the bridesmaid dresses, she had been told. She wore hers now, actually. It was yellow with gold-hemmed puffs around the midriff and a red belt. A pink pearl necklace circled her neck, though, thinking about it… she remembered another necklace… white pearls and…

And it was hard to remember.

There were two other bridesmaids, too. They had introduced themselves when Queen Cadance had brought Lyra into the caverns. There was Minuette, a frost blue unicorn with a two-toned mane of ceil and cobalt… and Twinkleshine, another unicorn, an off-white Canterlot mare with a pink mane and tail. Strangely, they both had identical green eyes. The two other bridesmaids seemed friendly enough, though. Minuette was staying with her coltfriend Bristle and Twinkleshine was here with her sister, Rainshine. They all shared rooms… just like she and Bon Bon did.

“Something wrong, Lyra?” Bon Bon asked, glancing back over her shoulder.

“I was just… I’m still just surprised, I guess.” Lyra laughed nervously and tried to smile. “I’m glad you’re here, Bon Bon! But it really was a surprise to bump into you like this!”

“Her Majesty, Queen Cadance, has been planning this for some time,” Bon Bon replied, leading them down a calcite hall rigged with dangling lanterns. “She contacted me soon after you left to meet with Lord Brass.”

“But what about your sweets shop?” Lyra asked, realizing this had to be some of what was gnawing at her. It had been all hugs and reunions at first, and then meeting the other bridesmaids, and a little pep talk from the Queen, but not a lot of explanation. “You were working on a new toffee treat when I left… something to go with the toffee apples… You were so excited, but coming here…”

“What’s important is serving The Queen,” Bon Bon insisted, locking eyes with Lyra for a moment. There was a greenish haze and suddenly it all made sense. It all became so clear.

“What’s important is serving The Queen,” Lyra agreed. That was what was important. Serving The Queen. It was important. More important than anything else.

What was important was serving The Queen.

“Glad you agree,” Bon Bon said with a little giggle. “We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?” Lyra asked. It was just crystal and more crystal down here.

“You’ll see! Being a bridesmaid is about more than protecting and serving The Queen at the wedding. You need to protect and serve her in all ways and at all times.”

“That makes sense,” Lyra readily agreed. Bon Bon was a smart pony. What was important was serving The Queen. In all ways and at all times. One didn’t just serve the Queen during the wedding. That was silly. The Queen had to be protected and served all the time.

“Here we go!” Bon Bon exclaimed, giggling again.

Up ahead, Lyra saw Twinkleshine and her sister Rainshine, a white unicorn mare with a blue highlighted mane, struggling with a load. She recognized it right away. It was Prince Blueblood. The big stallion was on a stretcher, tied down and unconscious. Twinkleshine had to do all the work moving him, though. Rainshine wasn’t using her magic to help. Which was strange. Why…

Lyra grimaced, feeling the headache coming back.

She watched, silently, next to Bon Bon as Twinkleshine moved the sleeping Prince into a crystal-lined room. No, it wasn’t just a room: it was a cell. She propped him up against the side and replaced his restraints with chains. The fetters fixed securely around his hooves, looking like heavy cast iron. Each one had a wax seal on it, though, indicating it was enchanted somehow. Lyra couldn’t read the inscription on the seals to see what magic was involved, not from so far away. It was probably just something to make them harder to break or something to make it impossible for a unicorn to pick or break the lock.

Finally, Rainshine gave Twinkleshine a seal to place around the Prince’s horn. They weren’t taking any chances with him, it seemed. Lyra supposed she didn’t blame them. The Bluebloods were supposed to be the most powerful unicorn family in the world. That likely wasn’t as true these days as it was in the past, but Lyra’s own family had held the Bluebloods up as a unicorn ideal. All the powerful unicorn families of note sprouted from the Blueblood tree. This one was big, too, even for a stallion. Keeping him locked up was a smart move.

Why was he here again…?

“Lyra,” Bon Bon warned. “Focus.”

“Oh… yeah,” Lyra felt the headache recede at the sound of Bon Bon’s voice. Blueblood was here for some reason. The Queen wanted him here. That was all she needed to know. Thinking that, she felt better. “Sorry!”

“The Queen wants to keep him sedated,” Bon Bon went on to explain, tapping Lyra on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’re safe.”

Lyra nodded slowly. “Yeah. We’re safe.”

“He isn’t what I wanted to show you, though. Come here.”

Bon Bon lead her a short distance to an adjacent cell. Like Blueblood’s, it was cut or shaped out of the crystal caverns themselves, forming a naturally magic resistant and magic repellent prison. The only weak spot was the door, which was covered in only a fine layer of crystal grown over wood. More magical seals had been attached and inscribed all over the surface of this door to keep the occupant properly pacified. Lyra counted a half dozen of them, some old and some very new. All hung by stamped wax seals. There was no window to see inside.

“What’s in here?” Lyra asked, instantly curious what would merit so much magical containment. “Some kinda monster? There are probably fewer seals on the Tartarus Gate!”

“Inside here…” Bon Bon rapped the door gently with her hoof. “Is a very special pony. A pony you and the other bridesmaids have to keep contained, by the order of her Majesty, The Queen.”

“A pony?” Lyra raised an eyebrow at her marefriend’s evasive description. “What do you mean the other bridesmaids and me?”

“She has to be fed and given water and kept reasonably healthy,” Bon Bon explained, retrieving a small square-looking key from her plain brown saddlebag. “You need to change her chamber pot once every few days and check the room for any sort of mischief.”

“She isn’t chained up?” Lyra asked, noticing Rainshine and Twinkleshine approaching after closing Blueblood’s cell door.

“No,” Bon Bon continued, holding the key up to a heavy metal slot in the door. “The Queen wants her mostly free to move, but helpless to actually escape.”

“That doesn’t seem very safe,” Lyra observed. They’d chained up the Prince and there were other cells in the catacombs, or so she thought. Who was this special pony?

“That’s why you’re here,” Bon Bon replied, and Rainshine walked up to the door, also inserting a key. There was a lock on the opposite side of the door, too.

“The door can only be opened with two of our keys, and whenever somepony goes in, she should be with another bridesmaid and at least one of us,” Rainshine explained, pointing to herself and then to Bon Bon. “Two of you together should have no problem keeping this one subdued.”

“Or doing other things,” Bon Bon noted with a smirk.

Lyra gave Twinkleshine a glance to see if the other mare knew what their friend and sister had in mind here, but Twinkleshine merely stared blankly forward. It was like she was mostly there, mostly aware of her surroundings, but a little lost. Her eyes were so green they almost glowed. But… ponies didn’t have glowing eyes… did they?

Twin clicks unlocked the door.

Without a word, Rainshine and Bon Bon opened the door, revealing the contents of the cell beyond. It was a room much like Blueblood’s, but rather than a Prince, this prison contained a Princess. A very familiar looking Princess…

The once pristine pink coat was dirty and disheveled, knotted with filthy streaks on the face and hooves, strands of a once colorful violet, rose-pink and beige mane stuck together and falling like a tangled net over a slim torso. Hearing the door open, a pair of wings flexed and tensed, pink except as they tapered to the tips of the feathers, where the color of pastel purple gradually dominated. Defiant violet eyes glared up at the four intruding mares from beneath the mat of twisted hair, daring them to come closer. The long sealing cylinder over the horn atop this pony’s head had seen much use. Many of the seals had been burned out entirely, leaving circular scars in the device where the wax had vaporized. More had taken their place, giving it a patchwork appearance.

Lyra turned up her nose at the smell. The room was ripe, and there was a whiff like one would get trotting by an outhouse. There was a dirty hay pallet to sleep on, and Bon Bon had said they changed the chamber pot… how often? Every few days? That seemed unnecessarily cruel. Why…

What was important was serving The Queen.

“Lyra Heartstrings,” Bon Bon said, making polite introductions. She gestured grandly at the prone alicorn, adding a little flourish with her hoof. “Princess Cadance.”

Lyra’s eyes widened as she overcame the smell and tentatively approached the mare. “The Queen is…”

“Your Queen is a monster,” the filthy alicorn hissed, starting to rise up on elegant, still muscular legs. “A monster and a slave to her sick appetites.”

“Now, why do you have to go and say these sorts of things? Untrue things?” Bon Bon nodded to Rainshine, and the unicorn in turn prodded Twinkleshine.

“She insulted The Queen,” Rainshine said, and Twinkleshine’s horn started to glow.

It was… black.

There was some sort of black energy in Twinkleshine’s star field. It was in her eyes, too, though mostly drowned out by the green. Lyra watched and turned to Cadance as a bolt of black and more-normal blue slammed into her. The Princess of Love clutched her face and screamed as Twinkleshine’s magic did something to her eyes. She fell to the floor and rolled on her back, hissing and biting back her pain.

“She’s getting too used to that,” Rainshine observed with a snort.

Lyra took a moment to notice Twinkleshine’s cutie mark: three blue five-pointed stars. It was a normal enough cutie mark, except there was almost… something superimposed behind it. More stars, fainter ones. A constellation, maybe? Lyra was well read; she knew her astronomy as well as any unicorn. The fainter stars looked like they formed the unicorn version of the “plow” or, in modern times, what was often called the “triangle” to differentiate it from the earth pony constellation of the same name.

It…

It reminded her of…

“Lyra,” Bon Bon’s voice commanded immediate attention. She sounded insistent.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Use your harp,” Bon Bon commanded. “Show the Princess here what you can do. That way, she’ll know not to mess with you… or us.”

“Use my harp,” Lyra repeated, and the three words echoed in her mind. ‘Use my harp. Use my harp. Use my harp.’

“Use it to…?” she asked, tenaciously. Bon Bon couldn’t mean what she thought she meant.

“Just give her ears a little ring,” Bon Bon insisted, pointing at Cadance. Since Twinkleshine had stopped her assault, the mare had recovered. She was crouched and tensed as if to pounce, rage in her violet eyes, a rage fixed firmly on Bon Bon and Rainshine. Lyra felt a protective impulse rise up. This mare… this Princess… she wanted to hurt Bon Bon. She deserved to have her ears ring.

“Do it!” Cadance snarled, seeming to sense the moment’s hesitation. “Show me what you’ve got. Lyra, was it? Show me what you can do.”

Lyra whipped out the golden harp strapped to her back.

Power. She felt power thrum through the instrument, through her, surging through her veins and into her horn. All this power, black and thick as molasses, where had it all come from? She remembered a room… a vast and incalculable vault… a gift! Lord Brass. It was Lord Brass’s parting gift to her. That and an antique harp she had come to treasure. Power like no pony must have felt in hundreds of years!

She felt hands – ethereal hands – move through her mane to hold her harp. Black tinted her normal golden magic, intruding into it and strengthening it, opening up new possibilities. The fingers only she could see trailed along the strings, just brushing them with the pads of those nimble digits, ever so faintly. Lyra felt a phantom of pain in her horn and over her hooves. The magic hurt a little, it was so cold…

So… unbelievably cold…

But a little pain could open a pony’s eyes. Lyra’s body tensed. She wanted, more than anything, to strike a chord with those fingers. Any chord! This Princess wanted to hear her?

What was important was serving The Queen.

Lyra focused her eyes on Cadance, this Princess Cadance who was an enemy of her Queen, and struck a simple glissandi starting at D.

The effect was immediate. Twinkleshine’s ears perked up and she made a soft sound, almost confused, as if hearing for the first time. Bon Bon and Rainshine were more focused on Cadance, and they grinned viciously at how the alicorn clutched at her ears and curled into a fetal ball. The sound of the harp seemed to echo within the walls of the cell long after the strings had been played, repeating over and over and over with a black note that cut into Princess Cadance like shards of glass.

‘This… this isn’t what…’

What was important was serving The Queen!!

Lyra’s doubt died a premature death, smothered and drowned out by the conditioned impulse.

“Very good!” Bon Bon cheered, chapping her hooves. “Look at her squirm! She hasn’t done that in weeks!”

“Her ears are bleeding,” Rainshine noted with a disdainful sniff. She glanced over at Lyra. “You didn’t deafen her, did you?”

“I don’t think so,” Lyra replied, a little unsteady at the accusation. “I did… I did what you told me to…”

“Rainshine here isn’t mad,” Bon Bon explained, pulling Lyra closer for a quick hug. “She just doesn’t want to learn sign language to order around a deaf pony.”

“How would sign language even work with these?” Rainshine lifted a hoof and waved it around like a limp noodle. “Stupid ponies.”

“Language,” Bon Bon warned. Taking control of the situation, she made as if to approach the downed Princess but thought the better of it. “Lyra. Check her ears, would you, please?”

“Sure thing… Bon Bon…”

Cautiously approaching the downed alicorn, Lyra reached for the mare’s head. She could see a trickle of blood dripping from the mare’s ears. Had she really done that? Even if it was for Her Majesty, The Queen, this wasn’t what music was for. With the magic she had, she felt like she could bring an entire stadium of ponies to tears. Using it like this was just… not wrong, because that would imply The Queen was wrong… but wasteful.

Tilting Cadance’s head, she wiped away the blood and tried to look more closely. It was hard to tell.

“Can you hear me?” she decided to ask.

For a moment, Cadance said nothing… then she snapped out a hoof to grab Lyra by the throat. The bridesmaid yelped in pain and fright. It felt like the Princess’ grip could clip a pony’s head off her neck if she really wanted to. She pulled the bridesmaid down to lock eyes, and in those angry, violet orbs, Lyra Heartstrings could see her reflection.

Her reflection. Her reflection… with green eyes.

“I don’t have green eyes,” she whispered.

“No, you don’t,” Cadance whispered back and let go.

“Bitch!” Bon Bon snarled, pulling Lyra back. “Twinkleshine. Give her another.”

“You heard her,” Rainshine added. “Go on, sister.”

Twinkleshine’s magic surged forth again. Lyra didn’t watch it this time. She turned her eyes to her own flank, where seven stars, two of them so tiny as to almost be invisible, were imposed beneath her cutie mark. The large one was Vega, and the rest formed a triangle and a diamond. Together, they were the lyre. The constellation. It wasn’t just drawn in. It was a part of her cutie mark.

Finally, Bon Bon called for Cadance’s punishment to end, and they replaced her filthy chamber pot. Rainshine brought in a new water bowl… like a pony would give to a dog. At least the water was clean.

“Where’s my bread?” Cadance asked, letting the other mares go about their business. She shifted a manacle attached to her left hind leg, revealing a patch of her coat almost worn down to the skin. The chain led into a huge block of crystal, keeping her from even reaching the cell’s door.

“No bread today,” Rainshine told her with a sneer.

“No bread yesterday, no bread the day before that? You have to feed me!” Cadance snarled but hung her head. “If I die… if I die… your Queen won’t go a week before she’s revealed for the fake she is. For the parasite you all are! They’ll expose her… and find her… and kill her. Every noble mare and stallion in the country will chase her down and kill her for this.”

Cadance glared up at Bon Bon and Rainshine.

“Do you understand?” The desperate alicorn struggled to stand back up on wobbling legs and held herself with as much dignity as she could muster. “So come back with some damned bread.”

Rainshine scoffed.

“We’ll think about it,” Bon Bon promised. “Come on, Lyra. Let’s go.”

What was important was serving The Queen.

“Y-yeah, okay,” Lyra agreed, following her marefriend. Twinkleshine and Rainshine weren’t close behind, electing to follow Bon Bon as well. Lyra stole one last look at the caged Princess under the guise of observing the two unicorn sisters.

When they were all gone, Cadance was left alone in her cell. She reached up to the side of her face and wiped away a smear of blood.

“Lyra Heartstrings,” the Princess whispered to herself, “and my brother, too?”

She smiled behind her hoof.

“…Finally.”

“She’s asleep?”

“Yes, sir.”

Prince Blueblood – which was to say, the changeling currently in the guise of the arrogant Prince – furrowed her brow, though her brow was now his brow. She was upset. It was very upsetting. There had been only a torrent of frankly upsetting news, and it was not making her into any more pleasant a pony! Or changeling!

“You are telling me,” she growled in the Prince’s voice, “that Miss Twilight Sparkle… despite living in a library, chooses to come to my home, to eat my food, to enter my library, repeatedly now, all so she can snuggle up with a book and go to sleep?”

“Two books,” Sir Mercury corrected her, his head bowed in respect. “Your Grace.”

“Two books,” Blueblood repeated. “What were these two books?”

The dutiful Royal Guard coughed into his hoof, a little anxious at having to say more on the subject. “‘Warfare in the Pre-Classical Period’ and ‘Saddle Marabia: a Study in Contrasts.’”

What sort of useless books were those?

“The two books may not be available at the public library, Your Grace,” Mercury speculated. “Should I check and see?”

Blueblood rounded her desk – his desk – and took a seat on a raised cushion. Placing her hooves on the desk, she took a moment to breathe slowly and laboriously. It was taxing being in charge like this. As Pixie Dust, she had been relatively free to consolidate her cover. Very few ponies paid much attention to Pixie Dust. The hardest part had been making the initial switch. It had involved luring the mare away between transits to and from Brass’s Hanging Gardens. It had been risky but rewarding.

Being Blueblood was rather different. Aside from maintaining the masquerade, she had to adopt a noblestallion’s mannerisms. She had to balance that act against the requests and demands from the Queen. The two seemed often at odds. It would be difficult making all things ready for the Swarming of Canterlot. Suspicion could not be raised. Not yet. Not until she had more changelings around her. Not until she could make troublesome ponies disappear, blind prying eyes, and gouge out unwelcome ears.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Blueblood grumbled, tapping a hoof against the desk. “No. No… I see no need. Let her sleep in the athenaeum if she finds it so comfortable. There are more important matters ahoof.”

“As you say, Your Grace,” Sir Mercury readily complied.

“Yumi,” Blueblood said, leaning forward to glare menacingly at the Royal Guard. “Where. IS. Lady. Yumi?”

Sir Mercury lowered his blue eyes to the floor, his wings tight against his sides. “We... do not know.”

“You don’t know,” Blueblood repeated, not even bothering to hide her exasperation from her tone of voice or body language, a hoof massaging a patch of forehead next to her new horn. “Fine. Where are Gale Force and Arrow Head?”

Sir Mercury steeled himself and raised his eyes to meet those of his angry Prince.

“We do not know,” he said again.

“Ah. You do not know. Tell me,” Blueblood requested, slamming a hoof onto the desk hard enough to knock over a capped inkwell. “Is there anything you DO know? Sir Mercury?”

The ever-loyal Guard remained stoic in the face of the outburst. “Your Grace. They were last sighted flying into the Everfree Forest. As you are aware, my Lord, the forest grows increasingly dangerous as one nears the central valleys. Gale Force and Arrow Head were likely killed by indigenous predators or some other unforeseen danger within the forest. There were signs of a struggle in places… much of it difficult to place. There were destroyed Timberwolves at one site. Lady Yumi is likely also dead.”

“Then would it be so hard – would it be too much to ask – for you to come back with a ripped off leg or… or… a chunk of tail or anything?” Blueblood demanded. “Earth Ponies and Pegasi do not just vanish into thin air!”

“Within the Everfree, they do…”

Blueblood leaned back in her seat and ran a tongue along the inside of her teeth.

Yumi was gone. Gale Force and Arrow Head were gone. Those… those worthless, incompetent, silk-chewing, comb-fed grubs! Maybe it was best to just hope some monster in the Everfree had swallowed them whole. Hopefully, nopony would recognize their remains in some pile of monster scat in that Queen-forsaken forest.

‘Shining Armor will need new escorts to keep him in line. I need to make sure he returns to the Queen. She’ll refresh her control over him and give him new watchers. Maybe she’ll even give him ones that can do their damn jobs!’

“Shining Armor is leaving today, is he not?” Blueblood asked, rubbing her chin with the stallion’s hoof. It was so large. Too large. It felt strange after having impersonated female ponies for so long.

Sir Mercury nodded, just once. “He is, Your Grace.”

“He’s taking the train, yes?”

“He is.”

The train was slow, but it probably wasn’t an issue.

“I have a letter I wish sent to my step-sister,” Blueblood said, floating out a quill and parchment and getting to work writing. “See to it she receives this when she reunites with Sir Shining Armor. Send… send… who do you recommend we send?”

“To deliver a letter?” Sir Mercury actually let a hint of confusion color his tone, but he quickly shook his head and returned to his usual professional norm. “And… to escort the Prince-to-be. Of course. It would be an honor to trust Sir Starry Skies with such a task.”

“Starry Skies? Very well. A fine choice.” Blueblood continued to write, eyes not leaving the letter taking form on the desk under the care of her furiously scribbling pen. “I would also like you to make a list for me, Sir Mercury…”

“A list, sir?”

“I am thinking… that it would do my guard some good to…” Blueblood licked a corner of her mouth, biting back a chuckle. “To cross-train some more with my step-sister’s.”

“We are all the same Guard Company,” Mercury reminded her. “Why would we need to cross-train?”

“Royal Guards are already rotated in and out of individual duty,” Blueblood replied, pausing a moment in writing the letter to Queen Chrysalis, her ‘step-sister.’ “I’ve checked my records, and it had reminded me that I have not rotated out any of my guards in the last half year.”

“Not since the Gala, Your Grace.” Sir Mercury remained impassive, outwardly at least. “You and I hoof-picked your next guard for the coming year. You expressed a personal preference and request for--”

“And now I am hoof-picking some fresh blood!” Blueblood declared, signing her name – his name – to the document.

Mercury watched the pen move with his eyes. “Are you unhappy with our performance, my Lord?”

“Frankly, it could be better.” Blueblood’s eyes darted up to see if the jibe had any effect on the rigid Royal Guardpony. It did not. She returned to the letter to the Queen. “I was recently poisoned, Sir Mercury, and you have failed to bring the culprit to justice. If I had Lady Yumi in my hooves, that would be one thing. I could forgive all else, if only I had that, but I do not. So what am I to think?”

“Sir,” Mercury protested, “the Everfree Forest is…”

“I want three names,” Blueblood interrupted him, not caring to hear what excuses Sir Mercury thought he had. In reality, this would have happened no matter what, come failure or success. “Actually, four names. Four should do it. They will be exchanged for guards of my sister’s choosing. I have also asked her for some new attendants. I will enjoy seeing some new faces around here.”

“As my Lord wishes!” Sir Mercury said, bowing his head in what was no doubt bitter compliance.

Blueblood poured a dark brown wax over the letter she had just written. A heavy, ornate seal pressed into the wax, closing the letter. She then floated out a piece of red string to bind it for transport. A moment later, she opened the desk to retrieve a cylindrical travel case. The rolled up scroll fit perfectly inside, and she sealed it shut. What was within was written in code only changelings of the proper rank would be able to decipher, but it would not do for anything to happen to the letter… or for it to be read by prying eyes.

“Now,” she declared, resting the finished and fully sealed letter on the desk beside her. “Let us speak of Lady Yumi’s retainers.”

“Lady Rarity’s Free Company ponies continue to assist us in holding them,” Sir Mercury explained, reiterating a fact that vexed the changeling no end. Rarity had promised to hoof over the prisoners for interrogation. They were to be made to divulge their accomplices and admit their guilt. They were to name names! Especially certain names who would be best removed from the potential defense of Canterlot when the Royal Wedding brought a swift end to that city.

“And?” Blueblood prompted.

“They continue to resist us, speaking only to the Dove and Cross,” Mercury continued, head held high. “Their confessions have been witnessed by numerous ponies of good standing.”

“They have been witnessed by mercenaries and sellswords.”

“And the town gendarmes, my Lord, including the Element of Honesty herself,” Mercury reminded her, though the information did nothing to improve Blueblood’s mood.

“They are holding back on us!” Blueblood declared, rhythmically rapping the surface of the desk again with the edge of her large hoof. “This was no spur-of-the-moment act of passion! It was a clear and calculated attempt on my life! I will have all ends explored! All perpetrators hunted down!”

“They have confessed in the eyes of reputable ponies,” Mercury said again, repeating the same useless thing. “Sir, Your Grace, there is little more we can do.”

“I want another confession from them,” Blueblood insisted, and Mercury flinched ever so slightly, his façade slipping for just a heartbeat.

“Sir, we cannot have them confess a second time to the same crime. A Justice of the Court is already--”

“I do not want to hear the words ‘cannot’ coming from your mouth, Sir Mercury,” the Prince snarled. “I want to hear: ‘it will be done, Your Grace’ or ‘a way will be found, Your Grace.’ I know others are complicit in this crime.”

“Sir, respectfully, how...?” Mercury quickly caught himself and bowed his head again. “A way will be found, Your Grace.”

He said the words but without much enthusiasm.

‘He’ll fail… and his failure will be mine,’ Blueblood thought, her eyes closing as she imagined Queen Chrysalis’s rage. ‘Rarity! Damn that mare. How did she pry confessions out of those Neighponese idiots so quickly? They were only in the Free Company’s hooves for half a day. Even as a Prince, I’m limited in what I can legally do. How can I get those confessions?’

“Wait,” she said, perking up at a sudden thought. “The three all confessed?”

“They did. Together.”

“Let it be known to them that if one of them recants and confesses anew, that he or she will be rewarded… with clemency… No! With a full pardon!” Blueblood smirked at that. “One will do. The other two…” She waved a hoof dismissively. “Try Suzukaze. Tell her we have Lady Yumi. Tell her that if she cooperates, we will pardon her and Yumi both.”

“Sir, we do not have Lady Yumi…”

“I’m not an idiot! Of course we don’t have Yumi!” Blueblood roared and had to sit back down to calm herself again. She could feel the Queen breathing down her neck, expecting results. Hastily brushing back her mane with a hoof, rather missing Pixie Dust’s old mane and how it felt to wear it, she slowly counted down from five. The Queen would get what she wanted. Four. They would pave the way for the swarm. Three. The little white-coated Element of Harmony would be worn down by mind magic and pheromones after a few more days. Two. Alpha Brass would be brought to heel, not by changelings, but by his fellow ponies. One.

When Canterlot fell, when Equestria came apart, the swarm would feast and multiply.

“Tell them what I told you,” she ordered the Royal Guard.

“It is a lie, sir,” Mercury protested, much more forcefully this time. “I… I cannot…”

“What did I just tell you about that word?” Blueblood asked with deceptive calm.

“Respectfully, my Lord, my Prince… I cannot tell such a lie,” Mercury said, straight and rigid as if he had been carved from stone. He was inflexible. These ponies could be so frustratingly inflexible! The Neighponese crew were just as bad, really. It was vexing. So very, very vexing!

“My code compels me,” he tried to excuse his inability to do as ordered. “My honor…”

“Yes, your honor,” Blueblood replied and rolled her eyes. “Fine. Your objection is noted, and I retract my request.”

‘I’ll just have somepony else make the offer instead,’ she thought.

“Thank you, Your Grace,” Mercury said with a sigh of relief. “Sir, if I may speak freely…?”

“You’ve spoken freely enough as it is,” she cut him off and clopped a hoof against the desk for emphasis. “Go do as I’ve asked. I have other matters to attend to.”

“Yes, Your Grace!” Sir Mercury bowed, picked up the sealed scroll case with his teeth, and took his leave.

Sitting back in the cushions behind the Prince’s desk, the changeling in his skin furrowed her brow. Mercury would do his duty for now, but he would have to be replaced, sooner rather than later. Some ponies were morally flexible, and those were the sorts the changelings could retain use of… at least for a while.

What Sir Mercury needed to have was a marefriend.

If only he had one... then they could just replace her and control him through his loved one. He was just too inflexible and honorable to deal with otherwise. The other option was to replace him, either in the normal sense, by demoting or transferring him, or by literally replacing him with a changeling. He was a powerful pony, however, well-placed and well-known. It would look bad to send the Prince’s former guard captain to serve under his sister in exchange for anything other than another captain, which would not be forthcoming.

“Actually, wasn’t there some… showpony I remember hearing about…?” It was hard to remember. Perhaps some of the other guards would know more? It would preserve the essential illusion of the masquerade to retain the same guard captain as the real Blueblood.

Turning, she trotted over to a large bay window overlooking the manor grounds outside. Her eyes narrowed as she saw one of the dragons – the red one – perched on top of a statue. The purple one called ‘Spike’ was here, too, hanging out with the red beast while Twilight slept in the athenaeum.

“Things are moving too quickly,” the changeling whispered to herself. “My Queen. Is it wrong for me to worry? This town… is too chaotic. Our eyes and ears here are too few… and our enemies too many.”

Snorting, the false stallion returned to the desk and the papers at hoof.

She had a Duchy’s defenses to undermine.

Fluttershy wished she hadn’t squeaked quite so loudly when she answered her door. Not that there was anything wrong with squeaking. Many of her best friends squeaked. They were mice, though, so ponies expected them to squeak. Or cute little bunnies. Or weasels. These animals all tended towards the squeaking range of vocalization. Ponies didn’t. It was kind of embarrassing to squeak, especially so loudly. Fluttershy really didn’t want a reputation for being a loudmouth.

“Fluttershy?” Chalice asked from behind the less-than-formidable barrier that was her front door.

“Eep!”

Fluttershy cleared her throat only a little more loudly than she had just cheeped.

“I mean…” she tentatively opened the door, just a crack “…hello.”

Outside, there were no thunderous hoofsteps, no monstrous star-pony looming as tall as her house with empty pits for eyes, no blazing bow humming with the power of a star, and no otherworldly chill pervading the air. Outside the door on her front step was Chalice, a smaller pony than Fluttershy herself, a white cloak with soft blue trim over her pink coat. Her rust colored mane was done up in a tall bun behind her head and her eyes were downcast… as if guilty or afraid to meet Fluttershy’s own gaze.

Fluttershy dropped her eyes, too, and for a moment that would have been awkward to anypony else, the two mares sat on opposite sides of the door in embarrassed and a little frightened silence. Chalice shuffled a hoof, crossing her forelegs. Fluttershy gulped and started to open the door, only for it to catch on the little chain that served as a half-hearted lock. The chime of it seemed to draw Chalice out a little.

“Fluttershy,” she said, though she didn’t raise her eyes right away. She did after a second’s silence, though, and Fluttershy felt some relief to see they were normal and minus any otherworldly darkness. “Fluttershy, I know you probably don’t want to see me or talk to me… but… I think we should talk just a little. Then I’ll go. I promise.”

So said the pony who could turn into a giant star-monster and kill other monsters with her bare hooves.

But, strangely, maybe even stupidly, Fluttershy sort of believed her.

Nodding mutely, Fluttershy closed the door slightly, used a wingtip to unlock the latch for the chain – a chain even little, regular Chalice could probably have broken with a kick if she really wanted – and opened her front door to invite the frightfully powerful noblemare inside. No sooner was the deed done than something heavy flew through the air, prompting Fluttershy to shriek as she dove. A crash made her ears twitch and fold back, and she whirled around to see Angel Bunny huffing and puffing from the back of the living room.

Turning again, she saw the results of his handiwork. The small but unusually strong bunny had thrown a cup full of cold tea at her guest. The shattered ceramic remains were strewn about Chalice’s hooves and in her mane, along with the sticky tea that had been in the cup to begin with. Chalice had one hoof reared back to shield her face from any further attacks, and as she lowered her leg, Fluttershy could see a messy wound over her guest’s left eye.

“Oh. Oh, I’m sorry!” Fluttershy wasted no time in turning on her ‘normally’ well-behaved pet. “Angel Bunny! You apologize right now! That was terrible! We do not… are you listening?”

Angel stuck his tongue out, made a rude gesture with both paws, and jumped out an open window.

“We do not throw things at anypony or anyone in this house!” Fluttershy almost yelled out the window after him. She was tempted to give chase and scold the bunny properly but had to turn and rush into the kitchen to retrieve a towel.

Helping Chalice clean up, Fluttershy was struck by a realization.

Angel Bunny’s cup had left a bloody cut on Chalice’s forehead, close to her horn. He had hurt this pony… this same pony that had torn apart a fully mature and gravid jaculus. The same pony had killed poor Yumi’s friend and protector, Mister Shigure, with an arrow that that destroyed a hillside. Of all of them, only Angel Bunny had hurt this pony, and he had done it with a cup.

“I’m sorry,” Chalice said, holding the damp towel to her forehead with one hoof. She didn’t use her magic, even now.

“I’m the one who has to apologize,” Fluttershy insisted, sitting back and watching the mare from across her little coffee table. All the animals in her house had fled the instant Chalice entered. Now…

Now she knew why.

“Angel Bunny helped you follow me, didn’t he?” Chalice asked, dabbing at her cut before folding the towel up and putting it down next to her. “He must have seen some of what you saw. I don’t blame him for this.”

Fluttershy disagreed. “What he did was very mean and very rude, no matter who you are or what you’ve done.”

“Oh.” Chalice looked down at her hooves again. “Thank you.”

Again, the two mares sat in silence, and again, it probably would have been awkward. It probably should have been awkward. It didn’t feel that way, though. Since first meeting her in Canterlot, Fluttershy had spent hours with Chalice with hardly a word passing between them. Neither felt the need to make conversation to fill time or to set the mood. Chalice poured herself tea like an earth pony, using her hooves and her mouth and a heat-pad to keep from being burned.

“You don’t use your magic,” Fluttershy observed, remembering all the times she had privately thought it unusual. “Is it because… of…” she hesitated to describe it, so settled for “…that?”

Chalice nodded slowly and stared at her tea.

“My magic… my own magic… is white. I’m the only pony I know of with magic that color,” she admitted, slowly rotating the cup in her hooves. “My magic is like me. It doesn’t have a color by itself. My father and my brother tell me I’m strong… that I have great magic, but… but it never felt right. I always hated the color of my magic more than anything.”

She glanced up at Fluttershy. “I don’t know many ponies, but I think you understand that… it was why I felt you and I… like we could be friends.”

Fluttershy thought of her wings and felt them tighten and tense against her sides. Winter Bora, her own father, had always told her that she had strong wings and that she was a strong flier. The doctors all said she had strong wings. Ritterkreuz didn’t inherit her own wing muscles from nothing. But just because she had them didn’t mean using them came naturally. It wasn’t as if she had even ever wanted to be disappointing. It wasn’t as if she had wanted to be made fun of in flight camp.

‘Fluttershy, Fluttershy, Fluttershy can’t hardly fly!’

She’d wanted to fly. She’d wanted to prove herself, but…

‘I’m not like Ritterkreuz, any more than Chalice is like her sisters,’ Fluttershy thought but remembered the other day. ‘Not deep down, anyway. I don’t think. What if somepony had tried to make me into Ritterkreuz or into dad?’

“White is a pretty color,” Fluttershy said quietly. “White magic is unique.”

“You think so?” Chalice asked, genuinely surprised to hear the compliment. She smiled a little, but then it quickly faded. “But, yes, to answer your question before. My other magic turns everything black… because of the aether. Even a tiny bit of it leaks out and causes a change in magical hue and resonance.”

Fluttershy took a deep breath and looked up from her cup to fix eyes with her guest.

“Chalice,” she began, summoning her resolve. “What was that thing? That thing you turned into? Why did you… why did you do what you did? And, um… why are you here?”

“I’ll explain some of that after I ask.” Chalice took a breath of her own. “Is Lady Yumi alive?”

“Why would I…? I mean, um…? Who? Who?” Fluttershy hooted like an owl and fanned herself with a hoof, eyes darting left and right. “Who, Lady- Lady who? Y-Yumi?”

Chalice squinted her uninjured eye, clearly not convinced by the act.

“I’m not going to ask if she is here, or where, if you even know,” she said. “I won’t cause you trouble. I just want to know if you saw her leave the forest alive. You didn’t lose sight of her, did you?”

Fluttershy’s rather lackluster ‘playing dumb’ act drew an early curtain as she considered Chalice’s words… and what she had found out in the forest thanks to Zecora. That fake-Twilight Sparkle and that fake-Zecora. Chalice hadn’t outright said it, but Fluttershy could sense the implications of her question. Did you lose sight of her? Did you see her leave the forest alive?

‘She wants to know if Yumi is still Yumi!’ Fluttershy realized. ‘What should I tell her? Should I tell her anything?’

“Why were you after Yumi?” Fluttershy asked. It was rude to answer a question with another question, but she had to know. “I’ll answer you after you answer me… please.”

Chalice shifted on her seat and hastily sipped her tea, which Fluttershy knew to be still quite hot. Gently placing her cup back on the table, she looked up to Fluttershy, as if prepared to say something she would rather not have.

“Lord Blueblood wishes the capture or death of the mare who poisoned him,” she explained with a hint of sadness. “They say Lady Yumi is that mare. Carrying out the sentence would earn me the Prince’s favor. My family still wishes myself or Antimony to marry him. Also… my brother…”

“Your brother?” Fluttershy prompted, when Chalice’s voice trailed off, becoming too quiet to hear.

“My brother was worried,” Chalice said, a growing resolve in her voice. “Yumi is a powerful pony. If she were to fall under the influence of an enemy of Equestria, it would be a bad thing. After what happened at the festival, it was thought… I thought… it would be best not to take any chances. I thought: I should kill her, just to be on the safe side. I thought: that is what my sister would do… and what my brother would want.”

Fluttershy didn’t know what to say.

So she answered Chalice’s question, like she promised. “Miss Yumi… Lady Yumi I mean… she left for home. She isn’t here anymore, but—” Fluttershy bit her lip, wondering how much to say “—she is who she says she is.”

“Oh?” Chalice asked, also chocked silent for a time. “Good. Good, then. I hope she gets home safe.”

“She won’t forget what you did to Mister Shigure,” Fluttershy warned. Yumi stuck the pegasus as an easily angered mare, and as despondent and shocked as she had been the other night, that anger had always been under the surface. No, Yumi would not forget the mare who had killed her protector.

“One more enemy doesn’t matter at this point,” Chalice whispered, shaking her head. “I wish I didn’t have to do that.”

“Then why did you do it?” Fluttershy pressed, and she normally wasn’t the type to. But this wasn’t just something she could be a wallflower to. She had seen a pony die. “Why did you do it? Why do you do this at all?”

“I have to,” Chalice replied, simply.

Fluttershy shook her head, her pink mane swooshing around her neck. “You don’t--”

“I do,” Chalice insisted, firmly, her hooves gently on the table to either side of her tea. “My blood is Arsenic’s blood. My blood is a Blueblood’s, strong and pure. I am Terre Rare, a daughter of Duke Cruciger. We do not paint. We do not sit in the sun and dream. We do not watch birds.”

Chalice hung her head and wiped her eyes against her forelegs, quickly, reopening her cut in the process but not seeming to care. Her voice had remained firm, but she looked anything but pleased with what she had recited. Fluttershy got the impression that those words had been drilled into her from a young age.

‘Fluttershy, Fluttershy, Fluttershy can’t hardly fly!’

‘Fluttershy. Spread your wings, girl. I know you can do this if you apply yourself. Come on, come to your father and fly!’

“I’m useless without the black magic,” Chalice said with the same tone of voice she had used to insist ‘we do not paint’ and ‘we do not watch birds.’ “You wanted to know what it is?”

The question was so simple, but so frightening, Fluttershy wasn’t even sure she wanted to know anymore. Chalice took a steadying breath and lifted her hooves off the coffee table.

“There is a place that no pony can see with her eyes or reach with her wings…” she began. “A place above the clouds, sightless and soundless, lifeless and deathless. Somewhere up there… is a great and immense hall, lit by the fires that give us starlight. The Empyrean Vault. Unicorns can reach this place.”

Fluttershy felt a shiver at the description. It sounded… terrifying.

“Within that place, that source of the aether that blackens the night sky, a pony can commune with the stars that watched us take shape in ancient times,” Chalice continued and her whole body quaked with an involuntary shudder. “It is a horrible place, Fluttershy. I go there… every time I give Sagittarius my body and my magic. He surges through me and I go there. I hate it… more than anything I hate it… but at least, when he is in me, I’m useful and I can contribute.”

She slowly shook her head, as if sensing Fluttershy’s thoughts.

“As you yourself saw, I’ve done too much to go back, even if I could.” Chalice stared into her cup again, as if she could see something in the dark liquid. “I understand if you don’t want to see me again or… be friends. I never wanted you to see what I had to do in the forest. I thought… I thought you’d go to see your step-sister and Miss Dash. I never thought you’d follow me.”

“Would you have done anything different if you knew?” Fluttershy asked.

“No,” Chalice admitted, shaking her head again. “Maybe I would have tried harder to lose you.” She looked up, and Fluttershy saw tears in her eyes. “I’m a monster. Animals can see that. They run from me because they know. Ponies don’t know… but some of them learn… and they leave, too. I really wish you hadn’t followed me. I really do.”

Chalice cried a little but, just as quickly, excused herself. Fluttershy let her go. It was… hard to know how to feel. A part of her felt sorry for the noblemare, but another part of her couldn’t forget what she had seen. A part of her wanted to yell at the other mare, ‘You killed a pony! You killed a pony!’

So Fluttershy kept silent.

“One last thing,” Chalice said, halfway through the door. The cut over her eye had started to dry and mat up the coat there. “There’s going to be a wedding in Canterlot. If you are invited… please don’t go.”

She closed the door behind her as she left.

Fluttershy fell to her haunches when she was gone. Chalice… Chalice had been a friend. Fluttershy had felt that way and thought her a good pony. The door closed, she regretted saying nothing. Even if she had yelled, it would have been something. ‘You killed a pony!’

“She’s gone?” Rainbow Dash asked from upstairs.

“She’s gone,” Fluttershy replied.

“Apple Bloom! Scootaloo!”

“Sweetie Belle!”

It hadn’t been more than a day since Sweetie had last seen her friends, but she greeted them just as warmly as if they’d been apart for a week. Her joy at seeing them and taking them with her definitely didn’t have anything to do with her otherwise having to spend the day with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Definitely not.

“Thank the Princess you two are coming along!” Sweetie hugged her best friends like a life raft. “It was just gonna be me and those two you-know-whos!”

“Sweetie…” Scootaloo squirmed, trying to escape the filly’s grip. “We’re here! Geez, not so tight!”

“Don’t sweat none!” Apple Bloom declared, more comfortable in Sweetie’s relieved embrace. She hugged her back before slipping out of the hug rather effortlessly. “No way would we leave a fellow crusader at the mercy of … them!”

“Are you positive you don’t want to come?” Rarity asked, not far from where the cutie mark crusaders had reunited.

Applejack shook her head, a hoof tracing the rim of her Stetson. “Thanks but no thanks. Ah honestly don’t think you bunch’re goin’ ta the sort of places in the city Ah like ta visit. Besides, what’d I do with all that fancy nonsense? Ah’d be like a fish outta water.”

“I see.” Rarity’s shoulders slumped faintly, but she seemed to understand. “If you are sure, then…”

“Yer the fancy talker, Rarity,” Applejack reminded her with a grin. “Ain’t this the day yer gonna, what’s ya call it? Make yer move?”

“One of them,” Rarity replied, and Sweetie wasn’t quite sure what her sister meant. What move?

“Is something funny going on?” Sweetie asked the two adults. “Besides the obvious?”

“Nothing funny,” Rarity assured her, “just a day in the city.”

She said one last goodbye to Applejack and herded the three crusaders into the carriage. Apple Bloom ‘oohed’ at the plush seats and immediately started jumping on one to see how springy it was. Scootaloo was less obviously impressed by the décor. She zeroed in on a small compartment with drinks and food, and Rarity had to shoo her away from it with the promise of “you can have some a little later, Scootaloo.”

Sweetie wasn’t the most observant pony in the world, but she wasn’t oblivious, either. Apple Bloom’s mane and tail were brushed and freshly washed, and she was wearing her best red bow. The Apple family didn’t dress up much, not like Sweetie’s family sometimes did (and like Rarity did all the time) but Apple Bloom was clearly cleaned up, like when her family had company over. Even Scootaloo looked like she’d been taken to have a mane cut and grooming. Sweetie wondered how much her two friends knew about this trip they’d agreed to come along on.

Rarity let them roughhouse, for the most part, while the carriage rolled along, only tearing her eyes away from the window whenever it looked like they were about to break something or get messy. At one point, she even picked Scootaloo up to quickly fix her mane. Sweetie, knowing a bit more about things, refrained from making a mess of her coat or mane. Her parents and Rarity had both spent all morning making her “presentable,” which meant that they were, by definition, presenting her to someone or something.

It didn’t take a dictionary to figure that out!

She was tempted to ask Rarity if this about more than just meeting up with Diamond Tiara and her mother. Pulling herself up onto a pillow, Sweetie Belle could see outside through one of the fancy sliding-glass windows. The carriage was a really nice one, and big, too! At least by her estimation, it had to have cost at least… like… FIFTY bits. Maybe more.

It wasn’t long before the Rich house appeared down the road. The Riches lived on the edge of town to the north, the furthest part of town from the Everfree forest, and the houses here all had really big yards. They were sort of like Apple Bloom’s farm in that way, except nopony did any farming there. Except for growing flowers and big, tall bushes, anyway.

The house itself was three stories high and very wide. Now that Sweetie thought about it more and had a good look and a point of comparison, it looked a little like Blueblood’s house outside town… except smaller. Everything was smaller than that house. Where Blueblood’s manor had something like a dozen real chimneys sticking out of the top, the Rich house had little iron domes to imitate it. The windows were all rimmed and fancy with more iron, but the thing that stuck out most was the colorful red, yellow, and white roof, which had to be covered in little, glazed tiles.

It was pretty.

She supposed it would have to be: the Rich family was the richest in town!

A pony in a suit met them out front, and Sweetie saw Rarity get her ‘game face’ on. It was the same sort of look Sweetie had seen on her sister when she thought she was about to meet someone important or go on a date. A mirror in a sea-shell compact flashed out, and Rarity quickly checked her eyelashes and other makeup.

She wasn’t wearing much. She had a thin necklace, little more than lace, with some tiny sparky gems set in it like dewdrop on a spiderweb. There were also the single-pearl earrings – and seeing them reminded Sweetie of how Rarity and her mother kept saying no to getting her ears pierced, even though Rarity had gotten them pierced at basically her age – and, of course, her hat. It was big enough to touch the ceiling of the carriage they were in and all pure white. Even the feathers in it must have been bleached or something. The whole thing looked like a white shadow of an actual hat, except for a blue ribbon with sapphires in it that formed a band against the colorless background.

Satisfied by her look, Rarity took a breath and rolled her shoulders, punching the air a few times.

“Let’s do this,” she whispered, just loud enough for Sweetie to overhear.

The clip-clop of hooves preceded a stallion opening the door to the carriage. Sweetie turned her head and immediately frowned at the sight of a certain pink filly. Diamond Tiara. The obnoxious pony had her trademark tiara on, but it was accompanied by a little necklace like a locket. Next to her was her usual partner in crime: Silver Spoon. The Mayor’s daughter had her usual glasses traded in for ones with slim metal rims, and her bead necklace was replaced by a thin collar, also with a little gold locket attached, just like Diamond Tiara’s.

“My Lady, the good mare, Patent Pending,” the stallion announced, still holding the door open as he stepped out of the way. “Her daughter, Miss Diamond Tiara, and Miss Silver Spoon.”

This was maybe the second time Sweetie had seen Diamond Tiara’s mother.

She had a coat the same color as her daughter’s, a sort of blush pink, and she was an earth pony, too. Her mane was snowy white, much like Rarity’s strange hat, and it was bundled and twisted together behind her head, sort of like a bed of curls. As she ducked her head to enter the carriage, Sweetie could see little, blue beads or something settled amid the mane, looking a little like a colorful blue lake. It must’ve taken a long time to get her mane like that. How could adults stand it? It had to be so-ooo boring!

More interesting was her cutie mark! It was one of those funny compass-things that Miss Cheerilee had showed them when she needed to draw circles and things. Between its points was a golden coin. Sweetie had seen her before when a lot of ponies had taken their mom into class to explain what they did. She was some sort of inventor.

“Lady Rarity, darling,” Patent Pending said, taking the Baroness’s hoof in her own. It was sort of weird hearing another pony besides her sister say ‘darling’ like that. “Wonderful to see you again, especially after that… ‘excitement’ at the festival…! I heard so much about it…”

“A situation well in hoof,” Rarity replied with a smile, gently helping her up and into a seat opposite her. “The guests enjoyed the show, from what I hear.”

“Of course, of course!” Patent Pending gushed, glancing about the carriage and nodding approvingly at something. She turned to her daughter. “Diamond, sit with the girls, will you? Mommy has to catch up with Lady Rarity.”

“Yes, mom,” Diamond Tiara replied, a little sulkily if Sweetie had to guess. She and Silver Spoon hopped up the steps and into the carriage, bowing politely to Rarity as they passed between the adult mares. Rarity spared both a kind smile, fussing for a second over how cute they looked. Then she returned to Patent Pending, who eagerly started talking about Canterlot and the places she hoped to visit and what she wanted to buy.

“Hey there… blank flanks!” Diamond Tiara whispered that last part.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo heard it and took up ranks on the seats, as if to keep Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon from climbing up. Scootaloo, as she often did, stepped up to confront the offense while Apple Bloom just grumbled, upset by the taunt even though she must have heard it a hundred times before. Sweetie wasn’t happy either, but she had already known who she would be meeting and had almost resigned herself to not having her friends with her at all. That would have been a really terrible day! Now it was three crusaders to two big, stupid, smelly good-for-nothings.

“Hey!” Scootaloo started to raise her voice.

“Blank what?” Sweetie interrupted, raising a hoof to her ear. “What did you call us?”

Diamond Tiara glanced back at Rarity and her mother, easily long enough for everypony to notice.

“I said…” Diamond Tiara answered, gritting her teeth. “Hello there, Sweetie Belle.” She turned her blue eyes on the other fillies present. “Sweetie Belle’s friends.”

“We have names,” Scootaloo huffed.

“Yeah, what’s the big deal?” Apple Bloom still didn’t seem to get it.

“They have to be my friends,” Sweetie Belle told her real friends, and Silver Spoon groaned. Diamond Tiara held herself shock-still. “Rarity’s all super important now. They have to be nice to me.”

“Your sister may be important, but only because she’s all kissy-kissy with the Prince,” Diamond Tiara whispered, trying desperately to keep their conversation to just their side of the rolling carriage. She pointed at Sweetie Belle. “Wait and see how important you are when you get some lame-o cutie mark. You’ll see.”

Sweetie glared down at the filly, feeling the urge to yell at the arrogant pony rising up to the surface, no matter how much of a scolding she got. A lame-o cutie mark, huh? Lamer than some dumb tiara? That would be a sight to see. Better to have a snail on your flank!

“Hey!” Apple Bloom said, bluntly. “Yer jealous, ain’t ya!”

“I am not!” Diamond Tiara yelled and instantly cringed. Rarity and Patent Pending both turned their heads towards the five fillies. Rarity frowned but didn’t look very angry at the outburst. Patent Pending, however, scowled at her daughter.

“Diamond,” she said with a low voice. “Behave yourself, young lady.”

“Yes, mom!”

The immediate and almost instinctive response drew a series of giggles from the three crusaders. Sweetie jumped down and took up a spot on Rarity’s side of the carriage. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo easily made room on the spacious cushions, and Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon took their seats opposite them. What happened next could best be described as two parallel conversations, as both groups of fillies tried best not to interact with – or be overheard by – the other group.

It should have been easy: Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had their half of the carriage and the cutie mark crusaders had their half. Fifty-fifty split. What could be more fair than that? Except… Sweetie found herself just a little bit curious what Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon actually did or talked about when they were by themselves. The two fillies sat primly on the carriage cushion, listening to Rarity and Miss Pending and occasionally whispering to one another. Unlike Scootaloo or Apple Bloom, they didn’t bounce around or look out the windows or even speak loudly. It was weird.

No way could they actually be interested in whatever Rarity and Tiara’s mom were talking about!

The carriage rolled to a stop again, and Sweetie could hear hoof-steps as the driver approached the side door. He announced another passenger: “The Lady Sand Dune, of the Quartz Family.”

A third mare entered the carriage, one Sweetie hadn’t seen before. She had a lustrous peach coat, like a mix between Applejack and Apple Bloom’s coat colors, and if Patent Pending had a fancy mane-do, then this mare was definitely in the running to compete with her. Her mane was a clear, deep sky-blue and folded in on itself in some sort of crazy, impossibly complex knot, decorated with a dozen bands of gold and lace, interspersed with glittering light-blue gems. Her horn was long and slender, and she was clearly a little taller than Rarity or Patent Pending. She was a… a very pretty looking lady.

Stormy gray and blue eyes caught sight of Sweetie Belle, fixing on her. She could feel the look, even with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo to her left and right and Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon in hoof’s reach. This mare was identifying her… as her. Rarity had seemed pretty at ease with Patent Pending, despite her ‘game face’ stuff earlier. Maybe… maybe this pony was the one that had her sister worried?

There was no way she was a local pony.

“Patent Pending,” Rarity made introductions, taking the new mare’s hoof and inclining her head in polite greeting. It was a courtesy the sandy colored mare returned and one Patent Pending didn’t. It was a noble pony’s bow. “This is Lady Sand Dune. She is visiting us all the way from Bitaly.”

“My Lady,” Patent Pending said, taking the mare’s hoof and bowing much more deeply. “It is a distinct honor.”

“Patent Pending.” Sand Dune said the name with a soft, singer’s voice. “I look forward to learning more about you… and meeting your daughter and her friends.”

Diamond Tiara all but surged off her seat to curtsy neatly before the noble lady. Silver Spoon followed, a bit more awkwardly, a second later.

“Nice to meet you, girls,” Sand Dune replied, smiling warmly at the two earth pony fillies.

“I’m Apple Bloom!” the farmer-filly bowed her head a little, clearly not sure just what to do in this kind of company.

“Scootaloo!” Scoots pointed to herself proudly, much like a certain rainbow-colored mare might do.

“Sweetie Belle,” Sweetie introduced herself as well, with a more practiced little bow. It was something Rarity had insisted she learn. Blueblood never seemed to care when she bowed, though, so she just didn’t bother around him anymore. It really hadn’t occurred to Sweetie that she might meet other noble ponies besides Rarity’s coltfriend.

“We’re the cutie mark crusaders!” Apple Bloom added with a wide smile.

“Oh?” Sand Dune inquired, still as sunny as a warm day. “A pleasure to meet you, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle. I hope we all have a fun day today in Canterlot.”

So, this was little Sweetie Belle?

Sand Dune nodded approvingly to herself. Sweetie was a little chubby, like most fillies, but she had a good body structure and nice coloration. The green eyes were a nice touch in particular – green eyes were rather rare in Bitaly – and her mane had the cutest little natural curls. It was a shame about the colors of it, though. Most ponies would think it pretty, but Sand Dune couldn’t help but remember another mare with rather similar mane and tail coloration, that nasty Prench witch. But that was a personal and very specific bias. Sweetie Belle was a lovely little filly.

She would make a fine match for young Sand Storm, or Mirage, or one of her other little brothers or cousins. Provided her sister came around and saw things like a reasonable noblemare. It was really a favor in disguise; not just anypony could marry into the Quartz clan. It would open all sorts of doors for the Baroness’s little sister. Even if a political union couldn’t be arranged, a private education as a ward of Bitaly would be a boon to any aspiring pony. So it was a blessing.

And… it wasn’t as if the Quartz were not negotiating in good faith! Rarity would have one of theirs as hostage as well. Trust was built in such ways.

Most important of all, though, it would be securing the Platinum bloodline.

Illegitimacy was such an awful stigma here in the northern half of Equestria! Not so in the south. Her son or daughter would be recognized as equal in blood to his or her ‘legitimate’ but lesser born half-siblings in Canterlot. It could take a generation, or it could be a decade, but such claims were always useful to cultivate. After all, who was to say that this Lady Rarity could have foals at all? In which case, half of the north would fall into Quartz hooves without so much as a murmur of protest! Bluebloods were not sacrosanct, after all. There was a great deal of precedent for removing one for whatever reason and electing a more suitable replacement.

The current Prince was said to have a rather off-putting temperament at times, or so her spies had reported last year. He had not been with anypony except this Rarity mare since the Grand Galloping Gala, but Sand Dune was aware that love could change ponies. His attitude was less important, frankly, than his body, and the fifty-second Blueblood’s body was fine, indeed. Bedding him would be a pleasure. The mares of the Quartz Clan were renowned, after all, for both their beauty and their skill in the intimate arts.

With any luck, she would return home with a new ally, a filly to ward, and a foal with the finest pedigree in Equestria. An eventful trip to be sure, but one made all the sweeter by snubbing those Terre Rare upstarts and smothering their ambitions in the crib.

Equestria’s balance of power tilted on the mountain of Canterlot.

It would not fall to a family of Prench and Germane warlords! Not while a red-blooded Bitalian still sat on the Sandstone Throne!

And – Sweet Celestia!! What was that horrible music?!

Sand Dune cringed, the distinctly pop-like beat grating on her ears. A look to the left and a glance to the right pinpointed the source of the noise. Somepony had found the carriage’s radio and, after trawling rapidly through the limited magical airwaves, found a station to suit their preference. It had to be one of the children. Rarity and Patent had been talking, and Sand Dune had been watching them.

“Pound the Alarm!” the nice little Sweetie – the one she had thought to engage to gentle little Sand Storm – yelled at what must have been the top of her lungs. She and her two friends were excitedly jumping up and down, causing the carriage to rock faintly to the side.

“Quiet! Be quiet!” Diamond Tiara hissed, incessantly, as the three other fillies continued their singing and dancing.

“Where’s the speaker horn?” Silver Spoon asked, looking all over the floor, which seemed to be where the music came from. “I can’t find it. Is it hidden or something?”

Sand Dune quickly composed herself and buried her surprise at, and dislike of, the music, but Patent Pending glared over at her daughter. When she noticed Diamond Tiara sitting still, like a proper lady, and the three so called ‘cutie mark crusaders’ jumping around and enjoying themselves, she quickly deduced her daughter to not be involved in the sudden musical intrusion. She turned to Rarity, to follow the mare’s lead on the matter.

“Fillies will be fillies,” Rarity said with a laugh.

“A proper filly should be seen and not heard,” Sand Dune argued, and Rarity raised a brow in polite disagreement.

Patent Pending, momentarily torn between the two opinions expressed by the two titled mares, glanced between them both and giggled anxiously before quite logically fell in with her new Baroness. “It is only a little fun,” she said, a dismissive hoof waving across her chest. “No harm done.”

‘Your mouth expresses one opinion, but your body language expresses another,’ Sand Dune thought, her expression a mask of calm or even amiable indifference. “This music. Lady Rarity, are you familiar with it?”

“Quite familiar,” Rarity replied. “I designed two of the five outfits Sapphire Shores wore when she recorded this song.”

“Sapphire Shores…?” Sand Dune repeated, rolling her eyes as she thought back on the name. She was some sort of musician here in the north, but it rang a bell beyond that bit of basic information. “Ah, yes! Sapphire Shores. The mare with ‘the flank?’”

“We all have flanks,” Rarity remarked, and the three mares laughed. “But none quite so famous as hers. I still don’t know how she does that shake she does.”

“It may be her special talent?” Patent suggested.

“I thought it was the ability to always look like a disco ball?” Sand Dune remembered the mare now. She’d visited Bitaly a few times, causing scenes and scandals.

“Not always like a disco ball,” Rarity countered with a wink. “One time, she wore a dress made out of coat dye. Actually, I think she had diamonds glued to her coat, too, so she still sparkled. My word, she really is a living disco ball!”

Sapphire Shores’ music streamed out from the radio until it became just a background beat to the conversation and light brunch they enjoyed, retrieved from a small ice box built into the carriage. A silver platter floated between them, though the three mares ate less than the five fillies did. Sweetie Belle was quick to squeeze in between her sister and Sand Dune as she playfully speared treats from the antipasto: cheeses both brie and rind, chilled mushrooms and olives and artichoke hearts, dappled in flavored vinegars or dipped in spicy Marabian tomato paste.

The little pegasus filly clambered up Sand Dune’s leg, and the noble mare had to scoot over to make room as Sweetie’s two friends had to join her in their mutually shared proximity to the plate. They all seemed to enjoy getting to use toothpicks to poke at and pick up various bite-sized morsels, giggling and laughing as they tried to spear the food faster each time or in some strange way. Even the gray-toned filly – Silver Spoon – lost some of her decorum as she and Diamond Tiara had to compete with the three other fillies for the sorts of sweet food children preferred.

Sand Dune was content with the magically warmed porringer of olives.

“Eww!” Scootaloo droned in the way little fillies often did, a piece of cheese stuck on the end of her toothpick. “What’s this funny looking thing?”

“That is a Saint-Nectaire cheese, from Prance,” Sand Dune explained, a moment before Rarity opened her mouth to do the same.

“It looks gross,” Apple Bloom said, poking the outside of the box-shaped cut of cheese. “What’s this hard stuff?”

“The rind,” Sand Dune replied. She used her magic to spear a cube of her own – it was unnecessary to use the toothpick when one had magic, but it was considered polite – and ate it in one dainty bite, rind and all. Chewing and swallowing before speaking again, she went on to assure the three fillies, “It is perfectly safe to eat. The inside is soft and the rind is a little crunchy.”

The three crusaders exchanged looks, as if they had been challenged to follow the mare’s lead, and all three picked out a piece of cheese. Counting down from three, they all bit down. Sweetie Belle made a face, sticking her tongue out, but Scootaloo and Apple Bloom munched away without complaint.

“What kinda cheese was this again?” Apple Bloom asked, seeming to have liked it the most of the trio.

“Saint-Nectaire. It is very similar to reblochon, a cheese from my duchy,” Sand Dune explained, finding herself genuinely smiling at the curious filly. She recalled that this Apple Bloom was from one of the Ponyville farming families. “Does your family culture any cheese?”

“Nope!” Apple Bloom took another cube of a different blend and chewed it noisily. “We’ve got lotsa cows, and we milk em, but we just sell the milk. Mister and Missus Butter buy it, and they have a cheese-making thingie.”

“A creamery?”

“Yeah!”

“Why do you know so much about cheese?” Diamond Tiara asked, and the other fillies in the carriage all set their eyes on her. She had been conspicuously silent, and it wasn’t hard to guess why.

“Diamond,” her mother warned.

“A broad education is a mark of a noble mare,” Sand Dune told her, ignoring Patent Pending. “Science. Art. Industry. Agriculture. Languages. All these things together make up facets of our culture; to be cultured is to be accepting and knowledgeable in as much of it as possible.”

“But!” Tiara protested. “Cheese is… just cheese!”

“Your father runs Barnyard Bargains, does he not? Will you not inherit this enterprise from him one day?”

Diamond Tiara nodded enthusiastically. “Of course I will!”

“Then you should know what products you sell. I am sure cheeses are among them,” Sand Dune lectured and didn’t miss the introspective look on the little, pink filly’s face. Her eyes were downcast, but not in shame, in thought.

“What is the most the profitable product your family sells?” Sand Dune asked, directing the question at both mother and daughter.

“That would be zap apple jam,” Patent answered. “We retail and re-label it under the Granny’s Own brand.”

“And how is this jam made?” Sand Dune inquired.

Patent Pending and Diamond Tiara glanced at one another and then over at … Apple Bloom? Sand Dune didn’t see the connection at first, between the filly and this ‘zap apple jam.’

“We don’t know,” Patent admitted.

“The Apple family makes it.” Diamond Tiara didn’t sound happy at that fact. And there was the connection, revealed.

“Oh?” Sand Dune gave Rarity a look, as if to ask, ‘what is going on here?’ Apple Bloom was still chewing on a hoof-full of dried cranberries. She blinked, momentarily oblivious. “Your family makes this jam, Apple Bloom?”

“S-sure!” the filly, suddenly put in the spotlight, started to look around nervously. “Granny Smith tells us how to make it. We mostly just do what she says.”

“And your family sells it to Diamond Tiara’s family?”

“Ah guess, yeah.” Apple Bloom shrugged. “Gotta sell it to some-pony, right? Ponies who come by the farm can buy it, too.”

“The Rich family owes much of its wealth to the Apples,” Rarity stated, simply.

“We do not!” Diamond Tiara protested, stomping her hooves angrily.

“Diamond!” her mother hissed.

“Sorry,” the filly apologized, sour as vinegar.

“You really should be getting along better,” Patent continued to scold her. “Your father and I were very close to Apple Bloom’s parents. The Apples and the Riches have been friends for over a hundred years. Remember how we used to send you over to the farm to play?”

“I remember,” Diamond Tiara grumbled. “I ha--” Wisely, she bit her tongue and whatever else she had wanted to say.

“I remember,” she repeated instead.

Diamond Tiara seemed to struggle with her thoughts for a second before she dared to look back up.

“I’ve heard Daddy talking about the Quartz family,” she said, boldly, given her earlier scolding. She pointed at Sand Dune. “Your family is the richest in the whole world, right?”

“The Padishah of Saddle Marabia may be richer, as she can claim control of her entire country’s coffers,” Sand Dune replied with a proud grin. “But yes, by most measures, my family is the richest in the world.”

She also began to see what may have been this little filly’s hang-up.

“The Riches are the wealthiest family in this town, are they not?” Sand Dune asked, and she turned to the local Baroness. Rarity nodded.

“We are very alike,” Sand Dune continued, and she saw Diamond Tiara blush, but also look a little wary at some potential joke to be made at her expense. She was rather jaded for such a little pony. “Our families prosper because of trade, but you must never forget that the foundation of our wealth is in the dirt: salt, gems, gold, everything we eat and everything we drink. It all comes from or passes through the dirt… and the ones who turn worthless dirt into treasure are hardworking ponies like Apple Bloom and her family.”

“Do you understand?” she asked, leaning forward a bit to be sure the filly took her seriously. “We are nothing without them.”

“If we’re nothing without them, then… then we’re no better than them!” Diamond Tiara shook her head in disgust. “That can’t be right! We’re rich!”

“Wealth is a measure of success,” Sand Dune told her, plucking an olive out of the still-warm porringer. “It is a reward for those who play their part in the cycle of commerce and prosperity. If you work hard, Diamond Tiara, then you will become richer than your mother and father… and your children richer still. If you slack off… however, then others will catch up to you and drag you down, and you will be poorer. You should tell yourself, every day, that you will work harder than anypony else to build on what your parents have given you.”

“Or!” Sand Dune prepared to bite into the olive. “You can coast by on your assumptions and be a loser.”

“My daughter will do us proud, I’m sure,” Patent Pending said as Diamond Tiara fell silent. She pulled the filly in for a quick hug. “I have the utmost faith in her.”

“Hey! If you’re super rich, do you have one of those air ships?” Scootaloo asked, tugging at Sand Dune’s mane.

“Yes, we--”

“Do you have your own pond to swim in?” Apple Bloom chimed in. “With fish in it and stuff?”

“Yes, but I don’t swim--”

“You can’t swim?” Sweetie Belle latched onto that, and soon all three were mobbing the noble mare with questions, punctuating each one with a poke of a hoof.

“No, I--”

“We should totally teach you how to swim!”

“Cutie Mark Crusaders swimming instructors!” A trio of “YAYs!” shook the carriage.

“I feel the sudden urge to cry for help,” Sand Dune stated, rocking back and forth as the crusaders swarmed around her.

Today should have been a fun day for her.

Diamond Tiara had been to Canterlot a few times before with either her mother or father or both. Usually, her daddy had a business meeting or needed to check in on some manager or something, and Mom only really came to the city to file a patent for some invention or whatever. She hadn’t paid all that much attention, frankly. Her parents taking her to Canterlot meant a chance to get them to take her shopping for something nice to show off at school or to Silver Spoon.

They had ridden to Canterlot in a beautiful carriage with a real magical radio and a mini-bar and even air conditioning spells that kicked in as they began the long trip up the mountainside. Diamond Tiara spent a lot of the time thinking. And sulking. But also thinking.

Those stupid blank flanks.

The trip was ruined because of them. If it had been Daddy instead of Mom in the carriage, maybe she’d have been able to get some sort of traction for kicking them out. Not Sweetie Belle, though. All of a sudden, Sweetie was some sort of important pony, all because of her stupid sister. Which was sad: Rarity was a sophisticated and pretty pony, and Diamond Tiara had always sort of… just sort of… thought of her as kind of neat. Fashion was so interesting. Much more interesting than what her own parents did.

Her mother had visited the Carousel Boutique a bunch of times to pick up or get fitted for a dress or to adjust some jewelry or just for advice on how to look for an upcoming meeting. When she was allowed to come along, Diamond Tiara kept quiet, like Mom said to do, and behaved herself. She’d wanted to ask questions about why Miss Rarity took some measurements or why she thought some mix of clothes looked better than some other ensemble. She’d wanted to ask about where some of the really shiny, soft fabrics came from, since they didn’t look like anything that came from a sheep or some other farm animal.

Thank goodness for books. Much of what she’d learned had been by looking it up herself.

Sitting quietly in the carriage, Diamond Tiara resisted the urge to glance back at her cutie mark. It was…

She shook her head. The point was: this should have been a fun trip. Mom was getting to spend time with the town’s new Baroness, making ‘connections’ as she called it, and Daddy was excited about it, too, even though he wasn’t coming along. They were going to hit the town, shopping at super expensive stores and getting gawked at by all the other Canterlot ponies, like famous mares! It should have been the first of many times Diamond Tiara found herself in the spotlight! The envy of all the ponies who saw her!

Just... did Sweetie Belle really have to bring her stupid friends along? That dumb farmpony! That crash-happy pegasus! Not that she was all that fond of the clueless magic-less unicorn either, but if Sweetie was going to be an important pony, it wasn’t that hard to swallow one’s pride and smile at her face in public. Give her a year, separate her from the other two, give her a cutie mark, and maybe Sweetie Belle could even become another Silver Spoon. It would be nice to have two friends like Silver Spoon!

Silver Spoon, unlike those other three idiots, sat quietly and properly like a young filly should in the company of respected adults… she even seemed to understand half of what Rarity and Lady Sand Dune were talking about. It had been easy to filter out Mom’s usual technical mumbo-jumbo and legalese, but Diamond Tiara had actually tried to listen in and follow what the two noble mares were talking about.

Bitaly was an exotic and romantic place, full of history and culture! It was the southern Canterlot but much less unicorn-centric. Bitaly and Prance were the places to go for a well-to-do pony these days, especially for an earth pony looking to finish her education. Unfortunately, Rarity and Sand Dune were talking less about exotic locales and more about laws and trade and boring stuff.

“You really get any of this?” she whispered, and to her surprise, Silver Spoon smiled and nodded.

“Yeah,” she whispered back.

Figured.

Silver Spoon’s mother was the Mayor, after all, and she actually liked what her parents did. Diamond Tiara realized what she had just thought and frowned. ‘Liked’ was the wrong word. She liked what her parents did, too! They made a lot of money! It just… it wasn’t all that interesting sounding. You could like something and not be interested in it.

It just meant you had to bite your hoof and work harder, like Lady Sand Dune said. Diamond Tiara imagined herself sitting where Sand Dune was, next to Rarity, wearing her mane up in the same way and being tall and regal. There were plenty of earth pony nobles, too. Maybe, one day, she could become one herself! Then nopony would ever question her looking down on all the stupid, smelly farmers and townsponies.

“Do you understand?” Sand Dune’s words came back to her then. “We are nothing without them.”

But it was hard to understand.

Diamond Tiara wanted to, but… but it just didn’t make sense. Of course, as any foal knows, earth ponies and others did the manual labor. Logically, that meant that the rich and powerful relied on them in a basic sense… to do all the drudgery and peon-work. But being rich and powerful meant you didn’t have to debase yourself by dealing with lesser ponies. It meant you were better, that your parents were better, and that meant you were better!

She glanced at Apple Bloom. The stupid blank flank was looking out the window with Sweetie Belle while Scootaloo yawned. Apple Bloom. So what if her family helped the Riches be rich? The Riches were rich because they were better, and Diamond Tiara knew her father and grandfather would have gotten rich no matter what the Apple family did. It was destiny.

It was written in her cutie mark and her name: a beautiful diamond tiara.

“I can see Canterlot!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, tapping the window with her hoof. “Look! Look! We’re almost there!”

“About time!” Scootaloo groaned.

“Where should we go first?” Apple Bloom asked, turning to the three adults.

“Where are we going first?” Diamond Tiara inquired, knowing the decision had already been made by the adults present.

Rarity beamed and told them.

They met up with some of her friends from Canterlot and quickly descended on the famous shopping districts of the city. First up, they visited a galleria and took a trip to a fragrance store, where ponies sold all sorts of bottled scents, many in sculpted or decorative glasses. The prices of some of them were boggling. Lady Rarity paid for the trip, but Patent Pending insisted on buying two bottles for home, and Sand Dune purchased both her and Rarity a bottle as a gift. The fillies spent most of the time sniffing things, and it was sort of fun, too.

Then they went to a chocolate store where they could design their own chocolates, from the design to the ingredients, and the chefs cooked it up for them. That stupid Scootaloo had rainbow-colored ponies made with candy tails, and Sweetie Belle had swirly cookie-things made for her, and Apple Bloom – being a dumb Apple – had some sort of fondue-apple-bits trail mix made that she noisily crunched away at when it was done. Silver Spoon had a pretty marble-glazed white-chocolate treat made in geometric shapes, and Diamond Tiara had them make an edible version of her own tiara with sugar crystals and gossamer candy.

It was fun… even though those lame blank flanks had been there.

Then the adults went off to have hoof-massages and facials at some famous shop, and it was boring again, but at least Diamond Tiara prided herself on not making a fuss about it. Not with Mom around. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom and Scootaloo and even Silver Spoon played in the mud bath like a bunch of pigs. Silver Spoon claimed it was just for appearances, but that was a likely story. Patent Pending left happy, though, as both she and Rarity trotted outside with a bag of fancy cosmetics to bring home. It ended up in the carriage with an ever growing pile of other stuff.

To Diamond Tiara’s private delight, they hit the fashion boutiques next, though Rarity spent much of the time critiquing everything in sight, from the clothes on display to the arrangement of the rooms and mannequines to one shop she refused to even set hoof into due to “unforgivable crimes against fashion and all ponykind.” It was just as well. It looked like a store for vampire ponies or something.

A moment’s diversion interrupted the fashion express when they went to a smoke shop to buy some things for Daddy and Lord Blueblood. Diamond Tiara couldn’t say much about the Prince, but her father only ever smoked when he met up with some of his business partners, and even then Mom never let him smoke inside. It seemed kind of a waste to spend money on something Daddy would only use once a month or less, but she supposed it might impress the other businessponies when they saw the imported cigars or the Zebrabar Tobacco or whatever.

Then they went to three different shoe shoes, one of which specialized in the brand new fashion of “socks.”

Rarity and Lady Sand Dune then got into a discussion about “lingerie” and how it was different from “socks.” It was a strange conversation. Socks were supposed to keep ponies warm, weren’t they? Why would anypony want to wear them to bed? Wouldn’t you just use a blanket to keep warm?

“Lady Rarity? What’s lingerie for?” Diamond Tiara felt she had to ask, though she did it while her mother’s back was turned. Patent Pending was still in one of the changing rooms and conveniently could neither scold nor overhear her daughter’s fashion related research.

“Lingerie? Well… um!” Miss Rarity turned a shade of red at the question. Was she blushing? Why would asking about clothes make her blush?

“Lingerie is used to warm up a room,” Lady Sand Dune answered with a coy smile. “Provided there’s a second pony in the room… or a third…”

“Huh?”

“Lingerie is just pajamas that adults wear sometimes,” Rarity insisted.

“Oh!” That made sort-of sense. “Um, before my mom comes back out, though, there was something else I wanted to ask…”

It was so much easier just to get information from the source rather than covertly looking it up later!

As they went from store to store, an ever-growing collection of dresses, jewelry, shoes, coats, and accessories gathering in the carriage along the way, Diamond Tiara found it easier and easier to wait for her mother to get distracted and then bring up some question or another. The jewelry was especially great! Unicorn jewelers in Canterlot were famous Equestria-wide, many tracing the roots of their craft back hundreds of years! Unicorns had always been gem-crazy, since they used different cuts of stones for spell amplification, storage, or transmission.

Miss Rarity loved jewels, too, which was all the better.

She picked out a stunning Art Nouveau rhodium and silver orbit ring with a brilliant, red jasper gemstone set in it to wear around her left leg, like a bracelet, and matching versions in peridot for Tiara’s mom and aquamarine beryl for Miss Sand Dune. The mares all put them on at the same time and laughed, comparing the three and how they looked on them. Rarity also insisted on picking out some “future earrings” for all the fillies, and Sand Dune treated them to their choice of necklaces.

“You like that one, do you?” Sand Dune’s voice caused Diamond Tiara to jump, startled; she had been so focused on one of the brooches on display. It had a lustrous, polished and enameled amethyst cut into a thin border, with the most vivid rose-gold she had ever seen. Rose-gold, Tiara knew, was an alloy of copper and regular gold, and the pinkish shade here was so beautiful. There weren’t any other gems or anything in it. Just the black and the intricate weave of pink metallic thread… and the steel clip, of course.

“Champagne colored,” she said, reading the description of the brooch. “It’s really pretty, isn’t it?”

Sand Dune towered above the little filly, tapping her chin with a delicate hoof.

“Would you like it?” she asked, after a moment.

“Of course I would!” Diamond Tiara spun around. “Will you buy it for me?”

She wondered if there would be some sort of string attached, like being nice to Apple Bloom and the others. That was certainly the usual carrot ponies would dangle in front of her nose. It was always do this or do that or--

“It will look nice on you,” Sand Dune said and motioned for a salespony to come over to the display. “You’ve been asking Lady Rarity about these things for a while now, and you have a good eye. I think you can pick out what you like best. No need for us old mares to dress you up.”

“…You mean it?” Diamond Tiara asked again and watched with wide eyes as Sand Dune paid for the mane brooch. Soon, it was in her hooves. Just like that.

“Thank you,” she said, quietly and raised her voice again. “Thank you, Lady Sand Dune.”

The tall Bitalian mare smiled pleasantly. She seemed to turn to leave but tensed for a second and faced the filly again. “This is none of my business, but about what I said before…”

“You should tell yourself, every day, that you will work harder than anypony else to build on what your parents have given you. Or…! You can coast by on your assumptions and be a loser.”

“What about it?” Diamond Tiara asked, holding the brooch tightly to her chest.

“You should also do what you love,” Sand Dune said, gently placing a hoof on the filly’s shoulder. “For some of us, that is what our families do. But not everypony. Wealth is a measure of success. Find what you love, and get rich doing it. There are rich farmers, rich miners, rich traders… and some very rich jewelers, too.”

Sand Dune trotted away without another word, and Diamond Tiara watched her go, not quite knowing what to think. At least she had her brooch.

Unfortunately, after spending a really enjoyable three hours or so making a spectacle of gracing shops with their presence, the three mares – whose entourage came and went as they went from place to place – made the mistake of asking the five fillies where they wanted to eat. It was a grave mistake indeed. Diamond Tiara, for her part, had suggested an upscale Prench restaurant set next to one of the few unicorn towers in Canterlot’s shopping district. It was a cultured bistro with what must have been a long and rich history.

The other fillies voted for the ‘Los Pegasus Pizza Explosion and Arcade.’

Granted, the Los Pegasus Pizza Explosion and Arcade did have thirty-six varieties of pizza pie. That was a lot of pizza. Also, granted, the Los Pegasus Pizza Explosion and Arcade had three floors of games and toys, including an entire magical blast-tag course and a bouncy-room and a pony-sized puzzle to assemble and slides to get from one floor to the next and a piano with keys big enough for a filly to jump from one to the next on and a Minotaur mascot and…

“I can’t believe we’re going here,” Diamond Tiara grumbled, secretly sort of glad they were going here.

“I can’t believe we’re going here!” Sweetie Belle cheered, hopping up and down in excitement. Stupid unicorn.

“This is gonna be SO COOL!” The annoying pegasus buzzed by on her dumb, little wings.

“Oh boy, oh boy! Lookie over there! They’ve got a wild west shootin’ range!”

And who could forget… her.

“Now, you girls have fun,” Rarity said as they started to run off. “We’ll call you when the pizzas get here, so stay on the first floor!”

“Come on! Come on!” Silver Spoon actually had the temerity to try and pull Diamond Tiara away. Not that she wanted to resist her idiot friend, but…

“Go on, Diamond,” her mother finally deigned to say, shooing her off. “We’ll call for you when the food arrives.”

Smiling, finally released to explore and have fun, Diamond Tiara hardly cared that she ended up playing with that stupid unicorn, her lame pegasus friend, and the annoyingly chipper little apple farmer. Certain things could be forgiven in the face of a bouncy castle and a giant piano and a buckle-on horn that shot laser beams while running through a madcap obstacle course.

It was dusk when Rarity finally broached the question.

“Your terms?” she asked, having caught Sand Dune alone outside the ball room where all five fillies were expending the last of their energy diving and jumping and playing tag.

“My terms,” Sand Dune repeated, craning her neck slightly. Her mane had ended up more than a little ruined, courtesy of getting caught by the cutie mark crusaders and pulled into one game after another, of which this locale had a great many. It had not been designed to withstand the rigors of a bouncy castle and five hyperactive fillies. The frantic game of blast-tag that came after and the slides that followed had not done it any favors either. The luxurious blue mane and its bejeweled knot of curls were a mess.

Not that Rarity’s own mane had fared much better.

“This brother you spoke of the other day,” the Baroness said, watching the fillies play. “What was his name again?”

“Sand Storm,” Sand Dune replied. “He is your sister’s age, a fine age for a colt to travel abroad for the first time.”

Rarity knew all about that custom from Blueblood, who had spent his formative years as a hostage in Crown Roc. Calling it ‘travel abroad’ was an overly forgiving way of describing it, in her opinion, but she had also very gradually come to accept it as a part of the noblepony culture to which she would likely have to become accustomed. At the least, this one custom seemed to do more good than harm.

“You have other brothers and sisters.”

“Six of them,” Sand Dune said, simply. “I don’t differentiate between or against half-siblings.”

Rarity watched the other mare and her expressions, just as she had been reading her all day. “You don’t mind fostering your brothers and sisters? You don’t miss them?”

“I was fostered for three years,” Sand Dune answered. “I learned much away from home.”

“I looked into you,” Rarity said, still watching her out of the corner of her eye. “You were fostered to the Terre Rare in Gaskinring and Marestricht.”

“As I said, I learned much away from home,” Sand Dune repeated, and Rarity saw a crack in her normally amiable appearance. “Are you seriously suggesting I might be in league with…?”

“No,” Rarity hastily assured her. “I have heard of the enmity between your house and the Terre Rares.”

Sand Dune nodded, and not just once, but a few times, as if the act of doing so allowed her to remain calm. “Good,” she said. “Good. Now, my terms.”

“I can foster young Sand Storm,” Rarity agreed, “and I can see him enter the Royal Guard. Five years, though? Are you sure? It… it seems an awfully long time to be apart from one’s family…”

“If you allow him to visit us, then he will visit us on occasion,” Sand Dune stated, unmoved by what to Rarity seemed a very painful parting. Rarity had to bite back a slighted retort. If she would allow him? She wondered if Sand Dune really expected her to be so barbaric as to not give him so small a freedom. That simply would not do.

“Of course I will allow him to visit his family!” Rarity told her, shaking her head in dismay. “You may call him a hostage, but he will be my guest, and I will see him cared for. I don’t even…! I will treat him as my own little brother, darling, I assure you.”

“Of course you will,” Sand Dune said, giving Rarity a curious look. “A hostage one doesn’t care for isn’t really a hostage. But… after today… I think I see where you come from.” She raised a hoof to forestall Rarity’s response. “Not ‘come from’ in the physical sense, but as a sister. Being apart like this isn’t something you’ve prepared yourself for, but for myself and for my brothers and sisters, it is what we expect. It would be stranger for us not to be fostered from home for a time.”

“Sand Storm knows this?” Rarity asked and imagined telling a pony younger than Sweetie Belle that she would have to leave home for years and live with strangers.

“Of course!” Sand Dune exclaimed with a brief laugh. “He’s been excited to leave since he got his cutie mark. We don’t send foals away until after they’ve gotten one, as you must know. He even once wondered if he could be sent to Zebrabar! But really is too, too far away… and the risk of a sleeping sickness is still too great for a colt his age.”

“I will see him cared for,” Rarity promised again.

“Good,” the other mare agreed. Her eyes drifted to the transparent walls of the ball room and the fillies horsing around within it. “And Sweetie Belle?”

Rarity took a deep breath. “I have discussed the matter with my parents and even Sweetie… in a subtle way. Two years. When she is older. I trust you will place no restrictions on her and that her magical education will be seen to?”

“Naturally,” Sand Dune agreed.

“And you will not restrict her?”

“No more than you do Sand Storm.”

“Acceptable, then, in principle,” Rarity concluded.

She only and sincerely hoped that Sweetie Belle would not hold it against her to have made such a momentous decision for her. It was two years, but if the Quartz family were true to their word, it would be no different than the magical apprenticeship Sweetie would have aspired to have in Canterlot anyway. And it would be good for Sweetie, in a few years, to see more of the world. Bitaly was far away, but… she could still be reached after a long day’s train ride. Still, for all the potential good, it was taking away her choice to have a mentor where she wished to be. She would have to spend those two years in Bitaly and in the crystal courts and golden ballrooms of the Quartz clan.

“Your younger sister,” Rarity said, introducing the next point of discussion. “I would ask, first, are all your siblings named ‘Sand’ this or… Sandy-that?”

“Most are,” Sand Dune admitted and sighed. “I know, it isn’t terribly original, is it? Some families are just too fond of this sort of thematic naming practice… Sand Dune and Sand Storm and Sand Watcher and Sand Comb and Sand Scribe and Sand Sculptor and Sand Paper and Sand Pear and Sand Stone and Sand Silk… Thank the Princess we don’t have a Sand Box or Sand Worm yet!”

“’Sandy’ seems like it would be much simpler than those.”

The topic seemed to finally rouse Sand Dune’s curiosity. “Why do you ask?”

“Nothing important,” Rarity quickly replied. “My own curiosity is all!”

“Sand Scribe would be the most likely choice to send to you.” The Bitalian noblemare quickly dismissed the novelty of odd naming conventions. “Though Sand Watcher is the one I would most like to send. She does nothing much of note at home. Scribe could likely earn her title or office without too much trouble, but Watcher needs the help more. Did you have a position in mind?”

“It should be suitably prestigious,” Sand Dune added, just as Rarity began to speak. “It must not be beneath the station of a Quartz.”

“I can provide a position in the Ministry of Public Works and Entertainment.”

“I’ve seen the crazy pink pony that they subsidize in Ponyville…”

“Nothing like what Pinkie Pie does,” Rarity assured her. “It would be purely an oversight position organizing the ponies who hire commissions.”

Sand Dune tapped her hoof against the floor, clearly mulling over the proposal. She had suggested a position in the Aqueducts department in Canterlot, but Rarity didn’t know anypony there. It was a stretch to say she could guarantee even what she had offered. Besides, some foul-up in the aqueducts could be disastrous. She had tried for Rivers – Rivers was always prestigious – only to find it was stocked full of Terre Rares and those loyal to them, which meant they shunned any perceived ‘enemies’ of the family. Apparently the department had a huge statue of Lord Neptunium at their office and all but revered the stallion.

As if he was the only pony to deal with water serpents!

“Very well,” Sand Dune decided. “I will work out the details with Sand Watcher when I return home.”

Great. She was sending over the mare she had expressly described as lazy and less competent than her other sister. Belaboring the point wasn’t why she was here, however.

“You wished to send me an attendant and hoofmaiden as well?” Rarity asked.

“Sand Pear would be the best choice.”

“Is she trained?”

“She is.”

Trained to be a spy, most likely.

“I am willing to accept her,” Rarity said, though it was not quite so easy in practice. Sandy did not want to be known to her family. Rarity wasn’t sure why – she now suspected the quiet mare was a runaway, except Sand Dune didn’t recognize the name, or didn’t appear to.

“After a trial period and pending a review of her by my own attendants,” Rarity went on to say, adding in a deniable and exploitable caveat. “I am willing to accept her then.”

“As you wish,” Sand Dune deferred. “The price of salt?”

“I will endeavor to keep Canterlot from raising an objection in the Stable of Lords,” Rarity promised.

“It will certainly end up at one percent anyway,” the canny Bitalian mare noted, confirming Rarity’s own earlier suspicions. “One percent is enough.”

“To combat smuggling,” Rarity added, remembering the noble mare’s justification and explanation from before. “I was not aware it was such a problem.”

Sand Dune chuckled politely. “As they say, the spice (salt) must flow. Though... salt is not technically a spice...” She brushed her lips with a delicate hoof. “Curious saying, really.”

“If we are in agreement…?”

“We are.”

“Then there is only the final matter,” Rarity stated, having dreaded it all day. Sand Dune’s final condition for ‘friendship’ was to have a foal of the royal bloodline. She had framed it as a matter of her child’s potential pedigree, but Rarity was no country bumpkin, nor was she as naïve as many noblemares seemed to think.

In fact, she knew far more than they did of certain things.

“Yes, that,” Sand Dune said, eyes averted to gaze lazily at the playing fillies. The two mares watched as Apple Bloom pelted Diamond Tiara will balls, only for the filly to dive back down and into the sea of multicolored globes.

When Rarity responded, it must have been with what Sand Dune expected least of all.

“If I offered to let you try,” she asked, “tonight even, would you accept?”

Sand Dune slowly and very deliberately turned from the playing fillies, her head tilted in a not very noble way.

“Tonight?” she finally managed to ask, finding her voice again. Rarity could see the other mare weighing her odds and her chances. The Bitalian noble was a stunningly beautiful mare with the kind of body and voice many ponies would kill for… or die for. Seduction would be easy for a pony like her, and she probably would not have come without some means of fertility assistance, probably alchemical or magical.

Her eyes narrowed, though.

“So soon,” she reasoned, growing suspicious.

“Would you accept it, if offered?” Rarity repeated the question, putting some force to her words and tone of voice. “Yes or no?”

Sand Dune thought about it a few seconds longer. “…Yes. I would probably need more than one night, but yes, I could begin tonight.”

Rarity closed her eyes and took a deep, calming breath. The die was truly cast, now. If she was wrong, if she had failed to gauge the character of either of these ponies, if any number of assumptions and conclusions proved false, then this would be a disaster of epic proportions. It would be one she might not even return from.

“I want you to remember those words,” she told Sand Dune with as serious and forceful a voice as she had ever used in her life. “Meet me tonight. A pony in a black cloak with a crescent moon will take you to the rendezvous. She will bring you to me, and we will talk with another friend of mine.”

It must have smelled like some sort of set up… or even the plot for some silly spy novel.

“If you think to cross me…” Sand Dune warned, and she didn’t have to go into detail. “You will find I am a terrible enemy to have.”

“A terrible enemy to have,” Rarity repeated and nodded. “I am counting on it. Tonight, then?”

“Tonight,” the noblemare with the intricate hourglass for a cutie mark agreed.

Rarity headed back to the table and the lukewarm leftover pizza.

‘Princesses help us all if we’re wrong,’ she thought, ‘I’ll end the night with either a new friend or a bitter enemy.’

The carriage ride back to Ponyville seemed to go faster than it did going up to Canterlot and not simply because it was all downhill. It had actually been a rather lovely and amicable outing, so long as one didn’t dwell on the price tag. It was ironic that the family with the supposed lowest social standing of the lot, the Riches, were really paying the most for it. Patent Pending and Filthy Rich had gotten just what they’d paid for: the wife of the family had been seen and photographed and wooed by not just the Baroness of Ponyville and anticipated future Duchess, but by the famous Lady Sand Dune herself, the wingless Princess of Bitaly. Canterlot would be abuzz.

Rarity, however, found it hard to focus on any of that.

“Say goodbye, Diamond.”

“Bye Lady Rarity. Bye Lady Sand Dune. Bye Sweetie Belle…” There was a distinct pause in the background noise. “Bye Apple Bloom. Bye Scootaloo. Let’s go, Silver Spoon.”

“Bye everypony.”

“A wonderful outing, Baroness, Countess. I shall remember it always.” That was Patent Pending, and soon the door closed and they were rolling away from the Rich estate. Sand Dune remained silent until she, too, left, and then there was the brief ride to the Apple farm to drop off Scootaloo and Apple Bloom.

Then home.

Her home.

“Are we going to the Carousel Boutique?” Sweetie Belle asked, watching the town go by outside from a window.

“I have some things to do tonight, but I thought it might be nice to stay there, just the two of us,” Rarity told her.

“Oh! Okay!” Sweetie smiled and walked across the carriage to sit next to her sister.

“Did you have a good time today?”

“Yep!” Sweetie was chipper and all smiles. “It was fun!”

“I’m glad,” Rarity replied, wrapping a leg around her to pull her in close for a hug. “So Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon weren’t a problem?”

“Well-llll,” Sweetie said with a roll of her tongue. “They were kind of annoying, especially on the drive to the city. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought they’d be!”

“You did have your friends with you,” Rarity reminded her, looking down at her little sister. “Everything’s easier with your friends around.”

“You can say that again!” Sweetie let out a sigh of obvious and clear relief. “I just don’t…” she trailed off.

“What?”

“I don’t get her,” Sweetie admitted, shaking her head. She explained a second later, “Diamond Tiara. I don’t understand her! She can be fun… She’s a filly just like us. Why does she have to be so mean? Especially to Apple Bloom.”

Rarity wondered the same thing and then replaced the names and wondered about it anew.

“I don’t know,” she admitted and saw how Sweetie looked up to her for an answer. “Ponies are hard to understand sometimes, no matter how hard you try, but everypony has a reason for what they do and how they act. Diamond Tiara probably thinks her reasons make sense, if only in a part of her own mind.” Rarity glanced down at Sweetie Belle and adjusted one of the curls in her mane, so similar and yet so different than her own. “Do you want to be her friend?”

Sweetie, put on the spot by the question, frowned… but she didn’t shake her head or yell ‘no!’

“She’d have to be friends with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo,” the little filly decided, rather wisely in Rarity’s opinion. “But I’d like to be her friend if she could do that, sure.”

“Then maybe you will be,” Rarity replied, giving her little sister another quick hug. “Someday. And you’ll remember today as the first day you all got to spend together.”

The two ponies swayed slightly as the carriage rolled on.

“Thanks, Rarity.”

“Thank you, Sweetie Belle,” Rarity said, and Sweetie looked up in confusion.

“Me?”

Rarity nodded. “Without you, I don’t know how today would have gone. More than that, I think one day the five of you will be friends. Thinking about that makes me happy, that’s all.”

Sweetie giggled. “If you say so, sis!”

“What did you say your name was?”

“Dusk… Dusk Shine.”

Sand Dune followed ‘Dusk Shine’ with briefly half-lidded eyes and a rather unconvinced expression. Just as Rarity had told her, her emissary came wearing a black cloak with a crescent moon for a clasp. It was an unremarkable traveling cloak otherwise. She had not expected the mare to hoof over an identical cloak as a precondition to the meeting. The noblemare resisted the urge to say or do more about the situation. In case this was some sort of trap, it was wise to preserve her true power.

The cloak was loose on her slender form, but it wasn’t magical. It was just a black cloak… a well-made black cloak, actually. True black stood out in the darkness, but this fabric was just a little bit blue, permitting it to more easily conceal one in the darkness that had fallen over Ponyville. The lining was also quite comfortable. In fact, some pony had put far too much work into making this ‘plain, black cloak!’

‘It couldn’t be…?’ Sand Dune wondered. ‘That mare? Why would she bother?’

You could buy a cloak like this. There was no need to make one! Unless you planned to enchant it or put something in the lining, of course, but she had checked for anything that obvious. The cloak seemed entirely mundane.

The clasp was the only thing magical.

‘They’re rather serious about us not being seen,’ Sand Dune thought, feeling the metal clip of the eye-shaped clasp bop against the front of her chest as she walked. ‘Anything beyond a basic invisibility spell would have made it impossible to see one another. Instead, they’re using an illusionary glamour…’

Dusk Shine, was it?

What did that make her then, in the gender swap illusion? Sand Blaster?

Actually.

“Call me Sand Blaster,” she declared in a mare’s voice. The disguise, sadly, didn’t have an altered verbal effect. There was a spell for that, though, and Sand Dune wondered if she should use it.

Or give herself a moustache? Or a wispy goatee, like this ‘Dusk Shine’ had? This was actually sort of fun. Still likely to be a trap, but regardless of that... fun.

“But I already know your real name,” Dusk Shine protested.

“And I’ve deduced yours,” Sand Dune replied. “Dusk Shine.”

“Oh, um, okay then… ‘Sand Blaster.’”

The noblemare allowed herself a small, distinctly un-stallion-like giggle. They had left the town behind and made a patch for the Blueblood Manor, or rather, the many forested, gardened, and statue-shaded acres that surrounded it. Sand Dune wondered when the ambush would come. There had been whispers that Lady Yumi had been set up as the Prince’s poisoner, whispers at odds with those who believed Lady Rarity to be a mare of the common pony. Sand Dune’s own analysis seemed to indicate that the newly titled Lady of Ponyville was neither ruthless social climber nor innocent seamstress.

She was a mare of both cunning and principle.

The rarest of breeds, truly.

“Tell me, Dusk,” Sand Dune said, as they slipped through an un-warded section of the property. Not even a fence? No guards? She clucked her tongue in disapproval even as she nodded in the opposite. This was well set up.

“This seems like a lot of trouble,” she went on. “Do you know why I agreed to come? I’ve had less secretive rendezvous with more handsome stallions. Should I have left a rose in an untilled garden?”

“I – I don’t know about that sort of thing,” Dusk Shine admitted, and Sand Dune could’ve sworn the mare-in-stallion’s disguise was blushing hotly. “I’m not good at subtlety, or – or that sort of… stuff.”

“Oh? You’re the feed them pie and take them home type?”

“W-what! No! Maybe not pie, b-but a good book or… uh…”

“I’m being lead to a mysterious meeting by a blushing maid,” Sand Dune realized, incredulous. “I do wonder where Rarity is going with all his foalishness.”

“You’ll see,” Dusk Shine promised, and it really should have sounded like a threat.

Instead, it just sounded a little teasing.

They came, in the end, to a clear reflecting pool in an otherwise wild section of the estate. It was no natural body of water, or if it once had been, it wasn’t any longer. The pool was circular and rimmed by clean-cut stone. Had it, and the assortment of pillars around it in varying degrees of disrepair, not been covered in ivy, a pony could be mistaken for thinking it had been built at the same time Blueblood’s Ponyville manor had. A testament to pony construction, the circular pool was not infiltrated by weeds, and the stones were unharmed by grass or other plant growth or natural wear. The water was as clear as it must have been when this place was built, however many years ago that had been.

Magic, then.

Two ponies in similar black cloaks were waiting for “Dusk Shine” and her guest. For a moment, Sand Dune entertained the notion that they were Rarity and Blueblood and that they had brought her out here for some sort of wild, debauched night in the woods. The thought was actually both a little amusing and a little exciting. Rarity was not unattractive, herself, and Blueblood had the appeal a large, muscular unicorn stallion often did. There were worse ponies to fool around with in the forest, hypothetically speaking that was.

“She says to call her Sand Blaster,” Dusk Shine introduced the daughter of Bitaly.

One of the cloaked ponies, the taller one, snorted.

“Lady Rarity,” Sand Dune said, ignoring the other pony. The shorter one had to be the mare she came here to meet. “I’ve played your little game. Now, show me to what end.”

Rarity turned slightly and reached up to push back her hood. “Thank you for coming, darling. I know how strange the request must have seemed.”

“She thinks this is a trap,” Twilight Sparkle said, also removing her hood and undoing the magic that disguised her as Dusk Shine.

“It is a trap of sorts,” the third mare said but didn’t remove her hood. “Just not for her.”

Sand Dune felt her body tense. That voice. She knew that voice.

“Remove your hood,” the time weaver demanded. “I grow weary of this farce. Remove it now!”

The mare reached up, the hood fell back, and a face revealed itself.

Lady Antimony, the Baroness of Mareseilles and the absolute last pony she had ever expected to see, smirked, her eyes half-lidded but no less threatening to those who knew what they could do.

“We meet again,” Antimony cooed, still with that insufferable grin, “Sand Dune.”

“We need you.” Rarity stood between them. “Equestria needs you. Will you listen?”

Sand swirled slowly around her horn, all but begging her to unleash a spell. Against her better judgment, she held back. If this was an ambush, it was a damn strange one.

“Speak quickly.”

Author's Note

Forgot: once again, my personal thanks go out to "q97randomguy" for proofing for me! He's been a great help!

Chapter Thirty Four : Friendship is an Alliance (II)

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Friendship is an Alliance (II)

Two days earlier

“Do you really have to go?”

“Aw, is somepony going to miss me?” Shining Armor held Twilight at forelegs’ length, beaming at his baby sister. “Don’t worry, I’ll see you soon. At the wedding, if not before!”

Twilight’s smile seemed to fade at that reminder.

“I know,” she said and dove in to hug him tightly a second time. “Just be careful, okay?”

“I’m always careful!” he objected but let her hug him to her heart’s content. The train wouldn’t be leaving for a little while yet. He felt her face rub into his chest and realized she was… crying?

“Twilie,” he said, wrapping a leg between them to try and angle her face up. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head, rather uncomfortably scratching him with her horn in the process.

“Twilie?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she blurted out and immediately seemed to correct herself, “I mean, maybe – maybe I… I don’t know…”

He sighed, giving her a little time to work it out for herself. There were ponies coming and going all throughout the station, saying goodbyes or laughing as they prepared to board the train to Canterlot. Shining was more fortunate than most. He’d be in the first class car, as befitted a knight and a Captain of the Guard. There was nothing much to take with him. He could afford to let Twilight take her time saying goodbye. She usually wasn’t this… strangely emotional, though. Or maybe she was, but at least she wasn’t teary-eyed about it.

“I’m sorry about your friends,” she muttered, and he had barely overheard her.

“Gale Force and Arrow Head?” he asked and schooled his features. “Yeah. They were good ponies.”

“Did you know them long?” Twilight asked, finally extricating herself from him.

Shining nodded. “Sure. I’ve known them since…! Since…” He blinked, then, as he tried to recall how long he had known his two faithful fellow Royal Guards. It had seemed like years, but that would mean they had met in the Academy. Gale Force and Arrow Head? They’d come from the guard company that was billed to defend Cadance. They were Cadance’s guards. He couldn’t have known them for that long?

“Actually I’m not sure,” he admitted, a look of confusion darkening his expression. “Maybe it was only a few months? But that can’t be right. It… it just…”

He shook his head to dispel the strange doubts and uncomfortable thoughts.

“I need to get back to Cadance,” he said, “she’ll remember.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Twilight said, fixing him with a demanding look. “Why don’t you stay here until the wedding? We… I can clean out a room, or, Euporie and Eunomie can move somewhere else and…!”

“Twilie!” Shining reached out to tousle her mane, like he had when they were young. “I have to see my wife-to-be. She’ll be glad I won’t have to go to Prance, I guess. Don’t expect her to thank Blueblood for it, though. But you’ll see me soon enough!”

“I… I…” Twilight appeared to struggle with something, and again, he waited patiently for her. Shining waited, and waited, and Twilight kept her eyes firmly on her hooves, refusing to speak.

“I’ll miss you,” she finally said, and it was almost drowned out by the train’s whistle, warning all passengers to begin boarding. “I’ll miss you!” she said again. “I have something I want to tell you… but I can’t! I can’t!”

“You can tell me anything, Twilie,” Shining reminded her, craning down to try and look her in the eyes again. “What is it?”

“I can’t tell you,” she repeated. “I just can’t. I wish I could.”

The train started to puff behind him as ponies hurried to board.

“You can tell me before the wedding,” he told her, placing a hoof on her shoulder and giving her a little shake. “Okay? Tell me then.”

“…I’ll try,” Twilight answered, finally looking up at him again, with tears still brimming in her eyes. “Until then, take care of yourself. Please?”

“I don’t see how much harm can come to the Captain of the Guard in the heart of Canterlot,” he joked and quickly kissed her on the forehead. “You’re the one in the town that gets attacked by monsters.”

Twilight slowly shook her head as he trotted off and into the train.

“No,” she whispered, “you’re the one surrounded by monsters… and you don’t even know it.” She stamped a hoof on the station’s black and white tile, suddenly angry at the slowly retreating train. “Bear with it, big brother. We’ll save you. I’ll save you. I promise.”

Queen Chrysalis stretched languidly as she strolled away from her bed and her spent fiancé. Shining Armor was a wonderful pony. No changeling could ask for a more loving host. Like no other creature she had ever known, at the end of every night, he left her feeling well and truly satiated. He was distinctly less impressive as a physical lover, but after a changeling queen had discovered the thrill that came from bodily dominating and sowing despair in another living being…? Well, few things could compare to that glorious sensation, and Shining was sadly not the sort to take the abuse, even from the mare he loved more than life itself. His poor little pony mind was far too clouded by preconceived notions of what was right and wrong.

“Is my bath ready?” she asked one of the Sparkle family servants, and the meek little creature scurried to do her bidding. The Queen was not what most ponies would consider decent – still smelling and looking of lovemaking – but she hardly cared. Their opinions were increasingly irrelevant.

“Everything is as you asked, m-my Lady,” the brown little earth pony stammered, likely scandalized by the appearance of what she believed to be the fair Princess of Love, fresh from the Guard Captain’s bed. The stupid creature.

“Then begone,” Chrysalis demanded. Shining Armor had given her all the love she could drain. She was full. There was no point being around ponies anymore.

Settling into the porcelain bath tub, Chrysalis sighed in pleasure. The water was bubbling and hot, wisps of steam rising to tantalize her senses as she slipped in, deeper and deeper. The sensation of the hot water shifting between the holes in her legs and into every crevasse of her body was a true delight. Relaxing and waiting in the tub, she turned her thoughts to the future.

One pony… even Shining Armor… wouldn’t be enough to satiate her forever. It was well known that a changeling, impersonating a parent for example, could drain the love from multiple children and even a spouse all at the same time. The effect was cumulative. There was no biological necessity to drain a single lover. Alpha Brass was spent and loveless, as nutritious as a lump of charcoal, but there were surely other stallions with his suitably flexible proclivities.

Or, actually, what was to say it had to be another pony?

Impersonating certain other creatures, like dragons or minotaurs, was out of the question for her and had been since her second molting, but there was no rule that she had to seduce and enslave only pony lovers. Once Equestria began to come apart, like a rotting fruit, she could take the time to capture and break any number of creatures to her will. Shining Armor would object, but by then his mind would be mush anyway, fit only to worship her and nod in mindless approval.

A minotaur lover… now, that presented certain possibilities. In time, a whole harem of creatures could be bent to her ever-increasing power. They would be enough to keep her both entertained and satiated for a century. Chrysalis sighed in pleasure at the thought, sinking a little deeper into the sinfully comfortable bathtub.

As for ponykind as a whole, they were probably too useful to just use up and throw away. Yes, the swarm could and would feast when they took Canterlot, but after the feast there would have to be some careful husbandry. Ponies didn’t grow on trees, after all! The most pliable and affectionate of the bunch would need to be separated from the rest – those that would be put in pods and culled – for breeding purposes.

It would be dangerous having too large a pony population, though, especially when it came to the unicorns and pegasus ponies. Those two groups would probably have to be exterminated. After that… it would be a delicate balancing act, but once the minds of the remaining little ponies were broken and their society lay in shambles, they could return to their roots as fodder and food for the ever-expanding swarm.

Chrysalis closed her eyes at the sound of approaching hoofsteps.

“What news do you bring me?” she asked, knowing the changeling who had approached her. It was one of her ‘royal guards,’ though she had adjusted her disguise to impersonate the servant girl from before. She opened one eye, noting the teeth and the eyes. Yes... it was her guard.

“My Queen,” the changeling said, bowing her head. “We have received word from one of the other Hives.”

“And?” Chrysalis inquired, unconcerned. She stretched out a foreleg and lathered it with a small hoof-sponge.

“The Inkanyamba Swarm has tasted of my Queen’s royal jelly, inhaled her mighty presence, and pledged themselves to the new Homeland.”

“As I knew they would,” Chrysalis replied with an amused titter. “The Inkanyamba have always hungered. They knew of the feast to come just as they know the taste and smell of a True Changeling Queen.”

She finished cleaning one leg and moved to the next.

“Brass thought himself so clever, warning the other Swarms of my presence… trying to set them against me.” She laughed again, shaking her head at the obvious ploy. “Use changelings to harass changelings? Was that his thought? He has failed to understand us yet again.”

“My Queen,” the changeling warned, “we have yet to hear from the great and ancient Ichchadhari Nagin Swarm…”

“I have the great beasts of the Zilant and the terrible Nidhogg from beneath The Tree. The Q'uq'umatz and Ramidreju shall swarm with us as well. Even the Aida-Weddo have submitted to cross the great sea to join in the feast. All know that this Equestria shall be our new Nehushtan… my great realm. My Biscione from which we shall swarm without fear and blacken the skies.”

“As my Queen is destined.”

Chrysalis smiled, glad that her favored children knew just what to say to please her.

Even if all the Ichchadhari Nagin Swarm did not come to her, a few would understand her great power and come to their senses. All the changelings of the Ichchadhari Nagin were ancient creatures, changelings from an age past who fed on dragons and other monsters, turning themselves sterile in the process. They were a slowly dying Swarm. If there was truly wisdom left in them, they would see the opportunity presented them and join in the greatest swarming in changeling history.

When Equestria was no more, her realm of Biscione – a realm united under a single Swarm and a Single Queen – would fear no other creature. All the enemies and ancient predators of changelings would be hunted down and exterminated. All other thinking creatures capable of love would be harvested. It would be a true paradise, with herself as both architect and all-powerful Queen.

Glorious!

“My Queen… there is another matter…”

“Which is?”

“Princess Celestia is drafting a letter to Lord Yama in Neighpon,” the lesser changeling stated.

“As expected,” Chrysalis replied, clean and relaxed in the hot bath. “She is concerned about the growing hostility regarding Lady Yumi and wishes to help resolve the differences between her noble houses.”

“I have a team in place,” the other changeling said, simply. “What skin shall they wear?”

Chrysalis ‘hmm’ed and lifted a leg out of the water, watching the steam rise from the limb. “Have them wear the skin and colors of Yama’s ponies. Stage an incident.”

It was sad news, hearing how her changelings had lost Lady Yumi. It would be very hard to find anything to stick to Alpha Brass now. It was tempting to try and frame him for the altercation she was fomenting between Canterlot and Neighpon. Surely, with Yumi loose and un-replaced, Brass would be courting the Neighponese. He would be playing some sort of game between them and Canterlot.

“The one in charge of this,” Chrysalis went on to say. “Have her wear the skin of one of Brass’s ponies. Make sure at least one or two survivors are able to implicate him in this.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

Chrysalis expected her subordinate to leave, then, the matter settled. Yet she remained by the side of the bathtub, waiting patiently for permission to speak. Chrysalis sighed. “There is more?”

“My Queen,” she changeling said, bowing her head. “Lord Brass is already in Canterlot.”

“What?” Chrysalis surged out of the water until her upper half emerged, steaming and trickling water from the black chitin of her true form. She hissed, bearing a mouth full of sharp teeth. “Of course he would be rushing into the limelight now of all times! I should have known! ‘A true friend stabs you in the front!’ He’s here to try his hoof at preserving the peace.”

“Your orders, my Queen?” the changeling asked again.

“If the butterfly is emerging from his safe little cocoon, then why don’t we show him our spider web?” Chrysalis chuckled, shifting back into Cadance. “Kill him.”

“Kill him?” the changeling sounded almost shocked. “Are you sure…?”

“He’s no longer necessary,” Chrysalis reasoned, slowly lowering herself into the warm water again. “Kill him… and Canterlot and Neighpon will blame one another for the death of their would-be peacemaker. Use poison again if you have to. It will further inflame things.”

The changeling bowed and slowly backed away. “As my Queen wills.”

Chrysalis tried to relax like she had before, but it was increasingly proving difficult.

‘Exposing yourself like this was a mistake, Brass. A mistake you will regret. If you’d stayed in your little garden, then I would have made your end relatively painless… you could have even lived to see Equestria consumed. I would have loved to taste your despair.” She growled and slid further down until only her eyes, horn, and ears stuck out above the water, wreathed in steam. “Now I won’t get that chance. I hope you’re satisfied; you’ve ruined my good mood!’

Fluttershy didn’t like to see any animal suffer.

Suffering, sadly, was a part of the lives of many animals, especially wild ones. They got sick because ponies weren’t around to cure them; they hurt one another fighting over females to mate with, and they killed one another for food. A fly caught in a spider’s web – caught in a spider’s embrace – still felt pain, though not really in the way a pony did. Fluttershy hated to see it, even as she accepted that sometimes pain was a part of life. Foalbirth could be painful, after all, but it produced life.

“Please drink this,” she pleaded, holding up the ewer of water to the pony’s lips.

Gale Force drank, greedily swallowing a few mouthfuls. The stallion’s eyes opened wide, pleading. His hooves strained against the cords that bound him to the floor and Fluttershy hastily backed away. He looked so much like a pony, but she knew… She knew what he was…

“Please,” the pegasus Royal Guard groaned, as Fluttershy brought water to the more sedate – and glowering – Arrow Head. “Let us go, Miss Fluttershy. You can’t keep us here like this.”

Arrow Head drank from the ewer in Fluttershy’s hooves and growled when it was gone.

They had been smuggled away and kept in a dark room with colored drapes over the walls and hanging from the ceiling. It was impossible to tell where they were. There was no barred gate or locked door to be seen, but the ropes binding their wings to their torsos and fastening their forelegs together still made escape a practical impossibility. They weren’t trained to escape capture. If it came down to it, it would be suicide before they revealed more than they already had. The Queen would demand no less.

Except they were already exposed! Suicide would just provide bodies for the enemy to parade around and study. They had been gifted with a runic charm to self-immolate in the event of capture and compromise, but by the time she had woken up, the changeling that was Gale Force had found the inscribed spell deactivated! Nopony was supposed to be able to do that!

Nopony except that bastard Alpha Brass… who had given them the spells in the first place!

Damn him, and damn these mares.

“What are you doing with us?” Gale Force asked, sensing Fluttershy’s inherent compassion. She could taste it, like butter on bread. It wasn’t enough to be true sustenance, and it was so close to affection that it almost hurt. “You have to let us go. You can’t keep us tied up like this.”

The timid pegasus fiddled with the ewer of water in her hooves.

“S-sorry,” she muttered and ran off, disappearing behind the drapes.

An hour after she had left, Arrow Head finally spoke up.

“Trying to gain her pity is a mistake,” the other changeling argued. “We need to make her angry. If she gets angry, it may give us an opening to escape.”

“That’s Fluttershy, you idiot,” Gale Force snapped. “Of all the ponies you want to ‘get angry’ you pick her? We need to earn her trust. Get her to loosen these ropes. Then…”

“Then?” Arrow Head asked, glancing over at her.

“You know what then,” Gale Force said, resolute.

It must have been half a day or more before the Element of Kindness came back. It was food this time. She always fed them… but never really fed them. Shining Armor had loved his subordinates and fellow guards. At first, when she had been told that she would be feeding on the Queen’s lovemeal, Gale Force had been confused. How much love did this pony have, to feed not just the Queen but two other changelings? Following the would-be Prince around, the both of them had discovered that Shining’s love of his fellow guards had been plenty to sustain them. It had been effortless to just soak it all in.

Now, it felt like days since she had fed.

“I made, um, carrots Juliette with some rigatoni and peas,” Fluttershy said, holding out two paper plates and generous portions of food. It would probably have been a good meal… for a damned pony. She didn’t give them a fork or a knife, of course. She held up the plate so they could eat like so many earth ponies did at work or when in a hurry, right from the plate or the bag.

Gale Force ate some of the food, if only to try and endear herself to the sickeningly sweet mare.

Arrow Head looked like she wanted to spit the food out in the pony’s face, but ate some as well. It would mostly pass right through their bodies. Changelings couldn’t digest without a lovemeal. Damn it. They were wasting away here. The Queen had to be told. The Queen had to be warned!

“Miss Fluttershy.” She tried to reason with the mare again or at least to appeal to her nature. “I know you don’t want to do this. This isn’t you. Whoever is making you do this… don’t listen to her…! Set us free, please! Please!”

Fluttershy lowered her eyes and shook her head, resisting the words.

“You have to--”

“Have to what?” another voice interrupted, and a lavender mare trotted into the makeshift cell. She had a black cloak on, but the hood revealed her true identity. Gale Force knew this mare. She, as a he, had gone with her when she met Alpha Brass. It was Twilight Sparkle. And it must have been Twilight Sparkle who nullified their immolation fail-safe.

“This is a mistake,” Gale Force warned.

“A big mistake,” Arrow Head chimed in, seeing a potential opportunity.

“Is it?” Twilight wondered, placing a comforting and supportive hoof on Fluttershy’s side and whispering something into her ear. Gale Force strained to try and overhear them, but couldn’t.

“Listen,” Gale Force said, trying not to pull too obviously against her ropes. “I know what this looks like! I know what you must think. But… but we really are Royal Guards. The… abilities you may know about… they’re a magical spell cast on us by the Princesses to help us do our job!”

“We’re like spies,” Arrow Head spoke up again. “Spies for the Princess.”

“Like how Luna’s Guard look different?” Gale Force continued, hoping the mare would believe her. “We’re the same thing. Celestia’s – Her Highnesses – secret guards! Just ask her about us! She’ll confirm it!’

Twilight trotted up between the two changelings, unafraid of getting close to them.

“You’d like that,” she stated, seriously, but her frown said more than her words. “I have a direct line to the Princess now that Spike is back. Maybe I should tell her.”

“You should,” Arrow Head insisted, and Gale Force winced. She was playing it too damn hard. Push too hard and the target will bounce back in the wrong direction.

“I should?” Twilight asked, and Arrow Head – that idiot – nodded eagerly.

“Alert the Princess and her Royal Guard?” Twilight asked, and only then did Arrow Head realize what a grub she was being.

“Celestia will…”

“Princess Celestia,” Twilight corrected, and whatever patience she had for the game seemed to evaporate in an instant. “I watched my brother leave for Canterlot. I watched him go… knowing I was sending him back to your Queen, this Chrysalis…! I wanted to tell him not to go, but I didn’t, because I know what would happen if he knew, and I know what will happen if Princess Celestia knows.”

She pointed a hoof at Arrow Head, poking him in the forehead.

“You’ll run,” she said, anger bleeding into her voice. “Maybe you’ll kill the real Cadance, too. The first sign of real danger and you’ll all start hiding from us. You’ll go back into the shadows, and every death you cause then and after will be on me… because I turned on the light that sent all the roaches scurrying.”

Anger. She was angry and upset, with them and with herself. Gale Force could taste it in the air.

Maybe Arrow Head was right.

But she tried her approach, one last time. “We’re on the Princess’s side. We’re working for her.”

“Which was why you attacked Fluttershy in the forest,” Twilight reasoned.

Shit.

What was there to even say after that?

Shit!

Their cover was blown. Everything was blown! The Queen had to be warned!

“I’ll talk,” Gale Force said, to Arrow Head’s brief confusion. “I’ll talk. What do you want to know?”

Twilight shook her head again.

“You’re not really going to talk,” she said, spearing the changeling with eyes that all but challenged her to reveal her true form or say just one more word. “You’re trying to get me to do something that will tip off your Queen. What? Were you going to suggest I contact somepony? Research some sort of spell? Why not ask me to trip over a wire and set off a trap?”

Double shit.

There were half a dozen ways to alerts the Queen in case of capture. There were changelings watching for anypony doing suspicious research; anypony going to certain places captured changelings would tell them to go; doing things captured changelings would tell them to do. Manipulating these stupid ponies was supposed to be easy.

Triple shit!

“I’m not going to ask either of you anything tonight,” Twilight told them, biting her lower lip in distaste and forcing herself to finish her statement. “Not tonight. I just wanted to see you and say a few things.”

“If we’re your enemies, then you should just kill us,” Arrow Head blurted out. “We won’t talk.”

“You can’t torture us into cooperating,” Gale Force warned as well. “It won’t work.”

“I’m not going to torture you,” Twilight assured them with a disgusted look. “We’re ponies, not monsters. You’ll have water and food – the same food Fluttershy makes for herself, and she’s one of the best cooks I know! You won’t be separated or kept alone. You can talk all you like and keep each other company.”

“What’s the point?” Gale Force felt she had to ask. “Why bother?”

“You might have heard ponies talk about ‘love and tolerate?’” Twilight Sparkle asked them. “It goes back to an old saying. While you’re here, we’ll tolerate you… but we won’t love you. How long before you show us who you really are? If you go a week eating what Fluttershy eats, and if you’re the same as you are now, then maybe I’ll imagine that you’re telling the truth.”

A week.

A week without a lovemeal?

Arrow Head looked over at her with desperation. She knew it, too. They’d never be able to hold their forms like this for a week without some sort of lovemeal. The pegasus was never around long enough to drain her, and her fleeting moments of kindness only made the loveless hours more unbearable. If they didn’t find a way to warp her mind – something that usually took hours to days – then they’d lose the ability to change shape entirely! They’d starve and become powerless.

Not saying another word to them, Twilight Sparkle unclipped her cloak’s clasp. She pressed it against Arrow Head’s collar, and it discharged some sort of illusionary magic. Gale Force watched, perplexed, as her fellow changeling’s form rippled and struggled to accommodate the magic. Arrow Head tried to shake the clasp off her chest, but Twilight kept it pressed firmly down with her hoof. Her appearance – that of the Royal Guard, Arrow Head – softened, becoming feminine, but then it tried to revert back to normal. The two illusionary magics were at war with one another, one unicorn sorcery and the other changeling camouflage.

“What are you doing?” Gale Force finally found her voice and demanded to know. When Twilight said nothing, she all but yelled, “What are you doing to her?!”

Twilight removed the clasp from Arrow Head and returned it to her cloak.

“Did you know,” she asked with a smirk, “that when you combine red and green light… you get yellow? And that red light and blue light gives you magenta? Rarity knew it as ‘color theory,’ but did you know that contradictory illusionary magic spells can have a similar effect?”

Arrow Head surged against her ropes, trying to reach the unicorn, but to little avail.

Gale Force was too stunned to even try. This mare… had a way to unmask them?

“Such an interesting magical theory,” Twilight went on to tell them, gently patting the clasp. “Sometime soon, I’ll show the rest of the changelings what I’ve shown you… but I think I’ll make it a surprise. You do like surprises, don’t you?”

She had to die.

Some-ling had to stop her!!

“You’re leaving already?” Fluttershy asked as the two changelings stewed, speechless.

Twilight passed by her, taking a deep breath before slipping behind a drape and out of sight.

“Rarity and I have an appointment to keep.”

“Is there something in the water in this town?” Sand Dune asked, recoiling from the three other mares. “Or are you ponies simply that crazy?”

“I actually wondered much the same,” Antimony considered.

“I did, too,” Twilight confessed. “But then, the first pony I met here was Pinkie Pie.”

“Ladies,” Rarity said, raising a hoof and drawing their eyes to her. “Having lived here the longest, I can assure you: it takes a dash of insanity to really appreciate life here in Ponyville. Call it local flavor.”

“Local flavor?” Sand Dune repeated, still incredulous at what had been proposed. “Local flavor involves a scheme to bodily harm a Prince of Equestria? That is less ‘local flavor’ and more ‘high treason.’ In fact, it is treason of the sort that Lady Yumi of Neighpon has been so recently accused!”

She took another step away from the mad mares.

“And now you,” she said, pointing to Rarity, “are asking me to court that same accusation? Perhaps you asked Yumi the same thing, to aid you in this or that? I need only look at the company you keep to suspect!” Sand Dune pointed at the other non-local, the Baroness from Prance. “You.”

“Me?” Antimony inquired innocently. “Mayhap you wish to resume our duel from before?”

“Oh, I am very sorely tempted!” Sand Dune hissed.

“Ladies!” Rarity snapped, raising her voice. “Ladies, please.”

The pleading tone, ripe with honest conviction, froze the two before they could literally lock horns. Antimony averted her eyes towards the secluded reflecting pool they had met by, Twilight shuffled nervously at all the angry energy in the air, and Sand Dune reined in her temper. This was not at all the evening she had expected. There was far more talking and far less danger and conspiracy, though that could change at any minute given the proposal she had been offered.

“You tell a tall tale,” Sand Dune addressed their ostensible host. “How can I believe you? How can you believe yourself? This talk of… of some monstrous creature in the guise of the Prince?”

Rarity felt the other mares present all watch her for her response, even Twilight, who she had worked so closely with. Twilight Sparkle had admitted to having a part in fleshing out this insane theory, if it could even be called that, but it had been Rarity who supposedly put the screws to it and deemed it true. It all hinged on her. How could she be so sure?

“I don’t know if any of you will really understand me,” Rarity admitted, sad and earnest at once, “but I will try and tell you, anyway. I know, because I know my Prince. Not just my Prince, but my Blueblood. I know him. I know his touch, I know his kiss, I know how he speaks, how he picks at his food, how he says things with his eyes that he never would with his voice. I know what makes him angry and what calms him. I know the embarrassing behavior he indulges in, just to get a reaction out of others. I know what he whispers in the morning, when he wakes up… gasping because of some terrible dream.”

She bit her lip and shook her head fiercely.

“How could I not know?” Rarity demanded of them. “I listen to him! What he says, how he eats, the ways he…” She blushed hotly and took a deep breath. “A thousand small things are screaming to me, telling me that the Blueblood in there–” She pointed back at the manor. “–is not the stallion I love.”

“Perhaps you simply do not know him as well as you think you do,” Sand Dune challenged, though the sheer intensity of the former seamstress’s conviction now made her wonder.

“Is he one of these shape-shifters?” Rarity asked, looking from Sand Dune to Antimony and finally to Twilight. “I can’t say with total certainty. All I know is that he is not my Blueblood. That is all the reason I need to investigate.”

“I’m with Rarity,” Twilight quickly said. “She knows him better than anyone. For my part, he didn’t know things that he should have known, things we talked about before Yumi’s poisoning attempt. I’d ask more, but it would give me away. There’s no pony better able to judge this than Rarity. I’d bet my life on that.”

The Baroness smiled thankfully at her friend and confidant. “Twilight…”

“And you?” Sand Dune asked the other mare, as yet unspoken for.

“A pony I had thought I could trust recently tried to cut my eyes out while I slept,” Antimony stated with blunt honesty. Rarity and Twilight both cringed at the image concocted by their imaginations.

“Was it that thug that followed you around?” Sand Dune asked, nonplused.

“Her name is Gewitter, and no, it was not.” Antimony let her chew on that for a second before adding, “Gewitter is my bodyguard and my friend, Sand Dune. She saved my life, so I’d ask you to watch what you say about her.”

Sand Dune could hardly believe her ears. Her bodyguard and friend?

Since when did a mare like her have friends?

“I regret giving offense,” Sand Dune said, in the most simultaneously cordial and frosty tone she could manage through the shock.

“As I have both eyes, the attempt clearly failed,” Antimony concluded, simply. “I was about to extract more information from the assassin when she violently expired.”

“You killed her? I’m not surprised.”

“She was still breathing when I captured her eyes with my own,” Antimony elaborated. She didn’t need to describe what that meant when anypony or anything made contact with her eyes, conduits for the same magic that normally flowed through a pony’s horn. Sand Dune knew it all too well.

“Unfortunately,” she continued, after a pause. “The thing erupted in magical flame before I could mesmerize it. Once the blaze was put out, no trace of the creature remained. Even the teeth were destroyed. Proper identification was impossible.”

“We need your help,” Rarity picked up where the other Baroness left off. “You can do it, can’t you? You can do what Lady Antimony here described?”

Sand Dune frowned, but nodded, seeing little point in denying it.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Can you show us?” Twilight asked. She had a very curious look in her eyes. Sort of like… wonder?

Sand Dune considered her situation and the madness before her. These three mares. They were insane. No sane pony would consider going along with this! It had to be part of some elaborate setup! Yet… if they were telling the truth…? One question remained before she even began to play along.

“You say you could tell because you know Blueblood,” she said.

“I do,” Rarity insisted.

“Then why are you the first to see through this sort of deception?” Sand Dune asked, smirking as she found a flaw in the reasoning of the three mares and their crazy cover story. “Surely some other pony must have noticed their true love acting out of sorts? Is the one here simply not trying hard enough to pass muster?”

Rarity lowered her eyes for a moment, in thought, but just as quickly raised them. “No. That isn’t it.”

“Then what?” Sand Dune demanded. “How do you explain it?”

“Blueblood has been reorganizing his household, shuffling staff around… He has even shunned Light Touch and... another mare,” Rarity explained, “Servants we are both very fond of. He isn’t doing this simply out of spite or to tip others off. He blames it on the poisoning, that he needs new servants and new guards who will be more effective or more alert. I believe it to be part of an agenda. He is rushing to do these things now, while he can still claim to be working out of concern for his security.”

Rarity pursed her lips and tried to put it another way.

“I know what it means to be on an impossible deadline,” she said, “I know what it is like to think you have to cut corners and to rush a product to get it out on time. That is what this reminds me of. That is why it struck me as clearly as it has.”

Sand Dune sighed but couldn’t come up with anything more to say. Sure, it would be easy to just deny it further, or to question how relevant some dressmaker’s experience was to this insane hypothetical. It gave her the impression of a rush? These were affairs of state, not a hasty stitch on a dress! At the same time, this Rarity seemed convinced and more than that, she sounded genuinely desperate for help.

And… and Sand Dune found herself wanting to help her.

“And how do you know I am not one of these shape-shifters?” she asked, and her eyes darted over to Antimony. “How do I know none of you are?”

Twilight Sparkle answered her worry by tapping the clasp on her cloak. “You noticed the spell on these right away. You know what it does, but it isn’t just to disguise members of our group. Attempting to place a contradictory illusion on a changeling leads to distortion. In this case, a gender-swapping illusion is so universal that it will interfere with any changing illusion that has a gender at all… which is all of them, since all changeling disguises have a gender component.”

“So she claims,” Antimony added. “I have yet to see it in action, myself.”

“If Twilight says it works then it works,” Rarity assured them.

“Merciful Princesses,” the Bitalian noblemare bemoaned her sorry state. “You’re driving me crazy, too. Alright. Alright! I’ll show you what you want.”

“Yes!” Twilight cooed, excitedly clopping her hooves together like a filly at the theater. “Yes! Yes! Yes! I’ve been hoping to see this! I can’t wait!”

“You won’t see it,” Sand Dune promised. “Lady Rarity, if you would, think of a number. Any number at all will do. Count down from twenty and then speak it aloud.”

Rarity licked her lips – probably anxiously wondering if the magic involved something being cast on her. Her hooves shifted in place, and she nodded slowly. “Alright. Whenever you want to do this, darling, I’m ready.”

Sand Dune sighed before Rarity could even start counting down.

“You didn’t pick a number,” she stated and Rarity’s eyes widened, guiltily. “You picked a color, and an unimaginative one, too. Indigo. Then, when I told you to pick a number, you said five hundred and sixty three and two fifths. You then said that it was the price of a dress you sold to an unnamed client. You described it as a ‘racy black bedroom outfit with a saddle and too many frills.’”

During the description, the mare’s eyes had gone from guilty – at trying to cheat by picking a color – to shocked and then, finally, indignant with a touch of awe. Twilight Sparkle, on the other hoof, looked very frustrated. She had been concentrating to try and see the magic being cast. Antimony appeared disinterested, watching with half-lidded eyes as was her usual.

“You read my mind!” Rarity exclaimed, still a bit awed.

“Nothing of the sort,” Sand Dune assured her with the shake of her hoof. “You said everything I described in a version of the future that only occurred to me, personally.”

“So that was the ‘Ciclo di Tempo’ spell?” Twilight Sparkle asked, inquisitively inspecting Sand Dune’s horn for any lingering magic. “Aww! I didn’t see anything! I really wanted to compare it to Starswirl’s Past Tense spell!”

“You told them?” Sand Dune snarled at Antimony, growing even angrier at the mare.

“If I didn’t, they wouldn’t have asked,” the arrogant Prench witch stated.

“Ciclo di Tempo, Clessidra Congelati and Uovo di Tempo,” Twilight recited, trotting around Dune. “The three spell theories, inspired by Starswirl himself and perfected by the alicorn who founded the Quartz clan in Bitaly. Don’t blame Antimony entirely. I looked them up, too.”

“The three techniques are a secret of my family,” Sand Dune told her, holding out a hoof to put a stop to Twilight’s pacing.

“But you’re famous for using the Clessidra Congelati,” Twilight replied. “It isn’t really much of a secret anymore, is it?”

Sand Dune gritted her teeth at the reminder. Her use of the Clessidra Congelati had made the rounds of Canterlot’s nobility, rather spoiling the secret of the spellwork... especially her limitations with it. It was regrettable, but it also wasn’t like she had a choice at the time.

“You should have been more careful with your family secrets,” Antimony pointedly added.

“I saved twelve ponies from that fire, including two foals,” Sand Dune replied, glaring at her old enemy. “Even if there was another way to have done it, I was there, I had the power to help, and so I helped. I don’t regret it. Those foals are in alive now because of me.”

“If you had a more diverse repertoire of spells, you could have used one of them instead,” Antimony refused to just let the topic go. She glanced over at Rarity, who was about to intervene again between them. “But… it was a good deed; I do not question that. Except every noblemare in Equestria has heard the rumors of you stopping time because of it and for how long before you collapsed.”

“Is that what you did here, stopping time? You did something, obviously, manipulating time, but... could you explain it, please?” Rarity asked, and it was clearly as much to defuse the situation as to clear up the spell they would all be relying on.

“Here,” Sand Dune explained, using a spark of magic to cut two lines in the dirt where all four mares could see them. “Your friend mentioned Starswirl’s Past Tense spell, and as you must have heard, my family keeps Equestria’s First Hourglass, brought over from the Old Kingdom. Starswirl provided much of the foundation for our family spells, but we took them further still.”

She marked the two lines with points, A, B, C, D.

“Starswirl’s Past Tense, cast at point C, allows a pony to travel back to point A.” She drew an arc, connecting C to A. “However, this does not and cannot alter B or any event that occurs between A and C, because these events B are a precondition for C to occur. This creates a special event called a pre-destination loop. In other words, the past cannot be altered from the future.”

“The Time Cycle spell is different.” Sand Dune marked A on the second line. “I cast the spell at A, not at C, creating an anchor point. Or ‘saved point’ in time. I then progress normally through time, past B to C. At C, I recall to the anchor point at A, circumventing the pre-destination paradox.” She created a circle around B to C and then back to A. “The events of B leading up to C still occur, and can be observed, but only by me. This is why I say it is a time experienced only by myself.”

“You get around being unable to change the past by never really leaving the past!” Twilight exclaimed, and she did it with a high pitched filly’s squee of delight, a happy sound that seemed a tad inappropriate given the circumstances. She used her magic to make other lines that branched off from point A but remained within the circle bound by the diameter A and C. She marked the new lines, where they intersected with the far side of the circle with more C points, but called them C2, C3, C4, and so on.

“You create an altered timeline that branches from A, because the one causing the alteration does not exist in the future. You remove yourself from time! The Cycle isn’t what the world experiences, it is what you experience!” The town librarian was positively giddy. “You bend the rules without breaking them! Just like Princess Celestia always says…!”

“Remarkable. So you can actually do it,” Rarity said, not entirely following the technical explanation. “You can experience or… observe a future event and then return to the past… or the present, or whatever you call it?”

“Practically speaking,” Sand Dune answered with a grin. “To one observing the observer, it seems as if nothing has happened, because it has yet to happen. This is why there was nothing for Miss Sparkle here to observe.”

“I can’t say I really understand it all…” Rarity admitted. “But to have an ability like that is simply incredible!”

“It is impressive,” Antimony agreed, narrowing her eyes at her old rival. “But it does not make her invincible. You also forget; one pony has observed the observer.”

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten,” Sand Dune replied, and daggers flew between the regal noblemares. “Your tricks won’t work on me a second time.”

“We are not here to fight,” Rarity interrupted and actually placed a hoof on Antimony’s chest to push her back a step. “Please remember that, both of you.” She took a step back herself to give them all room. “I, for one, am convinced. Shall we be on our way, then?”

“This is still treason,” Sand Dune warned.

“It is only treason if we’re wrong,” Rarity assured her and brought her hood over her mane. The glamour spell activated, disguising her with a stallion’s form. “Stay close to me. There are wards throughout the area.”

The three unicorn mares followed her.

Blueblood opened her eyes to the sensation of lips teasing her ear.

Vision returning, she saw a face lean in close, planting a kiss on her cheek, blue eyes fluttering behind thick lashes. Rarity. Had she finally come around? Ever since the actual Prince had been replaced, she had been somewhat standoffish. The lack of physical intimacy wasn’t a concern, really. Like virtually all changelings, the current Blueblood who had been Pixie Dust was effectively gender neutral. She was whatever her masquerade called on her to be, though being in a large stallion’s body still felt strange after being a mare for so long.

What mattered, really, was the affection from a partner. Physical intimacy was just a means of cultivating that; a drone had no real sex drive otherwise. Inhaling, she detected notes of anxiety in mixed in with the Baroness’s love. It was a pleasant fragrance that tickled the taste buds.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” she murmured in Blueblood’s voice, freeing her hooves to run one through the mare’s mane.

“Mmm,” Rarity purred, kissing the base of the changeling’s neck. “I’m sorry if I’ve seemed cold the last few days…”

“We’ve all been out of sorts lately,” Blueblood replied.

Rarity sucked in a breath and, without warning, straddled him, pressing down on the changeling’s chest with her hooves. She threw back her mane and leaned in to gently rub their horns together. The fragrance of her affection changed, just a little, the ratio of love to anxiety changing more to the latter than the former. The former Pixie Dust realized it must have been her lack of initiative: Blueblood must have been more aggressive or assertive in bed. It was making his lover nervous. She placed his hooves on her flanks and heard Rarity gasp in surprise.

“Do you remember,” Rarity whispered, “the morning after the Gala?”

Of course not. Stupid pony.

“Of course I do,” Blueblood whispered back. “Why do you ask?”

“You said something to me,” Rarity insisted, their horns still locked together in an intimate embrace. “Tell me you remember.”

“I said I did.” Blueblood silenced her by capturing her lips. Hopefully it would be enough to convince the silly mare to drop this line of questioning. Rarity pushed away after a second, breathing heavily. There was a look of worry on her face.

“I love you, my Princess,” the fake Prince assured her, and she smiled. Appeased. Good.

She lifted a leg and rolled off the bed.

“Rarity?”

She ignored her name and sauntered over to the window curtains, delicate silken drapes clinging to her as she ran a hoof along them. The bright moonlight from outside captured her naked outline against the window as she beckoned him over. Grinning, Blueblood rolled off the bed. So, she wanted to make love by the window, did she? That could be arranged.

Rarity had her back to the window, and as Blueblood came to her, she held out a hoof to gently interpose between them. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and she shook her head. It was a curious gesture now, here. There was something in her smell, too. And now the room! What--

“You said ‘you’re here,’” Rarity reminded her. “You said, ‘you’re still here.’ I was a little insulted at first, but then I saw how relieved you were. I never forgot those words and neither did you.”

Blueblood spun, saw three other shapes in the room, surrounding her…!

“You’re not here anymore.” Rarity’s last words were punctuated by a blow to the back of the head.

Blueblood hit the floor with little more than a grunt.

“I thought you said he would change when you knocked him out?” Sand Dune asked, deceptively calm given the circumstances.

“I thought he would!” Rarity cried, holding the hoof she had karate-chopped the Prince with close to her chest, like the deadly weapon it was. Deadly fashion weapon, perhaps.

“Hit him again,” Antimony suggested with a smile, only to notice the other mares glaring at her. “What? It couldn’t hurt at this point.”

“Let me think a second,” Twilight said, chewing her lower lip and ducking down to examine the changeling. Or, the pony they had assumed to be a changeling. She placed her magical clasp onto Blueblood’s shoulder and his form wavered and rippled, struggling between male and female. It was certainly a suspicious reaction to the magic, but hardly proof that he was some shape-shifting monster.

“You know,” Sand Dune mused aloud after a little chuckle, “for some reason, this whole thing reminds me of a story I read once. It was about this crazy, jealous nurse who ended up killing her Prince rather than sharing him with his wife…”

Rarity gasped in delight. “You read Red Horseshoe Diaries, too? That was in the Lost Palace Loves edition!”

“Desperate Measures was her name!”

“And the Prince was Prince Stalwart!”

“I hated that story,” a third voice interrupted the Ponyville and Bitalian mares.

Twilight glanced up at the three other unicorns, incredulous. “Am I the only one here who doesn’t read that junk?”

The three mares in question shrugged, all at once. Twilight groaned and stood back up.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” she admitted. “His natural disguise is stronger than the others. I can’t get it to dissipate.”

Then, without warning, she gave the downed Prince another kick to the head.

“Twilight! Was that really--”

Rarity might have said more, except Blueblood’s body began to contort amid a spray of green sparks!

The stallion’s muscular frame vanished, shrinking before their very eyes. The alabaster white coat flaked away, like paper burning at the touch of a match head. Golden locks of mane and well-groomed tail turned to sickly green membrane. The smooth, luxurious coat became a bed of hard, black chitin. There were curious holes grown in the legs, a pattern of green scales along the underside, and a twist in the crooked ebony horn.

Sand Dune clamped a hoof over her mouth to keep from crying out.

“Huh,” was all Antimony said.

“Kicking him again worked!” Twilight laughed nervously. “Wow. I’m actually sort of surprised.”

Rarity shuddered. “I think I need a bath,” she whined and took in the sight of what had been her Prince moments before. Her whole body shook with a tremor, and she amended her previous statement to: “A long, hot bath. Scalding, really.”

“You… you could have let me sleep with that creature,” Sand Dune realized, finding her voice again. She recoiled and stared at Rarity, realizing what the mare had meant when she had said to ‘remember your words.’ “I wouldn’t have known. You could have…”

“I could have,” Rarity agreed. “But how could I ever look you in the eye again after doing that to you? How could I ever ask you to trust me after betraying your trust?”

The four mares stood over the changeling that had pretended to be their Prince.

“Oh, Blueblood….” Rarity muttered, hanging her head.

“What are you going to do when I reset things?” Sand Dune asked, more gently than she had spoken before. “You aren’t going to spend the night with this… thing… are you?”

“Heavens no!” Rarity gasped, turning a shade of green at the mere thought.

“Then what…?”

“Oh, I’ll think of something.”

The Royal Guard’s eye twitched in aggravation. “Merciful Princesses, what are those clucking hens up to?”

“The better question is why His Grace would care enough to send us to watch them,” the second guard grumbled.

Both stood erect and unwavering before the entrance of the botanical garden, out of earshot of their quarry but able to watch them well enough. Four mares had all but taken over the greenhouse to host their little tea party, a parade of sweets and artisans from town shuffled in hour after hour to serve them. Currently, they were munching on a cavalcade of strawberry confections. Even the Baroness’s nasty little furball of a cat was being indulged.

“They’ve spent an hour now looking at feathers,” the first guard muttered. “Feathers.”

The second just grunted. Feathers.

“At least it wasn’t more shoes.”

“Ugh.”

Mares. Go figure.

The effete feathermonger, if that was even a real job, had been brought in from Canterlot, and he had brought with him a selection of all colors and sizes. Why any mare would pay for feathers was something of a mystery in and of itself, really. Given the feather seller’s extravagant attire, though, business on his end was clearly booming. That or he just didn’t want to look anything but his perfumed best when meeting two Baronesses and a Countess, all likely to be future Duchesses, and on top of that the Princess’ personal apprentice.

“We’re probably here to keep an eye on the Prench mare,” the second guard reasoned. “She and Lady Rarity did duel before, and she’s come by unannounced.”

“So did the pretty Bitalian mare. But look. They seem awfully chummy from here,” the first guard noted, eyebrow rising just a fraction as the Ponyville Baroness placed one of the long, blue and gold feathers and placed it in the other mare’s mane. “But if His Grace says to watch…”

“We’ll watch,” the second finished.

Not that they were happy about it.

“Delightful!” Rarity exclaimed, crowning her former opponent’s newly assembled wreathe of flowers and feathers with a great blue plume with glittering gold along the edges. “You look wonderful, darling!”

“I must see!” Antimony beckoned one of the feathermonger’s assistants over. “Mirror! A mirror!”

Smiling at the sight of herself, the Baroness of Mareseilles pranced around in a circle, taking a look at herself from all angles. Watching her, laughing and seated on fluffy throw pillows, Sand Dune eagerly waited for her own ensemble to take shape. Twilight, on the other hoof, plucked a strawberry and cream cake the size of a large bit coin and bit down on it with obvious relish.

“You look stunning, madam,” the feathermonger gushed, throwing open another case of feathers for the ladies’ perusal. He pursed his thin lips together and used a sparkly magical field to levitate out another ‘crowning’ feather of swirling white and pink, fantastic little stalks of down erupting from the base of the shaft.

Opalescence mewed as she batted one of the stray ostrich feathers on the floor.

Soon enough – though likely not soon enough for the two guards that had been assigned to watch them – all four mares had their fanciful crowns, and the pleased feathermonger bowed repeatedly before taking his leave, several hundred bits richer for the trip. Surrounded on all sides by fabrics and sweet foods and now cases of imported feathers from the other sides of two oceans, the four mares appeared to luxuriate in their decadence and excess. A pony brought in a tray of coffee served in gold-engraved demitasse cups before also making an exit, dismissed by Rarity’s lazily waving hoof.

“Ladies,” she said, taking particular delight in a blushing Twilight’s mane full of starry lilacs and cerise tinted paradise feathers. The sputtering, bookish unicorn had been mortified to be included in their little game of dress-up. It was an expensive charade, to be sure, but it had been worth it just to see how Twilight had more difficulty dealing with three other mares dolling her up than she did with organizing potentially treasonous plots against the crown.

“Ladies,” Rarity repeated, “perhaps now is a good time to discuss that matter?”

“Agreed,” Antimony stated, growing serious again. Of course, she did it while breezily buckling on a new set of lily pink hoof-shoes and gloves, sending somewhat mixed signals.

“And I was having such fun, too,” Sand Dune lamented with a soft, accepting sigh. “Very well.” She turned to the Prench Baroness. “Go ahead… I’ll show you what happened, but be quick about it. Before I change my mind.”

Antimony waited until the three other unicorns all had their eyes on her.

Her own eyes, kept half-lidded, slowly opened wide, revealing the entire iris. All three were instantly ensnared, but she focused on Sand Dune first. She was the only one with a working memory of what had happened last night. To all the rest, it had played out with Rarity seducing the Prince and leading him to the window while the rest watched, concealed by a potent shadow-cloaking spell. What had happened after that... well!

Rarity definitely scored points for kinky creativity.

That was certainly one way to dissuade an amorous stallion!

Sand Dune’s memories of the night were different than Antimony’s own, just as she had expected and just as they all had hoped. Rather than just describe them, however, they would be shared with everypony, as if they had all come back with Sand Dune from her personal time loop. The recollection was presented like a treat on a platter – only those memories and nothing more – and, acting in good faith, Antimony did not use her mesmeric effect to try for anything more than that. Secretly aiding Rarity during the festival’s pollen attack had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. Antimony wondered privately if she would have been humored as she had been without it.

After a few seconds, and all as one, the four mares relived that one small part of the night through Sand Dune’s eyes. It was like watching a private recording of the event. The Prince. The dressmaker’s karate chop. The absurd conversation. The second kick to the Prince’s hard head. Then… the truth.

The bloody truth.

“So…” Antimony closed her eyes, breaking the connection between them. When she opened them again, they were half-lidded and safe to see with. “There you have it.”

“There you have it,” Sand Dune agreed.

“So he was a…” Twilight almost said what they all thought. Changeling. The Prince of Equestria was a changeling.

All three mares turned to one of their number for a lead, the one who had gathered them, the one who had trusted them with the secret, and the one who had made the decision to move against the false Prince. A Baroness, a Countess and the Princess’s apprentice, three of the most powerful mares in Equestria and likely the world, all turned to take their lead from a seamstress from Ponyville.

Rarity reached up to nervously adjust a feather in her mane.

She took a moment to properly devise a response. “I said before that, living in Ponyville, a mare needs to be a little crazy. I believe I can trust you ladies, so let me tell you what I think we need to do next. I must also warn you: it is a little crazy, even by Ponyville standards.”

“And I should warn you,” Antimony added, before Rarity could finish. “Even if I am on your side with this… it doesn’t change my own goals. I won’t hoof over control of my family to anypony else. I won’t forget the injustices suffered by Arsenic, my great forebear. Canterlot will belong to the Terre Rare.”

Rarity noticed both Sand Dune’s frown and Twilight’s uncomfortable cough at that.

“There needs to be a Canterlot for your family to claim it,” Rarity reminded her.

“Too true,” Antimony relented.

“I’d sooner attend a Diamond Dog’s coronation than see you wear that crown, Antimony,” Sand Dune told them, but shook her head at how bitter she sounded. “But our history together has to take a back seat. There’s no point in being the richest family in Equestria if there is no Equestria, now is there? You’ll have my support, Rarity.”

The fashionista smiled thankfully at the Bitalian noblemare. “And your final condition from before?”

Sand Dune didn’t respond at once, but when she did, it was with an resigned huff.

“Withdrawn,” she said.

“And I’m behind you, one hundred percent,” Twilight chimed in, smiling warmly and infectiously. Soon, despite everything, all four mares were smiling along with her. Rarity extended her hoof, and a moment later, Twilight, Sand Dune and Antimony all touched their hooves to hers.

“Friends?” Rarity dared to ask.

Sand Dune and Antimony glared at each other for a moment but still smiled.

“Yes, perhaps.”

“Maybe.”

Rarity’s smile was radiant, her eyes sparkling with excitement and delight.

“First, we need to gather intelligence,” Sand Dune suggested, as their hooves came apart. “How many of these changelings are there? Can they take on the forms and powers of non-ponies? Who among us has already been replaced?”

“We also need a means of exposing them,” Antimony chimed in. “Twilight Sparkle’s clasp seems effective in disrupting their innate magic, but we cannot produce and distribute thousands of them. Even if we could, doing so would only tip them off. I have no doubt they could devise a countermeasure if given time and sufficient warning.” She smirked at Rarity and adjusted one of the feathers in her mane. “I would rather not underestimate another opponent.”

“I’ll gladly share what I know about the changelings, but I think Antimony is right,” Twilight said, crossing her forelegs and conscientiously chewing her lower lip. “We need to hit them all at once. I’m… I mean, this is the same strategy the forty-seventh Blueblood used during the Griffin Civil War. He lured the entire rebel army into a single decisive engagement by feigning a rout. After the war, the noted author A.T. Ponee, in his work, ‘The Influence of Magical Power on Great States’ goes on to postulate that the outcome of wars hinges on singular decisive battles centered on a conflict between opposing magical forces.”

“We need to gather the changelings together and hit them all at once,” Rarity summarized and both Sand Dune and Antimony nodded in agreement.

“They will be swarming in unison only once,” Twilight went on to warn them. “That will be the attack on Canterlot. It will be our only opportunity.”

“By the brightest stars, they would dare to attack Canterlot itself?” Sand Dune hissed. She looked, if only briefly, genuinely upset in a way that could not be disguised beneath her normally pleasant demeanor. She asked, again, but more quietly, “They dare to attack the Princesses?”

“They must have some way to neutralize Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,” Antimony reasoned, thinking tactically about the prospects of attacking Equestria’s capitol city and gleaming jewel. “Or they imagine they have a way to counter them. Taking several hundred hostages would be my route…”

All three mares stared at her suggestion in mute shock.

“Don’t give me that look,” Antimony complained and shrugged, helplessly. “It is a move that embraces low cunning and that takes advantage of others’ good nature. I would not do it myself, but then I would not raise a hoof against the Princesses either! I am merely playing Discord’s Advocate.”

“We will be relying on you to help us understand what it would take to actually attack the city,” Rarity said after a few moments. She offered the Baroness an understanding smile. “Twilight is well-read, but you are the only mare here with any actual experience with… this sort of fighting.”

“Taking a city like Canterlot is no easy feat,” Antimony reminded them, relaxing slightly at Rarity’s spoken support. “No matter what this false Prince does to weaken the Duchy, the Princess’ Royal Guard will be present. They will fight.”

“They will fight, yes, against the enemy and amongst one another,” Sand Dune lamented. She had already sworn to send her own young brother, Sand Storm, to ‘grow into a stallion’ among the prestigious Royal Guard.

Rarity knew Blueblood and Shining Armor, like untold numbers of other young, noble-born colts, had been sent to the Guard to grow up and learn to be chivalrous stallions. They weren’t just the crème of the crop of Equestria; they were her future Dukes and Barons and Knights. They were somepony’s brother, somepony’s son… and the changelings had already infiltrated them.

When the swarm descended on the city, it would chaos and impossible to tell friend from foe.

“We need to amplify the spell. We cannot save Canterlot without revealing her enemies,” Rarity told them, and the four unicorn mares were in unspoken agreement.

“I’ve looked into this problem,” Twilight said, anxiously brushing her left foreleg with her right hoof. “There is a way to enhance the gender-swap-illusion spell… a pentaverbum. A five-alliteration ritual and incantation…”

“Nopony can do a five-alliteration spell,” Antimony stated. “Nopony since Arsenic...’s Era. Even my best is still only a Four.”

“I’m the same,” Sand Dune admitted, and the two political and magical rivals briefly locked glances. Both just as quickly put their differences aside and focused on Twilight. “A five-alliteration spell… ponies can’t do those anymore.”

“It can be done,” Twilight told them, her expression resolute. “Without an amplifier, verbal or physical, there is literally no other way to cover an entire city with a single spell.”

“A physical amplifier?” Sand Dune asked. “What sort of magic would…?”

“The Crystal Empire had an amplifier that could cover a city,” Antimony answered, to Twilight’s surprise. She had already opened her mouth, likely to say the same thing. “It turned ponies into crystal ponies. Thousands of them all at once, and it could sustain the magical projection for more than a year between recharges.”

“Yeah… I was about to say that. But The Heart is a lost artifact.” Twilight shook her head. “How - how did you know that? I’d never heard any concise details on how it worked until… just recently.”

“My brother’s ponies have been scouring Equestria and the Northern Wastes for the Crystal Heart for years,” Antimony went on to tell them. The way she said ‘brother’ it may as well have been a curse. “If they haven’t found it by now, then I doubt we will.”

“Then we’ll find a way,” Twilight insisted.

Antimony’s half-lidded eyes drifted to Rarity and then to Sand Dune. Finally, they settled on the other Terre Rare unicorn present. “Twilight Sparkle. There may be a way… one way… but I will not share it outside the family.”

“Are we really supposed to trust you when you insist on keeping secrets?” Sand Dune immediately pounced on the offer.

“We will all have our secrets we do not share. All four of us,” Antimony snapped. “Do not pretend we are so different, Sand Dune.”

“Having some secrets does not make us enemies,” Rarity insisted, playing peacemaker among the four. Twilight was silent, already lost in thought as to what Antimony could be speaking of. Rarity held out a sympathetic hoof. “Please, Sand Dune. What will hold us together is respecting one another’s boundaries.”

Sand Dune seemed tempted to argue but nodded in acquiescence. “Perhaps… you are right.”

“Thank you,” Rarity said, inclining her head in a graceful bow. “Now, ladies, even if we have a way to reveal the changelings, we will also need a way to defeat them.”

“An army could do it,” Antimony suggested.

“An army could,” Twilight agreed.

“The Terre Rare can mobilize more than five thousand ponies for war,” the Baroness promised. “Eight thousand if we draw on our Germane reserves and border guards.”

The other three mares listening held their breaths at the declaration. Five thousand ponies was the largest fighting force in Equestria without a shadow of a doubt. Sand Dune raised a hoof to her lips as she considered what, if anything, she could promise to contribute from Bitaly. It was possible that, between them, they could gather together almost ten thousand fighting stallions and mares. Such an army had not been seen since the era of Discord, Nightmare Moon, and Starcaller.

“Logistically,” Antimony went on to say, “Half of that would be the most anypony could march into such mountainous territory. Guards run on fodder and water. We can forage and pack supplies for an army, but clean water is more of a problem. Pegasi can’t just gather it out of thin air. I could do more with control of the railroads, but… the more ponies either of us gather, the more resources we marshal, the clearer our aims become. A hundred ponies are easier to conceal than a thousand.”

The four mares were silent for a few seconds as that settled in.

“Except Neighpon and Canterlot,” Rarity realized. “That fake Prince has mentioned calling up his guard. I think he means to march them west, towards Neighpon.” She smiled, slyly. “Isn’t that an aggressive enough move to provoke our neighbors to the north?”

Antimony’s grin was anything but friendly. In fact, it was downright predatory. “It is. My father and I already called up two thousand troops before I even came here. With three thousand, I can fit Canterlot with a noose. No problem.”

“I don’t really like that description, but it is the most obvious solution to the problem,” Twilight agreed, again, with the Terre Rare mare. “Reveal the changelings and then sweep through the city, house by house and street by street if you have to.”

“And what of Canterlot itself?” Rarity asked, concerned. “If it becomes a battlefield, what will be left?”

Antimony shrugged. “The foundations, at least.”

Rarity frowned at the ruthless noblemare. “There must be a better way.”

“Not everything can be solved with a magical rainbow,” Antimony argued. “Feel free to explore other options, but if the time comes, I will put my faith in piercing steel, crushing hooves, and glowing horns.”

“If there is an alternative, then we should make every effort to explore it,” Twilight said, and Sand Dune nodded in agreement.

“Anything that brings harm to Canterlot brings harm to Equestria as a whole,” the Bitalian Countess reminded them. “For my part, I will provide the aid I can, both magical and financial. My family is rather adept at creative accounting.”

“You mean your family smuggles and cheats with books,” Antimony growled.

“Nonsense!” Sand Dune scoffed. “The government, by definition, does not ‘smuggle.’ And our banking practices are overseen by the Crown, the same as yours.”

“It will take all four of us to pull this off,” Rarity reminded them, but despite the squabbling, she smiled, touched by newfound confidence. “So, ladies, I say our next order of business as four friends and allies is to name our little conspiracy.”

“I’ve got it!” Twilight clopped a hoof on the floor as a name came to her. “We should be the ‘Fantastic Four!’”

“…”

“What? Is it taken?”

Sand Dune coughed politely into her hoof. “How about the ‘Sisterhood of Evil Unicorns.’”

“Why would we call ourselves ‘evil?’”

“To confuse our enemies, of course.”

“In that case, with confusion as our goal, I suggest we call ourselves ‘The Hand.’ Or the X-Mares?”

“That’s even more confusing!”

“What on Equestria is an X-Mare anyway?”

“Ladies, please, what do you think about The League of Extraordinary Gentlemares?”

“NO.”

“No.”

“Nay.”

“Aww.”

Hey there, Runt.

I’m real sorry I have to write this instead of telling you face to face. That Rainbow Bitch and I had our fun and I’m sort of a mess right now. It was really great! But I’m not in a good spot and I don’t think I can keep teaching you. That kind of pisses me off, since I made you a promise and I don’t go back on my promises. The next part of the training I had planned involved throwing you off a cliff, too, which I think you’d really have liked! Maybe I’d have used a cloud instead. Not as many good cliffsides around here. It worked great for all those griffins back on The Roc.

Oh well.

Keep using the motion wheel and practicing with the water. I told you before, didn’t I? Your wings are very narrow and your feathers are stiff and slim. When you do fly, you’ll be fast. I wouldn’t try and get too much altitude or cruise for hours on end, but I bet you’ll have some good sprinting wings. I want to fight you when you grow up, so keep practicing and get strong. Strong enough to kill me, if you think you can!

If I’m not dead, I’ll try and drop in on you again sooner rather than later, so don’t slack off.

Oh, and don’t tell Rainbow Bitch about this letter.

Ritter

“What’s that?”

“Nothin,’” Scootaloo said, slipping the note into her schoolbag.

Apple Bloom didn’t pry. “We’re meeting up with Sweetie Belle an’ Rarity at mah house tomorrow. Don’t forget!”

“I won’t!” she promised. “You want to get some crusading in after school?”

“Sure!” Apple Bloom replied, giggling at the prospect of another chance to get their cutie marks. “You wanna tell Sweetie? We can meet at the clubhouse right after school.”

“Can it be an hour after school?” Scootaloo asked and saw the confusion on Apple Bloom’s face. “I’ve just got something to do first.”

Apple Bloom nodded and picked up her pace, trotting back to Cheerilee’s classroom.

“Stupid training wheels,” Scootaloo muttered, and luckily nopony was around to overhear her. An hour a day wasn’t too bad. As long as nopony saw.

‘Sooner rather than later, huh?’ she thought, shaking her head in dismay. ‘I wonder what she meant by not in a good spot? Then again, do I really want to even guess what she’s doing right now? Probably something gross or violent. Or both.’

Doctor Stable Condition groaned from where he lay, sprawled out on the bed. The mattress had half slipped off the boxspring, and hoof-fulls of stuffing had been ripped free from it, leaving it an almost unsalvageable mess. Of the four posts that had once affixed the corners of the bed, one was broken outright and the other bent. Medical tools and clothes were strewn around the room with equal carelessness, medical tape hanging like a spiderweb from the bed to the windows to the dresser.

“You’re leaving? Now?” The licensed professional of the Caramel clan gaped, straining against the white cloth that tied his forehooves to the post of the bed. A strand of the same hung over his horn, partly obscuring his seafoam eyes.

“You can’t leave now!” he yelled. “I’m still tied up!”

And his legs hurt, too. In fact, his whole body felt like well-chewed taffy. Some more well-chewed than others.

“Sorry, handsome! No time to waste!” His patient tossed one of his white scrubs lab coat over her back, punching holes in it with her wings in one smooth movement. He glared at her back.

She shouldn’t even be up and moving!

Well… never mind all that stuff last night…

“I don’t recommend flying for at least a week!” he called out as she trotted over to the window, lifting it with a gray hoof. Her lime green tail whipped back and forth in excitement.

“Yeah, sure. Thanks again, doc,” Ritterkreuz said, glancing back at him with a feral grin. “I needed that.”

She probably didn’t mean the stitches or emergency medical care.

“Aren’t you gonna leave your number?” he asked, still straining against the bedpost.

“Nope!”

Without another word, she jumped out of the window, dropping out of sight.

“Ugggh!” Doctor Stable fell back into what was left of his bed. Closing his eyes and trying not to think about how he had ended up in this unexpected condition, he did for a moment consider just what – if anything – he would brag about to the other Caramels later. Could a pony be both incredibly lucky and painfully unlucky at the same time?

Then again, this was probably the most unprofessional thing he had ever done in his entire life. Perhaps it was best not to talk too much about it, even to family. Yes, nopony had to know…

“Hey! Check it out! I told you somepony was home!”

Doctor Stable slowly turned to see a pink mane, and a certain pink pony, peeking over the lip of the open window. Pinkie Pie smiled disarmingly, cheeks all but mashing her eyes closed. The town Doctor stuttered, trying to explain himself, when a second mare also appeared. This one poked her head in from the top of the window, defying gravity and common sense both. His eyes widened. That wild blue mane…? Oh, Princesses.

“You’re right, somepony is home,” Euporie agreed, and whistled. “Looking good, Doc. Fun night?”

“Were you playing doctor or something?” Pinkie Pie asked, looking around the room with such an innocent look it was hard to tell if she was being sarcastic or not. She then glanced up at Euporie. “And I think you mean, ‘what’s up, doc?’ Right?”

“Uggh…!” Doctor Stable mumbled, staring at the two crazy mares. “Look, I, um...”

“Oh! Oh! So! I brought Euporie over to apologize for the other night! The party!” Pinkie Pie explained and tilted her head cutely to the side. “Do you want some help or something?”

The back of Doctor Stable’s head hit the wood behind the bedpost with a dull thud.

“Whats’a matter, Porie?” Pinkie Pie asked, stuffing her face with food. “You don’t like bloomin’ onions?”

Euporie’s eyebrows twitched in the first few impulses that could eventually develop into a frown. The two mares were hardly alone in the restaurant having lunch, all deep friend and comfort food, but the last few days had left the unicorn feeling rather careworn. This whole matter should have been done with and put in the past. How long did this pink pony plan to prologue her pain?

“I don’t mind the onion, Pinkie,” Euporie said as she dipped a curl into a wafer of ketchup.

“Then what’s wrong?” Pinkie asked, munching noisily on another slice of the onion covered by a dollop of mayonnaise, honey mustard, and hot sauce.

Euporie ate her onion curl and considered just how rude she could afford to be at the moment.

“How many parties have you taken me to over the last few days?” she asked.

“Hmm!” Pinkie thought aloud, tapping her cheek with her hoof. “Two birthday parties, one welcome home party, and one baby shower! One. Two. Three. Four. Only four!”

“It was a rhetorical question,” Euporie grumbled.

“You weren’t having a lot of fun at any of them,” Pinkie observed, nibbling on a long strip of fried onion.

“Why would I have fun at some little filly’s birthday party?”

“That’s why I kept trying!”

“…What?”

“You didn’t have fun at the first party,” she explained, and for a moment, Euporie was the one who felt lectured to. “So…! I tried a different party and then a different one when that didn’t work and then another birthday party – because I love birthday parties – but with more adult ponies. You didn’t have fun there, either! But I needed to see.”

“So I’ve been wasting my time at these pathetic excuses for parties for no reason?” Euporie asked, slowly, her ire rising like mercury in a thermometer. “Or just to sate your curiosity?”

“No!” Pinkie protested. “You’ve got me all wrong, Porie!”

The noblemare held up a hoof for her to be silent.

“Do you know what I think?” she asked and answered herself without missing a beat. “You made me apologize to all those ponies from my party, and I went along with it, and I think you thought that, along the way, you’d take me to these stupid parties.”

Euporie gestured out to the restaurant window in the general direction of the town and the townsponies. “And at these parties, I’d see how little ponies are having fun with their little lives, playing foals’ games and that I’d learn from them or some nonsense like that. Or maybe seeing them would – what? – give me some sort of epiphany so that I would repent my naughty ways?”

Rather than deny it right off the bat, Pinkie closed her eyes and crossed her legs over her chest. Her lower lip stuck out as she tilted her head to the left and right, ‘hmm’ing and hawing. Her head lolled back, mouth open as she stared up at the ceiling.

“Was that what my plan was?” she wondered aloud. “I can’t remember.”

Euporie’s face smacked into the table.

“What do you mean you can’t remember!?” she roared, reaching across the table to grab the other mare’s mane, yanking it violently forward. “Don’t you have a plan or something?!”

“I’m not good with plans,” Pinkie Pie admitted, her eyes turning dewy and wide. Euporie sighed and let her surprisingly stretchy mane-curl go, and Pinkie bounced back to her former position like a spring.

“Just know that it wouldn’t have worked,” she stated, angrily grabbing another fried slice of the blooming onion. “It isn’t that I’ve never been to those sorts of parties. It isn’t like I don’t know any better. I know. I just don’t care. I make my own parties, and I make them my way… because I know what every party really wants to be like.”

Pinkie flicked her mane, and it sprung back to normal.

“I liked your party,” she admitted, rather to Euporie’s surprise. Pinkie Pie seemed to notice her surprise at her statement. “Aside from the very end.”

“The end was the most important part,” Euporie countered.

“I thought you said it was just the icing on the cake?” Pinkie asked, rolling her eyes in thought.

Euporie leveled a glare at the pink pony. “…You have an oddly specific memory.”

“I know! It’s so weird!”

The noblemare dipped her onion strip in the ketchup again and slowly nibbled away at it. Pinkie looked, for just a moment, like she was also about to go back to eating when her hoof paused over the onion. Retracting it, she instead took a rather long draught from her drink and sat still, as if in thought. Her brows were drawn partly down, giving her less of an angry expression and more one of abject confusion and bewilderment.

“Hey, Porie?”

“Yeah?”

“Why’d you really do that to Pokey?” she asked, looking across the table. “It could have been anypony, but you picked Pokey, the one pony I was with. I’ve been thinking… thinking a lot about that night and about you. If you’d done that to anypony else, I… I don’t think I… I think I might have just kept laughing at him.”

Euporie frowned at the question. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t asked herself that, too.

“It had to be him,” she said, considering the question herself for a few long seconds. “I guess I… saw it as a challenge. It had to be your special somepony you laughed at.”

“I like Pokey,” Pinkie said, and Euporie shook her head at how foalish the other mare sounded. Like she was a filly with a crush on some cute colt. She was a grown mare.

“You mean you love him,” Euporie corrected her.

Pinkie shook her head, her mane bouncing wildly. “I don’t know! Maybe? I just know I like him a lot and that what you almost did could have hurt that. I’m actually sort of angry at you for that.”

“You should be,” Euporie said with a savage grin. “I’d be angry at me, too!”

Pinkie Pie glanced down at her glass of soda-pop and then back up at Euporie. It was as if she had made some sort of decision, but she didn’t give voice to it right away. She reached up to exaggeratedly scratch the side of her head. After a few seconds, she nodded to herself and slammed a hoof on the table, though not too loudly, just enough to signify she had come to some sort of conclusion.

“You said before what you thought about what I was doing, right?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Euporie replied, raising an eyebrow at the odd question.

“Well!” Pinkie Pie replied, “I’ve been thinking a lot about you, well, you and butterscotch. Is there scotch in butterscotch? I tried mixing whiskey and butter and it didn’t taste anything like it should have!”

“…” It was hard to even formulate a response. “What?”

“The mystery of butterscotch… how does it work?” Pinkie shook her head with a ‘glglglg’ sound. “But I was thinking about that and you, kind of in parallel. And like I said, I’ve been thinking a lot about your party and about all these parties I took you to. I guess I did sort of drag you along, even though we were just supposed to apologize to all the ponies who went to your special party.”

“Thinking about that and asking Twilight about your sister then made me think about my sisters!” Pinkie prattled on, to her guest’s growing befuddlement. “Did you know I have sisters?”

Pinkie didn’t wait for Euporie to answer.

“There’s Inkie, and then there’s Blinkie!” she said with a happy smile. “Inkie is the really serious one, so I guess she’s a little like your sister! She’s the oldest. Then there’s Blinkie, and she likes to goof off sometimes and watch clouds but only when nopony is looking, and then there’s me, Pinkie!”

The happy, almost self-congratulatory statement tapered off as Pinkie’s voice became oddly serious.

“I’m… I’m not like my sisters,” she admitted, struggling with the words a little. “Mean ponies used to say I was adopted or… or that…” She took a breath and forced herself to go on. “It doesn’t matter what they used to say. I wasn’t a stupid filly. I thought stuff like that, too. I mean, I’m so pink and everypony else is so… gray, even Granny Pie. It was a super-super—”

“Superficial,” Euporie guessed.

“Superficial, yeah!” Pinkie Pie smiled for a second but only a second. “It was only skin deep, and Mommy and Daddy Pie said not to worry.” Her smile cracked the surface again. “‘I was in labor with you for eighteen hours, Pinkamena Diane Pie! You’re definitely one of ours!’ That’s what Mommy Pie used to say. And anyway, I didn’t mind the color after a while; I even really liked looking different!”

“The problem was…” She hesitated again and snapped up one of the onion rings to chew on. “Inkie and Blinkie were hard-working ponies, and I… wasn’t really. Our personalities were as different as our colors. Even though we were all a family and all sisters, sometimes… sometimes it didn’t feel like we were related at all. Nothing made me sadder than thinking that, and sometimes the thoughts just wouldn’t go away. It was…”

She chewed on the onion string a little longer and swallowed.

“It was lonely,” Pinkie Pie admitted. “It was really lonely.”

Euporie, despite dismissing the earlier rambling, found she had been listening intently to the story. So much so that she was waiting, with bated breath, for Pinkie to say more. There had to be more to it, didn’t there?

“And?” she finally pressed.

Pinkie shook her head. “When I got my cutie mark, it wasn’t just me throwing a party and making ponies happy. I was happy, too. I was happy because I realized that there was a little me in them, and a little them in me. I felt like I fit in and… I wasn’t lonely anymore.”

Euporie ground her teeth together, and the more seconds ticked by after Pinkie finished her story, the angrier she became. Sparks started to fly from her horn, and the table began to tremble, then the floor and then the entire restaurant. She heard worried ponies start to mutter nervously at the seething unicorn, but only one worked up the courage to approach and whisper something in her ear, a plea to calm down and, if at all possible, not bring the building down on their heads, please?

A long, slow breath served to rein in her magic.

She waved the other pony off, her eyes never leaving Pinkie Pie.

“So,” Euporie finally said, “Is that it? You think I’m lonely? You’re wrong. Your story has nothing to do with me.”

Pinkie Pie blinked, innocently. “I never said it did. Did I?” She scratched her head again, obliviously. “I can’t remember.”

Euporie’s left eye twitched, and she growled.

“Be that way then,” she said. “Play dumb all you like.”

“Playing dumb doesn’t sound fun,” Pinkie argued, somehow totally serious. “Why would anypony pretend to be dumb?”

Euporie’s hooves gestured right at the pink mare. “You’re doing it again?”

“Doing what?”

“Playing dumb!”

“Huh?”

“AAARGH!”

The two party mares stood at the crossroads. Despite the altercation earlier, Pinkie Pie and Euporie had left the restaurant together, and better, they had left the restaurant itself intact! It was a minor miracle, really.

“I’m done with apologies,” Euporie stated after a long silence that hung over the pair. “I did what I said I’d do – what Eunomie made me do – so… this is where we part ways.”

Pinkie Pie sucked in a breath of fresh air and the smell of the town marketplace nearby. “I don’t think so.”

Euporie glared at the pink mare. “Eh?”

“You did the apologies and stuff, like you promised, but I haven’t gotten you to really smile yet,” Pinkie explained. “That means this isn’t over.”

“It is,” Euporie insisted, starting to trot away back to the library. She paused, though, and looked over her shoulder, trying to score one last Parthian shot. “If you bump into me again in Canterlot… I won’t make any guarantees about your safety. I might just kill you.”

“I’ll file your invitations under the ‘special friend’ category,” Pinkie promised, waving and smiling in the face of the threat.

“Lunatic,” Euporie hissed, heading for what passed for home. She never had found out what the crazy mare planned to do with the Flim Flam brothers. It was another damned loose end to tie up.

‘I was happy, too. I was happy because I realized that there was a little me in them, and a little them in me. I felt like I fit in and… I wasn’t lonely anymore.’

Her lips drew back in a snarl.

“Pinkie Pie,” she whispered. “I’ll make you regret those words.”

The assassin came at night, as assassins often do.

“You’re not a changeling,” Alpha Brass stated, still seated at the desk in the center of the castle bedroom. A crackling fire danced and popped in the maw of one of the Palace’s many ornate mantlepieces. This one featured two struggling dragons, long necks entwined around facets of reflective glass, their mouths pointed downward. The fire, along with a few flickering candles, lit the room in a mellow orange glow.

“A what?” the assassin asked, pressing the tip of the dagger into his throat.

Brass finished signing his name to the letter on the table and put the quill down in an inkwell.

“A changeling,” he repeated.

“Shut up,” the assassin demanded. The voice was female, slightly higher than normal. Young. He had yet to see her face. “Don’t yell for help… or I’ll stab you. Don’t make any quick moves, and don’t light up your horn… or I’ll stab you. Understand? Nod if you do.”

The Equestrian Marquis nodded, even though doing so threatened to drive the dagger’s point through his skin. It puckered the surface but didn’t quite pierce. Yet. He heard drawers open. From this distance, it had to be magic. The mare was a fellow unicorn, then.

A bottle of scotch, single malt, landed on his desk.

Alongside it was a tiny, crystal clear vial. Unlabeled.

The mare opened the glass cap of the flask-shaped whiskey bottle and promptly ruined the entire batch by pouring in the poison. Brass frowned at the waste. Still, it would give the impression that the bottle itself had been poisoned beforehoof and thus lay suspicion that the bottle had been planted in the room.

“Which poison did she choose for me?” he asked, and the dagger pressed a little harder. He flinched away so it wouldn’t draw blood.

“I said shut up,” the assassin whispered, strident and hurried in her task.

Brass closed his eyes and sighed, resigned to what was to come.

This mare was no changeling. She did not even know of the changelings. She was either a dupe, or, more likely, she was ensnared by one of her family or friends being replaced. She was taking pains not to let the condemned stallion see her eyes, and it was difficult to tell just from her voice. It was also possible she was a professional doing a job, but Brass knew most of the very few ponies in Equestria who voluntarily took on this sort of work. She was not one he knew.

Chrysalis. She always did make such blunt, forward moves.

Instead of dwelling on such a sad topic, Alpha Brass decided to think back on his meeting with the Princess. Celestia had been radiant as always, even as she drew out giving him permission to speak, forcing him to follow meekly while she wandered around her garden inspecting plants and playing with her pet phoenix. Twilight had clearly spoken to her of many things.

Celestia had known about his and Twilight’s upcoming engagement. She had deduced the plan to seize control of the Terre Rare main branch. Her only real question had been if he was “using” her dear apprentice in some way and what traction he thought he had that could help bring about peace between Canterlot and Neighpon.

“As Marquis of the Frontier, I am also Custodian of the Seas, and over the years, I have cultivated good relations with the duchies that rely on oceangoing trade, especially Neighpon. It has always been my policy to streamline commerce and encourage interaction with other races, equine or otherwise. This is a policy you know has paid off. Equestria is colonizing and expanding for the first time in generations, especially in reclaiming Scandaneighvia near the Old Kingdoms and in the newly equiformed Appleoosa region…”

Celestia nodded, motioning for him to get to the point.

He cleared his throat. “Neighpon possesses the country’s largest fleet of ships and conducts all her trade over the sea. Lord Yama is a friend of mine. More than that, he also knows that he needs me. I am the only pony in Equestria that can strangle his duchy without casting a single spell.” Seeing Celestia start to frown, he smiled and raised a hoof. “Please, I only state what is true. It was this need to cooperate, to benefit from one another, which has brought the two of us together. It was the foundation of our friendship.”

“I have heard whispers that you assisted Lady Yumi in getting to Ponyville,” the Princess revealed, probably to see how he would react. He had to know what she knew at least a little already.

“I did,” he admitted with a resigned sigh. “She wished to surprise the new duchy with a pas d’arms. As a favor, I helped her get to the town in secret and provided some other support. This ultimately makes me responsible for allowing the situation to develop such that, I fear, things nearly became a near-tragedy with my sister.”

“Oh?” Celestia asked, her expression betraying none of her surprise at his words. He already suspected she knew that it was Chalice who had killed Master Shigure in the Everfree Forest. Chalice who was sister to Alpha Brass. How did he intend to negotiate with Lord Yama after that?

“Chalice is still Terre Rare,” Brass said with a sad ‘hmm.’ “She has not forgotten what it would mean for the family to have the Prince in our debt. She acted rashly in following his orders and in believing it would curry her favor. Had she succeeded, I know both the Prince and my sister would have regretted their actions. I only hope than an apology from me, on her behalf, will mean something to Lord Yama and that we can fall back on our many years of friendship and goodwill. I may be the only one who can make amends for all this.”

Celestia sat back on her haunches, examining the pony before her.

“Go on,” she told him. “What about my nephew?”

“At first glance, I have little traction with him,” Brass went on to say, “However, if he were to know about my arrangement and my engagement with Twilight Sparkle…”

Celestia could see it. Brass announcing an engagement with Twilight would instantly upset the order of things within the Terre Rare. It would fit Blueblood to back this new power-play within the rival family. If the choice was to have a Terre Rare house run by either Twilight or Cruciger, Blueblood would literally have to pick Twilight. This would make Brass a natural ally and one he could not ignore or snub.

“I trust you are not stringing my apprentice along as part of some grand political gambit,” Celestia spoke softly but with just the faintest implied threat. “Twilight Sparkle is very dear to me. As much as I would champion you seeking peace in this, I would not and will not see it take place at the expense of her happiness.”

Brass lowered his eyes deferentially. “You misjudge me, Princess.”

“Do I?”

“It has always been my intention to make peace between the Terre Rare and the Bluebloods, not between the Bluebloods and the Neighponese Garlands,” he explained and raised his eyes again to meet hers. “In this case, one simply leads to the other. Twilight shares my desire to end this family feud…”

He smiled, and it was a bright, boyish, crooked smile. “I will make her happy, I promise you. She is a lovely mare and, if I must be honest, I have always had a soft spot for diligent, studious ponies. After Olive Branch, I think Twilight will be like a soothing balm. It will be… almost like starting over.”

The Princess was a hard one to read, but she knew of Twinkling Star Light, his mother, and her rather legendary love of knowledge and research. She had been at the ceremony when he had married the much older Olive Branch and had even asked if he wanted some way to get out of it. She knew he had not been in a loving relationship.

Princess Celestia pinned him with a look but, ultimately, she nodded. Just once.

“There is a political angle to it, yes,” he conceded. “But I believe we are compatible. If our union also brings harmony to Equestria, then isn’t that all the better?”

“Do this and treat Twilight as she deserves to be treated,” Celestia told him, gracefully holding out a foreleg as her phoenix preened burning feathers in its wings. “And you will have my favor, Alpha Brass.”

And now Chrysalis thought to poison him and, he suspected, pin the blame on Neighpon. It wasn’t an artless move – calling it that would be too unkind – but it was as subtle as a brick to the face. The fact that she hadn’t sent a changeling to do the job showed her fear and her desperation. Indoctrinated ponies would be her most valuable and deniable asset. The changeling responsible for the mind control would slip away whether the pony succeeded or failed.

With him dead, not only did Chrysalis imagine she would have free reign over the attack on Canterlot, but she could send Canterlot’s defenders away to protect the city against Neighpon, leaving it even more vulnerable. No other noble of note and stately name would pick up the cause if he died. They would perceive the venture as all too caustic and all too risky. The burdens would all fall on the Princess herself, further distracting her before the wedding.

“Drink!” the assassin demanded, presenting him with a glass of poisoned scotch. The dagger pressed into his throat. “Now! And don’t try anything funny. Just drink.”

Alpha Brass reached for the glass and sighed.

What a waste of life this would be. But, perhaps, some good could come of it.

The Royal Guards came at the sound of screams, bursting in through the door. Alpha Brass kept his back to them, quill returned to paper as he wrote another letter by candlelight. Behind him, one of the castle maids screamed and convulsed, a bloody froth dribbling out of her mouth as she kicked and bucked at some invisible terror. Her eyes were bloodshot and blind to the rest of the world.

The poison had been Devil’s Trumpet and Henbane.

Chrysalis had not intended for him to have a gentle or dignified death. How like her. Hemlock would have been his choice for anypony he respected enough to poison.

“My Lord!” One of his own guardponies pushed past the stallions of the Royal Guard. The Amazonian earth pony mare paid no mind to the poisoned mare on the floor and rushed to bow beside him.

“You may wish to take away that poor mare,” he said, addressing the Royal Guards. “She’s been rather grievously poisoned. And send in somepony to take away the rug, if you please.”

Snapping out of their shocked state, the Guards quickly went to work, securing the room, identifying the bottle of now-deadly whiskey and the tiny vial of pure poison and otherwise recalling the professionalism for which most of Equestria lauded them. Other guards dragged away the screaming, delusional maid. She flailed wildly against them, her mind lost to the feverish toxins coursing through her veins. Her veins and his, really. There were already well-trained guards calling for activated charcoal and anti-toxin potions.

It would be nice if they could save her.

He had been careful to only drink a tiny sip of the poison, which meant she could still survive.

“My Lord?” his guardsmare asked again.

He floated a scroll to her.

“I believe this is the one responsible,” he said, softly. “The changeling. Find her. Verify it. Then follow her trail to the others. When you are done, and if at all possible, being the creature to me. I will send my friend, the little Queen-to-be, a message in blood and tears.”

“I understand,” the Amazonian mare replied and immediately turned to leave.

Left alone again, Alpha Brass dipped the quill in the inkwell and stared into the fire beneath the mantelpiece. What had happened to the maid was his doing, of course. He had not come to Canterlot simply to serve as intermediary between Neighpon and Canterlot. He had not come simply to meet with Twilight and set the stone rolling on their engagement… to be seen together before they made their announcement and their challenge to the rest of his family.

He had come to Canterlot to flush out the game and to play the part of irresistible bait.

The game was now flushed, the arrow buried deep, and the shadowy chase was on.

“I should not enjoy this as much as I do,” he muttered to himself, a smile parting his lips at the promise of what was to come. “But we all have our vices.”

He returned to writing his letter.

Things were moving nicely; all that was left was for Cadance to be ready by her Wedding Day.

Antimony, Twilight soon learned, had come to town in a personal train carriage inconspicuously carried along with the normal traffic of the Friendship Express. Ponyville was a part of the extended Canterlot Line, but Antimony must have brushed a few hooves to have her ride discretely attached during a layover somewhere in Prance. She had come in on the day of the Art Festival… and helped Rarity during the pollen attack, by and large without being noticed. Compared to her first trip to Ponyville, the Baroness was being incredibly cautious.

Nearly having her eyes gouged out in her sleep may have played a part in that.

Walking towards the train yard and Antimony’s personal traincar, Twilight found herself with a great deal of time to ponder Antimony’s earlier words. She had said that there may have been some means of spell amplification – like the legendary Crystal Heart – but that it was a family secret. Or maybe it involved a family secret somehow.

The main branch Terre Rare, Twilight had come to realize, had a great many secrets. Fluttershy had told her about what Chalice had done in the Everfree, and Alpha Brass had displayed a number of esoteric and remarkable magics. Even Eunomie, though not a Terre Rare by blood, had very impressive contract-magic of a sort Twilight had not encountered before. She also thought hard on the torc still in her library. Alpha Brass had told her that his mother had studied and possibly restored it, years ago. It was amazing that the Terre Rare had artifacts of this sort in their possession… and it was equally amazing to think of the pioneering research Lady Star Light must have done! But if they had magic like that, then what else was in their hooves and in their most secret books and scrolls?

Deep in thought, Twilight saw Antimony’s personal traincar up ahead, currently unhitched to any of the nearby trains. It was very subdued, appearing as neither a richly adorned personal car nor a utilitarian passenger car. The windows were large, but tinted for privacy, and reinforced by ironwork. There was wooden trim and a wooden façade, but it was of sturdy metal construction. It was stylish in a way, but it probably wouldn’t be winning any fashion awards. On the other hoof, it looked like it could take a beating before somepony broke inside.

Two guards stood at attention near the door in Terre Rare crimson dolmans.

“What is this all about?” Twilight asked as they approached. The two guards – one was the tough-looking pegasus mare from her last visit, the other was a tall and grim-faced Germane stallion with a beard – saluted their Baroness.

“I know you are in collusion with my brother,” Antimony stated, nodding to her guards.

“C-collusion?” Twilight stuttered, laughing nervously. “We’re just friends!”

Antimony paused to glare at her, all the while keeping her eyes lidded. “Whenever a mare says ‘we’re just friends’ with that sort of voice, it usually means she and the other pony aren’t just friends.”

Twilight sucked in her cheeks and pouted sourly at being seen through so easily.

“Is this going to be a problem?” she asked.

“Yes. It is,” Antimony insisted. “It will be a problem in time. If you stand by my brother, he will inevitably use you against me. But…” The Baroness closed her eyes and let out a weary sigh. “I will not let this interfere with our attempts to save Canterlot.”

“I’m glad,” Twilight replied, not sure what else to say. She and Brass were both committed to replacing the current main branch of the family with her own.

“As for what I wanted to tell you…” Antimony opened the door.

“HI!”

“WA-AAA!” The noblemare screeched, falling back on her rump as a pink blur bounced out of the door. Pinkie Pie released the prone mare from her hug and started pronking and bouncing gleefully in a circle around her and Twilight both.

“Monee’s back and Twi’s here! Monee’s back and Twi’s here! Monee’s back and Twi’s here!”

“Yes, quite,” Antimony grumbled, clutching her chest as she staggered to her hooves. “Gewitter, did you know…?”

“Forgive me.” The pegasus bodyguard lowered her head in a bow. “I thought it would be a pleasant surprise. Shall I toss her back into the train station?”

“Oh boy!” Pinkie suddenly appeared behind the burly mare, still smiling happily. “I love being thrown around!”

“Another time,” Antimony promised. Twilight simply shook her head.

“Come inside,” the Baroness insisted, leading the way. The train car was divided into two sections, one for Antimony herself and a smaller bunk in the back for her guards. Inside the main cabin, Twilight could see all the amenities that were disguised by the utilitarian appearance of the car on the outside. Antimony had a wooden desk, two shelves of books along the walls, a door to an antechamber that had to be a washroom, a small, ornate table, and several comfortable-looking chairs…

And, of course, Pinkie had added to the décor in her own way, splashing multicolored streamers and balloons liberally around the cabin. A banner read: ‘Welcome Back Monee’ in flowery capital letters. The desk supported, in addition to papers, scrolls, inkwells, and other necessary materials, a large three-layered tray of sweets.

“I know you like more subdued parties, so I made this one super somber. See?” Pinkie asked, pointing to a three balloons among the dozen in the room. “Only three pink ones! That’s as somber as I can get.” Her face turned instantly staid and resolute. “Seriously. That’s as somber as I get.”

“I appreciate it,” Antimony told her with a small smile. She reached for one of the small chocolate treats on the tray and took a minute bite. “Pinkie Pie, I am about to tell Twilight something. I can trust you with a secret, right?”

“Can you trust me with a secret, she asks!” Pinkie made a production of laughing at the question. “Oh ho ho. Ha ha ha.”

“Nopony keeps a secret better than Pinkie Pie,” Twilight spoke from personal experience. “Forever.”

“Forever,” Pinkie promised.

“Very well then.” Antimony floated the chocolate confection into a napkin while she spoke. “Twilight Sparkle. If you wish to cast a five-alliteration spell, there is one living mare who can teach you to do so… aside from the Princesses, and it will be suspicious to broach this subject with them.”

“Who?” Twilight asked, cautiously. “You said no pony since Arsenic…”

Antimony slowly closed her eyes. “Yes. No pony since Arsenic, and our great, great grandmother, Lady Arsenic… still lives.”

Chapter Thirty Five : Interlude (the beginning)

Interlude (the beginning)

Luna

TOP SECRET

Compartmentalized Access P 1-2, P 1-2A, NG2+

DO NOT REPRODUCE

REPORT on Incident Sierra Breaker Bull

“Appleoosa Incident”

Compiled From Night Guard Field Intelligence Assets

This is a PRELIMINARY REPORT for Princess’s Eyes Only. All data and analysis is based on unprocessed primary sources. Conclusions should be regarded as HIGHLY TENTATIVE.

This information is current as of timestamp

1001.08.12.0400

PRECIS

At roughly 1600 hours 1001.08.08, in the frontier town of Appleoosa, an unusually large outbreak of violence occurred between the Equestrian settlers and the indigenous bison population. Of note was not only the scale but the timing of the incident, as large numbers of ponies and bison were present in the town to celebrate an anniversary of peaceful coexistence following the short-lived conflict last year. Between 1600 and 1800 hours, the violence either spread or re-ignited in several areas both inside and outside of town, including within the bison camp itself. Compared to the incident a year ago [see Dawn Guard Records] the level of violence seen in this case was much more severe. No ponies are reported killed as of this time, though some were badly wounded. Additionally, a large number of indigenous bison are being treated for serious injuries.

Efforts continue to identify the cause of the incident.

TIMELINE

[Princess, I have added a timeline to the report, but bear in mind that much of it is speculative]

1001.08.08.0600

Indigenous Bison tribe finishes setting up camp outside Appleoosa on the invitation of the town. Gifts are exchanged, and the chief (Thunderhooves) speaks to a small crowd outside the town hall. The chief is given a pie - in an engraved, golden pan - as a sign of peace (?) and friendship. The pie is consumed on the spot as a sign of trust (?).

1001.08.08.1200

Celebrations begin inside the town and in the Bison camp and continue without serious incident.

1001.08.08.1600

The earliest report of an altercation occurs around this time, as a fight breaks out at a local salt and watering hole.

1001.08.08.1633

A traincar is attacked and another train overturned as rioting spills out into the streets.

1001.08.08.1630 (tentative)

Fights break out within the Bison camp between settlers and indigenous natives.

1001.08.08.1630 (tentative)

A farmstead outside town is trampled and the family there attacked.

1001.08.08.1700

Attempts to restore order devolve into more violence.

1001.08.08.1800

The riot abruptly ends. Most indigenous Bison in town are wounded or unable to continue to fight. The mob abruptly stops within half a mile of the Bison camp and withdraws back to Appleoosa.

1001.08.08.1820

The wounded are taken to a triage station by the railroad.

1001.08.09.0900

Authorities arrive from the Vice-Duchy of the Frontier to investigate.

1001.08.09.1500

Apology issued to the Bison on behalf of the Vice-Duchy (of the Equestrian Southern Marche). Mediation between indigenous Bison and Equestrian settlers concludes. Festivities for next year are put on indefinite hold. Bison tribe is given permission to vacate the area at their convenience and to resume normal activity near and around the Appleoosa region after no less than twenty days.

1001.08.09.1740

A small contingent of guardponies arrives to keep the settlers and natives separate and enforce peace.

1001.08.09.1800

Night Guard dispatched to area to conduct independent investigation.

INTELLIGENCE SOURCES

Civilian interviews

Indigenous first-hoof accounts

Vice-Duchy and Colonial Admin records

Vice-Duchy CDC staff

ANALYSIS of CIVILIAN INTERVIEWS

[Transcripts are attached]

The settlers of Appleoosa all describe the initial moments of the incident in great detail, but frequently fall into exaggeration or confusion regarding the details of the riot itself. It is expected that many are purposefully obfuscating to diminish their culpability in the ensuing violence. The Night Guard conducted interviews of more than a dozen witnesses in, around, and outside of town, including the Mayor and Sheriff.

All reports indicate that the festival was peaceful up until the initial incident at 1600 hours. There was some rowdiness, especially in the center of the town where a large dancing ground had been set up, but there is not a single report of a fight or serious argument breaking out before that time. While this would not account for pre-existing personal disputes coming to a head during the festival or private disputes becoming suddenly and unexpectedly violent, town authorities insist that Appleoosa had been stressing a policy of reconciliation and harmony with the indigenous Bison population. They were on watch for just the sort of personal fighting that is difficult to identify after the fact.

Most accounts from the town agree that the riot began at a local bar and salt tavern, where ponies and Bison alike were consuming heavily. The center of the dispute was speculated to be one “Braeburn Apple” and his close (allegedly romantic) relationship with a Bison female by the name of “Strongheart.” Voices within the establishment rapidly grew louder and angrier before erupting in a pitched fight between ponies and Bison. This then spilled out to the streets and the dancing circles and festival grounds.

A minority of accounts conflict with the above, however, indicating that violence had broken out or was already breaking out elsewhere in town at around the same time. Three accounts in particular deviate from the aforementioned narrative. One was from a civilian on the edge of town who felt a “sudden urge” to kick the Bison he had been playing cards with. A second account, from Braeburn Apple – who had been at the Bison camp and not the bar – indicates that ponies and Bison were already fighting sometime between 1600 and 1630 hours (the last of any timepiece makes his account difficult to substantiate). A third account came from a family at a homestead three miles from town, where a clock was visible. A small party of Bison braves approached the house, looking for directions to the town, and the meeting quickly turned violent, resulting in the destruction of the house. This incident may also have begun at early as 1600 hours, though the house itself was destroyed around 1630.

Many civilians reported a sense of “intoxication” that predisposed them towards a violent act. Some few used this excuse to explain a fight with another pony, but the vast majority (three in four) indicated a compulsion to fight the indigenous Bison they had invited to their town. Others claimed that “spirits were high” and that they had not forgotten the events of the previous year. Most were not openly repentant, regretting only that they had hurt the Bison, not that they had expelled them.

ANALYSIS of INDIGENOUS ACCOUNTS

[Transcripts are attached]

Those natives we still had access to and who were willing to talk corroborated much of what we compiled from the civilian interviews. We were unable to locate the braves who destroyed the farmstead outside town, but we were able to find several Bison who had been involved in incidents around town and not just at the bar or the dance circles. None had any form of timepiece, however, and they could not give an impression of when the violence broke out. Their accounts, though expectedly jaundiced, all indicate that ponies were the aggressor group.

Of particular note with respect to the indigenous accounts of the violence is the means in which the fighting took place. Previously, the Appleoosa settlers used laced and unlaced pastries to deter a Bison stampede through their town (with mixed results). All accounts of the current fighting indicate that the pony settlers moved to physically assault their opponents and continued to press the fight with great zeal.

ANALYSIS of VICE-DUCHY RECORDS

While the Colonial Administration of the Greater Equestrian Marche did not maintain garrisoned forces in Appleoosa at the time of the incident, a medical CDC unit was on-hoof during the festival and quartered out of a mobile railroad car. They were present testing for and treating Brucellosis in both the Bison and Equestrian settler populations and taking advantage of the festival to inoculate both populations.

Brucellosis is a contagious disease known to be endemic in the nomadic Bison tribes, capable of infecting a wide range of other species, including domestic cattle, pets like dogs, and even Equestrian ponies of all three breeds. The disease localizes in the udder or breasts, lymphatic system, and reproductive tissue, frequently resulting in miscarriages, infertility, reduced milk production, lameness, swollen joints, and swollen testicles. Prior to 1000.02 there was no treatment for the disease, and it was a leading factor in keeping the Appleoosa region closed for Equestrian settlement. A cure was developed by the Vice-Duchy Center for Disease Control, permitting settlement, and the CDC was present to both ensure the safety of the pony population and to begin to inoculate the Bison tribes.

Vice-Duchy records are much more precise than those of the civilian or indigenous interviews, indicating that the violence in town had reached the rail yard by a little after 1630 hours. An attack on the trains themselves was initiated by the Bison, successful in derailing one train but repulsed from an attack on the CDC mobile headquarters itself. After the fighting ended, virtually all of the badly wounded were taken to the CDC doctors for triage and treatment. We were given free access to CDC records, as the doctors tested for a disease-factor in the outbreak of violence, but the results were negative.

PRELIMINARY DISCUSSION

INTOXICATION

This factor remains a possibility, but does not explain the violence among populations that had not been drinking heavily or ingesting salt.

DISEASE

CDC records indicate no presence of diseases that could affect judgment or the mind, and all interviewees appeared lucid and cooperative just a day after the incident. Night Guard healers were unable to detect either magical or mundane maladies present, aside from Brucellosis among the Bison population.

CONTAMINATION

CDC medical records indicate the names of all the ponies and Bison vaccinated with the Brucellosis cure. This includes the entire town of Appleoosa, who were inoculated two to one year ago, and a small number of ponies who were checked up on before and during the festival. Out of the entire Bison population, only twenty-four had been vaccinated before the riot. We have been unable to discern any pattern between the recent medical activity and the perpetrators of the violence. As an example, not a single pony in the bar where violence may have first broken out was part of the CDC test study. Both the Equestrian and indigenous populations were tested at random and present no clear correlation at this time.

Additional investigation of the CDC after Appleoosa was able to track the clean-cars to a depot outside Canterlot. An independent investigation had yet to find any sort of contamination that could account for the violence in Appleoosa.

MAGICAL OUTBREAK

All but two civilian interviews indicated a strange compulsion towards violence on the part of the settler ponies, directed towards the indigenous Bison. One even described it as a “battle rage” of sorts. This is corroborated by the Bison accounts of aggression on the part of ponies, often displayed suddenly and with little-to-no warning. It takes years of training a pony to stress ‘fight’ over ‘flight’ in a confrontation. There are first-hoof accounts of young mares attacking Bison many times their size in this incident – accounts that cannot be easily dismissed as exaggeration.

Another factor that points towards a ‘magical outbreak’ of some sort is the disproportionate harm done to the Bison compared to that suffered by the settler ponies. The average Appleoosa pony is one fourth to one fifth the mass of an adult Bison. In a physical confrontation, even an earth pony would be easily outmatched. This disparity is exacerbated by the fact that most Appleoosa ponies have no martial training, whereas almost all Bison, male and female, are “braves” at some point and thus possessed of some experience in close combat. The males are also well-versed in the clash and bear horns that can easily kill or dismember a pony in CQB.

Yet, records after the riot indicate that the Bison were universally set upon by the settlers. Some were mobbed by numbers; others took down Bison by themselves. According to the Bison themselves, they did not hesitate to fight back, but were overmatched, to their own confusion (and, it should be added, many were shamed as well).

Dawn Guard records point to two possible sources of a magical outbreak that could have this effect. A bio-manipulation spell (physiomancy) could both enrage and empower an average pony to the level where it could fight with a Bison and win. However, all spells of this type on record are proscribed, and we did not detect any traces of body-altering magic in the Appleoosa settlers or indigenous Bison. There is also a parasite, C. horribilis, that was once endemic to parts of Equestria and that could cause an effect similar to rabies in its victims. The hosts’ bodies were mutated and compelled to attack others to spread the parasite. However, C. horribilis was eradicated over eight hundred years ago after the Second Great Ponyformation of Equestria, and there were no traces of malformation in the Appleoosa settlers.

CONCLUSION

The exact nature of the Appleoosa incident is still under investigation, but it is the conclusion of Night Guard Field Intelligence that there was some magical component to the riot that broke out between the Equestrian settlers and the indigenous natives. There is no other accounting for the lack of injuries among the pony settlers, the suddenness and ferocity of the violence, the impressions of “anger” described by many ponies, and “helplessness” felt by many Bison.

Your Royal Highness,

Princess Luna,

As this occurred in my lands, naturally I would be happy to share any information I have with you regarding the unfortunate incident in Appleoosa. As you may know, my main concern in the area is the elimination of Brucellosis, the better to improve the health of both pony and non-pony alike, but it is in all our interests to promote harmony between ponies and our non-pony neighbors. If you wish it, I can send a company of my best doctors along with your Night Guard to conduct more tests. Otherwise, I fear I am still terribly indisposed dealing with the negotiations between Neighpon and Canterlot, to say nothing of other commitments. These things are important, but must be delegated to my subordinates.

I hope and pray that the violence in Appleoosa will prove to be an anomaly that does not repeat itself, but I will also keep a few guardponies close to the town, just to be sure.

Feel free to call on me at any time.

Respectfully,

Alpha Brass

Auntie

Our physiomancy spells are all locked up in the Blueblood Archives. I don’t know any, but I’m quite sure nopony has even read those old scrolls in generations. Why do you ask? And C. horribilis? My aide tells me it is some sort of germ or worm? I assure you that even my family would not keep such a ghastly thing.

Also, I’m terribly afraid I must ask that we postpone any future “gaming nights” until after the royal wedding. I know I have been somewhat reclusive of late, but I also know we will have a great deal of time to spend together once my Princess-sister is off on her well-earned honeymoon. I look forward to it and to getting reacquainted with my favorite Aunt.

Blueblood

Princess Luna stared at the scrolls and letters floating before her… before tossing them all into the fire in her personal quarters. The deed done, she rang a bell and waited for the door to open. She didn’t turn from the fire and the crackling white and red embers within it. Closing her eyes, she recalled all she had read. How wrong so much of it felt in her heart, for all the sense some of it made in her mind.

It was time to revisit a certain pony’s dreams.

It was time to get some real answers.

Eunomie (i)

Is it strange that I do not know when my mother was replaced by a monster?

It probably is.

I have never been good at reading others, you see. Understand that I would have expected Euporie to notice. She is the one with an eye for that sort of nuance. But if she did have a sense for when our mother ceased to be our mother, she never said anything. As a result, I can’t say when Olive Branch became a changeling, only that the switch occurred sometime in my fillyhood.

Euporie jokes, sometimes, that our real mother is on an extended vacation to the Gallopagos, being fanned with palm-leaves by tanned, muscular colts and sipping liqueur from a hollow coconut. She laughs when she describes it, but even she knows the truth. Our biological mother died, alone and afraid. Nopony ever found her body. To this day, nopony knows how the deed was even done. My own hypothesis is that it was one of her lovers. My mother had many lovers, you know. She likely took a changeling to bed, and the creature took the opportunity to replace her. If that was the case, then she was likely kept in a cell or a cocoon until her body wasted away, many years later.

I would like to say ‘I miss her,’ but I do not.

From what I later learned, the Queen Chrysalis who replaced my mother, Olive Branch, was not like the current Queen Chrysalis. Like most changelings, the elder Queen’s brood was kept small and unobtrusive. Her foremost concern was to survive within pony society unnoticed. She had, perhaps, a swarm that numbered in the dozens. She was nothing like the current Queen, who commands many more than a thousand.

I will not go on about my mother further. She died, and a changeling took her place. It was, I think, the first changeling to also find itself in a position of political power in Equestria. My mother was the Marquessa of the Frontier. The March, or ‘Marche,’ it is called, and in turn divided up into those colonies to the east, west, south, north, and overseas. Administratively, it is a Vice-Duchy. The Marquessa is a Duchess in all but name.

As I said, my mother’s part in things ends with her death.

Her death is also where the changeling invasion truly began.

Rarity

“Hell-lloo? Is anypony home?”

Rarity’s head dipped from left to right, sending a magical cone of light racing across the irregular cave walls. The source of the illumination was a hat of her own recent design, blue and black instead of that gaudy construction-saffron yellow, with a fashionably wide rim and a pastel bandanna affixed to the back to cover one’s mane and protect it from nasty things like dust. It would probably be a little less effective against a cave-in, but it looked as close to chic and fashion-fabulous as Rarity thought a hardhat could.

A second beam of light washed over an upturned mining cart of the sort Rarity recalled pulling during her last visit to the gem fields outside Ponyville’s limits. Spike had come along with her – the little dragon had been absolutely insistent – and he paused close to the cart to get a better look at it. It was one of the wheeled carts designed to be used off-track or even off-road. Others were meant to stay on the metal rails that ran through the thicker sections of the mines, just like little railroad cars in miniature. Like most things here, much of it was rusted from lack of maintenance or care. Another pony could be forgiven for thinking these mines were simply abandoned.

Well, they really did seem abandoned at the moment… but Rarity knew better.

“This way, I believe,” she said, leading her group down a somewhat familiar tunnel.

A pair of rough teenage voices grumbled, and heavy claw-steps followed behind her. She caught a glimpse of Garble out of the corner of her eye as the dragon used a claw to liberate something shiny from the cave wall nearby. It was only common quartz, Rarity knew, and as she expected, he tossed it aside once he realized how little it was worth. She’d less expected him to actually break off a piece and roll it over in his mouth like a piece of sour candy.

Garble and Fizzle were two of her escorts for this little expedition, with Spike being an unexpected third. The point of it had been to strike some sort of accommodation with the diamond dogs living close to Ponyville. Now that she was Baroness, Rarity understood that they all fell under her jurisdiction to varying degrees. She had left them to their own affairs since they had abducted her last year, but she had always wondered and feared that they might try a second time with another pony. Even if they had not repeated their mistake, the dogs were still living under her Barony now. Some sort of groundwork had to be laid to make sure that the gems here were being extracted in a way that wasn’t purely opportunistic.

Rarity frowned a little at that thought, knowing it to be somewhat ironic. Her own motives for last visiting here had not been exactly altruistic. Seen from a certain light, she had been just as opportunistic as the diamond dogs in her pursuit of gems and material gain. Nonetheless, she had something of a duty now to see the bigger picture. Bitaly had deals with their diamond dogs in Canida. There was no reason Ponyville could not do something similar, especially since Spike’s dragon friends had come to Ponyville to expand their personal hoards. Everypony and every-being stood to benefit from working together.

The first step was, obviously, to find the diamond dogs…

She honestly did not remember them being this elusive!

Back when she had been captured by them, the dogs had been almost everywhere in these caves, as common – and in many cases as gross – as lichen or mushrooms on a damp wall. Later, when she had talked her way into basically running their little group, she had seen where they lived and stored their jewels and other valuables. To her surprise and delight, the diamond dogs had amassed enough gems to keep the Carousel Boutique in stock for years. She and her friends had procured about half of it for services rendered. Privately, Rarity had pushed for so much not just to offset their initially rough treatment of her, but also so she wouldn’t have to come back and risk being captured again. In hindsight, she wondered if she had gone a little overboard hauling away so much more than she could use.

“Look! A helmet!” Spike yelled, running ahead.

“Spike, do be careful!”

He paid little mind to her warning, disappearing for a second behind a pile of rubble. When he emerged a second later, he had in-claw one of the coal-pot helmets the pug-like diamond dog guards used. It was almost as large as Spike’s torso, and as he walked back, Rarity could see a chip in the helmet where something had cut into it. Spike noticed it, too, trying to wedge a finger into the gap.

“Yo, Spike,” Garble growled, trailing one claw against the ceiling as he walked ahead. “Toss that here!”

Spike did so, and the red drake caught the helmet in midair. Garble stuck a sharpened clawtip into the gap in the helmet and turned it over, looking into the bowl. He sniffed and rolled the helmet around in his palm. Holding it up, the inside facing her, he pointed.

“Blood,” he said, simply. “Whatever punched through this did some damage.”

“Do diamond dogs often fight one another?” Rarity asked, using a bit of magic to snag the helmet and take a look for herself. She didn’t smell anything, but then, she was a pony, not a dragon. Looking inside, though, she could see a faint rust-colored smear against the dirty leather padding.

Garble shrugged. “All I know is they make gems.”

“Let us keep looking, then,” Rarity decided, clipping the damaged helmet to her white and indigo saddlebag. “This way, gentlecolts.”

Garble and Fizzle both made a heated snorting sound at being called ‘gentlecolts,’ but, nonetheless, they followed her. Spike, of course, stuck close by. The lights from their hard hats filled in for all the extinguished lanterns and pitch oil braziers that had – once – shed light on the dreary tunnels of the diamond dogs.

Prior to making her repeat visit, Rarity had taken some time to look further into the canines she had so rudely encountered the year before. The Daring Do books and radio dramas, she knew, often presented diamond dogs as allies of trolls and other monstrous cave-dwelling troglodytes, and even that mismatched Ahuizotl-creature.

According to Twilight’s more scholarly and respectable books, there were abandoned cave cities under the Macintosh Mountains to the south, and, of course, there was the modern ‘country’ of Canida that Sand Dune had described under Bitaly. In the donkey lands even further south, the oldest diamond dog tribes had built above-ground temples in the jungles. None of the books indicated that any diamond dogs should remain in the Canterlot Duchy. Quite the opposite! The ancient unicorn lords, who had something of a penchant for cruelty, had supposedly driven them out years before the tribes made peace and unified. They were not supposed to be here at all anymore.

But then, Canterlot was also supposed to have been mined out of gems centuries ago… so perhaps they had been attracted to the fresh gem veins outside Ponyville? In other words, it was possible the dogs had come here for the same reason she had. It stood to reason, then, that if the gems were mined out that they would leave. Was that what happened?

Curious, Rarity discretely activated her gem-finding spell.

She omitted the glowing aspect of it, making it impossible to really see the hidden gems, but providing enough that she could sense their presence. She had expected to find the mines empty except for a few scraps left behind when the diamond dogs left. Instead, her horn tingled energetically with the presence of tons of gemstones all around her. They were buried in the walls, the floors, the ceiling…! They were all around! This mine was far from played out, and the dogs were adept miners, albeit ones without much magic. They would know the mine here was still good.

So where were they?

“Oh! This is rather steep! Do be careful!” Rarity said, stopping short as the tunnel she remembered being led down only a year ago suddenly intersected with a much larger – much more recent – excavation. So dramatically did one cross the other that nopony, or nodog, had even bothered to smooth over a ramp between the smaller tunnel and the larger one, leading to a dramatic escarpment.

“W-wow,” Spike whispered next to her, tipping his hard hat back and sending a shaft of light up along the side of the intersecting tunnel and up to the ceiling. “This is big.”

“Yes. Rather like some huge worm or the like bored through.”

Rarity scanned the second tunnel with an appraising eye. It was crude, cylindrical, with some wooden supports built in simple supporting triangles and squares. Warily making her way down the incline to get to the other side, the ground proved to be very loose and very unfriendly towards guests with hooves. Whoever had excavated this huge tunnel had done so very quickly and very sloppily. Wastefully, as well, since there were a few broken gem veins sticking out of the walls. It didn’t look like they had even been worked to remove the valuable stones.

“Rarity. Look over there, a dead-end.” Spike pointed down the oversized tunnel. The supports just twenty pony-lengths away had been collapsed, causing the cave there to fall in. All that was left was an impassable pile of packed stone and dirt.

“And the other way?” Rarity asked, turning her light down the tunnel in the other direction. It simply stretched on and on. Even her magical lamplight couldn’t pierce the depth of it.

“Fizzle!” Garble barked, hopping down the side of the tunnel. “Go check it out. You find any of these guys; bring ‘em back here.”

“Ehh? Me?” the lanky, white dragon asked, one claw picking at the frill that served as a dragon’s ear. Garble growled in response.

“Yeah,” he snapped. “You. Do it.”

“It would be much appreciated, thank you,” Rarity said, and the two teenage dragons turned to stare at her.

“Yeah… yeah, alright,” Fizzle finally agreed, stalking down the huge tunnel.

“You know,” Spike whispered, “if this were one of Twilight’s horror stories…”

“I’m sure young Fizzle can handle himself, Spike,” Rarity replied and started back up to the other side of the cave. The rubble here was just as difficult as it was on the descent, however, especially for a mare who wanted to avoid getting more dirty than she had to. “Oh. This is so very--”

“You’re taking too long!” She felt a hand slip beneath her belly and lift her right up into the air with a yelp. A few seconds later and Garble released her to fall back onto all fours, now atop the escarpment and back on the original tunnel, past the intersection. Rarity whirled on the teenage dragon, scolding him as she brandished her hoof.

“That is not how you treat a lady!” she admonished and used her magic to help Spike scramble up to join them.

Garble stared at her in utter incomprehension. “What’s the problem now?”

“A mare’s undercarriage is very sensitive,” Rarity informed him once Spike was alongside her. “Besides which, I’d rather not be carried around like somepony’s pet cat.”

“So… what?” Garble held out his hands and then brought them up, mimicking her being slung over his shoulder, like a pig or a sack of potatoes. “Is this is better?”

“NO!” she cried. “Worse!”

“Like this, then?” he asked, holding out his hands in front of him, in a bridal carry.

“Absolutely not!”

“I could carry you in my mouth.” With a morbid smile, he made sure to display the mismatched set of steak knives that passed for his teeth. “Better?”

“Most certainly not better,” Rarity answered and sauntered past the dragon. “Just follow me.”

“Stupid picky pony,” the surly dragon garbled.

As Rarity forged ahead, she just barely heard Spike whisper to his fellow dragon, “I always thought she’d like the shoulder-carry thing?”

“Guess not.”

A roll of her eyes and Rarity started down an incline that she knew lead to where many of the diamond dogs had stored their valuable prizes. She could hear Garble’s footsteps close behind her and see Spike’s hard hat light weaving a circle of yellow against the walls up ahead, along with her own. The presence of the two dragons – perhaps oddly – filled her with confidence. Spike was wonderful, as always, but Garble was a somewhat reliable young stallion… or stallion-like-creature. She was mostly sure he would jump at the chance to maul something if it seriously threatened her. After all, without her, he wouldn’t be able to expand his hoard with gems and gold from Ponyville.

Moving at a brisk pace, a little spring in her step, she rounded a bend and came face to face with a thick metal grate built into the walls of the tunnel. Her eyes settled on the lock to the door, set into the lattice of welded metal bars, when a low growl interrupted her thoughts of treasure and exploration. A bright light erupted somewhere up ahead, and, with an upset and frightened wail, Rarity fell back on her hindquarters. Hooves reacted instinctively to cover her face and her eyes from the sudden, glaring light.

“Rarity!” Spike yelled, already close by.

“Hey, we found them,” Garble muttered, and she felt him pull her away from the metal bars.

“Dragons! Thieves!” a voice yelled, though it sounded more like ‘teefs’ than ‘thieves.’

“Stick ‘em!” another voice snarled. “Stick ‘em with the pointy end!”

Rubbing her eyes, Rarity could see – from behind Garble’s scaled torso – that there were diamond dogs behind the metal grate. They were the armored sort she remembered from before, brown in color, with heavy jaws and snub-snouts. A rank of them carried spears in their thick paws and, more worryingly, a group behind them had some sort of weapon held up at shoulder-height. It took a second to realize that the weapons were crossbows. She had seen them in the White Company’s armory. That was most certainly new. The dogs here had not possessed crossbows last year! From behind the grate, they could make a pincushion of the two dragons, to say nothing of the soft, squishy, decidedly unarmored pony behind them!

Still…! This was her business to attend to.

Boldly pushing past Spike and Garble, Rarity held up one hoof to draw the dogs’ attention.

“Hello there! Excuse me!” she sing-songed in her most pleasant tone of voice. Trotting right up to the metal bars, she smiled and held a hoof first to her cheek and then to the steel. “I am terribly sorry to drop by unannounced like this, but we have some important things we absolutely have to talk to you about!” She tried to look around past the phalanx of guard dogs. “I trust this isn’t a bad time?”

“Stay away, pony!” A small dog snapped and held up a meaty claw. “Give em a pointy end on my go!”

“We’ve going to be shot at, aren’t we?” Garble asked with a grunt of annoyance.

“Come now!” Rarity insisted and batted her eyes at the guards. “Can’t we just sit down and talk? I know I’m more of a cat-pony but…”

“That voice,” another dog said, pushing through the armored guards. His eyes widened as he saw the visitors to the mine. “You!”

“Oh! Hello again, Rover,” Rarity greeted the diamond dog with a warm smile. “How have you been?”

The gray-coated diamond dog looked much the same as ever with his diamond-studded collar and passably-fashionable red vest. He stared at her for a long couple of seconds, as if deciding whether the ‘whiny white pony’ was someone to welcome back or just put a few quarrels in. Like she remembered, he seemed to be the stallion-analog in charge of this rough crew, and all the others paused in whatever they were doing to stare at and defer to him.

“You remember me, don’t you?” she asked, a little teasingly.

“The loud pony,” he stated, and Rarity winced at the rather rude impression she had left behind, even if it had been on purpose. He didn’t stop at calling her ‘loud,’ either. “The whiny pony.”

“My name is--”

“Miss Rarity,” Rover interrupted, taking a few steps over to the grate that separated them. He leaned against it, elbow against the metal, and Rarity could smell that one other thing about him hadn’t changed. He still hadn’t bathed. She gasped and reached into her saddlebag with her magic.

A few seconds - and a few generous spritzes of cologne - later, and at least the poor fellow wasn’t quite so noisome.

“Awwh!” Rover grimaced, shaking his head and trying to wipe the cologne off his muzzle. The entire rank of diamond dogs behind him raised their spears and crossbows to fire at the pony that had so assaulted their master.

Rarity ignored them.

“A little something to mask the smell,” she explained, putting the cologne away. “We really do need to get you a good bath… and maybe some shampoo… but later.” She saw Rover glaring at her, one eye narrowed and the other sitting beneath a twitching eyebrow. “I’m very glad you remember me.”

“What,” he asked, leaning closer to her, “do you want?”

“Rarity,” Spike whispered, warningly. He was scared, she could see, but as much for her as he was for himself. He was such a gentlecolt, really.

“We want gems,” Garble announced. That one… was less of a gentlecolt, most times.

“Dumb dragon,” Rover growled, pointing at the red drake. “No gems for you!”

“Hey!” Garble, heedless of the danger, stomped towards the metal bars. Rarity hoped he wasn’t about to put the thickness of those dragon scales of his to the test. She didn’t fancy Spike or her own chances if it came to that. “Why not?! And I’m not dumb! You’re dumb! Like twice as dumb! Or... half… as dumb? If you’re half as dumb, are you twice as smart? Or, if you’re twice as dumb, are you half as smart?”

The confused young dragon struggled with the quandary. “Hmmm. Fractions are tough.” Then he dramatically pointed a claw at the similarly perplexed diamond dog. “Anyway! You know what I mean!”

“Garble, please, let me handle this?” Rarity tried to be placating and polite in framing what was not exactly a request. Thankfully, the dragon growled, low and angry, but backed off. She turned to Rover. “I can see you haven’t been in the mines for some time. What’s wrong?”

The diamond dog narrowed both eyes at her, clearly growing suspicious. “Why do you care, pony?”

Rarity reached through the bars to brush his vest away from his side, revealing a ragged cut in his side.

“Who did that?” she asked, just barely touching the scar. It was fresh. These dogs had been fighting, possibly only days ago. Serious and concerned, she turned to look her former captor in the eyes. “What’s been happening down here?”

She still hadn’t explained why she cared or why he should answer her, she realized.

“I run things up top now,” Rarity added, and Rover tilted his head in response, as if to say, ‘You expect me to believe that?’

“I’m the over-boss,” she asserted. “You know what that means? Rarity is Big Boss.”

The other dogs – simple-minded though they were – all recognized her words. ‘Big Boss.’ This pony was a Boss. Rover was the cleverest of his group, as far as Rarity had been able to tell. He scratched his chin.

“Since when?” he asked.

“Not long.” Rarity grimaced at the rust and dirt getting on her pristine white coat, but trying to put it out of her mind, she suddenly reached forward and brought her hoof up. She grabbed Rover by the collar and brought him close until they were almost nose-to-nose, only the metal bars left to separate them.

“This is my business now, too,” she said in a low voice that brooked no disagreement. “I want to deal with you, Boss to Boss. Understand?”

Rover worked his jaw, rough, sharp teeth grinding together.

“Yeah, alright,” he conceded, and she let him go. Straightening his diamond studded collar, the canine went back to leaning casually against the grating. “So, what you want, ‘Boss’ Rarity?”

“A trade in gemstones for one,” she replied. “And I want to know what happened down here for another. Were you attacked?”

Rover nodded. “Yeah. Da Bad Brood, they said they was.”

“Other diamond dogs?” Rarity asked, though it was a guess. ‘Bad Brood?’

“Dogs and some other things. The dogs came first,” Rover explained, pointing back down the tunnel. “Cut across our mines. So we say, ‘You gotta pay! This our turf!’ No pay, so we fight. They have some bad boss. A Queen Boss.”

Rarity felt her heart skip in her chest.

“A Queen?” she asked, leaning more forcefully against the grate, heedless of the damage it did to her coat or mane. “They said they had a Queen? Are you certain?”

Rover nodded again. “Yeah, yeah. Queen. Diamond Dogs have Kings, once, but no Queens. Dunno about these Bad Brood mutts.”

“How many were there? Where were they headed?” Rarity asked, trying to keep calm. If these creatures were what she thought them to be…

Rover scratched his head, and Rarity groaned, realizing he wasn’t exactly dealing with a group renowned for their skill with numbers. The idiots could somehow use and maybe even build crossbows, but asking them to count was probably going too far. How a situation like that even worked, Rarity couldn’t begin to guess.

“Couple hundred,” Rover answered to Rarity’s mild surprise.

Yes, some dogs were definitely cleverer than others.

“Don’t know where they digging,” he continued, and his claw strayed to the wound on his side. “Deep. Digging deep. Big tunnels. Maybe headed for under mountain.”

“What mountain?” Rarity asked, though she suspected she already knew.

“Big Mountain,” Rover replied and, a moment later, confirmed her worst fears. “Pony’s Mountain. Biggest Boss Pony’s Mountain.”

Canterlot.

Eunomie (ii)

I never knew my biological father or even who my biological father was given my mother’s proclivities and lifestyle. But I have come to know my step-father rather well, and like the changelings he wishes to destroy, my step-father’s story also picks up where my mother’s leaves off. His name is Alpha Brass, son of Cruciger, of the line of Bismuth, who began with Arsenic.

He came to our family as a young colt, only a couple years older than my sister and myself. He was the one to open our eyes. He showed us the lies that had spread through our home. Chrysalis and the previous Queen drained the love from him, tortured him… tried to break him. They did not understand him.

The Terre Rare are not normal ponies.

They have never been normal ponies.

Celestia (past)

Upon seeing her niece, the Lady Arsenic, Princess Celestia’s first, treacherous, terrible thought had been that she should kill the mare before her, who she had once loved as a surrogate daughter. That she would be wiser to let one, poor, maligned, mistreated pony die, and be sure that Equestria knew peace. Some weapons, it was said, were too sharp to be safely wielded, and that those swords were better broken if they could not be blunted. It was a thought that troubled and shook her to the very core, because it was exactly what he would have done. And it was exactly why he could never understand one that fundamental aspect of harmony that defied all reason.

Before that, however… Princess Celestia met with her other niece.

“Princess! Thank the stars you’re here!”

The fraught exclamation came from Lady Blue Belle, forty eighth of her name, formerly Ruthenium, third of her name. The Duchess of Canterlot and Unicorn Princess had a frightened, confused light in her eyes as she hastily bowed to her ruler. It was an elegant bow, despite the obvious haste, but it was followed by Blue Belle’s high-speed chatter, another sure sign of her agitation.

“S-s-she’s… she’s done something to herself!” Blue Belle cried, gesturing to her face with a silver gilded hoof. “Oh! Oh, you should just see it. What would father think? What would grand-mother think? Oh, oh!” She swooned, drawing a long breath. “I – I feel faint just picturing it again! It was so ghastly! I don’t think I have words!”

Celestia felt her mask begin to slip at the unicorn mare’s overwrought airiness. It was not a befitting trait in a royal, especially in what could escalate into a crisis.

“Please! Please, please talk to her!” the unicorn mare boldly reached for Celestia’s hoof to kiss it, imploring all the while. “Do something! Do… do something! Make…!”

Blue Belle looked up at her with crystal clear blue eyes, possibly the one trait the sisters shared.

“Make her go away,” Blue Belle pleaded and bowed quickly before backing off. Her mind, however, latched onto this thought, now expressed before her Princess and her sovereign. The noblemare drew up to her lithe but impressive height – though Celestia still towered over her handily, as she did all ponies. With a perfect alabaster coat, golden mane, and regal complexion, she looked every bit the Duchess and Princess.

“Make her go away,” she repeated. “Canterlot does not want her. Canterlot does not want to be ruled by her! Please, make her understand that and… and make her go away.”

Celestia had listened in silence, betraying nothing of her thoughts.

“She is your sister,” Celestia said, finally.

“Be that as it may,” Blue Belle insisted. “Highness,” she begged. “Please.”

Not wanting to hear any more from her niece, the Princess simply walked past her. She would have walked right through the smaller mare, except Blue Belle scrambled out of the way, trying to retain her decorum and dignity despite the gaffe. The door ahead opened with but the fainted application of her magic.

The first thing Celestia noticed was the sound of heavy rainfall. The room before her was open to a very large balcony, and all the doors and bay windows had been left wide open. Normally, this would bathe the opulent chamber in glorious sun or moonlight, but today, with a scheduled downpour, the incessant pitter-patter was bleak and oppressive. The air felt heavy. Only what faint light filtered through the clouds found the sunroom, and that was meager, dimmed, and honestly uninviting.

Back turned to the door, a single mare sat on a folded mat on the floor.

“My little pony,” Celestia said in greeting. “My little Arsenic. It warms my heart to see you again. You left very abruptly.”

“You mean to say: my sister ejected me from the city that is my birthright,” the noblemare stated, slowly turning and offering the Princess an elegant bow. “I needed to leave to prepare certain things. But here I am, Princess Celestia. The prodigal daughter returns.”

Celestia saw, right away, what Blue Belle had meant.

Arsenic was an earth pony from a line of unicorns. THE line of unicorns. Where her sister was tall and fair, with perfect white coat and flowing mane, Arsenic was of average height and build, her coat indigo-blue and her mane a darker shade of the same, always cut short.

Celestia had caught the mare trying to use diet and exercise to better mold herself into a more courtly shape, but it was not one that came naturally to earth ponies. A lifetime of effort and Arsenic remained shorter and stouter than her younger sister. Celestia knew secret shame when she saw it, and it had never been necessary for Arsenic to say how much she hated how she looked.

Everypony knew.

Above all else in the world, Arsenic wanted to be a unicorn. She wanted it, and she wanted Canterlot. Primogeniture and the right of succession would have at least given her the crown and the throne, but because of what she could not change, that had all been taken from her, too. It was simply the cruel politics that surrounded the Platinum Crown: a unicorn was given preference over an earth pony. More than that, the little ponies wanted a unicorn Duchess and Princess… and the sad truth was that Arsenic had not been the most endearing or social of mares. Blue Belle had been unkind when she had said that ‘Canterlot did not want her.’ She had been unkind but not untruthful. Canterlot did not love Lady Arsenic.

As Arsenic’s face caught more of the light, Celestia saw marks over half the young mare’s face. It looked almost like a ‘Y’ had been tattooed over both of her eyes. The ends of each tip of the ‘Y’ were capped by a small circle, and each circle bore a faint rune, two over each eye and one below, cut into the cheek. Celestia’s own eyes narrowed at the sight, one masked behind her flowing ethereal mane, the other clear to project her displeasure and unease. She recognized the lines not as tattoos in the skin, but as a faint magical glow emanating from an actual groove cut into the flesh.

And Arsenic’s once blue eyes, the one link to her sister… were now a burning, bleeding red.

“Do you see? I finally found a solution to my disability, Princess,” Arsenic explained with a grin, running a hoof along the magic that scarred her face. “These are so much better than relying on my voice to cast magic. Have you ever seen anything like it? I call them an earth pony’s ingenuity.”

A disability she had called it.

A disability... to be born without a horn.

“Tartarus! My poor little pony, what have you done to yourself?” Celestia quickly crossed the distance between them, cupping Arsenic’s chin with her hoof and raising her face upwards. “You shouldn’t have--”

“I am an earth pony whose special talent is magic!” Arsenic impudently cut her off, jerking away and out of the Princess’s grasp. Her eyes glowed like red, angry embers, barely held in check by the neon blue magic that flowed out of her body into the runes, keeping a measure of control over her eyes.

“An earth pony! Whose special talent is MAGIC!” Arsenic snarled, repeating the same words but letting hate drip into them. “Look at my cutie mark! The cutie mark that mocks me!”

She wore no dress or gown and pointed boldly to the mark on her flank: a purple, asymmetrical, eight-pointed star. A similar star with twelve points would one day be surrounded by five smaller stars, but this one stood alone on Arsenic’s flank.

“There is no field I can plow, no crop I can grow, no life I can nurture that will make me forget that I. AM. A. BLUEBLOOD.” Arsenic sucked in a deep, calming breath and quickly regained her composure. The fire in her eyes receded, from a bonfire to a mere smoldering pool of embers.

“I am a Blueblood,” she repeated, and then a third time, as just a whisper. “A Blueblood.”

“Those eyes… they came from a catoblepas,” Celestia said, and the vile thought from before repeated itself. Against every compassionate fiber of her being, she took stock of the room, where they stood in the Palace grounds, and what spells would be required. To kill.

It had been a thousand years and more since she had done so, but the old training was still there.

For Equestria she…

“That’s right!” Arsenic replied, smiling. Desperate pride in her accomplishment conflicted with the fact that she had to know that it was not to be seen in a positive light. She laughed, lowering her head, shoulders shaking. “That’s right. Amazing. You recognized them right away! My idiot sister had no idea, of course. It was a catoblepas… a gorgon… a great bull! With iron for skin… with breath that turned ponies to stone. Merely approaching the beast drove the most hardened guard and griffin to fits of terror.”

She reached up to her face again, her laughter growing soft.

“I know you told me to accept who I am… but this… this is who I am, too…” Arsenic shook her head and boldly looked back up to meet the critical gaze of her mentor and Aunt. “Without a horn, I’m useless. But I can’t grow one, so I had to find other ways. Didn’t you always tell me to find a third way? A loop hole? Learning to use my voice to cast spells was the first step, but you know what sort of spells incantations are. Then it occurred to me that there are a number of creatures that project magic using their eyes!”

“So…” she concluded with a triumphant grin. “I did a little research… and I found a dread gorgon… and killed it and took its eyes!”

The audacious noblemare focused her eyes on a nearby tallow candle.

And the candle moved, floating towards her.

“As for the risks,” Arsenic continued as Celestia tracked the candle’s progress, flying through the air and making little loops, leaving droplets of wax that cooled into eerie floating bubbles. Before the Princess’s eyes, Arsenic breathed a semblance of life into the flame and the wax, reshaping it in midair into a tiny, fiery hummingbird. There were precious few ponies who could so effortlessly manage such a feat, even with a horn.

“Life is risk!” Arsenic declared with a laugh, “and I am no mere apprentice! I have triple-reinforced the containment magic and tied it to my own life force. So long as my blood flows, these eyes are well under control.”

Celestia’s frown deepened at the confidence in the mare’s voice. “And your mane?”

“You know about that side-effect, too?” Arsenic asked, surprised. She ran a hoof along the dark blue locks of hair in her mane, hair that almost seemed to sway and move on its own accord. “I just have to keep it cut short – a simple solution to a purely cosmetic complication.”

“My little pony…”

“I am not a little pony!” Arsenic interrupted her, that brief glimmer of cheerful discussion evaporating. “I’ve always hated how nobles condescendingly call normal ponies that. Even from your lips, Princess… I can hear the dismissive note in it...”

“I do not pretend to be your equal, but I am a noble mare,” she stressed, sucking in a breath and standing tall. “And I have returned to claim my home, my throne, and my crown! Once Canterlot and the Stable of Lords see my power… once I demonstrate how I can use magic now, without restriction… the rightful heiress will have what is hers. As you agreed with them to take my birthright from me, I thought you should also be the first to see my resolve and my rebirth.”

“I am born again,” she concluded, dipping her head in a bow.

Celestia could feel it, too.

Arsenic made no further display of the power she had. There was no need of it. It was obvious to anypony who knew what to look for. Like a tuning fork, Celestia felt her horn and her wings vibrate faintly in the presence of Arsenic’s star field. No doubt the guards outside could feel it in their wings, too. Unlike the magic that the earth pony mare wielded with her voice – a form of old magic that included the Royal Canterlot Voice as the simplest cantrip – Arsenic truly had found a way to cheat fate and use unicorn magic. Though the eyes instead of the horn.

But where had she even gotten such an abominable idea?

“You can feel it, can’t you? The power I always had within me?” Arsenic raised a hoof and brushed the side of Celestia’s front leg gently, tentatively, anxiously. Reverently. “Princess… Auntie… you can’t possibly say I’m unworthy now, can you? I will bring the challenge to my sister and--”

“You will not,” Celestia boomed, and though she hardly raised her voice, the fixtures in the walls shook.

Arsenic opened her mouth, perhaps to protest, perhaps to continue the speech she had rehearsed in her head. She opened her mouth and said nothing as she processed what she had just been told.

“What?” she asked, dumbly, and shook her head. “No. No. I…! I am eldest!” She pounded her chest with a hoof for emphasis. “Me! The right was always mine, and now… now I’m basically, functionally, the unicorn I was born to be. I have my family’s blood. My father’s blood and my grand-mother’s blood and Platinum’s blood! I am the rightful heir!”

Celestia stood straight and made no move to comfort or confront the mare beyond plain words.

“Arsenic,” she said, sternly, but the young noblemare was already starting to suck in gulps of air, anger displacing confusion and uncertainty as she paced around the room like a caged lion. “Blue Belle was given Canterlot. You must accept that. Nothing you do to yourself will change that. Certainly not this… mutilation.”

The Princess could see the gears working in the earth pony mare’s head.

Even as her cold rage began to give those thoughts focus.

Arsenic – the poor, foolish mare – she had always been a creative and daring student, diligent and driven above all others and all else to prove herself. Her special talent was magic, a field of study she could barely participate in without horns or wings. Against all odds, she had taught herself the difficult art of vocal casting and invocation. She had learned Warding Words, the sounds that ears could not hear, and the Art of Tongues. Magic was her curse and her obsession because it embodied all that she could not have, just as the Duchy itself and the Platinum Crown was the physical embodiment of what was forever out of her reach.

Arsenic. Celestia could see it in her eyes. Arsenic had always been quick to come to conclusions that other ponies agonized with. As the pacing noblemare’s new, crimson eyes narrowed, Celestia knew the dark thoughts pooling in her former student’s mind. If only… if only she had understood that friendship was a magic of its own, a magic that did not require a monster’s transplanted eyes or learning a language not meant for ponies to hear, much less speak.

Arsenic. In that moment, Celestia knew, the noble mare was thinking of murdering her sister.

With Blue Belle dead, there would be no other choice but her.

“How…” Arsenic muttered, and her voice barely an octave above a whisper. “How can you say that? Even now? After all I’ve done… to myself… to make myself worthy… to make myself better?” She slowly closed her eyes and her voice took on a broken, bereaved tone. “How can you still reject me, Princess?”

“Am I… am I so abominable to you?” she asked, and Celestia saw tears in Arsenic’s eyes. The young mare’s teeth were clenched as she struggled to control herself, either from lunging at her mentor and aunt or from breaking down entirely. “I can use magic now…!”

“It was never about the magic, my poor pony.” Celestia reached a hoof out to gently brush her one-time student’s mane, trying one last time to make her understand. She could feel the hair move under her hoof. “You did not have to do this to yourself. I told you… I told you so many times…”

“You told me, yes, but I’ve heard their whispers and their laughter.” Arsenic’s mercurial sorrow morphed so easily, so quickly, back into rage. Her teeth bared and her body tensed. “How could I forget their sniggering behind my back? Even the other earth pony nobles. How could I forget? How could I ever forgive?”

“I know why they turned from me, but you…?” Arsenic nuzzled Celestia’s hoof for a second before backing away. “Tell me the truth. Why you? Why did you forsake me, too?”

“I did not forsake you,” Celestia told her, stamping a gold-clad hoof against the floor. The rare display of pique actually seemed to give Arsenic pause. “I always knew you were destined for great things, Arsenic, but those things are not in Canterlot… and your family’s crown… it isn’t something you can wear. Especially not now. Trust me.”

Arsenic’s upper lip curled as she sneered, weighing her Princess’s words.

“You said the same thing before!” she growled, but her anger was tempered by despair. “A softly spoken rejection is still a rejection! Canterlot is--”

“Canterlot is not your home.”

Arsenic’s brow furrowed. “It…”

“I have known you since you were a foal,” Celestia declared, raising her voice just enough to ensure she was not interrupted. Just enough so that every word could hit home in the noble mare before her. “Do you still trust me? Do you still love me, my sweet, difficult little niece?”

Once, Arsenic would’ve all but jumped to yell, ‘Yes! Yes, Auntie!’

This time, for the first time in her life, the young noblemare answered the question with silence.

Neither trust… nor love, then.

Celestia wondered if perhaps it was what she deserved. It was within her power to veto any but a unanimous proclamation from the Stable of Lords. She had final say on which sister inherited the Platinum Crown. On the night of the vote, knowing she would lose if it came to a popularity contest, Arsenic had come to her Princess and her Aunt to beg for intercession. She had repeated the same arguments then as she did now: that she was eldest, that she was capable, that her lack of a horn would not be an impediment, that her sister cared only for parties and revelry… she spoke, and when that failed, she argued, and when that failed, she pleaded.

She had begged for the crown… and the next day, Celestia had placed it upon the head of her sister. Arsenic had not attended the ceremony. She had not kissed her sister’s hoof. Instead she had left and began to gather allies. Celestia had hoped against hope to rein her in. Her spies in Arsenic’s entourage did not fail her. She knew the brewing signs of a civil war when she saw one. Now the black sister had returned for revenge. It was a narrative that Princess Celestia understood all too well.

“Tell me, my niece: do you blame me for your father’s death?” Celestia asked, lowering her eyes in memory of her fallen nephew. He, too, had been a master of the Warding Word. He who had taught it to his earth pony daughter had ended a bloody war with a single sky-shattering whisper.

And it was she who had sent him to war.

“For father?” Arsenic asked, vigorously shaking her head. “No. No, Princess! Of course not!”

“Yet I sent your father to assist our griffin allies,” Celestia argued. “I empowered him to lead an Equestrian army to their relief. If I had not, he would still be here, and so would so many other stallions.”

She could have let the griffins fight on amongst themselves. How much was a pony’s life worth? How many years of peace? What was the price paid for security and stability? A thousand years she had ruled Equestria, and the hardest questions still had no real answers.

“I was there, Arsenic, when he kissed you and your sister on the cheek and promised to return home. You cried when he left... do you remember? You cried then, but you didn’t shed a single tear when his body returned home.” Celestia felt the pinprick of tears in her own eyes, for her beloved nephew and for every other son and brother and husband who fell intervening in the griffin’s senseless civil war. “Tell me, my little pony, how can you not blame me?”

“Because if my father had not gone, I would have!” Arsenic insisted, strenuously shaking her head. “He did not just give his life for you, but for Equestria! It was duty and honor! Duty and Honor!”

“And if I had sent you, you would have gone?” she asked.

“Of course!” Arsenic replied, instantly. It was as the high nobility were taught to be. Her indignation from before began to fade in light of the unexpected inquiry. “I miss my father, yes, and he could have better chosen a successor… me, I think… but he died a hero…”

“He put what was needed of him before his own life,” Celestia finished, and Arsenic’s eyes widened in realization. She was in a logical trap, and she knew it.

“He did,” the noblemare admitted, morosely nodding to herself. “But--”

“Do you know why Equestria has so many nobleponies? What is it that makes you noble?” Celestia asked, not giving the other mare any respite.

It was cruel, but it was not cruelty. It was this… or a fight. Sister would not be allowed to fight sister. There would be no more sororicide in Equestria! There would be no more Lunas. No more bloody wars or defiant statues or timeless banishments. Ponykind was better than it had been in her time. Kinder. Gentler. She had seen to it.

“What is it I ask of you that I do not ask of the small ponies? The little ponies?” the Princess asked, and when Arsenic blinked, she found the alicorn towering over her. “What makes you noble?”

“Sacrifice,” Arsenic whispered, looking up at her with a distant expression. Not awe, but realization of what lay ahead. “Sacrifice and service, Princess. Ours is to carry the spear and the shield…”

Still, she did not necessarily want to accept what she saw coming.

“But can I not serve Equestria from your side?” Arsenic asked, brows furrowing. “Please. Do not turn me away, Auntie. My place is by your side. You are… all the family I feel I have…”

For just a moment, Celestia felt herself waver. She loved her nieces and nephews, one and all. The troublesome ones she often loved most, because they were so difficult. She had held her distant kin in her wings when they were born and when they died. She had embraced them in joy and sorrow, holding daughters when mothers died and mothers when daughters passed before their time. Princess she was, royal and high, but Celestia wanted nothing more than to wrap her wings around this dark, misguided foal and tell her she was loved, that she was wanted, that she was valued, no matter how long it took.

She also knew she could not, not yet.

Arsenic was not the sort of pony to put stock in words over acts. She would never forget that her sister had the crown that was, by rights, hers. She would never forget the faces or names of the ponies she felt had slighted or insulted her. Even as a little filly, she had written down the names and features of the ponies she hoped one day to repay for their poor judgment.

More than that, Arsenic was not a pony who had ever grasped the meaning of forgiveness. It was the biggest reason she had never really understood the magic of friendship. She was incapable of forgiveness, either in others or in herself. Those ponies who had insinuated that her being an earth pony meant she was also a bastard and not of royal blood… would not be long for Arsenic’s Canterlot.

Though it broke her heart, Celestia knew what needed to be said to save this pony from herself.

“Am I to fall on a spear then?” Arsenic asked, challengingly. “For peace? My sister’s peace?”

“In a way, you are,” Celestia replied, and the cold response actually evoked an amused smirk from the dark noblemare.

“Tell me,” she demanded. The unspoken addendum being, ‘it had best be a spear worth falling on.’

Celestia intended just that.

“First, you must know that Canterlot is not a place for a pony like you,” she began, and she saw Arsenic’s frown deepen at the news. She had been hearing variations on this theme all her life. “This city and this country have lost a Duke and a Prince in your father… who I loved… but your father was a stern stallion, Arsenic. Too stern. Before they loved him and revered him as a fallen war hero, many ponies chafed under his imposed austerity. They came to me when he canceled Galas and parties and tournaments. You know your father had little love for these things.”

Arsenic’s jaw dropped at hearing such things, such truthhoods, from anypony, much less her Aunt and Princess. She had to be very nearly in shock. Yet it was all truth. This was all the bitter, nasty truth – the awful medicine that would save her life.

“I see so much of him in you,” Celestia continued and lowered her head enough to brush their cheeks together. “You would follow in his hoofsteps, I know, but Canterlot needs Galas. I don’t even like many of them myself, but the city needs them. It needs parties and tourneys and all the revelry that you find wasteful. Canterlot exists to rule and to export joy. That is the truth of it. The parties your sister so-loves do not detract from Canterlot. They enhance it, and they make Equestria as a whole happier as well. Right now, the little ponies need happiness. They need what your sister brings.”

“My sister,” Arsenic muttered. “My frivolous, flighty, airheaded sister… needed…?”

For just a second, she seemed to believe it.

“Is that it? It can’t be just that?” she asked and Celestia pulled out of their nuzzle. She wrapped a wing around Arsenic’s side to guide her back to the balcony. The two mares stopped right before the pouring rain.

“There is another reason as well,” Celestia admitted, hoping her honesty could pierce Arsenic’s thorny shell.

“What is this spear then?” she asked after a few moments of staring past the rain at the foggy mountain city and palace beyond. “What task am I to perform in my exile?”

“Conquest,” Celestia told her.

Arsenic tensed, her blazing eyes – stolen eyes from one of the worlds’ deadliest monsters – drifting over to her Princess and Aunt. “Conquest?”

“Did you expect anything less?” The great alicorn asked with a smirk. She adopted a pose she knew to be effectively regal and stared out into the city below them, her mane flowing around her. “As you said, you are not a pony to plow or to sow or even to nurture. Perhaps you can reap, then.”

Arsenic remained silent, her expression guarded, waiting to hear more.

She wanted a name of a place.

“Two Rivers,” Celestia said after a long silence. “The divided realms of Germaney. I want you to bring them into the Equestrian fold, once and for all.”

Arsenic’s silence was far from a rejection. Celestia knew that look on her face. That contemplative look. Already the gears in her head were in motion of how to do it. It was a problem. A challenge. Arsenic could never resist a challenge. It was in her nature to try and solve it, often in an efficient – if heavy-hoofed – manner. She was tempted. She only needed to justify it to herself.

Germaney.

It was a wild and fractured land. Ponies had settled and migrated there dating back to the fall of the Old Kingdoms. Many of the ponies that had come in the second wave with Starcaller had set down roots there to escape the ponies that they had tried and failed to subjugate. Over the centuries, they had mingled with native species, including small griffin tribes, forming petty Principalities and Free Cities. Germaney had been officially added to the Equestrian nation for trading purposes when an assembly of lords had pledged to “Honor the Princess” in return for a Royal Charter recognizing certain rights.

That had been more than a century ago, and the Duchy of Germaney or ‘Two Rivers’ had seen little but turmoil ever since. There were no ponies more warlike or fractious. Bluebloods had made attempts over the years to better pacify the region, to little success. All it had ended up doing was to create more branches of the Blueblood line that fought amongst one another and pretended to hold a right to power. The Warmbloods were the most notable. If Arsenic was wise, she would start there.

“The land is in chaos. Ponies are suffering. Can you bring harmony to this realm for me?” Celestia asked, letting her listener’s silence go on at long as she felt comfortable. Now, she felt, was the time to strike, while the iron of the thought was still hot.

“I may also die in the attempt,” Arsenic reasoned, but she didn’t sound adverse to the idea. “But, as I recall… if it were unified, Germaney would become the largest Duchy in the country, and it would have tremendous influence over Prance as well.” Arsenic glanced to her side and at the Princess. “Say I do this. Say I succeed. What is to stop me from turning the land under my control against Canterlot and my sister?”

Celestia’s smile was radiant, beatific... serene.

“Only me,” she admitted.

“Hmm.” Arsenic grumbled, her smile growing. “Only you,” she agreed, knowing what that meant and what threat was veiled behind the loving smile. “Do you think you can really trust me, even then?”

“I think you hate your sister with every fiber of your being,” Celestia replied, and it hurt to even say the words. Sisters. Sisters should not fight so. “But I think you still hold love for me, for your father’s legacy, and for Equestria.”

The rain continued to beat down on the city before them.

“Equestria spurned and rejected me,” Arsenic reminded her.

The implication was there. Equestria wasn’t the only thing to reject her and take away what she considered hers. Revenge was a sweet and succulent fruit for some ponies, harmony be damned. In that moment, as lightning cracked, Celestia saw another dark mare – an alicorn and not an earth pony – standing next to her in brooding silence.

Luna…

What would she do with an army and a grudge? Sadly, Celestia already knew the answer to that question. She had experienced it and lived through it. Yet Luna deserved a chance to redeem herself. And this pony? Surely she did as well.

“One day,” Celestia promised, one wing falling over Arsenic’s shoulders, “a daughter of your line will rule in Canterlot. I swear it, my little pony. I swear it.”

Arsenic grimaced at the ‘my little pony’ remark.

“But not me,” she said.

“Not you,” Celestia answered.

Arsenic’s stolen eyes, crimson and smoking, slowly closed as she came to terms with her acquiescence. Celestia smiled and felt a moment of pure triumph. There would be no war in Equestria. There would be no sisters shedding blood. There would be no loss of life. It was not quite harmony, but it was a step in the right direction. It was a promise for the future. There was another matter, too, of no less importance. Arsenic’s power was immense. It had all been trapped in an earth pony, but if she had been born a unicorn, her magical power would have been unprecedented in this day and age. Even in the Migration Era, a time when ponies made the earth beneath their hooves tremble, her power would have been formidable.

If a daughter of hers could inherit that same power but temper it with friendship and love…

“I will hold you to your promise, Auntie,” Arsenic said, and the curious remark caught Celestia by surprise for a second. The dark noblemare’s eyes were still closed and her expression inscrutable. “A daughter of mine will rule in Canterlot beside you. She will serve you and love you as I always dreamed I could. One day.”

“One day,” Celestia agreed.

“And I will see it come to pass,” Arsenic insisted, and as her eyes slowly opened again, the pupils all but vanished beneath the crimson smoke. “A part of me will always love you, Auntie, but I don’t forget a promise.”

Nor, Celestia knew, did her forsaken niece forgive a broken vow.

But that was the maddening secret to friendship and harmony: it required trust… and faith.

Author's Note

This is first half of the interlude before the final arc. The Wedding Arc.
Just thought I'd explain why there are two interludes. I cut it in half for brevity, such as brevity is when it is still thousands of words! hahaha

Chapter Thirty Six : Interlude (the end)

Interlude (the end)

Eunomie (iii)

You understand now.

The Terre Rare, descendants of Arsenic all, are not normal ponies.

They do not think like normal ponies. They do not react like normal ponies. I have seen this in my Aunts Chalice and Antimony. I have even seen it in a branch member of that family, Twilight Sparkle, the very Element of Magic herself. I saw it in my step-father.

Alpha Brass, I learned, was somewhat like me. His subconscious was abnormal. In my case, it was due to the circumstances of my birth. In his, it was due to his upbringing and his special talent. All his family are fated to inherit certain gifts from their founder, the Lady Arsenic. Virtually all are talented in magic, but some of their gifts are more obvious than others. Some are darker than others. To survive, my step-father willingly let the changelings have his love. What was left, he used to push himself forward. He taught Euporie and myself. We learned how to become unpalatable to the changelings.

We also planned to destroy them.

Another pony may be forgiven for thinking we made these plans for revenge, that this entire conspiracy is an act of premeditated vengeance on a grand scale. I do not believe this is the case. Certainly, it is not for me. Revenge is an emotional reaction that is muted in me. I can remember being wronged, of course, but I don’t have the strong feelings of umbrage or outrage that go with it. Not really.

So why am I doing this?

I suppose I am doing what I am doing because I think it is in the best long-term interests of Equestria and because my life is predicated on Equestria’s future viability as a state where ponies are the dominant species. If the grass we eat could kill us, would it not do so? I think it is a reasonable hypothetical. As for my sister, Euporie once told me she does what she does because she can and because it makes sense for her to use her talents to their utmost.

“Doesn’t society look down on those who don’t use their talents?” Her own words. I couldn’t tell if she meant them or not. I think she was also making fun of me, but I cannot tell for certain. Such is Euporie’s way.

But my father… my step-father…? I know he wants to create a better world for my sister and myself. None of us simply want revenge, I do not think, though we will take it if it is presented to us on the road to greater things.

Twilight Sparkle

“Arsenic?” Alpha Brass asked, unperturbed by the news. “Alive? Really?”

“That’s what Antimony told me,” Twilight replied, leaning in closer to the wax pony on display. It was rearing in a very lifelike pose, but minus the skin and hair. Long seams of white wax, made out like fatty tissue, mixed in with the dry, dark red of striated muscle. With the legs tensed, tendons were visible, like bundled, translucent cords. It was one of many models on display at the Health and Wellness Body Art Exhibition, currently on tour in Canterlot.

“She would be well over two hundred years old, but yes, it is possible,” Alpha Brass admitted.

He idly stroked a thin strip of beard and moustache he had lately started growing in the van Dyke style. He was keeping the moustache very trim and the beard tear-drop shaped from where it tapered just below his lower lip. When Twilight had told Rarity about it, her fashion-conscious friend had explained that it was ‘en vogue’ among stallions this year. Rarity thought it was handsome and chic. Twilight was less enthusiastic. Even though Germoglio, Captain of the White Company, had a similar beard... for some instinctive, illogical reason, it gave Brass a sort of a sinister look. She was tempted to ask him to go clean-shaven again, like when they had first met.

“You never heard anything about this before now?” Twilight asked, tilting her head in his direction. It had been more than a week since Antimony had first broached the subject of Arsenic still being among the living.

“A secret like that would only be known by the family’s designated successor,” he replied, shrugging.

“But you aren’t surprised,” she observed.

“Not really.” Brass slowly trotted over to another exhibit, this one a recreation of a pegasus mare with her wings spread, about to take flight. The wing muscles that stretched like tendrils across her chest and torso stood out in her pose. “While I did not expect her to be alive, I have long considered that she may be.”

Twilight stood next to him, her eyes on the wax pony but her mind on her great-great grandmother.

“Antimony says she can teach me a how to penta-alliterate a spell,” she explained, and he nodded slowly.

“Revealing the enemy would go a long way to minimizing bloodshed when the time comes,” Alpha Brass agreed, stealing a look at the mare and smiling pleasantly. “Tell me. What’s on your mind?”

“I’m… apprehensive, I guess,” Twilight admitted, blushing faintly at his concern and the way his eyes sought out her own. She twiddled her hooves in front of her. “I wish I could talk to Princess Celestia more about… these things, but I can’t. I wonder what she would say? Antimony wants me to go with her, but she won’t say where. She just says Arsenic can’t come to me, no matter what. I’d have to go and try and talk to her myself.”

“You’re worried,” Alpha Brass said, tapping a hoof on the polished wooden floor. “I don’t blame you. We have not announced our arrangements yet, not publicly, but Antimony and the rest of my family must be aware of what we are planning. Your father and brother refusing my father’s summons will be taken as a challenge, and, very soon, my father will respond to it. Antimony is sure to take his side and involve herself, but I don’t think my sister would be going through all this just to lead you into a trap. She is much too hidebound and honorable to use low tactics of that sort.”

Twilight slowly shook her head.

“Why do you two…? I mean, you don’t sound like you dislike her,” she said, and Twilight didn’t miss Brass briefly closing his eyes and glancing away from her. She nudged him gently, prodding him to be honest and open with her. “I need to know about Arsenic – anything you know, anything that can help prepare me for – but I also need to know what happened between the two of you. You and Antimony. You’re her big brother, aren’t you? Why does she hate you so much?”

Alpha Brass sighed as if defeated. “It was a number of things, I think, but above all, she disapproves of my methods. Well, I don’t approve of my methods either, all the time, but if it had to be pinned down to a single thing… it would be my interference in the sisters’ duel.”

“The sisters’ duel?” Twilight asked, not entirely sure what he could be referring to. She had read Antimony’s public dueling records, just like she knew Chalice’s and Polished Jewel’s. Alpha Brass’s dueling record as well. She had done her homework on her kin in preparation for having to face them for control of the family and the great house of the Terre Rare.

As far as she knew, the sisters had never openly dueled with one another…

Alpha Brass quickly explained what he meant. “When we were young, my father came to Canterlot to discuss the issue of the Blueblood succession and the restoration of our family rights. This was shortly after Lady Cadenza was brought into the royal household. What you may not know is that my father and the previous Blueblood were old comrades from their youth. They served together in the Royal Guard; they had squired together, been knighted together… I believe Princess Celestia arranged most of it to build their friendship.”

“Nonetheless,” he continued, sounding a little upset. “Whatever they discussed, it fell through, and matters of honor demanded a duel.”

“A duel Blueblood’s father lost,” Twilight recalled.

Brass nodded. “My own father was terribly injured as well. A decision must have loomed before him to pick a successor. Understand that my siblings and myself… we were all born for a reason. I was born on the off chance that the Bluebloods had a daughter. My sisters were born to inherit and rule the family. My mother raised me, and my father raised my sisters… for the most part. He called to my sisters after his duel and told them to fight for the right to be successor. He meant it literally and they took it literally.”

Twilight frowned at his description of the event, unsettled by what she had heard to the point where it left a sick feeling in her stomach. All brothers and sisters competed in subtle or unspoken ways. She had long struggled to live up to her brother, Shining Armor, who was both an esteemed knight of the Royal Guard and an accomplished – even celebrated – magic user. Shining was said to have no equal in the country when it came to barrier magic.

She remembered hearing others praise him endlessly while she struggled just to get into Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but for all that, Twilight had always loved and admired her sweet, gentle older brother. Her parents expected excellence from their children, but they would never have set one against the other. But then, Twilight had always been told she was the family heir, not her brother…

She wondered what Shining Armor thought of that. Did he think about it at all?

“They didn’t fight, did they?” she asked.

“That is a more complicated question than you think it to be,” Brass replied. “The object of the game, as my father put it, was to earn a title and lands while starting with nothing but a name and a few attendants. This, by definition, meant taking the title from somepony else. It was a quest not only to gain power but to weed out those unworthy or unable to hold onto it.”

He conjured up a little magic, and the face on the wax pony filled out, becoming that of a young unicorn mare with a dark mane, light blue coat, and violet eyes. Twilight recognized it had to be Polished Jewel, the oldest of the Terre Rare children, back when she was in her teens.

“Most ponies expected Polished Jewel to win,” he explained. Twilight glanced over at him and saw a shade of a smirk. “Worst of all, Polished Jewel also expected she would win. While I was not invited to participate in the contest, I decided that I would not sit on the sidelines, either. After my marriage to Olive Branch and the discovery of our mutual enemy, I… stepped in....”

The castle was a ruin.

Chalice’s warbling cry of pain echoed against crumbled masonry and piles of smashed lumber as she reverted back to her mortal form. The aether rushed back inwards like a receding tide, collapsing into a pool of twinkling black, shrinking smaller and smaller until it became puddles across light pink hair, mercury pools ripping back into pores in the skin, into tear ducts, into the mouth and the nose even as Chalice screamed, the air being forced out against the conjured void rushing in.

She finally fell, unconscious, into the center of a crater.

The mare was followed, a second later, by a smaller female form also collapsing. Star-spawned matter swirled around her as well, expanding one last time before retracting and returning back through the magical gateway each mare now carried within her body. A high-pitched scream followed, a filly’s body rearing up and clutching her face, pincer-like claws receding into hooves.

Then she, too, fell forward onto her face.

As Alpha Brass had expected, his youngest sister had been the first to recover.

Though she would one day grow into a tall mare, as a filly, Antimony had been short and skinny like a colt. She didn’t bat an eye, even with Sirocco standing next to her bed, a spear held threateningly close to her neck. She didn’t yell or scream, despite the bandages covering her face and chest. All she did was glare at him. It was an expression she seemed to prefer. Daddy’s little girl.

Alpha Brass sat himself down in a chair in front of his baby sister’s bed, carefully cradling his broken left foreleg so it rested against his stomach. He met Antimony’s stare with his own, unconcerned. He did not have The Caster’s Eyes… The Gorgon’s Eyes… Arsenic’s Eyes. It had taken three failed children for Mother to get that alchemical mixture just right. Antimony was the youngest but the most perfect of them all, at least going by Father’s sense of the word. Brass’s own opinion differed. If only the eyes had come in just one foal sooner! But there was no point crying over spilt milk or lost opportunities. Who knew if Chalice would even have proven malleable at all had she been as supernaturally gifted as her little sister.

“You should kill me,” Antimony stated, when it became clear he wasn’t about to speak first.

“How could I spill the blood of my dear family?” he asked, waving his one good forehoof to have Sirocco back off and raise her spear. “Especially the blood of my baby sister? You think me so monstrous?”

“You set Lady Slatestone against Chalice!” Antimony roared.

It was a strange thing, to hear such fury coming from a filly’s mouth.

“Ah. Yes. Yes, I did,” he admitted. “Lady Slatestone is my animal and always has been.”

Antimony tried to surge out of her medical bed, but Sirocco easily restrained her with one powerful wing.

“Why?” she hissed. “The succession is no business of yours! We sisters are to decide--”

“No business of mine?” Brass interrupted her, leaning forward in his chair. “It is family business, and am I not your family? Who will head this house as it rises to power? You? Polished Jewel? Chalice? No.” He leaned back again, wincing at the pain in his broken leg. “There is too much at stake now to leave things to you three. There is too much danger. Too much terror and too much opportunity.”

“Do not pretend you are interested in anything but your own self!” Antimony – little filly that she was – fixed him with a look that could very well kill. After all, it was whispered that Arsenic could kill with a stare. Antimony wasn’t on that level just yet, but the potential was there.

“Had I not acted, would you have played second fiddle to Polished Jewel forever?” he asked, and she snarled but said nothing. “Do you want to know why I set this all up, little Princess? Have you wondered why I left that second Star Key for you to find – so conveniently – before you confronted Chalice and myself?”

Alpha Brass closed his eyes and sighed at having to explain himself. He did not enjoy it, and Antimony was smart enough he shouldn’t have had to. Besides, explaining oneself was tedious and insulting.

“Don’t tell me you wanted me to beat her,” Antimony whispered, but it was loud enough to overhear.

“Both outcomes were ones I could live with,” Brass told her, and the young mare recoiled as if struck.

“Why?” she demanded.

“The purpose of all this was to eliminate Polished Jewel as a contender,” he explained, simply. “To have you destroy her organization from the inside while Chalice destroyed it from the outside. She was too independent and far too closed-minded. Her ambitions were just far too small to properly lead the Terre Rare.” He dismissed the very notion of his older sister’s rule with a wave of his good hoof, as if shooing away a mere annoyance. “Do you know what will happen to her now? At my urging, Father will arrange a marriage with Whinnychester. And do you know what else? She will be content with it.”

“Let me ask you this,” he drove home. “Would you be content with Whinnychester?”

“No,” Antimony answered.

Alpha Brass cracked a tiny smile and nodded, pleased to hear it. “That is why I gave you power, and that is why I gave that same power to Chalice… to check you. You will motivate her, just as I will motivate you. We are family, are we not? Family without equals? The two most deadly mares in Equestria should be sisters.”

Antimony was just a filly, but he could see the cutie mark she had earned over the last few days. The one that reflected the great gift he had given her. She would carry that mark and that reminder for the rest of her life, the stars superimposed over her crown. It was fate, now. Destiny. And she had him to thank for it.

Antimony briefly closed her eyes, and Brass remembered when he had first seen her as a baby. Everypony except Mother and Father had been afraid of her. Like all baby unicorns, her innate magic had run wild, and that had included her placing uncontrollable and often terrifying illusions on any who met her little eyes. Many servants at Gaskinring had quit that year, refusing to work anywhere near the terrifying foal and leaving parts of the castle near abandoned.

Alpha Brass had always thought his baby sister’s eyes to be rather beautiful.

They were a monster’s eyes.

“Everything you say is a lie,” Antimony said, finally, fixing him with a hateful glare. “Everything you do is terrible. I hate you.”

Alpha Brass closed his eyes and smirked, if only to conceal the bit of surprise he truly felt. Those words. Those words had stung, if only a little. It was his own fault; he should have expected them and been prepared for them. It made sense that she would hate him. That was fine. Hate was something he could work with. Hate was malleable and reliable. Hate was productive and motivating. This was all fine.

“Whether you hate me or not,” he said, still not opening his eyes. “Whether you even believe me or not, you will still listen to me.”

“Do I have a choice?” she asked.

“Not really, no,” he replied.

“Then I’ll listen. But mark my words,” Antimony vowed. “One day, I will make you pay for every pony you have manipulated and every life you have destroyed. For every soul you’ve damned. Including Chalice’s… and mine. You’ll pay for every single one.”

Alpha Brass’s smile didn’t even waver at the threat. If anything, it seemed to please him.

“Oh, sister,” he said with a sigh, “if only I had an entire country of ponies like you.” He patted his broken leg fondly. “All creation would tremble in terror at the whisper of the name Equestria. But until that day, you must play your part... and I must play mine.”

“Twilight. With how much she’s told you, you must have worked something out with her,” he said, smiling encouragingly at her. He gently took Twilight by the hoof, the better to turn her towards him. “I won’t pry. If you want to tell me, then you’ll tell me. But Antimony and I will always be opposed. She will never allow the family to fracture, and she will die before she sees the main branch lose power. Hers’ is the power of birthright. Mine is the power of ambition.”

“Before the wedding,” he warned. “You will have to choose.”

Twilight squeezed his hoof with her own but kept her eyes planted down on the floor.

“Can’t you both just… talk things over?” she asked, hopefully. Blindly hopeful.

“Some things cannot be settled with words alone,” Brass insisted. “You know I need the armies of the Terre Rare to defeat the changelings.” He released her hoof to gently raise her chin. She met him face to face and felt a surge of embarrassment at her earlier shyness.

He was asking her to be strong.

“Our plans are still our plans, aren’t they?” he asked.

“They are,” Twilight promised him. “But… Antimony and I… and Rarity, we… we just want the city to be safe. We want to be sure.”

She glanced away, guiltily, and hoped that he didn’t notice.

“Have you talked to my sister about your branch of the family?” he asked.

Twilight shook her head. “No. I don’t… I don’t know what she’ll say.”

“You’re afraid that she’ll ask the same thing our father asked, that the main branch be allowed to decide your fate,” he guessed, and as always, he was spot-on.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

Alpha Brass leaned down to nudge her gently with his cheek, not quite as affectionate or personal as a nuzzle, but enough to get a pony’s attention. Twilight felt her cheeks warm up even more, but she returned the comforting gesture. Since Brass had come to Canterlot to try and broker some decease in tensions between the capitol and Neighpon, Twilight had tried to meet with him and test the waters of what could be another lasting relationship. It was like friendship… a new and exciting kind of friendship.

“The future is in your hooves,” he assured her. “Go with my sister. Learn what you need to learn. When the time comes, I know you will do what you feel is right.” He smiled brightly and laughed. “As long as you spend the day crushing bugs with me, I’ll stand by how you go about doing it.”

“T-thanks,” Twilight stammered, her usual loquaciousness failing in the face of Brass’s warm smile and supportive hoof cupping her own.

“Now, about our mutual ancestor,” he began, the pair of unicorns walking past a still wax pony with a horn.

For the next hour or so they talked about the sorts of magic a pony could use to keep themselves alive for more than a century. Certainly, some ponies could be long-lived, especially powerful unicorns and earth ponies in general, but no pony aside from the Princess could survive a century and a half of wear and tear. As with any thinking being, ponies throughout the ages had made the effort of trying to artificially extend their longevity.

Alchemists devised potions to rejuvenate the body… and many poisoned themselves with mercury in the process. Transmutation mages tried to turn the body into something more permanent… usually with horrific results. The ‘dummy’ body Twilight had secretly inhabited in the Blueblood archives was the result of the last real attempt to create artificial ponies, and to their credit, it hadn’t aged a day in over eight hundred years. Arcanists tried to use known age magic to continually fight the natural aging process… but eventually the magic faded and they aged rapidly and often violently. There was simply no way to remain young, forever.

Except for the Princesses, and even then, only Celestia and Luna appeared to be immortal.

Why – Twilight had wondered during her days of research – why only them? There were records of alicorns and alicorn Princesses going back to the pre-classical period. Hundreds or even thousands of years before the Migration and before the Twin Princesses there had been alicorns, and in the thousand years after, there had been a dozen more like Cadence. All had been mortal. There was nothing intrinsically immortal about alicorns.

The question then raised itself: would, or could, Celestia and Luna remain immortal if they were unicorns and not alicorns? Was their immortality related to their physiology, or was it due to their magic? As far as Twilight could tell, the only truly unique magic the Princesses had at their disposal was the ability to move the Sun and Moon. According to the Blueblood archives, everything else could and had at one point been done by others.

So how on Celestia’s good, green Equestria was Arsenic still alive?

Then there was the fact that, according to every history ever written that mentioned her, Arsenic was an earth pony.

Earth ponies couldn’t even use unicorn magic!

“In your book, you described a ritual where zebras could practice a form of necromancy…”

“Spirit Speaking,” Brass reminded her. “Necromancy is an evil art among the zebra. This was not that.”

“Zecora told me that what you wrote about was considered an evil art in her tribe, too.”

“Matters of degree I suppose,” he conceded, holding open the door to their carriage and helping her inside. Twilight tried to ignore the occasional flash of a camera from the small crowd of ponies that had been waiting for them outside. Part of the reason they had taken this trip was to be seen together. It was seen as important to lead the public into embracing her before they made their move against the Prench Terre Rare.

Sitting down, she recalled the incident in question, recounted in one of the three books Alpha Brass had written. One was a translation of a pre-classical text, mostly poems and mythology from the Old Kingdom and Dream Valley, but the other two books had been written about his time in Zebrabar. One was a history of three tribes he had encountered on the mainland, along with an ethnographic and linguistic study of the zebra peoples. The other was a more personal account of his time spent with the Abassinians, an ethnically donkey-race.

Brass had spent three months with them, and during that time he had recorded much of their oral history, taught several of them some basic Equestrian, and recorded what he could of their rites, magic, and beliefs. Twilight had read the book twice, as both an academic study and as an anecdotal adventure novel. In the pages, the young noblestallion had recounted a harrowing game of cat and mouse as a hunting party of zebra stallions, plus one unicorn, tried to protect the tribe from a pony-eating monster from the darkest savannah. For his part in slaying the beast, Brass had allegedly been given a tattoo in a very private place. Twilight found herself a little curious if that part of the book would hold up to more intense scrutiny.

She nibbled her lower lip and tried not to let him see her now rather intense blush. Naughty thoughts aside, it was doubly and surreptitiously exciting to actually be… this close to an author. While hardly well-known, Alpha Brass was a true gentlestallion and intellectual. All the other things he had done, though, paled in comparison to when she had found out about his books.

There was just something amazingly exciting about reading somepony’s words on paper. How many other mares had read his books, too? Being with him now… it was almost like she had a part of his book all to herself, one that nopony else could read!

Or maybe she just had a book fetish like some of her friends suggested?

Regardless, in said book, Brass had documented a zebra ritual called ‘spirit speaking.’ It had involved a shaman of the tribe leading a ceremony. A great fire had been built on a bed of coals and shrouded in incense. The participants, Brass included, had partaken of ‘cleansing herbs’ of which the primary ingredient was likely crushed White Sage Hoof, a known muscle relaxant and mild hallucinogen. The shaman then used an invocation to draw a spirit close to the fire, turning the flames blue-white. In the most shocking part of the ritual, a sacrificial pony – sedated by drugs – had her forelegs cut and her blood thrown into the fire. This empowered the spirit and gave it substance and even some form and frightful agency.

“Are you sure you actually saw the spirit speaking?” Twilight asked, turning towards him as they sat side by side in the rolling carriage. “You yourself said that the herbs you were given included White Sage Hoof. That doesn’t make for the most reliable testimony.”

“It happened as I described it,” he replied after a short pause. “My blood is very resistant to toxins in general. I learned that Sage would be involved before the ritual and boosted my immunity in order to give an unbiased account of the practice and the magic involved.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, just how did…”

“My mother,” Alpha Brass answered, clearly not needing to hear the question in full. “It is tradition for the mother of the main branch, if not a blood-born Terre Rare herself, to ingest a cocktail of poisons when pregnant. My sisters and myself… we have all activated Arsenic’s blood within us. The poison in our blood negates other toxins, though it also repels healing magic just as well. It is something of a two-sided blade, really.”

Twilight recalled the legend about Arsenic that she had told her friends back when she had described her family tree. Antimony had interrupted the story and called it slanderous. Even though it was looking more true than ever, and even though Antimony would have already known all this and more.

“Why would…?” Twilight almost asked but shook her head. “Maybe I’ll ask why you have blood like that when I meet Lady Arsenic.”

“It doesn’t give us immortality, so I’d be curious as well,” Brass admitted.

“This also means your account of the zebra ceremony, necromancy or not, was accurate,” she reasoned, leaning back in the soft leather of the carriage seat. “They were actually able to bind a dead pony to the material plane as some sort of phantom.”

He nodded, head bobbing as the carriage hit a rough patch of the cobblestone road. “You sound surprised, and yet, not all too surprised.”

“I came across a spell… a unicorn spell,” Twilight said and momentarily regretted it. It was a spell she had researched in the Blueblood Archives.

“And?” Brass asked.

“And it bore certain similarities to what you described in your book,” she went on. “It was called Prattle’s Persistent Pigeon. It involved a ceremony where a bird’s heart was quickly removed and set in a circle of chalk and salt. A special candle drew out the soul of the bird, turning the flame ‘bone white.’ The spirit was bound and sealed in the circle. Afterwards, it could be used to transmit messages to anypony in the world. Being a spirit, it never tired or slept, and no natural force could harm it or prevent it from carrying out its mission.”

“A useful spell,” her companion observed. “But I can see why it fell out of favor.”

“Princess Celestia would have a dim view of any magic that enslaves an animal’s soul,” Twilight agreed and shuddered. “It doesn’t say how the pony came up with it, but maybe she learned it from the zebra…”

“Tell me, where did you learn about this spell?” Brass wondered, and Twilight cringed so noticeably even a blind pony would’ve been able to sense her sudden discomfort. Brass didn’t comment on it.

“J-just, uh, in – in the bathroom!” she blurted out without thinking and quickly covered her face with her hooves. “I mean, in Princess Celestia’s bathroom! She must’ve left the book lying around! That’s it!”

“At least it wasn’t an issue of Stallions Gone Wild,” Alpha Brass said with a chuckle, and Twilight slowly lowered her hooves.

“Actually…”

The noble’s eyes widened slightly, and he seemed to understand the tone in her voice. “I see,” he stated, simply, staring forward. “Well, I suppose Princesses are ponies, too.”

“That was an awkward day,” Twilight stated, deadpan. Slowly, she returned to normal, thankful that her companion hadn’t seemed to pick up on her frankly terrible excuse on where she heard about a spell that all but screamed ‘forbidden magic.’ Either that or Brass just saw no need to pry. She would have been thankful for either.

Blueblood’s recording had warned her about what she could find in the Family Archives. She’d understood even from the start that there had to be good reasons for certain magic being dubbed forbidden. Actually reading some of the spells was another matter entirely. It became a little easier to sate her magical curiosity in the Archive when she realized just how much of what was there was magic she really, really didn’t want to ever have to use.

Fluttershy would probably stare any pony that used Prattle’s spell right into a coma.

Researching that treatise, Twilight hadn’t even wanted to get into what Prattle’s Pernicious Puppy involved. Something horrible, no doubt. Involving puppies. According to the records from the Third Blueblood, Prattle had gone from a hero of Equestria to terrorizing the country. She’d been petrified for her crimes almost a thousand years ago.

‘Knowing our luck, she’ll probably break free someday, too,’ Twilight lamented. ‘What the heck was wrong with ponies back then? Maybe nopony developing any new magic in five hundred years is a good thing?’

“When you meet with our mutual great-great grandmother,” Alpha Brass spoke up, a serious and intense look on his face that Twilight hadn’t seen since he had first shown her the changelings that threatened their country. “Bring a gift, and keep your wits about you. My baby sister may think herself too honorable to use this as a trap, but others will be less constrained… and Arsenic herself was not a nice pony.”

“Why not…” he mused, holding out his hoof, “why not go together?”

Twilight stared at his offered hoof, his help, and took it. Her hoof in his.

“I’d like that,” she agreed but shook her head. “But I made a promise.”

“To Antimony,” he guessed.

Don’t panic. Cause it.

“To… to her,” Twilight lied, not enjoying a second of it.

Luckily, Alpha Brass simply smiled comfortingly at her words. Twilight apologetically leaned into his shoulder as the carriage rolled through the streets of Canterlot. After the wedding, she would apologize for lying to him. He would understand. She knew he would.

He would.

Eunomie (iv)

Early on, especially, father took on most of the work.

He gathered allies even as he sold enemies to Chrysalis. He made arrangements to ensure that my Aunt, Polished Jewel, could not become the family successor. In so doing, he also acquired Aunt Chalice for our cause and empowered her via one of the Star Keys. Aunt Antimony was also empowered and set on her course to become the family heir. Antimony opposes father, bitterly even, but that does not necessarily make her an enemy. So long as she acts in a predictable manner, she is really just another weapon in our arsenal, albeit one that needs to be handled with great care.

As Father has said, ‘once the reins and the blinders are affixed, it does not take much force to direct a pony down a desired path. She will move of her own free will, seeing what you want her to see.’ This is as true of orphans as it is of Princesses.

Princesses.

Like Cadance.

Before her abduction, Father also made sure to teach Lady Mi Amore Cadenza one of his family spells… in secret. Father knew she would eventually be taken by the changelings. It was inevitable that the new Queen Chrysalis would want to make full use of the alicorn she had imprinted on as a larva. In the long term, she had no choice. It was only a matter of when the changelings would make the switch and where they would keep their most valuable captive. Then we would have our Trojan Pony.

The young Princess alicorn quickly learned the remote communication magic of the Terre Rare so that she could speak with my father. It was an amusement, at first, for they had been acquainted with one another in their foalhood. It worked just as well in captivity. For my part in things, I was naturally the most logical host for the possession magic. It is a terrifying thing, you know, to lose control of your body and mind… to have both subsumed by another. Aunt Chalice would know this as well. For me, such terror is merely uncomfortable. It is for the greater good.

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza… our captive ally…

I can feel it when she takes over my body. Her suffering, her frustration, her desperation… her anger… and her love… I can feel it all. I think I feel sorry for her.

But love is a weapon, too, no different than hate. Both have their uses, just as a sword may have two edges. Princess Cadenza is our weapon, too, sheathed and waiting to be drawn.

Mi Amore Cadenza

Cadance felt the moonlight play across her skin, bathing her pink coat in a soft glow. It was a luxuriant, wonderful delectation – a pleasure that should by rights belong to another, but it was also a pleasure given freely as a release from the horrors of abuse and imprisonment. The moonlight, in truth, did not play over her real body. That remained in the crystal cell, chained and seemingly asleep. This was the body of another, but for somepony trapped in a cage for months, even a vicarious pleasure was to be treasured. So Princess Cadance clung to it like a life raft adrift in the sea.

Wings spread wide, she trotted across the marble walkway, past night-blooming flowers and gentle, bubbling waterfalls that trickled down into meandering paths cut in the stone. The grotto was partly wreathed in steam, but Cadance could see some of the green gardens raised on adjacent terraces. Even at night, here in the Hanging Gardens, ponies were still awake.

She could see lights, some moving, along with the distant, muted voices of other mares and the sounds of music. It was a gentle but thrumming modern beat, full of artificial sounds and a symphony of drums. Taken together, the secluded grotto in this perfect garden paradise… it was truly like heaven compared to what Cadance knew awaited her return to her body.

It was tempting to remain here, safe, forever…

Cadance dispelled that thought as the one indulgence above all others that she could not allow herself to fall prey to. When her allotted and agreed upon time was up, she would return to her body. Eunomie was already being exceedingly generous to give up her body and time for the caged Princess. Cadance swore not to betray the stoic mare’s trust and goodwill. It was already rather improper, the liberties she took in the name of keeping relaxed and prepared for the plans and trials ahead.

Slipping slowly, her back hooves first, into the steaming hot pool at the edge of the grotto, Cadance heard a sinful sigh escape her lips. Her real body had not been bathed in months. When the changelings were gone, and Shining was safe and by her side again, the first thing she planned to do was soak. Her whole honeymoon could well be spent in a hot tub like this one, listening to distant music and getting lost in the heady mix of cool air and hot water.

It would be her honeymoon, too, so it would only be fair for Shining to join her in the water… saving Equestria from the changelings would be cause for celebration enough, but as husband and wife, it would also be their sacred duty to consummate the marriage. As the nobles she had grown up with always said, two ponies were not husband and wife until they sealed the deal themselves.

“Shining…” she whispered, missing his voice, his touch, his company. Not just missing it. Knowing who had it. It blended the feeling of loss with anger. Chrysalis.

If Alpha didn’t deal with the changeling witch, she would make it her business to finish the job for him.

Closing her eyes and sighing, accepting a measure of powerlessness at the moment, Cadance tried to relax again and find both her equilibrium and her comfort zone. There was much to think on as she soaked in the steaming hot water. Moving to one of the steps in the pool, she shifted until her shoulders rested against a grooved waterfall. The scent of nearby flowers, together with the warbling background noise and the steam, all combined to make her a little lightheaded. She dozed, lazily, in Eunomie’s body.

“He. He. He.”

Cadance’s eyes snapped open at the sound of laughter.

“Well, well, well! Look at this!”

Cadance turned her head and saw an ivory white mare with a wild, bright blue mane. It was Euporie, she knew, the second of Alpha’s step-daughters. They had met in the flesh before her abduction, though Cadance couldn’t say she knew Euporie as well as Eunomie. She seemed… strange. Or maybe ‘intense’ was a good way of putting it? Hot, where Eunomie was cold? Fickle where her sister was faithful?

Euporie tossed a towel off her back with a flick of magic and strode into the steamy pool with a purposeful sway of her hips and a sultry flick of her tail. In the water, she swiftly ducked her head, immersing it entirely only to bring it back out again. Running her forelegs over her horn and down the back of her head to her neck, she smoothed over the thick mane behind her and then let it fall, loose and wild, over her shoulders and chest. If being in the presence of a Princess Serene had imparted any bit of propriety in the mare, she sure didn’t show it.

“So here I was, expecting my somber sister to be taking a midnight dip… when I find our esteemed Princess instead?” Euporie said with a half-laugh half-snicker. Another, ‘He. He. He.’

“This is a surprise,” she concluded, smiling coyly at her guest.

Cadance felt the need to explain. “Eunomie gave me permission…”

“I said it was a surprise,” Euporie repeated, splashing the water gently with a hoof. “Not that it was an unpleasant one. You are always welcome under my father’s roof, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Let’s just relax together, shall we?”

Cadance nodded, relieved that the other sister didn’t seem to mind the situation. If she had been in Euporie’s horseshoes, it probably would have weirded her out to know some other pony was in her sibling’s body. Maybe it was made less creepy by the fact that the possession magic also imposed a semi-tangible illusion over her body, so she didn’t look like Eunomie at the moment. Or, maybe, Euporie was just de-sensitized to such things?

The two mares soaked in silence for some time.

To her own surprise, Cadance was the first to break the comfortable silence.

“Is…” She almost stopped, hearing the desperate tone in her voice to hear some news or even some gossip. Stars and heavens, she actually missed the gossip of all things! “Is there anything… interesting… going on outside?”

“Everypony’s getting ready for the wedding of the year,” Euporie replied, wiping a stray strand of hair from the side of her face, where it had partly obscured one amber eye. “Canterlot is buzzing. It’ll buzz even more on your wedding day, but you know that already.” She idly tapped her hoof against the stone that rimmed the pool. “If you want juicy rumors, though, I’m not the best pony to talk to. I’ve been out of town until just today. I had to drop by Ponyville, first, and more recently…”

“What?” Cadance asked, as the other mare trailed off.

Euporie’s grin widened, bearing pearl white teeth.

“Just a little trip to one of our colonies,” she answered with another snickering laugh. “They were having a party that I just couldn’t resist crashing.”

“Oh. That… sounds fun, actually.” Cadance tried to imagine just what kind of party Euporie could be talking about. If it was out in the colonies, it could be almost anything. Probably not a stale, old Gala, at least!

“Ummm-hmmm!” Euporie made a humming sound, as if thinking out loud. “While we’re chatting, I’ve always wanted to ask you something…”

“Is that so?” Cadance asked, returning the other mare’s ever-present grin with an earnest smile her own. After the company she had in the crystal prison, it was just nice to have somepony to talk to. “What is it? Ask away!”

“Oh, well! You see! I’m just curious,” Euporie explained, and her smile remained in place though the look in her eyes changed, becoming less carefree and more intense. “What’s it like?”

The Princess blinked, confused. “What… is what like?”

“Being in my sister’s body of course!” the grinning mare answered, splashing her front hooves into the calm water. “I’ve often wondered! Does it feel strange? I guess it might to me… but maybe, for you, it must feel like wrapping yourself in a warm blanket, right? Does it feel good, exchanging your body for my sister’s?”

Cadance slinked down into the hot water at the inquiry. It felt… uncomfortable to discuss. But honesty seemed the best policy. It was only proper, given the circumstances.

“It does… feel good,” she admitted, and a blush tinted her already rosy pink cheeks. “Getting away from that prison. Getting away from all of it. It feels good…”

“Ah!” Euporie replied with a wide-eyed look. “I see. Is that really it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I would expect you to feel relief in getting away. It is a respite, isn’t it? Away from that hell the changelings have you in,” Euporie explained, and her smile became crooked as she went on. “But that isn’t the same thing as pleasure. Pleasure isn’t the absence of pain. I wonder if that feeling you get comes from something else?”

Something… else?

Cadance narrowed her eyes slightly. “I don’t follow.”

“You are literally possessing another pony,” Euporie reminded her, pushing off from her side of the pool to trot slowly through the water towards the captive Princess. “You can do whatever you want with her body right now. It isn’t just a reprieve. It is an escape. That power… I bet it feels good. Everypony enjoys having power over others. On a primal level, you enjoy it, don’t you?”

Euporie, now inches from the seated Princess, leaned even closer until their noses were almost touching.

“I would,” she whispered, and Cadance had to force her eyes closed.

“You’re both right and wrong,” the Princess informed her, putting a hoof to the other mare’s chest and gently pushing her away. “I do feel a little… thrill… I guess. But it is tempered by the responsibility I have to take care of your sister’s body. I would never abuse that trust she has in me.”

Euporie’s smirk twisted for a moment at the rejection, but just as quickly she shrugged, laughing, and plopped herself down in the water. It was deeper where she had been standing, so when sitting down, the water level came all the way up to her jaw.

“You were using magic on me,” Cadance added, a little upset and unnerved.

“I was!” Euporie conceded with another exaggerated shrug. “But you’re in my sister’s body, even if it looks like yours. My mojo never did work on her, which is really frustrating, since her lame magic works just fine on me! Not that I have all that much magic left after that big party I went to.”

“You shouldn’t toy with ponies' emotions like that,” Cadance admonished the other mare. “Especially like you do, on the chemical level.”

“Am I really hearing this from Equestria’s so called Princess of Love?” Euporie asked with a raised eyebrow. “How many ponies have you tweaked over the years? A hundred? More?”

Cadance shook her head.

“It isn’t like that,” she insisted. “I don’t try to make love where it doesn’t exist. I just fan the flames… blow gently on the embers…”

Euporie, still almost entirely submerged, lowered her nose enough to blow bubbles, like a child.

“As much as I want to point out our similarities,” she said when she reemerged and sat down on the same step next to the alicorn, “I have to admit there are some pretty major differences. Your special talent’s magic earned you a horn and wings… or it is just a horn and an earth pony heart? Either way, something about it must have stood out. What was it, really?” Euporie learned closer, more playfully than last time. “Come on, you can tell little old me!”

Cadance felt the other mare give her a gentle, too-friendly shake.

She sighed. “It is as I just explained, really. I was born a pegasus pony, so it was the horn and the heart. Though I’m a little surprised you know about alicorns. Alpha must have taught you.” She turned her eyes down towards the steamy water that licked at her coat. “It wasn’t as simple as you’re thinking, either. There was this magical artifact… from the old Crystal Empire. I don’t know what would have happened if it wasn’t there. But – but I managed to bring out the love in this other pony…”

It was an incident she hadn’t thought of in a long time. Given everything else happening in the world, it was just a part of her past that had come and gone. Yes, it had changed her life, but she hardly even remembered much of it. Like so much of her ‘previous life,’ it was kind of a blur. But that was the case for most ponies. Who really remembered much from when they were a little foal?

“The important thing, Princess Celestia told me, was that I was tapping into natural love magic,” she tried to explain. She and Euporie were similar in certain ways, after all. “I’m not a walking love potion. I take what’s there – the seed of love – and I help it grow. Princess Celestia said nopony had done that kind of magic before. She said it was unique… new. That’s how I became an alicorn.”

Cadance felt herself frown, as one other detail came back to her, there, in that pool.

“And there was a space, I remember. Pictures. Flashes of light. Another world… I remember whispering, ‘It’s full of stars.’ And the Princess was there, waiting for me.”

She looked up and saw Euporie watching her contemplatively.

“Full of stars,” she repeated, and the smile returned. ‘He. He. He!’ “I’d like to see that!”

“It was cold, too,” Cadance added, though it seemed a very trivial bit of information compared to everything else. “I’d rather not go back there, myself.”

Euporie nodded, as if she really understood.

“The magical spell you’re using right now!” she suddenly said, pointing at the Princess. “Do you know where it comes from? Hmm?”

Cadance tilted her head slightly, thrown off balance by the strange question. The spell between her and Eunomie? It was contract magic. As for where it came from…it was probably some unicorn in the distant past. That was where most magic came from. Alpha Brass had taught them both… probably. He hadn’t come up with it himself had he? No, that couldn’t be. Nopony invented new magic. It was ironic coming from her, but it was true. Mostly.

“The spell is contract magic,” she said, not wanting to really admit just how little she knew about the spell she was using.

“A contract with what, though?” Euporie asked, drifting away in the water like a lurking predator. “Did you know that Grandpa Cruciger has a spell that he uses to project his image into other ponies? What you’ve got is better than that, though. You’re actually taking over another pony’s body, and then you layer an illusion over it. But that’s just one type of pony jumping into another type of pony. What do you think would happen if something else had a contract like this with somepony?”

“Something else?” Cadance asked. “Like… what?”

“He. He. He!” Euporie gradually returned to her spot on the other side of the pool, reclining like a stretching cat against the cool marble. “That’s the question, isn’t it? Right now, my sister’s body is like a door, allowing you to visit our home. Those crystal caves you’re in block mortal pony magic, but not this. Isn’t that odd? I wonder why.”

The way Euporie said ‘I wonder why’ seemed rather more taunting than teasing.

“I think you know why,” Cadance stated, and Euporie licked her grinning lips. “Are you going to share it with me?”

“Hmmm. Am I?” she wondered aloud. She cupped her chin and seemed to give it a few seconds of deep thought before nodding. “I guess I can. You told me some fun stuff just now, so it seems fair for me to do the same thing.”

Cadance found herself leaning forward, ears alert. “So what is it then?”

“The magic you’re using right now,” Euporie explained, splashing the water playfully with one kicking hoof. “Ponies didn’t invent it.”

Ponies… didn’t…? But that made no sense.

“Ponies didn’t invent fire, did we?” Euporie asked with a helpless shrug. “We just harness it. Anyway! What matters is that it works, right? You’re here and not there. So relax. We all need you to be ready for the wedding, so I’m really hoping that things are going according to plan wherever your real body is.” Euporie’s eyes narrowed behind her broad smile. “You are making progress, aren’t you?”

Cadance coughed behind a raised hoof. “Y-yes… I’ve made some progress…”

“Some progress?” Euporie asked, and there was a hint of accusation in her tone.

The Princess of Love snorted, upset not just with Euporie’s odd lines of questioning but her own problems. “Chrysalis put my brother in the cell next to mine, just like we thought she would.”

Euporie nodded eagerly. “I know. As I recall, you’re supposed to do something to him…”

“The power of love has another aspect to it,” Cadance explained, “a less obvious one. I always thought of it as a side-effect, really, but when I love another pony, I can actually enhance their magic with my own. Something about my unique magic amplifies the magic of others. I don’t really know how it works, but I’ve seen it… Shining was always a very powerful stallion, but whenever I cheered him on, he seemed able to easily accomplish things he had once struggled with.”

“We’re both stronger when we’re together,” she stressed. “It is reciprocal. That’s what true love is. That’s what we’ll show Chrysalis when I find her at the wedding. No matter how powerful she thinks she is, Shining and I will be stronger still. And… and, of course, if I have trouble getting to Shining… I need a backup plan…”

“A backup plan?” Euporie sniggered. “Blueblood?”

Cadance nodded slowly. “Prince Blueblood. We are brother and sister…”

“As brother and sister as Alpha Brass and I are father and daughter,” Euporie chimed in. “So what’s the problem? Don’t tell me! I can guess! You don’t love each other…? So no convenient super power boost? It’ll be trouble if you’re still stuck in your cage when the bug queen marches up the aisle in your wedding dress.”

Cadance grumbled at the other mare calling the power of true love a ‘power boost.’ It was so much more!

But, yes, it was also a power boost.

Of sorts.

“We have a backup for that, too,” Cadance reminded her. “Miss Heartstrings. But--” Her brows came together in a scowl, directed solely at herself. “--I got Blue into this mess. He’s in that prison because I told Alpha to arrange it. I thought: if he were close by, we could talk somehow, and then we could reconcile. We’d be like we were years ago. He was my big brother best friend forever once. Then we’d both be powerful enough to break free…”

The imprisoned Princess covered her face with her foreleg.

“But he’s kept drugged!” she lamented, groaning at how her plan had been so easily foiled by the Changeling Queen’s caution. “They keep him asleep. Dreaming! And when I try to tap into the love we used to have…”

“What?” Euporie asked, as the Princess trailed off, her sentence unfinished. “What then?”

Cadance slowly lowered her leg, her eyes hard.

“Terror,” she said, simply. “Terror and despair. Whatever he’s dreaming… wherever he is… his heart is dying.” There was no doubt in her voice, no hesitation. “It doesn’t matter that I have another way to escape. I have to save him, too. We have to save each other… both of us… or not at all.”

For a long moment, Euporie was silent, soaking in the alicorn’s words.

“But,” she finally said, stroking her long, wet mane. “Isn’t there another pony you could use? You and my father are close, aren’t you?”

Cadance nodded. Alpha Brass was an old friend, and she had only grown closer to him because of her captivity. He was one of the few ponies she had any contact with anymore. It occurred to her that she loved him, too, like a brother. The spark was there, at least on her end, but Brass’s psyche was damaged. She could feel it even through Eunomie’s senses. The spark of love in him was like a blackened and burned tree, charred down to the roots, still standing but hollow and dead inside.

Could even she salvage such a thing?

Practically speaking, how much power could she give him, even if it were just one way?

“If Prince Blueblood or even Shining Armor can’t be used in time,” Euporie proposed. “I’m sure you and my father could work something out.”

“I… suppose that’s true,” Cadance admitted, and it was sobering food for thought.

Slipping down in the hot water, Euporie continued to snicker until her mouth submerged and only tittering bubbles could be heard, almost indistinct against the background noise of waterfalls and music. Euporie was a strange, silly sort of pony, but she was knowledgeable in this regard, and she brought up a good point. Brass was like a brother to her, and if he and Twilight went ahead with their engagement, they would all become family. His heart was wounded, but there was still enough there to work with. She could use her power to enhance his.

If… if all else failed…

Then maybe it would come to that.

Eunomie (v)

So it began.

Alpha Brass. Euporie. Mi Amore Cadenza. Myself.

All four of us made our preparations for the battle to come. Father set up Chrysalis, subtly encouraging her to believe that an attack on Canterlot during Cadenza’s wedding could not possibly fail. He encouraged her to assemble the other changeling hives and rally them under her banner. From there, a number of possible scenarios presented themselves. Cadenza had her plan, Euporie her plan, Father had his. All three would result in the destruction of the changelings and, taken together, they represented overlapping chances of success. Infiltration and failure of one would do little to endanger the other two.

Father, always a patron of the arts, also took it upon himself to gather those artists who could be of practical use in the conspiracy. Art. Science. Magic. All three are intertwined in Equestria. Great minds were found and brought to Father’s new Hanging Gardens… his refuge, his castle, and his sword of Damocles, hanging over the neck of the world. As Marquis of the Frontier and the Colonies, expeditions were sent to the Old Kingdom, to the ruins of the Crystal Empire, to Zebrabar and the burning Sunset Lands. Equestria’s first great colonial expansion in hundreds of years provided the perfect pretext.

What was coming could not be stopped.

Yet, there remained unforeseen complications...

On the night Discord’s madness overtook much of Equestria, we were affected as well. My sister and I returned to normal, but we soon learned that father’s trusted bodyguard, Sirocco, had fled in the chaos. Father had been stunned by the betrayal, and our plans endangered by the fact that Sirocco had also absconded with our third Star Key. We sent assassins and bounty hunters after her, to no avail.

The distraction from the scrolls and tablets also served to draw Lyra’s eyes towards the stands of jewelry near the collection of steles and other carvings. Out of a dozen different displays, featuring bijous, rosaries and ancient finery, one piece of royal regalia stood out.

“The torc,” she said, too loudly to be just a whisper. “That’s just like my torc.”

It wasn’t alone, either.

Then, it occurred to her. “One of them… you have three mannequins, but only two torcs.”

“Your torc,” Alpha Brass whispered into her ear, “was mine, before it was stolen.”

In addition to that complication, further troubles arose as a result of the events following the Grand Galloping Gala. Primarily with respect to His Grace, Lord Blueblood. Nopony had considered the possibility that he would fall into the company of an untitled and lowborn mare. Nopony considered that he would actually love such a pony. It interfered with the Terre Rare succession and the arrangement of forces that would be called for during the battle that would be the Canterlot wedding of Cadance and Shining Armor. It was a problem.

Rarity was the mare’s name.

Rarity kept the two heraldic crests Blueblood had won for her neatly folded, mostly since she wasn't sure what to do with them. She also made a mental note to check some of her romance novels when she got back home. They were sadly her first and oldest source of information on courtly culture, and while the knightly stallion presenting a trophy to his true love was quite a common scene, the authors never much went into what the mares did with the prizes. Keep them, she assumed. Somewhere. It wasn't as if she had many pockets in her dress, and the ripped cloth clashed far too terribly with her ensemble to try and wear it somehow.

Taken by a sudden idea, Rarity injected a little transformative and restorative magic into the ripped cloth. With a glow and a poof, the fabric repaired itself and merged together. A little more stylistic tweaking, and it became a passable shawl, the two checkered heraldic icons on either end. In a last-second spark of inspiration, remembering that the prizes were very much prizes because they were ripped, she left the ends purposefully ragged.

Draping her new shawl over her shoulders, Rarity heard a titter from the seat next to her.

“I don't believe I've seen that done before!” A shapely, thin mare with a figure to resemble a Princess' sat to Rarity's left, watching her with amusement. Unlike most of the mares and even stallions present, she wore very little: only a sun hat to keep herself cool.

“You do have some interesting tastes... and that magic?” she inquired.

“I find almost anything can do with a little extra fabulosity! Don't you?” Rarity replied with a confident grin. “I'm Rarity.”

“Fleur-de-lis,” the other mare formally made introduction. “Of the Iris Family.”

It soon became clear that the Prince was not treating her as a mere dalliance, and worse, that she was gaining influence of her own. The rapprochement between Blueblood and Fancypants proved as much. She was a threat that would only grow in time. Antimony was all but forced to press her claim. It was expected that she would find a way to make this “Rarity” challenge her to a duel… and then crush her, as she had done with some many others.

Antimony was considered undefeatable after her victory over Sand Dune, years before. With Rarity out of the picture, she would then cement the engagement with Blueblood, giving the Terre Rare control over military deployment in the Canterlot Duchy. Blueblood himself could still be replaced by a changeling and without any real harm done. Antimony could not and would not love her fiancé, whom she held nothing but contempt for, and no changeling would be able to influence her through her illusions. All would have remained in place.

Except…

This made no damned sense!

Backing away a step in both worlds, Antimony recoiled as faint wisps of magic began to form around her opponent. Rarity seemed surprised by it herself, turning her head to watch the colors of light around her as they circled and spun, leaving scintillating contrails in their wake. More and more of them appeared until Ponyville's dressmaker was all but engulfed in an ever-widening hurricane of magical energy. Antimony took another step back, lifting a leg as one of the brighter lights nicked her.

“This magic!” she gasped, recognizing it. “Pegasus magic?”

Another of the swirling lights came close to hitting her, and Antimony recognized it as well.

“And earth pony magic?” she asked, incredulous. “And unicorn magic!? And...” And others she didn't even recognize. “Just what is this? Just what are you doing!” The Baroness reared and stamped her hooves. “Just what kind of magic is this?!”

“You don't recognize it?” Rarity asked, haltingly, as she looked up with wide, bright eyes.

All at once, the swarm of colors became a screaming, lightning-fast rainbow.

“This,” she declared, blue eyes alight with a fire of their own. “This is the magic of friendship!”

Against all odds, Antimony lost.

It had sent a ripple of shock throughout the noble circles. It also jeopardized what we had set in motion. As if to further complicate matters, Antimony noticed a Star Key in the possession of one Lyra Heartstrings. It was on loan to Twilight Sparkle, who seemed poised to divine the magics behind it.

Antimony made as if to leave, approaching the door outside, only to pause.

“Not to pry,” she remarked, glancing back over her shoulder at the other mare. “But why is it you wish to make use of the library here?”

“Oh. That's easy enough to answer!” Twilight assured her with a happy grin. “I need to check a few references on pre-classical and classical spellwork. Specifically the structure and organization of Reinmare Star Fields, the nature and disposition of magical amplification via low-density inorganic solids, oh, and I need to double check the elastic theory of aether propagation as a result of both invocation and convocation.”

For a moment, the sheer technical density of Twilight's words baffled her fellow unicorn and magic user. Antimony shook her head in much the same way most of Twilight’s friends and acquaintances did after hearing a few sentences of technomagical babble. Muttering a soft “very well,” the Baroness started on her way... only to pause once more.

“Aether propagation?” she inquired, but didn't turn around. “And Reinmare Fields?”

Yet, in every moment of chaos, one can also find opportunity. Father saw it. Through Euporie, he contacted the mares Antimony had previously defeated. Ritterkreuz needed little encouragement, and it was a given that her foolish and self-destructive behavior would cripple the peerless Wonderbolts, who would otherwise be a wild card in the battle to come. Lady Yumi was one Father had kept an eye on for some time, knowing that Neighpon was outside the influence of Chrysalis. She would be both a potential ally and potential bait to draw out Chrysalis’s most well-hidden and trusted infiltrators.

“Yumi-hime!” the bound pegasus cried. “I am not injured! I can still--”

A silent glare from the Neighponese noblemare locked her jaws shut.

“I will return for them,” Yumi said, and to Applejack, it sounded rather like a threat. The noblemare rolled up the sleeve of her white dress, and a moment later a unicorn servant appeared, teleporting to her side. The newly arrived brown and yellow mare paused only a moment to collect herself, then a swirl of magic escaped her horn and she, Yumi, and Antlers disappeared. The fields of grass settled, once again swaying peacefully in the breeze.

Applejack released a breath she had been holding.

“She seems nice!” Pinkie was grinning as always.

“Positively charming,” Rarity agreed, laying on the sarcasm. “I swear I felt my mane stand on end. If there is any justice in Equestria, she will be the worst we have to deal with in the coming weeks.”

Lyra Heartstrings was invited to the Hanging Gardens, where father quickly turned her from a potential threat into an asset. Twilight Sparkle followed soon after, though the process there was much more delicate and involved. Rather than steal back the Broken Star Key, or even draw undue attention to it, our work with it could continue in Ponyville. Twilight Sparkle, herself, would provide both willing and unwitting assistance. Plans changed to accommodate her until she became an intrinsic part of our inner circle.

“Assume this one’s form,” Brass commanded, directing his gaze down at the caged pony. She hissed, and Twilight saw sharp, pointed needle-teeth behind her lips.

“Now,” Brass’s voice was soft, but it echoed in Twilight’s ears. It reminded her of how Celestia could whisper and silence a throne room full of squabbling. It was the Royal Canterlot Voice. But this was the first time Twilight had seen it performed outside of the royal family of the Princesses and Blueblood.

Then, to Twilight’s shock…

The pegasus transformed. Her coat shifted somewhere under the skin, the color changing like the hide of an octopus, purple spots expanding and meeting until they filled in completely. The former pegasus took on a familiar shade of lavender, and a horn materialized on her head. Her single wing melted away after folding back to her side, until it was as if it had never been there.

It was eerie, surreal, and even a little sickening when a ripple went through the creature’s blue mane, adding in her trademark violet and blush colored highlights.

“What - what on Equestria are you?” Twilight asked, staring at the caged unicorn.

“What on Equestria are you?” the other-Twilight Sparkle mocked, replicating her voice perfectly. “I’m you.”

Euporie and myself made the decision to approach Flim and Flam to further undermine the new Ponyville Barony. We identified the weakness of the Barony not in the forces it could call on, as Yumi believed with her pas d’arms, but in the finances it had available. If Rarity was bankrupted propping up her friend’s farm – and by pressure from the other farms in the area to provide similar protective subsidies – then she would be marginalized by the time the wedding came around. She could even be manipulated once a third party had control of her purse strings.

Flam coughed, adjusting his untied black bow tie.

“Miss Mosaic,” he said, and both mares turned to stare at him, one bubbly and smiling, the other icy-cold and glaring. The attention only added to the stallion's nervousness. “I've been thinking.”

“Go on,” Eunomie prompted.

“About what, Flim?” Euporie asked.

“I'm not... ah, never mind. When we get to Ponyville and begin to undercut the town's Apple farmers,” Flam said, repeating himself as he spoke up a little louder. “Won't the local nobility step in to protect their business interests? I mean, we've been chased out of towns before, and even when the con worked, it really only stuck until the local Baroness drove us out with subsidies. What if that happens here?”

It also presented an opportunity, later, to ensure that Yumi accomplished her real mission, giving the changelings a chance to replace Prince Blueblood, thereby revealing the few we had allowed to infiltrate our teleportation unit. A changeling Blueblood, after all, would be more predictable than the existing one had proven to be, after whatever change had occurred in him during the Grand Galloping Gala.

The Prince touched his horn to the window panes, inhaling the cool night air. A fly landed on his nose for his trouble, forcing him to bat it away.

“This is like the perfect storm of insane, power-hungry, star-struck mares,” he lamented. “And to top it off, I can't marry Rarity because suddenly Cadenza - Cadenza just has to have her wedding of the year. And we can't have the Prince just elope. It has to be pomp and ceremony!”

Luna brushed up alongside him, prompting nervous, ranting stallion to catch his breath.

“Nephew,” she said, jabbing him with a wing. “I have seen Rarity fight. I have seen the Element of Harmony in action. Tia wishes them to handle this on their own? Trust in her judgment, and trust in their ability.”

“Maybe,” he conceded, eyes narrowed as his frown slowly turned up into a tight smile. “But I've noticed Auntie never let faith keep her from skewing things just a little in her favor. The good thing about a spotlight is that it keeps everypony else in the dark. So I will make my moves in the dark.”

“The darkness is as fine a place as any,” Luna agreed with a cheerful titter. A flap of her graceful wings and she jumped out the window. “I will be in the dark as well. Watching for you.”

Nopony noticed the flock of bats circle the manor outside town on its way back to Canterlot.

Blueblood’s replacement was the final nail in the coffin that ponies call “Canterlot.”

Chrysalis, with Prince Blueblood in her pocket, has no doubt made the fatal mistake of assuring herself that the city is ripe for the plucking. She has been made confident. After all, through her puppet-Prince, she can divert guards and other defenses from the city. She will imagine she has set the table for her feast to come.

Furthermore, up until the moment we eliminated them, she will know that she had spies in our own teleportation unit. This will make her even more confident, ignorant as she is of the backdoor means of entering father’s Hanging Gardens. She will assume she has a record of all who came and went, when in fact she knows only what we wanted her to know.

All this… was necessary to build her confidence… to make her over-confident.

She will commit to the swarming of Canterlot with every changeling that will heed her call. Her pride will lead her to bring in all her sister-swarms from outside the country. They will come to us, in all their fury and hunger, and they will abandon their normal methodology of concealment and disguise. They will root themselves out for us.

Our deception was also an essential factor in Lady Mi Amore Cadenza’s plan. She needed Blueblood. Two birds were thus caught in a single cage. It is likely neither will ever escape their cage alive.

In the end, things went well. Blueblood was replaced. The Wonderbolts were shattered. Neighpon and Canterlot were at each other’s throats, thereby making the mobilization of troops in neighboring duchies less obtrusive, most notably in Terre Rare-controlled Prance and Germaney. Even Sand Dune, another potential wild card, appeared only to retreat again, mollified by the charismatic new Baroness of Ponyville. The situation was not as favorable as if Antimony had simply cemented her engagement to the Prince, but it will suffice. Even the once-missing Star Key is now accounted for, and Twilight Sparkle has made great strides in repairing it.

The wedding comes.

We must all be ready. A more poetic pony would probably have something insightful to say about what is to come. She would have something deep and meaningful to share. I am not that pony.

Celestia (present)

When most ponies imagined the Court of the Dawn, one of two things typically came to mind.

The first and most likely was the line of petitioners that waited for an audience. This was what little ponies thought of when they imagined the “royal court.” It was actually sort of a high point of the whole affair because of the drama and surprises that could come into the court and the stories brought up by the small ponies of the land. Celestia found it was very often a joy to assist them in any way she could, sometimes by settling disputes in fair and creative ways and sometimes simply by lending an ear and promising to set a subordinate to investigate the issue.

Sadly, most of the time in court was strictly closed-door discussion and review. This was what most nobles thought of when they imagined sitting in on her Royal Court. This was their world, a world of long, rehearsed speeches, whispered alliance building, and courtly display of one’s accomplishments and talents. The actual lawmaking was all argued and hashed out in the tumultuous Stable of Lords, but it was in the Court of the Dawn that laws were first proposed and trade deals inaugurated. It wasn’t even as odious as it may have sounded: it was rather like a wild forum at times, promoting discussion and discourse, both publicly with peers and privately with one’s conspirators.

Nonetheless, Princess Celestia found the small acts of wisdom and kindness in helping individual ponies often more satisfying than whispering her desires to a cabinet member and seeing a law passed that affected millions. It was the strange juxtaposition of statehood, she supposed. As far as she knew, no other sovereign spent as much time as she did indulging herself by listening to the petitions of her small folk.

In this particular Court, the subject of international affairs came up just before lunch, during which Celestia honored the visiting Saddle Marabian party consisting of the Emir, his wife, his consort, and his head of security… who was also a consort. They presented and received gifts, exchanged pleasantries, and left with their ambassador. The griffin ambassador presented to the court next, outlining in great detail the confidence Equestria should have in Crown Roc and the lengths the rulers there have gone to recently to keep the borders safe. Much was made of the treaty signed by Blueblood and Prince Mnemon and the friendship of the two countries.

To her surprise and delight, she was informed that the Prince of Crown Roc would also be visiting Canterlot in time for the royal wedding. The eternal Princess smirked as she remembered when she had first seen the little griffin chick. Of course, Celestia remembered when his father had been a chick, too… and his grand-father. Supposedly, little Mnemon had grown into a fine young lion.

It would be nice to see him again.

Hopefully he wouldn’t still be calling her ‘Granny’ like when he was little. She shook her head and dismissed the griffin Ambassador. Who was she kidding? He would probably not only call her ‘Granny Celestia’ but yell it at the top of his lungs.

After the griffins left, the court returned to a normal, mundane review. Her ministers presented reports on the Seas and the Rivers, on trade and trade disputes, then on magical matters and finally any other miscellaneous matters. There was some argument between her Minister of Bits and Finance and a representative of the Stable of Lords regarding certain legislation under debate. Most everypony was, by the afternoon, dancing around the tiger in the room. Nopony broached it, waiting instead for the Princess to say the word.

Celestia did so.

“Let us speak of Neighpon and Canterlot.” Her voice, soft but authoritative, echoed throughout the throne room. “We would not have the friendship of many years jeopardized by hasty words or thoughtless acts.”

“My Princess and Empress,” an earth pony said, stepping forward. She was Neighponese – no other pony referred to her as an Empress – with a straight, black mane and a dark violet coat. Her dress was courtly with a high, white train supported by a corset. It was a fairly common fashion in Canterlot, but it was lent a more exotic look by the pony wearing it.

“The court witnesses Lady Unryu Cloud Dragon, representative of His Grace and Lordship, Duke Yama of Neighpon!” the court crier announced from his spot next to the stenographer.

“Princess!” A second pony, this one a unicorn, also came forward. She had a green coat and darker, forest green mane and wore the royal blues of House Blueblood instead of a gown or dress. It was akin to a royal guard’s armor, silver instead of gold, and with ruffled sleeves instead of full armor. This mare was a representative and attaché for Prince Blueblood’s ducal guard.

“The court witnesses Ser Deft Steel, representative of His Grace and Lordship, the Grand Veneur, Grand Duke and Prince Blueblood the fifty-second!”

The pair bowed, exchanged a few final pleasantries…

And promptly started tearing into one another.

“…The Prince demands, in no uncertain terms, that Neighpon extradite Lady Yumi! This is not negotiable! Now answer the question, my Lady: is Neighpon harboring this fugitive?”

“Neighpon does not recognize the Lady Yumi as a fugitive, for one!”

“Answer the question, my Lady!”

“And I will tell you, Ser, that we do not recognize Lady Yumi as a fugitive, therefore I assure you we are not harboring a fugitive!”

“It is a yes or no question, my Lady.”

“Then the answer is no.”

“You lie!”

“Be silent,” Celestia hissed, and the pair immediately bowed and brought their noses to the carpet. Smart.

“Is Yumi safe with her father, Lord Yama?” Celestia inquired.

Lady Unryu hesitated only a moment. “Yes, she is, Princess.”

“Is my nephew certain of the charges he is making?” Celestia asked, trying at least sound impartial.

“He swears on his life, his honor, and his name, Princess,” Ser Steel answered. “There are confessions as well.”

“Two sets of confessions,” Lady Unryu argued, tentatively lifting her head away from the carpet and the obsequious bow. Her eyes darted over to the Canterlot representative. “Tell me, which are we to believe? Or are we to cherry pick from the public record, Ser?”

“The laws of Equestria are clear,” Ser Steel insisted, also raising her head. “Lady Yumi must return to face her accuser and cooperate with the lawful investigation into the incident that occurred. Harboring her does no good, my Lady.”

“You hold citizens of the Duchy of Neighpon and interrogate them without a duchy representative present…! Do not lecture me, Ser, on Equestrian law!”

“Notable and well-named witnesses were present for the confessions.”

“Ah, and what of the obvious coercion that led to the confessions? Who was present for that? The good Prince and his thugs?”

“You dare to insult a Prince of Equestria, my Lady!”

“You insult the honor and sovereignty of the Duchy of Neighpon, Ser, and the great Lord Yama!”

“Ponies,” Celestia warned, and she didn’t even have to raise her voice.

The two bowed quickly.

“I will speak more with my nephew…” Celestia promised, “And I assure you, Lady Unryu, that Lady Yumi has nothing to fear by returning to Canterlot. She will be as if under my own wing.”

Lady Unryu sucked in a breath and slowly shook her head, her nose almost brushing against the carpet.

“Princess, forgive me, but Lord Yama himself has decreed that his daughter will not come to Canterlot unescorted,” she said and dared to look up at her Princess, even after telling her ‘no.’ “My deepest apologies. His own pupil, Yumi’s bodyguard, Master Shigure… was killed defending her. He does not believe her protection can be guaranteed. She is Neighpon’s only heiress...”

“You dare to defy the Princess herself!” Ser Steel growled, her offense overriding her deference and forcing her to stand up straight. “Scoundrels! All of you! Well, my Prince anticipated such a craven act! I am now tasked to issue an ultimatum! The Duchy of Neighpon will give to us the Lady Yumi, as required by law and custom, or face the consequences of their treason!”

“Do not make such threats lightly, Ser,” Lady Unryu warned, eyes narrowing. “Do not think you can sail white ships into our bays and make demands of us as you did a half a millennium ago! We will bury you at sea.”

“You foals think you can defy the will of Canterlot?” Ser Steel snapped at her. “The Prince will darken your skies with airships! Black clouds will rain fire and ash will choke you in your castles! A thousand unicorns will--”

“My little ponies, if I hear one more word of my subjects fighting one another, I will be terribly upset,” Celestia stated, and the two representatives gulped in unison. They turned, rigidly, and bowed again.

“I assure you, you would not like me when I am upset,” Celestia promised them in a soft, gentle voice. She slowly stretched her wings, fluffed them up, and tucked them back in. She knew it made for a rather inspiring sight, especially when they were at full extension and glowing like the sun itself. Theater.

It was all theater.

All except the threat. These vexing ponies really did not want to see her upset.

“I would remind you both that what has transpired… this unfortunate incident… it is still under investigation. Time will cool the initial panic, and my nephew will be reasonable,” she assured them, though it was mostly to set Lord Yama’s representative at ease. “Lady Unryu, I will write to the good Lord Yama, who has visited my hall and eaten at my table many times when he was young. I will remind him of the love he has for me and I for him. My words will convince him of his daughter’s safety, but she must face these accusations, sooner or later.”

“If my Princess can convince my Lord, then I will breathe easily,” Lady Unryu said, raising her eyes. “There is no more loyal Duchy in Equestria than Neighpon, and none that so loves our Princess and Empress.”

“We all put our faith and trust in the Princess,” Ser Steel echoed her counterpart. “May she shed light and wisdom on both great Dukes and noble houses.”

Celestia heard only a little more of the dispute, this time in reasonable tones, before taking a break from the court. Wine and food were served to the courtiers, but Celestia took her meal away privately. The dispute between Neighpon and Canterlot continued to fester in her mind. The matter was a serious one, the attempted murder of a member of the royal family, but both sides were being surprisingly obdurate.

Celestia could understand Lord Yama’s overprotectiveness, especially since his trusted stallion Shigure had been killed in the Everfree. Yumi was his only child. Yet these were serious charges, and she was clearly involved in some way. Her life outside Neighpon would be over if he just tried to hide her at home. Then there was the matter of her royal nephew. Blueblood! What was he thinking? Had that poisoning so shaken him that he had taken leave of his senses? Even as a colt, he would have known to play things more subtly. Issuing an ultimatum? Stars and Shadows.

According to her spies, both Neighpon and Canterlot were mobilizing their guards.

A thousand years, the duchies and former principalities of Equestria had been at peace, living in harmony, and now it was like these ponies were happy to throw it all away. Maybe, just maybe, she would have expected outright hostility like this from the extreme north and the extreme south. The Quartz and the Terre Rare were both powerful and ambitious families, but Canterlot and Neighpon? Did the Neighponese really still hold a grudge over the White Fleet, all those centuries ago? It was ancient history even by her standards.

Celestia found her appetite diminished by the dark clouds in her thoughts. It had been a thousand years without a real crisis, and then Nightmare Moon had returned. She had planned for that. It had been a thousand years and more since Discord’s imprisonment. She had planned for that. It would be a thousand years since Sombra had been banished. She had planned for that, too. The pettiness of ponies? She had thought she had planned for that as well.

Neighpon and Canterlot…

It couldn’t just be the pettiness of ponies and the blustering of two prideful stallions. There was more to it. Celestia could all but feel the chess pieces moving around her, and she knew she was both chessmaster and a piece on the board. Like any piece, her vision was not absolute. She could miss the enemy queen, hidden behind a rook. She could fail to see the knight, shielded behind a row of pawns.

That in mind, she met with Alpha Brass in the gardens below the Palace.

She granted him the authority to act in her name and mediate between Canterlot and Neighpon. She gave her consent, a little more reluctantly, for the stallion and Twilight Sparkle to go ahead with their plan to defang the Terre Rare with an arranged marriage. She hoped, as she always did, for the best to come of it.

“What do you think, Philomena?” Celestia asked as her faithful phoenix pet landed on her outstretched leg, the two of them alone in the gardens. “Do you think the time is right?” The bird made no response, except to preen her fiery feathers.

The Princess of the Sun smiled and brought the phoenix closer to whisper, “Sirocco. Bring her to me.”

Philomena’s head snapped up and she opened her beak wide, as if laughing.

“Bring her to me,” Celestia repeated, and with a snap of her hoof and a whiff of brimstone, the great phoenix took to the air in search of Alpha Brass’s old bodyguard. Watching Philomena vanish against the cloudless sky, Celestia narrowed her one visible eye.

Yes, she hoped for the best… and planned for the worst.

Eunomie (final)

“Lady Eunomie!” “Lady Eunomie!” “Lady!” “Her Grace!”

Eunomie paid little mind to the hushed whispers or bowed heads she received in her Good Father’s Hanging Gardens. With him gone, it was her duty to oversee things in his name. The ponies here should all have been quite accustomed to her presence after so many years. They must have known that she cared nothing for their respectful words or their genuflection. She did not feel pride, nor was her ego pleasingly inflated by the respectful words and bowed heads. Yet they persisted.

Most of them, anyway. A tiny few knew better.

The sea of female faces parted as three mares approached to meet Eunomie. The first was the famous pegasus enchantress, Siren Song, her bright fandango-pink eyes alight with excitement and mischief. Her purple mane had been done up in the flowing ‘princess’ style, and she wore a white labcoat emblazoned with enchantments over her own natural, alabaster coat. She wore silver earrings, each a gift from Alpha Brass, three on the left and two on the right.

Close behind Siren Song was Genuine Grade, a plain-faced, young mare with a very uncharacteristic white coat – for earth ponies – and brown eyes, hidden behind thick glasses of her own design. While Siren’s cutie mark was easily described as two musical notes, inverted, Grade’s was a complex and almost indecipherable set of lines and lenses. There was nopony more skilled in the science of optics in all of Equestria. It was hard to recall that the mare had once been a timid orphan from the unpaved streets of an Equestrian Colony. Now she was one of the mares who would change the world and the course of pony history.

Last of the trio was Cesian Beryl, a unicorn mare shorter and more stout than Eunomie herself. Her coat was a common pink-white, more rose than alabaster, but her mane was a bleached white and her eyes a shimmering, crystalline blue. Like the other two, she also wore a protective laboratory frock, faint runes visible against the fabric. The three mares stopped, dipped their heads in lieu of a bow, and extended their hooves to quickly shake Eunomie’s own.

“Cesian, Grade, Siren,” Eunomie greeted them all in turn. “I have come as asked. I trust you have something significant to show me?”

“We do! The very thing His Lordship has been waiting for!” Genuine Grade said with a smile. Like many, even most, of the mares in the Gardens, she all but worshipped Alpha Brass. He had only to offer a kind word or some soft-spoken praise for her hard work, and she practically swooned. Some ponies, Eunomie knew, were touched by her father’s Words more than others.

The most valuable and capable ones… It was a reward of sorts.

The funniest thing of all, to hear Euporie describe it anyway, was that father did not even need to use his power to enhance the lives of others. Most of the mares who worshipped him from afar in the Gardens had never been touched by more than the faintest hint of father’s magic. It was not necessary to establish a link with any of them to ensure their devotion. A smile was enough.

“We had hoped to have it ready before he left for Canterlot,” Siren Song explained with a long sigh. “But there were some problems. A hairline fracture developed.”

“As per his orders, we have moved slowly and taken every precaution,” Cesian said, leading the group over to a large circular platform in the middle of a huge butterfly-shaped pool. The wings of the pool were adorned with fountains of ponies of all shapes and sizes playing with sea-ponies. The droplets in the air created an ever-shifting aurora of rainbows, most lasting only seconds before reappearing somewhere else.

“Great things cannot be rushed,” Grade reminded them.

“But I would have loved to have seen my Lord’s face when we show him his dream given form!” Siren lamented with an overly affected pout. “No offense, my Lady, but to finish this when he is away of all times…?” She sighed, longingly. “We just don’t have any luck!”

“Away and with somepony,” Grade added, reaching up with a hoof to push her glasses up the bridge of her snout. She didn’t sound pleased. “This other mare… she isn’t even one of us.”

“All your hard work is appreciated. You know that,” Eunomie reminded them. The ground beneath their hooves shifted as the circular platform began to sink. “It is with the greatest affection that my father holds you three to the highest standards of excellence. Twilight Sparkle is not Olive Branch. She is a pony like you or I. We will love and embrace her as a sister or as a mother. Remember that.”

The three mares all grumbled but acquiesced to varying degrees.

“Yes, a sister.” “So long as His Lordship is happy, I suppose.” “She better not be the jealous type... or a prude.”

The platform floated downwards, within the thickest inner tier of the gardens. There, a forest of pillars grew from floor to ceiling, divided in places between two floors. Trefoil and Tudor arches crowned the pillars, holding the whole structure of the garden tier together while providing a vast inner space for storage, movement, or other uses. A pegasus pony could fly freely through here, weaving easily between the pillars, and, in fact, a few did before Eunomie’s eyes. They were hardly carefree, however. The two pegasus mares carried a wooden case between them. Elsewhere, the telltale glow of unicorn magic moved with the sharper light of earth pony torches.

The inner space itself was lit by a soft, pervading glow, like sunlight gathered from the pre-dawn.

“Three years of crystal crafting… how many thousands of bits do you imagine his Lordship has spent on this?” Cesian Beryl wondered, stepping down from the landed platform. Her hooves made a soft ‘ting’ sound on the polished pink marble tile.

“Last I checked, the price of this project stood at four-hundred and sixty-three thousand eight hundred bits,” Eunomie dryly replied.

Her magic snagged a hanging labcoat, and she donned it while she walked.

“Who would put a price tag on beauty?” Siren Song wondered.

“Accountants,” Grade answered with a smirk. “A half a million bits, really?”

“Really,” Eunomie told her.

They passed under a large, thick arch, carved with engravings of smoke and crystals. The chamber beyond was lit not just by the usual, soft amber glow but by descending pillars of light. Eunomie’s hooves splashed as she stepped down from the clean tile floor and into a shallow pool. It crackled as her natural magic discharged. Cesian Beryl’s hooves did the same, the liquid grounding and nullifying her ambient unicorn magic. Siren Song made far less of an impact when her hooves entered the pool, but Genuine Grade’s crackled like two pairs of electrodes. She was ‘only’ an earth pony, but she had a great deal of natural magic within her.

Ahead of them, the glowing pillars of lights formed two rows, and beneath each pillar grew geodes in a variety of colors. Saturated in pure magic, absent organic contaminants, they formed the raw material. The majority of the expense of the project was in growing the crystals here, so far from the frozen north where they had been harvested. Ponies on scaffolding oversaw the crystal nursery, reading light levels, testing acidity, ambient magic saturation, and a dozen other factors. Pegasus ponies here “sang” to the crystals in a melodious chorus, directing their development.

Past the pools and the neutralization liquid, Eunomie and her three ‘sisters’ ascended a pair of steps to a dry area. Here, among the seemingly endless sea of pillars and arches, lay the Effulgent Forge. This was Genuine Grade’s workshop. Long reams of paper hung from rafters, like banners, but displaying mathematical calculations instead of noble colors and shields. Suspended corkboards were covered with more papers and more measurements, while ground-bound chalkboards were strewn with notations, scribbled diagrams, equations, and ever-present checklists. Juxtaposed with the study taking place was the hammering of crystal smiths at the glowing forge, where light itself was used to bend and shape brittle crystal and glass. Mirrors and lenses larger than a pony hung overhead from a mechanical contraption of gears and wires.

Finally, past even that, they came to Cesian Beryl’s atelier. Cesian was not simply a unicorn. Her ancestry went back to the Crystal Empire itself, and she was learned in all the traditions and hermetic rites of that classical equine race. Coupled with that knowledge was the magic intrinsic to her unicorn heritage. Her atelier was no forge or manufactory, nor was it a magical pool from which raw materials began to take form. The antechamber was large and circular, with a multitude of arches coming together to form a majestic, textured dome overhead.

Eunomie felt a tingle as she passed through a magical barrier.

“We can show you the preliminary tests shortly,” Cesian said, gesturing towards the center of the atelier. “But here it is. As our Lord Brass charged us, we have recreated a Wonder of the Ancient World. Grown in song and thunder, tempered in light and the arcane…”

Set within a column of colorless light, a single heart-shaped crystal floated, serene and magnificent. It was pony-sized, with the look of pure diamond, but scintillating in blues and pinks and purples. Equestria had not seen the like of it in a thousand years. It was not just a product of light and magic, song and thunder, as Cesian had described. Fashioning such a masterpiece would have been impossible if not for the lore that had been unearthed, both by Lady Arsenic and, more recently, by Eunomie’s Lord Father.

“His Lordship’s globus empyreus,” Genuine Grade introduced the crystal, a ray of light from overhead catching her glasses and leaving behind a glint that masked her eyes. “Just as the prototype was simply called ‘the Device,’ we’ve taken to calling this one ‘the Triptych.’ Because of the redundant sections. There are three, compared to the one in the Device your sister took.”

“Very impressive. My father will be pleased. You’ve tested it,” Eunomie stated, her voice emotionless. It wasn’t a question.

“We have,” Cesian replied, gesturing to one of the alcoves. “The volunteers are this way, my Lady. Bear in mind, these are only preliminary tests…”

“It works perfectly,” Siren Song said, fluttering her wings.

“We’ve tested up to thirty thousand starswirls,” Genuine Grade added. “With Lady Chalice’s help, and our crystal capacitors, we believe we can test up to fifty thousand sometime this week. That is one fourth of the projected safe upper limit of two hundred thousand starswirls. Though… of course… we have no way to generate that much magical power. It is the best we can do at the moment.”

“Two hundred thousand starswirls is enough magic to melt a mountain halfway down to the roots.” Cesian Beryl scoffed. “If we go over that limit, Equestria will probably end up looking like a volcano went off!”

“That is an unacceptable outcome,” Eunomie stated.

“Oh! Yes! What I mean, my Lady, is that we can and will have a failsafe prepared,” Cesian promised, hastily trying to cover up her dismissive tone just seconds earlier. “I assure you! It should be simple to key it to vibration and temperature. But… do you really expect the globus will have to channel that much energy? Surely even the original Crystal Heart could not handle so much power.”

Eunomie saw the preliminary test subjects up ahead and nodded. Everything was on course.

“From the beginning, our goal has been to surpass what came before us. We are not content to stand on the shoulders of giants,” she reminded them, feeling a jump in her heart at repeating her step-father’s words and seeing his dreams so close to fruition. “We will become giants ourselves.”

I am not an eloquent pony. I do not know how else to describe it.

War.

It will be war.

Blueblood

“You'll be seeing Rain Booms!

Ooo-ooo-oooh!

Equestrian Girls, we're kinda magical!

Boots on hooves, bikinis on top!”

Instinctively, without fumbling or hesitation, a manicured white hoof reached out to tap the sleep switch on the gold and silver radio. The deed done, it began to retract… only to stop.

Still in bed, still alone, Blueblood opened his eyes.

Haltingly, his breath coming in fits that soon turned to ragged gasps for air, the Prince of Canterlot made his way out of bed and towards the window overlooking the gardens and the maze below. His slow walk only sustained him until he was halfway there. Then, like a dam breaking, he surged forward, violently ripping the drapes away with a flash of magic. Looking out at the Palace below, Blueblood’s breath choked, the air and his very soul caught in his throat. Blue eyes widened, frightful beyond description.

Below, he could see ponies preparing for the Gala.

“No.” It was just a whisper, but it was all he could manage. “Please. Not this.” Falling back onto his hindquarters, Blueblood’s hooves clung to the sides of his face. “Not this… no… not…”

He couldn’t even muster the willpower to scream.

“Not again. Not again. Not again.”

Author's Note

And there we go. The final interlude.Thanks again to q97 for proofing.
Everything that can be foreshadowed has been.

From here, I feel confident finally going into the final arc. The Wedding.

Chapter Thirty Seven : Cadance - The Spider’s Law

Author's Note

EDIT #3
Since I clearly and grossly underestimated the disruption adding TSC-Sweetie (however briefly) caused, I've decided to add in a brief abstract of what occurred during the TBNE-TSC crossover which involves this Sweetie Belle.

Between the Gala loops where Blueblood begins to plan the "perfect" Gala, in the hopes of breaking said loops, and the actual attempts at the perfect Gala, he notices an anomaly, as Sweetie Belle begins to remember his repeated visits to Rarity's Boutique to drop off his invitation. Just as she begins to notice something amiss with the repeating days, he introduces her to the time loops, ecstatic to finally have a companion and company, and he helps her to adjust when - like he did - the loops begin to affect her mental state. Over the course of an adventure that allows Sweetie to escape the loops and go back to her dimension hopping, they become close, like brother and sister. When she leaves, he finds himself alone again, still trapped in the Gala loops, but glad that at least Sweetie found a way to freedom.

For those who are a bit confused by the appearance of this Sweetie Belle, she is from the "Sweetie Belle Chronicles" chapters that crossed over with "The Best Night Ever." I said some time ago that those events were canon to TBNE-TPC.

Link included here for the relevant Beast Night Ever / Sweetie Belle Chronicles crossover chapters
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/2593/8/the-sweetie-chronicles-fragments/the-best-night-ever-part-1-arrival

I personally hadn't considered them 100% necessary reading, but they explore the trials and times Blueblood and this version of Sweetie went through in the Gala Loops. It could also help to think of it as a "side story" for This Platinum Crown.

Also beware the much longer (and older) author note next chapter, saying much the same thing, just to make sure everyone sees it.

Chapter Thirty Seven : Cadance - The Spider’s Law

(37)

Cadance: The Spider’s Law

The night sky sparkled with a thousand streaming, twinkling lights, like glitter trickling down a pane of curved glass. Bright yellow and ever-shifting shades of green and violet and red erupted from the stream of fireworks, some below, in the layer between the mountain and the clouds, and some far above where even pegasus ponies dared to fly. They cracked and fizzled and roared like dragons, the sound always fading into the cheering and partying of the crowd of ponies far below. It was New Years, and all of Canterlot was out to celebrate the nine hundred and ninetieth year of Princess Celestia’s singular reign.

Cadance leaned gently into the young stallion next to her, hearing his heartbeat mix with the thunder of the fireworks and the wild cheers of the crowd. She felt Shining Armor shift on the cloud, a little less comfortable in the air than she was.

“Don’t worry,” she said, hiding her smile. “If you fall, I promise I’ll catch you.”

“Unicorns and clouds don’t exactly mix,” he muttered and tried to put on a brave face, even as he looked over the edge. It was only a drop of a thousand hoof-lengths or so.

She wrapped one foreleg around his own and held him close.

Around them, other couples were enjoying the same cloud ride. They floated lazily around Canterlot on clouds of their own, circling it like slow-moving moons, taking in the view of the festival. The moon was full and ripe, bathing the entire city – the entire mountain range even – in a perfect glow. Cadance could just barely make out the other couples on distant clouds. Many were their friends, mares from Celestia’s school and young stallions from the military institute segregated from, but conveniently next to, the academy itself. Even Sunset Shimmer was out there, somewhere, with her latest victim.

They were all enjoying the privacy, the view, the thrill, and in every case, the company. It was a night for lovers. The young Princess of Love could feel it in the air, like a warm and soothing breeze. It tickled her senses and filled her heart like a song only she could hear.

“Cadance,” she heard her name, whispered.

Blushing hotly and turning her nose to brush her coltfriend’s chest, she asked, “Shining?”

“Do you… I mean…uh…” he stammered, embarrassingly, reminding her not for the first time that they were much younger than most of the couples on this ride. Then she felt him suck in a breath and angle himself slightly against her, so they were facing rather than side to side.

“Shining,” she said, and her heart skipped a beat as she realized what he wanted to do.

‘This is it!’ her mind screamed, or maybe it was more appropriate to say it squeed. ‘He’s going to kiss me! My first kiss! My first kiss! And everything is perfect!’

Shining stared at her, steely in his resolve. He held her shoulders gently with his hooves. He stared. He kept staring. He stared some more. Cadance’s own eager anticipation, coyly biting her lower lip as she waited with baited breath, slowly turned to aggravation and then amusement as she realized his problem. She could see it in the way he tried to look dignified and strong, but his eyes betrayed his insecurity. Nopony else seemed to see, like she did, just how unsure this aspiring royal guard could be.

“You don’t know what to do, do you?” she asked, flatly.

“Not at all,” Shining Armor admitted with a grimace. “Sorry, I…”

A firework exploded as Cadance yanked him in close and planted his lips to hers. Shining, you foal. Not like she knew what to do, either. That was the point. It wasn’t just her first kiss, or his, it was their first kiss, and the feeling was electric. It was almost as if there were fireworks going off inside her. Cadance felt her wings extend and stiffen, betraying her lack of control over them. It wasn’t a very long kiss, even, and quickly, the two young teenagers broke apart, their horns crossed as they rested, forehead-to-forehead.

“Wow,” Shining said, grinning roguishly.

“Wow,” Cadance agreed.

“Wake her up.”

A splash of lukewarm water later and Cadance shot up and out of her bed of crumpled and stained hay. The Serene Princess spluttered and coughed as the liquid burned the inside of her nose and tainted her lips, the very same lips that had kissed her husband-to-be. She instinctively gagged and screamed, hacking violently in revulsion.

“Thank you,” a voice said, regal and heartless. “That worked perfectly. You can put the chamber pot back now.”

A subservient changeling drone snickered, carelessly throwing the empty wooden dish back to a corner of the crystal prison. The creature was pony-sized and smaller than the monster it took orders from. Queen Chrysalis. The cocky witch wasn’t even bothering with a disguise. She brazenly stood on a clean carpet that had been unrolled into Cadance’s cell, wearing a flowing gown of white and lavender.

Next to the changeling Queen, surrounded and flanked by the three magically empowered bridesmaids, a stallion also looked on. Like Chrysalis, he was well-dressed, in his case with a pressed guard uniform and blue family sash. Cadance gasped and reached for him.

“Shining!” she cried, before she could even think to examine the situation. Her wings flapped to drive her forward into his embrace, only for the chain around her back right leg to go taut. With a pained yip, she fell flat and hard on her face.

“Oh, look at that! What a disgusting creature,” Chrysalis observed with a cruel laugh. “Isn’t that right, my sweet, little Shining Armor?”

“A filthy thing, to be sure,” he agreed, shaking his head. “And that smell! When was the last time it was washed?”

“I’m told they hose it down every week or two,” the Queen answered, and Cadance slowly pushed herself up onto her hooves. The Princess glared at her twin tormentors and the cylindrical seal that covered her horn began to seethe.

“Not nearly often enough,” Shining Armor replied, his loving tone now warped with disgust and disdain. He looked down on her with a sneer. “I find it hard to believe this is the creature you say I used to love.”

“It is,” Chrysalis answered, conversationally. “Magic will do that to you, my sweet.”

“I suppose so,” Shining agreed.

Cadance shook her head slowly, tears building in her eyes. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.

“Now that I’ve been apart from her again,” Shining Armor continued with a snort, “I don’t know what I ever saw in her. It must have been her magic… affecting my mind. Making me love her.”

“No…” Cadance’s voice was small.

“It must have been,” Chrysalis agreed, laughing again. “I do wonder, though… was there ever anypony who actually cared for this disgusting little creature? Was any of it real? Or did she use her magic to make everypony around her accept her?” Chrysalis seemed to cherish what she said next like a fine wine. “Like a parasite?”

Cadance sucked in her breath and glared at the changeling Queen, violet eyes brimming with tears but hard like ice. For all her powerlessness, it was a look that could turn a pony’s blood cold. Shining Armor actually stumbled back a step in fear.

Chrysalis noticed it, too, and rolled her eyes.

“You idiot,” the Queen growled, turning on the stallion. “The real Shining Armor wouldn’t have flinched like that. You’ve ruined my fun.” Chrysalis shook her head and groaned. “Go on. Get out. Now.”

“S-sorry, my Queen!” ‘Shining Armor’ bowed low, shedding his disguise with a flicker of green fire as he made a hasty retreat.

With him gone, all the energy seemed to flee Cadance’s body. She slumped down onto the filthy floor and, for as much as she wished she could stop herself, began to cry. Her breath skipped, growing from soft to sobbing as her self-control dissolved in the face of despair. It wasn’t that she was indifferent to breaking down in front of her enemy. It wasn’t as if she wanted Chrysalis to see her so broken and weak. She couldn’t have stopped, no matter how hard she tried, and for months now, she had genuinely tried.

So Princess Cadance covered her face and cried.

It was all false. It was all fake. She tried to tell herself that. She had seen that this wasn’t her Shining Armor, but the words, the inflection, the mocking commentary and the degradation… it was all too much. It had struck home too swiftly – too cruelly – especially with the dream she had been so rudely awoken from.

The thought came to just escape again into Eunomie’s body and never return. How long had it been since she had tasted that one tiny bit of freedom? Ironically, it was that same thought, that same terrible temptation to just escape and never come back, that ultimately brought her back to her senses. Cadance slowed her breathing, wiped her face with a foreleg as best she could, and saw that Chrysalis was still staring at her. The Queen’s bright green eyes were alight with amusement.

“Mmmm! Is something the matter?” she asked, noticing Cadance’s change in composure. She used a chitinous hoof to gesture at her gown. “I wanted to ask what you thought of your wedding dress. Or, really, my wedding dress… but you know what I mean. My big day is about a week away, and I think I’m having – what’s the expression – butterflies in my stomach?”

Cadance sucked in another ragged gasp and forced herself to stand.

She was disgusting, dripping with her own night water, beaten and humiliated mentally and emotionally. The only thing that had kept her body from serious abuse had been the fact that if she died, it would interfere with Chrysalis’ use of her magic. She had just spent the last minute, maybe longer, crying on the floor. What she wasn’t, was broken.

‘You are a Princess of Equestria,’ a male voice snapped at her from her deepest memories. ‘From now until the day you die, never let the world see you as anything less than royal.’

“It is a… lovely… dress,” Cadance told her nemesis. Her tormentor. The changeling witch.

“I prefer green, personally,” Chrysalis admitted with a carefree shrug. “And the latticework gets caught in my spines when I transform.” She smirked, pleased by the conversation so far. “But thank you. It means so very much to hear you say you like it, since what looks good on you looks good on me.”

She turned to leave, and Cadance gritted her teeth.

“Wait a moment,” she called, and the Queen paused to glance back over her shoulder.

“Yesss?” she asked, playfully drawing out the question.

“Why are you doing this to me?” It was something Cadance had often asked herself. She knew what Alpha Brass had told her, that she and Chrysalis had been bonded when the Queen was a nymph or larva. That explained the imprisonment, yes, but not the cruelty. Something must have happened that Brass didn’t know about. Something must have angered or offended the Changeling Queen to make her act like this.

“Why?” Cadance asked again, and she had to gasp to keep from letting too much distress seep into her words. “Why are you doing this to me? Why do you hate me so?” Her chain rattled as she tried to step closer, her voice pleading. “What did I ever do to you? Tell me that, at least! What did I do to you?”

Chrysalis quirked an eyebrow, either amused or confused, it was hard to tell which.

“What,” she repeated, with a strange little pause, “did you ever ‘do’ to me?”

Cadance nodded, feeling as if an answer would finally be forthcoming.

“I suppose the answer is… nothing!” Chrysalis replied with a laugh and a smile that revealed two long fangs. “You didn’t do anything to me!” She laughed. Cadance couldn’t believe it. Her tormentor actually laughed. “Certainly nothing to deserve all this! What a funny question!”

The answer left Cadance aghast, and she fell back onto her haunches in shock. “N-n-nothing…?”

Chrysalis turned around to face the mare, trotting closer to her victim.

“There, there. I suppose it makes sense that you’d think something like ‘what have I done to deserve this,’” Chrysalis explained, reaching out to mockingly flick Cadance’s sealed horn. “If a fly ends up in a web and it sees the spider approaching, it must ask itself, ‘Oh fly-gods, why have you forsaken me? Why am I put on this world to suffer and die? Why am I being eaten? What did I ever do to deserve this fate? Please save me, oh fly-gods who art in fly-heaven!’”

Chrysalis laughed at her analogy, and her black hoof trailed down Cadance’s horn and across her face.

“But the spider doesn’t ponder questions like that! ‘This is a fly,’ the spider thinks, ‘So I’ll just eat it.’ That’s all the spider thinks as it sinks its fangs into the fly.” The Queen’s touch, almost gentle, turned rough as she grabbed hold of Cadance’s ear and shoved her down to the floor.

“Do you get it, now? Hmmm? Did I explain that simply enough for you, pony?!” Chrysalis snarled, mockingly, all pretense of civility cast aside. Cadance cried out in pain as the changeling Queen twisted her ear, threatening to rip it right off. “What you did or didn’t do doesn’t matter! The most sinful pony in the world is no different than the most pious! In the spider’s web, they are all just meat.”

“Why am I cruel to you?” Chrysalis asked, releasing Cadance’s ear with a flourish and trotting back to the door without so much as a glance backwards. “I’m cruel to you because I can be. If you want to assign blame, then blame yourself and your entire worthless race for not being changelings. I do not answer to your morality. I am beyond it.”

The three bridesmaids followed close on their Queen’s heels, leaving the three changeling overseers to lock up behind them. Cadance barely had the energy to watch them leave, but she heard the Queen’s final, parting, mocking words.

“Let her watch her brother squirm again,” the vile shapeshifter commanded. “She shouldn’t suffer alone.”

The crystal wall to the Princess’s right turned transparent, allowing her to see into the next cell.

Just as her cell door closed shut, the other one opened. A pony entered, approached the chained and comatose body of Prince Blueblood and the intravenous feed that hung from a nearby metal stand. Satisfied by whatever she saw, the unicorn mare then sat down, and her horn began to glow. Cadance buried her head in her hooves at the sound of her step-brother’s cries.

It was too much.

His being here was her fault, part of her plan that had imploded.

Something had to be done, and time was running out. ‘My big day is about a week away,’ the witch had said. There was no more time to lose.

“Heartstrings,” Cadance whispered to herself, eyes narrowing in resolve. Lyra was her trump card. She was there to provide her emergency escape. Brass would be unhappy if she was used too soon or for so frivolous a purpose as rescuing somepony like Blueblood. He would be upset that she used the ace they had so carefully inserted for something like this.

Too bad for Alpha Brass.

Even if it meant losing her own chance to escape, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza was prepared to take that chance.

The sting of Rarity’s hoof across his face hurt far less than the look of disgust in her eyes.

Prince Blueblood remained in the garden, the white rose he had picked for her – her favorite, he knew, even more than red roses – falling in pieces around his front hooves. Another loop… and another failure. Nothing seemed to work like it had before. Where once Rarity had come to the Gala looking for her Prince, she now had eyes only for others. Sometimes she ended the night with a suave Canterlot gentlestallion, sometimes with a well-heeled businesspony, sometimes with one of her friends. Anypony but him. Anypony… but him.

Contempt was all she had for him in these new Gala time-loops. It was as if the magic they had shared had all been expended on that one wonderful loop… and now it was gone forever, ripped away and cast into the darkness of the night. The generous, witty, wonderful seamstress from Ponyville he had come to cherish was not the only casualty, either. One by one, loop by loop, every pony he had thought to call a friend had turned their back on him.

Even the… even his own…

Slowly roused from his thoughts, Blueblood saw his Aunt Celestia trotting alongside Twilight Sparkle, the pair of mares chatting easily. Somehow, they made it through the opening ceremonies now with incredible haste. Twilight’s dream night, spent alone with the Princess of the Sun… she had it, without needing any intervention of his own. In that night before he had thought the loops broken, he had needed to spend much of the day coaxing Princess Luna to attend and to greet the guests with him. That had freed up Celestia to be with her student and to enjoy the evening, while giving his dark auntie a chance to introduce herself to the well-to-do of her realm.

Neither of them needed him now.

No one… needed him now.

It was the perfect Gala, and all he had to do – all he could do – was be alone. That very first loop he had returned to, Rarity had publicly spurned him. Dumbstruck, he had finally stumbled away, making at least a cursory attempt to check in with the others and prevent the usual nightly disasters. It was some strange fluke, he had thought. Like all those times he had inadvertently insulted the honest Applejack’s fare, even in her own home. He had vowed to be more careful next time and spent most of the rest of the night before the reset in the company of the Wonderbolts, Soarin and Spitfire, with whom he often had a Gala loop friendship.

Yet, against all he had learned of the loops, Rarity spurned him again the next night. There seemed no reason or rhyme to it, and as she went, so did his friends. Soarin had only unkind words for him, and though Spitfire remained respectful – as she tended to be when he first introduced himself – her eyes spoke only of contempt. Loop after loop, the others followed. Even the other Elements of Harmony. Even that crazy pink terror whose randomness and unpredictability he had come to both fear and find solace in… even she had only cruel words and hostile stares for him.

At last, even his Aunties, even Celestia and Luna, spat on him the very morning he awoke.

How long ago had that been? How many loops?

Did it even matter?

“Ah. Ah. Ah.” Blueblood stumbled, half-blind, through the maze and through the gardens. The sounds of the Gala, of the laughter and the happiness of other ponies, unbroken by disaster or trouble of any sort… he knew it would continue all night. All night. Tormenting him. Mocking him.

“Ah. Ah.”

He tripped over a discarded rake and fell, face first, into the dirt and grass.

Soily, the onetime Prince could only lay there, silently choking back sobs of anguish and helpless despair. He didn’t even bother to cover his face or try and disguise it. It was a pitiable and humiliating state, but what did that matter? Nopony would come looking for him. Everything was perfect. So very perfect. And all without him.

And he would relive this perfect day, over and over, always on the outside and looking in… forever…

“It hurts, doesn’t it?”

The voice was his own, and as he tilted his head to look up, a tall alabaster stallion in a tuxedo looked down on him with a disgusted sneer. Blueblood sat next to himself, leveling a look of arrogant disdain at the weeping pony beneath him.

“Don’t think I don’t feel it, too,” he said, flicking a stray blade of grass from the front of his immaculate coat. “That’s why I’m here, after all. That’s why you conjure me up. You can’t bear the loneliness.”

Blueblood forced himself to look away. “There’s no point… talking to oneself. Just go away.”

“How many nights,” the sitting Blueblood wondered, “have you told me: ‘there’s no point in talking to oneself. Go away.’ But I always come back, because you always want me to come back.”

Blueblood said nothing, determined not to dignify his growing insanity with a response.

“Solitude breaks all ponies, sooner or later,” his own voice whispered in his ear. “Despair and grief can lay low the strongest just as it does the weakest. And you know grief, don’t you?”

“To have had so much,” the imaginary Blueblood remarked with a little laugh. “To have escaped. To have loved. To have been loved. More than anything else, you had the cruel illusion of freedom. That was what really allowed you to dream and feel joy, I think. You really thought, for all those months, that you were free. But that freedom was just another lie. Just another trick.”

On the ground, Blueblood gave a wracking gasp as he remembered. That morning breaking free of the Gala Loops had been the most cathartic and hopeful day of his life, and every day after it, he had tried to live with the lessons he had learned. He had tried to do well by his station and his name, to come to terms with his place in society and to even embrace it. He had tried to do good and advocate for a better tomorrow. He had found a pony to love – ponies to trust in and feel comfortable around and embrace as friends and more. He had even dreamed of a life alongside them and of all the things he had to look forward to.

He had tried, above everything else, to endure. Just as Auntie Luna had told him that one time. Endure.

“Oh, Auntie, I…!” He buried his cheek against the dirt, the tears almost painful as they muddied his face. “I can’t… can’t endure this anymore…”

“To have everything and then to lose it? To have it snatched away?” the other Blueblood wondered aloud, craning his neck to stare at his prone self. “Oh, yes. It must hurt beyond belief. There is no enduring life when that life is without hope.”

On the ground, Blueblood weakly shook his head, trying to deny the horrible thoughts of his other self.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” The other him persisted. “There is no future. Only the Gala. Only this day…” Blueblood nudged himself onto his own back. “And this world…” he spat, “and this cursed life… until the very end of time.”

“So cruel,” the standing Prince concluded, and the one on his back wept. “This world is so cruel, Blueblood.”

Blue eyes stared up at the night sky and the full moon.

“Return that cruelty,” the other him whispered, low and seductive. “I know you have the magic. Use it. Treat cruelty with cruelty!”

“No!” Blueblood snapped, trying to rise from his back. A hoof slammed down on his chest, suddenly, painfully knocking the wind from his lungs. He blinked, dazed, and saw a dark alicorn standing over him.

It was Luna, and her eyes burned white and merciless, her wings as wide and dark as the night sky itself.

“Use your magic,” the other Blueblood snarled, angry and impatient. “Defend yourself!”

“Auntie,” Blueblood cried, reaching for his Aunt.

Her hoof filled his vision, snuffing him out before he could even say her name.

Cadance felt it, too.

She heard it, a moment later. It was a cry of despair and pain from the cell next to her own. It was her brother’s voice, sorrowful as it rose in pitch, warbling as it died away. Cadance could feel, even though the walls, as another shard of his heart contracted. They were killing him in that other cell. They were ripping his heart apart and killing him by inches. It had to stop. It had to stop before whatever was left of the pony in that cell lost the ability to love or even feel.

No more delays. Everything else had been tried. It was time for drastic measures.

If she could have torn through the wall with her bare hooves, she would have. If she could have conjured up a magical storm to rip this prison to shreds, she would have. Even if it cost her her horn, ripped from her very skull, she would have. Instead, all she could do – all she could do – was wait. So she waited. She waited, knowing only that the pony she had once called her big brother best friend forever was being tortured.

The right guard shift couldn’t come soon enough.

Given how she only had a rough sense of time, another hour was needed on top of that just to make sure.

So, as hard as it was, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza waited in her prison cell. She counted backwards and recited the names of her loved ones, occupying herself by making anagrams with their names. “Giveth Twill Vet… Hill Twig Vet Vet, Twilight Velvet, and…” she pondered this one for a while. “Quiver Neon Lax… for Vernal Equinox… that’s not too bad, is it?”

Cadance finished looping her metal chain around her throat, trying not to think about the next thirty seconds of her life. Instead, she tried to imagine Shining Armor and the last time she had seen him, before her abduction. She tried to remembered it, she really did, only to realize she couldn’t. It hadn’t been that long ago, less than a year, but… but it was almost like a blur, now. Like another pony’s life.

Feeling her nerve start to slip, Cadance bit her lip and fell forward.

The chain around her neck, fixed to a giant crystal block in her cell, had been wrapped around her body and her neck before ending in the cuff around her left hind leg. It went taut, and she made sure to scream before her throat constricted.

This needed to sound real… which meant it needed to be as real as she could manage.

Cold magic-proofed iron bit into her thin neck like the coils of a mechanical serpent. Her world spun around her: the featureless, geode-like ceiling, the filthy mat of hay where she had to sleep, the disgusting chamber pot she had to use, and the ewer of often dirty water she had to drink from. She room spun, and those items spun with it, but they were exactly where she needed them to be in case she needed to use them.

A frighteningly long second passed before the door flew wide open. The changeling wearing the buttery earth pony disguise – the one with the bon bons on her flank – stormed in first, a panicked look on her face. ‘She’s committing suicide?’ the changeling seemed to be thinking, terrified of what the Queen would do if her host died. No more love magic. No more unicorn magic. Her disguise would be found out in days if not hours! The changeling rushed forward after only a moment’s hesitation, directing the enthralled unicorn bridesmaid by her side to help.

‘That’s it!’ Cadance’s mind raced, and she whimpered, feebly. ‘Closer. Closer. Closer, damn you! Closer closer closer closer closer!!’

“Get her out of that! NOW!” the changeling roared.

“I know! I know!” The mint green unicorn she was with lit up her horn, and Cadance felt the noose around her neck begin to pull apart.

“Don’t talk!” the changeling screeched. “Just do it! Now lift her up off--”

“Close enough,” Cadance hissed and, like lightning, moved.

Lyra Heartstrings was a bridesmaid to the glorious Queen Chrysalis.

There was more to her life than that, or there had been, but none of that stuff in the past really mattered anymore. She was a bridesmaid. She had the Queen, and she had Bon Bon, her best friend in the world. Bon Bon wasn’t a bridesmaid, but she was a trusted servant of the One True Queen. Whenever Lyra wasn’t following the Queen’s orders, she did what Bon Bon said to do. There were other things, probably – maybe some family or… or something… but they didn’t matter. Only The Queen and Bon Bon mattered. She loved them so much.

So very much.

Thus, it came as something of a frightful shock to see Princess Cadance’s hoof shoot out, grab Bon Bon by the crown of her pink and cobalt mane, and then pull her forward face-first into the alicorn’s horn-suppressor. Lyra heard her marefriend’s skull crack as she hit the cylindrical horn suppressor with her left eye. It sounded like a twig being broken or maybe a stick being inadvertently stepped on. For a second, Lyra’s mind flashed back to one time as a foal, when she had been sneaking around her house. She had stepped on one of her toys and broken it underhoof.

Bon Bon’s limp body fell from Cadance’s grasp.

And as it did, white-hot rage surged into Lyra Heartstring’s body and soul. “BON BON!!”

Cadance hastily tried to pry the chain away from her neck. “Wake up!” she yelled, scrambling backwards. “Lyra Heartstrings! I need you to wake up and remember!”

Lyra was only a second away from summoning a deafening auditory string to punish this enemy of her Queen, this slayer of her best friend, when her words registered. She blinked, confused, starry-gold magical fingers only moments from plucking the strings of her ethereal lyre.

“Brass, really? Must you be so dramatic?” another voice interrupted, and a soft-pink alicorn with glowing green eyes sauntered up beside him. The tips of her wings were tinted with purple on pink as they fidgeted in sharp, sudden movements, like the claws of a hungry mantis. Her smile parted as she laughed, and for a moment, it almost looked as if she had fangs beneath her sensuous lips. “There really is no need. Of course she’ll agree to whatever you ask. I never understand why you even bother.”

“You’re early, Princess,” Alpha Brass informed her, frowning in displeasure. “I did not wish to frighten her.”

“OHH!” Lyra gasped, falling onto her front hooves with a short cry. “OH! What? What hap--!”

More memories rushed in, like a deluge. Like a broken dam. Like a second life.

Chrysalis. Alpha Brass. Siren Song. The artifact room. A chamber of singing crystal. A torc being fitted over her horn. And so much more: The caverns. Being taken away. Meeting a Bon Bon who couldn’t be the real Bon Bon. This cell. Those twisted, alien thoughts, worming through her head. Everything. Every word and act and moment of doubt. It all came rushing back in the time it took to suck in a frightened, short gasp of air.

“What – what was that?” Lyra asked, still numb, her black-tinted magic trembling in midair.

Around her neck, something snapped, flecks of pearl falling to the floor.

“An unbinding spell,” Cadance explained, slipping the metal noose around her nose and over her head. “I’m not sure how it works, but Brass said that it would snap you back to normal with all the memories of…”

“That’s right! Lord Brass!” Lyra exclaimed and ‘eeped’ as she realized how loud she was being, right in the middle of enemy territory. Clamping her hooves over her rather loud mouth, she plopped down on her haunches. It was all coming back. “That glowing necklace. I never took it off!” She reached up to her neck, feeling around. “I think I had it on all this time… even when I wore the torc and… but…”

She shook her head, trying desperately to compose her thoughts of the last few weeks.

“What torc?” Cadance asked, disentangling the chain from her body. “Miss Heartstrings, I really need you to tell me what’s going on and… what Chrysalis is planning…”

“It was this… this crown-like thing,” Lyra tried to explain, still shell-shocked by the sudden reversal. She motioned to her forehead and her horn, only to notice her magic. It was still shaded by black and twinkling with tiny, star-like lights! Curiously, transfixed by it, she prodded the magical black-and-gold hand that floated in midair. Slowly, a huge smile bloomed on her face.

“This is so amazing!” she blurted out and had to clamp her mouth shut again. “I mean,” she said, again, more quietly. “This is so amazing. I always sort of imagined claws when I played my lyre, but these are… these are even better than a Minotaur’s… they’re so supple and nimble and slender! Look at how dexterous they are! And something about it is amplifying my magic. This black stuff? Is it… aether? It can’t be, can it?”

Cadance just finished removing the chain from around her torso and allowed herself a second to watch her savior. Lyra was playfully poking the floating hand and the hand was poking her hoof right back. All the while, she giggled, and a goofy grin spread across her face.

“Aether is condensed magic! A Type-S magical phenomenon! Usually you only see it in an alchemical laboratory! How the heck can I make it with just my horn?” The magical hand poked her lime-colored horn, and she started up at it, cross-eyed. “That shouldn’t be possible. Ponies can’t control magic like this. This hand and that harp, they’re definitely my magic, but…”

Cadance coughed into her hoof.

“Maybe somepony implanted me with a focusing lens and aethereal iris? But I don’t feel like a magical cyborg…”

Cadance coughed again.

“I can’t wait to show Bon Bon; she’s so-o-oo going to freak out!” Lyra’s eyes strayed over to the fallen pony in the corner of the room. Bits of green magic, like fire, were already starting to reveal the changeling beneath the disguise. “Ewwww. Gross. Not that Bon Bon but… my Bon Bon…”

“Ahem,” Cadance said.

“Oh, sorry, Princess!” Lyra suddenly snapped to attention, still smiling brightly. “You sound like you’ve got a bad cough!”

Cadance frowned, but nodded. “That was it, exactly. Miss Heartstrings--”

“Lyra.”

“Lyra,” the Princess repeated. “I need you to fill me in on what’s happening. We also need to--”

“Make our escape!” Lyra interrupted. “I know that one! Okay! Let me think!” She crossed her legs in front of her, stood up on two legs, and even tapped one of her hooves. It looked like a rather uncomfortable pose to the Princess of Love.

“Bon Bon, or, the changeling that pretended to be Bon Bon… it didn’t have time to sound the alarm, so we should have about two hours before the next bridesmaid comes down to check on us. And, uh, as for filling you in… ummm…” She rolled her head on her shoulders. “Short answer is: we’re in the crystal caves, probably right under Canterlot. I’m pretty sure they stretch all throughout the mountain… miles and miles of caves. I think the changelings have an army gathering under the city. Some of them were going to attack from below while others attacked from the outside, but I never overheard much when it came to details.”

Lyra examined the flying hand she had conjured up again, this time with a small, slight frown.

“If I can, I’d like to ask you,” she said, looking at Cadance. “Wearing that torc did something to me. It isn’t even just my magic. Look at my cutie mark!” She fell down to all fours and pointed back to her left flank. There were a faint set of stars set against her golden lyre. “I recognize that constellation. It’s the lyre. Which fits me, I guess, but it sure wasn’t there before! You’re a bigwig Princess, so you have to know something about this, right?”

“I’m sorry. I really don’t know much about that,” Cadance admitted, feeling hurried to press on with other matters but figuring she owed her rescuer as good an explanation as she could manage. “Brass told me he had a way to make ponies more powerful. That’s why Chrysalis has her bridesmaids. They’re supposed to all be powerful enough to subdue me, even if I get free. He sent two as a gift and one – you – as a Trojan pony to help me escape.”

“Minuette and Twinkleshine,” Lyra put names to the two other bridesmaids. “It must have been that torc, then. I wore it and then Chrysalis took me and…” She frowned, more deeply. “She did things. Okay. That answers that. I’ll have to find out more later… I guess.”

“Lyra,” Cadance said, and her voice took on a desperate edge. “I need you to get me out of here, but before we escape, I need to help my brother. I need to help Prince Blueblood. He’s in the cell right next to this one. Do you know what are they doing to him?”

“The Prince?” Lyra asked and thought hard for a second. “There’s – there’s this pony, Night Shade,” she explained, gesturing to the cell over with her hoof. “I never interacted with her much, but she’s being controlled, too, just like I was. She has this artifact… a lantern of some sort.”

Lyra pursed her lips and tried to recall more. “There are only a few magical lanterns that I know of. Night Shade is some sort of oneiromancer, a draumr or dream-mage, so I can’t really imagine why she’d be using the Chirping Lantern or the Glowless Lantern or… or!” The magical hand in the air snapped its fingers, much to Cadance’s surprise. “Or it isn’t a magical lantern at all! It could be that the lantern is normal, but the candle inside is magical! And there is a magical candle that comes to mind when I think oneiromancer!”

“You’re… rather knowledgeable,” Cadance remarked, still staring at the disembodied ‘hand’ in the air. Did they all make strange snapping noises like that? “So this candle is a weapon of some sort?” she guessed.

“Not a weapon,” Lyra replied, growing more and more confident of her hypothesis. “Luna’s Shadow Candle! It was lost in a shipwreck in, um… the second century, I think? It was meant to be a gift to the Emir of Saddle Marabia. The Candle allows a pony to distort time within a dream, drawing it out or moving it forward. It can probably do other things, too! Luna was supposed to be the most powerful oneiromancer in history, and she invested her power into the candle!”

“Well! You are certainly well versed in…”

“Now,” Lyra quickly continued, leaning closer, conspiratorially, to the Princess. “What you won’t read about in the history books is that the ship carrying the candle was lost at the edge of the Maremuda Triangle, and while most ponies blame the losses at sea there to monsters, there are numerous reports of lights in the sky that…”

“Lyra,” Cadance interrupted, guessing where the other mare was going. “Perhaps we could talk about the aliens another time?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah!” The minty conspiracy theorist agreed. “Later,” she promised.

Cadance’s left eye twitched. She pointed to the magic suppressor around her horn, and Lyra started to unfasten it.

“This Night Shade mare is tormenting Prince Blueblood,” Cadance reiterated. “Why?” She thought back to Chrysalis’ earlier explanation for her own cruelty. “Is it just to hurt me? It is just because she can?”

Lyra shook her head.

“I don’t think so.” The unicorn mare finally freed Cadance’s horn and glared at the chain that fixed her to the crystal boulder. “Prince Blueblood is the only living pony who knows how to get into his family archives. Every unicorn in the world knows that the Bluebloods have all sorts of juicy, super-forbidden things locked away there! Did you ever read about the human skeleton that they found outside Rosewell? The Bluebloods have it. I’d bet my life on it!”

Her aetheral hand floated down to Cadance’s chain – the same one she had been unable to break – grabbed hold of it, and tugged.

Ripping it right out of the crystal boulder in one go.

“Handy,” Lyra quipped, bumping her hoof with the floating fist. Cadance eyed it with some trepidation, especially when it descended on the cuff attached to her leg.

“Don’t worry, Princess,” Lyra assured her. “Grabby will be careful!”

“Grabby?”

It wasn’t long before they were free.

Now all they had to do was save a pony Cadance had written out of her life for the last five years.

“Nephew. Nephew! Where are you?”

Night Shade instantly recognized the presence intruding on her domain.

“The Princess,” she hissed, sitting beside the unconscious Blueblood’s examination table. The pearl-maned mare brushed off her dark coat and took a deep, calming breath. Her eyes glowed an enchanted green as she briefly examined the room. Blueblood’s crystal prison was supposed to dampen magic. The Princess shouldn’t have been able to reach him at all, this deep in the crystal caverns.

“She’s really exerting herself,” Night Shade reasoned, feeling Luna’s faint probing in her nephew’s subconscious. She had clearly identified him. How? How?

“The Princess helps ponies fight their nightmares,” the oneiromancer reminded herself and smirked. “Of course! The stronger the nightmare, the greater the grief, the more it must call to her. His magic, his emotion, his bloodline. Even through the fog of this crystal prison, the Prince’s nightmare must shine like a lighthouse. I need more time… just a little more to break him completely…”

“Night Shade,” a voice asked from the far wall. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “Nothing I cannot handle. Trust me.”

Night Shade smiled reassuringly at her husband. Moonshine was the love of her life, and as he returned her smile, the two little fangs that belied his bat-pony heritage sticking out from under his lips, she returned to her task, eyes seething green. He had been one of Luna’s own guards, not too long ago. Now they served a much greater master.

“Of course I trust you,” Moonshine said, flapping his batlike wings and chuckling. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Night Shade told him, feeling a little light-headed. “Now, don’t distract me! Your former Princess is out there. She’s trying to interfere.”

“No pony can be allowed to interfere,” Moonshine reminded her.

“No pony can be allowed to interfere,” Night Shade agreed in monotone.

“This really is taking too long,” he mused, glaring at Blueblood’s unconscious form.

“This really is taking too long,” Night Shade repeated.

“Try again,” Moonshine growled to his wife. “Find out what the Prince knows. Tear it from his mind. Do whatever you have to do. And, if you can, try and keep Luna occupied as well.”

“I’ll try again,” Night Shade told him, oblivious to how she parroted his own words. “I’ll find out what the Prince knows. I’ll tear it from his mind. I’ll do whatever I have to do. I’ll try and keep Luna occupied as well.”

Night Shade started to return to her ‘patient.’

“Use the candle,” Moonshine added. “You haven’t been using it at full power, have you, honey?”

Night Shade turned slightly at the suggestion, giving her husband a curious look. “The Shadow Candle is too powerful for anypony but Luna to freely use like that. If I push it too far, I could…”

“I love you,” Moonshine told her, and she started to sway on her hooves. “You love me, don’t you?”

“I love you,” Night Shade droned.

“Use the candle. It doesn’t matter if you die.”

“I’ll use the candle. It doesn’t matter if I die.”

Night Shade took a deep breath and used a flicker of purple magic to float over the cast iron lantern that burned on a pedestal nearby. Behind the glass panes, a small, black glass candle flickered with an onyx flame. Instead of light, it projected lines of shadow all across the room, inverting the normal lightning of the prison cell. Light areas became dark, and dark areas became light. A small twist-valve on the top controlled the flow of air into and out of the lantern.

Proximity determined the amount of magic a pony could draw into and out of the candle.

Night Shade placed it right between her front hooves.

“Here I go,” she whispered.

Princess Luna’s domain was the night, and in that night, she was the Guardian against Nightmare.

She also understood that it was a great irony how, in her terrible fall from grace, she had adopted the mantle that was the diametric opposite of her natural duty. Nightmare Moon. In that corrupted form, she had styled herself a bringer of nightmares, rather than a balm against restless sleep. Her ability to enter dreams predated her control over the moon, and it represented a great power and tremendous temptation. It had taken time, but eventually ponies had come to accept if not embrace her desire to help them overcome their fears and their nightmares.

It was a reason why she was so very reluctant to enter into the dreams of another pony without permission and without the justification of rendering aid. Instead, she sought out the troubled and the tormented to lend her assistance. It had grown more difficult with the great pony diaspora. There were ethnic equines spread out across three continents, citizens of a half dozen nations. It was not as it had been in those first post-migration years. Luna regretted that most of those she aided were those conveniently close to Canterlot, but when she pressed herself, she could touch on the mind of a troubled pony even across the Sunset Sea.

This morning, she sought out her dear nephew.

Blueblood had experienced seemingly untroubled dreams for weeks now, and those few times over the last year that she had felt him in distress, wrapped in the blanket of the night, he had not welcomed intrusion. It was as if his dreams had some secret to them. A secret fear, perhaps, or a secret shame. She had respected his desire for privacy, then, as she did to all those who wrestled with their doubts and fears on their own terms. Hers was to assist where it was wanted and needed, not to force aid on those that did not wish for it. Since that disaster at the Ponyville Art Festival, however, her nephew had been both unusually unavailable to chat and unusually unresponsive to her dream-self.

It was peculiar.

Luna could readily admit that she had hardly known, and hardly thought much of, her nephew before the Grand Galloping Gala. He had a reputation as slothful and foppish. She did not object to him being aloof, for the nobles of her time had all been as such, but he seemed purposeless, listless, and unproductive. There was little to interest her in him, or so she had thought. She had known Bluebloods from her time, of course, and she owed her life to Princess Platinum and the First Blueblood, so she had tried not to be too dismissive of their descendant. In practice, she had mostly ignored him, and he had returned the favor.

Until the Gala.

It was most strange. Suddenly, that morning, he had struck up a conversation with her about what fun and opportunity she could have by breaking her self-imposed isolation and introducing herself to the nobles and well-to-do bourgeois. He even seemed to have an inkling about her plans for Nightmare Night! It was uncanny.

Before she had known it, she had agreed to give the Gala a try, despite her initial reservations. “I shall be with you during the opening ceremony,” he had promised. “I will introduce you to everypony. Trust me, they’ll be honored to meet you.” She would not have attended otherwise, in retrospect. Luna knew she had never been a social sunflower like her sister. It felt awkward reintroducing herself to Equestria after a thousand years, especially to the rest of the ruling and middling classes.

Her nephew had turned that around, and he had even found ways to bring a smile to her face and put her at ease. In the weeks after the Gala, they had met many times to talk, and he had taught her many new games that had developed over the last millennia. Even when she silently harkened back to her own time, before Nightmare Moon, her astute nephew always seemed ready to play an old game with her that she remembered from her youth, like ‘Across the Sea,’ ‘Pick-up Sticks,’ ‘All Fours’ and even ‘Piquet!’ Where on Equestria had he learned how to play the King’s Rules Piquet? Luna couldn’t imagine.

She had seen her nephew less and less since he moved to Ponyville to be with the Element of Generosity, but they had always taken some time to play together and speak, not just of business and the rulership of Equestria, but of their lives and themselves. Her multiple-body magic made it much easier to meet, and all seemed well. Since the Gala, she had come to feel as if her nephew was truly family… and next to her dear sister, he was perhaps her closest friend. Luna had warned the noble Lady, Antimony, once that she would not abide a pony taking advantage of or wishing harm on her nephew.

And now, she felt his distress through the shadows, like an echoed scream from far away.

It could not be ignored, even with the wedding underway.

“Nephew,” she spoke softly, secluded in her palace atelier. “Share your burden with me. Show me… where are you? Why are you not awake at this hour? What…”

She felt a sheen of magic obstruct her. A familiar magic.

“What foal has our candle?!” Luna roared, momentarily startling her two bat guards. The Princess quickly clamped her mouth shut to stifle another outburst, nodding in apology to the pair of stallions. Wrath was quick to recover, as he always was when she used the power of her voice, but his fellow Night Guard still had his hooves over his ears in pain.

“Moonshine, art thou alright?” she inquired, and the bat pony slowly lowered his hooves to the floor. “Do you wish to retire?”

“My place is by your side, Princess,” Moonshine insisted, smiling confidently. “I was merely startled.”

“Is there a problem, your Highness?” Wrath asked. All business. She had always liked that about him.

“Some mad foal is using my Shadow Candle,” Luna explained, closed her eyes, and tried to find her nephew again. “Is it one of my nephew’s retainers? Why wouldn’t he inform me that he had possession of such a dangerous artifact? It is blocking me from his dreams… no, this cannot possibly be his doing! Something is very much amiss in Canterlot.”

“Perhaps he simply does not wish to be disturbed,” Moonshine suggested.

“My nephew is in pain. I can feel it.” Luna shook her head, her ethereal mane roiling violently like a surging river behind her. “No, Sir Moonshine. The candle is being used against him, somehow. And to block me so completely… his assailant must be using the full power of the Shadow Candle. They may both perish at this rate. I must find a way through, and quickly!”

“Is there anything we can do?” Wrath asked, dipping his head in respect. “Name it, and the Night Guard will see it done!”

Luna thought a moment before replying. Yes. There was something.

Something she could use to circumvent the Shadow Candle’s Veil.

“I need you to retrieve something for me, Wrath,” the Princess finally said. “I cannot pierce the haze of the Shadow Candle alone. Like cannot defeat like in this manner.”

She told him what she needed, and Wrath left with all due haste, leaving only Sir Moonshine.

“Watch over me,” Luna commanded as she closed her eyes and began to concentrate. “My dream trance must not be disturbed.”

“As my Princess wishes,” Sir Moonshine vowed with a razor-toothed smile a shark could envy.

The Gala was in full swing. The three wings of the Palace Menagerie were full of ponies: ponies chatting, ponies dancing, ponies nibbling on treats and drinking cocktails. The discerning ear could pick up conversations in Prench and Germane as ponies from across Equestria mingled freely at the grandest social event of the year. Beautiful mares in serving outfits tended to a colorful array of noble mares and stallions in their finest formal wear, dignitaries from foreign lands laughed at jokes only they could hear, and esteemed guests walked the halls from entertainment to entertainment. In the Wonderbolt section, the flashes of cameras were almost like fireworks timed to the energetic background ambience.

“I’m back in the Gala,” Sweetie Belle realized as she took in her surroundings. “I can’t believe it.”

She smiled, despite herself, only to realize what that meant. Unless this was a new Gala, next year’s Gala, then it meant the Gala Loops had never ended, even after she left. Looking around, she tried to find any sign of this not being the Gala she knew. It could just be a coincidence, after all. So much of it looked the same… the ponies present, the three menageries, the decorations and styles of dress. It was spot on. Which also meant the worst. The loops had never broken. Blueblood had never gotten free.

Sweetie set her hooves against the floor, ignoring the looks from ponies at her lack of a dress, and pressed. Despite her efforts, the ground beneath her did not rumble or respond… It felt strange, somehow, but it was just as possible that things worked different here when it came to that sort of magic. That was both troubling and a little comforting. Schooling her features, she tried to move through the crowds, searching for a familiar face. And soon enough, she found one.

“Miss Fleur!” Sweetie called, smiling at the model as she approached. Fleur-de-Lis was as gorgeous as Sweetie had remembered her being. Tall, leggy, and gracile, she was a model in many worlds, and this one had also been the duelist who taught her I Quattro Elementi. Just as importantly, Fleur had taught her the importance of poise and beauty, not just in fighting, but in life.

Sweetie remembered how, so many times, so many loops, Fleur had smiled down at her and offered a hoof to help her up or to show her a new pose. For all the troubles she seemed to juggle and struggle with as a financially strained but noble-born pony, Fleur had always been a kind and friendly – even vivacious – mare to the young Sweetie Belle she had trained.

This time, though, Fleur de Lis looked down on her with an inscrutable look, appraising but dismissive.

“I – we haven’t met,” Sweetie said, hoping to introduce herself to a friendly face with some inside knowledge, “but I’m a big fan of yours and--”

“I’ll have to stop you there,” Fleur interrupted. “I don’t associate with fans or hangers-on.”

Sweetie’s eyes went wide at the biting remark.

“Why, look at her.” Another pony spoke up, a stallion with a trimmed blue moustache that took Sweetie a moment to recognize. “You don’t even have a dress! My word! How uncouth! Like a beggar off the streets or somesuch.” Fancy Pants looked down at her with a sneer. He didn’t even address her further, switching to the third person as he waved a hoof at her. “Do you suppose this ragamuffin snuck into the Castle somehow? Where are the royal guards when you need them?”

“I--”

“She’s still here,” Fleur observed, “Worse than that, Fancy, she’s trying to talk to us.” The haughty mare gently tried to herd Sweetie away with her hoof. “Shoo. Go on. I don’t have any bits on me. Go bother somepony else, why don’t you?”

Sweetie Belle shook her head and turned around, galloping away from her dueling mentor. Fleur had often chided or teased her during training, but it had always been playful. Never had a cruel word passed from her lips. Such a thing was too inelegant for the noble model. What in Equestria had gotten into her?

Sweetie galloped, swerving past older ponies all around her, putting some much-needed space between her and the pony who looked so much like her tutor but who just couldn’t be her. The Gala was a press of bodies around any celebrity or lordly noblepony, and the sheer number of adults she slipped through keyed her to the likelihood that somepony big had to be in the center. Sure enough, the crowd abruptly parted a respectful distance from the center of their attention, and Sweetie saw a familiar face emerge.

“Princess Celestia!”

“Oh,” the princess glanced at her, a displeased frown crossing her face. “You’re… Rarity’s sister? What are you doing here?” The tall Princess crinkled her one visible eye, and though her voice had been level, Sweetie could sense a hint of menace in the immortal pony’s tone. “No. You don’t belong here. How did you get here?”

Sweetie felt her breath catch in her throat as Celestia loomed over her like a mountain. The Princess was tall compared to an adult. She was a giant next to a young mare such as herself. Sweetie got the distinct impression that the Princess could simply stomp her underhoof, should she so desire.

“How did you get here?” Celestia asked again. “There’s something about you. Something different.”

“I’m sorry!” Sweetie, acting on some instinct, threw herself into a courtly bow. Her nose touched the tile of the menagerie floor. “I’ll leave right away!”

“Yes, that would be best.” Celestia shooed her with a hoof, and the ponies around her chortled in amusement. “I have no time to waste with you.”

Feeling the sting of the words, Sweetie stepped back, head down. ‘She said there was something different about me. Something different! Maybe they can see what I really look like…? Maybe… maybe they see me for what I am? Maybe I am a monster now. Is that why they’re treating me like this?’

It was then that she heard another very familiar voice.

“You are nothing! You are not my brother, hardly a stallion worthy of my sister, and little more than a pretentious, disgusting son-of-a-mule!” Sweetie Belle, another Sweetie Belle, dressed in a beautiful white dress growled with undisputable malice at some poor pony.

Sweetie Belle couldn’t help but approach.

This was her. This was another her. But how was there another her, here?

She ignored the mutters and glares as she made her way to the balcony, where she could finally see who her other self was talking to. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the white coat and disheveled blonde mane. Blueblood looked miserable, his usually meticulous appearance sloppy and unkempt in a way Sweetie had never seen before. He wasn’t even trying to counter the mean-spirited Sweetie across from him with his usual wit.

For a moment, Sweetie couldn’t even think of what to say. ‘How did this happen?’

“But you… you said you and your friends wanted…” Blueblood’s voice was clipped, hardly more than a whisper. Sweetie had to press past the others to hear. “The last loop… it just doesn’t make sense…”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Sweetie, the other Sweetie, threw something at him. She then stormed away, and Sweetie, the real one – or she thought she was the real one – couldn’t help but notice that the other ponies present treated her normally. But she was normal; that Sweetie Belle was still a pony on the inside and outside, so that made sense, didn’t it?

Left in her wake, Blueblood reached for her with a hoof only to curse and slam his hoof onto the floor. He was angry, Sweetie realized. The Blueblood she knew did not get easily angered. Indignant, yes; pouty, definitely; primpy and fussy, all the time. But angry? She watched on, stunned by the scene unfolding in front of her, as her brother from the time-loops hung his head in silent misery.

She saw him look up, look to Celestia, desperate for some sort of sympathy, and then turn away.

The Princess didn’t even seem to give the scene an iota of her attention.

“I said NO! Get away from me!” Blueblood snarled, pushing aside a mare Sweetie didn’t recognize. The pony looked noble, dressed in a beautiful dress of orange and crimson, but over hundreds of loops Sweetie had learned to recognize almost everypony who had attended the Grand Galloping Gala. She didn’t know all their names, like Blueblood did, but she knew their faces and color schemes. This black and white mare was somepony new.

“My Prince,” she said to his back. “Are you just going to let them treat you this way?”

Blueblood ignored her and stomped away, leaving the seething noblemare behind. Sweetie Belle resolved to follow Blueblood and snaked her way around the guests, trying to keep him in sight. In the confusion, she also tried to get a better look at the noblemare with the white mane, only to find that she had vanished into the crowd. Luckily, Blueblood was easier to keep track of. Sweetie almost caught up to him, only to notice herself… or rather her other-self approaching her adoptive brother.

It then hit her. Even if she was a monster, even if ponies would wince when they saw her or treat her like dirt… even if Blueblood himself was repulsed… she couldn’t simply watch a pony she loved be berated and abused by none other than herself.

Taking a deep breath, Sweetie moved faster, following her counterpart who was in turn following Blueblood to another secluded area of the Gala. If she had to guess, he was heading for the maze. It was a place where he could lose everypony else. He clearly wanted to be left alone, and she couldn’t blame him. Not with how ponies were acting! Had he done something during the day to make them so angry? She couldn’t believe it.

Just when she saw him slinking out of the sight of nobles, she managed to catch up with the other Sweetie Belle, just out of immediate sight from the other ponies and Blueblood.

“Hey!” she called, drawing the attention of the other Sweetie. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Her counterpart stopped and turned to face her.

“You – You’re not supposed to be here,” the native Sweetie said, almost mechanically, and scowled at her like she was some sort perplexing apparition. “You’re… me? But I’m me! What are you?”

“I’m not you,” Sweetie muttered angrily. “I would never, ever, treat Blueblood like that! What could possibly make you say those things to him? He’s one of the sweetest ponies I’ve ever met!”

“He’s a jerk! He’ll always be a jerk, and I hate him!” Sweetie yelled back at herself. She stalked forward with a cold, calculating expression of condescension. Sweetie wondered, for just a moment, if this was how she had looked that one loop where she had torn into Diamond Tiara.

“I hate him,” Sweetie stated. “We all hate him.”

Sweetie felt herself flush with anger.

“Blueblood,” she hissed, stepping up to literally lock horns with her contemptible counterpart, “is not a jerk. Not to me! He’s loyal and strong… stronger than you might think or could ever believe. He’s seen things you never have, done things you never will… he’s changed… and grown! And I. Don’t. Hate. Him. He’s my brother, the only one who could possibly even understand what I’ve been through… and if you take one more step in his direction, I will not hold back. You’ll probably just reset anyway, you dumb-belle, so don’t think I won’t take you down!”

The native Sweetie colored with the same rage Sweetie herself felt. They were eerily alike in that respect, and when her local counterpart smirked, taking a very obvious step back, Sweetie knew she was about to try something. The other Sweetie. This was all so confusing!

The local-her inhaled deeply, no doubt to cry for help. She would scream for her sister or the guards or somepony who would cause a lot of trouble. But Sweetie was a Sweetie Belle, too. So she didn’t just let the other her have her way. Rushing forward, Sweetie tackled herself and quickly clamped a hoof around other-her’s mouth. The angry scream became a muffled ‘rrrgh!’, and the pair tumbled out and onto the grass of the Palace gardens.

Both fillies separated as soon as their roll stopped and jumped to their hooves. Sweetie was dismayed when the local, evil version fell into the familiar stance of the I Quattro Elementi. She groaned. “You learned that too?! How?!”

Quickly shaking her head, she started slowly going around her opponent, only for the local Sweetie to match her movements. ‘Perfectly symmetrical violence never solved anything,’ a wise pony had once said. Fortunately, this was not going to be a fair fight. Not for her opponent.

She followed the familiar basic patterns of an I Quattro Elementi spar, settling into the familiar rhythm and exchange of basic spells. Clearly the local Sweetie was roughly at the same level as she had been before she left. Sweetie still wasn’t sure how that was possible, but it was just what she had expected. She imitated her opponent’s level, allowing the local Sweetie to think that they were on par, all the while whispers echoed around the pair until her other self finally heard them.

“What’s… that?” she asked, ears twitching. “Some sort of sound?”

“It’s the end for you,” Sweetie replied, cantering to the side.

The local Sweetie immediately reacted, trying to turn the right way to fend of Sweetie’s follow-up. ‘Tried,’ being the imperative word. Her legs refused to budge, and when she looked down to identify why, she saw, to her horror, that she had somehow sunken down into the earth. Her hooves had already vanished into the soft grass, and she couldn’t pull them free. Her eyes sought out Sweetie’s, full of indignation and confusion. “But… your horn didn’t glow!”

Sweetie smiled triumphantly as her other-self sunk further into the ground, letting the local Sweetie see a little bit of her true self slip through her illusion. “Don’t worry, nothing will happen to you.”

“You!” Sweetie gasped. “You’re not--”

Sweetie’s hoof cut the statement short.

“Sssh,” she warned. “It’s a secret to everypony.”

The local Sweetie could just gape in stunned silence as the earth closed around her. The remaining Sweetie Belle sighed as the whispers died away. That had cost time. Blueblood was gone. Taking a deep breath, she looked at the maze and stepped in. It had been a while, after all. She hoped she remembered the way.

She found Blueblood in the center of the maze. He wasn’t doing anything other than mutely staring at the obelisk containing the long list of Bluebloods through the centuries. It tore at her heart seeing him so despondent. It was as if he was about to give up. She knew how he ‘reset’ some of the loops back when they had been going through the Gala together. She knew, before she entered the loops with him, he had ‘reset’ the timestream for reasons other than expedience. Peeking around a corner, seeing him from the front, the empty, haunted, hopeless look on his face as he started at the names etched in his family monolith made her want to cry.

She carefully approached until she stood right behind his slouched form. “Blueblood? Are you okay?”

He didn’t seem to hear her at first, but his ears twitched in response. He shook his head and stared at her, and she knew he was expecting her to say something terrible to him.

“Blueblood,” she said, simply, and touched his leg with her hoof. “It’s me.”

“You?” he asked, blinking.

Sweetie’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Don’t you remember me?” she whispered, looking up at him. “After all that we went through? After how you took care of me and helped me?” She smiled a bit, hoping to coax some sort of emotion out of him, but he only stared forward. “I went away, but I’m back for a little while… I don’t think I’d rather spend some time with anypony else than my big brother.”

She looked around the gardens, looking for a way to convince him to believe her. “Do you remember how many times we came here? How many times we went into that pocket dimension with Twilight’s crazy fragment? Do you think I would have done all that with a pony I didn’t trust and care for?” Her voice softened. “Do you remember when I said goodbye?”

He muttered something under his breath and, even as she reached for him, he scooted back and away from her. His hoof was trembling, shaking, as he pointed at her.

“You reset!” he yelled, and though his voice lowered, just those two words ‘you reset’ echoed in Sweetie’s ears. “You reset… after the Gala… after you left… I tried, Sweetie. I tried so hard to make the best of things. You were gone, I missed you, but… but I tried.”

His hooves reached up to bury in his unwashed blond mane, head shaking back and forth.

“And then… then I thought I’d gotten out, too. I got to the next day! Rarity… Rarity she…” He couldn’t finish whatever he was trying to say. His breath just came in short gasps. “I must’ve died again. Some creature killed me, and… and when I did… I was back here. Back here. I’m always back here. There is no escape for any of us. All of it is… just a joke… just a horrible joke… and it never ends. Never ends!”

Tears welled up in her eyes and Sweetie rushed forward to hug her adopted brother as hard as she could. He was still in the loops. He was still suffering. And she had left him.

“No! No, it’s okay! You won’t be trapped! It must be some mistake!” she cried and tried shaking sense into him, accidentally ripping the corner of his suit shirt as she did. He didn’t even seem to care. “Please! Please, Blueblood, don’t lose hope! You’ve kept me afloat for so long! I wouldn’t have made it this far without you… please… let me help you. I’ll stay here for as long as you do… I - I’ll find a way to come back completely. Or take you with me! I won’t let you be alone in this.” She looked up into his eyes, and it was like her words passed right through him. Like he was already dead inside. “I’ll help you…”

“Nephew.”

A chill ran down Sweetie’s spine at the frigid voice that had spoken just then. Sweetie looked up, past Blueblood, to the very top of the royal family obelisk. An alicorn with black wings perched there, glaring down at them with baleful, glowing eyes. Even as Sweetie watched, bats detached from and melded back into her body.

“Auntie,” Blueblood finally responded, tilting his head back against the monolith. “You always find me. Every night. Time…” He actually smiled, tears running down his cheeks. “Time to die again?”

“Our sister asked us to take care of you,” the terrifying visage of Princess Luna explained, and her body scattered into a thousand screeching fangs and leathery wings. “And so we shall,” her disembodied voice promised.

Sweetie closed her eyes and felt Blueblood pull her in close as the swarm descended.

And tore them to pieces.

Chapter Thirty Eight : Sweetie Belle - Equestrian Girls

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Chapter Thirty Nine : Blueblood - Press Ever Forward

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Blueblood: Press Ever Forward

“Hello. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Welcome to our home.”

Those were the first words spoken by the pony that became her step-brother: that it was a pleasure to make her acquaintance. The fifty-second Blueblood was close to her age, just a little older really, with a compass rose cutie mark that he had gotten just the day before her arrival. He was big for a colt, tall and barrel-chested, just like his father was big for a stallion. Where the elder Blueblood wore a serious-looking overcoat, the son was dressed in a little tuxedo with a blue waistcloth. His blond mane had been styled into a very soft wave and curl, and it partly obscured his right eye. Cadance felt a nudge and held out her hoof.

“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza,” she said, and he kissed her hoof gently but quickly. Too quickly, given the frown it earned from the middle-aged mare behind him who could only be his mother.

“Blueblood,” he introduced himself without title. “The fifty-second.”

The reigning Prince gestured his son away, and soon Cadenza’s world was taken up by the Duchess of Canterlot, Vernal Equinox. Lady Equinox was noble-looking but fairly plain mare. She made up for it with great poise and an air of a refinement. Her coat was a soft but clear pink, her mane and eyes both ocean blue. Cadance remembered her smiling warmly and pulling the filly into an embrace.

“My daughter,” she said with a squeeze. “My new daughter! Under our roof, you will want for nothing!”

Lady Equinox had been true to her word.

“You never spoke much about your mother or father,” Sweetie said, an observer to the nebulous memory, conjured in dream around them. It was a dream within a dream, almost.

In-between memory and nightmare, she stood by Blueblood, Luna, and Cadance. The four observers hovered near a fireplace in the manor house as the filly-Cadance met her new family. They were Celestia’s nephews and nieces, all: Equestria’s royal family, embodying all that was best of its noble unicorn heritage and great thousand year history. From a distance, they looked like a happy, little family, except, as Sweetie had said, Blueblood never seemed to find reason to talk about them. Any of them.

Blueblood grunted but seemed unwilling to explain his reluctance.

“He did once say that it was the duty of the Bluebloods to adopt alicorns,” Sweetie continued and turned this time to Cadance and Princess Luna.

“It is one of their most sacred duties,” Luna answered, taking in the scene before her with a neutral expression. “Celestia and I were likewise taken in by Princess Platinum’s family, a thousand years and more before you were born. Though, in our case, they were also our only living relatives at the time.”

“You met Princess Platinum?!” Sweetie’s eyes went wide. “That’s amazing!”

“We would not be here today if not for her,” Luna replied, but said no more.

“You had wonderful parents, Blueblood,” Cadance said, trying to coax the stallion out of his shell. “Your father was a true noble and gentlestallion, and your mother--”

“Must we prattle on about dead ponies?” Blueblood snapped. “I thought we were here to talk about--”

“Blueblood!” Sweetie whispered, cutting the irate stallion off. “They’re your parents!”

He grimaced and she saw his teeth clench. “Yes, they were.” He pointedly stressed that last word. “As you can see, we did our duty. We accepted the new Princess into our home. She was treated as well as anypony could imagine… the finest food…”

Another memory flashed by of a young filly Cadance sitting at a long table, her new father and mother seated a good distance away at the head. She was boggling at the vast array of foods and sweets that had been divided into courses and compliments before her. She reached with both hooves for a stuffed biscuit of raisins and roasted herbs, steaming and hot and filling the air with an irresistible fragrance. A faint magical aura stopped her, however.

“The Celestine prayer comes first,” Blueblood whispered from his seat next to her. Then, more loudly, he recited with head bowed, “Blessed as we by the bounty of peace. We thank you, Princess, for the harmony of Equestria and for those we are honored to share it with. We break bread, always with you in our hearts. Agimus tibi gratias, dilectissima Celestia.”

Cadance tried to join the three nobles in muttering the final verse and looked down shyly when it became painfully clear she had no idea what to say or even what the verse meant. Servants began to tend to the family, sitting primly before their plates. The lord and lady of the house spoke softly to one another while they waited. Cadance only looked up when she saw the roasted and stuffed biscuit she had wanted placed on her plate. She glanced to the serving maid and then to Blueblood, who had directed the food to be placed before her.

“You will learn, soon,” he promised and smiled warmly. “Don’t worry. I’ll help.”

“The finest tutors.”

Cadance glanced up at the stern governess her new family had hired. Blueblood sat at perfect attention next to her, and the withered old donkey jennet introduced a second pony, a tall and shapely pegasus mare with a flowing mane of seagreen and ocean blue. Next to her was another tutor, a stuffy and bookish-looking unicorn mare with thick, red glasses. They were to be her flight and basic magic instructors. When she was older, they said, she would be ready to enter the school for gifted unicorns.

Last, but certainly not the least, Princess Celestia stood behind the hoof-picked mares. She, too, would be a tutor, to teach the young Princess in what it meant to be an alicorn. As one, all the governesses and tutors bowed deeply to their new charge. Even Blueblood’s old crone of a governess lowered her head in respect. Blueblood, however, did not.

“You are Her Serene Highness,” Celestia announced and beamed at the filly. “Congratulations, my little pony, and welcome to our family.”

“Congratulations!” The other adults chorused as one, their heads still bowed. “Your Serene Highness!”

“Congratulations,” Blueblood said, a second later.

“You were taken care of like nopony but a royal could imagine,” Blueblood finished.

“I was given everything,” Cadance agreed. “A new home. A new future, a new...”

After the tutors in Blueblood’s memory vanished, they left only Cadance behind. The little filly trotted across the stately salon towards a voluminous painting of the royal family. In it, the great Duke of Canterlot stood proudly alongside his beautiful wife. The younger Blueblood was dressed in a tiny blue guard uniform, sitting next to his father. An empty cradle lay conspicuously off to the side, having been painted over at least twice. As yet, nopony had made plans to include her in the portrait.

Cadance turned away from the memory as the younger her tried to stand in front of the picture, finding a place where she fit in. “A new family.”

A knocking drew Blueblood across his immaculate, reneighsance-style bedroom. Clearly upset at being disturbed, he used his magic to throw open the great hardwood door. A tiny pink alicorn was standing there, staring at him with wide eyes.

“Not again,” the colt grumbled, but eventually gave in. “Very well. Come on.”

He channeled a hoof-full of magical sparks to pluck a record out of a drawer. It floated, like a flying saucer, through the air and over to a gramophone. A soft orchestral melody began to play, and Cadance quickly scurried up and onto her new brother’s bed. Blueblood followed with markedly less enthusiasm.

“If you kick me, I’ll knock you onto the floor,” he warned, climbing up onto his bed with a bit more grace and the benefit of both a few years and a couple extra inches of reach.

“You never did before,” the little Cadance commented, grabbing one of his pillows. She seemed to need something to cling to before she slept.

“This time I will,” he promised, turning his back to her and magically snuffing out the lights.

“Daaaaaaw!” Sweetie melted. “See? I told you you were a good brother!” She nudged Blueblood, prompting a roll of his eyes.

Luna nodded, somberly, suspicions already forming in her head as to what happened next. “There must be more, nephew.”

“As I said,” Blueblood replied asked and gestured to Cadance with a tilt of his head. “They treated her wonderfully. Do you know why?”

“Blueblood, you highland goat!”

“Cruciger, you old dog!”

The two stallions laughed and clasped hooves at the center of the waiting room. Lord Cruciger was a bay-colored stallion, large enough to dwarf the little colts and fillies standing near him. He even dwarfed Lady Equinox when he kissed her hoof in greeting. Cadance had stood next to Blueblood, groomed and dressed to receive important company. Her new brother had watched the whole affair with a bored expression.

The two fathers, Cadance had learned, were old friends, and Cruciger had visited to discuss family matters. From a present-day perspective, that could only mean the matter of the Blueblood succession and the arrangement of a marriage for the young Prince.

“Why don’t you children go upstairs and play?” Lady Equinox suggested, gesturing to a pair of servants.

“Come with me, young Princes,” a stallion majordomo had said, taking Blueblood and a young Alpha Brass away.

“Why don’t we work on a puzzle, girls?” One of the house governesses, a young one, gathered up the four fillies. They retreated upstairs while the adults talked in a study.

Cruciger had come to Canterlot with his wife and three daughters: Polished Jewel, Chalice, and Antimony. It was the first time Cadance had met any of them, and while she and Chalice worked dutifully on a large picture puzzle with the governess, Polished Jewel – being older and more easily bored – anxiously milled around. The youngest daughter, Antimony, still without her cutie mark, watched with half-lidded eyes as Chalice and Cadance assembled the puzzle. The younger filly’s eyes seemed to be red, like a pegasus pony’s, or an albino’s, but there was something unnerving about them, and whenever Cadance tried to get a closer look the little filly had shied away or covered her eyes with her hooves.

Eventually, Polished Jewel grew too bored to be content watching her sisters. She snuck off, much to the distress of the governess. Cadance had remained in the room with Antimony and Chalice, finishing off the puzzle and trying to entertain her guests. She had even gathered them around her for a little tea party, just like Vernal Equinox and the adult noblemares always had. Chalice had started out shy but she seemed very nice and even eager to play along. Antimony had mostly kept quiet and watched her sister. Finally, after how long, Cadance couldn’t say, Polished Jewel returned with their visibly shaken Governess.

The oldest daughter had then announced, “Father and Lord Blueblood are to duel.”

Three days later, on a cold, drizzly morning, Lady Equinox had returned with her shocked-silent son but not her husband. It was a full day before Cadance learned that her adopted father, the only father she had ever known, was dead.

“Oh…” Sweetie looked down. “I’m sorry.”

Princess Luna nodded her head in understanding, and her sympathy was sincere though less obviously articulated. “We have heard of this sad dispute… a duel of honor taken too far.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Cadance said, though it was something they all understood. Mi Amore Cadenza becoming a Princess of the realm must have thrown into question the previously established arrangement between the estranged Terre Rare and their distant Blueblood cousins. What might have been a request to push back the engagement a generation turned, tragically, into a duel. But nopony could blame the Princess herself for this, surely.

Blueblood took his time in responding, and when he did, it was with a shrug.

“Nephew,” Luna said. “You must know…”

“‘Don’t blame her.’ Don’t you think I’ve told myself that?” he asked, and by the pained look on his face, he clearly wished he could say the opposite. He shook his head in dismay. “Can you really tell a pony how to feel? I’ve told myself a thousand times not to blame you. I didn’t really even figure it all out until the funeral… when mother told me. But how could I not think: if only she hadn’t come to us, maybe none of it would have happened?”

Blueblood let out a shuddering breath and turned away from the three mares. “It doesn’t matter. I want to put all that behind me.”

“Yet you cannot,” Luna stated, bluntly.

“Isn’t wanting to enough?” he turned and yelled, causing Cadance and Sweetie to flinch. Luna merely stared hard at him, and an instant later, he regretted the loss of control. “Auntie, Sweetie… Cadenza… isn’t it enough that I want to just move on? What happened in the past doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter anymore.”

Cadance lowered her eyes, but Sweetie reached out to touch his leg.

“You can’t just say ‘I want to forget it’ and trust in it to go away,” she said, trying to be encouraging. “You need to let it go if you want to leave it behind for real… you really, really have to forgive her.” Sweetie looked at his eyes, her own a bit watery. He had never spoken much about his foalhood, even in all their loops together, and now Sweetie started to understand why. “If you could stop being Bullyblood… I know you can do this too!”

Blueblood looked down at her, only to glance away, his brows knitted together. “It isn’t as if I don’t want to…”

“Wanting it is not enough, nephew,” Princess Luna insisted. “Nor is this the only issue before us.”

It was snowing heavily when Cadance saw her step-brother leave Canterlot. Domed umbrellas floated overhead, shielding her from most of the downfall, but a layer of fluffy white had already accumulated all around the skyport. It trickled from where it lay on top of mooring lines every time the royal airship swayed in the wind. It was beautiful, but so cold. Winters of this severity, whether approved by the Pegasus Weather Bureau or not, were still alien to the young Princess from Bitaly.

Duchess Equinox held Cadance close as Blueblood saw his luggage moved onboard for his trip.

“You shouldn’t have to go,” she objected, and turned to her stepmother. “He shouldn’t have to go. I don’t want him to go!”

“A Princess is the country. Nothing else comes first,” Vernal Equinox told her. “That is as true of Princes as it is of Princesses.”

“But I don’t want him to go,” Cadance insisted and stomped her little hooves. “You said I could have whatever I want, and I don’t want him to go!”

Blueblood stood, facing the airship, his back to his mother and step-sister.

“I don’t want him to go!” Cadance repeated, her voice rising in pitch as she started to whine, and Duchess Equinox frowned helplessly at her new daughter’s behavior. “I don’t--”

“Stop crying.”

It was Blueblood’s voice, a colt’s voice and not a stallion’s, but it was as cold as the snow-covered docks around them.

“I want to go,” he said, still facing the ship and not his family. “I want to go, so stop crying.”

Cadance shook her head. “No you don’t!”

Blueblood seemed to glance upward at the falling snow and the cloudy sky. He was Duke of Canterlot now, technically, but his mother would continue to rule in his name while he was away. The city of lights and magic could be seen past the airship between the envelope of the balloon and the wooden bow of the ship itself. It was just around the bend of the mountain, and like the skyport, it sparkled underneath a layer of snow. There were fillies and colts playing in courtyards, building snowponies and defending snowforts, back in Canterlot.

“Goodbye, mother,” Blueblood finally said over his shoulder, his face still out of sight. His voice was tight and forced. “I will see you in four years.”

“Four years,” Vernal Equinox agreed. She said nothing more to her only son.

Still not looking back, Blueblood ran up the plank of the ship.

“Write us!” Cadance cried to him. “I’ll write you! Write me back!”

“Sssh.” Legs draped over Cadance’s shoulders and pulled her into a hug. Lady Equinox hummed a soft tune, and the two ponies remained in the snow until the airship finally left for Crown Roc, taking Blueblood with it. Cadance felt a kiss on the crown of her head, and heard her new mother whisper, “Just us now, my little pony. My little daughter. My daughter.”

“My Prince, are you--”

“Keep out of my way,” Blueblood hissed, pushing past the royal guard and into his cabin. The tears had frozen to his face; it hurt to try and rub them away with his hooves. Four years. Four years, he would be gone.

Maybe it was for the best.

“I said my mother told me about how your arrival caused the duel,” Blueblood growled, but fixed his eyes down at his hooves and not at any of the ponies sharing in that painful memory. “I thought she’d blame you, like I did, Cadenza. But she blamed me… for not being a daughter like the family needed.” He finally looked up and pointed at his step-sister. “Do you know why she treated you so well? Because you were the daughter she wished me to be.”

“How,” he asked, shaking his head in defeat and dismay, “how could I go back to being your brother after that?”

“Why isn’t he writing?” Cadance asked, holding up another letter for her mother to proofread and send to Crown Roc. “He’s using enough… um… postage, right? Maybe he’s forgetting? Should I remind him? I could write it on the back of this letter!”

Vernal Equinox smiled comfortingly at her adopted daughter, placing a hoof on the filly’s head.

“I am sure he’ll write when he gets the chance to,” she assured the little Princess.

“Three years, and you never wrote me,” Cadance said, her delicate features pulled tight into a frown. “Did you even get my letters?”

“I did,” Blueblood replied, stonily.

“Did you read them?” she accused. “You didn’t, did you?”

It was a long, heavy couple heartbeats before the Prince answered the question. “…No. I didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you write back?” Sweetie asked. “I’m sure you missed them… if I could write to Rarity… or you… I’d want to hear back!” She shook her head. “Blueblood… I don’t think it’s Cadance that you have to forgive… It’s your parents.”

“Your mother loved you,” Cadance said, trying to be supportive. It had the opposite effect, and Blueblood bowled right past Sweetie to glare into his step-sister’s eyes. She was an alicorn, but Blueblood was a large pony, even by stallion standards. He still had enough height to manage to look down on her.

“My mother replaced me the first chance she got,” he hissed and shook his head at Sweetie. “And my father, my stupid, noble, ‘heroic’ father… threw his life away in a pointless honor duel. You’d think my parents were dysfunctional? But our entire line is just one long legacy of buck-ups and betrayals!”

He pointed at Luna, who had been watching and listening with a straight face. “Sisters turn on sisters. Daughters turn on fathers. Sons depose mothers! Mothers manipulate their foals! Fathers march off and die! From that very first generation right up to the present! We persist, Princes and Princesses, and for what? For what?” He whirled on Cadance. “What? What justified us taking you from your real family? Do you even remember what your mother looked like? Your real one?”

Then he turned to Sweetie, heedless of the hurt look on Cadance’s face. “You remember Blue Belle? That - that is the true face of what we are!”

“For what?” he repeated and finally returned to Luna. “You’ll forgive me for holding a few grudges, Auntie. At least I didn’t turn on my own kin. Twice.”

Princess Luna’s wings flared and, without so much as a word of warning, her head surged forward to connect with Blueblood’s own. She turned slightly, so the impact didn’t involve either pony’s horn, but the sound of two thick royal skulls colliding proved wince-worthy. Blueblood yelped and fell to the side with the impact, hooves flying reflexively up to his face. Cadance gasped, a hoof covering her mouth, but only Sweetie really ran over to make sure he was alright.

“Blasted, bloody--!” his cursing, at least, indicated there was no brain damage. “That hurt!”

“Nephew, you know little of which you speak,” Princess Luna announced. Her voice seemed to be both soft with concern and bellowing with anger. The dark alicorn reached down and bodily picked the stallion up by his formerly immaculate suit collar. A bruise had formed over the dark Princess’s eye, but she hadn’t seemed to feel or notice the impact.

“We have never claimed to be perfect nor even the best role model,” she reminded him, pulling the Prince closer to her angry countenance. “We have the weight of many wrongs on our conscience, and we have regrets to spare! We have things left unsaid, worries, fears, insecurities… We let those things rule us once. It will never happen again. You, too, nephew…” She saw him start to stubbornly turn away and yanked him closer. “You are our kin, with all the potential for greatness… and all the potential for abuse. You know what we want of you. You knowwhat is expected of you.”

“To endure,” he replied and slumped in her physical and magical grip.

“And press ever forward,” Luna insisted, releasing him to fall to all fours. “Nephew,” she began again, and there was a note of pleading to her voice. “Please. You are among ponies you can trust. Ponies who love you. Speak honestly… truly… openly… and endure. You are not and never willbe alone.”

“Please,” Cadance spoke up, and for the first time, she tentatively touched his side. “I have things I need to say, too. Just please, I know you want to try, but you also have to believe you can succeed. If we cannot be at peace with one another here… I fear we won’t ever be.”

“Think about how you kept me sane and helped me escape the loops,” Sweetie said softly, leaning against his foreleg. “Without your belief in me, I would have been lost a long time ago. You had the strength to help me… to make the perfect Gala… to win my sister… and to let me call you brother… and you know I’ll always, always be your little sister and be here for you.”

“Sweetie,” she heard him say as he held her to his leg. He lowered his eyes and sucked in a ragged, distasteful breath. “Auntie… alright…”

Behind him, the image of the Blueblood monument from the center of the palace garden maze appeared. A young colt, perfect white coat and groomed golden mane, trotted slowly up to the edifice. It was dusk, and he was the only pony around.

“A sister,” the young colt lamented. “A Princess…”

At last, he came to the monument itself. It took only moments for him to read the names. There were fifty deceased Bluebloods recorded, one after the other in a neat line. At the very bottom, Blueblood saw his father’s name, then his, and then his replacement. A tiny hoof brushed against his own name, and with hardly a whimper of protest or a cry of surprise, a compass rose began to materialize over his flanks.

“My place in the world was made crystal clear that night,” the adult Prince said, head still hung low. He didn’t need to see to know what memories his mind had dredged up. “It was made clear when we adopted you, Cadenza… and when I left for Crown Roc. I was always meant to be just a name. I… I can’t even say I hated it. I was resigned to it. I accepted it. It made sense. It made sense like you count from one, to two, to three. There’s nothing wrong with just being the ‘two’ is there? I was a stepping stone, and… and I accepted that.”

The monument and the little colt vanished back into dreams.

“It all seems so pointless looking back,” he said, angry and confused and hurt. “Brother or sister, husband or wife… my parents and that stupid obelisk…”

He looked up at Cadance and steadied himself to say what he needed to. “I looked at you, and I never forgot how my mother held onto you and let me go. How she loved you, even on her deathbed. And how I…” He choked back his anger, but he couldn’t suppress his tears as they rolled down his cheeks. “How I… resented her for it. How, when she died, I felt… empty.”

The three mares listened as he mixed laughter into his crying.

“I paid for her funeral, and I gave her eulogy, and I felt like I was talking about a stranger,” he admitted, and it was more painful than any physical torture the loops had inflicted on him. He stared at Cadance, not just angry or hurt, but terribly, deeply conflicted. “I think… I think I wanted to take your place. I wanted to be somepony else.”

“You became somepony else,” Sweetie said softly, giving his leg a little shake for emphasis. “And you did it yourself. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“We would be most put-out if our nephew ceased to be the pony we know,” Luna added, beaming with a rare smile. It was only slightly marred by the welt over her left eye where she had viciously headbutted that same nephew. Jealousy, after all, was a sin she understood all too well.

“I never meant to--” Cadance began.

“I know,” Blueblood interrupted before she could explain. “I always knew it here,” he said, pointing to his head. “But never really here.” He pointed to his heart.

The thoughts, spoken aloud, conjured up a memory then, of the Prince and his oldest Aunt, the Princess of the Sun. He and Celestia sat in silence after he had made that first, impassioned plea for her to help explain his Gala time-loops.

"Nephew," Celesia finally said, placing a compassionate hoof on his shoulder. "You are free to search the Royal Libraries for an answer, but I think the problem isn't with magic. The problem…" she tapped his chest. "Is in here."

"Or maybe here," she added, gently rapping her hoof against his forehead. "Perhaps you should see a specialist?"

"Auntie!" the memory of the Prince protested, even as the dream turned to wisps around them.

“In here, huh?” he asked, still pointing to his chest. He took a deep breath and turned to Cadance.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I am sorry, Cadenza.”

The youngest Princess in the realm remained tall as nodded in acceptance. “You said terrible things to me,” she reminded him. “Worse than that… the brother who made my new life bearable turned his back on me. Even when he came back, he was still gone.”

Cadance wept when they laid her second mother to rest. Equinox was beside her husband again, seen off by her friends, family, and a throng of well-wishers. The Grand Duchess of Equestria and Canterlot. A chorus of colts and fillies sang, their dulcet tones juxtaposed with the sea of black that everypony wore. It was a great state funeral and even the Princess herself had made an appearance, her golden regalia draped with onyx cloth. Even her aurora mane seemed to have subdued colors. The sky itself was dark, with only a faint light shining through.

Gradually, as the service came to an end and the earth ponies began to fill in the grave, a long line of ponies appeared before her and before her brother. All offered their condolences. A few quietly affirmed their loyalties. Blueblood had sat next to her, as the family heir, as the true Duke in both name and power. He remained by the headstone, thanking visitors, accepting commiserations, all into the night. Even when Cadance felt the last of her tears for the day begin to dry.

Until, finally, there were only the two of them left.

“Blueblood,” she finally said, knowing that she was the last. Knowing that all they had now were each other.

What he said next hit her like a kick to the stomach.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

Blueblood grimaced.

“Before you say anything else,” Cadance quickly interrupted as he opened his mouth to speak. “I… I always knew how you felt about your parents,” she admitted, and this time she turned her eyes down to the floor. “When your mother held me… and whispered to me and…”

She shook her head and sniffed before building up the resolve to continue.

“It was like I had a new mother. One that loved me.” She glanced up and there was a glisten of tears in her eyes. “I - I honestly don’t know if I wanted to share it. I’m supposed to spread love, and I could have… but I didn’t where it would… where it might have… if she loved you more than me, what family would I have? I…”

“I think I understand,” Blueblood said and held out his hoof. “I’m willing to forgive all if you are similarly amenable. Well, everything except you marrying that obdurate buffon of a royal guard--”

Cadance frowned through her tears and glared at his hoof.

“You’d best get used to your new brother-in-law,” she stated.

“He’d best get used to me, you mean,” Blueblood corrected her.

“It’s my fault you were captured by the changelings, too,” Cadance admitted, all too quickly. It was as if a little unburdening had unleashed a deluge. “It was part of my plan to escape and attack them from inside.”

“Really?” he asked, and stroked his chin. “From what I’ve heard, that’s not a bad plan!”

Cadance boggled at him and at the apparent lack of concern. “You – You’re not mad?”

Blueblood’s confident mask of a grin faded slightly, but he shook his head. “I am quite angry, and I would be lying if I said I held you blameless. But I meant it when I told you I want us to forgive all. Anger comes and goes, doesn’t it?”

The two royal siblings inched closer, hesitant, unsure, shy even. Cadance finally took a long stride forward and wrapped her forelegs around her one-time step-brother. The hug was a little awkward at first, but then the Princess and finally the Prince relaxed and laughed a little. Cadance tightened her embrace and Blueblood lifted one leg up to tentatively return the gesture.

“NEPHEW!”

Everypony turned to the only source of such a magically enhanced bellow, but Princess Luna merely stared back, her mouth closed. Those same eyes then turned skyward as the Sugarcube Corner cafe shook in its foundations. The ceiling trembled and bolts exploded from out of wooden supports before, with a creaking, groaning snapping of wood and plaster, the roof peeled away and off the lower floor, like the top of a can being removed.

A rush of heat and light blasted down into the store as the roof came free and flew through the air. At the center of the tumult was the source of the bellow from before. A white-gold figure hovered in midair, radiating magic and waves of flame. The heat alone was oppressive, melting wax candles on Sweetie’s birthday cakes and sending rivulets of dribbling marzipan off tables and onto the floor.

“Do not fear our sister,” Princess Luna declared, reaching a hoof up to her horn. “She is only as powerful here as you imagine her to be, nephew!”

“The problem being that I imagine her to be absurdly powerful!” Blueblood yelled, having swiftly hidden behind his alicorn sister. “Ugh! And to top it off, cake is flying everywhere!”

“She’s so bright! I can barely see her! I’ve never seen such a powerful Luminescence spell!” Cadance yelled, shielding her eyes from the inferno in the sky. She did, however, find the time to turn to glare at her would-be brother. “And why are you hiding behind me?”

“You’re big, and you have wings!” Blueblood explained, extending one of her wings with his hoof for emphasis. “I’m safe from the cake behind you.”

“He does that,” Sweetie told the alicorn.

“Well, he’ll learn to stop it!” Cadance bodily wrestled with her brother, “I’m the Princess! You’re supposed to be my shield!”

“Never!”

“Nephew! Traitor! Enemies!” Celestia roared from on high. “Seize him, my little ponies! Seize them all!”

“Battle calls! Night Shade reveals herself!” Luna instantly took to the air, surging towards her dream-sister. A single beat from her wings sent everypony present flying and tumbling off their hooves. “HAVE AT THEE, IMPOSTER!”

“Auntie!” Blueblood yelled, reaching for her even as she took off, barreling into her evil sister like a bat out of Hell. The pair of alicorns grappled and tumbled away from the peeled-back roof of Sugarcube Corner, and the threat appeared to pass--

Except for the suddenly dark look in the eyes of everypony else at the party.

“Monsters!” Diamond Tiara screamed, and threw both plate and slice of cake at the three remaining ponies. Blueblood defly snagged Sweetie, ever alert for incoming pastry attacks, and ultimately used his magic to snag a table as a shield. At least inanimate objects didn’t object when you hid behind them.

“You heard the Princess!” another pony yelled.

“Traitors?” a hysterical sounding mare cried before fainting. “Ohhh!”

“Get ‘em!” yet another pony said, surging forward while others found yet more cake to hurl.

“S-stay away!” Cadance warned, holding up her hooves as one stallion made a grab for her. Blueblood snagged the offender when he made another lunge for the Princess, this time using him to absorb a barrage of cake slices.

“This may be where we make our exit!” Blueblood yelled. He threw the sticky and twitching cake-shield away without a care, much to Cadance’s disgust and chagrin. “How… exactly… do we make our exit again?”

Cadance muttered a reply as she ducked another slice of pie.

“What was that now?”

“I’m not entirely sure!” the Princess cried, smiling weakly. “I’m sort of winging it here!”

“Oh, wonderful. She’s winging it.”

“Well, if she can ‘wing’ it and we really control what’s happening here to an extent, then maybe I can dream I’m a lot more powerful than I really am!” Sweetie grinned, jumping from Blueblood’s back and releasing her glamour spell.

The advancing ponies stopped in their tracks at the sight of her, and she couldn’t help but wince slightly at their reaction, before remembering that it was really only one pony that controlled them all. Leaning down, she whispered quickly to the ground under her and for a moment the whole area was eerily calm… before the ground parted, separating them from the advancing ponies.

It was an impressive magical feat, but Cadance’s eyes were not on the tear in the earth, but on the filly that had caused it. She pointed at Sweetie and backed away frightfully.

“W-what…?” she gasped. “You aren’t a…? A pony? What are you?!”

Blueblood noticed Sweetie glance back over her shoulder at the Princess and sighed.

“My poor little sister… puberty hit her like a ton of rocks, you see,” he explained, earning a glare from both mares. “That is, what I meant to say,” he amended himself, waving a hoof to placate the female ire, “is that she’s had to walk down a rocky road… er, she took her time as a filly for granite? Metamorphically speaking, she’s been under a lot of pressure, you know… and she hit rock bottom before she came here, so I told her schist happens and fortune favors the boulder…”

“Blueblood,” Sweetie hissed. “Please. Stop.”

“So many puns,” Cadance gagged. “So many bad puns!”

“Point is, she’s still my Sweetie Belle,” he concluded, “Frankly, I think it would be strange for my sisters not to be odd. One being an alicorn and the other being…” his grin widened teasingly “…other.”

Sweetie could not hold her glare for long and finally giggled, recasting her glamour spell. Soon her coat was white and pristine, her mane wavy, and her horn looking exactly as the local Sweetie’s did. “There, big sis, is that better?”

“Y-yes,” Cadance replied after a moment of the new appearance sinking in, “but… I still don’t really understand…” Another thrown cake prompted her to turn her attention back to the angry crowd now separated from them by a rift in the floor.

“I still can’t believe that I was able to do that,” Sweetie said, dodging a slice of banana pudding. “Do you think it’ll buy us some time?”

“Oh! Wow! You can buy time?!” a voice asked, and Sweetie yelped in surprise, launching straight up into the air.

“I gotcha now!” Pinkie Pie announced, giggling and jumping forward with net-in-hoof. Said net, more suited to catching butterflies than escaping ponies, ended up snagged around Blueblood’s nose and ears.

“The Princess will reward me for catching you!” Pinkie announced with a lopsided grin. “I’ll ask for my own holiday! Pinkie Day! It’ll be the best, super-funnest--”

It was around that moment when Sweetie landed soundly on the pink one’s head, sending her sprawling with an audible ‘bonk.’

“Don’t let them escape!” a pony yelled from the other side of the fissure Sweetie had carved straight down the middle of Sugarcube Corner. They began to throw more pastries from the counters nearby and the conveniently located array of birthday cakes that had been ordered for Sweetie’s multiple birthdays. Though nopony wanted to get smeared, the real threat came from the pegasus ponies who took to the air, easily able to fly over the gap, and the hoof-full of unicorns who began to power up their magic.

A dark look passed over Blueblood’s face as he turned towards them. “As if a gaggle of common ponies could…”

A slice of lemon meringue cut the Prince off, splattering against his left eye.

“I’ll destroy you down to the last magical atom,” he announced, deadpan, only to yell right across the room in the full power of the Royal Canterlot Voice. “I despise flying cake!!”

The sheer volume of the magical bellow sent ponies staggering and clutching their ears.

Sweetie had to sit down. “Blueblood,” she stage-whispered, “you have got to teach me that spell. I will never have to get out of bed again for food.” Her horn lit up and the legs of the table holding the pastries were ripped away from it, covering the nearest unfortunate ponies with several pounds of cake.

“Haha!” Blueblood cheered her on. “Yes! How do you plebeians like the taste of cake, mm?”

“Fighting them does no good!” Cadance yelled, her own ears still flat against her head. “All that matters is syncing up our power and… and working out however we get out!”

Blueblood shook the head and spun around, following his step-sister as she bolted for the door. Almost comically, Pinkie Pie seemed to still be holding onto him, this time wearing a hoof-ball pads and jersey with the ‘number’ 00 on it. He tried to shake her off, but she was basically latched on like an octopus. A crazy, giggling octopus. “And how do we do that?”

“Positive thoughts!” Cadance replied as she threw open the door to the store. “I’m sure of it! Positive thoughts and feelings of love will--”

Before them, a hundred ponies lined the streets of Ponyville. Every single one had a glower on their face and narrowed eyes firmly set on Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, Prince Blueblood the fifty-second, and one time and dimension displaced Sweetie Belle. A rather muscular stallion even brandished a pitch fork. They blocked the road through and out of town with sheer mass, and the skies buzzed with angry pegasi, flittering about like enraged bees. Altogether, the entire populace of the town seemed to be forming a living shell around the three objects of their ire.

“I’m not really thinking positive thoughts right now.” Blueblood was the first to speak. He reached a hoof up to his face to wipe away the cake, leaving a streak of lemon filling from his cheek to his forehead. “So maybe I’ll just…”

Without warning, he touched his hoof to Cadance’s side, and tagged Sweetie with his tail.

At the same time his horn glowed, in preparation to teleport--

Only to have the spell fizzle.

“It… it didn’t work?” he mumbled, dumbstruck. “My magic…”

“What didn’t work?” Cadance asked, confused and glancing down at his hoof, still touching her just behind the tip of her folded wing.

“You could always fight your way out!” Pinkie suggested, still holding tight to her prize even as Blueblood tried to free her with a kick of his leg. Clearly the promise of getting her own national holiday had magnified her already super-equine tenacity.

The suggestion, timely as it was, came only moments before the crack of a unicorn teleport spell split the air. A second later, and four lavender hooves landed on the street. As one, the entire crowd of angry Ponyvillains took a collective step backwards. The lavender hooves were followed by cyan, tawny gold, alabaster white, and finally butter yellow.

“Hiya, girls!” Pinkie cheerfully waved a hoof, still clutching onto Blueblood’s backside. “Don’t worry! I got this one! He’s all mine!”

“Twilight?” Cadance gasped, but narrowed her eyes at the hate-filled expression on the unicorn’s face. Celestia’s prize student, like all her friends, had only a glower of a welcome for her former foalsitter.

“You aren’t real,” Cadance repeated to herself, shaking her head and closing her eyes. “Come on, Cadance, get yourself together, now.”

“Alright, girls! You heard the Princess!” Twilight announced, pointing at the three of them. “Since Pinkie’s taken care of Blueblood, focus on Cadance and Sweetie Belle! Time to save Equestria! AGAIN!”

“How is this--” Blueblood drolly gestured to the pink mare trying in vain to tackle his rather substantial mass. “--being taken care of?”

“You just aren’t having enough fun!” Pinkie declared, and suddenly her legs were around his neck and she dragged him down with a shocked gurgle.

“Twilight! Stop this!” Cadance backpedaled, a blast of purple light narrowly missing her only to punch a hole in the side of Sugarcube Corner. “Stop this instant, young lady!” she yelled and squeaked as a rainbow-colored blur shot down and made a grab for her.

“What in the name of Celestia was that?” she gasped and tried to gather magic to protect herself. Sparks danced down the length of her horn and, just like Blueblood’s earlier attempt to teleport, her magic fizzled and failed.

“Oh! … OH! Blast!” Cadance cursed – what passed for a curse anyway – and dove for cover as another purple energy beam shot from Twilight’s horn. It was a simple telekinetic shock spell, basically a magical push amplified.

It also wasn’t strictly real. All of this was part of Blueblood’s nightmare. Just like she had said before: fighting anything in here was pointless! Luna needed to counter that version of Celestia, she supposed, but their focus had to be in breaking out of the dream. Princess Luna wasn’t physically present to wake anypony up, regardless.

“Blueblood! Can’t you…?” Cadance stopped, mid-sentence, upon noticing how the esteemed Prince currently had a pegasus holding him down. A rather timid-looking pegasus at that! The crazy pink mare from before was bouncing happily on his stomach and giggling, all while Blueblood just lay there.

“Oh. My. Celestia. Are you enjoying yourself?!” Cadance roared, already growing exasperated with her step-brother. “You are, aren’t you!”

“Oh, yes, this is truly my dream!” Blueblood yelled right back, even as Pinkie’s next bounce knocked the wind out of him with an ‘oof.’ “Alert the presses! My secret fetish and fantasy is to be double-teamed by an animal lover afraid of her own shadow and a hyperactive mare who smells like molasses and acts like a pixie!”

“You certainly aren’t fighting back!” Cadance’s hoof was not shaking with anger. Well, it was, but it was also trying to shake off a violent, Rainbow colored pegasus. “You’re just lying there!”

“I can’t help it,” he whimpered, pathetically. “Fluttershy… she’s… she’s really strong…”

Cadance’s next response was rudely interrupted by a blast of raw, unstoppable lavender that sent her flying. It would probably have launched a normal pony right into the side of Sugarcube Corner. In fact, it probably would have knocked that same pony right through the wall, into and through the counter by the register, through the pantry, and then out through the back wall to boot. Cadance set her hooves into the ground, flexed her wings, and dispersed the majority of the magic around her with a loud snap.

“Do you mind?” The Princess of Love asked, turning her indignation towards a new target. “We were having a conversation here!”

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight yelled, pointing a hoof at the Princess. “She’s using earth pony magic! Get her airborne!”

Cadance glanced down at her hooves, momentarily stunned that Twilight had put together what had happened so quickly. She, herself, had mostly just acted on instinct. It had been earth pony magic, but it wasn’t as if she had really put any thought into countering Twilight’s magical blast. Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, as most of her friends knew, had never fought a duel nor felt the need to train herself for any sort of combat. She was the Princess of Love, after all.

Momentarily lost in her thoughts, Cadance was far too slow to react when that rainbow missile from before came in and plowed right into her side. Inertia and vertigo briefly turned her vision into an incomprehensible swirl, and then she felt the air rushing past around her. This was a feeling she knew… as an alicorn, yes, but first and foremost as a pegasus! Somepony was carrying her upwards.

She was reminded, for a second, of the old griffin game…

Rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, paper beats rock. Just the same, unicorn beat pegasus, pegasus beat earth pony, earth pony beat unicorn. And an alicorn? Well. An alicorn cheated.

“I will not be mare-handled again!” Cadance cried, “Unhoof me, rainbow-colored mare! Or I will be forced to--”

A cyan hoof clamped painfully over her snout.

“Forced to what?” Rainbow Dash asked, mockingly. Her wings flapped as she reached her desired height, one hoof around Cadance’s mouth and the other holding firmly onto her left wing, keeping it from holding her aloft. She dangled in the smaller mare’s grip.

“This,” Cadance said, her voice muffled. With her free front hooves, she grabbed onto Dash’s outstretched leg. The very same one with the hoof clamped over the Princess’s mouth. Her horn then lit up with magic… fizzled… and discharged the chaotic magic right out of her body and into that of the cyan mare with the rainbow mane and tail.

“Aaaa-a-aaa-aaa!” Dash’s body shook and spasmed from the magical discharge, that same rainbow mane and tail turning frizzy and black as soot. For just a second, the pegasus pony’s wings continued to flap and hold her in midair, even though she more resembled a zapped bug than a weatherpony.

“Ow,” Dash said, in monotone.

She let go and fell away from Cadance, and the Princess also pushed off and angled herself towards the ground. Twilight was glaring up, a veritable tornado of purple magic swirling violently around her horn. Bits of debris had been whipped up in the little maelstrom. It was in that moment that Cadance understood.

She understood not just how powerful she always suspected Twilight Sparkle to be.

She understood that Blueblood – somehow – also knew just how powerful Twilight Sparkle could be. This Twilight was exactly as strong as he imagined her to be, and her stupid stallion of a brother seemed to have a very vivid imagination. With a howl, the purple magic around Twilight’s horn tightened and turned into a slender, drill-like spear of pure magic.

“Oh. Oh dear,” Cadance could feel her alicorn instincts reaching for an earth pony’s defense, but this high in the air… it was gone. There was nothing. And she didn’t know a single barrier or defensive unicorn spell. Right now, she was just a pegasus. A metaphorical scissor. And glaring up at her was the Queen Mother of all Scissor-Smashing Rocks.

“This – this is dangerous…!” she realized, almost dumbly. If she couldn’t avoid that magical spear, it would go right through her like a power drill through a stick of butter. She wasn’t like Blueblood, or even this strange Sweetie Belle pony. If she died in the nightmare…

Panic crept into her thoughts and she started to jerk and zag, wings frantically flapping.

“Somepony! A little help?” she called, and used a bit of the Canterlot Voice herself. “A little help! Please!”

A pony heard her. He was just in little position to do anything about it.

“Um, Mister Blueblood, could you please stop struggling?” Fluttershy had her front hooves pressed down firmly on his own, pinning him on his back like a helpless babe. What, did this crazy mare wrestle bears for a living or…?

Oh, actually, she did.

“Please?” Fluttershy asked again, looking down on him down big, turquoise eyes that seemed just short of tears. “I really don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to.”

“That’s right!” Pinkie Pie agreed, still straddling his midsection and helping to hold him down. She crossed her front legs and smirked, triumphantly. “We’ve got you trapped! Fluttershy and me are the ultimate tag team! Just be glad she didn’t have to use the steel chair on you!”

“Oh,” Fluttershy meekly objected. “I’d never use the steel chair, not unless they deserved it.”

Pinkie Pie seemed about to say something more when a flicker passed through the giddy mare, and her eyes lost a bit of their blue.

“That’s right,” she repeated, more to herself than to him. Though when she looked down at the Prince, there was no doubt who was on her mind. “That’s right. And you can feel it, can’t you? That’s Princess Cadance up there. Fighting. Do you really think she’ll win? Won’t she die for real if something bad happens? What are you going to do about that?”

Pinkie leaned in closer, close enough to tickle his nose with her breath.

“Isn’t Twilight Sparkle’s power something amazing?” She grabbed him by the chin and directed his eyes upwards as Cadance desperately tried to fend off her two assailants. “Since you’re as useless as ever, why don’t you just relax and watch her die?”

Blueblood crushed his eyes closed, but Pinkie’s words never left his mind. There was something entrancing about them. They were the truth. He knew it, just like Cadance did. If he died in here, like he had so many times, he’d just reset. Even Sweetie seemed to be safe, because she was connected to his memories of the Gala time-loops.

But Auntie Luna and Cadance? Cadance was a visitor to his nightmare. If she died here… who knew what would happen to her body? If everything she had said before was true – and he had no reason to doubt her – she needed to live. She needed to escape, but all his other magic fizzled.

Which only left…

A faint green light began to form around him, pooling into a circle.

“So,” he continued, “I won’t let her…”

The circle contracted.

Pinkie Pie continued to stare down at him, her grin widening. She was whispering something to herself, but Blueblood could hardly hear it over the pounding in his ears. It was his heartbeat. Two stellar circles and two reaping triangles. It was so simple, this one spell. The hard part was converting the soul into fire. None of these mares were real. He hated having to harm them… but…

“What is this spell?” Pinkie asked, looking around her as the air began to crackle with jade energy.

It was almost there. It was Almost Fire. He had used this spell, once, hoping it would kill him, body and soul. Before he had burned away himself, he had seen the results. It had destroyed much of Canterlot, and just to add insult to injury, it hadn’t even earned him an escape from the loops. This time, though, maybe it could do some good.

“Ow. Ow. Ow!!” Fluttershy cried, finally releasing him. She stumbled back, looking at her hooves with astonishment. There was no physical mark on them, but she had felt for just a moment what he felt coursing through his entire body. It was the opposite of the Fire to Life spell.

Life to Fire.

“I have to see it!” Pinkie declared, still with that dark look in her eyes. She jumped off him and scrambled away. “Do it! Do it! Do it!”

Not far away, he could see Twilight Sparkle. Her attention was fixed entirely upward, trying to pin down her target. The surging lance of magic coiled around her horn was enough to warp the air around her, giving the impression of a lavender mirage. Blueblood reached for her, feeling his soul begin to ebb out, bleeding and converting into the rawest, most elemental fire.

“Oh! This must be… Potassium's Propitiatory Phlogiston,” Pinkie’s voice came from behind him. “Do it, Blueblood. Do it! Kill her. Kill her!”

And that was when he heard a scream.

“No!” The party pony snarled, whirling on the interruption. It was Rarity.

Blueblood saw it, too, and in that moment he made a decision. He winced as the burgeoning Phlogiston – the almost fully conjured fire – bored back into his body. It flowed through the veins and crevasses of his soul like liquid agony, but it was nothing he hadn’t felt before. He had been fully consumed by Phlogiston once. He knew that pain, and it didn’t matter one lick of salt.

All that mattered in that moment was the sight of Rarity, screaming in panic and fear, as something cut through her fabric shield. It didn’t matter that the rational part of his mind knew she wasn’t even the real Rarity. It didn’t even matter that, last he had seen, she had been chasing after Sweetie Belle. He had imagined her fighting for her life before, against Antimony, and losing. That one thought had driven him to race halfway across Equestria.

His horn burned, and even though his magic fizzled, he still teleported.

And then she was in his embrace, tumbling through the air.

“You!” Rarity all but spat in disgust. “Unhoof me! Villain! Cretin!”

The pair of white unicorns rolled across the Ponyville street, ending in a tumble.

“I said, unhoof me!” Rarity yelled from under him, not caring that he was trying to shield her. She looked at him with anger and disgust. It was the only thing she had shown him in… in a long time. She pressed two hooves flat against his chest and pushed. “Unhoof me at once!”

“You Stupid. Annoying. Mare,” he growled, and smirked, heedless of the insults and the anger. “I love you, you know. No matter how much this version of you says you hate me.” She glared up at him, momentarily speechless. One of his own hooves ran through his blond mane and he glanced over his shoulder to where a small diamond hovered in midair. “Being a bachelor was so much safer. Sweetie… are you alright?”

Sweetie Belle had tears marring her face, the bladed diamond still hovering firmly under her control. She slowly shook her head no, not trusting her voice not to crack. Slowly, she pulled back the diamond until it was hovering protectively next to her head.

“Even this version of her, you…” Her throat constricted before she could say ‘love.’ “And I could only try to kill her.” She closed her eyes and sent her diamond away through another portal. “I have a lot to learn from you, big brother.”

“Well, I am pretty great,” Blueblood admitted, stroking his chin.

Just as Rarity kicked him squarely in said chin.

Blueblood rolled back and ended up standing next to Sweetie. Together, the two stared down Rarity as she struggled back onto her hooves. The dressmaker was trembling, her indigo fabric torn but slowly, defensively circling around her. A dark shadow moved around her, almost like an outline around her body.

“You can’t…!” she cried, yelling into the ground at her hooves. “That doesn’t make any sense! How can… how could… you can’t!”

“A hundred kicks to the face wouldn’t change my mind,” Blueblood said, smiling despite the purpling welt on his cheek where she had hit him. “You saved me from the Gala loops. Even just that once. Even it wasn’t the same you standing in front of me. You saved me.”

Rarity still trembled, even as she locked eyes with him, blue and blue.

“Now,” he said with a smirk, turning his attention upwards. “Cadance! Stop playing around, would you?”

Sweetie turned, too, just as Twilight finally released her spell to swat Cadance from the sky. Except, she, too, had started to convulse. The huge violet lance she had magicked into existence ripped apart under its own power and what did manage to surge upward into the sky was batted away, almost contemptuously, by the empowered alicorn Princess. Alone of the Elements of Harmony, only Pinkie Pie remained unfazed. Even Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash began to violently tremble, as if they were on the verge of flying apart.

And, in the sky…

Cadance shined like Celestia herself in all her fiery glory.

Sweetie sighed and looked down at the destroyed street outside Sugarcube Corner, drawing Blueblood’s attention. He raised an eyebrow, when he noticed her glance at Rarity and wince. He approached his adoptive sister and nudged her. “Sweetie… what happened back there?”

Sweetie pursed her lips and closed her eyes. “It was… back when I escaped the loops,” she explained, stomping a hoof angrily. “I went to another world, where I was taken under my so-called father’s wing. He was… a psychopath… but…”

Glaring down at her hooves, a small diamond flew protectively around her side to float in front of her horn. Sweetie snorted, her mood still sour. “But he… manipulated me. He made me fear and hate my sister… he trained me to kill her, and when she came and saw me… Blueblood, she didn’t try to talk to me, she didn’t try and see if I had been misled… she…”

Sweetie trailed off for a second, looking up at Blueblood in naked disbelief, even so many adventures later.

“She killed ponies, Blueblood.” Sweetie trembled at recalling that one particular dimension. That one place. “She killed ponies in cold blood, and she attacked me. She was going to kill me, too.”

She looked up at Blueblood and at the commiserating expression on his face, his eyebrows drawn together in sympathy, and tears began welling up in her eyes. “Sweetie.”

“Rarity was the one that was always, always, there for me in any world where she was still living!. Even in the one where she was a stallion, she was there for me. But… she destroyed that. I - I haven’t been able to – to…”

She struggled, trying to say more, to put into words just how that one terrible meeting had cost her the ability to trust the pony she loved as both a sister and a mother. Sweetie opened her mouth, knowing what she wanted to say, to explain, but still no words came out. Blueblood could only smile, comfortingly, and rest his horn gently against hers. She didn’t need to say it. He knew.

Sweetie sat back and batted away a piece of rubble that had once been part of Sugarcube Corner’s candycorn-like roof tile. “Maybe what I went through to become… this… maybe I deserve--”

A rather sizable hoof flicked her horn, and the sudden jolt disrupted both her magic and her dark introspection. Next thing she knew, Blueblood was leaning close. He even ruffled her mane playfully, like she was still the little filly he had first met during the time-loops.

“Don’t think silly things like that, Sweetie,” he said, and somehow, he made her feel like she was when they had pranked the Gala or gone on a milkshake binge, or even that one wonderful night when he and Soarin and Spitfire had taken her out on the town. It was still the first and only taste of nightlife – of a scrap of semi-adult normalcy – she had experienced, amid one trial after another. Her adopted brother didn’t say anything else; he just sat in front of her, one hoof on the top of her head.

“Remember the version of her waiting for you at home,” he suggested and turned slightly to glance back at the Rarity she had been fighting. The same Rarity that he had protected, impulsively, instinctively. “That’s what I do. Remember her. All the other ones will come and go.”

Sweetie sniffled and nodded.

“After all, I’m sure you’ve probably met half a dozen absolutely unbearable versions of me since you left!”

That earned a quick chuckle from her. “Usually you’re dead by the time I arrive, but yes, most of the time, if you exist, you are unbearable to say the least.” She stood up and hugged him tight. “Which is why you are so much more special than any other Blueblood in the Multiverse.”

He hugged her back, laughing triumphantly at his apparent superiority over his alternate selves. “I should’ve expected they couldn’t hold a candle to me!”

“If Cadance up there is the Princess of Love, you’re probably the Prince of Ego,” Sweetie remarked, bopping him on the nose.

“Hm,” he didn’t disagree, but he did consider, “So, not even one was…”

“Not even one,” Sweetie confirmed. “All jerks.”

“The Prince of Ego suits you, Blueblood,” Cadance added, landing with a serene halo behind her majestically flapping wings. She had grown in size, and her new appearance immediately evoked a certain comparison.

“And you resemble a bright pink Auntie Celestia,” Blueblood said, pointing at her. “How disturbing.”

“Not to steal a phrase, but it feels like your heart just grew three sizes today,” Cadance said, drinking in the wellspring of emotion only she could see and feel. “At least it did when you focused on Sweetie and… that other pony.” She turned to stare at the now frozen fashionista. “Rarity, was it? I never thought you’d have so much love in your heart, brother.”

She smirked, taking in her own up-sized form. “And, for the first time since we were little, I’m not closed off from it. Our hearts are open to one another again… It feels wonderful! Like I could move the sun itself!”

“As long as you don’t cover the sun and moon with a huge crystal heart and declare that ‘the love… will last… forever!’” Sweetie spoke up, air-quoting the last part. “I think we’re all glad you feel that way.”

“That explains the Big Princess look, atrocious though it is,” Blueblood replied, and Cadance pouted at him, clearly a little upset he didn’t appreciate her powered-up dream form. Maybe it was the mane? Too much flowing-Celestia look? Inhaling and slowly exhaling, she forced herself back to normal. As she shrunk down, the halo of magic around her grew even more brilliant.

“It was just a mirror of your own feelings as they coursed through us both,” she explained and coughed into one bronze-gilded hoof. “And, um, maybe a little imagination on my part.”

“So we got that we wanted, then?” Sweetie asked, and releasing Blueblood from her hug she quickly trotted back to take him in. “You’re the same size as ever.”

“Do you feel any different?” Cadance pressed, walking to stand next to Sweetie Belle. “The only one who can break us all out of this nightmare is you, Blueblood. How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve talked about my feelings enough for one day, or one hundred,” he answered and cupped his chin with a pearl white hoof. “But it feels like something’s missing.”

“Something missing?” Cadance asked, tilting her head slightly.

Blueblood nodded. “Something big and loud and destructive.”

Sweetie and Cadance both exchanged a curious look.

Then, a second after the words had been spoken, a thunderous shock rocked the town and very nearly tossed all three ponies off their hooves. A blast wave of dust shot out from the center of the street, and a wave of magic and air bowled over very nearly the entire populace of the town, assembled to corner the nightmare interlopers. Ponies were sent flying and rolling like tumbleweeds in a hurricane, crashing into walls and buildings that soon turned hazy and indistinct.

In a crater in the center of the town, Princess Luna held a now trembling and convulsing dream-Celestia by one hoof. A contemptuous huff later and Luna released the shocked Princess to fly effortlessly over to her nephew and niece.

“Twast mine arrival inopportune?” she asked, noting their gobsmacked expressions.

“Not at all, Auntie,” Blueblood said with a bow of his head. “We were just waiting for you.”

Cadance blinked, sucking in a breath. “Luna, too,” she muttered softly. “When did all this happen…?”

Sweetie leaned onto Cadance. “Remember what I told you about the loops? Blueblood is not the same… he really learned to love.”

“All that remains is to root out the source of this corrupt world. Night Shade. I had thought her to reside in that version of mine sister, but…” Luna took in a deep breath, no doubt to bellow out a challenge to the other dream-shaper.

“Auntie,” Blueblood interrupted, pointing back at a pink form that had stubbornly resisted both the Princess’s explosive entrance and the earlier emotional disruption. “There.”

“Damn you ponies,” Pinkie Pie hissed, stumbling towards them. It looked like her, but the voice was all wrong. A crackle of magic emerged from her forehead, briefly revealing a dark horn.

“Thy scheme lies revealed, Night Shade!” Luna thundered. “Mine niece and her accomplice have thee in chains in the real world, and you have been overpowered in the dream-time as well. Surrender thyself!”

Pinkie Pie continued to shamble towards them, laughing in both her normal voice and the foreign one.

“Surrender? Me?” she asked in both voices. “That has to be a joke! How can I surrender? I am… I am…”

Night Shade’s eyes, even in the nightmare she controlled, even in her guise of Pinkamena Diane Pie, glowed with the telltale green of changeling mind control.

“I am a servant of the ONE TRUE QUEEN!!” she screamed, spittle flying from her lips. “You should be begging! On your knees!To surrender to ME!”

“Really?” Sweetie asked, tilting her head. “Did she ever sing to you?”

“Sweetie?” Blueblood asked and she avoided the urge to turn her head and meet him face to face.

“Sing?” Night Shade asked, glowing green eyes settling on Sweetie Belle. “What…?”

“Queen Chrysalis only sings to her true servants… her changelings,” Sweetie explained. “The only creatures in this world she genuinely cares for…”

“Potassium's Phlogiston!” Pinkie-Shade hissed, and Luna gasped in recognition. “You know how to use it, my Prince. I know you do. I couldn’t get you to open the deepest archives for me, but I saw how you did it. All but the last part. Tell me.”

She threw back her head, half of her pink mane and coat melting away, leaving behind a unicorn with a black and white mane and deathly pale coat. “TELL ME!!”

“Thou art insane!” Luna roared, “You cannot begin to comprehend what you wish to unleash! Potassium's Phlogiston is among the blackest of all magics! What madness would even compel a pony to…”

The Lunar Princess paused, mid-declaration, and one eye shot over to her nephew.

Blueblood shook his head. “It hardly matters now,” he explained, his own eyes never leaving the half-Pinkie half-Night Shade abomination before them. “I will take Potassium's Phlogiston to the grave with me. Most certainly, I will not share such secrets with a madmare in thrall to a swarm of insects.”

“You say that with such conviction,” Night Shade replied with a laugh. “But I’ve had your mind in my hooves for so long. The seed has already planted and taken root. No matter what happens to my physical body, I can make your every night a literal Hell of fevered nightmares. Do you understand yet, you puffed-up, self-important bastard? I’ve only just begun to torture you, Blueblood!” A fleck of drool dribbled down Night Shade’s lip as she howled at the remaining quartet. “TELL ME! Or I will haunt your dreams until the day you die!”

“Not while we draw breath!” Luna snarled, wings flaring out threateningly behind her.

Night Shade’s sneer was nasty and cruel. “You’d be surprised what enough alchemy and magic can do, even in the face of your powers, Princess.”

“That’s true,” Sweetie spoke up, her voice little more than a mutter, just loud enough to draw everypony’s attention. “But there’s always other ways to solve things than violence. Even Queen Chrysalis knows that… not that she acts on it.”

The dream-mage’s eyes bored into her. “What do you know?”

Sweetie closed her eyes and began to hum. It was an innocuous sound, harmless, yet Night Shade felt herself grow still. It was as if her very mind and body began to grow numb. Her ears twitched, one pale, the other pink. Cadance, Blueblood and Princess Luna heard it, too – the melody – though they clearly didn’t suffer the same effects from it that Night Shade did.

“Wake up, little spider

the web grows tout

Wake up, little spider

there's a way out.”

Sweetie walked towards Night Shade as she sang, the dreamweaver frozen in place. All she could do was watch, mesmerized. The green in her eyes began to dim and spark.

“Wake up, the prey is gone

Wake up, the call is over

Little spider, the job is done…”

“Ugg,” was all Night Shade could say at first. Her throat constricted, and she fell forward onto her forelegs and knees. Green magic dribbled and pooled out of her eyes, running down her cheeks like fat, slimy tears. The half of her still wearing the guise of Pinkie Pie rippled and flared and spiked before finally, gradually, dissolving.

“What… are you… doing to me?” Night Shade cried, green magic leaking from her eyes and ears. “What is this magic?”

“Not magic,” Sweetie said, hoof touching Night Shade’s shoulder. “Just a song. The Queen’s song. Your mission is over. It’s okay… you can go to sleep.”

“But… but it’s so dark. I…. I can’t see… anything…” Night Shade reached for Sweetie Belle, her hoof trembling. “Whose dream is this?” she asked, and when she looked up, her eyes were violet behind all the suffocating ivy-green. “Is it… mine?”

Those same eyes closed as she fell forward in a slump.

Sweetie caught the mare and slowly settled her down on the floor, painfully aware of the gazes of three ponies behind her. She hesitated for just a second, before turning around to look at the three royals. “I don’t know how many times I heard that song…” she said, unable to look up at the one stallion standing in front of her.

“That really wasn’t magic?” Cadance asked, looking to the unicorn and alicorn whose esoteric knowledge surpassed her own. “What just happened?” One in particular she singled out for answers. “Aunt Luna, what was that?”

“Twas a pass phrase of some sort,” Luna surmised. “A deeply embedded one.”

Blueblood just stared at Sweetie Belle.

“That just raises more questions!” Cadance objected, glancing around her as the dream world began to fade away, taking Ponyville and all its residents with it.

“I’m so sorry, Blueblood,” Sweetie said, finally meeting his eyes with her own, scared ones. “At first… I thought it would be like in my world… that Chrysalis would be quickly defeated… it never crossed my mind how different things were here… how early it was… I thought I shouldn’t tell you or that I might change the future and – and you would die or my sister or any of the others…”

“I thought I could just learn what I needed… and she taught me to sing… but she also cast a spell on me, just like Night Shade… but deeper… she trained me to do things… to not make sounds, to stand in shadows… after a while she didn’t even need to cast the spell; she would say something and I would be hers… and then she would sing to me…” Sweetie’s voice lowered to a whisper. “I would wake up to singing lessons with Cadance… I forgot, I completely forgot about who she really was… I even talked to her at the Gala and then forgot she was Chrysalis… I just remembered the whole thing not too long ago, when I was… when I was a prisoner and this strange magic changed my soul and mind.”

She looked down. “I - I couldn’t carry on watching this whole nightmare continue and see you suffer even more… I wish I could have never told you… and never lose you.” She gave him a sad smile. “But I guess we can’t wish for everything.”

Sweetie took a deep breath and looked at the collapsing dream. “You should go… big br— Blueblood. I’m sorry… I know I don’t deserve it, but I’ll always still think of you as my big brother.”

The stallion opened his mouth, but just as quickly shut it.

Instead of saying anything, he turned his eyes skyward, hiding his face from view. Luna and Cadance both looked to him worriedly, but he stubbornly ignored them. If anything, the lack of a response seemed to hurt Sweetie more, though she had dreaded hearing any number of well-deserved invectives from his mouth. “How could you?” he should have been yelling. “You KNEW?” he could have spat in her face. “I trusted you,” he could even have whispered, and that one would have been the worst of all.

“Cadenza…” he finally spoke, and the half-melted dreamscape remained murky all around them, like a painting splashed with water. “Cadenza, you said you’d been replaced months ago so… so I should have known… I should – should’ve put that together. Of course, the Cadenza I sent Sweetie to… wrong one, wrong… one.”

“Oh, no.” Sweetie growled, marching up to him and poking him in the chest. “Don’t you dare blame yourself for this! I should have known better than to keep it from you when I could do something about it! You didn’t know! It most certainly is not your fault!” She hugged him, as tight as she could, just in case this was the one time when he finally – rightfully – pushed her away. “Please. Just… be happy. Get out of this nightmare. Go get my sister. My local self should learn to foalsit, anyway. Maybe Cadance can teach her.”

“Blueblood,” Cadance spoke up, sensing his emotional turmoil. “Who is to say what would have happened, even with forewarning? Chrysalis still had me… She may have killed me if her plans in Equestria unraveled. She may have found a way to kill you.”

“She speaks the truth,” Luna agreed. Even without her connection to his dream, she could read all she had to from his posture, inside or outside of a dream. She saw him tense and then relax a fraction, in resignation. “Nephew…”

“Sweetie,” he finally said and held the filly at leg’s length to look her eye to eye. “No more secrets after this, alright? I really do love you, but what you just said really, really made me want to throw you out of a window. And I have a feeling that if I actually tried, you’d kick my flank.”

Sweetie’s lips trembled, and all she could do was nod very fast before she jumped forward and hugged him again, burying her face in his chest, crying mumbled apologies and promises to never keep another secret from him. He sighed, and this time truly relaxed, the tension and emotion ebbing out of him. The runny colors of the dream world softened, but still continued to steadily dissolve.

“Hold,” Luna commanded, and a hemispherical bubble expanded from her, surrounding the four ponies – plus the unconscious Night Shade – and halting the end of the nightmare. “Before we return to the waking world, nephew, niece, we may wish to delve into this new font of inside knowledge. Our enemy is most devious and insidious. We would be wise to use every resource in combatting her.”

“That’s right,” Cadance said, only seeming to realize it that moment herself. “Chrysalis was smart enough never to share anything vital with me… All she did was torment me, but, Sweetie Belle, if she taught you to sing…?”

“You can help us defeat her,” Blueblood finished, Sweetie still buried in his chest. “Did you hear that, Sweetie? Now, this Queen Chrysalis, she wouldn’t happen to have a dramatic physical weakness we could take advantage of?” He punched with a free hoof. “Or, better yet, a sweet spot I could charm?”

Cadance made a very clear, choking ‘bleegh’ at that last suggestion.

Sweetie chuckled a bit, pulling herself from Blueblood’s embrace and standing on her own, looking at the others. “I know I can't come with you, but I’ll help any way I can!”

Chapter Forty : Lyra - Breakout Beatdown

(40)

Lyra: Breakout Beatdown

“Gah!” “OH!”

Blueblood and Cadance gasped in stereo, sucking in the dank air of the crystal prison that had been his home since his abduction. A third sound followed, that of Night Shade groaning and slumping into a boneless heap on the floor.

The first thing Prince Blueblood noticed, however, was not the bedraggled and filthy pink Princess and step-sister next to him. It was not the unconscious Night Shade who had tormented his dreams and trapped him in that horrible imitation of the already horrid Gala Loops. It was not the shocked look on the face of a mint-colored unicorn mare fretfully guarding the door, her horn lit up with a mixture of twinkling gold and shadowy black. It wasn’t even the shadowy apparition of his Aunt, hovering overhead.

“No. No. NO!” he cried, struggling desperately against the chains holding him splayed over what had to be a gruesome-looking medical bed. “What have these brutes done to my perfect, white coat?! My majestic golden mane?” He turned, wild-eyed, to Cadance. Her mane was a wretched mess, too, and it only seemed to set him off again. “You maniacs! You cut it up! Celestia damn you! Damn you all to Tartarus!!”

He wriggled and writhed beneath the restraints. “Oh, the horror! The horror…!”

“Is… is he always like that?” the unicorn by the door asked, deadpan.

“Unfortunately,” Cadance answered with a bereaved sigh. “Lyra Heartstrings, this is Prince Blueblood the fifty-second. The Unicorn Royal of Canterlot.”

Lyra waved a hoof in greeting. “Hey.”

Blueblood raised an eyebrow, seemingly over his earlier histrionics. “Well, hello,” he replied, suave despite struggling to move his front hooves with the table’s restraints taut around his wrist. “Finally, somepony who doesn’t look like a total mess. I do like what you’ve done with your mane, actually, and green is coming back this year for mares. Rarity simply hates green for some reason but--”

“Uh, don’t you want to get out of those?” Cadance asked, stretching her neck and leaning over him. She pointed to the thick leather straps around his chest and legs.

“Hmm? Oh! These? Yes.” He wiggled around again. “Quite tight. I take it nopony even bothered with a safety word or those wonderful emergency release buckles?”

Cadance opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but seemed to think better of it.

“Miss Heartstrings, how much time has passed?” she asked instead as, with magic and nimble hooves, she began to free him. “Have we been found out?”

“No, Princess!” Lyra responded, and she sounded as eager as she should have been afraid. “There’s been some rumbling, like an earthquake, but I’ve kept the door closed. We should still be good for our escape! And it’s only been a couple minutes.”

“Excellent, then… then! Oh, this thing is just…!” Cadance growled at one of the locks on Blueblood’s restraints. “I can’t seem to…”

“Could you please free my horn?” Blueblood asked, calmly.

Cadance nodded and ripped off the magical containment seals on the cylinder covering the Princes’ horn. It then came apart in two halves, revealing the horn itself. Unlike her own horn-restraint, the seals on Blueblood’s were fresh and untouched. Nopony had expected him to use magic in a comatose state. The precaution had only been applied once and then forgotten about.

The moment the horn restraint came off, Blueblood cast an unnamed spell. There was only a moment’s delay. Then, with a crackle and a snap, every belt, buckle, lock, and knot came undone, flying apart in some cases with a degree of violence. Blueblood immediately clasped his hooves together and stretched his legs.

“Braid’s Bond Breaker,” he explained, at Lyra’s wide eyed amusement. “Useful against both potential kidnappers and mares who leave you tied up… mostly the latter, honestly.”

Cadance shuddered at the implications involved, but kept on-task. “Miss Heartstrings. We’re making our escape. You’re the only one who knows the way out, so we’ll be following close behind you.”

“One moment,” Blueblood objected, floating his detached horn-nullifier over to the unconscious Night Shade. With a click, he locked it in place over the dreamwaver’s horn. He then coiled a loop of his blond mane around his hoof and ripped it free. His horn glowed again, and this time his star field enveloped the strands of hair. They promptly vanished and with a flick of his hoof, turned to ethereal fire.

“If this works as Auntie Luna said it would…”

For a moment, nothing happened, but then the fire circled around an area, where it slowly seemed to feed its glow onto an invisible shape, which slowly became the outline of a young mare. The silhouette's mouth seemed to move, but no sound came from her. She stomped a translucent hoof, but nothing happened again. Finally, the spectral silhouette nodded and turned to look at them, lifting a small hoof. Blueblood touched the ghostly spirit’s hoof with his own, bumping it gently. Then the shadow of a filly nodded, once, and faded away entirely.

“Blueblood--” Cadance started to say, her voice sober.

“I know,” he interrupted.

“H-hey! W-w-what was that? Woah! Was it a ghost?” Lyra asked, for once expressing a degree of skepticism. “Bon Bon was always saying ghosts were real, but that’s just silly!! Ghosts aren’t real! Right! Right?”

“It wasn’t a ghost,” Blueblood told her, staring for only a moment longer at the spot where the phantom had once stood. Then he turned to the bridesmaid. “Don’t just jump to crazy conclusions, Miss Heartstrings. Perhaps it was a dear friend of mine from another dimension come to visit.”

Lyra stared hard at him… and laughed. “Yeah, right! That’s a good one! How gullible do I look, anyway?”

Cadance inhaled deeply, and stepped towards the door. “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. According to Aunt Luna, Chrysalis lied to me when she said the wedding was a week away. My wedding is today, and I intend to crash it on time.”

“And I’m feeling rather lively for having been unconscious for however many weeks,” Blueblood said and agreed with his step-sister. “I assume I wasn’t invited to this party, but I’ve never let that stop me before.” He took a step forward, but paused and abruptly spun around.

“Blueblood?” Cadance asked, seeing him march towards the unconscious Night Shade. “What are you…?”

For a moment, the stallion loomed over his former tormentor. Then, to Cadance’s surprise, he snatched Night Shade up with his magic and draped her over his back. He spared one last look at the changeling corpse splayed out against the far wall and marched towards the door. The creature’s neck had been broken and twisted around a hundred and eighty degrees to the point where it was drooling between its own shoulder blades.

“We’re taking her with us?” Lyra asked, clearly having mixed thoughts about taking a prisoner along for their escape.

“She tortured you,” Cadance added, also more than a little concerned. “The things she did to you in that nightmare…”

“Nopony knows that better than I do,” Blueblood cut the Princess off. He was scowling, but it wasn’t an expression directed at either of the two mares with him. “What I also know is that she is no less a victim than any of us. Furthermore, she is one of our subjects. One of our little ponies, without whom, we would rule over rock and grass and empty cities. I will not abandon her here.”

Cadance stared at her brother for a few long seconds, and he stared back, as if expecting an argument. Was it really practical to carry another pony, a pony who had done what Night Shade did, mind control or not, all the way back to the surface? What if they had to fight? It would definitely slow them down. Wasn’t there already too much at stake to worry about the life of just one little pony?

“You’ve changed,” Cadance said, and, by now, it was hardly news. She smiled softly at him, approvingly. “You used to look down on common ponies…”

“I looked down on common things,” Blueblood corrected her with a smug grin. “Common ponies pay taxes. I love each and every one of them!”

“In that case, there may be more prisoners somewhere close by,” Cadance said, and the two royals turned towards Lyra for an answer. “Yes?”

“I think so!” Lyra replied, and then more confidently, declared, “I’m pretty sure! But I don’t know where, exactly…”

“I’ll find them,” Blueblood promised, the compass rose cutie mark shifting as he carried Night Shade on his bare back. “I’d appreciate it, Miss Heartstrings, if you could deal with any changelings that get in our way.”

“With pleasure, Your Grace!” Lyra said and put a hoof flat against the crystal and iron door. An inky shroud of golden magic flowed over her body, like a rippling wave. “Let’s go!”

Watching them leave, Princess Luna’s nearly indistinct avatar turned her eyes down towards the abandoned Shadow Candle lantern. Her nephew, it seemed, had chosen to save the pony rather than the artifact. Still, she had stayed her tongue and let him make the decision he was comfortable with. The candle could be retrieved later. One other thing in the cell also drew her attention, but she did not delay further.

‘Thank you, Sweetie Belle, for watching over my nephew in his trials...’ The bright white eyes of the apparition closed, and the smoke came apart, dissolving back into the air. ‘And for answering my summons. The rest is in Our Hooves, now.’

Luna returned to her body to find a knife pressed to her throat.

“Moonshine,” she said, softly, but otherwise unperturbed.

“Princess,” the changeling in the guise of her Night Guard answered from behind her. He pressed the knife more firmly against her throat. It was a dark, almost organic-looking spine. A changeling weapon. How bold. She could feel a numbness creeping through her physical form, a numbness she had not felt while in the dream-time. The changelings, it seemed, wanted her alive.

“You’ve poisoned me,” Luna stated. “Where is Wrath?”

“Indisposed,” Moonshine answered, and she could all but feel his triumphant grin.

“I see.” Luna remained perfectly still, but her eyes began to glow. “We do not know your name, creature, but you have made a grave mistake.”

“Have I?” The knife pressed into Luna’s throat again. “And what’s that?”

“You attacked us from behind.”

Luna’s mane flexed, expanded, wrapped, contracted.

All to the sound of cracking and snapping.

Only when the sounds died down did the Princess of the Night stand up on all fours and turn around, pointedly stepping over the mess she had left on the floor. Blood continued to trickle down her neck, staining the royal raiment around her chest. Crimson inched across the ivory sigil of the crescent moon.

“Foals.” She marched, poisoned and bleeding, out of her atelier. “Thou wisheth to see blood? We shall show thee blood and battle to spare.”

“Finger Flick Attack!” Lyra announced, her magical battle-hand swooping down and into the face of a sneering changeling. Two of the strange little claws on it curled together, only for one to snap out and hit the hissing insect-pony square in the forehead. Stunned and stumbling backwards, the creature bumped onto a rather irate stallion. Blueblood promptly seized the creature with magic and slammed it hard into the pink crystal wall of the hallway.

“Descending Harp Attack!” Lyra declared, pointing dramatically at another changeling menacing Princess Cadance. This one at least put the effort into wearing a pony disguise. It just didn’t act anything like a pony at all.

Lyra’s pet hand simply batted it over the back of the head with a golden harp.

“Humiliating Slap Attack!”

Cadance shied away from the last of the changeling ambushers as Lyra laid into it with her magic, laughing triumphantly – some would say maniacally - all the while. The Princess of Love turned to her brother, stepping carefully over an unconscious shapeshifter. A part of her was sorely tempted to kick the little monster while it was still down.

“Are you positive this is the right way?” she asked.

They had long since left the parts of the crystal maze Lyra knew by memory.

“Mazes are my specialty,” Blueblood assured her as he took the rightmost of two points in the crude intersection up ahead. “Eureka!”

“You’ve found the exit?” Cadance cried, initially joyful at the news. Her good cheer only lasted until she turned the corner herself and only a dead-end. Then the weary and wounded Princess groaned, exasperated with the roundabout chase they had been through. They had passed through halls of hastily emptied prison cells and even a macabre storeroom, full of empty green cocoons. There must have been a hundred there, stacked like cordwood. That, she had discovered, had only been one room of several. The changelings clearly had plans to bundle up and cart off ponies by the thousands.

“Blueblood,” Cadance groaned. “This is…”

“A false wall,” he interrupted her, slamming his hoof against the crystalline barrier. When he lifted it back up, she could see a small hole.

“A horn lock?” she asked, recognizing it. Horn locks were clockwork devices powered by magic. They only responded to the right combination of magical energy and horn shape. Obviously, they were much more common in Canterlot and other unicorn-centric cities than in the rest of Equestria. She hadn’t expected to run into one here, though.

“I don’t suppose you can pick it?” Lyra asked, trotting up to the side of the Princess. “You know, hands are good for picking things! I could just kind of work a finger around in there?”

“Disgusting,” Cadance remarked, sticking out her tongue. “Do we have to break the lock, then?”

“Before we try that,” Blueblood replied, shaking his head and turning around to face the two mares. “I think there may be a key lying around here somewhere. Ah. There it is!”

His horn glowed, and one of the unconscious changelings hurtled through the air. It thudded, crooked horn-first, right into the wall. The Princes’ magic twisted the creature around, left and right, trying to get it to fit the lock. After only a few seconds, during which Lyra laughed and Cadance grimaced, something in the wall clicked, loud enough to hear. Blueblood withdrew the now angry and hissing changeling and introduced its head to the wall, backside first. It slumped back into unconsciousness.

Ahead of them, the false wall parted, revealing a long artificial chamber. Unlike the areas that had been simply hewn from the crystal caverns, this section had also been layered in a thick coating of organic slime and changeling wax. The pods from before were, here, in full use. The changelings had them lined upright against the wall and anchored in place by wax. A small nodule on the side of each pod beat, rhythmically, like a disgusting alien heart.

As if to contrast the otherworldly chamber, a simple classroom blackboard was nailed to the wall and partly overgrown with slime. Written on it, in neat chalk lines, the three escaped ponies could see a perfect inventory of every pony in the chamber. In a small stab of irony, the changelings had come to adapt the Equestrian script and number system for the purpose of subjugating the Equestrian race. Consequently, every one of their victims had been listed by name and date of replacement and then sorted into three grades: yellow, purple and green. They were then assigned a number to help identify their pod.

“Stacked and labeled like library books,” Blueblood broke the silence of their discovery. “I don’t know if Miss Sparkle would find this exciting or terrifying.”

“Terrifying,” Cadance answered.

“This is… horrible,” Lyra breathed, covering her mouth with a hoof as if she was about to be ill. “Bon Bon… by Celestia, I didn’t even stop to think… what if she…”

“She’s here,” Cadance said, having already skimmed through the blackboard, picking out familiar names. “Yellow. Sixteen.” Lyra rushed off, but the Princess remained behind, boggling at all the other names on the changeling inventory list. “There are so many guards here. I know some of these ponies. Arrow Head. Gale Force. Strong Wind. Even Purple Heart… I knew him from when I was little… and here’s Bristle. I set him up with Minuette years ago. And Rainshine! And… Celestia… Blueblood! Look!”

Torn between keeping Lyra close by and seeing what Cadance found, Blueblood ultimately picked the later. Night Shade still on his back, he trotted over and saw one name sticking out, right above Cadance’s hoof. A name he had never expected to see.

Twilight Velvet.

Twilight Sparkle’s mother.

“How do we free them?” he asked, and Cadance shook her head in dismay.

“Bon Bon!” Lyra’s voice echoed in the chamber. “Hold on, Bon Bon!”

“Wait! We don’t know if it--!” Blueblood and Cadance both ran towards their companion, but Lyra had already directed her star-powered magic hand to bury its fingers into the cap of the pod. Green ooze dribbled out of the tear in the reinforced changeling wax and, with a heave and a sound like a phone book being ripped in half, the front of the pod tore off entirely. A cream-yellow pony tumbled out of the slime and into Lyra’s hooves.

“Is she…?” Lyra’s voice was shaky, frightened.

Bon Bon sucked in a breath and opened her eyes, instantly zeroing in on the one familiar face present. “Lyra?”

“Bon Bon!” She pulled the earth pony in for a fierce hug, nuzzling her enough to cover half her face in pod-membrane. “You just relax and catch your breath! Okay?” Lyra slowly stood back up and turned around in a slow circle, her eyes filled with an inner fire.

“I’m breaking everypony out!” She screamed, heedless, at the top of her lungs. A shadowy wreath enveloped her horn, studded with tiny stars, mixing seamlessly into her golden magic. The hand she had been manipulating before trembled as power surged into it. Tendrils expanded from the disembodied base, forming part of what could only be… an arm, almost down to the elbow.

Lyra fell forward onto her front hooves, gasping, as the expanded hand now shot throughout the chamber. One by one, it zeroed in on a changeling pod, dug its fingers into the cap, and ripped the front free. Waxxy panels fell to the floor amid pools of spilt ooze. Each one released a victim that had been replaced by a changeling.

“That could have been me,” Cadance said, watching at the scene unfolded. “I could have been in one of those pods.”

“So could I,” Blueblood agreed, snorting. “I suppose they couldn’t have delved into my mind as they did if they had encapsulated me. And you…”

“She wanted me to be awake.” Cadance shook her head sadly. “To know what was happening.”

“Come on,” Blueblood prompted, walking forward.

Ponies were beginning to wake up. None had any idea of how they had been abducted or what had transpired, but virtually all – on seeing the strange changeling pods and organic walls – did what ponies tended to do. They began to panic.

“I have to get out of here!”

“Don’t you know who I am?”

“I demand somepony do something!”

“Help me!”

“Oh Celestia! Oh Celestia! This can’t be happening!”

“Where are the guards? Where are the gendarmes? Where is the bucking Princess?!”

“Oh, what… what is all this?” Twilight Velvet saw a pony approach, and, despite being covered head to hoof in goo of a rather unknown composition, the middle aged unicorn instantly straightened up. “Your Grace! Your Serene Highness!”

“Cadance,” the Princess reminded her, pausing to gently cup the smaller pony’s hoof. “You’re going to be my mother-in-law. You can just call me Cadance.”

Twilight Velvet seemed momentarily thrown, but smiled and nodded. “But, the last time I saw you…”

“That ‘Cadance’ will be dealt with soon enough,” the real Princess assured her.

“Your Lordships!” A rank of royal guards had already come up, recognized one another, and formed up in a row. The pegasi were all uniform white with blue manes, save two exceptions, and the two unicorns present were the royal signature slate gray. As one, they saluted with wings outstretched and announced themselves. “Sir Silver Wing! Sir Arrow Head! Sir Strong Wind! Sir Black Eye! Sir Worthy Praise! Sir Gale Force! Sir Purple Heart! Sir Moonshine, of the Night Guard!”

One pony, at the very end, seemed a bit more overawed than the others: a copper colored stallion with a wild blue mane. He was clearly the youngest of the group of guards. He hadn’t even earned the Royal Colors yet.

“Flash Sentry!” he announced and coughed. “I, uh, my Lords… I have not yet been knighted!”

Blueblood noticed Moonshine’s eyes widen as he approached, and it had nothing to do with his royal person. The bat-pony tensed to rush forward at the sight of his unconscious wife, but true to his discipline and training, he remained rigidly at attention, eyes fixed forward. Cadance nodded to the stallions, but quickly led Twilight Velvet past them. There were ponies to tend to. Frightened, panicky ponies. She left the guards to her brother.

“Gentlestallions,” Blueblood began, keeping his poise even with a mare draped over his back like a saddlebag. “From here on and until I release you, you are bonded to the Blueblood Household Guard and myself specifically. You are to follow my orders and my orders alone. Equestria is facing a crisis. Our ranks have been infiltrated by creatures with the power of illusion. They have disguised themselves as you and taken your place in society. I am to root them out. Are you sworn to me?”

The stoic guards glanced nervously at one another, one question on all their minds.

“You will have to take my word for it that I am not one of these shape shifters,” Blueblood added. “Though you will have ample opportunity to kill them as we make our escape.”

“My family has served Canterlot for four generations!” Sir Purple Heart was the first to step forward. “I will follow you, Your Grace.”

“As will I,” Worthy Praise came next.

“I swear it!” Gale Force was the third, and then they all followed. “As do I!” “And me!” “Sir!” “By your name, Lord!” “Yes, sir!” “I’m not really sure what’s going on, but count me in!”

“Good,” Blueblood said, accepting their oaths with a simple nod. “Moonshine. Come get your wife. She’s heavy.”

“Yes sir!”

The bat-stallion was quick to relieve the Prince of his burden, and Blueblood continued speaking even as Night Shade was lifted from his back. “We have before us a room full of very confused and very frightened ponies. I need eight of you to watch over them and protect them as we make our escape. Of those eight, I also need one to step up as Captain. Lastly, I will need a ninth to safeguard my sister, the Princess Serene, Mi Amore Cadenza.”

Purple Heart started to raise his hoof, but one other beat him to it.

“Sir!” Flash Sentry spoke up. “I volunteer to protect the Princess!”

“You’re the youngest one here, pup,” Silver Wing grumbled, casting a disparaging eye at the teenage guardpony. “The strongest of us should guard the VIP.”

“I am a fully capable and enlisted Royal Guard!” Flash Sentry replied, and to his credit, addressed Blueblood rather than his fellow guard. “I… may be the youngest here, and the least experienced… but Cadance is an alicorn Princess. She is already more capable of self-defense than any other civilian here! Sir.”

“Cadance?” Blueblood asked, giving the young pegasus a quick glare.

“Mi Amore Cadenza!” Flash blurted out. “Forgive my familiarity.”

Purple Heart, who had known the Princess in her youth, snorted. “He’s an eager little puppy, I’ll give him that.”

“Very well,” Blueblood decided. “Flash, you have it. Silver Wing, you have command.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Good. Good.” The Prince grinned, and it was a mischievous smile, the sort his Auntie would’ve been proud of. “Now, before we head out, we need to be sure none of us get replaced in the chaos of our escape. So, to help us identify who is who, I will be placing a small, totally-harmless glamour on all of you. It should make it harder for a changeling to pose as any of you.”

“A glamour, sir?” Silver Wing, a grizzled guard old enough to be the Prince’s father, cocked his head to the side much like a curious wolf would.

“What kind of glamour?” Flash Sentry asked, wearing much the same expression.

Blueblood’s grin only grew.

The nine most beautiful guardsponies in Her Majesty’s service formed a spearhead as, perhaps predictably, the remaining changelings tried to barricade their victims in the crystal caverns. Silver Wing’s long, flowing mane sparkled in the air as he twisted and landed on top of a changeling, wings thrusting downward to impale the screaming creature. Purple Heart’s teeth glinted, pearly white, even as he struggled with another changeling in midair, the insect-pony snapping furiously at him with her fanged jaws.

Other changelings tried to disguise themselves as either guards or civilians, but the detail of pointponies were relentless in intercepting anything attempting to get past them. Blueblood did little more than watch from behind the lines, between the guards and their small, frightened herd of civilians. Cadance and Flash Sentry remained close by, also watching to make sure no changeling tried to sneak through and disguise herself as one of their party. That left the butcher’s work to the older royal guards, a duty they took to with enthusiasm and a sense of purpose and revenge.

He was privately a little less sure about letting Night Shade remain among the civilians, but Twilight Velvet had promised to keep an eye on her and it clearly put Moonshine’s mind at ease. The oneiromancer had recovered from her earlier ordeal – their ordeal, really – and quickly broken into tears at the sight of her real husband. Blueblood had insisted they keep her horn restraint locked and intact, but she did appear to be free of the changeling mind control from before.

The Prince glanced back over his shoulder at them.

‘Twilight Velvet is a royal mage,’ he reminded himself. ‘And she’s Sparkle’s mother. She should be able to keep the other ponies back there calm.’

That just left them to press forward.

Up ahead, the Fabulous Five – the five guards on point, all sporting the metrosexual glamour Blueblood had stamped them with – stormed the changeling barricade. The creatures had been in the process of walling in part of the cavern with more of their curious construction wax. It wasn’t a bad plan, but the changelings were clearly unaware of the pocket bulldozer they had in the form of Lyra Heartstrings. A soft melody filled the air, pleasing to the ear, but the remaining changelings screeched in pain. The guardponies descended on them, ending the fight with hooves and bladed wings.

The incomplete barricade proved easy to tear down, bereft of defenders. Miss Heartstrings was the most capable, making good use of her magical hand to tear apart the hardening wax, while the guards and even a few of the unicorn prisoners assisted with muscles and magic. It was all going rather swimmingly.

A fact that put Blueblood on edge.

His discomfort was only magnified by what they encountered in the next room.

“Ponyville?” Lyra asked, the first to speak her mind. “No way…”

Just behind the phalanx of stoic royal guards, the trio entered what, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be a dusty street in a small pony town. Colorful buildings lined the street, running the gamut from a two-story house with a flower garden outside the second floor balcony, to a bright candystore with a slowly revolving candycane near the entrance, to a ubiquitous Barnyard Bargains superstore, to a corner grocer. There was even a store called ‘staples and sofas.’

“That’s supposed to be Quills and Sofas,” Lyra explained, pointing at the abandoned store.

Her concerns were echoed by the muttered voices of a dozen other ponies behind them. The procession advanced down the mock street, more exposed than they had been in the cramped crystal halls they had left behind. Thankfully, no changelings seemed to be present here.

At the end of the street, there was a right turn, and the scene changed yet again. This time to another street with fancy, larger buildings. The decorated fronts of brownstone apartments greeted them, along with a sampling of commercial buildings opposite: a nightclub with once bright lights, now dark, the fantastic façade of an arcade and theater, and next to that, a modest train station. There was even a salon advertising ‘horn sharpening.’ All had either been transplanted or faithfully recreated.

“This looks like Canterlot,” Blueblood marveled, “if Canterlot were crushed down into a single block, anyway.”

“What is all this?” Lyra asked, looking up at the ceiling. It was crystal, still, and all this had been built into a large grotto. A strange organic mass glued to the ceiling seemed to provide enough ambient light to imitate the sun, though without any of the warmth.

“It must be a training ground for the changelings,” Cadance guessed, her violet eyes taking in the surreal sight.

“A place where they can safely practice being a pony before actually finding somepony to replace,” Blueblood realized, agreeing with her. “Rather clever, actually.”

“We’ve got to be close to the surface by now, right? I don’t suppose you could just teleport us out of here?” Lyra asked, anxiously rubbing behind her horn with her hoof. “You can do that, right? Um, Your Grace?”

Blueblood nodded, but continued walking forward. “I have little sense of where we are or how far it would take to be elsewhere. Especially with all this magic-disrupting crystal… it would not be wise.”

“And if we run into a thousand angry changelings?” the harpist persisted.

“I could always teleport us back the way we came!”

“That’s useless!”

“My dear, you’ll find that my specialty is the ‘strategic withdrawal.’”

“So you’re good at running away?”

“No!” Blueblood objected, now side by side with the unicorn mare. He pointed proudly to himself. “I am among the very best when it comes to running away!”

Cadance sighed and hurried to keep up with the pair.

It wasn’t long before they came to a long upturn in the grotto, including a plainly manufactured bridge over a large crevasse. What followed was a long, steep, upward incline. The changelings had repaired an ancient-looking funicular – a type of lift common in mountain cities like Canterlot – and loaded it up with more of the empty cocoons. There must have been a hundred or more on that one lift, with rows of them neatly piled up alongside the wall. The stink of fresh changeling organic construction reached their noses, causing a few ponies in the train to gag.

Soon, they passed into and through a large, entirely unlit section of the incline. A dozen unicorns lit up their horns to provide light for their fellows. The ground beneath their hooves rumbled, not for the first time, and the tension in the air become palpable. Maybe sensing that it was only a matter of time before somepony panicked and bolted for the surface, one pony among them started talking.

“So! Here’s a fun fact! Did anypony here know that these caves were originally carved by the founders of Canterlot, more than a thousand years ago? A lot of ponies think that the Bluebloods were the founders, since the First Blueblood married Princess Platinum, but actually the foundations of Canterlot were laid down by another family, the Regal Regrets, who were supported by a group called the Masons. Now everypony knows that the Masons were fleeing persecution in the Old Kingdom, but how many of you knew that the Platinum Compact was actually funded by the Mason refugees? I bet if you look around, you’ll find a triangle cut somewhere. That’s the sign of the Masons and it often points to hidden treasure…”

Amazingly, ponies actually listened to her and began looking around for triangles cut into the walls.

“They actually believe that?” Blueblood muttered under his breath.

“You mean it isn’t true?!” Cadance, Blueblood and Lyra all started at Flash Sentry, and the young guard chuckled in embarrassment.

“Only those two would know the truth,” Lyra remarked, pointing to the pair of royal ponies.

“History wasn’t really my strong point,” Cadance admitted.

“It isn’t true,” Blueblood stated, simply.

“And that’s exactly what I’d expect you to say if you were covering up the truth!” Lyra exclaimed, pointing accusingly at the Equestrian Prince. She slyly slipped a hoof around his shoulders and winked, conspiratorially, grinning that silly grin of hers. “Come on! You can tell me. Just between us. What did happen at Rosewell? What kind of things are you guys doing at Boom Lake?”

“Why, I believe the pegasi test weather balloons there…”

“That’s a cover story, and you know it!”

“My Lords and Ladies!” Sir Silver Wing announced, directing their attention forwards. “Light up ahead!”

“About time!” Lyra cheered, starting to trot ahead of both the royals and their phalanx of guards. “This was easier than I thought!”

“Blueblood,” Cadance warned. Her ears twitched, and a feeling in her stomach clenched anxiously. “She’s right. This has been too easy.”

“Come now,” Blueblood scoffed, picking up the pace but still lingering well behind Miss Heartstrings and his guards. “There’s nothing wrong with a little optimism!”

“You know, of course, that the moment you say such a thing, you invite--” Cadance’s rather valid point was interrupted by her trotting right into a shimmering blue and black barrier. A barrier that twinkled with captive stars. It also spanned almost the entire width of the funicular incline. Only a few triangular gaps could be seen in the upper right and left corners, and with how it seemed to dig into the earth, the shield itself also appeared to be one giant triangle.

“—trouble,” Cadance finished, pulling her nose back from the wall of magic.

“Don’t blame me,” Blueblood preempted, stopping just short of the barrier as well. “Miss Heartstrings jinxed us first.”

“A barrier,” Silver Wing noted with an unhappy grunt. He and the other guards were now separated. Three had been ahead of it when it took form, and the rest were behind.

“This magic,” Worthy Praise spoke up, his hoof against the shimmering shield and his horn alight, “this sort of magic is…!” He glanced over his shoulder at the Prince and Princess. “It is like Lady Heartstring’s!”

The sound of hooves clopping drew everypony’s attention forward, to the bright light at the end of the tunnel that they had mistaken for the surface. It wasn’t.

“Twinkleshine?” Lyra asked, shielding her eyes.

“Rainshine, actually,” a voice answered, and not one but two ponies stepped down into view. It was a pair of unicorn mares, both white coated. The one on the left with the entranced green eyes had a pink mane, the one on the right with the smug smirk had a mane of highlighted blue. A brief tremor shook the walls of the mine, and flakes of crystal and stone fell from the ceiling. The mare with the blue mane paused at the interruption before scoffing and gesturing to the pony on her left.

“You’ll forgive my sister, Twinkleshine, for not being very talkative,” Rainshine said with a chuckle. “The Queen wants us to keep a tight leash on her strongest pets.”

“Her slaves you mean!” Lyra yelled up at the two ponies.

“Semantics,” Rainshine replied with a fanged smirk, “though ‘slaves’ isn’t inaccurate, either.”

“You’re a changeling,” Sir Black Eye, a unicorn with one distinctly off-color onyx eye, growled up at the pair of mares. It was all he and Sir Strong Wind needed to hear. The two surged forward, the spellcaster unleashing a blast of golden energy. The pegasus, meanwhile, angled his wings forward, the leading feathers enchanted and hardened into decapitating blades.

“And you’re a nuisance,” Rainshine stated.

With a musical chime, two more of the triangular, shimmering blue star-shields appeared in front of her. Black Eye’s energy fusillade broke against the wall like a tide of water, ripping apart into coils of magic that scored and sliced into the cavern walls. Behind the barrier, Rainshine’s smirk never faded. If anything, it grew, as Strong Wind’s blade-wings crashed into the third triangular shield.

Both blade-feathers bent, stressed, and snapped clean off.

Strong Wind howled in pain as the twisted and mangled feathers, meant to be tough as steel, pinwheeled through the air, trailing blood from their quills. His cry was cut short a second later as both star-shields shot forward, plowing into the two royal guards. Black Eye tried to offer some resistance, his horn glowing with telekinesis…

Only for both stallions to end up crushed against the walls to Lyra’s far left and right.

Then, just as quickly as they had struck, the triangular barriers streaked back to hover at Twinkleshine’s sides. The unicorn mare and bridesmaid had a blank expression on her face, her horn glowing with starry blue and black magic. Rainshine seemed to be emoting for them both and she laughed, freely and easily, at her so-called sister’s display.

“I’d call you insects, but that insult always irked me,” Rainshine remarked. “Good job, Twinkleshine. I love you.”

“I love you,” Twinkeshine repeated, unthinkingly.

Lyra hissed in frustration and anger as Strong Wind and Black Eye fell limply to the ground. She forced her eyes on Twinkleshine and Rainshine, trusting that the two ponies were only unconscious, despite the damage and imprints they had left in the walls, a tribute to the power behind Twinkleshine’s strange shields. This – it was now crystal clear – was another bridesmaid, and not just in name. This was a mare with access to the same font of power she had started tapping into. This pony had Brass’s gift, but none of her free will.

“Lyra,” Cadance yelled, her voice distorted behind the barrier that separated the Princess from her bridesmaid. “Be careful! Her power is the same as yours… We can’t get through the shield!”

Lyra clenched her teeth, resisting the urge to look back and try and find Bon Bon.

“Now that the pecking order has been firmly established,” Rainshine continued, holding out a hoof in faux amiability. “You won’t mind telling me how all of you managed to escape? And, of course, what happened to Bon Bon, your keeper?”

“That thing is dead,” Lyra snapped at the changeling. “The Princess killed it and set me free. Don’t you even dare call it ‘Bon Bon’ again!”

“Testy,” Rainshine quipped, but seemed to concede. “You’re right. Calling her ‘Bon Bon’ is a disservice.” Rainshine’s brows furrowed into an angry, ugly scowl. “She was my sister, after all. A true blooded changeling and daughter of the Queen. I can’t harm Mi Amore Cadenza, but I will make all the rest of you pathetic little horses pay for her death. And I will. I promise you that.”

Rainshine rolled her head, as if trying to keep her calm.

“But,” she amended, “that doesn’t explain how a little pet pony like you broke her shackles. How did she undo your mind control, Lyra Heartstrings?”

“Like I’d bother telling you,” Lyra replied, and her magical hand flexed its fingers, reflecting her own anxiety.

“Aren’t you curious what Lord Brass did to you?” Rainshine asked, and the question made Lyra start and stare. The changeling noticed her interest, and her smile broadened. “You are. I can tell you, if you want. He did to you what he did to Twinkleshine here… and that other mare, Minuette. Have you considered that using this borrowed power is doing you more harm than good? Oh. I’m guessing you haven’t.”

Rainshine pointed to her. “Rejoin the swarm, Lyra, and you needn’t suffer the--”

The barrier in front of her sprang to life as a gold and black fist crashed into it with a sound like a ringing church-bell. Yet the shield held. Where everything before had yielded or broken, this shield held. Starry magic met starry magic, leaving them both at an impasse.

“The--” Rainshine tried to finish.

“I don’t want to hear another word of your crap!” Lyra roared, advancing on them. “I don’t care about any of it! I don’t care what secrets you have about me or about anything! Get. Out. Of. The. WAY.”

Rainshine’s upper lip curled, and she shied back. “T-Twinkleshine!”

“Yes, sister,” the bridesmaid intoned. Her horn glowed softly, and her one free barrier – aside from the one blocking the funicular shaft and the one protecting her changeling ‘sister’ – shot forward to crush Lyra just as it had the two royal guards. The other unicorn was at least partly prepared for this, however, and she stood on two legs and held her forelegs up, the flat of her hooves forward.

Her golden harp materialized in front of her, intercepting the triangular barrier with another deafening gong. A blast of air rushed away from the impact, and Lyra’s legs almost buckled, but she held tight onto the giant harp. Feeling at least partly secure in her hoofing, feeling the eyes of dozens of ponies on her back, watching and placing their hopes on her, Lyra ducked her head and ran her horn along the strings.

A shimmer passed through the air, upwards into the two mares blocking the tunnel.

Rainshine’s shield rippled, but the sound echoed in the enclosed space, and a simple wall of force offered no protection from it. Lyra’s song bounced off the walls and the bridesmaid and changeling hissed and cried in pain. The changelings, Lyra suspected, had nopony to blame for this except themselves. It was nearly the exact same spell she had been given to use against Princess Cadance.

“I’ll give your ears a little ring!” Lyra yelled, running her horn against her harp a second time.

“Twinkleshine!” Rainshine roared through the sound and pain. “Protect me! My ears! Now!”

“Yes, sister,” Twinkleshine muttered through the auditory barrage, forced to obey despite the pain. Her dull green eyes were squinted and on the verge of tears, but she obeyed.

Her two free shields retracted, shrunk down, and zipped into Rainshine’s ears, plugging them.

“Good! Yes!” Rainshine cheered, standing up again without difficulty. “Now!” She pointed at Lyra. “Destroy her! Slice her in half!”

“I don’t have any shields left,” Twinkleshine replied, dully. “What should I do?”

“Anything! Anything!”

“Anything,” the enslaved unicorn repeated.

“Twinkleshine!” Lyra screamed, trying desperately to get through to the mare. With the changeling immune to her agony melody, she had opted not to strike another note of it. It would only hurt her fellow bridesmaid. “Snap out of it! The real Rainshine is behind me! Just look! Look for her!”

“What’s she saying?” Rainshine asked, narrowing her eyes. “Don’t listen to her.”

“I won’t listen to her,” Twinkleshine repeated, but it was a moment late. She had already identified something behind her enlarged shield, the one blocking the tunnel. It was another mare, a unicorn with her same color coat and a familiar blue mane…

“Rain… shine…?” she whispered and shook her head. “I can’t listen!” Twinkleshine’s eyes glowed green, so bright they drowned out her pupils. “I have to – I have to…”

“You stupid pony!” Rainshine screeched. “Blind her! Now!”

“Blind her!” Twinkleshine repeated. “Now!”

Her horn didn’t just glow. It flashed, and the entire tunnel was filled with light.

Lyra cursed, stumbling back.

“I’ll finish you myself!” Rainshine howled, buzzing wings erupting out of her back as she raced down on the stunned bridesmaid. She and Twinkleshine were the oldest of the bridesmaid pairs. They were the originals. The first mare Brass had delivered. The first and the strongest.

An ink-black changeling knife flashed in the dying light of Twinkleshine’s spell.

“Lyra!” a voice cried out from behind the tunnel barrier.

“Eh?” Rainshine sneered, feeling her thrust come to an abrupt stop.

There was a hand clamped around her right foreleg.

“How,” the changeling hissed. “How could you see…?”

It was only then that she noticed another hand – a second hand – covering Lyra’s eyes.

“Two of them?” Rainshine whispered, and the hand that had been around Lyra’s face turned and slammed right into her chest. The changeling howled, and a heartbeat later, she tumbled through the air in a lazy arc, like a piece of garbage thrown into a waste-bin.

“Now!” “Go!”

Lyra rolled back onto her hooves in time to see another flash as two ponies appeared to her left and right. She wiped the sweat from beneath her horn and smiled, recognizing them just by their hooves, one white and unshorn, the other dainty and pink.

“About time,” she said, just loud enough for them to hear.

“The shield blocked teleportation,” Blueblood replied, taking up much of her view. His tail swished back and forth in agitation. “Even Shining Armor's shields weren’t this strong. Luckily, there was a gap. I just had to teleport us in an arc instead of a straight line. The mental math… took some time.”

“Amazing work, Lyra,” Cadance praised her, glancing back at the Ponyville unicorn. She grimaced a second later. “That is a rather gruesome trophy, though.”

“Ponies always said I danced like I had an odd number of legs,” Lyra joked, and her magical hand shook the changeling limb it had torn off. Severed, it had immediately started to lose its disguise, reverting to black chitin and green ichor. “Now I actually have an odd number of legs!”

“T-t-twinkleshine!” Rainshine’s voice came from the crumpled and wounded changeling on the floor.

“Sister?” Twinkleshine asked, blinking her eyes.

“S-save me.”

Twinkleshine continued to stare down at the bleeding changeling. She blinked again. “Save you.”

“Save me,” the changeling demanded, gargling the words. “Save me. I love--”

Rainshine’s voice cut out at around the same time a shimmering blue barrier removed her head.

“I love you,” Twinkleshine repeated, by rote. Even with the changeling dead, her eyes still burned green, even through the tears streaking down her cheeks. She reached a hoof towards the pair of royals and her fellow bridesmaid. “Help me… Oh, oh Celestia! We… what have we… What have I… done?”

Twinkleshine looked up again, finding that familiar face behind her barrier.

“Sis?” she muttered, and, with a cry, turned and ran.

Her star-walls vanished a second later.

“After her!” Blueblood ordered, the pegasus royal guards already flying towards the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Silver Wing led them while Worthy Praise rushed over to tend to the fallen Black Eye and Strong Wind.

“Please!” A voice so like the one that had taunted them spoke up from behind. For a moment, Lyra very nearly spun around, expecting an attack from behind. But then her rational mind caught up and reminded her that this was the real deal. The real Rainshine.

“Please help her!” the unicorn mare pleaded with them.

Lyra, Blueblood, and Cadance all nodded and rushed up after the guards and the now panicked Twinkleshine. The two unicorns ran while Cadance took to the air. At the top of the shaft, where it finally met the surface, Lyra found herself scrambling over a huge pile of rubble. The funicular ended in what appeared to be the remains of a house. More cocoons were stockpiled there, but the number was miniscule compared to the hundreds and thousands in the barren below.

Of all the places Cadance had expected to emerge into, some pony’s ruined living room had to be near the bottom of her list. Taking a second to gather her bearings, Lyra noticed Cadance and her personal guard – that Flash Sentry stallion – standing and staring at something. A pivot later and Lyra slowly made her way over to the stunned alicorn. Blueblood was the last to emerge, and as he joined the two mares, he found the first words any of them spoke, topside.

“Canterlot,” he whispered, standing next to them at the edge of the fallen wall. “My city is…”

Overhead, the skies were thick with buzzing black clouds of swarming changelings, matte black against a backdrop of fading sunlight. An eerie tangerine haze hung heavy over the golden plazas, silhouetted the ivory spires, and choked the gleaming streets of the greatest city in the world like a pall. Fires raged out of control, bathing the skyline in poison. Ponies screamed and fled in panic, only to be snatched up by flying changelings or hounded by loping beasts on all fours, like hungry dogs chasing down their terrified prey. The distant thunder of cannon fire echoed beneath a giant city-wide shield dome and a multicolored blaze of stray magic stitched into the air like a flurry of rainbow tracer rounds.

“The invasion,” Lyra breathed, her eyes wide and frightened.

“It’s already begun,” Cadance said, turning towards the besieged Palace at the very pinnacle of the mountain city. There, high above, mocking the panicked ponies below, a black and green banner hung from the battlements of the Royal Retreat. “We’re too late.”

Chapter Forty One : Applejack - The Lion’s Den (part 1)

AN: New chapters incoming. We're bouncing back in time a little to cover events "on the outside" so to speak.

(41)

Applejack: The Lion’s Den (part 1)

The banner of the Restored Ponyville Barony fluttered in the wind, bobbing and weaving in time with the harnesses of the ponies carrying it as they marched. Within the stately procession, the largest of the flags, waved proudly from atop the carriage at the front. The small town was represented by the ancient apple tree, three banded apples hanging from its symbolic boughs, flanked on the left by the open book and on the right by the celestial estoile – a star with six wavy points that some ponies believed predated the Princess’ own, similar, cutie mark. It represented Ponyville: the agriculture and history, the belief in knowledge and goodness and enterprise. Bordered in royal purple, it cut a distinct figure visible and identifiable even from afar.

To some ponies, the crest meant even more than that. Aside from the purple border and the book, it was also much the same standard Applejack’s great grandfather, Baldwin Apple, had ultimately put down when he retired the Barony and the title that came with it. Now Rarity flew it. Green eyes following one of the fluttering banners, Applejack wondered about what it meant, if anything, about the changing times. In a strange way, and maybe just in her own mind, it sort of made her old friend family, to dust off that old flag and proudly carry it with her.

The carriage, first and fanciest among many, bucked and shifted as it traversed the rough country road, pulled by two able-bodied stallions from the town. They were a pair picked expressly for their size and being accustomed to carrying generous loads. Rarity had insisted. “Ponyville’s finest male specimens,” she had described it with a flourish. One pony must’ve found the choice a little flattering.

“Ya holdin’ up okay, Big Mac?”

“E-ee-yup.”

“Well, we don’t got that much more ta go,” Applejack said, hearing a little bit of strain in her brother’s voice.

She trotted alongside him, one of the small pony-portable town banners attached to her saddle. It stuck out neatly from under a flap in her cloak. The apple farmer wasn’t one to wear anything fancy, so a plain, old cloak would have been just fine in case of rain, but this particular one wasn’t just designed for practicality. The cloak itself was tough, durable, waterproof – everything a pony would expect and everything Applejack approved of – but the fancy golden clasp, complete with shiny jewel, seemed out of place to her.

Rarity had insisted, though, and this was her trip. Better overdressed, she supposed, than underdressed.

At least when it came to these sorts of ponies…

“Hey, now! What about asking me how I’m holding up, huh?” Caramel asked, glancing at her from the other side of her brother. This was the Big Caramel – ‘Creamy Caramel’ some of the mares in town called him – and he was darn near Big Mac’s size and the pride of that strange family. Most every mare had more daughters than sons, but the Caramel family was a little (in)famous in town for being the exact opposite. They had a rather notable surplus of colts, which had made for very interesting times growing up.

“Ya’ll won’t let my big brother show you up, will ya?” Applejack asked with a grin.

“This lout?” Caramel objected. “Never!”

“Enope,” Big Mac chimed in.

The two were old friends and shared a laugh, too. Caramel still came over to help with the apple harvest from time to time, even though he was married and had his own affairs to tend to. Sometimes Applejack swore she still saw a mischievous little twinkle in Granny Smith’s eye when he dropped by, as if the old matriarch was still trying to see how she could get him into the family.

“Just sorta wondering why Rarity – er, Lady Rarity – couldn’t get some of those mercenaries to haul her around? Or those troublemaking dragons,” Caramel added, snorting at the mental image. “Wouldn’t that be a sight? A carriage pulled by dragons. Sure’d make an impression!”

“If’n ya’ll forgot why you’re hitched up to that fancy cart back there,” Applejack replied, motioning to the car behind them. “It’s because, A, them companyponies are meant ta look all scary and professional, and neither’a you two are fit for looking professional-anything…”

Caramel snorted again, but Big Mac rumbled in a casual chuckle.

“And B,” Applejack continued, “yer both big fellas who want bits ta spend, and Rarity, well, it just so happens, she’s got some bits ta throw around. And C! Do you really wanna ask those dragon-boys ta pull anything behind em?”

“The things we do for bits,” Caramel lamented.

“Eyup.”

“It ain’t like you’ve even gotta go that far,” Applejack reminded them as they crested a hill. “Why, we gotta be almost there by… now…”

“Holy smokes,” Caramel said, his breath momentarily taken away. “Would’ya look at that.”

Big Mac just whistled.

At the top of the hill, they could look down on the plateau adjacent to the far side of the Puddinghead Reservoir, originally filled centuries before Ponyville’s much newer concrete dam. It was normally a huge green pasture, bordered by tamed wilderness and mountains to the north and open, hilly country to the east.

The field was no longer empty.

Instead, an orderly forest of tents, crimson and onyx, sprawled across the green grass. It was a portable town very nearly the size of Ponyville itself, a literal village in miniature. Like Ponyville’s town hall, the largest building was in the center, a small stone keep. And just when the heck had they built that? Stone towers and keeps didn’t just spring up out of the ground, at least as far as Applejack knew. Around it, there were green open areas left for roads and ordered subdivisions of tents like town blocks or neighborhoods.

The faint outline of fences and sentry beacons could be seen from afar, though they paled compared to the multitude of flags and banners that billowed by the dozens all across the tent-city. Still, Applejack struggled to wrap her head around the fact that somehow these ponies had built a small castle down by the lake. Magic had to be involved in it somehow. There was no other explanation.

“Company’s coming,” Rainbow Dash warned as she came in for an easy landing, wings still flapping. “Better look sharp.”

Dash didn’t wear a cloak, but she still wore the same strange clasp around her neck that Applejack did. It was a part of the set of ‘fashionable armor’ Rarity had made for all her friends. Unlike heavy royal guard armor, which Applejack was more familiar with, this was a light corset-shaped piece of folded armor and cloth, studded by dozens of small brass buds and grommets and folded over the midsection with imitation leather. The cuirass had a dyed line down the middle which wrapped thinly around the collar and was heavily engraved with gold. The two main buckles that fastened the cuirass together, one over each shoulder, were functional, but also bore dangling tassels that had to be purely ornamental. The clasp Rarity insisted they wear was set in place on the armor’s thin brass gorget.

Applejack kept hers at home, awfully grateful for the generous gift, of course, but rather expecting never to have to wear the thing. A farmer was happier wading in mud than wearing armor. It was one of the reasons why her family had abandoned the town’s Barony back when it had been founded. Besides, she wasn’t here to pick a fight or prance around. She had come to represent Ponyville and to give her friend good, honest advice, whether she wanted to hear it or not.

“Rainbow, how many of them are there down there by the lake, you think?” Applejack heard Caramel whisper in awe.

“Dunno,” Dash replied, flicking back her mane and craning her neck to look down on things from an earth pony’s point of view. “One of the Companyponies up in the air said it might be four thousand.”

“Four thousand?” Caramel gasped, turning on the armored weathermare. “That can’t be!”

“They ship in food and water and resupply along the railroad,” Dash explained. “And, yeah, they forage, too.”

“Four thousand ponies,” Caramel repeated. “That’s an entire town.”

“A bigger town than Ponyville, sugarcube,” Applejack added, impressed, but focusing her attention less on the teeming mass of equines and more on a small group approaching them. “That’s exactly why we’re here: can’t have ‘em eat us out of house and home while they’re in the area.”

Four thousand ponies would swamp Ponyville if they were allowed in the town proper. It would be impossible to billet so many guardponies. Rarity’s Free Company – the Dove and Cross – already took up its fair share of land, putting up their barracks just outside town while some of the officer-types paid to live-in with willing ponies. That wasn’t even counting just how much food and water four thousand ponies consumed daily. It was a little frightening to contemplate… but, at the same time, the businessmare in Applejack couldn’t help but see an opportunity.

That many ponies would drink literally tons of cider, eat entire fields of apples, and pay a premium for jams, jellies, pies and virtually any other treat she could imagine. Not that she was tempted to jack up the prices just because demand spiked… but the numbers, in the end, would be worked out in the next few hours. There were a lot of good, honest bits to be made here, most of them at the expense of the noble that brought all these ponies so far from their homes and families.

The four ponies were soon joined by more of Rarity’s Dove and Cross Companyponies, dressed in their silver and white uniforms and polished steel cuirasses. They’d been well-behaved guests in the town, welcomed by more than a few as another warm body to keep between the town and the Everfree, but some of them still made Applejack nervous. It was less that they had done and more what sort of profession they engaged in. Being some sort of fighter-for-hire just didn’t seem like an all-too-honest living. At least Lady Yumi’s bodyguards had been loyal to her, through thick and thin, without expecting to profit from it.

How much could you count on a pony whose only loyalty was to whoever paid them the most bits?

“Nervous?” The question came from the head of Rarity’s mercenary guard as he looked back at them. “Don’t be. They’re just ponies, same as any of you. Relax, show respect, and you shall receive respect in turn.”

In the admittedly few times Applejack had seen or interacted with him, Captain Germoglio seemed like a real contradiction. He was a unicorn, tall and sort of handsome, but not very rugged or well-built. He had a black moustache and beard the same color as his mane, and, with his finely groomed coat and tail, he seemed sort of a dandy… like Blueblood, she supposed. But leaner.

There was a keenly athletic and dangerous air to Germoglio Bianco that Blueblood never had, for all the Princes’ time spent in front of a mirror or with his physical trainer. The poufy and frilly armor this stallion wore, a more dolled-up version of the cuirass and sleeves a lot of Free Company ponies wore, only exacerbated the juxtaposition.

This stallion even wore silly hose over his back legs, for Celestia’s sake! No pony should look so silly, so dandy, but still seem like he could be actually dangerous. Having spent time around Yumi’s retainers, and Shigure in particular, Applejack could all but feel that this was a pony in their vein – one who hadn’t just been trained to fight, but one that had fought most of his life. This was a pony, she suspected, whose carefully concealed cutie mark indicated he had a talent for something unsavory.

Something violent.

“Maybe just a little nervous,” Applejack admitted, and where other ponies would have tried to put on a front or make an excuse, she told it like it was. “I’ve never seen anythin’ like this before, and so many ponies… like you…”

“So many ponies like me,” the stallion repeated in his faint Bitalian accent, smirking. “We all have our calling, Miss Applejack. Yours is on the farm, and it is a noble profession, honest and true. Mine is on a different field, where I reap a different crop.” His smirk faded a bit as the riders grew closer, and his tail waved slowly left and right, betraying a hint of anxiety on his part as well. “If it is any consolation, the pony we are to meet makes me nervous as well.”

“Signore,” another pony whispered, leaning over to speak softly to the guard Captain. “They come. One is The Lady.”

The Captain nodded, as if expecting the news.

Not long after, four ponies galloped up to the now paused carriage. Two of them, a unicorn and a pegasus, Applejack recognized right away. The other two were new faces.

Lady Antimony did not wear a dress or the usual frou-frou finery Applejack remembered from her brief stay in Ponyville. Today, the tall unicorn wore a tight waistcoat that hugged her torso, laced up the front like an actual corset, and over that a cloak in black and carmine-red. Applejack was no seamstress, but she knew enough to patch up working clothes. What Antimony wore looked delicately stitched and couldn’t have been much in the way of real protection, so it wasn’t like the armor Rainbow Dash wore, though it was certainly stylized with patterns of snakes, entwined around her chest. Her red and black hoof-boots were dusty from use, but well maintained.

Next to her, Applejack also recognized that big bodyguard Antimony had brought with her on her first visit to Ponyville. She wracked her memories for a second before a name came to her: Gewitter. It was a weather name, like a lot of pegasi had. She was a big mare, and her clothes were much the same as before, at least as well as Applejack could remember. Rarity had called the outfit a dolman and pelisse overcoat, and it sported the same shade of cerise-red that Antimony now wore, laced up with a gold and ivory sash. Unlike before, her outermost primary feather had been clearly painted with a gold stripe, maybe as a sort of rank among her peers. Applejack couldn’t be sure.

The two new ponies were also dressed, but differently. One was a cream white Pegasus stallion with a strange sort of foreign-looking hat with an ornamental crest plume, a hackle, and a brass badge. If he wore proper armor, it wasn’t easily visible beneath his single-breasted overcoat. A peaked collar sported gold and red tabs and his gloves and sash were both alabaster black, aside from one golden button that pinned it in place over the coat.

The second was an earth pony, a mare just about Applejack’s size, with the same sort of faint freckles on her cheeks. Her coat was a sort of sour-apple white-green and her mane was a dull red, like Apple Bloom’s but faded. Her eyes were a piercing yellow, though, and betrayed little emotion. Her uniform was again similar to the others, but her overcoat lacked the sash. Her buttons were a bright gold, however, and one bore a golden lanyard that looped around and over her shoulder. Most unusual and distinct was her cocked hat. Later, Rarity would gush about the use of ‘silver bullion lace’ to decorate the hat – an obsession of hers – but at Applejack’s first glance, it simply looked really odd.

Couldn’t anypony else in Equestria just wear a plain old hat, for Celestia’s sake?!

Momentarily absorbed in the almost surreal fact that she was meeting these sorts of puffy ponies, never mind her actual run-ins with the Princess herself, Applejack almost missed the first round of introductions. She had to hurry to play catch-up, her ears twitching.

“The rest of our party belong to the Compagnia della colomba e croce. We are honored to escort and serve the Lady of Ponyville, the Baroness Rarity…”

Germoglio Bianco had already gone around giving out the names of the ponies around him.

“A pleasure,” Antimony replied, dipping her head in a polite nod. “I have with me my bodyguard, Gewitter.” She motioned with her horn towards the large pegasus mare and then to the stallion. “Chef d'Escadrons of our Prance Second Aerial Grenadiers, Sir Wind Shear…”

Then, finally, to the stoic earth pony mare.

“And this” – Applejack found herself listening very carefully, as the mare seemed almost familiar somehow – “is Général de Brigade Antonovka, one of the two commanding officers commissioned and empowered to lead our family guard here.”

The earth pony mare blinked, but otherwise seemed solidly disinterested in the meet and greet. Wind Shear, meanwhile, attempted to make up for Gewitter’s typical silence and Antonovka’s apathy. He grinned broadly and bulled forward to shake hooves. First with Germoglio and then with herself.

“Jolly good work, sticking it to that Nightmare Moon!” He gave Applejack’s hoof a solid shake, and she found herself a little impressed by his grip.

“Ah, thanks?” was the first response that came to mind.

“Hey, I helped take her out, too!”

“Yes, Rainbow Dash! Of course! We’ve heard much of you!”

“You have?! I mean. Of course you have. Of course you have…!”

Applejack’s moment of introspection quickly passed as she saw her friend cozy up to the pegasus grenadier, no doubt about to start up on a less than impartial retelling of her exploits. Applejack smiled and rolled her eyes.

“I would speak a moment with Lady Rarity before we escorted you to my father,” Antimony broke the brief silence. She had addressed the statement to Germoglio, primarily, but she had taken no pains to keep others from overhearing. Applejack opted to watch and listen, carefully, but otherwise keep inconspicuous. ‘A tree hears many secrets,’ Granny sometimes said.

Honestly, Applejack wasn’t sure she trusted this Antimony mare all that much.

She watched as the noblemare approached the carriage. A moment later and the door opened. Applejack’s ears prickled as she tried to discretely listen in. She could hear Rarity’s voice. It didn’t sound like the two mares were having a confrontation or argument, but… and there was a giggle from the other occupant in the carriage. It didn’t sound like trouble was brewing, but one could never be too careful. They were literally trotting right into the camp of a pony – of a family – Rarity had dueled with just a few months ago.

Even if this Antimony mare wasn’t an enemy anymore, that didn’t mean her father would be all too friendly. Cruciger was his name. All Rarity had said was to tread carefully and fairly with him. Turning back to the view from before, looking down on the army camped just a few miles outside Ponyville, Applejack couldn’t help but feel a small knot form in her stomach.

“What’d you say they called this place again?” Rainbow Dash asked, still chatting with Wind Shear.

“Just a little sobriquet the griffins gave us… as a sign of respect,” the grenadier replied, snickering. “We call the keep in the center ‘The Lion’s Den.’ The Lair of the Black Duke.”

“My word! This tent…this tent is…! It’s simply marvelous! I love it!”

Rarity’s eyes were positively glittering with delight at the sight that greeted her as she stepped out of the carriage. She had a rather chic and well-appointed tent of her own, for when necessity dictated extended outdoor adventures, but this was just on a whole other level!

The tent before her had to be at least three stories tall, not counting the grand, spiraled poles – like minarets – that soared regally into the sky. Rarity noticed a preponderance of copper, capping rises in the colorful fabric and supporting banners large enough to hide a building behind. The central tent was so large, in fact, that it could not possibly be as a portable as her own two-story excursion model. There were heavy metal braces, at least six and possibly as many as eight, anchoring the portable home in place. The highest roof was domed and actually appeared to support a small observatory, and the second floor boasted no less than three balconies, two of which were shaded. It was the contrast of the colors and beauty of the copperwork that really caught the fashionista’s eye, however.

This tent spoke of a pony of taste, refinement and grandeur!

“Is this your father’s tent?” Rarity asked, walking slowly across the grass. “He has fine taste, I must say!”

“Actually,” Antimony interrupted with a polite cough, “that is my mother’s tent. Father prefers mother not work inside his keep, hence she has a tent of her own.”

The Prench Baroness pointed to the nearby stone keep. Rarity had first caught sight of it from inside her carriage as it approached the army camp. Having visited the Puddinghead Reservoir not too long ago to explore her options regarding Ponyville’s water situation, she knew for a fact that there had not been a keep or castle nearby. Not even the foundations of one.

It must have been erected here from scratch by Cruciger’s personal guard, though how they had done so in such haste, Rarity couldn’t imagine. It was a monolithic structure, like a cylindrical drum tower, but slightly sloped and with a roofed top that resembled a lean-to. The capped end of a barrel just barely protruded from beneath the overhang. There was no real adornment or ostentation. Slits for windows were the only break in the monotony of thick masonry, and the door inside was located, forebodingly, beneath an iron-reinforced overhang. Between the tower and the tent stood an iron statue of a rearing bull that seemed to be imitating a dragon by belching brass flames. Rarity also noticed, as she drew closer to the tent, that the bull sculpture appeared to be missing its eyes.

The ox, or the bull, was one of the symbols of the Terre Rare family, along with the eight-pointed star. The horn-motif was most everywhere in the ringing encampment as far as Rarity had so far discerned. Bull horns capped the poles of flags and crowned the tops of tents. Looking out from her carriage on the ride in, she had seen the distinctive sigil of the bull and the eight-pointed star fluttering from multicolored banners hung from pole and lance and spear, on patches and surcoats as uniformed mares and stallions marched by, and even etched onto the framework of a fearsome-looking cannon that was most certainly not designed for punctual party preparation.

“At the moment, my father is in seclusion with some of his officers.” Antimony trotted ahead to direct Rarity towards the large, colorful tent that had first caught her eye. “Would you prefer to wait with my mother and myself in our tent?”

“That would be lovely, is--” Rarity paused and gestured back to her carriage, where Applejack, Rainbow Dash and some of her companyponies were unloading trunks from her ride. “--is there room for my friends inside?”

“As long as they resist the urge to touch anything,” Antimony replied.

“You know, I would have expected the Duke and Duchess to share a tent,” Rarity mused as she gestured to her companions. Only a second later, she realized it was a somewhat improper remark and added, “Oh, I – I hope you don’t mind my insinuating… I didn’t mean--”

“My mother is rather eccentric,” Antimony explained, straight faced. “Father often steps out during the day when she is in an excitable mood.” She frowned, and her half-lidded eyes darted back to the carriage. “Is Pinkie Pie still asleep? I thought you would wake her once we arrived.”

“Pinkie is just resting her eyes for tonight,” Rarity assured her. “We need her at her best, remember.”

“True. I just don’t think I’ve ever actually seen her asleep until today,” the older Baroness said. She shook her head. “Then again, this may be for the better. Right now, my mother is hyperactive enough without having her around. Come, let us make introductions.”

Rarity nodded and followed her onetime opponent and current co-conspirator into the entryway of the pavilion tent. The two unicorns passed by a stern-faced pegasus guardmare, partly hidden in an alcove behind a cloth curtain and then entered a surprisingly large space that took up most of the tent’s internal volume. The rooms to either side – the left and right wings of the tent – appeared to be luxurious apartments. Rarity could see a large bath, a small but well-stocked pantry, a sun room and a moon room on opposite ends… it was all quite lovely.

The main part of the tent, however…

Well… it rather reminded her of what Twilight had done to the library’s basement.

There were strange instruments set up, beeping and humming, to what end, Rarity couldn’t begin to imagine. A large rack displayed a variety of what appeared to be scored and pitted metal plates in varying states of wear and tear. A ladder led up to the user-friendly end of the telescope she had seen part of from outside. More curious still, there was a row of glass orbs, some seemingly completely empty, though others had bits of otherworldly black energy boiling within them. A shelf of beakers and other chemicals rested in the back, being carefully tended to by a mare with a pure-white overcoat and goggles. Another identically dressed mare was busy fiddling with a large device in the center of the tent, where two mirrors and a metal plate were curiously suspended by a clockwork apparatus surrounded by a magical field.

“Begin the test, purple!”

“Beginning test!” The mare double-checking the plate replied, scurrying away from the device.

The mare who had spoken before gracefully descended on a floating platform, making a dainty little jump down onto the floor. She pointed to the other mare by the chemistry set, and the two quickly took shelter behind a pair of metal bracers that lit up with a shield spell. Rarity heard Antimony sigh, and both saw and felt a similar shield crackle to life in front of them. A cylindrical contraption, similar to a slender cannon, charged up with an audible whine.

“Test number nineteen,” the commanding unicorn mare who had descended moments before ordered. A strange contraption of lenses clicked and whirred over her right eye as she gestured dramatically with her hoof. “Commence firing!”

“Firing!” One of the other mares, who must have been her servants, stomped down on a trigger.

And… nothing seemed to happen.

“What is going on?” Rarity whispered, not wanting to intrude but growing curious.

“Some sort of experiment on the speed of magic relative to celestial bodies,” Antimony whispered in return. “I don’t even pretend to understand it, myself.”

“Record the results!” the mare in charge commanded before turning to the two new arrivals with a look that seemed to say ‘what is it, this time?’ Then she took a second look, and her expression brightened. The red lens over her eye swapped out for blue. “Ah, Antimony! You’re back! And this must be the mare that defeated and humiliated you!”

“The Baroness, Rarity,” Antimony introduced her guest without missing a beat. She also gestured to the strange mare. “Rarity, my mother, The Duchess Twinkling Star Light.”

“A pleasure,” Rarity offered, bowing politely to the older mare.

“Hmm! One seventy-five, two twenty-four, two thirty,” Star Light muttered, reaching up to flick a lens on the set of glasses that covered her right eye. Her hoof deftly clicked out two glass lenses that retracted off to the side until her eyepiece turned a shade of violet. It then began to glow. “No, no, no. Her ambient magic doesn’t seem nearly high enough to have caused you any trouble, Antimony. Barely nine hundred microswirls in a non-energized state. Are you certain you lost to this mare?”

“Rather certain,” Antimony grumbled, losing a bit of her customary cool.

“You! Yes, you there.” Star Light pointed at the former seamstress. “Do that friendship magic thing I heard about. I want to measure it.”

“Mother,” Antimony whispered, sliding up to her side, “she is not here to be another test subject.”

“Oh?” The older mare tilted her head to the side in a fleeting moment of confusion. “She isn’t? Why else would you bring her…? Ah! Ah, yes, yes, yes. Politics. I see. Yes.”

Lady Star Light craned her neck sharply, and her headgear clicked and whirred as it folded out of the way, revealing both her eyes and all of her face. She was a pure white unicorn, whiter than her youngest daughter but with the same sort of pronounced ‘princess’ nose Antimony had. Her eyes were a bright violet, and her short mane and long tail were a rich mix of cerise red and a shade of pink similar to Fluttershy’s. For a mare who had to be around middle age – and who had foaled no less than four children – she looked to be in excellent shape, slim and leggy and very pretty in a mature, classical-Canterlot sense. Her cutie mark was a constellation, one of the few Rarity actually recognized on sight.

Libra.

“A pleasure to meet you, my dear,” Star Light said with a matronly tone as she ducked her head in a refined greeting. “A blood sample says what.”

“What?” Rarity blurted out without thinking. “OW!”

“That counts as verbal consent!” Star Light giggled, detaching a tiny vial of blood from the hypodermic she now levitated through the air. Before Rarity could even object, it was labeled and shot off to the far end of the lab, thanks to the older mare’s magic.

“Mother!” Antimony snapped. “Must you?! Every time!”

“Tut-tut-tut, fret-fret-fret!” Lady Star Light dismissed her daughter with a jaunty wave of her hoof. “I always sample the mares who give my little foals a good fight. You never know when you might find out something new! If I can unlock the secrets of friendship magic and refine it into an injectable…”

“What?” Rarity asked again, already lost and growing lost-er by the second. She jumped back, though, when the hypodermic needle swiveled around. “Wait! No! I am not a blood sample!”

Lady Star Light stared at her, long and hard. “I don’t suppose I could I have a bone marrow sample, too?”

Antimony quickly shook her head as if to scream, ‘No! No! Say no!’

“I am afraid I must decline,” Rarity said, slowly. “Please, darling, I’m not entirely sure what this is about, but, please, no more needles?”

“Trypanophobia?” Lady Star Light asked, innocently. “You know, I have an injection that can help with that…”

Rarity’s eyes widened, and she prepared to bid a hasty exit when Antimony held out a hoof between the two mares. She sighed and fixed her mother with a quick glare. “You’ll have to forgive my mother, Lady Rarity. She often forgets she is a Duchess and not simply a doctor.”

“Or physicist OR aworld-renowned arcanosmith!” Star Light added and rolled her eyes. “But, yes, I am a Duchess as well. Not so much by choice… but one’s birth is one’s birth. There’s nothing that can be done about it.”

Rarity blinked, momentarily thrown by the odd statement. She had not been able to learn very much about Lady Star Light, even from Twilight. Mostly it had been with respect to her research and other study. Apparently, while there was a cultural and social stigma to nobleponies being involved in anything involving manual labor – or anything that made money by retail or trade in general – science and academia was a lauded and very respectable “hobby” for a noble-born mare or stallion to engage in. Twilight had been rather delighted by that fact.

“Of course, I wouldn’t have met my sweet little hubby-bear if I wasn’t a Duchess, so I really shouldn’t complain,” Star Light continued, speaking almost as quickly as Pinkie Pie on an average day. “Well, yes, hmm, enough of that! I have experiments to run, so you can fill me in on things while I oversee the next round of tests. Please watch your hooves!”

Rarity yelped as she felt the floor beneath her rise up, revealing another metal platform. Star Light hopped back onto her own, and soon all three – one for each unicorn mare – took to the air. Antimony offered an apologetic look for the confusion, and Rarity tried to remind herself that, even if the platform upended, it wasn’t much more than a single-story fall. So long as she didn’t land on any of the particularly dangerous-looking equipment below, anyway. Lady Star Light, meanwhile, went back to ordering around her assistants, whom she referred to simply as ‘purple’ and ‘orange’ and ‘yellow’ … a doubly odd set of nicknames, as neither mare had any purple or orange or yellow coloration.

“What are you doing here if you don’t mind me asking?” Rarity asked, slowly getting back into her comfort zone. So, her hostess was clearly a little eccentric. Well, that wasn’t such a bad thing, given her plans for the night. Cruciger was hardly a normal stallion himself.

“I am attempting to either prove or disprove a theory regarding the speed of magical conduction in a vacuum and in aether,” Twinkling Star Light explained, floating a small blackboard close by and making high-speed marks on it with two colors of chalk. “More specifically, I want to see if the universal sea of aether through which our world moves is stationary or in motion! This means measuring the speed of magic in perpendicular directions to determine the orientation of the motion of the aether if there is one.”

“Additionally, by refining our calculations for the behavior of magic via the universal transmission medium, we can determine which stars provide which aspects of magic to our world!” Star Light concluded with a flourish of chalk. She spun the blackboard around, showing Rarity a picture of a planet being bombarded by arrows.

Unfortunately, the rather simplistic picture was surrounded by arcane and thaumaturgical gibberish.

“Um… what?” Rarity asked and flinched, catching a needle with her magic before it could prick into her neck. Two could play at that game!

“Oh ho! Your needle control… is almost on par with my own!” Star Light remarked with a somewhat unhinged grin as the two magical mares struggled for control over the hypodermic. “Have you considered a career in proactive medicine?”

“I don’t know, darling… have you considered a career in preemptive fashion?” Rarity asked, also grinning a little too widely.

Antimony slowly hovered away from the pair. “Do you really want to throw around needles in here, mother?”

“Hmmm!” Twinkling Star Light considered it for a second before releasing her control of the hypo to her guest. “Alright! To explain it simply, Baroness of Ponyville, the magic you use – like the atoms in your body – originally came from the stars, and aether is the means by which it is continually transmitted to us. It saturates our world!”

“Whenever you use magic, you tap into that primal force given to us by the stars themselves!” Star Light levitated a pair of glass spheres to float around her, covering her mouth with her hoof as the laughed in a ladylike titter. “Doesn’t that thought send shivers down your spine? It makes you wonder what else ponykind is capable of… if we really are ‘children of the stars.’”

“But…!” she amended, a second later, before Rarity could respond. “I know you aren’t here to listen to me go on about magic and science! You’re here to meet my sweet, little husband, so why don’t I put on some tea, and you and your friends can learn just what sort of stallion you’ll be dealing with. And you can tell me about how, exactly, you managed to embarrass my daughter like you did.”

Antimony stiffened, objecting. “Mother, must we--”

Twinkling Star Light passed a glance her way, and Antimony quickly lowered her eyes in deference.

“Make no mistake in my intentions,” she continued, addressing Rarity specifically. “I have only passing interest in political games or maneuvers. The only things I care about are my husband, my freedom, and my research. My daughter’s defeat only interests me insofar as I cannot imagine how you accomplished it. Give me some useful datapoints and variables, and I’ll tell you what you need to know to benefit your little town.”

Pinkamena Diane Pie snorted as she rolled onto her other side on the carriage seat, burying her face into the soft pillows. One pink hoof reached behind her to scratch idly at her rump. The act elicited another grumble as she tossed and turned again before finally settling flat on her back. Very slowly, her eyes opened, and she yawned.

Sitting upright, she noticed the rather hefty trunk that remained in the carriage.

Pinkie yawned again, reached under the seat, and came back with a polished, professional briefcase. Inspecting it for a moment, she felt around underneath… and detached one of the small, stubby legs. Inside was a key. Holding it up to her eyes, she laid the briefcase down next to her and unlocked it. Inside were a number of recessed compartments holding some necessary “items” for her “business.”

The bristly moustache went on first.

Then the wig.

“The name’s Pie,” she muttered to herself. “Pinkie Pie. And yes, my name rhymes with spy. Whahahahaha!!!”

“Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash slammed a hoof against the carriage door. “Stop laughing so loud!”

“Hahahaha,” Pinkie laughed quietly.

Applejack couldn’t remember meeting a more imposing unicorn than Duke Cruciger.

It wasn’t just the size of him, though there was that. Ponyville stallions were of a smaller breed than Canterlot’s, especially when it came to unicorns. She had seen it firsthoof when she visited the royal city. There had been dozens of them at the Gala; Rarity had attracted a whole herd of them, back when she showed up and started to sing. So there was that, but it didn’t tell the whole story, either. It was more how he looked at ponies and how he held himself. He didn’t even need to speak. Just his standing there was enough to make a pony feel smaller than she actually was.

Maybe… it was a little like how the Princess made everypony feel. Just like with Cruciger, it wasn’t just her size. It was her bearing. She had a powerful, awe-inspiring presence that was only reinforced by her being so unnaturally tall. It might even have been some sort of magic… and this Cruciger pony had it, too, though it trended more towards frightening than awe-inspiring.

“FIRE!”

A thunderous blast snapped Applejack back to the present, fixing her eyes forward. The sound had come from one of the cannons sighted downrange towards the reservoir. A second later and a fountain of water erupting out in the middle of the Puddinghead Lake indicated where the cannonball had landed. A small buoy with a bright red flag bobbed and dipped close to the splash, likely placed there to help the artillery-ponies practice or gauge their accuracy.

Perpendicular to the cannon that had just fired, a long line of its fellows stretched in two orderly rows, their bronze and iron bores pointing upward in salute, capped with some sort of dark cloth sheet. Each row of cannons looked roughly the same, with the same general size and shape, but each one had also been personalized in one way or another. Some were ornately engraved, and one that caught Applejack’s eye was even enameled with a rather saucy and indecent picture of Princess Celestia. Others sported pictures on their gun carriages of dragons or hydras or other monsters. Taking passing interest, Applejack got the impression it was roughly a fifty-fifty split between the cannons marked with monsters and the ones marked with light porn.

Everywhere, though, she could see more of the bull and star standard, printed all over the camp, making the owner of all this hardware unmistakable.

“Hrm. I do have certain affection for artillery, Lady Rarity,” Cruciger explained, patting the barrel of one of the weapons without humor. Listening to him, Applejack had the impression that he was not a very easily amused pony. Even talking about his cannons and his guards and strolling around the camp in what seemed to be a leisurely way, he never laughed or chuckled.

The Black Duke seemed completely humorless.

“When I was in the royal guard, as a young colt, so much emphasis was put on the lance and the spear, either as an actual weapon or as a magical focus.” Cruciger’s deep voice rumbled as he spoke, though primarily to Rarity, who walked alongside him in a subdued overcoat and pink vest, a fancy woven-straw hat shielding her eyes.

“The Princess’ Royal Guard is a bastion of traditionalism: traditional values, traditional upbringing, and traditional tactics. The first two are acceptable, but the third must bow to innovation and the realities of life on the border provinces. You might notice that, of all the branches of my guard, the officers of my artilleryponies are the most likely to be drawn from middling families… Come, and let me introduce you to one.”

Rarity followed along, and Applejack and Big Macintosh followed her in turn, along with a small retinue of Free Companyponies, Rainbow Dash mingled among them. Cruciger had only three escorts of his own with him, two huge pegasus Grenadiers and the mare Applejack had met before, however briefly. Général de Brigade Antonovka. It was such a strange sounding name, but there was something about the mare herself, though Applejack couldn’t quite put her hoof on what.

Cruciger led them on, past the cannons and around to the safer shore of the Puddinghead Reservoir. He was easy to keep track of and to follow, not just because of his size, but because of the dusty-red cloak that he wore, trimmed not just in black and gold but also some sort of sable or fur. It had clearly seen use on the road, as had the dirty brown riding boots on his legs. This was an active pony, despite his age and infirmary, and Applejack had little doubt he had trotted alongside his guards the entire way from Prance… despite being, frankly, partly crippled. He walked with a limp in one leg, and half his face looked like it had been chewed on by a manticore.

They settled down on the side of the lake where a small banquet had been laid out for them.

Cruciger sat first, clearly favoring his right side as he lowered himself down onto a plain brown mat. Watching him, Applejack couldn’t help but compare him to Shigure. Both were big stallions, tough ones. Both had seen fighting in their lifetime, and both seemed initially unapproachable in their demeanor. Shigure, however, had proven to be rather friendly and understanding when away from his duties. Cruciger just seemed old and rough and mean, like a gnarled, black apple tree that he been repeatedly struck by lightning and lit on fire but that still clung tenaciously to life.

He was scarred across the left side of his face to the point where it cut into his upper lip and cost him his eye. An obsidian jewel had been cut and faceted to fill the void there, sitting in a thin, curved hollow of silver, like an eyepatch soldered into place. The other eye was no less menacing, despite being entirely natural. The dark orb had a coldly calculating gaze. Applejack, just from what little she had seen, couldn’t imagine this old soldier putting up with a filly’s pestering about his cutie mark, like Shigure had with Apple Bloom. Finally, as if completing the ensemble, Applejack could see part of another terrible scar on the old stallion’s chest as he sat down.

“Sit,” he commanded. “Eat. Drink. You are my guests. I honor you as such.”

Applejack sat next to Rarity, on her friend’s right, while Dash took the left. Germoglio sat to Dash’s left, and Big Mac settled himself down to Applejack’s right. Their other escorts all kept back, and as soon as they found their places, Cruciger motioned with his hoof, and a pair of servants descended, pouring water and filling plates. It was not a fancy meal, but it was a fine-smelling one. Applejack’s plate was soon crowned with some sort of fruit-spiced bread – she could taste strong hints of apple and pear – on top of a bed of greens, walnuts, and dried cranberries, all drizzled with vinegar and olive oil. Warm, white napkins were provided to wipe their hooves clean before they ate.

“Thank ya kindly fer the grub,” Applejack said, and Rarity seconded the sentiment.

“We are honored, Lord Duke,” she said.

“All right! Food! Let’s eat already! I. Am. Starving!” Rainbow Dash ripped her loaf of bread into quarters and quickly gobbled one down. “Oh, this--” she didn’t even bother swallowing before she opened her mouth again “--is pretty good!”

“Eyup.”

One could almost have forgiven Cruciger for at least letting a small smile grace his features in that moment, but no: he only looked on with the same slight frown that seemed chiseled permanently onto his face. Like Rarity, he began to eat with a mixture of hooves and magic, though Applejack noticed with some approval that he wasn’t quite as fussy as her old unicorn friend. Not far away, another cannon fired, the sound prompting more than a few ponies near her to jump a little in surprise. The thunder was followed a second later with a distant splash, reassuring everypony that it was just more target practice over the reservoir. Soon, the occasional artillery barrage just faded into the background ambiance.

Only when everypony had finished eating did Cruciger look them over and say, “My ponies need food, water, pasture, and your blessing to camp within the demesne of Ponyville. Some of my officers would also enjoy the amusements your town has to offer. We may speak now of these things.”

“My blessing is contingent on the other matters under discussion,” Rarity replied, meeting the one-eyed Duke with a confident expression.

It was part bluff, Applejack knew. There was nopony to really remove Cruciger from wherever he wanted to set up camp. The Royal Guard couldn’t leave Canterlot in large numbers and was only a fourth the size of the army here. Prince Blueblood had marched almost all of his Ducal Guard off to confront the Neighponese marching inland from Los Pegasus as they ‘escorted’ Lady Yumi to Canterlot.

“Go on,” Cruciger prompted, impassive.

“Aside from shooting at the reservoir, I assume you would also like to begin drawing water from it if you have not already,” Rarity said, inclining her head towards the water and the scenic Puddinghead Lake. Applejack was reminded of the town’s own water problems and conflicts that had come to a head when Rarity assumed the vacant Barony. Tapping into the Puddinghead Reservoir had been one of the proposed solutions to shore up the town’s water supply, especially for Ponyville’s pegasus population.

It was a beautiful highland lake, too, though this was the first time Applejack had visited it since she was a filly. It was a long hike from Ponyville, up into the hills at the foot of the mountains. A dam had been built here a thousand years ago, around the time of the founding of Canterlot. Centuries later, a larger dam closer to Ponyville had been constructed of concrete, further expanding the lake. It was like two big bubbles, now: the smaller but deeper Old Puddinghead, and the newer and wider, but shallower, New Puddinghead. They were eating by the shore of the New Puddinghead, but Applejack could see the spooky, darkly forested shores of the old reservoir not too far away.

“My associate, Sir Bianco, has led me to believe your host requires something on the order of one hundred gallons of water a day,” Rarity continued, dabbing at her lips with a napkin. “Is that correct?”

“It is,” Cruciger confirmed.

“Very well.” Rarity put on a magnanimous air. “You may draw what you need from the local water supply free of charge. I ask only that you take care not to contaminate the reservoir itself.”

The Duke inclined his head slightly in thanks. “That is very generous of you, Lady Rarity.”

“You guys manage your own weather, right?” Rainbow Dash spoke up, not the least bit shy, regardless of her company. “I’m a weathermare, too, so I’d like to know what you’re doing with our water and how you’re doing it. Even the water in the ground ends up back in the sky sooner or later! So this is kinda my business, you know?”

“Hrm.” Cruciger nodded, slowly, understanding her concern. “The pegasus ponies in my engineering corps are well trained. They will collect the water and treat it through a process of cloud-form vaporization and condensation. The water we collect will be put into storage, and my ponies will drink from our existing supply before we use yours. You have my word that there will be no unseemly mob slurping away at your lake and no contamination of your water reserves.”

“You won’t be sky-farming for water?” Dash asked, narrowing her eyes even as she took a bite out of another loaf of walnut bread.

“We will not dehydrate your air, harvest your clouds, or damage the local weather,” Duke Cruciger assured her, and through her, Ponyville’s new Baroness.

“Good!” Dash declared. “Just making sure!”

“Hrm.”

“With that said,” Rarity resumed her lead in the conversation, “there is the matter of food, forage, and visits to the town… and security. Applejack?”

“Huh?” The farmer felt her brother nudge her none-too-subtly. “Oh! Oh yeah. The food n’ forage situation! Well, sir, Ah mean, yer Lordship, Ponyville’s got some right fine pasture and rangeland all up along the north part of town. Plenty ‘a brome and orchard grass, bluegrass, too, and all sorts of wild growin’ stuff that a pony can eat. Lots of clover and alfalfa, too… everything ya need to make hay later in the season. About half the land up there is owned by the barony, now, and the other half is held by a ‘buncha local ponies.”

Seeing the Duke fixing her with his one brooding eye, Applejack shook her head and mentally admonished herself. He wasn’t interested in details like who owned the land. That was why Rarity was here, so she could handle all the local matters and narrow things down to just the big picture.

“Right, so…!” She coughed, quickly recovering her wits. “There should be between three and four hundred pounds per acre of forage for ya up there. Multiply that by at least two hundred square acres, an’ there ya go.”

Cruciger slowly nodded in approval. “My scouts already identified the forage situation north of your town. Our estimates are similar to your own. What about grains, fruits, vegetables and, most importantly, sugar and salt?”

This was where the real money was, and it was the reason Applejack had come.

“Apples are our specialty here in Ponyville,” she said with no small amount of pride. She could still taste a hint of apple on her tongue from the lunch the Duke had shared with them. “But we’ve got plenty of other stuff, too: carrots, ‘n peas, ‘n wheat ‘ta spare. We import sugar, but we also grow it local from sugar beets and process it, too.”

The need for salt was pretty self-explanatory, but raw sugar was just as important to a pony’s diet. Instead of getting extra energy from animal or plant proteins, like minotaurs or griffins, equestrians needed sugar and lots of it. In big cities, like Canterlot or Manehattan, there were sweets shops on almost every street corner. Ponies didn’t just have a ‘sweet tooth’ compared to other intelligent folk; they needed it. Four thousand ponies marching around would need a sugar boost even more than most, especially if they were using magic.

Luckily, Apples were plenty sweet, too. ‘Sweet Apple Acres’ had the name for a good reason.

Applejack went on to outline what sort of crops were available and what sort of ‘catering’ the local baking and farming communities could provide and for what price. Expectedly, nearly every town Cruciger’s guardsponies passed by was inevitably depleted of goodies; they had a lot of disposable income. Their Captains would be paying for anything but the luxuries, which was the last order of business. Before that, they arranged for six hundred pounds of grains, vegetables and sugar to be delivered per day. It was, supposedly, half of the one thousand two hundred pounds of rationed food consumed by Cruciger’s personal army every day.

“The terms are satisfactory to me,” Cruciger finally said with a faint note of approval. He was not one for haggling. He had stated a fair price for a fair deal, and Applejack didn’t want to quibble with him. The town would be making a lot of bits from this as it was. The Duke turned to Rarity again, giving her his full attention.

“I approve as well,” Rarity said with a smile. “Thank you, Applejack.”

“Not a problem, sugarcube,” she replied, breathing a small sigh of relief at a job well done. The rest was in Rarity’s hooves now.

“Let us discuss access to the local railroad network…”

The two nobleponies went on for a time about all the other necessities. The Duke needed access to the railroad and permission to route his trains to further supply his guard. This, naturally, would be an inconvenience to rail traffic into, out of, and approaching Ponyville, requiring compensation. There was also the matter of what services would be provided in-town.

Applejack did not exactly relish the idea of more guardponies coming to Ponyville, especially ones who were there to enjoy themselves rather than do their duty guarding the place. It sounded like a recipe for trouble. Rarity was of a similar mind, and coupled with both her concern for security and – surprisingly – Lady Antimony’s agreement, she and Cruciger made the decision to limit the interaction between Ponyville and the two visiting divisions of guards.

The two had just finalized their agreement when, suddenly, Applejack found herself asking, “Ain’t all this a lotta trouble?”

Cruciger’s single eye fixed on her and she threw her hooves up over her mouth without thinking.

Rarity laughed, politely. “Darling, you have to--”

“Actually, yeah. It does seem like a lot of work,” Rainbow Dash chimed in, holding up her glass for more water. “I mean, it’s kinda neat, but you’ve gotta be burning through a lot of bits, keeping so many ponies around! Plus all the headache! Sometimes I have to manage, like, a dozen ponies for weather duty. I can’t imagine bossing around four thousand!”

“You’ll pardon us fer being curious,” Applejack amended her earlier, impulsive, question. She tentatively lowered her hooves from her mouth as she realized she probably hadn’t caused a diplomatic incident. Probably.

Rarity laughed again, nervously. “Come now…”

“It is a show of force,” Cruciger answered, cutting Rarity off before she could say more. “Lord Yama has brought two thousand ponies to ‘escort’ his daughter to Canterlot. Lord Blueblood has mobilized one thousand green cadets and half as many real guards to counter him and show that he is not intimidated. I could have marched south with five hundred ponies… or one thousand, as my rivals have done.”

Still, Cruciger did not smile. He was not emotionless, just cold and stern.

“But I am Cruciger,” he stated and paused as if nothing more need be said. “I… am Cruciger,” he repeated, “and in all Equestria, no mortal pony can match the power I bring to the field. Four thousand? On a whim, I could bring eight thousand ponies south and set camp in front of the Royal Palace itself. This host is only a demonstration of fact: the power in this country is held by the Terre Rare, not the Garlands, not the Quartz, and not the Bluebloods.”

Slowly rising to his hooves, he still towered over the seated mares. “It is a fact my cousins in Canterlot have forgotten. Soon, I will remind all of them of their rightful place… beneath my hoof.”

“Pinkie Pie, sugarcube, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Nope!”

“Ah’m just sayin,’ the last time you put on a big production, it kinda caused a war,” Applejack went on, ducking her head as a priestly white habit flew through the air. “Ah’m not sayin’ you’ll cause a riot and destroy Ponyville with this, but please, please don’t cause a riot and destroy Ponyville.”

“Don’t worry, Applejack! I definitely won’t start a war this time!” Pinkie replied from underneath a tangle of costumes and a comically overturned trunk. One of her hooves stuck up out of the mess. “See? I’m giving a thumbs-up! That means there’s nothing to worry about!”

Applejack sighed. “Sugarcube, whatever a’ thumb’ is, we don’t have it.”

“Oh yeaaah!” Pinkie’s head emerged from the pile of clothes to glare at her hoof. “I guess that expression doesn’t really fit, does it? But maybe if I blow on my other hoof, I can turn this one into something with a thumb? OH! Or better yet, a pumpkin! Or a sexy lady!”

“Don’t you think you should, I don’t know, take this sorta seriously!?” Applejack ducked her head, bit down on a pink curl, and pulled Pinkie Pie free with a jerk of her neck. The pink pony nimbly tumbled out of the pile of costumes and jumped onto all fours.

“I mean, do ya even know yer lines?” Applejack asked, shaking her head in dismay. “If I were you--”

“Oh, rimorso!” Pinkie Pie swooned, draping part of a colorful blue costume around her shoulders. She turned, extending a hoof to an imaginary audience. “Ah, padre!” Raising her voice, she trotted towards Applejack. “Tu ben sai s'io l'ami… Patria, famiglia, padre per lui non abbandono?”

She cried, lamentably, reaching up to slick back her mane until it was long and limp, though no less rosy. “Oh! Ti lascio, ahimé, con lacrime, dolce mia terra! Oh! Ahimé, non avrà termine per mi sì gran dolore! Oh!”

Applejack blinked, uncomprehending. “Uh, translation?”

“Oh, remorse!” Pinkie translated, though with notably less emotion. “Oh, father! Thou knowest I adore him! Country, family, father, do I not abandon for him? Oh! I'll leave you, alas, with tears, my sweet land! Oh! Such cruel grief will never end! Oh!” She winked slyly. “I added the ‘ohs’ to the screenplay. Call it the Pinkie Pie treatment.”

Before Applejack could say anymore, Pinkie reached up to run a hoof through her limp mane again.

“Applejack,” she said, kicking the ground with a back leg and impossibly hurling costumes – complete with hangers – back into place. “I really am taking this seriously.” A courtly gown flew onto the rack. “As seriously as I can take something.” It was followed by a tattered white dress and cloak. “That’s how serious I’m taking it.”

She popped up in front of Applejack, fixing her hooves onto her friends’ shoulders. “I’ve been working on this for weeks, and being this serious about one thing is actually driving me a little loco in the caboco!” Her eyes did a little swirl and she leaned in disturbingly close to Applejack’s face. “Loco. In. The. Caboco.”

“But!” she declared, zipping back to kicking costumes off the floor and onto their stands and racks, “this is super-duper important to Rarity and to Twilight and to the town and… even to me.”

Finished with the costumes, Pinkie sat down and stared at herself in a dressing mirror. “My special talent isn’t just parties, though you know I love parties. I totally love parties. My cutie mark tells me to make ponies smile, and Monee’s papa sounds even sterner and more frowny-faced than mine! Making him smile is a challenge for me, a super huge challenge, and if it helps my friends in the process, then I have to approach it seriously and put all my effort into it. One hundred and seventeen point three percent!”

Applejack watched, more than a little concerned, as Pinkie ran her hooves through her limp mane. She had a disturbingly serious expression on her face as she stared at her reflection. Maybe, she allowed herself to hope, this wouldn’t be like Appleoosa. Pinkie had weeks to prepare for this and a whole troupe of professional actors under Rarity’s patronage and employment. Pinkie Pie did love to put on a show, though that usually didn’t literally mean she put on a show.

Especially when that show was a gosh darned unicorn opera.

“If yer sure,” Applejack said, sitting next to her friend and trying to be supportive. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to ask how the heck Pinkie knew how to speak Bitalian.

“I’d have preferred a comedic opera,” Pinkie freely admitted. “But Monee says Forza is one of her papa’s favorites, so…” She shrugged, helplessly. “He has to like it for our plan to work. He has to like me.”

Applejack’s ears twitched. “What plan?”

“Some sort of plan!” Pinkie answered, evasively, as she ran a brush through her mane. “I was mostly involved in naming it. I call it Operation Smiling Snake!” She tilted her head back to look at her friend, upside down. “As for the details and boring stuff like that…? I sorta left that to Rarity and Twilight! They’d be the ponies to ask about it.”

“I thought you were just puttin’ on a show?” Applejack tilted her Stetson back and scratched her forehead.

“Oh, I am!” Pinkie went back to the mirror but not before Applejack noticed her reaching for a cup of what looked like some sort of drink. Sniffing, she could just pick up the smell. It was… iced coffee?

Pinkie Pie was drinking pure caffeine?

Oh, lordy.

What kinda crazy plan was this?

Now, Applejack knew she wasn’t the most cultured of ponies when it came to broader Equestrian culture. It was just the less-than-pretty truth. There was no point denying it.

Most of what she did know came from the time she had spent with her Aunt and Uncle Orange in Manehattan. They’d taken her to a few plays and operas in the city, and she supposed she was grateful for the experience, though she’d found it terribly boring as a little filly. That had really been it, though. When she’d returned to Sweet Apple Acres, she’d left that sort of stuff behind her. In short, it was no surprise that she was not all that familiar with most of what was going on in front of her.

La Forza del Destino (“The Force of Destiny”) was a Bitalian opera by somepony named Verdi (or ‘Green Olive’ according to the playbill). Also according to said Playbill, it was set in Bitaly just after the old War of Equine Succession that brought Bitaly back into Equestria proper, hundreds of years ago.

The lead ponies were Pinkie Pie, playing the mare, ‘Soothing Light,’ and a Ponyville actor Applejack didn’t know too well, Pure Note, playing the stallion, ‘Bright Guard.’ Bright Guard was from a lesser sort of family, so of course, he and Soothing Light were keeping their relationship a secret. Soothing Light’s father, the Marquis de Caltropava, wanted his daughter to marry somepony of high station. It was the classic sort of ‘love versus family honor’ setup that crazy unicorns loved so darn much.

In the play, things very quickly turn tragic as Bright Guard accidentally kills the Marquis de Caltropava. Granted, the Marquis was killed after he discovered the two lovers and threatened to kill them both to preserve his daughter’s reputation. Because by the standards of crazy old-timey unicorns, family honor and reputation were more important the actual lives of your family. So the old pony bites the dust and Soothing Light’s brother, Waning Light, swears revenge on his father’s assassin. Soothing Light flees to a cave near a convent (convents were apparently much more numerous back in the day) and Bright Guard signs up to fight the endless waves of monsters plaguing the countryside, which was apparently a thing back then. There, Bright Guard saves the life of Waning Light, the very same brother who swore revenge, except neither recognizes the other one. A duel is averted and the two return home…

Where they promptly agitate one another and get into a duel anyway!

Why? Probably because they were unicorns, and go back a couple centuries and unicorn nobles were all revenge-crazy idiots with horns both on-head and up-the-rear. The opera was up to the part where the actors playing Bright Guard and Waning Light were about to duel and Applejack – no spoilers needed – could tell the whole story was about to end in further tragedy.

“Da un lustro ne vo' in traccia,

Ti trovo finalmente;

Col sangue sol cancellasi

L'infamia ed il delitto.

Ch'io ti punisca è scritto

Sul libro del destin.

Tu prode fosti, or monaco,

Un 'arma qui non hai …

Deggio il tuo sangue spargere.

Scegli, due ne portai!”

(For five years I have been on thy track,

At length I find thee!

With blood alone can thy infamy

And misdeeds be blotted out!

That I punish thee is written

In the record of destiny.

Thou wert then valiant, now a monk;

Thou hast no weapon here;

As I thy blood must shed,

Two (swords) I have brought: choose one!)

“Vissi nel mondo, intendo;

Or queste vesti, l'eremo,

Dicon che i falli ammendo,

Che penitente è il cor.

Lasciatemi.”

(In the world I have lived, so I understand;

now this robe, this retreat,

Proclaim my errors reformed,

and that my heart is penitent.

Leave me.)

“Difendere

Quel sajo, né il deserto.

Codardo, te nol possono.”

(Coward,

Neither the cassock, nor the desert,

Can protect thee!)

Up on the stage, in front of hundreds of well-dressed officers and more than a thousand guardponies, circling the small stage and sitting on grass and hill, Bright Guard and Waning Light confronted one another, the later demanding that the former pick up a weapon and fight.

Lord Cruciger, Lady Star Light, Rarity, and Antimony were seated in a place of honor, just off to the left side of the stage on a small platform to keep them off the ground. Applejack also saw Rainbow Dash sitting on the edge of a cloud with a group of pegasi, munching on popcorn and dropping hoof-fulls of crumbs on the poor unicorns and earth ponies below them. Big Macintosh was nowhere to be seen, but knowing him, he was probably off cavorting with his new army friends somewhere. Applejack dearly hoped he wouldn’t end the night by getting abducted by some of the raunchy guardmares she’d heard stories about.

The apple farmer shifted, a little uneasily, in her own ‘mare of honor’ box. She and Germoglio shared it with two of Cruciger’s generals. One was Général de Brigade Antonovka, and the other was Général de Brigade Cross Bow. She had met Antonovka, but Cross Bow was new. They had only exchanged a cursory greeting before the play began, but he had smiled and insisted the mares be seated first, and that, together with his rather frail appearance gave her the impression he was another noblepony, albeit a courteous and friendly one. He had a notably pink and well-maintained mane, though, which was something she had never seen in a stallion before. It gave him a very dandified look.

“Per la gola voi mentite!

A me un brando!”

(You lie through your teeth!

Give me a sword!)

Up on stage, Bright Guard snatched a sword from the willing and eager Waning Light.

“Un brando, uscite!”

(A weapon – lead on!)

Waning Light turned momentarily, as if to draw the audience in on his excitement at the prospect of revenge.

“Finalmente!”

(At last!)

But Bright Guard balked at the violence to come, throwing down his sword.

“No, L'discordia non trionfi.

Va, riparti!”

(No, Discord shall not triumph.

Go, please leave me!)

Waning Light quickly turned and struck the tortured Bright Guard across the face.

“Ti fai dunque di me scherno?

S'ora meco misurarti,

O vigliacco, non hai core,

Ti consacro al disonore!”

(What, doest thou make a jest of me?

If thou hast not the courage, coward,

to measure weapons with me,

I condemn thee to dishonor!)

This final insult seemed to finally push Bright Guard over the edge, using his magic to pick up his sword once more.

“Ah, segnasti la tua sorte!”

(Thou sealeth thy death warrant!)

He pointed the blade at the other unicorn.

“Morte! A entrambi morte!”

(Ah! Death! Come forth to death!)

The two stallions cried at once:

“Morte! A entrambi morte!”

(Ah! Death! Come forth to death!)

Together, they lunged, as the curtain briefly fell.

“Vieni a morte!

A morte andiam!”

(Come! To Death!

And Hell shall receive thee!)

The scene quickly changed, thanks to the wizardry of the opera crew, to a valley traversed by a stream. It was mostly a painted background, folded or unfolded while the curtain as briefly down, but ponies had also brought out a curious cave-front with a door built into it. It even had a little bell and a mailbox with three black balloons. This was the cave that Soothing Light had exiled herself to while her brother and lover were out dueling and fighting monsters to try and redeem themselves. Prop-ponies lowered the sun and brought up a full moon.

Pinkie Pie appeared in this scene as Soothing Light, wearing a fake horn. Her clothes were worn and rough, the once white cloth stained. As it had been for all but the start of the play when she shared scenes with Bright Guard, her hair was limp and long, and her countenance grief-stricken. It was a look Applejack had frankly never thought her friend could pull off.

As long as Applejack had known the party pony, Pinkie Pie had never been able to hold any expression but a smile for more than a minute, yet, here, she had somehow managed to keep from bouncing or throwing confetti for more than two hours. Applejack privately felt a little bad for thinking of her friend as so one-dimensional… but, it was really surreal to see her break that well-worn mold everypony was used to.

“Oh! Pace, pace, mio Celestia!

Cruda sventura

M'astringe, ahimé, a languir;

Come il dì primo

Da tant'anni dura

Profondo il mio soffrir.

L'amai, gli è ver!

Ma di beltà e valore

Cotanto Iddio l'ornò.

Che l'amo ancor.

Né togliermi dal core

L'immagin sua saprò.

Fatalità! Fatalità! Fatalità!

Un delitto disgiunti n'ha quaggiù!

Guardo, io t'amo.

E su nel cielo è scritto:

Non ti vedrò mai più!

Oh Dio, Dio, fa ch'io muoia;

Che la calma può darmi morte sol.

Invan la pace qui sperò quest'alma

In preda a tanto duol.”

(Oh! Peace, grant me peace, Celestia!

By dire misfortune I am condemned to languish;

As on the first day, during so many years,

Profound has been my grief.

I loved him! With beauty and courage

Heaven had so adorned him.

I love him still, nor can I from my heart

His image tear away.

Fatality! fatality! Fatality!

A crime has parted us forever here below!

Guardo, I love thee, and in Heaven 'tis decreed

That I shall never see thee more!

Oh Heaven, suffer me to die, for peace

To my soul death alone can give.

Here in vain I hope for peace,

A prey to lingering woe.)

As she sang, Pinkie dragged herself over to a stone where a small bag of provisions had been left by the mother from the nearby convent. Soothing Light’s role was sort of overwrought with tragedy, in Applejack’s opinion (if this had been an earth pony story, she probably would’ve just hit both her idiot brother and her moron lover over the head with a rock and put them to work in the fields – or so Applejack sort of liked to imagine), but Pinkie Pie was playing to the role surprisingly well.

Unlike that performance in Appleoosa, when she did burst into song as the opera required, she did it without plunging into the audience or bouncing around stage or other likely inopportune improvisation. As far as Applejack could see, there was just the occasional ‘oh’ instead of ‘ah’ and a bit of exuberance towards her own grief. Everypony watching seemed to be regarding her performance with genuine interest.

By Celestia’s Golden Apples, she was actually pulling this off.

“Misero pane, a prolungarmi vieni

La sconsolata vita … Ma chi giunge?

Chi profanare ardisce il sacro loco?

Maledizione! Maledizione! Maledizione!”

(Miserable food, thou comest to prolong

A wretched life… but who comes?

Who dares profane this sacred spot?

Malediction! Malediction! Malediction!)

Bright Guard and Waning Light, just off scene, were still dueling with sword and spell. A large ball of what looked like ice streaked across the stage on invisible curtains while fireworks exploded in the air. Applejack would’ve thought it silly, had she not been present for Rarity’s own duel with Antimony – a mare she was now, somewhat ironically, seated next to while watching this actors’ duel. As it was, Applejack could sort of imagine the two enraged stallions fighting after those long five years, swords clashing and magic flying through the air.

Until, at last…

“Io muoio! Celestia!

L'alma salvate.”

(I am slain! Celestia!

Save my soul.)

Bright Guard stood over the stabbed and bleeding Waning Light as the same moon shone down on them.

“E questo ancora sangue d'un Illuminare.”

(Again is the blood of Light shed.)

Bright Guard threw his hooves up to the sky and lamented his cursed fate as he went galloping for a priest to give his slain opponent absolution and burial. Thinking that the cave contained a hermit or somepony from the nearby convent, Bright Guard banged his hooves on the door, pleading for aid. When at last Soothing Light opened the door, the two quickly recognized one another.

“Soothing Light!” Bright Guard cried, but made no move towards her.

“Tis he!” Pinkie exclaimed, singing her lines in Bitalian as she reached for him and letting in a little excited ‘oh,’ that was her personal addition to the character. “Oh! Again I see thee!”

“Away, away from me! These hooves of mine--” Bright Guard backed away from her and fell to his knees. “--are stained with blood! Look yonder!”

“What meanest thou?” Pinkie asked, her character confused and distraught.

Bright Guard pointed back the way he had come, where Waning Light was still fallen. “See, there lies a dying stallion.”

“Thou hast killed him?” Pinkie threw her hooves over her mouth in a gasp.

“Vainly, I tried to evade this fray,” Bright Guard admitted with a voice that seemed to fill the night air. “Within the cloister’s shelter passed my life. He sought me out there – insulted me – I slew him!”

“And he was?”

“Thy brother!”

“OH!” Pinkie cried, and ran at full gallop to the fallen Waning Light. Finding the body, she shrieked with despair and fell forward. Applejack actually flinched at the cry. Pinkie’s voice was usually so high and giddy; hearing a scream – not a scream of fright or joy, but a scream of anguish – from her mouth and in her voice was a little unnerving.

And then, stumbling back to a similarly despairing Bright Guard, Pinkie revealed a blood-red stain on her white habit.

“Nell'ora estrema perdonar non seppe.

E l'onta vendicò nel sangue mio.”

(In his last hour, he pardoned not,

And with my blood revenged his shame.)

As Soothing Light and Bright Guard shared their last moments, holding one another and singing over Waning Light’s still body, the light of the moon slowly faded. Applejack actually felt herself draw closer to hear the final words of the story, and the climax of her friend’s unexpectedly successful performance.

“Thou condemnest me to live

While thus forsaking me!”

Bright Guard held Pinkie as she slumped, weakly, over her brother’s body.

“I, the guilty one,

Alone unpunished go!”

“Oh,” Pinkie Pie’s final, parting, trademark gasp was, for the first time, without energy or life. “Heaven, I thee await – far away – I but before thee go, Guardo.”

“Dead!” Bright Guard cried to the audience and also fell over his fallen love as the orchestra and chorus brought their heart-wrenching aria to a close. “Passed away to heaven!”

The curtain slowly fell over the small stage by the lake’s shore and a thousand ponies and more stomped their hooves in applause. There was a brief pause before the curtain rose again, and the three main actors all stood and bowed. From the outer circle of ponies, the common guards and soldiers in Cruciger’s personal army, cheers and whistles sounded together with the synchronized stomping of hooves, enough to be almost deafening. The inner circle of ponies, the officers, were much more restrained in their approval, and when Pinkie took a bow of her own, a particularly lusty cheer came up from the ponies on land and in the air.

Applejack only let her stunned surprise delay her for a moment before she joined in. Close by, Germoglio was also clopping his hooves in approval. Cross Bow was doing much the same, and Antonovka, the other mare present, was on her haunches and clapping her hooves together more sedately. The stage soon filled with the rest of the cast and crew, and then a light shone on the orchestra that had provided the ambience and music for the opera.

“Well, I’ll be! That was pretty amazin’ wasn’t it?” Applejack felt the need to ask, though she’d have preferred to see what Rarity and Dash thought. It would be interesting to pick the brains of some of her fancypants company.

“I was unaware the lead mare had such talents,” Germoglio replied first. “My ponies tell me she has already offered – or demanded – to host parties for them, for their birthdays, though I know not how she accessed our company records. Most towns have a pony dedicated to recreation and keeping spirits high. We even have a few in our army here, but I clearly underestimated her. Yes, I am impressed.”

“A very respectable performance,” Antonovka said, lowering her front hooves to the ground again. “I have not seen this play since I last visited home, years ago.”

“This was my first time seeing it,” Cross Bow was the last one to reply. “I rather enjoyed it.”

Applejack was about to say more when Antonovka snorted.

“Your first time seeing it?” she asked, and shook her head. “Are you losing your memory already? Have you forgotten Saint Poniesburg?”

“Oh, yes, I had forgotten!” Cross Bow grinned, bashfully. “My mistake. Good of you to catch it for me, Antonovka! You always are a stickler for details. Nothing gets by you.”

The stern mare grunted, setting her eyes back on the stage. Applejack didn’t miss, however, how the other earth pony’s eyes also darted over to Cruciger’s booth. Was there some subtext here she was missing?

She set her eyes on Pinkie Pie, again, up on the stage.

And what was this ‘plan?’ Was it just this play? And why, when one thought about it, was Pinkie Pie playing a major character in an opera, here, of all places?

“Miss Applejack,” Antonovka’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and she noticed the stoic mare pointing off to the side. “Is that your brother? The large, red, farmpony? He seems to have quite a crowd around him.”

Applejack spun to her right and caught sight of Big Macintosh with three mares in uniform pulling him along. No wonder her sibling senses were tingling!

“Ah, excuse me!” Applejack all but jumped to her hooves. “Big Macintosh! Get back here! Ah’m not lettin’ you outta my sight! You hear me?!”

Brigadier General Antonovka watched her go, saying nothing.

“He smiled,” Antimony said, breathlessly. “He actually smiled… a little.”

“I do think he likes you, darling,” Rarity said and gently nudged Pinkie Pie with her hoof. The pink pony had retired to her carriage after the play, and, despite her natural exuberance, it was clear that the performance had taken a toll on her. Antimony and Rarity had been the first two ponies to make it past the Free Company guards posed outside to see her in the flesh.

“Really?” Pinkie asked, her bright eyes twinkling despite her fatigue.

“Him and about a thousand other stallions out there,” Rarity replied with a wink. “An amazing job, really! I am sorry I ever doubted you!”

Pinkie smiled back and slowly lifted herself off the soft couch seats of the carriage. “I’m just happy I could help, Rarity. So what’s the rest of what I have to do?”

“You’ve forgotten already?” Antimony asked and sighed softly. “Honestly, Pinkie. You named this crazy plan of ours but you can’t remember what it is?”

“Excuse me for only being able to memorize the lines of an entire play in a week,” Pinkie grumbled, her tone coming to the surprise of both unicorn noblemares. Pinkie ran a hoof through her limp mane. “Sorry, I--”

“You’re tired,” Antimony said, understanding. “Any normal pony would be.”

“Indeed,” Rarity agreed, sitting down close to her earth pony friend. “It was what we counted on. Pinkie Pie, the plan was for you to catch Lord Cruciger’s eye with this play. It was his favorite, and you were one of his favorite characters. That was why we picked it, remember?”

Pinkie nodded slowly as that conversation slowly came back to her. She had been playing with Gummy at the time! Oh, and there had been an apricot cupcake in the oven, and three yellow birds were flying outside the window and Antimony had stepped on one of Gummy’s chew toys and jumped at the ‘squeak’ it made. It was all clear as day! Everything except all the talking. But the important stuff! Darn you important stuff!

“Entertaining a visiting dignitary like my father is only common courtesy,” Antimony explained. “You being a part of the play was the only way we could get him to spend time around you during dinner.”

“Oh no! I’m not supposed to seduce him, am I?” Pinkie asked, rather too innocently.

Antimony choked in disgust, and Rarity blushed a rather bright shade of red.

“N-no, darling, just listen,” Rarity pleaded. “You have a very special talent we need to make use of.”

“Making ponies smile?” Pinkie asked. “But I just did that. OH! Is it my super amazing skill as a cookie-sculptor and cookie-eater? Actually, I’m sort of super when it comes to eating anything, not just cookies!”

“Not as such,” Antimony muttered.

“Actually, no, that’s close to it,” Rarity replied. “Pinkie, I have never – in my life – seen you pass out at a party. You are always the first pony in and the last one out. I don’t know anypony who can drink more than you, eat more than you, or who has more energy. It is that energy we wish to harness.”

“Woah! Woah! Woah! “ Pinkie jumped up and made warding gestures with her hooves. “Rarity, you gotta be kidding! You can’t just plug me up into a super powered beam weapon and use my hyperactivity to destroy your enemies!”

“… What?” Rarity finally found her voice. “No! That isn’t the plan!”

“Actually, I sort of like that plan,” Antimony admitted with a smug grin.

Rarity frowned at the other Baroness and then focused on Pinkie Pie. “We just need you to go to the party, sit with Lord Cruciger, and eat and drink and talk him into exhaustion. We need him to be dead tired come morning.”

Pinkie blinked, slowly processing what she’d been told. “O-ooo-ooh! Is that all?”

“That’s all,” Rarity confirmed.

“Okey dokey.” She sounded almost disappointed. “Are you sure you don’t want to plug me into a huge magical device?”

“Quite sure,” Rarity replied, but Antimony remained conspicuously silent. “We’re both sure,” Rarity said again.

“Yes, well,” Antimony said, rather pointedly readjusting the direction of the conversation. “You have clearly forgotten my warnings.”

“Warnings?” Pinkie asked, tilting her head cutely to the side. “What’do’ya mean, Monee?”

“My father,” the Terre Rare successor explained, “is no ordinary stallion. His stamina, both magical and physical, is immense. Even after being wounded, losing his eye and the use of one of his lungs, he has never once hesitated to duel or otherwise exert himself. Nor has he lost a duel, despite his crippled state. He marches alongside his subordinates, for miles across country, without any hint of weariness. I could never accomplish what we are asking you to do, Pinkie Pie. You should not approach it lightly. This will be the most difficult party of your entire life.”

“We need Lord Cruciger to literally be up all night,” Rarity said, reaching out to put a gently hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder. “He must not be fit to duel tomorrow.”

“Monee. Rarity.” Pinkie held up her hooves to silence the them. “You had me at ‘most difficult party of your entire life.’” She grinned, eyes narrowing in challenge. “At the risk of infringing on copyright: It. Is. On.”

Applejack was all but waiting outside when Rarity re-emerged.

“Applejack!’ Rarity greeted her all-too-honest friend with a smile and a wave. “Wonderful to see you again! Are you looking for help getting ready for dinner tonight?”

The warm welcome seemed to roll right off the earth pony’s back. Applejack was frowning beneath the rim of her Stetson, and, even without having to say it, Rarity knew exactly what she was thinking. She knew something was up. ‘What ya got hiding under yer hat this time, huh?’ was the sort of question that came to mind.

“Rarity,” Applejack said after a long pause, trying to school her expression and voice. Still, it wasn’t hard to detect the mix of disappointment and trace anger in her tone. “Ah thought you said you weren’t gonna be keepin’ me in the dark anymore? What happened to that, huh?”

Rarity sighed but didn’t deny it.

She did, however, pull her friend aside.

Whispering the truth in her ear behind the carriage, filling her friend in on her plot for the night, Rarity told the truth… or at least, as much of it as she felt she could without compromising her co-conspirators. The rather obvious emergence of Antimony from the carriage a minute into the conversation pretty much exposed at least one of them, and given how Applejack was much less oblivious than she sometimes appeared meant that she probably had a good guess as to what went unsaid.

When it was all finally said and done, Applejack simply stared at Rarity, her mouth curved down in a faint scowl. It was clear, right then and there, that she wasn’t exactly happy about what she had heard. But she thought long and hard about what to say before she responded, dipping her hat down with a hoof to partly hide her face while she processed everything she had been told.

“You really trust these ponies yer workin’ with?” she asked, still hiding her face.

“I have to, since they don’t trust each other.” Rarity shook her head in dismay. “I trust them to do what they have to do to keep Equestria safe.”

Applejack frowned, not entirely convinced.

“And I believe--” Rarity continued, pausing only a moment to catch her racing thoughts. “--I have to believe… that the ponies I’ve looked up to all my life aren’t all bad. That they can be everything I’ve imagined them to be. Maybe they will never be selfless or chivalrous, but they can be as noble as they claim to be. Maybe I can help bring out the best in them. The alternative… that everything I thought was wrong, that there is nothing I could even do about it…”

“Ya just can’t sit back and accept that,” Applejack finished, when her friend trailed off, unable to say more.

Rarity nodded. “Yes. I… I really – maybe I am just being naïve, but…”

“Rarity,” Applejack interrupted her, not just with her words but by brushing a hoof against the unicorn’s shoulder. In the same motion, she angled back the rim of her Stetson so they could meet eye to eye, face to face. “Rarity, I know yer a good pony. You’re my friend… and I do think Ah understand where yer coming from with this… but…”

“But?” Rarity asked, a little afraid of just where this was heading.

“But ah’m worried about you, Ah really am,” Applejack admitted, no longer frowning, but clearly struggling with her ability to express the conflicting thoughts and emotions in her head. “You know I’m behind ya. That I’ve got yer back. Ah always will. And I don’t wanna be a broken record, either, repeatin’ myself and sayin’ the sort of stuff Ah said before. But Ah can’t rightly say I like all these plots and schemes yer talkin’ about, and I like even less that yer in this mess and doin’ all this ‘cause’a that darn noble title ya got.”

Rarity averted her eyes.

“This is a right slippery slope yer hoofin’ around, sugarcube, and if you fall--” Applejack pressed a hoof to her friend’s chest “--Ah’m worried you’ll fall hard. And all these ponies you’ve surrounded yerself with? They’ve got dark sides to ‘em. What makes you think they’ll reach down to help you up, instead’a stomp you down?”

“Friendship,” Rarity murmured and then repeated herself a little more loudly. “Friendship, Applejack. I want them to be my friends, and that means trusting them and risking being hurt by them. Some noblepony in this country, in this entire country… needs to be the first to put her life in the hooves of others. Some noblepony needs to take that chance and that leap of faith!”

At some point in her explanation, moisture had formed at the corners of her eyes, and Rarity sniffed, quietly muttering an ‘excuse me’ as she magically produced a handkerchief to dab away the tears. Applejack didn’t miss the initials BB&RB monogrammed on the silk. It took a few seconds for the fussy fashionista, thrown alone to the timberwolves, to compose herself enough to meet her own standards of presentably.

“I have to be that pony, Applejack.” Rarity told her, the handkerchief vanishing, leaving behind only determination and resolve. “Even if it ruins me, I have to at least try. I have to. But I am sorry for keeping this – so much of this – from you until now.”

Applejack sighed, but nodded, holding up her hoof to chest level. “You gotta be you, sugarcube.”

Rarity grimaced, but gently bumped her hoof with Applejack’s. “And you as well, heaven help us both.”

Author's Note

Australian Author Note!
(because this one is down under, you see)

To illustrate and commemorate some epic action on the horizon, and the power of a certain lavender unicorn finally put on display like so many wanted, I'm on the prowl for a new piece of TPC art. I'm thinking Cruciger and Twinkling Star Light, plus Twilight Sparkle. I'm sort of tempted to try and make a new pic myself, but it always takes so much time, and that's free time spent away from working on the story, so...
Anyway, if anyone wants to help out with this, I'd be including it (with the other TPC related pics) in a gallery addendum to the title page. Or maybe I'll try embedding the pic into a chapter, like so many other authors do. My chapters are kind of plain, aren't they? No pictures or fancy scene separators or anything. Hmm.

Chapter Forty Three: Twilight - Equestria's Strongest Couple (part 1)

(43)

Twilight Sparkle: Equestria’s Strongest Couple (part 1)

“Uwaaah! That’s strong! What’s this stuff called again, sugarcube?”

“Vodka,” Antonovka told her, and Applejack slid the bottle across the fold-out metal desk that dominated the officer’s Spartan tent. Antonovka shook her head and returned the cap to the bottle. “I only drink forty milliliters a night. Never any more.”

“Apple flavored,” Applejack noted with a grin on her lips. “Reminds me a bit of the apple hooch Granny cooks up.”

“We make it from filtered cider, actually.”

“Ohh! ‘We?’”

“Not ‘we’ but rather certain ponies,” Antonovka corrected herself, spearing Applejack with a frown at the sight of her ever-widening grin. Shuffling a paper in front of her, she picked up a pen between her teeth and began to write, pointedly ignoring the other mare in her tent.

Applejack, meanwhile, yawned. That last experimental sip of foreign liquor hadn’t exactly done much to help her stay alert. Her green eyes lingered on Antonovka’s pallet. It was much nicer than a ‘pallet’ normally would be – just some linen over a bed of hay – the army General had a pillow and an additional quilted sheet over the hay and linen. It looked clean and particularly inviting after a night of trying to keep up with Pinkie Pie.

Not that Applejack had really even tried to keep up with Pinkie when it came to drinks. She liked living. But she had watched Pinkie’s endless cavalcade of drinking contests, and that was a kind of participation, right?

It wasn’t until the sound of stomping hooves woke her up that Applejack even realized she had fallen asleep. She rolled off the bed just in time to see a stern-faced blue Pegasus mare salute the seated General. “As you command it, Général de Brigade!”

Behind her slim, portable desk, Antonovka was once again putting her name to paper.

“What’s goin’ on?” Applejack managed to ask, looking between the two mares. “Did I miss anythin’?”

“Your friends have arrived,” Antonovka replied. The brigadier general finished signing some sort of order and then hoofed it over to her subordinate. “Excellent work, sous-lieutenant. You have your orders; you are dismissed.”

The Pegasus pony left without saying anything else, further leaving Applejack in the dark.

“What orders?” she asked and reached for a cup of tea Antonovka had on a stool nearby.

The army general merely snorted and sipped from a plain porcelain tea cup.

“What orders?” Applejack asked again.

“I got in one little party,

and Mommy Pie had a spill!

She said you’re moving in

with your Auntie and Uncle in Ponyville!”

“Hrm.”

Pinkie Pie crossed her forelegs in vexation, a sentiment rather undone by the fact that she was upside down and lying on a pile of empty cider steins with a rather prominent smile of cider foam on her cheeks. The first few rays of morning light were mute witness to her night-long drunken binge. How many pints of cider had she consumed? How many pretzels? How many vegetarian wings? Where had the pizza box come from? Had some poor pony delivered it all the way from Ponyville? Who knew?

“How little was this little party?” Her companion for the night was still seated, if not in the same spot, but close to where he had been before it all began. Lord Cruciger was not smiling – she had come to accept that he rarely did, even when he was mostly sort of happy – but he was what she assumed to be at ease. Only a slight droop to his eyes betrayed the fact that he had been up all night drinking, eating, and, for many hours, dancing. Yet he did not slump and his appetite seemed almost as bottomless as her own.

“Mostly little,” Pinkie told him, flailing her legs and making an angel in the empty mugs.

“And ‘mostly little’ is…?”

“Two hundred and sixteen. Two hundred and thirty including the police.”

“Ah.”

“I know!” Pinkie cried, rolling around in the cider mugs all around them like a happy canine in the grass. “Sure, the neighbors filed a few noise complaints, but they only live a mile away, so what was the big deal? It wasn’t like I didn’t invite them, either! They were just being big stinky, um, stinky, stinkers! Party poopers! That’s what!”

“Hrm.”

“Party poopers really grind my gears!” Pinkie informed the High Lord.

“…”

“They totally get under my skin, you know?”

“…”

“I was so~o~oo going to prank them, too, but as soon as the police ponies realized they didn’t have a jail for fillies and sent me home, Mommy Pie threw a bag at me and told me I had a new job away from the farm. I mean, I love Mister and Mrs Cake, but they’re not really my Auntie and Uncle! I think Mommy Pie just said it so it the sentence would rhyme or something. What’s up with that?”

“…”

“You know, Cruccie, you’re a great listener!”

“…”

“Bwaaah! Say something! You’re not dead are you? Oh my gosh!” With a yip, Pinkie jumped clear into the air and pronked over to the big bay stallion, violently shaking his shoulders. Or at least trying to. He budged about as much as a statue would. “Did you overdose on cider?” she cried, desperately. “Oh no! You did! You’re OD!”

He just stared back at her, slowing raising a single eyebrow.

“Okay! Okay! Don’t panic!” Pinkie told herself as she spun around wildly, in a total panic. “I need a huge syringe! Like in Pulp Friction! Quick! Somepony throw me a huge syringe!”

“Calm down.” A rather sizeable hoof pressed down on her head, forcing her into a seated position. “Hrm,” the stallion responsible grumbled, narrowing his eyes. “Come to think of it, since when did your mane turn all… puffy?”

“Oh oh!” Pinkie’s blue eyes rolled up as if to stare up through her skull at her own hair. Snapping out one hoof all the way over to a sleeping Rarity, she suddenly produced a needle, and, without pause, poked her own curly mane, deflating it like a balloon.

“Silly me!” she exclaimed, even as her hair settled around her shoulders with a wheeze. “Here’s a needle!”

“How…” Cruciger searched for a moment, trying to find the right word to describe the pony before him. “Odd.”

“Better odd than even!” Pinkie explained.

“Nonetheless, you have a remarkable constitution,” he said, lifting his hoof off her head like she was a filly half her actual size.

“You too!” Pinkie replied, bouncing a little in place. “Hey! Hey! How come you aren’t drunk, anyway? I mean, I’m me, so that explains that, but what about you?”

“Alcohol is a poison,” the great Duke explained, taking a moment to look out over the rest of the exhausted and sleeping guests at his table. “I cannot die, no matter how much of it I consume. Still, I do feel the effects. I feel them almost instantly any time I drink. The same would be true of any who activate Arsenic’s blood. This entire night, from the first drink to the last, I have been what most ponies would consider hung over.”

“Ooooooohhh!” Pinkie said, her mouth slowly going from an exaggerated ‘o’ to a big, giggly smile. “That’s why Monee gets drunk so~o~ooo easily!”

“She is less used to the sensation involved in being so intensely inebriated,” the rather lucid but supposedly drunk noblepony answered, snorting in displeasure.

“Oh! Oh! Next! Next can you explain how you made this?” Pinkie ducked her head into the sea of empty mugs around her hooves and retrieved the flattened pewter mug turned Frisbee. “I’ve been trying to do it, too, but it just hurts my hooves! Is it magic anypony can do, or do you need a unicorny-horn?”

“Ah. That.” Cruciger murmured, though it was a deep rumble of a sound. “Well--”

“My Lord!” a voice interrupted, heralding the appearance of a well-dressed and decidedly sober guard in Terre Rare crimson. He waded through the sleeping guests, overturned plates and empty steins.

“Speak,” Cruciger commanded, his attention quickly shifting from Pinkie to his guardpony.

“Intruders have approached the camp,” the guard reported with military efficiency. “They were captured before they could enter our airspace. Shall I present them to you or return them to their cells?”

The Duke of Germaney and Prance shifted some of his weight back to his haunches as he leaned back and considered the question. He pointedly ignored Pinkie bouncing in place on the periphery of his vision. He did notice, but put little stock in, when Pinkie Pie suddenly stopped bouncing and turned to stare at the guard. She went uncharacteristically silent.

“Who are these unexpected and uninvited guests?” another voice asked.

“Heya, Monee!” Pinkie spun again to face the new speaker, smiling widely. “Good morn~ing!” she sang.

“Good Morning, Pinkamena.”

“Pinkie! Pinkie! Not Pinkamena!”

“And I am Antimony, not Monee.” The youngest daughter of the Terre Rare family sat, rather deliberately, at her father’s right side with her usual grace. Her mane and coat were less than perfect, having only recently woken up and removed herself from where she had spent the night on the ground by the table, but she did not let it affect her air of superiority. “Now, guard, who are these intruders?”

The guard dipped his nose slightly in respect to the newly woken Lady.

“They are Lord Crescent Moon, the ‘Night Light’ of Canterlot, Lady Twilight Velvet, Archmage of the Third Circle, Lady Twilight Sparkle, Apprentice to Her Highness, the Princess, and Element of Harmony, and lastly, Lord Alpha Brass, Marquis of the Equestrian Reach.”

“My scheming son comes to me in the company of my rebellious cousins,” Cruciger mused aloud, his feelings toward them clear even without anypony seeing his deepening scowl. It was an expression of displeasure made even starker by the scars across the old stallion’s face. The silver and onyx that covered up his missing eye did not move, but the other eye contorted and crinkled.

Antimony shifted slightly, uncomfortably, next to her father.

“Bring them all before me,” Cruciger finally gave the order.

“As my Lord commands!” the guard hastily bowed and excused himself.

Antimony coughed politely into her hoof. “We should clear out the guests before--”

Cruciger’s horn glowed, and a sympathetic energy quickly spread, radiating from the bodies of a hundred ponies, and untold numbers of plates and mugs and utensils. One and all, plates and tables and ponies all lifted clear into the air. Pinkie threw up her hooves and did a little spin in the air, caught in the effect the same as everypony else, but Antimony cringed and tucked in her legs.

With one great sweep, like a giant brush repainting the entire setting, all the debris and detritus and much of the formerly sleeping pony population, all tumbled away and off to the side. Only a few ponies were left largely unaffected, and these, Cruciger allowed to fall back to earth close to where they had been swept up. One, he lowered gently to the ground at his left.

“Mhhm. Matrix C-thirty-four. Two inverted starswirl arrays. Yes, yes. I’m paying attention, Princess. Just because I’m asleep doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention,” Twinkling Star Light grumbled, rolling around and licking her lips. “Mmrrh.” She stirred again, reaching up to sleepily rub her horn. “This magic? This magic is… one-fifty. Two. Two-ten. Is that you, honey bear?”

“Our son is here, my star,” he whispered, moving to lean down and speak into her ear. “He brought the Sparkle girl with him.”

“Brass!” Twinkling Star Light’s eyes shot open only to narrow a second later as another detail came to the fore in her mind. “And the Sparkle girl…?”

“Aye.”

Twilight looked well rested, Rarity thought.

Her being well rested was a large part of the plan they had agreed to beforehoof, so it wasn’t like it came as a surprise, but it was heartening to see her alert and ready to go. Pinkie Pie had done just what they had planned and hoped for her to do: from where they stood, side by side, both Cruciger and Twinkling Star Light looked visibly tired from the night’s intense partying.

Ideally, they would be too tired to answer Twilight’s challenge, especially Cruciger, who had been up the entire night drinking. No sane pony would fight a duel after a night of playing keep-up with Pinkie Pie. No sane pony would want to do anything but curl up in bed and sleep once Pinkie’s endless energy wore them out. On the other hoof, once confronted, Cruciger would also be loath to back down, and would have to appoint another to fight on his behalf, an honor Antimony would volunteer for. It was a bit of an underhoofed trick, but it was the best scenario they could cook up.

It was all in Twilight and Antimony’s hooves, now, to take advantage of her work and Pinkie Pie’s.

Rarity had not seen how the area where so many officers and guests had sat down to feast had been cleared so quickly, but it had been hastily prepared to receive new arrivals. Rarity and her friends were allowed to sit in, both as related parties and as representatives from Ponyville. Pinkie Pie sat to Rarity’s left, nursing a steaming hot cup of coffee. With Applejack still missing somewhere, Rainbow Dash had taken her spot to Rarity’s right. Rainbow was not a chipper morning-pony on the best of days, and this was not the best of days. It was clearly a struggle for the bleary-eyed pegasus to stay awake.

A select few army officers present put on a much better front, lined up in a neat row. Together, they all made a wall that stretched out from Cruciger’s left, with that big stallion, his wife, and his youngest daughter, all sitting at the head. Despite being bereft of any great hall or other overawing architecture, with the ponies organized as they were and the morning sky broken by horned Terre Rare standards, it was actually rather intimidating. Made abundantly clear was that the noble family were entirely in charge and not to be challenged on their own ground, surrounded by their legion of guards.

An unexpected arrival occurred when a trio of masked unicorn mage-guards took up a position to Antimony’s right, opposite the line of non-family ponies. This space had been left completely and rather blatantly vacant. The masked guards began to channel magic in a ritual Rarity recognized from her own duel. The central mage guard lowered his head as the magic swirled around him, coalescing into a black and white image that then expanded in size to almost two times normal pony size. What took form in the possession spell was the image of a refined mare in her late twenties with a long mane of braided, wavy hair. She was also rather clearly pregnant. At least nine months, if Rarity had to hazard a guess.

“Transmission complete,” the mare announced, covering her mouth to forestall a small yawn. “Hello, mother, father. Good morning.”

“Jewel,” Antimony coolly greeted her older sister.

“Antimony,” Polished Jewel’s tone was equally frosty. She rested one of her hooves on the bulge of her stomach.

“How is the foal?” Antimony asked, a sliver of genuine interest in her voice.

“Heavy,” Jewel replied, “I feel like a beached whale.” She snorted, dismissing the topic with a haughty wave of her hoof. “Now then, what is all this about…?”

She trailed off, turning her projected head away from her mother and father towards the other side of the camp. A pair of guards there escorted four unicorns. All four wore bonded horn restraints but were otherwise unencumbered, their legs and necks free. Twilight Sparkle was the first and most easily recognized of the bunch, at least to her friends, but Rarity knew the pair of older ponies had to be her parents. The last unicorn did not quite belong, a stallion with a golden coat and a short, flowing mane in a similar but darker color. A herald announced them in a more formal fashion, by order of precedence: Brass, as the Marquis, and thus second only to Equestria’s Dukes, then Crescent Moon, then Twilight Velvet, and lastly, Twilight Sparkle.

Applejack raced up from behind them, quick to find a seat close to Rarity, Pinkie, and Dash. Rarity shot a quick look her way, wanting to know where she had disappeared to and why she was arriving with Twilight’s group. The two of them – her group and Twilight’s – should not have mixed at all before the matter of succession was finalized and the Equestrian Girls had control of the Terre Rare. But there was no time to exchange whispers with the apple farmer.

It was starting, the confrontation they had all waited for… that so much hinged on.

“By my will, you may speak,” Cruciger commanded, after a suitably long silence. It was just long enough to ensure that everypony knew who was in charge – it was tradition, among nobility, that lesser only speak after their superiors. For the time being, that was a mandate enforced not just by Cruciger himself, but by the army he bore with him.

Next to Alpha Brass, who Rarity had almost expected to speak up, Twilight Sparkle sucked in a deep breath and stepped forward. The Marquis dipped his head slightly in deference, letting her take the lead. Rarity nodded. Good. That was good.

“Lord Cruciger,” Twilight began, holding her head high and stretching out her tail behind her in a show of strength and proper noble poise. “My family comes before you to offer one last chance to recognize my father, Crescent Moon, as the legitimate head of the Kamacite-descended Terre Rare. I respectfully ask that you reconsider this request!”

It was such a simple thing, or so Rarity thought.

It was such a little, simple thing these ponies were so willing to fight over. As everypony present held their breath, waiting for the rejection they all knew to be on Cruciger’s lips, Rarity slowly shook her head. It was honor. Honor. Honor. Honor. She understood that now. More than anything, it was a concept she had been forced to learn since her engagement with Blueblood – since the Gala, even before that. Cruciger would not change his mind, not after a public request like this. He would not lose face. He would die first. Why? Because of ‘honor.’

Honor, Rarity had learned, was nothing like she had imagined as a filly. It could be a wonderful thing, inspiring ponies to great deeds, or it could be a terrible force, driving ponies to cruelty and zealotry. It could preserve harmony or stand as an implacable wall against it. For all that the world needed it when it was good, it bled for it when it became bad, and the line between the two could be hard to see.

Honor.

Antimony had thought it honorable to impose herself on Blueblood and snuff out Rarity’s own courtly dreams. She could no more back down than she could cut off her own horn. She could no more forsake the path her family and her honor set her on than she could allow herself to cheat in their duel. What dark thoughts and intentions had festered in Antimony’s heart of hearts, all borne on the ill wind of honor – an honor, without which, she felt herself purposeless and her life meaningless?

Rarity thought of Yumi. The Neighponese mare had come to Canterlot to woo Blueblood, to be the first earth pony Duchess of Canterlot and to wear the Crown of Unicorns. For what? She had not met Blueblood before. He did not know her. Rarity knew that she and Yumi were alike in that respect. Before the Gala, she had never met Blueblood either, only pined for him from afar, but where she wanted love, Yumi felt the need to bring honor to the earth pony race and do what none had done before her. In her heart, she wanted to be recognized, not just in Neighpon, but in Equestria as a whole. Her honor and her drive had nearly killed her, and thanks to changeling interference, was on the verge of causing a war.

Rainbow Dash had talked much about Ritterkreuz, after the Art Festival, and why the marehunt for her should be called off. She had described the duels, the hiding, and Fluttershy had soon come forward to explain yet more. There was a twisted honor there, too. Blueblood had shared his past with the pegasus. She had come to Ponyville to fight, to see him in the care of a mare who would not harm him, and to die in a fitting way. As if there was a ‘fitting way’ to die that did not harm those who cared for you. And there assuredly had been ponies who cared for the madmare, despite it all.

And what of her own honor as Ponyville’s Baroness?

Rarity wondered about that. It was a position given to her simply to legitimize her relationship with another pony. It was hard-won from her duel with Antimony and born of her spoken desire for it, but what had she done with her political power? She had borrowed and schemed, making promises and financing construction backed by bits that weren’t hers. For a mage tower. For a festival. For Ponyville’s weather. If she became Duchess, she expected to make good on her debts. If not, she expected it to crush her, financially, and possibly take the town down in the process. She had gone behind her friends’ backs. She had made secret deals to protect Sweet Apple Acres… deals she knew she only really risked making because Applejack was a close, personal friend of hers. Were she an ordinary citizen, reading this laundry list of her Baroness’s selfish deeds, what would she think?

For her honor, for the generosity and – yes – the pride that defined her, she had risked everything.

Just as, now, everypony knew what Cruciger’s response would be to Twilight Sparkle’s public plea. Everypony knew the response he was expected to make. Everypony knew what his honor would demand of him, whether he liked it or not.

“Nay.” The Black Duke did not thunder the word. He merely spoke it, dutifully and thanklessly hammering it in place like a nail in a coffin. “You will submit to me, Twilight Sparkle.” His good eye narrowed, drawing up his right lip into a sneer. “I am family head. I am Arsenic’s heir and Bismuth’s heir. I do not negotiate. I only need speak… and it is done.”

Twilight’s chest rose and fell as heard just what she expected to hear.

“Then words will not solve things,” Twilight said, announcing it to all present. She turned, holding out her hoof, and her mother came forward with a simple blue and black cloth between her teeth. None of them would be capable of magic with their horns suppressed. Twilight took the cloth and held it up for all to see. It bore the eight-pointed, asymmetrical star of her family.

Bringing the heraldic shield to her lips, she kissed it and threw it to the ground in front of Duke Cruciger.

“I am to marry your son and take your family,” she declared, tossing back her purple mane with a haughty disdain Rarity had never seen in her Canterlot-born and Canterlot-bred friend. “I will tear down your standards or adopt them for my own. Your armies will serve me, and I will appoint whomever I wish to head Kamacite’s line.”

The three most important ponies of the main branch listened from where they sat, side by side. Antimony, having expected to hear this, remained impassive and expressionless, save for her usual half-lidded stare. Duke Cruciger’s scowl was as deep as ever, the ugly scar on his face making for an even uglier glower. Twinkling Star Light… well, she was writing something down on a piece of paper and not really paying much attention.

“You consent to this, brother?” Antimony finally asked.

“I will preserve peace and promote strength,” Alpha Brass replied, neither smiling nor frowning. He appeared only alert and interested but not otherwise emotionally invested. “Is that not the Terre Rare way? Is that not what Arsenic, herself, would want?”

“Peace flows from strength,” Cruciger agreed with his son, at least in part. “Yes, this is the will of Our Great Mother. The Terre Rare are the strongest of all the world’s unicorns. Merit and Strength go hoof in hoof.” Cruciger’s neck tensed, and even from a distance, Rarity could see the muscle there. The old stallion was like chiseled rock. “You believe yourself stronger than me, Twilight Sparkle? More fit to rule?”

“I don’t know how fit I am to rule,” Twilight admitted, head still held high. “But I am the strongest unicorn here.”

Cruciger’s response was not in words.

His horn began to glow, and Rarity felt his magic – his suffocating ocean of magic – begin to spread across the cleared camp. She blinked and, for a moment, felt as if she were drowning in it. Her lungs seized up, and she nearly flailed her legs to try and swim up for air. Her entire body felt heavy, as if a great pressure was bearing down on it.

‘B-by the Princess… I can see it in the air!’ Rarity’s vision became like a hazy mirage. It was like being dunked underwater and trying to make out shapes in the gloom. ‘I can actually see it as if I was a fly on his horn. As we all in his star field? What kind of a monster is he?’

Then, a heartbeat later, it was gone. It left, in its wake, a dozen ponies struggling to catch their breath. Even Applejack and Rainbow Dash had clearly felt it. Dash’s wings were shivering involuntarily, and Applejack had one hoof on the top of her hat, her green eyes wide, their pupils dilated. Of the three ponies seated closest to the three heads of the Terre Rare hydra, one – a unicorn mare – had actually collapsed. The pony next to her was quick to prop his comrade up before she attracted the ire of their liege lord.

“Ohh! That’s how he did it!” Pinkie blurted out, and Rarity had to quickly hush her.

Twilight still stood, however, defiant and unbowed.

“Remove this restraint and answer the challenge,” she demanded, though her voice seemed a little strained.

When Cruciger replied, it sent a chill down Rarity’s spin, enough to make her tail stand on end.

“You will serve as an example to the other branches of the price of defiance.” He had yet to raise his voice, but still everypony heard him, his words cold and hard as iron, and tinged with malice. This was no threat. This was merely a warning and a statement of fact: unflinching and absolute. “Do not think yourself untouchable because of your association with the Princess. Do not think to make demands of me because you are an Element of Harmony. I can leave you with your life and your friendship and still show you suffering.”

“Father,” Antimony spoke up, as soon as he finished.

His one baleful eye turned her way.

“Allow me to answer this challenge,” the Baroness requested, turning her whole body slightly to allow her to politely and deferentially face her sire without craning or twisting her neck. “I am the family successor. Let me demonstrate that the future of the family, this generation or the next, is in the hooves of Bismuth’s heirs.”

Rarity felt herself lean forward, ears alert. Twilight pawed the ground beneath her convincingly, not betraying that this was just what she had expected to hear. Next to her father, Antimony lowered her head another inch or two, waiting for his response with baited breath.

Cruciger’s hoof lovingly touched her shoulder.

And, a moment later, Antimony was flat on the ground. She gasped, barely keeping her nose from digging into the dirt. Front legs straining, she struggled against some sort of invisible force. Cruciger’s hoof wasn’t even touching her anymore, yet still she struggled. Rarity knew Antimony’s physical strength first-hoof. She was no frail noblemare. What on Equestria was happening?

“You failed in Ponyville to defeat one Element of Harmony, yet you ask me to trust you to deal with the most powerful of them?” Cruciger snarled, and when he withdrew his hoof Antimony sprang back up, a wild look in her strange scarlet eyes.

“F-father!” she pleaded, but he was mute to her protestations.

The projected image of Polished Jewel snickered cruelly at her sister’s misfortune.

“Do you have thoughts, daughter?” Cruciger asked, and his eye turned on the mage guards and Jewel’s projection.

“N-not as such, father!” the pregnant mare, though hundreds of miles distant, answered hastily and a little frightfully… as if he could somehow reach across space and do the same to her on a whim, regardless of her delicate condition.

“O-only…” Polished Jewel dared to mutter, forcing herself to say just a little bit more. “At least… this challenge is brought by our brother’s intended… Brass, you two are…? You both mean to--”

“The arrangements have been made,” the Marquis replied, slowly trotting up to stand by Twilight Sparkle’s side. “The Dower and Dowery are set and the contracts signed. We are to wed. This mare is my bride, and I do believe her to be worthy of ruling the Terre Rare. Her strength is known, as is her connection to harmony. She sounds like the very ideal Lady Arsenic believed in.”

“Thank you,” Twilight replied, and in front of everypony, she stepped closer to him and looped a front leg around his, protectively, and most importantly, possessively. Rarity saw how the gesture immediately sent a ripple of interest through the assembled army officers.

A little mare in her head pumped a hoof in triumph. ‘Smart move, Twilight! You show them! Nopony can doubt the claim now!’

“I will--”

“W-wait,” Antimony protested, interrupting her father. “Please, let me…”

“Again, I have to discipline you,” Cruciger growled, and held out his hoof. For a second time, Antimony was pressed down into the ground. She fought it, gritting her teeth, even as a depression began to form in the earth around her, cracks spreading from beneath her hooves.

“Honey bear, stop crushing her already.”

The pressure instantly eased, and Cruciger turned on his wife. “Twinkie…”

“Twinkie,” Pinkie repeated the name with a stupidly broad grin.

“So much drama,” Twinkling Star Light said, raising her voice and looking up from her notes. “I can’t get any work done!” She winked her left eye and the papers and quills vanished without a trace. There wasn’t even any visible magic, the casting speed had been so fast. “Don’t you realize how annoying that is? Plus, you’re upsetting my little bear after he’s been up all night. And you, Antimony, you should know not to pester your father like that! What are you, twelve? Both of you need a little time out, I think!”

Twinkling Star Light sighed, and her horn finally glowed, for just a blink of an eye.

With four snaps, all four horn restraints fell from the foreheads of the Sparkle family and Alpha Brass. Rarity dug her hooves into the ground at the display. This wasn’t part of the plan. This wasn’t part of the plan at all! She noticed Twilight also glance her way, pretty clearly confused and looking for some sort of clue what to do or say next.

‘I don’t know!’ Rarity almost wanted to yell. But she couldn’t, so she tried to get the message across with just her eyes. ‘Improvise!’

“This isn’t good,” Alpha Brass said, breaking the silence that followed the four horn restraints hitting the ground. “Mother, don’t tell me you…”

Star Light faced her husband, the sitting Duke towering over his wife. “What do you say, honey bear?”

“As if any mare could match you,” he rumbled. “All right. Let it be done.”

“Umm,” Twilight interrupted, inquisitively raising her hoof. “What…? What’s…?”

“We’ll settle this with a dual-duel!” Twinkling Star Light announced, cheerfully throwing her hooves up into the air. “The strongest couple should rule the strongest family in the world. It has a nice, cosmic symmetry! Don’t you think?” She pumped a hoof in the direction of Twilight and her scheming son. “And then we can have breakfast!”

“Hmm!” Pinkie mused, a hoof kneading her chin. “That reminds me! I forgot to tell you, Rarity! Cruccie said he and Twinkie were the ‘Equestria’s Strongest Couple.’ What do you think that means?”

Rarity groaned and buried her face in her hooves.

Couldn’t anything ever just work out like it was supposed to?

“A dual-duel?” Rarity asked, once she finally had Twilight alone with her friends for a moment. “Have you even heard of such a thing before?”

Twilight Sparkle stretched out her legs, rolling her shoulders and twisting her torso. “I read about it once.”

“Sounds simple enough.” Applejack still appeared a little frazzled by Cruciger expanding his star field across half the army camp. Her mane was badly in need of a new brushing, too, though that may just have been due to wherever she had slept the night of the party. “Two versus two, right?”

“Make it a cage match!” Pinkie was, of course, her usual self. She bounced up and down in place, occasionally darting in to help Twilight stretch for her duel. “Oh! Oh! You could call it ‘Hell in a Cell’ and end it by jumping ALLLLL the way down on somepony!” She stomped her hooves onto the ground with a giggle.

“That. Sounds. Awesome.” Dash joined in with a squee. “Do it! Do it!”

Twilight stared at her two friends as if they’d grown a pair of extra, and frankly unfashionable, heads.

“No,” she answered, simply, and went back to working the kinks out of her neck.

“Awww!” “Awww!”

“Anyway, a dual-duel just means that of the two couples who enter, but only one has to come out for that team to win. Sort of like a magical duel, but with fewer rules,” Twilight explained and sighed. “A lot fewer rules, since we’re using a Brand-enburg style dueling. Even lethal attacks aren’t disallowed. The goal is simply to come up with a spell or series of spells that the other unicorn or unicorns can’t counter and make them submit.”

“And you’re going in with this Brass guy?” Dash asked and teasingly bopped Twilight on the flank. “And why is this the first we’re hearing about you and this stallion, huhhh?”

Pinkie nodded in agreement. “I always thought she’d bring a book to life and challenge Equestrian marriage laws regarding civil unions.”

“We’ve only been engaged for a few… a couple… weeks,” Twilight admitted, sitting down and twiddling her hooves anxiously. “I’m still sort of wrapping my head around it myself!” Her cheeks blushed beet-red and her tongue tied into a workable replica of a gordian knot. “I-I know I’ll want all you girls there with me, to be my bridesmaids, but… but it was just… just… hard to… and…”

“Woah, there, sugarcube. It ain’t like ya haven’t dropped hints.” Applejack said but kept to herself the fact that she did know about the engagement. She could see how there hadn’t been much opportunity to bring it up lately, besides which, it hadn’t really been one hundred percent finalized until today.

“Oh!” Pinkie gasped, clonking herself on the side of the head. “Was that what you were talking about back then?”

“You should’ve totally gone pegasus,” Dash remarked, spreading her wings and gesturing with her hooves. “What’s sexier than wings? Nothing. The answer is nothing. Wings are, like, pure sexiness!”

“I’d rather not have to preen myself or somepony else every week,” Twilight countered.

Dash’s wings slowly deflated. “W-w-well… you, uh… Whatever!”

“Horns are the best,” Twilight insisted, turning to Rarity for some support. “Isn’t that right, Rarity? What do you think?”

“I don’t think we should be…”

“You’re asking her?” Dash groaned. “Of course she’ll agree! She’s a unicorn with a unicorn coltfriend with a HUGE honking horn!”

“That has nothing to do with anything,” Rarity snapped, finally drawn into the conversation despite her attempts to the contrary. “If you must know… Wait! Why am I even…? Look! This isn’t about what tribe of ponies has the most attractive features!”

“Hooves.”

Every one of the mares present turned to stare at Applejack.

“Hooves,” she repeated, holding hers up for emphasis. “I like hooves. And earth ponies have the best hooves, so there.”

Pinkie just giggled, snorted, and fell bodily over onto her side.

“Hooves, really?” Rarity asked, intrigued only to vigorously shake her head a second later. “No! Now is not the time! Twilight, more important than this fine stallion’s looks, will he be a liability in this duel? Pinkie has told us that Lord Cruciger and Lady Star Light have been called ‘Equestria’s Strongest Couple.’ Both of them have not a single loss to their name. Our plan had been to avoid a fight if possible, and if not possible, only fight Lord Cruciger…”

“I know, Rarity.” Twilight took a deep breath and slowly looked around her circle of close marefriends. “But you don’t need to worry. Except for maybe my brother or father, Alpha Brass is the best stallion I can think of to fight alongside. I don’t… I don’t even know how to explain it, but…” She started to twiddle her hooves again, eyes falling to the floor. “When I’m around him, I feel like I can do anything. I… I even feel comfortable with him. We don’t even talk about being married. We’re… friends, I think. Different gendered friends.”

“Different gendered friends,” Dash repeated with a chuckle. “Oh, Twilight… only you.”

“And what does that mean?” said unicorn asked with a pout.

“Nothing!” Rainbow Dash assured her, waving her hooves in a conciliatory manner. “Nothing much. Except… this means that the only pony here without a coltfriend is…” She inclined her head towards a certain cowpony.

“You’ll have’ta forgive Fluttershy an’ me fer being so darn single,” Applejack replied, drolly. “Sugarcube,” she said to Twilight, ignoring Dash for the time being, “it sounds like ya got something special there. We’re all happy for ya. But Rarity’s right, Ah guess, and the important thing is that ya can fight alongside this fella. If ya say ya can, then that’s that, right? Yer really ready for this?”

Twilight Sparkle nodded, smiling warmly at all her friends. “I feel as ready as I could be, and best of all, I’ll have all of you out there, cheering me on.”

“Of course!” Rarity agreed.

“You betcha!” Applejack chimed in.

“You can do it, Twilight!” Dash cheered, pumping a hoof. “Use your killer bookworm powers!”

“I was gonna say that!” Pinkie cried. “I know you’ll do great, Twilight!”

“Thanks, everypony.” She took another deep breath and glanced back, past the ranks of guardponies, over to where a dueling ground was being prepared away from the camp and not far from the lakeside. “Any last bits of advice?” she asked, wiping a bit of sweat from beneath her horn.

“Look after yourself,” Rarity answered first. “I’m sure you can win in an endurance duel with most anypony, darling. I’ve never ceased to be amazed by your magic.”

“Hit him hard and fast!” Rainbow Dash advised, swinging her hooves like a prizefighter. “There’s no better advantage than speed! And don’t hesitate if you see an opening! Just go for it!”

“Ah don’t know how much good advice I have when it comes’ta fights,” Applejack admitted, rubbing behind her neck, the ponytail of her mane bouncing gently. “Ah guess I’d just say: try ta keep an eye open and not get overwhelmed. These ponies ain’t no joke. Ah don’t even know how that big fella is still standing after last night.”

“What about you, Pinkie Pie?” Twilight asked, facing the only one of her friends to remain silent.

“Hmmm!” Pinkie pondered, forelegs crossed and tail twitching back and forth behind her. “Beware falling objects.”

“Huh?”

“And if it gets hard to breathe, try being somepony else!”

“What does that mean?” Applejack asked, shaking her head.

“Don’t you mean ‘try being somewhere else?’” Dash corrected her friend. “Come on, Pinkie!”

Pinkie Pie lowered her legs to the floor, staring at Twilight directly. “You really will have to be careful, Twilight. Cruccie isn’t a nice pony. He’s nice to me, but I remind him of his wife, ‘cause I’m silly!” She boggled her eyes for emphasis. “But he won’t care if he hurts you,” she explained, instantly turning serious again, like an on/off switch. “Don’t hold anything back, or he’ll beat you.”

“Is that what your Pinkie sense tells you?” Dash asked, not making light of her friend’s analysis, but genuinely curious.

Pinkie Pie shook her head. “No. That’s what spending the night with him, drinking and listening to him, tells me. He’ll crush anypony and anything that challenges him.”

“Lady Sparkle?” a guard called to the group of mares. A pegasus stallion, dressed like a hussar. “It is time. Will you come with me, please?”

Twilight gulped, marshaled her courage, and turned to follow. There wasn’t even time to meet up with her parents again. They’d be at the battlefield, waiting. She was sure of it.

It was time.

Twinkling Star Light.

Duchess. Researcher. Mother.

One half of Equestria’s Strongest Couple.

Twilight tried to appraise her opponent… an opponent she had not planned for and whose capabilities were entirely unknown. Not only had Alpha Brass neglected to mention having to fight his mother, when she had done her earlier preliminary research into the main-line Bismuth descended branch of her family, there had been absolutely nothing about Duchess Twinkling Star Light’s dueling style. Except that, like Duke Cruciger, she was undefeated by any pony on public record. Given that there were only four official duels to her name, that particular fact wasn’t all that extraordinary, but now – on the field of battle itself – it began to seem rather ominous. Lady Star Light had won all her fights without killing, at least. Unlike her husband.

All the other details and factors were unknown.

Which begged the question of how a pony engaged in four duels – much less won them – without anypony knowing anything about how she did it. There was always some sort of gossip that got recorded somewhere. Dwelling on it as she trotted up to her designated spot in the cleared dueling field, Twilight could only come to one conclusion: caution. By all accounts, Twinkling Star Light was not a unicorn duelist, but every inch of her radiated confidence and a sort of power that only came from experience fighting… somethings, if not someponies.

Lady Star Light, on a first superficial glance, reminded Twilight a little of her own mother, Twilight Velvet. She had the same sort of near-alabaster white coat, well groomed and cared for, and a mature but still beautiful face that belied her age. She was a bit taller than Twilight Velvet (or Twilight Sparkle for that matter) entirely due to slightly longer legs. Twilight paced anxiously, but her opponent merely stared at her with calm violet eyes.

Both mares tried to tune out the father and son confrontation beginning not far away, closer to the shore of the lake.

“I understand your magical abilities are praiseworthy,” Star Light said, breaking the silence between mares and stretching her legs out with a few experimental kicks and crouches.

“Your son holds you in the highest esteem,” Twilight returned the compliment, rolling her head on her shoulders with the occasional pop and crack.

The Duchess smiled, amiably, like a mother would at her son’s kind words. “He’s a good boy. Well,” she amended, with a tilt of her head. “I did teach him to be a good boy, so he at least knows what to say and do to play the part.”

Both mares experimentally cycled magic through the horns, light blue and soft magenta-red playing across and briefly highlighting their faces.

“Before we do this,” Twilight said, though it was clear the older mare had more to say about raising and training her only son. “I need to know something.” She gritted her teeth and took a bold step forward. “You let him marry Lady Olive Branch?”

Star Light didn’t see the question. “I did.”

“Did you know how much he suffered because of it?” Twilight asked, hotly. “Did you know what kind of pony she was? Did you even look into her beyond just her title?”

Lady Star Light blinked and tilted her head again, like a confused deer caught in a bright light. “By reputation, Lady Olive Branch had a strong predilection for much younger colts and for shameless libertine values. This worked out in our favor. Alpha Brass was chosen by her in part because of his age. She insisted on a young colt for her next husband. He agreed to the match as well, and, now, our family controls the entire Equestrian border and frontier. They never conceived, which is strange, but I don’t understand the problem.”

“Brass doesn’t either! He doesn’t blame you at all!” Twilight replied and set her hooves a good distance from the other mare. She calculated the distance in her mind: thirty paces. “Which is one of the things we disagree on! What kind of mother sends her son off, selling him to a stranger like a bag of apples?”

Twinkling Star Light still had her head tilted, and her only response was a shrug.

Which just further irritated the Element of Magic.

“I guess saying that makes me sort of a hypocrite,” Twilight went on to explain. “Since I’ve already agreed to marry one of my own foals off even before they’re born… but when I walk my son or daughter down the aisle, I’m going to be damn sure they aren’t making a mistake! I’ll be sure they’re marrying somepony who will treat them right! Somepony they can love and somepony who will love them back!”

Twinkling Star Light narrowed her eyes, betraying a hint of vexation.

“Nopony can be sure of things like that,” she replied, dismissively. “The best a mother can do is to prepare her children for the world. My son has thrived, despite whatever adversity he encountered in Olive Branch’s company. But I think we’ve chatted enough about that, Twilight Sparkle. If you have more to say, you can say it while showing me what a Princess’ apprentice can do these days.”

A ripple passed through her long, feminine horn.

“Instruction number one,” Star Light said, and her eyes flashed white. “Concord’s Commendable Celestial Canvas: Living Stars. And Spectral Summoning Supreme Secret: Horsehead Nebula.”

Twilight reared in surprise and shock as very world around her twisted and warped, exploding into stars and multicolored swirls. “D-double spellcasting?”

She all but vanished into the emerging clouds, summoned out of thin air, rising and thundering hundreds of hooves up into the air. Up close, it was like a wall of endlessly churning pink and red, glittering with a pale inner light. Visible in full from far away, even in Ponyville, the column of strange matter peaked, creating a gigantic pony’s head and a pair of legs that cupped together at the base.

‘Is this really… the Horsehead Nebula?’ Twilight instinctively covered her mouth and spun around, trying to get her orientation straight in the strange stellar mass. ‘That was a four alliteration spell, plus a subsidiary casting! And she did it twice!! Two four-alliteration spells at the same time?! How in Tartarus can she do that?!’

Twilight smacked herself in the forehead with a hoof.

This was Twinkling Star Light. Brass had said that his mother was a powerful unicorn and an arcanist without peer. Of course she would have some potent magical abilities! Twilight tried to think rationally. This also explained why nopony knew Twinkling Star Light’s capabilities. She literally blanketed the battlefield, and inside or out, it was nearly impossible to see anything. It stung just to keep her eyes open. She didn’t dare breathe in whatever otherworldly gasses made up the summoned nebula until she knew it was safe.

‘First, I need to be able to breathe and see!’ Twilight concentrated and felt a magical barrier form inside her mouth and then expand outward, carefully, pushing away the nebular glasses. It was important to only form the barrier from a point where she knew the air was uncontaminated. Just like with Yumi’s pollen storm.

The eyes were trickier. It was already in her eyes.

Ducking her head and quickly scooping two hoof-fulls of dirt right into her face, she patted it down and then cast another spell to transmogrify it. Then another transmogrification, immediately after, without dropping the initial star field. Two flashes of light later and she had a pair of fairly functional goggles over her eyes.

“If you want to be my daughter-in-law, much less lead our family,” Star Light’s voice seemed to echo throughout the nebula. “I’d suggest you start running.”

Twilight felt a fading pinprick on her neck and a sensation of brightness tickling the crown of her head, like somepony shining a bright lamp overhead. She glanced upward, and noticed one of the innumerable little stars scattered throughout the nebula. It was pulsing. Pulsing and growing.

That couldn’t be a good sign.

“Run?” Twilight yelled into the hazy stellar cloud around her. “That’s a problem! I’m not great at running.”

A pulse of reddish-purple light – her first offensive spell – tried to clear the nebula around her. She hadn’t really expected it to work, but it was worth a try. Her shield spells were far above average for a unicorn, but the strange haze of the nebula passed right through the otherwise impermeable barrier. The pulsing light, meanwhile, had grown into a flickering ball of magic and light the size of a carriage… even as it accelerated and fell, like a meteor.

Twilight’s horn erupted in magenta fire as she braced her hooves and telekinetically sunk her magic into the ground – deep – deeper – deeper! Like a giant ice-cream scooper, like a titan-sized shovel, she uprooted enough soil and rock and foundation to build a basement. The huge chunk of earth spun lazily as it tumbled in her magical grip, hurled up and into the falling ‘star.’ Twilight felt the object rip and burn through her star field and into the mass of dirt.

A blast of light and fire sputtered out from the back end.

‘It penetrated four pony-lengths of solid ground!’ She dodged to the side and away from the collapsing mount of charred earth. ‘What the heck was that?’

It was time to try something to keep the other mare off balance.

Berkelium's Blinding Beam.

Magenta energy coalesced at the tip of Twilight’s horn, even as her eyes searched for Star Light in the gaseous soup of her nebula cloud. Compartmentalizing one spell, she cast a second one. A basic ‘darkvision’ spell. It wasn’t very advanced, but it was exponentially harder to cast multiple spells at once than it was to cast single spells. Even the most advanced unicorns could rarely manage more than two or three simple parallel or compartmentalized spellcasts. Double-casting double alliteration spells wasn’t routine, but it was doable. Double-casting four alliteration spells… that shouldn’t have been possible.

Twilight’s eyes shifted to grayscale. Even her pupils themselves turned gray, reflecting the spell’s effects. The haze of red and pink and black became whites and grays of varying shades. Still, there was no sign of the other mare, or even of Cruciger and Alpha Brass. Not only did she have to identify her target, now, with the two stallions fairly close by, but she had to be sure it was who she wanted to hit. Darkvision wasn’t working. It just wasn’t enough.

A small, fast shape shot towards her from behind, forcing her to jump out of the way.

“You sensed that coming somehow,” Star Light mused, safe and out of sight. “I wonder how?”

‘Brass warned me she was smart,’ Twilight reminded herself and almost dropped the spell that had just saved her from being tagged. ‘She’ll figure it out sooner or later… but next, if I had to guess, she’ll drop another one of those stars on me, and then use the distraction to attack.’

Switching from Darkvision to a more advanced Cat’s Eye spell, Twilight still couldn’t discern the location of the other mare… or anypony else. Trotting quickly, she tried to cover more ground in her search. Overhead, another one of the twinkling stars abruptly swelled. Twilight watched it carefully this time, even as she picked up her pace, circling to what she had thought would be the edge of the cloud… except it wasn’t. Either the nebula was following her, wherever she went, or was much larger than she had thought.

‘She isn’t anywhere near the star when it swells,’ Twilight realized, analyzing the magic before her. ‘She’s triggering the effect remotely, somehow.’

One eye on the new threat, she tensed and jumped as another, smaller, one blasted through the air, almost hitting her on the flank. She threw herself bodily to the side, narrowly avoiding the small projectile. It looked almost like a… needle? Twilight stumbled on her front hooves, and finally had to teleport to avoid a second projectile that very nearly tagged her on the nose. She reappeared almost exactly where she had been.

Cursing inwardly, she sent out another pulse to blast away the nebula.

The descending star loomed above her, and left with little other choice, Twilight set her hooves, took aim, and unleashed the Blinding Beam she had kept on her horn-tip. A twisting, uncoiling lance of solid amaranthine magic erupted from her horn with the fury of a volcano, the recoil from it violently kicking up dirt beneath her hooves. It hit the falling star off-center, just like she’d planned for it to. Her earlier experiment had determined that the ‘star’ possessed mass. Which meant it could be deflected if it wasn’t destroyed outright.

Trotting quickly, Twilight felt another pair of small projectiles rip through her nearly transparent barrier. Needles! It was just like she thought. But deflecting the star was a lot easier than stopping it and it meant she still had the time and opportunity to avoid the inevitable opportunity attacks. The star burned hot and bright – almost blinding itself – as it fell a half dozen hooves away, ripping into the ground and splashing like water an instant before transitioning into burning gas.

It was all Twilight needed to see. She teleported.

And teleported.

And pulsed, and teleported, and pulsed, and teleported and pulsed.

“That’s quite clever,” Star Light said, and Twilight landed within sight of the older mare. She was happily but demurely stamping her hooves in applause and approval. “I had just figured it out, too! Which implies that you doing this meant you figured out that I had just figured it out!”

Twinkling Star Light nodded. “Using a combined barrier and transparency spell, first to hide that barrier, then to use it as another set of eyes? Very clever! You felt it every time I attacked you. But how did you know that I knew? Was it before or after you used it a second time?”

“You forced me to teleport and reapply the barrier,” Twilight explained, feeling little need not to reply. Besides, it was sort of exciting to face somepony this smart. It just felt right to talk about it, now that the cat was out of the bag. She grinned and chuckled, a little like a student arguing with a professor. “I was really hoping to find you without it! But I couldn’t! This cloud is really strange! What is it, really?”

She didn’t need to explain how, once she was sure the secret of her invisible sensory-shield had been figured out, she threw all caution to the wind. Teleporting randomly, she had pulsed her shield spell, over and over, hoping to get lucky. After a couple jumps, she had found a hit.

“The Horsehead Nebula is the highest-form of intermediate celestial summoning,” Twinkling explained, returning the dueling gesture that was the mid-fight verbal spar. “You can’t expect it to behave like a normal cloud, or like anything found naturally on Equestria.”

“I have a hypothesis about those falling stars, too!” Twilight said, “Do – do you mind if…?”

“Go ahead,” the Duchess insisted, bowing gracefully.

“Thanks!” Twilight all but cheered. This was fun! Well, it was also deciding the fate of her entire family… but it was sort of fun, too! “You’re remotely activating those stars, but I couldn’t detect any of your ambient or projected star field around them using Ingenuous Inference. So what causes the stars to swell in size like that? And where is the magic coming from?”

Star Light listened intently.

“I bet,” Twilight finished with an excited stomp of her hoof. “I bet the stars themselves are discrete magical constructs. You populated the nebula with them when you summoned it – though I’d really love to see you do it again, to be sure – and, once in place, all you need to do is unshackle them. So basically, I can’t detect a surge in your star field, because you’re using tiny amounts of it to hold the stars back, not to trigger them. When you do unshackle one of the stars, it absorbs the magical gasses of the nebula, increasing in mass and intensity!”

Twinkling Star Light’s smile grew at the explanation. She pointed at the younger mare.

“An excellent analysis!” she declared. “You are almost entirely correct!”

“Almost?” Twilight asked, ears folding back and dejected.

“Your only mistake was in your classification of the stars around us as magical constructs, but the comparison was almost spot-on.” Star Light shook a hoof in the air, as if to wave off and excuse the small error. “Really, you’re assuming this is something I use in duels, but it isn’t. I usually only summon this place to do research. Even the ‘stars’ are mostly for experiments. Using all this in a fight is completely secondary… but you were able to figure all this out while in a fight. That’s very impressive! I’m happy my son allied himself with a smart filly like yourself.”

Twilight felt a blush color her cheeks at the praise. “Oh, it’s nothing! Just keeping my eyes open!” she insisted with a laugh. “I never expected anypony to have magic like this!”

“And I never expected anypony to find out so much about my magic in so short a time!” Twinkling and Twilight laughed together. “I think I would approve of you as a daughter in law,” the older mare decided, but her brow drew down into a scowl. “That does not mean I will give you the family reins, however. Why don’t you give up, and we can go have some tea with Lady Velvet?”

“I can’t do that,” Twilight replied with a frown of her own.

“I’m sure I can talk my husband into guaranteeing you control over the Canterlot branch of the family.” Star Light sighed, softly. “All you have to do is remain true to the Bismuth line, as all branch family members must be.”

“Or you and your husband could bow out and peacefully hand over the reins to Alpha Brass and myself,” Twilight suggested, sensing the other mare really didn’t want to fight any more than she herself did.

“How silly,” Twinkling interrupted before Twilight could say more. “A moon orbits a planet, not the other way around. Branch families should know their place. And I’ve warned my son repeatedly about poking his adorable little nose into the family succession.”

“Is that so wrong?” Twilight asked. “So what if we…? What’s so wrong with letting us lead the family? Brass said you would support him!”

“He did, did he? Well! That is that, and this is this, and that isn’t necessarily this, or maybe it is,” Star Light replied, shrugging absently at would-be’s and could-have-been’s. “Too bad for you, you’ve caught me at a bad time. I’d have tested you anyway, but right now, I’m in a mood, and I won’t let anything or anyone upset my husband… and it is my husband’s desire that the succession be given, not taken. If you need a reason ‘why,’ I’ll remind you that the Bismuth line has held power since Arsenic’s exile. If the precedent is set, here, that the succession can be successfully challenged…”

She pointed at the younger mare claiming to be the one to succeed her.

“Your foals will be challenged by upstart rivals and jealous siblings just as mine are. An orderly succession will give way to chaos.” Despite her words, Duchess Star Light smiled again in a friendly manner. “But we are not entirely inflexible. ‘Sufficient strength overcomes all opposition.’ Show me you have sufficient strength, and I will bow my head, Twilight Sparkle.”

The stars overhead began to unshackle, a dozen at a time.

“I will tell you this,” Twinkling Star Light warned. “The longer this fight goes on, the more your chance of winning… approaches zero.”

Within the otherworldly cloud, flashes of light blossomed, visible to the eye but without sound.

“Shoot! What the hay is goin’ on in there?” Applejack held a pair of binoculars over her eyes, borrowed from a certain pouting pink pony persistently pestering her to return them.

“I wanna look! I wanna look!”

“Hold yer horses, sugarcube! I think Ah saw a flash of purple there.”

“They’re my binoculars! I wanna see~ee~!”

Rarity tried not to be distracted by her two earth pony friends. She had her own binoculars or, rather, a pair of opera glasses in fine silver with a lovely gold-trim necklace. Twin bands of blue, the same color of her mane, bordered the rear optics. They were quite the timely gift from Fleur and Fancypants, and Rarity held them up to eye level with her magic. Not that she could really see anything in the dense cloud concealing Twilight’s duel.

“What on Equestria is going on in there?” she asked with an unhappy moue.

“They may not be ‘on Equestria.’”

“Hmm?” Rarity turned her head to give Antimony a questioning look. “What did you mean by that?”

Lady Antimony, like a great many officers and other important ponies, had gathered to watch the dual-duel. From a safe distance, of course! Rarity had not quite seen the reason for putting so much distance between them and the battlefield, but when Twinkling Star Light had opened the battle by creating that massive cloud, well! It made sense. Whatever it was, the strange cloud in the shape of a pony’s upper body towered up into the sky, displacing pegasi and clouds alike as it formed. The base was wide enough to swallow two town blocks, at least.

“The Spectral Summoning Supreme Secret: Horsehead Nebula,” Antimony said, giving name to the spell. “Are you familiar with summoning spells, Lady Rarity?”

“Only the basic sort,” Rarity replied and noticed Applejack and Pinkie plopping down to either side of her to listen in. She kept hold of her opera glasses but concentrated her magic on another point. There was a snap in the air and a small mouse-on-a-string appeared – a simple cat’s chew toy.

“Sometimes Opalescence gets it in her head to bother me at just the worst times, so I like to have something around to distract her,” Rarity explained, tossing the chew toy over to Pinkie, where the party pony caught it in her mouth with a ‘squeak!’ “A summon spell marks an item with your magic, allowing you to recall it towards you at high speed. Hence the name: Summoning: Recall and Summoning: Revert.”

“There are many variations on this, but that is the basic application,” Antimony agreed. “What are the smallest and largest items you can summon?”

Rarity thought for a moment, her hoof to her lower lip. “I suppose… the largest would be my fainting couch. The smallest would be my favorite brush… for mane emergencies, you know?”

“I usually hide my emergency brushes in my tail!” Pinkie helpfully explained, chew toy still in her mouth. She spat it out and spun around to rummage through her tail, hooves buried deep in the cotton candy hair. “Let’s see… where is it? Brushie. Brushie. Brushie. No, that’s my toothbrush… that’s a pick for afro-emergencies… that’s a brillo pad…”

“I’m not exactly sure how she does that,” Antimony went on, catching an afro pick that Pinkie tossed behind her as she searched through her tail for a brush, displacing an ever growing number of items that really had no business being in there.

“None of us do,” Rainbow Dash commented from atop her personal cloud. All that was really visible of her was her rainbow tail hanging off the edge. “That’s why I just ignore it and pretend there’s nothing reality-shattering going on.”

“What the heck is this?” Pinkie held up a device looking more like a billhook than a comb.

“I do believe that is a dragon-comb,” Rarity told her. “Spike has one.”

“Ohh~hhh!” Pinkie tossed it aside and returned to her search. “There sure are a lot of hammers in here.”

“Regardless,” Antimony continued, also trying to ignore the strange pink mare. “What you describe is a basic single-alliteration, two-step spell. The ‘summon’ and either the ‘recall’ or ‘revert’ element… this combination works for most unicorns, but it is also severely limited in what items can be ‘marked’ or tagged for summoning. You cannot summon your cat, for example.”

“Summoning Opalescence?” Rarity wondered, and, for a moment, she allowed herself to imagine throwing her irate pet cat at the next insufferable noblemare who challenged her to a duel. Oh yes. That could work.

“Unicorns can’t summon animals,” Applejack chimed in. “Everypony knows that.”

“Incorrect.” Antimony shook her head, her eyes still half-lidded but her mouth curving in a slight smile. “The larger the animal, the more difficult it is, but a skilled unicorn capable of two or three-alliteration spellcasts is quite able to summon creatures to her aid. Small ones, like parasprites, up to large ones, even dragons. Though for sentient creatures a binding magical contract is usually required, changing the spell from a two-step spell to a different three-step one.”

“Can you summon anything like that, Monee?” Pinkie asked and triumphantly held out a bright pink brush. “Found it! It was pink. No wonder it was so hard to find in there!”

“Can you summon living creatures?” Rarity also wanted to know.

“No,” Antimony answered, holding up a hoof to impress on the other mares to let her finish. “I know I’ve explained before that I specialize in enchantment and illusions. This is because I do not have the large reservoir of magic that my sisters possess… or the bottomless well Twilight Sparkle is blessed with. I know how to summon animals, but to do so would be foolish. It would leave me exhausted.”

“So what IS that big cloud thing?” Dash asked, rolled over on her stomach now so she could peek over the edge of her cloud. She pointed off to the side at the huge Horsehead Nebula. “‘Cause it sure isn’t a normal cloud! I’ve never seen anything like it in the sky before!”

“The Horsehead Nebula summoning is different,” Antimony explained, briefly looking up at the pegasus mare. “You would not have seen it in the sky before because it is not a cloud from our sky. It comes from The Aether… from ‘outer space,’ in other words.”

“From space?” Applejack blurted out, waving her hooves towards the otherworldly cloud in the shape of a pony. “Just how the heck can somepony conjure up somethin’ from outer space?”

“It is my mother’s specialty,” the Terre Rare noblemare replied, though it hardly explained much.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific, darling,” Rarity spoke up for her friends as much as herself. She had been a bit lost there with the jump from marking and summoning animals to sentient creatures to objects from the Aether of all things!

“My mother is an astromancer and arcanist without peer,” Antimony tried to explain, pursing her lips as she thought to find a way to clarify the subject. “Her special talent is in the magical manipulation of space. She is rather like Twilight, in that she has a general affinity for magic. By comparison, her knowledge of spells far outstrips my own in any field outside illusions and enchantment.”

To illustrate her point, Antimony conjured up the illusion of a pyramid-like scale. At the base, it displayed a large number of mundane objects: brushes, toys, a couch, and many besides. Above that, but in a slightly narrower section of the pyramid, there were numerous animals: from rabbits and spiders to wolves and a lion. Above that were more objects, either very small, like needles, or very large, like boulders.

“In difficulty,” Antimony told them, “when it comes to summoning, you have: objects, animals, greater objects – meaning very small or very large – greater beings, otherworldly objects, and, finally, otherworldly beings.”

The pyramid filled out as Antimony spoke. Above the greater objects, the illustration showed dragons and manticores and other fierce monsters. On the tier above that, there were glittering stars. On the tier above even that, at the pinnacle and eye of the pyramid, there was a single glowing sphere, radiating light. Disturbingly, Rarity could just barely make out an eye within that glowing sphere.

“The Horsehead Nebula is a four-alliteration ‘otherworldly object’ summoning spell. I am no expert, but I would guess that it doesn’t just transport the celestial cloud down to earth…”

Antimony used one more burst of magic to produce an illusion of two ponies, with a third pony farther away, looking on. One glowed, and the outline of a cloud enveloped the pair close together. An arrow from the third pony’s eyes stopped at the outline of the cloud, indicating that her vision was blocked. Inside the cloud, meanwhile, the second pony tried to run to get to the edge, but the ground beneath her constantly shifted, making it impossible to actually escape. She was trapped inside the cloud-outline.

“I believe the nebula is also a self-contained system, like a barrier,” Antimony hypothesized. “Even attempts to teleport out would only be redirected. Thus what happens inside the cloud is independent of what happens outside it. This is why we cannot see or hear or even feel much of anything going on inside.”

“What terrifying magic,” Rarity mused, glaring at the now rather frightful-looking cloud and easily imagining herself trapped inside, during a duel.

“That’s kinda spooky,” Dash muttered, her forelegs dangling off the edge of her perch to play with a few tufts of white cloud. “Some sorta space-cloud, huh?”

“Ah don’t know how you unicorns deal with all this magical mumbo-jumbo.” Applejack crossed her forelegs with a huff.

“Yeah!” Pinkie also put on the air of being upset, crossing her forelegs angrily. “Unicorns are overpowered! If it were up to me, I’d hit them all with my nerf bat!”

“It isn’t as if this level of spellcraft is very common,” Antimony argued, also turning her attention back to the cloud and the unseen fight within it. All that could really be discerned among the swirling pools of color were flashes of explosive light. Something was happening. The lights within the nebula were dimming.

“This sort of power… the type of unicorn who can harness it is, maybe…”

“…one in one hundred thousand?” Twinkling Star Light emerged from a plume of fire and smoke, her horn shimmering with radiant heat from repeated spellcasts. “Or, is that too conservative? That implies there are at least eighty unicorns in the world who could do what you’ve done. Which I doubt.”

Twilight Sparkle wiped the sweat from her brow.

“You didn’t think… I’d just let you keep blasting me with those stars, did you?” the Element of Magic asked, stumbling a bit on her hooves but grinning triumphantly. “Call it Concord’s Commendable Celestial Canvas: Brown Dwarf.”

“Brown Dwarf,” Twinkling Star Light repeated, taking a second to glance back over her shoulder. One of her glowing stars hovered in the air, but instead of glowing brilliant white, it was an anemic reddish-brown.

“You managed to identify the magical trigger I use, and then you corrupted it, simultaneously deflating every single star at the same time, all while dodging or countering my starfalls,” Star Light observed. “That isn’t something one in a hundred thousand unicorns could do. More like one in a million, and that is being generous towards the unicorn population as a whole. Very impressive. Why all at once, though?”

“As if you need to ask,” Twilight replied, taking a second to catch her breath. To her annoyance, Star Light hardly seemed fatigued at all. “If I did it one star at a time, you’d have devised a counter to my counter. I bet you already have one thought up, you just didn’t have the time to use it.”

“That’s true,” Star Light admitted.

“I’ve never met a pony who can cast magic so fast,” Twilight admitted, parting the mane away from her horn. It was already sticky with a sheen of sweat. “Or a pony who can double-cast at four-alliterations. After this is over, I’d really like to pick your brain for some answers!”

Twinkling Star Light stalked around the younger mare. “Two-ten, twenty, one-thirty-five.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “What?”

“If you can figure out what those numbers mean about me, then you’ll have your answers. In fact, if you don’t figure it out, you’ll definitely lose this duel.” The Prench Duchess lifted a hoof up to her horn, and then past that, into the air. “You pass the first test, though. You have a quick mind and a lot of raw skill. Next, I want to see what sort of experience you have in the Five Arts.”

“The Five Arts?” Twilight recalled the archaic term. “You mean the Five Magics?”

“I’ll be fair and warn you about the first one!” A burst of light escaped Star Light’s horn, and as she spun her raised hoof in a wide circle, a ripple passed through the nebula around them. “Your strongest form of magic! Sorcery! Red!”

Twilight hunched down, bracing herself and providing a smaller target as the nebula continued to rapidly swirl around her. The multicolored clouds separated, reshuffling and vacillating at high speed. Twilight’s vision took on a reddish-sepia tone as the world came back into focus. Turning, trotting in a tight circle, Twilight tried to get her bearings in the new red-tinted nebula.

“Look down,” her own voice told her.

“Huh? GAH!” Twilight gasped as she followed her own advice, coming face to face with a shadowy Twilight Sparkle lying flat on the floor. The Twilight Shadow laughed as she extended a pair of coiling forelegs to wrap around her real self’s throat. Though only shadow, the shadow pony’s grip was vicelike, and Twilight cried out as the shadow constricted, cutting off her air and painfully squeezing her slender neck.

‘Is this real or…? No!’

Twilight’s eyes glowed with the power of a quick three-alliteration Truesight.

“Look… dowww…nnn…”

The shadow-Twilight faded as quickly as she appeared, appearing insubstantial against the actual shadow on the ground. Twilight frowned at the illusion, looking up just in time to see the detailed outline of a swooping dragon as it flew by, jaws wide and low, intending to scoop her up and swallow her whole. Instead, she passed right through the illusion, easily able to separate real from imaginary.

Looking around, Twilight sent a spell conceptualization command to her horn to teleport--

Only for the spell to fizzle, even before it initiated.

“Teleportation isn’t sorcery, it's wizardry,” she realized, which meant that the ‘red cloud’ she was in actually blocked any non-sympathetic magic. Twinkling Star Light could actually lock a pony out of every school of spellcraft except one. If it scaled up, that meant she could hypothetically stop even a Princess from using her preferred form of magic when within the Horsehead Nebula.

“But, conversely,” Twilight speculated, spinning around and unleashing an intense beam of magenta. The spell had flowed freely and easily, not hindered by the cloud, but enhanced by it. She couldn’t use any other magic here, but her sorcery had actually been enhanced!

A reciprocal beam of light blue whipped down from above, like a billowing, glowing wave, gouging out a long spool of earth where it struck. Following it to source, she could just make out the silhouette of Star Light, her horn already shifting to cast another spell. No: not one spell. She was double casting again!

Illusionary energy beams mixed with real ones, saturating the air as Twilight ran, jumped, and prepared her counterattack. Erecting a barrier first to protect herself, then to brace and cushion herself from behind, Twilight Sparkle brought to bear the most powerful magical beam she had ever risked casting. A thin line of dark red unraveled from around her horn, fattening until snake-sized and snake-shaped.

Berkelium's Blinding Bouncing Beam.

The energy snake hissed and grew ten times in size as it left her horn, ripping through the air in search of a target. When it dove, face first, at Duchess Star Light, it also tore apart and vaporized a town-block-sized strip of earth, the tail of the magenta serpent slamming down amid the explosion and sending a plume of debris so high Twilight lost sight of it entirely.

For just a second, she even entertained the thought that she had won.

Then two long spokes of light emerged from within the tumult. They looked like beams, but then they began to fall, and the contrail of light they left behind didn’t diminish. They weren’t just beams. Twinkling Star Light was double-casting again. Beams and Barriers!

The planes of light hit the ground with a thunderclap, and immediately they began to angle themselves and move. The first circuit passed slowly, but then it accelerated, going faster and faster. Twilight felt a suction across her entire body. Her eyes darted down to her hooves, and then to the bits of debris around her. They were being sucked into the vortex of barriers and beams and, not encouragingly, shredded on contact.

‘And I can’t teleport away?’ Twilight realized. ‘Okay then! I’ll just blast it all away!’

Her horn glowed hot, and she conjured up another quad-verbum level Blinding Beam. The energy snake uncoiled from her horn, expanded, and surged forward into the dynamo. The ground shook, and she had to cover her eyes to protect them from the flash. The scarred landscape buckled, cracks spreading from the impact point, but ultimately revealing Star Light’s barrier storm to be undamaged.

Twilight felt her hooves leave the ground.

‘S-shoot!!’ In no way intending on getting sucked in, Twilight rapidly cast two more Blinding Beams. The first she directed to remain ‘bouncing’ or solid. Still in snake-form, it wrapped around her midsection and then plunged both head and tail deep into the ground, anchoring the unicorn Element of Magic firmly in place.

The second, Twilight held onto.

Extending her right front hoof, she willed the magical construct to expand and extend. It needed a part of her body to coil to while it did so, so she gave it her leg. The magenta serpent slithered past her shoulder and all the way down to her hoof, the tip of its tail still resting at the tip of her horn from which it had emerged. The entire thing hummed and burned with raw magic, straining to be unleashed. For the first time in the entire duel, Twilight truly felt the strain in her horn from the sheer level of magic she had to use.

‘This is… probably as much as I can do… with this! Any more and I’ll lose control and the spell will explode!’ Her eyes narrowed as she cast one more spell enhancing her already Truesight enhanced eyes. ‘There! THERE!’

The Blinding Bouncing Beam uncoiled like lightning from around her leg and horn, shooting up into the air in a wide arc and then abruptly changing course in midair. Twilight was tempted to try and send it down and into the center of the spinning barrier, but if she knew Twinkling Star Light, that was also where the barriers would be strongest. No: she needed to hit the construct at the weakest point and counter to the existing rotational velocity.

For a moment, her magic vanished in the spinning turbine.

Then there was a flash of blue and red and purple and one of the rotating barriers tore apart. The sparkling, failing magical debris promptly shredded the entire construct, sending huge barrier-panels flying through the air at speeds that would shock even a certain cyan pegasus. Blisteringly hot fragments of magic rained down, forcing Twilight to erect a spherical barrier around herself.

Hooves hitting the dirt, she began to run towards the fading conflagration, one last Bouncing Beam taking form and coiling around her horn. She came up short when her opponent finally revealed herself.

“There you are!” Twilight yelled, unleashing her magical attack.

“Hardly,” Star Light’s image replied, taking a step back and holding up a hoof as a shimmering panel appeared in midair. “If you’re using a four alliteration beam--”

Twilight’s attack passed into the shimmering mirror.

“--I simply need to use a four alliteration barrier,” the Duchess lectured with a confident grin. “This one is Ribald’s Radiant Reflective Rampart.”

And Twilight’s own serpentine beam re-emerged from the shimmering space, back the way it came, promising the same destruction as before, but this time directed at its creator. Twilight faced the oncoming energy beam, complete with glowing pits for eyes and a snake-like mouth, distended jaws opened wide.

“As if I don’t know that!” she cried, magic spinning around her horn like a whirlpool. The magenta quickly took on the form of a catcher’s mitt, and, as the Blinding Beam plowed into it, it became rendered down into a huge ball in the palm of the glove.

Twilight’s hooves ripped through the dirt and tortured grass as she struggled to stay upright.

Finally, the last of the four-alliteration level beam vanished into the palm of her magical catcher’s mitt. Without delay, she closed her eyes, concentrated, and the glove closed tight around its catch. Twilight opened her eyes again, confident she had the magic under control, and smirked at the older unicorn mare.

“I was so impressed by you mixing beams and barriers… I just had to do the same!” Twilight yelled, whipping her neck to the side and hurling the barrier-enclosed energy bomb back at Star Light. “Catch!!”

“Ahhhh. How dangerous.” Twinkling Star Light’s face contorted as she concentrated, gritting her teeth and standing on her rear legs alone. Holding out both her hooves, her horn audibly whined as it unleashed a rapid-fire burst of spells, like a machine gun.

Projecting out from in front of her, one light-blue hexagonal panel after another took form, each one so close in front of the one before they may have been dominoes. Twilight’s magic bomb plowed into the first one even before it was fully upright, shattering it into glass-like magical shards with an ear-splitting crash. The second barrier didn’t fare any better. Or the third. Or the tenth.

Or the twentieth.

But each one it passed through and shattered left it weaker, and by the time it had gotten through them all--

Twinkling Star Light caught the magical bomb between her hooves, snuffing it out between them with a snort. She fell forward and back onto four legs, her red and pink two-toned mane hanging raggedly around her shoulders. She still wasn’t breathing hard, but at least and at last she finally looked like she’d been exerting an effort.

“Energy dampening barriers?” Twilight guessed, catching her breath. “How many…?”

“Twenty-one,” Star Light replied, staring down the other mare. The cutie mark on her flank, of the constellation Libra, the celestial scales, all but glowed in gold against her plain white coat.

“Twenty-one,” Twilight repeated, her smile actually growing at the news. “That spell was… Ribald’s Radiant Reductive Rampart? Right? Not the Repeating Rampart?”

The Duchess nodded agreeably. “Correct.”

“That means twenty spells in a little more than a second.” Twilight did the math. “That means you have a potential cast speed of fifty to sixty milliseconds. That’s ten times faster than a normal unicorn. Five times faster than a pegasus can flap her wings.”

“It is also six times faster than a pony can blink,” Star Light added. “Let’s continue. I want to see more.”

“You know?” Twilight’s horn flashed in time with Star Light’s own. “I do too!”

Chapter Forty Four : Twilight - Equestria's Strongest Couple (part 2)

AN
Here we go...
(The old TPC Title pic, or maybe a new one, will be back next chapter)

(44)

Twilight Sparkle: Equestria’s Strongest Couple (part 2)

“Star Light?” Cruciger eased the door to the palace apartments open just a crack. “Star Light? We’re running late, you know? Blueblood and Equinox are likely waiting for us at the ball.”

No response answered the young stallion, but he ventured into the lightless room regardless. He was already dressed for the formal double date, trading the guardpony armor for the off duty uniform and sash. He was Vice-Captain of the Guard, after all. His appearance was expected to be impeccable. He was also expected to be on time when it came to social functions, but that was looking increasingly unlikely. It would be humiliating to show up late when the Princess herself would be present.

“The Gala only comes once a year, Star Light,” he reminded her, though he wasn’t even sure she was in her palace apartments at all. “I do hope I am not talking to myself here. I am conjuring a light if I don’t hear--”

“I’m here.”

A soft blue glow filled the apartment, finally painting the walls and furniture with light. It also illuminated a hundred scrolls and scraps of paper pinned to walls and hanging from pennant-wire from the ceiling. Blinds were set up near the back, blocking off part of the room from sight. Beneath the artifacts and manuscripts and piles of books, a pony could theoretically find a bed, tables, maybe even a couch for company. All the accouterments entitled to both a Duchess and a student of the Princess Herself.

“Star Light?” Cruciger called to her again, ears twitching as he heard the sound of hooves behind the black blinds at the far side of the room. “What is this?”

“Developing pictures!” Twinkling Star Light emerged with a large square print. Her red and pink mane was a frazzled mess, her cream white coat and horn were smudged with ink and something green but otherwise unidentifiable, and, lastly, her violet eyes were bloodshot. A thick rope was still tied around her midsection, the cords periodically interspersed with iron bolts, dangling paper charms, and a length of electrical grounding wire.

“Zero! Zero! Zero! I finally identified a completely energy-neutral composite aether!” she declared with a giggle. “I had to travel across four hostile planes, but I did it! Oh! Oh. Oh, this is just beautiful! I can’t wait to see my results! And, um, don’t mind the mess in the corner there under the quarantine barrier. And don’t touch it! I had to kill some… sort of… giant insect-octopus-monster in the second dimension. I kept it to dissect later.”

“…”

“Oh, mhm, yes, but how are you doing?” She asked, hanging the picture up and grinning broadly at it. Cruciger couldn’t exactly see what was on it. Very likely something that would drive most ponies mad.

“We are late for the Grand Galloping Gala,” he reminded her with an upset rumble. He brushed aside a semi-clean area of the floor to sit down. “Why would you travel across planes without me, Star Light? What if something happened to you? Last time we almost--”

“I had my tether with me!” she objected, referring to the rope around her stomach. “Anyway,” she grumbled, using her magic to toss a letter his way. “I had to rush ahead. No time. No time anymore. See for yourself.”

Cruciger caught the letter in one large hoof, deftly flipping it open.

His eyes narrowed only a few sentences in. “Your mother is in the hospital.”

“And my sister has come back home with her illegitimate daughter,” Star Light said, giving him the abstract version of the rest of the note. “Correction, her illegitimate daughter and five hundred Bitalian mercenaries. She wants Prance. She wants to take it from me.”

“It appears so,” Cruciger agreed, reading over the letter a second time. “You have often told me you do not wish to rule. Are you certain…?”

“I have no interest in being Duchess at all,” Star Light reminded him, pinning up another pan-dimensional photograph. “Not even a little bit. But Prance is yours, just as you are mine, and I am yours. I will not let my yellow-yellow sour-note sister take Prance from you or from our foals!” Another picture went up, hanging next to the last one. “No! Not at all! No way! Not even one village! Not even one trash heap!”

“Hrm,” Cruciger growled. “I agree, of course.”

Twinkling Star Light looked past the picture to her fiancé. They were both still too young to actually marry, but that was legally. In their hearts, they had been married for years. No pony would get between them. No force in the universe. Anything that did? Anything that threatened their union…?

“I’m going to grind her into the dust for this,” Star Light told him, her eyes returning to one of her dimensional pictures. “I hate to rush my research, but I needed to finish up here. I’d like you to sweep aside those five hundred mercenaries the Quartz have sent to back her claim. Will that take long?”

The young Guard Vice-Captain chuckled darkly. “No. Not long.”

“Good! So you agree. No time for Galas, too many places to conquer. Maybe next year.”

A half dozen sharpened stones wavered in midair, crackling with competing star fields. Twilight and Star Light were both wreathed in flowing cloaks of burning magic, the waste heat and magic undulating away from their white-hot horns. Every time one pushed a stone spear forward, the other countered it. Over their heads, one of the telekinetically manipulated granite blocks finally cracked and came apart under the strain.

Both mares were gritting their teeth and straining, not just over control of the stone spears, but against their opponent trying to use sorcery against them directly, amplifying their normal magical resistance to new heights. Slowly, despite the strain both mares were under, Twinkling Star Light began to laugh.

“Fifty counters to fifty different spells of the sorcery sub-type!” she cried between pulses of magical energy. “As expected of your strongest magical proficiency! Very good!”

“It feels like we’ve been at this all day!” Twilight growled through her clenched teeth. “How many spells do you even know? We could be here for hours!”

“How many spells?” Star Light asked, eyes widening. “I could tell you, but first, why don’t we move on? We really have spent too much time in red.”

Her horn flashed, and the Horsehead Nebula responded instantly, the colors shuffling all around them.

‘Green?’

Instantly, the telekinetic magic overhead evaporated, nullified on the spot. Ten stone spears fell lifeless to the ground with a succession of thuds. An eleventh, having already broken in two, ended up partly sticking out of the ground. The twelfth, little more the rubble, fell like calcified rain. Just as quickly, the vast sorcerous shrouds the pair of mares had generated around themselves turned to glitter and wind.

‘Green! But what’s green stand for?’ Twilight asked herself, trying to adjust to the new colored tint that warped her vision. ‘Wizardry? Alchemy, or…?’

“Let’s try a Transmutation,” Star Light helpfully announced, closing her eyes and firing up her horn. “How about ‘Fiddler’s Frightful Fen!’”

Alchemy!

Twilight jumped into the air as the ground beneath her hooves liquefied, surging upwards like a torrent. What had once been solid ground turned almost instantly into a toxic, bubbling cauldron of alkaline-mud. She could smell a hint of chlorine in the air.

“Sodium hydroxide, huh?” Twilight Sparkle hung in midair, her horn blazing and crackling magenta. “Partial Transmutation! Air to Water! Eddy's Energetic Elements: Hydrogen Chloride!”

A blast of heat surged away from the ground as she returned to her hooves, splashing down into the sticky mud without harm. A rolling wave of air spread out and across the battlefield, neutralizing the pH of Fiddler’s Frightful Fen. It was still muddy and hard to run in, but it wasn’t going to cause any chemical burns today.

“You know Eddy’s old triverbums?” Star Light asked, snickering. “I thought his spells were out of fashion these days? No alliterative subdivisions and all.”

“I love chemistry,” Twilight replied, hooves splashing against the mud as she charged. “And I can Mass Transmute, too! Like Water to Air! You look like your mane could use a good steam blast!”

“How long have they been in there?” Rarity took a small bite of her breakfast, a vegetarian omelet of vegetables, cheese, mushrooms, and a salad garnish. With no time limit on the duel, the army staff had been kind enough to arrange for meals for their guests while they waited for their friend to finish her epic battle.

“Almost three hours.” Antimony dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.

“This wouldn’t be so bad except we can’t SEE anything!!” Dash cried from atop her cloud, flailing her legs at the two unicorns. “Can’t you DO something? Use your magic!”

Rarity and Antimony rolled their eyes in unison.

“Check it out, Dashie! Rawr. I’m a super powerful unicorn. Zappity zapp.”

The two turned, slowly, to behold a puppet stage only a few paces behind them. On the little stage, a sock puppet with a red mane and a horn that looked like it had come from a pencil flapped her mouth. A pink hoof just barely visible behind and beneath the puppet stage threw a hoof-full of confetti.

“Pew pew pew,” the puppet announced. The target of the confetti barrage was a lavender puppet with a dark blue mane sporting a pink and purple stripe. “Take that. And that.”

“Brrrzzz,” the second puppet said, and a pink hoof held up a piece of colored glass to block the confetti. “My magical shield is super strong.”

“Pew. Pew. Brrz. Brrz. Pew!”

“How many hooves do you have back there?” Rarity asked after watching the play for a few seconds.

“I’m more wondering how she’s moving the mouths on those puppets with her hooves,” Antimony observed.

“Guys,” Dash leaned further down to whisper. “What did I say? Best not to think about it.”

“Indeed.”

“Yes, true.”

Applejack took that opportunity to just look behind the stage. “So that’s how she’s doin’ it!”

“We don’t want to know!” Rarity, Antimony, and Rainbow Dash all yelled.

“Sure you do!” Pinkie announced, emerging from the stage with one puppet attached to the curl in her mane and another on the tip of her tail. She laughed and pointed at her friends. “But it’s a trade secret! You’ll never figure it out! Never!”

It took a second for her to realize she’d stood up and inadvertently left herself exposed.

“Awww,” she groaned but pointed again, this time beyond them and back at the nebula on the battlefield. “Lookie lookie! It’s changing color again!”

“So it is,” Rarity said, facing the strange towering cloud. It had gone from multi-colored to red to green. Now it was changing again.

“How many colors does that thing have?” Dash asked, propping her head up as she reclined on her cloud. “Not that it’s even half as colorful as me! I’m just, you know, wondering why it’s doing that at all.”

Red had been Sorcery, the Art of base magic.

Green had been Alchemy, the Art of transmutation.

Rather than a color, the cloud had next turned black and white, sapping the color from everything and replacing it with degrees of intensity. This had corresponded with Thaumaturgy, the Art of ‘wonder working.’ That had been a tough one, as anything but basic thaumaturgy required the construction of magical devices. In the end it had been reduced to trading enchantment spells.

“Haste!”

“Slow!”

“Grow!”

“Shrink!”

“Fear!”

“Will!”

“Will-breaker!”

“Counter-fear!”

“Want it! Need it!”

“Had it! Returned it!”

“M-moustache!”

“Clean shave!” Star Light even countered the most mundane spells, and no sooner did it form than the bristly moustache popped right off her upper lip. Twilight hadn’t even been able to use her special full-power mustache spell in time; the spells were being thrown around so quickly and furiously. “Daze!”

“Clarity!” Twilight quickly countered the spell before her vision became too blurry.

Back and forth, the unicorn mares had dueled with enchantments, reduced to clashing horn-to-horn to transmit them all. Neither had Antimony’s cheat of using her eyes to project enchantment spells. Since they were already face to face, cracking their horns together painfully with every cast, Twilight Sparkle took the opportunity to assess just how much of her was left after an entire morning of battle with Duchess Star Light.

Her face hurt from the constant head-butting, and her horn was burning and sore. She knew her mane was a sweaty mess with at least one bloody spot from where Star Light’s horn had physically cut her scalp. Her entire body was starting to feel like putty. This sort of physical mash-up was far from her preferred activity. Her magic was in an even worse state, if that could be imagined. Where once every spellcast had come easily, Twilight could feel herself reaching into her deepest magical reserves for enough just to keep fighting… spellcasts came more and more slowly, taxing her body as she put every bit of energy she had into her horn.

Then the cloud turned Blue.

Wizardry.

“I’ve been waiting for this color!” Twinkling Star Light exclaimed, happy and completely free of any magical fatigue. She had some scratches and cuts from the earlier enchantment joust, but whatever physical damage she had sustained, her magical reserves seemed completely and truly bottomless. She was able to throw around one four and three-alliteration spell after another. It was insane.

“How about some Mirror Images?” the Duchess asked, but instead of cloning herself, Twilight felt her own body glow. To her shock, two and then four Twilight Sparkles appeared all around her.

All four spun on her, their horns charging.

Falling to her knees, Twilight opened a portal and batted her hoof towards it, knocking out one of the few things she had the magical energy left to summon. It was, in some ways, her trump card. It was…

“A book?” Star Light asked, surprised. “What are you going to do with a book?”

Twilight glared up at her mirror images and the one controlling them. “This is the most amazing book ever. I won’t let any of you read it.”

One of the mirror Twilights blinked. “The most amazing--”

“--book ever?” Another one finished. Whatever magic the two had been planning to unleash faded away.

“No way. Really?” The third asked, trotting closer. “Let me see.”

“No! Me first!” The fourth cried, lunging for the book.

“Hey!”

“Out of the way!”

“Hooves off it!”

“The book is MINE!”

“I saw it first!”

“No, you didn’t! No, you didn’t!”

Twinkling Star Light’s left eyebrow twitched as she watched the four mirror Twilights fighting over the book like a quartet of dogs scrapping over a bone. It had already degenerated into hissy fits, a slap fight, and one of them was a biter. What the heck was in that book that was so great, anyway? Maybe…

“Oh! You almost did it to me, too!” the Duchess suddenly yelled, smacking her face with a hoof. “Damn you curiosity!”

Twilight chuckled and tried to stand, but her wobbly legs betrayed her.

“I’d really hoped we could get into a summoning contest,” Star Light said, not missing her opponent’s state of exhaustion. “But I should probably be happy we got to do this much. I have to say, Twilight Sparkle, I am really and truly impressed. That a mare of your age can do this much…? Remarkable! I am very, very impressed!”

“Between you, my son, myself, and my little hubby, we are all four of us more than simply one-in-a-hundred-thousand level unicorns,” she continued, and with a spark from her horn, she dissolved the four squabbling mirror Twilights. “Do you know how the state ranks unicorns, Twilight Sparkle? Do you know what it takes for a unicorn to reach the highest possible level of magical rank?”

Twilight did. How could she not?

“Demonstrated proficiency in every form of magic before a committee of five senior mages,” she recited from memory, pausing only to take a few steadying breaths. “In addition to that, four-alliteration mastery of no less than five spells in one specialized school of magic. One of the normal seven, not the old system of five you’re using…”

Star Light clopped one hoof against the ground. “Yes. Exactly the textbook definition. It is also only half of the truth!”

This prompted a look of bewilderment. Twilight stared hard at the older mare to see if she was being truthful. “Only… half of the truth?”

Star Light nodded, walking closer but giving off very little in the way of threatening body language. “You must know that the very best unicorns of the past, just a few hundred years ago, were able to cast five-alliteration spells. Now, none can. The other side of the truth is that ponies have been getting weaker for a thousand years, and, as a result, the magical bar had to be adjusted. A modern Alpha-level unicorn of the highest rank would be a mere apprentice Beta in the old days. This means that there is a whole other level to unicorn ranking that has been retired.”

Twilight thought back to her magical tutors, all unicorns except the Princess. She knew and admired ponies who had earned the highest possible rank and become Archmages of Equestria. It was among the greatest of honors a unicorn could receive. Twilight Velvet, her own mother, was an Archmage, though of the third rank.

“Above Archmage?” Twilight wondered.

“There isn’t a name for a pony beyond Archmage First-circle anymore, not since they reordered the ranks,” Star Light explained, and she finally sat down on her haunches right in front of her younger opponent. “But the criteria still exist. To really reach the lowest rank of classical Alpha-level, a unicorn has to demonstrate ten four-alliteration spells; mastery of five of these spells in one concentration or school… and, finally, knowledge of no less than one thousand spells overall. For the time being, I’ll call this newly revived unicorn rank ‘Maître’ – Prench for ‘Master’ or Teacher.”

Twinkling Star Light gently pressed a hoof to the exhausted Twilight Sparkle’s forehead.

“Out of a population of eight million, three hundred and twenty-eight thousand unicorns registered in the last Equestrian Census, I… am the only one who can claim to be a Maître. You didn’t think I’d just roll over for you because you’re the Element of Magic, did you? Really, this fight was decided the moment I summoned this nebula. I’ll show you why.”

The Duchess leaned closer and reached her hoof behind Twilight’s head to tap a spot on the back of her neck. Her hoof then withdrew, and, as it passed by Twilight’s face, she saw a gossamer thread outlined against her opponent’s hoof. Star Light then tilted the flat of her hoof, let the string fall away, and it vanished.

“I thought you were drawing extra magic from the nebula,” Twilight realized, recalling the pinprick she felt back when the duel started. She had been so distracted by the showy four-alliteration spells being cast, and by then being named, that she had dismissed the notion that there would be anything more.

“It wasn’t the nebula at all!” She trotted back, away from the older mare. “It was my magic! You pricked me with something back there! All this time you were using my magic to cast your spells! That’s why you aren’t tired!”

“I used my magic, too,” Star Light told her, sounding a little offended. “To be absolutely clear, I simply converted your magic into my magic as needed. But you have more magic than my body can safely handle, almost as much as Princess Celestia herself, so I wanted to take my time wearing you down. Hence the rest of the duel. I also needed some time to fully analyze your magic. Didn’t I warn you? I use this summoned nebula for my experiments. It allows me to isolate magical spectra and study them without interference.”

She lifted a hoof to her horn.

“With you weakened as you are, I can now reverse the flow… and inject my magic into your body.”

Twilight grunted, feeling a tingle spread from the back of her neck across her body. Light blue bands formed around her ankles, separating into twos as the central band melted away to reveal a repeating string of tiny characters. She could feel an identical tingle around the base of her horn and then around her eyes, flush with her cheeks. Glancing backwards, she could even see one last arcane circle form around her cutie mark.

She frowned at the sight, but couldn’t help but also be impressed.

“You got me,” she admitted and closed her eyes, seemingly accepting the inevitable. “Should I say ‘I give up?’”

“No need.” Star Light raised her head high, and the nebula around them began to melt away into nothingness. “The duel isn’t over yet, after all.”

“Let’s go!”

“Finally! Maybe now we can see what’s going on down there!”

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie yelped simultaneously as a magical force snagged them by their tails, yanking them backward as they scurried closer to the dueling battlefield. The massive Horsehead Nebula had dispersed suddenly and energetically only seconds earlier, sending out a shockwave of air that completely cleared the sky of clouds – and unwary pegasus onlookers along with said clouds. Ponies on the ground had been fortunate to merely be bowled over onto their backs. Rarity’s mane still hadn’t recovered, leaving it partly swept back. Antimony yanking on it to keep her from running down to the dueling grounds would have put the finishing fatalities on her lovely (and fake) curls.

“Do not be so hasty to throw yourselves into harm’s way,” Antimony admonished the Elements of Happiness and Loyalty. “My father is still down there. It would be wise to continue to observe from afar.”

“But if that magical cloud has dispersed, wouldn’t the fighting surely be at an end?” Rarity asked, but heeded the noblemare’s advice.

“It ain’t,” Applejack answered to the surprise of the two unicorns. Antimony and Rarity both turned to regard her, and the apple farmer shook her head. “Ah don’t know for sure, but… I can feel something. Up ahead. Mah hooves are tinglin.’”

“Now that you mention it, there’s something weird with the air, too!” Still on her backside, Rainbow Dash scratched behind her right ear. “Like somepony out there is building up air pressure. It feels heavy.”

Antimony glared downrange to where the last of the nebula was dispersing to reveal a vast but shallow depression, circular in design and at least two hundred pony-lengths across.

“A crop circle!” Pinkie declared with a gasp. “The bane of all rock farmers!”

“I can see them!” Rarity had her opera glasses up to her eyes. “There’s Twilight! And Duchess Star Light! Your brother is there as well, Antimony, and your father. They all seem to be standing. Nopony is hurt.”

Looking through her own opera glasses, the Prench Baroness confirmed the news. “Did Twilight find a way to disperse the nebula? Or…” She narrowed her eyes, a hint of anger entering her voice as she whispered, “It should not have come to this in the first place. Damn it all. Brother… Brass… you’re still there, but even for you, this can’t possibly be going according to plan.”

Alpha Brass and Cruciger both turned to watch as a pair of mares emerged from within the de-summoning Horsehead Nebula. Wispy trails of crimson red, viridian green, and cerulean blue lingered in the air even after the otherworldly space returned to the void from which it came. It was very clear to see where the boundary of the cloud had ended as well, as it formed a small plateau over the shallow crater that spread out from the two stallions. The ground on that raised section was battered and broken, warped by elemental transmutation spells, ripped apart by telekinesis, and sundered by raw arcane energies.

Cruciger blinked his one eye at what emerged from the conflagration.

“So it is over, then,” he stated.

“Sorry it took so long,” Star Light answered him as she jumped down from the raised plateau that was her battlefield into the depression that was his. Twilight Sparkle followed behind her, her legs, neck, eyes, horn and cutie marks all bound by circular sigils, magically etched into or over her coat.

“Hrm,” her husband grumbled. The two parents turned to their son, the only remaining opposition left on the field.

“Things do look bad, don’t they?” Alpha Brass stated, though he hardly sounded distressed. He craned his neck as if in thought. “It seems I’m in trouble.”

“You’ve done little but endure my star field,” Cruciger stated with a disdainful sniff. “Were you waiting to see how your intended would fare?”

Twilight started towards Brass, her hooves moving of their own accord, animated by Star Light’s magic. Her eyes were open, but there was little to indicate that Twilight Sparkle was anything more than a puppet. At least, it was outwardly ambiguous up until her lips formed into a grimace as she struggled against her own body.

“Don’t be so harsh, honey bear. This filly was actually quite remarkable,” Star Light said, slowly trotting behind her puppet. The two mares were approaching Brass from one side, and Cruciger stood to pace around to the other, trapping him between the two older arch-unicorns.

“Father is upset I haven’t used my secret,” Brass explained, his turquoise eyes drifting from one parent to the next. “Like he said, I was waiting. My reasoning was quite simple: if Twilight beat you, then we would be in the best position to double-team father. If Twilight lost, then it would be a simple matter to forfeit and save myself unnecessary bloodshed. I know I cannot beat the two of you by myself. I’m quite sure I cannot beat just father by myself.”

Cruciger grumbled unhappily at his son’s reasoning.

“Don’t be angry at the boy,” Star Light insisted, stopping a short distance from her son. Cruciger did likewise.

“Let us end this farce,” the Duke growled. His horn did not glow. It burned. Literally, the dark purple magic around it flickered and licked like fire from a torch. “Boy. I give you one last chance to renounce your claims. You may still wed this Canterlot mare, but I and I alone will decide who heads the family! I offer this mercy only once to you.”

Star Light was silent as her eyes darted from father to son.

Alpha Brass remained defiantly silent.

Cruciger sneered. “Very well. If you so wish to be disciplined, then you shall be. You will have ample time to think on your decisions as you heal…”

“Wait,” Twinkling Star Light whispered. “Wait!” she yelled, eyes wide. “WAIT!” Slowly turning around in a circle, then around again, she began to back away from her son. “Something is wrong! I know my son. He said he would forfeit if I defeated his little filly, but he hasn’t-- That means she isn’t--”

Twinkling Star Light spun just in time to see a lavender form slam into her.

“W-wha--” The air knocked out of the Duchess’ lungs as Twilight Sparkle tackled her, legs wrapping around her torso. Eyes wide with shock and incomprehension, she barely offered any resistance as Twilight wrestled her to the ground. Purple hooves pinned her cream white ones to the ground and still she stared up in mute bewilderment. Twilight quickly clamped her right front hoof onto the older mare’s horn to prevent any spellcasting, taking advantage of her stunned state.

“Star!” Cruciger yelled, bearing his teeth in dismay. “What happened?”

“Y-you were under my control!” she finally found the words to object and directed them up at the Element of Magic. “I know you were! I had control over your body! My magic… I know I got the injection right! I couldn’t have made a mistake!”

“You didn’t…” Twilight told her and grunted as she countered a half-formed spell with a squeeze of her hoof on the other unicorn’s slender horn. “Don’t! I know how fast you can cast!”

“Faster than your muscles can twitch!” Star Light snapped back. “You can’t stop every spellcast!”

“I don’t have to,” Twilight countered, grinning happily at finally getting a leg up on the genius unicorn, despite her age and experience. “I only need to cycle magic into your horn every fifty milliseconds. That isn’t so hard. Hertz Hooves should do it. Fifty milliseconds makes the frequency twenty Hertz, right?”

The Duchess beneath her tried to free her hooves, but Twilight had an advantage there. She wasn’t particularly big, nor was she honestly in the best shape of any unicorn in the world, but she had always been deceptively strong. Twinkling Star Light, for all her magical power, had decidedly average physical strength and clearly little experience in anything more than horn-to-horn fencing. She wouldn’t be forcing her way up.

Twilight saw something golden appear in the corner of her vision, but she didn’t worry.

“I have your back,” Alpha Brass said, protecting her from what had to be Duke Cruciger’s steadily mounting rage at the sight of his wife on the ground.

“How?” Star Light demanded to know. “My calculations are never wrong. The magical injection--”

“It was perfect,” Twilight interrupted, focusing all her attention back on her prone opponent. “Your magic was… amazing. But you told me exactly how to beat you. Don’t you remember?”

Twinkling Star Light stalked around the younger mare. “Two-ten, twenty, one-thirty-five.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “What?”

“If you can figure out what those numbers mean about me, then you’ll have your answers. In fact, if you don’t figure it out, you’ll definitely lose this duel.”

Duchess Star Light furrowed her brow as she remembered the exchange. “Back then…? But you never figured it out!”

“I never said I didn’t,” Twilight Sparkle corrected her. “Two-ten, twenty, one-thirty-five. Red, Green, Blue, together with an un-stated intensity and transparency. That’s the color code for my star field frequency. Sorcery: two-ten. Alchemy: twenty. Wizardry: one-thirty-five. I figured it out when we were fighting in the nebula. The color of my magic changed based on what was being blocked, and so did the intensity and transparency. That’s when I realized you had already determined the nature and composition of my magic and reduced it to a set of numbers. I don’t know how you do it… but that was my guess, and I bet I was right.”

Star Light was still glaring up at her, but her expression slowly softened. “Still,” she argued, “how…?”

“As long as we were in the Nebula, you were basically unbeatable,” Twilight explained. “You could alter the environment to cancel any form of magic of any possible intensity. If I started to overpower you with one type of magic, you’d just nullify it by changing the color of the nebula. I couldn’t think of any conceivable way to beat you… except to lose.”

“Or pretend to lose?” The Duchess Scientist realized. “You hid your magic somehow?”

Twilight winked. “Mostly, I just let you think I was more tired than I actually was. You were so used to me speculating aloud about the magic we were using and trying to confirm my thoughts with you that you never imagined I would just keep quiet about something. Every time I opened my mouth, it was to reinforce that impression and hide the fact that I was working on something in secret! Your control spell, by your own admission, only works if I’m weakened beyond a certain point. It was the perfect chance to pretend to lose, so I took it.”

“…”

“Star Light!” Cruciger called out, though he was still obscured by Alpha Brass standing between him and the two mares. “I’m going to use ‘that’ spell. Get ready to move.”

Twinkling Star Light stole a quick peek in the direction of her husband, but didn’t respond to his call. Beneath Twilight Sparkle’s hooves, she relaxed and went limp. Violet eyes fluttered as she considered her situation. Despite the looming danger, Twilight continued to stare down at her, one hoof on her horn, the others holding her in place.

“Wait,” she said and repeated it more loudly, “Wait!”

“Star Light?” Cruciger roared, recognizing something in her voice. “You can’t mean to--”

“I give up,” she announced. “Sorry, honey bear! I’ve been outmaneuvered.”

Twilight obligingly removed herself from on top of the older mare. She never really considered that Star Light could have just said that to get her to move. Rationally, it would normally have been a concern. Rationally, a pony in her position would have been leery of taking her opponent’s word at face value, especially when just seconds before, she had basically explained how she won their fight with a trick and a bluff. This never occurred to Twilight Sparkle.

It just wasn’t the Terre Rare way.

Of course, the other Terre Rare way was--

Twinkling Star Light, free to use magic again, vanished in a flash of light. She left behind her son, her potential daughter-in-law, and her enraged husband. Duke Cruciger neither moved nor spoke as his wife departed the battlefield. He made no outward sign of his displeasure, but one look – even from afar – at his wide, black eye, and there was no mistake. The scarred Black Duke glowered, and it was a cold, quiet rage that chilled pony’s blood.

Twilight Sparkle let out an exhausted sigh, and felt a leg stretch across her chest, helping to prop her up. She turned to face the stallion supporting her. “Thanks,” she whispered, “but I’m okay.”

Alpha Brass offered a sympathetic smile. “I knew you would pull through. I never doubted it.”

“I know,” Twilight replied, returning the smile and feeling her heart flutter in her chest. Just like that, the energy seemed to return to her. She had been exaggerating when she had told Star Light that she had pretended to be exhausted and that she had hidden her strength. Really, the truth was… she had never been so tired. Not since her first year of lessons under Princess Celestia. But something about this pony’s smile, his touch, his kind, confident eyes… it filled her with new magic.

“We’re almost done,” she said, and lowered his hoof so she could stand by him, side by side. “What we do next, we do together.”

“Together,” he agreed.

“Arrogance!” Cruciger suddenly bellowed, magic exploding from his horn like a volcano. “I will humble you myself!!”

“Oh! I think somepony just disappeared! I wonder where--”

Pinkie Pie yelped as white hindquarters appeared overhead, using the poor pink pony as a landing pad. She managed to get out a weak “why me?” before crumpling under the unicorn’s weight with a squeak. The perpetrator of the rump-related-rampage glanced under her backside with a curious ‘hmmm?’

“The entertainer?” Duchess Twinkling Star Light wondered. “Are you all right? For some reason, my magic misidentified the landing zone as ‘cotton candy.’”

“You wanted to land in a tub of cotton candy?” Antimony leveled a disbelieving look at her mother.

“Who wouldn’t?” Star Light pressed a hoof to the squashed Pinkie Pie and point-to-point teleported her just a meter away. “Terribly sorry, dear. I don’t usually make that sort of mistake.”

Pinkie had her hooves buried in her mane, making sure everything was in place. “At least you only landed on my head! So no harm done!”

“Duchess Star Light,” Rarity said, hoping to steer the conversation a few paces away from the absurd. “If you’re here, does that mean…?”

“I quit,” she answered, summoning up her usual pen and paper. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to record my findings before I forget them! During the duel, I came up with the most wonderful idea for an experiment! So much to do! I’ll only need a few experimental subjects… maybe as few as twenty!”

“If you quit,” Rarity persisted, despite the older mare already furiously attacking her notepad with her pen. “Is the duel over, then?”

“Hmm? What?” Star Light glanced up from her notes for just a second, just long enough to shake her head. Oh, no. No, no, no. Those two need to overcome my hubby-wubby next.”

“Hubby-wubby,” Pinkie repeated with a grin and a giggle.

“Your what?” Rainbow Dash asked with a laugh. “Oh man! Hubby-wubby? That guy?”

“More important,” Applejack reminded them, “this means Twi ain’t outta the woods yet.”

“Come on, AJ!” Dash replied, gesturing towards the battlefield, where only three unicorns remained. “That old guy’s got one eye and three good legs. How much trouble could he be?”

Rarity, a second too late, tried to use her magic to button up the brash pegasus’ mouth.

“Did you have to ask that?” she snapped. “Darling, why not just ask for trouble by name?”

“Hey! I was just sayin’!”

“Say it in your head next time, please.”

“Quit bein’ so paranoid! I’ll say it again! It’s two against one! How much trouble could he be?”

“Look up,” Star Light suggested, prompting both pegasus and unicorn to stop arguing. Together, they turned towards the dueling ponies and then up into the air. It only took a second to pick out something that really should not have been there. Something that really did not belong up near pegasus-cloud level.

Dash squinted and shielded her eyes with a hoof. “What the--?”

“Is that--?” Applejack began to say, tipping her hat so far back it fell right off her head.

“Oh dear,” Rarity whispered. “That’s--”

“A castle!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “OH! Oh! And it’s getting closer!”

“It’s falling!!” All four of them cried in varying states of panic.

Château de fer à Cheval (as handily outlined in the historical plaque next to the outer portcullis) was originally constructed in the First Century after Equestrian unification. Nestled in the hills and crags of east-central Prance, it was built on a naturally occurring horseshoe-shaped promontory, hence the name and the shape of the central keep. An earlier griffin hill-aerie existed on the site, but this was abandoned by the time ponies settled in the area in large numbers. The foundations were laid by Duke Mordre, later honored with the sobriquet “Snapping Turtle,” after his defense of the bastion in 58 AU and 64 AU. Both times the castle was besieged by the griffin Chieftain Gilda Black-Beak, the second siege lasting three hundred and sixteen days before a relief column from Canterlot saved the defenders. A second wall was added in 118 AU.

The castle ultimately fell into disrepair following the expansion of the borders of the Duchy of Prance. A rogue unicorn mage briefly took residence in the castle, and much of it was subsequently destroyed. In 568 AU, a dragon caused further damage for unknown reasons. For centuries, the castle remains were used by earth ponies for building material, but in 989 AU, a restoration effort was financed by Duke Cruciger, Lord of Prance and Deux Fleuves (Germaney). The outer walls were restored over a period of two years, but the inner bastion took six years to complete. Château de fer à Cheval remains a popular tourist destination, with weddings and other events occurring almost weekly.

It also retains a garrison of forty to fifty guardponies. The famous Terre Rare Crimsonguard!

In fact, a wedding was already underway when a bright magical ripple flowed up from the base of the castle, across the two square walls of the enceinte, one at a forty-five degree angle to the other, and finally up into the central keep. The magical ripple didn’t stop until it reached the tips of the tallest spires, and at last, the castle lightning-rod. Overhead, a magical sigil lit up the sky: a pair of horns, an eight-pointed star, and a single burning eye, all within a glowing purple circle large enough to swallow the entire fortification.

Château de fer à Cheval answered her master’s summons.

The castle appeared in midair, five hundred pony-lengths above the dueling-ground, and five-hundred pony-lengths it fell. On impact, most of the structure fared less than well. Walls taller than most ponies’ homes split apart from the strain. Tens of thousands of tons of stone and concrete hurled through the air, throwing deadly missiles so far that dozens ended up in the Puddinghead Reservoir. The center of devastation was ringed by a cloud of debris. Only the central keep, taking with it much of the original rocky foundation, survived the fall generally intact.

A growing cloud of dust slowly spread from the colossal impact.

“You can’t THROW A CASTLE at somepony!” Dash cried, hooves still buried in her mane in shock. “W-what the heck? Did I just actually see that?” She grabbed the nearest pony, who naturally happened to be Pinkie Pie, and began to treat her like a salt shaker. “You saw that, didn’t you? What the heck! What the heck! What the heck!”

“Www-ddd--uu--errr--brm--” Pinkie’s response may have been slurred somewhat by her turning as boneless and limp as a rubber chicken.

Applejack, for her part, was merely speechless, her lips moving but not making any sound.

“Twilight!” Rarity cried, and throwing aside her opera glasses she surged to her hooves.

A hoof seized her by the shoulder and quickly forced her back down onto her backside. “Calm down. She isn’t dead.”

“She isn’t?” Rarity needed to be sure. She grabbed her glasses off the ground and desperately started searching. “Where is she? How do you know? Doing that – How could anypony do that? It can’t be allowed, can it?”

“Which one did he use?” Twinkling Star Light asked, glancing up from her notes. “Looks like fer à Cheval. No loss, then. It was just a magical replica.” She turned back to her furious scribbling.

“There,” Antimony said, directing Rarity’s opera glasses up into the air. She quickly found herself mobbed by the other Elements of Harmony all trying to steal a look and make sure their friend was, in fact, not squished and buried under thousands of tons of masonry.

“I see her!” Rarity told them with a sigh of relief. They quickly started passing the glasses around to see it for themselves, setting off a round of cheers and relief. Antimony watched the display with a neutral expression.

“Rainbow Dash is right,” Rarity murmured, shaking her head in disbelief even as she came down from her terrified emotional high. “This is insane. What I’m seeing… is insane.”

“My father has no equal when it comes to raw magical power,” Antimony told her, raising her own opera glasses to her face to find her brother and her distant cousin. “Two of the most powerful creatures in the world are out there, and one of them seems to be very upset. This duel is far from decided.”

“Celestia! That was close!”

Twilight clung to Alpha Brass as the two unicorns materialized just a few meters above the falling castle. A teleport had been risky, especially since they had no idea what the upper part of the falling fortification was shaped like. The best option was just to try and overshoot by as much as possible and time it right.

Looking down, she could see the castle – thankfully empty, since there weren’t any bodies falling out of the windows or screams from ponies inside – land like a small mountain, flattening anything and everything below. It flattened on impact, spreading the destruction far and wide. Just the thought of what would have happened down there if she… no. It wasn’t something she wanted to think about at all.

“This is no joke,” she heard Alpha Brass whisper. “We need to get out of the air.”

Twilight couldn’t agree more. She hadn’t forgotten what her fiancé had told her about his father’s dueling style and magic. She searched the still settling field of rubble and smashed-castle below. “But there’s no place safe to--”

A faint beam of light tracked, streaking, across the battlefield to envelop the pair of unicorns.

They immediately began to fall, but not at the normal speed.

“Barrier!” Brass yelled, horn glowing.

Twilight had much the same idea. “We have to cushion our fall!”

Together, magic white-gold and magenta swirled in amid a symphony of light. They formed a barrier, not around but below, stretching out from the flats of their hooves and growing wider and wider. As gravity pulled them down towards the ground, faster and faster, their mutual shield solidified. Twilight and Brass hit the ground, their shield popping beneath them and absorbing the impact, allowing the unicorn couple to land unharmed on the uneven ground.

The pair rolled to a stop side by side.

“Brass! Encapsulate--!”

“On it!”

Twilight craned her neck, brilliant beams flowing out of her horn in a wide arc, each one bubbling into a roiling white-gold sphere. The weakness of Berkelium's Beam was that there was really only one that could be used at a time. Two had been an absolute limit by keeping it dangerously coiled around her body. But by combining the spell with a barrier, the energy from each one could be conserved and used independently.

“No more time!” Brass yelled, and a dark shape loomed above them, one hoof outstretched as if to trample them both into the rubble.

“First beam!” Twilight reared up and hit the first barrier-beam-bubble with her hoof.

It burst on contact, unleashing a ragged, short-range inferno of magenta magic. Fallen stone from the collapsed walls of the castle kicked up as the blast of energy fountained forward, destroying everything in its path. From a distance, it was as if a dragon had belched forth a serrated steam of reddish-purple fire, and Duke Cruciger vanished into it.

“Second beam! Third! Fourth! Fifth! Sixth! Seventh! Eighth!” Twilight kept hitting the arc of suspended bubbles. “Ninth!” She barely tagged the last one before falling backwards, out of breath. “…Brass!”

“Right!” He didn’t even need to hear to guess what she wanted. Catching her with his hooves, he landed on his back legs, angling one to brace them against a block of smashed masonry. His cheek brushed hers as he leaned forward slightly, horn glowing white-gold.

“Mass Transmutation!” he growled, warning his partner of what he intended to do. “Dragon’s Breath! Air to Fire!”

Much as he had in their magical duel, back in the Everfree, Brass inhaled deeply and exhaled a column of flame. Rather than the uncontrolled gout from before, directed harmlessly upwards, this time a spark of magic in the form of a ring concentrated and narrowed the blast of magical flame until it was as thin and deadly as a laser. The magical beam plunged right into the magenta blaze, sending out a wave of fiery spiderwebs.

Her back pressed against his chest, the pupils of Twilight’s eyes vanished beneath a white-hot glow.

“Mass Transmutation!” the Element of Magic echoed her would-be partner. “Dragon’s Breath! Air to Fire!”

Twilight formed a magical ring of her own just inches from her lips, exhaled, and her resulting Dragon’s Breath also narrowed, mixing freely with Brass’s. Winding together, coiling tightly until they became one, the dual beams of fire morphed from orange to bright white-blue. A blast of superheated air screamed with a thunderous boom and whine and the magenta inferno from before ignited, exploding with enough force to rip blocks of broken masonry out of place.

A circlet of ash twisted into the air around a seething and ever-rising orange mushroom cloud.

“I can’t see father anymore.” Antimony lowered her opera glasses and covered her eyes with the back of her hoof. “By the Princess, the fires are too intense…”

“W-what kind of spell was that?” Rarity still had her glasses up to her face, and she could see Twilight and her fiancé simultaneously breathing lines of fire that commingled and combined in front of them. “I can feel the heat, even from this far away! What did they do?”

“Free magic can ignite at a certain temperature; exceeding one thousand five-hundred degrees kelvin will usually do it. Under certain conditions, the result is similar to a thermobaric reaction… a huge explosion, in other words.”

Duchess Star Light sat upright between the two unicorn mares, pressed a hoof to her right eye, and when she pulled it away, there was a strange mechanical eyepiece attached to the side of her face. It was the same one Rarity remembered from when she had first met the eccentric noblemare.

“Interesting!” she stated, lenses clicking and shifting into place at high speed. “Neither of them can transmute fire that hot individually, so instead they’re using a sympathetic magical combination.”

“Sympathetic what?” Pinkie asked, abruptly popping in front of the Duchess. One of the party pony’s blue eyes actually expanded slightly to stare back into her magical monocle from the wrong end.

“That’s when two ponies use the same sorta magic, sugarcube,” Applejack answered, and very slowly, everypony present turned to stare at her in disbelief.

“Hey! I ain’t totally ignorant when it comes’ta magic! Ya know!” She waved her hooves at the five other mares. “Don’t look at me like yer all so doggone surprised!”

“But we are,” Dash bluntly assured her.

“Shut it!” Applejack snapped and crossed her forelegs in a pout. “Listen, Pinkie. You ever seen both me and Big Mac buckin’ at the same apple tree? Or, yer sisters… or yer parents… ya must’ve seen ‘em both combining their magic ta do this or that.”

Pinkie rolled her eyes in apparent thought. “Hmmm. Hmmm!”

In her mind, a little, pink filly happily skipped around a bleak farm while her two gray sisters kicked at a rock. Then those two fillies were replaced by an older mare and stallion, who kicked the rock and broke it open, revealing a geode. Also, the little pink filly somehow erupted out of the broken rock with streamers and fireworks.

“That part of my life is really sort of a blur,” Pinkie admitted, shrugging. “Sorry!”

Rarity and Rainbow Dash both slowly introduced their faces to their hooves.

“Point is, sugarcube, that when two ponies are real close, like siblings or family, they can combine their magic,” Applejack tried to explain again. “Big Mac and I can do together what neither of us could do apart. Ah’d bet that Mister and Mrs Cake can make better treats together than they can apart, too. That’s the power that comes from workin’ together as a team!”

Pinkie nodded her head eagerly. “OHHH! I get it now!” Her lower lip stuck out as she tapped her chin with a hoof. “But that means…”

“For Twilight and this Brass fellow to be working so well together combining their magic…” Rarity speculated.

“They must be pretty close!” Rainbow Dash concluded with a mischievous grin. “I didn’t know she had it in her! Go Twilight!”

“I don’t think ya’ll really get it,” Applejack interrupted, sounding much more sober than her friends. She squinted her eyes against the heat blasting away from the battlefield. “What they’re doin… it shouldn’t be possible. Not fer two ponies who only met maybe two months ago. That kinda magic takes years.”

“Miss Applejack is correct. The most powerful pairs of ponies have historically been either: twins, siblings, or long-term romantic partners,” Antimony further explained, gradually turning to face her mother. “Is that not correct, moth--?” She bit back her question and scowled. “You aren’t paying attention, are you, mother?”

“Hm. What? What?” Star Light had to tear her eyes away from a graph being generated in real time by some sort of magical actinography. “Oh yes. Very true! Their current output, I would estimate to be three or four times greater than they could achieve individually. A sympathetic magical resonance of this magnitude is… not normally possible under these sorts of conditions. Very true! Which means that the conditions are not what you believe them to be!”

“And what’s that mean?” Applejack asked.

Twinkling Star Light’s tinted eyepiece caught a glint of light from the firestorm below. “Don’t expect me to give you all the answers. Find some things out for yourself. After all, you should understand this sort of thing better than anyone, Element of Harmony. How long have you six been friends again?”

“More importantly,” Rarity interrupted, steering the conversation back to a more diplomatic topic before Applejack could growl about the Duchess’s evasiveness. “Does this mean the fight is over? I can’t imagine anypony surviving in that… Tartarus-storm.”

Nibbling her lower lip, the Duchess flipped another lens on her eyepiece. “Hmm. Yes. A pertinent question! To shield against that level of power… I’d say fifty.” She nodded, flicking the amber lens back out of the way. “Yes. Fifty. Fifty shield-specialists would be able to contain that fire.”

“Uh, you’ll excuse me fer askin’ then, but, um,” Applejack tried to move the self-printing ream of paper out of her face. “If that’s the case, shouldn’t you be a bit more worried about yer husband out there, then? Or yer son?”

Duchess Star Light did, to her credit, keep her eyes on the dueling ground and the rising column of fire and ash where her husband had once been. But just as quickly, she turned back to her notes and the graph.

“There is another way to survive that firestorm. A few, actually, but aside from shield spells, a pony can simply counter it by expending an equal amount of energy.”

A pillar of light split the mushroom cloud.

“My husband isn’t out of this yet.”

Twilight felt the tingle run across her skin and coat a moment before it hit.

“The – the crushing field…!” She recognized it from what Brass had explained before. She slipped out of his hooves and fell to the ground with a pained cry, her ribs protesting the ill treatment. Realizing the position she was in, she bodily forced herself to roll until she was flat, stomach to the ground.

She had to keep the angle of the g-forces perpendicular to her spine. If it was top-down, that meant orienting herself to be belly-down or belly-up. It was only a stop-gap solution, and she knew it, but she doubted she’d be able to forgive herself if she lost consciousness now, not after everything she had been through. Not with ponies counting on her! Closing her eyes against the pressure, she saw a face, and felt a hoof brush past her own.

‘Give me the strength to keep fighting! I can’t stop now! I can’t!’

She knew what she needed to do. Cruciger’s magic had to be nullified. Twilight’s horn glowed, sputtered, and flared out. It was just like Brass had warned her. It wasn’t just sustained g-forces on the body; the spell was designed in a way to also dampen and interfere with magic!

“That was a suitably intense flame.”

She looked up and saw silhouette of a pony approaching, walking with a slight limp in one crippled leg. Some sort of magic was coruscating away from him, chaffing off like flakes of skin. With every step he took, Cruciger’s hooves cracked the ground beneath him. One stone block burst instantly into dust and debris.

He was also bathed in a soft glow from overhead.

‘He caught us with the gravity beam again!’ Twilight’s eyes searched the area, trying to find where the light tapered off, but it seemed to engulf everything. She couldn’t see an end to it!

“No more spellcasting for either of you,” Cruciger boomed. “I will simply crush you into submission. Both of you. I will etch this lesson in obedience into your bodies; to carry it with you until the day you die.”

“Lighten,” Twilight heard Brass speak, and felt a hoof touch her side.

The enchantment took effect, and she greedily sucked in a breath of air. It was as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders, and she found the strength to stand, albeit with some initial difficulty. Her legs wobbled, still feeling the strain from before compounded by all the exertions of the two duels. The lighten spell, she estimated, probably cut her weight by three fourths. It didn’t solve the problem of the magic disruption field; it only made it easier to move.

“Are you alright, Twilight?” Brass asked, also standing close by.

She nodded. “Just like you said… it was just so fast I couldn’t prepare the counter-spell…”

“We can’t win unless you counter this spell,” Brass reminded her and smirked. “No pressure, of course.”

“Yeah, no pressure… oh! That was a joke!” Twilight very nearly collapsed as she reached up to bonk herself on the side of the head with a hoof. “Pressure. I get it. Ouch. Bad joke.” She glared at Cruciger. The Black Duke was watching them with one narrow eye.

“The closer we get to him, the stronger the field, right?” Twilight asked.

“So I believe,” Alpha Brass replied. “Have you factored for the gradient?”

“I need… time… to do the math.” She gritted her teeth and slowly tried to back away. “Plus, not only is this spell much more powerful than I’d thought, I’m a lot weaker than I expected I would be, thanks to my duel with Lady Star Light. I’ll have to incant the spell. Can you…?”

“Cover you?” he asked and chuckled, power flowing away from his horn like a pair of wings. “I have backed you this far, Twilight. I have tailored my future to include you. You will rebuild this country. No. You needn’t ask me to protect you.”

‘Rebuild this country?’ she wanted to ask, but he was already focused on the threat at hoof. Besides which, she had problems of her own. There was no time for distractions.

“Good luck!” Twilight told him, taking a couple more steps back before marking the ground with her hoof. Point One: in front, Point Two: the rear, Point Three: the left, Point Four, the right. She then spun around, drawing a circle connecting all the points.

“Disobedience,” Cruciger roared, stamping his good front hoof into the ground. “Behold!”

Magic flowed from his horn into the ground to his right side, uprooting fallen masonry that bulged like a fat pimple before popping. From that bulge emerged a metal barrel, twice the length of a pony. Magical wheels materialized, along with a casing and carriage. It was a cannon… an artillery cannon… and it was bearing directly down on her. A stone ball ripped free from the ground and plunged itself into the breach.

‘Was that why he summoned this castle?’ Twilight couldn’t help but wonder. ‘As ammunition?’

“Your infamous cannonade crossfire spell,” Alpha Brass stated, and Twilight forced her eyes closed. She had to believe that he could protect her while she initiated the counter-spell.

She had to trust him.

“Surprised? Two can play that game, father.”

Opening her eyes again, curious, she saw what had to be an identical bulge rise out of the ground. It was just like Cruciger’s spell! It was even the same color, which initially led her to wonder if it was an illusion. Or was it truly a copy? Or was it a bluff?

Cruciger sneered, not impressed or intimidated by the display.

“Fire.” “Fire!”

The ground shuddered and the air thundered as the two cannons belched flame and death. There was a sizzling thud and a distant boom, and she squeezed her eyes tight. The ground cracked violently, and she could imagine more of the magical cannons emerging and forming rows, each side bombarding the other with one murderous fusillade after another.

Reinmare’s Reversal.

She had to focus on Reinmare’s Reversal, or rather, the Rebuke variant. The other one would send everypony flying into the upper atmosphere at several times free fall speed. It would be an option if it could be used on just Cruciger, but the spell was either personal or area-of-effect, as far as anypony had been able to devise.

Twilight shook her head, dispelled the last of her distractions, and began the incantation.

“Illuminated by victory; crowned three times; in light, ancient, black, blinding. Venerated! Reinmare!”

The ground beneath her hooves trembled and very nearly knocked her off her balance. The smell of ozone stung her nose, and she could taste the flavor of spent magic in the air. The first verse had been spoken. Already, the words and the magic mingled, the first circle of magic taking form around her horn. It felt thick and heavy and all too solid, like a ring or a crown.

The magic repeated in her mind, gathering power.

This was no small thing. When used as an incantation, a spell would always draw the power it needed from a pony, plus whatever was needed to enhance and reinforce itself. It was the “true” version of any given spell. The one formally recorded in the scrolls and arcana. But using it had a hidden danger: if a spell was left incomplete, it could feedback violently into the pony who failed to cast it.

Potentially worse, the heedless nature by which it gathered magic from the caster could kill a unicorn if she underestimated how much magic she had left. It would literally drain the last dreg of magic from a pony, and if none was left to fill the energy vacuum, it would turn on the rest of the energy in the body… leaving behind a statue. It was the root and the inspiration for all petrification magic, repeating this terrible effect.

“Clenched Teeth. Burning Sky. Forgotten Valley. The Celestial Maw opens wide! Reverent!”

Another crown of light encircled Twilight’s horn, weighing down on her.

Lost in the trance, Twilight ceased to hear the outside world… the Equestria beyond her circle in the ground. Her eyes opened, burning white and pupil-less, her vision was a sightless blur. Her ears did hear distant roars. A bell. Thunder.

She ignored it.

“Two sisters; wailing bonds that bind eternal. Grasp the reigns of all creation. Reciprocal!”

Wind and pebbles pelted her face.

She ignored them.

“Confluence of Two Rivers. Implacable Gate. Secret Key. Secret Words. Secret Vision…”

The fourth crown snapped into place, even as she said the final word, unleashing the spell.

“REBUKE!"

Twilight Sparkle’s entire body glowed, her magic rushing out like a magenta tidal wave, leaving a trail of glittering, nullified magic in its wake. Her vision clearing, her hearing returning, she could see a battered Alpha Brass only a couple meters away. His horn was still fiercely aglow, trailing two wings of white-gold magic. As her spell passed over him, he stood more easily, glancing back at her for just a second.

“Hrrmm?”

A deep voice rumbled, as Duke Cruciger lurched in shock at the sudden change of pressure around him. Twilight could see an entire battery of cannons surrounding him, along with an assortment of huge stone blocks that he must have been using as shields. All were held in his mighty telekinetic grip, but as the gravity returned to normal around them, they flew upwards and out of control. Craning his neck with a surprised grunt, he only managed to reassert control over one in time.

“That isn’t possible…!” Cruciger’s tone was actually hushed, but still audible in the silence that followed Twilight’s empowered spell. “My magical field? How could anypony cancel it?”

“Sufficient power overcomes,” Twilight said, stumbling forward on hooves and legs that felt about to give out completely. “Isn’t that the family mantra? My power just overcame yours!”

“Big words,” Brass commented, dryly. He was quick, though, to trot to her side. “Are you spent?” he whispered.

She nodded, she sighed tiredly. “I can’t… hide it either… I feel like… I can barely think.”

“You overcame the greatest hurdle before us,” he assured her, and Twilight slumped, utterly exhausted, into his hooves. She felt him lower her down, gently, until she had to look up to see his face. “Celestia willing, I will finish what remains.”

“Will you?” Cruciger’s voice interjected, and the old stallion was in the air above them. Glittering, magical dragon’s wings held him aloft, easily twice the size of the ones Twilight remembered giving to Rarity for the Wonderbolt tryouts. That spell had drained her, too. How had this pony just cast it, after everything, after all this…?

A dark shape moved in the corner of her eye.

From the ground beneath them, shadowy lines thickened and formed into chains, winding around the two unicorns before snapping together. Twilight cried out just as Brass shielded her with his body. The shadow-chains went taut, and two dark hooks descended as well, clamping down on Brass’s shoulders and digging in, thankfully doing so magically and without drawing blood. The shadowy hooks and chains pressed the stallion down onto all fours, firmly planting him in place.

“Oh no! No! No!” Twilight frantically tried to draw on yet more magic to teleport them, but as her magic extended to encompass her partner, the black chains interfered. Eyes wide and frightened, and tried again, to the same result.

Then she felt the bite as two more shadow-hooks emerged from the ground, catching her by her front legs. Another two aimed for her back legs as well, but Brass angled his body, intercepting them. They dug into his hamstrings instead, causing his back legs to buckle forward, limp and immobile.

“What is this?” She tried to dislodge the shadow-hooks that were buried into her front legs, but they were almost like solid constructs. Except she couldn’t manipulate them! They burned, too, like cold ice pressed hard into her skin.

“Sombra’s Superlative Shadowy Shackles,” Brass told her, his head bowed so she could barely see his eyes. “Pin and crush. Like I said, my father’s favorite tactic.”

“What do we do?” Twilight asked, and she could see their opponent in the air.

Hovering.

“Sufficient Power overcomes?” Cruciger roared, holding up his good hoof.

An unmistakable sigil appeared in the sky overhead.

“I won’t allow it.”

Maerlaverock Tower.

Twenty years before the present.

The resounding slap of a hoof across his face roused the dazed stallion from his unwanted slumber. The young noblepony groaned, swaying in the air freely as he did so. A recounting of the last three days raced through Cruciger’s head as he took in his surroundings. The walls were drab, dungeon-gray. No windows. The only light came from a flickering torch set in an iron brazier.

Through the haze and disorientation, he could make out the faces of ponies present with him in the cell. Foremost among them was an older filly with a brilliant orange and yellow mane and a gray coat. She was old enough to have a cutie mark but clearly not yet a fully grown mare. The mark itself was a necklace and scepter, and where most young mares her age would have worn dresses, this one sported a small armored corset to protect the torso, studded and practical. A golden circlet rested on her brow, proclaiming her high birth.

It was a lie, of course. This filly’s ‘high birth’ was a joke.

She was Sunset Shadow, illegitimate daughter of Brilliant Moon Beam, and thus, his bastard niece in law. Her father had been a stablecolt. Her mother had run, rather than face judgment in Prance. This was no highborn mare. This was a contemptible creature, and Cruciger glared down at her just as she deserved.

“You should watch how you look at ponies, your Lordship.”

Another blow took Cruciger by the side of the face, and a hoof roughly settled over his left eye. The source of the abuse was a pony he knew, that he recognized, but not one he had expected to receive disrespect from. To say nothing of treachery.

“Black List,” he hissed.

“Aye. Your eyes do not deceive you.” The beige unicorn stallion had the same onyx mane Cruciger bore, and he was easily the tallest pony in the room. That was no surprise. The children of Arsenic had always been strong of body and magic.

The two other ponies present were silent, but no less important. Cruciger committed their faces to memory. The first was an earth pony mare in relative finery, blue mane and pale blue coat, her nose turned up at having to be present in what had to be her dungeons. He suspected her to be the Countess of Leaves, whose tower castle he now hung prisoner within. The second was a unicorn mare with a sandy complexion and a stark, white mane and eyes. He did not know this one’s name, but he knew her type and her allegiance. Second to the unexpectedly powerful Moon Beam, she was the one most responsible for his imprisonment.

The time-mage.

“Where is Twinkling Star Light?” he demanded of his captors. “Tell me.”

“That’s your first concern?” Black List asked, leaning close enough that his sneering leer filled up half Cruciger’s vision. “Not: ‘what do I have to do for you to let me go?’ or even ‘what do you want?’ You go right to making demands?”

Hanging from iron chains, shackled by all four hooves, a restraint on his horn, Cruciger still looked down on the assembled ponies. He returned his cousin’s sneer, too.

“You betrayed the family,” he informed Black List, snorting in disgust. “I care little for your reasons why. Again: tell me where I may find my wife. You may tell me now, or you may tell me later, but you will tell me.”

The Countess of Leaves covered her mouth to politely titter. “Cocky fellow.”

“He is a beast from the forests of Germaney,” Sunset Shadow, the youngest of the ponies present by far, nonetheless tried to sound like she was in charge. “No more. We will send him back… in a year or two.” She turned to the Countess. “I trust you can hold him as your guest for that long?”

“As long as your mother honors her end of the bargain,” the earth pony Countess replied.

“We will,” Sunset Shadow promised. “But remember as well that he has seen your face. The Seltene Erden are vengeful ponies by nature… more Griffin than Equine. You are in our camp whether you like it or not at this point.”

The Countess sniffed, annoyed, but nodded. “Yes. Yes.”

“More Griffin than Equine?” Black List asked, directing a less than deferential glare at Sunset Shadow.

The young mare offered a condescending smile. “Present company excluded, of course.”

Black List growled but quickly turned back to Cruciger. “More importantly, my Lord, you should know that I am no traitor to the family. I merely act as our grandmother Arsenic did, setting out on my own to forge a new dynasty!”

He grinned, his hoof burying into Cruciger’s mane to force his head to an odd angle.

“You’ll see!” Black List insisted with a dark laugh. “Under the patronage of Duchess Brilliant Moon Beam, and the fair Sunset Shadow after her, I will be the founder of a new noble family. Not another subservient branch of the Seltene Erden! A new and independent noble house! Answerable only to me, of course…”

“Under the patronage of the Quartz Clan, you mean,” Cruciger rumbled, putting up with the ill treatment but letting his hate slip into his tone of voice.

The sandy mare in the back of the cell chuckled.

“No! My mother will rule Prance!” Sunset Shadow screamed, stamping her hooves. “Prance for the Prench! A true bloodline!”

“A true bloodline,” Cruciger snarled, “beginning with the bastard daughter of a stallion who throws out shit-stained hay.”

Sunset roared, and, her magic flaring up, the young mare seized a poker from the far wall. The tip was dull, but still did a passable job cutting a line up his chest before coming to a stop at the nape of his throat. The angry filly’s face contorted with rage as she jabbed the point home, threatening to break the skin.

“My mother and I will reclaim our lands!” she screeched, eyes wide. “And never call me a bastard again! Never! Do you hear me? I will have out your throat! I will pull out your tongue! I will be Duchess! My mother will be Duchess!”

“And your Aunt?” he asked.

“Star Light?” she spat, as if the words themselves tasted of bile. “I’m sure she can slink away in a few years, once our power in Prance is unchallenged,” Sunset Shadow growled, rolling her eyes. “Her fate is in my mother’s hooves. Maybe she dies, maybe she stays here in Whinnychester. Just as long as she’s out of our manes.”

“Sunset,” Black List snapped. “You say too much. You should--”

“Die.” Cruciger’s statement drew all their eyes to him. “You should all just die.”

Blood dribbled from his chin, from the tooth he had broken loose and used to cut his cheek. Blood. Arsenic’s blood. A pony’s blood… and a gorgon’s. Three perplexed expressions stared up at him, uncomprehending. Only one – only Black List – seemed to have a sense of something amiss. With a frightened, desperate scream, he made for the cell door.

“Transmute,” Cruciger whispered.

And from his breath came death.

An hour later, he ran into Twinkling Star Light. She seemed skittish, hurried, but alive.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, very nearly jumping into him as she rounded a corner. Her violet eyes blinked, and a smile lit up her face. “Crucie!” She threw her forelegs around him in a quick hug. “I was just about to rescue you!”

“Hrm,” he grunted, as he usually did.

“They had us in the same castle?”

“The fools.” He sensed something amiss with her, even before she released him from her embrace. “Moon Beam is…?”

Star Light shook her head. There was no tears, but her anxiety was clear in her body language, in how she glanced down and shuddered. “Dead.”

“Hrm.” Really, he simply didn’t know what else to say. ‘Good?’

“I didn’t have a choice,” she explained, and, with a twinkle of magic, produced a rather unusual-looking amulet. In black iron – night iron – there was a prominent bust of a unicorn, but the base of the metal amulet spread in imitation of a pair of wings. Topaz glowed within the amulet, giving it a fearsome golden glow.

“She had this.” Star Light held the amulet up. Cruciger could see blood on the upper edge of the livery. Twinkling Star Light, for once, focused on an object without entirely trying to analyze it. “It was… this is an Alicorn Amulet… I’m sure of it! But where could my sister have gotten it? She was – she was going to kill me, and you know her magic was beyond what we expected. I… I had to take her to… that place. And… and…”

He silenced her, his hoof gently resting on her shoulder.

She nodded, understanding instantly. “Yes. Now isn’t the time. Not the time. After we win. Then the consequences.”

“Hrm.”

“Sufficient Power overcomes?” Cruciger roared, holding up his good hoof.

An unmistakable sigil appeared in the sky overhead.

“I won’t allow it.”

Maerlaverock Tower appeared from within the glowing sigil. It was a trophy castle, a symbol of victory, and now a favorite weapon. His wrath had not been sated dealing with the usurpers who had threatened his wife and their legacy. The Quartz interlopers had fled, but Black List and the Countess had not been so fortunate. It had taken a year to quell the last of Brilliant Moon Beam’s conspiracy. To Prance, he had brought harmony. Harmony derived from Strength.

The triangular stone tower fell through thin air, the base of it still dripping from the water of the moat that surrounded it. It tumbled past the hovering stallion, a titanic hammer to batter any opposition – even treacherous and disobedient family – out of existence. Rage in his one good eye, he gestured with his hoof, condemning those below.

They would surrender. They would yield. They would bow in the face of the undeniable.

In this world, there was no other option.

Sunset Shadow fell onto her face in front of the entire Solar Court.

“I shall have your heads for this!” she screamed, slashing her head and her horn from side to side but unable to physically move the pair of Royal Guards who held her down. “I know your names! Your faces! None of you will be safe! Usurpers! Fiends! I swear it! I swear it! And where is my mother!? If any harm has come to her, I will see you all to your graves!”

“My little pony, please control yourself.”

The voice seemed to momentarily snap Sunset out of her rage. Her titan orange eyes turned up to take in the majesty of Equestria’s ruling Princess and, surrounding her on all sides, esteemed stallions and mares of the Stable of Lords. Sunset Shadow’s struggles died down instantly, and she felt the restraint around her horn being unlocked and removed.

The pair of burly unicorn Royal Guards released her only a moment after the restraints hit the ground. It was a matter of respect. They were not expected to have to mare-handle her in the presence of the Princess of the Sun. Likewise, it would have been insane – suicidal even – to disrespect the Princess by taking advantage of her hospitality. Every noble in the country would turn on her, some more violently eager to defend the Princess’s slighted honor than others.

So, she swallowed her hate and stood, trying to compose herself nobly.

Like her mother had always taught her to.

“We present to the court, Miss Sunset Shadow,” she heard the herald announce.

“Lady Sunset Shadow!” she snapped back at him and turned, glaring, at all the other ponies present, daring them to refute her claim. She cowed them all with her glare. All save the Princess on her alabaster throne, whose eyes she did not dare to meet. “I am a Lady of Prance. My mother is Duchess. Where is she? Why have you separated us?”

“I am sorry, my little pony,” Celestia answered her from on high. Sunset finally stared up at her, eyes wide, as if she knew what was about to be spoken aloud. “Your mother is no longer among us.”

The young mare clenched her teeth and cried out, her wail echoing in the hall of the holy Solar Court. Her front legs gave out and she fell forward, her hooves flying up to her face and her horn. It sparked and fizzled with magic. Magic she tried desperately to contain. It was a spectacle. She knew it would be. She could already hear the whispers from either side as the nobles of the court judged her.

Her mother had attempted to seize power in Prance, and, worse than that, she had failed in her bid. Nopony loved a failure. Nopony respected or honored a failure. Not in this Noble Game, where titles were awarded to winners and only scorn was given to losers. Everypony here had a title to defend, and they would never look well on those who threaten to rock the boat of state. If mother had won, they would be courting her favor. If mother had… If she had…

“Who?” Sunset Shadow asked, hissing the question. She didn’t even care if she directed it at the immortal alicorn they all served. “Who killed my mother?”

Celestia’s mane coruscated silently, concealing one eye. The other closed, sorrowful. Yet, she did not reply.

“I did.”

Sunset Shadow spun around at the voice, sneering at the sight of Duke Cruciger farther down the carpet that led up to Celestia’s throne. The stallion sat, calmly, next to another face Sunset Shadow vowed to never forget or forgive. Her aunt, Twinkling Star Light. Last Sunset had heard, her mother Moon Beam had been putting the finishing touches on Star Light’s prison. Cruciger must have found her after his escape. He must have… killed her, then and there.

“You shall pay for it, and you shall pay for letting me live,” Sunset Shadow vowed, knowing nothing could be done here, in the hall of the Princess herself. “I swear it ten thousand times. By the stars above and with my every breath, I swear it.”

“Lord Cruciger. This is true?” Celestia asked, as if giving him a way out of what he had admitted. “My little pony, former vice-captain of my guard… you killed Lady Brilliant Moon Beam?”

“It--” Star Light began to say, though what, Sunset Shadow couldn’t begin to guess.

Some excuse, most likely.

“As I spoke it, it is true,” Cruciger repeated for the entire court to hear. “I killed Brilliant Moon Beam, as she presumed to injure me, my wife, our titles and our inheritance. For this offense--” he held up his hooves, large, even for a grown stallion “--I killed her with my own hooves.”

The unapologetic declaration provoked a storm of whispers among the nobles at court. Cruciger held his head high, but Twinkling Star Light looked away. A piece of paper appeared in a sparkle of magic, along with a quill and ink, but she quickly crumbled the parchment up and it all vanished again. She did look nervous. As she should. She was married to a monster. A murderer. A usurper. Already, she could hear ponies in hushed tones calling him the ‘Black Duke.’

“I challenge you!” Sunset Shadow yelled, having to raise her voice to be heard over the muttering of the court. “I challenge you to a duel! For my mother!”

“NO.” Celestia’s voice boomed, and, like a wave spreading across the hall, ponies lowered their heads or bowed. The Princess of the Sun set her eye on the court stenographer. “That remark is to be stricken from the record, am I clear?”

“But--” Sunset Shadow cried.

Magic muzzled her, and what was left of her voice was an unintelligible murmur.

“Lord Cruciger. Lady Star Light.” Celestia set her attention on the two ponies soon to be Duchess and Duke of two realms. Both stood straight and attended their Princess. “We are displeased by these events we hear of in Prance. We are displeased by the death of Brilliant Moon Beam, though she did wrong you both by her treachery.”

She paused to take in the room and to be assured all eyes were on her.

“All ponies here have a right to defend themselves, to defend their homes, their titles, their lands and those things that they love. The obligation to protect the realm and the small pony is at the heart of what it means to be noble,” Celestia said, her gentle tones still strong enough to fill the entire hall and command the hearing of every pony without exception. “But, my little ponies, I urge you to strive always for forgiveness and mercy. There is a wellspring of good in everypony’s heart, and nopony is beyond redeeming their past sins and mistakes. I do not know if Brilliant Moon Beam’s death could have been avoided or not. But I will mourn her loss, and pray for her orphaned daughter.”

Sunset Shadow hissed, trying to raise her voice, but nopony could hear her.

“You brought this child to me,” Celestia continued, and, full circle, she returned to Cruciger and Star Light. “For that mercy, I will commend you, though I fear it was also a cruel mercy.” Celestia sucked in a breath at her own words, then, and shook her head. “But a mercy, nonetheless. This young mare before me no longer has family in Prance, nor, I believe, would it be wise to recognize any claim she may have had to the crown there. I will raise her, and she and her foals will be of Canterlot. They will move on.”

Sunset Shadow shook her head angrily, as if to cry, ‘No! No! Never!’

“It is for the best,” Celestia said, and soon her attention and her presence weighed on the muffled Sunset Shadow. “Speak the words, my little pony. Free yourself of the burden, and let there be peace in Equestria once more. You will be of Canterlot. I will care for you and yours. Say what you need this court to hear.”

Bowing her head, the young mare remained silent and unrepentant. Her mother had lost her life trying to secure the crown of Prance. Abdicating now would mean that everything – everything – had been a waste. Fleeing to Bitaly, scratching and begging and scheming to gather a small army, all that humiliation… waiting for grandmother to finally fall ill so the throne became vacant, setting the trap for her damned aunt… all for nothing! How could it be all for nothing? How? How could such a thing just end with mother’s death? How could mother even be defeated?

Sunset Shadow remembered the necklace of power mother had said she crafted.

That power was her birthright. It would be what she passed on to her daughter, when the time came.

“I relinquish, now and for all time, any claim to the crown of the Duchy of Prance,” Sunset Shadow said the words, hating every one and every pony that had forced them on her. “I place myself at the mercy of the Princess.”

“You shall be safe under our wing,” Celestia promised, but they were hollow words that held no comfort for the fallen Sunset Shadow.

“My daughter will have a crown,” she whispered, and it was a vow none need hear. If not Prance, then some other would have to do. In the meantime, before this time and then, a roost in Canterlot could be the perfect place from which to strike back at those who most deserved it. Cruciger. The Terre Rare, first and foremost, but Cruciger most of all. He had been the one to take her mother’s life.

Though it could take years, Sunset Shadow intended to neither forgive nor forget.

“Foolish boy.”

Cruciger feared no beast, no pony, no monster. None, save his mother. Bismuth II Brandenburg sat on her throne of iron and silk, needing no adornment aside from the iron regalia worn in imitation of Princess Celestia. She was successor to Bismuth I, who was in turn successor to Arsenic the Founder, the family’s ancient grand dame, long since retreated into seclusion. Only the chosen heir was said to be worthy of being in Arsenic’s presence.

“Why, mother?” he asked, head bowed. The two were alone in the appropriately titled Eiserne Hall. “It is true, is it not? You arranged for Brilliant Moon Beam’s seduction? You enabled it?”

“Of course,” Bismuth cooed, but it was not a soft, encouraging sound to those who knew her. “Did you know, I had originally intended for you to marry Brilliant Moon Beam? Does that upset you?”

Cruciger kept his head bowed but spoke honestly. “It does.”

“Mmm.” Bismuth seemed unconcerned by her son’s response. She lifted a hoof to eye level, inspecting the intricate carving in the gilded iron she wore. “I have never approved of Twinkling Star Light’s eccentricities.”

Cruciger tensed at the unspoken threat.

“But… her sister was worse. Fickle. Flighty. Like Blue Belle…” The name was a curse among the family, for a frivolous, impulsive, and worst of all weak pony, favored by the fortunes of birth. “I needed to be rid of her, but did I force her to spread her legs for that stablecolt?” Bismuth asked with a grimace of undisguised revulsion.

“Of course not. She dug that grave with her own hooves. If she had been less of a fool, then she would be a Duchess of great power, and you would both be wed. Mayhap, you should even be glad things turned out as they did?” A low laugh punctuated the question. “Where would your precious Star Light be if that future had come to pass?”

Her son remained bowed, his eyes to the marble floor. The question, however, had hit home.

“Know this, my son, that to be truly powerful is to separate what one needs to do from what one wants to do. As the Princess said, kindness can be inadvertently cruel, and the reverse is true as well: cruelty can be a form of kindness. Do you understand?” Bismuth asked, her voice echoing in the great hall.

Cruciger remained bowed. Obedient. Dutiful.

“Put faith in our name, alone. When all is said and done, only honor and obedience to the family and to our founder’s vision matter. We will return to Canterlot and we will sit at the side of the Princess, but to get there, to serve her, we must do what she should not be asked to do. The enemies who stand in the way of our destiny: the Quartz, who scheme in the south, the Prench and Chesterians, who border us and envy us, the ponies of the steppes, the griffins of the north, the Bluebloods themselves, and worst of them all, the potential usurpers in our own midst… all must be crushed underhoof without mercy, hesitation, or remorse. Do you understand, my little pony? Are you prepared to be an instrument of this family’s rise, as I was?”

“Yes. Mother,” Cruciger warily looked up from his floor to his dam. “I understand.”

Blueblood lay broken at his hooves.

Dead.

He was dead.

The fifty first Blueblood was dead. The family honor was defended. None would think to renege on deals with the Terre Rare. Not after this. Fear would keep them in line. Fear would cow the weak of heart and keep the Quartz and Garlands at bay. None would dare to raise the flag of challenge, and so, order and harmony would be restored. The family was preserved, and all it cost…?

“You… fool.” Cruciger’s face was smashed and bloody, one eye destroyed by the Prince’s last, desperate attack. Scars that he would bear until the day he died crossed the Duke’s chest. Blood welled up from his crushed lung, threatening to drown him. Yet Cruciger could not tear his one remaining eye away from the look on his old friend’s face. The only unicorn his age he had ever considered a peer and a friend. Dead. Dead. Dead.

The pony who would become forever known as the ‘Black Duke’ stared at his fallen friend.

“It was… our friendship… or my family’s honor…” A trembling hoof brushed what he had thought to be blood from his cheek. “But… I still… I still wish we--”

But there was no telltale crimson streak; what he had wiped away from his cheek hadn’t been blood.

What was left of Cruciger’s magic surged out of him as he roared in pain and fury, barreling over those daring few who had tried to approach the pair of duelists. He screamed until his voice was hoarse, and then he screamed until it failed, leaving him wheezing like a deflated balloon. It hadn’t been blood. Why couldn’t it have been blood? Why did it have to be…

Tears?

The triangular stone tower fell through thin air, the base of it still dropping from the water of the moat that surrounded it. It tumbled past the hovering stallion, a titanic hammer to batter any opposition – even family – out of existence. Rage in his one good eye, Lord Cruciger gestured with his hoof, condemning those below.

They would surrender. They would yield. They would bow in the face of the undeniable.

In this world, there was no other option.

“Brass,” Twilight groaned, exhausted and pinned to the ground like a moth in a display case. The shadow-hook in her right front leg tightened the more she struggled against it. Standing above her, partly shielding her, Alpha Brass slowly shook his head. Up in the sky, Twilight could see thousands of tons of stone slowly descending on them.

Was – was Cruciger really going to kill them both like this?

Was it moving so slow to give them time to surrender, or just to taunt them with their helplessness?

“Brass!” she said again and tried to think of a plan. There had to be a magical counter for these chains. Sombra. Sombra. Where had she heard that name before? Prince Sombra, was it? What type of mage was he? Twilight groaned, wanting to hit her head against something. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember reading anything about this sort of spellwork!

“You should’ve told me he had spells like this!” Twilight yelled up at her fiancé. “What’re we going to do? What’re we going to do?! I can maybe cast one two-alliteration spell and then--”

“Twilight,” Brass interrupted her panicked gabbing. “You trust me, don’t you?”

She nodded. “I do, but…”

“Don’t ask questions, then,” he told her, and she looked up at him with dove-like, trusting eyes. “I’m sorry, but, I need you to finish this. Open your mouth. When I’m done, teleport away and trust me.”

“But how can I…?” she started to ask, mouth conveniently open, when he opened his mouth as well. What he answered her with defied easy description.

“-\/|-/|\/.”

The sound burned her ears and horn.

It wasn’t a word. It wasn’t even a real sound. She felt it as much as she physically heard it. Her horn trembled like her inner ear, understanding the ‘sound’ without meaning. But her body? Her body understood it. Her body embraced it, even where her mind failed to grasp it. The sound had a primal meaning that echoed in muscle, bone, and soul.

Magic circulated within her, wild and raw and passionate and powerful. For a moment, Twilight almost thought of herself as a Helmholtz resonator, air pressure along the mouth or rim of the resonator increasing the pressure on the inside. Magic she had thought spent ignited and flowed out of her body in an uncontrolled star field.

The shadowy hooks clamped into her forelegs tore apart under the strain.

“H-how?” she asked, breathless.

“I usually do that with a kiss, but I can’t move,” Alpha Brass replied, grinning. “Now. Teleport. Go. WIN.”

Twilight’s cheeks colored at the thought of whatever magic he had done being administered via lip-lock. Was that why he had asked her to open her mouth? So this strange sonic magic could get inside her? A hundred questions assailed her, demanding answers. Brass had never displayed this sort of magic before!

But she had promised.

“You better tell me about it later,” Twilight demanded, and seeing the sky almost blotted out by Cruciger’s tower, she blinked away.

She left him pinned by shadowy chains, bound by six ethereal hooks, in the shadow of tens of thousands tons. But she left him.

Alpha Brass bowed his head and chuckled.

“Aaah,” he remarked, as if to embrace the crushing doom from above. “Well. This hasn’t gone exactly as planned, but… it will do.”

Twilight Sparkle’s love coursed through him, and, just as expected, it amplified his own magic. Just as Cadance had speculated, so long ago. The alicorn’s amplification effect was very likely superior to that he had coaxed out of Twilight Sparkle, but this was a power already at his hooftips. It was generally better to have a power close at hoof than a greater one out of reach, or so he tended to believe.

Twilight could be mistaken for feeling what she thought to be his own love in return.

He was no longer capable of such a thing, which was exactly why he had substitutes. This duel had proven that. Twilight Sparkle was already ensnared, and he had quite aptly proven just how much he could boost her already formidable power with his own. A word. A touch. A look. It was an excellent start. She could possibly be pushed just a little further before the invasion. Her interests and desires were aligned with his own, save for a few little hiccups. It would be wise to boost her power as much as was safe and prudent, pushing her beyond her limits as only he could do.

‘She’s already so much stronger than you, Cadance. I’d say only Eunomie and Euporie, my good daughters, are more valuable to me. And perhaps Chalice as well, as the vessel for Lord Sagittarius.’

“I suppose this is where I reveal my carefully hidden actual abilities,” he muttered, struggling to turn his head and stare up at the sky. “I say that, but it isn’t like I can really free myself like I did Twilight. But that’s fine. I can work with this.”

‘There he is.’

Father was still in the air, and, by now, he had to know something was amiss.

‘Chalice. Eunomie. Euporie. Cadance. And now, Twilight Sparkle. With all four aces and a joker in my hoof, what do I need you for, father? With these five cards, I can’t be beaten.’

“Amiss. Something is amiss here.”

Cruciger didn’t miss one of his targets teleporting away. How she had the energy to, or even how she had escaped from Superlative Shadowy Shackles, he couldn’t rightly guess. It did become clear, however, that his son was not about to escape. Twilight had left him behind.

“I could crush you at a whim, but still you fight me?” Cruciger roared. His control over the falling fortress tower was enough that it tilted slightly left and right as his head did the same, searching the ground for where Twilight Sparkle had fled.

“Not below,” he growled to himself, and suddenly spun around, looking up. “There you are.”

A lavender speck descended from above.

“Foalish…! To attack me like this,” Cruciger announced, the giant tower in his telekinetic grip beginning to come around like a titanic baseball bat. “I’ll swat you from--”

The faint outline of a shadowy hook appeared over his extended front leg.

“Hrrrm?”

Another hook and then another appeared, gouging into his shoulders. Then another in his other front leg, followed by two in each hind leg. Just like the first, these chains were only faint imitations of the Shadow Shackles he had used on his son, but their power was otherwise identical. Ethereal chains wrapped tightly around the Black Duke’s chest and he felt his magic begin to fizzle. It was a sensation he had not experienced in decades: a genuine loss of control.

Then the chains began to drag him down, and the magical wings dissolved from his sides.

“This…! This isn’t--”

From on high, Twilight Sparkle’s fall accelerated. A pinwheel of magenta magic spiraled away from her horn as she fell, head-first, like a living missile. Cruciger saw the magical beams solidify around her, and on top of them, like a cone of air tinted by a sheen of energy, an extended tip formed. She wasn’t just a missile. She was a magical battering ram and missile all in one. A living cannonball, headed his way. And there was nothing he could do about it.

A revolving sphere of magic filled his vision.

It was visible for miles: a flash of purple-red, almost blinding. A lilac contrail streaked from above the cloud layer and almost to the ground. A shock wave followed the flash, the sound trying in vain to catch up to the light, and, like a delayed reaction in midair, the entire suspended Maerlaverock Tower ripped apart. It didn’t break. It simply came apart into an ever expanding cloud of telekinetically spreading debris.

Only as a twisted torus of gravel, glass and crystal spread from the midair impact did the lavender meteor hit the ground with an anticlimactic thud. It was followed by a second – a very long second – of silence. Then the previously fallen ruins of the Château de fer à Cheval glowed, briefly, before exploding in a cloud of magic and dust. A hundred thousand square hooves and more of crushed stonework all turned to smoke as the magic that held together the castle-duplication summons came apart. The destructive de-summoning rocked the dueling ground with another shock wave, the largest and loudest to date.

Ponies as far as Ponyville heard the distant roar, and leaves shook in the wind at Sweet Apple Acres.

In the center of a crater, still burning with crackling magenta magic, Twilight Sparkle stood on all four hooves. Below her… was the still body of Duke Cruciger, the Black Duke. The stallion held by many as the most powerful in Equestria. The Lord of the Terre Rare. The stallion who had boasted he could camp eight thousand troops outside Canterlot with impunity.

Breath coming in ragged, pained gasps, she didn’t even notice the faint wing-shaped magic crackling around her midsection. Her eyes were white, flickering, sometimes with a pupil and sometimes without. She swayed slightly, still standing on top of her beaten opponent.

“Did…”

The words were hoarse but unmistakably her own.

“Did I…?” She managed to look down, dazed, at the prone Cruciger. He was embedded partly into the cracked and twisted crater that spread out from below her. “Did I…? Did I win?”

One of her eyes flickered in, the other out, one eye purple, the other white.

“Arrogant.”

A hoof seized her by the throat, picking her up as easily as she would her Smarty Pants doll. The suddenness and brutality of the attack caught her completely by surprise. Her vision was still a mess. She could just barely make out the hoof around her throat, the leg it was connected to, and the half-crushed, cripple of an old stallion that had impossibly emerged from the burning crater around him.

“Arr… ohh… ggggggggnntt…” Cruciger was frothing at the mouth, a mixture of spittle and blood dribbling from the corner of his cheek. The impact had dislodged the onyx and silver patch over his missing eye, leaving a gaping hole that burned with raw magical energy. Droplets of condensed magic rolled down the Duke’s scarred cheek like molten tears of wax slouching off a blazing candle.

“I am… unbeatable!” His other eye was wide and savage as he somehow managed to rise back up, shedding debris from his blackened, smoking coat. “I am… LORD of… this… FAMILY. I… am the… Instrument of…!”

He stood on his hind legs, holding Twilight by the throat, part of his arm still on fire. Her hooves desperately flew up to try and pry herself loose, but it was like trying to undo a vice. He may as well have been made of solid iron, she of jelly. Not in a thousand years could she free herself with just her hooves. Shuddering in despair, her forelegs fell limply to her sides. There was nothing left to give in her. Only…

Only one thing.

Twilight cast the basic two-alliteration spell she had saved as her emergency backup of all backups.

Her form shimmered, an illusion replacing the lavender with alabaster white. Her mane color-shifted into pink and red. It was the most basic sort of illusion. Really little more than a simple cantrip, and she had done it right before his eyes. There was no way it would fool any pony thinking rationally. Nonetheless, Twilight cast the spell and hoped.

Twilight Sparkle took on the form of Twinkling Star Light.

And Cruciger’s grip on her loosened, instinctively.

She fell onto her side with a pained grunt. He continued to stand, one leg outstretched and grasping. The fire in his empty eye socket continued to burn and sputter until, finally, it dimmed. His upper body moved, slowly, jerkily. Bits of his coat, she noticed, were petrifying and flaking away. Magical and mundane fire spread along his legs and almost to his shoulders, and Twilight could smell the stink of burning hair assault her nose.

“For Celestia’s sake,” she cried, trying to get onto her hooves and failing. Her body was spent. Absolutely spent. She couldn’t even stand. “Just give up! What’s wrong with you? Please… just… stop…”

Cruciger continued to glare, but he was still looking forward at where she had been, not where she was now. Rolling onto her side with a moan, Twilight slowly caught her breath. Any second, she expected the Black Duke to snap out of whatever his daze was and stomp her flat. But that moment simply never came. She could see him breathing. He wasn’t dead. He was just standing there.

“What are you doing?” She barely managed to lift a leg, just enough to anemically wave a hoof at him. “Come on! If you’re going to do it, then just… just… just do it--”

She couldn’t finish her demand, not even she what she wanted or expected. Still, Cruciger stood. Like a statue. Or like…

A unicorn appeared in a flash of light.

“He’s unconscious,” Twinkling Star Light explained, standing tall and reaching a hoof up to gently brush her husband’s cheek. He was still frozen in place, one hoof extended as if to crush the life out of somepony, his already scarred body pocked by mismatched bruises. He was unconscious, but still standing, still refusing to fall.

“Unconscious?” Twilight asked, breathless. What kind of a pony went unconscious like that?! She’d heard of being ‘dead on your hooves’ before, but this was nuts. Was half her family even Equine? If he had been some sort of ancient golem under his coat, she wouldn’t have been too surprised, not after seeing him throw castles at ponies.

“Then?” she dared to ask. “Does that mean…?”

Star Light hesitated for a pointedly long time before answering. “It means,” she finally said, her magic gently lifting Twilight off her side and into the air.

Duchess Twinkling Star Light bowed her head.

“It means you have won. The Terre Rare are yours.”

Alpha Brass stumbled through the dust cloud, close enough to see his mother bow to his new fiancée. Twilight Sparkle collapsed a second later, but Alpha Brass cushioned her with a magic glow, gently laying her to rest on the ground. Sparkling dust fell from the sky like snow, the glittering remains of the battle of Equestria’s Two Strongest Unicorns.

“Alpha,” Twinkling Star Light said, lowering her hoof from her husband’s still face.

“Mother,” Brass replied, approaching at a leisurely pace.

“You should apologize to your sister,” his mother stated, back to her son. “Not just for her sake,” she explained with a sniff. “For yours. You’ve backed her into a corner. You know what will come next, don’t you?”

“I think so,” he said with a shrug. “Twilight was everything I claimed her to be, wasn’t she?”

Twinkling Star Light glanced back at her son, but only for a second. “You were using your gift to intensify her.”

“Only after she beat you,” Brass objected. “It was a dual-duel, and I was merely doing what I was made to do.”

“Your special talent,” Twinkling said, softly, glancing over at the unconscious Twilight Sparkle. “It isn’t that I’m surprised it worked, since your magic resonates with anypony and not just your special somepony, but to this degree?” She turned around to finally face her son, her expression both concerned and perplexed. “Has something happened to you, Alpha? Your color is different. And what Twilight said before… what happened with Olive Branch? Did she do something…?”

For all of a second, for all of that one long moment, he actually considered telling her.

“Olive Branch is dead,” he said instead, and it was still the truth. Just the truth this pony wanted to hear. He always told them what they wanted to hear. It was a kindness.

Without further words, the two unicorns vanished, taking their significant others with them.

Author's Note

Author Notes!

Either the normal story title, or a new one, will resume with chapter 45. Though I can't say when that will be. Lotta work ahead, though in-fic I'm happy, as just about everything is finally in place. I've taken care of Cadance, Blueblood and Lyra, up to the middle of the invasion. Now Twilight, Brass, and Antimony are in place (or inches from it). My plan is to now go to best-marshmallow Rarity as the primary POV as we get to the wedding and the invasion.

Extended Notes:
Cruciger and Star Light... the two strongest unicorns of the parents' generation, they are about as powerful as modern four-alliteration unicorns get. There has been some interesting discussion of late about OP unicorns (I know, Pinkie, I know), hence why I bring it up. But what really makes a pony powerful? Is it in the raw magic they wield, or in the convictions they have, or in the sacrifices they are willing to make? If you remember him, was Shigure (Late Rains or 'Antlers' as AJ called him) a pony worthy of respect because of his power as an earth pony, or because of his dedication and courage in living what he felt was a good and noble life, even if it meant his death? Likewise, is Cruciger a powerful pony because of his magical ability, or a weak one because of his inflexibility?

As one last aside, I've been waiting and planning for the fight this chapter since Chapter 4 or so, back when it was first mentioned that Antimony's father was big on renovating castles in the countryside. Waiting a year to write something can drive you a little crazy, can't it, Pinkamena? (Only a little crazy)

My special love and thanks go out to everyone who has stuck with this maddening, meandering fanfic experiment for all this time. About a third of those who started, I think. If nothing else, I won't let you down by leaving the fic incomplete.

Chapter Forty Five : This Day's Aria

Baby, baby, naughty baby,

Hush, you squalling thing, I say.

Peace this moment, peace, or maybe

Nightmare Moon will pass this way.

Crescent Moon opened his eyes, the pale glow within them obscuring the normally wheat colored irises. He lowered his face, blinking repeatedly and slowly shaking his head. Bit by bit, the white glow faded away, leaving behind only a faint trace of green. A moment of disorientation came and went before he looked towards his wife and spoke. There was a reason ponies called him the ‘Night Light’ of Canterlot.

His mastery of the ‘Far Seeing’ spell was beyond dispute.

“Amazing,” he said, hushed and clearly awe-struck. “She did it. Lady Star Light was just there, and she confirmed it. Twilight did it. She beat him.” He gave a sigh of relief that left a shudder through his entire body. “Oh, oh sweet Celestia… our little filly… what was I thinking…?! Letting her put herself in this kind of danger? Cruciger could have – at the end he almost – it was…!”

“Calm down,” Twilight Velvet ordered, and his fatherly anxiety and relief gradually faded, returning to the standard obedience she preferred he show in private. The changeling that was Twilight Velvet felt her wings stir, restlessly, beneath the veneer of her skin. The Queen had warned her about these ponies. Their power was undeniable. They were dangerous. Far above and beyond their more mundane kin, they were dangerous.

The ones here were neutralized, for the moment, but clearly still a future threat. They all had to die. Every one of them. Twilight Sparkle included. It was the only way for changeling-kind to be safe. The smart thing now would be to use her disguise to sneak in and slit the throat of the Element of Magic while she was still unconscious. Pin the blame on the Terre Rare somehow. As a tool, trying to keep use of her was… dangerous. Too dangerous! Why couldn’t the Queen see that?

On the other fang, if she was caught in the act…

Twilight Velvet shuddered at the thought. No. She would stick to the plan. In the end, for all their power, these ponies were still just food. Fodder. Cattle. Nothing here was beyond what the Queen had predicted. There was no cause for alarm.

“Come,” she commanded, turning away from the dueling ground. Her husband followed close behind. They had a wedding to prepare for and a daughter to finish breaking in. The rest, she would leave to her kin, when the time came.

(45)

This Day’s Aria

Baby, baby, she's a giant,

Deep and black as ashen coke,

And she breakfasts, dines, defiant,

Every night on naughty folk.

“Rarity? Princess?” Her father rapped gently on her door before nudging it open with his right front hoof. “Your mother asked me to talk to you…”

The door bumped against the back of a chair, offering a hint of resistance to being opened fully.

“Rarity,” Magnum’s tone became more stern, but at the same time, a little playful. “Are you going to let your poor father in? You know how rude it is to talk through a door, don’t you?”

He waited behind the door, fully able to push it open despite the chair propped up against it. Rarity didn’t have a lock on her door – nopony in the family did – and after a couple seconds of silence, he could hear the sound of a filly finally pushing the offending chair out of the way. The shuffle-shuffle as it dragged over the rug, and then the squeak as it ended up on the hardwood floor near her desk and toy chest, all passed as he waited patiently outside her room. Finally, he was rewarded by seeing his daughter’s nose peek in through the crack in the door to nudge it the rest of the way open.

“You can come in,” she told him, her eyes downcast. “Mom wanted to take my Ruby away,” she tried to explain, gazing up at him with dewy blue eyes.

“Why don’t you show me Ruby?” he asked, and let her lead him over to a small bed of pillows and towels. On it was what she had been protecting from her mother: a makeshift nest for a small red egg.

“This is Ruby,” Rarity said, sitting next to the egg she had found. She tried to float it with her horn, but small as she was; her magic was too weak and refused to manifest itself. Instead, she gently shifted it on the nest with her hoof.

“Did you find Ruby on the ground?” he asked, taking a seat close enough to be supportive but far enough away not to seem threatening. At the question, she shrunk into her shoulders, not responding. “Rarity? Tell your father the truth, now.”

“I was just coming back from school when I saw it,” she explained. “I think a pegasus pony must’ve knocked it out of the tree. Ruby was the only egg… the only one left.” She reached under one of the towels to retrieve a clearly broken mess of woven straw and twig. “I was gonna fix it…”

“Oh, Princess,” her father said with a sigh. He gently patted her on the head, his hoof settling on her little indigo curl of a mane. “I know you want to fix things, but even if Ruby hatches, we can’t take care of her here.”

“What about her parents?” Rarity was already convinced it was a she. Much like she was certain her new brother or sister would just have to be the latter, given how ‘icky’ most colts were in her eyes. “They’ll take her back, won’t they? If we can’t…”

“We can’t,” he had to be sure she understood that. His wife had been very clear on that fact. Rarity’s expression was downcast, but she was also mature enough to be resigned when both her parents agreed on something.

“And Ruby’s parents won’t take her back, either, not once she’s been taken out of the nest,” he explained.

“Why not?” Rarity asked, frowning.

“Because she won’t smell like their egg anymore,” he said, and pulled her a little closer for a hug. “The best thing we can do now is take her to Rose’s house. She’ll take care of Ruby, and you can always visit her there as she grows up. Okay?”

Rarity muttered something under her breath.

“What was that?” he asked, giving her a playful nudge. “Come on, ladies don’t mutter, now do they?”

“I said Miss Rosebay is a weird pony,” she answered. “I wish I could raise Ruby myself.”

“Everypony has their special talent, and Miss Rose’s is taking care of animals,” he reminded her. “Come on. Find a nice box for Ruby and you can take her there. I’ll walk with you.”

Rarity nodded, sullen but obedient, and gathered her things. It wasn’t very long a trot from their house to Rosebay’s outside town. Rarity and her father took their time, passing by a familiar face on the way through the town market. Little Applejack was out with her big brother, and both siblings stopped to stare as Rarity trotted along with a small packing box in her mouth. Applejack had only just come back from Manehattan, to hear the talk about town, where she had been staying with some rather well-to-do relatives. Her brother, Big Macintosh, seemed to be reintroducing her to a few of their business partners.

She had to be back in town for good, then, and getting into the family business. Watching the duo, Rarity privately wondered when the other filly had gotten her cutie mark. It must have been in the Big City. How lucky Applejack was! Manehattan was supposed to be the most exciting city in the world, except for maybe Canterlot. The two fillies eyes met for a second or two, and then Applejack’s attention was drawn towards her brother and the adult he had been talking to.

Rarity picked up her pace to try and keep up with her father.

A ways outside town they found their destination: a small cottage that had been made over into a home for animals. Well-tended gardens grew vegetables in abundance, just beyond a small bridge over a clear blue creek. The cottage itself was slightly raised up off the hills and ground below, on a sort of elevated mound dotted with warrens and holes for ground-dwelling critters. The ancient thatched roof was overgrown with grass and weeds, but Rarity noticed some of them had been trimmed. Rosebay’s old cottage used to be sort of smelly and scary with how overgrown things had become. It seemed a bit cleaner now.

Her father knocked on the door for her, and soon enough Rosebay opened the top half of the door to talk to her guest. She was an old earth pony mare, with a weathered-gray mane braided behind her neck until it fell limply over her left side. Rarity held Ruby’s box closer to her chest, not really wanting to give her up to the old mare. Who said that Rosebay had to take care of all these animals anyway? It seemed like a stupid rule. Anypony could do it. It was just like having a pet, she was sure, and lots of ponies had lots of pets!

“A new apprentice?” her father asked, and Rosebay pulled open the bottom half of her door. Just behind the old mare, hiding behind her legs, even, was a lanky butter-yellow pegasus with a pink mane.

“Fluttershy,” Rosebay introduced her, forcing her out into the open with one hindleg. “Say hello, now.”

“H-hello,” the young mare said, all but forcing the word out. It came out as little more than a squeak and she even ended up closing her eyes as she said it. It took a second or two before she dared to take a look, glancing first up at Rarity’s father, smiling amiably, and then at his daughter. Then at the egg she carried.

“Oh!” Fluttershy gasped, trotting up to the younger filly. “Is that a Chiffchaff egg?”

Rarity let the suddenly very excited other filly take the packing box out of her mouth so she could examine the egg and broken nest within. She got a sense that there was more to it than just ‘the parents don’t like the smell.’ She overheard her father explain how she had found it, and something about a ‘migratory bird act.’ So a pony had to have a license to take care of wild animals? It still seemed like a stupid rule. Rarity made a vow, then, that if she ever got the chance, she’d get rid of all the stupid rules.

“Her name is Ruby,” Rarity told the other filly. “Are you sure she’ll be alright?”

“We’ll try and collect her parents, but even if they’ve left, I’ll take care of her!” the young pegasus assured her with a smile. “Don’t worry!”

Rarity returned the smile, a little more comfortable with this new filly… and a little curious where she came from. “Are you new in town?”

Fluttershy seemed to grow self-conscious again at that. “Um. Well. Y-yes…”

She held out her hoof. “I’m Rarity!”

“I’m… Fluttershy.”

Years later, her shy friend would direct her attention towards a nest built on the ground in the crook of a tree’s roots near her parents’ house. As it turned out, Ruby had been a female, but the nest probably hadn’t been knocked out of a tree at all. Soothing Ruby’s defensive mate with a few soft words, Fluttershy had gotten Rarity close enough peel back a curtain of ivy and reveal that her little egg now had eggs of her own.

Chrysalis’s breath was labored in the moist, fecund air.

Closing her eyes, the One True Queen sighed and gestured for her attendant to finish writing the letter she had just dictated. Her body contracted and she grimaced while she watched her daughter sign her name – Princess Cadance’s name – to the paper and seal it with wax. The signature was followed by the stamp of Her Serene Highness, the sigil of the crystal heart, to confer the rights and sacred inviolability of the document.

It was so very useful having Cadance’s authority within the Equestrian hierarchy, though the foolish mare hadn’t made much practical use of it. Chrysalis had found herself working almost around the clock to repair the dignity and reputation of the pony she impersonated… to make her enough of a political force in the country that what she wanted to get done could get done. Foalsitting had accomplished none of that. The stupid alicorn was honestly better off rotting in a crystal prison; she had accomplished so little with her worthless life. In mere months, Chrysalis had done more with her name than Cadance had in a decade or more! And this was only the beginning.

“Foal-sitting… how ironic, now that I think about it,” Chrysalis, devoid of her disguise, chuckled.

As she lay on her stomach, she felt the last of her young leave her body.

She turned to count the children from this clutch, squirming around her chitinous hooves. Thirty two. She had thirty two new daughters for the swarm, and the great New Biscione Hive. They weren’t much to look at when they were first born… what ponies would call an infant changeling was just a grub-like larvae, black, segmented, without legs or wings or even much of a face, really. They had no real thoughts in their little heads. All they knew, blind and hungry, was to squirm towards something warm and imprint on it.

That something warm being an unconscious pony, bound and cemented with changeling wax into a depression in the cave. She was an earth pony, taken from a town far away. Earth ponies, her changelings had learned, were more hardy than pegasus ponies or unicorns. They required less care before they expired, and they lived much longer in poor conditions, making them much more convenient hatchery fodder. As the larval changelings latched into the unconscious mare, crawling over her and nibbling tentatively at her skin – their mandibles too small to break the surface, but the instinct to bite still present – Chrysalis sighed in contentment.

When Equestria was dust, she planned to replace her system of tiny, hidden hatcheries with one or two vast mega-complexes… perhaps under Canterlot, where they would be most safe. There, thousands of changelings could imprint on hundreds of captive ponies en masse. Laying so many larvae would be a terrible chore, though, so to meet the scale of reproduction she imagined it would probably be necessary to bump one or two of her daughters up to… sub-Queen status. Yes. She could even call them ‘Princesses.’ Why not? Her fertilized daughters could do all the tedious laying while their mother handled real affairs of state. Better still, a number of daughters all vying for the top spot would make them all the easier to manipulate and keep under control.

And from such humble beginnings… an army would be birthed, to darken the skies of the world.

Helping one of her larvae up and onto the captive earth pony, Chrysalis ducked her head and gently kissed the grub. In so doing, she marked it. Out of the thirty two children of her body, she picked out three others and also gave them a kiss. Her attendants would know which ones she wanted separated. When the time came, a pinch of royal jelly would make them potentially fertile, unlike their sterile drone sisters. The Queen’s Kiss would make them the leaders of this brood. The others would look to them for guidance, and they would compete for their mother’s favor.

Chrysalis took care to create no male-children. When the time came, yes, and only then, she would give birth to a few… and keep them for herself. Only she – only the QUEEN – could create a Prince of the Swarm, and so long as she had a monopoly on that, no daughter and future usurper would dare to oppose her. She would not be as careless as her mother had been. After all, she was far superior: the herald of a new breed of changeling. Her reign would be long and she intended to enjoy every minute of it.

Holding out her hooves and raising her tail, she let her attendants wipe her clean.

All the while, she kept her eyes on her new children. Not long after sampling the prey they were to imprint on, the newborn changelings crawled off and started to spin. Each one would wrap herself in a little silken bundle: a cocoon. Within that cocoon, the larva would develop into a pupa, and in time, that pupa would hatch into a young changeling nymph. A “ponyform” nymph, in this case, they took their rough shape from what they had been in contact with as a larva.

So the changeling lifecycle went.

They were ovoviviparous. The fertilized eggs remained within the mother, hatched, and ‘birthed’ as larvae. Chrysalis sniffed in amusement. She had an infinitely easier time of it than equine mothers did, from what she had seen. Her sweet children were a born one-tenth the size of the balloon-like monstrosities pony mares had to push out. The whole experience looked utterly horrifying. Chrysalis couldn’t imagine how any of them survived the experience without splitting down the middle. By comparison, the changeling way was far superior. Far, far superior. As would be expected of a superior race.

‘Thirty two foals in… what? Twelve minutes? Beat that, mares of Equestria!’ Chrysalis thought with a snigger. Her attendants descended to wait nearby and the Queen herself rested her head between her forelegs. While there was no real need to stick around anymore, she found she liked to watch her newborns weave their cocoons.

“Baby, baby, naughty baby,

Hush, you squalling thing, I say.

Peace this moment, peace, or maybe

Nightmare Moon will pass this way.”

Her voice was the only sound in the dank burrow, soft and melodious as she sang.

“Baby, baby, she's a giant,

Deep and black as ashen coke,

And she breakfasts, dines, defiant,

Every night on naughty folk.”

A silly rhyme.

“Baby, baby, if she hears you

As she gallops past the house,

Limb from limb at once she'll tear you,

Just as pussy tears a mouse.”

A pony rhyme.

“And she'll beat you, beat you, beat you,

And she'll beat you into pap,

And she'll eat you, eat you, eat you,

Every morsel snap, snap… snap.”

Chrysalis smiled lovingly at her little cocoons, scattered around the floor. Her smile faded, somewhat, as she searched for another nursery rhyme to sing… only to be reminded that they were all pony rhymes. Pony songs. The changelings had none of their own. Her own mother, the previous Queen, did not and could not sing. It was a trait that seemed to have cropped up in her and her alone, of all the world’s changelings and of all the world’s queens. Of course, then, she would only have equine songs to sing. Such was the sad state in which changeling-kind currently found itself.

“We will come up with our own… in time,” she whispered, and closed her eyes to sleep, surrounded by her progeny. “And I will teach you how to sing. Sing our own songs…”

“Baby, baby, if she hears you

As she gallops past the house,

Limb from limb at once she'll tear you,

Just as pussy tears a mouse.”

“This was the creature?! The filthy creature that killed my babies?!”

Chrysalis was at the low point of what had been a frothing rage, her membranous mane frazzled and pooling, limply, from her lowered head. Crackles of stolen magic danced along the contours of her jagged horn.

“Bring it here!” she screamed. “NOW!”

“My Queen!” “At once!”

The two changeling guards heaved, and the body hit the floor in front of her. Chrysalis sneered at the corpse, eyes full of murderous hate. Dead red eyes stared back at her from above a yellow beak. The creature’s feathers were tinted with flecks of crimson blood from the fight only moments before. She could see that her vengeful guards had already beaten and stomped and gored the beast, both before and after subduing it. They, too, wanted revenge for their unborn sisters… murdered in their cocoons! Not even given a chance to hatch or molt or understand who or what they were…

A cockatrice.

An egg-eater.

Chrysalis took a ragged breath and, with a downward swipe of her hoof, sliced open the creature’s scaled belly. It didn’t take long for her to find, in the stomach, what she had been looking for. Her babies. Her poor babies. Her precious daughters. These things had eaten them. Pecked right through their soft cocoons and eaten them!

Cradling a ruined strip of black and green in her hoof, Chrysalis let it slip from her grasp and arched her neck back, eyes closed. “Aaa! Aa. Aah.”

She snapped her teeth, hard, clenched her jaws tight, trying to regain control of her frothing anger and overflowing hurt. Still, a pained cry escaped her lips, despite her best attempts to keep control. “Aaa. Aaa. Aah…”

Green eyes suddenly snapped open and Chrysalis screamed as she brought a hoof down on the head of the dead cockatrice. She screamed and howled and cursed like a banshee, punctuating every outburst with a new act of violence. Her chitin hooves smashed the chicken-like skull of the monster, then the ribcage. With the belly already opened to examine the contents, what was left of its entrails quickly spurted out from the cavity, staining the floor with foul ichor, coils of it tangling around her hooves and the holes in her legs.

Still, Chrysalis struck, again and again.

The beak snapped, and her two guards winced at the sound. The legs and the body soon became a broken mess of flesh and scales, the tail twisting and thrashing involuntarily at the cockatrice’s body broke in a dozen places. The head and the face took the brunt of her rage, however, and soon the upper half of the creature was all but unrecognizable. Only when there was nothing left larger than a hoof did the Changeling Queen slowly begin to get a hold of herself.

She didn’t feel it, but there were tears on her cheeks. Instead, she screamed, “Towel! Water!”

The guards remained in their place, but lower ranked – unarmored – drones quickly scrambled to do her bidding. The water came from a pool and a couple jugs reserved for hatchery use. The towel, also, was for hatchery use, for cleaning newly emerged nymphs of membrane. The commercial products stood out against the black and green of changeling wax that lined the walls: tiny bits of transplanted commercial Equestria, coopted for changeling use. Chrysalis said no more to her underlings. Not until they washed her hooves of blood and bits of cockatrice brain and skull.

“This will not do,” she stated the patently obvious to them, once she felt sufficiently restored to her appropriate dignity. “Not at all. You say these cockatrices killed all our hatchery guards? There must be more than just this one.”

“We believe there to be at least three, maybe as many as twice that,” one of her guards replied, lowering her head and her eyes. “There are many tracks. We have accounted for all the hatchery protectors and caretakers. All were petrified. Even… even the pony. Most seem to have been caught entirely by surprise, given their expressions.”

“The fools,” Chrysalis hissed, her anger ebbing and receding with every breath. “Fools! We are right on the border of the Everfree! How could they been taken by surprise by these disgusting, mindless creatures?!”

“They do grow quite large, my Queen,” the other guard quietly argued, as if to excuse the failure of her fallen sisters, their shame frozen in stone.

“I want these creatures to pay,” Chrysalis ordered it with cool, glacial fury, the rage from before finally buried beneath a civil veneer. “Do you understand? Hunt them down. Any cockatrice you find within a mile… within ten miles… within the entire forest! You eviscerate it. You…! No. No, no, no. That… would attract too much attention. No.” She shook her head, rethinking her earlier outburst. “Calm yourself, Chrysalis. We must not draw attention, yet. We are not ready.”

Her anger was well placed, but it couldn’t cloud her judgment. Not her.

“Search the forest,” she told them with a slow, measured voice. “Bring me a blood-stained beak for every one of your sisters who died here. The Everfree is a vicious place, so let our retribution be equally savage. When you are done, hide your work from prying eyes and return to me.”

“By your will, Great Queen!” Both changeling guards saluted, and turned to spread the word.

“The rest of you…” she went on, addressing the unarmed and unarmored changeling drones that attended her, “We are abandoning this hatchery site. Burn everything. I don’t want to see this cursed place ever again!”

Even as they began to follow her orders, the Queen’s eyes settled on her ransacked hatchery floor. All around the frozen stone earth pony, her face contorted in a final scream, were the remains of the changeling cocoons. Tattered silk lay strewn around the room and the floor, pecked or scratched open to reveal the vulnerable pupa within. Unprotected, some had been eaten whole, others pulled into pieces. None had grown to be even as large as her eye. Thirty-two dead children.

Thirty two lost…

Chrysalis tried to remind herself that, as terrible as this was, she had more children, still. Thirty two had been lost here, yes.

But more than four thousand lived on to carry out their work.

Turning to leave, Queen Chrysalis gave no further thought to the petrified pony in the center of the room. She did not notice that, while the living equestrian had been held down with wax, this one was not. Soon, fire consumed the hatchery. The cavern was collapsed, burying the lifelike statue and the story behind it.

Until the wedding.

The present

It was sometimes hard for Rarity to reconcile the supposed ‘most powerful unicorn in Equestria,’ capable of wielding magic almost beyond the comprehension of anypony else, with the sweet, unassuming lavender mare that was Twilight Sparkle. Standing at the jamb of her friend’s room in the field hospital – one she had practically to herself – Rarity exhaled in mild annoyance as a rush of bodies squeezed roughly past her. Honestly, would it be too much to excuse oneself before barging in?

“Twi-light! Twi-light! Twi-light!” Rainbow Dash cheered, flittering into the air so she could adequately pump her forelegs.

“Oh! Oh! That was so awesome! Pow! Zip! Zowie! Bok! Biff!” Pinkie hopped up into the air, spun, and released a cloud of confetti sparkles, punctuated with multi-colored cardboard signs sporting various sound-effects. “Zr-zr-zrm! Giga horn-drill! Paaaaa-zooow! Brrrb-brrrb-brrb…” Rather defiantly flipping her tail at the laws of gravity, she then fell to the ground at a severely reduced rate, repeating the depowering ‘brrrb-brrb’ sound all the way.

“Poof!” she finished, hitting the floor on her stomach like a falling leaf.

Only to pop back up and rotating like a turret, firing cones of confetti in random directions. “Pshew! Pshew! Pshew!”

“Alright, now, we get the idea, sugarcube.” Applejack tapped a hoof to Pinkie’s head, and she squealed.

“Awww! But I have so many more funny noises to make!”

Twilight Sparkle was all smiles from where she lay in what very much looked like some sort of mud-bath. She reached out to bump the tip of her still-clean hoof with the flying Rainbow Dash, and then to more properly touch hooves with both Pinkie and Applejack. They could all see she was alright with their own eyes, but touching her hoof and feeling it for themselves clearly brought relief to her worried friends.

“Twilight,” Rarity said, hanging back if only for a moment longer. “I brought a few friends of ours along. I hope you don’t mind my arranging for them to be flown in.”

“Who…?” Twilight’s eyes widened as she saw the pair peeking in from the outside. “Spike! Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy waved, happily, but also kept from rushing in. Spike felt no such constraints, and with more manners than most ponies, slipped past Rarity to run towards the Canterlot unicorn. While he went on about how worried he was about not being around when she fought – Twilight had insisted he remain in Ponyville until the situation with the duels resolved itself – Fluttershy tentatively re-entered the circle of friends to fuss over their injured member.

Twilight was quick to assure them that they had nothing to worry about and that she was fine.

Being Twilight, she then went on a lengthy lecture about how she was submerged in a crystalline bath to restore her magic levels, which had been severely and almost critically depleted during the duel. What looked like sandy mud was actually a magical slush, or slurry, that infused magic back into her body at a controlled rate. Naturally, Rainbow Dash had then tried to touch the strange soup and gotten shocked enough to frazzle her mane and send her to the floor with a surprised yelp. She’d bounced back up a second later, her mane still frizzy, but to the laughter of her friends.

“Actually, it tastes pretty good!” Spike commented, licking one of his claws.

“It does?” Pinkie reached for the bath, too, and got shocked just like Dash had a second earlier. “Yowie Ow!”

“You should probably stop doing that,” Twilight delivered the advice with a dry note, even as she removed Pinkie from contact with her medical bath. “The tub is an insulator, so you can’t touch it if--”

“Oooo!” Pinkie fell back onto her rump, holding up her forehooves. A bit of electricity crackled between them. “Lookie lookie! Do you know what this means?”

“It’s just static--”

“It means we can absorb unicorn powers from this gunk!” Rainbow Dash jumped to the wildest possible conclusion anypony could. “Right?”

“Exactly,” Pinkie Pie agreed. The two made a mad lunge towards the now perplexed Twilight’s bath. “Superpowers!” They both cheered. “Gah!” Oof!”

“As if’n you two weren’t enough trouble as it is,” Applejack muttered, teeth firmly clamped down on Pinkie Pie’s cotton candy tail.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Rarity said, her magic doing much the same with Rainbow Dash’s chromatic tail. Both mares had fallen short of reaching Twilight’s tub, and ended up ignominiously face down on the floor.

“But I wanted to become Pink-Neato, Master of Magnet!” Pinkie bawled, still weakly reaching for the rim of the bath.

Twilight playfully batted her hoof away. “No. Superpowers for me only.”

“Lame!” Dash grumbled, propping her head up with her hooves squished into her cheeks.

“Power… overwhelming…” Fluttershy whispered, both of her front hooves dipped daintily into the bath and her eyes aglow with arcane power. “Oops!” She quickly withdrew. “Sorry! I, um… couldn’t resist…”

“A mud-bath like this is very extreme, isn’t it?” Rarity asked, releasing Dash’s tail and sitting down closeby.

“Minerals,” Twilight corrected. “Not mud.”

“A mineral bath,” Rarity said with a grin. “Did you really expend all your magic back there?”

“Back in Cloudsdale, we’ve actually got cloud-baths for this sort of thing,” Rainbow Dash chimed in, also sitting up and for the moment being serious. “Complete magical depletion, huh? That’s rough! This one kid in flight camp burned out like that and they had to take him to the hospital. He couldn’t fly for weeks.”

“Are you sure you feel okay?” Fluttershy asked, carefully holding the back of her hoof to Twilight’s forehead, just below her horn. There were a few stitches there holding together a short slash of a cut.

“A little tired,” Twilight admitted, and batted Spike’s hand when he tried to slurp up another claw-scoop of the gem-infused mineral bath. “Stop that. I’ve been soaking in this for more than a day!”

“So what? It still tastes good,” Spike muttered, but didn’t try and eat any more. “Fine…”

“Anyway, I feel fine,” she went on, now surrounded by a knot of her closest friends. “The doctors said I’ll be up and on four legs in another day or so. You guys don’t have anything to worry about. Really!” Twilight smiled confidently at her Ponyville family, gradually weaning them off their concern for her health. “I hurt worse back when I was trying to figure out how Pinkie Sense works! I’m fine!”

For a few seconds, they nodded and circled her in silence.

“Yeah! Twilight!” Pinkie cheered, wrapping her forelegs around the unicorn’s neck.

“We’re all just relieved ta hear that,” Applejack explained, taciturn but left with a load off her chest they all shared watching their friend fight the two titans of the Terre Rare family. Who could be anything but worried, watching their friend vanish into an otherworldly cloud for hours, only for her to reappear and fight another ferocious duel that involved falling castles, barrages of cannonfire, beams from on high and a veritable field of magic that could crush the breath from a pony’s lungs? When that lavender streak had finally fallen from the sky, knocking Cruciger out of the air and shattering the castle he held aloft like a baseball bat, who could do anything but worry?

The doctors had tried to assure them there was no problem, but…

“Hey, um,” Twilight spoke up, looking around the room, “not that I’m not happy to see you girls… and my parents were here right before you came in, but… where…” Her lower lip slipped into her mouth, nibbled anxiously between her teeth. “Have any of you seen Alpha? Alpha Brass, I mean…”

Spike scratched his head, clearly not able to help answer the question, and the mane six around him all exchanged looks.

“He was here not too long ago,” Rarity finally told her. “Just after they brought you in, darling. You should’ve seen him, insisting on staying by your side! It was so romantic!” She raised a hoof to her mouth to cough, her good news tempered by what she had to explain next. “He… he sort of… left after that, it seemed.”

“He left?” Twilight asked, looking to her friends and pressing them for more. “What do you mean he left, Rarity?”

“I don’t exactly know,” Rarity admitted, lowering her eyes.

“He wouldn’t just leave,” Twilight said, raising her voice a fraction. “I want to see him, but nopony… nopony knows where he is! Nopony is telling me! But he wouldn’t just leave without…” She seemed about to rise out of her mineral bath, but sunk deeper into it, more weary than she had insisted. “Without talking to me. He promised me. He promised…”

“Ah’m sure he’ll be back soon.” Applejack rested a hoof on Twilight’s back, a little careful not to get a shock from the magical slurry-bath. “It must’a been something right important ‘ta drag him away like this.”

“Like an emergency!” Pinkie helpfully added. “A super big catastrophic world-ending apocalyptic reboot-causing emergency!”

“That’s not helping, Pinkie,” Dash muttered.

“Maybe he’s just away setting up a surprise party?” Pinkie wondered instead, and Twilight actually laughed.

“That would be the day,” she said, but sighed, resigned to the fact that she wouldn’t be getting many answers. “I’ll have to ask him about that magic he used later,” she went on to say.

“What magic?” Dash asked, hooves at the edge of the bath. “More crazy unicorn stuff?”

Twilight shook her head. “It was his voice. He used his voice…”

“Like he yelled really loud?” Pinkie asked, continuing the barrage of questions. “Oh! Oh! Was it dragon-speak? Or was it like an elf? Did he have sing-song-y magic?”

“Dragonspeak?” Spike rolled his eyes. “Like that’s an actual thing.”

“Actually, Pinkie isn’t wrong,” Twilight mused, to her friends’ surprise.

“What?” Dash asked, groaning. “Really?”

“Even a shot in the dark hits sometimes!” Pinkie explained, sticking out her tongue.

“Maybe,” Twilight amended her earlier words. Settling against the back of the tub, she shook her head. “I don’t know what it was, exactly. He said something and my body filled with magic.”

“Can you do that?” Applejack asked, sounding skeptical. “Make magic happen with yer voice?”

“With an incantation like I did during the duel, yes,” Twilight explained. “You recite the spell formula as a set of phrases. Technically, anypony can cast any spell using an incantation, but this was different.” She tucked her front legs up, tight against her chest. “It had to be similar, but… it was so different… like helium in the air and helium in a balloon. A word that wasn’t a word. I don’t know…”

She sunk a little deeper into the bath, closing her eyes and letting her mane fall over her face. “I really want him here…”

“Ah’m sure he’ll come around,” Applejack assured her. Rarity remained silent.

“Yeah! Don’t worry!” Dash chimed in, a little bit of her confidence helping to draw Twilight back out of the revitalization bath. “Heck, if you need me to, I’ll go get him right now! How far could he have gotten, anyway?”

“I’ll sniff him out!” Pinkie promised, making a production of sniffing the air and the ground. “Oh, wait!” She popped back up with a pout. “I don’t know what he smells like…”

“Twilight,” Spike said, simply.

“Nevermind, I guess,” the Element of Magic relented on the subject, shaking her head again. “What about Lord Cruciger and Lady Star Light? Nopony’s told me much about what’s going on outside.”

“Lady Star Light took Lord Cruciger to her laboratory to treat him herself,” Rarity answered, having opted for silence for most of the get-together. It was, she realized, somewhat suspicious of her in retrospect. Not that she would call herself ‘chatty’ – for a Lady most certainly did not gossip beyond what was polite and proper – but she did have her opinions and little hesitation in sharing them with others, especially her friends. Her silence now had really been…

Well, there were potential distractions, heavy on her shoulders and always in her thoughts.

“I heard somepony say he’s a killer robot cy-pony!” Dash remarked with a dark chuckle.

“Like the Ter-mare-nator?” Pinkie asked, blue eyes wide at the apparent news. “Or the Six-million-bit Mare?” A hoof flew to her lips to cover a small gasp. “I had no idea!”

“He ain’t no cypony,” Applejack argued. “Did’ya forget that Lady Star Light’s a doctor, herself?”

“Um… what’s a cypony?” Fluttershy asked, utterly lost in the conversation.

Rarity felt content to just sit and listen.

Twilight. Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash. Pinkie. Applejack. It was nice, even if only for a few precious moments, to just enjoy their company again. Twilight describing the duel she’d gone through first-hoof; Rainbow Dash continuing to try and prove this silly ‘cypony’ theory she had heard from camp gossip; Pinkie Pie describing how she would have to find a way to sneak into Lady Star Light’s research lab to throw a party for the two defeated nobleponies, preferably without knocking over any dangerous world-destroying experiments; Applejack trying, always trying, to be a voice of reason; Fluttershy just sitting there, listening, happy to be surrounded by her friends, safe in the fact that they were all okay.

It was so wonderful just to be there.

It was so nice to forget about the changelings, about how her Blueblood had been replaced, about the chaos he had caused in just a few weeks tearing apart the Canterlot Duchy and threatening open war with Neighpon. It was nice to forget about how she couldn’t even dare to spend more than a day with him, in the house he had built to be their home, and how she always had to keep somepony nearby to make sure he wasn’t able to warp her mind. Rarity felt her jaw clench, but hid it expertly.

If not for Twilight… if not for her little conspiratorial sisterhood… she could have bedded down with that horrible imposter and become his plaything, all without even knowing it. A burning ember of hatred smoldered inside her, burning hotter the more she thought of what could have been, what was, and even what needed to be. She hated, too, that this situation made her feel this way.

Rarity wondered if Twilight felt the same, with her brother being where he was. They both had to live with the fact that, every night, the stallions they loved were Celestia-knows-where, utterly at the mercy of the monsters they had agreed to keep quiet about. That every day those changeling demons were taking what Rarity knew her Blueblood had tried so hard to build and perverting it. That he could even be dead, for what little she knew. And worse. At least they knew Shining Armor was alive.

And they let it happen.

Because it was The Plan. Because it was what had to be done. Because… it was what he would expect of her. For Equestria. There was no higher calling. In this, Sand Dune, Antimony, Blueblood, nobleponies who hated one another, were all united in purpose. But how much happier would she be… how much unburdened by worry could she be… living her old life, putting the finishing touches on her dresses for the wedding, unaware of what was to come? But that ship had sailed. Rarity wasn’t sure she would go back, even if some magical time traveler gave her the choice. Ignorance was far from bliss.

“Lady Rarity,” a voice whispered in her ear. A slip of paper floated into her hoof. The courier withdrew just as discretely.

Rarity glanced at the paper for just a moment, and neatly folded it closed.

“Rarity,” this time it was Twilight who called her. “Are you okay?” she asked, already knowing more and guessing more than any of her other friends could. “Is something wrong? You’ve been so…”

“Quiet!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Super-duper introspectively quiet!”

“Something up?” Dash asked.

“Rarity?” Applejack inquired, also slowly coming to a realization when she noticed the slip of paper.

Spike and Fluttershy remained quiet, but she could almost feel their concern for her, a warm bloom in her chest that came with a small pang of guilt. Her worry would never entirely go away, but she had taken the precautions she felt she had to take, and more. They were better prepared than they could have been in most any other circumstance. What was left was simply to go forward, boldly, courageously, and with the utmost dignity.

“Just a little rendezvous I need to attend to,” she told them, smiling not just to throw off suspicion, but out of genuine appreciation for their concern and their love. “Applejack? I’d be delighted if you could come with me.”

“I figgered as much,” the apple farmer agreed, adjusting the angle of her stetson. “Lead on.”

“You appear upset,” Antimony observed, and as astute as she was, she seemed acutely unconcerned.

“Do I have reason to be upset?” Rarity countered, entering the room with long, stately strides.

“I do not believe you do,” the other noblemare replied, gesturing towards a table covered almost entirely by a topographical map of the area around both Ponyville and Canterlot. In all, it encompassed about a third of the entire Duchy. Pins with slender crystal ends pierced the map, fixing it in place onto the table and colorfully outlining areas of interest.

“Then my own feelings can be put aside in the interests of cooperation,” Rarity said, her tone frosty but conciliatory. Antimony was, even now, not a mare to be taken lightly, especially in her own element and where and when she had the clear advantage. She could be reasonable, Rarity knew, or she could be ruthless to a degree none of her friends would likely imagine. What separated the two was whether she felt she could work with another pony or if she had to force their compliance.

Antimony inclined her head respectfully, finding the meaning in what was unspoken. It couldn’t be a coincidence that Alpha Brass had disappeared when he did. Rarity had always known some sort of conflict would take place behind the curtain, what with how Twilight’s duel had turned out, and she had left the details of it to those involved. Either way, a jaded part of her believed, she stood to benefit: Alpha Brass supported Twilight, and Twilight was part of The Plan, so if he emerged in control than it was a victory. If Antimony instead found a way, then she was also a part of The Plan, and they still had what they wanted: the forces needed to defeat the changelings.

She also knew, well, that Antimony seemed to have little love for her older brother. There was just no way to prevent some sort of reckoning between them. Rarity just worried for Twilight. Antimony had to see that, too.

“You can assure our mutual friend that my brother will, Celestia-willing, be able to see her sometime after the wedding,” Antimony explained, and said no more on the subject. “Before we begin, would you like a drink? Antonovka brews an interesting black tea from her homeland.”

“A drink to calm my nerves would be much appreciated,” Rarity replied, pulling out a pillow to sit daintily before the war table. “I brought a friend of mine and would like her to attend this meeting as well, if that isn’t a problem? I believe you know Applejack?”

Antimony nodded, and a faint magical aura appeared around her horn, permitting one more pony to enter. Applejack entered a few seconds later, tentatively probing the flap of the tent with her hoof. A subtle barrier had been erected outside, preventing entrance and befuddling eavesdroppers. To outside observers, the bronze tipped tent appeared mundane and certainly not enchanted.

“Howdy,” Applejack greeted Antimony, who nodded very slightly, and then waved to Antonovka. “Hey, there, everypony. Hope this ain’t an imposition?”

“If Rarity trusts you to sit in on our meeting, then I have no problem,” Antimony said, also sitting primly opposite Rarity. “General Antonovka had spoken to me of you, Ser Applejack, and your cooperation with us is not unappreciated.”

“It was a two way street,” Applejack replied, sitting down with rather less formality to Rarity’s left. “She was honest with me, so I was honest with her. Though Ah can’t say I can wrap my hooves around all this family politics. Shoot, you folks do more feudin’ than Apples n’ Oranges at their worst. Heck, Ah reckon the Carrots and the Peas get along better than you ponies, no offense.”

“None taken.” Antimony certainly did not seem defamed by the remark, though Rarity suspected the provincial reference had gone over, or rather under, her head. Either way, she made no effort to further explain herself or touch on the subject Rarity had obliquely broached before asking that Applejack be invited in.

General Antonovka set a beautiful vase-shaped black and white copperware samovar down on a small saucer. Rarity was familiar with it, and the sort of tea it brewed, as Blueblood had a number of tea sets for every possible occasion. He often rotated between them, and between different tea ceremonies, to keep in practice for diplomatic meetings. Rarity had learned by example, broadening her own experience in the process. It was something she had already put to use as Ponyville’s Baroness, welcoming guests from far off lands.

Rarity and Applejack sat, patently, as Antonovka carefully lifted the teapot from on top the hot samovar with her teeth, the heat from the boiling water and extinguished embers within rising up into the pot. The embers, Rarity could guess, came from dried pinecones, given the pleasant smell in the air. The teapot itself was used to brew a concentrated tea called ‘zavarka,’ which was then diluted to individual taste by the hot water in the samovar, via a small, elaborately decorated tap. A platter of white sugar, honey and jam was also left in reach for adding to the tea, along with fresh thinly-sliced lemon. It reminded Rarity of a certain stallion she knew; he preferred his black tea with milk and ginger, a taste acquired from his time among the griffins.

Antonovka presented and filled three crystal tea cups then one for herself, each one held in a silver-plated nickel ‘podstakannik’ – a sort of metal cup holder – intricately worked with floral motifs, hearts, and the ubiquitous sigil of the Terre Rare: the bull’s horns and the eight pointed star. Though any unicorn could sip tea from even the hottest cup using her magic, it was rather rude to do so in company, especially non-unicorn company, or so the old tradition went. Hence all were expected to drink with their hooves, and the podstakanniks made it much easier to hold onto a rather hot glass full of freshly brewed tea.

A little guiltily, Rarity enjoyed stretching the moment out.

As much as she loved her friends, she loved high society just as much… or almost as much. When these crises were all over, Rarity hoped, she could gather her new friends and her old ones together and enjoy tea just like this, in a beautiful room with beautiful dresses, and there would not be a whisper of war or battles or duels. They would gossip and nibble on teacakes and try on an ever growing assortment of fabulous hats from every corner of the land. If she could conspire to make that happen, just once, it would all be worth it.

Some day. Not today. But some day.

“The royal wedding of Her Serene Highness, Mi Amore Cadenza, and Sir Shining Armor,” Antimony said at last, taking one last sip from her dark tea, flavored only by a hint of honey and a sliver of lemon. “Will take place in three days. Twilight Sparkle will require twenty more hours to recover. You will only have one day to prepare before you are summoned to the city. Is everything in order on your end?”

“I took care of all that I could before I came here,” Rarity replied. With a tiny spoon, she stirred in a bit more white sugar into her tea. She liked it sweet, but still tasting of the tea itself.

“Ah’ve got a few reservations of mah own, for what that’s worth,” Applejack spoke up, well aware of the company she held at the moment and the fact that she had only been brought fully into the loop after her talk with General Antonovka. “Heck, you ponies can probably guess what I’m thinkin.’ Rarity here already threatened ta stitch my lips shut, and I agreed ta keep quiet like she wants, but Ah still want to just speak mah mind. Ah don’t know if it’s such a great idea keeping so much’a this secret. There’s gotta be other ponies we can let in on this, right?”

“If we reveal the enemy now…” Antimony began to argue.

“Ah know. It wouldn’t be pretty.” Applejack severely understated the potential nightmare that was an Equestria infested with changelings on every level, at least in Rarity’s view. If the changelings went to ground, it would force the entire country to look inward, and not in an introspective, contemplative manner.

It would be the bad old days of warlock and enchantress-hunts all over again.

“Ah can’t say I have any better ideas, and like ah said, Rarity’s already sold me on the necessity of it,” she went on to assure them. “Ah just don’t like that we’re leaving so many ponies who can’t fight stuck in this big’a mess. Ya know, I was gonna take Apple Bloom to this weddin? Apple Bloom! Well, you can sure as heck bet that ain’t happenin’ now! But there’s so many others we’ll be lettin’ be in harm’s way…”

“None of Ponyville’s foals will be anywhere near where the fighting is to take place,” Rarity said, though it was something Applejack already knew. In the most technical of terms, it did look a little suspicious; canceling the field trips into Canterlot for the wedding, but it was a calculated risk. If the changelings were looking that closely at them for signs that they knew about the attack, then so be it.

“That isn’t a problem is it?” Rarity asked, and she hoped Antimony didn’t make a fuss over it. Keeping up appearances was one thing, but risking their little sisters and the town’s children… that was another.

“A precaution like that is understandable,” Antimony answered, but didn’t smile despite her understanding. “Apple Bloom, was it?” She mused, half lidded eyes blinking as she thought back. “She was the little one with the red bow... the filly who asked me repeatedly about my cutie mark?”

“Yeah, that sounds like her,” Applejack muttered, blowing on her tea and still finding it too hot to drink. She’d taken a generous spoonful of apple jam to flavor.

Antimony smiled at the memory and nodded. “As I said, I don’t object. Nopony will notice a dozen or so fillies and colts. As for the rest, the young and the helpless ponies of Canterlot, we will only be able to do what we can. It is far from perfect, but we believe the changelings will move to capture those who are no threat to them. This works in our favor. Now, if you are set on your end, I will outline mine.”

She pointed to two tight groupings of pins far from Canterlot, near the very edge of the map.

“The forces of Lord Blueblood, who we know to be a changeling,” she explained, hovering her hoof over one cluster of pins capped with sapphire. “Roughly two thousand ponies strong, a little less than five hundred are professional guards and free company with any experience. Most important is that the Prince has not-so-subtly transferred Canterlot’s impressive Air Fleet away from the defense of the city. He commands the army from one of these airships, and I find it likely that he has installed changelings in most positions of power.”

Her hoof moved to cast a shadow over a group of topaz pins.

“Duke Yama of Neighpon. He has brought two thousand ponies to escort his daughter to Canterlot, where she is to answer for her alleged attempted murder of the Prince. Most are earth ponies, and they are expected to be well trained and well drilled... a formidable force. Neighpon takes its security very seriously due to piracy and their reliance on sea trade. Though it is not on the map, I have also confirmed that the bulk of Yama’s fleet is currently outside the sea fort guarding the bay of Los Pegasus.”

“Those two… ain’t really gonna fight, are they?” Applejack asked, leaning forward over the table.

“The point of contention will be here,” Antimony explained, her hoof coming to rest on another part of the map, south of Canterlot, between the Everfree Forest and the mountains: a natural choke point. “There is no getting around this area if one is to approach Canterlot by land from the west with such a host. Lord Blueblood will confront Lord Yama here and demand that he escort Lady Yumi to Canterlot. Yama will have to either stall for time, give in – which he will not do, as Yumi is his only daughter and heir and much beloved – or he will have to push, forcibly, through Blueblood’s line. Were I this changeling, I would take care to insert a few of my own into my army’s ranks, to ensure that shots are fired, provoking a battle.”

“Why? Why do all this?” Applejack frowned down at the map, as if she could somehow scowl the two armies into behaving like rational ponies.

“To tie up or preferably cripple Canterlot’s defenses,” Antonovka spoke up, her cup of tea between her front hooves. Her expression was stormy, also frowning, but that just seemed to be how she normally looked. “I believe Lord Yama will not want to fight, not if it can be avoided. Nor does he truly wish to comply with Princess Celestia’s mandate to send his daughter to the city. Within the timeframe we are dealing with, and without outside meddling, it is likely that the two armies will simply stare each other down.”

“Oh,” Applejack said, a little relieved. “Good…”

“That is, until the wedding begins,” Antonovka added.

Applejack still didn’t quite see. “What then?”

“Then, darling, when the changelings launch their attack, that false Prince will do the same,” Rarity answered, bluntly. “He will order his army to attack Lord Yama’s army, to retrieve Yumi for trial. He will say that Yama is stalling, because he is, in fact, doing just that.”

Applejack shook her head. “But… no. If that’s true, then…”

“Blueblood’s forces will be broken and rout,” Antimony described, coldly. “Thousands of ponies on both sides will die, further weakening Equestria, all while the changelings sack and enslave the population of Canterlot in the confusion. Their only expected resistance will be the Royal Guard, which they have already infiltrated. Canterlot, both the City and the Duchy, will be destroyed in a single day and a single night. Neighpon, too, will be savaged terribly. All with minimal risk to the changelings themselves.”

“Weakening the enemy through infighting,” Antonovka remarked with a huff, “It is an effective tactic, especially when combined with a surgical strike that takes out an enemy’s leadership. Aside from the Stable of Lords, a great many nobles and dignitaries will also be present for the wedding. With Canterlot fallen, the entire country will fly apart as everpony looks to their own defense, too afraid to mount a counter-attack.”

Applejack fell back onto the floor, her hindquarters missing the pillow.

“It is not a scenario we will allow to come to pass,” Rarity promised, reaching out to touch her friend’s foreleg. She turned to Antimony. “Is it?”

“Of course not,” the Prench noblemare answered with a smirk. “I plan to take Canterlot myself one day, whole, intact and in all its glory.”

“So?” Applejack asked, sucking in a steadying breath. She wasn’t a fearful pony, not when it came to the kind of dangers that could be faced and given a good kick in the nose, but this sort of thing was out of her depth. Still, she felt the confidence Antimony had, that Antonovka had, and most importantly, that Rarity had. “What are you plannin’?”

“Simple,” Antimony replied, taking a brief sip from her tea. “We assassinate Prince Blueblood.” Seeming to enjoy saying it, her smile broadened by a twitch, and she amended herself, “The changeling that is impersonating him, that is.”

Applejack let out a low whistle. “Ah… guess that’s one way ‘ta do it…”

“The problem is the other changelings that could impersonate him and give the same order.” Antonovka’s steely gaze fixed on the cluster of pins. “The assassination will have to be public, leaving nopony in doubt to the fact that he has been killed. With the Prince gone, and this fact known to his entire army, there will be no battle. Even if the guardponies loyal to him want to avenge his death, they will have no organization and no mandate to act independently.”

“By the time they start to stir, we will have already decided the issue here, in Canterlot.” Antimony tapped her hoof down on the castle-city that was at the heart of the map. It was also the heart of the country and the heart of equines everywhere.

Canterlot was the beacon of Celestia’s Light. Literally all of Equestria radiated out from it.

“How will you do it, though?” Rarity asked. “How will you assassinate Blueblood? You never explained to us--”

“It may be best if you do not know,” Antimony cut her off. “Of greater importance is how we will retake Canterlot itself, once the changelings have invaded in force.” She gestured with a sparkle of magic towards the ruby-capped pins near Ponyville, representing her forces, then to the small trio of pins in Ponyville, capped with indigo.

“These Diamond Dogs,” the Prench noble wondered, sounding skeptical. “Are you certain their intelligence is reliable?”

“While not what I would usually call perspicacious, they do have a solid knowledge of what lies underground.” Rarity smiled, both happy to be able to contribute again and in response to Antimony’s perplexed expression. “You just need to know how to charm them a little, darling. Call it a mare’s touch.”

Antimony quirked a delicate eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really,” Rarity insisted. “If I’m reading this map properly, then the tunnels they’ve discovered for me are… here… here… here…”

She began marking routes along the map with black string, wrapped occasionally around uncolored pins. What she revealed, speculatively, was a series of tunnels, all leading towards Canterlot. There were at least half a dozen of them.

“We will need to destroy them,” Rarity concluded, looking over her hoofiwork. “If they can enter the city from those tunnels then they can escape from them as well. Every one of them will need to be closed… by force if need be.”

“Sapping is nasty, dangerous work,” Antonovka pondered the map, her brows knitting closer in an actual scowl, and not just her usual stern-faced glower. “Ponies are ill suited for work underground, even at the best of times. We could collapse the shallowest tunnel from the surface, using spells, but the deeper ones…”

“We won’t be alone down there,” Rarity promised them, looking around the room at the three mares who shared the table with her. “Have faith in my friends like you have faith in me. Quite a few of my friends may be… uncouth by your standards,” she admitted, and Applejack chuckled, giving a brief, “hear, hear.”

“But even the roughest gem has value and beauty in it,” Rarity beamed, grinning like a schoolfilly. “All you have to do is give it a chance to shine!”

Antimony snorted, very softly.

But she consented, as Rarity knew she would.

“Canterlot,” the noblemare stated, her hoof hovering ominously over the image of the city, now surrounded by pins and lines in black and gold. “In three days, the matter will be decided. There is no middle ground.” Her half-lidded eyes searched her comrades for any hesitation. “You would all be wise to remember that in the days to come. In three days, by the grace of the Princesses, we will either vanquish…”

Her hoof stamped down on the city.

“Or be vanquished.”

“And she'll beat you, beat you, beat you,

And she'll beat you into pap,

And she'll eat you, eat you, eat you,

Every morsel snap, snap… snap.”

“Sister.” Alpha Brass stood up, elegant and refined as always, despite the enchanted chains around his forelegs. “I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”

“Brother.” Antimony entered the pillared room with her usual finery. A bold crimson cloak streamed over and followed the contours of her back, and fine golden filigree threads beaded and wove through her dark amethyst mane. “I do apologize for those… I should have told Gewitter to remove them once you were secure.”

“Apology accepted, of course,” Brass replied, approaching the edge of his cell.

Cell, though, was not an entirely appropriate description of where he was currently being kept. Four overlapping barrier walls shimmered semi-transparent but entirely un-breachable, the four intersecting corners of the square prison made of enchanted iron etched with runes of warding. Similarly, Alpha Brass’ hooves made crackling noises as he walked along a similar floor of magic, as strong as any of the four more obvious walls. Four unicorn stallions sat in recessed bowls in the floor, channeling magic directly into the special containment cell. Glowing blue lines in the smooth granite floor provided visible confirmation that the magical conduits were flowing properly, splitting and combining and overlapping to empower the spells involved.

Within the cell itself he was permitted a medium sized, but comparatively luxurious, bed, a writing desk, pens, ink, papers, a small library, a porcelain lavatory, a table for eating, and a small cabinet of wines and clean water. It was, perhaps, the stateliest prison in Equestria, one fit for even a royal …or for a troublesome magic-loving Element of Harmony, depending.

Antimony reached through the magical barrier and undid her brother’s restraints. He cooperated rather amiably. The shields were attuned, it seemed, and she could pass in and out as she pleased. Brass and his magic, and anything touched by his magic, could not. He had not so much as fiddled with the cuffs put on him, and so they eased out through the force field without so much as a crackle of protest.

“Much better,” he said with a smile and a bit of relief.

“It is unbecoming for a Terre Rare to be so ignobly chained,” Antimony agreed, putting the shackles aside. “Thank you, also, for not causing undue fuss when Gewitter brought you in. I feared you would make a commotion and end up hurt in the process. She holds you responsible for Sirocco vanishing, you know.”

“You can show your appreciation by bringing me a small cask of that delicious zap apple cider I’ve heard so much about,” Brass replied, floating over a pillow to sit on, a discrete distance from the barrier-wall of his cell. “Besides, you’ve gone through a lot of trouble to get your hooves on me. It would have been inappropriate to cause a stir that would accomplish nothing but getting ponies hurt.”

“I am very glad you saw things that way.” Antimony had no pillow to sit on, but there were padded rugs for the mages on ‘guard duty.’ She brought one over and took a seat with a sweep of her cloak. “You won’t be confined for too long. Only until after I deal with the situation in Canterlot.”

“Ah,” Brass mused, as if only then figuring it out, “the changelings.” He smiled.

“They must be destroyed. In that, I think we are both in agreement?” Antimony inquired, and he nodded, companionably. “Good,” she continued, seeing he agreed, “but I also know you have some ulterior plans… plans I have no intention of seeing come to fruition.”

“I understand. You think you can stop whatever I intend to occur by keeping me locked up during the crisis,” he stated, and didn’t sound impressed. Or off-put. “What makes you think I am anything more than an intermediary… a facilitator… for likeminded ponies? Like Twilight Sparkle, for example? Why would I need plans of my own when I can just have others do such work for me?”

“You always have an angle, brother,” Antimony reminded him, her eyes half-lidded but still piercing. “The fact is that I cannot trust you not to act in some way.”

Alpha Brass made a bit of a production of sighing, wearily. “It hurts me, as your older brother, so be so distrusted. I am a stallion of peace.”

“So you say,” Antimony replied, unmoved by the theatrics. “Yet for a pony of peace, who claims to disdain ‘unnecessary violence,’ it very much looks to me like you played a part in setting up the duel that took down our father.”

“I said ‘unnecessary’ violence.” His response was casual, but ice cold, and devoid of remorse.

“No problem with necessary violence, then?”

He returned her half-lidded stare with turquoise eyes, as if such an insipid question was beneath either asking or answering. Instead, he shrugged, and asked, “Father is alive, I trust?”

“Mother is keeping him alive,” Antimony answered, “Just like before.”

“Good,” was his response. A pony could believe he was happy his father still drew breath. That pony would be wrong, at least in Antimony’s assessment of her brother’s thinking.

“Good, because it occupies both mother and father?” she asked. “Whereas if father had died, mother would be on the warpath? That sort of ‘good?’”

Again, he returned her stare, feeling no need to dignify the question with an answer.

“I am not as cruel as you imagine me to be, sister,” he finally said, when she drew out the silence that followed. “But I understand why you feel the way you do.”

“No, brother,” Antimony snapped, raising her voice just a fraction. “You never have. You never will. It isn’t in your nature. Maybe once it was, but not anymore.” She made to stand and leave and he nodded slowly, mildly accepting her rebuke without argument or complaint.

On the verge of leaving, Antimony added, speaking without turning around, “I will have your cider delivered with your dinner tonight. Good bye, brother.”

“Fare well, sister.” Alpha Brass watched her go. “Visit me anytime.”

Queen Chrysalis held the letter over her study’s beeswax candle, the light from the burning paper casting a pale orange glow on her stolen features and an incongruous equine shadow against the far wall. The other Hives were all in place, and her forces marshaled for the greatest swarming in changeling history. They all merely waited for her signal and for the fall of the last remaining threat to their invasion: Princess Celestia.

Letting the last few embers of paper from the incriminating document fall into the disk around the candle, the false Princess laughed. After so many years of silent struggle and sacrifice, things were finally in place. With this letter, the swarm was committed, utterly and irrevocably.

Her wedding would mark the end of one era, and the beginning of another.

The Era of the Changelings…

No. Not the era of the changelings. The Age of Chrysalis!

“This day… is going to be perfect!

A day when changelings rise and claim what we are due!

For this future I have planned,

For my children I command!

Break our masquerade and these equines one and all subdue!”

Princess Celestia sat alone at the table, her already tiny family now completely absent. Before her stretched a feast nopony could hope to finish by herself, prepared by the finest chefs in Equestria, but with nopony to share it with. Luna was in seclusion, Blueblood off confronting Neighpon, and Cadance preparing for her wedding.

“This day we pray to be perfect,

A day ponies rich and poor come out to cheer.

A Princess rising like a star,

Little Cadance has come so far.

Yet I worry, for ill tidings have reached my ear…”

Rarity stood before a mannequin, concealing a layer of thin banded metal armor with blue and gold fabric. The corset vanished beneath a short train of light and sky blue, wave-like golden lace, the same color she had reserved for her hoof-wear. It was hardly the ensemble she had imagined wearing to a Royal Wedding, and she wondered which of her friends would be the first to notice the dual-functionality of the dresses she insisted they take with them.

“If only it could be perfect,

A wedding like my own, I’ve dreamt of for so long.

For he is on my mind this eve,

My lost Prince I must retrieve,

To join this noble sorority in which I fear I don’t belong.”

Antimony sat, contemplative, as her father lay on mother’s operating table. Cruciger had always been the greatest force in her life, and through it all, he had been as unassailable and unbeatable and unflinching as a mountain. Now the face she had so often turned to, searchingly, for a glimmer of a smile or a hint of pride lay disturbingly serene and comatose. Mother had a strange alchemical contraption over his missing eye and crystals knitted into pressure points across his body. It was a state of weakness she knew he would never want her or any of her siblings to see.

So she left, before mother noticed she had snuck in.

“A platinum crown and throne,

For this I battled on my own.

I thought my strength unmatched,

In the end my dreams dispatched…

How could she have made me stumble?

Like no other, she has earned my ire,

Yet a part of me has come to admire…

For the weak to defy the strong,

Could it be that I was wrong?

What more must I cast aside to feel that crown upon my brow?”

Twilight paused before the steel and silver chariot. Her parents had already taken off, leaving just her and Spike to follow close behind. Brass still hadn’t appeared or even sent word. Though she had recovered her magic and her strength, she could feel an ache in her chest whenever she dwelled on the thought of his unexpected and unplanned absence. Still, there was nothing to do but go forward. In the end, whether they met again before the wedding or not didn’t change the plan in the least. They had their army.

Looking up to the far off mountainside, she could see the edge of Canterlot, crowned in thin mage spires, like candles on a cake.

“I never wanted power,

For a noble’s life is sour.

No more am I just learning,

Into this life I’m returning.

Is this what the Princess really wants?

But my brother is in trouble,

And all of Canterlot to rubble,

I have to act and protect my precious friends!

Now on my shoulders the fate of Canterlot depends…”

Sitting alone before a teakwood desk, hooves folded neatly in front of himself, Alpha Brass eyed the glowing walls of his prison. Dipping his quill into a bottle of black ink, he returned his writing.

“In a cage or in a grave,

A droplet cannot stop a wave.

The fire inside has already been lit,

In blood-shed they will commit.

It won’t be long before you see.

This has gone far beyond you and me.”

Euporie slowly ran her hoof along a plane of bronze, the frontal face of a pony-sized box bearing the letter lambda: a V with the angle pointing upward. Her amber eyes lit up with excitement at the promise of what was to come.

“I heard it might get a little scary,

And the fighting a little hairy,

So why not smile, smile, smile,

Happiness makes life worthwhile!

Don’t you think?

Better yet, don’t think.

I’ll just make you all grin, grin, grin,

And unleash the real you that lies within.”

Eunomie appeared in a flash of light, before two of her step-father’s mage guards, the faintly glowing embers of the teleportation circle still etched into the ground. Like Euporie, she wore a dress for the grand wedding ceremonies, and like her twin sister, and many attendant nobles, she came bearing gifts. One, she motioned to a servant to carry to her carriage. The other, a petite wooden case the size of a hoof, she lifted with her own magic.

“I have always aimed to do my best,

Without complaint or rude protest,

Clumsy, artless, no finesse,

These negative traits do I suppress.

Feelings I can’t show, put to your task,

Do you see the ‘me’ beneath this mask?”

A gilded cage was the only way to keep the birds from flying away. Like the caged bird that was her cutie mark, Chalice knew she belonged with them. It was pointless to think otherwise. It was hopeless to expect things to have turned out any other way. Friends… like Fluttershy… Chalice knew she had already given up the right for anything like that the day her bodyguard and friend Marin died. The day her life changed. The day she shackled herself to that cursed torc.

Trotting slowly over to the aviary’s door, Chalice noticed a folded letter.

It bore the wax seal of her brother. Of the Marquis. Of the only family who truly understood her. She opened it with neither delay nor occasion, her pale white magic searing through and breaking the wax. The petite unicorn’s eyes skimmed over the letter, digesting the words and directions and committing them to memory.

“What starlight strikes,

Does not survive.

If all else fails,

I am to leave…”

Even as she re-read the orders, a starry black devoured the paper, dissolving it like salt in water.

“…none… alive.”

Chrysalis-as-Cadance lowered the veil over her eyes and took one last look at her reflection in the mirror. All three bridesmaids were with her as her equine make-up artists and other specialists flittered around the room, making sure she looked perfect for her wedding march. A faint hint of blush here, some more powder there, all while the wedding planner reminded her to smile for the cameras and lights. This wasn’t just a wedding after all; it was a grand public spectacle.

Finally, the meddlesome ponies left, leaving just the Princess and her bridesmaids.

“Are you ready?” she asked them, slowly making her way to the door.

“Ready,” Twinkleshine replied, nodding.

“Ready,” Minuette agreed.

“Ready,” Lyra said last.

With the train of her wedding dress swishing behind her, ‘Princess Cadance’ entered the church.

“Then let the games begin.”

Author's Note

You've waited quite a while. I apologize for that.
But.
No more beating around the bush. As you can guess by the end there, we are now at the wedding. Literally.

For those interested, there will be quite some changeling lore to come over the course of the Black Wedding and the battle for Canterlot. As has already been mentioned in-story, Chrysalis has rounded up nearly every changeling hive and every changeling Queen into her service. So I get to showcase quite a few different "takes" on the basic changeling concept. Please don't mistake my using them as the villains here as my hating Chrysalis or anything like that. It is simply the role she was born to play.

Also: Yeah, I'm pretty terrible when it comes to lyrics. lol. Always have been, which is why I practically never try and incorporate it into what I write. Just this once, though, I felt I had to try, in keeping with the spirit of the occasion.

Chapter Forty Six : Here Comes the Bride

(46)

Here Comes the Bride

Her three bridesmaids preceding her, Princess Cadance entered last, trotting alone down the aisle, neither father nor brother present to escort her. Her Serene Highness was resplendent in a wedding dress of virgin white and pure woven gold. Six fillies liberally sprinkled pink rose petals before her, so thick that in some spots they obscured the crimson carpet entirely.

As the train of her dress cut across the carpet, the petals formed into a wake that trailed behind the young Princess. Unicorn trumpeters in ceremonial purple and black uniforms heralded her arrival, briefly drowning out the excited crowds that lined the inner halls of the Palace nearly back to the grand courtyard and even the first few notes of treulich geführt – the bridal march.

In well-to-do homes and commercial establishments across Equestria, crackling radios announced one noble attendee to the Royal Wedding after another. Equestria had exactly four national stations, two in Canterlot, one in Manehattan, one in Ile-de-Prance. On this joyous occasion, the latter two seemed to be out of luck. Everypony who owned a radio had it tuned to the event of the year.

“…celebrations continue, as everypony eagerly awaits the final public appearance of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza as a single mare. Oh! Would you look at that? Another wedding attendee is trotting down the grand hall and into the throne room! It looks like… yes… the Count and Countess of Cranberry, wearing an imperial purple dress with black embroidery, and a two-tiered feathered fascinator. She’s looking marvelous as usual, Mirage.”

“You can say that again, Lace. This is the Countess’ first visit to Canterlot since the opening of the Butterfly Pavilion. In addition to her husband the Count, you can see she’s also here with the famous Earl of Derby…”

As was dictated by protocol and tradition, the assembled ranks of ponies invited to the formal proceedings were divided into a left and right section, and in turn, those groups were divided into a front and back square, privileged commoners or ‘small ponies’ to the rear and titled or noble ponies to the fore. Family and close friends were, naturally, invited to stand in the first three rows. There were no seats, nor was anypony expected to sit until the wedding was over. At the very front, before the altar itself, Princess Celestia stood beneath a laurel arch, the groom and best stallion waiting nearby. The three stallions of honor and three bridesmaids also stood to either side of the red carpet, waiting.

Ascending the steps to the altar, the Princess couldn’t contain her gleeful, triumphant smile.

The commentary continued, even as a dirty cloud of smoke drifted by the radio’s tinny speakers.

“Look sharp, lads!” a slate gray unicorn Royal Guard barked, magically plucking the cigarette out from between the lips of one of his pegasus comrades. Stamping the stub out underhoof, the unicorn directed the smoker and a second white pegasus guardpony to attend to the gate.

Beyond the iron bars, a large black carriage was rolling up, pulled by a pair of armored earth ponies. Behind the gate, protected by the trio of Royal Guards, lay a building of rather unique design in Canterlot. The first three floors were the usual aesthetic of beautiful white stone mandated by the Canterlot Building Code, but towering above that was an eiffelized lattice tower unlike any other freestanding structure in the city. This was Her Majesty’s Wireless Magical Broadcasting Tower, the source of virtually all radio transmissions in the Central Equestrian Region.

One of the on-duty royal guards raised a hoof in greeting, seeing another stallion just like him trot up to the gate just ahead of the carriage. “Who goes there?”

“Royal escort,” the new arrival answered, lifting a white wing in friendly salute. “We’re just here to deliver somepony. Princess’s orders.”

“Papers, if you please,” the slate unicorn in command of the gate ordered, walking up. The carriage slowed, waiting, and the same guardpony from before fished out a folded note from a slit in his golden armor. The radio, perched on a table nearby, continued to drone on about the endless procession of wedding guests across town.

“They came straight from Her Serene Highness, Princess Cadenza,” the pegasus guard explained, even as the unicorn sergeant looked the papers over.

Finally, he nodded, finding it all in order. “Let them in!”

The gates unlocked, and the black carriage rolled forward into the courtyard. Within it, unseen by the royal guards on duty, a dozen specially trained changelings quietly readied their disguises and their weapons.

As Celestia began to speak, officiating the wedding ceremony herself in place of a priest, a smattering of pony faces milled more anxiously than the rest. Twilight Sparkle stood close by her parents with the rest of the groom’s family. Many of the Canterlot Terre Rare were in attendance, now all under the oversight of her father, by her own command. Crescent Moon was oblivious to the non-family intrigues taking place, and he stood alongside Twilight Velvet, basking in the moment and smiling proudly at his only son.

“What’s going on here?” An earth pony stallion stomped across the Canterlot rail yard, his yellow hard-hat juxtaposed against his black suit and tie. “Who in Taratrus is in charge? You, guardspony!” He singled out a milling pair of royal guards. “Where is your commanding officer?”

The two guards frowned, but had the wherewithal to at least gesture in a helpful direction.

Without a worth of thanks, Timely Notice stormed past the guards and into the guard camp, muttering to himself about delays and ruined schedules. Tonight was the bloody day of the biggest bloody wedding in recent memory! The trains needed to be running on time! There was already a bloody huge barrier shield encapsulating the city and slowing transport in and out with interminable security checks. And now this? The trains had stopped. STOPPED! It was ridiculous!

Approaching the royal-purple tent, Timely Notice came up short. An older royal guard with commander’s pips on his gold armor appeared, waving him over. He must’ve been expected. Good.

“Commander,” Timely Notice yelled, even as he closed the distance between them. “Would you mind explaining this? Hmm?”

He gestured with a hoof towards the mountainside next to the rail yard. Inside the mountain was a large switching station and car depot for Canterlot’s trains, many of whom were visible in the artificial light of the cavern beyond. Next to it was one of three tunnels that connected Canterlot with the rest of the province below the mountain. They were Canterlot’s living commercial arteries, along with the great sky harbor, and now every single one had been shut down for ‘mandatory security checks.’ Madness! They had very strict schedules to keep!

“Explain it?” the Commander of the guard asked, as Timely Notice grew closer. “It would be my pleasure. To put it in words…”

Timely Notice paused, stumbling.

There was… a weight… on his back. Holding him down. Vision growing foggy, he turned his head to see one of the guards from before, mouth clamped down on the muscle of his shoulder. A pair of fangs were buried in the muscle of his withers. But that didn’t make any sense. Ponies didn’t have fangs. Ponies didn’t have fangs.

Timely Notice fell face-first into the dust of the rail yard, his body numb. He never heard the Commander’s explanation for the delays and the shutdowns of the tunnels and sky harbor. Revelation came, instead, from his eyes, as he saw the royal guards gather together and laugh. Behind them, streaming out from the tunnel that connected Canterlot with the lowlands of the province, came a tide of black and green.

A Swarm.

By the necessity of protocol, the standing arrangements separated Twilight from her friends.

Rarity was in a privileged position in the second row along with the other elements of harmony, standing out with her dress of lavender-blush and shimmering crystalline blue. She nodded almost imperceptibly, having noticed Twilight and Eunomie glancing in her direction. Both were ensconced with Terre Rares and the groom’s relatives and invites. Rarity glanced to her left, where Fleur stood, naked as the day she was foaled except for the pink diamond earrings and delicate necklace that hung tight to her throat. Fancypants was just beyond her, in formal ‘white-tie’ as the look was called, despite his actual bow tie being a soft shade of lavender. Fleur caught Rarity’s look and smiled, showing her unspoken support.

Rarity returned the gesture and turned to her other side. She soon spotted Lady Sand Dune, far removed from any of the rest of them, the tall Bitalian princess easily able to see over the shorter ponies around her. The time-mage gave no indication of returning Rarity’s glance, instead searching the rafters of the cathedral with her eyes. Rarity also glanced up, but couldn’t see anything. The ceiling was stone, vaulted, and covered in intricate religious murals and icons. Nothing seemed out of place.

To her right, past a few ponies, stood Applejack, her mane nicely styled for once, though she refused to part with her hat even for this, the most formal of occasions. The poor mare would probably wear her stetson over her own wedding veil one day. More importantly, for the moment, she had also finally put on the clasp around her neck in addition to her dress. Likewise, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy stood, both of them less aware of what was to come, just that it was either going to save Equestria or utterly ruin their reputation as the worst wedding crashers in the last three centuries. Rainbow Dash was clearly excited by the prospect, shifting back and forth on her hooves with nervous anticipation. Fluttershy looked like she wanted to curl up and hide beneath the crown of flowers in her mane. Pinkie Pie… well, Pinkie Pie seemed to be staring off into space and not even paying attention.

Each of them had brought plus-ones of their own, a fact that Rarity had seen to personally as – at least in her view – the more stallion-shields they brought in case of an emergency the better. There were four of them, two in uniform and two out. All were Dove and Cross stallions, hoof-picked by Germoglio for their loyalty and bodyguard training. Rarity’s own ‘date’ was a handsome older pegasus. He stood between Rarity and Applejack, his company dress-uniform unarmored but still as flamboyant as ever with delicate white frills and poofs about the shoulders and cuffs. A purely ceremonial stiletto clipped to his belt remained the only technical weapon any of them had gotten past security.

Fluttershy had wanted to bring her bear-friend, on hearing that the wedding was a trap of sorts, and had been sadly informed that a giant brown bear in a tuxedo would probably stand out a bit too much.

Lastly, Pinkie had invited her friend Pierce, who had dressed quite sharply for the occasion… with probably no idea what sort of fracas he was actually about to get into. On the other hoof, given he was dating Pinkie Pie, Rarity fully expected he had to be prepared for anything at any time. Rarity’s heart went out to his absolutely beautiful orchid boutonnière that was sure to be ruined if – or rather when – a fight broke out.

“…may your commitment to each other be embodied in these wedding rings, symbols and sacred gifts to one another, an outward demonstration to all here of your vows of love and respect…”

Listening to the ceremony, trying to keep calm and steel her poor nerves, Rarity focused not on her friends but on the object of so much animosity, distrust, pain and deceit: Princess Cadance. The false alicorn stood and listened to Celestia officiate, her grin from before receding slightly into a small, thin smile as she faced her groom. Shining Armor simply stared forward, his eyes almost painfully unfocused, now that Rarity knew what to look for. This was the so-called Princess’ doing. This was her fault, and so much else besides.

On top of it all, now, Rarity could feel a new indignant anger bubbling up at how the changeling queen had so besmirched and made a mockery of the very nature of a wedding. Maybe it was foolish to take it so personally, but Rarity could not entirely help herself.

All her life, she had dreamed of standing where the Princess now stood, wearing a perfect dress of white and gold, prepared to share her life with the stallion of her dreams. She had made little sketches of it as a filly in class, day-dreamed of it while working in her shop as a teenage mare, and woken up from dreams of it, ready to press forward with her success in business, knowing it would – knowing it could – all one day come true, if she just worked hard enough. She was undoubtedly closer now to that goal than she had ever been before, and never more unsure of it in the process. It was easy, so very easy, to pin a lot of that on this vile changeling monster. A marriage was a partnership; what this Queen planned for was slavery, nothing less. It threatened to boil Rarity’s blood.

“Remember always,” Celestia told them, her voice gentle and wise, “as a Prince and Princess of the Realm… that you also bear the most honorable title which may exist between a stallion and a mare. You are ‘husband’ and ‘wife.’ You love one another. Love and friendship are, above all other things, the foundation upon which our society is built, and the bedrock on which all our fates stand. Let the warm glow of your love give you comfort when the night is cold; let it sustain you when times are lean; illuminate your path when all is dark, and give you solace when you are hurt. This is the gift you give to one another, the gift you share… everlasting.”

Princess Celestia’s words were beautiful, genuine, heartfelt… and wasted on the couple before her.

Still, Rarity waited. She forced herself to wait.

The signal, she had decided, was not hers to give. Twilight Sparkle would have the honor of springing their trap on the evil enchantress who had ensnared her brother. As for the rest of them? Rarity gingerly ran a hoof along her broach. They were prepared to be the hammer to Twilight’s anvil; the needle to her presser-hoof! Though that was probably not a reference many ponies outside the sewing field would grasp. Being a hammer, though, that was just so boorishly inelegant! There simply had to be a better way to phrase it… for the history books, of course.

“Princess Mi Amore Cadenza,” Celestia finally reached the end of the ceremony, just before the exchange of rings. Rarity took a moment glance over at Twilight, but the other mare’s eyes were only on the altar. She couldn’t see her friend asking, unspoken, how much longer she planned to delay.

“Do you take this stallion to be your precious husband, your best friend and your special-somepony, to treasure and support in harmony for all time?” Celestia asked. Her right eye, as always, was concealed beneath a wavy lock of her ethereal mane, and she seemed as serene and pleased as ever to be joining two royal ponies in holy matrimony. It made Rarity want to yell out, then and there. She bit her lower lip to keep quiet.

“I certainly do,” Cadance answered, her smile broadening, though from where she stood, Rarity felt it looked a lot more like a smirk than a smile.

“And do you, Shining Armor, take this mare…”

Rarity tensed, all but screaming at Twilight with her eyes to act.

Finally, she saw her friend slowly shake her head. What had she been doing, waiting this long? Rarity wondered. Was she trying, even now, to give this changeling queen the chance to have second thoughts and a change of heart? To choose to back out? What if she had? Would that just be the end of it? The false Cadance departs, the wedding called off at the last second, and nopony the wiser for what had almost occurred? What about justice, for Shining Armor, for the dozens or maybe hundreds of ponies no doubt harmed by changeling schemes… what of justice for her own Prince, her Blueblood, captured under cover of a ruined party, right beneath Rarity’s own nose?!

There was no way she planned to just let it go, no matter if this changeling had second thoughts!

Not that she did, anyway. Twilight seemed to get that, finally, and her expression hardened as Celestia recited the vows for Shining Armor. Rarity could only guess as to what had been on her dear friend’s mind, but if Twilight hesitated any longer, she sucked in a breath to force the issue on her own accord. Either way, this was happening here and now.

“…and support in harmony for all time?” Celestia asked.

Shining Armor opened his mouth. “I--”

“STOP!”

Rarity let go of the breath she had been holding at the sound of Twilight’s voice. The librarian and apprentice stepped forward, and said again, “Stop the wedding!”

A shocked mutter rippled through the assembled ponies, noble and common alike, at the breath of decorum and respect. Everypony heard tales about interrupted weddings, but nopony actually attended one. It was unheard of outside scandalous tales and trashy novels. Some of the muttering was unabashedly angry (what is she doing? Is that the groom’s sister? Has she lost her mind?), some darkly amused (oh, this is interesting! Would you look at that? How scandalous!), and a lot of it simply confused (this isn’t staged, is it? It doesn’t look staged).

“Here we go!” Rarity heard Rainbow Dash whisper, a little too loudly. Her wings were already peeking out from under part of her dress and starting to unfurl.

“Twilight…?” Celestia spoke first, very softly, and not reproachfully. The Royal Princess seemed to be looking on with a curious, contemplative eye.

“Is there a problem?” Cadance made no effort to hide her annoyance, glancing back over her shoulder at the groom’s family. “…Twilight Sparkle?”

The tone, Rarity realized, was mocking.

‘She isn’t worried about being interrupted? Don’t tell me she… expected this?’

“You could say there’s a problem, alright!” Twilight yelled, stepping forward, only to yelp as her father reached for her to pull her back.

“Twilight!” he barked. “What are you doing?!”

Twilight Velvet frowned and her horn began to glow. “You’ll have to excuse our daughter’s outburst…!”

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight called to her mentor and idol. “Please--”

“Let her speak,” Celestia ordered, just as Rarity was a second away from giving the signal to move. Her hoof lowered back to the floor, willing to give it a few more seconds. Up by the altar, Cadance slowly turned to face her accuser, her face twisted into a cruel sneer. She nodded sharply. Twilight Velvet snorted and Crescent Moon obediently released his daughter. It was an exchange that set off the first of a few warning bells in Rarity’s more detail-oriented mind.

“Everypony,” Celestia said, raising her voice to command her subjects. “Let her speak. Quiet, please! Twilight Sparkle would not disrupt this occasion without good cause.”

The muttering died down, almost instantly, like the flip of a switch.

“Thank you, Princess!” Twilight continued, shaking off how her parents had tried to restrain her. She took another step or two towards Cadance. “The reason I interrupted now was because I wanted to give this so-called Princess Cadance a chance to stop herself. To show she wasn’t the monster I know she is!”

“A monster, am I?” Cadance interrupted, hoof to her chest and feigning injury. “And after all the years we’ve known each other? I’m hurt …and offended… what have I ever done to you, Twilight Sparkle, except shower you and your brother both with my love and affection?”

“Don’t pretend you did any of that!” Twilight yelled, trotting over to the red carpet that led from the entrance up to the altar. “You replaced the real Cadance, secreted her away somewhere, and the only reason I’m talking right now is because I want you to tell me where she is! So out with it! You don’t want me to do this the hard way!”

Cadance’s smirk returned, her lip pulling up just enough to show a flash of teeth.

“You’re delusional. The ‘real’ Cadance? What? Am I a clone?” she asked, and a few ponies even laughed. “A robo-pony?”

More laughter came from her supporters. Cadance raised a hoof, to encourage them, and she took a few more steps onto the red carpet, the better to face down her opponent and accuser. Soon she stood at the top of the steps leading up to the altar, looking literally down her nose at Twilight Sparkle.

“Let me guess,” Cadance continued, clearly on a roll. “You think because you’re the Princess’s favorite that you can try and attack me like this? Or maybe because you’re Shining’s little sister? Or because you’re one of the Elements of Harmony? Sorry to break it to you, but inexcusable behavior is still inexcusable!” She shot a look back at Celestia, who continued to watch, her expression guarded. “Isn’t that right, Princess?”

Celestia simply narrowed her one visible eye.

The assembled ponies, however, seemed to have picked up on Cadance’s speech. They rumbled amongst themselves. Most were nobles. Rocking the boat and making a scene like this grated them the wrong way. Shining Armor, of course, continued to stare blankly forward. Like a mannequin, Rarity couldn’t help but think.

“Twilight,” Rarity spoke up, finally raising her voice, as if to say: it was time.

“It isn’t any of that!” Twilight shouted, as loudly as she could, so everypony could hear. “It isn’t because I’m the Princess’ apprentice, or because I’m Shining’s sister, or because I wear an Element of Harmony. The reason I’m challenging you like this…”

Cadance’s eyes slowly, warily, narrowed. She sensed it.

“Is because,” Twilight explained, slamming her hooves onto the carpet beneath the both of them, “you got careless!”

“Careless?” Cadance sneered, and finally felt the tingle in her hooves. She reared in shock, front legs curling up against her chest. “W-what are you…?”

The same charge, the same magic, surged up Twilight’s legs as well, but she didn’t fight it. Why would she? She expected it. She’d cast it. Rarity mentally amended that: they’d both cast it, one making the illusion spell, the other serendipitously binding it to cloth. It was a simple matter, really, for an accomplished unicorn seamstress turned Baroness. It also insured that, even if something happened to one of them, the other could still set up their little ambuscade. Regardless of what else Twilight had learned from her new beau, she had learned the value of having backup plans for her backup plans.

Now, illusion magic surged up Twilight’s legs and into her torso. Her chest expanded and her legs and neck thickened, her snout lost the soft feminine curve… in seconds, she turned into a very passable approximation for a male Twilight Sparkle. ‘Dusk Shine,’ she had called herself, in this particular disguise.

Likewise, two other ponies at the very end of the red carpet were also affected.

Shining Armor shrunk where Twilight had grown, his body turning petite and thin, muscle fading away in the light of slender new curves. She was not as svelte or Princess-like as Fleur, with a strong, athletic build even for a mare, but as her tail widened and shortened and her mane lengthened and fell over her shoulders, and her eyelashes grew three sizes in body, there was no doubt that he had turned into she. At least, so the illusion went. A collective gasp filled the hall. It was not entirely for Shining Armor, however.

Princess Celestia herself had been affected by the spell.

Which, to do justice to what was happening before Rarity’s eyes, was a gross understatement. Half the mares in the room felt their jaw literally drop as a bearded demigod of a stallion appeared in front of the altar. A stallion to put all others to shame. His chest and the color of his coat were chiseled like flawless white marble. Surprised by the magic, he had spread a pair of glorious wings, wings that seemed large enough for a mare to completely lose herself in. Like they could wrap around a pony and envelop them entirely, holding them in a glorious solar embrace, like a blanket of feathers. Then there was his magnificent beard and mane, like a captured, ever-shifting sunset!

“Oh dear.” It was hardly the most manly of words from their new stallion demigod of love and light, but at least they were blessed by his voice. His heavenly voice. This Prince of Princes!

SPROING

“Fluttershy! Your wing just pegged me right in the eye!”

“S-s-sorry…”

There could well have been a female stampede then and there, if the revealing of the gender-bent Princess Celestia had not coincided with the spell also taking effect on one last pony: Princess Cadance. Instead of simply transforming with the illusion, she screamed as a painful static dissonance filled the air, like hooves on blackboard.

“Y-yyouu!” Cadance howled, voice changing pitch from female to male to something androgynous in-between. “You filthy little gutter rat! W-waa-what is this?!”

The false Princess cringed as her coat rippled and spiked violently and she thrashed violently, flailing her front legs. Her face flashed with light, trying to give the illusion of being male, but then reverting back to female. Her wings snapped out, growing and shrinking; her mane grew longer and then shorter, back and forth, and when it couldn’t be either, it tried to be both, spiking and twisting and bending in impossible ways. The dress ripped away from her torso in a magical fury, tattered shreds of it filling the air as two illusions fought violently for control. Cadance threw her hooves up over her face as it all came apart. Even when she almost turned male, for just a moment, something snapped and the illusion tried to reverse it again.

Finally, both illusions tore each other apart.

They revealed an alien creature: black and insect-like. Long legs were peppered with holes. Feathers turned to mist and were replaced by diaphanous membrane, like a dragonfly’s wings. Green fire surged out and away from the enraged former Princess. A crooked black horn emerged from a wild nest of green membrane, like a slimy mockery of a real mane. Amethyst eyes vanished, turning into a fiery, sickly green. The newly emerged changeling was tall, thin, equine in form, but warped and fundamentally wrong on far too many levels.

“What have you done to me?” Cadance hissed, her voice now tainted by a sibilant, alien quality.

“I’ve studied you,” Twilight explained, both to her and to the assembled ponies. She even turned around very quickly to make sure they were all listening. Her voice, too, had been transformed, so thorough was the illusion spell. That part, they had Antimony and Sand Dune to thank for.

“Your changeling disguises all have a gender component. I can scramble it by using a gender-affecting spell. After all, you can’t turn into just a pony; it has to be a male pony or a female pony.” Twilight pointed her – his – hoof accusingly at the former Princess. “No more disguises to hide behind, Queen Chrysalis!”

Chrysalis slowly laughed, rising to her full height.

“No more disguises,” she agreed, “You’ve got me. But don’t you want to hear me out? I have good reasons for doing all this…”

Rarity didn’t miss the three bridesmaids inching closer to their Queen. One even touched her hoof to the tasseled edge of the carpet, causing the embedded illusion magic to turn her into a ‘he.’ The three uniformed stallions of honor, on the other hoof, inched away from the scene. One turned to Shining Armor, as if looking for some sort of orders. The guard Captain, turned mare, still just stared dumbly forward. It was as if he hadn’t noticed anything at all, even now.

“You can save your villainous monologue!” Twilight replied, emboldened by the trap’s success and the looks and sounds of shock coming from Equestria’s assembled elite. “You’re a parasite! You and your kind want to enslave us and feed off our love! You want to turn us into livestock!”

“Oh, well… you aren’t wrong,” Chrysalis admitted with a titter. “But making the lot of you into slaves and sources of nourishment is just the beginning! The rest of the world will join you in the pens soon enough! You’ll just have the honor of being the first!”

“I’ve heard enough!” Rarity chose that moment to finally intervene. “Girls!”

“I thought you’d never ask!” Rainbow Dash was the first, wings flapping, she was already in the air even as her Element of Harmony began to resonate.

“Ya’ll wanna place bets on if she turns into a statue or not?” Applejack asked, also starting to levitate. She reached a hoof up to her broach, the one Rarity had been so insistent she wear before, and pulled the front of it down. What lay beneath was a familiar apple-colored and apple-shaped jewel, unique in all the world. It was the Element of Honesty, ironically, concealed all this time.

“Oh! Oh! This time, can we please cross the streams? Please?” Pinkie was already in mid-air, striking a variety of poses.

“There’s a whole army to take care of after this,” Rarity promised her friends. “Ah’m sure we’ll have ample opportunity to zap them all in as many ways as you can imagine, Pinkie.”

Still standing in place, Chrysalis squinted one eye, grinning mockingly at the mane six.

“Will you?” she inquired, stomping a hoof against the floor and summoning up a large glass orb. “How confident you are! Before you destroy me, I’d like to know: which of the hundreds of hostages I’ve taken would you like to see die?” Chrysalis actually managed to grin even wider than before, her mouth serrated like two pearly sawblades.

“How about,” her declaration filled the hall. “…these three?!”

The crystal ball flickered, projecting an illusion of three blindfolded fillies, their eyes and part of their faces obscured, but their identities obvious given their distinct mane styles and colors. Rarity felt her throat seize up at the sight and her heart skip a beat. Managing to tear her eyes away from the illusion for only a moment, she could see her friends in a similar state. They were still floating in the air, partly wreathed in the magic of the elementals of harmony, but stunned into inaction by what they saw.

“Apple Bloom!” her sister cried, and like a popping balloon, the power of her element of harmony evaporated, dropping her unceremoniously down to the ground. Nearby, Rainbow Dash had her mouth set into a tight line, her clenched teeth just barely visible. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were clearly confused, looking around for guidance. They understood the threat, but not what to do next. Twilight simply floated there – their leader – gaping at what Chrysalis had revealed. The crowd was already starting to raise their voices at the revelation. Hostages. How many? Whose?

“That’s impossible!” Rarity suddenly yelled, pointing at the changeling Queen. “I had everyfoal in Ponyville evacuated! Under guard! There’s no way--”

“I think her name was Cheerilee?” Chrysalis asked with false uncertainty, parting her fanged grin to laugh triumphantly. “Yes… that was it! Did you think I wouldn’t have insurance against you? Did you?! But if you want proof, I can always order my changelings to rip off the little white one’s horn. The remote viewing spell on this crystal doesn’t have any sound, but I’m sure you’ll still find the spectacle sufficiently motivating.”

“You… you monster…” Twilight’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “How could you… what kind of--”

“These three aren’t the only ones, either!” Chrysalis announced to the entire hall of noble mares and stallions. “I invite you all to stay and watch my little show! In fact, I insist! You may find your own sons and daughters have starring roles! Now, if you’d kindly… noble ponies of Canterlot… I’d very much like you to seize those six mares! Bring me their Elements!”

The crowd began to mutter; fear and doubt running through the well-to-do attendees of what should have been the wedding of the year. A few, already frightened for their children held hostage, began to fidget and fret. A mare hissed to a nearby stallion, forcing him towards where Fluttershy floated, the timid pegasus looking around in fright. She could sense it, as they all did: the crowd was starting to turn on them.

“Or, better yet!” Chrysalis crowed. “Kill them! Kill them with your own hooves! I believe I’d like to see that!”

“You’ve said enough.”

The changeling’s laughter cut short as she turned, slowly, towards the source of the interruption. Likewise, everypony in the chamber hall froze. A blast of heat washed over them like a tide, bowling all but one of the bridesmaids over where they stood. Shining Armor toppled onto his side like a garden statue and his groomsponies hunkered down, their heads between their hooves. One, a unicorn, had the presence of mind to erect a hasty barrier spell around the three of them.

Placing one hoof on top of the podium she had stood behind, Princess Celestia crushed it flat in one go, sending splinters and twisted bars of metal flying. The carpet beneath her burned away, ending the gender-swap illusion from before, but not returning her to her usually tranquil visage. For the first time in living memory, the longest reigning Princess of Equestria was angry.

Celestia’s normally golden magic rippled with violent shades of black and orange, more like a living flame than a uniform aura. The air around her grew wavy and indistinct, like a mirage in the desert, and her golden regalia began to glow hot enough to see the difference with the naked eye. Crawling over the surface, a line of flickering orange highlighted the concentric grooves of her horn, starting from the base all the way up to the tip, until the whole thing began to resemble less a perfect alabaster-white unicorn horn and more a hot slab of iron plucked from a blazing furnace. Her prismatic ethereal mane flowed behind her as always, but less behind her and more around her, in impossible and contradictory directions, lending it a terrible, Tartaran aspect.

“Princess!” Chrysalis jeered, holding up her crystal ball. “Have you forgotten who holds the upper hoof, here? Don’t do anything you’ll regret--”

Celestia’s answer was a lowered horn.

Chrysalis hissed, starting to move, only to howl in pain and shock as her raised left hoof failed to follow the rest of her body. It remained hanging in mid-air, still holding aloft the crystal ball and the projected illusion of the captive cutie mark crusaders. The chitinous hoof spurted black and green blood from the stump where it had once connected with the rest of the changeling Queen, but Chrysalis was already moving, her three remaining hooves hitting the ground with a crunch to the right of where she had been standing.

Behind that spot, an angry, glowing line stood out against the wall, leading straight up and into the ceiling. Or… the reverse. It had begun by cutting into the ceiling, and then come down, like an invisible blade. Everything it had passed over, it cut cleanly through. A second later, and tapestries bisected by the line caught fire and stonework groaned in agony.

Celestia angled her neck slightly, following Chrysalis with one baleful violet eye.

“You bitch!” Chrysalis hissed, protectively clutching her stump of a foreleg to her chest. “How DARE you?!” Her jagged black horn erupted in a tornado of putrid sewage-green. “BRIDESMAIDS!!”

Twinkleshine was already on her hooves, starry black magic enveloping her. Minuette followed almost the same instant, the two unicorns sweeping their horns in unison. Only Lyra Heartstrings hung back in reserve. From out of the conjured aether of the enthralled bridesmaids, form emerged and took shape. The tip of a triangle–shaped barrier shot out from one side of the enraged Princess Celestia, and from the other, a whip-like line of starry black.

The Princess vanished behind the canopy of her wings, shielding herself.

The impact shattered the platform beneath Celestia’s hooves and shook delicate glass fixtures free from the ceiling. The otherworldly edge of the triangle-barrier and the vibrating hilt of what looked to be a black painter’s brush remained fixed against Celestia’ two wings, pinning them in place, until a fierce cry preceded Celestia snapping her wings out and knocking back the two aether-powered attacks. The triangle receded with a snap back around Twinkleshine, and the brush swirled around to protectively cover the front of Minuette. Both bridesmaids stood between Celestia and Chrysalis, the changeling Queen still nursing her amputated limb.

Celestia spread her wings, seemingly unfazed. Behind her, the wall crumpled, leaving a skeleton of metal and stone supports. The Princess stood resolute, but there was a clear element of shock at the sight of what stood before her.

“Triangulum and Equuleus Pictoris?” she let slip, betraying her surprise.

A crimson droplet hit the broken and blasted floor to her left and right. Angling her right wing, she could see a bright red line running down from the back of her wing, along one of the majestic feathers, and finally to where it had hit the ground. It was blood. Her blood.

“Surprised, Princess?!” Chrysalis called out, still hiding behind Twinkleshine’s trio of unbreakable triangular barriers. “Haven’t seen your own blood in a while, have you?! How does it feel?!”

Celestia’s lip curled, bearing teeth, but when she spoke, it was not to the changeling Queen or her thralls.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she announced, in the booming royal Canterlot voice. “No. All my little ponies. Leave. Now.”

A cry went out from the assembled equestrians. More than a few stallions and mares were already gathering their wits to try and help their sovereign. Rarity, finally dropping out of the air as she dismissed her element of harmony, not only felt how the mood of the setting had shifted – from enraged and helpless compliance with Chrysalis’ demands, to an almost reckless courage and need to act. She turned to Fleur and Fancy, her best gauge on the mood of the common pony in attendance, and saw both staring intently forward. It was clear they did not like being told to disperse and leave the Princess alone, especially not after seeing her actually physically wounded. Even if most of them had to know they would only be in the way.

Even Twilight herself looked ready to disobey the Princess and jump in.

Then it clicked.

“Twilight!” Rarity yelled, pushing past and through the packed ponies around her, heedless of her lack of manners. Her horn glowed, briefly, in the second where she could be sure Chrysalis had eyes only for Celestia. “We have to go!”

“I can’t…!” Twilight protested, and Rarity did what she never thought she would’ve had to do.

Overtaking her dear friend, she reached up and rudely grabbed Twilight by her horn.

“It is what she wants,” Rarity said, meaning to whisper, but knowing she was loud enough to be overheard. “We have to go.”

“Twilight?” Dash asked, the last one of them still in mid-air. Her elemental glow was gone, her wings picking up the slack to keep her airborne.

“Everypony!” Celestia roared at them now. “See to your loved ones! See to my little ponies! Protect this city and stay OUT OF MY WAY!”

“NO!” Chrysalis screamed, finally noticing that her hostages were about to escape. “Have you forgotten the ponies I have already?” Already a semi-panicked rush of nobleponies were heading for the exits, overwhelming the more foolish of the queen’s changelings posted to keep them inside. “Obey me! Seize the Elements of Harmony! GUARDS--”

Chrysalis was cut short as an earth-shattering sound, like a bell breaking in half, forced her eyes forward.

Celestia was pressed up against one of Twinkleshine’s athereal shields, her horn glowing like the surface of the sun. Arcs of light and fire washed away from the unbreakable black barrier, blinding the changeling and bridesmaid both and hiding whatever was happening behind the enraged Princess. Against the full onslaught of Celestia, Twinkleshine’s barrier held, the superimposed stars over her cutie mark glowing bright white. No crack formed in the solid wall of starry black, but Twinkleshine herself did grunt in exertion, her knees starting to buckle.

Reprieve only came when Minuette counterattacked, sweeping her brush down and then horizontally, forcing Celestia to jump back and out of the way. A glowing black line hung ‘painted’ in the air where it had passed, glittering with tiny stars. The line was dark, save for one small section, where part of two white feathers remained, neatly separated from their source as easily as one would highlight a section of a picture to copy… or delete.

“Erase,” Minuette whispered, and the black space vanished, taking the sectioned-off feathers with it.

Celestia inspected her clipped wing with a huff.

She stood rather defiantly between her ponies and their assailants. Chrysalis could only watch, unable to intervene, as they escaped. Three changeling guards, dutifully but ultimately carelessly following her orders, tried to swoop in to grab ponies… only to be snagged and pulled out of the air. The fleeing guests didn’t even leave their bodies behind. They just vanished into the press of flesh.

Her eyes darted up to the ceiling. The murals were stained with green blood. Somepony had killed the changelings hidden among the shadows and lifelike frescoes. How had they known? Chrysalis’s eyes next shot over to the glass windows. The ambushers set up there were also dead. How? Had they been seen coming? Finally, among the crowd, she tried to find her hidden operatives. If chaos broke out, they had been tasked to seize the weakest and most vulnerable of the elements of harmony. The one called Fluttershy.

There!

Chrysalis spotted one of her changeling agents, in the disguise of a panicked noblemare, lunging for the frightened Fluttershy… only to be intercepted and stopped. A faint trickle of what appeared to be sand blinded her and then a glow of the same color snapped her neck. Chrysalis couldn’t see any of the other operatives she had planted in all the confusion, in just the split second she could spare away from Celestia, but it appeared they were all dead. Every one of them. How?!

In the span of seconds, they were all gone.

Escaped.

Celestia knew it, too, even without turning around to look. She smirked.

“Celestia! Every second you fight me,” Chrysalis warned, still keeping behind Twinkleshine’s shield. “I will kill another hostage! You know that, don’t you? GIVE UP! NOW!”

“You underestimate my little ponies,” Celestia calmly replied, craning her neck back. “And I put little stock in the promises or threats of liars. And now that they’re gone…” The Princess’s frown darkened, her voice deepening. “I can really cut loose.”

“Rarity! Rarity!” A sharp tug on her tail finally slowed her gallop to a near-stop. “RARITY!”

Skidding to a stop and pulling a sharp one eighty as a pain shot up her butt, Rarity yoinked her tail free of a pair of cyan colored hooves. Rainbow Dash was usually on the receiving end of the tail-grab in their group, but this once, it looked like she had felt the need to return the favor. Rarity very nearly voiced her displeasure at it, when an explosion rocked the isolated Canterlot cathedral where the wedding had been taking place. A ragged pillar of flame stretched upwards into the heavens before dissipating just shy of the city-wide barrier overhead. A few ponies – the ones already fleeing – screamed in dismay at the sight and simply kept running.

Others were gathering in the manicured grounds between the church and the city.

“What are we doing?” Dash yelled, looking to her and then to Twilight, who also slowed and came around to face her friends. “Where are we going? We – I mean, shouldn’t we head back? I know she said--”

A diving changeling passed overhead, and everyone instinctively covered their heads with their hooves and ducked. The changeling warbled slightly and then crashed, a magical spike protruding from its back. Another changeling zipped right by the corpse, trying to grab an irate looking unicorn mare. Her husband quickly turned and held onto her back legs before the changeling could take off, and a second couple from the wedding came to their aid, ripping off the rear train of a dress and using it like a net to bring the changeling down.

It was chaos all around them.

Unicorns were firing wildly into the air as they backed away and found others to watch their backs. Pegasus ponies were yelling, trying to direct others to safety while keeping the air somewhat clear of danger. The few earth ponies around, including many from the band and the catering staff, were either throwing what they could at dive bombing changelings or helping cover the backs of the unicorns they had been serving. It was hard to focus on anything in the complete pandemonium. Rarity’s Dove and Cross escorts tackled and brought down a changeling just seconds before it could snatch one of them up, the snarling, hissing black beast snapping at them with a fanged jaw. It had happened so fast it wasn’t even possible to see who the target of the attack had been.

“W-w-what’dowe--”

“Rainbow, listen!” Rarity cut her off, stress and adrenalin making her a little short on niceties. She made a mental note to apologize later. She was still a Lady, after all. Pumping magic into her horn, Rarity exhaled in strain as she re-summoned her little prize. “Everypony, listen, please. The point of what the Princess did was for us to escape with this.”

A crystal ball, and the amputated black hoof still attached to it, appeared in front of her.

“Holy!” Dash yelped, quickly catching the ball before it could hit the grass underhoof. She then grabbed the black hoof that had belonged to Chrysalis and ripped it free, tossing it to the ground with a snort of disgust. It continued to twitch, rippling with a few sparks of green magic.

“Oh,” Fluttershy gasped, backing away from the ichor-stained hoof.

“Aw, gross!” Pinkie remarked with a raspberry, her tongue sticking out. Next to her, Pierce nodded, understanding. Like their stallion guard escorts, he kept one eye on the sky, his horn partly charged.

“Oh my gosh! The scrying crystal!” Twilight exclaimed, hitting her forehead with her hoof. “Of course! Of course! Duh! I can backtrack the spell to find out where the girls are! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“The whole thing was a trap,” Rarity reminded them. “It should’ve been obvious… the moment we were invited… of course it would be a trap…” She shook her head. There was no time for that. “Twilight! Work on that while we run. We need to catch up with the others!”

“Others?” Dash asked, as they began to gallop again. “What do you mean ‘others?’ Rarity? What do you mean others?”

Not far from the city, still on the church grounds technically, a number of ponies from the wedding stopped at a grand pavilion – what would’ve been the spot where the reception and other festivities took place. There was still a great deal of party paraphernalia lying around: food and drink and tables and two large stands for musicians and even a hardwood dance-floor set down in sections over the grass. Proud equestrian banners and flags hug limp in the lack of wind.

Just over the wall of the church compound, the spires of Canterlot were already swarming with black shapes. Rarity slowed her gallop, in morbid fascination, as a panicked airship over the city actually tried to ram through Shining Armor’s city-wide shield to escape. It crumpled like tin foil without making so much as a dent. She could only imagine the chaos in the streets.

Beneath the roof of the pavilion, frightened and angry nobleponies had gathered to argue about what to do next. The six elements of harmony and their plus-ones were admitted without protest, a haggard hoof-full of hastily volunteered stallions keeping guard on the outside. A cacophony of voices assailed them the moment the entered, not a one of them in harmony.

“Cowards! Worms! We should never have abandoned Her Highness! Even if we die, what more to wish for than to die by her side?” “Maybe not all of us are so eager to die! Did you think of that?” “You old fool! She ordered us away! Is it not our duty to follow her will, even now?”

“What of the Stable of Lords? What word from the Stable? If magic fails, we must send runners! Couriers!” “Forget the Stable. You heard Lady Goodwind! The Stable is aflame! We will find no help there!” “If the Stable is gone, who is in charge?” “If Lord Fall is no more, then in his absence I claim…”

“Listen to me! We must rally to the Lady Luna! Somepony must know how to contact her!” “The Princess Luna? Surely you jest!” “My loyalty is to Celestia! To our True Princess! The weak have fled, as she wished; let the strongest of us return to the church and lend the Princess our aid! Who else is with me?” “You Swore to Luna, you traitor! And now you would forsake her?!” “I do not stop you from tending to your Princess. Let me attend to mine!” “Hear, hear!”

“Honorless cur! I always knew you could not be trusted! Or your family!” “You dare question my honor?!” “Have you foals forgotten the hostages...?” “Damn you…!” “What of those of us who have no foals? Are we not free to do as please?”

“Listen to me...!” “You?! Don’t make me laugh.” “Who has rank here? Who has seniority?” “How do we know you are not like the Princess Cadenza? So eager to return to the church... to stab Celestia in the back, is it?! Admit it!” “I knew it! No wonder you got here unharmed!” “Yes, prove you are who you say you are!” “So much as touch myself or my wife, Ser, and it will be the last thing you do!”

“Everypony!” Rarity’s voice drowned out in the roaring din of shouting and debating. “Everypony!”

Two dozen nobles were clustered beneath the roof of the pavilion, some with torn or stained dresses or suits or uniforms, more concerned with arguing with their peers than seeing to their appearance. The voices were already heated and growing hotter, various groups breaking up into factions over what to do and who they felt they could trust.

A dozen or more well-heeled ponies – great names in the merchant and social circles – remained on the margins, some by choice, some by force. Quite a few were in on the arguments as well, others whispering and biding their time to see how the winds blew, and others trying to be heard and failing. Among every group Rarity could see frightened faces, unable to completely mask their fear with anger or bluster, who looked moments away from bolting and finding somewhere to hide... as many had already done after the madness of the wedding and Celestia’s declaration. No doubt many simply wished to look after their own families and their own affairs.

None of which helped Rarity muscle past the larger ponies that blocked her path.

“Everypony, please listen!” Rarity tried again, and Twilight joined her a second later.

“Everypony!” Twilight yelled, but still none heeded them. “HEY!”

“I bet if I blow the roof off, they’ll listen,” Rainbow Dash had to yell herself to be heard, even just among her friends.

“No need for something so dramatic,” a tall, sandy gold mare announced, strutting past the group. She had flecks of green blood splattered across her face and her right front leg, marring her otherwise delicate good looks. “Allow us to help.”

“You are not alone,” Fancypants promised, haggard from the escape from the church, his mane a mess. “I see some faces in the room; faces with ears I can bend.”

“As do I,” Fleur said, walking up behind her stallion. She had a scowl on her face and a green stain on her horn. She reached up to wipe her horn with a hoof as she passed. “My Fancy is no fighter; I won’t let anything harm him.”

“Sand Dune? Fancy… Fleur…” Rarity thanked them, sighing in relief. “Thank you. Please.” She stepped back, as a half dozen bodies helped cut a path through to the center of the gathering. Irate equines grumbled or tried to remain steadfast, rooted in place, only to back down as they realized who they were dealing with. Sand Dune and her entourage formed the spearhead, but she noticed more than a few wide eyes as the elements of harmony followed in their wake. Others whispered at seeing Fancypants, one of the most well-respected ponies of the merchant class.

It probably would’ve been easy for Sand Dune to march them all the way to the front, where the loudest voices, the most belligerent ponies, faced each other down over what to do. It would’ve been easy to keep them behind her, to use them as another arrow in her political quiver. For a long moment, as Rarity walked alongside Twilight, leading her friends upstream against the feuding crème of Equestrian society, she wondered if that was exactly what Lady Sand Dune, heiress to the great Family and House Quartz, future Duchess of Bitaly, would do.

It wasn’t.

“Make room, Blue Wave, you crusty old sea dog!” Sand Dune could be quite the refined lady when she chose to be. Or the exact opposite, as it suited her. The elegant mare roughly pushed aside a muscular older stallion, everybit Blueblood or Macintosh’s size, with a gray coat and midnight blue mane. His hackles rose at the sight of her.

“Dune, you Quartz harlot…!” Blue Wave cursed, but stepped back, making just enough room--

For Sand Dune to push Rarity through the gap.

“I have a lot more enemies than you do,” she whispered, as her foreleg ushered Rarity into the center of the noble gathering. “You have one chance. After that...”

She didn’t need to describe what would happen ‘after that.’

“Who is this?” Blue Wave snorted, derisively. “This mare is--”

“Everypony!” Rarity raised her voice, tried to make it as commanding and authoritative as she could.

It was not much. Twilight would’ve done a better job, Rarity knew. She would’ve been a fine face for them to show, as the apprentice of the Princess. Twilight Sparkle would have commanded respect and attention... at least to begin with. But her family had as many enemies as any other in the country, perhaps the very most. Twilight was bright and powerful and, as her friends knew, sweet and helpful to a fault. Sadly, few noble mares and stallions would look past her name and her lineage to see the young mage’s true self.

“Everypony!” Rarity commanded, and momentarily floated the captured scrying crystal out of Twilight Sparkle’s hooves. A bit of magic and the crystal rippled and glittered, spears of rainbow light swirling around it.

The little light show was a simple glamor, one she’d used before to show off her products to interested customers, and it worked here as well as it had in the Boutique. Those who didn’t attend to her voice, now coming from the center of the pavilion where most of the attention was focused, looked up at the show. The light caught their eye, and their recognition of the crystal captured it entirely.

“The very first thing we must do is to remain united!” Rarity declared, and she honestly tried not to sound like she was admonishing them like a group of bickering colts and fillies. They were afraid. She knew that feeling all too well. They were afraid and unwilling to show or acknowledge their helplessness. It was a potentially very toxic environment in the absence of some leader. Any leader.

“The second thing we must do is to see to our loved ones, just as the Princess commanded us to!” Rarity took care to quickly move to this, the part of the conversation she could control. This was the gift Celestia had given them with her distraction. “We will reverse the spell on this discordian device, and we will find where Chrysalis is keeping our foals, our brothers, our sisters...! I ask only who will help us with this?”

For just a moment, everypony simply stared up at her.

“The forces of the Quartz would be happy to take up the challenge,” Sand Dune announced.

“And put all our hopes in the hooves of the avaricious Quartz?” a noblemare objected, quite vocally. “They’d rob our foals as soon as save them!”

“We will not be indebted to the Quartz alone!” another noble, a stallion this time, roared. His horn glowed as he pointed a hoof towards the element of generosity. “I, Lord Iron Star, speak for House Bloomery. We honor the wishes of Celestia – tell us where to go!”

Soon other voices joined in, vowing on their honor and their lives to track down those who had been ponynapped. It was a start. It was something everypony could get behind and support. Even Blue Wave, who had been the most adamant voice in favor of charging back into the church to fight and die for Princess and Country, held his tongue.

Feeling comfortable enough to lower the scrying crystal down and back into Twilight Sparkle’s waiting hooves, Rarity used the inertia to move onto the next, more troublesome, topic. She also tried to access how hostile the crowd was. It was in many ways like making a sales pitch... one where lives were at stake instead of fashion. Sand Dune’s spoken – and unspoken – support was a solid foundation, reinforcing her hoof-full of allies among the Canterlot elite. Others tentatively seemed to draw in, accepting her as a lesser noble like themselves or as an element of harmony, though that one title seemed of less political use than you’d think in a crisis.

“In the further spirit of Celestia’s last orders, to protect her little ponies, we must not forget that much more is at risk than a captured few. Every moment we delay, more ponies in this city will meet the same fate or worse!” Rarity reminded them, sweeping her hooves across the assembled nobles. “We can all see the chaos from here! Let us not add to it. Let us fight it! With all our hearts and our grace.”

“And what would you have us do?” a mare asked, and it was hard to tell whether she was hopeful or condescending.

“Who are you to try and dictate to us?” another mare made her thoughts far more transparent. “A mere nopony from nowhere!”

“Hey!” “You better not be insultin’ mah friend!” Applejack and Rainbow Dash pushed their way up, to stand challengingly between the two outspoken mares and their seamstress friend.

Rarity gently nudged the irate pair to her sides, to address the matter directly. “I am the titled Baroness of Ponyville,” she stated, with authority, “and more than that, I am a mare and a pony of Equestria. I’m not asking you to follow me, but I will ask that you listen to me. In turn, I swear to listen to you, because I need you... I need experienced ponies... I need you all to pull together and help those who can’t help themselves! If you can’t do even that, then just what do you expect the Princess to say the next time you stand before her?”

That final admonishment seemed to truly chastise them. Even the ones who seemed insulted to have to listen to her at least had the presence of mind to feel shame at disappointing the Princess.

Blue Wave sneered, only moved for a moment. “I’ve known the Princess far longer than you have, girl--”

“Do you claim to know her better than I do?” Twilight chose that moment to speak up, for maximum effect. “You all know who I am!” she announced, turning around in a tight circle to everypony could see her. She still held the scrying crystal in one hoof. “I’ll make this quick, because I have more urgent things to do – like reversing this crystal – but I speak for the entirety of the Terre Rare, across four provinces and more! We have already set aside our fight with the Quartz, even with the Bluebloods! Canterlot and Equestria come first, now and always!”

A low murmur swept across the assembled ponies, a drone of shock and incredulity. The Quartz, Terre Rare, and Bluebloods had been enemies and rivals for generations. They were the three biggest and most powerful names in Equestria. That they would be united already… for many, it was inconceivable.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Twilight continued, trotting past Rarity to sit with her back to the crowd, the scrying crystal between her front legs. “I have a counter-spell to devise! Tell me when you’re ready to get serious and take back this city.”

Blue Wave growled, low in his throat, but kept his peace, a least for the moment.

Rarity pressed forward. “As I said, I need your help. Assuming we can send teams to where our loved ones are being held, how can we protect the rest of the city? Know this: I have already made arrangements to cut off our enemy from the outside. Four thousand guardsponies are on their way to help, but they are not here now, and we are. What steps do we need to take? Who can we follow?”

“We must preserve the royal guard!” a stallion spoke, repeating it again and then explaining, “They are the only hope we have to restore order in the city!”

“Half the creatures that attacked us as we left disguised themselves as royal guards!” another objected.

“And how many of us have kin in that guard?” a third argued. “They will be as divided as the city! We must rally them!”

“If there is a relief force on the outside, we have to secure the only ways in, especially with the shield still up!”

“That’s right! Sweet Celestia, what if they collapse the tunnels?”

Amid the chatter, still frantic at points but less panicked or antagonistic, a vote was soon held – in an ad-hoc fashion – to determine who would lead. Though Rarity only heard her name spoken on occasion, her ears twitching in time with the heartbeat of the room, nopony made moves to dislodge her. It was tacit acceptance of her place… not necessarily in charge, but also somepony the majority would accept. Rarity closed her eyes as she tried not to dwell on just what that meant and just where she was. When she did, it only became hard to breathe.

‘They can’t entirely trust one another, but they’re willing to trust me… especially because I’ve already done the same for Sand Dune and Antimony and Twilight.’ In her mind, behind closed eyes, she saw a flash of a blindfolded filly. ‘Sweetie Belle…’

It took everything she had to keep in place, to betray none of the uncertainty or fear in her heart.

‘It isn’t enough to want to be fabulous. I have to be fabulous. One’s image has power all its own. Just like you said, Blueblood... and right now, the only real power I have over them is my image. I refuse to look like anything less than the Lady I need to be. The Lady they expect me to be! With just this image I’ve cultivated, I’ll do what good I can.’

“Lady Rarity.” “Lady.”

When she opened her eyes, a pair of ponies stood before her, both her social superior in any traditional setting or by any traditional standard. She recognized one as Lord Snow Drift, a middle-aged unicorn stallion with an exceptionally square jaw. Partly concealing that jaw was a bristly muttonchop beard. His gray eyes were hard, but expressive and welcoming on meeting her. He was clearly past his physical prime, but still a handsome older gentlepony by Rarity’s reckoning, with a dark mane and gentle blue to almost white coat.

Next to him, a petite pegasus mare presented a less amiable picture of herself. In her youth, she might have had many of Fleur’s wonderful curves, but that would have been two decades ago or more. She compensated with what must’ve been a fantastic silk dress that had been utterly ruined in the mad flight from the wedding. Her name came a moment later, as Rarity thought on it. Lady Providence. She was a noblemare from the coast somewhere near Manehattan. This was not a mare who would be in her court, at least not to start. If there was an ‘anti-Rarity’ faction that had coalesced here, she had no doubt courted it to become their representative.

“Lord Snow Drift. Lady Providence.”

The exchange of greetings and courtesies was quick, rushed, but Rarity made sure to keep it respectful and sincere. These were the two ponies hastily elected from their peers. Crying about one of them wouldn’t help.

“Whatever it is you need, we will provide,” Lord Snow Drift promised. “I have been chosen to try and salvage the security situation here. Rest assured that I will do so to the best of my ability.”

“I am here to be sure that the interests of the minority are not being trampled,” Providence said, not mincing words or wasting time with half-truths. “And… to try and preserve the continuity of government. If there are any survivors of the Stable of Lords they must be found and secured. Princess Luna, as well, until Celestia returns to us.”

“We also need to gather and screen the guard throughout the city, get small ponies into shelters, and secure at least one means of contact with the outside world… among other things,” Snow Drift reminded her, sounding both impressed and a little daunted by the task. “I will also see to what you need to rescue those unfortunates the changelings have ponynapped…”

“We aren’t going.” The voice belonged to Twilight Sparkle, who turned slightly to look back over her shoulder. “Or, at least I’m not.”

“What do you mean?” Snow Drift asked, frowning. “My Lady, I thought--”

“I’m almost done cracking the crystal and backtracking the spell to source… sources, I should say,” Twilight interrupted, holding up the cloudy looking scrying device. “There are several. But you don’t need me for that. I have a job only I can do.”

“Awfully presumptuous of you, isn’t it?” Providence scoffed. “What is it ‘only you’ can do, Lady Sparkle?”

“Only I can cast a five-alliteration spell to permanently unmask every changeling in Equestria,” Twilight answered, not testily, just with a trace of annoyance at being questioned so rudely.

“Nopony can…!” Lady Providence took a moment to realize the young unicorn mare was serious. Completely serious. “That’s impossible. What you’re suggesting is impossible.”

“Incredibly, mind-blowingly difficult is not ‘impossible,’” Twilight corrected her. The crystal ball in her right hoof turned fully cloudy, then rippled with a rainbow of colors and flashed, brightly. “Good. Done.”

From the crystal, an image projected… of two changelings glaring at something.

“Don’t worry, they can’t see us,” the element of magic assured them. “I layered another spell in place before I reversed the scrying. After twenty seconds, it will ‘ping’ the other crystal broadcasting the image, allowing us to fully see everything in the room. A third spell will identify the direction and intensity of the spell and… well,” she promised, smirking now, “you’ll see.”

Lady Providence only realized she was gawking a second too late.

“What Twilight says is true,” Rarity said, not surprised at all by her friend’s magical prowess. “Getting her in position to use her spell has to be our number one priority, above everything else. Without it, we’ll never be entirely sure who is who. I’m sure you see what I mean?”

Snow Drift nodded, somberly. “Indeed.”

Lady Providence scowled, but also nodded in agreement.

“So we’re going different ways, then?” Rainbow Dash floated down to stand to Rarity’s left.

“Oh! That’s usually when the crazy axe-pony gets you!” Pinkie Pie bounced in to her right, wearing a hockey-mask that most certainly was not a normal wedding accessory. “That’s why I’m in disguise!”

“Some disguise, sugarcube,” Applejack noted, flicking the mask up with her hoof high enough to reveal Pinkie’s face. “Ah just saw the lightshow. We finally ready to move out?”

Next to Dash, Fluttershy kept quiet but made no attempt to hide.

“Changeling! Changeling!” the cry came from one of the pavilion guards, as he wrestled a snarling pony to the ground. A snarling pony with rather pronounced canines.

Another earth pony sentry burst in a second later. “They are massing for an attack! Every one of them has wings! Many have magic! The walls are useless! We saw a hundred, perhaps more!”

“Time, it seems, is not on our side,” Lord Snow Drift growled, and turned away from the assembled mares. “All those who wish to fight, all those who honor their vows, all those who love the Princess, step forward without fear or regret! We begin the muster now! Until the Princess is safe, there are no lordly titles or great names! We earn back those things in victory! Until then, there are only those that fight and those we defend! If I die, may a thousand more rush to take my place!”

“Make your plans quickly,” he added, only for the benefit of the elements of harmony.

“Curse these… creatures,” Lady Providence hissed, following behind Lord Snow Drift as he rallied the others around him. Just by her voice, she sounded far less enthusiastic to risk her life, but no more willing to defy what her peers expected of her. She made it only a few steps before bodily ripping her dress away and throwing it to the ground.

Following the other ponies outside, Rarity and her friends got their first real look at the changeling swarm. And it was a swarm. A hundred changelings buzzed around one another like a great, black cloud, ground-based sentries on the walls already having fought for and taken the main gate for the wall that surrounded the church and cemetery.

The vast majority of changeling invaders were in the air, making it impossible for any pegasus to fly, at least not safely. There was no escape with the gate taken, except for the tiny few unicorns who could teleport. Maybe even the changelings expected it, since they made no move to attack, only to surround the wedding guests and pin them down. The sky literally buzzed. The droning sound was so oppressive Rarity instinctively flattened her ears and even tried to cover them with her hooves.

In the shadow of it all, six mares looked up and readied for the fight to come.

Sitting in a lounge on the third floor, reclining lazily into a beanbag chair, Vinyl Scratch munched freely and loudly on a complimentary bowl of popcorn. One white hoof buried into the bowl, stirred around feeling for the choicest bits and the largest kernels, and then tossed said morsels into her waiting mouth. Mid-chew, she smirked at the mention on the radio of the ‘two mares’ involved in the wedding reception. Sitting next to her, an earth pony waited primly and without a scene, eschewing the beanbag chairs to simply sit on the floor.

“Ivory Keys should really be the one here, speaking for the Orchestra,” Octavia Melody said, having heard the same announcement. Their interview was only half an hour away. “I don’t approve of such blatant favoritism, Vinyl.”

“Hey, don’t blame me for having friends in radio,” the DJ replied with a laugh. “Maybe if you’d studied less and partied more when we were at the old music academy you’d have some of my contacts in cool places. Anyway, it isn’t ‘favoritism.’ Two old friends will have better chemistry over the air than two strangers,” she explained, popping another hoof-full of kernels into her mouth and biting down. “That’s all! It makes for better sound bite.” She munched loudly on her popcorn and winked at the stately cellist. “And we are the bestest of old friends, aren’t we?”

“Yes, if by ‘bestest friends’ you mean the one roommate who didn’t try and kill you in your sleep,” Octavia replied, subdued despite the verbal ribbing. “For that matter, how did you get the DJ job for the reception? You never mentioned knowing the Princess, nor have you ever spoken of her attending your concerts…”

“My agent worked it out.” Vinyl adjusted her trademark glasses and wiped her popcorn-eating hoof off on the side of the beanbag chair. “If you want the specifics, I ain’t got ‘em. I’m not gonna complain, either! Sometimes you just hit the jackpot, ‘Tavi.”

“I’ve told you a thousand times not to use that nickname, Vinyl.”

“And if it never worked before, why would it work now?”

“So long as you don’t call me that on the air, we--” Octavia cut off, mid-sentence, as the electrical lights abruptly flickered and dimmed. “…Vinyl? Is that normal?” She pointed to the fading lightbulb set in a glass lantern that had once helped to illuminate the room. Most ponies used kerosene, but this building was entirely electric. “Is that supposed to be happening?”

The radio crackled, the signal fading and cutting off the wedding commentary.

“No. No it isn’t.” Vinyl Scratch rolled off the beanbag and onto her hooves. Her neck craned as she looked around the room. The open window nearby was still providing some light, at least. “There must be some problem with the magical generator…”

“Ah. I see.” Octavia remained seated, but it wasn’t hard to see her growing nervousness, especially as the lights didn’t immediately come back on. Her front hooves touched, a sign of anxiety that Vinyl had picked up on years ago, back when they were freshmares in college. Tavi had done it the first time Vinyl had explained the ‘socks on the doorknob’ rule, back when they’d been roomies. She knew what it meant.

“Hey, let’s go find the others,” she said, knowing it was just what Octavia needed her to say. “Who wants to sit around in the dark by themselves?”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Octavia replied, and together, the two mares left the lounge.

Standing by the iron gate, a white pegasus guardpony leaned down to picked up a fallen sleeve of cigarettes. There was a splotch of blood on the corner of the package, but it didn’t stop him from plucking one of the rolls of tobacco out and sniffing it. Experimentally slipping the cigarette between his teeth, tasting it, he just as quickly spat it out.

“Disgusting,” the changeling muttered, turning first to the radio tower above, and then to the mostly empty carriage. Inside, the three guardponies who had been watching the gate were bound in rope and wax. With a flick of the changeling’s white wing, the pack of cigs landed amid them.

Without a word of warning, the door to the carriage closed, sealing the trio in darkness.

The lights flickered again, as the generator kicked back in.

“Check it out,” Vinyl said, stopping Octavia halfway down the hall. She pointed up at a nearby electrical light. “They fixed it!”

Octavia sighed in relief. “Thank goodness. But how embarrassing! We were about to made a fuss over nothing…”

In the now fully lighted hallway, both mares noticed a pair of royal guards heading towards them.

“Hey guys!” Vinyl greeted the pair with a confident smile. “You wouldn’t happen to know what happened with the power back there, wouldya?”

The two burly pegasus guards continued to stomp towards them.

“Guys?” Vinyl asked again.

Octavia was the first to sense that maybe they weren’t in a talking mood. “Pardon, sirs, do you need us to get out of the way, or…?”

In seconds, the two ‘royal guards’ were close enough to pounce, their eyes glowing green.

“You can’t do this to me! Don’t you know who I am!? Huh!?” a lanky, irate older earth pony stallion wailed as he hit the ground, his front legs tied together, wrist-to-wrist. “Tell them Robin! I’m Loud Mouth! Equestria’s Number One Shock Jock! You can’t shut me down! Who do you thugs think you are? Robin! Tell them they can’t do this to meeee!”

“Loud Mouth,” Red Robin, the earth pony mare next to him whispered, “I really think you should--”

“I’m not going to shut up! I’m never going to shut up! Talking is my job!” The stallion continued to bawl, even as the pair of royal guards who had just thrown him to the ground glared down at him. “I mean, even when I should probably stop, I can’t! I just can’t help it! Especially when I’m afraid! My mouth just runs on its own! Oh sweet stars, I literally can’t stop talking! Even if I wanted to!”

“Allow me to help with that,” one of the royal guards hissed in a sibilant tone.

Opening his mouth too-wide, revealing a fanged dentition that was in no way equine, he suddenly projected a stream of green slime out of his throat. It splattered all over Loud Mouth’s face, quickly hardening and muffling the radio shock jock. The thin stallion fall onto his side in shock, still trying to talk despite the wax covering his face; his legs kicked and bucked in panic and a stink filled the air as he lost control of his bladder. Then his bowels.

“I didn’t even know that guy was still on the air,” Vinyl muttered, inching away from the pool of urine. “What is he, like sixty years old now? Kinda less cool than when I was a little kid.”

Like everypony else, her front legs were bound, and like every-unicorn present, she had a film of wax encrusted over her horn. A stronger magic user might’ve still been able to break free somehow, Vinyl assumed, but two of the guards had replacement horn suppressors in the tactical webbing over their golden barding. It wouldn’t have made a difference.

“Vinyl,” Octavia whispered, angrily.

“Shut up, all of you,” the guard who had spat the green wax-slime hissed. He seemed to be in charge.

Except he… wasn’t even a he.

Two of the other supposed royal guards dropped their disguises, the burly pegasus stallions vanishing in a sheen of green fire, revealing the insect-like monsters beneath. An aquamarine membrane covered their eyes, making the pupils barely distinguishable beneath. Where once there had been white coats of hair, there was now only segmented black chitin. Spines laced by black webbing twitched where there should have been a mane and a tail, interspersed with folds of more semi-transparent membrane. Their legs were dotted with pockmarks and holes, some all the way through, and a green-band circled their midsections.

The half dozen ponies in the lounge shied away from the revealed creatures, whispering and in some cases whimpering. The few ponies in the radio station who had been inclined to put up a fight had been soundly beaten and thrown into the room, too, as an example to the others. Not that most radio-ponies were exactly the most violent types to begin with, and the building had maybe half a dozen stallions in it, total; they had been subdued with almost contemptible ease.

Creepily, the radio continued to buzz, the broadcast from before continuing on.

“…and here we have none other than Fancypants, himself, finally making his appearance. With him is… oh, this is just remarkable, we were expecting Lady Fleur de-Lis, but Lady Rarity is with him as well. And emerging from the carriage behind her are a whole retinue of the Baroness’ friends…”

“I hate to cut in, Mirage, but we just now have a new set of numbers for our special radio contest, announced after that brief technical interruption earlier. Sixteen. Fifteen. Eleven. Repeat: sixteen, fifteen, eleven. Back to you Mirage, Black Lace, and the scene at the Palace.”

Creepily, because the voice on the radio belonged to Five-by-Five, the news anchor.

Five-by-Five was currently tied up next to Octavia, the elderly stallion nursing a black eye from his capture. Yet he was also still on the air, announcing sets of numbers for some new contest, ostensibly to win tickets to the after-wedding reception ball. It had to be code of some sort. Whoever or whatever was impersonating Five by-Five was using it to pass on some sort of coded message over the radio… the same radio broadcast that everypony in Equestria was listening to!

“What do you want from us?” Another radio-mare spoke up, this one probably just an engineer given her lightning-bolt cutie mark. “Why are you doing this?”

“I said shut up,” the changeling from before snapped. “No questions. No talking.”

“Wow. Flashbacks. This is like Professor Verse’s music theory class all over again,” Vinyl whispered, and Octavia Melody decided it was best just to nod. Their captors were already glaring at them, just waiting for Vinyl to break their no-talking rule again. Wisely, the DJ grumbled and kept quiet. Octavia sighed in relief. As long as everypony kept calm, she was certain things would work out. Somepony would be along to help them soon.

Right?

A flash of light and five equine figures appeared out of thin air.

“Everypony okay?” Twilight Sparkle asked, checking on her friends. She had carried them all along with her in the teleport a rather substantial distance.

“I’m still in one piece!” Pinkie Pie said with a grin and a bounce.

“I’m okay,” Fluttershy answered, tentatively looking around at their new surroundings.

“A five-body teleport without a circle – excellent spellwork as always, Twilight.” Her father, Crescent Moon, took a short breath and closed his eyes. “Give me a moment and I’ll have an overview of the next area.”

Twilight Velvet said nothing; like Fluttershy, she seemed to be examining their surroundings. Twilight had teleported them into a dance studio on the third floor of a ‘pierre grise’ greystone commercial-housing complex. It was abandoned presently, the room unlit except for the light streaming in through the large bay windows. Three gramophones and a large library of vinyl records were kept off to the side along a wall, the others sporting lively murals of ponies dancing to unknown music. A few pictures on the wall showed faces from the classes that were held here: some adults, many foals.

“A large swarm is passing by the east facing window,” Crescent Moon warned, his eyes still closed. “Ten seconds.”

It was plenty of time to hide. They kept the curtains on the windows half-open, to look less suspicious. Twilight pressed herself against a wall, next to the window; Fluttershy squeaked and found a closet; Pinkie somehow dove right into the pot of a plant and vanished; Crescent Moon and Twilight Velvet also pressed flat against a wall opposite the east side of the building. They quietly counted down the seconds and Twilight held a hoof up to the faint swirl of magic around her right eye.

Through it, she could see three formations of changelings moving over the street outside. Half of them carried either grenades – for serious fights – or gas bombs, for flushing out civilians. A few carried larger yellow-coated changelings that lacked wings but were built more like lions or griffins than ponies. Squadrons of four changelings each split off as they slowly flew by, buzzing and hovering to look into windows along the street.

Two of them slowly cruised by the bright bay windows of the dance studio, giving the seemingly empty space inside only a cursory glance-over. Then they buzzed away to rejoin their formations. Twilight watched them go through borrowed eyes.

“Okay, everypony, we should be clear,” Twilight said, pulling the curtains closed. “Right, Dad?”

“I believe so, yes… it looks like the changelings are traveling exclusively in large groups.” His horn glowed, projecting a map of the city nearby onto the dance floor. During his service in the guard, he had been known as the ‘Night Light’ for his ability to oversee large areas, night or day, with far seeing magic.

“I’d guess that they’re afraid of individual changelings getting picked off, so they’re only moving in force,” Crescent Moon explained, and pointed to a large mage tower. “It appears they’re operating out of the Aurora Sanctum. It has a large garage for storage and as a bonus it gives them a commanding view of the entire neighborhood.”

“It would appear so,” Twilight Velvet murmured.

“You took me to that Sanctum on my sixth birthday,” Twilight recalled, shaking her head sadly. “They even let me use the telescope…”

“Is it safe to keep moving?” Fluttershy asked, and Twilight nodded.

“Eunomie is moving into position as we speak,” she answered, putting aside her nostalgia and indignation over the honored Sanctum’s defilement. “Once she’s found and marked a safe spot, I’ll teleport us there.”

“Hocksbach Hall is here,” Crescent Moon said, pointing to an area at the edge of the neighborhood he had mapped. “But there’s intense fighting along the streets and in the air. We’ll need to be careful.”

“Do you trust this Eunomie mare, Twilight?” Velvet asked, walking past her daughter and sniffing dismissively at the projected illusionary image of the neighborhood in miniature. “She could be leading us into a trap.”

“Trust me, mom,” Twilight replied, smiling confidently. She tapped the magical glow over her face again. “I can see everything she’s doing through her familiar, Galen. Besides, I can’t imagine Eunomie leading us into a trap.”

“Oh, hey! Hey!” Pinkie chirped, the forward curl of her mane twitching. “I think we’re about to have company!”

Fluttershy dove for the cover of the closet. “Not again!”

Rather than changelings knocking on the windows, however, a rapping sound came from the door to the dance studio. Twilight, Velvet and Crescent all lit up their horns to barrage the door with magic the moment it opened. Pinkie Pie, however, had totally different ideas. She leapt over right into the line of fire and leaned her side up against the door.

“Oh! I love knock-knock jokes!” she exclaimed, laughing into her hooves. “Who’s there?”

“R-royal guard, ma’am,” a voice spoke up, hesitant and clearly afraid.

“Royal guard who?”

The voice behind the door sounded genuinely confused. “Just… the guard, ma’am…”

“Huuuuuh? But that’s not funny,” Pinkie Pie observed with a sad sigh. “I’ll just have to do it myself! Knock-knock! Who’s there? Pinkie Pie! Pinkie Pie who? I’m you, so me, that’s who. What? Huh? Just open the door! No, you open the door; you’re the Pinkie on the inside! What? I am? Oh yeah, I’d have to be, wouldn’t I?”

Flinging the door wide open as she fell onto her rump, Pinkie revealed two bedraggled looking royal guards. Neither of them seemed to even be armed, though they did have their usual golden armor. The pair tensed and locked eyes with the three unicorns in the center of the dance studio.

“L-lord Night Light!” One of the pegasus guards gasped, throwing his head down in a quick bow. “Thank the Princess!”

“That’s the Night Light?” the other asked, and also lowered his head in a quick bow.

“I’m long since retired, boys,” Crescent Moon said, and Twilight’s horn glowed as she cast a quick spell. The two royal guards yelped as they abruptly turned female. They gaped at one another, pointed, and then whirled on the three unicorns.

“What’s going on?” one asked. “Ma’am?”

“Please tell me this is just an illusion,” the other begged, having briefly stretched his neck to look between his legs.

“You’re both good,” Twilight said, and the two guards quickly reverted back to normal. They sighed with relief. “Sorry. I had to make sure you weren’t changelings.”

“Changelings?” one of the guards asked. “Is that what those things are called?”

“What happened to you, boys?” Crescent Moon asked, slowly approaching them and holding up his hooves in a non-threatening manner. “What are your names?”

“Sir! Guard Knight Sir Snap Shot,” one of them answered, pointing to his friend and then to himself, “and I’m Sir Long Lance. We were on patrol, sir. Six of us. Then the commander told us to start getting civilians out of their homes. Rounding them up. Everypony cooperated, and we did what we were told. I thought it… might’ve been a fire drill or something?”

“It wasn’t,” Snap Shot picked up where his fellow knight and guard left off. “These things came… started taking away the civvies. A few of them started to fight back and the… the commander said to subdue them. Subdue our own little ponies? By the Princess, how could they order us to do that?”

“We refused. A bunch of us,” Long Lance said and shook his head. “It… turned bad after that. There was a fight. We ended up having to hide.”

“We thought we could try and sneak over to Hocksbach,” Snap Shot admitted. “It… it seemed like we’d be safer there, but the streets are crawling with bugs and neither of us are at one hundred percent.”

“You can come with us,” Twilight said, having heard enough. “Is there anypony else?”

Both guards slowly, shamefully shook their heads. The area had already been depopulated.

“Then we’ve wasted enough time talking,” Twilight said, gesturing them over. “Eunomie’s cleared and tagged the next location. We’ll be on a roof. It’ll be a short run to Hocksbach after that, so keep up.”

Everypony clustered close to her and Twilight concentrated on the location and her teleport. Five was now seven, forcing her to expend even more energy, but with Eunomie’s trailblazing it wasn’t nearly as hard as it would be teleporting blind. A circle of light drew around the seven equestrians and they instantly shrank down into a pinprick of light.

Chapter Forty Seven : Fury of the Setting Sun

(47)

Fury of the Setting Sun

A glowing pinprick of Twilight Sparkle’s magic expanded where it had just contracted, but in a new place, depositing the seven equestrians inside on a smoking rooftop. Unlike the dance studio, this area was far from abandoned and far from quiet. Hastily splitting apart from where they had been clustered, a trio of explosions greeted the new arrivals, erupting against an amber-yellow semitransparent barrier overhead and eliciting a frightened squeak from Fluttershy as she tried to hide under her hooves. Everypony else tried to get their bearings as more explosions erupted around them.

Buzzing overhead past one of the amber barriers, a wing of changelings juked away from a trio of magic blasts. One of the changeling bombers broke off from her wingmates, twisting in midair and trailing droplets of green from her side. Her left wing, hanging by a thread, sheared right off and she crashed into the side of the roof near the hooves of an armored pegasus mare.

Eight of Alpha Brass’s personal guard secured the roof for them: four were big pegasus amazons with humorless faces sporting crimson and silver dolmans, four were smaller unicorns with gilded rings around their horns to enhance their spellcraft. All were mares, but they fought without hesitation or mercy. The pegasus bruisers ripped into any changeling that tried to land or harry them under the canopy of the shields, their size and strength enough that Twilight saw one effortlessly pluck a maneuvering changeling out of the air with her bladed wings. The unicorn quartet fired a steady stream of magic into the sky, warding away the black chitin swarm that milled threateningly overhead.

“I am glad you could make it,” a pale unicorn mare with a prim red bun of a mane said, welcoming Twilight and her group. “Twilight. Ser Fluttershy. Ser Pie. Lord Moon. Lady Velvet.” She even welcomed the two newest additions. “Sir Lance. Sir Shot. I am Eunomie Mosaic.”

“You know who we--” Crescent Moon started to ask.

“Everything Twilight saw and heard, I saw and heard,” Eunomie quickly explained, holding up her hoof. Magic swirled from around Twilight’s face and shot into Eunomie’s left eye, turning the orb there from cataract white to pale amber orange. “Please, follow me. We are almost to Hocksbach.”

She signaled to her retainers, and they quickly abandoned the redoubt, a magical ramp allowing them to run to the next roof. A squad of changelings landed ahead of them, throwing tear-gas bombs. Pegasus wind magic knocked the green rounds off the side of the roof, and the guards rushed ahead to engage the creatures in close combat. Bulling past the fight before it even finished, Twilight’s group jumped straight down onto another magical ramp that extended over a modest wall.

On the other side of the wall, directly ahead once they hit the ground, was Hocksbach Hall. Built of sturdy brown limestone, the hall had been erected even before Arsenic’s exile from Canterlot. It had passed into the hooves of her Kamacite descendants, and they had maintained it as their most prestigious holding. It was the seat of the Terre Rare family in Canterlot. Open park-ground surrounded the great hall, with fountains and statuary and benches for tourists and city dwellers. On a normal day, hundreds of ponies would be hanging around the hall’s grounds, socializing, buying food and drink from street vendors, playing games and reading.

The grounds were now part of a larger battlefield, as fire poured in from the reinforced walls of Hocksbach Hall, now reprising its original purpose as a small fortress in the middle of the city. Swarming changelings broke apart as explosions stitched the sky, keeping them from assembling in any large numbers. Instead, they had to keep to small groups, making quick attacks. Arrayed against them, ranks of unicorns staggered their fire, producing streams of multi-colored light that arced up and in sputtering irregular bursts.

“Hold!” a commanding voice barked as they approached the front of the building. It belonged to a stallion in Terre Rare red, his coat snow-white and his mane dark purple.

“Star!” Twilight held up a hoof in greeting. “I’ve come as expected.”

“This is true, and I see now why you gave us the orders you did, noble cousin,” the stallion replied, also lifting a hoof in welcome. “Tell me, what is the code you sent me in your letter?”

“Magic cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed,” Twilight repeated, and her cousin motioned to the guards to keep their focus on the enemies in the sky.

“Welcome back to Hocksbach Hall, Twilight Sparkle,” he said with relief. “We have been waiting for--”

“HI! OH! Oh! Is that a ‘12-pounder’ bronze cannon? 117-millimeter bore diameter?” Pinkie Pie had already zipped across the intervening distance to launch a full on invasion of his personal space. She pointed past him to one of the cannons mounted on a swivel flanking either side of the hall entrance. “Could I take a quick look at it up close? Please, please, please? I’m Pinkie Pie by the way? Who are you? Twilight said she had a bunch of cousins and half cousins and cousins two or three or six times removed!”

A pink terror furiously shaking his hoof, he barely managed to mutter, “I’m… Companion Star, ma’am…”

“Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy are my friends,” Twilight explained, passing by her cousin. Fluttershy gave a polite curtsy, dipping her head and her legs, but remained too bashful to do anything else. “You know my Mom and Dad, and Eunomie, right?”

“Aye,” Companion Star said, bowing politely at Crescent Moon and Twilight Velvet as they passed. The latter took an extra moment to look over the fortified façade and patio that protected the front of the hall. Eunomie lingered only to watch Velvet for a moment and then follow her in. Companion Star stopped Sir Shot and Sir Lance, directing them to a group of haggard guards recovering outside.

Inside the hall was a flurry of activity.

Ponies were racing to and fro, some hauling boxes and crates up from storage below, others cleaning and oiling and inspecting weapons or armor before adding it to a rack or pile. Elsewhere, a frightened family was being inspected by an armored mare who then herded them to safety after checking to be sure they were equine. Waiting for Twilight inside was another pony in a light tan cloak with large flaps over the chest, fastened tight with buttons and tiny aiguillettes, the tiny ornamental cords capped with gold. He sported a wavy crimson and gold mane over a pearl-colored coat. A leather tome with a dagger for a bookmark stood on his coat in place of his cutie mark.

“Uncle Eclipse,” Twilight greeted the stallion. “These are my friends, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy.” She motioned to them, rushing introductions a bit. “Guys, this is my uncle, Annular Eclipse.”

“Hi!” Pinkie heartily shook hooves with the stallion, grinning happily.

“Hello,” Fluttershy said softly, bowing politely again.

Annular Eclipse bowed quickly but also very politely. “It is always a pleasure to meet such lovely young mares. Welcome to Hocksbach Hall. Little brother,” he added, smirking at Crescent Moon. “I take it the wedding did not go as planned?”

“It did not,” Twilight Velvet answered for her husband, scowling all the while.

“Uncle,” Twilight began, walking over to where a large map of the entire city lay draped over a wooden table. “How are our supplies?”

“We have enough to support an army of over a thousand,” he answered, rounding to the far side of the table. “Some of the arms and armor are very old, dating back to Arsenic’s era, but if anything that makes them more potent and not less. All have been meticulously maintained. For the time being, I’m keeping the antiques in storage. We have a massive stockpile of modern equipment to distribute first.”

“Now we just need to get it to the ponies who need it,” Twilight said, pointing to the table, near where the church had been. “Uncle, you should know that we’re just the advance for a much larger group. After they break out, they’ll head here.”

“The wedding guests,” Annular Eclipse assumed. “That’s fine. We’ve also taken in quite a few royal guards. There are other, smaller, houses who have also called up their retainers. Few can stand alone against a determined attack, however, so most have taken to ground. We are attempting to rally them.”

“Good,” Twilight approved. All this was not meant to be hoarded, not in a crisis.

“What about you?” Annular Eclipse asked, “You left this in my hooves, and I can see why now, but where are you headed next, little Light?”

“Here.” Twilight sent a little glow to highlight one dot on the map. “Her Majesty’s Wireless Magical Broadcasting Tower. I need to cast a spell from there, using the antenna.”

“And Hocksbach Hall is right in the way,” Eclipse reasoned. “Alright. We’ll lend our aid anyway we can, but if we’re going to linkup with your friends from the wedding then we’ll need a large force to push east.”

“I just need you to get me to the underground station,” Twilight Sparkle said, highlighting a line on the city map. “Once there, I’ll go the rest of the way using the Crystal Hall.”

“We’ll go the rest of the way,” Twilight Velvet promised. “We are not letting you do this alone, are we dear?”

Crescent Moon shook his head. “No. We’re not.”

“No, Dad! They need you here, doing what you do best,” Twilight argued, drawing a circle over the map with her hoof. “Your Far Seeing magic might make the difference between linking up with the ponies from the wedding and everypony running right into an ambush. You have to stay here.” Twilight lowered her eyes and took a shuddering breath before glancing up at her father. “Dad. I’m ordering you to stay here. This is the best way for you to help not just everypony, but me, personally.”

Crescent Moon clenched his jaw, but he understood, not only his daughter’s reasoning, but that she now held the reins of the Terre Rare in Canterlot. “Fine.”

“Surely you’ll be fine taking your mother along?” Twilight Velvet insisted. “As a compromise? Twilight.”

Twilight opened her mouth to protest… but just as quickly shut it. “No. You can come, Mom. We might… need you.”

“I knew you’d see things my way,” Velvet replied with a faint smile.

“Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie…” Twilight Sparkle finally addressed her friends. “If you guys want to hang back, this is probably the safest place in the city right now. We can all meet back here later.”

Fluttershy remained quiet. If learning that part of the reason for the detour here was for her benefit surprised her, she didn’t show it. Pinkie Pie, however, shook her head right away.

“No way!” she chirped. “We gotta stick together! Rarity has her Rariquest, and you’ve got your Twiquest, and we’re already in your party, so we can’t just bail on you out of the blue! Unless somepony needs a bathroom break or the GM panics because we’re going off script.” She leaned in close, prompting Twilight to move back slightly to avoid bumping noses. “Point is: I betcha you’ll need us at some point. So don’t even think about leaving us behind!”

“Fluttershy?” Twilight asked, gently pushing Pinkie off to the side.

The shy pegasus forced herself up and onto all fours. “I’m not going to run away,” she answered, her voice shaky. “I won’t pretend I’m not scared, but Pinkie’s right. We should stick together.”

“I agree,” Eunomie quietly chimed in, and Twilight gaped at her.

“You do?” she asked, tilting her head in surprise.

“Yeah!” Pinkie pronked around them happily. “Go Team Twilight! Or is it Team Sparkle? We do have two Twilights, now, since your mom is coming. Oh! Or even better, let’s call ourselves Team Pinkie again! Bar trivia contest winners extraordinaire!”

“That was one time,” Twilight noted, but started to smile despite the situation. “But Team Pinkie does have a one-hundred percent success rate.”

“The zoology questions back then were just too easy,” Fluttershy tentatively said, also smiling. “This’ll be harder, but I don’t mind.”

She held out her hoof, and Pinkie and Twilight both bumped it with their own hooves.

“Team Pinkie it is,” Twilight agreed.

Expressionlessly watching the three mares, Eunomie remained outside the circle of close knit friends. As much as she and Twilight had connected, on at least a professional level if not a personal one, that did not extend to either of the other two elements of harmony. Instead, Eunomie spared a glance towards Twilight Velvet. The older mare was still scowling. Crescent Moon and his brother were already discussing the defense of the area privately. Everything, Eunomie determined, was going exactly as it should. Alpha Brass would be pleased.

“Eunomie!” Twilight’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and she felt her foreleg lift up.

“What?” she asked, softly, suddenly finding her hoof deposited on top of three others: one lavender, one yellow, and one pink.

“Welcome to Team Pinkie!” Twilight said, smiling brightly. Looking around, Eunomie saw Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie grinning as well, welcoming her into their group. The normally emotionless mare stared, momentarily thrown for a loop. Looking down at their hooves, she blinked dumbly.

“T-thank you,” she managed to say, taking a second to recover.

They made their final preparations and headed out under heavy escort.

Applejack kicked in the backdoor of the restaurant, peeking out into the alley beyond before leading them into the next kitchen. Rarity and Rainbow Dash followed close behind, the former lighting up her horn to help them navigate through the hanging pots and pans and dimly lit larders. Occasionally the trio came across signs of a struggle: violently knocked over food, an oven carelessly left burning, a few splotches of green or red blood.

In this kitchen, Applejack held up her hoof, pointed to her eyes and then across the floor to a dead changeling. The hilt of a knife stuck out from its forehead like a second horn. Whoever had been cooking in here hadn’t gone down without a fight. There was a second changeling stuffed into a pantry cupboard, the hind legs of the insect-like equine hanging limp as pasta.

Rarity noticed a newspaper clipping, and coughed, prompting her two friends to investigate.

“Minotaur opens Minoan bistro in big city,” Applejack read the headline. “Guess that explains the body-strewn kitchen.”

“Oh, mushroom moussaka and pilaf?” Rainbow Dash seemed to have skipped the headline to read about the menu items. “This place looks good!”

“Next time we’re in the city we can visit, darling,” Rarity promised, peeking over and into the body of the restaurant proper. “My treat.”

“Rarity, I never forget a promise of free food, so I’ll hold you to that,” Dash said, vaulting over the counter and into the restaurant. They were keeping to the back entrances and exits and off the main roads.

“Not one apple on the menu,” Applejack grumbled, heading over to the side entrance. “I should complain.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Not everything has to have apples in it, Applejack.”

“Fer the sake of our friendship, I’ll pretend ah didn’t hear you say that,” Applejack quipped, forcing open the door with a grunt. She wedged the door open and took a quick look into the next alley. “Shoot!”

“What’s wrong?” Rarity asked, stepping carefully around a knocked over table once piled high with food. Two messy streaks in the spilled egg-lemon soup betrayed a struggle as the customers had been bodily dragged off towards the front door.

“Dead end,” Applejack answered. “No more back doors. Just a fire escape.”

“So we hit the roof?” Dash asked, grinning at getting a little closer to the open air.

“Let me think for a moment,” Rarity insisted, stealing a quick look outside the restaurant through one of the front windows. “Royal Review turns to Eighth Blue Belle at the intersection with Dream Valley Road, which is… there. If we cut across and take a left, we should be fine.”

“Ah don’t know how ya can tell heads from tails in this kooky city,” Applejack muttered, shaking her head in dismay. “Nothin’ but one-way roads an’ teeny tiny little streets an’ turnstyles. Ah hate turnstyles! Can’t ya’ll just build on a nice grid like Manehattan?”

“Canterlot is an old city, Applejack. This is what old cities are like.” Rarity motioned them down with her hoof as a wing of changelings flew high overhead. “Let’s go.”

Running across the street, the three elements of harmony weaved between two knocked over carriages. Further down the street, magical blasts crackled upwards, knocking a pair of changelings out of the sky. The two who escaped stopped in mid-air, returning fire from their horns before diving down into the front of another building. It promptly exploded a second later.

“Holy smokes! Appleoosa this ain’t!” Applejack remarked, meeting up with Rarity and Rainbow Dash in the narrow cobblestone street. The still smoking body of a fallen changeling lay curled up in the shadow of another luxury restaurant.

“Surrender yourselves!” A voice shouted from above, as another wave of changelings buzzed by in tight formation. It had the sort of tinny quality than came from being a recording on the radio. “There is no need to fight. We are not here to hurt you. Cooperate and nopony will be harmed. Surrender yourselves! There is no need to fight. We are not here to hurt you…”

The radio faded as the changelings descended to investigate the explosion at the far end of the street.

“‘We are not here to hurt you’ my perfect rainbow-streaked behind,” Dash grumbled, but kept hidden, pressed against the wall of the alley. “That’s the exact thing invading aliens would say. Next thing they’ll say they have a book ‘to serve pony.’”

“You’ve been readin’ too much science fiction, sugarcube.”

“Pffh. It’s only science fiction until it becomes science fact!”

“This way,” Rarity whispered, taking the lead from Applejack again. She knew the backroads better than her friend. The cobblestone passed by underhoof as they ran, zig-zagging through poorly lit walkways far too small to support even a modest carriage. The roads didn’t even seem to have names, sandwiched between the spires and white-washed facades of Canterlot buildings.

Near the end, Rarity quickly held up her hoof to indicate ‘stop.’ Hiding behind a pile of garbage cans, much to the fussy unicorn’s discomfort, they hunkered down as a procession of changelings buzzed down what had once been one of Canterlot’s fantastic thoroughfares. In addition to the buzzing swarm of flying changelings, leonine ones without wings stalked in formation down the street, pulling carts stocked high with waxy cocoons.

More terrifying still, a pair of huge worm-like creatures slithered in lockstep with the armored column. One raised its head to the sky and uttered an ear-piercing trill, high pitched enough to hurt a pony’s ears, but low pitched enough to drop a pit into a mare’s stomach. Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash all kept low and barely took a breath while they waited for the parade of changeling horrors to pass by.

“Surrender yourselves!” the voice from before repeated, even now. “There is no need to fight. We are not here to hurt you. Cooperate and nopony will be harmed. Surrender yourselves! There is no need to fight…”

When the announcements faded into the distance and the road was clear, the trio of mares resumed their trek through the city, sticking to the maze of narrow streets and alleys that made up much of Canterlot. The changelings seemed to be relying heavily on patrolling the main roads and boulevards. Combined with their control of the skies and the roofs, it was still a formidable stranglehold on the city. Rarity saw only the occasional equestrian face, usually only in passing as somepony glanced out of her window. Those ponies who hadn’t been caught already certainly weren’t in a hurry to surrender themselves to the legions of monsters that overran their city.

“This is it,” Rarity whispered, pointing across the street past a decorative iron wall.

Beyond the vine-like cast iron grilles that separated each brick pillar that made up the wall, the three mares could make out a beautiful mansion built in the typical Canterlot unicorn style. Much like the Blueblood manor, it had a bright façade facing the front lawn and gardens, decorated with the usual heart-shaped and leaf-like curls and curves that were post-classical Canterlot. The grounds were empty but well maintained, the unassuming appearance belied by the fact that the gate to the house was wide open and the stone marked by strange tracks.

“You sure this is the place?” Dash asked, holding out her front hooves.

“Most definitely,” Rarity assured her, taking one of the offered hooves. “Are you certain you can get us inside without leaving that trail of color you do?”

“Yeah. That’s just a basic tail trick. No problem.” Dash held onto Applejack’s hoof, and spread her wings. “You ready?”

“Quite,” Rarity answered.

“You betcha,” Applejack said, and as soon as the word was given, Rainbow Dash took off. Her wings flapped hard, propelling herself and her two friends through the air and right over the iron walls of the manor house. The ground sped by under them in a blur. Cyan blue wings angled at just the right moment, bringing them lower until her hind legs found purchase on the grass. Skidding around in a tight circle, she only stopped when one of her legs pressed up against the stonework of the base of the house.

“Mah turn,” Applejack said, kicking at the heavy iron bars that protected a nearby window. Each one cracked at the base, a thick metal bolt deforming as she ripped the grate out with hardly a sound. Rarity’s magic finished the job, finding the inner latch and opening the glass of the window.

The three elements of harmony hopped inside.

The room they found themselves in sported a massive fireplace carved white marble, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. It might have been a trophy room once, but the views of medals and paintings were obscured by heavy wooden crates. They were stacked up, side by side, and as tall as a pony. Each one was labeled ‘construction equipment’ or ‘imported turf’ or ‘statuary.’ One was left open, and it didn’t contain statuary.

There were cocoons inside. Rainbow Dash ran a hoof along the edge of one, pulling it out enough to confirm that it was empty. Rarity hushed her before she could say anything, and she motioned for them to follow her. If this building was anything like the manor Blueblood had built, then she should be able to find their way. According to Twilight’s interception spell, the signal of the captured cutie mark crusaders had come from this house, in what looked like the grand salon.

The house was quiet, but as Rarity rounded a corner, she caught sight of the enemy. A trio of changelings were moving another crate through the nearby hall, chattering to each other in a hissing, sibilant language. Rarity nodded to Applejack and Rainbow Dash, unrolling her makeshift scarf from around her neck and forming it into a snake of fabric. She struck first, shooting the bolt of cloth into one of the changelings just a second before Rainbow Dash and Applejack pounced on their targets.

With the three changelings knocked out, they rushed between the two arcing stairs leading up to the next floor. Another hallway stretched ahead, and the noise from before brought out a pair of curious changelings from inside one of the adjacent rooms. Recognizing the three intruders, one of the changelings hissed and charged at them while the other ran.

“Rainbow!” Rarity yelled, blocking the charging changeling and knocking it aside and into the wall with her cloth.

“I got it!” Dash said, already moving. She body tackled the changeling before it could escape and spun it around, slamming it into the opposite wall. The creature hissed as its back slammed into a low wooden stand, splintering the wood and the delicate ceramic cups on display atop it. Applejack finished off the remaining changeling held back by Rarity’s fabric, knocking it out with a single kick to the midsection that shook the fixtures in the wall.

“Well,” Dash commented, smirking at the changeling she had taken care of solo. “That wasn’t so--”

“Zzzhe!”

The screech preceded a blast of green light that knocked Rainbow Dash right off her hooves. The chromatic pegasus scrambled away from the open door the changeling before had been running towards, finally finding a safe spot flush against the door frame. More green magic poured in through the door, accompanied by more chattering. It was clearly only a moment’s salvation, however, as the changeling directed her magic at the side of the door, blowing away the frame in burning chunks and forcing Dash to keep scooting over and away.

“Applejack!” Rarity yelled, and rushed forward.

“Right with ya!” Applejack yelled back, and kept next to her unicorn friend as Rarity rounded the corner. Her cloth shield extended, layering over itself like a big ‘Z’ in front of them. Green magic splashed against it and over the sides.

“Go! Go! Go! Go!” Applejack pushed her hooves up against the fabric shield, forcing it forward.

“Zrreee!” a pair of changelings hissed, jumping to either side of the fabric shield. Their twisted horns were aglow with viridian energy, leaving bubbling lines of light in midair as they moved.

“Hi-yyah!” Rarity cried out a ‘kai’ as she kicked the closest changeling, spinning gracefully on one hoof as she planted the other right into the changeling’s jaw. It didn’t just hit, it knocked the resulting magical blast off course. Green energy exploded against one of the chandeliers overhead, knocking it loose and sending bits of crystal raining down. Applejack lunged with her front hooves at her own target, hitting the creature hard in the upper chest and left shoulder, also forcing it to fire harmlessly upwards. Pushing it off balance, she then spun around and kicked with both hind legs, sending the changeling sprawling as it skipped like a stone across the room.

The ‘Z’ of her fabric-shield unfolding, Rarity caught her breath and pointed ahead. “There. Look!”

At the far end of the hall, the walls to either side thick with a dozen paintings, sat more of the changeling cocoons. Three of them were lined up against the wall, and to the left of them a large bubble-shaped construct of changeling wax stood out. The cylindrical cocoons were clearly designed for mass-production and both easy storage and handling, but the big, round cocoon was something else. It looked cemented firmly in place, next to another marble fireplace.

“I keep forgetting these guys have magic, too,” Rainbow Dash said, emerging from behind the blasted and scarred doorframe. She ran a hoof through her multi-colored mane. “Hey! Is that what I think it is?”

“I think so,” Rarity told her, cautiously approaching the bubble and trying to get a look inside. Part of it did seem transparent, and there were shapes inside.

“I dunno how you even get this thing open!” Applejack was the first to put hooves on it, but it resisted her digging the edge of her hooves in. “Ah can’t… get a handle on it…!”

“Rarity, just cut it open, huh?” Rainbow asked, frowning. “Let’s get the tykes and get outta here.”

“Very well. Stand back,” Rarity ordered, motioning Applejack out of the way. With the same fabric she had used to defend them, she curled and uncurled it, snapping the edge out at high speed. Feeling ready for some delicate surgery, she struck at the bubble-cocoon, cutting into the side where there was no risk of harming the fillies inside. Leveraging the fabric in, she then slowly cut horizontally into the cocoon. A second cut followed vertically, creating a flap, and then a third and finally one last horizontal slash.

“Hang on, Applebloom! I’m a comin’!” Applejack grabbed hold of the excised wax, ripping it loose with a wet ‘splurtch’ing sound, like the sound of a pony being violently sick. A few gooey tendrils of slime stuck to the rectangle of wax as she pulled it completely free and tossed it away onto the carpet.

“Apple… bloom?” Applejack reached into the cocoon and pulled out the horn-less, wing-less filly inside.

Despite being covered in jelly-like changeling goo, the filly had Apple Bloom’s bright red mane, her pink bow and even her orange eyes. She was Apple Bloom’s size, and despite being rather limp in her sister’s hooves, she was clearly alive and breathing. It was when the jelly sloughed off her flanks that something became odd, not just to Applejack, but to Rarity and Rainbow Dash as well.

“Hey! She finally got a cutie mark, huh?” Dash joked, laughing to lighten the mood. “I guess all ya had to do was get foalnapped! Not how most ponies get their mark, but…”

“This isn’t Sweetie Belle,” Rarity interrupted, having also retrieved the horned filly from within the cocoon. The little unicorn was groggily shaking her head. Her pink and lavender mane was done in Sweetie’s natural curls, her coat was Sweetie’s shade of white, but her eyes… they weren’t green. They were blue.

“My sister does not have blue eyes,” Rarity told them, using her magic to pull out the last filly; the one who should have been Scootaloo. Dash helped her out, and saw that this filly had a cutie mark, too: an elaborate little painter’s easel. She otherwise looked almost exactly like Scootaloo… except, as Dash picked the filly up to look into her eyes, they were the wrong shade of purple.

“They wore blindfolds in tha image Chrysalis showed us,” Applejack remembered. “These ain’t our sisters at all. They’re fakes!”

“It was all a trick… from the start,” Rarity whispered to herself, still holding up the fake Sweetie Belle. “She played us for foals.”

“Nopony could risk calling her bluff,” Rainbow Dash realized it, too. She set the fake Scootaloo onto the floor. “Hey, kid. You okay? Can you talk?”

“The queen…” the fake Sweetie mumbled.

Apple Bloom glared up at her would-be sister. “The queen will…”

“Kill you all,” ‘Scootaloo’ declared, pushing away from Rainbow Dash.

“Wha--”

“They’re right, you know,” a voice hissed from behind, and Rainbow Dash spun only to find herself seized and lifted into the air with the same ease with which she had just lifted a filly. Rarity and Applejack leapt to her defense, the latter trying to grab onto Dash and pull her free of whatever had her and the former shooting a ream of cloth into thin air.

In clear pain, Dash yipped as whatever had her let go, throwing her into Applejack.

“That was quick thinking,” the voice complimented. “Counter-attacking instantly without a moment’s hesitation, even at what you can’t see. In acknowledgement of that--”

Rarity snarled, lashing out with her cloth again, zeroing in on the voice. Her fabric snapped like an angry cobra, first aiming for an empty patch of floor and then for the opposite side of the room, cutting clean through a pedestal with a bust of Celestia atop it.

“--and because of your title, Baroness, and your prestige, as three elements of harmony--”

The voice rose in volume as it suddenly got closer, forcing Rarity to dive away in a panic. A puncture in the bubble-cocoon betrayed where something had struck. When it withdrew, it had punched clean through the wax surface, leaving a hole behind that bled greenish jelly.

“--I will let you see my face,” the voice continued. “Behold.”

A line shimmered in the air, the edge of a hoof almost, and behind it a face emerged. It was only vaguely equine, with wider cheeks than normal and bulbous eyes, lending it an almost triangular aspect. The jaws broke open in a smile, and it was a frightful rictus of mandibles and teeth. The slender forelegs revealed themselves next, along with the gracile neck and nearly skeletal-thin body, all of it streaked by red chitin. The lower half remained invisible, literally fading away into nothing.

“You stand in the presence of Sarai,” the changeling announced, remaining aloft on her hind legs, or so everypony assumed, since her hind legs were still invisible. “Queen Sarai of the Zilant Hive.” She bowed, mockingly. “Sarai Bloodletter. Sarai Fear-Bringer. Sarai Throat Slasher.”

“Another Queen?” Rarity slowly backed up so her friends could cover her back. She caught sight of the three fillies she had freed backing away from them.

“Are you surprised?” Sarai asked, her upper body moving without a visible lower body beneath it. “Chrysalis is not the only Hive Queen. Until recently, she was just one of many.”

“So what are you doing here?” Dash demanded to know, still nursing a bruise around her throat. “You her best Queeny gal-pal or something?”

“Hardly,” Sarai replied, casually inspecting her thin blade-like forehooves. “As far as I am concerned, oaths or not, we are still equals… but Chrysalis has a vision that I respect and appreciate. It is for that vision that I brought my Zilant Hive in to assist my fellow Queen.”

Sarai spread her forelegs, and the air rippled all around the room.

Red-coated changelings emerged from out of thin air. They were more slender than the green changeling drones Rarity and her friends had encountered before, with a severely stunted horn but large, brightly colored wings. At the very least, it seemed to hint that this group of changelings wouldn’t be bombarding them with magic. If there was any justice, that was an ability that the greens alone had. Invisible monsters were bad enough. Invisible monsters blasting you with magic? Rather worse.

“Ya’ll never had our sisters at all, did ya?” Applejack eyed the predatory Sarai warily. “Who are these three fillies? You take them from their homes or what?”

“Those three?” Sarai wondered, craning her neck to peer over at the false cutie mark crusaders. “I believe they were the children of the ponies who owned this wonderful villa. Once we replaced their parents and started using their home as a staging ground, months ago, Chrysalis had the foresight to keep them around and use them as hostages. Your fear of your loved ones being taken was all we needed. You being here shows that it worked… and that the little beasts have outlived their usefulness.”

The changeling Queen glanced over at the three fillies.

“Delicious little things, aren’t they?” Sarai asked, licking her mandibles. “I probably would’ve eaten them, myself. Unlike Chrysalis’s picky Biscione, my children have a taste for flesh as well as emotion. It allowed us to better survive the lean times of the Sunkissed Desert… though sadly the other hives oft complain of our table manners. …But now?”

Sarai began to fade away into transparency as she paced, broken glass from the chandelier that had fallen crunching beneath her invisible hooves.

“There’ll be blood and meat to spare when you creatures have learned to embrace the yoke,” she remarked from the shadows. “Won’t that be a happy day?”

“Get ready,” Rarity warned, Applejack and Rainbow Dash bumping flanks with her as they formed a tight, protective circle.

“There sure are a lotta them,” Applejack noted, watching the formerly invisible mantid changelings surround them.

“Just means more to beat the tar out of,” Dash insisted. “I’ll let you two fight over second place.”

“Go,” Sarai commanded, as invisible as a specter.

Her children obeyed, and leapt for their prey.

“What? Here? They’re coming here? Are you sure?”

Vinyl Scratch kept her eyes and nose down but her ears open. The changeling guards watching over the captured radio staff seemed to chatter in a mix of their own language and normal equestrian. Oddly enough, they seemed to prefer equestrian when talking with a changeling of a different color. Maybe they didn’t know each other’s languages? A red-colored changeling had just entered, demanding to speak to the changeling in charge.

“Twilight Sparkle herself? And Eunomie, too? Why here of all places?” The changeling in command maintained the disguise of one of the royal guards from outside. The exception being the changeling’s crooked black horn that he or she didn’t bother hiding. It stuck out like a wicked tumor from the otherwise pure white of the royal guard’s forehead.

The red changeling was much quieter than the green commander, Vinyl couldn’t hear his or her response.

“Yes. Yes, I understand,” the changeling commander muttered, dismissing the red changeling. “We will see to it. You’d best be going.”

The red changeling left the room, and the changeling leader beckoned over two others who had been keeping close watch on their prisoners. Vinyl could see confusion on the faces of a few of the other captives. Most of the engineers and other technical radio staff had been taken away. It seemed the changelings were still broadcasting. The radio announcers and talking staff had been gathered together, searched, and immobilized with waxy goo. Their threat neutralized, they were left to sweat in an empty sound stage. Most kept clustered together for mutual comfort… except for Loud Mouth, who still sat alone in a puddle of his own making. Nopony much wanted any of that near them.

“You!” Vinyl looked up, and saw the changeling leader pointing towards her. “The unicorn. Bring her here.”

“Vinyl!” Octavia yelled, and in a moment, the two changeling grunts were on her. They lifted her by the forelegs and carried her over like a bag of oats.

“Hey there! You guys need my help with something?” Vinyl tried to sound confident and unafraid, but her breathing refused to keep steady. She’d seen these changelings beat ponies down without so much as a ‘sorry.’ The way they had taken the radio station was downright professional. They might as well have been griffins.

“Unicorn,” the leader said, making it clear why she had been singled out. “What’s so special about this place? Is there something in the building that a unicorn could use?”

“Lotta things,” she replied, evasive.

“Answer me,” the changeling hissed, slipping a sharp knife loose from his or her armor.

“Woah! Calm down! Your question was super vague,” Vinyl argued, struggling weakly against the two changelings holding her upright. “Be a little more specific next time, that’s all! Geez!”

“You think this is a game?” the changeling asked with murderous calm. She dug the tip of her organic-looking knife into Vinyl’s cheek, right where it met her trademark shades. Not yet breaking the surface of her skin, the changeling used the knife to slowly lift up the glasses, revealing her real eyes. Vinyl held her breath, waiting.

“Vinyl!” Octavia yelled again, and Vinyl could hear a scuffle. “Don’t you dare hurt her!”

The changeling leader ignored her. “I said: do you think this is a game, unicorn?”

“No.” Vinyl Scratch gulped and very carefully shook her head, mindful of the tip of the knife very near her eyelids. “No!”

“Then I’ll ask you again,” the changeling said. “A unicorn is coming here. A spell caster of some skill. What is in this facility that would bring her here? Some device, maybe? Or is she after the tower itself? What does she want that we have here?”

Vinyl’s mind raced as she considered the question. Though this changeling didn’t know it, or, maybe, she didn’t think it mattered… but Vinyl had overheard the name of this particular unicorn. Twilight Sparkle. She recognized it. Not that she knew Twilight, really, but she’d been in Ponyville tons of times. She knew the elements of harmony in a passing way, and Pinkie Pie fairly well.

‘Twilight Sparkle is coming here?’ The well-known DJ wracked her brain for a reason why. It had to be for the broadcast tower. A skilled unicorn could use a powerful radio tower like this one to broadcast a spell to receivers across the country. It was why radio existed. Before anypony had thought to transmit music, the tower had been conceived of as a means of transmitting magical energy for remote spell casting. It wasn’t something most ponies even thought about anymore, since it required so much magic just to set up the signal. Only a huge spell could…

Only a huge spell could be transmitted. Like a spell that fucked with changelings all across the country.

That kind of super spell!

“It has to be…” Vinyl licked her lips, making her decision on what to say. “I’m not sure, but it might be the recording studio…”

“The recording studio?” the changeling sounded skeptical. “Why? What’s down there?”

“Spells can be recorded on disks!” Vinyl lied. Mostly. But the best lies always had some truth in them. “On vinyl disks! You can record a spell and then copy it and distribute it or replay it whenever you want. It’s more complex than just that, but – but you get the idea… I’ve done it myself, actually, and--”

“If you’re lying to me,” the changeling cut her off, waving her knife in front of the DJ’s eyes, “you’ll need those glasses to hide what I’ll do to you. Understand?”

“Yeah!” Vinyl nodded emphatically. “Totally. One hundred percent. Clear as crystal! Clearer than crystal!”

The changeling continued to stare into her eyes, looking for some falsehood. Vinyl grinned, trying to appear as frightened and cowed into submission as she could. It wasn’t hard. She didn’t exactly feel all that much in control of things at the moment. Praying silently that her ruse passed muster, she felt a swell of relief in her heart when the changeling turned away.

“Put her back with the rest,” the changeling ordered, finally, motioning to one of her subordinates. “You. You’re in command here until I get back.”

Dropped onto her rear next to her old college roomie, Vinyl finally gave a shuddering sigh, all the fear from before escaping with her breath. Octavia brushed up against her, keeping her sitting upright. At the same time, she came close enough to whisper without them being overheard. Usually, the guards angrily broke up anypony who tried to get too close – ‘no talking!’ they’d yell, and kick or punch – but this time they seemed too busy and let it slide.

“Are you alright?” Octavia whispered softly.

“Yeah,” Vinyl whispered back, starting to smile, “Turns out, a friend’s on her way here as we speak.”

Twilight Sparkle led Team Pinkie around a mangled pile of glass and iron scaffolding that had fallen down from the uppermost levels of the Crystal Hall. It meant ducking into one of the storefronts, but otherwise the fallen wreck didn’t obstruct the way any more than the overturned carriages that lined the streets of most of Canterlot.

The ceiling of the Crystal Hall was made of cast plate glass held up by an elaborate iron scaffold. Almost all of it was still intact, through just entering had revealed a few sections to have taken damage from changeling dive-bomb attacks. Messy cones of brighter light steamed in through the gaps in the crystal canopy, and in the spotlight below was the inevitable tangled ruin of glass and iron. Luckily, most everypony that could must have galloped for cover, as the falling debris didn’t seem to have caused any visible injuries or casualties.

The marketplace itself was deserted, just like Twilight had hoped.

She raised a hoof to motion her group forward. “This way, everypony.”

The main thoroughfare of the Crystal Hall was a good twenty pony-lengths wide and dotted with food vendor carts and new model carriages that could be won in contests set up by various merchants and businesses. Advertising signs and streamers glowed cheerily alongside magnificent crystal and marble fountains and other pieces of public artwork. Though wide enough to be a street, the Crystal Hall was strictly for hoof-traffic only. No carts or wagons or carriages were allowed except those on display.

This was partly why Twilight had picked it to be her means of crossing this part of the city. Though usually teeming with activity at any time of the day, the hall itself sat in the middle of a posh residential area in Canterlot. If there were changelings still lurking around, their focus would be on the often fortified homes of the nearby nobles. Also, because the hall was hoof-traffic only and completely enclosed, it was a far less attractive space to attack from the air, which was the changeling preference.

“Is this place the crystal hall or the crystal mall?” Pinkie Pie asked, slowing as she passed by a large Starbucked café sign, advertising a new type of latte.

“Hall,” Twilight happily answered, more than ready to deliver much needed exposition and background. “It was originally built for the Second Royal Exhibition celebrating Equestria’s seven hundred year anniversary. While it acts more like a commercial mall these days, it is still technically a reception hall just like Hocksbach. In fact, it remains the largest hall and the largest indoor space in Canterlot, covering almost one million square hooves…”

“I’ve always wanted us to go to the mall!” Pinkie blissfully exclaimed, bouncing ahead.

“Hall. Hall!” Twilight tried to correct her.

“Ma~a~all!”

“Is it safe to be under all this glass?” Fluttershy quietly asked while Twilight used her magic to reel Pinkie Pie back in before she pronked too far ahead.

“The ceiling overhead is much stronger than it appears,” Twilight assured her. Pinkie continued to furiously try and bounce, despite being lifted bodily into the air with a magenta aura.

“Oh. Okay.”

“You good back there, Mom? Eunomie?” Twilight asked the last two members of their group. Twilight Velvet seemed to be fine trotting along at a leisurely pace, guarding their rear. Eunomie, though, had been scouting ahead before. Only recently had she insisted on being at the back of the group.

“Fine, dear,” Twilight Velvet replied. “Everything is just fine.”

Catching a look at Eunomie’s face, Twilight saw that her left eye was closed. That could only mean she was scouting with her intangible familiar, Galen.

“No difficulty,” Eunomie answered, deadpan. “I will inform you if I detect a threat.”

“Keep to either side under the store overhangs,” Twilight reminded her friends, dropping Pinkie down to her left. “I’d rather not tempt fate and have some changeling see us from above.”

The five mares made steady progress through the abandoned hall, Pinkie occasionally gasping softly to point out the various stores and landmarks. The Crystal Hall was one of Equestria’s most famous shopping districts. After a slight decline and a small fire a century ago, it had been energized by new investment. Many famous franchises and exclusive stores, especially luxury stores, leased a gallery floor or two under the glass canopy. There was even a small ski slope and Pinkie practically gasped herself up to the second floor when she pointed it out. It was actually as much a ski store as it was the slope, but yes, ponies could and did ski and snowboard on it.

They had just passed a Neighponese chophouse with a decidedly oriental flare when Eunomie spoke up for the first time since Twilight had asked her how things were going covering the rear. The soft spoken and serious mare was not one to chatter on, so when she spoke, Twilight listened.

“Trouble ahead,” she warned, saying a lot with only a few words.

Twilight used a flash of magic to muffle the less-than-inconspicuous Pinkie Pie to her left and ducked behind the cover of an overturned iron table. Fluttershy was quick to join her, and so did Twilight Velvet a moment later. Eunomie, she saw, slowly ducked behind an ornamental pillar. Still muffled by Twilight’s magic, Pinkie Pie grumbled but finally kept quiet.

Feeling a magical tingle around her own left eye, Twilight nodded, and let Galen attach to her like a monocle. Eunomie’s familiar seemed full of tricks. Twilight had already seen much of what it could do back at the Library, where Eunomie had used it as an assistant to intelligently retrieve items and books in storage. Apparently, the familiar’s capabilities only increased from there, depending on how much of herself Eunomie ‘traded’ or sacrificed to it. Usually that was just her left eye, which turned white and creepy enough that the pale mare had learned to close her eye when it was in use.

From the start, Twilight had suspected that what Galen observed, Eunomie could also observe. She had been more surprised to learn that what Galen observed, he (or it) could share with others as well. In a way, it was sort of like Eunomie used Galen to attach part of herself to Twilight. In this way, one could see what the other did. It was fascinating!

But that was aside from the point at the moment. As Eunomie had said, there was trouble up ahead. Just past the broken storefront of a Boredstrom, next to a Wig Wham, was…

“Oh. IHOPP,” Pinkie Pie whispered, having peeked out from over the rim of the table they hid behind. “Wait. IHOPP? Two Ps?”

“International House of Pancakes… and Portals,” Twilight explained, pulling her back down and out of sight.

“Ooooh! Pancakes and Portals. Yep! That makes sense,” Pinkie agreed, nodding vigorously.

Twilight concentrated on the image projected over her eye, courtesy of Eunomie. The other mare had already gotten to a higher vantage point. From what she could see, and what Twilight could see through her, there was some sort of situation going down at the IHOPP. A small group of Royal Guards were out front; three in all, just from what she could see. They had a family of ponies gathered together out front: two young mares and an older mare and stallion. All earth ponies.

There also seemed to at least be one more ‘guard’ inside, since slate gray unicorn of the three outside yelled something inside. From the body language alone, it looked like he was growing increasingly impatient. Twilight could imagine the one outside yelling for one – or more – inside to hurry up. There had to be more ponies trapped inside the IHOPP.

“Hey, Twilight!” Pinkie said, just as a plan started to form in the unicorn’s head. “I was just thinking, what if the guards are actually guards and those other ponies were actually changelings?” For emphasis, she raised her hoof and somehow twirled it around three hundred and sixty degrees. “Wouldn’t that be totally a twist?”

Twilight was on the verge of retorting, when she realized that Pinkie had a point.

“That could be,” she admitted, lowering Pinkie’s hoof before her mind started to ask questions about her friend’s physiology that physics wasn’t prepared to answer. “Okay. Follow my lead. We’ll get close enough to talk, then, when I say ‘hay fries,’ here’s what we’ll do. Mom. Use a flash to stun them. All of them. At the same time, I’ll zap them all with my spell to reveal if any are changelings. If the guards turn into changelings, Pinkie, you and Eunomie try and take them out in the confusion.”

“Okay Dokey!” “Very well.” “…”

“I’ll take that silence to be a yes, Eunomie,” Twilight said, speaking to the one mare not physically present.

“What should I do?” Fluttershy asked, as everypony got ready to step out from out of cover.

“Umm… just stay close to me,” Twilight suggested, coughing into her hoof. “You can cover my back.”

Fluttershy nodded and a moment later they all emerged from cover and started trotting towards the guards. Almost right away, one of the white pegasus guards nudged his partner and pointed their way. He said something inaudible and the gray unicorn Royal Guard turned away from the IHOPP towards the new arrivals. The earth pony family also looked up, but weren’t exactly in a position to say or do anything.

“Hold it right there!” the unicorn guard shouted as he approached them.

“What’s going on here?” Twilight asked, assuming a commanding tone. “You stand before Lady Twilight Sparkle and Lady Twilight Velvet, Sir. Is there anything we can help you with?”

“A pair of noble ladies?” the unicorn asked, narrowing his eyes at their group. “And a pair of…” Pinkie Pie smiled goofily and Fluttershy kept hidden behind Twilight. “A pair of others...?” He shook his head. “I am Sir Black Lance; the two behind me are Lock and Load. No offense, noble ladies, but we are hunting changelings in this area. The city of Canterlot is under martial law. I will have to ask you to bow to my authority and submit to a mandatory inspection.”

“Of course, Sir,” Twilight smoothly replied, not sounding the least bit ready to blast him with her horn. “As I said, though, we can help with whatever situation is going on in the IHOPP…”

“It isn’t anything you need to worry about,” Black Lance assured her, “Just a few holdouts.”

“If that’s the really the case, then please accept my apology in advance,” Twilight said, lowering her horn. “But I sure would like some… Hay Fries!”

Twilight Velvet’s horn flashed brightly, just a moment before her daughter’s glowed with the energy of a primed spellcast. The three guards growled as the sudden flash momentarily blinded them. Heeding Twilight’s warning, Pinkie and Fluttershy both covered their eyes with their hooves, allowing them to see when the flash faded. Twilight had closed her eyes as well, and though it hadn’t entirely protected her against the light, it did give her a good look at what her spell had wrought.

The three guards were now mares, their colors preserved due to their armor’s uniform enchantments. The family of earth ponies, however, hissed and growled as their equine disguises fizzled and shorted out. One by one their changeling illusions burned out entirely, revealing their true selves. All four struggled against the ropes they had been bound with, now more clearly visible. Fortunately, they seemed disoriented enough by the experience that none of them tried to use the opportunity to escape.

“Oh! Sorry!” Twilight quickly apologized again, as the angry unicorn stallion turned mare started to light up her horn for a spell. “I’m so sorry! I just needed to check to make sure you were who you say you were!”

“All right! Called it!” Pinkie celebrated by bouncing over to the angry Black Lance, grabbing her hooves, and starting to dance. “It wasn’t even my Pinkie sense! I just thought: hey, what could go wrong? And then figured that would be what would happen! I call it Pinkie’s Law!”

“Enough,” the unicorn growled, pulling her hooves out of Pinkie’s grip. “Reverse the spell, please.”

“It should expire in just a second,” Twilight promised, and sure enough, the guards quickly reverted to their male selves. All three glowered at the lavender unicorn. “Sorry again. Really! We were just being careful. How did you know those--” She pointed to the family of hissing former earth ponies. “--were changelings? Do you use another spell?”

“Olfactory enchantment,” the unicorn lieutenant answered, curtly. He trotted up to Twilight, sniffed, and then moved onto her mother and then Pinkie Pie.

“Olfactory enchantment?” Twilight asked, grimacing at being sniffed but already pondering what spell he was using. “That could work. Brass did say that trained dogs could be used to ‘sniff out’ changelings, but I didn’t think he meant it literally… I tried testing smell spells before and--”

“You all pass,” the unicorn lieutenant said, after sniffing a cringing Fluttershy. He began to walk back to his pair of pegasus underlings. “But if you still want to help… in truth, we would appreciate it.”

“Sure!” Twilight readily volunteered. “It’s the least I could do after… well; you know… what we just did!”

“There are portals inside the IHOPP,” the unicorn guard began, leading Twilight inside. “A group of changelings have hijacked one, and we can’t get them out…”

“Pardon me,” a voice interrupted, from the second floor of the IHOPP.

“Eunomie?” Twilight called up, recognizing the voice.

It was Eunomie. The serious mare stood on top of the iron façade that covered the gallery in front of the IHOPP. Rearing up on two legs, she looked down at the ponies below with a typically emotionless expression… an expression that suddenly seemed rather terrifying to be on the receiving end of. Like an indifferent pony about to step on a bug or three, simply because they were in the way.

“Plowshares,” she said, horn aglow and extending one hoof to touch the iron scaffold, “to swords.”

Twilight Sparkle had seen Eunomie do ‘swords to plowshares’ and back hundreds of times. She had been there when Eunomie learned the spell. That she could do it wasn’t in question. That she could turn one sword into one plowshare and back again, hundreds of times even, wasn’t a surprise. But this?

This was the first time Twilight Sparkle had seen anypony turn an entire one-ton metal scaffold into swords.

“Damnit all! She’ll ruin everything!” the unicorn next to Twilight yelled, and the Element of Magic found herself being pushed roughly to the ground. “Hit them! Now!”

“What is going on!?” Twilight yelled, and gasped as the unicorn grabbed her horn with one hoof and reached for her mouth with the other. There was no way he was doing this to try and protect her from the falling hailstorm of razor sharp swords. The only reason to put a hoof on a unicorn’s horn like this was…

The hissing screams of changelings filled the air.

Looming over her, now under the cover that was just being inside the IHOPP, Twilight noticed a greenish glow in the unicorn lieutenant’s eyes. His grip on her horn tightened, enough to hurt, and her mind entered panic mode. Tucking in her legs, she tried to kick or push him off her, but just as easily he shifted his body to pin her down.

“Hey! Let go of her you meanie!” Pinkie Pie’s voice, so often a source of frustration, filled Twilight’s ears like a godsend. The unicorn stallion above her growled and looked up and away.

“Little pest,” he said, simply, and his horn erupted with a concentrated stream of blood red magic. “Die.”

“NO!” Twilight screamed, and unable to cast a spell, she did the only thing left to her. She yanked a hoof free using Pinkie’s distraction and grabbed the other unicorn’s horn, mid-cast. She yelled out in pain, her hoof burning as it entered the stream of magic, but then it found purchase. Despite the agony, she held firm and squeezed, a pulse of her own magic interrupting the beam of crimson magic.

“RRraaaHH!” The stallion howled, feedback burning his horn raw.

His grip on her slackened, and she finally managed to kick him off.

A second later and something fast picked her up off the floor, carrying her deeper into the IHOPP. For just a second, Twilight feared that it was a changeling or one of the pegasus guards. If their leader had attacked her then wouldn’t they? It was so hard to tell. Even Eunomie’s gift of shared vision was gone. Her horn hurt and, feeling more vulnerable than she had since the wedding ambush, Twilight sighed with relief when she saw the butter yellow that could only be Fluttershy. Or was it?

The genuine look of panic on Fluttershy’s face convinced her, at least for the moment. No changeling could ever mimic the look Fluttershy had when she was out-of-her-mind afraid, but still determined enough to keep from hiding in a corner somewhere.

“Get them!” Twilight heard the unicorn guardspony yell, and changeling hisses answered in a viper’s chorus. “Hunt them down! Don’t let them escape!”

Then they slipped into a blue portal and the sound was gone.

Billowing flame washed across a smooth plane of black, hungry tendrils of fire breaking off to carve bright-red trenches in the ground, setting an entire acre of perfectly cultivated rye and bluegrass to the torch. Swooping low through the conflagration, Princess Celestia banked sharply to her left, narrowly avoiding a sweep of a black brush. The flame that ended up caught by the wave froze in place… and then vanished, erased from existence.

Such was the power of Equuleus Pictoris.

“Watch this one very carefully, Celestia,” a stern voice whispered in her ear, a memory a thousand years out of date. “The brush of Pictoris has absolute dominion over anything it ‘paints.’ In the heat of battle, you would be wise to keep out of the way and use your speed and versatility to your advantage.”

Flying in a tight coil, Celestia dismissed the errant memory. She narrowed and angled her wings, accelerating like a peregrine falcon in a full dive. Bright light escaped from her horn, not as a beam, but as a whip. Flying in place with gossamer wings, the bridesmaid she had been introduced to as Minuette snorted and brought her brush around, spinning it laterally around her waist. A wave of black intercepted the coiling golden beam, capturing and nullifying a long streak of it. The spiral it had formed, however, was simply too wide to ensnare all at once. Those parts that had not been frozen broke off with a sound of tortured magic, like the screech of hooves on blackboard. They continued forward like a spread of birdshot, peppering the bridesmaid and knocking her out of the air.

“Finally. I have you!” Celestia adjusted her horn to cast a double-layer shield spell to capture the mare. Her aurora mane began to flex and twist… a piece of it breaking off--

Only to be forced to dodge, hard, to the right as a pointed corner of a black triangle nearly speared her through the neck. Turning slightly, Celestia could see the other bridesmaid, Twinkleshine, floating in the air, her hooves directed forward and beads of sweat on her brow. Her three triangles lanced out fast enough to break the sound barrier, punctuating every thrust with a tremendous boom. Dodging them with wings alone was impossible.

Celestia’s back right hoof pressed against a glowing barrier.

Then her right front hoof did the same, letting her juke in a new direction.

Then the back hoof again.

Then her right wing.

“RRRAAAHHH!” Twinkleshine screamed, forelegs straining as she directed her attacks with ever greater speed and intensity. “Stand still and DIE ALREADY!!”

Little more than a blur of motion, Celestia continued to escape one infinitely sharp barrier-edge after another, until finally Twinkleshine saw her efforts bear fruit. The Solar Princess froze, the edge of an athereal triangle buried in her chest.

Twinkleshine allowed herself a triumphant grin. A grin that quickly disappeared when she noticed a shadow overhead. The illusionary Celestia-mirage faded, and Twinkleshine cried out in surprise as the real one appeared only spitting distance away. Her gilded hoof extended… and Twinkleshine tried to avoid being touched…

“Come to life,” Celestia whispered, and her golden slipper shot off of her hoof, growing wider and wider.

In almost agonizing slowness, one of the bridesmaid’s barriers started to orient to block the ever expanding net of living, liquid gold. Celestia narrowed her left eye, only to suddenly have it drift off to her left. A crackling viridian beam forced her to tuck her wings in over her body like a shell. A cyclical barrier, nearly invisible to the eye, instantly snapped into place around her, deflecting much of the magical attack away and into the ground below, where it exploded like a lightning bolt.

Spinning like a top in freefall, the Princess deflected two more beams the same way before snapping her wings out again and diving down into the flames below. Chrysalis hesitated in midair, none too keen to follow the Princess into the raging inferno that had grown on the ground as a result of countless magical strikes and fire attacks. Wings buzzing, the changeling scanned the devastation below with calculating green eyes. A black shield hovered protectively around her, and a moment later, so did Twinkleshine and Minuette. Both bridesmaids searched the blaze for a sign of the Princess, keeping position to guard each other’s backs.

“Hiding in the fires will not help you, Princess!” Chrysalis roared, serpentine eyes squinting against the waves of heat emanating from below. “We will find you. We will--”

“Sorry to keep you waiting!” a dulcet voice called up from below, cutting the Queen off. “I just needed the fire to spread a little more! Celestial Summoning!”

“A summon spell?” Chrysalis sneered, her horn lighting up. “What could she be…?”

With a rush, the flames that had spread all across the church ruins and reception grounds swept towards one point, swirling around like a tornado. Shielding her eyes from the brightness of the crucible, Chrysalis hissed, her sibilant tone punctuating similar efforts from her bridesmaids to cover their faces. Tighter and tighter the pool of fire churned, until it began to swell like a bubble about to burst. Suddenly and without warning, the swelling egg of flame split open and two torrents of fire shot forward.

A pair of black shields blocked the walls of flame, but just as quickly, they retracted…

And spread, like a pair of wings.

“Philomena,” Celestia announced, standing atop an arch of fire as it straightened and grew, higher and higher. “Take on the aspect of your progenitor! Ankaa! Firstborn of the Sun! Accept these fires, inhale this ash, and heed my burning call!”

The towering phoenix, taller than the spires of Canterlot, opened its cavernous beak.

“Shield! Shield!” Chrysalis screamed, and Twinkleshine did as commanded.

Front hooves facing towards the threat, the bridesmaid’s first shield expanded, the black triangle growing wider and wider. Beyond the onyx barrier, the Phoenix spoke an indistinct word that thundered across the sky and sent cracks across the lavender city shield. In the wake of that word, a beam of brightest yellow and white poured forth, completely engulfing the black triangle. Chrysalis and the two bridesmaids remained sheltered behind the unbreakable barrier… until the magic parted by the barrier closed back in from behind, surrounding and devouring them alive.

Ankaa’s breath continued unabated, and Celestia stood unmoving atop the great creature’s brow. What was left of the breath, after it washed over the changeling Queen and her bridesmaids, stretched on to clash with Shining Armor’s citywide barrier shield. Ankaa’s fire punched clean through it like a red hot poker through a marshmallow, arcing far over the Equestrian countryside below like the tail of a comet.

Celestia scowled, warily catching her breath.

“I had hoped not to have to harm my two little ponies,” she said, knowing none could hear, not even her summoned phoenix. In this state, it didn’t really understand tiny words from tiny mouths. Only physical contact allowed her to direct it. Prismatic mane billowing wildly behind her, Celestia tapped a hoof gently against the giant bird’s forehead.

The maw snapped shut, cutting off the hellish flame.

Gradually making itself visible among the embers, the Princess could make out a black shape. It was to be expected. The unyielding barriers of Triangulum would persist, even if the ponies didn’t, at least for a time. Except… these were strange. Celestia leaned forward, physically brushing her mane out of her right eye to get a better look.

It was narrow.

It was extremely narrow, stretching almost to the ground below. But it was, definitely, a triangle. Celestia sucked in a breath as she realized what she was seeing. Normally, there was no way for just three triangles to completely cover an area. The geometry simply didn’t work out, at least in normal space. That was still true, except the triangle-shaped barriers of the constellation Triangulum could stretch. What stood before her now were three extremely narrow triangles, pressed together at the sides like a cone or a pyramid. It had simply stretched itself as far down as it needed to escape the living flames.

The barriers came apart, and Chrysalis emerged from behind Twinkleshine.

Celestia had to stifle a rather unladylike curse. She hadn’t needed to put a golden bit in the swear jar in eight hundred and sixty three years. She didn’t intend to start now. But this was somewhat… vexing.

“Celestia's Concentrated Conflagrant Circumference,” she whispered, making a circle in the air with the tip of her burning horn. A second later, and she stepped back as a burning accretion disk formed in front of her.

“ERASE!”

Celestia angled her hoof, pressed down, and Ankaa raised a building-sized wing to shield her from the celestial brush. It was only a momentary defense. With a flash, a long strip of the giant wing vanished, erased, and a roaring bridesmaid rushed through the flaming gap.

“Keep her busy,” Celestia ordered the ring of flame, and it shot off on command to intercept Minuette mid-swing. Her aetheral brush was functionally indestructible, but that didn’t matter. It didn’t need to be destroyed. It only needed to be kept from painting on-target. The Conflagrant Circumference could act independently letting her concentrate on the two other threats.

“Ankaa. The white one!” She translated the commands into her hooves, and the massive phoenix nodded. “Go!”

Wings flapping, it bore a tidal wave of flame down on Twinkleshine and her barriers, forcing them to expand and lock in place to receive the barrage of flaming feathers from the avatar of the Great Phoenix. Privately, as Celestia spread her wings and took off, she wished she could summon the True Form of Ankaa, but the constellation proper would not respond to her. Not anymore. The avatar, the Sun’s Son, was the best she could manage without Luna.

Besides, once free, and it would always eventually get free, Ankaa’s only desire was to burn the world to ash; to spread and set all things to the torch until nothing remained anywhere. It was probably best it remained asleep on its starry throne.

“CHRYSALIS!” Celestia yelled her challenge, speeding past the indisposed Twinkleshine in a streak of light. The air around her rocked and smoldered with explosions and clouds of stinging ash, the bell-like thunder of her Conflagrant Circumference intercepting Minuette’s every swing ringing in her ears. Mane rippling behind her, Celestia clashed hooves with the source of this disaster.

“Princess!” Chrysalis jeered, locking hooves with her as they spun in midair from the collision. Her right foreleg pulled free and morphed, the back edge of it flowing into a blade. “You are only delaying the inevitable!” She struck down, trying to cleave open the Princess’s right cheek. A great white wing deflected the strike at the last second, and Celestia pulled back her still-gilded hoof.

“Come to life. Become a Blade,” she commanded, and it responded instantly, stretching into a slender point.

Chrysalis snarled, hastily bringing up her foreleg to block the thrust, and face the face the pair clashed, sparks flying as they descended in a wild, uncoordinated spiral. “You are imprecise, Celestia,” the voice from earlier lectured, in her mind’s eye, blocking her strikes with contemptuous ease. “As my first born, I expect better of you. I expect excellence. Do not tempt me to bring Luna in to show you your errors.” A kick to her stomach nearly sent her sprawling. “Do not disappoint me. Do not fail me.”

Celestia clutched her midsection. Chrysalis’s kick had barely hit, barely hurt, but this fight was dredging up unwanted and entirely unwelcome memories. It was time to end it. She glared up at the Changeling Queen.

Chrysalis was bloody and bleeding, having escaped the exchange in a far worse state than the Princess of Equestria. There was a panicked; there was a desperate look in her green eyes, and her exhaustion showed in her labored breathing. Her hole-pockmarked forelegs were still razor edged and glinting dangerously. Though they had drawn little blood, long strands of aurora-mane had been cut away and dangled from both limbs, like rainbow trophies.

“Queen Chrysalis,” Celestia said, not with the Royal Voice, but with her own. “For your crimes against Equestria, I sentence you to death.”

Hearing it, Chrysalis sneered, revealing a bloody fang.

“You are princess of nothing, not anymore,” Chrysalis hissed. “And I will not be judged by food like you!”

“I’ve already sentenced you,” Celestia stated, and only then did Chrysalis notice both of Celestia’s eyes were easily visible. It was because so much of her mane had been cut away in the melee.

Too much of it.

“Prismatic Prison,” Celestia said, not even bothering to speak more than half of the quad-alliteration spell. This was the easy part, after all. What came next would be far, far more difficult.

“What is--?” Chrysalis snarled, the strands of the Princess’ mane that dangled from her bladed legs springing to life. They stood on end, orienting around the changeling Queen’s midsection like the spokes of a wheel. With a sound like interlocking metal springs, the colors of the rainbow filled in the spaces between them. The spokes of the wheel became a solid disk of shifting aurora-light. Her forelegs and hindlegs were still free, and she batted at the lights, but Chrysalis’s wings had been successfully pinned to her sides.

“I can’t move,” she stated, numbly. “I can’t move?”

“Iridium’s,” Celestia announced, pouring magic into her horn. “Intense.” Even before spoke the alliteration, eight points of glowing light sprung to life in the air. “Incandescent.”

Chrysalis noticed them, too, and flailed madly at the prismatic prison around her torso to try and escape. “No! No! No! NO!”

“Irradiation.”

Horn glowing to move herself telekinetically, the Changeling Queen, even without her wings, managed to push backward and away… only to bump into the forming barrier around her. She grunted in surprise and fear and started to babble, tears welling up in her green eyes.

Celestia ignored it and focused on the final alliteration.

It was the secret only she knew, and that worked only for her. The final word left her lips, sealing her opponent’s doom.

“Imprisonment.”

Chrysalis violently threw herself forward, planting her hooves against the transparent barrier, screaming invectives only she could hear. Celestia shook her head. Whatever it was the Queen said, her last words, a plea for mercy, an attempt to bargain, they would be left a mystery. The barrier blocked sound. It had to.

Still howling soundlessly at her opponent, Chrysalis paused, finally noticing a forming sunspot in the middle of the transparent cube that imprisoned her. She spun around. It was clear in her body language alone: in the way she froze like a deer faced with a bright light. She saw her death in that glowing pinprick of cosmic fire, and she turned away from it to once again slam her hooves desperately against the barrier. Her mouth opened wide in a long, silent scream.

Then the pinprick of light flashed, and the changeling Queen vanished into the fires of the sun.

The terrible job done, Celestia concentrated even harder, focusing on the still radiant cube. Chrysalis was gone, but it glowed with a pure white light that burned even her eyes. She could feel the otherworldly fires straining against their containment barrier.

“Dispel!” she ordered. “I command you to dispel!” Gritting her teeth, Celestia enforced her will on the flames. They had to return to the darkness beyond and the sea of aether. They had to… or the resulting blast would cause untold destruction. She would save Canterlot only to destroy it with her own spell. That would not be allowed. Finally, almost painfully, it accepted her dominion…

…and dissolved into nothingness.

Celestia turned towards the two still floating, still flying, Bridesmaids. Twinkleshine and Minuette were shocked still; the later stuck in mid-parry with Celestia’s flame ring, and the former pausing behind her barrier, clouds of fire drifting to the ground all around her. The two stared down at the Princess, eyes wide. Celestia smiled reassuringly up at them.

“My little ponies!” she called out. “Return to yourselves! You are free!”

Still, they made no move.

A thump almost knocked the proud Princess off her hooves, prepared as she was to fly up and literally shake the two maids free of their enslavement. Her wings flapped, weakly, but her body didn’t lift off. Craning her neck, looking back towards her rear, she saw the reason why.

A small mint colored mare had her horn jabbed into the Princess’s undercarriage.

“No,” the little unicorn mare declared, her voice changing, growing sibilant. “They are still mine… as they always have been!”

Lyra’s body wreathed in green flame as she transformed, her legs growing longer, her neck stretching, nictitating insect wings vibrating in excitement. Holes ripped out in her legs, and Celestia felt something shift inside her as a jagged, vicious horn plunged out of her lower back. The sound of laughter assailed her ears, shrill and gleeful and mocking. Coughing blood, the Princess planted a hoof on the shoulder of the changeling Queen and pushed her away and into the dirt.

Chrysalis rolled across the burned soil, still laughing, before hopping back onto her hooves.

“All this time… all this… and it wasn’t even you?” Celestia gasped, holding a hoof to the gaping wound in her side. Her magic flared… and sputtered. Anemic sparks trickled down from the base of her horn and down her face like tears. “P-poison?”

“Don’t sound so sad, Princess! You should be proud of yourself!” The newly revealed Chrysalis cheered, briefly clapping her hooves. “You did kill one Queen, after all, just not the right one.”

Celestia’s vision blurred, her opponents becoming indistinct blobs.

“Poor Queen Freyja,” Chrysalis went on, tittering triumphantly. “Queen of a race of changelings… who mimic other changelings… she was so happy to imitate me and gain my powers! She was one of the first to join me, but I don’t think she ever really grasped what it meant to be a ‘decoy.’ And here I was a little worried… thinking I’d have to stab her in the back after she beat you! This is perfect! Just perfect!”

Chrysalis stood on her hind legs, holding up her hooves and laughing hysterically.

Celestia could only try to stumble forward, her wings feebly flapping.

She made it two steps before three black lances from above speared her through her shoulders and left leg. The regal Princess hit the ground and screamed, for the first time in a millennium, in undisguised pain. Finally incapacitated and helpless, it only took seconds for her to disappear under a swarm of changeling bodies and legs, Chrysalis’s laughter fading into the horrific din of buzzing wings.

Chapter Forty Eight : The Red Queen or Fighting is Magic (I)

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The Red Queen (or Fighting is Magic) Part 1

The Autonomous Province of Tanzebra, four years before the Assault on Canterlot

The once Terrible Zilant had been broken. The hated Reds were in retreat, falling back to their village stronghold atop the grassy plateau overlooking the savannah. They left behind their most grievously wounded on the field, bleeding and hissing. Thick clouds of native flies descended on the battlefield to nibble on the crippled who could not swat them away, or lay fat, vile eggs in their open wounds. Such was the nature of life in Tanzebra, as it was in all of this land. Nature did not even wait for the mercy of death before her servants and scavengers went to work.

Never before had Queen Chrysalis longed so much for the tamed ponyformed lands of Equestria. Say what one would about the equines of that land, but they did not allow for swarms of parasites or biting insects in their realm. There were no mosquitoes the size of one’s hoof, or stinging horseflies, or midges that lusted only to fly from one’s night soil into one’s ear or nose or eye. Food they may be, but ponies had the right of it. Nature was a beast to be tamed. The job of breaking it in would continue – would have to continue – even when Equestria was gone, and a new changeling nation took its place.

A multitude of thoughts weighing heavily on her mind, Chrysalis inhaled the dry, hot air of the land her foremothers had abandoned, more than a century earlier. Aside from so many other annoyances, now it stank of death. Some of her children thought of it as just retribution: as a vengeance rightly earned and rightly delivered. Chrysalis was less enthusiastic. She had not come all the way back to her ancestral home just to kill her own misguided kind. Every changeling life wasted here, in pointless fighting, was one less she would have to fight Equestria.

Her expression showing none of her concern, Chrysalis took her time surveying the field below from the crest of a nearby ridge. The sun was extraordinarily slow in setting, liberally painting the horizon in flaming reds, deep oranges and wispy blues. It reminded the Queen of the beautiful water paintings in Equestria. That, too, would be an art her children adopted, once the ponies themselves were tamed. She would see to it personally. One day, her children would have their own arts and their own styles. Not talentless imitations.

A horn blew.

Down below on the battlefield, the squares of her children moved in formation. A group, detecting an invisible threat in ambush, oriented to open fire. Lances of green magic ripped mercilessly into the tall grass, devouring whole stretches of ground. The high pitched screams of Zilant warriors, once hidden, now exposed, now as dead at their poor, foolish comrades, met her ears, distant as she was. Chrysalis sighed to herself. This was no battle. It was a massacre and it did not serve her ends.

It was time for the killing to stop.

“Instar.”

A changeling, larger than most of her sisters and standing just behind her Queen, deferentially bowed her head. “Yes, mother?”

“Maintain the cordon but pull back your forces. Slay no more of the Zilant without my say-so, unless in self-defense.”

“Yes, mother.”

Making the preparations, Chrysalis galloped across the battlefield less than an hour later. By then, most of the doomed and dying had either been allowed to expire or had been put out of their misery by her children. Skilled changelings were already at work policing the bodies for proper burial. Other Hives would likely have left the bodies to bloat and rot in the field where they fell, out of laziness, or contempt, or cruelty. Other Hives were not like the Biscione. Zilant needed to see that. They all needed to see that.

Chrysalis galloped with a cadre of her finest children. A few were even old enough to be her sisters, born of her mother, but still infertile drones. They were the old guard within the Hive. They understood the old ways best. Some of the younger drones mocked them for their old fashioned beliefs, but in the end all followed the Queen. They were valuable assets, more adept than others at the arts of deception and remaining hidden. Six strong changelings ran alongside their Queen, all possessing the powers of a unicorn from back in Equestria.

They approached the wood and mud-brick palisade of the stronghold, slowing before the gate. The walls, the gate, the ramparts and the wooden towers… all seemed completely inadequate in Chrysalis’s eyes. They were like nothing in comparison to the great fortifications of white washed stone that dotted Equestria from Germaney to Bitaly. A mixture of undisguised red-coated Zilant and hard faced zebra manned the walls, such as they were. They glared down at the changeling Queen. Chrysalis scoffed. They did not know it yet, but they were in the presence of the Queen of Queens.

While she waited before the gate, she glanced once more over this stronghold village. It was of zebra make. Chrysalis could only imagine the horrors that lay within. Her mother had whispered to her of the Zilant-enemy of the old lands. The Zilant hated-ones, the changelings who had driven the Greens from their ancient home. She knew of their proclivities. They did not just capture and control their victims.

The Zilant inevitably consumed those they enslaved, and they were hated for it, not just by the Greens but by all changeling Hives. The Yellows especially, the great Inkanyamba, killed the Reds on sight. Inside this former village would be many more zebra. Chrysalis was not entirely sure what to do with them. She had no care for the ponies of this land who were not ponies. What couldn’t be allowed was for any of the living ones here to escape and tell tall tales.

Slowly, the wooden face of the gate swung inwards and upwards.

A small procession of red changelings approached from inside. There were six, to mirror the six Chrysalis had brought, and one more, taller and with more haughty poise than the others. Chrysalis also suspected there were other Zilant, hiding in the bush nearby, or even flat against the wall. It didn’t matter. She was not afraid.

“Queen Sarai,” Chrysalis said in greeting, dipping her head in respect.

“Queen Chrysalis,” Sarai hissed, doing the same. The two Queens approached one another and ritually brushed cheeks, confirming by scent that they were who they claimed to be. Other features could be faked, but the smell of a Queen’s royal jelly was distinct, even among a race of shape-shifters. That done, they took a step away from one another, followed by a long pause as they mentally decided which would speak first.

Sarai’s mandibles twitched in distaste over the delay. She spoke first, “We will give you the western half of this land.”

It was abrupt, curt, an admission of weakness and defeat that Sarai must have hated beyond words.

“I do not wish any of this land for myself,” Chrysalis said, shaking her head. “As my messenger told you, all I wish is your cooperation.”

“Cooperation?” Sarai asked, blinking her large, almond shaped eyes. “Or submission?”

“There is only one Queen of Queens, and I am she,” Chrysalis stated, simply.

Sarai hissed at the perceived insult. She was still a small-minded fool, just like her mother, and her mother’s mother. She fought over table scraps. She killed others over a chewed bone. It was pathetic. A great feast waited for them across the sea. All she had to do was open her eyes and see it.

“My mother fled this land when she was but a small Princess of her hive,” Chrysalis went on to say, pointedly and fearlessly turning away from Sarai – showing the other Queen her back. She looked out over the battlefield of fallen changelings and the dusty, unforgiving savannah.

“Your grandmother killed my grandmother not far from here.” Chrysalis held up a hoof to point at this horizon. “In … that direction, was it? Or was it over there?” She wondered, pointing another way. “To hear my mother and my old aunts speak of it, always in hushed tones, we hid among the zebra tribes there as we always had. One day, our hosts began to disappear. The zebra believed it to be beasts, then monsters, and then vengeful spirits. We knew it was the Zilant, come to conquer… come to kill. My grandmother and grand-aunts fought and died to protect their hosts.”

“We were driven into this land by the Inkanyamba!” Sarai snarled, and trotted up alongside her fellow Queen. She sneered at the almost ancestral memory. “We could not share hosts. We killed you as they killed us, and now as you kill us in revenge. It is the way of things.”

“It does not have to be that way,” Chrysalis said softly, and Sarai’s ears twitched. “Life does not have to be like this, and my children and I did not come here for revenge. Your grandmother driving my mother to take refuge in that old ship off the coast… it was a blessing in disguise.”

“You have certainly… repopulated yourselves,” Sarai conceded. She was curious how.

Chrysalis told her.

“The ship took my mother to another land,” she explained, “across the sea to Equestria. At first, she parlayed her knowledge of the zebra and pretended to be one of them, for most of the ponies there have no knowledge of these lands. She found a position in the court of one of their rulers, a pony named Olive Branch. She bred in secret, keeping her brood small, as we were taught to do. We fed well.”

“You must have,” Sarai groused, more than a little jealous. Her sharp forelegs rubbed together for a moment.

“When I say ‘we fed well’ it is a great understatement,” Chrysalis continued, smiling faintly. “There was love to spare in this new land. My mother did not see it, though. She replaced Olive Branch in time, but still, she did not see the potential that lay before her. She had the wisdom to imprint me on the strongest of the pony breeds, an alicorn, but still she did not see. Still she clung to the masquerade of our people. Still she hid in the shadows out of fear.”

“I killed her,” Chrysalis concluded. “And the day is fast approaching when we will not hide in the shadows. We will live openly and without fear. Others will fear us. All will fear us. And we will feast and multiply without end.”

Sarai watched her for a few seconds, as if trying to sense whether her words were truth or exaggeration or simple madness. The changelings hid. It was in their nature. All but that one Hive, anyway. They had to hide.

There was no choice.

“You really believe that?” the Red Queen asked, finally.

“I do,” Chrysalis replied, and it was the truth.

“Tell me how you will do this.”

Chrysalis told her.

Serrated hooves slashed viciously against the stream of indigo fabric, each strike punctuated by a chattering hiss. There was no attempt at deception or disguise. The blood red changelings attacked with stabbing forelegs and biting mandibles that split their jaws a couple inches too wide to ever pass for a proper pony. Rarity lashed out with a bolt of cloth and the ravenous changeling snarled, colorful red and orange wings fluttering at high speed as it flew away. Within seconds it vanished.

“I lost mine!” she yelled in warning, backing up.

“Keep an eye out fer it!” Applejack yelled back, holding her crimson changeling opponent by the base of its stunted horn. “Ah’ll be done in a second!”

Her free foreleg pumped back and then delivered a crushing buck into the midsection of the shrill changeling, knocking the wind out of it with just one blow. Spinning around, Applejack threw the stunned creature into the bubble-cocoon they had liberated the three fillies from earlier. It plowed into the gap in the cocoon, face first into the changeling goo within.

“Those kids still here?” Rainbow Dash asked, wings flared and warding off two snapping strikes from another changeling . Propelling herself forward, she buried the crown of her head into the creature’s stomach and then shot upwards in an arc, catching her opponent on the chin. A pair of broken fangs twirled idly through the air, followed by a gust of wind that bowled the shape-shifter over and sent it tumbling across the trophy room.

“Yes, still here,” Rarity confirmed, keeping her back to Applejack.

On the floor between the two mares, the three fillies – imitations of their sisters – were tied together with a loop of fabric. All three seemed to be indoctrinated by the changelings and had cheered them on when the fight began. Their mental state hardly mattered, however. They needed to be kept safe, and that meant they couldn’t be allowed to scamper off and back into the wicked forelegs of their captors.

“Rarity!” Applejack shouted, her tail sweeping up a bust of Princess Platinum from a nearby pedestal.

Rarity averted her eyes upward just in time to see a changeling barreling down on her from the exact opposite direction she had expected. It had both of its forelegs splayed wide, the spines and grooves of the raptoral hooves ready to strike. Fabric rustled around her as the fashionista tried to block, but the descending changeling never made contact.

Applejack’s blonde tail filled Rarity’s vision, along with the white stone bust it carried. The later made contact with the changeling at whip-like speeds, shattering the stone statuette of the ancient Princess into a dozen fragments. The blood red changeling spun away, wings and legs twitching.

“Tch,” a disembodied voice chided, unhappily.

“Did somepony say it was artwork smashing time? Because I heard it was artwork smashing time!” Rainbow Dash upped the damage to the villa by tackling the next changeling to enter her field of view and driving it into a particularly expensive looking painting hanging from the wall. Pulling down the painting, ripping it as the edges, she blinded the changeling and landed a trio of swift kicks to it around the head and withers.

“Eat late eighth-century realist-period landscape painting, sucker!” She rounded around and smacked the dazed changeling with her right wing, spinning it around a solid hundred-and-eighty degrees.

“Hey, now! Unlike you, it ain’t like I’m bustin’ things up on purpose!” Applejack objected, yelping as a changeling nicked her left hind leg.

“How did you know what that painting was, anyway?” Rarity asked, and made the mistake of backing up too close to the three immobilized fillies they had freed.

“Gotcha leg!” The fake-Applebloom declared, seizing Ponyville’s Baroness by one of her ankles.

“Get her! Get her!” the other two cheered the changelings on.

“Hey! Hey!” Dash replied, taking to the air and rushing over to intercept another changeling before it could swoop down on the distracted seamstress. “I know tons of stuff! I got an ‘A’ in History of Art Studies back in cloud college!”

“Well, good fer you, sugarcube!” Applejack continued to fend off her changeling assailant, ducking and dodging her head and warding off the occasional slash with her hooves. “Ya didn’t cheat, did ya?”

“You wound me!” Rainbow Dash joked, holding her changeling in place so Rarity could pummel it with rolled fabric. “Maybe I copied off Gilda a little, but…”

“You mean that brutish griffin?” Rarity asked, her indigo fabric doing the one-two on Dash’s changeling while it hissed and struggled to escape. “The very same one that made poor Fluttershy cry?”

“Yeah, that’s her,” Dash admitted, wings flapping to spin her around. Rarity’s fabric was already moving around her, working with her to protect her from a lurking changeling attacking from behind. “I know you guys kinda hate her guts, but she was like Twilight when it came to her schoolwork. Had this hardass perfectionist family back in Crown Roc, and she’d freak out if she thought they ever found out about her being in trouble. Day we met; she flew into the bathroom, saw I was the only one there, and begged me to cover for her. Like ten seconds later, Miss Icy Cold stomps in, snorting and mad as a bat out of hell!”

“The earth pony,” Sarai’s voice commanded. “She is their weak link.”

“Ohhhhh applesnaps!” Applejack, separated from her two friends, began to rapidly backtrack. She only made it a few steps before a pair of vicious limbs snapped around her hind legs, the spines biting into her skin.

Looking back at the changeling, half-invisible, around her lower legs, Applejack reared up as if to fall.

“ZZzhh!” A charging changeling jumped, timed to strike at a moment’s vulnerability.

Except Applejack didn’t fall.

Setting her hooves in place, she shot her forelegs out and up, pegging the changeling in the left shoulder and collar. The serrated hooves of the creature brushed her cheek, but then her blow resonated and hit home, knocking the zebra shape-shifter hard up and into the ceiling. Then, forcibly tucking in her legs, she fell back and flanks-first onto the back of the changeling below her. It hissed in pain as she landed, then went still after she clocked it in the back of the head.

“Sorry ‘bout that.” Applejack rolled back onto four hooves. “What were ya just sayin,’ sugarcube?”

“Me or Queenie out there?” Dash asked, knocking her changeling off balance with a gust of wind and rubbing her hooves together, sucking in moisture to form a nascent thundercloud.

“We were talking about that ill-mannered brute of a foalhood friend,” Rarity helpfully explained.

“Oh, yeah, that Gilda Griffin…”

“You know, you guys rag on Gilda, but which pony here is dating a self-professed royal jerk and shameless playboy, again?” Dash asked, ducking behind one of Rarity’s cloth shields and lunging with the cloud between her hooves. It slammed right into the changing she had been dueling, and the crimson mantid hissed and convulsed as electricity shot through its body.

Rarity swept her cloth around her, swirling like a serpent through the air, buoyed by a river of her magic. “That is a gross exaggeration, even on his own part, besides which my choice in stallions is aside from the point.”

“You mean fancy n’ pretty, cause that’s basically yer taste in a nutshell,” Applejack joked, laughing as Rarity huffed, indignantly.

“You know it’s true,” Rainbow Dash chimed in, trotting past the milky white mare. “Remember that time you tried to get Big Mac to dress up?”

“I was fitting him for a tuxedo, it was for the Ponytones, and it was nothing like that!” Rarity objected, and let out with a triumphant “Ah ha! Here! Last one!”

Her cloth, writhing like a garden snake, finally managed to snag another invisible changeling. The mirage-like sheen of transparency faded away as it moved, fast, avoiding another strike. Rarity’s eyes narrowed at that fact, and at the insect-like creature’s fabulously colorful wings.

‘So,’ she thought, ‘I was right… that’s how they…’

“Time for another squished bug!” Rainbow Dash yelled, taking to the air. “Come to Auntie Dash!”

Her lunge was abruptly cut short and she froze in midair, grunting in pain.

“I’ve seen enough,” Queen Sarai stated, her upper half emerging as she roughly slammed Dash to the ground. The changeling drone she had rescued floated away, slowed down, and vanished. Rolling away on the floor, Rainbow Dash clutched one leg to her chest, stumbling awkwardly on three hooves. Sarai had managed to draw blood.

That blood was still on the Queen’s jagged, viciously spined forelegs.

Bringing one of the bloodstained spines to her mouthparts, Sarai delicately licked, even as she stalked towards the three elements of harmony. “How sweet tasting you are… Rainbow Dash, isn’t it? You will have to tell me your diet. I only wish all ponies tasted so good.”

“You hear that?” Dash asked, smiling proudly. “I happen to be delicious. Wait’ll I tell Pinkie Pie! She always says she’s the tastiest one.”

“That’s a contest, too, now?” Applejack quipped, backing away from the advancing Sarai.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Girls,” Rarity interrupted, her cloth floating to shield her two friends. Queen Sarai, massing perhaps twice as much as either of them individually, towered over them as she advanced, only her top half visible. “Just like that time at the Ponyville hoe-down. We go on ‘three.’”

“Gotcha,” Applejack replied, grinning at the looming blood Queen.

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash agreed, smearing a line of red across her chest as she set all four hooves down.

“Three!” All three mares abruptly cried, skipping one and two and rushing right in.

Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy rolled mare over mare, an uncoordinated tumble of legs and wings that bounced across the floor. Lingering crackles of magical energy, rose-pink and electric-blue, clung to their bodies as they exited the glowing portal at a frankly unsafe transit speed. If an IHOPP manager had been present, they probably would’ve shouted a warning or levied a fine for flying through one of their patented apertures at near top speed. Or maybe given them both sixty bits and a test dummy job. The IHOPP Corporation was strange like that.

Twilight carefully started to untangle herself from her timid friend. Her horn still hurt from when she had been jumped by that Royal Guard, only moments before. Just what had happened in all the confusion back there was still a bit blurry, but at least in retrospect it looked like the changelings had set up an ambush using three guards under their control. Twilight introduced her forehead to her hoof, smacking herself in reproach. After lambasting Chrysalis for the same thing, she’d gotten careless, too, assuming that just because she could unmask the changelings that she had every advantage over them.

But… how had they known to set up the ambush, anyway?

It was… it was like it had been perfectly tailored to deceive somepony with her repertoire of spells. They’d planned for being unmasked before springing their ambush. Twilight was sure of it. Had Team Pinkie been spotted leaving Hocksbach? It was possible. Certainly, it couldn’t be discounted. But how had the changelings known to set up the ambush in the Crystal Hall of all places? That couldn’t have just been a lucky guess. There was no way they could just throw together three royal guards of theirs and put them in place at the drop of a hat. And Eunomie… she’d seen through it somehow…

Twilight shook her head. One problem at a time.

“Ughh,” she groaned, sitting upright, “where are we?”

Fluttershy grimaced, also sitting up and looking around. They were in another store, but not a restaurant like the IHOPP. Here, there were racks of clothes in recesses and alcoves along the walls. Others were on display in tasteful glass stands or hanging from small carousels. Mannequines in various poses dotted the interior of the store, especially near what had to be the front, much like Rarity’s Carousel Boutique.

“IHOPP portals connect to dozens of other stores – and other nearby IHOPPs – but this definitely isn’t one of those,” Twilight reasoned, and realized something was on top of her horn. Reaching up, she felt something soft and lacy and held it out in front of her. It was a… bra?

“Oh, oh dear. We’re in a lingerie store,” Fluttershy whispered, and turned around. She promptly gasped, hooves flying up to her cheeks. “A Celestia’s Secret store... I never thought I’d be back here again--”

Achingly, she turned back around to face Twilight, her hooves in her lap.

“--I mean – ah, um…” Fluttershy’s blush was fast approaching nuclear levels. “Photo Finish insisted on those pictures… I certainly didn’t want them for myself…”

Twilight’s eyes widened slightly; sadly, there was little time to dwell on the subject. “Wait, this is Celestia’s Secret store…? You can’t be serious!”

“Zzzhe!” The shrill hiss of a changeling broke the mood, and both mares immediately clambered up and over a nearby counter to hide. In the tumble and the confusion they’d almost forgotten the changelings and mind warped Royal Guards on their heels. Exchanging anxious looks, Twilight sucked in a breath and raised her hoof to her lips. Fluttershy nodded, understanding. Silence.

“Fan out!” a stallion’s voice roared. “You two! Secure the portal. They’re in here somewhere! I can feel it. Tear this place apart if you have to!”

Creeping carefully from behind the counter near the IHOPP portal and past a fallen rack of sheer stockings, the unicorn and pegasus made nary a clop as they took shelter behind the Celestia’s Secret customer service booth. In the low light of the abandoned store, they could see a mix of flying and trotting changelings emerging from the glowing transport aperture. Some headed for the front door, others searched through stands and displays, knocking them over and advertising their position. Confident in their numbers and the injury done to Twilight’s horn, they didn’t seem to be concerned about causing a mess or being seen.

Who even knew where Pinkie Pie, Eunomie or her mother were at this point…

“What are we going to do?” Fluttershy whispered so softly Twilight barely heard it, even hunkered down next to her. Fluttershy’s voice was hushed and afraid. She was flat with her belly to the floor and her wings so tight against her sides it would take a crowbar to pry them loose.

“That guy really did a number on my horn,” Twilight replied, matching her friend’s volume. Both mares sunk down low as a bright light passed by overhead, illuminating the fittings stand and the items behind it. Thinking quickly, Twilight focused just a hint of magic through her injured horn and into one of the nearby mannequines.

Her track record with the ‘inject life’ spell was not exactly stellar. The last time she had cast it was Ponyville’s Winter Wrap Up. The result had not gone over well, and not just because it was unicorn magic used during an explicitly non-magical earth pony event. The runaway snowplow had caused a bit of a spectacle.

Just as it had with the plow, the animation magic got the mannequin moving. It churned its legs in midair for a moment… then suddenly broke free from its stand and galloped hard towards the front doors, bowling over a surprised changeling in the process.

“There!” “Zzzh-zzh-zhe!” “She’s making a break for it! Get her!”

So there were two stallions, then. Probably the unicorn one and one of his pegasus subordinates. Both of them on top of who knew how many changelings… but all of them seemed to be either distracted or actively chasing after Decoy Sparkle. Served them right! Changelings weren’t the only ones who could be deceptive.

“Through here!” Twilight said, forcing Fluttershy onto her hooves.

With their pursuers running for the front of the store they headed to the back.

“Oh, oh no,” Fluttershy breathed, making sure not to knock anything over as they ran.

“Oh, ah, darn it!” Twilight, less nimble on her hooves in the low light of the store, bumped right into a display of fancy ladies underwear. Fluttershy helpfully caught it before it could fall and the two mares breathed a sigh of relief. The barks and snarls of their pursuers could still be heard from the front of the store, along with the crash of glass and a series of curses as they realized they had been tricked.

Backing away from the near disaster, Twilight’s rump made friends with a poorly placed mannequine.

“Real Princesses wear Gold!” the animated alicorn mannequin declared in a voice very close to Celestia’s own, striking an alluring pose in her golden bra, panties and stockings. For good measure, she even wore a lacy saddle, imitation royal regalia and a bright, sultry smile. One of her hooves seemed just moments from teasing loose one of her bra cups to reveal something indecent. “Stallions will like what they see… and what they don’t!”

“Shoot!” Twilight hissed, clamping her hooves over the alicorn mannequines’s mouth. It was too little too late. Their cover was blown. But… if this really was one of Celestia’s so-called ‘secret stores’… then maybe…

“Did you hear that?” a stallion yelled from the front.

“Yes, sir! I think it came from the back!”

“Celestia, Celestia, Celestia?” Twilight muttered, casting a simple spell. One her mentor had taught her years ago. There was no way it would work, but…

The alicorn mannequines’s eyes glowed. “Passcode accepted. Magical signature verified. Exiting Stasis Mode.”

Twilight gawked at the mannequine. “I can’t believe she was telling the truth about this…” Resisting committing another self-inflicted hoof-to-face injury, Twilight Sparkle pointed back at the front of the store. “Engage all non-ponies!” she ordered.

“Engage all non-ponies,” the disembodied voice of Celestia came not just from that one mannequin, but from every single one in the store. Their white coats began to dye pink. “Please set prejudice level.”

Twilight blurted out the first setting that came to mind. “Prejudice at maximum!”

“Maximum prejudice!” the half dozen remaining mannequines chorused, eyes aglow and starting to rip free of their stands. The squad of formerly inanimate alicorns were still wearing an impressive assortment of skimpy negligée and revealing lingerie. “Engaging all non-ponies with maximum prejudice!”

The upper half of the Celestia mannequine’s head split open, revealing a glowing crystal that wasted no time discharging a bright pink beam into an approaching changeling.

“I love when you comb my hair!” the mannequine exclaimed, firing another beam at the fallen changeling, disintegrating a set of expensive garters in the process.

“Let’s fly to the castle!” another mannequine declared, spewing fiery bolts out of her mouth.

“I’m a princess!” a third announced, swatting a changing out of the air. “Are you a princess, too?”

“What the hell are these things?” Black Lance could be heard yelling over the sudden melee. “First Squad! Behind me! Second Squad! Lock! Punch through!”

“Okay! Time to go!” Twilight yelped, hustling a bemused Fluttershy into the leftmost dressing room. “Fluttershy!” She pointed at the wall to their left. “Can you help me break down this wall?”

“Oh, I… I shouldn’t…”

“Do it!” Twilight yelled, horn flashing as she cast a series of spells at the locked door of the changing room. A faint outline of a door appeared on the wall as well. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”

“Don’t pressure me! Please!” Fluttershy muttered and suddenly slammed both front hooves into the wall.

The Magic Door activated, cutting a seamless rectangle in the changing room stall.

“Run! Run! Run! Things are about to get really hot in here!” Twilight put her cheek to her friend’s flanks, bodily shoving her through their new exit. Fluttershy’s wings flapped in protest and embarrassment, but she jumped forward and through and Twilight followed behind her less than a second later.

“Keep running!” Twilight cried, as Fluttershy recovered from her leap. “Don’t stop!”

The two mares were mid-gallop when the changing room behind them exploded, a shockwave of air launching the pair off their hooves entirely. Twilight would be the first pony to admit that her horn wasn’t in any condition for high level sustained offensive magic at the moment. On the flip side, two dozen Filly’s First Firestarter spells all going off at the same time wasn’t something anypony was likely to scoff at.

Legs flailing, Twilight landed clumsily on her rump, skidding to a stop only to crash unceremoniously into a spiral garment display rack. Emerging from the clutter, she gasped, shaking her head and throwing aside a pair of pleated cheerleader-style skirts. “Fluttershy, what…?”

“Kick Chick’s Sportsware,” Fluttershy answered, recognizing it right away. Unlike Twilight, she’d landed daintily on her hooves without even a strand of hair in her mane out of place. “Rainbow Dash goes to one of these whenever we visit Cloudsdale.”

“Sportsware? Good! We’re getting closer!” Twilight emerged from the pile of clothes with a pink and bluebonnet skirt around her hips. “But first, we need to…”

“In here!” “I think I see them!”

“Over here!” Twilight yelled, beckoning Fluttershy closer. She’d found the ‘fitness center’ of the store, stocked high with all manner of niche products.

In this corner of the store, ponies could find ‘body shaping’ weights to exercise with, waist-trimming devices galore, weighted hula hoops and a half dozen other items to ‘work your core,’ flavored mouthpieces in a rainbow of colors, straps, pads, sleeves and braces. And then there were the vitamins and other pills: a dozen varieties of them, stocked in their hundreds.

“Ah ha! Found you!” A huge (he looked much bigger than before) pegasus stallion in golden armor, still smoking from being near the blast in the changing room, straddled the counter. Two changelings buzzed, taking to the air behind him and about to strike.

“Head down!” Twilight warned, tackling Fluttershy with no further warning. Her horn was fizzling, and a magenta glow spread like wildfire among the displays and boxes of pills.

“Ohhh…sshi--”

The changeling controlled guard barely had time to try and turn around, his wings flapping to propel him backwards, when the entire health and wellness counter of the store erupted. Vitamins popped and crackled, magical weight control powders exploded out of foal-proof lids, and then the whole expanding cloud mixed, cured, and magically transmuted into a thick, choking cloud. Amid the confusion, vitamin pills cooked off, shooting away like a hailstorm of tiny rockets. They filled a wide arc of the store, punching holes in fashionable and colorful sweatpants, hoodies, shorts, headbands, and rank after rank of socks.

They were still erupting when Twilight and Fluttershy made a mad scramble for the front of the store past a score of injured and incapacitated changelings.

“Weee~~ee!”

Yelling all the way, a blazing pink streak crashed through the window, trailing flickering magical flames like the tail of a chipper and rosy red comet. Pinkie Pie, party pony extraordinaire, finally came to an abrupt and unwelcome stop after plunging through half the store. It was at that point when her face ran into an uncooperative wall at the back of the shop that, like a wizard, simply would not let her pass. Hooves pressed against the wall, Pinkie pushed, gradually dislodging her snout from the wooden paneling.

The pink pony’s eyes boggled as she tried to shake the dizziness out. Dizziness was the eternal enemy of bouncing, after all. It couldn’t be allowed to take root! Not even in a dire situation like this!

“Owie-ow-ow!” Pinkie rubbed the bump on her forehead and took a second to get her bearings. First, she knew, she really had to deal with the fact that she had just been blasted by some mean unicorn. Second, she also knew, she needed to determine if repeated bumps to the head would turn a painful lump into a horn. Because magic.

(If slamming face first into a wall gave you a horn, I think somepony would’ve noticed by now)

But you aren’t absolutely sure, are you, brain?

(Being in your skull hurts enough without the extra concussions. Now get your head in the game already)

“Yeah, yeah,” Pinkie groused, gingerly touching the bump on her head. “Head in the game. I got it. Where am I, anyway?”

Looking up at a sign over her head, upside down from her point of view, Pinkie Pie got her answer.

“Filly Fonka’s Candy Emporium and Kitchen Appliance Depot.”

Very slowly, a smile spread on Pinkie Pie’s lips.

(Of all the places to end up…)

“Well,” she admitted with a smile. “I have been a very good filly this year!”

The changeling hissed as it knocked aside a shelf of sugary treats. The ambush outside had gone completely eggsack-up thanks to that insane unicorn and her crazy swords trick. They had planned for everything. How had it all gone wrong? How had that one dumb pony suspected that something was up? It should’ve been so easy: pretend to be captured ponies, let that one pony do her spell, lull the lot of them into a false sense of security, and then have one of the ponies under their mental control lead her into the trap inside the store. The plan had been working, too!

Something must’ve tipped that one pony off.

“Zheee!” the changeling hissed, happily. Up ahead was the broken window the pink pony had been blasted through. They had sent someling right in after her. With a bunch of changelings coming up from below, and the one already up top, it was just a matter of covering the exits and tracking this stupid earth pony down.

Now, where was--

“Zzh,” a curse slipped out as she saw the changeling that had been ordered in through the window. Running over, the newly arrived changeling looked over her bruised and beaten compatriot.

What in the Queen’s name had happened to her? What could do this kind of damage?

A low buzzing sound prompted the changeling to turn around.

“ZZZHEEEE!”

“MuaHaHAhaHA!”

Pinkie Pie laughed maniacally as the device in her hooves went to work, spinning at a ridiculous speed even as the changeling in front of her writhed and hissed. Finally, the grim work was done, and the battered changeling slumped weakly to the ground. The battered part was actually somewhat literal. The changeling was covered in batter.

“Ahhh,” Pinkie cackled, holding up her current weapon of choice as a sinister light played across her features. “Egg Beater! The great communicator!”

Turning away from the beaten changeling, still holding the Egg Beater between her teeth, she continued creeping through the maze-like shelves of candy and walls stocked with kitchenware. Walking over a box of chocolates, and quickly consuming them, her disposition immediately improved. That mean unicorn had blasted her good, but eating the conveniently placed boxes of chocolates on the floor seemed to be helping. Which made sense. Chocolate always made everything better. It was a law of nature!

“This super strength egg beater is pretty good, but I could really use--” Pinkie mused to herself, pausing at the sound of nearby chittering. Changelings! “Yikes! Bad guys! Can’t go that way!”

Looking around for a second, she spotted something highlighted by the glow of a nearby lamp.

“Oh! An important looking door! Hello there, important looking door! What secrets lie behind your tantalizing surface? I must know!” Hopping over, she tried to open said door, only to find out it was locked. That was discouraging. Stupid lock. But… a lock like that also meant that whatever was behind the door had to be super neat and totally lockworthy!

Ducking behind a nearby counter, she started rummaging.

“Oh, lookie lookie what Pinkie found!” Holding up her hooves reverently to the sky, the item she had been searching for revealed itself. “A keeeyy!”

Spinning around, she inserted key into lock, turned, and was promptly rewarded with an obliging click. Stashing her Egg Beater back into her curly mane, Pinkie Pie slowly opened the door and ventured a look at what treasures had been hidden inside. Her blue eyes widened with delight as the light from a gas lamp overhead illuminated the closet full of lovelies. For once, she neither gasped nor made any sound at all, not for a good second or two.

Wiping away a tear, Pinkie Pie finally found her voice. “No words… they should’ve sent a poet…”

Her obligatory moment of introspection quickly passed, and she kicked the nudged the door shut behind her and raced up to one of the glass displays. Flicking open the lid, she gingerly retrieved a handle-shaped device and a large pressurized canister.

“The dreaded M84 high pressure, automatic spray painter… capable of colorizing an entire four tier cake in under ten seconds!” Pinkie lovingly caressed the contours of the spray paint gun. “Chambered for the ‘Brown Colt’ gel-stored food coloring system, it can over-penetrate a cake up to half a meter, allowing for a full range of decorative options post-bake! Also known as the ‘Mantikore, with a k, not a c.’ Come to Auntie Pinkie, you sweet, sweet thing!”

Pulling down a chef’s tactical vest and hat from a nearby hanger, Pinkie quickly donned the outfit and, with a giggle, flipped open the glass display next to the one she had just opened.

“Naturally,” she said to herself, “I’ll take two!”

Stashing both paint guns and a couple different colors of ammunition into either her mane or her cooking vest, she giggled madly and took a look around the rest of the room. It was worth noting – for the uninitiated – that in Equestria, cooking and especially baking was Serious Business. The sugar-industrial complex was among the largest and most powerful business lobbies in the country and they didn’t foal around. As one company put it in their motto:

The Sweets Must Flow.

“Locked and loaded!” Pinkie announced, kicking open the door and striding back into the giant candy store. It wasn’t long before the noise attracted the first of the changelings searching for her. It rounded a shelf stocked heavy with cookies and lunged to grab her.

“Have a taste of this!” Pinkie declared, unloading the air-powered frosting decoration pen in her hooves.

A thundering blast of delicious pink frosting slammed into the charging changeling with speed and force enough to stop it cold. At the highest setting, the Bitelli ‘Super 90’ frosting pen turned shotgun only had a few uses before the gas canister needed changing, but it was enough. The changeling Pinkie had just blasted gagged at the sugar-sweet glaze that now covered most of its body, trying to wipe the frosting out of its eyes and mouth.

A second helping of high speed frosting knocked the changeling off its hooves and into the shelf of cookies, sending the whole thing crashing down. A sprig of licorice hanging loosely from her lips, Pinkie Pie cocked the shotgun, ejecting a spent frosting cartridge.

“That was sweet. Get it? Sweet?”

An enraged hiss to the right drew her eye, and she turned, unloading another twined blast of frosting into a second changeling. Both hit the creature in the face and it fell to the floor, kicking and hissing and writhing.

“Let’s see, what was my next witty one liner?” Pinkie wondered, rolling her eyes as she thought. On the floor, the changeling continued to thrash and curse as it tried to get the frosting out of its eyes. “Something to do with getting shot in the face? What an eye-sore? How about some eye-scream? Wow-we! Coming up with these on the fly is harder than you’d think!”

(Forget the witty one-liners! We need to get outta here!)

Trotting past the disabled changeling, Pinkie grinned and broke into a run. A magical door ahead of her opened automatically, just like it would for any customer, but the moment it did a trio of sickly green blasts filled the air. Pinkie tumbled back as one of the blasts hit her, forcing her to roll to the side to dodge. Aiming her frosting shotgun in the general direction of the blasts, having to guess in the low light of this part of the store, Pinkie fired, filling the air with a spread of sticky goo. It didn’t do much, though. She was too far away.

Knocking over large chocolate fondue machine, Pinkie hunkered down behind the cover. More green blasts scored against the metal and ripped into the wall and floor. Looking around the room, she tried to find some sort of way to get closer. Spotting something, Pinkie smirked and scrambled across the floor as fast as her hooves could carry her. Ducking behind a counter, she quickly used the butt of her frosting pen-gun to crack open a small lock behind her. A heavy mass fell to the ground with a thud.

Slipping into the harness, Pinkie laughed as she emerged, the hose in her hooves indiscriminately spraying hot fudge in a messy cone. “Oh yeah! I love the smell of chocolate in the morning!”

A few stray blasts clipped her, but by then she’d identified where the changeling was hiding. Soon it became a hell of sticky, steamy ganache. Chocolate spewed everywhere. It dripped from the ceiling and it covered shelves of other pastries and candies. Pinkie continued to laugh madly as the strode fearlessly through the mess, the heavy fudge-thrower on her back roaring as it unleashed torrent after torrent of cocoa and crème flavored devastation.

By the time it sputtered and ran out, and Pinkie dropped the backpack onto the ground, half the room had been thoroughly coated in chocolate fondue. The changeling she had sprayed down was barely visible, half buried as it was by a sticky mess of candy and hardening choco. Only a few bubbles emerging from the chocolate cocoon gave proof that the changeling had even survived its delicious ordeal.

“I call that my Hershey’s kiss,” Pinkie quipped, only to raise an eyebrow. “Wait, why I am making jokes? Nopony can even hear me.”

(You only now start to wonder about this?)

She was on the verge of pondering that fact further when the ground beneath her hooves cracked. Pinkie quickly put two and two together, for once getting four instead of twenty two. The last changeling must’ve blasted the ground all around where she had hidden to make it harder to bum-rush her. It was almost impossible to see before in the low light. With a yelp, Pinkie’s weight proved too much for the damaged floor and she fell clean through.

A pony-sized pool of squishy goop cushioned her fall, but when Pinkie Pie emerged, sputtering, she cried out in agony. Scrambling to get out of the huge mixing bowl, she spat repeatedly, trying to get the taste out of her mouth. Why? Why of all the things to fall into did it have to be that one thing?

“Gah!” she coughed, spitting again. “Lowfat yogurt! Burns! Stinks!” Falling clumsily out of the bowl, she shook like a dog to rid herself of the clingy goo. “Why would somepony leave all that lowfat yogurt down there? And why? Why?”

Shuddering, Pinkie brushed the last few clingy bits off her legs.

“Now I’m covered with health food! That can’t be good! Why can’t we find a way to safely dispose of bland foods and protect the environment? Even if I personally stop this invasion, what kind of Equestria will we be leaving to our foals… and our foals’ foals or… wait, our foals shouldn’t be having foals! They’re way too young to be doing that! Who came up with that sick phrase!? Wait, what was I talking about again?”

“There she is!” a stallion’s voice called out, interrupting Pinkie’s self-narration.

“Yipes!” Pinkie quickly vaulted for cover again, as more of the changelings appeared along with the pegasus Royal Guard. Two of them lowered their horns right off the bat, firing more of the changeling blasts in her direction. A third visibly hung back, waiting for a chance to fly in and snatch her up.

“You’ll never take me alive!” Pinkie yelled over the sound of the magical explosions going off around her. She was still too far away to use her kitchenware, so she snatched up the most sugary treats she could find and started throwing. “I should warn you: I have a cake and I know how to use it!”

The mind controlled Royal Guard leading the attack squad contemptuously swatted away the pastries with his wing, but the changeling’s wings were not nearly so nimble. They could only either fly or fold up, possessing only a fraction of the versatility of a feathered wing. The changelings, then, always tried to deflect the thrown sweets with their hooves.

Chiacchiere, also known as Reinetian Fried Pastries or Bitalian fritters, were fried pastries liberally dusted with confectioners’ sugar. In the case of the ones in this store, they used a whole LOT of confectioners’ sugar. Each one that hit or that broke apart because of a flailing hoof exploded into a literal cloud of sugar dust.

“ZzzzhhhEE!” two of the changelings chittered, the sugar getting into their eyes. The magical barrage stopped as they tried to protect their faces and rub the sugar out of their vulnerable eyes, every bit as large and sensitive as a pony’s.

“What the?” The pegasus guard snarled, noticing that out of his group of three changelings, all but one had been incapacitated. “What’s wrong with you? Keep firing!”

“Here comes the Pinkie Train!” Pinkie yelled, charging right at them. “Choo choo!”

“Get her!” The guard ordered, and the one changeling who had hung back flew in on an intercept course. Pinkie leveled her frosting pen and fired at close range, barely jumping to the side as the changeling careened wildly off course due to the impact. It crashed into a display of rock candies, and Pinkie quickly adjusted her sights. Another shot of frosting filled the air, but splattered harmlessly against a big white wing.

“What is this? Icing?” The Royal Guard could only stare, dumbstruck, at his wing. He had probably been expecting magic. Not an assault from the bakery isle.

“I’m here to kick flank and chew bubblegum, but mostly chew bubblegum!” Pinkie quickly closed the distance, swapping her high powered frosting pen for her two paint guns loaded with food dye. Holding one in each hoof, she unloaded them into the pair of changelings still trying to rub the sugar out of their eyes.

The sheer force of the high pressure food coloring spray knocked them on their backs. Pinkie switched grades on her Mantikore paint guns with an audible click and finished the job by spraying both targets right in the face as they writhed on the floor. Outraged hissing filled the air as the helpless changelings curled into balls to protect themselves.

“I’ll do it myself then!” The pegasus guard roared, and Pinkie had to deftly jump to avoid his slashing wings. Like all Royal Guard pegasi, he could turn his primary feathers into sharpened blades.

“Let’s dance!” Pinkie chortled, opening up with her spray guns. “I’m high on sugar and ready for anything!”

Again, the guard swept up one of his wings, his right one again, blocking the stream of food coloring from getting into his eyes or face. With his left wing extended, he flapped it forward, projecting a rush of cutting wind. This time it was Pinkie who had to protect her face with her legs as candies and sliced halves of candies filled the air, pelting her like shrapnel. Scything wind cut into her skin and pink coat, evoking a wince from the party planner.

“I won’t let you get away!” The fallen Guard announced, sweeping his wings forward.

In one move, he flapped them back and against his sides, propelling him forward at high speed. Pinkie barely managed to get out of the way in time as he barreled through confectionary stands, destroying everything in his path. Snatching a hoof-full of chocolates off the floor and munching on them, purely for health and not because she was hopelessly addicted to sweets, Pinkie ran behind another rack of candies, firing her frosting pen turned shotgun.

“That won’t work,” the Royal Guard announced, once again blocking the attacks with his right wing. He broke into a gallop, bringing down his left wing in a vertical strike. Pinkie had to hold up her frosting pen to block it.

The guard sneered at the move. “I’ll cut right through--”

The leading edge of his wing dug into the pressurized air canister fitted into the frosting pen.

Before he could finish his sentence, it exploded. Growling in pain, he reared up, legs wide open. Her paint guns empty, Pinkie reached for the nearest thing on hoof. It happened to be a macadamia nut cookie. Rolling over onto her side, Pinkie’s foreleg blurred as she grabbed and tossed foodstuffs at impossibly high speed. A dozen cookies hit the Royal Guard across his body and face before he managed to get his right wing back up to defend himself.

Cartwheeling away, Pinkie came to a stop next to a cake stand.

Kicking it with a spinning hindleg, the entire cake somehow remained intact as it tumbled through the air. It seemed to be on target for the snarling Royal Guard, only to split in half. A feather flew through the gap in the flying cake, and Pinkie barely had time to stomp down on a table to bring it up in front of her like a shield at the last second. The feather wedged into the solid wooden table… and a second later, the table also split, cleaving cleanly down the middle and into two halves.

But Pinkie Pie wasn’t behind it anymore.

“Annoying filly! There are only so many places you can hide!” the guard roared, flexing his left wing and sending a gust of destruction down on another area of the store. He was luckier than most. Pinkie Pie yipped in surprise as she had to scramble for cover.

It left her open, and this time, when the Guard charged forward with both wings, he slammed right into her. Pinkie Pie bounced painfully off one of the store walls, barely able to keep conscious and alert long enough to jump out of the way of another one of the Guard’s cutting feathers. Instead of trying to cut her in half up close and personal, this time he seemed to be sticking to range.

He charged a second time, choreographing his attack by sweeping both of his wings forward first. This time, Pinkie was more prepared for it. Rolling away, she galloped over to another of the cakes on display. Kicking it, it tumbled through the air at high speed.

“That didn’t work before, you idiot!” The Guard yelled, flexing his left wing and firing another bladed feather. “Why would it work now--”

This time, the cake exploded when the feather cut into it.

The guard howled in surprise, knocked back again from the force of the exploding air canister. This one hadn’t been attached to Pinkie’s frosting pen, however. This one, she’d stuffed into the cake beforehoof. Bits of cake from the blast already smeared the Guard’s formerly pristine white coat and golden armor. Pinkie quickly reloaded her frosting pen and rushed forward, placing the opening of the barrel right up against the Guard’s broad chest.

Squeezing the wide trigger twice with her hoof, it unloaded a full chamber of high speed frosting into the Guard’s exposed belly. The sticky icing not only visibly punched hard into the pony’s torso, it wedged into his armor, squirting out of the seams. The Royal Guard staggered back two steps, but remained standing on his hind legs.

“I’ll cut you in half!” he screamed, attacking with his left wing again.

“I’m not that kinda pie!” Pinkie yelled back, swinging her frosting shotgun.

For the second time, the Guard’s downward slice ended with him cutting into the fully loaded air canister in Pinkie’s frosting pen. Just like it had seconds before, when it had been hidden in the cake she had kicked, or even when she had first used this trick, it exploded right in the guard’s face. This time, his hooves flew up to his face, not protecting his body at all. It meant spray painting him into submission was out of the question, but Pinkie Pie didn’t mind.

“Not again!” he howled. “How does that keep happening?!”

Fitting another cartridge into her frosting gun, Pinkie aimed for the already encrusted gaps in the rearing and reeling Royal Guard’s armor. Two shots further gummed up the barding, and then two more immobilized each white wing. Covered hoof to mane in frosting, the bruised guard spun around in a circle to try and chase away his victim turned assailant. Pinkie nimbly jumped back before he could hit her and cartwheeled away.

“Can… barely move…” the Guard growled, lowering his hooves and opening his eyes to try and find his target. “Where…?”

Without warning, two shelves of candies were knocked out of the way deeper in the store. Catching the stunned guard’s eye, he immediately identified the culprit. Rolling through on its side, a huge multi-layered cake barreled through the displays, rolling over and absorbing or knocking aside everything in its path. Cookies, pastries, caramels and candies, all ended up decorating the surface of the rolling dessert of doom.

The shadow of it fell over the Royal Guard, and he barely had time to scream before it rolled him over, too.

Pinkie Pie let go of the cake and watched as it continued to roll, crashing right through the front of the store with a crash, glass splintering and giving way. It continued all the way out into the center of the Crystal Hall, finally coming to a stop when it smashed into a new Mustang Carriage on display as a contest prize. The Mustang stopped the cake cold, the side of the luxury carriage cracking under the impact but not giving way. Instead, the cake splattered like a sugary bomb, revealing the flattened and unconscious Royal Guard inside.

Pinkie emerged from the store and reloaded her frosting pen with a satisfying cha-chunk.

“Mission Accomplished! Sweets earned: 5000!” she announced with a giggle. “Combat rank: ‘A’! A little more and I’ll finally have that extra life!”

A crash further down the Crystal Hall and Pinkie’s ears twitched. Breaking into a gallop, she ran to catch up with her friends. So far, this was turning into the most fun mall romp ever!

Author's Note

~yowsa~
So, I've ended up cutting the Mane Six Battles up between chapters 48 and 49. They were originally meant to be just one chapter of action, but it got waaay too long to keep it just one chapter. I try and aim for 20 pages in Word using my own formatting and this was well over 30. So. The climaxes will be in the next chapter... and it'll be out sooner rather than later, though this will probably also mean no chapter next weekend (I'll be on vacation skiing anyway with limited internet access and time).

Tsk tsk, though. I'd planned to finish TPC at chapter 50, way back when. So much for that! But huge 30k chapters would probably scare folks and it isn't like I need a nice even number of chapters.

I'd also like to say thanks to Jorlem, especially, who helped me a bit with some important creative vetting of this chapter.

Chapter Forty Nine : The Red Queen or Fighting is Magic (II)

(49)

The Red Queen (or Fighting is Magic) Part 2

“Hello, friends!” Pinkie bounced towards them with a smile. “Eet-sa me, Pinkie Pie!”

“Wrong accent!” Twilight yelled, a magenta blast knocking the Fake-ie Pie off her hooves and into a ‘Jumbo Juice’ stand, a mess of cups, juice, milk and sugar flying liberally through the air. Fluttershy running right behind her, the frantic unicorn jumped clear over a fallen ‘custom cloak-work’ cart. The changeling she had shot a moment earlier emerged from the wreck of the Jumbo Juice stand, hissing and sticky but still looking for a fight.

Twilight spun on her hooves, cantering to keep her balance, and fired another pulse from her protesting horn. The bolt of magical magenta pegged the creature right between the eyes. It tumbled back into the leaky mess it had erupted out of, unconscious.

“We’ll never make to Al’s Famous Hardware Store at this rate!” Twilight lowered her head as a series of green blasts peppered the store behind her: a ‘Disks n’ Donuts’ store selling records, coffee and a variety of unhealthy breakfast treats.

“We could hide in there?” Fluttershy suggested, pointing at an empty store briefly illuminated by a crack of lighting.

“Dr. Weird’s Novelty Unicorn Boutique?” Twilight shuddered, flattening herself against the ground again and floating a trash can in front of her to block a green changeling beam. “No way! I’ll take my chances out here, getting shot at.”

“But I don’t see the… oh!” Fluttershy briefly took to the air, her back to the changelings so she could point further down the vast expanse of the Crystal Hall. “I see it! Over there! We really were close!”

“You see it?” Twilight asked again, but Fluttershy had to dive down to avoid getting shot out of the air. The timid pegasus nodded eagerly. “Thank the Princess!”

Setting up more explosive firestarter wards, Twilight started galloping, Fluttershy a scant few hoofsteps behind her. A volley of green fire tore into the ground behind them, nipping at their tails, punching holes in advertisements and blowing a smiling cardboard cowpony and camel into burning flakes and fragments. An oversized cigar that had been between the camel’s lips hit the ground, still burning with green changeling flame. The windows of the tobacco store they passed by shattered, ten thousand glass shards screaming in every direction.

A series of explosions prompted Twilight to look back, to see if her traps had worked, only to meet disappointment. Changelings were marching through the smoke, their crooked, warped horns lowered. Leading them was the unicorn Royal Guard who had darn near twisted her horn off like a bottle cap. His horn was glowing with a smoldering red, and it was abundantly clear to Twilight that he had easily detected and cleared out her cantrips. There wouldn’t be any more easy ambushes like in the changing room.

“Rapid Volley fire!” the unicorn roared, “On the march!”

Changelings snapped and hissed in compliance, clearly drilled in Equestrian methods of mass magical combat. There were only a dozen of them, lined up in two rows of six, but they advanced in step and good time. The front row lowered horns and – like trained unicorns – began to fire. Others buzzed overhead, looking for an opening to dive bomb.

More were streaming in from a hole in the ceiling of the Crystal Hall, only to run into a cloud of whirling steel. In the distance somewhere, at least a few of Celestia’s animated mannequines were still roaming wild. That pink beam the first one used occasionally sliced through the air at the changelings overhead.

It was chaos everywhere Twilight looked.

They’d teleported out of the storm and into the cloud! Firing a spell into a familiar storefront up ahead, Twilight and Fluttershy jumped in unison, cleanly knocking circular holes in the glass that Twilight floated off to the side. This was it. This was where she had been headed since leaving the IHOPP.

Pitcher’s Potent Potions and Potables

Finally!

“Fluttershy!” Twilight yelled as she erected a sputtering shield behind the glass windows. “Try and find some horn balm!”

“Horn balm?” Fluttershy repeated, and nodded, grasping both the urgency of the situation and the reason why Twilight had wanted to find this store above all the others. “Horn balm. Okay!”

“Sparkle!” Black Lance, the changeling warped unicorn guard, called out to her from outside. “There’s no way out of there! Surrender! Now!”

“Let me think about it!” Twilight replied, knocking over a wood and iron rack laden with faint blue potions. Brushing away the broken glass with a little wave of magic, she hunkered down, the blue aromatics staining her hooves and assaulting her nose. For a long second, she actually entertained the notion that Black Lance would really give her a little while to ‘think about it.’

“Surround the gallery!” the guard’s voice thundered, commanding his ever growing swarm of changelings. “Detail! Assume Line! Fire by File! From the right! I want that store and everypony in it wiped off the map!”

“Fluttershy,” Twilight said, in that brief lull. “Please, please find that balm…!”

“I am trying!” Fluttershy finally seemed to lose some of her timidity in the face of all the pressure being put on her. She was in the back, butter-yellow hooves a blur as she moved from shelf to shelf.

And then the barrage began.

Starting from the left front row of the changeling formation, they began to fire. All down the line, one by one but at a rapid rate, every changeling in the first row sent a sickly green blast into the front of the Potion Bar. When it reached the rightmost changeling, the tempo switched to the rightmost changeling in the back row and all the way back along the line to the left. The result was a cyclical stream of green fire that saturated the storefront, leveling everything in its path.

Twilight’s personal shield shattered painfully within the first second, driving a new spike of pain into her horn. It was a small comfort that, by erecting it behind the glass, she had at least kept a million stinging crystal shards from filling the store and bar. Instead, they had all fallen outside when the windows disintegrated.

Sucking in a breath and steeling her courage, reminding herself that she had faced down dragons, spirits of chaos and the world’s mightiest spellcasters, Twilight Sparkle raised her head briefly out of cover and fired into the two lines of changelings. It was a basic Berkelium's Beam, but would've still been more than enough to tear apart and disrupt the changeling formation. That was… if the beam from her horn hadn’t slammed into a crimson barrier.

The fire continued unabated, blowing apart alchemical potions and smashing apart the heavy stands Twilight had knocked over or thrown up as a shield. Black Lance would know barrier magic, too. Because it would’ve just been too easy otherwise, wouldn’t it? Luckily, no-changeling seemed to be paying much mind to Fluttershy in the back – if they could even see her – and that last counterattack had them focusing entirely on knocking out the Princess’s Faithful Apprentice.

“Assault Squad!” she heard Black Lance yell. “Hit her now!”

“Give a girl a break!” Twilight groaned, snatching up a nearby bottle and floating over a second from off the floor. Biting off the cork stoppers with her teeth, she shoved the mouths of the two flasks together, sealed it with a bit of magic, and gave it a good shake.

“Four, three,” Twilight counted down, and tossed the bottle towards the smashed windows of the potion bar, “two…”

A trio of dive bombing changelings crashed through the broken and blasted wood, one of them tearing the locked door right off its hinges. The lock itself snapped and whirled through the air in the opposite direction of Twilight’s improvised concoction. The wooden door flipped end over end, liberally and carelessly smashing into alchemical draughts and drafts.

Then Twilight’s Tonic hit the ground next to one of the changelings, belching out a spray of rainbow foam. It soaked the changelings, and when they tried to move, they froze, their legs and hooves stuck to the floor and the multi-colored mess beneath them. Like flies in a web, the changeling warriors resorted to their wings, trying to fly away, to no avail. The three turned towards Twilight and hissed in impotent fury.

“The assault squad has failed. Resume fire!”

Twilight huddled behind cover as the barrage resumed, indiscriminately destroying the store around and in front of her. The three trapped changelings hissed even more loudly, but quickly fell silent as the oppressive green friendly fire silenced them.

In a backroom, protected behind a curve in the store, Fluttershy finally emerged.

“I found it!” she said, excited and raising her voice despite herself. She galloped over with a potion cradled under her left wing. “Twilight, I couldn’t find a balm, or salve, but there was a crème…”

Fluttershy huddled next to Twilight, and the unicorn got her first look at what her friend had found.

“No More Tears brand?” Twilight asked, distraught. “Oh, Fluttershy, why this one…?”

“Oh.” Fluttershy blinked, trying to process the conflicting messages. On one hoof, her friend didn’t seem to like ‘No More Tears’ brand ‘restorative horn crème.’ On the other hoof, there was a picture of a very friendly gorilla on the label, promising that there wouldn’t be any more tears. He didn’t look like the kind of gorilla who would lie, at least in Fluttershy’s opinion.

“Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess,” Twilight lamented, grabbing the vial, ripping out the cork, and dumping it over her head in one go. Clear liquid ran down Twilight’s mane and face, looking no different than water or maybe rubbing alcohol. On contact with her horn, however…

It instantly evaporated and turned to steam, like droplets of water on a hot plate.

“Aaa-aaaa-aaa!” Twilight stamped her hoof in pain, but didn’t cry. “Come on…!”

Still partly wreathed by steam, her lavender horn emerged… good as new.

Twilight let out a breath. “There we GO!”

Emerging from behind her cover, she fired another beam into the changeling ranks.

This time, Berkelium's Blinding Beam met with much more success. Black Lance was only a single unicorn. Normally, an equestrian line or tercio had multiple shield-unicorns. Her brilliant magenta light clashed with his blood-red and after only a second… magenta won out, punching through and knocking a pair of changelings out of formation and out of the fight.

“Damnit!” Black Lance snarled, quickly barking out new orders. “Advance! Increase rate of fire! Breech Teams go now!”

More fire poured in, but this time Twilight had a magical shield ready to help bolster her waning physical cover. She’d started to even feel pretty confident… until the walls to either side of the store blew in. Changelings swarmed in through the gap, a wave of black chitin, snapping jaws and bright green eyes. Fluttershy cried out and threw her forelegs around Twilight.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight said, a crazy idea entering her head. “Don’t worry. They’re just bears.”

“Just… bears?” Fluttershy asked, and took another look. Instead of changeling invaders smashing through the walls, she saw bears. Growling, angry bears. Not big bears, but still bears. Twilight’s spell made sure of it.

“They are just bears,” she realized, letting Twilight go like a foal discarding a safety blanket.

“Can you deal with them?” Twilight asked, reinforcing her shield-front to let her take another pot shot at the advancing rank of changeling infantry.

“You there!” Fluttershy said, trotting out into the open. “You bears need to calm down and go home right this moment. You’re ruining this nice store!”

The closest changeling to her snarled, lunging with wide forelegs and a fang-filled jaw.

Only to meet Fluttershy’s hoof, slamming hard into its chest. Standing on her hind legs and lifting the changeling into the air, she slammed it hard into the floor at her hooves. She used enough force to put down a small bear. Against a changeling drone, it was more than sufficient. The changeling gasped as its back hit the floor with a resounding crack, eyes bugging out from the sudden impact.

“I told you,” Fluttershy said softly, still standing on her hind legs, her pink mane obscuring half of her face. “Please calm down and go home.”

The changeling Breech Teams, trained to break into homes or other buildings and subdue potentially hostile equestrians, paused at the unexpected challenge. There were seven of them to one pegasus pony. Good odds, especially since that pegasus pony had originally been clinging to the formidable unicorn now occupied trading fire with two ranks of combat changelings outside the store. Stray blasts of green stitched across the back of the store, the last one hitting a light fixture and exploding with white and yellow fire.

Taking that as their signal, the changelings charged.

Fluttershy glared, clearly displeased by having to put her bear wrestling skills to use a second time. She ducked her upper body as a changeling leapt at her and used her wings to float back out of range of a swipe. Seizing the extended foreleg with one hoof, and the crook of the elbow with the other, she twisted and drove the changeling to its knees before spinning it around and into a third hissing shape-shifter.

A second tried to bite her from behind, fangs glistening with poison. Fluttershy fell backwards, the back of her head and pink mane smashing into the changeling’s gaping mouth. Fangs snapped off and the creature hissed in pain. Fluttershy’s foreleg wasted little time in filling the changeling’s vision before slamming into its throat with a lariat. No sooner had the changeling slumped to the floor, coughing and losing consciousness, than two more jumped in to avenge it.

Twilight ran across the front of the store, her magenta shield absorbing a rapid fire quartet of green blasts. Even with her horn rejuvenated, her shields weren’t on the level of her brother’s. They began to crack under the strain, but they did their job of protecting her when she was left in the open. Her horn flashed, another Blinding Beam spearing the advancing changeling line. It was partly attenuated by Black Lance, who always seemed to reform his barrier before she could get off a second shot, but it still scattered three changelings out of position.

“Hold together!” Black Lance commanded, driving forward the changeling formation. “We are the Queen’s Royal Guards! Remember your discipline! Keep under my shield and maintain fire on the target!”

Twilight ran for cover again, further back into the ruined potion store. Sheltering behind the curve of the bar, she mixed up another Special Twilight Tonic and hurled it in an arc. This one exploded into a cloud of stinging ice. Amid the confusion, as the changelings tried to reform their shaking firing lines, Twilight hit them with another beam. This one was four alliterations, just like she had used against Twinkling Star Light. It ripped through Black Lance’s barrier, blasted two more changelings off their hooves, and hit the unicorn Guard himself right in the chest.

Their commander taken out, the changelings quickly broke apart and started firing on their own.

Twilight smirked, sensing the turning tide. Behind her, Fluttershy lifted a changeling into the air and threw it like a bag of flour. Wings flapping to let her juke to the right to avoid a blast of green magic, she executed a mafia kick into the face of another changeling, pulled it into a headlock, and brought it down with a frontal suplex, introducing the changeling’s face into the floor.

Trotting back to deflect a bite from yet another shape-shifter, Fluttershy’s hoof kicked a piece of a broken changeling horn she’d snapped off. It clattered between the legs of a galloping changeling that slammed shoulder-first into the formerly timid mare. Yellow wings snapped out to avert their mutual fall, and so did transparent duplicates that morphed under green fire into a soft gold. The two Fluttershies hit the ground and bounced into the air again, grappling and held aloft by their wings.

They locked eyes, and the changeling blinked, shaking her head.

Fluttershy’s hind legs curled up and slammed into the changeling’s stomach in a solid dropkick. The image of snarling bears never wavered in her eyes. Changelings were frightening. Ponies were frightening, too. It was a fact of Fluttershy’s life that she wasn’t exactly a social butterfly. But angry bears? Angry bears were a problem she could deal with. Not a one of these little ursines were even in Harry’s ballpark. Still, a little voice in the back of her head knew that these couldn’t really be bears. She knew they were either pretending to be bears or that Twilight had used a spell to make them look that way. For the moment, though, that didn’t matter. It was enough that they didn’t look like strange, unfamiliar monsters.

“I won’t let you hurt Twilight or anypony else!” Fluttershy surged forward, head-butting the changeling. It fell away from her, eyes glazed, a line of drool dripping from vicious jaws.

Tearing free a chunk of wall, Twilight Sparkle yelled a challenge before telekinetically hurling the ton of iron, brick and plaster at a pair of changelings, their black horns smoking cadmium green. No longer bothering with what little shattered and blasted cover remained in the potion bar, she let her magenta shield protect her against the sporadic green fire. Their formation broken, the changelings had started transforming into ponies to confuse her: Pinkie Pies and Eunomies and Twilight Velvets.

It didn’t work.

Seizing a changeling in the guise of her mother, Twilight felt her magic overpower the shape-shifter’s natural defenses. It was only marginally worse at countering magic than Rarity had been during her training to fight Antimony. Twilight focused, and her grip solidified around the changeling’s tail. Whipping it back and into a wall, the creature reverted to its natural form and slumped to the ground, all the fight taken out of it.

“We’re winning,” Twilight stated as a burst of green splashed harmlessly against her shield. “We’re winning.”

Black Lance groaned as he rolled off his side and onto his hooves. Forcing himself to stand, he wiped his eyes and his face with his foreleg. That little lavender mare packed one hell of a punch! The green in his eyes flickered, clouding his thoughts, but he soon came to and remembered what he was doing: what he had been charged to do by the True Queen of Equestria.

His golden armor jingled around his chest, helping to dissipate the magical energy he had been blasted with. His injuries weren’t enough to keep him down, but they weren’t negligible either. Shaking his head, he took a look around. He needed to find his fire team. He needed to rally them and reform their ranks!

“Sergeant!” he called out, staggering towards the sound and fury of magical battle. “By the Queen… what? What happened?

There were unconscious changelings all over the street.

He turned towards the elevated positions he had ordered his subordinates to secure. The ‘Here be Dragons’ gaming store and the ‘Scritch & Scratch’s Exotic Quills Emporium’ on the second floor had a commanding view of the field. The changelings didn’t have any marksmares in their ranks, but he had sent a small group to command the heights, such as they were, and provide supporting fire.

Black Lance saw limp changelings hanging over the safety rail on the second floor of the gallery. Had they been taken out? He caught something pink moving around that level, and when it jumped down, he got a positive ID. It was the pink target. The earth pony. What had happened to Load and his team? They should’ve taken this mare down.

“Air support…” he started to groan, still a bit unsteady. “Where is my air support?”

The changelings should control the skies.

It was one of their greatest tactical and strategic advantages, but the interior of the Crystal Hall’s main venue was clear of black. Their insertion point was visible in the distance, but it looked like it had been sealed up by something grainy and metallic. It had to be that Eunomie witch and her swords. She’d plugged up the hole in the ceiling, but still, there had to be more reinforcements. Where were they? They still had reserves!

Where were the reserves?!

Turning around, he tried to see what he had left to fight with. Twilight Sparkle, their primary target, was only now emerging from the potion bar. There had to be some changelings left to help take her down. Coming up empty, by the time Black Lance went back to his original facing, the butter-yellow pegasus had also emerged, sticking close to her friend. As if to hammer a nail into any resistance, a dark shape descended from above… but it wasn’t a changeling.

Eunomie Mosaic floated down, standing on top of a sheet of steel blades. The same coldly merciless look was in her eyes as before, when she’d ruined their initial ambush. It was a look even worse than the lifeless gaze of those crazy Celestia mannequines. Eunomie was priority target number two, after the Sparkle girl. Given she had also seen through their ambush…

Black Lance, his mind entering damage control now that the battle was clearly lost, considered that. Eunomie had seen though the ambush. How? He noticed that there was one “pony” missing from the group. Twilight Velvet. He knew she was a changeling, of course. She was the one who had ordered this ambush, slipping a note to another changeling after leaving Hocksbach. Had she been compromised? Was it possible that…

‘She knows.’ It was pure guesswork, but it felt right in his gut. ‘That crazy Mosaic mare knows! But why let Velvet stay around at all? Why let a mole compromise your group?’

“Lady Velvet, there you are,” Eunomie spoke, reaching out a hoof.

A blast of light blindsided Black Lance, and his vision went black.

“Is everypony okay?” Twilight asked, trotting forward with Fluttershy. Seeing Eunomie descending from the sky wasn’t exactly expected, and neither was seeing Pinkie Pie cradling what looked like an oversized pastry decorating pen. In fact, the baker was loaded for bear, in a white chef’s outfit and hat, a variety of cooking utensils strapped to her torso. What possible use they were, Twilight couldn’t imagine. It was just more Pinkie being Pinkie, frankly.

Then there was her mother… she had just come out from out of nowhere. Twilight glanced down the Hall. Had she been hiding or fighting from another store or kiosk? Things had gotten so crazy, it was hard to tell. She was here, that was all that mattered. But she was here, so that was all that mattered, really.

“Mom!” Twilight greeted with a smile.

“Twilight,” Velvet returned, also smiling. She stepped over the smoking, but still breathing, body of Black Lance. “I’m glad I found you girls. I trust everypony here is who they appear to be?”

“Eet-sa me, Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie declared and Twilight groaned. Of all the things to say…

“The last Pinkie who said that ended up with a face full of magic,” Twilight told her, but shook her head. “But now I know you’re you. Because only you, Pinkie. Only you.”

“Huuh?” Said party pony tilted her head in confusion. “Did I say something weird? What do you think, mirrorverse-Euporie?”

“I don’t know any ‘mirrorverse,’” Eunomie stated, descending a few stair-like steps made out of swords, their flat surfaces overlapping. Her hooves touched the ground and her horn glowed softly. What was left of the metal blades she had brought with her abruptly transformed into single-edged plowshares.

“It means you look the same but you’re total opposites, and one of you wears tight leather!”

“Ah. That would be Euporie, yes.”

“So you’re the nice one and she’s the naughty one?”

“I’d rather not answer that.”

“I think we’re all who we say we are,” Twilight Velvet said, but softly, not to try and interfere with Eunomie and Pinkie’s conversation in potentially evil duplicates.

“I’m pretty sure you’re all who you say you are,” Twilight Sparkle agreed, and coughed into her hoof. “Woah... that was weird. Did I just repeat…?”

Velvet grimaced, but covered her mouth with her hoof and laughed. “Oh yes, you did! Just like when you were little! Remember?”

Twilight narrowed her eyes for a moment, but ultimately shrugged. “I guess. Anyway. Fluttershy, you’re okay, right? About that illusion spell…”

“I don’t mind,” Fluttershy answered, demure as always. She hung back as mother and daughter caught up. Only when nopony was looking did her turquoise eyes zero in on Twilight Velvet. The older mare’s lavender and alabaster-white tail flicked as she kept close to her daughter. Twilight was already talking eagerly about the next leg of their journey, the nearly disastrous ambush they had escaped seemingly forgotten. The Wireless Magical Broadcasting Tower was their next stop. Still, Fluttershy remained behind.

An unexpected pony soon joined her.

“H-hello.” Fluttershy still wasn’t anything near comfortable around Eunomie. Not only had they just met a short time ago, she seemed… distant. Not mean, really, but quiet in a way that wasn’t shyness.

“Hello,” Eunomie replied, not smiling, but not frowning either. She continued to trot slowly at Fluttershy’s pace, her eyes forward. Up by Twilight and her mother, Pinkie Pie was going back to hopping nimbly from one piece of wreckage to another, a litany of questions and observations (most of them confusing) spilling out of her lips. Twilight Velvet seemed annoyed and curt, but Twilight put up with it, grinning happily when Eunomie or Fluttershy got a good look at her face.

After they left the Crystal Hall behind, Fluttershy finally felt confident and comfortable enough with her thoughts to share them. Eunomie listened to her concerns and nodded.

“It would be prudent to check,” the dour mare agreed.

“Can… can you cast Twilight’s spell?” Fluttershy asked. If she could, then it would be easy to check right now. Twilight might not like it, but she’d understand. It paid to be safe.

Eunomie’s response was curt. “No.”

“So we have to ask her to do it,” Fluttershy determined with an unhappy sigh. Asking her to check to make sure her own mother wasn’t a changeling… she shivered at the thought of how she’d even phrase it. And what if Velvet was a changeling? How would Twilight herself react?

“It may be best to wait until we get to our destination,” Eunomie suggested. Idly, she used a trickle of magic to clean up the prim bun that was her bright red mane, making sure it was still in order and not a hair out of place. “If Lady Velvet is a changeling, then she will have already betrayed us.”

“And the radio tower?”

“It will already be destroyed, in that case.”

Applejack’s hooves were contemptuously knocked aside; a lightning quick slash from Sarai’s serrated forelegs pegging her on her exposed hindquarters. What little was left of the dress Rarity had made for her for the wedding ripped apart against the black and red spines, revealing the quilted armor underneath, glittering with metal scales and sequins. The apple farmer tumbled away, a spray of sparks shooting away from her flanks.

Sarai growled at her failure to draw blood, but turned in time to block a bolt of cloth aimed at the back of her head. Her face faded into transparency, but her legs continued to strike at high speed, making her appear almost as a blur of limbs. Rarity pressed forward with her fabric, switching from lances of cloth to whips. The horsehair flails battered against spine-covered forelegs, trying to keep the Red Queen off balance.

“Incoming!” Rainbow Dash warned, flying past the fashionista with a crackling thundercloud in-hoof.

Sarai sneered and aligned the tip of one of her forelegs to catch Dash in the face, but a last millisecond course correction turned Dash’s forward flight into a tight spiral. Holding her cloud between her hooves, she slammed full force into Sarai’s torso. The Queen’s entire body lost camouflage as her hindlegs dug into the floor, ripping parallel grooves in the carpeting and polished hardwood. Electrical arcs left her muscles twitching and convulsing as the cloud discharged repeatedly.

“Dash!” Applejack broke into a gallop. “Look out!”

Through it all, Sarai’s forelegs angled inwards, like a pair of shears. Her front hooves buried in the Queen’s torso, Rainbow Dash’s momentum kept her trapped in place, even as the tips of Sarai’s forelegs descended to spear her from both left and right. A sudden yank pulled Dash back and out of the killing zone, the sharpened spikes along Sarai’s forelegs rubbing against one another as her legs crossed over her stomach.

Pulled back via one of Rarity’s ribbons of cloth, Dash wiped her forehead in relief. “Thanks, Rarity!”

“Think nothing of it, darling.” Rarity released her hold on her friend and kept focused on Sarai. The Red Queen strode forward, none the worse for wear despite Dash’s thundercloud. “We’ll need something bigger than that, I’m afraid.”

“Or you can just give up,” Sarai suggested, trying to remove the stormcloud from her torso. Her legs passed through it, though, and it only continued to discharge energy into her. Her invisibility rippled across her body, working for a moment before failing.

“I will admit this is rather vexing,” she said, glaring down at the cloud stuck to her body. “None of the other pegasi could do this.”

“We’re just full of surprises, sugarcube!” Applejack punctuated her statement by kicking another stone bust, this one of a zebra immortalized in green verdite.

“Pointless,” Sarai huffed, raising her forelegs.

She paid much less attention to the rope snaking around her hindlegs. Smacking the stone bust out of the air, Sarai found her legs entangled. Applejack yanked hard on her lasso with her mouth, stood on her hind legs, and wrapped a foreleg around the taunt rope for good measure. The Red Queen dug her legs in, still resisting being knocked off her hooves.

“Rarity!” Applejack called. “Winter Wrap Up!”

“On it!” Rarity called back, just as quickly. Her magic seeped into the rug Sarai had ripped apart in resisting Dash’s charge. Suffused with blue magic, the rug tore free of the loops in the floor that kept it in place. Like a ragged, multicolored wave it surged up and around Sarai before clamping together like a vise.

“Did we get her?” Dash asked, hovering in place and pulling together another cloud.

“Rarity?” Applejack noticed her friend visibly straining, her teeth clenched.

“No,” the former seamstress answered, sweat beading down her brow as she channeled magic. “We didn’t. I can’t… hold…”

Two black limbs pierced the magically empowered rug.

A tearing sound followed that evoked winces and flattened ears in the three mares as Sarai bodily slit her way free. Rarity finally had to release the spell entirely or suffer a backlash. The Red Queen finished tearing through what was left of the fabric, sparing a moment to snip the rope Applejack had gotten around her hind leg. She then started trotting forward on just her hind legs, her twitching wings splayed out behind her.

“I think we may need to fall back!” Rarity suggested. She picked up the three fillies that had led them into this trap and started running for the exit. “Rainbow! Could you find us some bad weather?”

“This way!” Dash yelled, taking the lead. “We need to get higher!”

“Right behind you, darling!”

“What? Hey! Where in tarnation do ya’ll think yer goin?” Applejack easily kept pace with her friends, but stealing a look back, saw their pursuer begin to disappear. “Aw, horsefeathers! Now she’s gone and vanished again!”

“Let her,” Rarity replied, pointing towards the arc-like double-stairs they’d passed under in their initial foray into the mansion. The two ground-based mares made a sharp turn that bunched up the carpet beneath their hooves. “Up there! Rainbow!”

“I know!” Dash yelled, blasting ahead with a snap of her cyan wings.

“Would’ya mind fillin’ me in on what in the seven gates of Tartarus we’re doin?!” Applejack followed Rarity as she jumped up the stairs at top speed.

“What are you doing?” Sarai’s voice asked, and Rarity had to shoulder into her friend as a pair of serrated forelegs punched into the wooden stairs underhoof. “Running won’t save you,” the Red Queen stated, partly visible after her strike. “Hmm… maybe the pegasus could fly away and live, but you two?” She jumped back into the air and faded out of sight. “You two don’t have a prayer.”

Rarity tentatively touched her hoof to her cheek, coming back with flecks of rusty red.

“You try that without yer tricks, why don’t ya?” Applejack demanded, but Rarity quickly pushed her up the stairs. Galloping as fast as their hooves could take them, they were soon on the second floor, but Sarai followed them, her spined strikes slashing against the chaotic swirls of Rarity’s fabric that filled the air.

“Yours will be a death from a thousand cuts!” The Red Queen promised, briefly blocking their way, her legs skittering.

Rarity and Applejack crossed in front of one another and split apart, going wide left and right. Rarity ran headlong over the bannister railing, flipping her mane and turning it into a bolt of indigo horsehair fabric. Applejack galloped up, jumped off of a trophy shelf, and pulled an antique sword down off the wall with her tail.

“Transformation and telekinesis,” Sarai stated, blocking Rarity’s cloth whips. “The use of fabrics was unexpected at first, but for the most part it fits what I’ve learned about you unicorns. It isn’t anything special. It isn’t a threat.”

Snagging Rarity’s hair-whip with the spines on her right foreleg, the Red Queen abruptly spun like a ballet dancer, pulling Rarity off the bannister and smashing her hard into the ceiling. Whipping her foreleg back, Rarity went along with it, hitting the opposite wall with a pained grunt. The three fillies she had with her, still wrapped in fabric for their own safety, screamed as they followed, spinning like a top.

“As for you--” Sarai blocked a strike from Applejack’s tail, still holding a sword as easily as a hoof. “--I’m impressed you can use your tail this way. I may have been wrong about you before. Zebras tails aren’t nearly as prehensile.”

A yell on her lips, Applejack used the opening to try and land a blow with her hooves. She wasn’t the same mare that Lady Yumi had embarrassed at the pas d’arms outside Ponyville. She had learned from that, from her fight with White Dew, from Shigure, from Yumi herself, from friends and enemies and ponies who blurred the line between the two.

Countering Sarai’s bladed forelegs with her purloined sword, Applejack danced on her hooves, kicking and dodging and weaving. The expression of indignation and frustration on Sarai’s alien-like features proved that she was more than simply surviving. The Red Queen was getting seriously annoyed. The strikes came faster, more pokes than swipes, aiming just as the Queen said, to kill with a thousand tiny cuts. Applejack struggled to keep pace, her tail and hooves a blur of motion.

“Adept with all four hooves, your tail and--” Sarai snipped another lasso before it could encircle her. “--and your mouth as well.” Applejack spit the now worthless coil of rope out of her mouth, slashing wildly with her tail.

“You have the balance of a shaman, too, which is very interesting,” Sarai stated, finally catching the sword between her forelegs. A little more pressure and it bent, almost into a straight ninety-degree L. “It won’t save you, but it is interesting. Yejide was right… there is much I still have to learn about your kind.”

“Applejack!” Rarity’s warning prompted Sarai to pause, her head turning around one-hundred and eight degrees to look over her own back.

Behind her, Rarity had two dozen ceramic plates, golden equestrian trophies and silver medals, shards of wood and at least four other dueling swords, all floating in the air around her, slaves to her magical will. The contents of everything that wasn’t nailed down at the top of the stairs, and even some things that had been nailed down – now sporting the nail bits as added flavor – projected forward like a hailstorm at Queen Sarai’s back.

For her part, Applejack dove for the long stairway bannister Rarity had been standing on before, sliding through wide gaps in the wooden supports to hang off the edge of the second floor railing. Sarai had no such luxury, but her forelegs became a blur as they intercepted the debris Rarity threw her way. Originally her forelegs moved in strange orbits, having to cover her own back, but gradually she managed to turn around and face the barrage, and weathering it became much easier.

“The mass a unicorn can manipulate is determined by her innate magical pool, but the number of individual objects a unicorn can control in motion is limited by her ability to mentally multi-task,” Sarai stated, slashing downward with her bladed forelegs and smashing a beautiful ceramic vase into pieces. “I’ve never seen one of your kind use so many objects at once. Is it really that difficult?”

“Sometimes,” Rarity admitted, catching her breath. “But when it works… it’s worth it, darling. See for yourself. I took the liberty of trimming those tacky frills on your back.”

“You what?” Sarai’s neck extended and her large eyes inspected her back. Her chitin-hardened body was unharmed, but her wings…?

Her wings had been mangled! There were holes in her wings!

“Sometimes the little things are what you need to look out for,” Rarity explained, and Sarai’s head snapped around to glare at her. The former seamstress had a single red jewel set in a golden horn-ring floating over her raised hoof. It had been mixed in among the rest of the barrage, but overlooked, since it wasn’t moving fast enough to do any real damage. As long as it didn’t get into her eyes, anyway, it had been just another bit of detritus, or so Sarai had figured.

But it had been strong enough to punch through her delicate wings.

“You were all going to suffer before you died,” Sarai stated, advancing on the unicorn. “But now, just for that, I’ll make your end truly memorable.”

“Forgot about somepony?” Applejack asked, grabbing hold of one of Sarai’s hind legs. She had been hanging from the edge of the second floor, and now reached between the wooden supports of the bannister. Grabbing and pulling, hard, with all of Applejack’s earth pony strength, Sarai finally lost her balance and fell, face-first into the carpet.

“Superb work, darling!” Rarity exclaimed, jumping over the Queen’s prone body. It was a risky move, as Sarai had only been on the floor a heartbeat before her bladed limbs began to thrash. Luckily, Applejack roped Rarity’s foreleg with her tail and pulled her along and out of danger.

“What now?” Applejack asked.

Sarai was already getting back up, and the apple farmer tensed to attack.

“We run!” Rarity answered, heading the way they’d last seen Rainbow Dash fly.

“You aggravate me,” Sarai growled, clambering up onto her hind legs, and then lowering down to a more conventional four-legged posture. “You should not aggravate me!” She took off after the two mares from Ponyville and the three dizzy and sick-looking fillies they’d saved. “It will only make your deaths that much worse!”

Galloping down the gilded mansion hall, Rarity and Applejack took pains to knock over everything they passed by, indigo and blonde tails bowling over shelves and cutting down tapestries and unseating paintings. Sarai roared as she nipped at their heels, having to either plow through or go around the obstacles and debris.

Rarity led them into a sudden left turn that the two mares navigated easily, but that sent the larger changeling Queen scrambling. Sarai crashed into a door, blasting it off its hinges, but her size also kept her from crashing fully into the room beyond. She kept up behind Applejack and Rarity, her hooves punching vicious holes in the floor as she galloped.

“You can’t run forever!” the Red Queen snarled, pouncing.

“Pluck me off an apple tree!” Applejack yelped, jumping madly into the air as Sarai tried to savage her legs with a swing of a serrated raptorial foreleg. “We better be close to where we’re goin, Rares! Or we ain’t gonna get there at all!”

“Almost!” Rarity promised, also jumping as her magic rolled up the carpet beneath them into a wave.

“I’ll rip you to pieces!” Sarai howled, tearing through the surging wave of carpeting and hardly breaking stride in the process. “I’ll hollow you out and use your bodies as a nursery!”

“You know,” Applejack stated, deadpan. “I don’t recall a whole lotta death threats before I hooked up with you, sugarcube.”

Rarity giggled, leading them into a sudden right turn. “You mean since we hooked up with Twilight, darling.”

“Aw, now yer just twistin’ the facts around!”

“Perhaps, but a little attention can do wonders for your confidence!”

Sarai crashed into the side of the wall, caving it in and scrambling to continue the chase. “You won’t escape this city alive! I’ll hunt you to the ends of Canterlot!”

“Hear that?” Applejack yelled to Rarity as they galloped in lockstep. “Mah confidence can do without that kinda attention! It ain’t flatterin!”

It might have been a positive sign that the end of the hall ahead of them opened up, an iron gate kicked open and left swinging. Rarity and Applejack jumped in unison down the flight of steps that followed, Sarai crashing through a heartbeat later and knocking the iron gates akimbo.

They ended up in a large conservatory or wintergarden.

Conservatories were common among luxury manses, allowing refined mares and stallions to tend to exotic fruits and trees in the comfort of their own homes. This one was a beautiful iron and white dogwood glasshouse and solarium, designed not only to function as a greenhouse but also with enough open area – benches and tables and chairs – to host a refined garden party. Stately jungle foliage crawled along the walls in previously well-manicured patches and thick-leafed plants grew in colorful bunches in every direction.

It was also swelteringly hot, and uncomfortably wet. Rarity and Applejack landed with a muddy splash, their coats and manes starting to weigh down almost immediately in the heavy vapor-laden air. The two mares quickly turned around and backtrotted towards the rear of the conservatory.

“Aw, gross!” the fake Sweetie Belle yelled, shaking water out of her mane.

“This place… we haven’t been in here in… how long, again?” the Scootaloo look-alike wondered, rubbing her faintly glowing green eyes.

“Help us, Queen Sarai!” the pseudo-Applebloom cried, struggling against the band of silk Rarity held them aloft with. She didn’t seem to care or even acknowledge that Sarai had admitted outright that she had wanted to eat them lot of them.

With a small splash of her own, Queen Sarai of the Zilant Hive stepped forward. Rearing to her full height, she took in the open space of the conservatory and sniffed, disdainfully. Her colorful wings spread behind her and fluttered. Her torso and legs shimmered, turning partly invisible, but leaving large sections wavy, distorted, or outright exposed. Snarling, she shook her head in dismay.

“You did this on purpose,” she realized. “My wings…”

“I noticed it thanks to your smaller underlings,” Rarity explained, hooves splashing softly as she moved a few steps to the left. “Your wings aren’t like the wings on the green changelings. Not just color… every single one of you red changelings had intact, well-maintained wings. They’re actually quite lovely to look at, contrary to what I said before. But you don’t fly much with them. The green ones do, and their wings are full of holes, like they’d been chewed on by moths.”

“Wait, their wings make them invisible?” Applejack asked, only now getting it.

“That’s right,” Rarity answered, keeping her eyes on the angry changeling Queen. “Didn’t she even say it? All the changeling types have different abilities… they’re just like unicorns and earth ponies and pegasus ponies: different versions of pony, different versions of changeling. I also noticed that they can only remain invisible when they’re moving slowly. The moment they started to move, or their limbs started to move, their camouflage broke.”

“You have a rather meticulous attention to detail, unicorn,” Queen Sarai admitted, grudgingly. “You’re correct on all counts. That you learned all that from this one encounter is rather… interesting. But you also have to have realized that you’re no match for me.”

She pointed a wickedly serrated foreleg at Rarity, specifically. “You’ve analyzed me, but I’ve also analyzed you. You don’t have the raw magic to either lift an object heavy enough to hurt me or throw a smaller object with enough speed. Your fabrics are your strongest weapon, but I have over three hundred degrees of vision. I can see your every attack and counter it.”

“In a fair fight, you would be correct,” Rarity stated, jumping up and into a muddy pot.

“Anytime, sugarcube!” Applejack did the same, standing upright while holding onto an orange tree.

“Good! I was getting pretty tired of waiting!” Rainbow Dash trotted out from behind a broad-leafed red and orange colored lily. “Let’s get this party started!”

Plunging her hooves into the roiling, forming clouds that emerged out of the mist, her wings crackled with static electricity. A rainbow ripple passed through the condensation that by now completely covered the floor of the conservatory, followed immediately by a crack of thunder. Only another pegasus pony could have been able to see the magic running like wild through the condensing cloud matter.

It didn’t take a pegasus pony to see the result, however.

Queen Sarai’s wings flapped, trying to get her into the air, but she was too tall, too big. The cloudstuff clung to her, and with it came lightning and a crack of thunder. The formerly colorless mist turned roiling, murderous black and in a series of brilliant flashes, lightning ripped through the changeling Queen’s legs. Her wings seized up and dropped her like a stone, letting her sink deeper into the cloud trap.

“That’s right! How do you like that, huh?” Rainbow Dash crowed, smirking, her pegasus physiology protecting her from the thunderstorm at her hooves. “Feels good?”

“Pegasusss pony,” Sarai trilled through clenched mandibles. “I’m glad you didn’t fly away. Now you can die, too.”

Jumping straight up, the Red Queen flipped over, her hind legs pointing up. Not only did she clear the thunderclouds beneath her, her hooves hit the ceiling of the stately conservatory… and stuck. Like a bat or an insect, Sarai hung upside down from the ceiling, catching her breath. Her body continued to twitch and smoke, but she was far from out of the fight.

“What the hay!” Applejack yelled, pointing. “She can do that, too!”

“Oh, great!” Dash started to fly, but Sarai was already skittering forward across the ceiling. Pulling a black swath of cloud off of the ground, Dash hurled it between them like a shield or screen. Sarai parted it with a single slice of her deadly forelegs and closed the distance between the two of them, slashing and hissing in rage.

“A little help! A little help!” Dash cried, losing a tuft of feathers as one of a flurry of Sarai’s strikes nearly hit home. “S-s-shoot!”

She barely avoided a raptorial hoof that tried to pluck out her left eye and ducked under a slash. Tucking in and rolling forward, Dash sprang into a jump and flew across the ground, spinning in a tight spiral and drawing her clouds around her. Rarity and Applejack jumped over her, from potted plant to chairs to tables, keeping out of the way. Rainbow Dash left a trail of her namesake behind her as she pivoted, sweeping up her mass of cloudstuff and turning it around. Still, she spiraled in a barrel roll so dangerously close to the ground it would’ve been a severe infraction in any flight academy in the country.

“Trotting Thunderhead!” she yelled, spreading her wings wide at the last second and forcing herself into a stop so sudden she ended up expelled from the twisting tornado of thundering vapor. “Spitfire, eat your heart out!”

The thundering black cloud crashed into the upside-down Queen Sarai. Glass shattered behind her, raining down on the garden below. The twisting storm refused to be contained within the greenhouse and extended hundreds of hooves into the air before beginning to dissipate. All the while it roared and boomed with reverberating claps of thunder.

No splash this time; Sarai hit the ground…

And landed on her hooves.

“Bright lights; loud sounds… was that supposed to stop me?” she asked, a black membrane retracting from around her overlarge eyes. Her body was still crackling and smoking, but outwardly unharmed. Then, to her own astonishment, a crack formed in the chitin over her left eye, exposing a tiny trickle of green blood. It dribbled over her almond-shaped eye, but she didn’t blink. Her mandibles merely twitched.

“I am Sarai,” she stated, moving forward. “I am the Throat Slasher. The Bloodletter! Your death of a thousand cuts begins… now!!”

Stamping through the jungle underbrush, Sarai disemboweled trees and thick branches that stood in her way. She singled out one pony in particular for her vengeance. The one that had most wounded her, not just physically, but her pride - the cursed equestrian who had ripped her wings and made it impossible to vanish or fade. The unicorn.

Rarity galloped away from her friends, but Sarai refused to let her escape.

A bolt of that fabric from before tried to hit from what would’ve been any pony’s blind-spot. Sarai’s huge eyes saw the attack coming, just like she had promised, deflecting it with a slash of her forelegs. The desperate and drenched fashionista resorted to throwing a thick fern between them. Sarai contemptuously swatted it aside and took another slash at the equestrian herself. More fabric swept up to try and block the strike.

“You seem to take pride in your appearance,” Sarai stated, shredding another plant Rarity desperately threw her way. “I’ll keep a mirror in your room when I flay you alive!”

“By the Princess, if a cruel beast like you passes for a Queen--” Rarity said, nimbly jumping over and behind another potted plant. “--I truly feel pity for your foals.”

“I may have a little mean streak,” Sarai admitted, her mouthparts spreading into a rictus grin. “But every good Queen does.”

“It isn’t too late,” Rarity implored, crying out as a swipe drew blood across her shoulder. “Equestria has not wronged you; you can take your family and leave--”

Sarai’s foreleg brushed against Rarity’s and the mare quickly tumbled back, cradling it to her chest, hiding it from view.

“--we can still live in peace,” she finished, scampering away from two plunging raptorial hooves.

“Get it through your skull,” Sarai hissed, casually kicking Rarity in the midsection with one of her smooth hindlegs. “There will never be peace. Not before and certainly not now. Our future…”

She glared down at the unicorn mare, looming to her full height.

“Our future,” she repeated, breathily, “a future where the yellows do not kill the reds, where the reds do not kill the greens… where there is food and land and hosts for all to share…”

“We were driven into this land by the Inkanyamba!” Sarai told Chrysalis, her voice bitter and the admission made even sourer by just how helpless she had become, after defeat after defeat. “We could not share hosts. We killed you as they killed us, and now as you kill us in revenge. It is the way of things.”

“It does not have to be that way,” Chrysalis said softly, and Sarai’s ears twitched, never having expected to hear that sort of response from the Queen of the Greens. “Life does not have to be like this, and my children and I did not come here for revenge.”

“Don’t speak to me of peace!” Sarai spat, standing over her victim. “Your peace is death. Your peace is doom. Your peace will only condemn us for what we are. If the choice is peace… or war…”

She brought up her barbarous forelegs, spines slick with water and blood.

Rarity held up her delicate bare hooves, as if to ward away or block the strikes.

“I pick war!” Queen Sarai screeched, driving down her forelegs. Rarity’s hooves tried to stop her, to prevent her from being slashed in the chest or stomach. Sarai speared the mare’s hooves straight on, punching through soft pony flesh.

Rarity screamed as her own forelegs ended up pinned to the ground at her sides.

“I promised you an agonizing death,” the Red Queen reminded her, satisfied with this start, “and I don’t want others to think me a liar or an oath-breaker, now do I?”

The Baroness beneath her squirmed in pain, and Sarai started to lean back to strike a second time. This time, aiming for a more vulnerable area, like the belly. All she had to do was pull loose her forelegs…

Sarai grunted, straining to tear her serrated forelegs free.

“What are you made of?” the Queen snarled, unable to extricate herself. “And…” She only now noticed. “Why aren’t you bleeding?”

Rarity scowled up at her, and her chest began to move and squirm.

Sarai watched it in morbid confusion.

Rarity’s chest finally expanded and started to break apart, very clean and clear-cut seams becoming visible against the white coat. Like bandages, they unwound from around her chest. It was more fabric. White fabric. As the coils loosened, they revealed what had been squirming before: it was a pair of legs. An extra pair of legs!

Why did this pony have an extra pair of legs?!

“If your answer is ‘war,’ and only war,” Rarity said, her forelegs breaking loose from where they had been bound tightly against her chest. “Then you can’t complain when you take casualties, darling.”

Rolling backwards and out from under the Red Queen, Rarity hopped easily up onto four legs. What had been the legs Sarai had impaled were left behind, like a lizard discarding a tail to distract a snake. The Zilant Queen angrily tried again to free her own forelegs, to get free and trike out at this damned unicorn, but they were still stuck in place. She blinked and glared down at the detached limps in bewilderment.

For a moment, Rarity’s severed legs seemed normal… except for the lack of blood. Then they shimmered, and deflated. Hollow. They were hollow. They hadn’t been legs at all.

“More… cloth?” Sarai stated dumbly. “But… how…?”

It became clear in an instant. She had impaled a pair of fake legs, made of cloth. The real ones had been tucked onto the mare’s chest and covered up. Illusions and cloth magic! The taunts before, then drawing the Queen into a confrontation, using her forelegs to block…

“Three hundred degree vision,” Rarity said, throwing the Queen’s own boast back at her. “That is very impressive. But you couldn’t see much when Rainbow Dash hit you with that thunderstorm of hers, now could you? You also failed to see what was right in front of you.”

Sarai growled, an animalistic, trilling hiss rising up in her throat as the specter of fear entered her voice. She struggled to get her forelegs free, but the cloth that she had impaled had wormed into the narrow slits and holes in her legs. The rest of it had dug deeply into the concrete floor.

“You’re stapled in place,” Rarity explained, trotting backwards. “Or… sewn in place, I should say. Stapling is so very crude. Rainbow Dash. Applejack. As my own attacks ‘lack force’ would you do the honors?”

Sarai spun her head around to face her back.

The earth pony was in the air, being spun around in a tight circle by the pegasus. The pair built up more and more momentum, until Rainbow Dash finally stopped and threw Applejack down and towards the ground. Except… there was one thing between said sufficient-velocity earth pony and the ground.

Sarai’s head faced forward again and she trilled in helpless rage. A second later and Applejack’s hooves buried into the back of her head, bucking the Red Queen face-first into the concrete floor of the conservatory.

Her bright wings fluttered, spasmed, and went still.

“Remind me again why I have to carry this-here bug?” Applejack grumbled unhappily, a bundled changeling almost twice her size slumped over her back.

“I can’t believe she survived having her head planted in concrete,” Rainbow Dash commented, flying around with three distraught and speechless fillies in her hooves. All three were still wrapped up by fabric, but after witnessing the Queen’s defeat, they’d been struck mute… which was, admittedly, better than putting up with them yelling for the Queen or the changelings to kill their own rescuers.

“I can’t believe these stains!” Rarity stepped out from underneath the broken water tap, scrubbing furiously at her legs. “The mud came out easily enough, but who knew pulverized concrete was so… filthy? Awwh! Yuck! It won’t. Come. Outtttt!” she cried, waving her forelegs pathetically.

“Aw, come on, you look better with a little dirt, sugarcube.”

“I do not!”

“Rarity. For the love of the Princess. You look fine. Can we just get moving?”

“I feel like a dirty hobo! Everypony’s clothes are completely ruined! Even the armoring! My hooves are an utter mess! Need I go on?”

“No.” “Please, please don’t.”

“Some friend you are. Can’t you feel my pain?” Rarity asked, mid-lament. “Can’t you--”

She instantly stiffened and stood straight when a figure alighted on the roof of the conservatory near them. Rainbow Dash also turned, still flying, to regard the new arrival. Applejack, burdened by their captive and possibly brain-damaged hostage Queen, grunted unhappily and tried to see what was going on.

“You three elements certainly know how to make a mess.”

The mystery pony, wrapped in brown cloak and hood, revealed herself without flourish. Midnight blue hair and a starry mane spilled out of the hood and caught an unseen and unfelt breeze. A small black crown poked out from the ever-shifting mane behind a tall, straight horn. Aquamarine eyes looked down on the three mares.

“Is that really--” Applejack spoke first.

Rainbow Dash smiled at the familiar face. “Princess--”

“Luna?” Rarity concluded, and all three mares looked up at the dark alicorn.

“Aye,” the Princess of the Night replied, freeing her wings to rise in regal arcs behind her. “We are Luna, we three, and I have come to request thy aid.”

Author's Note

The final half of the 'Red Queen / Fighting is Magic' megachapter.
With a surprise visit from somepony readers have been asking about! FYI, this chapter is early, so there won't be one this weekend.

Hope you guys are enjoying the Battle of Canterlot and seeing our little mane six put hoof to flank in their own crazy ways.

Chapter Fifty : Losing the Daylight

Author's Note

So, I’ve made a few changes to things. After thinking about it, rather than going right into the main upcoming plot points: Luna’s return, BB and Cadance, Twilight making it to the radio tower, I thought I’d spend a chapter to fill in what’s going on elsewhere in the world at large. I’m not sure if this is the best idea or not, but people had been asking. The only thing I didn’t get to yet in the ‘outside world’ was the fake-BB’s assassination. I thought this might also give a short breather between the adventures, after all we’ve seen of Twi’s group and Rari’s group.

As always, thanks for the comments, everyone! They kept me nice and toasty on the ski slopes... that, and it was bizarrely warm in the mtns out west this year. LOL. I'm sure quite a few people may have wondered why this weirdo was reading something on his iphone and giggling while waiting for the ski lift.
But I'm back now (have been for a few weeks) and good to get back to work writing.

Chapter Fifty : Losing the Daylight

(50)

“Clear!” “Move move move!”

Luna leaned heavily on Fury, one of her most trusted Night Guards, as his comrades swept over the pillar flanked hallway ahead of them. The Doric architecture provided a great sense of majesty and open space, but it also provided ample opportunity for changeling ambush. Light streamed in through stained glass windows on the east wall, faint spears of rainbow light settling on the seemingly empty hallway. Great banners and flags representing Equestria and her many noble houses hung from the walls and rafters between clusters of shields and murals of the rising and setting sun.

Half a dozen long tables decorated the floor of the hall, bedecked in gold-and-china platters. Heaps of food and drink lay un-gobbled on both tables and open larders. This had once been the commissary and feast hall of Celestia’s Solar or Dawn’s Guard, and a few of her sister’s noble retainers were still in attendance. Kept from collapsing by Fury’s stalwart bulk beneath her, Luna watched as two of her guards moves swiftly among the tables… and bodies.

“All dead, your highness,” one of her bat-ponies reported, leathery wings folding up as he landed in front of her. “It appears most were stabbed in the back while they ate and drank. It looks like there may have been a party going on, or…” He grimaced, trying to describe the carnage. “Or something,” he finished, lamely. “We may never know for sure.”

“Stabbed in the back,” Luna regarded him. “Just as I was…” She shook her head weakly. The poison had been left with another Luna, but she had to bear with the physical wounds she had accumulated since her awakening. “Carry on, Lieutenant. Sweep the room. Then we press onward.”

“Yes, your highness!” He flew off, leaving her with her small immediate escort.

“Highness?” Fury rumbled beneath her.

“Those responsible for this slaughter will pay for it in blood,” Luna swore, and gestured forward. He resumed carrying her. Two other trusted bat ponies flanked her left and right, ever alert for attack or ambuscade.

Though she did not speak it aloud, Luna was privately less concerned with her own efforts at regenerating and more with leading her guardponies out of the death trap that was the Equestrian Royal Palace. There were changelings everywhere. Most seemed to be focusing their efforts on Celestia’s guardponies, seeding chaos among the ranks and preventing any sort of coordinated response to the invasion. If what she had seen in the Palace was repeating itself all throughout Canterlot, the nobility would be decimated come morning. The ranks of the Dawn’s Guard were made up primarily of aspiring young noble stallions of good breeding and worthy name: an entire generation of them had been thrown into a meat grinder by this debacle.

Her own Night Guard had, thankfully, been far less infiltrated. After escaping her observatory, she had quickly gathered together and purged her guard. Virtually all were at roost nearby, instead of spread out across the entire city, and their number was relatively miniscule in comparison. A short but violent altercation as Luna spread terror and nightmares among her guard revealed the traitors easily enough. No true Night Guard would give into fear and nightmares so readily. It was purgation long overdue.

“Clear!” “Clear!”

Pressing forward through the feast hall and into the high security inner wings of the Palace, it wasn’t long before Luna and her entourage came across another scene of combat. This time, however, the victims were not entirely Day Guards. A pegasus in golden armor did lay still on the floor, a serrated changeling knife in his ribs… but his killers had in turn been killed.

No less than three changelings lay scattered around the T of the hallway’s intersection. One had been smashed into the wall hard enough that it was still upright in a slight indentation. Another was snapped in half like a dry cracker or a piece of cardboard, the head and the hindlegs touching. A third simply had no head on its withers.

Its wings continued to twitch as if trying to fly away and escape.

“They must’ve been discovered,” Fury guessed, helping her forward and past the carnage. “Serves them right. Bastards.”

“We found the head,” another bat pony announced, pointing far down the left turn of the intersection. “I can see it all the way at the end, there.”

“Few are the ponies who could kick a head off a living body more than a hundred hooves,” Luna observed, adding a guess of her own to the speculation on everypony’s minds. “Twas not royal guards that did this.”

“Highness?” Fury asked, sensing more on her mind.

“What lies down this path?” Luna asked, pointing to the right.

“Archives. Dry storage. Some vaults?” Fury answered, knowing the Palace well, like few of her other guards. He had served here for years, even before the Dusk’s Guard reformed. He was also of noble birth, while most of Luna’s servants were of middling or lowborn background.

“Which vaults?”

“Ceremonial items, I think,” he replied, searching his memory. “I’ve never been inside any of them. Antiques. Still valuable, but… Highness?”

“This way,” Luna commanded her forces down the right hallway. “Be alert,” she warned them. “Do not rush ahead.”

The wound in her back ached, then, resisting her efforts to close it up with magic. She cursed the changelings. Their poison had been bad enough. Their weapons were well designed to defeat magical healing as well. Not that it ultimately mattered, even if this particular body died. She was certain the Luna with the poison in her was already gone. What mattered most was really getting her guards out of the Palace now that the infiltrators had been revealed and destroyed. That and… maybe… looking into this new mystery.

A few turns later, and the mystery deepened.

“Clear…” “C-clear.”

“By the night,” Fury whispered, his body tensing enough that Luna could feel the change in him.

“Most interesting,” Luna said, narrowing her eyes.

There was a hole on the wall up ahead.

A hole, normally, would not be much of a surprise. A strong earth pony could kick a hole in even a solid wall. This one was not just solid stone; it was reinforced by iron bars within the masonry, all to no avail. The hole itself was not the ragged and messy result of a kick either. It almost looked like it had been melted through. The edges of the hole flickered and twinkled with residual magic.

“Did a unicorn do this?” Fury wondered, coming to some of the same conclusions she had, even at a glance. “Princess, perhaps you should not…”

Luna eased herself off his back, staggering towards the hole.

Just beyond it lay what her nephew would probably jokingly refer to as an abattoir. Most ponies would just call it a slaughterhouse. The room beyond the hole was clearly a changeling holdout of some sort. The walls had been painted in their vile wax and there were a hoof-full of stasis cocoons. Half were still empty. Half had been violently ripped open.

Slain changelings covered the floor and walls in various degreed. It was a scene Luna did not relish describing elsewhere. The sight of it caused her no particular concern, personally, but her guards did look on in worry and disgust. Luna had to keep from sighing. For all their courage, bravery and dedication, her Night Guards were still Equestrian. They were still ponies. This unsettled them. They had overcome the natural and proper inhibition ponies had against violence or even killing, but this…?

“Remain outside until I summon you,” Luna ordered, and her guards gladly did as she wished.

Holding her side with one hoof, Luna paused at the edge of the hole in the wall. Lowering her eyes to the edge, she forced her free hoof away from her midsection and over the sundered masonry. This was no ordinary unicorn magic. It almost looked like… aether? But that was impossible. Nopony in the modern era could control aether. Even in ancient times, it only responded to a select few. To even call that “control” of the primal element of magic from beyond the veil was being generous. A weapon or artifact using aether, however…? That was within both the capabilities and inclinations of modern ponykind.

Gingerly cresting the hole and entering the changeling strong room, Luna glanced over the fallen. All changelings. All of the dead were changelings, except one. Moving slowly towards the one Equestrian among them, a battered and beaten Royal Guard, Luna was a little shocked to see the prone figure take a breath.

He was alive!

Not just alive. Could it be that this pony had been rescued by whatever blasted a hole in the wall? Luna turned briefly to the cocoons that had been opened. Each one had the top-half ripped front ripped off. There were more Royal Guards, one in each cocoon. They were unconscious… but breathing, too. The fact that all the changelings here had been mercilessly destroyed and all the guards set free… it looked more and more like a rescue. But by who? And why had their rescuer just left them here to fend for themselves?

There was one way to find out.

Luna stood over the unconscious guard, the only one who hadn’t been cocooned. Nuzzling him, she confirmed that he was both unconscious and sleeping. He was the only one who may have been awake when whatever happened here, happened. The truth of it was locked in his dreaming mind. Fortunately, she was the one mare with just the key needed to get at this knowledge.

“Show me, dreamer,” Luna whispered, lowering her horn to the unconscious guard’s forehead. “What happened here? Who…?”

She flinched, finding the memory. It was right on the surface, too, but far from clear. The guard had been dragged in by the changelings. Kicked. They wanted him weak and hurting so there would be less resistance to putting him in the cocoon. At that point, things became fuzzy. So much was a blur. Then…

And then the blast, and…

“Darkness and starlight,” Luna whispered, opening her eyes.

Darkness and starlight? What could it mean? Just what was going on?

(50)

Losing the Daylight

A fat droplet of mineral-laden water fell to the floor, but ended up splashing against a serrated foreleg studded with cruel spines and barbs. The leg belonged to Queen Sarai, mother and master of the Zilant Hive of changelings, and the droplet evoked a wince like few blows could. The Queen’s almond eyes squinted in the lack of light, the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing on edge. Her companion had led her far from the Sunkissed Desert; far from the rolling, merciless savannahs her children had hunted, far from what had been home and the lands of her upbringing in which she had felt safe and secure.

Chrysalis, unlike Sarai, did not seem to mind the dank cave they now meandered through. The moisture from wet stone overhead trickled down onto her smooth shoulders and large, round head – her features and the features of her Greens childlike to Sarai and most Zilant – and ran through the limp green membranes that were her mane and tail. Her eyes were wide and watchful, but not afraid or even uneasy. She seemed, if anything, anxious to get where they were going and fascinated by what she saw along the way. Chrysalis would be, Sarai supposed. They were close to their destination, now, or so the Queen of the Biscione insisted. Sarai was neither so sure, nor so convinced she even wanted this mad quest to succeed.

Their escort trudged ahead, leading them on, deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth. It was a strange creature, like nothing Sarai had seen before in her native land. It was a beast of these westernly lands in what Chrysalis and a few zebra traders called the “New World.”

Instead of confronting the Inkanyamba with their combined forces, as Sarai had hoped… especially after seeing how Chrysalis’ swarm slaughtered her own in open battle… they had gone back to the coast. They should have swiftly turned on the hated Yellows who dominated all other changelings and were at the root of so much strife. It was a vengeance long coming and long deserved! Instead, back at the coast of the glittering sea, Chrysalis and her swarm began building. Building! As settled zebra do! What kind of changelings built things?!

Sarai sniffed disdainfully but kept her feelings private.

Their century of exile had made the Bisicone strange and made them adapt strange ways. They built walls of wax and wood and metal rods; they smelted steels and used foreign magic. They did this on the coast where they had first appeared, and for the first time, Sarai beheld their ships. Huge beasts, they were, like wooden whales to cross the stormy sea from Old World to New. Equestrian ships, she had heard. Some of the crew there were not changelings, but ponyfolk, a few like zebra, but others with wings like birds or long horns like rhinos. Or like the Bisicone themselves. While the Greens constructed some sort of… port or harborage… on the coast to set anchor, Chrysalis took her new ally back west on enchanted winds.

Weeks had finally led them here, to this warren of dank, dark, disgusting, claustrophobic caves, to be led around by some strange half-blind beast. Sarai trilled unhappily, craning her neck when their escort paused to scratch itself on the rump with a meaty claw…or claw-like paw. The itch sufficiently scratched, it shuffled forward again. The spear it carried over its shoulder swayed back and forth behind it. It was no ordinary spear, however, like Sarai had seen in Tanzebra. This one had a large, gleaming metal tip that was spear-point, axe-head, and cruel meat-hook all in one. Some sort of hybrid spear? The hook looked especially dangerous, like it could find the gaps in even her chitin armor.

“How much farther, if I may ask?” Chrysalis was polite, as she had often been in their trek.

“Mmmrm. Not much,” the dull beast grumbled. Sarai got a look at its squat, canine face. It scratched its rump again, near the base of a stubby tail, and resumed walking. Or leading, supposedly. Sarai suspected it was either lost and walking in circles or leading them into a dead end and trap. Any minute she expected it would break into a run as the ceiling came crashing down, the tons of rock burying the two foolish Queens alive. Sarai cursed inwardly. The gods did not create changelings to live in caves!

“I am ill at ease,” Sarai finally gave voice to her reservations. “These warrens go on and on without end… or rhyme or reason. Where is this creature leading us?”

“Our guest is leading us to his mother,” Chrysalis replied, smiling confidently. “I know you don’t like caves, Sarai, but I will need you with me.”

The Red Queen trilled again, her mandibles twitching. “Yes. So I have heard.”

“Take heart. It won’t be long now.”

“Won’t be long until what, I wonder? These caves are not natural.”

“No, they’re not,” Chrysalis agreed, and Sarai stood up straighter in surprise. “Because,” the Green Queen continued, grinning and gesturing with her hooves. “Any minute now, we will get to the end of the cave and see a mouth full of teeth and realize we are – in fact – inside the belly of the beast already!” She mimicked the scene by inching her hooves closer together. “Followed by a mad rush to escape as the huge jaws slowly close! Then out we go, into the open, while the monster snaps at our tails!”

Sarai gaped for a moment at her fellow Queen. “W-what? Such a thing can’t be!”

Chrysalis tittered, holding a hoof up to her mouth as she laughed. “A joke, Sarai! The look on your face was too much to resist!”

Sarai growled low in her throat and stalked forward a little faster to remain ahead of Chrysalis. “Inventing such a frightful tale… to scare me, when you know I hate caves? I won’t forget this.”

“There is no need to be so deathly serious,” Chrysalis insisted, trotting up to keep pace. “A little laughter can help you overcome your fears, I have learned. And as for the story, it was actually no invention of mine. It came from a book.”

“A book?”

“’Daring Do and the Empire Strikes Back.’ One of my favorites. It was also made into a radio-play. In the story, Daring Do and this roguish smuggler are--”

“More of your scribblings,” Sarai realized and shook her head.

“I’ll let you borrow a copy from me once you’ve learned to read,” Chrysalis promised.

“I am learning,” Sarai replied, and it was grudging. “But I see little in these marks on paper you love so much.”

“Writing, paper, books... you will learn to appreciate these things, in time, as I have,” Chrysalis lectured, and not for the first time, to those changelings from the Old World who did not know of such concepts. “They are marks of civilization. They are tools of great power. Great power, Sarai. Some ponies say the quill is mightier than the lance.”

“From what I’ve seen, your ‘written word’ has the power to burn and keep me warm on a cold night,” the Red Queen hissed, but had no interest in another argument.

All the damned Biscione could read and write in the Equestrian fashion, she had learned on the trip between continents. Every single one of them! It was strange and un-natural, un-changeling-like and un-healthy, just like this horrible cave!

As if reading her mind, Chrysalis dropped the subject and told her, “Besides, you’re right: not only is this cave unnatural, it isn’t a cave at all.”

“Oh?”

“Look at it,” she asked her fellow queen, and ran a hoof along the curving sides of the cave-wall. “Look below you, above you, around you. No cave is circular, and no natural cave has such smooth walls. This is a tunnel.”

“A tunnel?” Sarai looked around with her flexible, segmented neck, in a way Chrysalis could not. Up, down, behind. “What sort of creature can make such a tunnel?”

“The kind of creature I want fighting for me,” Chrysalis answered, both honest in her desires and evasive in her details.

“Here,” their guide grumbled, gesturing around a bend in the tunnel.

Walking past him, or her, or it, the two Queens were treated to a breath-taking sight. The tunnel led to a spectacular underground grotto. Sparkling streams of waver cascaded down rough, rocky walls thick with green and red vegetation. Cracks provided similar streams of light through jagged slants in the ceiling high above, bathing the grotto in an eerie glow. Dozens of other holes were punched in the walls, as well, Sarai couldn’t help but notice.

They stepped down a smooth ramp and onto the floor of the grotto, heading towards a great pool in the center. By ‘they’ it was more accurate to say Chrysalis led and Sarai followed. A few more of the armed and armored bipedal canines milled around the lair, two of them tending to leathery satchels. Changeling nymphs or even grubs were bundled inside, Sarai guessed. It was hard to tell from a distance, but the smell was in the air. The temperature and humidity of the grotto was, despite the strangeness, what she herself sought out when the time was ripe to brood. If this was a nest, it was a sparse one and an otherworldly one… far removed from the muddy spawning grounds of the Zilant.

A “New World” this was, indeed, and this land was at the very fringes of it.

“Make no sudden moves that could be perceived as hostile,” Chrysalis whispered. “We are very much surrounded on all sides.”

Sarai had already guessed as much from the movement in those wall-burrows. “If you have led us to our deaths, I will curse you with my last breath.”

“Have some faith,” Chrysalis suggested, grinning again without a trace of fear. She trotted confidently towards the central pool.

As they neared the edge of the water, ringed by stones like a shrine, bubbles broke the surface. The two visiting Queens paused at the water’s edge. Something large moved beneath the water. A painted frog croaked and swam away from the crown of bubbles that disturbed the amphibian’s Lilly pad. After a few seconds, the crown of bubbles parted and a figure began to emerge.

A small, lithe changeling rose out of the water, amid a trio of wavy black tentacles. Brown streams colored her chitin around her stunted forelegs, crossed in prayer over her chest and upper torso. Like Sarai, she seemed to prefer to stand upright, but this Brown Queen was far thinner than either of the mothers Red or Green. Only her long, slim upper body crested the surface to float slowly towards her peers. Sarai privately wondered how well she could even see them, with her squinted, weak-looking eyes, unaccustomed to the light of the surface world. Strange, sharply angled jewelry hung from her ears and neck and beaded through her wispy brown mane.

The Queens repeated the Royal Ritual, sniffing one another in a manner reminiscent of a kiss on the cheek. First, the Brown One met Chrysalis, and then she did the same with Sarai. This stranger creature was genuinely a Changeling Queen, despite her appearances. The smell was there. She had the Royal Jelly that made a changeling a Queen and a Mother.

“Chrysalis of Biscione, you have sent me many gifts to sate my desires and dispatched children to visit My Greatness with… words instead of weapons,” the Brown Queen stated, beginning their conversation as their host. “I, Tlanextli, Queen of the Underworld, shall restrain mighty Mictlantecuhtli the Abyssal Devourer and entertain your humble request for an audience!”

‘Quite the voice on her,’ Sarai couldn’t help but think in annoyance. ‘Tlanextli, ‘Queen of the Underworld?’ And here I am, content with Throat Slasher and Bloodletter. I didn’t even know there was another hive overseas… and if they are changelings, why aren’t any of them in disguise? I thought those bipeds to be their hosts, but…’

“Mighty Tlanextli,” Chrysalis boldly omitted the ‘queen’ part, a fact Tlanextli noticed given the slight curl of her lip. “The gifts I sent you are only a taste of what I can offer you beyond these caves and beyond this wasteland. Your hunger, and the hunger of your Mictlantecuhtli, is without compare…”

“Your flattery is nonetheless true,” Tlanextli admitted with an arrogant chuckle.

“…as such, I wish to invite you to my feast,” Chrysalis continued without missing a beat due to the interruption. “All changelings will be there, and we will eat and drink our fill. You simply have to be there. You must join us.”

A dark and terrible look passed over Tlanextli’s frail features.

“A… feast?” she asked, intrigued. She glanced over at Sarai, tempted just a bit more by curiosity. “Tell me more, Chrysalis. I do love feasts.”

“You’re beautiful!”

“I love to make new friends!”

“Exter-min-aaaa…tt…e…”

The heavily damaged alicorn mannequine sputtered as it fell apart, puffs of pink flame spurting out of its damaged mouth as it ambled forward on three of four legs. Falling onto its face, it whined and finally deactivated. The two remaining ponyquins, still animated by the Princess’s magic, continued to stomp around the center of the Crystal Hall, taking potshots at any changelings that entered their field of view.

Keeping out of sight, and grimacing at the charred body of the last changeling courier that had been sent on her mission, one changeling managed to find what she was looking for. The scent trail was still fresh. Now it was just a matter of escaping.

“Spectacular!” one of the alicorn mannequines cheered, firing off her killer pink beam. “My wings are so pretty!”

The drone silently cursed not only the pony Princess, but the changeling who had left her report in such a Queen-forsaken horrific drop-spot. What had that mucus-for-brains been thinking? Her carelessness had already gotten the Queen only knew how many changelings killed.

Biting down on the report, the drone waited for just the right moment to slink off.

Only when she was far from the two alicorn mannequines did she feel safe to take to the air. It was a long trip around, but at least it was devoid of any pink beams or balls of fire. Stopping near a large marble statue, also of the same darn alicorn Princess, the drone paused to catch her breath. Looking up at the stone edifice, she could almost imagine it suddenly coming to life and stomping her flat. Finding a less intimidating spot near an abandoned café, she rested for a moment.

Curious, and seeing no harm in it, she also took a little peek at what was in the folded paper.

A 9 5 0 0 A

Ambush failed. All Targets Remain.

Continuing towards Wireless Broadcasting Tower.

Recommend either greater application of force in future or demolition of radio tower.

“There’s an ID code, but it isn’t even encrypted,” the drone chittered to herself, folding the letter back up. It sounded important, though. She made double time to get it back to their Princess. She wasn’t an alicorn, but she’d know what to do. Even if Princess Exuvia didn’t, one of the Queens would. Taking another deep breath, she took off and into the smoke-choked and embattled air above Canterlot.

Through a pair of goggles, a stern faced and pegasus guardsmare watched the changeling fly away, highlighted by a field of bright blue. Even as it vanished into the distance, the spot of azure light remained behind like a faint trail, making it easy to track. The guardsmare snorted, a little impressed that the plan had worked.

A second guardsmare crouched low next to her. Though normally wearing the uniform and crimson blazon of Lord Brass’ Terre Rare guard, this assignment called for inconspicuousness and deniability. To this effect they had both discarded their normal attire for the duration of the mission. It was just as well. Unlike almost all of Brass’ guardsmares, they were normal-sized ponies, not big, cold-eyed Amazonian murder-machines.

“It worked?” the other mare asked. “I hate to think we’ve been waiting here all this time for nothing.”

“It worked,” the first replied, “just as Lady Eunomie said it would.”

The sans-goggles guardsmare grunted in acknowledgement and rested her head between her hooves. “I don’t like all this waiting. I wish Lord Brass was with us again.”

“We all do,” the first mare agreed, raising the goggles off her eyes and into the tangle of purple that was the bangs of her mane. “We must have faith in Lady Eunomie and Lady Euporie.”

“We don’t even know what Lady Euporie is doing. Or even where she is.”

“Yes, and those who work for Lady Euporie don’t know where Lady Eunomie is or what we’re doing.”

“Slinking about in rubble is the answer.”

“Gathering intelligence is the answer,” the first corrected her comrade and retrieved a paper scroll from beneath her right wing. “We’ll head back to the safehouse as soon as I finish my event report.”

“Hey…you remember when Lord Brass had those changelings incinerated, right?”

Unfurling the scroll, the first guardsmare started to write with pencil-in-mouth. Still, she was able to respond. “We were all there, so, yes, I remember. Hard to forget something like that. Why?”

“Do you think... maybe we… that we could’ve done something to…”

“They were the enemy.” The first mare hissed, interrupting her comrade, the pencil almost falling from her mouth. “Don’t feel sorry for them. Or any of the ones here, either. They aren’t like us. Remember: there’s only us and them. No middle ground.”

“You’re right, of course. Orders are orders.” The supporting guardsmare sighed and shook her head, watching as the mare with the goggles wrote something down on the paper. “What’s the point of doing that now, anyway? Lady Eunomie is out with Lady Sparkle and the others. She won’t be able to read it until after we all get back home.”

The first mare continued writing her brief report. “Like you just said: orders are orders. We do as we’re told.”

Placing the quill down into the inkwell, Alpha Brass put aside one sheet of paper and slid a second out in front of him. It had been kind of Antimony to leave him with pen and paper to record his thoughts on. Sitting behind the neat wooden desk in his private magical prison, enclosed by shimmering magical barriers on every wall, the floor and even the ceiling, he found it hard to complain about the amenities. As befitted a pony of his rank, his cell was well furnished and his needs well cared for.

The stack of paper, though, that was most appreciated. It would have been degrading to pretend to be writing on the floor like a madpony in an asylum, all to get what updates from the field trickled his way. Then again, Antimony’s rigid belief in how her family should be treated with dignity – regardless of her own strong personal feelings or animosity – made a cell with a pen and papers a foregone conclusion. Even if it had not been provided from the get-go, Alpha Brass felt confident he could have simply asked for it, as he had asked for a change of wine, zap apple cider, and a six-thirty PM three-course meal.

There were precious few things one could count on, in this chaotic world, but his baby sister remained as predictable as clockwork. Just as he had known her reaction to his letter in sending her to Ponyville. Just as he had known, from the start, that she would never admit her defeat to Chalice in the Sister’s Duel. Antimony’s sense of honor meant she had to respond, and she was the sort who only knew how to respond in one way. Not that she couldn’t see alternatives; just that the code she lived by demanded she dismiss those alternatives and do what was ‘right.’ Brass scoffed.

Words appeared backwards on the sheet of paper, ink moving of its own accord. What one distant pony wrote on the front was repeated here, on the back, due to the power of his magical seal. Reading the newest addition to the tangle of different hoofwriting styles on the note, he allowed himself a small smile, his thoughts drifting away from his sister to another remarkable and talented unicorn mare.

Twilight Sparkle.

According to the latest report, she was well, unharmed, and very close to the Wireless Tower after crossing half the city of Canterlot. Eunomie was with her, of course, and supervising things as well as he’d expected. Twilight Velvet continued to give their position away, meaning at least one more attempted ambush, probably at the tower itself. Very good. It would be certain to end up destroyed at the end of the day, either by changelings, by Velvet, or by Eunomie herself. Overall, everything was going quite well. As he had come to expect, Eunomie had not let him down. He had no doubt that she had the Twilight situation and numerous others well in hoof.

He didn’t even have to be present, either for Twilight Sparkle’s adventure or for anything else.

Euporie was already ready and literally chomping at the bit to be unleashed. He didn’t need to read a report to guess at that. She had already tested her amplified magic on that village in the Frontier, provoking the skirmish between Buffalo and Equine. It had been a purely physical skirmish ponies should have had no chance of surviving, much less winning, yet the results had spoken for themselves. Her job was much easier than Eunomie’s… her setup in Canterlot was just a matter of unpacking a few items. There was nopony to babysit, no spy to feed information to, no convoluted plan.

All Euporie had to do was wait.

The potential problem was that Euporie hated waiting around. Alpha Brass tapped his hoof on the desk, mildly worried about that fact. The biggest worry at present was definitely his sweet little hedonist of a step-daughter jumping the gun. Euporie did not always do as she was told, he had learned, especially when she wanted to impress him with her initiative. Initiative and creativity were certainly admirable traits, but so was patience. Euporie, hopefully, would remember that and wait until the time was ripe.

Of the two other conspirators in their little group… Cadance had to have escaped by now, though that operation was almost entirely in the dark as far as he knew. His only real source of intelligence was from the captive Princess herself. Lyra had been inserted into the bridesmaids as planned, billed as the weakest of the group and thus the least likely to end up at the wedding fighting Celestia. It was in Cadance’s hooves whether she used Miss Heartstrings to affect her escape.

All he could do was to provide the means of her escape. Picking a window of opportunity was left to her. He doubted the young alicorn could do much against Chrysalis herself, at least in a direct confrontation, but she would undoubtedly be a costly distraction, and if she accomplished more…? He was not averse to it. Princess Cadance, as much as anypony, had earned the right to strike back at her tormentors. Brass wished her luck. Miss Heartstrings as well.

Lastly, there was no word from Chalice, yet… which was mildly disconcerting. Her job in the chaos and confusion of the immediate wedding fallout was simple but absolutely critical, not to Euporie’s plans, or Eunomie’s plans, not to Cadance’s plans, but his. Then again, this was Chalice… and her assignment did not call for subtlety or doing anything more than breaking down some doors in the palace and finding a certain something. She would not fail. Not at tasks like this.

A momentary flicker in the magical walls of his prison prompted Brass to glance up from his work.

“Nice of you to drop by,” he said, the small, placid smile still on his face from before, “mother.”

“Alpha.”

Twinkling Star Light wore a white labcoat over her white natural coat, partly concealing her body, but there was no mistaking the first-lady of the Terre Rare clan and Duchess of Prance. Especially not with her unique spectrographic goggles resting over her forehead, the lenses and gears and switches of it sticking out like a mess of glass and piping. Her natural, violet eyes scanned the walls of his prison.

“So this is where you were hiding. This cell was meant to contain extra-dimensional entities,” she stated, her attention briefly passing over the four unicorn mages who powered the prison. They were Antimony’s loyalists, but for the moment, rendered senseless. Each one stared forward, mute as statues.

“When your father had me recalibrate it to hold a pony, like Twilight Sparkle, for example, I never expected Antimony would appropriate it to hold you, instead,” she continued, facing him fully again and reading him as only a mother could. “More curious still is you letting yourself get caught.”

Alpha Brass shrugged, folding up his papers and giving his mother his full attention.

“We both knew she would retaliate in some fashion,” he replied. “Tell me, mother. I haven’t seen my little sister in some time now. Is she well? Has she left the Lion’s Den?”

“Off to relieve Canterlot,” Star Light answered, plainly. “The city is besieged, or so I hear.”

“The Princess herself has fallen,” Alpha Brass stated in the same calm, leisurely tone, “or so I hear.”

Star Light’s brows actually furrowed just a little at that news. She was, after all, a former student and apprentice of said immortal Princess. It had always been a remote possibility that she would come to her old mentor’s aid, despite her frequent distractions and bi-polarity. Brass wondered in that moment just what was running through his mother’s mind. Was it fear? Had she really considered just what it would take to destroy those she loved most, as he had? Could she run those scenarios through her mind without emotional bias or investment, as he could?

It seemed unlikely.

“Princess Celestia is not easily beaten,” his mother finally said, her dismissive tone never quite reaching her eyes. “She is even less easily killed.”

“Yes, I’m sure she’ll pull through,” Brass replied, folding his hooves over the desk in front of him. “Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but how did you find me here?”

Twinkling Star Light briefly rolled her eyes.

“Oh, that…” She pointed a dainty white hoof in his direction. “In case of an emergency, I injected all of my children with a solution of magical phosphorus isotope. Ninety percent of it was filtered out after the first month, but approximately ten percent of the isotopes from the original injection were incorporated into your bone marrow, giving off a very faint but still measurable signal that I can track across large distances.”

Despite his well cultivated demeanor, Alpha Brass felt his features shift slightly in shock. As the possibilities behind this revelation truly set in, the tremor of surprise and fear only grew, roiling beneath the surface of his façade. Bare hints of it reflected in his turquoise eyes: the imperceptibly widening pupils, the twisted emotions threatening to bubble to the usually placid or amiable surface.

If what his mother claimed was true… then she could have found him at the Hanging Gardens just as easily as she had found him now, here. Magical barriers clearly did not work to hide the radiation signal. It would have been as simple as confirming his location at a given time and then cross-referencing that with her spell. Alpha Brass found he needed a second to think and to keep himself composed. Not only hadn’t his mother done that, even if she had detected the irregularity in the Gardens’ location, it was something he could have salvaged. There was no need to be troubled, not over what could have been or what almost was, because it simply had never been.

“I see,” he said, softly. His racing thoughts slowed and the mask returned.

Still, there had been a slip. It was not a great change in expression, but it was clearly enough for his mother to notice. She laughed softly, using her hoof to cover her mouth, a slightly unhinged “ehehehe” that was both playful and a little terrifying.

“So, you injected radioactive phosphorus into your infant foals,” he stated, for clarification. “What am I saying?” Brass shrugged helplessly, remembering who he was dealing with. “Of course you would. So all this time, we’ve had radioactive material inside us?”

“If you had ever been foalnapped, you’d have thanked me,” Star Light answered and waved her hoof chidingly. “Besides, it was perfectly safe! I did the same to your father and I tested the formula thoroughly when I was pregnant with your older sister. We… we…”

The mad scientist-Duchess of Prance paused mid-explanation, narrowing her eyes.

“Wait a moment,” she said, more slowly. “You weren’t really concerned about your safety, were you? You know I would never use untested magic on you. No.” She tilted her head slightly, examining her only son. “I know that look. You’re more worried that I could track you down at all. You must have expected I would find you eventually, but not how.”

Alpha Brass closed his eyes and didn’t dare open them. “A miscalculation on my part,” he admitted.

“Alpha,” his mother said, adding a bit of parental reprimand to her tone, “Little Twilight alluded to some trouble in your marriage to Olive Branch. Is this related? Just where have you been, that you don’t want me tracking you down?”

“Nowhere important,” he lied, and was for once obvious enough in his attempted prevarication that Star Light’s expression darkened. He blamed himself. He really did try not to lie if he didn’t have to. It was better simply to distort the already existing truth. He was much better at that. Opening his eyes again, he tried to change the topic. His mother would no doubt track him now, if he left. Her curiosity would demand it. This was turning out more troublesome than he had originally thought.

“You’re here for my blood and body, are you not?” he asked. “To help bring father back?”

“I am,” Star Light replied, a hypodermic needle rising up alongside her. “Some clumsily, foalish, inept pony--” she all but spat the words. “--contaminated my stock of circulation solution. The very thing your father needs most at this stage in his recovery. What a coincidence that it would happen now, of all times?”

“Coincidences by nature seem statistically improbable,” Alpha Brass reasoned, weathering his mother’s angry glare. “Did you catch the poor pony responsible?”

“I did,” Star Light’s response was strangely light and airy, given her scowl.

“You weren’t too hard on her, I hope. Or him.”

His mother continued to glare at him through the magical barrier, this time in silence. Of course, he knew that she knew, and she knew that he knew. It didn’t mean he had to actually admit to it, however. That was just how the game was played. Though, granted, Twinkling Star Light hated schemes, preferring the simplicity of science and magic over the fickle vagaries of high society. Twilight Sparkle was the more adaptable of the two astute academics in that respect.

Still, he mused, this was not the timing he had expected. In all honesty, he had anticipated being locked up another day, maybe even more. He was even comfortable being confined for the entirety of the crisis in Canterlot. Being free was as much a liability as it was a luxury at this point. He knew who had done the deed, of course, but not the reason why. Such was the caveat of being so reliant on one’s well cultivated subordinates. There was always the unexpected element of surprise.

It was somewhat tempting to just remain here but…

Alpha Brass found he wanted to be there, to see it with his own eyes. Not just Chrysalis’ death and suffering, which he had a vested interest in. Not just the crushing of the changeling species and their consignment into oblivion. There was also her. He wanted to see her, and what she would become. Would she end up like the others? Or would she be something truly special? Or would she die? Despite his normal caution, he wanted to be there. It was a strange impulse. One he had trouble placing or reconciling. It was an emotional, self-destructive impulse, his rational mind insisted. Why was it so hard to just dismiss?

‘Twilight Sparkle…’

“Suffice to say, as a result of the ‘unfortunate accident’ here,” Star Light finally found her voice again. “I had to throw out the entire contaminated stock and look for a replacement. For a normal pony, this would be as easy as visiting the hospital in Ponyville.”

“Mm,” Brass murmured. For a normal pony.

“Or even poaching some from a close relative.”

“Indeed.”

“In the case of your father, however,” Star Light considered, the edge of her hypodermic needle scraping threateningly along the magical prison barrier, leaving purple sparks in its wake. “I needed blood with the activated Curse of Arsenic, which even I don’t possess or have the means to synthesize. Only a main branch member would do, so it was fortunate I had four loving foals to choose from. But… in another strange coincidence, I soon realized that Chalice was in Canterlot. Somewhere in the Royal Palace, I believe. Polished Jewel just so happens to be pregnant, with a mild case of anemia no less, and can’t possibly donate… and Antimony…”

Alpha Brass’s expression remained the same as it had been all throughout his mother’s explanation of events. And Antimony?

“Antimony is the least compatible of all of you,” his mother concluded, “due to the gorgon mutation in her eyes. That leaves only you. But then,” she added, off-hoof. “You were always most compatible, Alpha. You were always our first choice.”

‘Our first choice,’ he thought, not fond of the compliment.

Both mother and father had said the same when they reviewed his marriage prospects, it being clear by then that there would be no Blueblood heiress born in this generation. There would be no Princess for the clan’s perfect little Prince; best to settle for a Duchess instead, one three times your age. You are our first choice. It was a true honor.

‘I am your first choice in meat,’ Alpha Brass thought, but never let the vinegar seep out into his placid outward smile or soft spoken words. ‘I am the prime rib and choice steak of my noble family, to be haggled over and served and traded for favor and position and power… you learned one right thing from us, Chrysalis, in all our years together. We ponies all just meat. Just like what your mother took for herself on my wedding bed, telling me to enjoy it, that she could be anyone I wanted. That I had every choice but to say ‘no.’ I’m no exception to the rule. I was her first choice, too.’

“I’m only happy to help, of course,” Brass said, getting up from behind his desk to trot over to the shield-wall that separated him from his mother. “But you have a problem: as an intrinsic part of me possessing my magic, my blood won’t be allowed through this magical prison any more than I am. In part or in whole, I simply can’t leave.”

“Alpha. My son. Who do you think built this in the first place?” Star Light asked, twirling the needle around in a field of her magic. “If there was a way out it wouldn’t be a very good prison cell, now would it? No. I’ll just free you and take the blood and tissue I need.”

“And Antimony?” he asked, a little teasingly.

The needle stopped in mid-air, pointing right at him.

Star Light concluded, snorting unhappily. “You clearly don’t seem worried about being imprisoned here or in any particular hurry to escape so, by all means, stay. Or leave. Antimony locked you up to keep you out of her mane, but frankly, that isn’t a concern of mine. Getting your father back on his hooves is what matters to me, above and beyond anything else.”

“Like I said,” Brass repeated, holding out a foreleg as the shields melted away all around him. They ran down into the grooves in the floor like a receding tide. He inhaled the fresh air, but found it no different than it had been inside the cell. A shame. The smell of freedom was no smell at all.

“I’m happy to cooperate,” he assured his loving mother. “I want him to be up and able to see it, after all.”

“See what?” Star Light asked, dabbing a spot on his foreleg with disinfectant gauze.

Alpha Brass’s small smile returned after a momentary slip and fixed firmly in place. “Equestria’s… triumph… of course. With the Princess gone, at least for now, it will fall on us normal ponies and mere mortals to raise the sun and create our own dawn, unlike all those that came before.”

The needle plunged into his foreleg, drawing poisonous Terre Rare blood.

“I’d like all of you to be there to see it with me,” he whispered, turquoise eyes smiling.

It felt good, thinking about what was to come. It felt right. An act of unprecedented heroism necessitated an act of unprecedented terror. It felt like a cosmic balance. Let them see it, and feel it, and live through it… if they lived through it at all.

Global Hawk clutched his reconnaissance folio, as tightly as if his life depended on it.

Tucked protectively under his right wing, the brown parcel was partly concealed from sight by his gunmetal-gray feathers. No matter what, there was no way he planned to risk dropping it, or losing it, or having it taken from him. Not until he had delivered it. This was, without a doubt, the most important mission and the most critical data he had ever gathered in his entire career – no, in his entire life.

Global Hawk swallowed nervously, already flustered by the pair of emotionless Cloudsdale Companions standing implacably to either side of the doors he knew he was about to be invited to enter. They were Cloudsdale’s version of the Royal Guard, and their lineage was even longer than that of their counterparts in the Royal City. The Companions had a darker reputation, too, to go with that esteemed ancestry.

They alone of all pegasi still wore ceremonial bronze muscle cuirasses and intricately enameled Phrygian and Corinthian helmets, just like in the distant past. The helmets also served to hide their faces, leaving only their eyes to peer out from behind the metal. The bronze panoply was rumored to give them an impossible and unnatural control of lightning. Whether that was true or not, it definitely gave them an imposing aspect, like living, breathing statues. Patterns on their cheeks and skullpieces depicted storms, lightning, and fury made manifest. In modern Cloudsdale, Companions did nothing but guard the Congress of Four Winds, enforcing the will of the ruling body of the pegasus community in Equestria. There were only thirty in all and membership was invite-only and for life.

Global Hawk averted his eyes from the pair of Companions, trying to remain less than conspicuous, despite the fact that he was nearly alone in waiting to be allowed inside the chamber. The other pony present seemed less than intimidated, but that didn’t make it any easier on the recon scout. The presence of a genuine celebrity reclining on a cloud-bench nearby – shamelessly munching messily on a half-full dish of pie – only made him more nervous. Two Companions and a Wonderbolt. It was lofty company.

He turned his eyes on the bronze door between the two Companions. Like most pegasus ponies, Global Hawk had been through these great vaulted doors before, just once. As a little colt, his class had gone here on a field trip to learn about pegasus civics. It had been empty then.

It wasn’t empty now.

The Congress of the Four Winds was in progress, and nopony was permitted to enter except with permission from one of the Weather Lords. Especially not some lowly recon flyer straight out of flight school! The bronze inlaid doors opened with a creak and the softly spoken command came to enter. Global Hawk nodded and did so, keeping his eyes tactfully lowered.

Once inside, with the door closing behind him, he dared to look up slightly. The first thing he noticed was nopony else but THE Spitfire of the Wonderbolts, standing rigidly at attention to his right. Global Hawk quickly tried to emulate her perfect posture, striking a good military pose. Another pony, a stallion in a military uniform, also stood nearby. The black clip on his wing indicated he was a spook from the secretive Department of Weather and War. A uniformed aide soon took his folio, and Global Hawk waited to be excused. He waited… but the order to leave never came.

He glanced up some more.

The first thing he saw, which he remembered well from his visit here as a young colt, was the five-times life-size golden statue of Pegasus and Equus. Pegasus was the only constellation worshipped by all ponies in the most ancient times as the Mother of Ponykind. This depiction of her was of a beatific, physically perfect pegasus mare, her great wings spread like the canopy of the sky itself. Clutched to her side was her foal, Equus, sometimes an earth pony, sometimes a unicorn, sometimes an alicorn. Among pegasi, Equus was naturally another pegasus, though the alicorn-Equus was also very popular. Nopony minded this contradiction. Equus was all-ponies of all genders, and defied true categorization. The appearance was merely one of taste and tradition.

Surrounding the base of Pegasus’ statue were metal bars. Each one, Global Hawk knew, bore a name and a date. Each one came from the melted down weapons of an enemy vanquished by the pegasus race over two thousand years and more of history. A hundred bars had been brought to Equestria by Commander Hurricane to preserve their single greatest cultural accomplishment. They did not bring books or telescopes or flags or heraldry. What was most important was to preserve the pride of the pegasus nation in the new world. To those hundred bricks, almost another hundred had been added over the last thousand years, most in the first two centuries of Equestria’s difficult and violent colonization and the EUP Era immediately after Luna’s banishment.

In a curved balcony behind Pegasus, overlooking the shrine, were four ponies. Each had a hollowed seat that none other could take. Not a throne, but a simple seat. A pearl-white banner hung from in front of each private box, bearing the old sigils for ‘North,’ ‘South,’ ‘East,’ and ‘West.’

The four elders murmured quietly amongst themselves as they reviewed Global Hawk’s folio.

“Scout,” one of them asked in a motherly tone, and Global Hawk realized he was being addressed directly. “These creatures are shape-changers. Identity-thieves? You saw this power of theirs in action?”

“Y-yes, Lord South!” Global Hawk answered, loudly and clearly.

“How many are patrolling the perimeter of the city’s shield?”

“When I made my pass… I counted at least twelve squads, with two wings of four flyers in each. Many more set up base on the mountainside.”

“Wings of fours? Deployment in squads with these numbers? Add this to the other evidence we’ve been presented. It cannot be a coincidence that they use our own operational doctrines against us.” Lord South gestured with her hoof towards her fellow pegasi. “We know Canterlot to have been rife with traitors, including Shining Armor himself, but who else has been helping these creatures, here or abroad? We must not charge forward only to be knifed in the back!”

“Cloudsdale has already been shocked by acts of sabotage all throughout the day,” the elderly Lord West, one of the technically non-military commanders, spoke softly but with great authority. “It will be some time before our own home is completely secure again.”

“All this paints a dire picture.” Lord East, a mare and the youngest of the four, sighed softly. “It is a credit to the ponies of Canterlot that they were somehow able to put up an organized resistance, but according to this, half the city is in ruins. The traitor’s shield is still up, preventing us from inserting operatives in stealth or in small units. Opposition is heavy both inside and outside. Except for the radio broadcasts insisting the wedding is still underway, communications remain completely cut off…”

“Nonetheless, my fellows, we cannot permit an attack on Canterlot to go unopposed,” Lord North took over, his voice the grizzled tone of an old monster-hunter and former Wonderbolt Captain. “It is not only our honor to respond, it is not only our duty to respond, it is our pleasure. What true pegasus shirks or doubts in jumping to the defense of a friend and ally? And Canterlot is no mere friend or ally, she is our sister.”

The assembled Weather Lords murmured, but seemed to agree in principle.

“The situation is also not as dire as it seems.” Lord North stood and walked past his peers, showing them something none at the floor of the chamber could see. “Canterlot fights on, even against impossible odds, tying up vast numbers of the enemy and preventing them from fully fortifying their hold on the mountain. Look at all these gaps! If they can but take the sky harbor, we can park a cloud fort directly on top of it, solidifying our control of the airspace there.”

“What of the outlying areas?” Lord South asked, leaning back in her seat. “Captain Spitfire, on your own initiative, you sent one of your subordinates into an active warzone to gather reconnaissance. Why?”

“It was a judgment call, Lord South!” Spitfire answered without hesitation. “Ponyville is of vital strategic importance.”

“Was of importance,” the graying war mare stressed the past tense.

“It remains so,” Spitfire argued. “Though the town fell very quickly, and damage was heavy, Ponyville has been destroyed a few times over the last few years. It always bounces back. Fortunately, most of the population appears to have been very quickly evacuated outside of the town. Fleetfoot made several passes over the Blueblood manor house, and you can clearly see a large number of powerful barrier shields in place and civilians being herded by the Dove and Cross, a capable Free Company under the employ of the Baroness, Lady Rarity.”

“That would have been some time ago,” South replied in kind, waving one of the recon photos in the air with her hoof. “How long can such a meager redoubt hold up against an enemy force of this size?”

“How did such a large force even materialize so quickly?” Lord East wondered. “Where did they get all these weapons? I understand that many came from the armories and arsenals of Lady Cadenza, but still…”

“My friends and fellows, is Ponyville truly a priority?” Lord West asked. “The elements of harmony aren’t even in the town. All six are in Canterlot. Including your youngest daughter, North, or have you forgotten? Don’t we have bigger problems?”

“The fact that the bugs have pulled together their single largest force to take the citizens of the town implies that they think it is vitally important,” Lord North said, taking his place again at the far left of the quartet. “While surely only a fraction of the overall forces in Canterlot, these photos show a concentrated enemy expedition at least a thousand strong. The town itself was clearly not their objective, as there appears to be little effort being made to hold the position.”

Lord South tapped her lower lip with her hoof. “Then this provides an opportunity for us.”

“Indeed it does,” Lord North replied. “Cruciger’s wardogs are already spreading down from the north. The Wonderbolt reconnaissance shows them engaged in some sort of sapping and digging… it is possible that the enemy is moving their forces underground and out of sight. Other units are cutting through the collapsed metro tunnels. This force is heading to relieve Ponyville.”

“What do you propose, Lords North, South?” Lord West asked. In purely military matters, the West and East lords typically deferred to North and South. In civilian matters, the reverse was true.

“Spitfire, ready your team for heavy combat,” Lord North commanded. “When the opportunity presents itself, when you see a decisive moment, you are to strike the enemy forces from behind. Take out their leader, if they have one. Decapitate their chain of command. Then assist Lord Cruciger or whoever he left in command. I want to know what everypony is after in Ponyville.”

“Yes, sir!” Spitfire barked.

“Until you strike, keep your presence a secret,” Lord South warned. “We do not know who else we can trust.”

“As for the other matters, we are already calling up the reserves…”

“We cannot leave Cloudsdale defenseless. Why not hold back the seventh and eighth of the Territorial Air Guard?”

“We can send the first and second guard on light-kit to immediately support Canterlot at the harbor. We have specialists to bring down the shield, but they’ll need protection, and funneling troops through a small gap like that is a recipe for disaster.”

“There is also the matter of Fillydelphia and Manehattan. How fast can those earth ponies organize to assist?”

“The earth ponies? Oh, I’m sure they’ll send a courier any moment to assure us that they’ve voted to form a committee to elect a chair to head an inquiry on what to do next.”

“More seriously and more pressingly, we must also send another – sterner – warning to Lords Yama and Blueblood that this threat is real. By the Princess, what if that whole incident was manufactured by the enemy?!”

“Ah, Captain,” Lord North only then noticed Spitfire was still at attention and waiting for permission to leave. “Dismissed. Good Winds.”

“Thank you, sir!” Spitfire saluted the four and quickly made her exit. Her pace quickened as she trotted past the two stoic Elite Companions outside the council doors. Light hoofsteps indicated her companion had finally gotten off his lazy butt. And finished his pie.

“Well?” Soarin asked, “How’d it go?”

“I don’t know how Captain Thunderhead handled this kind of thing; my heart feels like it’s about to explode,” Spitfire admitted, and smacked her partner in the chest. “But you better not tell anypony that. Ever. Understood?”

“Absolutely, Captain Hardass!” Soarin grinned, and she rolled her eyes. Not that he needed to hear it, but she was glad he’d come along. Her first meeting with the brassiest of the top brass, and the topic had to be this.

“So,” Soarin wondered aloud, “War?”

Spitfire nodded. “Yeah…” She sounded like she could hardly believe it. “War.”

Princess Instar trotted proudly through the abandoned husk of Ponyville.

The foremost of her mother’s mature daughters, Instar had earned the right to consume more royal jelly than any two of her sisters combined. An almost spitting image of her mother, Instar towered over her lesser drone-sisters, her long legs permitting an easy, confident stride down the cratered main boulevard of the small town. Her India-green mane, just a little darker than her mother’s jungle-green, was kept trimmed short, the membranes carefully cropped to part to either side of her delicate face.

While just a cosmetic change by pony standards, the shameless display of her own individuality was striking among her kin. Instar was the foremost of the entire Biscione Hive sisterhood, and she knew it. Moreover, she never let anyling else forget it.

Flittering up and onto the top of the abandoned town hall, she gazed down at the ranks of changelings marching ahead through the village. Almost all of them had been separated from the Canterlot assault forces for months now, training by themselves in the guise of guardponies and mercenary groups, all while the fair ‘Princess Cadance’ built up their hidden stockpiles of weapons. As such, they were uniquely well equipped and prepared to fight out in the open, to achieve with brute force what could not be taken with guile.

Raising a pair of equestrian-made binoculars to her eyes, she surveyed the last point of resistance.

Blueblood Manor.

The foolish sister who had taken the Prince’s place should have completely undermined its defenses. It should have been a changeling bastion, not an equestrian holdout. Instar quietly cursed the incompetence of the missing ‘Prince Blueblood.’ When she had left to confront the Neighponese, Lady Rarity – not nearly as ‘under control’ as everyling had been led to believe – had taken complete control of the manor household. It had been turned into a fortress on a shallow hillock overlooking the town. That damned mare must’ve been planning for this for weeks.

A buzzing sound preceded the landing of a lesser Biscione Hive changeling alongside her. Instar continued to inspect the battlefield ahead through her glasses. “What news?”

“Princess Ecdysis requests that we move to aid her in securing the mountain,” the drone answered, staring up at her with large, hopeful eyes. “The crimson ponies are attacking us on all fronts, both above and below ground. The dogs are fighting alongside them and they are collapsing our tunnels!”

“Tell Ecdysis to dig more, then,” Instar huffed.

“Almost all of our War Worms have been sent into the city to gather captives and spread terror,” the little changeling argued. “Ecdysis asks only that you come to her aid when you can.”

Princess Instar rolled her bright green eyes.

“I have battles of my own to wage,” she reminded the drone. “Remain by my side for a time, sister, rest your wings, and when you return to Ecdysis, tell her I will gladly aid her… but only after I have secured my own objectives. Until then, I cannot spare a single drone. She will simply have to hold the tunnels as best she can.”

The changeling courier lowered her head in proper obedience, and Instar called over one of her swarm lieutenants. The changeling who landed appeared no outwardly different than the courier or any other drone, except for the black helmet she wore where most drones had none. What was different was a factor only changelings could sense: this drone had the pheromones of command. Though, naturally, she was still far subordinate to a Princess who had supped on the honey of royal jelly.

“Lieutenant,” Princess Instar commanded. “Review the battle before us.”

“As you wish, Great Instar!” The drone bowed quickly, dipping her eyes in respect. “We expected to face resistance in the town, but found it evacuated and heavily booby-trapped. Most of the traps were harmless, but the streets were flooded and turned to mud, making it difficult to move our cannons. We believe all this was to buy time for the town’s evacuation. The entire town is held up inside the manor yonder.”

“Raiding parties were launched to try and disrupt the defenders, but they were quickly repulsed,” the changeling lieutenant explained, pointing up in the air. “Grenadiers were brought in to try and set fire to the building, but they have… they must have multiple shield-casters within. Including a shield type we’ve never encountered before. The outside of the building is covered in ‘bubbles’ that allow the defenders to fire at us from between the gaps with spell and bolt.”

“Attack from the air is suicide,” she concluded. “Even when we pop one of the bubbles, before we can properly exploit the opening it closes up again. Attack from the ground means crossing concentric layers of magical mines and runes, and they have pegasi sortieing to pick off minesweepers.”

“We’ll soften them up with cannon fire and then try again from the air,” Princess Instar vowed. “It may not even come to that. I have another force making an assault from underground even as we speak.” The confident changeling commander and Princess grinned, revealing her prominent fangs. “We’ll take them from below and attack from above in concert.”

“What of the enemy coming down from the north?” The changeling courier asked, and looked up at Instar. “Pardon, Princess, but they threaten all of us...”

“Yes… the Germanes were supposed to have been neutralized,” Princess Instar grumbled. “But we never pinned all our hopes on it. We’ll take the manor here and then receive their attack with open forelegs. I have guns and changelings on every piece of high ground.”

“Except that one,” the courier observed, staring at the shimmering barriers of the Blueblood manor, perched on the highest hill in the land.

“Yes. Except that one. But soon, it will be mine as well, along with everypony inside it.”

Every colt and filly in Ponyville sat silently in the underground panic room attached to the manor’s wine cellar. It was the safest place in the entire building, but it wasn’t soundproof. The distant thud of cannonballs hitting spell shields combined with a steady stream of explosives dropped from high altitude made it impossible to forget that they were under siege, despite the best intentions and preparations of many. The sound of adults yelling and giving orders just a floor up and a growing number of wounded being kept in an adjacent part of the cellar only made it worse.

The board games and toys that had been left in the panic room, clearly intended to keep the young ponies distracted, went completely untouched. Miss Cheerilee had tried for more than an hour to get her students to relax in the cramped quarters of the armored room to little success. None were crying, thank the Princess for small favors, but they were clearly frightened, especially since the attack hadn’t just started, fizzled, and then gone away. It seemed never ending.

The monsters just kept attacking and attacking, over and over, wave after wave.

The pained cry of a pony from outside the room tore her away from her class, and she looked out the open door to see a strong, familiar presence. “Big Macintosh!”

“Cheerilee,” he greeted her, in his usual laconic way. He was carrying a unicorn stallion in a steel cuirass and curved morion helmet: one of the guardponies from the Dove and Cross.

“What’s…? Oh!” Cheerilee gasped as she saw what was wrong. The surface of the unicorn’s horn had split and cracked, and the hole in his helmet it protruded from had melted in place. She turned around and promised her class she would only be gone a moment before helping Macintosh carefully move the body over to the makeshift infirmary.

Nurse Redheart identified the problem at a glance.

“Over here! Over here!” she ordered, pointing to a table that had been brought in from upstairs. The unicorn free companypony hissed in pain as he ended up on his back.

“Couldn’t… keep the shield up…” he whinnied, the most primal sound of pain a pony could make. “My horn… Sweet Princess, I can’t feel my horn…!”

“You’ll be fine!” Redheart assured him, holding him down with her hoof as she gripped a knife between her teeth. “Once we remove the helmet this will start to hurt, but I’ll be as gentle as possible, I promise.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Cheerilee had to ask, though she knew she had to go back to her colts and fillies… all of Ponyville’s colts and fillies, really.

“The unicorns upstairs need to keep their horns hydrated!” Redheart told them, cutting into where the helmet had melted into the horn. She paused only to add, speaking around the hilt of the knife, “I’ve never seen so many cases of magic-burn! Splash them in the face if you have to!”

“Eyup,” Mac replied, and with a hefty hoof he nudged Cheerilee back with him out of the infirmary.

Left standing in the wine cellar between the two rooms, Cheerilee had to ask, albeit it quietly, “Big Macintosh… you’re been up there, right?”

He nodded, looking more haggard than she had ever seen him before.

After seeing the sacrifices of the injured, she almost hated to ask. “Are we… are we going to be okay?”

“Eyup.” It was probably as much an answer as she should have expected, but pondering things for a moment, the stallion of few words spared just a few more, for her sake. “Ain’t nopony up there gonna give up. Even them Neighponese ones.”

Cheerilee nodded warily, heading back to the panic room when the ground rumbled, too low and slow to be the result of an explosion. Nearly stumbling, she caught herself by grabbing onto one of the wine racks. Seeing her in trouble, or maybe driven by earlier curiosity, a couple of her students even peeked outside the room to see what was happening. Cheerilee wasn’t sure herself. Was it an earthquake? That it was happening now… it couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?

One side of the wine cellar suddenly collapsed and a trio of black tentacles shot out, flailing indiscriminately. Cheerilee screamed as one nearly hit her, and then she saw that her companion hadn’t been so fortunate. Big Macintosh had been knocked onto his side by one of the whip-like tendrils. Others knocked free barrels of vintage wine and other spirits. The collapsed end of the cellar deepened as whatever dug it pulled back slightly.

“Zzhzhzhzh!” Changelings immediately poured in through the gap.

“Help!” Cheerilee screamed up at the nearby stairs to the first floor, one of the black tentacles finding her left hindleg and dragging her down. “We’re under attack down here!”

“Miss Cheerilee!” One of her students – Scootaloo, of course – rushed out of the panic room. Grabbing hold of a fallen wine bottle, she tossed it with all her strength towards one of the invading changelings. The bottle cracked open on the creature’s skull, knocking it unconscious. More quickly squeezed past what appeared to be a huge worm to try and press the charge.

“Let go ah Miss Cheerilee!” she heard Apple Bloom yell. “Everypony throw somethin’!”

They were joined by a trio of walking wounded from the infirmary, and then, to her relief, by Big Macintosh, who got back on his hooves and punted an entire wine barrel down at the invaders. The sheer amount of leaking alcohol down in the pit the worm had dug seemed to disorient and sicken the changelings. They staggered and pushed one another forward.

“Enope!” Big Mac yelled, kicking one heavy oak cask down into a cluster of the stunned creatures. “Yer not gettin’ in here!”

It was heroic, but even Cheerilee could see it wasn’t enough. Maybe if they set fire to…

No, what if it spread to the rest of the floor or the rest of the manor?

“Down here, lads! Time to earn your bits!”

To Cheerilee’s relief, their momentary distraction of the enemy had bought enough time. Storming down from the first floor like a tidal wave of metal and muscle were armored earth ponies in steel cuirasses. Heavy metal gauntlets around their legs made a thundering sound as they raced down the stone steps into the basement. The tentacle around Cheerilee’s leg withdrew to try and engage the new threat, but in moments the battle was already joined. The companyponies hit the changelings with a roar that was almost joyful. Maybe seeing their unicorn and pegasus compatriots get all the action had fired them up?

Then the ground began rumbling again, and another wall in the wine cellar began to tremble.

“Macintosh!” Cheerilee called out to him. “Help me get the children upstairs! It isn’t safe down here anymore!”

He nodded, and together they began to herd the colts and fillies back upstairs, Mac taking the rear. The rooms upstairs were cramped – even more cramped than the panic room had been – but with adults. One or two fillies saw their parents and broke off to be with them. Others clearly wanted to do the same, but couldn’t find their parents, spread out as Ponyville’s populace was across the lower floor of the stately mansion.

Cheerilee sighed in exhaustion as she tried to decide what to do next. There was no way they could go back to trying to keep all the foals hidden in the basement now. Even if they just closed the door to the panic room and locked it, they’d be trapped down there. The idea did not sit well with her.

“Miss Cheerilee?” a little voice asked, and she glanced down.

“Thank you for helping me back there, girls,” the out-of-her-element teacher smiled at her three most precocious students. They had been the first to do exactly what she had told them not to do and leave the panic room, all to help her.

“There’s gotta be somethin’ we can do ‘ta help,” Apple Bloom insisted, speaking for her fellow Cutie Mark Crusaders. “Besides,” she added, eyes squinted and more than a little shifty, “maybe if we help out, we might get our you-know-what’s.”

“Not exactly a priority, but it would be nice,” Sweetie Belle decided, nodding eagerly.

“We can totally help!” Scootaloo declared with an over-large grin.

“You three are nuts,” Diamond Tiara pushed her way through her fellow students. “Miss Cheerilee, permission to find the biggest pony in the room and hide behind him?” She didn’t even wait for permission before turning back to add, “Come on Silver Spoon! You can hide next to me, or better yet, in front of me!”

The usually obedient filly shook her head. “S-sorry… I want to help, too… my mom’s the Mayor, so… I kind of feel like I… should help if I can?”

Tiara just stared at her, mouth aghast.

“What!” The rich filly finally managed to blurt out. “Really?!” She hung her head, fighting her own impulse to leave. Her tiny body trembled for a second before she looked back up, defiant. “Fine! Okay! I guess I’ll come, too, if only to keep you blankflanks from messing up and getting us all killed. Somepony has to supervise.”

“Grab some cups of water,” Cheerilee finally told them. “Maybe you can help a little, if you promise to be careful. As for the rest, come with me. We’ll find your parents if we can.”

Princess Instar sucked on her left fang as the news came in.

Failure.

“There were… too many, Great Instar,” the wounded changeling rasped, one wing broken and the other twitching painfully. “They killed our War Worm. We sent in a second wave, and they were repulsed. A third attacked at the same time a fourth made another hole. That worm was also killed. They had flame and steel… and there have to be hundreds of earth ponies in there, all of them armed to the teeth.”

The changeling shook her head in dismay, shuddering at the memory of the battle, but only repeating: “Hundreds… must’ve been hundreds… that’s the only answer…”

“How many times did you attack?” Princess Instar asked, quietly.

The drone lieutenant coughed painfully. “Five. Five times. We attacked five times, Princess.”

“Then attack six times,” Instar recommended, narrowing her eyes at the defiant manor house that stood in the way of her victory. “And if that fails, try seven. Or eight. Or nine! Or twelve! Get me that cellar, lieutenant. Alive or dead, I don’t expect to see you again with more bad news.”

“Y-yes, Princess.” The wounded changeling limped off, clearly in no rush to fulfill her orders. She left behind a half dozen other lieutenants, all buzzing eagerly around the Princess.

“Continue the bombardment! Sooner or later, those shields will break, or the unicorns generating them will collapse. We just need to keep up the pressure. Direct our skirmishers out to harass the advancing Germanes and then send in the next wave of bombers,” Instar ordered, looking up at the setting sun on the horizon.

The sun was still slowly setting, even with Princess Celestia taken care of by the Queen.

“We are losing the daylight,” the changeling Princess hissed, unhappily, and turned to look over her immediate subordinates. “I want that house taken, gentlelings. From below. From above. From all sides. I want a parade of captives in chains to march before the arriving Germanes. We broke entire armies in the Savannahs of the Old World. We will not be stopped here.”

Luna was in her chambers.

Princess Celestia had always been a very light, lucid dreamer. She recognized instantly that these were their old chambers, in the keep before their old Castle of the Sisters had even been built, and this Luna was her sister back when they had still been young. Luna’s chambers were abstemious then, with little more than a warm pallet as befitted guest-right, and her astronomy gear. Her telescopes and optics and charts rested by the window, gifts from Starswirl and half-a-dozen now-deceased or exiled nobles and courtiers. Almost all the rest of the square block of a room was bare. The walls were the most basic plaster over stone. Unlike Celestia, Luna had made no attempt to paint them or make her chamber livelier. She was still mourning, in her own way.

“Good morning, sister,” Celestia said, trotting towards Luna on legs that felt just a bit too short, strides that seemed less than comfortable, unpracticed, immature. Hers was the body of a young alicorn: slim and leggy, but small. There was a certain comfort in always being the tallest pony in the room.

“Tis no’ good morning’,” Luna replied, keeping her back to her older sister. Her mane was shorter, though still possessed of the ethereal glow that they had been taught represented their otherworldly birthright. She, too, was little more than a young mare, at the very end of her teenage years.

“We received summons from Puddinghead this moonfall,” Luna went on to add, her voice low and angry. “He invites us to attend the celebration and execution.”

“It is not an execution; we all know he won’t die. He can’t die.” Celestia’s correction did not bring solace to Luna or brighten her morning mood. “The new petrification spell will work. He won’t feel anything. It will be like a long, never-ending sleep.”

Luna did not respond at first.

Celestia remembered the ‘summons.’ The letter had been waiting by her bedside and signed by all three members of the regency and small council, but it was clearly penned by Puddinghead himself. The fact that he had gone out of his way to mention that there would be ‘cake and cookies and Cerberus rides’ at the sentencing only rubbed salt in a still-open wound. It was hard, sometimes, to tell when the earth pony leader was acting like an obtuse ass to disarm others as part of a brilliant political gambit… or when it was genuinely being an obtuse ass because he could get away with it.

“Is that not worse, then?” Luna asked at length. “An eternity chained, drowned, impaled, and sealed. What if this dream that never ends is a nightmare? This was not what we wanted. We would…” She hesitated, mindful enough of the circumstances to lower her voice. The walls had ears. “…we would not have listened to you, had we seen this injustice come to pass.”

Celestia approached her, worried, but torn, because she had doubts herself at times. Ones she never dared give voice to, not in these halls.

“What we were doing was wrong, Luna,” Celestia raised her voice, imbuing it with confidence and authority. “It had to stop. This was the only way. You know that. Auntie--”

“Your dear ‘Auntie’ is a kinslayer,” Luna snapped, angry and hurt and confused. “There is no pony so damned as a kinslayer, Celestia! That is what she is, and that is what she has made us. It is said that the curse of kinslaying will hang over our head, and the heads of our family, so long as we draw breath. Which will be a long time, now, won’t it? Already, all our old friends and allies have betrayed us and left us, fleeing to their redoubts and northern holdfasts. They hate us and despise us. They curse our names in their cups and in their dreams.”

Luna turned slightly, looking over her shoulder at her sister. “Do you doubt us? We have seen it, sister! We have heard it. Even my old friend’s dreams grow increasingly dark and clouded in his exile. The crystal witch is too weak to rein in his darker natures and his betrayal eats at him… as it eats at me.”

She slowly shook her head, returning to the lonely view out the window.

“He betrayed the cause to protect me, and I betrayed it to protect you,” the dark alicorn marveled, shaking her head in helpless dismay. “I should have left with him, like he asked. This Equestria of the new world has no place for somepony like me...”

“Things will get better, sister,” Celestia promised, lifting a foreleg and wing to drape over her younger, darker sister’s form. “We have lost family, yes, but we have reclaimed lost family as well. Equestria and the other small ponies will warm to us in time. We are their sun and moon, now. Until then, Auntie and Lord Blueblood are kind and understanding guardians. Auntie is with foal; soon we will have young cousins to play with. Life will get better. The second council, led by Smart Cookie, will be better than this. It will all get better. I swear it.”

Luna remained silent, brooding, even in her sister’s embrace.

“We will not attend this farce,” she finally whispered, stepping away from her sister. “We refuse.”

“I will represent us both,” Celestia assured her. “Hurricane will glower and Puddinghead will jest, but they will understand. Auntie has her new Platinum Crown. She will wear it to remind them they have nothing more to fear from us. Just give everypony time, Luna. Please.”

“Time,” Luna whispered, more to herself than to her only sister. They had time. They had all the time in the world, now.

Celestia tried to crane her neck and nuzzle her sister, but Luna spread her wings half-way to prevent the comforting gesture. Her mood was still dark and sour. Nor, it seemed, did she want succor in the first place. Time – Celestia only hoped – would help her forgive and learn to love again. Half-in and half-out of the dream, still lucid, Celestia realized her folly. This, Discord, Sombra… time had not been her sister’s ally. Time had not healed the wounds in her soul. Only the Elements of Harmony had managed that.

“You will watch, as they condemn him to that watery tomb?” Luna asked, after a long silence. She hid her face, but Celestia could see the unshed tears building in her eyes. “He was our father. He loved us.”

Celestia hung her head low. “He was. He did. But he still had to be stopped. Harmony,” she tried to explain to her poor, lost sister. “Harmony, not domination, must rule in this new world.”

The harsh smelling salts dissolved the dream, and brought back a world – a veritable kaleidoscope – of pain. The old Platinum Keep melted away, taking the thousand and more year old memories with it. Replacing it, Celestia saw the bright stained glass windows and colorful murals of her throne room. The murals were as yet untouched, but the windows were being steadily rimmed and marred by a layer of vile looking green wax.

“Back amongst the living, are you?” a voice asked, feminine and taunting. Celestia felt a hoof under her chin, forcing her eyes front and forward.

Chrysalis.

“There you go! Still alive,” Chrysalis marveled, letting her jaw go, “I am impressed.” Celestia felt her cheek limply hit the tiled floor beneath her throne. She could only watch, her body unresponsive, as Chrysalis strode up the steps towards the royal throne. “Even I wouldn’t survive what I did to you. A little horsefly told me once: ‘don’t worry so much about actually killing her. Try to kill her, and you’re likely to just subdue her. Celestia and Luna are not normal ponies or even normal alicorns.’ I had been skeptical at first, given how weak Cadance was, but it was sage council. I’m glad I listened. For once, that little horsefly wasn’t lying to me.”

Queen Chrysalis reached the rose and gold Throne of Equestria and leisurely draped herself over it, settling into the cushioned seat with a contented sigh. She spared a second or two to make herself comfortable, stretching her legs and easing into the pillows. Shining Armor sat next to the same throne, an imperial-purple and alabaster cloak over his shoulders and Celestia’s own crown on his head, the golden tiara decked in tangled green ivy from the garden. He gazed mindlessly forward, his horn still aglow, not even batting an eye when Chrysalis reached over to languidly play with his chin and then his mane.

Celestia tried to speak, but all that came out was a wheeze. Her entire body felt like it was barely being held together by duct tape and a hasty prayer. Forcing away a rising panic, she focused on feeling her extremities. They did not readily move, but they were there. Her spine was intact. She was not a cripple. Her body was regenerating, not as undying as father’s had been, but formidable nonetheless. She was restrained in a cast of sorts, and held down by chittering changelings, but the greatest threat was her magic. Her horn was thrice-sealed, and even if it wasn’t, her magic was completely drained.

And… there was… something else…

She felt hot. Burning hot. Like a fever, except… that was impossible…

“We are fitting you for a new, extra special cocoon,” Chrysalis explained with a self-satisfied smirk. “You will have the privilege of watching, helplessly, as your city slowly becomes my city. Once both alicorns are in my hooves, the rest of Equestria will have to submit or sue for peace, and we will devour them piecemeal. You will get to watch it all play out, Princess. I want you to know you were beaten by the better mare… by the better species.”

Celestia groaned, her face and cheek rubbing into her limp mane, the aurora colors turning sickly.

“Are you listening to me?” Chrysalis asked, her smirk becoming a sneer. “Princess? You will NOT tune me out! Do you hear me?!”

As quickly as she had taken the throne, Chrysalis bounded down. Her hoof came down and she slapped the Princess of the Sun across the face for her apparent insolence. The Queen was moments away from a second blow, chitinous hoof tensed and raised in the air… when she hesitated. Gingerly touching the back of her hoof to Celestia’s forehead, the changeling Queen recoiled.

“She’s… growing hotter…?” Chrysalis realized, confusing playing across her features. “What…” She rankled, suspecting the cause. “Is this some sort of trick? Some last second gamble? Is that it?”

Chrysalis glared down at her captive Princess for a few seconds, considering it. Something caught her eye, then, and reaching down into Celestia’s mane, she brushed up against the Princess’s horn. When her hoof lifted back up to eye-level, Chrysalis scowled at it. There was a faint blush of blood there.

“Could it be… the wounds?” she wondered. “Are they infected? Or… is it some reaction to the poison?” Chrysalis growled, bearing sharp teeth. “No! I will not let you die. Not yet!”

She stood tall and addressed her assembled changeling court.

“Healers!” Chrysalis commanded. “Find me healers! And one of Yejide’s witches. Now!” The Queen of Queens frowned, looking down at her victim again. “You weren’t like this just a half hour ago. What is going on…?”

A rust red mare stood over the burned and smoking remains of the reinforced vault door. Starry black magic ebbed and flowed around her, briefly taking on the outline of Sagittarius, then fading away, only to return a second later. One of her orchid-red eyes was consumed by onyx-black; the other looked dazed and distant, as if staring into the horizon.

The vault within was in shambles, less from the destruction of the vault-door and more from the breaking of the magical wards that further reinforced it. Stepping into the vault, crackling lines of power dissipated away from Chalice’s body, harmless from within the cloak of living aether. Her mismatched eyes scanned the vault and the dozen or more fallen artifacts, knocked from their cases and shelves. Most were not true artifacts at all, but keepsakes: scepters and crucigers and golden regalia for offices and seneschals long rendered irrelevant or ceremonial.

This was, or had been, the coronation vault.

The Platinum Vault.

A silver crown rolled by Chalice’s hooves and she turned her eyes on it. It was beautiful and majestic, with four leaf-like acanthus petals curving away and outwards, studded by precious gems: rubies and opals, spinels and sapphires, volutes of table-cut diamonds in pink and aqua, precious pinpricks of cabochon jade and inlaid tourmaline. It was closed up top in velvet and purple. The gems in the crown alone were flawless, unique, and probably worth a fortune, even in Equestria where the raw gem market was ridiculously saturated. The silver and gold alone could buy a small mansion.

“Is that it?”

“No.” her voice changed, distorted and dissonant, played over the original, but louder and harsher. “Do not see with your flawed mortal eye. Use mine.”

Chalice twitched, her head jerking as if struck; the Aether around and within her right eye swirled violently.

“So this one is a… fake…?” she said, softly. “You know using your eyes hurts my head. Just tell me where the real one is… please.”

“There.”

Chalice stepped over the crown, approached the pedestal it had fallen from, and raised her hoof. With a single, sweeping motion to the side the reinforced platform came apart, sheared in two. Tucked safely within the base of the steel podium, she could see two more crowns, one beside the other, resting on soft cushions.

The first crown resembled the fake on the floor.

The second was a simple metal band, like a circlet. Chalice leaned in for a closer look. She saw intricate bands of silver, wrought in indestructible night-iron, aqua ice-jewels glittering like relics from ages past. Through her other eye, Chalice could see the powerful enchantments etched into the circlet. They struck a chord in the unicorn and in her companion. She could feel it through the body they momentarily shared, each one half-in and half-out of their home realm, half-on and half-off the throne in the starry vault.

This band of metal…

It was like the torc… the Star Key… that had sealed and given contractual form to their union.

“There it is. Platinum’s Star-Forged Crown. Can you sense the echoes of ancestral magic within it, Chalice? You are descended from her, after all. Her blood is your blood.”

Chalice stared at the Inner Crown. She stared long and hard, but couldn’t detect anything but normal magic of some unknown but generic sort. It was magical, yes, but still seemingly mundane once placed within that category.

“No,” she answered, dejected. “I can’t see or feel anything.”

“In that case, I would recommend you not don this crown. Even enveloped in my protective shroud as you are… it could kill you.”

“Brother already warned me about that,” Chalice said to herself. “Only a worthy mare is deemed fit to wear it, he said. It would reject the unworthy, like the last four Blueblood Duchesses.” She raised a hoof, as if to touch the circlet, but hesitated.

“I did want to wear it,” she admitted, her hoof wavering in the air, aether shifting around and away from it and then enclosing it again, in a turmoil that echoed her own thoughts. “Once… when I was young… back when I thought wearing it would make everypony proud of me, even though I wasn’t talented like Antimony, or smart like brother, or beautiful like Polished Jewel. Now I know, even if I had won, even if I married the Prince, I still would’ve been rejected. Brother says so.”

“So you know you cannot wear it,” the voice in her head realized, and even in her own mind, it was a warped distortion of her own voice, alien and unsettling. “Good. Then what will you do?”

“Can I pick it up?”

“It will try and reject you, but yes, you can.”

“You’ll protect me?”

“I will protect you. We have a contract, and you have given me what I asked of you. I will always be here, to do what you cannot. You will never be useless or weak, Chalice, as long as you have me.”

Chalice nodded, took another step forward, and reached for the Inner Crown with her hoof. The moment it made contact, a magical shock tried to repulse her. Ultimately, it pricked her hoof, nothing more. It could not penetrate the aethereal aegis of Saggitarius. Not, supposedly, unless she had the hubris to actually place it on her brow.

No mare could wear the Platinum Crown, not without its consent.

“You saw when this was forged, didn’t you?”

“We all did. It was your kind’s renewed contract with Lord Sun and the Lady Moon after the defeat of your Star Caller.”

“He was not our anything.”

“He was mortal. You are mortal. His crimes are your crimes, and your children’s crimes, and their children’s crimes, unto eternity.”

“A daughter should not be held responsible for the sins of her mother,” Chalice argued.

“And yet they are, regardless of your philosophy.”

“Aah,” Chalice winced, a spike of Sagittarius’ alien emotion flooding painfully into her. “Please stop. Don’t you realize… this is why nopony worships you anymore…?”

For a moment, Sagittarius was silent, mulling over her reply. Chalice knew the concept of cruelty had no meaning to him. Nor conscience. Nor morality. Nor sanity. His concept of reality was not her concept of reality. Without really meaning it, without even intending it, his thoughts and motivations were cold and alien and incomprehensible. It was a reason why she didn’t often converse with her better-half in this way.

She wondered if her thoughts and feelings were as strange to him as his were to hers.

Wreathed in aether as she was, her partner’s cold embrace invading her body and mind, inside and out, Chalice sometimes felt like a tiny flickering candle swallowed up by a titan’s shadow, surrounded by darkness so vast it may as well have been infinite. It was as if, at any moment, her life could be snuffed out and extinguished. It might have been the reason she could manifest so much more of her partner than anypony else.

The helplessness and disorientation of being possessed… most ponies railed against it. Chalice accepted it. It was why she existed. It was her… special talent. She was both the trapped bird and the gilded cage that was her cutie mark.

“What will you do with that crown?” Sagittarius asked again. “The fate of your entire race is literally in your hands. Or… hooves. What will you do with this great power? Will you hold it hostage?”

Chalice stared at the crown held in her hoof, one eye equine… the other aethereal.

Lifting her other hoof and standing upright, holding the crown between her starry black hooves, Chalice began to twist. The circlet, made of nearly indestructible night iron, resisted. But Chalice’s horseshoes were enchanted night-iron as well, unearthed from the ruins of the Old Kingdom by Terre Rare archaeologists. They glowed hot and hateful, and so did the crown. Maybe it knew already? If only it could talk, what would it say? Would it even matter?

“What will I do?” Chalice asked herself.

Her body shuddered beneath the starry shroud; it was an insidious question. It was the sort of question brother would ask, but only when he knew a pony had already made up her mind.

What will you do? What can anypony do?

With a scream that echoed throughout the vault, the voices of dozens of mares crying out as one, the Platinum Crown of Canterlot bent and snapped in half. A blast wave of sundered primal magic escaped from the halves, tearing ragged gashes in the vault walls and melting golden regalia into runny puddles. Artifacts twisted and contorted in agony and painted murals on the walls howled and burst into flame. Glass displays shattered in the echoing screams. Amid the raging phantom fires and the chaotic magical storm, Chalice stood, unharmed and protected by Saggitarius’ starry embrace.

“I’ll do,” she stated, letting the broken halves of the Platinum Crown fall to the floor, “the only thing I can do.”

“So be it. The contract is broken.”

“Princess?”

“Yo, Princess! Hell~llo?”

“Princess Luna? Are you alright? Applejack, Rainbow, give her some room, please.”

Luna’s breath came in ragged, choked gasps for a moment as she returned to consciousness. Opening her eyes, she put faces to the voices. The earth pony helping her to sit upright was the Element of Honesty. Applejack. The pegasus mare to her other side, currently engrossed in looking up at the perch Luna had abruptly fallen from, was the Element of Loyalty. Rainbow Dash. Then there was the Element of Generosity, still soaking wet from washing herself off after fighting the Red Queen of the changelings. Rarity.

“Hey! She’s back!” Applejack exclaimed, a look of relief on her face. Luna found it odd. She did not know these ponies well. She did not know anypony well, except her sister and her nephew. Yet, the concern seemed genuine. “You had us scared for a second there, yer highness!”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash agreed, facing Luna but pointing back over her shoulder. “One second you appear and act all dramatic, even finding a high spot to perch on and something mysterious to say, like Batmane or something, and then you collapse! What the heck?”

“Batmane?” Luna asked, and the question was probably not the first matter that needed to be addressed. But, still. Batmane?

Dash opened her mouth wide to start to explain--

“More importantly,” Rarity interrupted, trotting a little closer. “Princess, are you alright? Are you hurt? That was quite a fall…”

“The fall caused no real harm,” Luna said, sitting up and flexing her wings out behind her. Dash and Applejack let her go and inched backwards to give the alicorn some room.

“Twas merely a momentary loss of consciousness,” Luna went on to explain. A trickle of red dribbled down her forehead and over one blue eye, forcing her to blink. Reaching up to her horn, Luna brushed away what she had thought to be a trace of moisture. The ruined greenhouse and a half acre of property here had been soaked in the battle with the changeling Queen, after all.

But it wasn’t water. It was blood.

Just a trace, but it had come from the base of her horn.

“We see,” Luna whispered to herself, and seeing the worried expressions of the three mares she had come to ask for help, raised her voice. There was no point keeping this a secret. After all, she needed them. “This is a different sort of wound… the re-opening of an old scar, you could say…”

“Huh?” Dash asked, tilting her head in confusion. “An old wound?”

Luna nodded, watching the trio from beneath her starry mane. “We know not how, as yet, but our connection with both sun and moon… has been severed…”

Chapter Fifty One : The Blueblood Gambit

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Fifty Two : Turn Up the Night

(52)

Turn up the Night

Lord Snow Drift looked like he had seen better days.

The once stately and genteel noblestallion was covered in grit, his formerly immaculate coat stained by a layer of streaked soot and ash. A bloody cut on his temple just beneath the horn looked like it had been caused by the barbed hoof of a changeling, but a rough gauze field-patch kept it from impairing his vision. Even with a large number of other ponies nearby, relaying orders and coordinating the battle around them, Snow Drift was never far from the lines where Equestria was making a serious push to reclaim part of their capitol city. In part, this was due to his own skill with barriers, contributing his own power to help shield his fellow ponies from the constant threat of airborne bombardment.

They were set up along a hastily reinforced cliff villa. In Canterlot, the Grand Mountain City, wealthy ponies paid a premium to have a spectacular view and to moor their private airships on their front porch. Built literally into the mountainside in small enclaves or along the edge of Canterlot itself, they were small but expensive affairs. Each one had a small mooring pier that dropped off into a long fall for small flying boats, creating a distinctive addition to the skyline.

The current villa around them had been all but leveled, the pieces used to provide cover for unicorn spellcasters and prevent a change in under the shield wall. Trees, once carted all the way up from the lowlands below and replanted at great expense, lay ripped up and thrown onto hasty barricades. They were joined by piles of expensive furniture and a number of luxury chariots and carriages. Literally anything that would help break up a changeling charge had been torn free and staked down.

It was outside this ruined manse at the edge of the mountain city that Snow Drift met four mares.

“Lady Rarity,” he greeted her first, as was customary, his tone utterly genteel despite the chaos. Thunder cracked against a theater shield sending crackling ripples across the multi-colored barrier. Snow Drift ignored the bombardment and held out his hoof. It was positively filthy, but Rarity took it nonetheless. Not that her hooves were all that clean either.

Still, for all the muck she had waded through, he kissed her hoof like a true gentlestallion.

“Ser Applejack. Ser Rainbow Dash,” he greeted the other two mares cordially. It was probably just as well he dispensed with kissing either of their hooves. “We have heard success on all fronts from the ponies sent to retrieve the colts and fillies held hostage. Forgive me for asking, but… who is your companion? Or should I say: who are your companions?”

He hadn’t missed the new fourth member of their group, minus the three little fillies they had rescued before and the irate changeling Queen bound over Applejack’s back. The cloaked pony approached first and pulled back her hood, just enough to flash her face in the light. Snow Drift sucked in a breath.

“Princess Luna?” he gasped, but kept his voice down. “Is that you, truly?”

“Tis I,” Luna replied, keeping hidden beneath her ragged brown cloak. “We are a target of the enemy and do not wish to draw overwhelming forces this way.”

“I can understand that, and I appreciate it,” Snow Drift argued, a bit of the old noblepony slipping into his obsequious speech, “but with due respect, your Highness… ponies need to know you live. They need to know at least one Princess still breathes and fights with them. Seeing you… it will help morale. We should make an announcement.”

“Soon,” Luna promised, and hesitated a second before asking, “You truly believe ponies will be heartened to hear we live? Would they not… resent us… for living when our sister has fallen?”

“You are Our Princess Sovereign and we are sworn to you!” Snow Drift answered with a tone that brooked no argument. “I serve you, and so I will let you decide when you are ready to reveal yourself, Highness. Please do not delay it for overlong.”

“Thank you, Lord… Snow… Drift, yes?” Luna grinned beneath her hood, a little embarrassed for not being sure of his name. Especially after all he had just said.

He merely nodded, and Rarity chose that moment to step in.

“As you can see, sir, we’ve captured one of the changeling Queens,” she began.

“We also need ta drop these three fillies off somewhere,” Applejack added, motioning back to where a prismatic pegasus struggled to keep the trio under control. One was pulling her mane, the other barely held back from galloping away by a blue hoof, and the other sullenly sticking close by. All three were gagged but clearly irate.

“Please,” Dash moaned. “Please take them away.” The filly that had been pulling on her mane switched to poking the older mare’s cheek. “Help. Please help.”

“Changeling mind tampering?” Snow Drift asked, seemingly unmoved by Dash’s struggles.

“You’ve encountered it before?” Rarity inquired.

“Unfortunately,” the noble stallion replied with a grunt. “We have teleporters to evacuate civilians--” He motioned to one of his subordinates. A few seconds later and a unicorn ran up, a white frock with a red cross over his front. “Hosptalier! Take care of those children.”

“Yes, sir,” the unicorn stated, and then went to work prying the three fillies away from Rainbow Dash. The fake-cutie-mark-crusaders seemed to think they could take out the ‘rainbow colored one’ and thus avenge Queen Sarai’s defeat. Unlike the Queen, they had at least gotten Dash to cry.

“Come along, you three,” the hospitalier struggled to extradite the fake-Scootaloo from her death-grip on Dash’s tail. “I’m sure this nice mare doesn’t enjoy you doing that to her.”

“No she does not,” Dash grumbled, head craning as a filly with two hoof-fulls of her hair refused to be dislodged. “This nice mare is ten seconds away from going crazy and kicking somepony into orbit.”

“And this changeling Queen you defeated?” Snow Drift inquired. “I assume it is not ‘the’ changeling Queen?”

“There appear to be several. One for each of the colors of changeling,” Rarity explained. “The one we have commands the reds. Furthermore, the different groups of these creatures seem to have slightly different abilities. The red ones were able to turn invisible, so long as they kept perfectly still.”

“Like ah chameleon,” Applejack helpfully pointed out.

Snow Drift leveled a glare at the unconscious Queen the four mares tossed onto the ground. He slowly nodded. “Yes. We’ve encountered other colors. Green is the most common, but we’re run into purples – who have some sort of foreign magic – and yellows. Many resemble zebras more than equestrians… then there are the yellows, who can also take the form of wild beasts.”

“We learned quite a bit before and after we beat some sense into this idiot,” Rainbow Dash told him, patting the rump of the wrapped-up Queen Sarai.

“I’d love to hear more. Knowledge of the enemy is a keen weapon, and we are almost totally in the dark,” Snow Drift snorted, unhappy with that fact, but not crying over it. “We will need to interrogate this Red Queen. What she hasn’t told you already, we need to squeeze out of her.”

Rarity balked, just for a second, at what Lord Snow Drift described. Or what he seemed to be describing.

“We have already plumbed much knowledge from her with our oneiromancy,” Luna spoke up then, before a final decision had to be made. “You may as well hoof her over. We doubt she will awake anytime soon with what we have done to her mind.”

“I’m sure we can learn something… from a study of her magic if not her words,” Snow Drift noted.

Rarity nodded, consenting, but adding the warning, “I do not approve of torture, Lord Snow Drift. Let us try and remain decent equestrians – all of us – even as we do all we must to repel these vile creatures. I cannot compel you to agree with me on this, but I would be remiss if I did not share my views.”

“You are a good mare, my Lady,” Snow Drift replied, but clearly made no promises. “I will bear that in mind, as updates come my way.”

“You appear to have stalled in taking the harbor,” Luna bluntly observed, craning her neck towards the battlefield beyond.

The noble Lord grunted, unhappily. Stalled was a kind way of describing it.

“On this approach, yes,” he replied. “Another push is being made across the railway, but progress is slow. Open areas often lead to ambushes from those great worms, and as you can see, we cannot secure control of the air for very long. It is like the griffin wars of old, but worse.”

He pointed to the Royal Sky Harbor, which was just a short flight for a pegasus to reach from where they currently stood. Not that many flyers would survive the trip this afternoon.

There were what looked like hundreds of changelings holding the many piers and houses along the harbor. Several large airships were aflame and hanging from the docks like deflated balloons. Others had been crashed to make makeshift fortifications. From these secure positions changeling cannons relentlessly bombarded the equestrian positions with overlapping fields of fire. It was a killing field.

Nonetheless, the harbor had to be taken for reinforcements – Princesses willing – to reach the bloody city.

The changelings buzzed and swarmed as they moved quickly from the harbor over to other areas. With uncontested control of the air and a population that was entirely flight-capable they were able to concentrate force where it was most needed at the drop of a hat. One or two would rise, circle around, and then dozens of others would congregate around them and head off. A few unicorns with long range spells had taken to making potshots at the ‘officers’ though nopony knew what, if any, command structure the changelings had.

“Lady Wallflower is commanding the attack on their north with sixty unicorns and over a hundred earth ponies. The old war horse is a menace on the dance floor, but to hear reports from my scouts, her massed fire is thinning out the swarm with every attack they make. Lord Woolsey took over the center after Lady Moody fell. Lord Black Bale also fell commanding the center left. Wool’s setting up his guns to hit the harbor fortifications as we speak. I have a small guard unit I’ve hastily assembled under myself, but most of the ponies from here to that hill over there are led by Lady Rosetalon.”

“Rosetalon?” Luna asked, frowning. “The name is unfamiliar…”

“The Rosetalons are an old Prench family,” Snow Drift explained. “Griffins--”

“A griffin commands equestrians?” Luna asked, but on seeing the confusion on Snow Drift’s face, she quickly coughed in embarrassment. “Ah, oh, we forget ourselves. We oft forget Equestria is more… diverse than in our time.”

“Rosetalon is a stalwart lady, your Highness,” Snow Drift assured the lunar Princess, feeling he had to defend his fellow noble regardless. Perhaps he simply wanted to make sure her mind was at ease with the current setup. “She left her house and family behind, gathered a retinue, and marched right up to the thickest of the battle, insisting she not be left out.”

Luna took in the battlefield before her, inhaling softly. The gravity of it washed over her.

“Very well. We shall leave the battle in your hooves, Lord Snow Drift.” The dark Princess reached up to point with her hoof towards an airship flying high over the battlefield. It was but one of a formation of three, but the other two were mere sloops. “Can you tell me about that?”

“A repurposed airship yacht,” Snow Drift explained, knowing what she was referring to even before he turned to be sure. “Not armed, but somepony… or some changeling… has a shield around it. I believe they’re using it for airborne reconnaissance and as a safe place for their flyers to rest between sorties. The bird is too high for us to puncture the shield with the cannons we have with us. The royal arsenals have all been sabotaged or looted by the enemy, so our resources are severely limited.”

Rarity summoned her opera glasses to get a better look at the ship.

“What about pegasi?” Dash asked, jumping in on the conversation now that it had to do with something in the air. She mock-punched the air in front of her. “Get a couple thunder clouds going and zap down the shield!”

“Too many changelings, too few pegasi,” Snow Drift replied, narrowing his gaze and directing it at the airship. “Until Cloudsdale reinforces us, I can’t risk my flyers in twenty-to-one dogfights outside the range of our unicorns.”

“Twenty-to-one?”

“Aye.”

Even Rainbow Dash seemed at least momentarily unsure about those odds. She let loose with a long whistle of appreciation, not for the odds so much, but for those few brave pegasus ponies who had to fly into it, anyway. It was like being asked to corral a wild thunderstorm solo.

“Not that I’d have a problem,” Dash added, crossing her forelegs sourly. “But if I lose a wingpony, then it's forty-to-one, then sixty…” She shuddered. “I see your point.”

“That is a problem, indeed,” Luna said, dryly. “But I need to get on that ship.”

“Princess?” Snow Drift seemed momentarily thrown for a loop at her request, or was it her command?

“One of mine bodies is aboard that vessel,” she explained, and then backtracked a bit when she remembered how that in and of itself was not much of an explanation.

She started anew.

“When we were treacherously attacked in the palace, our person was poisoned most grievously and most heinously. We did battle through the castle halls and grounds, repaying the shape-shifters many-fold for their perfidy, but soon realized we needed to escape and heal ourself. Thus we used our multiple-body magic to split ourself into three parts.”

“Three parts?” Snow Drift asked, struggling to understand. “There are… three Lunas now?”

“Think of them as Luna-A, Luna-B, and Luna-C, though the distinction is largely one of convenience.” Princess Luna dipped her horn three times and three crudely drawn Luna illusions appeared. “Luna-A soon expired, as she had been created with all of my wounds.”

Luna-A changed so she was comically covered in bruises, with toy swords and spears stuck in her. She quickly keeled over with rough X’s in her eyes. A number of small skulls floated around her with ghost-like tails.

“Luna-B received the dose of poison we had been struck with,” Luna, clearly Luna-C, explained. “She rallied some Royal Guards for us but also eventually died.”

Luna-B’s character appeared green and sickly, floating unsteadily in the air before throwing up for several very long and uncomfortable seconds. She then paused… and threw up again, before falling face-first into her own mess. The skulls returned and floated around her, cackling.

“Was that really necessary?” Rarity muttered, lowering her opera glasses. She looked a little sickly herself.

“We strive for utmost accuracy!” Princess Luna answered proudly.

“Then why are your pictures so terrible? Twilight is like fifty times better at--” Dash yelped as a certain somefarmer stepped on her hoof. “HEY!”

“Please continue, yer Highness,” Applejack said with a grin.

“To make a long story short, as they say, Luna-B ran into a number of shape-shifters and also ended up dead,” Luna-C narrated, as the queasy Luna-B got jumped by crude changeling mockups.

“Bear in mind,” she added, while her virtual-self got stomped on by mini-changelings, “that every time we split apart, the sum of our being is less than the whole. Now that both Luna-A and Luna-B are dead, we need to assimilate their bodies back into us. Then I, Luna-C, will become Luna-Whole. Or maybe you should call it ‘Perfect Luna.’ Yes, we like the sound of that! Perfect Luna! In that state, we will have access to all of our powers in full, and if we can then reach our sister and restore the broken crown, we can manifest our athereal abilities as well.”

“Wait, you’re weaker when Celestia isn’t around?” Dash asked, sticking out her hoof between the two nobleponies so her question wouldn’t be overlooked.

“We did not tell you this before?” Luna asked, tilting her head in curiosity.

“No!” Dash all but yelled.

Snow Drift chewed his lip and grunted testily. “You will understand that I am hesitant to risk our next in line for Head of State, especially if she is in a weakened condition…”

“My word, I thought as much, but now I’m certain,” Rarity spoke up at that moment. She had the opera goggles up to her face again. “That ship is the Princess Hesperus! Blueblood’s new yacht! He just had it towed in and fixed up after the crash. The big foal couldn’t stop talking about all the new features he had planned.”

“Indeed?” Luna asked, grabbing her illusions out of the air like errant toys. They turned to sparkles in her hooves.

“And I see the hatch to the inner compartments is still there,” Rarity went on to say.

“An external hatch, is it?” Luna inquired, grinning now. It was just a little too wide and a little too toothy to be a mistaken for friendly smile.

“There is still the matter of the shield and the hundred or so changelings in the way who will intercept you,” Snow Drift warned.

“Yes. Indeed. Which is why you shall fire me!” Luna announced, raising her voice a decibel or so too high.

“Fire you?” Snow Drift quizzically repeated.

“Yes. You will fire me.” Luna smirked. “With… that!”

She pointed to a huge artillery piece that looked like it belonged in a candy store or a circus. As everypony turned to look at what the crazy Princess meant, the giant party cannon fired, releasing a cluster-shot of rubble and debris into the air like a titanic shotgun.

“Huzzah,” Luna giggled, though it sounded more sinister than playful. “We like this plan.”

“Oh! Oh! Lookie Lookie!”

Pinkie Pie sprang onto her back hooves, holding up a piece of paper. Printed on said piece of paper was an advertisement for a rather large gun. Said large gun was bedecked in festive streamers and garish red and blue. Stars ringed the barrel-like circumference and crude treads seemed to have been stuck onto the bottom as a last-minute addition.

“Uhhh,” Twilight uttered her standard response to Pinkie Pie’s zany outbursts, “what is it?”

“What is it? What IS IT?!” Pinkie asked, incredulous, holding the poster up even closer to the unicorn’s face. “This is a Reinmetall Aktiengesellschaft ninety-one centimeter Feierabwehrkanone! F-a-K!”

She gushed, spinning around and holding the picture to her chest.

“A Party Cannon!” Pinkie exclaimed with an ecstatic squee. “A super-duper seventeen thousand kilogram party cannon! Muzzle loading, low recoil, air-powered, 360-degree turret traverse! It can fire a sixty-kilo party package at ninety-meters per second! That’s like shooting an entire PONY plus a CAKE!”

“An entire pony, Twilight. Plus a cake,” she repeated, poking Twilight in the chest for emphasis. Slowly bringing the picture up to her lips, she started making kissy faces. “So sexy. So, so, so sexy. Only seven were ever made, including the prototype that exploded in Manez maiming all those ponies.”

“Wait, what?” Twilight asked, but Pinkie was already onto her next topic.

“It looks like there’s a receipt attached to this!” the party pony bubbled. “Congratulations on your purchase and thank you for using E-Bray. In the event of catastrophic failure, and if you survive, please contact Reinmetall AG for a complimentary refund! Thank you again and enjoy your purchase, Mister Cheese Sandwich.”

Twilight tried to make a grab for the picture. “Did you say maimed?”

“Wow. Cheese Sandwich is one lucky guy.” Pinkie sighed wistfully. “The Cakes got so mad when I suggested we convert their house into a FaK tower. I mean, come on! It wasn’t like the concrete blocks had even set yet!”

Twilight Sparkle could only hang her head. There was no getting a straight answer now.

The pegasus stallion’s muffled complaints came to a brief halt after being shoved to the ground. He shook his head angrily at the treatment, his face hidden behind a black burlap bag. Forced down onto his stomach, he growled behind the blindfold until a hoof reached over from behind and pulled off the bag. His eyes squinted against the light as he took in his new surroundings.

At least it wasn’t a prison cell.

In fact, it wasn’t anything of that sort at all. The domed roof overhead was glass and iron, like a greenhouse. Beneath it, a small jungle of potted plants was arranged over a bed of sand and rock. Trickling water somewhere out of sight made a distant warbling noise, followed by a faint ‘plok.’ It was a serene setting, but that fact only put the captive stallion more on edge. Unable to comprehend why they had brought him here, he tried to turn to face the pair that had forced him along before.

“Eyes front, hot stuff,” the mare of the pair – not that one could tell given her brutish size and strength – stopped him before he could turn around. She grabbed a hoof-full of his mane and forced his eyes forward and then his chin up towards one of the large, tangled rose bushes.

Sitting atop the thorny bush was a white earth pony mare.

Lady Yumi.

“Ro ris is rour roing!” he yelled, muffled, through the cloth stuffed in his mouth.

Yumi looked down on him much as one would an unwelcome slug in the garden. While not physically imposing by any means, in fact, looking positively unassuming, Yumi had a cold demeanor. Most Equestrian mares ranged between warm and at least outright bubbly. If Yumi was any indication, Neighponese mares were a far more frigid, reticent breed. Sitting quietly on top of the overgrown rose bush, like a personal thorny throne, her lack of color – all white of coat and black of eyes and mane – suddenly struck him. If anything, her plainness made her more imposing and not less.

“Remove his gag,” she ordered.

No sooner was it out than he snapped, finally having a face and a pony to vent his anger at.

“Finally!” he yelled up at Yumi. “I should’ve known this was your doing, my Lady! That even you would dare to accost a bonded courier of Cloudsdale on official business…? The Congress of Four Winds shall hear of this outrage!”

The Neighponese heiress seemed unflustered by the threat. “You tested him?”

“He’s good,” the guardmare answered with an amused chuckle. “You want your little toy back?”

“No. Fluttershy entrusted it to me, and I entrust it now to you.”

“Fine by me.”

“What’s the meaning of this?” the stallion asked, and tried to turn around again. The guardmare once again forced him to face forward towards Yumi and nopony else.

“I am a bonded courier of Cloudsdale!” he remained her, again, even though she had to know that. “Interfering--”

“You were sent to pass a message on to Lord Blueblood,” Yumi stated.

“I was on my way to him when your thugs intercepted me!”

“One courier was sent to Lord Blueblood, one to my father, Lord Yama. That is correct?” Yumi asked quietly and calmly, as if they were having a polite conversation over tea and not with her looking down on somepony she had her goons capture.

“Yes,” the courier confirmed.

Yumi craned her neck to better look down on him. “Good. You were the second pair of couriers sent, is that not also true? What happened to the first two?”

“I… I don’t know,” the courier hesitated to admit, and then gritted his teeth as a thought occurred to him. “Did you foalnap them, too?!”

Once again, Yumi was a little slow to answer, but answer she did. “No.”

“No?”

“No,” she repeated, and her eyes drifted back to her thugs. “Everything is ready, then. You know what to do?”

“Yeah,” the guardsmare behind the courier answered. “I know.”

“You are certain you wish to do this?” Yumi asked, her manner imperious even if the question was concerned.

“That bitch recommended me for a reason,” the guard replied, apparently rather foul-mouthed even in front of her boss. “I know how to put on a good show.”

On her briar throne, Lady Yumi closed her eyes and nodded her consent. “Then I shall leave it to you to clear our path to Canterlot.”

The crude mare grunted.

“I won’t let your scheming--” the courier tried to surge to his hooves and bowl through the guards while they were distracted, only to be immediately sent sprawling. He hit the ground, unconscious.

“Was that really necessary?”

“Nope! But it was fun.”

For over an hour, pegasus sorties had tried to lure changelings into the range of the giant party cannon, but it hadn’t taken long for the creatures to realize how it fired a huge spray of shrapnel as close range and little else. This latest sortie was also mostly ignored, the changelings refusing to be drawn into the trap. When the wing of pegasus guardponies abruptly turned and streaked up to engage a cluster of changelings, the swarm acted in surprise. The distinct rainbow-colored contrail of one of the pegasus ponies very quickly drew further attention from whichever changelings were in command.

As a result, none paid much mind to the party cannon when it fired.

The barrel shuddered as it recoiled, a thunderous boom heralding the release of a spinning midnight-blue cannonball. Changelings zipped past it as it ascended, not even sparing the high speed sphere a passing glance. It hit the magical shield around the Princess Hesperus with a muffled thud, as previous cannonballs had done, but rather than fall back to the ground, this particular cannonball remained in place. The shield receded away from it, leaving a hole for just a split second. It was all Princess Luna needed.

Turning into her smoke-form, she slipped through the gap and then converged on the concealed emergency hatch that Rarity had helpfully identified. A threaded metal lock hidden behind a wooden panel popped out, turned, and allowed the hatch to open a crack. Luna flowed into that crack, took physical form, and closed the hatch behind her.

Her ears twitched as she listened for sounds of panic or alarm. Nothing.

“Good,” she whispered to herself, and trotted into the darkness of a maintenance alcove. Setting her hooves carefully in front of her, she closed her eyes.

“Hello there, my sweet shadows,” she murmured, tugging gently at the fabric of the shadow itself. “Your Aunt Luna requires your aid. Reveal to me what my equine eyes cannot see.”

Behind her closed eyelids, a picture formed, drawn from the shadows of the inside of the ship. Layer by layer, she processed more of the layout of the ship, adding it to what she had been told already. The still shadows were halls and furniture and obstacles. The moving shadows… those would just need to be dealt with as she made her way to the bridge. She could not risk who or whatever had her body getting spooked and fleeing. That meant thinning the numbers onboard first so she wouldn’t get swarmed when she made her move.

So she went to work.

Sneaking out of the alcove and soundlessly ascending a ladder to the level above, Luna melted into the shadows and waited. A changeling slowly walked past her, completely oblivious to her presence. For a long second or three, it paused, lit by the glow of a flickering electric light. Then Luna’s tail completely engulfed its head. With a muffled cry the changeling vanished into the shadows, flailing only for a second before going still with a soft ‘crunch.’

Her next target walked by an open cabin door, stopped to glance inside, and also barely got off a sound before its head was ensnared and it was dragged bodily into the room and out of sight. A pair of changelings followed, as they chattered amongst themselves, unaware of their rapidly dwindling numbers on the ship. Sneaking up behind them, Luna reared up on her hind legs and grabbed both around the neck. Her mane and tail did the rest, neatly cutting their hearts in two. Just as she expected, the noise brought the changeling in the adjoining airship lounge around the corner to investigate. He – or she, Luna suspected – went down without so much as a yelp of protest.

Two more changelings also quickly vanished before Luna allowed herself a moment to fully inspect the clearly modified area that had once been the luxury yacht’s lower lounge. There were bars both fore and aft of the main salon, where a crystal table still waited to host drinks and trays of expensive foodstuffs. Further towards the front was the galley and lobby, between them a storage compartment, and at the prow of the ship, a glass observation room that looked down on the world below. While very much a strange new technology to Luna, she had become familiar enough with modern luxury amenities and airships to make her way around them.

More interesting were the barrels of kerosene; it was doubtful that feature came with the original ship.

Quietly sneaking up to the next floor of the passenger cabins, the Princess of the Night resumed her deadly work. A changeling yipped as it ended up dragged over the top of the crew dinette, knocking a bag of oats and a glass of brandy onto the floor before it died. Luna’s tail was quick enough to catch the brandy bottle before it shattered, and after a brief inspection of the vintage, she tucked it into the back of her voluminous mane.

The two crew cabins were next, and there the changelings had weapons in the form of royal guardspony spears. An ancient weapon, the guard’s spear could be used as a conduit for magic, especially in the hooves of a trained unicorn. Luna never gave them a chance to show her what they could do with the weapons. She took them both from behind, pouncing and knocking them to the ground, muffling their voices and breaking their necks.

The other crew cabin was empty, except for a rack of captured guard spears and a few pieces of formerly golden barding, now stained green and black. Hiding in the shadows, she heard a changeling with heavy steps – armored – leave the small skipper’s cabin. The changeling chittered, calling out to its comrades. Luna could easily note how, just like anypony else, the changeling’s tone grew more agitated and annoyed when it didn’t get a response. It chittered louder, and stormed past to yell at its subordinates.

It never made it to the other room.

Luna dropped the dead body and headed towards the aft section of the ship. Slipping through the VIP cabin, she almost missed a changeling in the private bathroom. It was transforming into various mares, posing and admiring itself in the mirror. Luna hesitated a moment, struck by the sudden urge to stare at the strange sight.

The changeling lifted a hoof to turn the page on a calendar, each one sporting a model in a bathing suit. It then tried to imitate what it saw. Even the griffin girl who was Miss October. For the first time, Luna seriously hesitated to kill this enemy. It was just… it just seemed wrong... like shooting a mare on the toilet, almost. An enemy would have to be truly despicable to deserve such an ignoble end as that.

“ZZhh?” The changeling suddenly spun around, espying the Princess in the mirror. It pointed at the dark alicorn and… promptly panicked, jumping for the window with a crazed scream. “ZZHEE!!”

Trying to escape out the porthole wasn’t a bad plan…

Except even when transformed into a rather leggy and thin Fleur de Lis, the changeling still couldn’t entirely fit through said porthole. The result was one frightened changeling, stuck half-in and half-out of the ship. This changeling clearly wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the kitchen, so to speak.

Luna slowly closed the bathroom door and snapped off the handle.

By the time she made her way through the two guest cabins and then finally the opulent owner’s cabin – very tactfully decorated with a grinning portrait of her nephew half submerged in a pile of golden bits and sparkling gems – Luna felt back in her normal groove. Four more changelings had been dispatched, including two of the beast-like yellows. Each one had taken the form of a ferocious lion, and like the animal they mimicked, they seemed to spend as much free time as they could sleeping... in Blueblood’s king-sized bed, in this case. Luna simply made sure they would never wake up.

Finally ascending the stairs to the sky-lounge, Luna hunkered down at the sound of intense chattering. Up top were nearly a half dozen changelings, all wearing corrupted guard barding. Stealing a quick look, at least half of them also had guard spears. There was no way into the bridge without going through the sky-lounge, and her body couldn’t be anywhere else. She had searched the rest of the ship and all her senses were screaming that the other-her was close by.

The question was: how to get by all those changelings?

Keeping hidden in the stairwell, Luna noticed something. There was also a rather out of place cardboard box somepony had left behind at the top of the stairs, labeled ‘party supplies.’ On first glance, Luna judged it to be just about large enough to hide inside. But – no – there was no way that old trick would still work in this bold new millennium. Would it?

A few seconds later, and a shuffling box slowly made its way across the sky-lounge. It froze as a group of the armored changelings wandered from the sky-lounge over to the sun deck. The changelings ignored the curious cardboard box and settled over by the railing, pointing towards something in the distance. Luna inched towards them under the cover of her apparently quite stealthy cardboard box--

Only to have the box rudely and abruptly pulled off of her from behind.

“Zzh!”

The changeling who had unmasked her never got to say any more. Luna speared it with her tail and lunged at the trio by the railing. Pushing them over wouldn’t accomplish anything, so she grabbed two with her wings and one with her forelegs. The two in her wings struggled, crying out in alarm. The one in her grip she killed almost instantly. Dancing back to avoid a pair of spear-points, Luna hissed, spinning around and kicking a changeling that had run hissing at her from behind. The pair jabbed at her in unison, timing their thrusts like trained guards would.

If there had been more than just two of them, it might even have worked. Luna quickly ensnared the magical spearheads in her mane and tail and yanked them out of the hooves of the armored changelings. Rather than backing off, however, they lunged for her. It was a mistake. She spun around in a quick circle and jumped back and away. The two changelings staggered forward another few steps before falling to the ground, pools of green blood seeping out of their slit throats.

Luna discarded the blood-stained spears and headed into the bridge of the Princess Hesperus.

“My body… where is it?” Luna’s walk stiffened as she saw it.

There.

The other Luna had been propped up in the captain’s chair, almost as if she was asleep. A mahogany table extended from the base of the chair, with what appeared to be a small number of animal bones on top. Her body, though… it was just sitting there, waiting to be claimed, a fact that immediately set off warning bells in Luna’s head.

As Luna glanced around the spacious bridge of the airship, no ambush became immediately apparent. There was nowhere obvious to hide, and she knew very well about hiding in shadow. However, given that there were groups of changelings that could turn invisible, it wasn’t out of the question that they were hiding in plain sight. Yet… none revealed themselves yet. Were they waiting for her to claim her body? Why?

Cautiously approaching the object of her search, Luna paused after hearing a crunch underfoot. Inspecting the underside of her hoof, she saw the mashed remains of what appeared to be an insect, sort of like a cricket or grasshopper. Looking around, she began to see more and more of them appear. Quite a few took flight, filling the air with a droning buzz as they flooded into the cabin.

It only took a moment for Luna to place their species.

“Locusts,” Luna guessed, picking up her pace and taking flight to claim her body. Dark wings spread to propel her forward. She was nearly there when a wave of the insects intercepted her, knocking her back. Landing on her hooves and spreading her wings in challenge, the Princess of the Night growled as the swarm of insects coalesced into a larger form on top of her body.

“Thes must be the famous Princess Luna… ah’m honored you come to see me,” an eerie voice came from the cloud of locusts, the swarm slowly merging together into a solid shape. A craggy hoof, cracked and split, reached for the bones on the mahogany table, cupping them before letting them fall with a clatter. Holes in the creature’s forelegs sported dozens of rings in silver, gold, iron, and copper. Some were even more exotic, with woven feathers and dangling chains of jade and coral.

“Who – what – are you?” Luna asked, glowering at the strange figure before her.

It was a changeling, of that she was certain, but it was different than the ones she had seen before.

Nevermind that it had materialized out of a cloud of flying insects… Luna turned to smoke herself, so she didn’t consider that trick to be too strange. Fully revealed, this creature looked like a changeling, but weathered, with cracks and tears in it where normal changelings had clean round holes. It almost looked like it was carved out of old, dry wood. A great river of corded purple membranes, the changeling equivalent of a mane, cascaded over this creature’s face, almost entirely obscuring it. A few steaks of purple chitin stood out against the faded black of the rest of the body.

“Dis one’s name is Yejide,” the changeling spoke in a more clearly feminine voice now that it – now that she – had fully taken form. Despite that, it sounded as weathered and old as it looked.

“Yejide…” she repeated. “Queen.”

Luna’s eyes narrowed. So it had a name. “You are a Queen.”

“Ah am. My brood is the Aida-Weddo… the changelings of death.” Yejide extended a gnarled limb to point at her. “Ah've been watchin’ you, shadow princess, but you didn’t see me. Maybe Ah should be the princess of shadows instead’a you?”

“Art thou aligned with the changelings who have attacked this city?” Luna asked, not interested in the changeling’s baiting. “If so, then we have nothing to speak about! We will caution thee only once: do not get between ourselves and our body!”

Yejide merely chuckled, rolling the bones in her hoof onto the mahogany again.

“Come, then,” she said. “Show me what you can do. Take it!”

Luna roared at the challenge, her horn glowing to unleash a full-on blast. Yejide made no apparent move to avoid the beam of heliotrope fire. Luna let out a whoop of triumph as she saw the beam connect. Yet, when the energy of the magical attack dissipated, having punched a hole clean through the front of the bridge, she was treated to an unexpected sight. Yejide’s upper body seemed to have melted into a rough circle, letting the beam pass by her unharmed. Behind her purple locks, a mouth full of chipped fangs smiled.

“You gotta do better than that,” Yejide said, and suddenly leaned forward, spitting something out of her mouth.

Rather than risk getting hit by blocking it, especially in her weakened state, Luna hopped sharply to her left. Whatever it was Yejide had just spit up, it was fast and bright yellow. It was--

“A frog?” Luna could help but ask, seeing what had sped by her and bounced off the wall. It was a small, yellow frog. “Surely you jest?” Luna added, ignoring the creature and turning to her opponent. With a flap of her wings, she brought down her tail as a scythe.

And, sure enough, her tail sliced clean through Queen Yejide’s throat.

Except it didn’t DO anything. Yejide’s head floated over her shoulders for a moment before reattaching. As close as she was, Luna was already spinning to make a follow up attack when a blast of noxious fumes escaped from the changeling witch. A weak shield flickered in front of her as she propelled herself backwards.

“NO! I will not be poisoned again!” Luna covered her mouth with a hoof. Landing, she barely caught the flash of yellow as the frog from before jumped at her. Holding up her hoof, she moved her shield, and the amphibian – rather than bounce off – splattered.

It was not the only one, either.

Luna did a quick one-eighty as she caught sight of more yellow frogs, croaking the hopping towards her. There had to be a dozen of them. “Where did… there was only one a moment ago!”

“Don’t tell me ya never heard of a plague of frogs?” Yejide asked with a cracking laugh.

“Vile croakers!” Luna unleashed a trio of quick blasts from her horn to disintegrate the likely poisonous frogs as they jumped at her, heedless of their own lives. “Begone!” Another three jumped down from above, somehow able to stick to the ceiling. “Keep away, I say!”

Yet, for every three or four she burned, a dozen more seemed to appear out of her field of vision. It only became harder as her view of the room faded, overtaken by a thick mist. Light on her hooves, Luna always kept moving, low power blasts from her horn constantly picking off poisonous frogs before they could get close enough to grab onto her. Those she couldn’t actively pick off, she swatted aside with sweeping attacks from her starry tail and mane.

“I have had enough of this!” Barely swatting one of the frogs away from in front of her face, and knowing a losing fight when she saw one, Luna made a break for the front of the bridge.

“I will not be done in by vermin!” she roared, and Luna’s hoof descended on the still seated Queen Yejide.

But before it could connect, the Queen turned into a cloud of chirping, biting locusts, the insects bodily pushing her away from her body. Gritting her teeth in concentration, Luna flapped her wings to give her forward momentum and turned to smoke. Like water through a sieve, she flowed through the cloud of buzzing pests and grabbed hold of her prize.

The moment she touched the limp corpse, however, she knew something was wrong.

“W-what? What have you done?” Luna recoiled from the body. Her body. It should have assimilated right into her the moment she touched it. This witch had done something to it!

“What if Ah told you,” Yejide’s voice came from behind, and then, impossibly, from the corpse in front of her. “That this body was already… occupied?”

An undead hoof slammed into Luna’s chest, knocking her back as the once still body she had searched for started to get up. The locust swarm returned, buzzing protectively around the corpse, in some places coalescing to form a long corded purple mane.

“As Ah was about to tell you before,” Yejide said from inside Luna’s second body. “We are the changelings of death. Where others imitate the living, we ‘bring back’ the dead. Who doesn’t wish a loved one could come back to life? If only for a little while?”

The Witch Queen paused a moment, and Luna expected her to attack.

“This body isn’t like any other I’ve taken over, ya know,” she said, gesturing to herself and then tapping her temple. “There were memories in here. Not much. Figments. Dreamins. Frightenins. Terrors. It got me thinking…”

“Thinking what?” Luna snapped, eyeing her possessed former body.

“Is this Princess even the real one ta begin with?” Yejide pondered with a smirk. “What did those ‘Elements a Harmony’ really do to you?”

The ever shifting mass of locusts around Yejide’s stolen body rapidly came together, forming black armor over a taller, more menacing frame. Luna instinctively backed up a step, staring face to face at Nightmare Moon. Her heart skipped a beat, and her legs tensed to run. By sheer force of will, she pushed down the fear, tried to dismiss it with reason.

This wasn’t really Nightmare Moon, after all. How could it be? She was dead.

“Does it frighten ya? Wondering … all alone at night … if the real you died back then?” Nightmare Moon asked, and when Luna dared to look up, the terrifying visage seemed to fill her field of view, expelling all else out of sheer malevolence. “When the elements burned away the parts a you that didn’t ‘belong,’ what was left behind? Maybe you’re just an angry little doll. Your sister’s doll. An imitation of the real thing.”

Nightmare Moon reached up to her forehead, lifting her helmet, to reveal a crude scar.

A lobotomy scar.

“Maybe that’s what you are,” Yejide said, and Luna winced, shaking her head. “Maybe that’s all you’ll ever be!”

“No,” Luna tried to yell, tried to scream, but a filly’s voice was all that left her lips. She spun around, tried to get her bearings, tried to avoid staring into that face… but the room rotated with her, not permitting any escape. Down became up and then switched again, dumping the Princess flat and hard on her side.

“The one time you thought for yourself, the one time you did your own thing, and you burned for it! Why are you fightin’ so hard for that?” her tormentor asked with a laugh. “Why you wanna risk everything when ain’t nopony ever gonna give you nothin?”

Luna forced herself to take a steadying breath, and the spinning kaleidoscope of a room began to settle into place around her. It was just a matter of mental and physical discipline. No different than setting to rights a maddening dream. Yet…

“Take it from me, sister,” Yejide pointed to her current form. “Ah know the walkin’ dead when Ah see them.”

Luna shuddered, her hooves just hovering over her ears to try and shut out the verbal and mental assault. They were almost there… when she stopped. She stopped and opened her eyes. The cruel visage of her former self loomed over her, watching and waiting for her to fall apart.

“Two versions of me already died today,” Luna whispered, lowering her hooves back down to the floor. There was no hiding from this creature or its words.

There was only confronting them, without fear, without doubt.

“If the version of me that was Nightmare Moon died, too, then… good riddance to her!” With a high pitched howl, the dark alicorn propelled herself forward, body-tackling her warped other-body. “What the Elements did or didn’t do to me doesn’t matter!”

“I’m still me!” Luna yelled, striking the face of the Nightmare like she had long only dreamed. “A new me! With a new chance!”

Her mane struck, not to stab, but to grab the Nightmare by the throat. “I won’t squander it! I won’t give in to fear again!” She turned, and their bodies smashed into a wall of the airship bridge, knocking out control rigging with an explosion of gears and steam. “No matter what tricks you use!”

The visage of the Nightmare cracked apart as she slammed it into the ground, dissolving into a thousand buzzing locusts. Luna grabbed her fallen body by the mane and brought them almost nose-to-nose.

“Now kindly remove thyself from MY BODY, PARASITE!”

Amid the swirling, biting insects, Luna waited not one second longer. Her eyes glowed white, and so did those of her double. Once begun unopposed, the process itself was over in a literal instant. The corpse of Luna-B disintegrated into a helix of magical energy that surged back into her. The blinding light and burst of power that came with her transformation finished the work the fight with Yejide had begun. The bridge of the airship vanished, utterly destroyed with all the force and fury of a bomb. Fragments of it flew wildly through the air, some puncturing the flight envelope above the ship proper, others careening dangerously into the air now that the shield was down.

“Now… We are two-thirds complete.” Luna stood alone on the smoking wreckage of the bridge, pieces of the nearby sky-lounge ripping out of place and flying past her. “One more… one more…”

Of Queen Yejide, there was no sign, but the witch was either dead or gone. Either one suited Luna fine. Taking a look around to access the situation, she noted the angry swarms of changelings that were circling her. There had to be hundreds of them. Hundreds more were on the ground, still tenaciously fighting to keep the Canterlot city defenders from retaking the sky harbor.

It was time to press the attack.

Horn flashing with a quick beam of energy, Luna severed the forward cables connecting the Princess Hesperus with her lighter-than-air envelope. The fore of the vessel immediately dipped, going into free fall. Emergency flight systems connected to gyroscopes activated, and two sail-like wings extended from the sides of the wooden airship. Galloping to the after of the ship, cutting more wires as she went, Luna stopped at the very rear.

Sighting the entire body of the airship on target, she used her tail to slice the last two riggings, cutting the yacht completely free. Already falling, it accelerated on course, the emergency wings struggling to compensate for the suicidally deep dive the ship had been forced into. Eventually pushed beyond their ability to deal with the stresses involved, the wings ripped out at the roots, one of the spinning wooden projectiles plowing into a small group of circling changelings and turning them into confetti.

Luna remained standing on the aft of the ship almost until impact, when she spread her wings and let the wind pick her up. The Princess Hesperus, all one hundred and fifty tons of her, plowed into the grounded changeling airship-fortification at sixty meters per second, creating what could only be called an inferno of high speed wood and razor sharp splinters. The prow of the yacht punched clean into the roof of the armored ship before crumpling and deforming. In tandem, the inside of the target ship and the inside of the Hesperus came apart like house-sized firecrackers.

Then the two tons of kerosene stored onboard met the burning gunpowder and finally had the party the cardboard box had promised.

Luna floated away, drifting towards the ground, while the flames consumed what was left of the changelings’ most potent defensive position. Amid the rain of debris, one object stood out. Drifting alongside her, that ridiculous painting of her nephew bathing in money fluttered carelessly in the wind. Luna could all but imagine the look on his face when he learned that his airship had ended up knocked out of the air… again.

“We know you can afford it, nephew,” she remarked, and hitting the ground, broke into a high speed gallop.

There was still intense fighting taking place all around her as formations of equestrians advanced on the reeling changelings. Some seemed to be falling back or taking whole-sale to the sky, the green colored ones, but the yellow-banded changelings were holding their ground with all the single-minded determination of a tick refusing to be removed. Unlike the greens, they did not have basic magic in their arsenal.

They had beasts, instead.

More than a hundred of them hunched over and transformed, turning into lions and cheetahs and leopards. The closest ones dove right into the equestrian ranks, meeting the spears of the earth pony guards. Others were blasted apart at range by unicorn spellcasters, marching in step behind and aside their earth pony kin. With changeling air superiority in momentary disarray, wings of pegasi rocketed up from their positions behind the lines, eager to finally be let loose to support their ground-based comrades.

Never slowing, Luna jumped mid-gallop to intercept a pouncing lion-form changeling, her mane snapping out to her right as they passed. The creature yowled as it fell, already lethally wounded before it landed face first and broke its neck. Luna hit the ground and continued to run, jumping over a wrecked carriage – once some noblepony’s prized possession, now simply another overturned obstacle to use as cover – taking out two more changelings along the way.

Three pegasi banked overhead as they dropped grenades point blank into changeling holdouts, blowing the positions into dust. Finally, Luna took to the air as more massed fire from her own side made it too dangerous to continue on the ground. Gliding upwards, unicorn line officers ordered a staggered barrage rather than individual shot, and horns lowered, the three advancing squares of ponies released a blistering fusillade into the charging changing ranks. Such was the intensity of the volume of fire that even those who weren’t hit by magical fire were momentarily blinded by the light of all the incoming multicolored shot.

The charge wavered, and when the first line of unicorns retired, replaced a second later by the second rank, the follow-up alpha strike finished the job. The leading yellow-jacketed changelings went down in a flurry of massed equestrian fire. Those who had followed the leaders in the charge wavered, many starting to turn and run back into better cover, mentally weighing their chance of success against their fear of just how quickly so many of their number had been mowed down.

It didn’t matter that many more had probably been killed by sporadic fire over the last hour or half hour. Less damage done in a shorter period of time could put fear in the most stouthearted of beings. This was as true of changelings as it was of equestrians. ‘Shock,’ Luna remembered it being called, in this time period.

The final rank of unicorns stepped forward, letting the second rank retire. Just the sight of their horns charging behind the ranks of earth pony spears extinguished the last few embers of changeling courage in their assault. They fled, dozens cut down before they could get out of range.

“Wormsign!” The cry came from one of the pegasi flyers. “WORM!!”

Acting quickly, the formation squares broke apart, scattering. The ground beneath them swelled, bulging, before revealing the gaping maw of a changeling Tatzlwurm. Black tentacles whipped out from the mouth of each worm as it reared up and out of the ground, trying to snatch up fresh victims. Rapidly reforming their groups, a forest of spearpoints dissuaded the lengthy mouthparts while the first rank of unicorns pressed into service to deliver new volleys onto target.

For all the confusion of the initial wormsign, the fighting ponies of Canterlot reacted very effectively to the breach in their lines. Officers painted one of the worms with a magical beacon, and all three squares concentrated their fire on it rather than splitting their magic between the three huge annelids. The first giant worm shuddered and convulsed under the storm of magic before collapsing in a pool of ooze with a high pitched wail. Luna allowed herself to hang back and out of the way, contributing her own fire when the time came to bring down the second and then the third of the burrowing monstrosities.

“Hey, Princess!” A rainbow streak made a pass overhead before slamming hard into a landing close by. “You got your bonus life or what?”

Luna raised an elegant eyebrow at the reference. “Bonus life?”

“Princess Luna is not a cat, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity lectured, trotting forward alongside General Snow Drift and a small cadre of other nobleponies. “Nor can I imagine she wastes time with games like…”

“A bonus life! Yes! That is it exactly!” Luna exclaimed, to Rarity’s astonishment.

The fashionista was left gaping in response. “What?”

Luna rushed up to the exhausted looking element of loyalty. “Art thou a fellow automated gaming aficionado?” She bodily hoisted Dash into the air, much to the poor pegasus mare’s gobsmacked surprise. “Truly, we live in a remarkable time, do we not? These ‘arcades’ are truly the bee’s knees! Tell us, have you played the ‘Doom’?”

“Uhh.”

Rarity and Lord Snow Drift exchanged worried looks, but Applejack shrugged. “Gotta spent yer nights doin’ somethin’ I guess.”

“Thou hast no idea,” Luna deadpanned, releasing her hostage to drift back down to the ground. “General!” Luna addressed Lord Snow Drift. “We - I have our – my second body. We need only confirm the location of the third and launch a strike team to retrieve it!”

The defacto commander of Canterlot’s emergency defense force nodded in agreement. Getting the Princess to one hundred percent was a definite high priority, though he clearly disliked the fact that doing so also risked her life in the process. “There have been pegasi approaching the barrier from the outside. Cloudsdale will certainly come to our aid, as will the army of the Terre Rare who even now secure the lowlands. Lady Rarity has made arrangements. I would suggest we hold off an assault until then, when we will have much greater force on-hoof…”

“That is most prudent,” Luna agreed.

“All I know is that it was great to finally be able to get into the air again!” Dash remarked with a happy grin. “And that crash? Ten-out-of-Ten! Would totally crash again!” The cocky weathermare shared a mock sigh. “The only downside is that the real crazy stuff seems to be already over. It isn’t like you can top personally crashing an airship into a fortress…”

“Oh Lordy,” Applejack groaned, burying her face in her hooves.

Rarity put a hoof to her forehead, a sudden headache coming on. “And ten, nine, eight…”

“Whatever dost thou count down for?” Luna asked, turning to Lord Snow Drift for some sort of explanation. He only shrugged, as in the dark as his Lunar Princess. It was almost as if the Elements of Honesty and Generosity expected some dire circumstance to result from their friend’s comment.

“My Lord!” A bandaged pegasus landed, his eyes bloodshot. “WORMSIGN, Lord. Heading this way. It just hit Lady Wallflower!”

“More worms?” Snow Drift snorted. “How many made it past Wallflower, son?”

The pegasus stared numbly ahead, shaking like a leaf. The sight hit just when the smell did. This pony had pissed himself before flying over. It was dripping from the insides of his legs.

“It was… one worm, my Lord,” the poor stallion managed to explain, through the terror in the back of his mind. “Wallflower’s unit is dead. They’re all dead. Only I escaped.”

“Well, I hope yer happy, consarn it!” Applejack yelled, and Dash could only cringe. “Every single time, ya go and tempt fate, and this is what happens!”

“D-d-don’t try and pin this on me!” Rainbow objected. “I just call it as it is!”

“Scatter! Everypony scatter! Now!” Snow Drift bellowed, and only a heartbeat later, the ground began to rumble. Tatzlwurms always made a violent disturbance in the ground with their burrowing, especially as they broke through the sub-street and basement levels of the city. This was the so called ‘wormsign.’ It hadn’t taken long for word of mouth to help ponies learn how to survive an encounter.

Most made for high ground. Pegasi took to the air.

The rumbling continued, shaking the walls of buildings a block away. A wall abruptly crumbled. There was no other warning before a sinkhole large enough to swallow a house opened up right in the center of what had been the battlefield before. Changeling and equestrian bodies tumbled into the pit, but everypony was sufficiently prepared. The five caught in the radius called for help, and pegasi swooped in to extract them.

Except, like lightning, three black tentacles erupted, snagging both the pegasi rescuers and three of the ponies they had been trying to save. In the blink of an eye, all six were dragged down into the rapidly expanding depression. Magical blasts, meant to stun or even sever the tentacles in the case of some lucky shots, did nothing. Before another move could be made or another order given, the ground exploded, and a vast form emerged from the ruins of the street, trailing a loop of broken railroad track around it like a necklace.

“Back! Keep back!” Snow Drift tried to coordinate an orderly fallback. “Get my artillery off their flanks and on top of this monster!”

The worm, meanwhile, just kept rising higher and higher.

“Pitiful Creatures!” a feminine voice roared from on high, the head of the titanic Tatzlwurm swiveling to point downward. The triple jaws of the worm spread wide, revealing not only the toothy, cavernous maw and the grasping tentacles, but a tiny protrusion with a mane of brown scales. It was the tiny protrusion that spoke.

“You cower before Mictlantecuhtli the Insatiable! God of Worms! Who among you will join the thousands in the Underworld that is my belly? Pray, now, to ME, Queen Tlanextli, descended of Q'uq'umatz, and your ends will be as swift as your fleeting lives!”

The last few links of the gigantic worm burst out of the hole, forming a coil to support it in place as it fell back to the ground with an earth-shaking roar.

“Behold our majesty!” A building-sized tail swept passed overhead, the wind from it bowling ponies over.

Only Luna remained unmoved, gritting her teeth and facing into the storm.

“Behold our glory! Bask in the shade of our titanic perfection… and tremble! For I am come to bring an End to Your World!”

If prayer and supplication had been her expected reward for making a grand appearance, Queen Tlanextli was sorely disappointed. Every cannon in range that had even the most modest chance of hitting such a huge target took the shot. A tumultuous stream of thunderous barks from artillery peppered the massive worm from every angle.

Almost every one hit; not a single one penetrated.

“FOOLS! My hide cannot be pierced!” Tlanextli roared, and the tail of the huge worm lifted into the air like building-sized fly-swatter. “Die!”

When it came down, it destroyed an entire firing range, flattening it in one go. The tail then swept across the remains, scattering what it had just crushed and using the debris as a wave of projectiles. Dozens and then almost a hundred unicorns from all sides fired at the monster, but like the artillery shells, had no apparent effect on the hide of the elephantine Tatzlwurm.

“We could sure use another airship to hit it with right now!”

More than a few eyes turned on Rainbow Dash at that comment.

“What?” the brash mare wondered, glancing around the half dozen faces. “We’re all thinking it, right?”

“Lord Snow Drift! Elements of Harmony!” Luna yelled over her shoulder, picking up speed ad she broke into a run. “We would appreciate as much help as you can render!”

“You are less than buzzing carrion flies to me! Your efforts mean nothing!”

Tlanextli’s giant tail came down in a slow arc, having identified at least the first among the ‘buzzing flies’ that it needed to squash. Running near top speed, Luna was gladdened to see Applejack and Rainbow Dash keeping pace alongside her. Lagging behind them for only a second, Rarity looked absolutely mortified to be tagging along, but with surprising athletic ability the former dressmaker soon stayed abreast of her friends. As one, the four turned sharply left, ducking under the huge tail as it came down.

“Oh, heavens!” Rarity cried, and the four of them ended up jumping over a gaping tear in the street. “Do we really have to do this?”

“Are you kidding?” Dash yelled back as the shadow of Tlanextli’s tail passed overhead, punctuated by dozens of magical explosions. “This is awesome!”

“Tentacles!” Luna commanded, royal Canterlot voice in full force, leading the three Elements of Harmony around the circumference of the worm’s coiled base. “You must keep them off us as we find purchase!”

The boneless, muscular tendrils came from overhead, plunging down like black spears.

They didn’t seem to even be bothering with trying to grab hold, they just lanced downward and withdrew, forcing the four mares to break stride. Jumping, dodging and flying past the stinging tentacles, Rainbow Dash gathered clouds around her forelegs, charging them with electricity. The fastest of the group, she had the least trouble avoiding being squashed and concentrated on shocking the pillars of black flesh every time she flew past.

Not seeing many other options, Applejack tested the waters of just how much she could risk by hitting one of the tentacles only in passing. To her surprise, the boneless limb yielded easy to a solid kick, trembling as it absorbed the power of her blow. Jumping clear of a tumbling cabbage cart, she recalled how White Dew had moved in her fight with him, way back on the road to Ponyville. She had readily grasped that it was not a matter of strength but a certain state of mind that made the jump from bucking apples to bucking ponies, but the concept of ‘hitting hard without actually hitting hard’ was much more mystifying.

“In the name of all things fabulous, keep it away from meeeee!” The last member of their band wailed, conjured haircloth snapping savagely at any horrific thing that entered her field of view.

“Here!” Luna yelled, “this way!”

The Princess of the Night rushed ahead, jumping up to the top of an escarpment carved out by Tlanextli’s emergence. Sinking her tail into the ground, she tore loose a piece of rail and angled it into the air. Already guessing at what she had planned; Rarity detached the end of her tail, converting it into her second ream of special haircloth. Rainbow Dash already had a stormcloud in place over their heads as a shield.

Rooted in place, Luna’s horn ignited, her telekinetic grip snagging the twisted railroad track around the girth of Tlanextli’s body. Caught in the middle of swinging her tail at a unit of attacking pegasus guards, Tlanextli’s roared as she ended up pulled to the side.

“Puny grubs! You dare try to move ME against my will?”

As predicted, Tlanextli’s tentacles came to her defense, one crashing into the stormcloud and missing, another plunging into first one layer and then the second of Rarity’s defensive fabric before coming to a stop, and the third sweeping in from the side, the ground under Applejack’s hindlegs cracking as she blocked it with her forelegs.

Sweat beaded on Luna’s brow as she struggled, a desperate cry on her lips as she pulled with every ounce of her mental and magical might. The final straw came in the form of a brave wing of pegasus grenadiers, who, having spent their weapons but picked up on the Princess’s strategy, hurled themselves into the side of the beast.

Tlanextli fell.

The four mares scattered like the wind, only seconds before the huge worm crashed down on the railroad tracks turned makeshift pikes. For a second, the colossal Tatzlwurm remained still… but then it spun, sending up a wave of debris. Included were the twisted and broken railroad tracks that had been meant to punch through the worm Queen’s indestructible hide. Even the bodies of the three smaller Tatzlwurms ended up shredded in the fall, a fact that caught Luna’s eye.

“Do you think your tricks clever?” Tlanextli roared. “You have only earned my ire! I shall devour a thousand of you for this insult!”

Taking to the air, Luna grabbed onto Lady Rarity as the worm thrashed, flattening a huge circular space around where it had fallen. Those few intact buildings close by where crushed and scattered like kindling. Also held aloft, Applejack shouted a warning that came a moment too late as Tlanextli’s tentacles struck again. This time they were able to find their target, one wrapping around Luna’s upper body, crushing her wings painfully against her sides, and another completely encapsulating her head.

The tentacles were not for play. The moment they were in place, they constricted with bone-crushing force. The pain that was her torso being reduced by a size still couldn’t compare to the thought of what her head would look like. Luna’s legs kicked spasmodically, her magic firing within the fleshy cocoon but unable to affect an escape, even as it burned her in the process. One last panicked attempt to turn to smoke fizzled as the stinging cells in the Tatzlwurm found her horn.

Then, relief--

“Again! Cut the other one!”

The black flesh around Luna’s eyes fell away, and she caught sight of how she had been rescued. Still in mid-air, Rarity had a narrow strand of her fabric wrapped in a loop around the second tentacle. Thrown forward by Rainbow Dash, Applejack turned and kicked the cloth, stiffening it and forcing it to contract with magical force. The black tendril puckered and split, cut clean through.

Tlanextli bellowed in pain and outrage as she struggled to rise back up. “My tongues! You cut me! You miserable little ticks actually cut me!”

The severed tentacles whipped wildly, spraying bluish black blood. Wildly, but not, it turned out, without purpose. Passing out of range enough to not seem like a threat, a forceful spurt of blood knocked all three of Luna’s companions out of the air. Tlanextli’s massive head spun, almost grinning. The third and last intact mouth tentacle made to reacquire the Princess’s head and horn.

This time, however, Luna was prepared.

“Hhhrraah!” Catching the tentacle between her hooves, Luna was nonetheless knocked out of the air and into the ground with jarring force. Eyes flashing, her tail came into play again, lancing up between her legs to spear through the tip of the tentacle just above where she gripped it.

Tlanextli hissed in pain and tried to retract her mouthpart, but Luna held firm. A Tatzlwurm’s tentacles were strong indeed, especially if they could get a grip on a victim, but they were so thin, their power was practically miniscule compared to the muscle and mass of the full worm. Extending her wings, she took flight just long enough to grab one of the wounded tendrils and thread the bloody stump through the hole she had cut into the intact one. Tying the knot, she landed on her hindlegs and heaved… the pain more than the force applied forcing the massive worm Queen to give ground.

In so doing, she steered Tlanextli’s ‘face’ towards the guns of the forward assault headquarters.

Straining too hard to even raise her voice to yell, Luna felt a surge of relief when she realized she didn’t have to. Cannons of all varieties unloaded into the gaping maw of Queen Tlanextli, prompting the huge worm to thrash and struggle. Even the party cannon, hastily pushed forward by an overeager crew of earth ponies, got in a shot at relative point-blank range. The solid rounds were joined by spells of a dozen varieties and colors, pounding and blasting away at the exposed flesh of the worm’s mouth.

“My face! My beautiful face! You little monsters!”

Sensing the time was right, Luna slackened her grip just as Tlanextli reared frantically upwards, willing to tear off two of her tongues to escape the punishment to her ‘face.’ Arcing through the air, still holding onto the knotted mouth tentacles, Luna wrapped the bundle of bleeding black flesh around her right foreleg and pounded it with her left hoof. Tlanextli screamed in agony, feeling every blow despite her invincible hide.

Unable to take it anymore, she reeled in her tongues, and this time Luna let her.

Landing firmly on the triple-jawed maw of the massive Tatzlwurm, Tlanextli’s mouth snapped shut and the Princess vanished. For a moment, the God of Worms lay still, working down its newest meal. Then the tail kicked up and it started to writhe. More mass than a freight train heaved straight into the air and crashed down, the head of the Tatzlwurm thrashing side to side.

“Get her out! Get her out of me!” Tlanextli opened her mouth to the sky, spitting up streaks of darkly-stained ooze. “You’re hurting me! You can’t hurt me! I CAN’T BE HURT!”

Her tentacles flailed, trying to curve around to get into her own gullet.

“CHRYSALIS!” the so called God of Worms howled in pain and fear. “Help me! You said they couldn’t hurt MEEEEE!”

The monster’s voice turned from an inarticulate roar into an ear-splitting scream as a midnight blue shape erupted back out of the mouth. Fluttering slowly back to earth, Princess Luna’s hooves touched solid ground just as the towering form of Tlanextli’s body, Mictlantecuhtli, self-proclaimed ‘devourer of thousands,’ tottered and fell. Held in each of her front hooves was a tooth ripped free from the worm’s cannon-blasted mouth. Her mane and tail were dripping black ichor that had nothing to do with her natural preference in colors.

Opening her mouth, Princess Luna spat out a grub-like creature with brown stripes.

The head was vaguely changeling-like, but the body was almost entirely shriveled. The legs were atrophied and folded up flat across the torso. The wings were hardened disks, useless for flight. There were no hindquarters. The parasite had been attached directly into the host’s circulatory and nervous systems.

“Chrysalis…” a tinny voice squeaked from the shriveled changeling queen. “You promised… you promised… me…”

Luna stepped over the shriveled Brown Queen as it grew still, not even sparing it a second glance.

She made it exactly four steps before stumbling. Fortunately, a small group of ponies were quick to converge on her. Most gave way to let a special three help her to stand. Despite being drenched in black bile, Rarity seemed to have put that fact momentarily aside. She helped to clear a path through the gathering multitude as Applejack and Rainbow Dash supported the Princess to her left and right respectively. A hushed quiet fell over the entire battlefield, perhaps as they waited for some other – even larger – threat to suddenly appear.

“Princess,” one pony started with a whisper.

“Princess!” another pony cried out, and then more. “Princess!” “Princess! Princess!”

“Luna!” Rarity added her own voice, and recognizing it, others spoke it as well. “Luna.” “Luna.” “Luna!”

Through her exhausted haze, it took the Princess of the Night a moment to realize what was happening around her. Craning her neck to look up, she blinked in confusion. A veritable sea of ponies surrounded her, calling out her name. Not a one of them looked forced or compelled to do so.

“Lu-na!” “Lu-na!” “Lu-na!”

She lowered her eyes; silently hoping nopony noticed the tears of joy streaming down her cheeks.

“I’m still me!” her cry from before joined the cheers that drowned out all other thoughts. “A new me! With a new chance!”

‘And I will make the best of it, no matter what happened in the past.’

Author's Note

And there we go.
As an aside, with my current proof-reader pretty busy, I've had to go raw on the last couple chapters. If someone with a open schedule wants to try and TPC proof-read for me before chapter releases, that's be wunderbar. The biggest problems to keep in mind are the size of chapters for proofing and the somewhat erratic nature of my updates.

Chapter Fifty Three : Explode

(53)

Explode

Vinyl Scratch gritted her teeth and bit back a growl as her nose brushed the surface of the floor. The up-and-coming DJ had the changeling looming behind her to thank for her current position, shoved down into a mockery of a formal bow. Nor was she alone in her misfortune.

An indignant yip to her left suggested that Octavia was enduring the same treatment. Neither musician was exactly the type to quietly take abuse, but they weren’t suicidal either. These changeling bugs weren’t screwing around. Vinyl had thought she’d interacted with the last of them when she’d foisted off her explanation on why Twilight Sparkle would be heading to the radio tower. The changelings seemed to have bought into the lie, only to suddenly pull the two mares away from the group and drag them downstairs an hour or two later.

“You will bow before Princess Exuvia, pony!” the changeling growled, forcing Vinyl’s nose to the floor.

“Now, now,” a mare’s voice gently admonished the gruff changeling. The changeling marehandling her was, Vinyl remembered, the same one that had threatened to put out her eye with a knife if she lied. Thank the Princess it still hadn’t caught on to the fact that she had done just that.

“I asked you to bring them down here gently, sister. Gently,” the new voice continued to say. “These are valuable ponies, after all. Please handle them with care.”

“As – as you say, Princess! My apologies!”

Vinyl felt the back of her head come free, the changeling’s grip instantly released. Looking up, she recognized where they had taken her: it was the record archive for the radio station. Thousands of black vinyl disks were stored here in library-like rows of shelves. There were changelings moving among them, undisguised and in their insect-like base forms, packing the records into wooden crates.

It occurred to Vinyl, right away, that these creatures were looting the place. But why? What would a bunch of shape-shifting alien bugs want with music records? It didn’t make sense.

“If they try anything foalish, feel free to jump in, but until then I think you can leave them be,” the mare’s tone of voice was light and casual, conversational even, but there was a tremor of unmistakable authority. The speaker could be casual and soft spoken because she knew she would be listened to… and obeyed.

The other changeling had called her a ‘Princess.’

Vinyl’s eyes narrowed behind her tinted sunglasses.

Standing taller than the other changeling bugs was a mare with a white coat the same shade as Vinyl’s own. Her mane was a wild, bright green with neon highlights, and her eyes were greenish-gold. Looking into those eyes, Vinyl could see the serpentine slit in the pupil that could only belong to a changeling. Further incrimination came in the form of the jagged black horn that erupted from this pony’s head. It – she – seemed to be a mix of changeling and pony, or maybe, just a changeling in partial-disguise.

Looking closer at the other changelings, Vinyl noticed that many still wore part of their pony disguise. One changeling worker had a pony tail. Another had pony-like eyes. Another had a pony’s horn instead of a changeling one. Quite a few sported distinctively equine manes or mane styles. One even had a t-shirt!

What was with these crazy bugs?

“Octavia Melody?” The tall, mismatched changeling offered a hoof to help the earth pony stand up. “It is a pleasure to meet you face to face. My name is Princess Exuvia. You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“N-no…” Octavia stammered, quickly regaining her composure and perfect poise. At the same time, she was clearly a little thrown by the sudden concern.

Exuvia smiled a warm, friendly, disarming smile. “Good! Don’t worry. I’ll reunite you with your friends and orchestra-mates as soon as I can. I already have all the others tucked away, safe and sound: Beauty Brass, Maestro Horseshoepin, Harpo and Lady Sousaphone. They’re all waiting for you, Miss Melody.”

Octavia’s expression brightened for a moment, only to darken. “You foalnapped them…?”

“I’m keeping them safe,” Exuvia insisted, still smiling and speaking kindly. “Right now, the city just isn’t safe for artists, now is it?”

Vinyl didn’t have to be a genius to see the well veiled threat in Exuvia’s words. She had all of Octavia’s friends, Princess-only-knows where. There was no need to even point that fact out as a means of compelling a pony’s good behavior. It was implicit. Octavia realized it, too, and her eyes lowered in defeat.

“No, it isn’t… safe,” she admitted.

“Don’t worry,” Exuvia said, patting her on the foreleg and then gently cupping her chin to force her to look up. “I won’t let anything happen to those wonderful hooves and legs of yours. Once you’re reunited with the rest of your orchestra, I hope you’ll play Beethoofen’s Symphony No. 9 for myself and Queen Chrysalis. And, of course, we’ll need you to teach changelings to play on your level. The classics must never be extinguished, am I right?”

Octavia slowly shook her head.

“Good. We understand each other, then!” Exuvia left Octavia and trotted over to Vinyl, still smiling amiably. “And Vinyl Scratch! I’m not a huge fan of remixes, but I am quite fond of the band Manticore.” Her magic floated over a record with the title of ‘Love at First Sting.’

“You’ve got better taste than Octy, at least,” Vinyl joked, and Octavia scoffed.

“You didn’t have to listen to that music twelve hours a day for four years.” Octavia pointed boldly at the changeling Princess. “She’d play the same annoying Pink Flank record over and over for hours!”

“You had your choice of roommates after freshman year,” Vinyl slipped back into their usual argument, regardless of the circumstances. “Why didn’t you move in with Miss Kissface that second year?”

“You know why!”

“And what about third year, when we rented that seedy joint owned by that Maremenian guy?”

“We only rented that place because you spent all your money on that sound system--”

“I still use it! That was a totally good deal!”

Exuvia glanced between the two bickering musicians, and gradually extended a hoof between them. “As amusing as this is, I brought you here to confirm a few things, not to hear you argue.”

Octavia stamped her hoof on the floor and turned up her nose with a huff.

“Oh, oh yeah,” Vinyl replied with a chuckle, lifting a hoof of her own to her chest. “Sorry. Sorry!”

Exuvia raised an eyebrow at the behavior of the two mares. “Ah, well… how to put this?” Her smile broadened until it touched on her green-gold eyes. “It’s just that I know you were lying to my subordinate earlier... and she promised to cut out your eyes.”

Vinyl was abruptly grabbed from behind by the changeling guard and forced down onto her stomach. She heard Octavia cry out in fear, but before she could think about her friend’s situation, a glinting edge intruded on her vision. It was the dark, organic-looking changeling knife from before. The tip of it slipped under her violet shades and slipped them off the bridge of her nose.

“I really don’t want to hurt you or anypony else of value,” Exuvia explained, and the knife paused. Vinyl gulped, trying to twist her face away from the blade, but the changeling behind her also had a grip on her horn.

“I’ve studied Equestrians and Equestrian magic all my life,” Exuvia went on to say, and Vinyl could see her hooves on the floor just in front of her. “I actually rather like ponies, and that is an attitude I’ve tried to cultivate in those who work under me. Unlike most other hives, we changelings of the Biscione have quite a few Princesses… Instar is the big one. She commands our Queen’s warriors. I am typically ranked second to Instar as I oversee the more delicate forms of infiltration. With the war on, our focus is now on the preservation of Equestrian art and culture during this period of transition…”

Exuvia ducked down, so she and Vinyl could be face to face and eye to eye.

“My intention is to keep safe all the artists, all the musicians, and all the creative energies of Equestria. It and you make up our great cultural inheritance. I’m telling you this, so you know how very reluctant I am to endanger that inheritance by hurting you. But…” Exuvia drew out the word, pausing for emphasis. “I will. I truly will hurt you… and your friend Octavia here… if I am put in a situation where I have no choice. You don’t want to put me in a position where I feel that way, do you?”

Vinyl very slowly and very carefully shook her head. No.

“You aren’t going to try and lie again, are you?” Exuvia asked with a concerned and amiable tone.

“No,” Vinyl answered.

“Good. Then we understand each other?”

“Yeah. We do.”

“Wonderful! Understanding is the first step towards building a better tomorrow!” Exuvia exclaimed, and gestured towards her guards. “Release her. I believe we’ve made our point. If she lies again… then, well--” The Princess shrugged. “--I hope she doesn’t, but you know what to do if she does?”

“I do,” the changeling brute answered, and Vinyl had to resist the urge to spin around and try and belt her one across the face.

“Twilight Sparkle is a unicorn of great power,” Exuvia reminded them all, though she also simply seemed to be running the scenario through her mind. “She’s been on a rather determined course towards this facility. You suggested to my sister behind you that she wants to imprint magic spells on records and distribute them. While that is plausible, I would propose another theory...”

“You sound like you’ve got it all figured out,” Vinyl interrupted, forcing herself back up, to stand on all four hooves. “Why do you need me at all?”

Exuvia paused before she could explain more, and her friendly smile returned.

“This way,” she commanded turning and trotting through the archive. “I need you to deliver an invitation. Certain things have happened elsewhere in the city. Twilight Sparkle and I need to talk. Tell me, would you like a cold drink?”

Despite being on an airship, where space was at a premium, both mares had plenty of room to primp and preen. The case was literal, in respect to the latter, as Beau Monde straightened out the ruffled feathers of her cornsilk white wings. She was hailed as a beauty, not simply because of her Celestia-like coat and feather coloration, but for her poise, grace, and impeccable breeding. With crystal blue eyes and a flaxen mane, she could have been a Blueblood – or a Blue Belle – herself.

“There you go again, drinking that potion,” Beau said, eyes on the other occupant of the bathroom.

“What? This little thing?” See Through asked, holding up the little black vial in a field of magic and giving it a tiny shake. She was a unicorn mare in the fashion and modeling business, with the lithe, svelte figure those sorts of mares always aspired to have, raspberry coat and wine-red mane. Both were a little tousled, and Beau Monde knew she had been in part responsible for it after a lively morning and afternoon in bed.

“It isn’t anything sinister, I assure you,” See Through said.

“Then what is it?” Beau asked, trotting over to the tall body mirror that dominated the room.

“Let’s just say that if this works, you just might be calling me Duchess before too long!” See Through giggled, replacing the cork on the vial and discreetly hiding it in a drawer beneath the piled-high white towels.

“A love potion?” Beau guessed, her fair features darkening in a frown, but the guilty look on See Through’s face provided another explanation. “A pregnancy potion?”

“A fertility aid!” the unicorn mare insisted, defensive.

“Idiot,” Beau huffed, shaking her head dismissively as she found her reflection in the mirror and started brushing her mane. “If that sort of thing worked, don’t you think somepony else would have hit the jackpot years ago?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” See Through argued, pouting angrily at the mirror. She started to slip on a pair of racy pantyhose to go with her garter, a task made much easier when one was a unicorn.

“Duchess See Through!” the unicorn mare preened, throwing a kiss at herself in the mirror. She posed one hoof up to her gently curling mane, pushing the hair up just enough to show everypony her necklace. It was gold and diamond with thin slivers of sparkling tourmaline.

“Just be glad he gave you that,” Beau Monde said, pointing with a feather towards the necklace. “It belonged to the late Duchess, didn’t it? You could probably sell it and retire for the rest of your life.”

“You’re probably right,” See Through replied, fixing Beau with a sly smile. “Not all of us can be as rich as you, my Lady.”

“I’m no Lady,” Beau reminded her and pursed her lips into a kiss. “Or else these lips of mine would be singing praises to the Princess, like a good girl’s would, instead of praising your flank, as mine have done.”

See Through blushed hotly and affixed on her reflection again. “Yes… well! We all have to get what we can before that horrible Rarity mare steals it all for herself. Until then, may the best mare win!”

“As long as it isn’t Candy.”

“Oh, Princesses, no. Not her.”

Suitably presentable, the two mares left the opulent bathroom and entered the bedroom where their partners waited. The blue and white sheets of the king-sized bed were already moving over a pair of giggling, chuckling bodies. They flew into the air a moment later, held aloft by gold-hued magic. The bedcovers settled onto the floor revealing first an earth pony mare with an amaranth-pink coat and smoky mane. This was Candy Wrapper, also known as ‘Candy Rapper,’ a rather well known ‘musical artist.’

Second, the covers revealed Prince Blueblood in all his glory.

“Ladies,” he announced, a charming smile lighting up his eyes with a faint green glow. He inched up towards the back of the bed and beckoned them forward. “I’m ready for round… what round were we up to again, Candy?”

“Round six, I think,” Candy Wrapper answered, pointing towards the two mares. “I’ll take Beau this time.”

“As the Lady wishes!” Blueblood declared.

Beau Monde and See Through exchanged looks… and jumped into bed.

Not a one of them loved ‘him,’ ‘Blueblood’ knew.

She also didn’t care.

A changeling could feed on all sorts of emotions, and there were many, many forms of love. These mares, ‘Blueblood’ knew, loved what she could do for them. One loved the jewels and the fortune that came from being one of the Prince’s lovers and mistresses. She imagined that it would just be the start of a long and sordid affair, and secretly dreamed that maybe it could even develop into some sort of political power. No matter how much of a long shot she knew it to be, she dreamed about being a Duchess, about being a Princess, with castles and servants and wealth that guaranteed she would never lack for any comfort she desired.

Another loved the supposed Prince for his fame… or infamy… depending on how one interpreted the emotions. The form the changeling had borrowed for this job was a desirable one to mares. There was nothing unusual about being loved and desired as an object. Art was valued, and it was an object, was it not? The changeling knew the Queen would approve of such thoughts. This mare’s desires were both simple and strangely complex, topped with condiments of confusion and insecurity. They were food, all the same.

The last mare loved him simply for his power. The changeling almost laughed. The foolish creature did not know what true power really was. But she did understand that it was the ultimate aphrodisiac. Pleasing her was simple enough, and the love she provided in return was a rosy, irreverent, fruity vintage.

This was the life of Prince Blueblood, and it was delectable indeed!

Combined with the love leeched from Lady Rarity, it was sustenance and more!

The greatest shame would be when it all came to an end. There was little chance the Queen would allow her servants to have more than three or four ponies each to satisfy their hunger. Gluttony and all. Hence, the days of replacing the Prince of Unicorns were soon to be at an end. The great slaughter to come on the battlefields below would usher in a new age… an age where changelings finally shed their disguises and assumed the mantle that was theirs by right!

Crawling away from the bed, letting the bedsheets fall away from her stolen body, the changeling that had once been Pixie Dust, that had once pretended to be Applejack – if only for a night’s quick snack – and that had finally replaced Blueblood, trotted up to a carved wooden table. She could still hear the giggles of Beau Monde and Candy Wrapper as they finished their little game of hide-and-seek with See Through.

Stretched out on the table was a map of Whitewillow Pass, the only way into the Duchy of Canterlot between the borders of the Everfree and Cantering Mountains. Pinned to the map were dozens of pony figurines in an assortment of colors, divided principally between red and blue. A dozen airships on long, tall pins hovered over the map, just as they did in the real world outside.

The blues held the pass, stretched out in lines to bar the way.

The reds were massed in orderly rows, hoping for entry.

“It will be a glorious slaughter,” Blueblood whispered in delight.

Not a slaughter of reds. Not a slaughter of blues. But a slaughter of ponies. The very same troublesome ones that were most likely to fight a changeling invasion instead of submit to their rightful yoke. The trained soldiers and the prickly nobles that led them… they would all die fighting one another while their cities and homes and families fell behind them.

Truly, the Queen was a genius to conceive of such a plan; such a magnificent coup!

A knock at the door to her chambers brought the changeling back to the present. The Queen’s plan was indeed brilliant, but it had not yet been executed. Twice, now, Yama had refused to rise to her – to the Prince’s – provocations. It seemed the Lord of Neighpon was perfectly content to pitch camp and wait, and wait, and wait and wait some more!

Yama had to imagine that, eventually, Princess Celestia herself would simply have to appear to settle the impasse. Yes. That would make sense. Yama would hand over his precious daughter Yumi for judgment, but only to the Princess herself, in the flesh, and not to anypony else. He thought to save face and play the waiting game. The old fool. If he insisted on being so bloody stubborn, his hoof would just have to be forced. Hard.

“Enter,” the changeling said in Blueblood’s voice.

“Oh!” “Eeee!” “He~ey, an audience!” came the three voices from three mares atop the Prince’s bed. All three lovely young mares quickly covered themselves up beneath the covers, glaring (or smiling in one case) as a pair of burly royal guards entered.

They brought with them the latest of Yama’s envoys: a stallion, this time.

“Would’ya look at this?” the stallion – almost certainly part of the second wave of couriers from Cloudsdale – asked with a smile, taking in the sights of the room. He winked at the girls in the Prince’s bed. “Looks like a party to me!”

“Indeed,” Blueblood said, floating a robe over but leaving the front open. It seemed like the sort of arrogant, shameless thing the real Prince would do. Certainly, not a single pony had questioned any of her behavior so far in her masquerade of the royal unicorn.

“I come bearing the seal of Cloudsdale and the Congress of Four Winds,” the stallion declared. He was a slim fellow, tall but unusually lean. It was not a particularly attractive combination by the standards of most mares, and Blueblood knew this because she – as a changeling – had impersonated a mare for most of her life. The courier wore a white cloak of peace over his metal gray coat, a symbol of the current truce between the two armies that disputed the pass into Canterlot’s Duchy.

A heavy wax and bronze amulet hung from around his neck, bearing the heraldry of the Four Winds: the cloud, the thunderbolt, three slashes for wind, and a raindrop.

“I wish to present to Your Grace, Lord Blueblood, a proposal from my Masters, the Lords and Ladies of the Four Winds, of Cloudsdale and the Alliance of Pegasus Settlements,” the envoy announced, bowing gracefully and presenting a sealed wax tube.

He didn’t sound very Neighponese… probably a mercenary then, from some Free Company. More importantly, the letter in his possession bore the Congress’ Official Seal. It was genuine. It was also the second such letter to fall into her hooves.

Blueblood scoffed under her breath.

No doubt it was another pathetic attempt to call for help and avert the bloodshed soon to commence here. The attack on Canterlot had to be in the final stages if Cloudsdale was able to call for help in this manner, despite the terror attacks launched to confound the leadership there. It was just further proof that things here were behind schedule. Canterlot itself had to be secured before Cloudsdale could properly rally the rest of Equestria. From the mountain city turned mountain fortress, the changelings would be unassailable. In the meantime, Equestria as a whole needed to be weakened as much as possible.

Holding the sealed letter, the fake-Prince considered what to do with this courier. Cloudsdale had sent one before this, and she had kept him imprisoned. It wouldn’t do for news of Cloudsdale’s emergency recall to reach the rank and file. Maybe it was time to step up and just execute them both? Yama’s envoys could join them. That would certainly send a message!

The changeling that was Blueblood sighed.

It was definitely time to end this farce. There would be no more parlay. Lord Yama clearly needed a swift kick in the rump to escalate tensions enough that the Prince could justify calling for an attack on his fellow Equestrians. Diplomatic insults alone had thus far failed.

“Another proposal from the Congress,” Blueblood said, raising his voice so all could hear. As if on cue, the three mares on his bed all nodded and giggled in agreement. The two guards were fellow changelings and, true to their role, simply stared forward, alert but humorless. “Ho-hum! I suppose I can humor you and at least skim through it.”

Blueblood seized the wax tube in her magic. The tearing sound prompted a few twitched ears, and the letter came free from the waterproof seal. The paper within bore, once more, the official seal of Cloudsdale’s leaders, but… but nothing after the first line made sense.

“To… Lord Yama of Garland, from the Congress of…?” the changeling read aloud. “Is this the wrong letter?”

“Yeah,” the courier groused, “it is, isn’t it?”

Gray wings snapped out, catching the two guards clean in the throat.

“W-wha?” Blueblood stammered, as the pony suddenly erupted into violence. The insane courier spun around, planting brutal hoof-strikes into the changelings disguised as guards. In seconds, they were on the floor.

“You do look like him,” the envoy stated, turning to face Blueblood. He sniffed the air, too, rudely and without hiding it. “Smell like him, too! But it looks like that bitch was right.”

He reached up to the clasp around his neck, ripping it loose.

“That bitch Antimony,” the stallion’s voice warbled as the bronze seal fell to the floor, turning higher in pitch even as his body expanded, becoming hers, but a large, muscular her. “Don’t you get how much I hate admitting she was right?!”

“Who are you?” Blueblood spluttered, backing away from the suddenly violent and suddenly very unrestrained pegasus mare. “W-what do you want…?”

His two royal guards had crumpled to the polished hardwood floor and the mare – an assassin, she had to be! – surged forward. The white mantle of peace she had worn fluttered behind her as her gray wings propelled her into the Prince, bowling him over. One of the mares in the Prince’s bed screamed, likely See Through, and another cursed and rolled out of bed, probably Candy.

“Guards! Guards! Guards!!” Blueblood bellowed, losing momentarily control of her voice. “HELP ME! SAVE ME!!”

“I’ll help you,” the huge mare said, looming over the fallen royal. “I’ll save you.” She had something – the seal of the Four Wings – cupped in her hoof for some reason. She’d held onto it, even as the rest of her outfit fell away.

“Get away from h--”

Candy Wrapper would’ve been wiser keeping silent before trying to hit the Prince’s assailant from behind with a chair. As it was, this huge beast of a pegasus mare hadn’t even turned around. Her foreleg just stuck out like a flash, struck Candy Wrapper on the nose, and let her fall, screaming, to the floor. See Through and Beau Monde were still on the bed, clutching the bedsheet covers in fear.

“My nrose! You brroke my nrose!” Candy Wrapper shrieked, holding her face in her hooves. Quite a few un-lady-like curses followed the declaration.

“You girls might wanna run,” the murderous courier told the remaining two mares. “Go tell everypony you meet that their Prince is about to die… and that if Ritterkreuz can’t have something, nopony can!”

See Through and Beau Monde didn’t waste any time fleeing the Prince’s chambers.

“A-about to d-die?” Blueblood whimpered as the pegasus mare brought her bloody hoof, and the seal she held it in, closer. “W-wait! Wait! Whatever Yama or the Congress is paying you, I can double it! Triple it!”

The wax seal in the mare’s hoof flipped around, revealing a brooch hidden on the reverse side. A pin snapped out, and the needle-end of it scraped painfully across the Blueblood changeling’s forehead. Her magic sputtered as she thought to try and magically remove the interloper, but the assassin had a hoof on her horn. Changeling or not, unicorn magic couldn’t be used unless the horn was free to cast.

Then the magic hit, along with the pain of the needle.

“No. Oh no! No no no!”

Blueblood yelped and struggled, and her voice turned to a hiss as her disguise started to flicker and fizzle. There was some sort of spell in that breastpin! The same one that had made this mare look like an unattractive stallion! Blueblood started to squirm to get away, but it was to no avail. Despite taking the form of a rather large stallion, she was still physically a changeling. She didn’t have nearly enough strength to overpower this brute of a mare!

“So you really are a fucking fake,” Ritterkreuz cursed.

She looked down on the partly-revealed prey with narrow, dangerous eyes. It was in that moment that Blueblood realized it: this mare really was going to kill her. Those were the eyes of a pony who had killed, killed monsters, and not only planned to do so again, she looked forward to it.

“You – you – you’ll never make it out of here alive!” Blueblood vowed. No matter what. This mare… and maybe even See Through and Beau Monde…not a one of them could be allowed to live, not after seeing what they had of this!

They all had to die.

“You’re a dead mare!” the changeling hissed. “Do you think you can attack me and just leave? Huh! Do you? We’re everywhere. We’ll hunt you to the ends of Equus!”

The gray mare still looked down on the pinned Prince, digesting the threat.

She smiled.

“Was that a threat… or a promise!?” A mad gleam in her eye elicited a whinny of fear in the changeling. What kind of demon was this pony?!

“Let’s show the world what it looks like when a Prince dies,” Ritterkreuz yelled. “All we need first is an audience.”

Her wings snapped out, and the luxury cabin vanished in a single explosive Galloping Grenadier.

“Look!”

“Up there!”

“The Prince was on that ship!”

Captain Star Breeze rushed to the edge of the ship’s railing, her eyes wide as saucers. Half the bridge crew had abandoned their posts to join her. Star Breeze was a Canterlot mare, from a Canterlot family, that had served the titled Dukes and Duchesses of the Blueblood line since the eighth century. When the current Duke called up his vassals to face off against the rebel Lord Yama, Star Breeze had rushed to answer the once-in-a-generation call. It was a golden opportunity to renew the old vows, to heap on plenty to one’s family honors, and to inject some excitement into an otherwise dull fashion season.

Now, all that crumbled apart before her own two eyes.

The Prince’s flagship yacht was gutted. The entire aft-bottom section had been blown apart, wreathed in debris and smoke. One thought repeated in her mind, over and over. The Prince had been in that ship; the Prince had been in that cabin! What had happened?

Was it the enemy?!

“Assassin! An assassin!” a pony cried out.

“Princess save His Grace!” another moaned. “What do we do now?!”

“Who was it?” another yelled. “Was it Yama? Is he attacking?!”

Star Breeze turned her head, looking out towards the orderly ranks of Neighponese down in the valley. They hadn’t made a move. Not even a twitch. If this was their doing, they had no plans to capitalize on it. It made no sense.

“It’s a pegasus!” a panicked flyer in navy-blues raced past the ship, yelling at the top of her lungs. “Ritterkreuz! One of the Prince’s ex-lovers! She’s killed the Prince! The Prince is dead!”

“Dead?”

‘The Prince was dead? And Ritterkreuz… wasn’t she a Wonderbolt? A bloody stunt flyer! What in Celestia’s name was going on?’

Already, scuttlebutt was making the rounds across the aft castle of the airship. Star Breeze could imagine it was racing like wildfire throughout the ship… throughout the very fleet. Pegasus ponies were flying away from ships and between the fleet and the army below like a swarm of bees. Some were moving to try and prop up the damaged airship the Prince had been on, but many were frantically relaying messages between captains and crews.

One thing was clear: Celestia’s nephew had been killed by a former paramour…

Madness.

It was madness.

Lady Yumi lowered the binoculars from her eyes. Sitting atop a bed of thorny rosebushes, the Neighponese earth pony and heiress took in the sight of the Canterlot Armada in full. Though it was impossible to distinguish the individual ships from one another so far away, it was clear they were in chaos. It was, indeed, the perfect time to attack. Neighpon already had the greater force on the ground and in the field. The unicorns could be swept aside.

That wasn’t the plan, however, nor had it ever been part of the plan.

The burning, smoking wreck of the Prince’s airship stuck in her head, even after the binoculars rested on the roses beside her. It looked like Ritterkreuz had done her job well. There would be no doubts now that the Prince was dead, and dead at the hooves of a vengeful former lover. It would even seem like an appropriate and ironic end in the minds of many.

Most importantly, it had been done publicly. If the Prince had been secretly eliminated, another changeling might have taken its place. Antimony had been right about that. Now, with Blueblood unequivocally dead, there were sure to be other changelings – maybe even ship captains – who would try and incite the fleet to war, but none would dare to replace the Prince.

And even if they did…

“The time is ripe,” she said softly to the pony below her. “You are free to go.”

“Lady Yumi, I must protest!” The sky-blue pegasus courier suffered a black eye on his face, courtesy of running afoul of the same mare that had just made her move amongst the fleet.

“Once again, the ponies of Neighpon regret your poor treatment,” Yumi replied with a haughty glance at the messenger. “Nonetheless, you will find your audience more receptive now than they were earlier today. The call of the Congress of Four Winds will be heeded.”

“What does that mean?” the real Cloudsdale courier asked, not truly grasping the situation. How could he?

Yumi did not reply, she simply sat on her rose throne, watching the distant air fleet of Canterlot.

“This is no game, my Lady,” the Cloudsdale courier objected, even as Yumi’s guards let him go. The vines around his torso also slackened, releasing his wings.

“You think this a game to me?” Yumi asked, oh so softly. From atop her bed of roses, the bushes prickled. Yet not a one cut her perfect white coat. The pegasus courier shrank away from the cool anger the aloof noblemare radiated.

“I--”

“Fly off and do your job before you vex me,” Yumi cut him off.

The courier didn’t waste any more words. Running a few meters, picking up the sealed document he had been captured with using his mouth, he took to the air and headed towards the confused Canterlot airfleet. Unlike the first courier, waylaid by Blueblood, this one would be able to spread news of the emergency in Canterlot directly to the ship captains. Once Blueblood’s former army and navy started making top speed towards their burning home city, the forces of Neighpon could do the same.

All thanks to the sacrifice of a single mare.

It was efficient. Just as Antimony always said things should be. Small wonder so many hated her. Yumi remained on her floral bed, symbolically raised above her attendants. Her thoughts again turned to the wreckage she had seen through her binoculars.

Ritterkreuz. That had been the coarse mare’s name. She was a traitor to the Wonderbolts and to Cloudsdale, yet she had volunteered to risk her life with a smile. Her only objection had been to the mare that brought them together: their mutual enemy, Antimony. Yet even Antimony had made common cause with Rarity, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle and the other mares from Ponyville. An old grudge, like an old scar, could always reopen, but did that mean it could eventually heal over, too?

‘Ritterkreuz... you said things changed for you in Ponyville. They did for me, as well.’

Yumi closed her eyes, remembering an apple farmer she had treated with little dignity, but whom she had come to an understanding with. She remembered laboring over the fields of apples to heal and enhance the trees, just as she had done for the Fuji Clan and many others back in Neighpon. Beyond even that, she remembered a terrified pegasus mare in the Everfree, risking everything to help a stranger in the most dire circumstances imaginable. Fluttershy was not fearless, but she was brave, putting aside her fear and overcoming it.

Fluttershy. Applejack. Even that Rarity… by all reports, she had treated Suzukaze, Yudachi, and Shiratsuyu with respect and kindness, even after their capture.

Honor, if nothing else, demanded a response in kind.

‘Both our lives changed in Ponyville, Ritterkreuz. We had that in common, at the very least. If you still live, somehow, I would be glad to see you again in Canterlot. There are ponies there with debts I think we both intend to repay.’

“There it is.”

The object of their search had actually become visible minutes earlier, the eiffelized lattice tower rising up above the tips of surrounding trees and the scarred roofs of nearby buildings, but was only now revealing itself in full. Canterlot was a city of thin, gleaming white towers, and the metallic tower that was the source of most of its radio signals stood in stark contrast to that aesthetic. It was an example of a new sort of magic: a fusion of earth pony ingenuity, unicorn mastery of the arcane, and pegasus electrical theory. It was just unfortunate that it looked like such an eyesore compared to the rest of Canterlot… hence why it had been sequestered away from the main part of town so ponies didn’t have to see where their radio signals were actually coming from.

Twilight Sparkle led her small group – Team Pinkie, technically – out from a short carriage tunnel and back into the light. A packed dirt and stone road stretched out before them, leading straight through a small wooded park and up to the front gate of the radio station. It was this first view that provided them with a look at the building proper and not just the tower. Sprawled out around the base of the metallic latticework spire were a cluster of small, ornate buildings in Canterlot-white. These squat buildings were accompanied by the usual Canterlot ostentation and motifs: iron filigree, gold-colored reliefs of hearts and ponies, together with artistic depictions of radio waves moving across the air like waves on the sea.

A sign nearby read within a cheery gold border: HM’s Wireless Magical Broadcasting Tower.

Aside from a carriage that had been driven off the road and wrecked, there was no sign of danger or of changeling activity. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy took a moment to check the wreck, just in case a pony was trapped inside, but soon came back empty-hooved. Eunomie followed Twilight closely, saying nothing, and Twilight Velvet glanced around, as if looking for ambushers or some sort of sign.

“There,” Velvet spoke up, pointing up ahead.

“What?” Twilight asked, and then saw what her mother meant. There was something white up ahead on the side of the road. It was pony shaped, but these days that was no guarantee that it was a pony at all.

“Everypony! Heads up!” Twilight warned, trotting cautiously forward. Fluttershy quickly took the rear and Pinkie pronked left to right to keep from getting too far ahead. The white figure on the road soon saw them, too, and started walking in their direction to meet them half-way.

Seeing that, Twilight stopped entirely, and motioned for her friends and mother to do the same.

“We’ll wait here,” she said to them, keeping her voice low. “Keep your eyes and ears open.”

“Okey dokey!” Pinkie saluted and her eyes briefly bulged in their sockets. Fluttershy, already alert, merely nodded. Eunomie said nothing. Twilight Velvet also nodded, like Fluttershy, but instead kept her attention on the approaching pony.

“Hey! Twilight!” a familiar voice preceded the pony’s face, becoming clear enough to recognize. “That is you, right? Is that Pinkie, too?”

“Oh, hey!” Pinkie Pie started to run forward, only to be stopped short by Twilight’s magical hold on her tail. She fell forward with an ‘oomph’ but it didn’t put a damper on her happy smile. “Vinyl Scratch! What are you doing out here? Are you here for the wedding, too? Cause it was a total bust! I usually love party crashers, but this time they crashed the party WAY too hard!”

“You know this pony?” Twilight Velvet asked her daughter.

“She’s a DJ from Ponyville,” Twilight explained.

“Totally the best DJ in town!” Pinkie explained further.

“The only DJ in town, I think,” Twilight explained times three. Pinkie turned towards her with her lower lip stuck out in a pout. “Pinkie knows her better than I do,” the unicorn admitted.

“Of course I do, silly billy! I know everypony in Ponyville! No exceptions!” She tried to bounce away again, but her tail was still caught in Twilight’s magic. A magenta nail hammered the curly tail in place for good measure.

“She might be a changeling,” Twilight warned her friend. “Let her come to us.”

“Oh! Oh! I can totally tell if she’s a fake or not!” Pinkie rummaged a hoof around in her voluminous mane, procuring a pair of bright pink sunglasses which she promptly donned.

“You can?” Eunomie finally asked, intrigued. “How?”

“I know what color her eyes really are!” the party pony assured them, flipping up her glasses to reveal first rose-pink eyes, then maroon-red, and then raspberry-purple.

Eunomie fixed her with an unamused stare. “Please stop doing physically impossible things.”

“But they’re super fun!”

“I’ll just test her with my spell first,” Twilight said, interrupting the two mares.

“Awww!” Pinkie whined, taking off her glasses to reveal her normal baby-blues. Back in her mane they went until the next sunglasses emergency. Still pinned in place, Pinkie directed her moue-face at Eunomie. “You know, I totally need to introduce you to my sister Maud. She’d show you how to have some real fun!”

“I already have a sufficient level of fun,” Eunomie stated, deadpan. “I am having fun right this moment, in fact.”

“No you’re not!”

“I am, truly.”

“No you’re not! No you’re not!”

“Geez, Pinkie, I guess you’re the real deal at least,” Vinyl called out as she trotted towards them at a slow pace. “I don’t think there’s a bug out there that can copy you.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re both making fun of me?” Pinkie grumbled, vibrated at high speed, and somehow slipped her tail out from Twilight’s magical nail. “Freedom!!”

She made another jump forward--

--only to have an even bigger magical nail hammer her tail in place against the ground. Pinkie Pie fell flat on her face for a second time, accompanied by a sound very much like a deflating balloon.

“Hold it right there, ‘Vinyl Scratch!’” Twilight yelled, holding up her hoof. “If that is your real name! Before you come a step closer, I’m going to have to make sure you are who you appear to be.”

“So you do have a spell that can reveal these bugs,” Vinyl stated and patted herself on the chest. “Okay, no problem. Fire away.”

Twilight didn’t waste any more time. The gender-swap spell was like second nature to her now, and casting it on a single pony was just a matter of a moment’s effort. The spellwork settled on the other unicorn, and Vinyl’s body began to expand. Her snout squared and filled out, and her neon-highlighted mane shortened at the front and lengthened at the back while remaining as spiky as always. Her legs put on muscle and her torso filled out.

“Wo-ho-hoa! So this is how you’ll do it!” Vinyl exclaimed, but blanched at her still feminine voice. “Oh, weak! My voice is the same! I totally wanna hear what I sound like as a guy! I bet I’m totally a stud.”

She cut a line in the air with her hoof and summoned a mirror with her magic.

“Yeah, yeah, not bad!” She openly admired herself in the mirror, examining her masculine features with a curious hoof. “I look kinda like Neon Lights. Octavia would totally dig this. I’ve got to learn this spell…”

“Funny, I remember asking my good friend Twilight Sparkle to cast that spell on me once so I could go to a stag party, and she said it was for serious emergencies only,” Pinkie grumbled, still pinned to the ground by her tail. “A party is always serious business!!”

“Okay, okay.” Twilight tried to steer things back on track. “You’re not a changeling, but as we’ve learned, that doesn’t mean you aren’t being mind-controlled--”

“Mind controlled? They can do that, too?” Vinyl dismissed the mirror and a second later her feminine form returned. “I thought it was just the identity theft thing?” She shook her head and grimaced. “Anyway, look, Twilight, Pinkie, other-ponies-I-don’t-know… Fluttershy…”

“Hi,” Fluttershy peeked out from behind Eunomie.

“Before you test whatever, however, let me just say what I was sent here to say,” Vinyl continued, cutting Twilight off before the lavender unicorn could object. The DJ pointed back at the Radio Tower. “It may not look it, but the radio station back there is full of bugs. They grabbed Octavia and all the rest, as hostages and stuff, and sent me out to talk to you.”

“Why you?” Eunomie asked, pointedly.

“All the others are in bands, but DJ Pon3 is a solo act!” Vinyl explained. “I guess that makes me more expendable. Besides, they’ve got Octy. So I’m kinda stuck.”

“What’d they send you to say?” Twilight narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the other unicorn mare.

“The big bug running things back there,” Vinyl answered with a sigh. “She wants to talk to you. I was told to remind you that there’ll be ‘drinks and snacks.’”

Twilight, Velvet, Eunomie and Fluttershy all exchanged wary looks.

Pinkie Pie, on the other hand…

“Oh, boy! Snacks! Tell her we’ll be there!”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Exuvia said, extending a delicate hoof to her guest. “Thank you very much for taking up my invitation.”

Twilight touched her hoof to the changeling Princess’s, if only briefly. “Princess… Exuvia, isn’t it?”

“Quite,” Exuvia replied, and gestured towards a folded towel on the grass, set up picnic-style. “Please. Have a seat. You must be tired from crossing the city, and I brought some snacks we can enjoy while we talk.”

Exuvia’s little picnic had been moved at Twilight’s request – just in case it was a set up to lure them into a trap – but on first glance, it looked pretty genuine. There were five platters with biscuits, cookies, crackers and candy, plus a variety of spreads in a rainbow of cheeses and vegetarian pâtés. Complementing the foodstuffs, Exuvia had a number of chilled drinks sitting in ice buckets.

All in all, it was a very tasty and very tempting spread, all the more out of place in the war zone Canterlot had become. It also sat in the cool, comfortable shade of Exuvia’s personal airship; an ever-present reminder of just what was going on and where they were. As if anypony could forget, after fighting through half the city to get where they were now.

“Ooooooo!” Pinkie boggled, already seated and reaching for the platter of sweets.

Twilight stopped her with a twinkle of magenta magic.

“How do we know any of this is even safe to eat?” she asked, watching Exuvia warily as the changeling Princess sat down, alone, opposite her. “I know there are poisons that will affect us but not you.”

“You have only my word, I’m afraid,” Exuvia answered, using her own sickly-green magic to spread some port wine cheese on a whole wheat cracker. “I could have a pony brought down as a taste-tester, if you like?”

“So you can bring in a quote-unquote ‘pony’ who is really a changeling prove that the food is safe to eat?”

“Having a frank discussion will be difficult without a basic level of trust, Lady Sparkle.”

“We’ve been ambushed time after time getting here. Obvious tricks won’t work on us!” Twilight boldly declared, tossing her mane and punctuating her declaration with a loud ‘hmf!’ She turned to her friends and family. “Don’t eat anything--”

“MMm?” Pinkie asked, mouth already stuffed nearly to the brim with a medley of potentially poisoned treats. “M-what?” she asked, mouth-full before gulping down her meal whole. “Were you saying something, Twilight?”

“--uh…” Twilight gaped, and her hoof slowly lowered to the ground. “Nevermind.”

“All right! I’m super hungry!” Pinkie exclaimed and went back to shamelessly sampling from every plate and platter. “Oh! Is that sweet tea? I love sweet tea! It’s great with a couple spoonfuls of sugar!”

“On the converse, your friend is rather trusting,” Exuvia stated, also a little dumbstruck by the pink pony.

“No… she’s just Pinkie Pie,” Twilight explained, deadpan.

She shook her head firmly. Fluttershy had already picked out an icy-cold orange-colored drink, examining it closely for any sign of maliciousness – as if any potential poison would manifest as a ferocious piranha and jump out of the drink at her. Eunomie was sitting still and proper, looking like a humorless statue. Twilight’s mother, meanwhile, had picked out a salt-cracker and started to nibble on it. Even Vinyl Scratch seemed to be at least tempted to taste the ice-cold tea in front of her.

Everypony seemed to have settled in, utterly in the face of common sense and caution.

“Thank you for the food… I guess,” Twilight felt compelled to say. It was just good manners, really, drummed into her over a foalhood.

“It was my pleasure,” Exuvia replied, polite as well. “If I did develop a reputation as a poisoner, who would share meals with me? We changelings don’t consume and digest food in exactly the same way you do, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a drink with our pony counterparts.”

“Fair enough, but why did you want to speak to me?” Twilight went on to ask. “What’s all this about? Why are you here?”

“I could ask you some of those same questions.” Exuvia sat with her back to the Broadcasting Tower, seemingly unconcerned by it or anything else. Past the changeling Princess, Twilight’s eyes scanned over the tower and the buildings below it. There didn’t look to be any changelings there, though there were several small groups flying nearby.

At least a dozen were on the airship, too, looking out over the railings. The ship was a typical looking sky yacht with a flight envelope in the form of a sleek tuna fish. It didn’t seem to have any cannons on it. It was, or would have appeared to be, just one of a hundred luxury yachts that came and went from Canterlot any day of the year. The fact that it lacked any really threatening features to match its posture over the radio station courtyard only gave Twilight the impression that there was more to it than met the eye. At this point, it could transform into a giant changeling to fight them and it wouldn’t be out of place.

These changelings, though… Exuvia’s underlings… they looked odd.

It was like they were a mix of changeling and Equestrian. Like many had been frozen in mid-transformation. Twilight doubted their unusual appearance made them any less dangerous, however, nor did she expect it to make them any more trustworthy.

Exuvia lifted a straw to her lips and slurped from her cool drink, some sort of icy-slush lemon beverage. She spoke again only after a lengthy pause. “To answer your concerns, in no particular order: I am here to safeguard the musical and cultural records contained within the building behind me. I was also sent here to stop you from reaching said building. I’m currently doing that… but by talking to you, rather than by trying to stop you physically.”

“So you’re just doing this to try and buy time?” Twilight asked, starting to tense again. If it came to a fight, she decided to first upend the picnic spread. The spray of food might blind the changeling Princess for a critical second or two.

“No,” Exuvia answered, holding up her hoof for emphasis. “I am buying time, yes, but that is only to comply with my mother’s orders. I wanted to talk to you because I want there to be peace between changelings and ponies.”

“Peace? Peace!” Twilight swept her hoof angrily towards the city below and around them. From the small bluff that supported the broadcast station, they could look down on much of Canterlot City as it sprawled out along the side of the mountain in tiers. Beneath the city shield, fires burned and ponies fought and died. Battles raged across streets and neighborhoods and skies. Ancient mage towers and libraries that had stood for hundreds of years were collapsed or damaged.

“I admit that all this is very regrettable,” Exuvia said with a soft sigh. “It isn’t how I would have done things, personally.”

“Regrettable, you call it!” Twilight snapped, and brought her hoof down into an outraged stamp. “Not how you would have done things? But you are doing them!” She bit back another, even angrier outburst, and calmed herself with a slow, steady breath.

“Princess,” Twilight used the title frostily, but not mockingly, “if you want to talk, you can begin by telling me why you changelings are doing this to us.” She pointed again to the warzone that surrounded them, juxtaposed with their pleasant shady picnic. “What has Equestria done to deserve this? Huh? Tell me that!”

Exuvia slurped from her frosty drink and slowly removed the straw from her lips with a gentle pop.

“You exist.”

“We exist?” Twilight repeated, incredulous. That was the reason?

“You exist,” Exuvia repeated. “Changelings are a parasitic species. I’m not proud to admit this, but it is simply the truth. We leech emotions, most importantly love, from other species in order to grow and reproduce. It is what defines us as a race. Changelings originate from an environment where the amount of love, and the availability of hosts, is a naturally limiting factor. We developed as tribal parasites preying on tribal hosts.”

Exuvia cradled her drink between her hooves, teasing the straw with her black tongue.

“Equestria is a country brimming with love, leading to a population explosion in the Hive of which I am a part. Additionally, the ideas of your country are infectious. It is by living among you, being influenced by you, that our mother – Queen Chrysalis – has come to believe in the idea of a changeling nation-state. For various reasons, she decided that this new state must replace the Equestrian one as a matter of survival. Her reasons are personal… but practical as well, given the size of our population at the moment. Where else would we set up our new home, and how else would we feed ourselves without incurring the ire of Equestria or her allies? Hence, the pre-emptive decapitation strike you see before you.”

Exuvia, having finished her explanation, recaptured the straw and resumed drinking. Twilight just stared at her. Exuvia did not sound particularly passionate about what she had described, but the easy, all-too-casual nature in which she had described the war… something about it struck an uncomfortable chord in Twilight’s thinking. It was like Exuvia was describing something from hundreds of years ago, something she had read in a book, rather than what was going on all around them. This wasn’t a history lecture. It was the here and now, and ponies were losing their lives because of it.

“What would you have done?” Twilight had a lot of questions to ask, but many predicated on how this changeling Princess responded to this single query. Pinkie Pie, meanwhile, continued to gobble up hoof-fulls of treats, even as everypony listened in.

Exuvia didn’t answer right away, preferring instead to sip at her drink for a few more seconds.

“Given time,” she finally replied, “I would have preferred we find a way to transition from parasitism to a more symbiotic relationship. The Aida-Weddo Hive already has a similar arrangement with their hosts, wherein they mimic the deceased for a year or two before moving on. Their example is proof that our feeding process can be adapted over the generations to be non-lethal. The difficulty is in population control and making the hard changes to ourselves as a species and as a culture.”

The changeling Princess pressed a hoof to her chest. “’It is easier to bend others to our will than to change or better ourselves.’ That is the sort of thinking most common among my sisters. My own views place me in something of a minority.”

“Then why are you participating at all!?” Twilight demanded to know. “You don’t have to do what Chrysalis says! She’s a monster!”

Exuvia stared at the lavender unicorn and tilted her head curiously. “I was under the impression you had existing intelligence on how our species works, but I see there are things you don’t know. Things Lady Eunomie over there had not told you.”

“Eunomie?” Twilight asked, glancing over at the quiet mare. “What does she mean?”

Eunomie, taciturn as always, spoke, “The Princess means she cannot disobey or dissent.”

“Huh?” Pinkie Pie chirped up, a half-dozen biscuits in her mouth.

Even Fluttershy felt the need to speak up. “Um, I know saying ‘no’ can be scary sometimes--”

“That isn’t it,” Exuvia interrupted and Fluttershy instantly shrank back and went back to nursing her orange frosty. The Princess looked around at the assembled ponies, lingering a moment on the silent Twilight Velvet, before returning to her daughter. Twilight Sparkle also looked confused.

“Lady Eunomie means exactly what she said,” Exuvia explained without fanfare. “Changelings cannot disobey or dissent under normal circumstances. Our ‘royalty’ is entirely biological and a product of physiology. The Queen is the changeling with the ability to produce royal jelly, and thus, to also produce sons. Small amounts of jelly are also doled out to produce fertile daughters, like myself. We can have daughters, but only sterile ones… drones, in other words, that can never become Queens themselves.”

“Do you see, now? Our reproductive cycle is tied intimately into our means of social organization,” she summarized, and though Fluttershy and Twilight seemed to be on the verge of understanding, Pinkie Pie and Vinyl Scratch were both staring at her like a lost and confused pair of puppies.

“Like a colony of bees or ants,” Exuvia said with a disgusted groan.

“OHH!” Pinkie cried. “Why didn’t you just say so!”

“Makes sense.” Vinyl nodded her head, forelegs crossed over her chest. “You guys are bugs.”

“It is a poor analogy and we are not insects.” Exuvia furrowed her brows, clearly rather upset by the comparison. “My point is: the Queen has control over all the reproduction in a given changeling hive, but this is not why we cannot defy or disobey her. We are biologically programmed to follow her orders.”

Before Twilight could object, Exuvia raised a hoof to cut her off.

“Take breathing, for example,” she said. “Anypony can hold his or her breath, some for more than a minute or two, but inevitably they run low on air and their body forces them to try and get more. It is impossible for a pony to hold their breath and suffocate themselves. Just the same, a changeling can ‘hold her breath’ and put off obeying the Queen for some time, but inevitably, she always has to do as she is told. According to my research, the mechanism behind this is the Queen’s pheromones produced by a fully functional royal jelly gland. If my mother told me to put my head in a manticore’s mouth, I could put off doing it for days, but eventually I would still find myself doing what she ordered me to do.”

“Your research?” Twilight zeroed in on that one phrase first and foremost. “You’re a…”

“A scholar of sorts, yes,” Exuvia answered with a proud smile. “I was created to study ponykind and determine what could be preserved once changelings took over and how. You may also have noticed that I take after my father, somewhat.” The Princess continued to smile, and her eyes fell on one pony in particular. “That makes us step-sisters, of a sort, doesn’t it … Eunomie?”

All eyes turned on the stoic unicorn mare, but Eunomie merely shook her head. “Nonsense. You are implying you possess Equestrian genetic material, when you have none.”

“Family isn’t simply genetic,” Exuvia pressed, leaning forward slightly. “I was brooded on your step-father’s lovemeal. They say that the source of the lovemeal affects the changeling even before it is born.”

Eunomie blinked slowly and glanced away. “Believe whatever you wish.”

“Wait!” Twilight finally understood the subtext being bandied about. She pointed to Eunomie, then to Exuvia. “Who… do you mean…? Alpha Brass was…?”

“His was the lovemeal that brooded me,” Exuvia answered with a hint of pride. “You could say he’s my father, and Queen Chrysalis is my mother.”

Twilight stared long and hard at the changeling Princess.

“I can see it,” she decided, after a moment.

“There is nothing to see,” Eunomie objected. Twilight Velvet chuckled, amused. Fluttershy and Pinkie stared, having heard it too.

“Are you angry?” Exuvia asked, returning her drink’s straw to between her lips. “How amusing. I was led to believe you were an emotionless golem, Eunomie Mosaic. Yet that’s an angry look if ever I saw one.”

Eunomie continued to look away, not responding to the bait.

“Well, then,” Princess Exuvia continued, barely missing a beat. “Twilight Sparkle, we understand each other a little better now, don’t we?”

“I think so,” Twilight agreed, shifting her seat on the towel beneath her. “I didn’t know… are you doing that now? Holding your breath?”

Exuvia slowly finished off her drink, sucking up the last of the icy slush from the very bottom. Only then did she release the straw from her lips with a soft ‘pop.’

“I am,” she answered, demurely putting the glass aside and back into the ice bucket to her side. She extended a welcoming hoof towards the lavender mare. “Twilight Sparkle, your best hope for peace is to come with me. Help me become Queen of the Changelings.”

The statement brought a long, tense silence to the picnic. It was not what anypony had expected, agreeing to this meeting. Threats would have been no surprise. A trick or a trap would have been par for the course. Twilight tried to get a read for Exuvia, but the changeling Princess was just as hard a read as her supposed ‘father.’ In fact, the more Twilight looked at her – her posture, her smile, the soft-spoken way she talked – the more it reminded her of Alpha Brass.

And her offer… could it really be taken seriously?

“Even if Chrysalis dies today,” Exuvia added, searching the expressions of the ponies sharing her table. “It won’t change anything. Instar will take over, and she is even more unforgiving and brutal than our mother. She cares far less for our potential hosts. She will execute captives by the hundreds just to break your resistance, rather than cocooning them as we do now. You and I, Twilight Sparkle, are the best chance there is to end this war… to create understanding and harmony between our races.”

“I…”

“I agree,” Twilight Velvet said, fixing her daughter with an intense stare. “Princess Exuvia is our best hope for peace. You should go with her, Twilight.”

You should go with her, Twilight.

“I should go with her,” Twilight murmured. More loudly, she told her friends, “I think I should go with her.”

“Whhhhaat?!” Pinkie gaped, spitting a veritable fountain of ice-cold drink clear across the picnic spread.

Fluttershy quickly joined her, twiddling her hooves nervously. “Oh, I, uh…”

Twilight Velvet grinned. “You should--”

“You should not,” Eunomie interrupted, her tone measured and emotionless. The crimson-maned mare didn’t even move more than her head, craning her neck just enough to face Twilight. “Have you forgotten your mission? Have you forgotten why we came all this way?”

“I…”

“Have you?” Twilight Velvet spoke up again, whirling on Eunomie. “Twilight came out here to help ponies. Reaching the tower was just a means to an end, not the end itself! If a better opportunity comes along, then why not take it?”

The older mare smirked, leaning towards the other unicorn.

“Unless you aren’t interested in peace at all!” Velvet declared, pointing accusingly at the reserved Mosaic sister. “That’s it, isn’t it? Why not just admit it? Just what do you think will end the fighting if not this?”

Eunomie blinked, unfazed by the tirade. “What will end the fighting?” she asked, and answered in the same breath, her horn already aglow with unformed magic, “Probably… destroying you. Won’t that do it?”

“How sad,” Exuvia stated, sighing. “I had so hoped we could put our differences aside and understand one another.”

“Did you hear that?” Twilight Velvet jumped up from her seat, turning to her daughter with a look of triumph, as if she had ferreted out some great secret. “You heard it, didn’t you, Twilight? All she cares about is causing more death and more fighting! Is that what you want, too?”

“N-no,” Twilight stammered, “but… but--”

“A war-monger like her won’t ever understand!” Twilight Velvet spat, but on the verge of saying more, of driving the point home, she winced in pain. “W-what…?”

“You make the assumption that only Twilight can undo your disguise,” Eunomie said, then, and Velvet turned slowly to face her, the illusion around her crackling and hissing. “You'll find my way of doing things is not as gentle as Twilight Sparkle’s.”

“What did you--”

Whatever else she wanted to say, Twilight Velvet didn’t get the chance. She arched her back and screamed, her changeling illusion forcefully ripping apart around her. At the same time, stolen magic blasted off of her horn in violent, multi-colored waves, searing and shearing the manicured grass beneath her. Velvet’s howl quickly turned into a wet gargle as she fell to the ground.

Still momentarily stunned, Twilight Sparkle’s eyes began to clear.

“What… the?” Twilight zeroed in on the changeling that had been her mother, her amethyst eyes widening in horror and shock as she began to realize what was happening and what she was seeing.

Twilight Velvet was--

A changeling?!

“Well done, sister,” Exuvia admitted with an appreciative nod. “Well done.” Without preamble, her horn lit up, a ball of roiling magical light forming at the tip. Green fire erupted without further warning from the orb, streaking towards the immobilized and magic-less unicorn mare.

Eunomie looked up at the incoming fire and braced herself--

“Yoink!” Pinkie tumbled mid-jump, plucking Eunomie out of harm’s way. The spear of green flame punched into and through the unicorn mare’s sitting towel, vaporizing a hole in it and into the ground below.

“Another, then!” Exuvia announced, as the second shot left her blazing horn-tip.

This one, Pinkie and Eunomie had no time to dodge. The latter tackled the former, rolling across the grass as licks of green fire blasted away from the impact point. Both escaped intact, but as Eunomie pushed Pinkie away and landed on her four hooves, there was a bloody scrape across her left foreleg.

“I won’t let you ruin what I’ve worked towards! That contract magic of yours is quite scary, but it also seems to be a double edged sword,” Exuvia observed, wings slowly flapping yet producing an alien buzz. A third blast was already lancing out from her horn. The green fire met a magenta shield and washed across it, tearing into the grass but leaving Pinkie and Eunomie both safe…

Safe behind an enraged Twilight Sparkle.

“Exuvia!” Twilight screamed, murder in her eyes. Magic rippled away from her horn, catching her mane in a magenta colored breeze. “All this time… my own MOTHER! You’d replaced MY OWN MOTHER!”

Princess Exuvia glanced over at the now powerless changeling that had once been Twilight Velvet. She was on her back, still alive, still breathing, but with wide dumbstruck eyes and drool collecting at the corner of her open mouth. Strange contract-marks etched onto her chest were glowing a deathly white, accompanied by a spiderweb of pale lines across most of the changeling’s body.

On the ground to her left, Vinyl Scratch appeared to be struggling with joining the fight, despite her friend being held hostage. Pinkie Pie and Eunomie were both safe behind Twilight Sparkle’s shield, and though the Mosaic mare was wounded, she remained a possible threat. The timid little pegasus, too, seemed to be steeling herself to help her friends. It was crystal clear to even the most simpleminded changeling that the situation had very quickly spiraled out of control, and not in a good way.

“It seems I erred,” Exuvia admitted, and vanished in a blink.

“Exuvia! It was all a lie, wasn’t it!” Twilight roared, looking around and quickly finding her quarry standing over the stunned changeling that had been posing as the unicorn’s mother. “All that talk about wanting peace! All that talk about understanding one another! It was all just another lie! It was all just another trap!”

“It wasn’t a lie,” Exuvia said, watching Twilight carefully but also sending her magic to envelop her now-powerless ex-infiltrator. “I do want peace between changelings and Equestrians. Clearly, relying on this one--” She poked the drooling changeling on the ground with her back hoof. “--to influence the issue in my favor was a mistake. But have you asked yourself, Twilight Sparkle, just what your new friends want? I guarantee it isn’t peace. Nor should you trust them any more than you trust me.”

“Twilight,” Eunomie said, heedless of the injury to her foreleg. She gave no command and made no suggestion, but her name alone seemed to incite Twilight Sparkle to action. Her horn began to glow red-hot.

But Exuvia had already teleported away, taking the fallen changeling with her.

“Where is she? Where did she go?” Twilight spun around, searching frantically for where her opponent had teleported to. It took three-hundred and sixty degrees and several seconds before it settled in that Exuvia had fled, not simply blinked away to attack from another angle.

“I won’t forget this!” Twilight vowed, turning her head upwards and at the airship. It was already starting to accelerate away, the fist-shaped shadow of it stretching out across the grass of the courtyard. A magenta beam streaked up to impale the ship… but deflected off of an algae-green barrier shield.

“I won’t ever forget this!!” Twilight roared, knowing she wouldn’t be heard, wishing she had taken the time to learn the Royal Canterlot Voice. The energy seemed to sap out of her all at once, leaving hollowness behind. “I won’t ever forget this…”

“Changelings can never be trusted.”

The voice was Eunomie’s. She limped forward, but injured or not, it hardly registered on her face. It seemed even pain was an emotion she had difficulty expressing. But then, from what Twilight had seen sharing the library with her, Eunomie Mosaic hardly felt disappointment or anger or frustration or helplessness or shame. In that moment, the lavender unicorn envied her. Her heart was strained by what she had seen, by what she had almost agreed to, and by what she now understood to be true.

Eunomie was right.

Changelings could never be trusted. There would never be peace.

“Her time will come,” Eunomie stated, simply. It was a promise. Twilight vowed to make it so.

“I’m so sorry, Twilight,” Fluttershy’s apology snapped her out of her dark thoughts.

“Fluttershy?”

“I knew she was…” her timid friend lowered her eyes and twiddled her hooves. “I suspected, and…”

“And she came to me with her suspicions,” Eunomie explained.

“Yeah, well, good thing, too,” Vinyl jumped in, grinning but clearly anxious by the sudden escalation and turn of events. She craned her neck to follow the departing airship. “Ah, shit. Octy was on that ship, too, but I guess she’s safe… ish.”

“And I didn’t get blasted!” Pinkie added, throwing a hoof-full of confetti into the air over her head. “For once!”

“Oh, girls, I… I can’t believe I was so stupid…” The light sputtered along Twilight’s horn. “Stupid, stupid, stupid…!” she punctuated every word with a hard knock to the side of her own head. “It was right in front of me this whole time! I almost… I almost--”

“Almost doesn’t matter,” Eunomie interrupted her, also watching the airship go. “One either succeeds or fails. They both failed. We are on the cusp of success.”

“Yeah, thanks to you guys!” Twilight said with a sigh of relief. She reached out to Fluttershy, who still seemed a bit unnerved by the brief firefight. “You girls saved my life!”

“And Pinkie Pie and you saved mine,” Eunomie added, a very faintly concerned look on her normally impassive features. She ducked her head and a white ripple passed over her body. To herself, she softly whispered, “Contract rescinded.”

“It wasn’t easy, but we did it,” Twilight said, breathily. She faced the Broadcasting Tower that was the end of her search. The changelings had abandoned it in their haste to retreat. “Finally,” she announced, smiling to her friends through thick and thin. “We did it!”

“Working together,” Twilight Sparkle declared, trotting towards the front door. “We did it!”

It was then that the Broadcast Tower, and all three adjoining buildings, exploded.

Twilight’s ears hurt.

Staggering onto her hooves, the first clear thought she had was that her ears hurt. They were ringing and there was no other sound, besides the steady drumbeat whine. Eyes open, she could almost be mistaken for thinking it was snowing. Black snow.

‘Ash,’ her rational mind told her. It was ash.

Belatedly trying to get her bearings and find her friends, she saw the source of the smoke and cinders. The Wireless Broadcasting Tower lay clear across the middle of the courtyard like a twisted metal skeleton, bent and broken into three jagged pieces. At what had once been the radio station’s base, the once ornate white buildings were aflame. Two had holes where their north-facing walls had been, revealing the collapsed-in floors within. Stinking black smoke billowed out from the rubble and ruins.

Twilight stumbled forward and her hooves brushed up against somepony’s desk.

She stared at it for a moment, dumbstruck. Somepony’s desk had been blown clear across the courtyard, over the iron security fence, and landed next to her, upside-down. Chairs, burning books, and pieces of random office furniture were strewn across the grass. There were no bodies – thank Celestia – but the overwhelming sense of where she was and what had just happened very nearly brought up a hint of vomit. The tower… the station… the equipment… it was all gone. Destroyed.

“Pinkie? Fluttershy!” Twilight called out, rubbing her eyes with the back of her foreleg. “Anypony?”

“Over here!” Pinkie’s cheery voice called to her like a beacon on a dark shore. “Twilight! Hey!”

Rounding a twisted part of the fallen tower proper, Twilight saw them.

Eunomie and Pinkie were helping Fluttershy and Vinyl get back onto their hooves. Both mares looked dazed but otherwise unhurt. Vinyl had her tongue stuck out like she was about to be sick and Fluttershy was nursing a bump on her forehead. Relief washed away all of Twilight’s other fears and worries. Her friends – they were still alive. They weren’t hurt.

“Somepony sure stored a lot of firecrackers in there!” Pinkie called out, and it was hard to tell if it was a joke or not. Not with her.

“Oh, okay. I think I puked a little,” Vinyl grumbled. “Just a little, though...”

“Thank Celestia everypony’s okay,” Twilight trotted towards them, still a little unsteady on her legs. Despite not wanting to dwell on it, she found herself staring at the ruined wireless station. It was all gone. There was no way anypony could salvage this.

Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes.

“It’s over…” she finally cried, close enough to her friends that they could hear her. “It’s over. She beat us after all.”

“Hey! It isn’t over!” Pinkie zipped over, stumbling as her hoof caught a piece of rubble, but still pressing forward to wrap her friend in a hug. “I’m sure there’s other big tower thingies out there!”

“There aren’t, Pinkie!” Twilight pushed her away, more tears running down her cheeks. “They already sabotaged the major ones, remember? There are a few smaller ones, but they won’t do – and, and… and what if we get there and they’ve been destroyed, too? This was all doomed from the start. My…” She grimaced and shook her head in despair. “My stupid fake mother… she told them where we were going and what I needed for my spell!”

“Twilight--”

“Don’t you get it?” Twilight yelled, falling onto her stomach and covering her face with her hooves. “It’s over! All this was for nothing!”

“No.”

Twilight felt a hoof part her forelegs. She looked up and saw Eunomie. The mare was still wounded, and the explosion had reopened the burn on her own foreleg. It oozed crimson, and the pale mare’s coat was streaked with ash and soot, but she paid it no mind.

“In case of an emergency like this, we prepared a backup for you,” Eunomie stated, and held out her hoof to help Twilight get back up.

“A backup?” Twilight asked, confused. “But… how? Where?”

“The Gardens.”

“Brass’s Hanging Gardens?” Twilight took Eunomie’s hoof and the other mare pulled her back up and onto all fours. She had never been there, but she knew what Eunomie was talking about. Still, it didn’t make sense. “You built a wireless tower on the gardens? But why? And what good will that do? We need a transmitter here, in Canterlot!”

“Wait a second, if you had a broadcasting tower all along--” Vinyl pointed at Eunomie, having overheard the conversation and quickly caught on to the topic. “--then why didn’t all of you go there, first?”

“Hey, yeah!” Pinkie agreed. “It was a fun tour of the city, but usually you do that before the war breaks out!”

“Oh! I get it! The gardens must be able to move, right!” Twilight guessed, a glimmer of hope lighting up her eyes. “You needed time to get them over the city?”

Eunomie blinked, slow to answer. “No. That isn’t it.”

“Then what--”

“The Hanging Gardens are not above Canterlot,” Eunomie explained, and lifted her hoof. Slowly, she angled it to point downwards. “The Hanging Gardens are beneath it.”

Author's Note

I have a few new proofreaders who would like to thank for helping me clean up this chapter. I don't wear a hat, but if I did, I would tip it to them for their assistance.
Celelorien
Devas
Kyron the Wise

Chapter Fifty Four : Brass

Author's Note

Chapter 54.
Few are the chapters that either take as much effort to design (meaning the outline, rather than the difficulty of writing the component scenes) or that leave me feeling like I could have done both so much more and so much less. This is, I think, the most OC-heavy chapter yet in all of Platinum Crown. That alone makes me unhappy. In the end, I decided it was best to consolidate much of it into one chapter - this one - rather than spread it out everywhere. This Platinum Crown is, after all, about the Mane Six and their conflicts (and a certain narcissistic Prince). All my OCs are meant to, and designed to, play off of the Manes, and while I try to develop them to be able to certainly interact and stand on their own characterization, I prefer to keep the story focused on our canon characters and how they are changing the world around them.

It can't be helped here.
Some things need to be revealed or told, and not all can be done with canon characters at the forefront. Don't worry, though. Things will be back to normal next chapter. I plan for there to be some Flutters, maybe some Pie, some Sparkles, Rara/marshmelodrama would be great, more Tia and some Blue, even a bit of Moon.
But in the meantime...

Chapter Fifty Four : Brass

(54)

Brass

“Damn that mother of mine,” Alpha Brass murmured under his breath. “When I said she was free to take the ‘pound of flesh’ she had come for, I didn’t mean it literally.”

The Prince of the Terre Rare stumbled through the acre of half-grown corn plants, the broad leaves slapping him in the face in rebuke and making a mockery of his attempt to avoid detection. He had specifically avoided being anywhere near the road in order not to be seen from the air, either by changelings or by Antimony’s loyalists. Unfortunately, without flying himself, he couldn’t be entirely sure his effort had worked as his meandering through the corn fields surely wasn’t as subtle or stealthy as he would’ve wished. It certainly wasn’t as clandestine as it could have been under better circumstances.

A stray spark bled off his horn, pricking his skin as it tumbled down across his face.

Mother’s offer of anesthetic had seldom been more appealing. Of course, at the same time, she had to have known he would decline. What would be the point of escaping only to fall asleep three steps outside your cell? Or lose all remaining coordination when the morphine really kicked in? He had politely declined and she had not asked a second time before going to work. Four minutes later and Mother had simply taken what she needed and ushered him out the door with a jaunty ‘be careful out there.’

The ache where part of his rib had once been was all that remained of it, along with a band of white linen wrapped tightly around his flaxen coated torso. In a way, the wound was self-inflicted. By arranging for one of his own operatives to sabotage his father’s recovery, in destroying Star Light’s biological supplies, he had made it certain she would seek him out. It would be hypocritical to complain overmuch of the result of one’s own efforts.

What was important now was finding a place to rest and recover.

Star Light’s operation had taken a toll, not just physically, but magically. The body was a wondrous machine, but in this case it was his magic, or lack thereof, that posed the biggest problem. Until his star field stabilized from his mother’s extraction surgery, high level unicorn magic would be impossible... including teleportation any more intricate than a blink spell. On top of that, the thought had crossed Brass’s mind as to whether he should teleport to the Gardens at all. If Mother could track him before, she could now. She would find out where it was. She had to have seen his discomfort when she had let slip the news.

Things were set up to run without his presence. The most prudent and cautious route would have been to lie low for the entirety of the invasion up to and including the... ending. Yet undue caution could be as detrimental as undue bravado, and after so many years of work, Alpha Brass found he wanted to see it all come to fruition. He wanted to see, with his own two eyes, what everypony became, especially his newest and most powerful puzzle piece. He wanted to see it, and decided to see it, in the flesh, even if it meant being a little incautious in the process.

“A wise pony cultivates powerful friends like a farmer cultivates crops,” Mother had once said, when he was very small and about to be introduced to his young peers in Canterlot. Brass snorted and pushed another corn stalk out of his way. “Put effort into them, and you will reap the rewards all throughout your life. Even the Princess herself needs friends.”

It was sage advice, tempered somewhat by her next words.

“This should be especially easy for you, Alpha.”

“Because of my special talent,” he whispered to himself as he moved through the field. At the time, it had been phrased as an innocent question, from dutiful son to idealized mother. He had not fully understood then just what he was, and just what his special talent meant. He had the cutie mark and he grasped the basics, but he was too young and too small-minded to fully understand the ramifications.

Because of what you did to me. Because of how you trained me and how you made me. Because of the blood in my veins. Because I am Terre Rare. Because we are all just soldiers in the army of the family.

“Because of your special talent,” Star Light had explained, looking down on her only son with a smirk.

“Do you have powerful friends, mother? I’ve only seen you with apprentices.”

“Oh, I have powerful friends. Just a few of them. Your father is one… my best friend.” Twinkling Star Light trotted away, then, he remembered. She left him to fend for himself with those parting words. “As for my powerful friends, maybe I’ll introduce you to some of them someday… if you become impressive enough. Your father and I will visit you in eight months, Alpha. Don’t forget to have fun!”

Alpha Brass stopped to catch his breath, remembering that conversation from years past. It was rare that a pony really remembered something with such crystal clarity after time had its way with it. That one conversation had been significant, however. Not simply because of the advice he had taken to heart about ‘cultivating powerful friends.’ Time and circumstance had revealed the identities of mother’s ‘special friends.’

And their secrets.

“What a precious little colt! Could I hold him, Twinkling?”

“We’d be honored, Princess.”

“Come here, little one!” Celestia lifted the tiny pony out of Star Light’s lap and into the air with her magic. Alpha Brass was an adorable little foal, but always so quiet. He hadn’t made so much as a peep during the entire baby shower. Most foals were much noisier and fussier.

“Look at this! What precious little horse-shoes!” Star Light exclaimed, holding up the newly opened gift for all to see: four tiny shoes for four tiny hooves, made to be clipped in place rather than fixed by nails. The quartet shimmered in the light of the chandelier.

“Are they made of tin?” a mare in an intricate white gown asked. Like most of the noble mares present, her husband was sitting next to her in a tuxedo, his bristly moustache twitching in bemusement.

“They are made out of a new metal,” Countess Black Gold explained, fanning herself and enjoying being at the center of attention as everypony set eyes on her. Her light blue dress matched her darker blue coat. She was one of a minority of earth ponies in the room, just as she was one of a minority of earth ponies who happened to also be titled nobility in Equestria.

“Alu-minum, they call it,” she tittered at the name. “Some say it will be a new wonder metal to replace iron and steel.”

“My dear, nothing will ever replace steel,” another noblepony, a stallion, gave a hearty chuckle at the very idea. “This alu-minum is a passing fad, I assure you.”

Countess Black Gold leaned forward, grinning. “As Lord of Fillydelphia and Bittsburgh, the Steel Cities, we would expect no less from you, Cast Iron. I’m surprised your gift today wasn’t a miniature I-beam.”

“Well I never!” Cast Iron busied himself stuffing his pipe with fresh tobacco.

“It is a lovely gift, Countess,” Twinkling Star Light spoke up, forestalling any further argument.

“Hrm.” Next to her, Cruciger grunted his agreement.

At least, it was probably agreement. Celestia had to admit it was hard to tell, even for her, and he had served as head of her Royal Guard for years. Only one pony seemed able to entirely translate his preferred grunts and growls.

“Oh, you!” Star Light giggled, batting her husband playfully on the foreleg. She reached for the next gift and her eyes lit up. “Oh! This one is from the Bluebloods!”

Celestia, still holding onto the baby Alpha Brass, smiled at the warmth between the two rival families. Not far from Cruciger and Star Light, Prince Blueblood and Lady Vernal Equinox were sitting on plush cushions and holding hooves. Despite being an arranged marriage, they loved each other; it was obvious to everyone in the Palace. No magic required. The two couples were alike in that respect.

Blueblood, fifty-first of his name, held up a glass of liquor in respect and greeting. He and Cruciger had spent years together in the Royal Guard, serving under the same roof, eating the same food, undergoing the same trials. Their assignment was hardly a coincidence. Celestia had privately and secretly arranged for the colts to spent time together in the hope that they would form a budding friendship that would finally bridge the divide between Blue Belle and Arsenic’s feuding descendants.

To Celestia’s private delight, the little scheme had actually worked! The two ambitious young colts, now grown and handsome stallions, remained close companions, often going on hunting trips or other adventures together… even as they competed just as much in tournaments and other public contests for the small ponies. The rivalry turned friendship had brought out the best in both of them, in the Princess’s opinion. All thanks to a little manipulation behind the scenes.

“Hrm,” Cruciger grumbled.

“I wonder what it is!” Star Light held the package aloft and inspected it before starting to delicately unravel the festive blue and silver wrapping. Held in her forelegs, Celestia felt the infant son of the Terre Rare clan fidget just a little. She held out her hoof and he grabbed onto it, pulling gently but not trying to bite or suck. Then he found her mane and started to play with it. He truly was a cute little foal!

“We hope you like it.” Equinox, unlike her husband, had only a glass of punch to drink. That made her and the new mother just about the only ponies in the room not at least a little bit inebriated in celebration. Which was strange, as Vernal Equinox was hardly a teetotaler. Celestia recalled that one of Equinox’s more vexing vices was her love of drink.

“It looks like…!” Star Light removed the last of the wrapping paper, revealing a model kit of some sort. “A toy castle?” She held it out for Cruciger to get a closer look. “I don’t recognize this one.”

“Camlann,” Cruciger spoke up, to her and to his old friend. “Isn’t it a ruin?”

“A bit of a run-down spot in Canterlot these days, but yes. Camlann Castle! You recognized it right away!” Blueblood smiled cheerily and took a sip from his drink. “We are rebuilding it and intend to give it to your young Prince. This way he will always have a home of his own when he comes to visit fair Canterlot, and his friends and cousins the Bluebloods.”

Cruciger growled again, but returned the smile and nodded in thanks. “A fine gift.”

“We also have an announcement,” Vernal Equinox spoke up. One of her hooves rested on her stomach. “We are also with foal! If it is a filly – and we pray to the Princess it will be – we intend to betroth her to young Alpha Brass and finally unite our houses. That is our second gift!”

“Oh!” “Congratulations!” “A match made in harmony, truly!”

“If the Princess approves?” Equinox cut through the deluge of well wishes to turn towards Celestia. So did Star Light and many others.

Celestia raised her head up to affect a proper regal posture, most of her mane flowing in a non-existent breeze. “So long as the children agree to it when they are of age, I approve.”

“Wonderful!” Equinox’s whole face lit up with delight. She rubbed her midsection lovingly, having been trying to conceive for several years now. “It will be a filly. A fifty-second Blue Belle. I know it.”

“And if it is a colt?” Cruciger rumbled, spoiling the good mood of his guest somewhat.

“You have a daughter already, don’t you?” Blueblood answered for his wife. “I’m sure something can be arranged.”

After the shower, the stallions quickly excused themselves. It was no secret where they went. Cruciger maintained a legendary stock of wines and other alcohols at all of his estates, and before they left, Celestia caught sight of her nephew, Blueblood, opening a box and winking mischievously. It was very likely to be full of those awful Saddle Marabian cigars he insisted on smuggling into the country. Which meant another night of drinking and smoking and – very likely- gambling, then.

Celestia rolled her eyes at the thought.

The noble mares, meanwhile, adjourned to various rooms to occupy themselves with their own games of chance and cards. Servants flocked into the parlors to attend to them with trays of sweets and expensive drinks. A band played in one of the four adjoined parlors and a comedic play was scheduled for later in the evening. Many ponies were also taking to the gardens outside, to enjoy the warm Prench summer and to see the white roses in full bloom.

Celestia remained close to her former student. Star Light had been eager to catch up on who was ‘hot’ among the next generation of gifted unicorns, and just as quick to prove that not a one of them could hold a candle to her. Celestia humored her and listened intently as Star Light shared some of her own adventures in friendship and magic up north. The Princess knew she was fortunate that her former student was in one of her better moods. Star Light could and did dip very suddenly into depression when she was an apprentice. It had made for an often trying time.

“We’ve been over this before, Twinkling--” Celestia lifted her teacup, poured in a bit of milk and a rough cube of cane sugar, and mixed it with a small spoon. “--we are not sending another expedition into that mirror world.”

“But – but think of everything we can learn!” Star Light argued, cutting a piece of sponge cake off her plate with a fork and bringing it up to her lips. “I’m sure nopony… or no-human or whatever they are… will even notice a few missing bodies!”

“Twinkling,” the Princess asked, deadpan. “Are you seriously suggesting that the state and country of Equestria sanction inter-dimensional grave robbery?”

“We’ll never know what they are unless we can bring a body back for testing and analysis,” Star Light insisted. “How else will we know if they’re the creatures the old legends spoke of? They could be the Titans that gave us magic! I’ve taken genetic samples from twelve different cave trolls across both the old and new world. If I could just--”

“How did you even…?” Celestia very nearly spat out her tea. “From cave trolls? Why? How--” Celestia shook her head and a hoof to cut off her old apprentice’s argument. “On second thought, nevermind explaining how; I think I’d rather remain ignorant.”

“Plausible deniability?” Star Light giggled, holding a hoof up over her mouth to conceal her smile. “I get it. Don’t worry! I can do everything under the table, so to speak! Remember that time we had to deal with zombie-Equestria? I can be super-subtle!”

“You blew up the castle,” Celestia reminded her.

“I blew up their castle,” Star Light corrected her.

“Then you set up a giant fan blade in front of the mirror,” Celestia further reminded her. She sipped her tea, savoring the interplay of sweet and sour. “Do I need to describe what that room looked like by the time the convergence ended? Or how it smelled?”

“First of all, it was called an ‘Iris.’ Not a fan.” Twinkling Star Light nibbled on another fork-full of cake. “Second, I enchanted those critters to clean up the mess and they did the job just fine.”

“You infested the castle grounds with flesh eating chipmunks.”

“And nopony even noticed until they tried to eat Mister Green Thumb, and he was hardly mauled at all!”

“No, Twinkling.”

“Awww!” The mother of two pouted and looked up at her Princess with doe-eyes. “Is that a ‘no-no’ or a ‘no-yes-do-it-behind-my-back?’”

“No-no. Puppy eyes don’t work at your age,” Celestia informed her, and both mares broke into giggles. “I remember you sent Green Thumb an especially heartfelt apology.”

“Does he still work at the Palace?” Star Light asked. “He was old even when I was a filly--”

Their chat was interrupted, rather surprisingly, by a foal’s grumbling. Princess and Duchess quickly looked over at the little gold-coated infant that had been sleeping by Star Light’s side. Alpha Brass had been just about the quietest foal Celestia could recall, but something was bothering him now. He started to nudge his mother with his head.

“I think our new lord is hungry,” Celestia observed with another laugh. She scooped up a bit of Star Light’s cake while the other mare was distracted.

“It is about that time, I suppose,” Star Light admitted with a grumble.

Celestia sighed and made as if to stand back up. “Would you like some privacy?”

“No, no. There’s no need. I do so hate interruptions and we don’t get to talk much anymore.” Star Light’s magic flared and a window opened in mid-air. The master mage and noblemare held out her hoof, and a crystalline bottle took form.

“Oh! Formula?” Celestia wondered, craning her neck to get a better look. “Most nobles use wet nurses…”

“We have one of those on retainer as well,” Star Light replied, taking out a slip of paper. She dipped the nipple of the bottle against the paper, producing a splotch. It was white – being milk and all – but then the splotch turned green.

The paper then burst into flame.

“Here you go, Alpha,” Star Light said, holding the bottle in place, upside down. Celestia almost stood up when she saw the milk set the paper on fire, but the tiny colt caught the bottle’s nipple in his mouth and began to drink without hesitation.

“Twinkling.”

“Hmm?” Her old apprentice looked totally unbothered. She had already gone back to her cake.

“What’s in that bottle?” Celestia asked, her calm tone belying her thoughts.

“Formula,” Star Light answered without missing a beat.

“And what’s in the formula?” The Princess narrowed her eyes just slightly.

“Chemicals,” Star Light answered just as easily.

“Twinkling Star Light!” Celestia’s use of her full name prompted the Duchess to shrink back a fraction. “You will tell me what you are feeding your foal, and so help me, if you say ‘atoms’ or ‘molecules’ or anything like that--”

“Does it really matter?” Star Light asked, but complied with her old mentor’s demand just as quickly. “Fine! If you absolutely, positively, abso-tively have to know… there might be… a little…” she muttered the next word. “--mixed in.”

“A little what?” Celestia asked, pointing across the coffee table at her hostess and former apprentice. “Out with it, young lady.”

“Blood,” Star Light admitted.

“Blood doesn’t burn paper.”

“Arsenic’s blood does.”

Celestia lowered her hoof to the edge of her couch. Arsenic’s blood. How was such a thing even possible? Arsenic was dead.

“The formula is a synthetic substitute of my own design based on feedback from when I nursed Polished Jewel,” Duchess Star Light explained, cutting off a piece of cake and biting into it with a defiant smirk. “I’ve had a few years to refine the process since then. It’s completely safe, I assure you.”

“Safe?” Celestia inquired with a disapproving frown. “So if I were to put a drop or two into my tea with the sugar?”

“You’d be fine!”

“And if I gave that tea to one of our guests?”

“…he or she would be fine…”

“And if I used, say, half the bottle?”

“He or she would be fine for… many… many… hours.” Star Light’s eyes made a point of avoiding her mentor’s glare.

“Twinkling!” Celestia snapped, and the mother and Duchess at least looked a little chastened. “I had thought this horrible practice to have ended with Arsenic!”

“It is a family tradition to quote-unquote ‘test’ our foals with a bit of poison,” Star Light argued, her ears folded back against her head. “Better my way than the way they did it before. I’m not Arsenic. I won’t have another Gallium. You know about--”

“I was there,” Celestia answered, and in her anger, she realized she misspoke. Her eyes widened for just a fraction of a second, but Star Light saw it.

“You weren’t there,” Star Light corrected her. “The family records say you weren’t there.”

“My point is, Twinkling, that there is no need to do this--” Celestia pointed accusingly at the bottle held over little Alpha Brass. “--anymore. You aren’t one of Arsenic’s daughters or grand-daughters.”

“That is exactly why I do have to do this,” the Duchess argued. “Before my husband, the line was matrilineal. I don’t have Arsenic’s unique attributes in my bloodstream, but my foals do. There is nothing to be done about that… in fact, I wouldn’t have it any other way. They are their father’s children, after all. My formula is precisely designed to activate the powers that are their birthright. Please don’t mistake it for the crude ‘tests’ of generations past.”

‘Activate’ the bloodline, was that what they called it, now?

Once again, it all came back to Arsenic. Watching Alpha Brass suck on the poisonous bottle, Celestia recalled another infant foal. This one had been an earth pony, pure white like snow. Gallium, her mother had named her, before casting her out for ‘unforgivable weakness.’ Arsenic had proven to be many things in her long life, but few claimed she was a kind or loving mother to her four children. Her hardness had carried over to Bismuth, her chosen successor and second daughter, and Bismuth II had gladly carried on the tradition. Celestia had secretly hoped that breaking the female line with Cruciger would soften the family’s darker ways.

“Was this Bismuth’s doing?” Celestia asked, her voice quiet. If so--

Star Light shook her head. “My mother-in-law approves but, no, it wasn’t her idea.”

Princess Celestia winced at the revelation and fixed her former student with a hard stare. “You should know that I do not approve.”

“Princess,” Star Light replied, bowing her head, “respectfully, I am your loyal servant and student. I love and respect you. We all do. But do not ask me to choose between you and my husband.”

Because, Celestia understood, Twinkling Star Light would pick her husband every time. She would pick her husband over her Princess. She would pick her husband over her country. Over everyone and anything else. Celestia knew the sentiment flowed likewise as well: there was nopony Cruciger put ahead of his wife. She only wondered where their high-born foals fit in. What future did little Polished Jewel have? What future did this newborn colt?

“And what does your son want?” she asked, softly.

Twinkling Star Light pressed her son to her torso with her hind leg. “Alpha Brass? He will want what we all want, of course: to serve and advance the interests of the family. It is why he exists.”

Alpha Brass stood before the bubbling pool.

His body had been scoured and cleansed. He had fasted according to tradition, just as Arsenic herself had, purging his body and taking only water and salt for the last three days. He had followed the family rites to the letter. He was, he knew, as ready as he could ever be to take this plunge. This was his baptism as a full-fledged member of the main branch of the Terre Rare.

He was six years old today, and he was ready.

The water in the bath bubbled and roiled under the influences of unseen forces. It was red, like blood, and at the far side of the pool a great statue gave life to a battle between a gorgon and a dragon. The Bull of Terror had gored the dragon’s underbelly with its horns, but the dragon had its tail around the gorgon’s neck, and raked a terrible gash in the bull’s side with its claws. They were locked in a deathly embrace and the hollow pits where their eyes should have been burned with a hellish green light. The red water that filled the pool flowed gently from the wounds inflicted on the statues.

The walls to the left and right sported more statues, but of ponies. There were Bismuth, Kamacite and Neptunium, the three great sisters who formed the foundation of the Terre Rare family and house. Proud unicorns all. All three had undergone the rite, though only Bismuth had gone on to lead the family as a whole. There was the stern visage of Bismuth II Brand-en-burg, Alpha’s grandmother. The statue was almost as stern looking as the mare herself.

Alpha Brass had few memories of his grandmother. She stood now among the rest of his family, waiting to see him enter the crimson pool. Mother was with her, and so was Polished Jewel, his older sister. The little blue filly had already passed this test, and she looked down on her brother with a callous, aloof expression. Brass forced himself to turn away from his family and face the pool again.

It smelled of sulfur and copper.

It smelled of death.

“Are you afraid, boy?”

Alpha Brass ducked his head as his father strode past to stand between him and the pool.

“You should know,” Cruciger whispered, leaning in close and speaking softly so only his son could hear. “I was afraid when I underwent this ordeal. Our great founder stood where my mother stands now. She smelled my fear and laughed.”

“You were afraid,” Brass realized, and he had a hard time imagining his father as a little colt, much less being afraid of… anything, really. “You were afraid, but you still went in?”

Cruciger growled deep in his throat and stood up straight, towering over his only son.

“My boy, do you know what will happen if you turn away now?”

Brass looked up at him, trying to keep calm in the face of his fear. “What?”

“Nothing,” Cruciger answered.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

As his father turned to leave and take his place among the rest of the assembled family, Brass considered his words. If he turned back now, nothing would happen. He would not be privy to the family secrets. He would not fully activate his bloodline – a hint his mother had passed on when nopony else was around to hear. He would not be a Terre Rare. Not really. That was the ‘nothing’ his father described. That was the ‘nothing’ he would be, in the eyes of his family.

But at the same time…

‘I’m afraid,’ he thought, shamefully. ‘I’m a coward. I don’t want to go in there. I don’t want to see what it will show me. Besides, what does it even matter? I was born to marry a Blue Belle, and there are none. I’ll never inherit the family, not with Jewel and Chalice and now Antimony being born… why not just turn away? Why not choose to be nothing?’

“Alpha,” Father said, a few hoofsteps behind his son. They stood, back to back. “There is wisdom in caution, and you are right to fear what is to come. Fear is the first emotion. Before kindness, before generosity, before happiness, before loyalty, before honesty, there was fear, and fear is at the root of all things. It can be wise to fear, but it is noble to conquer that same fear. If you let fear rule you, you are a coward… and this family does not suffer cowards. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Alpha Brass answered, and listened as his father’s booming hoofsteps led him away. All too soon, he ascended the steps to the gallery to join mother, grandmother, Jewel and little Chalice and Antimony. The latter had a visor over her eyes. Chalice seemed confused and a little lost as to what was going on. Polished Jewel smirked. He suspected she was looking forward to seeing what would happen to him.

“Our grandmother, the Great Duchess Arsenic, slayed a gorgon for its eyes and for its power,” Grandmother Bismuth roared, her voice echoing within the sacred walls.

“Our grandmother,” she repeated, a few seconds later, “the Great Duchess Arsenic, slayed a dragon for its longevity! We follow in her example! Our dreams are her ambition! We are Equestria’s strongest unicorns! We are Equestria’s most pure unicorns! Born in blood! Hardened by magic! Tempered through conflict! We are the Iron Hoof of the Princess, unleashed to trample Her foes into the dust of history. We exist to rule. We exist to serve the Princess. We exist to prove our worth!”

“We exist to rule!” the family chorused. Some, like Polished Jewel, did so enthusiastically. Others, like Chalice, barely understood the words she repeated. “We exist to serve the Princess!” Brass remained silent and let their words wash over him, repeating only the last line under his breath. “We exist to prove our worth!”

“We shall return to Canterlot in triumph!” Bismuth vowed to her descendants. “We shall show them the power of the blood they spurned. Our founder will have her due. Arsenic will have her due!”

Arsenic. The millstone around all their necks. She wasn’t even alive, by all accounts. She wasn’t even here to watch his baptism - to bear witness to his ordeal. Brass stared down at the crimson pool that awaited him. No: maybe Arsenic did still live. In a cauldron of sulphur and blood and hate, she lived on.

“Ours is a family built on merit. Ours is a family where all must prove their worth,” Grandmother concluded, stamping her hoof down on the stone gallery above. “Prove yourself now, grandson. Prove that you have a place among us. Or die.”

What choice was no choice?

Closing his eyes, Alpha Brass stepped into the bubbling pool. Just as he had imagined, it was sulfur and blood and death. It was both womb and tomb, and as the water covered his eyes, the visions came, and with them screams. His own, he realized, distantly. Father had been right. It was right to fear what followed.

But it was noble to overcome it. There was no other way forward.

‘I won’t be nothing,’ one last rational thought raced through Brass’s mind as the water choked the breath from his lungs. ‘I won’t be nothing! I won’t ever be nothing! So long as I live! I won’t ever be nothing!!’

The farmhouse had looked abandoned from the outside.

Naturally, it wasn’t.

“Zchecheche!” a chittering changeling laugh could be heard from inside the house. “What was that just now? Celestia? Prayers won’t help you. Your Princess is dead, little pony! Slain by our Queen! She won’t be swooping in to save you!”

Alpha Brass sighed softly to himself. It really would have been too much to ask to just find a nice, empty house to rest an hour or two in. Seen from the corn fields, the farmhouse was a rather typical earth pony home: two floors including a small attic, thatched roof, painted cheery red and bright white to stand out against the gently rolling waves of gold and green that surrounded it.

It would’ve been an idyllic little farm, right out of a bucolic rural painting, if one could just ignore the sound of sobbing from within. Wincing and holding his bandaged left side, Alpha Brass did just that – ignored the sound – and kept himself hidden behind a surprisingly tall pile of logs and firewood. There was a large cart parked alongside the house close by, but unhitched. Bales of hay were half-piled up on the cart while others were strewn on the ground, broken open.

Most likely, somepony had been loading the cart when the changelings swept in.

“See, now--” the sibilant changeling voice within the house spoke up again, and Alpha Brass rested his head against the wall, ears alert and listening in. “--look at this family picture, here? I see one, two, three, four of you ponies in this. But there’s only one, two, three of you here. The numbers just don’t add up. So which one of you wants to step up and help me reunite your little family?”

“My son is staying with a friend,” a male voice – a father – answered the changeling. “They’ve probably left by now, you’ll never--”

Brass’s ears twitched at the sound of a thud, interrupting the farmer.

“Wrong answer,” the changeling within the house hissed. “What about you? Don’t mothers keep an eye on their children?”

“I don’t know anything!” a mare’s voice replied. “Please! Please, sir!” She sounded terrified.

As she should be.

“Three out of four isn’t bad,” another changeling spoke in the short pause that followed. “Princess Instar won’t care if we miss a few in our sweep.”

“Did you forget that the Princess said that the young ones are worth twice as much as the big ones? Besides, this is a matter of pride. I won’t do a half-thoraxed job! Which is exactly why I’m a lieutenant and you’re just a regular drone.”

“But--” the second changeling was worried. They were not totally alien, after all. As much as they preyed on the emotions of others, they possessed those same emotions themselves. Love. Hate. Jealousy. Shame. Sadness. Fear. It was how the Nidhogg Hive survived, after all, the reclusive blue changelings who fed on their fellow shape-shifters.

“What if the fighting gets closer to here?” the second one asked. “Shouldn’t we--”

“Trust me, we’ll wax up these three and be gone long before any trouble arrives. But if you’re that worried, then go back outside and keep watch.”

“Gladly.”

Alpha Brass tensed to either retreat back into the fields or find some other place to hide. A fight here and now was not in his best interests. Not with his magic still in flux. His horn was only capable of basic magic in the state Mother had left him. Granted, he did not rely entirely on his horn, unlike most unicorns, and there was always his voice… but using that would be potentially dangerous with a scrambled star field. The prudent thing would be to leave or just hide. There were some basic unicorn cantrips that would be useful in doing so; tricks that poor earth pony farmers would not have available. There was no need to take unnecessary risks.

“Hey,” a small voice whispered, and Brass glanced down.

“The missing son,” he reasoned, seeing a small brown-coated earth pony colt with wide blue eyes. The child was in the crawl-space under the house, only accessible on one side of the building.

Without another word, the colt disappeared back under the farmhouse.

Falling flat on his stomach and crawling, the rather larger Equestrian Marquis followed the boy’s example. Luckily, he was lean for a stallion, and certainly no large workhorse. The wooden joists of the crawlspace scratched Brass’s back as he crawled, and the actual space itself was dry, but dusty and thick with spiderwebs. The family had used it for extra storage, and there were ample beams and old wooden scraps to hide behind. Clever boy. This wasn’t a bad hiding spot.

“You’re not one of them,” the little brown colt whispered, once they were in a corner of the crawlspace. “I saw you trying to keep hidden. And listening in. One of them wouldn’t bother doing that.”

“They already disguised themselves to try and lure you out?” Brass asked, keeping his voice low.

The colt nodded and wiped his forehead with his right hoof. “Yeah. Mom… Mom and Dad said to run if I could… but I can’t leave them or Sunny…”

“Sunny?”

“Sunny Sweet. My dumb sister,” the little colt grumbled. “She was supposed to hide, too, but--” He sniffed and shook his head, defiantly, even in the face of his fear.

“Sisters can be worrisome,” Brass said softly, and smiled. “I have three.”

“Three?” the colt boggled at him. “Do they drive you crazy, too?”

Alpha Brass just nodded. “What’s your name?”

“Kernel.”

“Alpha Brass.” He held out his hoof, and the colt tentatively bumped hooves with the stallion. It occurred to him, in that moment, that this colt was old enough to be his own son. Had things been so very different.

“Do you think I should’ve run away?” Kernel asked, glancing up at the floor of the house that was above their heads.

Alpha Brass silently watched the colt for a few seconds, considering his words carefully.

“What do you want to do?” he finally asked Kernel.

“They’re my family!” the boy answered, trembling but remaining resolute. “I can’t leave them! I won’t! I just gotta find a way to save them!”

The Equestrian noblepony closed his eyes and nodded once. “I see.”

“Sir…you’re a Lord, right?” Kernel’s identifying him for what he was so easily prompted Brass to sigh. Was it really that obvious? “I know, you… you look hurt, but – but can’t you do something? Plus you’re a unicorn! Don’t you have magic--”

“Everypony has magic, not just unicorns,” Brass explained, and when he opened his eyes again to look at Kernel, the colt shrank back a bit. “You want to save your family?”

Kernel steeled himself and looked the noblepony in the eye. “I do!”

“Very well,” Brass decided, “I won’t do it for you, but I can help you.”

Gaskinring Castle

“What is it? What’s the matter?” Joyeuse Tidings was not a young mare. The esteemed Governess and disciplinarian had not been a young mare for decades, and her service to Lady Twinkling Star Light and the new Terre Rare lords of Prance had done little to aid her complexion as she neared retirement.

“Answer me!” she demanded, stopping a frantic nurse from plowing into her as she entered the castle’s nursery complex. “What is going on? Has something happened to the foal?”

“M-mistress Tidings?” The younger mare, dressed in a white frock over a cream-yellow coat, stopped to straighten out her posture and compose herself. She was an earth pony and a heavy case had been belted to her left side onto a pair of saddlebags. It appeared to be stuffed with papers. Her mane was a frazzled and stressed mess of bright red, held partly in place by the goggles resting on her forehead.

“What. is. going. on?” Joyeuse asked again, letting her impatience and unhappiness seep into her reproachful tone of voice.

She knew she looked little better than the young mare. There had been precious little time to get changed into anything proper. Her coat was still a healthy coconut-brown, but the years had started to bleach her once bright orange mane. It had started with raising young Twinkling Star Light to be a proper Lady, a set of lessons that the mare promptly threw out the window the moment she inherited the Duchy from her mother, and gotten worse after young Polished Jewel, Alpha Brass, and Chalice entered into her care.

Each had started out as proper little noble-fillies, at least. Polished Jewel retained the refinement, poise, and appearance of a proper Lady, but it was spoiled by her growing too arrogant and prideful for Joyeuse’s tastes. The aged mare soon realized enforcing discipline on a hormonal young unicorn was rather difficult when said unicorn learned she could – and more importantly would – flick another pony clear across the room with her unnaturally powerful magic. Chalice was by all accounts even stronger than her older sister, but she had a naturally gentle nature that led her parents to be disinterested in her development, and all of Joyeuse’s efforts to fill that void in her charge’s life had failed to varying degrees. She had tried so hard with Chalice, too, pleading with the Duke and Duchess to weigh in and help, but neither were attentive parents in the conventional way.

Then there was their youngest daughter…

“Antimony--” the nurse babbled, fretting her front hooves together nervously. “--there’s been a problem in the nursery. I – I don’t know the details, but…”

“Oh sweet Celestia, another ‘problem’?” Joyeuse shuddered and stepped aside to let the nurse go.

She hurried off, leaving Joyeuse Tidings to move past her. The room beyond was split by a magical screen that tingled the follicles of her mane as she stepped through it. A wide set of stairs led upwards and Joyeuse followed it at a quickened pace. The siren that had woken her up grew louder and then quieter as she entered through the doors of the nursery watch center.

The watch center itself was a rectangular structure of wood and iron that extended partly over the nursery room. The nursery lay in a recessed and repurposed dining hall below. The youngest princess of the Terre Rare, the infant Lady Antimony, had all the former dining hall as her playcenter. Star Light had stocked it with all manner of toys and games to stimulate the magic and intellect and creativity of her young daughter. An entire staff of nurses and caretakers were hired to watch over the tiny alabaster foal.

Most tried to keep to the watch station whenever possible and away from physical contact.

Up here, looking out over the nursery, was a tinted window. Most of the time it was clear glass…

This time, the glass was tinted a scarlet-red.

It was not a good sign – as if the siren hadn’t already made that abundantly clear. Something had obviously gone very, very wrong with little Antimony. Joyeuse felt a shiver of fear run down her spine at the thought. Her personal apprehension aside, and her feelings towards the little foal, too, for that matter, if anything did happen to little Antimony…? Nopony would want to even contemplate what Star Light and Cruciger would do. Joyeuse was very aware of the fact that the Black Duke could cup most ponies’ heads in his hooves. She was also well aware that he had a reputation for crushing things with those same hooves.

Inside the watch center, two nurses in white frocks were still present. One just happened to be tending to the other. The one on the floor was a pegasus mare curled into a fetal ball. Her whole body was wracked by intense shivering, despite the blankets below her and that she kept slapping off her torso with her wings.

“S-so c-cold--” she cried softly. “--w-where is everypony? Help me. Help me. Somepony please help me...”

“Is she…?” Joyeuse asked, snagging a pair of goggles from clips near the door.

Two other ponies were also present in the room.

The one who answered her often went by the name ‘Blueberry.’ It wasn’t her actual name. Twinkling Star Light simply tended to call her that and so she adopted it as her work-name. She was one of the Duchess’s three top mage-guard apprentices, now having grown and graduated to the point where she had students of her own. The Terre Rare Mageguard, once simply the three apprentices of Duchess Star Light, now numbered more than a dozen.

‘Blueberry’ was the apprentice usually identifiable by her decorative metal mask; though she had taken it off in this case to don a pair of tinted goggles. They covered her eyes, but with the mask gone it was easy to see she was an eggshell-white colored unicorn mare. Her two toned pink mane was cut short, like a stallion’s. The only thing that was ‘blueberry’ about her was the color of her magic. A number of papers and other technical instruments swirled in the air around her.

“The idiot wasn’t wearing her goggles, even after hearing the crying,” Blueberry explained, motioning dismissively towards the quietly sobbing pegasus nurse. “From what I can tell, she’s reliving being lost in the cloudbanks when she was a filly.”

“We are... safe up here… are we not?” Joyeuse asked, turning very cautiously towards the blood-red tinted glass overlooking the nursery. The other pony in the room was facing the window without worry, his back to the adults. “She can’t get to us behind this glass, yes?”

“The glass blocks her view, and the walls are warded against phasing, teleportation, you name it,” Blueberry answered, snorting unhappily and starting to pace the room. “But this isn’t like before; the rest of the castle…”

“Could you please simply explain what has gone wrong?” Joyeuse asked, fretting and calming herself with a slow breath. The slow, droning warble that had woken her up in the middle of the night sounded again, prompting her ears to flatten against her head.

“Antimony’s eyes and--” Blueberry started to say, but coughed into her hoof. “--and certain family rituals have been causing her discomfort. We thought the worst of it was over last week, but tonight, she started crying, so the wet nurse entered her chambers to feed her…”

“Miss Nutrix, yes--”

“She didn’t wear her goggles, either. Or maybe they slipped off. We aren’t sure..”

“So she’s still in there?” Joyeuse asked, and approaching the window, looked down into the nursery. “Can’t we just send somepony in to get her out, then?”

In the nursery, Joyeuse could see Miss Nutrix on the floor, drooling out of the corner of her mouth. She appeared to be unconscious, and sure enough, her goggles were nowhere to be seen. Baby Antimony was also on the floor and seemingly unhurt. She was crawling around her fallen wet nurse and crying. Despite that, Joyeuse couldn’t hear anything from inside the room.

“You killed the sound?” she asked Blueberry.

“For our own safety,” the mage replied with an unhappy grunt. “There’s been some sort of change in Antimony’s magic. What do you think took out Nurse Bloom over there, even with her being inside this shielded and tinted watch center? The monster’s eyes somehow affected her without her making eye contact. Uncontrolled magical manifestation is natural in unicorn infants, but what we have here… is simply on a whole other level.”

Joyeuse looked down on the crying foal in the nursery. She was nudging her unconscious wet nurse with the little horn on her head and crying. It was a pitiable sight, but then she turned around, faced the raised area that was the watch center, and stared right back.

The red-tinted glass began to audibly thrum.

“What are you saying?”

“My own knowledge of this pales in comparison to Lady Star Light’s, but we had been operating under the assumption that this foal’s eyes were conduits for magical projection. Like a horn.” Blueberry chuckled darkly at the red-tinted glass that protected them. “But how wrong we were! Eyes are totally different from horns, or wings, or hooves! It makes sense that they conduct magic differently as well. A gorgon, to say nothing of a Greater Catoblepas, has the innate ability to control this. A pony does not! The mechanisms are simply not there!”

“A total loss of control,” the pony who had been quiet through all this said.

“Exactly so, young lord,” Blueberry agreed. “It is entirely possible that Lady Antimony will never control her monstrous eyes. Not as an infant, not as a filly, not as a teenager, not as an adult.”

Joyeuse felt a bead of sweat trickle down her neck. “That is terrible news, to be sure, but…”

“What is the cause of the current crisis?” Blueberry interrupted her, pacing away from the window and across the observatory. “Her eyes are projecting raw, unfocused magic into any surface in the room. The effect on most materials is minimal, but magical items… including magical creatures, like ponies… are absorbing the magic. The last two ponies we sent in there were driven back, either by the burns or by the nightmarish hallucinations.”

“B-burns?” Joyeuse slowly backed away from the window. “Lady Star Light and Lord Cruciger are still away… when they return--”

“There isn’t time for that, though, is there?” Alpha Brass asked. He was just a colt, himself, yet he had his cutie mark. He had gotten it earlier than any little pony Joyeuse had ever heard of. There were some who whispered he had been born with it.

The ouroboros.

Joyeuse smiled warmly at the young colt. “Young master, please, let us handle this…”

Unlike Jewel and Chalice, Brass was a perfect study, though he had many of his own tutors to teach him the roles stallions played in high society. He was always quiet, attentive, bright, and polite. The perfect student, really. Teaching him, it was almost… empowering. Joyeuse Tidings wasn’t sure how else to describe it. If he had been born a mare...

“If you send anypony else in right now, they’ll just get hurt,” the young lord reasoned, not having moved from his seat in front of the window. He turned his attention from them and back down into the nursery. “I understand your reluctance, but I know what I’m doing. I was created to help my sisters. Let me do that.”

Antimony’s crying assailed their ears in the brief instant they opened the nursery door. Joyeuse Tidings and Blueberry kept their eyes averted, even with their goggles on. None would risk exposure. Alpha Brass wore goggles as well, and they tinted the nursery a scarlet red, filtering out the infant Antimony’s illusions. They were notably less effective at protecting the rest of the body.

The dreams of infants and foals were a collage of wild emotions and abstract fears.

Stepping into the nursery, for just a moment, there was a sense of raw nothingness. Then Antimony noticed somepony in her room and turned to him. Her little face was scrunched up and wet with tears. She held out her tiny hooves to be picked up.

It was then that the magic kicked in.

The room plunged into darkness.

Waves of fear and loneliness, confusion and frustration, nascent infantile anger…

Hunger, sadness--

Then the fears, made manifest. The shadows pulled and stretched and reached out, twisting to give them eyes and teeth. The nightmares of foals rose up and surged towards him to tear him apart. Pausing only to reach up to his face, he lifted off his protective goggles. The tidal wave of nightmares swelled and advanced.

Alpha Brass trotted past them – through them.

“Antimony,” he said, staggering only when a blast of magic sent licks of smoke washing over his chest. “You don’t have to cry…”

The foal held out her chubby little legs, and Alpha Brass reached down to pick her up. He sat back on his haunches and held her up in the air. Her eyes were bright and wild, swirling, shifting pools of alien red. They were a monster’s eyes.

That was what everypony said: a monster’s eyes.

“You just want somepony to play with you,” he said, and held her to his chest until her cries turned to inarticulate, wordless murmurs. The roiling emotional magic and warped shadow creatures receded, faded, and finally lost cohesion entirely.

Grabbing onto his left front hoof, she brought it to her mouth and started to chew on it.

“Even if I’m the only one to ever tell you this, sister,” Alpha Brass whispered, smiling lovingly down at the baby in his lap. “Believe me. Believe your brother. Your eyes… are beautiful.”

Miss Nutrix wasn’t hurt, thankfully. They wheeled her out on a stretcher to the castle infirmary, just to be sure. Alpha Brass emerged from the nursery with her and promptly handed his goggles to Blueberry. Joyeuse could do little more than breathe a sigh of relief. The crisis had been averted by some miracle. Additional precautions would have to be undertaken until Lady Antimony grew out of her infancy.

“You’re immune to the gorgon’s eyes, young lord?” the mage-guard asked, impressed. “I suspected as much, but--”

“I’m not immune,” Brass cut her off, trotting past the two mares.

“Then how did you do that?” Blueberry asked, her earlier expression morphing into a frown. She was clearly not the sort of mare to like unanswered questions, especially not when it came to magic. “If you weren’t immune, then how…?

“I’d very much like to know that as well,” Joyeuse added. She, too, had been under the impression that he had some sort of immunity. It was the only reason they had allowed him into the nursery.

The young colt stopped, halfway to the door to the castle apartments.

“I was safe in that room because I love my little sister.” He turned, slowly, eyes narrowed at the pair of mares. “I love her and she knew it. That’s all it was. Good night, Miss Tidings. Miss Blueberry.”

He bowed his head, polite to the end, and took his leave.

“Was he right?” Joyeuse Tidings asked, her voice low and conspiratorial. For the first time in some time, she felt… guilty. Her eyes wandered over to the observatory window. It was terrible to admit, but the infant within the nursery below still terrified her.

“Alpha is Lady Star Light’s son, yes, but he’s barely out of magic kindergarten.” Blueberry scoffed, summoning up her metal mask to cover her face and assume her favored persona as a mysterious mage-guard. “Most likely he doesn’t understand it himself, but who knows?”

Blueberry nodded her head once and disappeared in a blink.

Joyeuse Tidings was left in the nursery observatory. Brass’s last words still haunted her: I was safe in that room because I love my little sister. Not a single pony on the staff had been able to get more than a few steps into the nursery. Not a single one. The implications were… unsettling.

“Kernel!”

“What are you doing here!?”

“Kernel…!”

The three cries came from three ponies, all held against a wall in what had been their very own living room. Out of the three earth ponies, Sunny Sweet, the straw and gold coated daughter, impulsively tried to get up. She was forced back down by the changeling watching over the family, and none too gently. With a pained oomph, the farmgirl ended up sprawled on the floor.

“Nopony move!” the changeling, not even bothering with a disguise, snarled at them. “You’ll get worse if you try that again!”

“Well, well!” the second changeling, the one in charge, cackled with a raspy ‘zhezhezhe.’ “All this effort trying to find out where they hid you… and you come right to us?”

It was a moment or two before the changelings realized the colt had trotted right in through the front door.

“Zchhche?” the leader chittered, and repeated the inequine name. “Zchhche! Sister!”

The second sneered and took a step towards the little brown colt. “Wait. There’s no way this little pony could’ve--”

“Zchhche!!” the leader yelled, stomping right up to the colt, green fire rippling along her chitinous armor. “This better be some dumb joke of yours! Zchhche!”

“Leave my family alone.”

The lead changeling, on the verge of calling for her comrade again, instead glared down at the little colt. “You…”

“Don’t hurt him!” It was the older mare of the family, the mother. “I know he didn’t do anything! He’s a good boy!”

“Shut up!” the changeling watching the family cuffed her roughly on the foreleg, causing her to cry out again, half-sob and half-yelp.

“You. You did something to Zchhche?” the changeling leader snapped, grabbing Kernel by his mane and tossing him off his hooves and onto the ground. “I’ll make you pay for that! Nopony hurts one of us and gets away with it!”

“Leave him alone!” The father, this time, tried to move forward. “Don’t you dare lay a hoof on my boy!”

“I said keep back,” the lone changeling guarding the family growled. Her crooked, black horn flashed, a bolt of magic knocking the dark-brown earth pony father onto his back. “You brought this on yourselves! Stupid ponies!”

“No!” A blonde mass caught the changeling around the legs, tackling her. “I won’t let you--”

“Won’t let you hurt--”

“Get away from--”

“Stop! Stop! Get off MEEEE!”

Sitting on the patio of the farmhouse, Alpha Brass tentatively touched a hoof to the bandage around his midsection. It wasn’t bloody or anything. Star Light was, if nothing else, a masterful doctor and surgeon. The flesh and magic she needed had all been removed… remotely, using magic. It was all very clean. By tomorrow, everything would be back to normal, such as normal was.

“No! NO! Please!”

A blood-curdling scream filled the air.

“Get your hooves off me! What are you doing? I’ll--”

Only a few seconds passed before a second scream followed the first.

Alpha Brass continued to look out over the farmland from the patio, not making a move, not even when the sound of stamping hooves outlasted the gurgling second scream. His mind was already elsewhere. In particular, it was on how close his sister’s guards could be when it came to tracking him down. Gewitter, in particular, would likely be leading the chase, looking to find answers as to what happened to her sister Sirocco. It would only be a matter of time before they happened by this place. It would probably be hoping too much that they concentrate entirely on the changelings… especially given the grudge Antimony had against him.

“Soon,” he promised, glancing over at the dead changeling on the patio next to him. It was in no position to respond, however. Not with a broken neck.

“Soon,” he said again.

Alpha Brass sat and watched the sky darken until Kernel’s family invited him inside. Flint Corn and his wife Masa, to his surprise, brewed a rather passable blend of black coffee.

Antimony closed her eyes.

“It is done,” she intoned, turning away from the crystalline grotto below. A faint wisp of smoke squeezed out from between her eyelids. “Do with them as you will.”

“You heard ‘er!” a shaggy, pugfaced dog barked, and a phalanx of diamond dogs marched forward. “Cross-ees to da front! Poke da sparkly ones first!”

They were covered in seemingly crudely-hammered plates of iron or steel, some over chainmail or stitched over with boiled leather. It was a motley assemblage of canine musculature, utterly devoid of the aesthetic sensibilities of ponykind. Nonetheless, it did the job Rarity had boasted it would.

Each canine cave-dweller hefted a huge steel-bowed arbalest, took aim down over the lip of the tunnel and loosed bolts at his or her pleasure. They made a fine mess of the enemy in the grotto beyond, taking full advantage of the chaos caused by the use of her Gorgon’s Eyes. And so the slaughter began anew, blood staining pink crystals a ruddy, rusty red.

“First line over da top! Chop em up! CHOP EM UP GOOD!” the same dog howled, and row after row of canines surged past Antimony and into the breach in the grotto. Many paused only to fire another flurry of iron tipped bolts into the illusion-addled changelings below before diving into the growing, growling, furious melee.

Behind the diamond dogs came her own forces: blade winged pegasi with gritted teeth, conscripted to fly into changeling infested caverns and rain down lightning and freezing rain, grim earth ponies who had already seen combat for hours on end, pushing back changelings and a growing horde of other monsters, and finally unicorn spellcasters with filthy robes and smoking horn-rings. Every single step forward had been contested with a savage fury, further compounded by the confusion of changelings adopting the guise of allies. Celestia alone knew how many ponies or diamond dogs had fallen due to friendly fire.

Bit by bloody bit, inch by hard-fought inch, they cut and smashed and blasted their way towards Canterlot.

Antimony did not mind the filth that covered her Terre Rare crimsons. Her waistcoat clung tightly to her slim torso, corset-like, the straps and stitching frayed from fighting. Her gold and carmine cloak was crusted in brown mud and ruddy, dry red streaks. Seeing the original outfit, Antimony remembered how Rarity had judged it ‘sufficiently fabulous on your figure and color scheme’ but wondered if it was ‘any real protection.’ She also questioned the coiled-snake motif, patterns of which were stitched into the ensemble. The dressmaker might have changed her tune on that, had she accompanied her friend Twilight to meet Lady Arsenic.

The sight of one of the family Mageguard coming to a stop before her brought Antimony’s thoughts back to the here and now. There was no point dwelling on Arsenic or Rarity, anyway.

“My Lady,” the unicorn mare greeted the Baroness with a formal bow. “There is news of your brother!”

So it wasn’t a telegraph from Yumi. News of her brother? It could only be one thing.

“Ah.” Antimony opened her eyes again, but only half-mast. “Let me guess: he’s escaped?”

“I am afraid so, my Lady,” the mage guard answered, obsequious.

“The four mages maintaining the prison barrier…?” Antimony asked.

“Immobilized by your noble mother, Lady Twinkling Star Light,” the unicorn guard explained with some visible discomfort over the resulting conflict of loyalties. “The other Mageguards are… were… not sure what to do…”

They would be. Most of the Terre Rare Mageguard had been trained to one degree or another by Twinkling Star Light. There was no spell they knew that she did not. There was no ability they had that she was unaware of. What would they do – what could they do – in the face of their fickle and flighty mentor’s interference? The Mageguard supported Antimony as the formal successor, rather than Twilight and Alpha Brass, but she lacked the iron-hoof of total control her father and mother enjoyed. Making a blatant move against Star Light was not just foalhardy, it was practically out of the question as well, no matter what Mother did.

“My mother is where, currently?” Antimony asked, simply.

“Attending to Lord Cruciger,” the mare answered, glancing up for a moment. All that greeted her was Antimony’s frosty glare. She quickly went back to staring dutifully down at her front hooves.

“No doubt my mother neutralized the first circle of guards,” Antimony murmured. “What of the second?”

“They were conscious but did not dare to interfere. Ser Gewitter has organized search parties to find your brother, my Lady, but… there has been no success from them as yet…”

The Baroness let a soft sigh betray her vexation. She held out a hoof, sheathed in a black leather boot. “Do you have the Fly on the Wall?”

“I do!” the Mageguard chirped, and magically reached into her robe to retrieve a small cylinder. “Right here, my Lady. Shall I play it for you?”

“Do so,” Antimony commanded.

The cylinder was followed by a portable hoof-held phonograph, designed for the helical track format. At Antimony’s nod of consent, the unicorn mare carefully retrieved a thin wave tube from within the storage cylinder and inserted it over the phonograph mandrel. Holding it up, her magic began to crank and power the mechanical phonograph.

For a few seconds, there was nothing but a faint static… then…

“Nice of you to drop by--” It was a stallion’s voice, a calm, relaxed, almost sensual medium timbre. There was no mistaking it, not for those who knew him. “--Mother.”

“Alpha.”

And there was Lady Star Light, her voice airy and carefree, even when she was deadly serious.

“So this is where you were hiding. This cell was meant to contain extra-dimensional entities… when your father had me recalibrate it to hold a pony, like Twilight Sparkle, for example, I never expected Antimony would appropriate it to hold you, instead. More curious still is you letting yourself get caught…”

Antimony listened to the conversation with eyes half lidded. Despite her seemingly bored expression, a practical side effect of how she needed to keep her eyes from being entirely open, Antimony’s attention was entirely set on the record before her. Even the sounds of the fight in the nearby grotto were filtered out. She listened intently as her mother and her brother talked, both already knowing the former intended to let the latter free.

The ‘Fly on the Wall’ had proved its worth, it seemed. The cylinder continually wrote and re-wrote over itself, the process only terminating when there was a disruption in the prison integrity. It was entirely mechanical in nature, and thus undetectable by magic. The wax Fly was clandestinely kept running behind a thin section of wall, automatically preserving the time of the incident and the minutes leading up to it due to the same feature that disconnected the recording in the event of an incident. It was an addition to the magical prison cell that neither mother nor brother knew about. Antimony had seen fit to install it personally, confiding in and seeking out the advice or insight of no other member of her family.

There was nothing that could be done, now, about either Twinkling Star Light or Alpha Brass.

Antimony was resigned to that fact. At the very least, however, she could learn why their dear mother had facilitated Brass’s escape. Some other clue might also have been mentioned in passing as to what he was up to; Antimony was certain her brother somehow had a hoof in the chaos overtaking Canterlot. It was an entirely paranoid assumption, but paranoia often seemed to pay off when it came to the only son of the Terre Rare main branch.

‘You have no idea any of this is being recorded, do you, Alpha?’ Antimony thought, her ears twitching as she listened. ‘You and mother… you always styled yourselves the smartest of us all, but intelligence is still nothing without the power to see your ambitions bear fruit. But then, you always took after mother, and I, our father.’

“Not to look a gift horse in the mouth,” Brass said, his voice clear over the small phonograph, “but how did you find me here?”

“Oh, that…?” Mother took on a lecturing tone, as she often did, even with foals too young to understand her. “In case of an emergency, I injected all of my children with a solution of magical phosphorus isotope. Ninety percent of it was filtered out after the first month, but approximately ten percent of the isotopes from the original injection were incorporated into your bone marrow, giving off a very faint but still measurable signal that I can track across large distances.”

Antimony blinked slowly.

Magical phosphorus isotope? By the Grace of the Princesses, that certainly sounded like the sort of insane thing their mother would do. Antimony glanced down at her boot-covered hoof. There was no doubt their mother was capable of such a thing, but it still stretched belief. Was there really this magical radioactive isotope in her… in all of their… bone marrow?

“I see.”

Brass’s voice was telling, and it immediately seized Antimony’s attention with all the force and subtlety of a slap in the face. It was surprise. This revelation had caught him by surprise. And…

Yes. There was worry there, too. Antimony could tell just by the voice, just by the tone of it, just by those two softly spoken words. No mare knew him as well as she did: the little sister who had once idolized her brother, only to be betrayed by him. The baby sister he had used as a pawn and guinea pig, just as Chalice had been.

“So, you injected radioactive phosphorus into your infant foals,” Brass went on to state. “What am I saying? Of course you would. So all this time, we’ve had radioactive material inside us?”

“If you had ever been foalnapped, you’d have thanked me,” Mother insisted. “Besides, it was perfectly safe! I did the same to your father and I tested the formula thoroughly when I was pregnant with your older sister. We… we…”

“Wait a moment,” Mother said after a pause. She only then seemed to catch onto what Antimony had already noticed. “You weren’t really concerned about your safety, were you? You know I would never use untested magic on you. No. I know that look. You’re more worried that I could track you down at all. You must have expected I would find you eventually, but not how.”

“A miscalculation on my part,” he replied, evasive.

“Alpha. Little Twilight alluded to some trouble in your marriage to Olive Branch. Is this related? Just where have you been, that you don’t want me tracking you down?”

“Nowhere important.”

It was a lie. A lie as clear as day! But Alpha Brass did not just lie outright; he always veiled his lies in some sort of truth, just as he softened his manipulations with the illusion of choice. This one was just a blanket prevarication. What was he up to?

“You’re here for my blood and body, are you not?” he quickly changed the topic to the one thing Mother cared about above all else. “To help bring father back?”

Antimony’s mind raced, though the rest of the recording failed to provide any further information of the sort she needed. Her brother did not want anypony to know where he had been.

But where had her brother been?

Since his marriage to Olive Branch, around the same time as the Sisters’ Duel for the succession of the Terre Rare, she knew he had been to the Frontier. That was to be expected. The Marquis and Marquessa owned or oversaw numerous keeps, castles, towns and ports all throughout the Equestrian colonies and frontier.

Alpha Brass’s new domain dotted the map, from the frigid tundra where the Crystal Empire had once ruled to the sweltering jungles of the south, to the islands unclaimed by Neighpon, to the trading posts and colonies that touched on the zebra-lands. All of it, plus the navy that guarded the highways of the sea, was ultimately administered by the Marquis of the Frontier and the Equestrian Marches.

Alpha Brass, Antimony knew, had visited all these lands and more besides. He had supervised and expanded family dig sites in the Crystal Wastes of the north and the still-frigid remains of the Old Kingdoms. He had made at least two trips to the zebra lands, one of which he even wrote about and self-published. Zebrabar, Antimony recalled, had figured prominently in that story. He had visited it at least twice since then.

Was it Zebrabar he wished to keep a secret?

That hardly made sense. The city was a seedy one, certainly, run by all manner of corrupt creatures. Saddle Marabian refugees had taken it over centuries ago, and most of the ruling families there were still Marabic, but these days all sorts of nobles visited the city and maintained villas there. Even the Terre Rare. There was nothing shameful or secretive about it. Besides, his trips there had still been rare things when measured against the span of years. Why worry about being found out? Antimony found it hard to imagine him sneaking off to Zebrabar for some illicit affair, anyway. Not only wasn’t her brother the type, he had all those infamous parties at his Hanging G--

Antimony blinked again and her eyes widened just a little too much as the revelation struck her.

The mage-guard, who had been incautious enough to look up at her face, along with a half dozen others passing by her in the tunnel, all paused to stare into her almost fully open eyes. Silence, like the inside of a tomb, fell over the tunnelway. Antimony quickly remembered herself and brought a hoof up and over her eyes. The spell broke in that moment, and the enthralled ponies – and one drooling diamond dog in Rarity’s white and purple livery – slowly came to their senses.

“Baroness,” the mage-guard muttered, shaking her head and rubbing her eyes. Her tone was less respectful than it was fearful. Not that Antimony blamed her for the reaction. No pony dared to look straight into her eyes – into the Gorgon’s Eyes.

No pony except… two… her brother and--

‘Rarity,’ Antimony thought, and smirked. The one mare absolutely crazy and desperate enough to purposefully look her in the eye, even knowing as she did that it meant being entranced. Even fight-happy madmares like Ritterkreuz had done everything in their power to avoid the Gorgon’s Eyes. Even magical geniuses like Sand Dune had concocted elaborate ways to avoid it. Only that one foolish, naive, small-town seamstress had thrown all caution to the wind. But she had won that duel, hadn’t she? Did that then suggest that there was wisdom in her boldness?

Regardless, there was a more pressing matter: her brother’s Hanging Gardens.

That had to be it.

They had to be floating over someplace unusual or special. It certainly fit into the assumption that, to Antimony’s knowledge, nopony had ever actually flown up to the Gardens. Even when she visited her brother there, it had been through a teleportation matrix of some sort. Nopony physically left the Gardens, either. It was surrounded by a barrier shield. Antimony tried to recall what the ground below had looked like when last she had looked over the edge to take in one of the great views the gardens offered… and she couldn’t recall any real details.

‘Nowhere over Equestria, then?’ she speculated. ‘He wouldn’t… it couldn’t be over some other country, could it? The barrier shield filtered out the native weather. It could be hovering over Saddle Marabia or Maretonia or even the bloody Old Kingdom for all we know. It could even be mobile, as the great Sky Palaces of old were!’

Alpha’s gardens were typically seen as a novelty, like a particularly expensive and elaborate sky yacht. It was a place where he hosted parties and curried favor with noble peers. It seemed mad that its location could be some dark secret any more than rich ponies worried about where they dumped trash off the side of their airships. Yet the more Antimony thought on it the more convinced she became.

Alpha had been worried about their mother’s tracking spell.

That was reason enough, in the end.

“I have orders for you,” Antimony said, finally, and the mage-guard nodded but didn’t dare to look up at her mistress. “Return to the army camp. Return to the Lion’s Den. Tell my mother to use her spell to locate my brother… or better still, create a device or artifice I can use to find him. Tell her that in return, I will let her know how I know about the spell in the first place. There’s nothing that so vexes her as a mystery. Remind her of the hundreds of changeling bodies and dozens of changeling captives I will have in my possession after this battle is won. They can all be hers for the price of her cooperation.”

“And--” the unicorn mage wondered, coughing into her hoof. “--if Lady Star Light is uncooperative…?”

“She won’t be,” Antimony assured her. “Now go.”

“As you wish, my Lady,” the mare answered, and vanished with a pop of displaced air.

Left alone – such as alone could be in the cramped confines of the embattled network of tunnels beneath Canterlot – Antimony found her thoughts drifting back to a memory. It was one that often came to her, when she dwelled on her brother. The day after defeating Chalice, Brass had come to visit his youngest sister, and Antimony had not held back her words in expressing her anger and sense of betrayal.

“Everything you say is a lie,” she had told him, then, fixing her older brother with a stare that held back none of her contempt. “Everything you do is terrible. I hate you.”

Yet, as he always did, he had never turned away from her eyes. ‘Beautiful,’ he had called them, when she was just a little filly, when she had let slip how afraid she was of her own reflection, ‘your eyes are beautiful. Never be ashamed of them… or the power they have.’

He had been her big brother and a best friend, once.

What he was to her, now, Antimony couldn’t even find words for. How could a pony’s own family count themselves as both ally and enemy? How could a sister hate her brother and yet still love him? Father would call it weakness – the same weakness that inevitably begat conflict and suffering – and so it had time and time again.

“Brother,” Antimony hissed under her breath. “Where are you now?”

Alpha Brass appeared in the reception room of the Hanging Gardens, freshly teleported and still sparkling from residual magic. His countenance, normally calm bordering on serene, was marred by fatigue and a very faint scowl. His mother’s revelation, Twilight Sparkle, and so much else, all weighed heavily on his mind. On top of that, he had been compelled not to make the long awaited transport alone.

“Oh, wow!” “Where are we?”

“Look at this place!”

“Fancy! But that’s what’ya get from a lord!”

Kernel and his family wasted little time in spreading out and exploring the reception room. Masa, the mother of the bunch, found herself transfixed by the paintings and sculptures set into the walls. Euporie had overseen much of the decoration here, and it bore her influences. Between the romanticized pictures of great ponies and events from centuries past she had interspersed tame only-by-her-standards scenes of lovemaking, along with one particularly vivid depiction of the deaths of Roameo and an underaged-by-modern-standards Juliette. Masa quickly found Kernel staring at them as well and wrapped a leg around his virgin eyes.

“Is the whole house this pretty?” Sunny Sweet asked, and bowed to one of the waiting staff. “Oh! Hello! Pleased to meet you, madam!”

“We are safe here, right?” Flint Corn asked, ducking his head to inspect the glowing circle in the floor that still crackled and hissed with Brass’s magic. “None of those things can follow us, right? That’s what you said…”

“You are as safe here as you are anywhere,” Alpha Brass promised the stallion, and motioned with his hoof for one of his silent staff to come forward.

“My Lord?” one of his loyal guardsmares answered his command, stepping forward. She was one of two kept on rotation in the Garden’s main reception room. Behind her followed a younger, more petite mare in a Prench maid’s outfit.

“See my guests to a room and send word to Eunomie,” he ordered, following Sunny Sweet with his eyes as she proceeded to touch half the statues in the room. “My daughter is here, isn’t she?”

“She arrived with Lady Sparkle and several other guests some time ago,” the guardsmare answered, standing rigidly at attention. “I will have word sent to her immediately!”

“Good.” Brass waved a hoof, and the guard went to the tasks of rounding up the farmers he had arrived with. They were collectively near the exit when Brass coughed and raised his voice.

“Keep their quarters away from Euporie’s chambers,” he amended his earlier instructions. “Have a serving filly prepare them dinner and a bath.”

The guardsmare didn’t question his orders. Perhaps she even secretly saw the reason in them. “Yes, my Lord.”

He waved his hoof again.

“Will we see you again, sir?” Masa asked, still holding tight to her son.

“Yeah!” Kernel exclaimed. “We’re friends, right! You should show us around!”

“Kernel! Don’t annoy him!” Sunny bumped her little brother on the shoulder with her hoof none-too-gently. She bowed her head deeply, her nose almost touching the carpet of the room. “Lord Brass, thank you so much for helping us!”

“And for taking us in,” Flint Corn added, also bowing. Masa followed a second later, and seeing his family doing it, Kernel imitated them in bowing his head.

“Perhaps we’ll meet again once the current crisis is over,” he promised, and waved his hoof again, dismissing the lot of them.

“This way, please,” the guardsmare said, and ushered the family of earth ponies away.

Alpha Brass waited a few seconds after they were gone. Then a pop in the air heralded the arrival of just the pony he had wished to see. Eunomie Mosaic arrived looking not much the worse for wear. There was a bandage around one of her forelegs, but Eunomie being Eunomie, she hardly even acknowledged the wound. Her pale coat had been combed down smooth and her red mane was in its usual tight bun. She lowered her amber eyes in respect, the last few traces of magic cooking off along her horn.

“Father,” she greeted him. To most ponies, it would have appeared to be a cold reception. He understood it for what it was. In her own way, she had to be relieved to see him. Now he could once again shoulder some of the burden.

“Eunomie,” he returned the greeting, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. “It is good to be back. Tell me everything.”

They began to walk, first out of the reception room and then down a crystal hall bedecked with gold-leaf ivy in imitation of an actual garden’s wooden trellises. Between the gaps in the crystal pillars were murals of a dozen different Equestrian vistas, each one different from the last, from rolling deserts to frozen lakes to the Serenity Waterfall that flowed beneath Canterlot itself, falling thousands of hooves to the ground below.

Eunomie began, rightly, with a summary of the beginning.

“The two bridesmaids, Minuette and Twinkleshine, proved decisive in Chrysalis’s battle with Princess Celestia. Things continued largely as we had expected on that front. Celestia was cast down. According to preliminary reports, she may have killed one of the changeling Queens before being defeated, though we are as yet unsure which one, if any, she could be responsible for. Chrysalis made her move during the wedding and attempted to take everypony in attendance hostage, but she lost control of the crowd in the chaos.”

“I observed Lady Sand Dune in action, and we know she is cooperating with Lady Rarity and Lady Sparkle. The Quartz also helped cement Lady Rarity’s role in organizing the nobles after the wedding turned to chaos. She was able to compel them to overcome their distrust of one another and to cooperate in defending the city.” Eunomie lowered her eyes and sighed very softly. “Regretfully, there was little I could practically do to prevent that, and so I kept my cover.”

“The Canterlot nobles are unified, then?” Brass asked. The pair trotted slowly past a series of balconies overlooking the gardens. It was dark outside, just as it was twilight over most of Equestria.

“Unified is a generous way of describing it, but they are cooperating and working together, yes,” Eunomie replied.

“Such is the power of the Elements of Harmony,” Brass admitted with a cheerless sniff. “Even weak ones like Generosity. That element in particular has ended up becoming a thorn in my side. What next?”

“Three of the mares, Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Lady Rarity, went off to rescue some young ponies who were being used as hostages. At the same time, Twilight Sparkle and I began to enact her plan to amplify her anti-changeling spell, just as we had discussed earlier. We were accompanied by Pinkamena Diane Pie, one Miss Fluttershy, and Twilight Velvet, Twilight Sparkle’s mother.”

A guardmare dutifully opened a gilded door for the pair.

“Go on,” Brass ordered.

“We knew that Twilight Velvet had been replaced, but I did not expect she would attempt to follow us at this time. The changelings had been working their mind control on Twilight Sparkle and she was unaware of the deception. I decided to allow her to come with us, so that I might reveal Lady Velvet at an opportune time. I also felt it increased our chances of the changelings destroying the radio tower Twilight Sparkle needed. Our earlier decision of a week ago to lure Exuvia to the tower worked as well, though she attempted to parley instead of cutting her losses or fighting Twilight for control of the structure.”

“Were you able to kill her?”

“Exuvia? Unfortunately no, Father, I was not.”

Brass was silent for a few seconds at that. “That is unfortunate, Eunomie.”

“She did not fight us,” Eunomie reminded him, “but she did destroy the tower in her retreat, which was the most important thing. I also used the occasion to expose Twilight Velvet. This revelation, combined with the earlier ambushes on our party, and knowing who had been responsible for them, meant that Twilight Sparkle was sufficiently motivated towards our point of view, just as you wished. It also left her receptive to relocating and using her spell in the Gardens. With my primary objectives met, by and large, I decided that pursuing Exuvia and meeting lesser conditions would only add unnecessary risk.”

“Was there much trouble getting to the tower?”

“More than expected…”

Eunomie hesitated only a moment as they entered the baths. Brass trotted towards a shower, turned the water on low and hot, and let it run down his body. He unwound the bandages around his midsection, feeling where most surgeons would have left a scar. There was nothing. Only a pain and an emptiness inside. He dropped his hoof and turned his head up and into the stream of water and steam.

Eunomie, meanwhile, continued to describe in greater detail the travails she and Twilight Sparkle had faced getting to the radio tower. She also filled him in more on what she had gathered about Pinkamena Diane Pie and Fluttershy. Both mares were Twilight’s friends, but Brass himself had little knowledge of them outside Twilight’s own anecdotes. Both had acquitted themselves surprisingly well in combat.

“What about the rest of the city?”

“There is no word of Cadance, as yet. She did escape, from what we can gather, along with Prince Blueblood. Miss Heartstrings is undoubtedly still with her. Information there is choppy at best. Hasn’t she attempted to contact you, Father?”

“No.” Brass levitated a bar of soap and began to scrub. His body hurt less than it had, but his magic was still well below what it should be. The level of raw magic was recovering on time, but it was still slightly scrambled. The bar trembled in his magical grip and he had to steady it with one of his hooves.

“There have been field reports of some sort of incident at the Palace,” Eunomie went on to say, sitting primly by the shower and watching her father while he cleaned off. “Our friends report that there is some confusion among the changeling ranks. We believe something to have happened to Chrysalis, but we do not know what.”

“That is why I freed Lady Cadenza,” Brass replied, but craned his neck with a grimace and a pop. “But then, you say this isn’t likely to be her doing? If we are fortunate, that just means somepony beat Cadance to the punch. She should still be aiming to save Shining Armor. Cadance will move heaven and earth to save her fiancé. With the two bridesmaids I supplied Chrysalis out of the picture, as they should be by now, that gives my old friend Cadance and Miss Heartstrings all the opportunity they need to strike.”

“We have eyes on the Palace,” Eunomie promised.

“Good. Chalice…?”

“Back at the Gardens with the items. Her mission was a success.”

“There was no incident, then?”

“Not that I know of.” Eunomie blinked slowly and stared at her father while he washed the last of the soap from his body. Her horn glowed and she floated over a pearl-white towel to rest across her shoulder. “There is another major problem… more of an extension of the earlier one, actually.”

Brass ran a hoof through his soaking wet, golden mane. “What?”

“Two things. The first is that fighting has been averted in the west. Ritterkreuz killed Prince Blueblood before he could order an attack.”

Alpha Brass closed his eyes and let the water cascade across his face. “And the other?”

“Princess Luna is alive,” Eunomie stated, holding out the towel. Brass took it, but didn’t begin drying off.

“So?” he asked.

“Luna isn’t just alive. She has rallied the defending nobles and other ponies to her. Morale is apparently quite high among those who follow her. The Princess – along with three Elements of Harmony – allegedly killed two changeling Queens in a single decisive battle. They have the Canterlot Sky Harbor under their control and Cloudsdale is sending reinforcements into the city.”

“Luna--” Brass frowned as he stared at the towel in his hooves. “I should’ve sent Chalice to make sure she was out of the picture.”

Eunomie kept silent, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

“Hope is like saltwater to a mare lost at sea, Eunomie,” he finally said, patting his face with the towel and running it up and down his horn. “A thirsty mare will drink it until it kills her, growing more deluded with every hoof-full. Hope leads foolish ponies to overestimate their survival. Princess Luna is one of the few who can justify giving others a sense of hope. I underestimated her. How could the nobles and common ponies look to her for salvation?”

“She is their only alternative with Celestia gone,” Eunomie reasoned, but then added, “Lady Rarity was also involved in this incident, along with the elements Applejack and Rainbow Dash. If they played a part in getting Luna recognized--”

“Then the thorn has grown into a briar patch.” Alpha Brass neatly folded the towel and rested it on his neck as he began to walk. “We have Twilight and the Broken Crown… Celestia is down, but not Luna. The nobles are united and tomorrow half of Equestria will launch a counter-attack. Canterlot is not the sinking ship I had hoped it would be at this point.”

“Euporie,” Eunomie reminded him.

“We do have Euporie and The Device,” he agreed. “Where is she?”

“In her chambers,” Eunomie answered, and there was a long pause. “Resting.”

“Resting?”

“Resting, Father.” There was yet another long pause in Eunomie’s response. “She was upset when I arrived with Twilight Sparkle and decided to have a ‘private party’ to cheer herself up. She is being emotional. She believes you love Twilight Sparkle more than you do her.”

Brass stopped trotting and glanced over at his step-daughter.

“Do you?” Eunomie asked in monotone.

“Euporie is my valuable daughter, just as you are, Eunomie,” he said, but there was no smile on his face. “But you know as well as anypony that my heart is empty. There is nothing there to find. Nothing.” He shook his head and simply reminded her of one plain fact: “It is impossible for me to love anypony more than anypony else.”

He started to head towards the still-pool baths, but Eunomie abruptly spoke up.

“Father--” She reached towards him with a hoof, and he paused again. It was an unusual outburst for her. Eunomie lowered her hoof and sat down on the tile floor, her eyes downcast. “I don’t mind if you do. If you value Twilight Sparkle more than you do myself. She is… powerful and talented… in ways even Euporie isn’t… and I…”

“Eunomie.” Brass sighed and trotted over to her, cupping her chin and raising her up to look him in the eye. He let her go and softly kissed her forehead, just to the right of her horn.

“Father?” she asked, her cheeks straining with a very faint smile.

“You are an amazing pony and a wonderful daughter,” he promised her, but still without a smile. “None of this would have been possible without you. I am grateful beyond words to have you in my life.”

Eunomie lifted her front hooves and, shakily, placed them on his shoulders. It took a moment for him to realize what she was doing. It was a hug. She was trying to hug him. But she seemed unsure exactly how. It was almost as if she was trying to copy how she had seen other ponies hugging each other.

Wrapping one leg around her he pulled her in close and held her.

“You saved our lives,” she whispered into his chest, and her forelegs squeezed him for a couple long seconds. “Euporie and I both love you,” Eunomie said, her voice unable to express the emotion inside her. “Tomorrow… we’ll show you how much. I promise. Nopony else in this world matters to us as much as you do.”

“Eunomie…?”

Much more confidently than she had started the hug, she released it and let him go.

“Enjoy your bath, Father,” she told him, bowing briefly and all but running for the exit.

“How strange…” Brass shrugged and continued down one last hallway, a short one, decorated with marble inlays of dolphins and seaponies. A door opened at the behest of his magic, revealing the heated baths beyond. A faint haze of steam hung over the surface, but it was immediately clear that the long, bubbling bath was not entirely unoccupied.

A lavender figure paddled forward, blushing hotly to rest her hooves on the edge of the pool.

“Twilight,” Brass greeted her, smiling pleasantly.

“Do you, umm--” She bit her lower lip and nervously clopped her hooves together. “--do you want to take a bath together? I read about it being relaxing for couples on vacation, and I know this isn’t a real vacation, I’m mostly just waiting for the go-ahead to use my spell, but it is in a weird way, since this is still sort-of a break from stressful circumstances, and being chased around all day by monsters trying to kill us, and if you don’t want to, I don’t mind because we’re both kind of wet and naked and I can’t stop talking and Pinkie said the key to a relationship was surprise and--”

“I heard you had some adventures on the way over,” he said, gently interrupting the mare, if only to give her a chance to catch her breath again. Entering the bath and descending the steps into the hot water, he sat back on a stone platform underwater.

“Maybe a few,” Twilight Sparkle admitted, her blush intensifying across her purple coat. She laughed and tried to relax against the lip of the pool… only to slip and end up entirely submerged with a surprised yelp.

Sputtering and spitting out water, she re-emerged and shook her head and mane.

“I’d love to hear about it from your perspective,” he told her, chuckling and holding out a hoof.

Twilight Sparkle took it and he pulled her over to sit next to him.

“What about you? Did anything happen to you?”

“Nothing interesting, I’m afraid. It was just another day.”

Chapter Fifty Five : Not to the Strongest

(55)

Not to the Strongest

“Enough! I can’t believe I’m hearing this… from you two, of all ponies.”

Prince Sombra stood before them, burgundy cloak and ermine trim rippling in the wind kicked up by his magic. His onyx mane flowed backwards like a series of dark waves, save for the sideburns he insisted on keeping wild. The steel gorget around his throat was open and unclasped; he was literally half dressed, roused to find them in the middle of the night. Carmine tinted magic stained his black horn a shade of ruddy-red, a condition that had been exacerbated by his activities of the last couple years.

“Luna!” He turned to her and shook his head in dismay. “Celestia?” He found the older sister and scowled at the burden she bore. “Have you both taken leave of your senses?!”

Slung across Celestia’s back, Princess Platinum gave a pained whimper. The alabaster unicorn was still hurting from her spell earlier; she reached a hoof up to her horn and winced as a crackle of black lightning stung her.

“Sombra--” Luna pleaded, holding her own precious burden under her right wing.

“This is treason!” Sombra interrupted her, and his green eyes shot to the pair of crystal pony guards he had with him. They were muscular earth ponies, but their crystal enchantment added a potential layer of complexity when it came to neutralizing them if it came to a fight. Celestia and Luna also knew that with Sombra himself present, any crystal pony suddenly became a much bigger obstacle. The alicorn sisters tensed, waiting for the dark Prince to give the order that would turn this meeting into a battle… and awaken the entire palace.

But Sombra did not give the order.

He hung his head. “Even if it is you two… he won’t forgive this. You’re throwing away your lives.” Sombra’s scowl deepened and he pointed at Celestia, and through her, Princess Platinum. “You’re throwing away everything we’ve worked for! And for what? For what, Celestia?”

“For harmony,” she told him, but couldn’t find it in her to rise to his anger and outrage.

He was right: she was throwing it all away, and for little more than a crazy dream.

“Harmony?!” Sombra spat. “Harmony!” He turned to Luna, and to the bundle under her wings. “Look at you! Look at what you’re doing! You even broke into the Royal Feretory and desecrated Yggdrasil itself…” Luna averted her eyes at the accusation. “You’re freeing an enemy of the state… for harmony? Have you even heard yourself? Harmony? Peace? The only peace in this world comes from power! It comes from order and obedience!”

“You!” he pointed directly at Princess Platinum, lips curling back in a savage snarl that did little to hide his canine dentition. “You did this to them! Damn you! You bewitched them somehow! I should crystalize you, piece by screaming piece, shattering each limb as it freezes!”

“Sombra,” Celestia tried to say.

“Please listen!” Luna picked up for her sister when he only snarled in response. As yet, he hadn’t launched an attack. He hadn’t alerted the entire sky palace to their escape. “Sombra, please. It isn’t witchcraft. Sister believes there can be harmony between the tribes…”

“Sister believes?” Sombra repeated, staring at Luna with wide eyes. “By the Night’s Stars, she’s dragged you into this, hasn’t she? You don’t have to do what she says, Luna. You’re your own mare! This can’t be what you want!”

Luna clutched the cloth bundle to her side with her wing and shook her head. “I have to do this, too.”

“We’ve both made up our minds,” Celestia spoke up, regaining Sombra’s attention. Propped up on her back, Platinum was clearly awake, but kept silent while the two sisters talked down their old friend. “Sombra… peace won’t come – can’t come – from violence and slavery. Any kind of slavery. Peace and harmony come from understanding and friendship. What Father is doing is wrong. We killed the windigos and turned ourselves into something even worse!”

Sombra’s hackles, already raised, were further pricked by her comment.

“Don’t you dare--” he warned, seething anger in his growl.

“I’m sorry, I… I didn’t mean it like that,” Celestia quickly apologized, and he calmed, if only somewhat. “But you have to see this isn’t how things should be? We’ve lost our way! You have to see this is why Starswirl abandoned us? Why he defected to Equestria?”

“Defected? To Equestria? That’s where he went?” Sombra realized, aghast. A moment later, and his scowl returned, but chastened. “That old fool. That blind fool. I always knew he was weak in the head.” He fixed Celestia with his stare, but it was softer than before. “Celestia… what about your mother? Have you really given up on her?”

Celestia and Luna both cringed at the reminder. Their mother…

“She’s gone, Sombra,” Celestia answered for them, and shifted a wing to better keep Princess Platinum on her back. “She’s been gone all our lives. Father can’t accept that; her leaving drove him mad, but it is the simple, ugly truth. Getting her back… if she even wants to come back… it isn’t worth all the horror we’ve unleashed on the world.”

Sombra stared at the two alicorn sisters, still trying to understand them. To understand their motivations. He hadn’t heard Platinum’s words. He hadn’t seen the lengths she was willing to go through for friendship and for this insane new idea that was Equestria. His life hadn’t been changed by watching the stubborn nobility and fierce devotion she had towards ponies of another tribe, ponies she had been raised to hate or look down on all her life. His life hadn’t been turned upside down by realizing that maybe, just maybe, there was a better way and a better future… waiting just over the horizon.

“Are you going to fight us?” With her usual lack of subtlety, Luna finally asked what was on both of their minds. She looked him in the eye, and a hint of the dark magic they both shared crackled along their horns. “Sombra, are you going to be our ally tonight… or our enemy? It is one or the other.”

Prince Sombra, Lord of the Crystal Empire, raised his hoof--

And lowered it, gently, to the floor.

“You’re both too naive,” he stated, turning on his hooves. “You’ll never make it out through the galleries and Sagittarius himself is watching the sky for flyers. Luckily for you, I happen to have arranged an emergency escape for myself, just in case. You can use one of my mirrors.”

Luna smiled cautiously, and Celestia breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you--”

“But…!” Sombra warned, glancing back at them and revealing a hint of fang. Black smoke trickled out from between his teeth. Celestia had the impression then, looking at him, that he was speaking not just to her, not just to Luna, but to the silent Princess Platinum as well.

“Even if you survive this, you have to know that they won’t trust you; that they’ll never love you.” The Black Prince of the Crystal Empire turned his back on them and led the trio onward, abetting their escape. His heavy hooves clopped rhythmically along the stone floor. “The harmony you’re looking for…? It doesn’t exist. It can’t exist. You’re fools, the both of you, and one day it will get you killed. Mark my words.”

Fools they may have been, but he still helped them.

That night, Princess Platinum escaped from captivity. That night, the dream that was Equestria was given a chance to survive, and in time, to thrive. Only twenty years later, corrupted by dark magic, the Mad King Sombra was banished to the Realm of Shadow. His sentence was carried out by the newly crowned Princesses Celestia and Luna, using the Elements of Harmony.

“If only you’d come with us, you’d have seen… it can exist.”

“Oh ho?” A stallion’s voice rumbled beneath her. “Auntie, you’re awake?”

Blueblood, despite his occasional protestations, was more than capable of carrying her on his back. Resting on top of him, the Princess could feel the difference a little time made in her body. Despite what had to be the breaking of the Crown, her restorative magic had been cast before the event, and it was potent.

Her worst wounds had sealed up, filling not with flesh but with magical biomatter. The bleeding and hemorrhaging had abated, and the healing had begun, but it would be weeks before she was as she had been… and that was assuming a way was found to repair the Crown as well. Twilight. It would be up to Twilight. Once again, her life and the future of Equestria itself would be in the hooves of Twilight Sparkle. If the crown went unrestored for more than a few days, it would be chaos the likes of which would make Discord proud.

“You were dreaming,” Blueblood went on to tell her, as a dark colored mare opened a door up ahead of them, deep within the warren of infrastructure tunnels under Canterlot. “Drooling as well, but mostly dreaming.”

“A little royal drool won’t hurt you, nephew.” Celestia wrapped her front legs around his neck a bit more tightly and, despite the awkward angle, favored her distant relation with a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “It isn’t every day I get to be rescued by a handsome Prince.”

“And it isn’t every day a fair Princess compliments me on how handsome I am,” Blueblood joked and the two royals broke into a fit of giggles.

The unicorn mare accompanying the Prince stared at the pair, one eyebrow up almost to the base of her horn. She stepped aside as Blueblood squirmed through the maintenance door. They left the mess of ancient underground aqueducts and plumbing to enter a more modern structure. It was a large, perfectly straight tunnel, unlit except for the faint glow of the unicorn mare’s horn. Parallel railroad tracks ran across the ground on a bed of rubble.

“Blueblood,” Celestia said, honestly, giving him one last squeeze. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

“As if I could leave you in that place,” he answered with remarkable candor.

“It was a foalish risk,” she felt the need to remind him in the next breath, gently clopping a hoof against his forehead. “Don’t risk your life again like that. Not even for me.”

“If only I could make a promise like that.” Canterlot’s Prince sighed theatrically and followed it up with a smirking glance back at her. “But there are some things I couldn’t bear to live without. Fine wine for example. Beautiful mares, oh yes, definitely that. My Auntie and my Equestria are another. I love my life rather dearly, Auntie, but some things are worth the risk.”

Celestia groaned in exasperation, but, rather than try to correct her nephew, rested her cheek against his shoulder and let him carry her. She didn’t let him see, but a smile had found her lips. The Princess didn’t feel the need to tell him that she felt the same way. Some things were worth risking one’s life to protect. A life where a pony valued nothing over their own survival was not much of a life at all. It wasn’t just a noble sentiment, either. It was intrinsic to ponykind. That was something Sombra and her father had never understood.

“Which way next?” the mare – Night Shade, Celestia later learned – asked, looking back and forth down the metro tunnel.

“Down that way,” Blueblood told her, and Celestia felt him begin to move again. “Here, follow me.”

Resting, but no longer needing to sleep, Princess Celestia let her body go limp. She kept an eye on the pony present whom she didn’t know – the dark-coated mare. Blueblood seemed to notice her interest, and he made polite introductions. Her name was Night Shade, and she was an oneiromancer, a draumr, in the parlance of the old world. Like Luna. She had been ensnared by the changelings, Blueblood had explained. They had controlled her and forced to be his jailor. She had entered his dreams to steal his family secrets for Chrysalis. He didn’t use the word ‘nightmare,’ loaded as it was in their family, but it was implied. Just like…

The Princess of the Sun had to stifle an inappropriate laugh.

‘The three of us… myself, Luna, and Auntie, and now Blueblood, Night Shade, and me,’ Celestia thought, cheek to her nephew’s shoulder. ‘Is this ironic or just surreal? Auntie Platinum, what would you say if you saw me now… if you saw us now?’

Blueblood led them down the railroad tunnel for only a couple hundred hooves. Soon they ducked into another maintenance alcove. There were stairs there, leading up to another level. Despite living in Canterlot all her life – and a long, long life it was – Celestia had to admit to herself that she had no idea where they currently were. Canterlot was an old city, among the oldest in Equestria proper, and because of the limited space on the side of the mountain, it was built in layers and tiers like a giant cake. Below the marble streets and plazas, it was a maze of ancient stonework, modern metro tunnels, thousand-year-old aqueducts, and hidden passages.

The sound of rushing water found her ears, and the Princess realized they had to be near one of the two tributaries for the Serene Falls. Blueblood led them through a windowless circular tunnel into another mason’s venue: this one overlooking a splashing torrent of crystal clear water. An arched bridge crossed the deep aqueduct, leading to a network of yet more underground bridges over still water. There were pipes here, thick ones, not meant for houses. They had to be under Canterlot’s iconic Three Sisters – a minor landmark for the city, the Sisters were the tallest water-towers in the country, built by the three daughters of Blue Belle the Twenty Ninth. According to popular history, the one to inherit the crown was the daughter to build the tallest tower.

“Watch your head, Auntie,” Blueblood warned, and she soon realized why. All the pipes and low-hanging structures made for a bit of a horn-hazard. Celestia had to angle her head, and her horn, off to the side to make sure it didn’t get caught on anything.

They descended a spiral stairway, and then knocked on a thick iron door.

“Do you think they even made it here?” Night Shade asked, as they waited. “What if they were followed?”

“Then we’ll be in for an interesting couple minutes when that door opens,” Blueblood replied. A slide in the door opened with a squeak, revealing a pair of jonquil-orange eyes.

“Who goes there?” a mare’s voice challenged them from behind the door.

“You know who,” Night Shade answered, frowning.

“Okay! Then pass the test!” The mare held up a… glowing yellow hand? Celestia blinked a few times just to make sure she wasn’t imagining things. Three of the fingers were extended. “If this is five, then what is this?” The hand closed, and then held up just one finger.

“Three,” Blueblood answered.

“If this is two--” The hand held up four fingers. “--then what is this?” The four became two.

Again, Blueblood answered for them. “Four.”

“And if this is one--” The hand went from five fingers to three. “--then what is this?”

“Five.”

The mare narrowed her eyes at them… and then, a second later, her smile took up the slot in the door instead. “Okay! You pass!”

The bolted door unlocked and opened wide, revealing the mare in her entirety. She had a spring-green coat color, with a white and cornflower-blue mane, cut short. Not only was she a unicorn, the same unicorn Celestia remembered Chrysalis assuming the guise of and using it for a sneak attack, but her magic was infused with Living Aether. It was obvious just by the black tint and starry sparkles in her golden magic, including the strange hand she had conjured up.

In fact, the hand was still floating protectively around the mare, attached to what had to be most of an arm almost up to the shoulder. It was joined by a free-floating golden four-string lyre. Though Chrysalis had never tried to use any aethereal magic herself – most likely she couldn’t, as she lacked a contract – this mare was definitely a bridesmaid, just like the ponies Triangulum and Equuleus Pictoris had possessed. Had they trotted right into a trap?

“Nephew,” Celestia whispered, and some of her anxiety must’ve been clear in her tone of voice.

“This is the lovely Miss Lyra Heartstrings, Auntie,” Blueblood said, introducing the mare. Lyra’s goofy grin was quickly joined by her salute… using the wrong hoof.

“Don’t worry! I’m on your side!” Lyra’s golden hand made a point of waving amiably in hello.

“This hoof,” Blueblood said, lifting his right foreleg slightly.

“Oh! OH!” Lyra quickly swapped left for right, smile still firmly in place. “Super honored to meet you, Princess Celestia!”

“That magic,” Celestia said, lifting slightly off her nephew’s back. “Where did you get it?”

“What? You mean this little guy?” Lyra gestured to the five-fingered hand hovering over her head. It wasn’t manifesting out of her horn. The shoulder joint of the arm was just attached to null-space.

“Do you know what you have there?” Celestia asked, softly, mindful that this mare probably wasn’t the threat she had initially seemed. If Blueblood was willing to vouch for her, Celestia decided to trust his judgment. That whole business with the passcode had to mean they had arranged this meeting beforehoof.

“Uh, well,” Lyra muttered, chuckling nervously. “He’s the Celestial Lyre, right? I didn’t know it would come with a hand, but when I was in trouble, he just kind of appeared to help me!”

“The constellation of the lyre,” Celestia confirmed Lyra’s suspicions. “It hasn’t manifested on the lower plane for a thousand years.”

“It isn’t… dangerous, is it?” Lyra’s eyes rolled as she followed the floating hand. “I mean, he likes to poke things and play the lyre, but he won’t try and… like, slap me to death or anything, will he?” The golden hand recoiled and gently patted the pony on her head, mussing up her mane. “See? He’s a good hand!”

“The last mare to command The Lyre used it to enthrall an army,” Celestia answered with a sigh. “When she lost control of it, it choked her to death.”

“Eeeh!” Lyra quickly ducked her head under her hooves. “Really?”

“Auntie, no need to scare the poor mare...” Blueblood held out a hoof to the bridesmaid. “Miss Heartstrings? Can you take us to Cadance?”

“Oh, um, sure! Yeah!” Lyra bounced back up, just like that, and started trotting happily away. “This way!”

“Princess, was all that true?” Night Shade asked, as Blueblood followed the minty mare.

Celestia nodded weakly. Actually, ‘choked to death’ was the sanitized version of events.

“It was… but…”

She hesitated, not entirely sure how to explain it. It had been a thousand years. Things like this, most ponies simply had no conception of. How could anypony explain the madness that had possessed a generation of a kingdom’s best and brightest? How could anypony understand the horrors they had unleashed in their mad effort to exterminate the Windigos? So much of ancient history had been left buried for good reason.

“Celestial Beings are not magic or tools, waiting to be used,” Celestia finally told her. “They are thinking things. Most are already amoral, many actively malevolent. If one is abused, locked into servitude, it isn’t a surprise when it responds to cruelty with cruelty.”

“I almost forgot!” Lyra spoke up, leading them down a short hall towards a well-lit area. “Princess, you wanted to know where I got the lyre, right? I’m not really sure how, myself, but I think it was Lord Brass. He gave me the magic and Chrysalis made me one of her bridesmaids. Then, when Princess Cadance said some sort of password, I remembered who I was and helped her escape!”

Brass?

Alpha Brass? And Cadance. But… that made no sense. That implied Brass had given powers to the other two bridesmaids as well, didn’t it? Surely, if Chrysalis herself could do it, she would have used more than just the two from before. Had Chrysalis gotten her Aether-empowered bridesmaids from Alpha Brass? Using one to free Cadance, who must have been captive for some time, made some sense… but what about the other two? Celestia remembered seeing Eunomie Mosaic at the wedding. If anypony could have yelled out a passphrase to free the two other bridesmaids from changeling control, it would be her.

Had something gone wrong? Maybe Eunomie or anypony else working for Brass simply didn’t have the chance to intervene? Or maybe, Celestia had to admit to herself, she was just trying to give one of her ponies the benefit of the doubt. But why would anypony help Chrysalis with one hoof and free Cadance with another? Then there was the troubling fact that, on top of everything else, he was still engaged to Twilight…

Celestia quietly resolved to have a little chat with Lord Brass the next time she had the chance.

“You’re back!” a familiar voice cried, snapping Celestia out of her thoughts. “Aunt Celestia!”

“Huh? No warm greeting for me?” Blueblood complained. “I’m hurt.”

“Oh, hush, you.” Princess Cadance looked like she had seen better days, but she raced over to her stepbrother and fellow alicorn to wrap Celestia in an affectionate hug. Taking the opportunity, Celestia slowly and carefully eased herself off her nephew’s back. She returned the hug with one foreleg, even as she glanced around.

They were in some sort of hidden study. It was a single room, circular in design, three stories high, with a domed ceiling. The walls were made of solid limestone and granite. It might have been a library once, but most of the shelves now were barren and empty, the books and scrolls replaced by spider webs and the accompanying dead spider husks that came with them. Old wooden crates were stacked up in a few places on the second and first floors, and by the layer of dust on some of them, they long predated anypony currently present. The walls still sported a few colorful murals, however, and three musty old banners hung from a wall on the third floor. Celestia recognized the sigil. It was the personal banner of Princess Cadmium the Fourth, the one-time Blue Belle, Thirtieth of Her Name.

Scattered around the secret study now were an assortment of stallions and mares, most looking haggard and exhausted. Celestia recognized one from among the crowd: Twilight Velvet. The arch-mage was of the lowest circle, and thus not that frequently at court, but her family was of high standing and she was the mother of Celestia’s own dear pupil. What was she doing here? Then Celestia admonished herself: at least Twilight Velvet was safe. But… hadn’t she been at the wedding with her husband?

“Celestia,” ponies started to whisper amongst themselves. “She’s alive…” “I knew it.” “Princess.” “She’s alive.” “Praise Celestia.” “Princess!”

Knowing she had to nip things in the bud, Celestia summoned up her strength and raised her voice.

“I am alive, my little ponies, but please, be at ease,” she implored them, sensing a few were already about to start bowing and scraping. “Now is not the time for supplication. Honor me by seeing to yourselves and to your fellow Equestrians.”

“Ahh, typical Auntie,” Blueblood groaned, tossing his blond mane. “When word got around that you’d been killed, a bunch of ponies were on the verge of flagellating themselves to bring you back.”

“Don’t even joke about that, nephew,” Celestia said, her expression stern.

“He’s just being an idiot,” Cadance explained, also leveling a glare at her step-brother.

“H-h-hey,” Blueblood whinnied, holding up his hooves. “A slight exaggeration, I admit--”

“Where did these ponies come from?” Celestia asked, and noticed a phalanx of Royal Guards step forward and salute her. One stallion was even one of Luna’s Night Guard. They looked like they’d been through Tartarus and back. Most were injured or patched up in a rough way, some still stained by green changeling blood. All had hope and gratitude in their eyes at seeing their Princess safe and sound.

“The changelings cocoon the ponies they capture,” Cadance explained, though Celestia already knew that much. “When I escaped with Lyra and Blueblood, we came across one of the caverns where they were storing ponies. So we freed them and we all made our escape together. Even the royal guards here were all once captive, so… any of them you saw before today were changelings.”

Celestia had suspected the guard to be infiltrated, but…

“Chrysalis must have stolen your identity months ago,” Celestia realized and privately kicked herself for not noticing it sooner, or even at all, before the wedding. “She took advantage of us sharing a pool of guards… she replaced them when they guarded you, and the disease spread with every duty rotation.”

“And she had Shining,” Cadance reminded her fellow royals. “Speaking of--” She turned to her stepbrother. “--how was he? Did you see him?”

“I did,” Blueblood replied, floating over a brown linen rag, snapping the dust off it, and then folding it into a neat square so he could sit down. “He didn’t look good, I’m afraid. By the looks of it, Chrysalis has been amplifying his stamina with magic and… perhaps even other things… but even that won’t last forever. Every time the shield over the city takes a beating, it saps him of magic.”

“Is that really so bad, though?” Lyra asked, the only pony willing to interrupt in the royal conversation. She tilted her head. “So, any minute now, if it hasn’t already, the city’s shield will collapse. That’s a good thing, right? A little feedback from a broken spell never hurt anypony.”

“The more complex the spell, the greater the feedback if it breaks or fails,” Celestia reminded the unicorn. “Shining Armor must already be exhausted from keeping it up this long.”

Blueblood nodded in agreement. “A magical backlash on the order of a four-alliteration spell could be life threatening.”

“Then why didn’t you save him, too?” Cadance asked, making little effort to hide her anger. “Blueblood, you said--”

“I said I would try,” he cut her off, features settling into a frown. “There was no way--”

“You saved Aunt Celestia--”

“Just barely,” he argued.

“Cadance. Blueblood.” Celestia tapped them both on the head with her hoof. “Voices.”

“Yes, Auntie.” “Sorry.”

“Chrysalis was keeping Shining Armor on a very short leash,” Celestia continued, and she meant it. Literally. Chrysalis kept a leash for her favorite stallion close by. It probably wouldn’t help to mention that at this moment, however. “I also don’t think she will let him die just to keep the shield up a few hours longer.”

“I don’t like risking his life on a big ‘if’ like that,” Cadance said, shaking her head in dismay. “I should’ve snuck in, too… tried to rescue him myself…”

“There was an entire legion of changelings covering the palace, top to bottom,” Blueblood grumbled. “Like ants on a splattered pie. It might be possible to find a secret way in, but…”

“Do you believe Chrysalis will take up residence in the royal apartments?” Celestia asked, struck by an idea.

“I don’t--” Blueblood began to say.

“She fancies herself as your replacement,” Cadance answered, forcefully, her brows drawn down in a frown as she thought of the current bane of her existence. “Everything that was yours, she will believe is now hers. Not just because she wants it for herself, but because she thinks that’s the best way to hurt and humiliate you. She’ll definitely be in the royal apartments tonight... probably in your own bed, Aunt Celestia.”

Celestia’s smirk presaged a ripple of color passing through her aurora mane.

“Good,” the Princess of the Sun declared. “Then I know just the way to get Shining Armor out of the Palace.”

“We’re lost, aren’t we?”

Pinkie peeked out from around a corner. “We’re not lost, you silly billy!”

A lavish hall stretched out before her, with two gently cascading waterfalls to either side. Amid the clear blue water, crystalline statues were frozen in mid-frolic. Little fillies and colts were holding hooves and dancing, sea-ponies were breaching alongside dolphins, and carved seaweed coiled around corals and shells. It was beautiful.

It was also suspiciously empty and unguarded.

“Well, this is new at least,” Vinyl Scratch said, also peeking out from around the corner. She had the crook of one foreleg on top of Pinkie’s curly mane.

“So we aren’t lost?” Fluttershy joined them a moment later, partly sheltered behind Vinyl and Pinkie.

Pinkie bounced down the waterfall-flanked hallway. “You girls really need to have more faith in my--”

THUD

“Your… what, now?” Vinyl asked, trotting up to the flattened Pinkie Pie. Her face had ended up planted into some sort of invisible barrier.

“Myrnbrgggntn smmilz.”

“Pinkie, are you okay?” Fluttershy sucked on her lower lip. “Do you need help?”

Pinkie planted her front hooves against the barrier and pushed, removing her flattened face with an audible ‘pop.’ The party pony fell back onto her rump. She quickly squeezed the sides of her head, prompting her nose and eyes to pop back out and return to normal.

“Owie,” she said, and experimentally poked the barrier. Pressing against it with her hoof did little to nothing. “Who put a wall here? It’s totally in the way! How are we supposed to sneak around when there are all these walls and locked doors?”

“You do know that’s pretty much exactly why,” Vinyl Scratch stated, but reason did nothing to penetrate Pinkie’s thick skull. The DJ suspected Pinkie’s head had been specifically hardened with military grade shielding to resist things like ‘rationality’ and ‘arguments.’

“Oh dear, I guess we’ll have to go back to our rooms now!” Fluttershy declared, making an about-face and jerkily heading back the way they came.

“Like we could even backtrack through this maze,” Vinyl grumbled. She sat down and winced as something jabbed into her rear. “Hey!”

“What we need is some sort of passcode!” Pinkie said, speaking mostly to herself. “Maybe if we pick-pocket a guard? There should be something hidden close by.”

Vinyl stood back up and stretched her neck to try and get a look at what had stuck to her butt. “What the heck?”

It was a piece of folded paper with a paperclip. Plucking it free with her magic, Vinyl unfolded it and brought it close enough to read.

“Greenhorn,” she recited the letter aloud. “I’m getting pretty tired of having to remind you of the daily security code. This isn’t rocket science. If you can’t commit it to memory, write it on your hoof or something, you idiot. This is the last time I cover for you. Signed Spot Light. Zero-one-eight-two-five-six-one-three-one-two.”

In the middle of the hall, the barrier shield shimmered and then vanished.

“And there we go!” Pinkie Pie said with a triumphant hoof-pump.

“I can’t believe this,” Vinyl muttered, staring at the unusually convenient piece of paper she just happened to sit on.

“I’ll just add that to my exploration journal!” Pinkie plucked the paper out of Vinyl’s magic and tucked it into the folds of a little pink book. Vinyl got a quick look at what looked like crude drawings of dragons, or maybe dinosaurs, and a bunch of other indecipherable scribbles.

There was also a map that was basically three rooms, one with an arrow labeling it as “my room” another labeled as “?” and a third marked with “fancy stuff.” There was also a single landmark present… in the form of Fluttershy. Fluttershy. Who was following them.

It was literally the worst map ever.

“Why did I follow you again?” Vinyl wondered.

“Because I have a nose for fun!” Pinkie explained, bouncing ahead. “And trouble! And you like both!”

“Oh yeah.”

“So we aren’t going back?” Fluttershy asked and resignedly followed her earth pony partner.

“Cadance,” Shining Armor moaned, his head hanging limply and horn sputtering. “How much… longer…”

Sitting on the Solar Throne of Equestria, Chrysalis didn’t even hear him at first. The name ‘Cadance’ barely registered. Gradually raising her head at the sounds of pained mumbling, she turned her blind eyes towards her equine husband’s voice.

“What was that?” she demanded. “What did you say?”

“I can’t… keep the shield up…” Shining said with some difficulty. “So tired. Can I please… stop?”

“You can stop when I tell you to stop, fool!” A swing of her hoof, errant and wild, managed to hit him even without her being able to see. “Or can’t you see that I have problems of my own?!”

The guard captain at the receiving end of her blow grunted and tumbled down the steps in front of the throne without a word of complaint. Chrysalis continued to breathe heavily, her foreleg still extended from where it had connected with him.

“S-shit,” the Queen of Queens cursed and fumbled to clamber down the steps after him. There were already chattering, buzzing changelings all around her. More than a dozen of them formed a circle down below the throne, not sure what to do with the fallen consort of their Queen.

“Shining?” Chrysalis called out to him, feeling around with her hooves. “Shining, honey? Where are you? Shining? Say something. Say something so I can find you.”

Feeling around with her hooves, her patience quickly ran dry.

“One of you bring him to me!” she roared, holding out her forelegs. “Bring him! Now!”

A pair of changelings moved forward, propping up the hurting unicorn stallion and carrying him over. Chrysalis felt him with her hoof, and ran her touch up to his cheek, gently cupping it. Her eyes strained, but still couldn’t see what sort of damage she had inflicted. Blind. That damned unicorn had left her blind.

“Is he alright?” she asked her servants and children. “I didn’t break anything, did I?”

The chattering of the drones told her it looked superficial.

“I need you, Shining,” Chrysalis pleaded, still stroking him lovingly. “You love me, don’t you?”

“I love you Cadance,” Shining Armor muttered, tears in the corners of his eyes. “I love you so much…”

“I know. And I should not have hit you,” Chrysalis told him, though how much he actually understood was questionable. “I am sorry I did it… I am.”

He slurred his response, and Chrysalis had to strain to try and understand him. Her black ears folded back and she leaned in close to rest her chin on his cheek. Shining. The pony whose love had given her so much; the pony whose love was the foundation of her power; if he kept this up much longer…

“Subjects,” she said, softly, and then raised her voice to a proper queenly bellow, “Children! Prepare more rejuvenation wax! Send out the warning to all swarm commanders! The shield will be dropping within the hour and we must be prepared!”

She patted Shining Armor on the shoulder, blindly.

“You’ve done well,” she said to him with affection that surprised even herself. “Just a little more and you can stop. We’ll take care of the enemy. You just rest.”

“T-thank… you…” His words brought a smile to her face, a smile that faded when he uttered one last name. “Cadance.”

Always Cadance.

“Keep him close, but… out of my reach,” Chrysalis ordered, slowly making her way back up to her stolen throne.

“Oh Queen of Queens,” a changeling not of her brood spoke up. She could tell just by how they addressed her that it was one of the other hives. To her brood, she was just their Queen. The others had needed to acclimate to there being a Queen who ruled even over their own mothers. But without her eyes, it was hard to tell what hive the speaker was from. The voice came from the throng that filled the throne room.

“Speak,” Chrysalis commanded.

“Oh great one,” she speaker continued. “We have many thousands of captives already, do we not? Enough to create our own country somewhere far away. Enough to breed ponies to feed us… was that not the plan? If the shield falls then the fighting will only intensify tomorrow. Why not make good our escape in the cover of darkness?”

“Flee,” Chrysalis said. “You would have us flee.”

“This one only suggests, most humbly…” the changeling chittered anxiously, noticing how the others were shying away from it. “Queens have fallen. Mothers have died. Is… are you not worried?”

“Queens can be replaced. Sarai can be replaced. Freyja can be replaced. Tlanextli can be replaced!”

Ensconced on the throne, Chrysalis ran a hoof over her eyelids.

“Even… I… can be replaced. But if we run after all this, we will be running for generations. We will return to scraping out a meager living in the shadows of other races. We will have shown ourselves to the world, and proven to all that we are lacking. The dream… my dream… of a better future for our race… that cannot be replaced! That cannot be compromised! That cannot be defeated!!”

The throne room fell silent.

“Are we clear on this?” Chrysalis asked, finally.

“Yes, oh Queen of Queens!” the changeling cried out.

“Good.” Queen Chrysalis sat back on her new throne. The cold air caused a chill to run down her spine. “Good.”

It was a future she still believed in… even if she wouldn’t be able to see it.

“Oh, look! Puppies!”

“And there she goes,” Vinyl stated, unable to act fast enough to keep up with the flying pegasus.

“Lemme see!” Pinkie hopped up to look over the edge of the terrace’s safety railing. “Hey, she’s right!”

On a terrace directly below was what Vinyl wagered to be a kennel of sorts. It was walled off with a chainlink metal fence – the only one of the sort the DJ recalled seeing so far – and a rather copious number of yellow and black warning signs. From overhead, she could see that the kennel itself was further subdivided into three main sections. There was a large substructure that was probably where the dogs slept, a large open area with posts and a running track and some other training aides, and then a third separate run that was probably used by individual dogs away from their peers. Maybe grooming, too. The only pet Vinyl had ever owned was a snake. Octavia was the dog lover.

“Wheee!” Pinkie Pie jumped over the railing. “Wait for me, Fluttershy!”

“Gaah! Don’t jump!” Vinyl’s hooves flailed in midair as she missed Pinkie’s tail. Like some sort of bouncy feline, Pinkie landed without apparent harm, and started pronking over to where Fluttershy was investigating the chainlink fence.

“I can’t believe these two!” the DJ groaned, quickly finding some stairs and hurrying to catch up.

By the time she made her way down and around, a new face had joined Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. She was a griffin with a gray coat and light blue mane tied behind her head in an ironically-named ponytail. She was normal looking, as far as griffins went, aside from the fact that she also wore a black padded outfit that looked like it belonged on a hoofball field... or on an episode of Equestrian Gladiators.

“Hey,” Vinyl said, approaching them. “Everything okay?”

“Oh yes, just fine!” Fluttershy replied, sweeping a hoof towards the new face. “Miss Vinyl Scratch, this is Miss Genevieve.”

“Genevieve Griffin,” the padded kennel master said, holding out a talon. “Nice’ta meetcha.”

“Hey, what’s up? Equestrian griffin, right?” Vinyl asked, shaking the rough black talon with her hoof in greeting.

“Equestria born n’ bred,” Genevieve confirmed, giving the unicorn a firm shake before turning back to Fluttershy. “As I was sayin’ these aren’t family dogs. They’re guard dogs and hunting dogs. That’s why we got all those signs up. They’re friendly to ponies but it doesn’t hurt to play it safe.”

“Guard dogs?” Fluttershy turned her head to watch a pair of the animals playing in the yard next to an A-frame. “But they’re so cute!”

Cute? Maybe. Big? Definitely.

That was the very first thing Vinyl noticed. She hadn’t really been able to get much of a scale of them before, but this close it was easy to see they probably massed a little under what the average pony did. They were all short-coated, with strongly built bodies. The dogs’ noses were long and straight but well-muscled for what had to be a powerful bite. Their ears were erect, and the two in the yard were a mix of brown and white with bits of black around the face. A third, almost entirely white dog was lying down close by and watching the three ponies (and one griffin) with bright blue eyes.

“…yeah,” Genevieve answered in response to a question Vinyl missed. “That’s about right. Lord Brass has had us working on a new breed for about a decade now. We started with some hunting dogs from Whinnychester. Molossers, mostly. Then we imported in some Broholmer from Scandaneighvia, then some Germane Shepard, and lastly some Tibitan sheepdog. This bunch you see here is big, strong, smart and tough. Good eyes and good noses, work together well. Superb bite. Not too fast, but fast enough in the chase. Very eager to please.”

“So you’re what, a dog breeder?” Vinyl asked.

“Uhhhh, yeeaah, yeah I am, but I’m mostly the trainer.” Genevieve shrugged but fluffed her wings proudly. “Especially with how busy his Lordship gets, looking after his dogs is a real honor. He loves these dogs, you know? We’re the best part of the Gardens!” Genevieve smirked and winked at the three mares. “Don’t let any of the other stuffy ponies in this place let you think otherwise!”

The big white dog, meanwhile had padded over to sniff as Fluttershy’s hoof just out of reach behind the fence. She boldly held it a bit closer and the canine brushed her butter yellow coat with his nose. Fluttershy beamed and cooed at the dog, clearly happy to have run into some animal life in their little excursion.

“You said they were guard dogs, right? And hunting dogs?” Pinkie Pie asked, and Genevieve nodded.

“Hunting what?” Vinyl asked, picking up on Pinkie’s line of questioning. “And guarding where? This place is big, but I don’t think there’s that much room to run around. And, now that I think about it, who are you guarding it from? I heard Twilight say you could only get here by teleporting in?”

Genevieve stiffened slightly at the question.

“Obviously, we don’t use them here in the Gardens,” she explained, coughing into her talon. “Once they’re trained, they go to other castles.”

“Ohhhhhh!” Pinkie also nodded, her forelegs crossed over her chest. “That makes sense! Other castles! Yup!”

“They seem friendly,” Fluttershy said, comfortable and in her element for once. “Are you sure we can’t go inside? Just for a little bit?”

“Umm,” Genevieve wavered for a few seconds. “I… guess… it wouldn’t hurt. None of you are--”

“Are?” Pinkie asked.

“Nevermind,” the griffiness insisted, and motioned with her wing for them to follow. “This way. I can let you in, but only for a few minutes. I don’t know how you even got here… this part of the gardens is usually off limits to visitors. But I guess you three must be special or something.”

“Oh, we’re Super Special!” Pinkie chirped.

“Yeah,” Vinyl snickered. “Quotation marks ‘special’ in that one’s case.”

“...Heeey!”

Princess Luna called to the moon… and heard only silence.

This night, over Canterlot, the sun set of its own accord and the moon crossed the sky as it had done in the days long before ponykind. For a time, both sun and moon had shared the heavens, an occurrence no living pony had ever seen before, prompting whispers of fear at the strange and unsettling phenomenon. They did not understand that the regular cycle that had been put in place by ponykind was the one that diverged from the norm. It was not the world’s natural, flawed state.

In her youth, back amidst the frigid chaos of the old country when the last unicorn king died, Luna had often seen the moon and sun share the sky, though on opposite ends of the horizon. At the time, she had even secretly found the sight… poignant. For did not her sister share dinner and breakfast with her? Were they not partners rather than enemies or rivals? Why had the Ancient Ones decreed that there was to only be sun or moon, and never both?

To make matters worse for more superstitious folk, tonight the heavenly vault had chosen to birth a harvest moon, baleful and red as it became visible on the horizon. Those already frightened to see sun and moon in the sky had been terrified to see an unscheduled harvest moon. Hunter’s Moon, many had taken to calling it, having dredged the term up from a musty tome, for the color was more blood than autumn leaf.

Then again, perhaps it was a Hunter’s Moon and an ill omen of things to come.

Though no wind penetrated Canterlot’s sputtering city shield, the night already promised to be freezing cold. Luna drank her cup of barley and rice soup – allegedly the best that could be made given the circumstances – and watched the night sky emerge without her prompting. It was a surreal experience, watching the heavens move and take form entirely of their own accord. Luna closed her eyes, quietly wondering about the pony who would normally have kept her company during the rise or fall of the night and day.

“Is this terrible cold normal? Is this like how Equestria was… before?” Rarity asked, and Luna felt a warm blanket fall over her back. It was patched and stitched with fine lining that felt like false fur. “I just finished touching it up! Do you like it?”

“Thank you,” Luna said, pulling the cloth close over her body.

“You’ll never guess where it came from!” The fashionista-turned-Baroness smiled at the Princess and sat down nearby on the cleanest spot she could find, bringing a little scrap of cloth along to provide a clean surface for her derriere. “But seriously,” she added with a soft sigh, “…don’t … ask where it came from.”

Luna snagged a piece of the blanket with her hoof and held it up for a closer inspection. “To answer your question, Lady Rarity, our sister kept Equestria warmer than it normally would be.”

The Lunar Princess, befitting her station, normally slept during the day and worked at night. Circumstances had forced her to remain up the entire day. She was trying to fix things with power naps of a few hours each. Most ponies were hunkering down across the city as night fell. Light was sparse. The feeling was… nostalgic.

“The night will be bitterly cold at this altitude, just as it was in the old days,” she warned.

“Dreadful!” Rarity shivered. “Then again… if everypony has to wear coats just to live in the city, imagine the boon it would be to fashion industry! Overcoat sales alone would skyrocket! Oh, and just imagine the possibilities for cute winter outfits! A niche market would simply explode overnight!”

Rarity said little more, sitting in silence and watching the night sky, her thoughts and concerns kept to herself. Luna respected as much, and didn’t pry. The Element of Generosity had done much already, by her estimate. If there was any way to repay her for all the time and effort she had made, it would not be in words or in the waking world.

“Do you know what would be wonderful right about now?” Rarity asked with a dramatic show of blowing on her hooves. “Some nice, hot tea! I saw some nice stallions brewing a pot on the way over here…”

There was a way, though, and there was something the Princess knew she could do.

“Lady Rarity.” Luna’s breath was visible in the cold air. “We need to speak of some matters, you and I.”

But first…

“Oh?” Rarity inquired, one of her indigo shield-fabrics wrapped around her shoulders. “Whatever is on your mind, Princess?”

“Many things.” Luna turned her eyes up to the full moon. “There is a chill in the air that has little to do with the cold.”

“The Platinum Crown?” Twilight looked down on the twisted, broken pieces that lay before her. “What…? Are you sure? Are you one-hundred percent sure this is The Platinum Crown?”

“I believe so,” Alpha Brass replied, sitting on the end of the low wooden table.

On the mahogany table, swathed like a babe in a nest of folded silks, rested two large pieces of metal. Twilight recognized it as Night Iron from having worked with and researched the material due to Lyra’s torc. The pieces looked partly warped, as if wrenched apart under pressure, the single band shorn roughly into two halves. It wasn’t hard to assess the damage now that she knew what she was looking at…

But this did not look like Platinum’s Crown.

Platinum’s Crown was wrought in palladium-gold and indigo blue. Twilight remembered seeing it on display in the Palace, and an identical copy in a museum. She also vaguely recalled seeing Blueblood’s mother, the Duchess of Canterlot and Crowned Princess of Unicorns, Vernal Equinox, wearing it once or twice for important public events.

The crown was supposed to be made with five broad-leaf arches, closed-style, with a velvet cap. It was famous for the five cut amethysts on each leaf-like arch, said to be the most brilliant and magically conductive amethysts uncovered in Equestria at the time. Each one had a name of its own: they were the Stones of Life, Justice, Fortitude, Wisdom and Courage. When it caught the light, the crown could reflect and refract the light into a rainbow of glitter-like sparkles. Half the fillies in Canterlot dreamt of wearing it, at least in the occasional flight of fancy.

What Brass had here… was just a simple band. Twilight could imagine it re-assembled without much difficulty. It wasn’t like it was melted or anything. Instead of priceless palladium-gold, this simple circlet was made of iron. It was probably meteoric iron, but that didn’t matter quite so much. The iron had been turned into Night Iron in an Aether Forge, like the books said, but it wasn’t a pretty looking metal. It wasn’t fit for regalia. It looked… ugly, frankly. There was what looked to be a small band of platinum along the top and bottom edges. It might have been the one cosmetic concession in the design.

“This doesn’t look anything like the crown,” Twilight said, still skeptical. “Not even a little.”

“I believe this--” Brass pointed down at the broken crown. “--fits inside the crown you and I know. Though I’m sure either one can be worn on its own.”

“That could be it,” Twilight admitted, craning her neck to look over the twisted metal. “But still, how do you know…?”

“Chalice has been bound to one of my Star Keys and thus to the Empyrean Vault itself,” Brass explained, and Twilight nodded. She knew that part. At least, partly. “She felt a disturbance when the crown was broken and sought it out. We Terre Rare know from Arsenic’s private journals that the Crown is a Star Key. It was no leap to realize that this is, in fact, the true Platinum Crown. The part of it that matters.”

Twilight digested that news and also sat down by the table.

“Okay,” she finally said, nodding. “All that makes sense. I’m still not clear on why you brought it here, though, or what you want me to do?”

Alpha Brass chuckled softly. “We need to fix it, of course.”

“Fix it?” Twilight asked, a little incredulous. If he was right, this was an ancient artifact. It usually wasn’t wise to carelessly mess around with them. It was one of Celestia’s Rules.

“You’ve examined and repaired the Star Key Miss Heartstrings purchased,” he reminded her, “the Key that was originally stolen from me by Sirocco. Is this one really so different? Take a closer look. I assure you it is completely inert at the moment.”

Twilight sighed but did as he asked.

Taking another, closer, look, she started to piece things together. “The crown is primarily composed of night-iron, while the other Star Keys were mostly gold with a small night-iron core. That probably means this crown… this key… must be made to establish a stronger or deeper connection than normal, or to channel more power than normal. I’m pretty sure the small bit of platinum on the edges here is ornamental, or just there so it is easier to wear. I don’t see any gemstones, but there are jewels of aqua pura on the parts that weren’t damaged. So… probably… those are the only in-set jewels it has.”

“But look at how a circuit of aqua pura runs through the metal!” Twilight very carefully nudged part of the broken crown with the edge of her hoof. “How did ponies do that without modern equipment?”

Leaning back and leaving the crown to rest, she gave him a look that seemed to imply she knew he was just waiting to reveal more. “So, what do you know about it, Alpha?”

He answered, but gravely. “I know this key was broken to weaken and kill Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.”

“What!” Twilight stood up in shock. “Kill the Princesses?! Are you sure?”

Alpha Brass nodded and crossed his forelegs before addressing her. “Yes. Chrysalis knew about the crown. She must have also learned of the connection it had with the Two Sisters…”

“One thousand years ago,” Luna explained, and the night light cast an eerie shadow over her, “superstition and the sword ruled. It was a time of darkness; it was a world of fear.”

“It sounds positively dreadful,” Rarity agreed, cradling a cup of tea between her hooves.

“It was a far cry from the present.” Luna slowly raised her own cup of tea to her lips, her frightful aura from before quickly evaporating in the gentle light of her horn. The tea was of a surprisingly fine grade, no doubt salvaged from some ruined manse nearby, and it went well with the soup she had finished. “We bring it up for two reasons. The first is because we have taken note of the effect you have on those nobleponies of Canterlot.”

“The effect I…?” Rarity blushed faintly at what she realized to be praise. “Princess, it was nothing, I just--”

Luna shook her head, disagreeing with her good subject. “Did you know we approached Lady Antimony before your duel with her?” The Princess paused only long enough to see the incomprehension on Rarity’s face. “We attempted to treat with her, to dissuade her. We did not believe you could possibly win against her.”

Rarity hardly seemed upset at hearing how the Princess expected her to lose.

“Yes, well,” she murmured into her cup. “I was a little surprised myself, truthfully.”

“Needless to say, we could not convince her,” Luna went on, smiling a little at the younger mare’s humility. “Yet, what was remarkable was not simply your victory over a far superior opponent – history teaches us of many underdogs claiming victory against the odds – it was that the duel changed both victor and defeated. It solidified your resolve, and we could see it clear as day, it gave your opponent much to dwell on as well. Now we hear that the two of you have found common cause?”

Luna’s breath was visible in the chill Canterlot air, a puff of it hanging over her cup of tea.

“We are aware of the feuds that divide Equestria’s Great Houses: the Terre Rare, the Quartz, the Garlands… we find you, Rarity of Ponyville, bridging them.” Luna looked up from her cup to her companion for the night. “This is a power no other rival for the crown can claim. It will not lift mountains or rain fire from the sky, but it is a great power in the right hooves, Lady Rarity. We… we even find ourselves caught in it. We--”

The Princess of the Night bore a wan smile, sad but also happy.

“--we believe there is no other mare more fit to wear the crown and restore harmony to our divided house than you,” she said. Her smile quickly became more mischievous. “We have also grown rather fond of our foolish nephew. You will take good care of him, we think.”

Rarity suddenly found her cup of cooling tea to be remarkably fascinating. “I, um, well--” The cup began to rotate in her hooves as she fidgeted. “Of course I will, yes.”

“Good,” Luna’s response was firm and authoritative, and it quickly snapped Rarity out of her momentary anxiety. “Because the second reason for our broaching this matter is because of the house you will one day head. If you are to join our extended family, we believe there are things you should know.”

“Things you couldn’t have said before?” Rarity asked, just a little bit perturbed.

“Yes.” The Princess was serious. “What we tell you now, we do not wish to be shared, not even with your friends. It pertains to matters of our past that we would prefer to keep in confidence. If you do not wish--”

“I can keep a secret, believe it or not,” Rarity interrupted, nodding somberly. She fanned herself with her hoof. “Despite what some mares say. Just don’t share any juicy gossip with me. Dark family secrets are one thing, but I’m afraid there are simply no guarantees when it comes to gossip.”

“Naturally,” Luna agreed, her stern expression warming with a faint smile. “As I said before, a thousand years ago – actually, more like eleven hundred years ago – there was no Equestria. The Old Kingdom was already freezing over due to the windigos. Winters lasted not a few months, but more than half the year. It was already a violent age compared to today, but the severity of the Long Winter made it much worse.”

“Worse?” Rarity asked. “I can’t imagine how…”

“A frightened pony, her belly empty, accustomed to loss, driven to desperation and despair… is capable of all the brutality and cruelty of the most terrible dragon,” Luna told the Element of Generosity, and it was a grim lesson indeed.

Rarity struggled to understand it, Luna saw. The loving dressmaker had never gone hungry for days. She had never seen families steal food or heard of parents starving to keep their children alive. She had never found a sibling frozen in the corner of a room. It was the horror of the past, long forgotten. All she could do was to imagine these things and ask herself how she would have coped with them. In the face of such tragedy, everypony believed they would hold to their morality and the highest standards of their upbringing.

Some could. Many could not.

Luna suspected that much hadn’t changed about pony-nature, even after a thousand years of social engineering. She tried to move on with her story rather than dwell on the darkness of that forgotten age or on the similar darkness that lurked in the deepest recesses of ponykind.

“Auric was already ancient when Platinum split the noble court and left. The Bluebloods were minor nobles, then, but staunch allies of the Princess. Much of what happened you know from your Equestrian history or from what I told you and your friends earlier. What I did not explain is that my sister and I were among those who stayed behind.”

“You were… unicorns?” Rarity ventured a guess. “I know Princesses… alicorns… can come from unicorns.”

“Ascension, it is called,” Luna responded, finishing off her cup of tea and setting it aside her. “Any race of pony can ascend, Lady Rarity, for our magic all comes from the same wellspring. It is said: an alicorn has the magic of a unicorn, a pegasus, and an earth pony. This is true, but misleading. Earth ponies, pegasus ponies, unicorns… all use derivatives of alicorn magic. Alicorns do not come from other ponies; other ponies came first from alicorns.”

Luna opened her mouth to continue, but then she noticed Rarity staring at her as if her world had been upended. Realization dawned on her rather slowly and the dressmaker turned Baroness was silent for a long while. Luna knew her dreams. The Night knew her fantasies and secret desires. Rarity was but one of many mares in Equestria who dreamed of being a Princess, and for most mares being an alicorn and being a Princess were virtually synonymous.

“So we are all alicorns of a fashion?” Rarity asked with a laugh.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Luna replied, also laughing softly. She raised a hoof to her chest. “As for our origins, Celestia and I do not know our mother, but our father was Lord Star Caller, Platinum’s half-brother by way of Auric’s mistress.”

“So you were unicorns,” Rarity stated. It was the reasonable assumption.

Luna shook her head: no. “According to our father, we were born as alicorns. We never ascended. Moreover, he claimed our mother was the Goddess Pegasus.”

“Pegasus,” Rarity breathed, so quietly Luna almost didn’t hear it. “The constellation Pegasus. You spoke of her before, too.”

No doubt, to the Element of Generosity, it sounded like a fairy tale.

“In that Era, the boundary between the aethereal above and the material below was not so well defined,” Luna explained, and motioned up at the night sky. “This was thousands of years after Faust’s Bargain. The Stars were known to come down from the heavens and take physical form. According to my father, while training his magic in the mountains, he stumbled upon our mother bathing and saved her from a lurking basilisk. He thought her a normal mare, though beautiful beyond compare. Only later did she reveal her true nature.”

Luna, her head still tilted up to the night sky, closed her eyes and sighed.

“He fell in love with her, and… she with him… or so he believed. She joined him on his quest and taught him secrets. The windigos, he always said, were a plague released specifically to destroy ponykind. Mother revealed this to him, he said. When he returned to Auric’s court he presented his findings to Starswirl the Bearded, the Court Wizard. He also returned with two alicorn foals. We… were those foals.”

Rarity listened quietly, and only when Luna paused to compose herself did she ask, “Your mother? Do you remember her?”

The Princess of the Night didn’t answer right off the bat. “No,” she finally said, after a few pregnant seconds. “No we do not. She abandoned us when we were small.”

“Oh.” Rarity covered her mouth with her hoof, condolences on her lips. “Oh, I’m s--”

“Our father spoke of her often. It was… an obsession for him; less so for me,” Luna continued, heedless of interruption. What came next was a stream of words, released in a rush. “You must understand that we were not welcomed at court - We survived only because our father had grown… powerful… and because of Starswirl’s kindness. For a thousand years before us, the kingdoms of the realm had been wracked by ascending alicorns upsetting the balance of power. We were not loved in this time. We were seen as another threat.”

Princess Luna turned her head slowly, a fierce glow in her eyes.

“Ponies feared us,” she rumbled, and Rarity could see a little of why. Luna exhaled, and the darkness around her receded once more. “We were tolerated, little more. Then, one night… our grandfather died, frozen on his throne. The nobles fought blood duels in his court, right in front of his corpse. It was as if a racial madness spread throughout the palace, and then, throughout all the lands. Militant pegasi invaded, looting and pillaging. The earth ponies revolted, hanging unicorns from branches until the trees themselves sagged from the weight. Mad unicorns attempted to appease the windigos through equine sacrifice. There was no darker hour.”

Luna’s speech slowed as she realized she had strayed into territory she did not wish to revisit.

Still, she forced herself to continue, “Starswirl, desperate, turned to our father for help. Together, through force of magic alone, they - they brought unity back to the Old Kingdom.” Luna turned away from her night sky and shuddered. “We subjugated the earth ponies, executed their rebellious leaders, and then we used dissension within the ranks of the pegasi to bring them to heel. But it was not enough. Nothing was ever enough. And so, Father, Celestia, myself, Sombra, and others - we invaded Equestria, intending to subjugate it as well. Harmony. Order. It was all to be imposed. By force if need be. It was the only way to be sure all the windigos died, even those we could not imprison

“That isn’t in the history books,” Rarity stated, bringing her cup of tea to her lips but finding the cup empty. She nibbled her lower lip instead. The tale had clearly unnerved her.

“Neither were we,” Luna replied with a snort. “In the end, Platinum was captured and lost her magic, but in the process she convinced… us… of her cause. We sided with Equestria, betrayed our blood, and our father was cast down. The survivors of his army fled and settled outside the borders as they were back then. Ultimately, the Platinum Crown itself was reforged and we were adopted by our Royal Aunt. We remained the stewards of the Sun and Moon, the last two Princesses of the Old World, and Platinum and her line were forever charged with wearing the crown that was meant to be our platinum chain. This, Lady Rarity, is where you finally come in.”

“The strongest unicorn mare,” Rarity remembered. The crown traditionally belonged to the strongest. Now it was clear why.

It also explained the flaw in the crown Luna had told them earlier.

“No, Lady Rarity, not the strongest.” Luna corrected her, “The most worthy. The crown is meant to be worn by the mare that is the most worthy to bear its burden and shoulder its responsibilities. While there are exceptions, in our experience, such traits are rarely found in ‘the strongest.’”

“…then we have to fix it!” Twilight clopped a hoof on the mahogany table. “We have to save the Princesses!”

“I don’t think anypony would disagree with that.” Alpha Brass trotted slowly over to a door and gently rapped on it twice with his hoof. “Luckily, this is matter I am prepared for. Twilight, I would like you to meet some ponies.”

Twilight remained seated as the doors opened, and a series of ponies entered. All were mares. That was what she noticed first. Tonight had been her very first visit to the Gardens, but from what little she had seen, almost everypony here was a mare. The guards were mares; the staff were mares; the cooks and the servants and the stablehooves, all mares. It was a place for artists and artisans, she knew, but why were there so few stallions around? She had seen all of one stallion around, aside from Alpha Brass. Ponyville’s gender ratio had always been painfully skewed, but it couldn’t hold a candle to this place.

The second thing she noticed were the two familiar faces in the small group of mares.

“Eunomie,” Twilight greeted her new friend and future daughter-in-law with a wave and a smile.

Eunomie inclined her head politely. “Twilight.”

Eunomie was a bit of an odd pony, but she was very nice in her own peculiar way. Twilight liked her; she was certain they would get along well in the future. Even Fluttershy and Pinkie had warmed up to her, the latter once saying she was ‘like a sister.’ Though knowing Pinkie, she might have meant Eunomie was literally like one of her sisters. It was hard to decipher Pinkiese sometimes.

The second mare through the doorway was Chalice. Twilight did not really know her by anything more than reputation; some from her dueling record and much more from Fluttershy. A part of her had expected a carbon copy of Antimony, or a unicorn version of Ritterkreuz, confident in flaunting the apparently titanic power at her disposal.

The Chalice that entered the meeting room was nothing like that. She had her head low, and her eyes met Twilight’s for only a fleeting moment before dropping back to the floor. She was on the small side, too. Her rust-red mane, inherited from her mother Twinkling Star Light, was neatly braided in two coils that ducked behind her ears. A silken hairnet beaded with pearls bundled up the rest of her mane between the braids. She looked pretty… but like a certain pegasus, terminally shy.

“This is my dear sister, Chalice,” Brass introduced her. “Chalice, this is Twilight Sparkle.”

“Hello,” Chalice said softly, her eyes darting up for only a moment. She curtsied. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“A pleasure to meet you as well,” Twilight said, standing up and returning the honor with a bow of her head.

“Now, for the mares you don’t yet know,” Brass continued with a grin. He gestured to the next mare to enter, and she took his hoof in her own. “This is Siren Song.”

Siren was a pegasus, tall, leggy, and confident as a supermodel on the stage or an actress on set. Her head was held high and proud, and she trotted less than she sauntered, a certain sway to her hips that Twilight had practiced in secret a few times but never come close to mastering. Her mane was a brighter purple than Twilight’s own take on the color, and it flowed behind her like a much smaller, less colorful version of Celestia’s own. Her coat was a perfect pearl white, just like her equally perfect teeth, and her eyes were a brilliant fandango-pink that would’ve done Pinkie Pie proud. She wore silver, droplet-shaped earrings and her stomach looked like you could bounce a bit off it. Her cutie mark was a pair of musical notes, inverted like yin-yang. All in all, she was annoyingly pretty, and Twilight frowned at the way she looked at the one stallion in the room.

“My Lord, it has been too long!” she cooed, kissing him on the cheek and lingering there for what had to be a second or two too long.

Twilight coughed into her hoof, one eye twitching. “A-hem.”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Siren Song smoothly continued, bowing her head only a fraction in greeting. “I’ve heard so much about you! How nice to finally meet you, face to face.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Twilight replied through a forced smile. Her teeth weren’t gritted together, were they? Oh dear. They were. That certainly wasn’t polite.

“This is Cesian Beryl,” Brass said, introducing the fourth mare.

Fortunately, Cesian was nothing like Siren. She was a unicorn, but a little short and stout, sort of like that Bon-Bon mare back in Ponyville. Her coat was a peach-stained white, sometimes called wine-stain in Canterlot, but her mane was silver, a little like an old stallion’s beard. Twilight’s attention was quickly drawn to the mare’s eyes. They were blue, and while blue was hardly an uncommon color, there was an odd shimmer to them. Like crystal. Her cutie mark was a bed of trigonal crystal spars. Cesian seemed confident enough, like Siren, but professional rather than flirtatious. She took Brass’s hoof in her own, but little else.

A quick bow, and she said, “It is an honor, Lady Sparkle.”

Twilight grinned and waved her hooves. “Please, just call me Twilight!”

“As you wish,” Cesian agreed, and trotted off to stand among the other four mares, now liberally scattered around the room.

“Finally, may I present Genuine Grade,” Brass said, escorting the last of the mares inside.

Genuine Grade was an earth pony with another white coat. White coats of different sorts were common enough among unicorns and some pegasi groups, but very rare in earth ponies. Especially bleached white. She wore thick metal-rimmed glasses over brown eyes and her cutie mark was a baffling set of lines and lenses. She had to be a scientist, then. No other pony would have a mark like that! Grade smiled warmly at Brass, holding his hoof with a faint blush, but quickly let him go and bowed to Twilight.

“Genuine Grade, at your service,” she stated, dipping her head and bowing her front legs.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight replied, and held out her hoof. Genuine Grade stood, the two shook hooves, and all six mares turned to see why Alpha Brass had brought them together.

“All of you have unique skills that I have hoped to cultivate,” he began, slowly returning to his seat at the table directly in front of the broken Platinum Crown. “Now is the time to use them. Repairing this crown, not just to save the Princesses but to better Equestria as a whole, will require all of your considerable talents.”

“Genuine Grade,” Brass said, after sitting down. “Is the foremost leader in Equestria in the field of optics and the focusing of magical energies. My gardens are honored to host an Effulgent Forge of her design, where light and magic are used instead of fire and force. It will serve as our Aethereal Forge. Siren Song is both a skilled entertainer and performer and a master of using her voice to affect magical properties in materials. She leads the Siren’s Chorus. Cesian Beryl, though a unicorn, is a descendant of crystal ponies and she is uniquely skilled in the ancient arts of their vanished Empire.”

Twilight took another look at Cesian, and in particular her eyes. She was a descendant of the Crystal Empire, just like Cadance? It was possible, certainly. Those surviving crystal ponies who escaped the fall of their city mingled in with the rest of Equestria. Most were supposedly indistinguishable from earth ponies, now, except for those that kept their old language and other traditions. With all the intermingling in Equestria over the last thousand years, it wasn’t that odd that some were born as unicorns, though crystal ponies had begun as a branch off of the earth pony family tree.

There was a theme here. A crystal pony descendant, ‘skilled in the ancient arts;’ a pegasus with a voice that could alter magical properties; an earth pony scientist, a leader in the field of optics. Only one, Genuine Grade, seemed necessary to repair the crown, and that was because she had a forge. How did the others factor into this?

“Let me explain what my overall plan for Canterlot was, plainly,” Brass said, and Twilight’s ears perked up.

“Your overall plan?” Twilight asked.

“You know I did all I could, cooperated with Chrysalis, to draw as many changelings as possible to Canterlot,” he replied, and she nodded. He had explained that much already. Alpha Brass lifted a hoof to scratch his chin and the bit of beard that had grown there since his duel and subsequent confinement. Hopefully, he would get rid of it sooner rather than later. Twilight found she much preferred him clean shaven.

“It has always been my overall intention to destroy the changeling menace; to neutralize it, once and for all, as a threat to Equestria. I planned to see to it myself, I wanted to see it done myself, but I have no desire to let pride get in the way of victory. If Cadance or Celestia or Luna, or you, Twilight, or you, Eunomie, were to do the job for me, I would have no regrets. What matters most, the only thing that matters, is that the job--” He lightly ran a hoof along the edge of the table and abruptly clopped his hoof against the surface with a loud thud. “--gets done.”

The room filled with murmurs of agreement. Twilight found herself joining them. After all that had happened, after all that she had seen and been through, it was clear that Equestria was left with only one recourse. The changelings were monsters. They had to be stopped, and that meant putting them down. Or… at least… putting down their leaders: the Queens and Princesses.

Of the group of mares, only Chalice remained perfectly silent.

“No doubt, Twilight, you are wondering where Siren, Genuine Grade, and Cesian all fit into this,” Alpha remarked, and for an uncomfortable moment the lavender unicorn was the center of attention in the room.

“I was, sort of,” she admitted.

“Understandable,” Brass went on to say. “First, let me explain my own special talent, in case it was not entirely clear. I am like Princess Cadance… except where she amplifies feelings of love, which can in turn boost a pony’s power, I affect the power and the magic directly. Simply put, I exist to bring out the potential in others. I was created, trained and raised for this. My sisters all carry within them aspects of Arsenic: Antimony has her eyes, Jewel has her charisma, and Chalice has her power. As a colt, I was empowered with the responsibility of bringing out their potential, using my love for them as a catalyst.”

Twilight felt her ire rise as she listened. For all Twinkling Star Light’s brilliance as a mage and a scientist, for all that Twilight respected and even admired her for her accomplishments and her contributions to Equestrian knowledge, Alpha’s story was a stark reminder that her parenting skills left much to be desired. When the time came, Twilight vowed she would be a much better mother to her foals than Star Light ever had been. There were a great many Terre Rare traditions that she had no intention of putting her children through and, above all else, she would not treat her sons and daughters like objects, tools, or experiments. She would love them and let them find their own way in life, and respect their choices, even if she disagreed with them personally.

As long as they did their homework.

That was non-negotiable.

Also, they had to write home once a week.

“My talent was originally intended only to function with those I loved,” Brass continued, and Twilight gave him her attention once more, “my sisters, primarily, and one day my wife. This is one reason why we all agreed – both my parents and myself – to my arrangement with Olive Branch. It was determined to not only be a match that benefited the Terre Rare, but one where my skills would bring the greatest benefit to Equestria as a whole.”

“This function was… damaged… when Chrysalis and her mother had their way with me,” he explained, plainly and seemingly without outward emotion.

Twilight’s jaw clenched. ‘Had their way with me’ he called it?

“Father,” Eunomie objected. “You don’t have to--”

“It is not a problem, Eunomie. There is no need for concern.” He held up a hoof to his step-daughter to indicate his intention to continue, no matter the discomfort. Pausing only to look around the room at the assembled mares, he took a wary breath and continued.

“Devoid of love, I expected my talent to collapse in on itself. I had… a sort of mental breakdown.” A low growl rumbled in his throat at the memory. “How could I use my special talent without love? How could I go on, unable to be me? I fell into a deep and peculiar melancholy.”

Twilight kept her expression guarded among the other mares in the room, but she could imagine the breakdown he described. Her friends had gone through similar crises last year, and she had faced a rather upsetting situation herself when it came to missing a Friendship Report deadline. That sort of stress could… do things to a pony that they would later regret.

While they had been able to find strength in the understanding and comfort of their friends, coming to new realization of their talents and purpose in life, what solace was there for a pony surrounded only by enemies? Twilight could guess that Brass was about to say how he overcame that period of his life, but it was also an educated guess on her part that he was still more troubled by it than he cared to admit. But maybe that meant it wasn’t too late to help him, either.

“When I finally returned to my senses,” Brass explained, retelling the affair with deceptive calmness, “I discovered that my talent had… mutated in order to survive. Incapable of love, I found I could enhance the power of almost anypony I wished, regardless of my feelings. I also noticed that those whose power I resonated with often came to feel friendship or love for me, in turn, which made our connection even stronger. Make no mistake--”

He lifted a hoof and pointed around the room.

“--every mare in this room is under the effect of this,” he told them, leaving no room for misinterpretation or error. Twilight already suspected as much as he had told her, and accepted it. The biggest surprise was that he could do this with ‘almost anypony.’ There had to be some concrete limitations on it, didn’t there? Just how many mares, or even stallions, were currently ‘resonating’ with Alpha Brass and benefitting from this power boost?

“I already knew, of course,” Eunomie stated, deadpan.

“Mother told us about your special talent a long time ago, Brother,” Chalice followed Eunomie’s lead, but her expression was sad where Eunomie’s was emotionless. “I saw what was going on with the others and guessed that something must have… happened.”

“It changes nothing, as far as I am concerned,” Genuine Grade said, reaching up to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “I was homeless when you found me. I had no future. You changed that. What your magic does or doesn’t do to me hardly matters.”

“And I’ve never felt better or been more powerful since coming here!” Siren Song declared, smirking and pleased with the outcome. “If the changelings inadvertently created this situation by tormenting you, my Lord, then I for one am more than happy to ‘thank’ them for it!”

Cesian Beryl snorted dismissively. “I’ve accomplished far more here, working for you, than I ever did with your Lady Mother, Lord Brass. Who am I to complain? We are all yours, magic or no magic.”

One pony remained conspicuously quiet. She began to laugh under her breath.

“Twilight?” Brass prompted, watching her with turquoise eyes. He clearly hadn’t expected laughter as a reaction to the news.

“Sorry,” she replied, waving one hoof in the air before her. “I was just remembering… a while back, I was faced with a dilemma, and I’d planned to use a love potion to fix it.” Twilight giggled again, partly covering her mouth with her hoof. For once, she didn’t mind that everypony was staring at her.

“This is sort of ironic in light of that!” Twilight Sparkle slowly stifled her laugh and stood up straight to explain, “Friendship is magic, and love is magic, too. That Cadance could convert one into the other made sense. You’re doing something similar, just in reverse. Is that why I feel this way?”

“Most likely,” Brass freely admitted.

“And when did you start amplifying my magic?” she asked, and just as quickly answered for him. “It was just before the duel, wasn’t it? And then again during the duel. I could feel it. Looking back, I could feel the change.”

“Yes.” He nodded, eyes closed. “Strong feelings for me are a side-effect of--”

“I had those before then.”

His eyes snapped open. “What?”

“I kinda liked you before that, anyway.” Twilight could feel the blush on her cheeks, staining her lavender coat a silly, embarrassing plum-color. Hiding her face by hanging her head, she coughed and fidgeted with the tips of her hooves. “So, uhm, anyway, it doesn’t matter, like the others said! Don’t worry about it! Let’s get back to hearing your plan!”

“My plan…” Alpha Brass trailed off for a few seconds. His pause finally roused Twilight enough to look up at him again, despite her embarrassment. He was staring at her with a curious sort of expression.

“My… plan,” he repeated, and explained, “was to use a replica of the Crystal Heart, a globus empyreus, to channel power into every willing Equestrian. They would then be able to rise up, together, and with their own will and their own power, fight back…”

“Wait! You can do that?” Twilight gasped as it all came into focus. She looked around the room, but nopony else seemed to grasp just what this revelation meant. Or maybe they did, maybe they already knew, and she was the one out of the loop? She had to know. “How many ponies are you… currently…?”

“Two hundred and eighty six,” Alpha Brass answered without missing a breath. “Of those, two hundred and sixty one are female, twenty five are male. All but four are ponies.”

“You can even do this across species?” Twilight ran a hoof through her mane. A trickle of sweat beaded next to her horn. “Wow. Just… wow…”

“Yes, but the existence of this--” Brass’s hoof hovered over the broken crown. “--presents us with an even greater opportunity. One we would be wise to seize.”

“It does?” Twilight asked, wiping away the droplet of sweat. “What opportunity?”

Alpha Brass smiled, a warm, small little smile, and Twilight felt her heart flutter. “We can reassemble the crown, not just to restore Celestia and Luna, but to empower all of ponykind. We will not repeat the mistakes of the past, giving the power of the Sun and Moon to all, resulting in chaos. No. Those meager powers will be returned to their rightful Princesses.”

Celestia and Luna, he had to mean.

“But there is a greater power in the Empyrean Vault!” Brass stood up, leaning on the table with his front legs, tall, confident. He almost seemed radiant as he raised a clenched hoof to the air in front of him. “A power that can be the birthright of all ponies with the will to embrace it…!”

“You mean,” Twilight guessed, glancing over at Chalice. The shy mare had her eyes fixed on the floor. “Another constellation, like… Orion or Sagittarius?”

Alpha Brass stared at her for a moment, and though his smile faded away, there was something genuine in the solemn, excited look that replaced it. It was a look almost like wonder or hope. Twilight couldn’t remember seeing him that way before. It took a moment to realize that it scared her a little.

“No,” he finally answered her. “Not another constellation. The stars are too fickle. They have wills and whims of their own that we cannot account for. We will sign a new contract, Twilight Sparkle, with another power.”

“You know, following you around is dangerous for my sanity.”

Why Vinyl Scratch was still at it, she couldn’t even say. Maybe it had turned from a desire for a little playful mischief to morbid curiosity as to where Pinkie would lead them next. Maybe they’d end up in the frozen north, somehow, and find a magical jungle oasis there… full of dinosaurs. Nah. There’s silly and then there’s ridiculous.

“Pfffh!” Pinkie stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry. “You know you like it! Why else do you always show up when I need somepony to play cool music for a party?”

Vinyl hemmed and hawed for a few seconds. “Because your checks never bounce?”

“Oh! That, too!” Pinkie Pie giggled and hopped down a wide flight of stairs. “I never miss a bill, because if I did then the bank ponies and insurance ponies would be super sad!”

Vinyl followed rather more slowly and carefully. “Oh yeah, that would be a real tragedy.”

“Pinkie,” Fluttershy spoke up from the rear of their little formation. “You said we were getting close. Close to what?”

“Wellllll,” Pinkie drew out the word for an annoyingly long second or two. “Oh!” And then promptly got distracted. “Do you hear that! We’re not just close, we’re super close!”

“Like we haven’t heard that before…” Vinyl trailed off as the sound hit her ears. “Actually, hey, I hear it too!”

It sounded like… music.

“That sounds like rock and roll,” Fluttershy said, trotting past where Vinyl had stopped, mid-step. Pinkie and DJ both turned to stare at her. Fluttershy did not seem the type. “Angel Bunny likes it,” the timid pegasus explained with a grin. “And, um, I don’t mind it either…”

“It must be… this way!” Pinkie pointed to a passageway on their left. Her ears folded flat against the side of her head and, for once, she didn’t bounce.

The music grew just a little louder, a lively guitar piping out a happy tune from what seemed to be ahead and below. The path Pinkie chose quickly transformed into an open-air veranda or mezzanine, overlooking what seemed to be a potager garden below. It was an old style ornamental vegetable garden, the plots arranged in interlocking geometric designs. Well-manicured woody scrubs grew among the vegetables, usually at the ends of longer plots or in the middle of square ones. An apiary was also visible not far from the garden.

The tranquil scene was shattered when the three mares circled around to the other side of the mezzanine. On a raised tier above the garden level was a dining or meeting area with tables, a small stage, decorative parasols, warm lights and a medium sized pool or bath.

It was the source of the music, but it was also an absolute mess.

Tables were upended and chairs tossed into messy heaps. Some were piled up in the pool like a makeshift island. Food was strewn liberally around the area: a half-intact cake was visible from the veranda, tipped over and partly splattered, and the smell from a mix of dozens of other sweets hit a moment later. A pizza had somehow ended up on a nearby roof. Stronger than the smell of food was the smell of alcohol and salt, a mix Vinyl knew all too well. After all, what was a good Night Club gig without a few overpriced vices?

But this put any club Vinyl remembered visiting to shame. There was a short lifetime’s worth of bottles not just stacked up on a bar nearby but also left haphazardly on the floor, spilling their contents into a dozen shallow, sticky pools. Glitter and tiny bits of silvery streamers covered the floor like a thin layer of freshly fallen snow. Crystal statues and some sort of mechanical equipment had been carted up to the scene of the party, only to be smashed with sledgehammers. Only the records and the gramophone had been left intact.

Strewn about the disaster area were twenty or more ponies, almost all mares, and almost all wearing lingerie or partly discarded costumes. The lingerie was doubly odd on the occasional stallion – most guys Vinyl knew were not exactly fans of pantyhose. A dozen ponies were entwined and sleeping together, drunk and exhausted. A few were just sprawled out on whatever they could find that was marginally comfortable. Sometimes that was another pony’s backside. Sometimes that was a huge slice of cake. In another pony’s case, that was literally a pile of golden bits she had mashed together into an expensive makeshift pillow. One pony was stereotypically passed out in a punch bowl, which was fine, since there was always one pony like that at a good party.

Vinyl’s nose twitched when she discovered a few ponies hadn’t been able to make it to a restroom or a suitably close bucket in time. That, on the other hoof, was gross.

The music screeched to a halt as Pinkie picked the needle off the record.

Fluttershy chose that moment to voice her opinion. “I, um, don’t think we’re supposed to be here…”

“I dunno,” Vinyl replied, stepping gingerly around a sleeping mare and floating a couple of golden bits off the floor. They looked real. Someponies had been literally having a money fight. “Looks like these ponies party even harder than you do, Pinkie!”

Vinyl had expected a joke in response, but Pinkie said nothing, picking her way through the bodies around the pool. She stepped around a bag of raw industrial-strength sugar that had been upended. It was slowly trickling its contents into the pool. A mare with a red coat had one leg wrapped around the bag, her nose and mouth stained white with encrusted sugar crystals.

“Pinkie Pie?” Fluttershy asked, a growing worry in her voice. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not,” Pinkie answered, making her way to the pile of chairs and other debris that had been set up in the pool. There was a floating chair amid the wreckage, Vinyl saw.

And there was a pony in the chair, set up like a throne among the debris.

It was a unicorn, like Vinyl herself, with the same sort of pale white coat color. She even had a similar blue mane, more pure blue than neon and longer than Vinyl’s own. This mare’s mane was a wet mess, looking like it had been combed and styled half-way before whoever was at it gave up in boredom or frustration. A single striped sock hugged her right hindleg and a blue bra hung from around her shoulders and neck like a lacy, frilly pendant.

“You turned off my music,” the mare stated, gradually opening her amber eyes as Pinkie Pie stood before her at the edge of the pool. Vinyl was well aware of her own somewhat exotic eye color, but there was something very disturbing about this new unicorn.

Scrap that. There was something terrifying about the look on this mare’s face.

“Pinkie Pie,” she snarled, her horn thrumming with untapped power. The ground started to tremble, spilled bits chiming as they shook.

Pinkie raised a hoof to wave, apparently oblivious to the danger she was in. “Hiya, Euporie! Howya doin?”

“Um, Pinkie--” Fluttershy crept towards her friend, as if to drag her away. “--I really don’t think we should be here.”

“I’m gonna agree with Fluttershy on that one,” Vinyl said, grabbing Pinkie by the tail with a loop of magic. She tugged, but the party pony refused to be moved from her spot. “Pinkie! Seriously!”

Euporie held out her hoof, a mostly-full glass of clear liquid sloshing around a nearly melted trio of ice cubes. The glare she shot their way through her wet, matted mane was positively chilling. Threateningly and ever so slowly, she raised her right hoof in what could almost be mistaken for a friendly wave.

“’I won’t make any guarantees about your safety. I might just kill you.’ Isn’t that what I said the last time?” Euporie asked, her hoof still raised up and pointing right at the pink earth pony.

“Yep! You did say that!” Pinkie spritely agreed, nodding vigorously. “But! But-but-but,” she added. “That was if we bumped into one another again in Canterlot. We’re not in Canterlot, now are we?”

“No,” Euporie replied. “We’re not.”

An object buzzed the side of Pinkie’s face, just barely missing her as it tumbled through the air. The party pony’s mane bobbed in the breeze from the near impact from behind. Even planning to use her own magic to intervene, it all happened too fast. Vinyl Scratch could barely follow. But she did notice the bits that had been trembling on the floor were quiet. The rumbling was gone.

A bottle of banana schnapps was in Euporie’s formerly empty hoof.

“Maybe I should play with your two friends instead, then?” Euporie poured half of her former drink into the pool. She then undid the cap of the schnapps and mixed it into what was left in her glass. “It was the height of foalishness bringing them here, knowing what I’m capable of.”

Pinkie Pie was silent for a moment, her blue eyes very briefly checking to make sure her companions were… what? Unhurt? What was this Euporie pony talking about? What was she ‘capable of?’

“You shouldn’t hurt ponies like this,” Pinkie finally said.

“Awww. You don’t like my party?” Euporie asked, drinking her mix of schnapps and who knew what.

“This isn’t a good kind of party,” Pinkie replied. She returned Euporie’s glare with a look that was devoid of anger but one hundred percent serious. “These ponies didn’t really have fun… and neither did you.”

Euporie sloshed her drink around in her glass.

“You think you know what makes ponies happy,” she stated. “The Element of Laughter is lecturing me. I should listen. Daddy always says: wise ponies listen, first, and then talk. Well, I’ve listened to you.”

Pinkie shook her head sadly. “No you haven’t.”

“I’ve listened to you,” Euporie insisted, and Vinyl could tell from the way she moved she was drunk. But she wasn’t just drunk. She was the sort of drunk who thought she was in control, and maybe even a part of her was. “I listened and listened until I couldn’t take it anymore.”

Euporie finished her drink… held out her glass… and crushed it in the flat of her hoof.

“Nopony mocks me and gets away with it,” she stated, untroubled by the bits of broken glass that trickled away from her hoof. “Nopony mocks Euporie Mosaic.”

“Pinkie,” Vinyl hissed. “What the hell did you do to this pony? The mother-of-all-pranks?”

“I kind of ruined her party,” Pinkie admitted, keeping her eyes on the seated Euporie. “Long story! But I came here to tell her to not do what she’s gonna do tomorrow.”

“And what’s that?” Vinyl asked. Nearby, Fluttershy, sensing the menace in the air, had hidden her head under her hooves.

“Something really bad,” was Pinkie’s answer.

“You’re free to try and stop me,” Euporie said with a Cheshire grin.

“That’s exactly what I’ll do,” Pinkie promised, and for good measure, even poked herself in the eye. “That’s a Pinkie Promise. And I’ll show you how to smile, too, just like I said before!”

Euporie’s grin slowly faded away.

“Yeah, uh,” Vinyl interrupted, holding up a hoof-full of bits. “This is real money. Can I, like, take some?”

“Are you trying to get us killed, you neon pink maniac?!” Away from the scary party scene, Vinyl grabbed Pinkie by the shoulders and gave her a good shake. Hopefully one that rattled some brain cells together. “Who the hell was that?! Did you feel how much magic she was giving off!?”

Pinkie went uncharacteristically limp in her grip.

“Sorry,” she muttered, blue eyes sad. “I know she tries to be really scary.”

“Tries to be?” Vinyl yelled. “I. Almost. Peed. Myself. Pinkie Pie. That isn’t something I do often, but one hour with you and here we are! Ten seconds away from a bladder control meltdown!”

“She wouldn’t hurt you. Not here,” Pinkie explained. Her voice was soft, quiet, but utterly sure of what she claimed.

“How could you know that?” Vinyl remanded to know.

“Please,” Fluttershy whispered, getting between the two mares. “Don’t fight.” She gently pushed them apart.

“How could you possibly know that, Pinkie?” Vinyl asked again, but backed off.

“Euporie knows she doesn’t have to be a good pony, but she wants to be a good daughter.” Pinkie Pie reached up to tuck a strand of her curly mane behind her ear. “If she did something to us, something to make the one she cares about angry or upset, then she’d feel like a disappointment. ‘My sister wouldn’t make this big mess.’ That’s what she’d think deep in her heart.”

“Yeah?” Vinyl Scratch snorted, still not convinced. “And you know that, how? And don’t tell me ‘we’re the same’ or something like that. That mare back there is… I don’t know what she is, but it isn’t anything like you! Why do you even care about a psychopath like her?”

Pinkie stared at her for a second and smiled, but it wasn’t one of her normal goofy grins or broad beams. It was a small, almost flattered, smile.

“She’s a pony who hasn’t smiled in a long time,” Pinkie told the DJ. “That’s enough for me.”

A Prench voice sang from the gramophone for a party of one.

“I won’t let it be. I can’t.”

Holding up her leg, Euporie Mosaic plucked a sliver of glass out from the frog of her front hoof. A single droplet of blood closed up the wound before dribbling down and falling into the water around her ankles.

“Euporie.”

She turned towards the voice. A small glowing orb floated in the air over her right side. Galen. Her sister’s familiar.

“Eunomie,” she replied, not giving her sister’s messenger a second glance. “Giving that thing of yours pieces of your body again, huh?”

“The Gardens will soon be taking up position over Canterlot,” Eunomie warned via the ephemeral arcane orb. “Please be ready. The situation in the city is sub-optimal. We will be relying on you to remedy that.”

“I know what I have to do,” Euporie grumbled, pouring a shot of banana schnapps into the cap of the bottle.

“You’ve only cast this spell once--”

“Once is enough.” Euporie’s response became an angry growl. “Have you forgotten? I’m the talented one, remember? Unlike some ponies, I don’t need to practice for ten hours to master the difficult art of tying a bow in my mane.”

Eunomie’s familiar floated, silent, and shimmered as Euporie tossed the bottle of liquor through it.

“You’re aggravating me, Eunomie,” the blue-maned mare hissed. She cupped the thimble of drink in her hoof, right next to the little bloodstain. “You want anger? You want hate? You want violence, desperation and despair?” Euporie’s scowl deepened as she stared out over the exhausted partygoers before her throne. “I’ll deliver. I’ll have ponies chomping at the bit to sign whatever new contract you’re working on... and I’ll stain those cobblestone streets green with changeling blood.”

“Father is counting on us,” Eunomie reminded her, but cautiously. “Please be at your best.”

“I said leave me alone!” Euporie snarled. “Go back to babysitting and running errands!”

Eunomie’s familiar turned to smoke and dissipated. “As you wish, sister…”

Only when she was gone did Euporie drink that one, last shot. A disgusted snort later and the schnapps cap arced through the air and hit the water with a tiny splash.

“Everything is in place,” Eunomie stated, looking out over the gardens below from a balcony. Inside the room, Twilight, Cesian, Siren and Grade were all getting acquainted and discussing the future. Chalice had retreated to a pillow near a bookshelf to keep out of their way. With the glass door closed, the four mares were muted as they talked and gestured.

“Everything is in place,” Brass agreed, trotting up alongside her. He took in a long, drawn out view of the tiered gardens below. As if it was his last.

“You know what comes next,” he finally said. “See to it.”

“At once.” Eunomie inclined her head in acquiescence. She tensed to leave, but before she did, she asked, “What you said in there. Was it true?”

He raised an eyebrow at the question, as if finding it odd. “You know it was part truth, part lie. What are you referring to, specifically?”

Eunomie almost, almost seemed to frown. “Did you use your influence on Twilight long before the duel?”

“Did I?” the Equestrian Marquis seemed to wonder. He rested a hoof on the balcony railing and his look became pensive. “What do you think, Eunomie? Did I or didn’t I?”

“I… don’t know,” Eunomie replied, very softly. “I think… yes, yes, you must have.” She didn’t sound entirely convinced herself, but she repeated it a second time, growing a bit more confident in her conclusion. “Twilight is a valuable asset. The rational thing to do is to influence her from the start. That makes the most sense to me.”

“Then you have your answer,” her step-father told her, but never turned away from his tranquil gardens. “Now, get going.”

She soon left to see to her duty.

Only as she left, did Alpha Brass glance briefly at her retreating form.

Ponies were creatures that ascribed so much worth in what was ‘true’ and what was ‘false,’ as if one was gold and the other silver, one pure and the other tarnished, but Truth and Falsehood weren’t Fact and Fiction. Facts were facts, and would always be that way. They were immutable and unchangeable laws of nature.

‘Truth’ was much more malleable and open to interpretation and point of view, and a Lie, if widely accepted, became the New Truth. There was that little distinction between them. Like the difference between ‘noble’ and ‘common’ or ‘Princess’ and ‘Nightmare.’ They were labels without substance. It was all a matter of popularity and what everypony wanted to believe, and every lie and every truth ever told began with just one soul who wanted to believe in it. There was only one problem.

Sometimes, the hardest pony to sell a lie to was--

“Alpha,” Twilight asked, having opened the door a fraction. “We need you inside the room for a minute. And where’s Eunomie? Wasn’t she out here?”

“She’s seeing to our relocation,” he smiled brightly at the look of confusion on her face, however momentary it was.

“Oh! Relocation! Duh!” Twilight exclaimed, bopping herself on the head, only to become perplexed again. “We’re moving?”

“We will be,” he promised, and gestured for her to lead him back inside.

It was time to make a New Princess and a New Equestria.

Chapter Fifty Six : Return

(56)

Return

Octavia Melody winced at the changeling drone’s insistent and aggressive prodding. Singled out and separated from her fellow band members, she couldn’t help but pick up an unsettling vibe from her captors. Thus far, Princess Exuvia had been true to her word in one respect: Beauty Brass, Horseshoepin, Harpo, and Sousaphone had all been unharmed, though a bit rattled, by their abduction and captivity. All four were in one of the airship’s converted holds along with a dozen other musicians, some Octavia knew from the orchestral and classical scene, most she didn’t know. Exuvia had foalnapped jazz musicians and DJs and radio-ponies from all trots of life.

…

Princess Exuvia.

One of the mature daughters of Queen Chrysalis of the Biscione Hive, (the Greens). In most changeling hives, drones are sterile females. Changeling Princesses are drones that are fed small amounts of royal jelly as nymphs. They develop and grow larger than drones and are sexually mature though only capable of laying small numbers of eggs and only drones. The Queen is the only changeling with a Royal Jelly gland. This trait is passed on to another Princess when the Queen dies, and the cycle continues.

Chrysalis has several daughters who serve as overseers in her swarm:

Instar, the oldest, currently besieging Ponyville and overseeing the encirclement of Canterlot

Exuvia, the middle daughter, overseeing the acquisition of Equestrian valuables, culture and magic

Ecdysis, the youngest, overseeing the inter-swarm war effort below Canterlot

…

Ushered through the ship, she couldn’t help but also notice stacks of paintings against the walls and a crate containing what looked like a pony-sized statue. The changelings here were packing it all up for storage. ‘Just like us,’ she couldn’t help but think, having seen the cocoons that ponies, especially unicorns, had been stuffed into for ‘safekeeping.’

“No dawdling,” the changeling behind her hissed. He – or she, since they all called one another sister and used female pronouns – wore pegasus wings on a chitin body. A strange, oily-looking organic blade was fixed in place on the shape shifter’s front right leg. It looked more than capable of cutting a pony open with the wicked barb of an end it had.

“There’s no need to push me,” Octavia objected, but kept walking.

Up ahead, two changeling guards in armor opened a door leading to a spacious cabin with a trio of broad bay windows built into the side of the ship.

“What about this one, Princess? Marvelous, don’t you think?”

The voice was unfamiliar to her, but Octavia identified the source easily enough. It was coming from a pink-coated mare with a dark purple mane. She was currently indisposed, obsequiously fawning over a tall “mare” in an alabaster white coat. This was the guise of Exuvia, the changeling Princess, with her untamed mane of green and neon highlights, her eyes a serpentine green-gold. Exuvia’s jagged, twisted horn jutted proudly from what might otherwise have been mistaken for a unicorn mare’s stately silhouette.

Not far from the two, a changeling was wearing what could only be a strange dress composed of sharp geometric shapes and angles. The front half of the bizarre dress was further embellished by a criss-cross of lines and the rear train by jagged mountain-stripes. It looked bad enough on a changeling; it would’ve been just as silly on a pony. Really, it looked like just about the worst thing a pony would see on some ridiculous Manehattan catwalk…

“I don’t see the appeal, Miss Polomare.” Exuvia judged the piece after a moment’s thought. “No, no. This ‘geometric fashion’ of yours doesn’t do it for me.” She sighed and shook her head in dismay. “If only I’d managed to capture that Hoity Toity pony in time—”

“Who needs Hoity?” Suri Polomare asked, jumping in front of the changeling Princess. “You have me! I’m sure you’ll find that my skills and services are invaluable! Simply invaluable! Totally invaluable even!”

“Our space here is limited,” Exuvia reminded her. “Preserving Equestrian culture is one thing, but this fashion of yours seems… redundant. Perhaps I should return you to the surface?”

“No! I have more!” Suri pleaded, her eyes growing wide with fright when one of the changeling guards started towards her. “Lots more! So much more! You’ll need fashion, Princess! It is – it is a part of civilization! A vital part!” She threw herself at the Princess’ hooves. “I live only to serve you! Please don’t toss me back into the city! I won’t last an hour down there! If you have to get rid of the dead weight, eject Coco, but not me!”

Exuvia rolled her eyes and pushed the mare away with her hoof.

“Very well,” she consented, “Ready your next line for display, and pray they are more impressive than the last batch.”

“Thank you! Oh, thank you! Thank you!”

“Release my hoof, Miss Polomare.”

“Of course, Princess! Your wish is my humble command!” Suri lifted her lips from Exuvia’s hoof and bolted for the door past Octavia like her tail was on fire. The musician couldn’t help but frown in her wake. The changelings hadn’t even taken over yet, and already ponies were ingratiating themselves to them. She was barely out the door when Octavia overheard her scream, “Coco! Coffee! Make it strong!”

In the fashion-mare’s absence, Princess Exuvia continued to ponder the changeling in the boxy, geometric dress. The stately changeling remained silent for a few long seconds before waving a hoof and giving permission for the walkway changeling to disrobe. It – she – did so eagerly, shedding the clothes and throwing them into a growing pile by the window. Only then did Exuvia turn her attention to her latest guest.

“Please,” the changeling Princess said, gesturing to a soft lavender pillow on the floor. “Sit.”

Octavia, prickled by defiance, remained where she stood.

“Sit,” the guard behind her snarled.

“Please,” Exuvia repeated.

Silently relenting, Octavia did as the changelings requested and sat on the cushion. No sooner was she in place, however, than a platter was pushed in front of her. On it was a medley of breads, jams and cheeses. The smell touched her nose, and her stomach treacherously rumbled. Still, she turned up her nose. The other ponies down in the ship’s hold had only been given some bread and pudding. Besides, it was better not to give this so-called “Princess” the satisfaction, no matter how courtly or genteel she pretended to be. She was still a monster, still a changeling, still part of the army that was destroying Canterlot and laying waste to Equestria as they spoke. Octavia had nothing but contempt for the changeling Princess, and she wanted to make sure that point was unmuddied by circumstance.

“I have made a study of Equestrian culture,” Exuvia finally said, trotting slowly over to the windows that separated those inside the airship from the freedom beyond – a fleeting freedom, given the changeling swarms in the air and the deadly fall to the ground below.

“My mother made me just for that purpose: to study and preserve Equestrian culture when the war came and to smooth the transition from pony rule to changeling rule.” Exuvia craned her neck as she looked out over the dark sky and the burning city below. “Picking what to preserve and what to discard was a challenge. Beyond the vast scope of Equestrian culture spanning multiple realms, I had to choose between high and low culture.”

She turned to Octavia. “You understand what I mean, I’m sure. It was obvious that works of high art had to be protected and preserved for future changelings, works like the Starswirl Treatise, the collected works of Lively, Haycartes, and the plays of Shakes Spear. But what of the Celestia Superbus? A work of art to be sure, but one glorifying your Princess Celestia… is it worth preserving? And what of ‘low’ culture, like your games of chance and sports? It is a grave responsibility to weigh the worth of so much in my hooves.”

“My heart aches for you,” Octavia quipped, against her better judgement. As if to soften the jibe, and well aware of the snarling guard behind her, she added, “Princess.”

“No need for sarcasm,” Exuvia replied with an amused titter. “Miss Melody, please. I was simply thinking that fashion is one of the harder concepts for me to understand – even after all the years I’ve spent among ponies! I sometimes question if it can even really bridge the gap between equestrian and changeling.” She touched a hoof to her white-coated chest, part of her patchwork pony disguise. “We changelings change our appearance constantly. Wearing clothes as a sign of influence, interest, suitability as a mate or companion, sociability… it just doesn’t quite translate.”

Octavia’s nostrils flared as she inhaled the smell of the food before her. It was growing more and more tempting to give into her hunger and eat. Still, she refused.

Instead, she asked, “Why am I here, Princess?”

“Ah, yes, why are you here? Beyond being one of those I have deemed worthy of preserving for future changeling generations you mean?”

“Why am I here?” Octavia repeated. It was exactly what she meant, and Exuvia knew it.

The changeling Princess nodded slowly and sat down almost within hooves reach. “Aside from that, you are here to listen to me tell a story.”

“A story?” Octavia narrowed her eyes, instantly suspicious.

“Your friend Vinyl Scratch has been taken from me and is likely now in the company of Lord Alpha Brass and those allied to him,” Exuvia explained. “She is going to be exposed to one side of this story. I want you to be exposed to the other. When the end comes and you are reunited, I want you to share what you know. Between the two of you, you will be able to put together the truth of much of what has led to this moment. History, as you may have heard, is a three edged sword.”

Octavia’s ears flattened against her head, and she stared at the curious alien “Princess.” Exuvia stared back with her unearthly orange-green eyes. As strange as it sounded, she seemed… sincere. At least being talked to wasn’t going to hurt and who knew, maybe she could let slip some information that would be her undoing. That was how it always worked in books and radio dramas.

“It isn’t like I have a choice,” Octavia replied, trying her best to sound more nonchalant than outright passive-aggressive. “If you want to talk, then talk.”

Exuvia smiled, just a little, just enough to show teeth… and they weren’t pony teeth, but a dentition more fitting a shark. It was just another reminder that, as much as she might wear a white coat and sport a wild green mane, it was only skin deep. Maybe less.

“Our part of the story, the changeling part, began in my grandmother’s time. You have seen the various hives that make up our invasion? We Greens call ourselves the Biscione, but before that, our name for ourselves was simply ‘us’ the ‘true ones.’ In light of equestrian science, we have determined that, biologically speaking, the first Green Queen was a mutation born of the Yellows, the Inkanyamba. Those are the animalistic golden changelings, the ones that mimic beasts and monsters. We were a small hive, living off of zebra tribes near the coasts…”

Above Exuvia, illusionary images began to take shape, illustrating the story though her magic. Octavia saw green changelings, just like the ones that held her and much of Canterlot captive, except these ones seemed… smaller. Their prey of choice were zebra, a group of near-equines Octavia was only distantly aware of. The green changelings lived among them, replacing family members and feeding off of emotions, but in the end not killing their victims. Instead they moved from place to place in small bands, never lingering anywhere for too long lest they stir up too much anger or suspicion.

“As always, the peace couldn’t last.”

The scene changed to that of a battlefield, as the greens and their ensorcelled zebra fled from a pack of loping red changelings. The Reds were larger and more vicious than their green cousins, and they didn’t hesitate to chase them down and pounce on them, barbed front legs scything down to deliver killing blows. It was a slaughter, not that Octavia felt particularly sympathetic towards changelings of any color at the moment. Maybe if she couldn’t see the glow of fires from the city outside, the city that had been her home for her entire life, maybe then.

“The Zilant, the Red Hive, was driven into our territories by the Yellow Hives, themselves displaced by a drought. We were the smallest, the youngest, and the weakest of the Hives. Only a smattering of drones survived, carrying with them a young Queen… my grandmother.”

Fleeing from the onslaught of the murderous Reds, a huddled band of changelings in disguise ran across the shore, just ahead of their pursuers.

“Fate intervened.”

There was a ship off shore: a great ship with wooden sides and a billowing sail proudly displaying a yellow and orange sun, circled by wave-like rays of light. A bust of a pony dominated the prow. There was no doubt as to the ship’s origins: it was Equestrian. In the next scene Octavia saw, ponies – earth ponies and a pair of unicorns with one pegasus – were ashore, trading with zebra at a small village. The changelings were there, too, and the young Queen pointed towards the equine strangers. This, she saw, was their chance.

“They left their homeland behind,” Exuvia explained, with more than a little pride, “in hopes of finding a better future far from their enemies. In time, my grandmother grew to become a prominent member of the court of Lady Olive Branch. She used her position there to protect her children and to spread her influence…”

Olive Branch was a middle-aged mare in the next scene Exuvia revealed, a unicorn with a creamy off-white coat and dark pink mane. Pregnant, she stood before a bowing zebra who offered her a strange potion, a zebra who could only be the original green changeling queen in disguise. Olive Branch took the potion in-hoof, curious, but clearly unconvinced it could accomplish whatever it had been promised to do. The “zebra” bowed again, offering some sort of assurances. Finally Olive Branch nodded and motioned for her to follow.

“While a renowned diplomat and negotiator, Marquessa Olive Branch was a hedonist and an orientalist, enraptured by anything strange and foreign to add to her personal collection of odds and oddities… but she was also powerful and influential within Equestria. Not long after my grandmother rose to prominence in her court, the Marquessa bore two foals by her husband at the time: my non-changeling ‘sisters,’ Euporie and Eunomie Mosaic.”

…

Euporie and Eunomie Mosaic

The step-daughters of Alpha Brass, both unicorns of substantial power – Euporie is a hedonist and libertine, the natural genius of the two sisters. Her brief time in Ponyville and her cruel and reckless ways soon had her butting heads with Pinkie Pie. Eunomie is the quiet and diligent counterpart to her sister, compensating for her lack of natural talent with relentless, machine-like precision and practice. During their short stay in Ponyville, she lived and worked alongside Twilight Sparkle in the library. Euporie’s powerful magic specializes in emotional manipulation, Eunomie’s in the legalistic art of contract magic.

…

The next scene showed Olive Branch holding two foals, one with wisps of bright red hair and the other with blue. She seemed relieved that they were alright… and quickly hoofed them over to a wet nurse.

“It was such a shame when their father died… so unexpectedly.”

An older gray stallion stood alongside a mare that looked like Olive Branch… except her eyes shone with a green inner light. As if in response, his eyes burned an identical green. The changeling Olive Branch grinned triumphantly. The scene shifted again. This time it was of the real Olive Branch as she trotted into her chambers. Her husband was on their bed, still as the grave. Olive Branch yelled something angrily and turned towards her loyal “zebra: advisor, ordering her to do something. All too quickly, the “zebra” offered a tonic of some sort, which Olive Branch quickly drank before slumping down and covering her head with her hooves in despair. She sobbed softly, and behind her, the changeling that was the Green Queen allowed herself a small, almost imperceptible, smirk.

“My grandmother was ruthless and ambitious… to a point,” Exuvia stated with rather clinical detachment. “And even if her methods were suspect, they did bear fruit. It wasn’t long before she felt confident enough to dispose of the original Olive Branch entirely and assume her identity. In one fell stroke, a changeling took power in one of the highest offices in Equestria.”

A picture of Olive Branch and a young Euporie and Eunomie shimmered. The original Olive Branch faded away, and a new one took her place, green eyes glowing.

“My grandmother was content to be Marquessa. It was a powerful position, after all, from which she could control Equestria’s borders and colonies. It was enough for her… but she had higher hopes still for the next generation. When the time came for her to produce a successor, a Princess, she made a radical gambit. You see, though Princess Celestia herself was untouchable, a new alicorn had recently appeared in Equestria.”

“Cadenza,” Octavia realized. It couldn’t be anypony else.

“Mi Amore Cadenza,” Exuvia said, confirming the musician’s suspicions. The image over her head changed again, this time to that of a young Princess Cadance. The teenage mare was still a bit awkward in her new freshly ascended alicorn body, but she smiled and tucked a strand of her mane out of her eyes. Her horn glowed a moment later as she struggled to master the unicorn magic she hadn’t been born with, eyes wide with surprise and delight as she managed to float a ball and a pair of books overhead.

…

Princess Cadance

Once only a pegasus filly, Mi Amore Cadenza Ascended to alicornhood at a very young age. In accordance with noble traditions dating back to the founding of Equestria, she was adopted into the Blueblood Family and raised to become a Princess Royal. Her position was a joy to Duchess Vernal Equinox, who had a son but no daughters, at least two being miscarried or stillborn. Her rise also prompted the Duke of Canterlot at the time to re-examine the engagements made between the Bluebloods and the Terre Rare, prompting the duel with Cruciger that took his life, leaving his son to become the Fifty-Second Blueblood.

…

“Changeling larvae imprint on a species before they mature into adults,” Exuvia explained – though, Octavia could already see some of where this was headed. “There are genetic and magical factors as well, but this is a large part of why the hives are biologically distinct – why we look different. Before we came to Equestria, green changelings imprinted on zebras, but after we settled down here, we used ponies. But to create a new Princess to rival an alicorn, an alicorn was required.”

The image of Cadance changed, this time to a picture of her with her friends from the past. They passed by in a blur of faces, but a few stuck out. A young Prince Blueblood was there, as Cadance had been adopted into the royal family as his step-sister. There was also Shining Armor and the mares who were the famous bridesmaids at the disastrous wedding earlier today. The parade of friends and faces stopped, abruptly, with a picture of Cadance and another young stallion with a golden coat and mane: Alpha Brass, the young scion of Duke Cruciger and Duchess Twinkling Star Light.

“This is where Alpha Brass and the Terre Rare come in,” Exuvia explained, looking up and dwelling on the image overhead. “Brass had been born into his family with the expectation that if the Bluebloods in Canterlot had an heiress, they would marry. However, the Duchess Equinox never bore a daughter who survived more than a month. There was only the colt-child, the fifty-second Blueblood. With this turn of events, Brass’s engagement was left unresolved. The Terre Rare have always been apt to conquer in the bedroom what they could not take by force…”

Olive Branch and Twinkling Star Light appeared, shaking hooves. A deal had been struck between the two powerful mares, it seemed. Off to the side, Duke Cruciger loomed over both mares with hardly a ghost of an expression on his scarred face. Twinkling Star Light said something then, and her husband stepped aside, allowing a young Alpha Brass to come forward. He bowed to the older Olive Branch and kissed her hoof. Star Light said something again and Olive Branch nodded. The terms of the deal, it seemed, were acceptable.

…

The Terre Rare

Descended from Arsenic, an extremely powerful but troubled earth pony of the Blueblood line, they are a prominent noble family in Equestria. The foundation of their current power is the union between Cruciger, Duke of Germaney, and Twinkling Star Light, Duchess of Prance. While the Terre Rare prize efficiency and prosperity in their domains, they do so primarily to prove their worthiness to displace the decadent Blueblood line they broke from. Driven by Arsenic’s loathing for inheritance by seniority (primogeniture), successors to the family are tested relentlessly and finally pitted against one another for the right to rule. Twilight Sparkle herself is a descendant of Arsenic from the younger and less ambitious Kamacite line that resettled in Canterlot.

The children of Cruciger and Star Light:

Alpha Brass, the only male, the Marquis of the Equestrian Reach and Colonies

Polished Jewel, the eldest, a Duchess married to the Duke of Whinnychester

Chalice, the middle daughter, a meek mare considered a failure by most of her family

Antimony, the youngest, an aggressive and uncompromising mare slated to marry Blueblood and take Canterlot for the Terre Rare

…

“Bringing Alpha Brass into our control would be a boon, my grandmother calculated, and it would also give us a golden opportunity,” Exuvia explained.

The view changed to a grand wedding reception. Olive Branch was in a flowing white bridal ensemble, smiling to herself, while Alpha Brass greeted guests in a military uniform adorned with Terre Rare red and gold. Among their guests was the groom’s friend from his time in Canterlot, a young alicorn mare in a pink and gold bridesmaid’s dress. Alpha Brass took her hoof and brought her in for a nuzzle, thanking her personally for coming. She said something, looking a little worried for him, but he shook his head and patted her hoof with his own. She smiled at Olive Branch, then, and curtsied politely. Olive Branch’s smile widened, bearing just a hint of teeth.

“That opportunity came the night after the wedding. The two newlyweds soon became acquainted, and my grandmother took off her make-up before introducing herself to her new husband.”

Olive Branch’s appearance rippled and shifted as her true self broke through, membranous wings fluttering hungrily as she straddled the stallion below her. Her eyes blazed green as she drank in his emotions like a glutton at a feast, laughing uproariously yet in complete silence in the light of Exuvia’s illusion. Pinned to the bed below her, her husband gasped wordlessly as his eyes flashed and faded green.

At the height of her feeding ecstasy, the changeling Olive Branch held up a small black softly pulsing sack: a larval changeling, Octavia realized. Coming down from her high, she held the pupa up so her husband could see it. She then pointed to the door.

The scene shimmered, melting away. In its place, Octavia could now see Alpha Brass slowly walking down a hall. Tucked into a pouch by his side was a nondescript package. Red uniformed Terre Rare guards and gold armored Royal Guards nodded respectfully as he passed them. A few stopped him to shake his hoof and offer their congratulations. One Royal Guard even took off his helmet and seemed to ask if Brass remembered him, probably from the Royal Academy so many nobles attended as colts and fillies. Only the pair that guarded the door at the end of his trek seemed to put up more than a cursory obstacle. A few honeyed words, though, and they let him pass.

The image blurred away again, and when it reformed, it was of Brass holding the changeling pupa up to a sleeping Princess Cadance.

“So it was that my mother, Princess Chrysalis, soon to be Queen Chrysalis, was born,” Exuvia said, simply.

Octavia was speechless.

“Changelings mature very quickly, much more quickly than ponies,” the Princess continued, tilting her head to the side and conjuring up the next illustrative illusion. “My mother grew strong off the emotions of Lord Brass.”

Like a flipbook, images of a subdued stallion with Olive Branch looming over him passed by. In each one was a second changeling, this time with a full, jagged horn to go with her wings. With each page in the flipbook of images, she grew larger and larger, feeding alongside or after her mother softened up her husband.

“But my mother was different, and not just in being the first alicorn-imprinted changeling. She grew up among equestrians, within equestrian culture, surrounded by equestrian philosophy and technology…”

The young Chrysalis trotted slowly past a line of ponies, lingering to look down disdainfully at her quasi-siblings Euporie and Eunomie, as her smaller weaker changeling forebears, at unicorns and pegasi and earth ponies alike. Growing larger and taller with every stride, she finally stepped up to her mother, still in the guise of Olive Branch.

“In her mother, she saw a… plateau,” Exuvia explained. “The Hive could only grow under new leadership. And so, a transfer of power occurred.”

Exuvia closed her eyes this time, but still the illusions answered her call.

This time, Octavia was shown an image much like before: Olive Branch straddling her husband, about to feed, with a young Chrysalis forced to wait for her turn. Then, like the batting of an eye, Olive Branch shivered. In the silence of the illusion, Chrysalis laughed, her wings fluttering excitedly. Slowly, her mother’s neck bent backwards, revealing her near decapitation. Octavia gasped at the sudden murder and flinched when the illusionary Chrysalis pounced on her mother’s corpse, ripping something out of her neck.

“The Royal Jelly gland,” Exuvia answered the unspoken question.

The illusionary young Chrysalis laughed triumphantly and held it up to the captive Brass. She then put the bloody mass in his mouth and violently and forcefully kissed him. When she came back up for air, her mouth was bloody, and some sort of strange goo dribbled down her lower lip. Arching her back, her very body began to grow and shift under the skin – under the chitin – but she paid it little mind as she finished the feeding her now dead mother had begun.

“My mother ascended and took her place as Queen, and with her rise, came a new dream: a dream that was a nation for changelings ruled by changelings. A nation that could only exist, my mother believed, if it was built on the ashes of Equestria. Ponies, she believed, would never simply let us feed on them. They had to be reduced to cattle. They had to be broken. It was the only way a changeling state and a changeling culture could emerge into the sun, rather than languish in the shadows.”

A bust of Chrysalis floated over her daughter, smiling viciously. Silhouettes took shape behind her and began to resolve into faces: other changelings but with different colors.

“Taking up the identity of Olive Branch, she began to travel the world, gathering allies and using her influence to expand her swarm. She returned to the lands of her mother and crushed the defiant Zilant, gradually converting Queen Sarai to her cause. She traveled to the strange port of Zebrabar and bent Yejide and the Aida-Weddo to her. She courted the terrible Worm-Queen Tlanextli and her parasitic brood. She unmasked the reclusive Blue Hive and Queen Freyja, forming an alliance with the changelings who feed on other changelings. Even the great Yellow Hive was eventually bent to serve her, Chrysalis, the Queen of Queens.”

…

The Queen of Queens

The Changeling Swarm invading Canterlot is an alliance of multiple changeling hives. Dominant among them are the magic-capable green changelings, led by Queen Chrysalis, styling herself the Queen of Queens. The red hive, capable of mimicking their surroundings, was led by the vicious Queen Sarai (currently a captive of Luna’s nobles). The brown hive, able to mimic biological matter and parasitize other species, even the massive Tatzlwurm, was led by the arrogant Queen Tlanextli (slain by Luna and her allies). The blue hive, able to mimic other changelings, was led by the naive Queen Freyja (killed in battle with Celestia). The golden hive, able to mimic animals, was led by the savage Queen Bahati. Finally the purple hive, able to mimic the dead, was led by the cunning Queen Yejide.

…

The illusion warped, changing to that of Princess Cadance running through a dark cavern. She turned a corner, trying to keep her balance, only to bump into… herself.

“Finally, Queen Chrysalis did what she was destined to do and replaced the one she had first imprinted on.”

Cadance screamed, but Chrysalis was on her.

“Everything was in place for the invasion.” Exuvia smirked, and it soon became clear why: the next image was of herself, along with several other Chrysalis-like changelings. “Our allies trickled into Equestria and gathered in our secret places. Our numbers swelled. Princesses like myself matured in our mother’s image. Princess Instar. Princess Exuvia. Princess Ecdysis. Lesser Princess, like Pharate and Tarsus. We are Commanders in our mother’s army, competitors for the title of Queen one day.”

Next came the famous trio of bridesmaids, mares Octavia knew because they were minor celebrities leading up to the wedding of the decade. Twinkleshine. Minuette. Heartstrings.

“The Bridesmaids… created specifically to counter Princess Celestia and keep Cadance confined. Mother had Alpha Brass use his resources to find a way to empower three mares with otherworldly power. They were then controlled by changeling handlers impersonating their loved ones. Everything was going according to plan… or so it seemed.”

…

The Bridesmaids

Childhood friends of Princess Cadance, all three were covertly empowered via contract magic pioneered by Twinkling Star Light and adapted by Alpha Brass and Eunomie. Twinkleshine, paired with the celestial Triangulum (the Triad), Minuette, paired with the deadly Equuleus Pictoris (the Painter’s Easel). Last was Lyra Heartstrings, empowered by the starry Cadens (the Lyre). Unlike the other two, a loophole in Lyra’s enchantment allowed Cadance to free her from changeling domination. Made aware of this sleeper agent in her captivity via Eunomie’s magic, Cadance used her to escape and save herself and Blueblood, freeing dozens of other captives in the process.

…

Princess Exuvia inhaled deeply, seeming to breathe out the next illusion in the story.

“Rarity of Ponyville,” the changeling royal began.

The illusion of Rarity showed her first with Prince Blueblood at the Grand Galloping Gala and then at a ship christening and then at another ball. Everywhere they went, ponies gossiped about the new royal couple. The happy pictures faded away, then, replaced by that of Rarity locking glares with a tall white mare with cold red eyes and a dark purple mane.

“It was expected that Lady Antimony would marry the Prince. Her family had groomed her for the role, and she had spent the last six years intimidating or dueling her rivals out of the running. She was also sister to Alpha Brass, but the Queen’s control over him began to slip… likely due to overharvesting, as what remained of his emotions became inedible. This was known to happen, but the result was usually a corpse, not a pony immune to changeling charms. Regardless, he was impossible to replace. Plans went ahead under the assumption that Alpha Brass and the Terre Rare could be mollified by being given part of Equestria once Canterlot fell.”

Exuvia paused to gesture to herself with a dainty hoof. “As Alpha Brass was the love meal I gestated on, of all the Princesses, I feel I understand him best. I warned mother not to trust him, and I don’t think she did… but we needed him, and he had plans for Antimony. Rarity was an obstacle, but she was also another opportunity… so we watched and waited to see what would happen. Breaking apart the Terre Rare would go a long way to crippling Equestria as a whole.”

Rarity and Antimony locked magic, dashing through the ruins of a decaying castle. The taller mare was clearly the more powerful of the two, but Rarity never gave up or gave in. She attacked with surprise and kept from a stand-up fight. Finally, she was cornered… only for her to lock eyes with her opponent. For a moment, the illusionary battle was still. Then a rainbow whirlwind enveloped the dressmaker and surged into Antimony, knocking her through the air.

“Against all odds, Rarity emerged victorious against one of Equestria’s most acclaimed duelists. At the time, we considered this to have a silver lining: it put the Terre Rare succession in disarray, as Antimony was discredited as a threat, and it emboldened all of her defeated rivals for the Platinum Crown to jump back in the ring and cause chaos.”

A muscular gray pegasus mare swooped down, explosions trailing in her wake.

A severe earth pony mare stood atop a growling Timberwolf, flanked by a quartet of retainers.

A shy-looking pink unicorn glared at Octavia as black magic poured out of her mouth and eyes.

A stately unicorn mare the color of sand and bronze rested her hoof on an ornate hourglass.

…

The Rivals

Ritterkreuz, daughter of the Winter Bora, one of the four Commanders of the Pegasus Quorum, rogue Wonderbolt and wanted criminal. Challenged by Rainbow Dash and defeated by the Sonic Rainboom she wished to prove she could overcome.

Yumi, daughter of Lord Yama of Neighpon, gifted in earth pony nature magic. Besieged Ponyville in an effort to pressure Rarity, her schemes undone, she was nearly replaced by a changeling in her retinue and then nearly killed by Chalice, only surviving thanks to Fluttershy.

Chalice, Lady of Gaskinring, empowered fully by the celestial Sagittarius. A timid and soft-spoken mare, devoutly following her brother Alpha Brass after her fall from grace at the hooves of her sister Antimony. Her otherworldly power was necessary to break the Platinum Crown during the confusion of the Changeling Invasion, crippling both Celestia and Luna.

Sand Dune, the Lady of Bitaly, a master of the Quartz family’s time magic. Turned from potential opponent to ally as a result of Rarity’s quick thinking and negotiation, saving her from entangling herself with the changeling posing as Blueblood.

…

“It also revealed something to us that we had never expected,” Exuvia added with a grin. The image of Prince Blueblood appeared, holding Rarity’s hooves protectively. “The narcissistic Prince of Equestria, who changeling scouts had dismissed as being unable to provide a lovemeal… suddenly had somepony besides the Princess that he genuinely loved and who loved him in return. Just like that, a whole new range of possibilities emerged for us.”

While Rarity and the other mares fought it out between themselves, one of the earth pony’s retainers smirked, her eyes glowing green.

“We discovered that Lord Brass was aiding one Lady Yumi in attempting to unseat the new Lady Rarity, then given the formerly vacant Barony of Ponyville. He provided her with a teleportation specialist, except that specialist was actually one of us in disguise.”

The changeling cackled and transformed, turning from a petite mare into a full-bodied stallion. The she-turned-he tossed her new blond mane and grinned confidently. It was a remarkable facsimile. Octavia had met the Prince a few times, and he was well known in Canterlot, both as a playboy and as a patron of the arts. She had played at his garden parties more than once, and he had recommended her quartet to attend the Grand Galloping Gala. At the time, Octavia couldn’t say she cared either way how much of a womanizer he was as long as his taste in music kept a roof over her head. Truthfully, the mares of Canterlot had been far more upset with Lady Rarity for finally “stealing” their precious Prince away than they had ever been for him foaling around with mares left and right.

“A little convenient chaos and our sister made the switch…!” Exuvia gestured up at the illusions overhead. “We whisked away the Prince to discover his secrets in peace elsewhere. The rest should have been nymph’s play! First: find a way to separate Lady Yumi from her companions and replace her with another of our changeling sisters.”

The illusionary Blueblood spoke in private with Yumi, offering her a drink. Octavia shook her head in dismay. Poison. Again. It seemed to be a favorite tool among these insects. Except Yumi didn’t drink. Instead, she seemed to be saying something, pleading almost. The fake Blueblood turned on her, threatening her. Guards burst in. She screamed.

And then the wall crashed in, thanks to one of her retainers, and she fled.

“An ambush was set up in the Everfree Forest,” Exuvia went on to say and sighed. “It didn’t go as planned either.”

A burning, molten scar in the forest was testament to some sort of battle with forces unknown.

“The changelings we sent after Yumi were never heard from.” The changeling Princess paused. “I think this might be a part of the story your friend Vinyl Scratch may learn… exactly why I’m telling you this half now. But I digress: Yumi slipped through our hooves, costing us our chance to seize control of Neighpon. But still… we had Blueblood, and through him, we could wear away at the defenses of Canterlot. Our sister should also have been able to use her new identity to control Lady Rarity, negating the so-called ‘Elements of Harmony.’”

“I take it that didn’t go as planned either?” Octavia asked and allowed herself a small, vicarious smile.

“No,” Exuvia answered, running a hoof through her green-on-green mane. “Not only did she seem… resistant to normal changeling control, she also began to meet with her former enemies and rivals.”

Antimony returned, but this time, she and Rarity nodded to one another with respect. They were joined by the sandy mare with the hourglass and a lavender unicorn that Octavia knew to be Twilight Sparkle.

“You can call it the insidious power of friendship, but whatever the cause, this Rarity from Ponyville began to build a power bloc of her own. Still, our Queen pressed forward. What difference could one mare do, once Canterlot itself was thrown into chaos?”

A series of scenes followed: Rarity talking with Twilight, Twilight facing off against two older unicorns Octavia didn’t recognize. A great magical duel that passed in a moment. A scene that could only be of the Royal Wedding of Shining Armor and Princess Cadance. Twilight Sparkle, once again with Rarity behind her, stepping up to object and getting into an argument with Cadance.

Chrysalis being revealed with a magical spell! So that was how they’d done it!

The scenes came faster. Princess Celestia rising up in a fury. Fire! The bridesmaids and Chrysalis fighting her. Luna being attacked from behind and then splitting into three smaller versions of herself? Rarity standing before a hastily assembled group of nobles, raising her voice and saying something to them, her supporters behind her. A small group with the Elements of Harmony rushing across the city via rooftops.

More battles across Equestria.

The Red Queen of the changelings fighting Rarity, orange earth pony and a pegasus mare with a rainbow mane and tail. A pink mare holding some sort of paint gun in her front hooves surrounded by pastries. A butter yellow pegasus somehow fighting off a half dozen changelings with wrestling moves. Twilight Sparkle blasting a stream of magenta magic out of her horn. An exploding airship stunning two armies poised to go to war. Princess Luna riding a burning airship down, crashing it into another ship by the air harbor. Then Luna and the three mares from before fighting a gigantic worm monster. Princess Cadance and Prince Blueblood fighting alongside a group of guards in some sort of crystal tunnels, aided by a green mare with a golden magical hand.

Then, in a scene that filled Octavia’s heart with hope…

Princess Celestia being rescued by Blueblood while Chrysalis held her hooves up to her eyes, screaming in impotent rage, her horn blasting the air wildly while other blinded changelings flying in circles. Celestia! The Princess was still alive! The Princess was free! Both Princesses were! In fact, all three were!

There was still hope for Canterlot!

“And that brings us to the present,” Exuvia finally said, and the stream of images and illusions came at last to an end. The changeling Princess let out a breath and wiped her forehead, brushing away magical stardust.

“What happens now?” Octavia asked, without even thinking. A moment later and she composed herself and remembered that this so-called Princess was her enemy. No matter what she said. No matter how much she claimed to want to protect “Equestrian Culture.”

“Now we enter the climax.” Exuvia fixed Octavia with her unnatural eyes, the slit within them sharp and narrow like a cat’s. “Now we win or we die. Our choices have backed us into this corner. Our Queen has refused to run or retreat.” She lowered her hoof slightly, just enough to point at the cellist. “And as for you…”

Octavia suddenly felt nervous. “What about me?”

“You are going to leave. I’m sending you with a letter to my dear sister, Princess Instar. As a gift.” Exuvia gestured to her waiting, lurking guard by the door and Octavia cringed. “But I strongly suspect you won’t reach Instar. Partway there, you may coincidentally run into a group of ponies loyal to Lady Antimony who are even now fighting my sister’s forces under and around the mountain.”

“Wait – what?” Octavia had been all set to be wrapped up a “gift” lunch for this other changeling. Now Exuvia was saying she was going to be… rescued?

“If my mother dies tomorrow, or even tonight, then Princess Instar will become Queen,” Princess Exuvia explained, and her eyes narrowed into slits. “She will hold this city hostage and kill our crop of captive ponies by the thousands. She will orchestrate an atrocity that will see us hated and hunted to the ends of the earth by every civilized species across two continents. But if she dies… if Instar dies… then I become Queen. And I will not let mass murder be committed in our name, nor will I allow the changeling race to go extinct in a blaze of glory.”

She turned away from Octavia Melody and back to the burning view outside her airship’s window. “Do you understand?”

“I think so.” Octavia snatched up a hoof-full of previously untouched bread and jam from her plate. “I’ll take the food, too. For the road.”

Exuvia merely nodded and motioned for her to go.

“Try not to die along the way,” she added, dismissively. “I still want to hear your orchestra play Beethoofen’s Symphony No. 9 someday.”

“It’s kind of annoying that I like your taste in music,” Octavia told her, just before following the guard out of the cabin. “If you do become Queen, then I’ll play it at the cease fire. Or better yet, your surrender.”

Princess Exuvia sat in silence for only a few seconds.

“Coco! We’re up at bat again! Bring in the neon blue number five!”

“If-if you insist, Miss Suri!”

Exuvia closed her eyes and sighed.

The Royal Palace

Running alongside the Royal Apartments like an architectural spine was a collection of rooms and halls known as the Mirrored Concourse or simply the Hall of Mirrors. The primary hall, the one most equestrians thought of when they imagined this small section of their Princess’ Palace, was a pillared hall, three stories high, the first floor being two stories tall by itself. The ceiling was vaulted, the arches standing out slightly against the ceiling mosaic like colossal ribs. Interspersed among the marble were mirrored facades of crystal and stained glass, smaller than the great glass murals outside the throne room. These were not meant to be depictions of great acts and equine triumphs; they were simply decorative, and in the light of the chandeliers, they glittered like a frozen rainbow.

Yet this great piece of artwork and architectural design was only the public centerpiece of the Hall of Mirrors. There were rooms adjacent to the hall that sported the Princess’ private collection of mirrored glass, the pieces donated or commissioned over a thousand years. Many were just as they appeared to be: expensive and fantastic mirrors, some smaller than a hoof, others larger than a wall. They were prized works of art. Many were held in decorated frames or with delicately painted scenes, designed to frame the viewer.

Other mirrors, however, were not simple gifts. Scattered amid the mundane mirrors were magical ones, hidden in plain sight and known to only a few. One of these was the mirror to another world used by Sunset Shimmer during the last celestial alignment. Others led to even stranger worlds. Some led to other mirrors in other rooms. Some to forbidden places.

And one magic mirror… led to a donut shop on the outskirts of town.

Silver-gilt and framed with sculpted metal bands in a vine-like pattern, this one mirror in this one room glowed bright white in the darkness before spitting out a tall alabaster form. It was followed a second later by a smaller figure, also white, and then a smaller one still, in pink. Smaller even still, last but not least, a fourth figure in minty green jumped through with an excited whoop.

“Well, that was a rougher trip than usual!” Princess Celestia stood, shaking her head. Her flowing aurora mane was dimmed, but still regal, even in the low light of the magic mirror.

“We’re fortunate we came through in one piece,” Blueblood grumbled, patting down his coat for any unseen damage.

“Reconstructing a magic mirror is no different than a regular one,” Celestia reminded him, but only remembered to keep her voice down halfway through the sentence. “The trip back should be easier, as the link between the two stabilizes.”

“Digging around in a collapsed building for shards of glass…” Cadance stood up next to the two royals. “Thank the stars for magic and horns. I can’t imagine doing that with hooves, lips and wingtips.”

“I still can’t believe it; that was Pony Joe back there!” Lyra added, her expression still downcast. “Minuette, Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts and me… we used to hang out there all the time!” She glanced back over her shoulder at the magic mirror. “And all this time the mirror in the mares’ room led into the Royal Palace? Did Joe know about this?”

“Of course, my little pony!” Celestia assured her with a smile. “Dear Joe understood that sometimes a certain pony might need to get away from the palace and the intrigues of the court from time to time.”

Blueblood nodded agreeably. “And get away from her dietitian, too, of course.”

“Nephew!” Celestia objected but also shrugged a second later. “I’m a thousand years old, and I’m fit as a fiddle. Counting Calories can count her own darn calories.”

The one male among females raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. “Of course, Auntie.” He then turned to Cadance and Lyra. “Well, we’re intact, and we’re in the palace. Shall we commence with the surreptitious devilry and other waggery?”

Cadance and Lyra had known each other from before, and both exchanged a quick look. On the way to Pony Joe's, they’d caught up some, mostly to help the latter determine when Cadance had been replaced by Chrysalis. They’d also started whispering amongst each other on the way from their underground hideout to the smashed and abandoned donut shop. They were pretty clearly up to something.

“Come on, out with it,” Blueblood finally said. “I’m assuming you’ve got some sort of plan brewing, aside from rescuing our good Captain of the Guard?”

“Rescuing Shining is the reason we’re here,” Cadance admitted, narrowing her eyes at the abuses her fiancé had been put through. “But at the same time… look how easily we snuck in! We’re just a short trot from the Royal Apartments!”

“Yeah! We can smash these bugs right here and right now!” Lyra chimed in. “End the fighting! End the war!”

“You want to go after Chrysalis,” Celestia realized and sighed, closing her eyes. “The thought crossed my mind as well. She is weakened… maybe even asleep as we speak.”

“You blinded her,” Cadance said, pointing to Blueblood. “And now we’re as deep behind enemy lines as anypony is ever going to get. We may only have this one chance! We should…”

“Kill her?” Blueblood finished when Cadance trailed off. He didn’t seem perturbed by the notion and inclined his head to Lyra. “It isn’t a bad idea. Shall we slit her throat while she sleeps? Or maybe you could use that power of yours to choke her to death?” he asked, and Lyra blanched at the image. “Too gruesome? Shall we drip poison into her ear?” he asked Cadance, and she scowled but also paled.

Blueblood then turned to his beloved Aunt. “Or maybe set fire to the room with her in it?”

“Believe me, nephew, I tried to kill her before, and I would certainly kill her tonight had I the strength,” Celestia answered him with steel and certainty. Celestia’s mane continued to waft peacefully in a non-existent wind even as her eyes narrowed into a murderous and terrifying glower. “She has slain my little ponies, my people, my servants, and my friends. When they carried me outside, I was weak but not blind. I saw the piles of dead stacked outside my throne room. I smelled them burning the bodies.”

“Burning… bodies?” Lyra asked, cautiously. She didn’t know.

He hadn’t told Cadance, either.

“Chrysalis is purging the non-earth pony population of Equestria,” he explained, doing his best to remain in control of his own emotions. “Certain groups of ponies are considered too dangerous, you see: mages, weather workers, you get the idea.”

“Can you do that? Can you just do something like that?” Lyra asked, not quite able to wrap her mind around such a calculated atrocity. “You can’t just kill ponies for a stupid reason like that!”

Blueblood gave her a sad, sympathetic look. “Would that you were correct, Miss Heartstrings.”

Celestia remained silent, but her rage was palpable. There was at least one mare in this room who wouldn’t hesitate to strangle Chrysalis in her sleep. It looked almost as if the Princess was keener to forgive Discord himself than the Bloody Queen of the Changelings.

“Still,” he went on to add, “please do keep your voices down. We do not want to risk being discovered here, now do we?”

“But!” Lyra objected.

“He’s right,” Cadance agreed, in a low whisper, “and he was right before, too. Saying we want to get rid of that monster is one thing, doing it is another. What if we get there and we can’t do it?”

“Can you do it?” Blueblood asked his adopted sister. “Can you take her life?”

“After all the things she’s done to me, after all the horror she’s brought to Equestria, I want to say yes.” Cadance lowered her eyes for a moment as if ashamed. “I… feel like I have to say yes… but the truth is…” She looked back up, at her brother, at her Princess and mentor. “But the truth is I’m not sure. When I killed that changeling to free Lyra, I was desperate, afraid… and so angry.”

The Princess of Love let out a shuddering breath, as she tried to calm herself or at least steady her nerves. It wasn’t shame. It couldn’t be.

“I broke its neck,” she said, softly. “I killed it, and I didn’t feel… sorry or anything. Not right away. But later, when we were waiting for you and Night Shade to get back with Princess Celestia, I started to think more about it. About that changeling and the others. I felt… a little guilty maybe, but… but I’d do it again to get free.”

“That’s not wrong, is it?” she asked her older brother and her Princess mentor. “I’m the Princess of Love. But when I think about changelings, I just…” Her eyebrows creased, and her eyes watered at the truth. “I hate them. I hate them so much it hurts! They’re monsters, all of them, and if I can kill Chrysalis, if I can end this by killing her, I should, shouldn’t I? That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?”

“It would be a… a righteous thing?” Cadance asked in a weak voice, an unsure voice. “Right?”

Celestia’s expression softened, and she reached over to run a hoof down the smaller Princess’ cheek. “My poor little pony… how I wish this had never happened, to you or to anyone…”

“Cadance,” Blueblood said, but he was less openly conciliatory than their alicorn auntie, “no pony here would blame you for wanting retribution, and if you ask me, you have every right to it. Chrysalis had abused you, tortured you, singled you out for it above all others… stars knows why. But – not to be callous – but you need to focus on one thing and keep a level head about it.”

He took a step closer, prompting Celestia to release Cadance and give them some room.

“Do you want to free Shining Armor, or do you want to kill Chrysalis?” he asked, his expression like stone. “Think about it. What do you really want?”

“You know what I want!” Cadance snapped and pushed him back with a hoof. Instead of being cowed by the question, it just prickled her anger from before. But this time, maybe, it was anger towards herself. She frowned. “Shining. He’s what I want, more than anything.”

Blueblood nodded but didn’t smile. He’d expected that. “Then let’s get him and work out the extras later.”

“You know the way,” Celestia told them, the frown now having migrated to sour her face as well. “I should come with you… I should…”

“Auntie, you’re barely standing,” Blueblood interrupted her. “Besides, like I said when I rescued you, you’re invaluable. Equestria needs you. Without you, this… all this…” He gestured to the Palace around them. “It falls apart. Meaningless. Above all else, you must survive. Meet back up with Aunt Luna. You can win this war no matter what happens to us here.”

“And I’ve told you, you aren’t expendable to me,” Celestia answered. “None of you are! Nopony is.”

“Different ponies are valuable in different ways,” Blueblood argued back. “Please, Auntie. If nothing else, we need you here to make sure we have a way out. Only you can open the portal in the mirror, especially in its current condition.”

That reminder, at least, cemented the deal. It was one they had talked about and argued about on the way over, much to the Prince’s chagrin. He’d never wanted to, or even had to, argue with his deific aunt before. Then again, it wasn’t every day that the Princess of the Sun nearly died. Nerves were frayed all around, even millennia-old ones.

“Minuette is still out there, too,” Lyra reminded them. It was why she was here. “With that aethereal brush thing… the one that erases anything it touches…”

“Which means we have to be careful,” Blueblood surmised. “Nevermind the two or three hundred changelings on watch across the castle grounds. If we bump into the other bridesmaid or get into any other trouble, we’ll teleport back here and slip out.”

“Then let’s go.” Cadance didn’t bother to disguise her impatience. By now, the light of the magic mirror had faded away almost entirely, plunging the room back into near-darkness. Celestia nodded her permission to the two unicorns and the young Princess, encouraging them with a small smile. When they snuck out of the room, it was in total silence.

Only when they were gone did Celestia’s frown return.

‘Different ponies are valuable in different ways…’ she thought to herself and closed her eyes in repose. ‘I’ve spent lifetimes trying to make Equestria into a land where everypony has value. A land where friendship is more powerful than any individual. A land where Harmony was King. That elusive promised land of Equestria that Platinum told me could be more than just a dream: a truly New World, not just the old corrupt one with a fresh veneer. Where did I go wrong that it would all fall apart without me? If they get into trouble, does my nephew really expect me to just slink away, tail between my legs?’

Twilight Sparkle floated the cup of Marabian coffee to her lips as she entered this new and seemingly nondescript section of the Hanging Gardens. Alpha Brass had extended her invitation to include her friends Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, and even Vinyl Scratch, but all three were sound asleep, and Twilight had decided to let them be. Whatever they’d been up to while exploring the Gardens had left them exhausted.

For her part, Twilight could feel fatigue trying to set in, but a timely nap in Alpha’s quarters had gone a long way to replenishing her mental, emotional, and magical reserves. Maybe it had been the ambiance; maybe it had been his magic – her rational mind concluded it was mostly his magic – but she’d slept like a baby and woken up after only a couple hours with energy to spare. Now that she knew exactly what his power was, now that she could feel and even quantify it, the sensation was almost heady.

Despite running around the warzone that was Canterlot, fighting changelings and mind-controlled guards and monsters and even a run-in with that Princess Exuvia, Twilight felt good. She felt strong. It was just as Brass had promised. She was rejuvenated. He was giving her power – so much more power – and she was thankful for it. Together, they would do this. Together, they would win, just like they had against Cruciger and Twinkling Star Light. Together, nopony could stop them!

“Good morning, everypony,” Twilight said, sipping her cup of coffee. She smiled at seeing the tawny gold coat of Alpha Brass across the room. He raised a hoof and beckoned her over.

As she trotted towards him, she took in the room. It was circular and deceptively small, with a compound dome ceiling – basically a dome on top of a dome – with a prominent oculus at the apex. Curiously, there were sharp looking iron protrusions sticking out of the dome, pointing inward. Directly beneath the oculus of the dome was a recessed area with a raised platform.

Atop that platform was a floating model of the Hanging Gardens in miniature. Twilight took a moment to study it. She had a basic knowledge of the overall design of the gardens from seeing it and from looking over the small maps here and there to help ponies who are lost. The Gardens were essentially a single central section surrounded by a ring, and along that ring were a few wings or turrets, including four main turrets aligned with the four cardinal points on the compass. Aside from that, the design was not symmetric, and there were scattered terraces and patios all throughout.

Surrounding the model was a faint translucent barrier… Twilight could make out what seemed like a night sky on it. Though it was strange looking-in rather than looking-out. Eunomie was overseeing things from another raised platform, her prim red mane and alert expression giving Twilight the impression that she didn’t even need sleep. A horn ring of inlaid jade on silver crackled with channeling magic.

“Your timing is excellent, Twilight,” Brass said with a welcoming smile. In contrast to Eunomie, he actually betrayed some of his exhaustion up close. It was nothing so obvious as a slouch or a slur in his voice; she could see it in the way his eyes were not entirely open, in the way he held himself, and she could feel it as she got closer to him.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and he waved a dismissive hoof in response.

“Simply preparing for Equestria’s great counter-attack,” he assured her. “Genuine Grade, Siren Song, and Cesian Beryl are almost finished making final adjustments to the Effulgent Forge. Once they are done, and once we have unleashed your spell, you will have to lead them in reforging the Platinum Crown according to our new design formula. It isn’t an Aethereal Forge, but it is the best that we can manage, given the present state of Equestrian magecraft.”

“We’ll get it done,” Twilight promised him, taking a spot to his right side. “Do you know the status of Princess Luna or Princess Celestia in Canterlot?”

“Our intelligence is limited,” he answered and sighed very softly under his breath. “Princess Luna is alive and fighting the changelings… She and your friend Rarity have rallied nobles to retake and secure the sky docks. They intend to link up with reinforcements from Cloudsdale.”

“Good!” Twilight smiled for her friend. “That’s really good! I knew she could pull it off! You know, Lady Sand Dune was skeptical that anypony could get the noble families working together.”

“Yet this Lady Rarity of yours pulled it off,” Brass said, coolly.

“She had me helping and Sand Dune and Antimony,” Twilight explained, blowing into her cup of dark coffee and taking another sip.

“Indeed,” Brass replied, his eyes squinting slightly and betraying a bit more of his weariness. “Yet none of you would be working together at all without her. Your friend Rarity is the one who found a way to get you all on the same side, working together, like the mortar holding the bricks of a wall together.”

“It wasn’t easy, either,” Twilight agreed. “You know Antimony and Sand Dune do not like one another at all… and both of them didn’t think much of me either. At least at first.”

She was quite happy, all things considered. Her friends were alive, the Princesses were alive – Luna definitely and Celestia certainly – and most importantly, they were about to strike back! Canterlot was still fighting! The changelings had thrown their dice, made their play, and not sealed the deal in time. What was strange was why Brass seemed so… off. If anything, he should have been saying something like—

“I believe I’d like to meet this friend of yours, this Lady Rarity,” Brass mused with a straight face and unflattering tone. “I’m sure she must be very charismatic to bring together so many former and potential rivals.”

He finally cracked a barest hint of a smile, just a twitch of his cheek.

“Maybe we will cross paths in Canterlot when this is all done,” he wondered.

“You two definitely have to meet!” Twilight enthused, feeling a bit bold and nudging him affectionately with her shoulder. “And not just Rarity, you know. All my friends! You already met Fluttershy, and you already survived Pinkie Pie! All the others are easy!”

“Eunomie!” Brass called out to his step-daughter. “Are we ready?”

“Yes, Father.” Eunomie’s voice was unhurried and almost monotone; her horn crackled again. “We are ready… resizing and expanding the projection now.”

Above the floating model of the Hanging Gardens, a series of lights and tunnels began to take form out of light and magic. At the same time, the projection of the sky shrank down, closer, until it just barely surrounded the model of the gardens itself like a bubble. More and more lines and details began to emerge on the projection: larger tunnels and smaller faults, until it finally reached the surface, where a wireframe of a small castle began to take form.

“What is that?” Twilight asked, pointing to the topmost projection with her hoof.

“That is Camlann Castle,” Brass explained, and the castle began to fill in with more color and details.

“Camlann?” Twilight searched her memory for the name and quickly remembered. “Oh! That’s one of the Terre Rare properties in Canterlot! Not far from Hocksbach! Wait… that castle was on your list of properties… the one I checked when you sent your proposal…”

Alpha Brass finally grinned, his green eyes twinkling. “As expected, you’ve done your research! Yes. Camlann was a gift to me from the late Duke Blueblood… given to me to celebrate my birth, actually. It was somewhat run down at the time, but my father has a well-known passion for rebuilding and refurbishing old castles.”

“Only so he can throw them at ponies,” Twilight added, recalling the two that Cruciger had summoned up in their duel: Château de fer à Cheval and Maerlaverock Tower. Cruciger had magical seals on all his castles, allowing him to summon them and literally throw them at an opponent.

Looking back on it, the magical feat was still pretty unbelievable. Cruciger’s raw power and mastery of kinetic, gravitational, and brute force magic was beyond any of Twilight’s own mentors, save Celestia. Not only that, but his wife, Twinkling Star Light, had also been powerful to a degree Twilight had never imagined. While Cruciger wielded tremendous power, Star Light possessed incredible and esoteric arcane knowledge. Still, both were limited to four-alliteration spells – though, they’d milked those four alliterations about as much as anypony could.

Neither of them knew what Twilight knew: Arsenic’s Secret, the Secret to Five Alliterations.

Twilight turned to Alpha Brass. “So… if Camlann is up there…?”

“Height: one thousand, nine hundred and eighteen meters above sea level,” Eunomie announced, “Depth: two hundred and eleven meters.”

A quartet of other unicorn mares took their places around the recessed projection pit. All wore similar silver and jade horn rings, slaved to Eunomie’s master copy.

“Prepare the timer,” Eunomie ordered, and the image of the castle and the bubble beneath it expanded even further, this time accounting for the angle of the terraced mountainside Canterlot was built on. “Formations… please begin.”

One of the mares, a white-coated arcanist with blue fire for a cutie mark, lit up her horn. Her star field blazed bright, and as it did, so did a series of lines stretching down from Camlann Castle into the ground.

“Algenib Formation is going active… now!” she said, her voice excited for all that Eunomie was restrained. “Activation confirmed! Synchronization achieved!”

“Alpheratz Formation going active,” a second unicorn mare said, the light of her horn matching another sparking constellation of lights between the underground bubble and the world above. “Activation confirmed! Synchronization achieved!”

A third unicorn mare, a lighter blue than Trixie but with a cutie mark of stars minus a wand, chimed in a second later. “Markab Formation going active now! Activation confirmed! Synchronization achieved!”

The fourth mare wore heavy coke-bottle glasses that glinted with the light of her magic as she took her place around the array. “Scheat Formation activating. Activation confirmed. Synchronization achieved.”

“Final safety check… looks good,” Eunomie said, overseeing the weaving tendrils of magical fire that linked the world above to the world below. “Begin the countdown.”

A floating timer began to display numbers, beginning with twenty. Twenty Seconds.

All around them, the Hanging Gardens began to rumble. All around them, the Hanging Gardens began to rise. And once it broke free of the mountain’s embrace, nothing in Equestria would ever be the same. Canterlot, Twilight Sparkle vowed, would be free as surely as night turned to day. All would be set right in the world! No matter what it took.

Chapter Fifty Seven : Captive

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Chapter Fifty Eight : Endless Twilight

Author's Note

Had a great time at Bronycon as always, though there's never enough time to do all you want to do. Good fun being in writing panels again. Hm. Should probably make a blog post about it, maybe.

Chapter Fifty Eight : Endless Twilight

(58)

Endless Twilight

Marestricht

Antimony spoke little on the long train ride from Ponyville to Prance. For her part, Twilight Sparkle spent most of the time reading. The Baroness had her own private car with luxurious amenities and there was ample room for two. The ride had taken most of the day but neither mare had needed to leave the car. Serving ponies had come by to offer four cooked meals: the first was a light breakfast of minced apples dipped in sugar and mixed with oats and nuts, followed by a brunch with freshly-made muffins, scrambled eggs, fruit pastries, and pancakes.

Commenting on the food, Antimony had simply said that she had also purchased sufficient space on the train for another private car with a chef and a kitchen (and guards, apparently). Nonetheless, if they had to travel, then it should be in comfort and luxury as was their due as daughters of the Terre Rare and ‘true-born’ descendants of Arsenic.

“It may also be your last meal,” she had added, in between dainty bites of a cherry-stuffed quiche. “You should enjoy it.”

Lunch came in the form of pommes dauphine with a light riesling wine, a platter of local Ponyville vegetables and a small dish of melted cheese raclette. Twilight ate, spoke a little with her host, and resumed reading.

It was actually somewhat of a comfort that Antimony did not try and force conversation. This was not to say they did not talk at all – they did, about magic, about Arsenic, about their plans for the invasion, about their extended family and even once about Antimony’s brother Alpha Brass, that conversation being a one-sided warning on the part of the Baroness not to trust him and a staunch refusal to explain why she felt the way she did about him. What Antimony did not do was take the silence in the cabin as an invitation.

Twilight loved her friends; she truly did, but on long train rides (and even short ones, since Pinkie thought the express to Canterlot took “forever times two”) they tended to fill up the time with idle chatter. Rarity could hardly go a half hour without saying something, anything, to anyone (half the time it was gossip). Pinkie Pie talked to herself when no one was up for it. Applejack tended to spend an inordinate amount of time looking out the window and keeping a running commentary on what she saw. Rainbow Dash slept, and snored, and when she wasn’t doing either of those, she flittered around endlessly, uncomfortable in the confinements of a chair or cabin. Only Fluttershy appreciated comfortable silence like Twilight did.

It was a relief then, on this long trip, when Twilight found she and Antimony had some things in common. They were both quiet ponies most of the time. Twilight spent her time researching and reading and preparing herself, Antimony occupied herself with reading, doing paperwork, or meditating on magic. Altogether, it made for a very pleasant train ride. In fact, as it neared an end, Twilight considered it one of the most pleasant rides she had ever taken though a lot of that was just due to traveling in style.

“It will be late when we arrive at Marestricht,” Antimony said as they ate dinner: a small cassoulet in an earthenware dish and a hearty ratatouille niçoise served on top of fresh baked bread. “Too late for you to see Lady Arsenic,” she explained. “You should be fresh and well-rested; I shall take you to her on the morning.”

“You said before that you had tried to learn the secret, too?” Twilight asked, pouring herself a little more of the sweet tasting moscato wine. “But you never gave any details.”

Antimony nodded slightly, watching her counterpart with half-lidded eyes.

“My grandmother, Bismuth II Brand-en-burg was the last pony to be honored with frequent contact with Lady Arsenic, Our Founder,” she explained, pausing to take a small spoon-full of the thick cassoulet up to her lips. “Shortly after my father reached maturity, Lady Arsenic retired… which is to say, we were all told she had died. The Princess herself attended the funeral, I am told.”

“Arsenic was a member of the royal family and a student of Celestia, just like I am,” Twilight recalled.

“Lady Arsenic unified Germaney and brought it into the Equestrian fold,” Antimony added, and this was the feat that normally won Arsenic in the history books. Celestia had many students over many centuries, after all. Not all were known for their great deeds in service to Equestria.

“It makes sense Celestia would attend her funeral,” Twilight concluded. “But why fake your death at all?”

“Arsenic was ancient, even when she died.” Antimony sighed and dabbed her lips with a cotton napkin. “Suspiciously so. Nopony save the Princesses can live for more than two centuries, not even an alicorn. As for her reasons beyond that, you’ll have to ask her yourself.”

Twilight lowered her eyes and for a while the two ate in silence.

“As for myself,” Antimony continued, at her own pace, and on her own time. “I was only initiated and introduced to her when I became the family successor, following my duel with my sisters. Having proven that I was most worthy, I was taken to a chamber within Marestricht’s Chapel-Bastion. Lady Arsenic does not leave that chamber. It is where I will take you tomorrow.”

“But that doesn’t explain…”

Antimony’s eyes narrowed slightly; clearly this was not her favorite topic of discussion.

“Our family Founder examined me for purity… to make sure I was fit to bear the family name,” she went on with some reluctance. “She then blessed me with some of her knowledge. I mastered most of it without too much difficulty. My magical reserves are not great,” Antimony chafed at the admission – though she had said as much long ago, when she’d first come to Ponyville. “This was my largest flaw according to the Founder. I persevered, nonetheless, but because I did not inherit her raw power as Chalice did, she said I would be unable to execute five alliteration spells. Four alliterations already tax me to my utmost.”

“So it was just a matter of power?” Twilight asked and felt a little surge of pride. Her own skill in magic was top-marks, head-of-her-class, but it was paired with a deep well of raw power that could only come from good luck and good breeding.

“Raw power is one necessity,” Antimony admitted with a sniff, “but there are ways to get around that… to cheat. Try as I might, I could not truly grasp the secret Arsenic revealed to me. You will understand when you see her, provided she sees you as worthy.”

Twilight’s descent from Arsenic was clear, but not something she had considered important before. Her father, Crescent Moon, the “Night Light” of Canterlot from his time as a royal guard, was the son and only child of Lady Black Light, a senior judge and private secretary to the sovereign. Black Light was in turn the daughter of Lady Kamacite, who was herself the daughter of Arsenic, the second middle child of three who survived to adulthood. Arsenic had married twice, first to “Prince” Noble Oath and then to “Prince” Starsworn; Kamacite and Neptunium (the youngest) were from the Starsworn descent, Bismuth (and thus Antimony) came from the Noble Oath branch. They shared exactly one great-great-grandmother.

“You are a trueborn daughter of Kamacite,” Antimony replied with a shrug. “She will recognize you as a descendant or strike you down for your impudence. There is no way to tell which until you stand before her.”

The train entered Marestricht Station at night, with the sun already set. A carriage was waiting for them, and before long, Twilight collapsed into a bed at her suite in the castle. It was only a guest room, but Marestricht was the flagship fortress of the Terre Rare. Her four-poster bed had the finest sheets and pillows, a wardrobe stocked with clothes she would never wear, fresh flowers in vases and a private bathroom, shower, and grooming chamber. The staff were friendly, courteous, and welcoming, but the fortress itself was less so.

Marestricht was built up against the side of, and partly extending into, the river that cut through the town by the same name. Built to look over a critical waterway and crossroads in a region of Equestria that had seen more than its fair share of trouble, it was a very practical design and little like the decorative castles of Canterlot. Marestricht was circled by a deep moat with slanted sides with walls that extended up on top of an already raised bulwark of earth. Vaguely star-shaped, it was not a tall castle in most places, except in the innermost keep, where a great bastion loomed over the sunken grounds. Somewhere below her hooves, Twilight knew, was the chapel Antimony had mentioned and the lair where she would meet her distant ancestor.

Halfway to dawn, Twilight woke. A part of her had expected ghosts or fitful dreams, maybe some sort of magical emanations or foreshadowing of what was to come. Instead it was just the chill from a window, brought in by an unexpected breeze over the river. Closing the window and burying herself back in the pillows, she slept well, but missed Spike. The little dragon would’ve come, too, and she’d have probably let him sleep with her on the huge bed, but Antimony had been adamant about not taking him.

‘No dragons,’ she had said, firmly, even shooting a glare at Spike when he asked. ‘Absolutely not. I forbid it.’

Twilight hugged a particularly soft pillow to her chest as she drifted off to sleep. ‘Sorry, Spike.’

Though, once again, Antimony had not explained why. It was one of her more annoying habits, but Twilight suspected this was a special sort of situation. How often did you get to meet somepony who, by all rights, should have died of old age a century ago? Only Celestia, and Celestia was Celestia. The exception to the rule. Of course, then Luna had come along… but how many exceptions could there be? Unless… Arsenic… had somehow become like Luna and Celestia. But that was impossible.

Impossible.

Morning came, and with it breakfast. Antimony was waiting for her on the patio of a voluminous study within the bastion and the two mares shared another light breakfast. On the balcony, the light of a beautiful morning bathed them in a refreshing glow, and Twilight could see across the verdant Prench countryside. Everything was green and alive, the river full of little boats and at least one great ship passing through. Rich orchards dotted the hills with lines of color.

“This is a lovely country,” Twilight felt she had to say or at least share her thoughts. “I’ve never been out here before; there’s so much of Equestria I’ve never seen… except in a book,” she bashfully admitted.

“Kamacite was born in Marestricht,” Antimony said, simply, sipping at a cup of tea. “You have roots here; your blood is from here.” She smiled, very faintly, but honestly. “You will always be welcome here, Twilight Sparkle.”

She then slid a small box across the table, placing it next to a comfit bowl of mixed nuts in caramel. Twilight eyed the box for a moment. It was black lacquer with silver inlay and the picture of a bull and a dragon on the cover. The bull had pierced the dragon’s side with one horn, mortally wounding it – though, the dragon seemed poised to rip the bull open with her claws. All along the edges were more vine-like patterns, and within them, arcane script in the form of worded warding.

“Go ahead and open it,” Antimony said, encouraging. “You will need what is inside.”

Twilight brought the box closer, undid the four brass latches, two on the front and one on each side without a hinge, and opened it. Within was a plain looking set of glasses.

“Glasses?” she asked, and picked the lenses up. They were tinted dark, like old fashioned sunglasses. Holding them up to her eyes, she could see how they made the world look dark and blurred. Why would anypony wear these? Were they really a gift?

“The glasses are for your protection,” Antimony explained, putting down her cup of tea with a faint chime of porcelain on porcelain. “Listen to me carefully, Twilight Sparkle, and remember what I tell you. When you meet our ancestor, you must wear those glasses and keep them on; you must never, never, look Lady Arsenic in the eye. You must not see her face. Do you understand?”

“Keep the glasses on; don’t look her in the eye; don’t look at her face,” Twilight recited, not that she understood why. “But why?”

“You think of our ancestor as a pony, like you or… me,” Antimony replied, and looked off into the countryside. Her perpetually half-lidded eyes narrowed. “She is not. She has become… something else. If you look on her directly and without protection, then you will die.”

“I still don’t understand!” Twilight objected, but Antimony did not explain any more than to repeat her warning. She then drilled Twilight on the appropriate behavior and the other dangers of the upcoming meeting. The studious young unicorn soon lost her appetite.

Before long, it was time.

Dismissing the servants and attendants, Antimony led Twilight down into the heart of the Marestricht Bastion. Through a chamber of painted glass and bright light, past a set of double doors, a wide flight of stairs welcomed them down into the chapel beneath the chapel. The ambiance of the castle changed in a heartbeat, the warm and welcoming Marestricht above giving way to the dungeon-like gloom of the Marestricht below.

It was not just the sudden darkness, either. The stairway down was flanked by carvings of one-eyed bulls and dragons in bas-relief. Even the ceiling was carved, the light from magical orbs – basic enchantments placed on crystal balls – reflecting off of wings and horns and teeth. There were ponies amid the monsters, too: unicorns and pegasi and earth ponies, but they weren’t fleeing from the monsters.

They were hunting them.

At last, the two mares came to a room, a simple waiting room. Twilight watched, entranced, as Antimony shed her clothes and trotted under a grill. Pulling a rope, a torrent of water poured down from above, soaking the noblemare through her coat. Her mane, so often done up in an elaborate style, came apart and fell over her shoulders and neck. Only once she was completely soaked did Antimony release the rope, closing the grill and staunching the flow of water.

“Do I need to do that, too?” Twilight asked, and Antimony shook her head.

“No,” she said, simply. “Follow me.”

Wood and iron doors opened wide, revealing a second chamber, a much larger one, the true Chapel Below the Bastion. Within it, at the very center of it, was a pool of… of some liquid that definitely wasn’t water. Twilight wasn’t sure exactly what it was. Her nose crinkled, smelling sulfur and ash.

The “water” of the pool was a deep red, the color of blood, the pool itself ringed with plain but finely cut stonework. Behind it was another statue, greater than the ones before but covering a similar theme: a bull, a gorgon Twilight realized, locked in combat with a dragon. Just like before, in the box Antimony had given her, the bull here had managed to gore the dragon in her soft underbelly, one terrible horn buried deep into her belly. The dragon, meanwhile, had her tail wrapped around the bull’s neck, her claws ready to strike, and there was already a bloody tear along the gorgon’s side. The hollows of their eyes, dark when the doors first opened, slowly began to glow with a greenish light.

The blood-red water within the pool trickled slowly from the two monsters’ wounds.

To the left and right were rows of seats, like at an amphitheater, and statues of ponies. One of them Twilight recognized as Cruciger, the current head of the Terre Rare family. Wrought in granite, his stern visage was not that of his younger self. He was one eyed, scarred, and just as massive and imposing as Twilight remembered from their duel.

Next to Cruciger was another mare, one Twilight didn’t recognize, and then another. Next to that one was a face she remembered from her textbooks. It was Kamacite. Twilight’s own great grandmother. The long-dead mare was seated, just like she would be on one of the nearby seats overlooking the pool, but in stone and three times her natural height. The statues, Twilight realized, were all the children of Arsenic and the descendants of Bismuth, her eldest daughter.

“What is this place?” Twilight asked, backing up a few steps.

“This is where our Founder sleeps,” Antimony explained, trotting past Twilight and up to the lip of the pool. Raising her head and horn high, the unicorn noblemare began to cast. Pale violet light circled her horn, growing ephemeral as it spread throughout the chapel.

“Thirteen cracks on a black bell. Born under a wandering star. Forsaken right. Thirteen metals. One state. Resolute. Unbending. Unyielding. Unforgiving. Arsenic!”

Antimony’s legs tensed as the incantation brought forth the full power of the spell.

“A crying babe. Flightless wings. Iron Words and an Iron Will. Speak and be heard; Hear and be Struck Down. Lick the wounds of the broken mare. Art!”

“Majestic lights pierce dark shadows. Carry with you the burden of ten generations. Revere the weight that crippled you. Exemplary. Unflinching. August!”

‘Three incantations!’

Twilight watched, narrowing her eyes as a blast of magical force pulsed out of the older unicorn. She’d never heard Antimony chant a spell, or even just use the spoken alliteration before. It was reckless for a unicorn with a small magic pool. Chanted spells used the full power of the magic, and if you lacked enough, it took the power it needed from elsewhere.

‘But she’s still chanting! Four?’ Four was her absolute maximum. ‘What is she doing?’

“Memories. Carved in stones, cut into hearts, burned into minds, seared into souls. Ritual and Rite! Captured Chaos. Shadowed King. Blinding Light. Four chains stretched over a corpse…”

Antimony’s magic exploded, and the pool surged up like a tidal wave.

“Awakening!”

Twilight shielded her face as the torrent of water turned into a twisting serpent. It circled once over the pool, searching for something, before striking with a serpent’s speed. Antimony made no effort to dodge it. One moment, she was standing before the pool – the next, the strange red water engulfed her and dragged down. The Prench noblemare vanished under the water without a sound, and just like that, the magic dissipated and everything still…

“Celestia…!” Twilight gasped, her breath caught in her throat. Had the spell backfired? Had Antimony made some mistake in the incantation?

No.

Twilight saw it then: a bubble, rising up from the center of the red pool. A voice in the back of her mind cried out a warning, and she quickly ducked down and pulled out the pair of glasses Antimony had given her. Slipping them on, the already dim and artificial light of the chapel became even less helpful. Still, she could see the bubble in the pool begin to grow and take form. Something was rising up out of the water.

Was it Antimony?

For a moment, it did look like her.

The figure had a pony’s body, long legs and an aristocratic mare’s snout. It might have been mistaken for Antimony herself… until things grew out of its sides, things that quickly spread out and shook clean. Things that were wings!

‘Wings?’ Twilight squinted, to try and see more through the blurry glasses.

The wings stretched, so wide they could’ve covered the diameter of the pool itself. Yet that was not even the strangest thing: where a normal mare would have had a mane, this mare had what almost looked like a bed of angry snakes. Two curved protrusions flanked the left and right of her horn, like lesser horns, like bull’s horns pointing backwards. Her wild, serpentine mane snapped and twisted in random directions, every lock of it swirling and coiling in its own direction.

Even though the haze of the glasses, Twilight could see two bright, blazing pinpricks appear on the strange mare’s face. Eyes. By the Princess, Twilight realized, they were this mare’s eyes!

Twilight quickly looked down, focused on her front hooves.

It took every ounce of her willpower to keep her own eyes averted, to keep looking down at the floor. Her ears burned and she heard a soft ‘clop-clop’ as somepony left the pool and trotted up across the stone. Twilight willed herself to stay in place. To keep looking down. To not run. Something inside told her that if she ran now, if she cowered, if she showed any sort of weakness… it wouldn’t just be the end of her quest to learn the secret to five alliteration.

“That smell.”

It was a mare’s voice, like Antimony’s, but with a distorted and deeper version tacked on top. Like one voice shouting over a whisper.

“One of Kamacite’s foals,” the voice said, and Twilight felt somepony’s breath on her neck. “Twilight… Sparkle…”

“You know who I am?” Twilight asked, but kept her eyes downcast.

The clop-clop of hooves hinted that the other mare was walking away.

“This body hides few secrets from me,” the voice answered.

“This body… you mean…” It was obvious, really, but Twilight felt she had to hear it. This magic! What kind of magic was this? She’d never heard of anything like it!

“It is the duty of the successor of the Rare Earths to be my vessel, from time to time, so that I might live again.”

The plainness with which this mare spoke chilled Twilight to the bone. Duty? Was this why the Terre Rare had such strange rites to determine their family head? If they needed to incant the full four-alliterations, well, then it made sense that you’d need a powerful unicorn! And a willing one! Twilight’s mind reeled with the revelation. It was all starting to make sense…!

With a soft ‘clop-clop’ Twilight could feel the presence in front of her again.

“Arsenic,” she whispered, and very nearly looked up at the shadowed mare.

“My child,” Arsenic replied and Twilight shivered involuntarily. This was her great-great grandmother? Or was it just a shade? Just some ghost of memory conjured up by the pool, and Celestia, what was in that foul pool to begin with?

“You have marvelous power,” Arsenic went on to say, complementary. “But the greater the power, the more difficult it is to tame.”

By the Princess, this mare – this thing – was terrifying! But Twilight Sparkle had come this far for a reason. She would not turn back now, not be intimidated, not give up. Countless lives could depend on her learning the secret that only Arsenic could or would share.

“Five alliterations!” Twilight said, raising her eyes, but only enough to be defiant. Not enough to be suicidal. Through the fog of the glasses, she could just make out the horned silhouette of the Iron Duchess. “Teach me!”

She lowered her eyes again.

“Please!”

For a long, heavy few seconds, Arsenic said nothing. Then: “Kamacite came close, once… long ago, when she was young and bold and foalish. I see much of her in you. Every generation after me has failed this lesson, and one after another, I gave up on them. I suffer this ineptitude in Bismuth’s line, for they excel in other pursuits, but I caution you not to disappoint me. Twilight Sparkle.”

Arsenic snorted, and the hairs of Twilight’s neck stood on end.

“I am not kind like Celestia,” Arsenic warned.

“Be as cruel as you have to be,” Twilight answered, closing her eyes and steeling herself for what came next. “I need to learn this! I won’t leave without it! I can’t!”

. . .

Standing at the pinnacle of the Hanging Gardens, Twilight opened her eyes. The first few rays of sunlight were breaking over the horizon and dashing against the growing aggregate of her star field. She narrowed her focus, ordered her thoughts, and channeled her magic. It generally went without saying that the horn was the key to all unicorn spellcraft, but overeager unicorns could burn their horns or damage them through forcing too much magic out all in a rush. Like a magical muscle, it needed to be trained and the natural circulatory pathways harnessed and strengthened. The alternative was like too much pressure behind a poorly constructed dam.

Twilight exhaled, slowly, and felt the physical and mental press of her star field expanding over her forehead. Her mane whipped against her back, but she focused past it. The sharp smell of ozone stung her nose, but she focused past it. Concentration was everything here. Compared to four-allits, a full five alliterations required roughly four times the magic to initiate, equivalent to more than two hundred and fifty basic spells all at once. Exactly when she passed that threshold of latent, malleable, castable mana would be up to experience and intuition.

‘Now,’ she thought, feeling the moment with crystal clarity, like a flicked switch in the back of her brain. ‘There! That’s it!’

All she had to do now was pull off the incantation. Antimony had been right before, too. This was where it got tricky. Just conjuring up the raw magic wasn’t that difficult, not in the grand scheme of things. It was what you did with it and how you survived weaving that last, impossible alliteration.

Looking out over Canterlot, Twilight could see more and more of the city she had spent most of her life in stretch out before her. The sight of it was terrible. The changeling invasion had destroyed so much. She could see the Royal Palace; part of it was charred by fire, the royal gardens and the area near where the wedding had been held were still smoldering. Across the city dozens of great towers had been collapsed, crushing buildings and even entire neighborhoods. Even the Royal Observatory and the College of Magic, the institutional heartbeat of Canterlot, had been ravaged, their great halls of learning laid bare to growing fires, the lives of students and wizards cut short. The loss to Equestria, even if it ended right this instant, would be incalculable.

The upper tier where the nobles had their homes was still being bitterly fought over, which meant that it was also the most heavily damaged by shell and shot, by missile and magic. The central tiers of shops and pavilions, stately boulevards and canals, bridges over the river Serenity that led to the falls, all were smashed and damaged or obscured by choking clouds of black smoke. Closer to the lower wards, she could see the Sky Harbor was dotted by wrecked airships and what looked like the corpse of a colossal Tatzlwurm. This was her city, transformed, destroyed, raped by the changelings, stricken to the very foundations and left to die.

No more.

It ended now.

“Laughing tree and groaning oak. Wild flowers bloom in an untended field. Color. Majesty. Laughter. Smile in the darkness! Risqué!”

The first incantation solidified the spell, drawing on the wellspring and the prepared magic in the star field. Twilight felt it settle firmly around her horn like the loop of a ring.

“Teasing breeze. Swelling updraft. Rising tide. Forceful current. Words spoken cannot be taken back. Fall upon all your victims without distinction! Rampant!”

The second alliteration was heavier than the first, just enough to notice. A second ring of blazing white magic locked in place about Twilight’s lavender horn. Right before her eyes, she could see the dimming field of magic. Had she calculated right? Did she have enough?

Even if she didn’t, it was too late to stop now, anyway.

Setting her hooves in place, she spoke the third alliteration. “Enmity and Justice! Falling star! Twisted knife! Nail this curse upon a thousand walls! Gold. Silver. Brass. Bronze. Return but never Reject. Retaliatory!”

Like a vice, the third alliteration settled down on top of the previous two. Twilight felt the pressure increase on her neck and legs. Her star field was getting dense, and heavy, immensely heavy. But it would pass in a moment. Just a moment. Overhead, the broadcasting and amplification tower atop the Gardens crackled with electric anticipation, the metal reacting to the growing cloud of diffuse magic below.

“Sign of the broken horseshoe. Infant. Grace. Empty. Road. Sign of the broken horn. Bend. Twist. Open. Gate. Sign of the broken wing. Ice. Fire. Breath. Blood! Role!”

The fourth alliteration hit like a truck, far worse than the other three. Twilight lurched forward, nearly falling flat on her face. Teeth clenched, she forced her neck level. The four alliterations were like a burning crown now, covering her horn and sending out licks of white magic that seared her ears and her mane. If it was a crown, it was a damned heavy one. Why hadn’t it lightened up yet? Was something wrong? Or was this normal?

‘Of course, it wouldn’t be like when I cast four alliterations,’ a little voice in the back of her mind noted with dry amusement. The brief lapse in concentration nearly ripped the previous four alliterations free, but Twilight threw her hooves up, physically catching hold of the rings and holding them in place.

‘You’re losing focus,’ the voice chided, and the ring bucked again. Pain shot through Twilight’s front legs. Her hooves were burning.

‘You can’t do it, can you?’ the same voice laughed. ‘You’re going to mess up somehow, just like you always do!’

Crushed by the weight of her own magic, the hair around her hooves catching light, Twilight closed her eyes against the pain. In her mind’s eye, she remembered all the spells she had botched. Celestia had always kindly smiled and assured her she would “get it next time” but every single time, she had run back to her study, read, read and re-read everything to find out where she had gone wrong. Every time she had felt humiliated and ashamed. Somehow, Celestia always being so patient and understanding... just made it harder to bear.

“You’re a genius, Twilie.” Shining Armor tousled her mane affectionately. “The best ever!”

“My daughter, the Princess’ Apprentice?” Her father was looking away, but there was no mistaking his expression for anything but pride. “I always knew she was special.”

“Magic runs in the family, Twilight!” Her mother grinned and kissed her on the horn. “I know you’ll do us proud.”

“Superb work, Miss Sparkle!” “A-plus, I’d expect nothing less from the Princess’ own apprentice.” “You’re such a bookworm, Twilight!” “Look at her, she thinks she’s too good to spent time with us?” A sea of faces raced through her mind, a chorus of praise, honest, sarcastic, hopeful, spiteful. “She is the Princess’ apprentice. She’s special.” “Special?” “You’re not better than me!” “I bet she’ll snap and run off, just like the last one.” “Teacher’s Pet!” “Teacher’s Pet!” Teacher’s PET!”

“The want-it need-it spell!” Twilight heard her own voice amid the crackle and rush of magic. “Works every time!”

‘Not that!’

“I’ve got it! I’ll cast a spell to make them stop eating all the food!”

‘More unintended consequences? That does seem to be a running theme for us, doesn’t it?’

‘No!’ Twilight cried out, banishing the thoughts, the doubts. ‘I know if I screw this up, it’ll be ten times worse than the want-it need-it spell. I know there might be unintended consequences. Guess what? I’m going to do it anyway!’

‘Because you can?’ The smirking voice in her head asked, mockingly.

‘Because...’ Twilight set her forehooves to the ground and tensed her body for the final incantation. The final push. ‘...I’m the only one who can!’

Twilight opened her eyes a crack, and they were pure white.

“Skull and Key, Horn and Hoof. Twist in the Wind, Capture Power!” Twilight said the words without thinking, without memorizing. “Sever. Stitch. Open. Mend!”

Even as she bent the magic to her will, Twilight felt distant, like a spectator to her own body. This was the Secret to the Fifth Alliteration: there was no natural fifth alliteration. All four alliteration spells had an incantation that could be memorized, written down, committed to memory. The fifth alliteration broke all that down. Every mare, everypony, had a different fifth alliteration, unique to how they executed and interpreted the spell. There was just too much magic involved, it couldn’t be tailored to another’s words or spellcraft. It had to fit and it had to be perfect, the first time and every time.

“Endless night! Endless day!” Twilight saw her own body begin to float, the great glittering star field she had conjured crushing down into a fifth and final ring to the crown around her horn. “Endless Twilight!” Her body’s eyes flashed and the world vanished in light. “REVERSAL!”

. . .

“I see,” Luna said, simply.

“What in Tartarus?” Applejack cried, shielding her eyes.

“My eyes!” Dash groaned, cyan hooves and both wings crossed protectively over her face.

“Oh dear,” Rarity muttered, pulling a parasol out of nowhere to shield herself behind.

. . .

Alpha Brass laughed, inhaling deeply and welcoming the wave of light and magic as it pulsed through the walls and ceiling above. He spread his legs wide and welcomed it, embraced it, gladly. He had never doubted Twilight Sparkle. He had never doubted that she could pull it off. In a word, it was:

“Spectacular.”

“Indeed,” Eunomie agreed, looking up but closing her eyes as it washed over her.

. . .

“Do you feel that?” Celestia paused and turned around, towards the floating palace in the sky. A great wave of energy had just erupted from it, exploding outwards in all directions like a shockwave. “Could it be… Twilight?”

On her back, Shining Armor murmured something unintelligible.

“Twilight?” “Twilight!” Blueblood and Cadance asked in tandem, the later wounded but still able to move. On Blueblood’s back, Chrysalis was still bound, her horn sealed by Lyra’s celestial lyre and her body wrapped in fiery chains. She growled angrily, her mouth muzzled.

“What about Twilight?” Lyra asked them. She raised a hoof up to her eyes and winced as the light passed through them. “Wait, you mean Twilight Sparkle?”

. . .

In an airship over the city, Princess Exuvia frowned as she looked out her cabin window. Not far from the changeling princess, Suri Polomare had leapt under a pile of clothes to hide. Exuvia simply waited, curious and captivated by the ever-expanding mega-spell. In seconds, the wave of magic hit the ship’s shields… and passed through them. It then passed through wood and iron and steel, unhindered, ever expanding.

“What is this?” Exuvia grimaced, her equestrian features crackling and turning into violent static. It stung. It burned! What was this? She’d trained her ability to partially mimic ponies, being the first changeling to “invent” her own persona and appearance by sampling the best of others. Her expertise had grown to the point where she could maintain partial transforms even in her sleep.

How could a spell disrupt that? What was happening?

Exuvia lifted a hoof to her mane. Her white coat was utterly scrambled, revealing the black chitin that was her true color. Her beautiful and unique mane, green with neon highlights, a design she had made from scratch, was in the same state. It was scrambled, and despite concentrating on reassembling the illusion, it wasn’t coming back. Seeing hints of her natural green membrane-mane elicited a deep scowl.

“This,” she realized, turning away from the window, “is not good.”

. . .

“What is that?” Instar glared up at the Matterhorn mountains. There was some sort of bright light.

Was it an explosion?

Some sort of new weapon?

Was it a… spell?

“Princess!” a changeling drone fluttered out of the sky. She pointed across the field, towards the distant hills and forests that surrounded Ponyville. “We have made contact with enemy skirmishers! The army of the Terre Rare is here!”

Up on another hill, the redoubt of the Blueblood Manor still survived – though much of it had been reduced to rubble. The damned White Company and the population of the town had survived and repulsed yet another early morning assault. How was this possible?

“Prepare for battle!” Instar yelled, teeth bared in a vicious snarl. Nodding her head, she signaled the standard-bearer to give the sign to march. All across the fields outside Ponyville, squares of changelings formed up in the Equestrian style. Flights of combat changelings took to the skies in practiced formations. Cannons took up positions and began making rangefinding calculations.

“This is it!” Instar’s wings flexed, snapping out proudly. “Time to earn your lovemeal, you maggots of war!”

. . .

“That… is one… huge… spell.”

Soarin, as usual, displayed a remarkable gift for understatement.

“That is one Celestia-damned huge spell,” Spitfire agreed and turned to those behind her, waiting in the cloud cover. “Hunker down, Wonderbolts! Prepare for incoming magic!”

They were behind and above the changeling swarm occupying Ponyville, just waiting for the right moment to strike. Behind the Wonderbolts, the Cloudsdale Fifth and Sixth Cavalry, the “Flying Hussars,” were gathered at varying distances away. It was up to the Wonderbolts and their newly promoted Captain to decide when and how to strike. As one, the word rippled through the troops and flyers. Pegasi buried their bodies in protective clouds and waited.

“Spitfire,” Soarin said, chin up as they waited for the burst of magic to reach them.

“Soarin?” Spitfire asked, looking at him. What was he up to?

“If this magic disintegrates us, or turns us into chickens, or melts us into puddles of ink, or turns our insides out, or sends us careening into the upper atmosphere, or anything like that... I just want to say…” He turned to her and smiled, a goofy, confident, and to her annoyance, rather attractive smile.

“What?” she asked, leaning towards him slightly. “What did you want to say?”

He beamed. “Your pumpkin pie always did have too much cinnamon.”

“You idiot!” Spitfire grabbed him by the mane. “We’ve been friends for ten years and those are your last words to me?!”

“No, my last words are ‘I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!’ And ‘hey, ow, my mane!’”

“You…!”

Midway into shaking the life out of her old friend and partner the wave of magic bowled into them. The two Wonderbolts turned towards it just in time to get hit and braced themselves, fully expecting to be knocked backwards… except the wave passed right through them without any physical force. Spitfire felt her skin tingle under her coat, but didn’t think much of it at first.

Heart beating hard in her chest, she turned to check on her subordinates and fellow Wonderbolts. There were a dozen wonderbolts in uniform hanging to the lips of clouds and poking their heads up to look around. The wave was already gone, moving off to more distant lands and skies.

Spitfire tilted her head to the side in confusion. She counted a dozen wonderbolts, looking around, as confounded as she was. Their colors were all right, but there was something really wrong about them. Misty Fly was just the next cloud over, easily recognizable with her cream-yellow wings and two-toned blue mane, but her shape was all wrong. It was almost like she was… but, no, no, that couldn’t be right.

“Dude, I’m a chick.”

Spitfire whirled around and came eye to eye with another mare where her former best friend had once sat. Said ‘chick’ was busy curiously feeling her costume with her hooves. With a deep blue mane and powder blue coat, everything about this strange mare screamed “Soarin” but… but that was just crazy.

“Oh, wow! Check out these lashes!” the mystery mare started to flick her eyelashes with her hoof. “Oh! And I’ve got cute little bangs behind my ears!” She then proceeded to poke and prod her mane. “And what’s this? A curly cue bang right in the front? Hot. Totally hot.” She looked down at herself and started to trot in a circle, like a dog chasing her tail. “Woah, look at that flank! I am smoking hot!”

“You’re a mare,” Spitfire realized, and her hooves flew up to her mouth at the sound of her voice. It was so deep! Was that her?

“Was that me?” she asked, and her hooves brought something else to attention. She had a patch of thick hair on her chin. It felt so scruffy! What the hell was going on? A terrified look downstairs confirmed that her uniform still fit, albeit snugly, over her new equipment.

“I’m a stallion,” she again stated the obvious. Soarin, meanwhile, still seemed to be chasing his flank. Spitfire just sat there, slowly shaking her head in denial. On clouds scattered across the sky, hundreds of pegasi were confused, shocked, some absolutely terrified and some incredulously amused, but all were trying to adapt to their new bodies.

What in the name of harmony was going on?

. . .

“You make the most beautiful Princess, nephew.”

“I know.”

“Can I touch your hair, Blue?”

“No.”

“I’d hit that.”

“Thank you, Miss Heartstrings. I appreciate your candor.”

Blueblood was now a Blue Belle. Lifting a dainty hoof and inadvertently striking a pose in the process, he took a second to pat down his midsection. He felt so thin. It was like two-thirds of his body had just up and vanished. Truly this was magic of the most perverted sort. Probably one of Risqué’s spells. She always had been a legendary perv.

“I feel like I’m about to blow away in a strong breeze,” he grumbled. “How did Fleur survive this long?” He pointed to Cadance. “Or you, for that matter?” The difference between Lady Fleur and the Princess of Love couldn’t be more than a few pounds. “Isn’t this strange?”

“Oh, I do feel quite strange,” Cadance assured him, sitting down on her rump. Her pink-heavy color scheme did not look quite right on a stallion the size and shape of Shining Armor or himself. Reaching up to her still gently curled mane, she seemed to be wrestling with the fact that it was so short while still being so feminine. “Quite strange…”

“I shall be henceforth known as Guy-ra,” Lyra proudly declared, standing on her hind legs and crossing her forelegs. She turned her head just so to flip her short mane in the breeze. A hoof with ample shaggy fetlocks then reached up to stroke her chin. “Actually, no. Call me ‘Harper,’ Mister Harper.”

“I’m male again,” Celestia stated, taking the transformation with regal grace and poise. Though it also helped this had happened less than twenty four hours ago. She looked the exact same then as she did now – though, thankfully, nopony seemed to be drooling at her.

“There can be no doubt,” she continued, casting an eye at the similarly transformed but still unresponsive Shining Armor. “This is Twilight’s spellwork, and by the looks of it, that spell must have had an effective radius of tens of kilometers. Even a fourth alliteration would’ve stopped at the city limits, but it just kept going and going…”

“What are you saying, auntie?” Blueblood asked, and groaned at the sound of his new voice. “I mean, ‘uncle.’”

“Twilight Sparkle may just have cast a five alliteration spell,” she answered, considering the possibility. Her mouth moved as she quietly repeated the word ‘uncle’ to herself and grimaced.

“Nopony in the modern era can use five alliterations,” Blueblood reminded her. A quick look over at Chrysalis brought something else to his attention. “And, would you look at that? Our changeling Queen doesn’t seem to have taken well to Miss Sparkle’s magic.”

Chrysalis was still wrapped up, still securely restrained by Lyra’s celestial empowered magic, but her usual guise – that of Princess Cadance – was fraying violently. It was like pieces of it were trying to rip away from her body. Eventually the changeling Queen cursed into her gag and the entire disguise dropped, leaving her in her natural changeling form.

“I guess it doesn’t… OHHH!” Lyra gasped, clopping her front hooves together as she put an arcane two and two together. “Of course! Changeling spells must have a gender component! If you layer another gender spell on top, make it stick, it’ll scramble their magic!”

She huffed, her cheeks puffing up into a pout.

“It figures Twilight would come up with something like that,” Lyra grumbled. “She always was a gigantic brain stuck in a little pony’s body.”

“More than that, I fear,” Celestia said, softly. She turned to the other alicorn present. “Cadance. You remember when you ascended?”

Cadance nodded, and stood back up. “How could I forget?”

“Do you remember where you went?” Celestia asked.

“It was some sort of… void.” Cadance had some trouble describing it. “I could see distant shapes and there were stars everywhere. And then you appeared and told me I was going to become an alicorn.”

“That was the Empyrean Vault you saw,” Celestia explained, and her stallion-frown was surprisingly imposing and stern. “If Twilight ascended in casting that spell... and she very well may have; the five alliteration version of Risqué’s Number Sixty Three was never actually cast before. It was only a theory. But if she did, then I should have felt it.”

“So she didn’t ascend,” Blueblood reasoned.

“Makes sense,” Cadance agreed. “Still, though… Twilight…”

“You don’t understand,” Celestia interrupted with a very masculine sigh. “The other possibility is that she did ascend and I simply couldn’t feel it. Breaking the Platinum Crown… it did sever my connection to the sun and stars. Am I cut off from the Vault as well?”

Blueblood, Lyra and Cadance all exchanged looks. If Celestia was hoping for an answer from them, she was left disappointed. The four turned their eyes skyward. The fireworks and the light had died down, but the dawn was still fast approaching, for once moving at its own lazy pace. It wouldn’t be long before the changelings moved out again in force.

Celestia shook her head. “There’s nothing I can do here and now. Let us go, and quickly!”

. . .

Rainbow Dash slowly dropped down in front of Rarity, hogging the mirror she had summoned up. Leaning in close, the chromatic ex-mare waggled her eyebrows and smiled at her reflection. She seemed tickled pink, figuratively speaking.

“I look like my dad,” she said, finally, flexing her wings. “Luckily for me, my dad always was popular with the mares. Looking good, Rainbow Blitz, you sexy stallion, you!”

“Rainbow,” Rarity said, gently pushing the well-built pegasus out of the way, “you do realize you just admitted to finding your father attractive.”

“What! No! I didn’t! Gross!” Dash zipped off, protesting loudly. “Gross! Gross! No way!”

“This is absurd,” Rarity stated, staring at her reflection. Oh, she made for a dashing stallion to be sure, with an elegant coiffure and chiseled but delicate features… but it wasn’t her! It wasn’t her at all.

“This is crazy,” Dash declared, landing amid their party with a huff. “What do you think, Applejack?”

“Eyup.”

“Not even funny.”

“It was ah little funny.”

Applejack had grown to almost twice her normal size but didn’t seem upset or worried by any of it. She seemed more concerned with checking out what other ponies looked like and raising a bemused eyebrow at the confusion and chaos in the nearby nobles’ camp. Ponies were in a frenzy, many woken up by their sudden transformation.

“Changeling!” a pony called out. “Alarm! Changeling! Get it!”

“There goes another one,” Luna observed, descending from above on great midnight blue wings. As a stallion, she cut an imposing figure, one even a little terrifying, given her preference for appearing out of or within a swirl of shadows. Her transformation had blessed her with powerful-looking hooves and a muscular barrel chest. Both her mane and tail were the same, peppered with diminished but still visible star-stuff, but narrow and lean.

“This spell has uncovered half a dozen changelings across the Sky Harbor,” she said with a grim flash of her teeth. “From what we have seen, all changelings are affected, their disguises forcefully neutralized. Even the shape-shifters from the other hives are suffering the ill effects. They can no longer hide among us, and their fighting prowess is diminished! Our time to strike is now, when they are most vulnerable!”

“So that’s why Twilight did this?” Dash asked, looking up at the Princess-turned-Prince.

“It was always part of our plan,” Rarity answered for her. “Still, the scale of it… I don’t have words.”

“We do!” Luna shouted, her Royal Canterlot Voice at full blast. “Gird thyselves for battle, my subjects! My nobles! My Friends! This new dawn brings with it the eve of our Victory! We need only reach out and take it!”

. . .

“She’s gone,” Chalice said, meaning specifically ‘Twilight Sparkle is gone.’ Like everypony and everything else, she had been transformed, but her male-version was only marginally removed from her normal female self. She-as-he was still petite with her mane still done up in a braided bun. Most of her body was further concealed by a cloak to protect her against the cold wind.

“Yes, she is,” Alpha Brass agreed with his little sister, a pleased grin in place on her face. His transformation had been slimming, but not so much he looked like a fashion model. His legs were long and dainty, his neck as well, and though he had not said as much while everypony else was aping over their new forms, he thought he looked quite a bit like Antimony.

He pointed to the ground beneath the broadcasting antenna. “Look.”

Chalice saw it already: a great white star, burned into the surface of the ground. Scuffing it with her hoof, she realized it wasn’t just etched in - she could feel the texture - some residual magic had permanently warped and stained the concrete. The likeness of Twilight’s cutie mark was remarkable. There could be no mistaking it.

“This is just like back then,” Brass said, unfolding an old, faded newspaper clipping.

The wind kicked up, blowing the golden-coated mare’s mane back, threatening to rip the paper out of Brass’ hooves. Chalice already knew what he was checking. She had seen the picture. It was more than a decade old, a one-off local paper’s report on a mysterious disappearance. A local pegasus filly had vanished after helping the town with a troublesome rogue unicorn.

In the background of the picture was another mark, burned into the ground: a crystal-gem in the shape of a heart with gold filigree. Three days later, Celestia herself had announced to the world that she had discovered a new alicorn, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Very few bothered to connect the dots that connected the missing filly, her case officially ‘solved,’ and the new Princess. None who knew her from back then seemed interested in talking about it. Cadance herself spoke little of it, even to her closest friends.

“Twilight Sparkle has ascended,” Brass wagered, letting go of the newspaper clipping and letting the biting wind carry it off. “Assuming that is the case, she is likely in the court of the Empyrean Vault even as we speak. ...Chalice.”

“Understood, brother.” Chalice lowered her violet eyes. Pale magic began to bubble out of her horn, tainted a moment later by growing pools of starry black. She knew what he wanted her to do. “I will find her.”

“Guide her back to us, Chalice,” Brass ordered, turning to walk back towards the stair well. “Cadance told me that Celestia greeted her when she ascended. Twilight will be alone. See to it that she does not fall prey to the dangers there.”

The small mare turned stallion nodded. “I will bring her back to you, brother.”

“To us, Chalice, to us,” Brass stressed, beginning to descend. “I know you’ll do your best.”

In moments, he was gone.

Alone and mere hooves from where Twilight had just disappeared, Chalice reached deep down and into the well of her magic. There, carved into her heart, was the key. With a metaphysical jolt, she turned it and connected to her partner.

By herself, she was worth little, good for little, thus much had been proven in spectacular fashion in her duel with her sisters. Her poor bodyguard, Virga, had paid the ultimate price for it. So yes, alone, she was weak. But the key, once turned, corrected all her failings. It made her reliable. Father had said that she was unsuited to rule, but Brother said she was the strongest of all his sisters. All she needed was a way to harness and channel that power. All she needed was someone to hold her reins. As always, Brother was right.

‘Sagittarius. I need you.’

‘Chalice,’ a voice rumbled in her mind, seeped into her soul. ‘Have you come to offer me your flesh?’

Blackness invaded her left eye, pushing out the white of the sclera, leaving her pupil to stand out against a field of onyx.

‘Yes.’

‘Then tell me what you wish done.’

. . .

“Risqué’s spell,” Euporie said, looking down at her hooves. Becoming a stallion had caused her to grow half a size. She was tall and well built, muscular, but with the same untamed blue mane. Now she had wild blue fetlocks to match. It was neat, but this was hardly her first time gender-swapping.

The scale of the spell, though?

“Alright, color me impressed! I admit it!” Euporie stamped a hoof in respectful applause. “Now! Time for me to play my part!”

She chuckled darkly and trotted past the shivering golden changeling from before. One of her guards had the creature pinned down, an extra precaution on top of the chains, but with a badly broken jaw Euporie doubted it would be causing much mischief. Besides, just as promised, Twilight’s spell was wreaking havoc on its ability to shapeshift. Likewise, she spared the ponies she had rescued before only a passing glance, just enough to be sure they had all transformed. Euporie Mosaic was not a cautious pony, but there was no harm in keeping a sample population around to make sure things were working as advertised.

“Lady Mosaic!” one of the former captives called out to her.

“What’s going on?” another cried. “My Lady!” “Lady, please, my foals are terrified!” “Shouldn’t we find a place to hide?” “Yes, hide! Good idea!” “Lady!”

“Stay back,” one of her guards growled, and the worried ponies continued to mill around. Euporie scoffed at their helplessness. It was truly pitiful. But that was why she was here.

“Don’t worry, everypony!” she answered the wretched mewling with a great, beaming smile. “Don’t worry! In a few minutes all that bad stuff you’re afraid of will seem as distant as the stars themselves! Trust me!”

Glad to hear something from her, they began to chatter amongst themselves over what she meant. Most seemed to think that she meant that the changelings were all going to leave or that the Princess would come and save them. A few called out to her in thanks. Euporie could almost feel their fear and panic begin to recede, just with a few encouraging words... but words meant little and she had no doubt that the moment a changeling flew overhead they would go back to screaming and panicking.

It was in their nature, and all creatures were slaves to their nature.

“Is it ready?” she asked, and a pair of unicorn mages in crimson robes bowed their heads at her approach.

“It is ready,” the one on the left replied.

“Thirty more seconds perhaps,” the second amended.

“Thirty more seconds isn’t so bad,” Euporie jumped in before they could argue such a minor point. “It looks good. Just like when we used it on Appleoosa. And the anticipation is giving me a nice little tingle.”

Reaching out, she ran a hoof along the surface of the iron edifice. Held within the carefully constructed iron framework was a purple crystal pedestal, all one solid block. The iron twisted and grew around it like tendrils of ivy. It wasn’t quite as fine as the legends said the Crystal Ponies of old could make, but Euporie thought it an elegant synthesis of the ancient and the modern.

Atop the pedestal... floated a crystal prism the color of clearest, flawless glass.

This was The Device. The first functional ‘crystal heart’ in a thousand years. The second one, the Triptych, was larger and even more powerful but this one was still beautiful. Still exceptional. Everypony in Canterlot and the surrounding lands would be within its power... and the Device’s Power was Euporie’s Power!

“I can feel it...!” Her hooves lustfully traced up the framework to hover over the slowly spinning prism. “That’s it, you want it, too, don’t you? Alright. Let’s do it, baby. Let’s do it... one more time.”

Her horn lit up with a dim, ethereal glow, and The Device began to assume the same color. There was no lightshow, like with Twilight Sparkle’s mega-spell. There didn’t need to be. Euporie could see the same glow spread, infectious, contagious, irresistible. She could see it in the eyes of her guards, and in seconds, she could see the glow in the eyes of the feeble ponies she had rescued.

She could see it in how their bodies tensed, their smiles turned into scowls. She could see it in their clenched hooves, their eagerly flapping wings, their horns with magic barely restrained. She could see it in how they looked around at each other, challenging, but just shy of fighting, directing that pent up frustration... that bottled up fear... that repressed rage... all at one convenient target.

Twenty pairs of eyes turned to the wounded changeling in the grass.

And, as promised, their fear and hesitation was long gone.

“My Lady?” the guard holding down the changeling inquired, her eyes glowing a dim red behind her pupils. “Is it time?”

Not bothering to look back, Euporie nodded, and the guard cut the changeling loose and tossed it over to the crowd of former captives. Not long ago, those same captives had cowered as the changelings of the Yellow Hive singled them out like trophies. Now they surrounded the wounded changeling like a pack of slavering wolves.

“You’ll pay for what you did to my wife!” One of the stallions gave in first. A burly earth pony, he jumped at the changeling, batting it with a powerful hoof, his strength even greater than normal.

“You monsters hurt my foal!” An angry mother was next. Her child had a bandage over her side where one of the yellows had ‘marked’ her with a scratch from a feline paw. The filly cheered as her mother hit the changeling next, kicking it with her back legs.

“You’ll pay for this!” another yelled. “That’s right!” “You’ll pay!” “You’ll all pay!”

The changeling was dead before the third pony had his turn and this only seemed to frustrate the angry mob. They didn’t want to kick around a corpse. They wanted their city back. They wanted their homes back. They wanted their lives back.

All they needed was a little push to go get it.

“Incredible,” one of the robed unicorns remaining next to the device commented. Her eyes were glowing, too. “I’d say we’re at two hundred and fifteen percent output compared to the Appleoosa experiment!”

“Two hundred and twenty,” the other unicorn argued.

“You there! Bring out the spears!” one of the guards commanded, cracking open a wooden crate of armor. “Give them whatever they want!”

“Aye!” another guard ripped open a crate, hurling steel-tipped lances onto the grass. “Take back your city, everypony!”

“Take back the city!” “Take back the city!” The crowd cried, scrambling to arm themselves. In the heat of the moment, their eyes aglow, a new chant began to emerge. “Death to the changelings!” “Death to the changelings! “Death to the changelings!”

“Yes.” A wild-eyed earth pony clenched a spear between her teeth.

“Death to the changelings!”

“Yes!” A mother and daughter pulled a pair of wing-blades out of a crate.

“Death to the changelings!”

“YES!” A grim-faced unicorn forced a magic blast out of her horn, warming up for the fight to come.

“Death to the changelings!”

“YES!” Euporie started to laugh, reckless and triumphant. “That’s the feeling! That’s the stuff!” She spun around, now utterly enveloped by her magic, bathed in the glow of the prototype crystal heart. “Do you feel that fire in your veins? That’s me!Do you hear that whisper in your ear? That’s me! Do you feel those strings holding you up? That’s me! Come on, everypony!”

Standing in front of the heart, she exulted in the power, in the rush. There was nothing like it!

Let’s get this party started!

Chapter Fifty Nine : Ascend

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Chapter Sixty : Pinkamena and Euphoria

(60)

Pinkamena and Euphoria

“Fight on!” Luna bellowed, landing with a crash and unleashing a torrent of midnight-blue fire from her horn. “Defend the cannons!” Her tail snapped, cracking like a whip as it swatted a diving yellow changeling out of midair. “Rally! Rally, friends! To us!”

A hundred more changelings, a mix of yellows acting as cavalry and greens at range, hesitated in their pursuit of the routed equestrian artillery ponies. The Princess alone was a threat that could not be ignored. The exposed earth pony gunners had been caught with the unlimbered cannons exposed, it should have been a simple matter to rout them - ponies typically had a much stronger flight impulse than fight - but they had held against the changeling attack long enough for reinforcements to begin to arrive.

Compared to just a few hours ago, the equestrian defenders were being uncharacteristically reckless. Reckless, but also frustratingly unshakable. Some fought on, kicking and screaming and biting, even with half their bodies paralyzed and cocooned. Hence what should have been a brilliant flanking attack turned into a pitched melee, and when that finally turned in favor of the changelings, this mad Princess showed up.

Changelings paused, hissed angrily, unsure what to do.

“The Princess is here!” the call began to spread as ponies turned and faced the changelings. “The Princess!” “Princess Luna!” “Make for the guns, girls and boys!” “Make for the guns!”

Rushing past them, an orange blur plowed into a pair of hesitant changelings.

“Heads up everypony! We ain’t done yet!” Applejack yelled, picking up a fallen standard in her teeth and rising it up for all to see.

“Heck no we ain’t!” A blue flash followed only a second behind, strafing into a mass of changelings before looping up and landing hard next to Princess Luna. She was followed moments later by a flight of pegasi. They were reinforcements from Cloudsdale, Fillydelphia, Manehattan, Deetrot, and a dozen other cities and towns, all answering the call to muster at their flying city and race to the defense of Canterlot. Some had flown hours only to be hastily assigned a flight and squadron and thrown at the city. They courageously harried the changelings from on high, relentlessly contesting the air superiority the shape-shifters had enjoyed over the previous twenty four hours.

Green changelings hissed orders and started to take to the sky to meet them... until a fusillade of magic missiles rained down into their ranks, knocking them back to the ground.

“We’re not too late!” Rarity cried, cresting the rise of a fallen airship’s hull. She was far from alone. A ragged, dusty, motley collection of unicorn nobles and their supporting retinues quickly flanked her, minus their usual trappings and finery but with all their deeply ingrained poise and elan. Their horns wafted in a rainbow of colors, primed to deliver another magical barrage at her order.

“For Equestria!” Rarity cried and spells beat down on the shocked changeling regiment. “For the Princesses!”

Helmeted changeling officers screamed orders of their own - to form up into squares, to erect shields, to break the wheels on the equestrian cannons - most of the well-drilled greens scurried to comply but their yellow comrades did not have their discipline or training. In twos and threes they rushed to engage the unicorns, bounding ahead like the feline predators they were. The reward for their unplanned initiative was to be hit from the side by the pegasi and Princess Luna. The Greens alone with a scattering of other colors tried to form up into protective tercios but the earth pony cannoneers counter-charged into their ranks, sowing confusion. The whole engagement quickly devolved into a wild melee, green blasts flying in every direction as everypony and everyling fought individual duels.

All while the noose tightened around their necks.

Unseen, overlooked in the confusion of battle, a faint red light glowed in the eyes of everypony present.

‘Me.’

. . .

DOOM

The subwoofer test rumbled ominously beneath her hooves. A second later and Vinyl Scratch lurched forward over her turntable as the Armored Party Wagon smashed through another burning carriage left abandoned in the middle of the street. Despite her earlier enthusiasm, mesmerized and seduced as she had been by the mobile assembly of flame-throwing speakers, it was just now really beginning to sink in that Pinkie Pie had dragged her off to yet another insane and possibly suicidal adventure.

DOOM

The steel plated wheels of the Party Wagon ground into the cobblestone streets of Canterlot. They were entering the middle tier, now, sometimes called the Merchant Quarter. By the Princess.

DOOM

The city here looked like it had been fought over by a whole migration of angry dragons. The smashed tower-libraries of mages stuck out over the skyline like dirty, broken teeth. On either side of the road, entire boulevards and shopfronts were in ruins. Fires burned out of control over much of the city, only kept in check by Canterlot’s nightmarishly strict building codes. It was built into the side of a mountain, after all, on top of a thousand years of magical unicorn fortifications.

Acrid smoke hung in the air, nonetheless, lending the morning a pall more appropriate for dusk or fading twilight. The buildings were by and large abandoned as ponies fled to shelters or were captured and cocooned, but here and there, Vinyl’s sensitive ears could make out the distant sounds of cannon fire and magical shot. To the east, past the strange floating gardens she and Pinkie had left behind, formations of tiny shapes spun in midair, chased, crackling with lightning. Sometimes, the ground would rumble, shaking bricks from building facades.

DOOM

“Subwoofer feeling good?” Pinkie Pie yelled from her perch atop the Party Wagon. Vinyl glanced back and saw her fiddling with the heavy-duty microphone built into her raised platform.

“Yeah!” Vinyl yelled back, lurching again as the wagon plowed through a crashed chariot, wheels crushing and snapping the golden cross-bar and yoke. “How’d you afford this, anyway?”

Pinkie Pie grinned, giddy despite the grim state of the city around them.

“Flim and Flam,” she answered, motioning to the two unicorn stallions to her left and right. Their emerald-hued magic powered and controlled the wagon.

“They built all this for you?”

“Euporie bound them to me during a party,” Pinkie explained. “But they’d have helped me anyway! Even without the contract!”

“Really? I’d ask how, but you always did have a way with guys, Pinks!”

Pinkie giggled, but didn’t deny it. She braced herself against the sides of her platform. “They didn’t like what Euporie did to them. She’s made a lot of ponies sad.”

“I’ll take your word for it!”

Vinyl’s ears twitched again, this time at the sound of something close by. She looked off to the right and saw a dark insect-like form flying through the air over the line of buildings: a changeling! For a few seconds, Vinyl Scratch just watched it fly through the air. The way it moved, it was so different from a pegasus. The wings buzzed behind it in a greenish blur, the wingbeats too fast for the eye to see. It glanced their way for a second and buzzed lower, out of sight.

A second later, and it re-emerged... with friends. Four more changelings flew behind it in close formation. One of them turned its head and fired off a burst of magic, not towards the wagon, but up into the air. The bolt of magic arced slightly and exploded into a spray of colors.

Vinyl belatedly realized what it was. “A signal...”

“Incoming!” Flam cried.

“I hope you guys built this thing as super tough and super strong and super magical as you promised you would!” Pinkie leaned all the way over her platform’s left side to tousle Flam’s mane, her body contorting in ways that would impress a gymnast. “Or we’re all gonna go to that big privately-catered party in the sky!”

“We had to use every last bit to our name,” Flam assured her.

“But every engineering limit we overcame,” Flim quipped, pulling a lever to accelerate.

“What happens next,” they said in unison, “is up to you.”

“No pressure there at all!” Pinkie Pie gleefully exclaimed, and tapped the side of her microphone. “Vinyl... can I get a beat?”

Nodding, forcing herself to tear her eyes away from the changelings flying parallel to the street, Vinyl floated out a record with a nice heavy bass. Pinkie had said to “go with your gut.” It looked like this whole nutty scheme was going to be flying by the seat of their pants improvization. A tough, repetitive beat rumbled out of the subwoofer and emanated from the huge array of speakers, sending an electric shiver of excitement, anticipation and sheer terror down the DJ’s spine.

“Here they come!”

The first changeling dove straight down, aiming to crash horn-first into the side of the roaring Party Wagon. Pinkie bounced on her hind legs and struck a ridiculous pose as it closed in, holding the microphone up to her mouth.

“Are we loud?!” she yelled, and a pair of speakers swiveled to follow her movements, unleashing a rippling sonic pulse through the air powerful enough to blast the diving changeling out of the sky.

“I said: are we loud?!” Pinkie yelled, bending over backwards and directing another pair of speakers straight up, to pick off a changeling with some sort of bomb. The sonic blast cracked open the grenade and set the explosives off prematurely, filling the air with fire.

Another blast intercepted a changeling as it tried to close in from behind. “Then let’s get louder!”

“Woof! Woof!” Pinkie barked, stamping her hoof in time with the rhythm and thoroughly enjoying herself as the Party Wagon smashed through another fallen chariot, buzzing changeling attackers closing in on both flanks.

“We don’t bite, but our bark is bad!” A pair of percussive blasts cracked the buildings, missing the two changelings to left and right as they went evasive. A third and fourth crisscrossed overhead, dropping grenades. An omni-directional pulse shimmered over a magical barrier as the explosives went off and the Party Wagon blasted through the cloud of smoke.

“Pony from the country!”

A series of sonic booms tracked the dodging changelings as Pinkie sang and pointed, impossibly aiming with her forelegs and tail.

“Adrenaline junkie!”

One of the changelings, a moment too slow, fell out of the air.

“Runt of the litter!”

A second made a sharp turn and zipped in to crash the wagon, head-on.

“But never a quitter!”

Pinkie leaned forward as she sang, in time with the beat, and a double-amped wave of sonic force buffeted the charging changeling. It resisted for all of a half second before being bowled over. It spun, pell-mell, tumbling like a rag doll into the crossed candycanes of a sweets store. Looking back, Vinyl saw Pinkie wince in sympathy but the pink pony didn’t falter in her singing or fighting. Vinyl knew Pinkie Pie wasn’t a violent pony by any means, she probably didn’t even want to hurt the changelings if she didn’t have to, but they had places to be and things to do and if the changelings got in the way then they’d get bowled over, it was as simple as that.

The Party Wagon rolled on.

Another signal went off as the Wagon raced down the blasted and burning streets of Canterlot, this one a glittering yellow. Vinyl barely had time to catch her breath before new shapes crested the rows of stores and apartments on the side of the road. These didn’t fly: they moved in leaps and bounds, jumping across gaps between the buildings with feline grace and confidence. The surviving pair of green changelings pulled up to take higher positions overhead.

“Drums!” Pinkie yelled over the pounding beat. “Vinyl! Up the tempo!”

Expertly switching tracks, going with her gut, Vinyl Scratch whipped out a fresh pair of beats. Behind and above her, Pinkie Pie leaned back as a set of drums inflated out of concealed plates in the floor of her platform. In seconds, they snapped into place. Reaching deep into her poofy mane, the party pony retrieved a pair of innocuous looking drumsticks, giving them a ceremonial twirl for good measure.

“You sure you can play those things?” Vinyl yelled over her shoulder.

“Pretty sure!” Pinkie replied, tongue lolling out as she surveyed the drums before her. “Which one is ‘C’ again?”

Before Vinyl could knock herself unconscious with a hoof to the forehead, Pinkie began to play - not just play, but wail on the drums like some kind of animal. The speakers of the Party Wagon thundered, just in time as the golden changelings began to pounce. Instead of attacking from different angles like the greens had before, they made up for their lack of strategy with numbers and sheer bloody minded tenacity.

Pinkie’s playing redirected the sonic magic in every direction, batting the bestial changelings out of the air mid-pounce or repulsing them before they could get a grip on the Wagon. Some were knocked unconscious when they fell, hitting the ground, bouncing off walls, even in one case slamming into a street lamp. Others landed on their hooves and started up the chase anew from behind.

“We’ve got a lot of groupies behind us!” Vinyl warned.

“Rotate!” Pinkie yelled over the roar of her own playing, and Vinyl almost jumped in surprise as Pinkie’s platform glowed with Flim and Flam’s magic. It lifted up, turned one hundred and eighty degrees, and then lowered right back down. All the time Pinkie kept playing and the speakers around her kept moving and blasting noise.

“Brother?” Vinyl just barely heard, but Flim raised his voice a moment later, “Brother!”

“I see it, Brother!” Flam yelled back.

“What? What do you...” Vinyl’s voice caught in her throat, muffled by the sight before her eyes. Lowering her trademark neon tinted shades down the rim of her nose, she stared.

There before them was more than just another obstacle blocking the street. An entire building had collapsed over the road, crushing some sort of giant worm. The titanic beast was crushed under tons of masonry, a triple-jaw splayed wide open in death and spilling grotesque tentacle-tongues out in every direction.

Beyond the fallen building, two other worms were still alive, dueling with a wing of enraged pegasi. One of the monstrous Tatzlwurms turned around, spied the incoming wagon, and bodily crawled right over the collapsed building and fallen comrade. Abandoning the fight with the pegasi guards, it zeroed in on the Party Wagon.

“Turn. Turn.”

Huge sinewy body undulating like a sea serpent’s, the Tatzlwurm began to pick up speed for a head-on collision.

“Guys?” Vinyl yelled back at Pinkie’s latest coltfriends turned conspirators. “Turn? Turn!”

Still, the Party Wagon rumbled on, until the Tatzlwurm literally filled the entire road. From the front of the wagon, Vinyl could see into the monster’s gaping tooth-filled maw. A dozen barbed tentacles writhed around in the fleshy jaw, snapping and eager to find purchase in soft ponyflesh.

“Turn! Turn! Turn! Turn!!” Vinyl screamed, and moment before they’d have collided with the multi-ton annelid the Party Wagon swerved sharply to the right. So sharply that Vinyl felt her hooves leave the floor and the entire armored wagon itself tilted bodily to the side.

There was a horrible squench as the Tatzlwurm missed the wagon, tried to turn and follow, and tumbled end over end. It ran right into the small swarm of golden changelings chasing down the wagon from behind with predictably messy results.

“Rotate!”

Pinkie Pie swung back around. Her mane was a frazzled mess, stray hairs sticking out at odd angles. A manic gleam in her blue eyes hinted at the chaos she’d left in her wake. Running her hooves briefly through her cotton candy mane, she jammed the drumsticks into her hair just long enough to pull out a can of whipped cream and spray a generous dollop onto her tongue. Slurping it down, buzzed by the pure sugar rush, Pinkie started playing again, her drums melding into the heavy beat of Vinyl’s records.

“Don’t look now!” Pinkie warned her.

“What do you mean don’t look n...” Vinyl glanced back, just in time to see the Tatzlwurm smash through a line of buildings and start down the side-road the wagon had just taken. “GAHH!”

“I told you not to look!” Pinkie giggled.

“Why are you always so literal?!”

Instead of a pack of changelings now, a whole damn Tatzlwurm was on their tail! Vinyl tried not to think about it and faced forward, except even there things conspired to give her an early heart-attack. There were yet more green changelings mustering in the sky overhead in this part of the city and with more signal flares entire units of them broke away to engage the equestrian Party Wagon.

“Guys! Time for some fireworks! Vinyl--”

“Right!” She switched in a new more triumphalist track and emphasized the undertones. In time with the beat, the Party Wagon disgorged clusters of streamers and licks of burning fireworks.

A dozen of them tore in every direction, seemingly at random, but magically guided by the sound and the magic in the music to home in on a changeling target and explode. For a brief and awe inspiring second, the sky lit up with a rainbow of sparkling, glittering lights. Embers from the closest salvo were still hot when they rained down on the speeding Party Wagon. A few of them even fizzled before Vinyl Scratch’s eyes, dimming as they neared her turntable.

Yet more changelings survived, dive-bombing recklessly through the barrage, their horns gathering magic as they accelerated into a crash course. Here, again, Pinkie’s frantic playing paid off: swatting the bombing bugs out of the sky to a furious tempo. Others, Flim and Flam avoided by swerving the Party Wagon left or right. The changelings that made it through and missed made craters in the cobblestone street when they crashed.

A few others were closer to the mark, ripping into or bouncing off of the Wagon’s barrier.

Abruptly, the Party Wagon veered left, wheels screeching and ripping up the road. A shadow briefly passed overhead, followed by a tremendous crash as the Tatzlwurm behind them plowed face-first into a corner deli.

“Not that thing again!” Vinyl cried, hooves covering her head as she groaned.

The Tatzlwurm ripped through the deli as if it was made of so much gingerbread, plowing through two other stores in a mad dash to catch up with the Party Wagon. They had turned down a narrow side-street, one that was barely wide enough to accommodate the armored wagon’s girth. Worse, all Vinyl could see was the front, not the threat from behind. She could hear it, though, even through the roar of the music and the pounding of Pinkie’s drums. She could hear the Tatzlwurm tearing through the buildings on either side of the alley as it gave chase, hear the crunch of masonry as it climbed bodily over the buildings it couldn’t rip right through.

Things got worse.

Trapped in the narrow side street, a pair of changelings dropped from above without warning, slipping right past the sonic blasts and the backup shield. One of them made a grab for Flam, identifying the unicorn and his glowing horn as the power driving the Party Wagon. The other landed a little off target and had to make due with trying to grab the wagon’s resident DJ.

“Freaky bug!” Vinyl yelled, swatting at the changeling as it tried to crawl over her turntable.

It hissed in response, bearing vicious looking teeth. A record crashed over the creature’s head, courtesy of Vinyl’s magic, but still it held onto the front of the wagon. “Pony!” it hissed, reaching for her despite her struggles. “Pony!”

“Pon3!” Vinyl yelled back, leaning over her workstation and hitting it on the side of the head with her hoof. The blow staggered the creature for all of a second, but it was long enough for her to pry one of its hooves loose. The changeling hissed in rage as it fell off the side, crunching against the wall of the side-street.

More hissing overhead heralded another pair of changelings also making a move.

“Hold on to something!” Flam warned, and Vinyl grabbed hold of her turntable.

Breaking out of the side-street and back onto a main road, the wheels on the left side of the Party Wagon braked, causing the entire thing to rapidly spin in place as it drifted forward. The world briefly became a disorienting blur and Vinyl, despite herself, cried out with a less than dignified, “Waa-haaaa!”

For a split second, she could see up and down the burning main street, but then the Party Wagon slipped back into the same side street, just as the other end of the intersection. They were now racing backwards, having thrown the changeling grapplers off with the sudden turn, their front to the oncoming Tatzlwurm.

“Play hard!” Pinkie yelled, still rocking to the music. “Party Harder!”

Vinyl nodded and put her hooves to the turntable. All their speaker power was directed forward now, right into the jaws of the Tatzlwurm chasing them. It smashed through another corner store, spilling streams of designer clothing through the air as it coiled and undulated. Pulses of sound buffeted it, most hitting straight on, others missing as it erratically crashed through the narrow side street.

“Harder!” Pinkie yelled, ducking a black tendril-tongue as it flailed like a whip.

Gritting her teeth, focusing on her talent and her magic, Vinyl felt an eerie calm come over her. Everything seemed to move in slow motion: the whip-like tentacles of the Tatzlwurm, the falling debris, the visible pulses of sound in the air. Even the time between breaths seemed impossibly long. Vinyl allowed herself a private little smile. She’d been in this place before... in this state of mind before... in the clubs when she played, when she was completely and utterly in tune with her surroundings and everypony listening to her.

Letting her instincts - her gut as Pinkie called it - take over entirely, a single pulse of sonic force, not even the most powerful, hit a fleshy brown lump inside the Tatzlwurm’s cavernous maw. In that same slow motion, the gigantic worm suddenly convulsed and tumbled end over end, a hundred hoof-lengths of flesh losing all coordination. Face planting into the street it turned into a rolling ball of muscle, driven forward through tons of accumulated momentum. Bricks, stonework and debris surrounded it like a cloud-like shell, buffeting anything in the fallen worm’s path.

The Party Wagon emerged from the side-street again, back-end first, swerved to the side and out of the way. The tumbling worm-corpse passed close enough for Vinyl to reach out and touch it as it passed by, her hoof reaching out...

Then the moment snapped, the world’s normal speed returned, and before Vinyl could blink the Tatzlwurm crashed into the other side of the street. It was a scene of utter destruction but there was no time to dwell on it. The Party Wagon spun around, wheels churning, accelerating anew.

The park!

This was it... this was their destination!

“We made it!” Pinkie said, and Vinyl glanced back at her. “We finally made it!” The pink party pony looked... she actually looked tired. Pinkie was leaning forward on her drums, an intense look in her eyes as she searched the border of the park.

Rolling closer, they soon saw their first pony.

It was a little earth pony colt with a spear gripped between his teeth. He was followed by more haggard looking ponies, all similarly armed. They were a far cry from the drilled and professional guards of Canterlot or the Free Companies; they were even further removed from the bellicose nobles of Equestria inured towards dueling, confrontation and even violence. These were just common ponies, ponies who on any other day might have been playing in this park or shopping in the stores that had so recently been trashed.

Still, what struck Vinyl the most was the haunted look in their eyes. Their expressions were hard, their eyes narrow with suspicion and anger, their jaws set as if ready to receive a blow at any time. They greeted the Party Wagon like it was an approaching dragon, except any pony with half a brain would run from a dragon. These ponies looked like they would rather charge right into the fire than give up their little patch of ground.

And... was it just her imagination... or were their eyes faintly glowing red?

But Pinkie had said--

“Euporie,” Pinkie said, straightening up.

“So this is it?” Vinyl asked aloud. She pointed past the ponies, into the park itself. “She’s in there?”

“She’s in there,” Pinkie answered, looking to Flim and Flam, the two unicorn tinkerers nodding in unspoken agreement. They could all feel it. Vinyl just felt nervous. Euporie Mosaic. That pony was as terrifying as a Tatzlwurm, all by herself.

“Take us in!” Pinkie ordered, standing on her hind legs and somehow tucking a hoof into her chest like it was an overcoat. “I made you a promise, Euporie... and come heck or high cholesterol Pinkie Pie always keeps her promises.”

. . .

Princess Instar lowered her binoculars in disbelief. “They’re... routing...?”

True, a rout had been just what they’d expected, but it was supposed to be the damned equestrians fleeing, not her own crack soldiers! It was self-evident that the Green Hive was the strongest of all the changeling hives and she, Instar, was the greatest of all the Green Princesses. Yet before Instar’s own eyes, she saw changelings fleeing against the orders of their officers. Officers appointed by her, and she, a Princess and true daughter of Chrysalis herself, Queen of Queens!

This couldn’t be happening.

Half the force she had now had been enough to utterly decimate the entire Red Hive in the Battle of the Shifting Fields back across the sea. Two regiments had been enough to scare the damned Yellows to the negotiating table. Instar had overseen both engagements. She had been born and bred for it: to lead changelings on the battlefield. It was why she was the First among Princesses. Her forces had bested changeling hives with five times her number, defeated monsters from the Sunset Lands, and even stood firm in the face of the cursed Ancient Ones of the changeling race! Their unstoppable army was more than sufficient to overwhelm any duchy or city in Equestria! they were the Unstoppable Swarm, the Will of Chrysalis made flesh!

This shouldn’t be happening. Changelings who had been victorious on every field were fleeing... from ponies! Mere ponies! Like lions fleeing from an army of sheep, it defied all reason and rationality!

Instar cursed under her breath.

“Train all free guns on Sweet Apple Acres!” She bellowed and the signal was quickly passed down the line to the artillery officer in command further behind the lines. “Suppress that entire area! Smash it to pieces!”

Raising her binoculars back up she saw downrange where the damned Terre Rare were securing the strategically important farm just outside town. Arrayed to her flanks, secured and fortified atop buildings and other good ground, changeling cannons thundered in a staggered barrage, hitting the positions that the Queensguard Sixth Regiment had fled from. The artillery quickly put a halt to pursuers running down the routed changelings but that didn’t change the fact that they had disgracefully surrendered that wing of the battlefield.

They had also lost Princess Spiracle, who had been leading the Sixth in securing the high ground of the apple orchard. Spiracle had been a minor princess of the swarm, but a true-born princess and sister nonetheless, and she had gone down fighting moments before her regiment broke and fled. On top of all that, the failure to hold Sweet Apple Acres meant that they had lost all but one road out of town. Instar watched impassively as changeling sappers blew up the lone little bridge between the orchards and the village, passing over a small meandering stream. If they couldn’t use the road at least they could deny use of it to the enemy.

Still.

“They are surrounding us,” Instar hissed to herself.

The great army of Her Highness, Chrysalis, the Queen of Queens, was being caught in a pocket. At which point the only escape would be up, to the air, which would mean abandoning their entire train of supplies, weapons, cannons and more. The army would be reduced to little more than a mob.

To the west, and against all odds, Blueblood Manor still stood overlooking the town. Attack after attack after attack there had been beaten back by the desperate defenders, town militia, royal guards, and the Free Company Dove and Cross employed by Baroness Rarity. The ground was strewn with the fallen like a rotting green and black carpet. Over a night and a morning changeling artillery had gradually pounded down the reinforced walls and magical barriers leaving the manor a skeletal ruin but still ponies hid behind the masonry and in the cellars, fighting like lunatics for their friends and families.

Every demand for surrender had been met with the same laconic response: “Nuts.”

Whatever that meant. Some sort of code for “never” obviously. Damned ponies!

Now the forces of Germaney and Prance were set up in a crescent outside town, having pushed the changelings back ever closer to town with repeated assaults. Princess Furcula and the Fifth and Fourth were being ground down to powder fighting to hold the southern flank amid the farms and open fields. One bloody wheat field had exchanged hooves three times according to the last reports sent from the lines there. Worse still, Instar’s scouts had detected Cloudsdale forces mustering in the rear. There was evidence that the Wonderbolts of all things were among them. The Wonderbolts were showponies, weren’t they? Racers and stunt-flyers! Were the pegasi really committing these spineless celebrities to an actual battle? Regardless, additional forces would have to be detailed to protect the rear and the baggage and to keep the pegasi from linking up with the southern front.

“Princess!” a changeling beside her cried, pointing back. “Princess! Look!”

Instar turned and saw the roiling clouds forming behind her army, right over the only remaining road out of town, the one that just so happened to meander past the twice-cursed Everfree Forest. Cloudsdale. Pegasi. Electric arcs crackled ominously amid the rising, darkening thunderhead and a pair of nascent twisters began to descend like claws from heaven. Tiny specs danced and flew amid the killer weather, directing it, channeling it, enhancing it, riding it.

“Pegasi. Send the rest of our skirmishers in to disrupt them!” Instar ordered, and after a moment’s consideration, settled on one last extreme measure. “Ready the First Queensguard and signal my personal guard as well. I will break the Cloudsdale forces myself! Wait for my signal and begin an orderly withdrawal! The Queen’s Army must survive this debacle!”

. . .

Miles away, the newly minted Captain of the Wonderbolts readied her comrades.

“Even out that tornado!” Spitfire yelled over the din of whipping, roaring winds, her mane beating wildly against her back. She had to signal with her forelegs, but pegasi were trained since flight academy to read signals from their superior officers, even in the middle of a storm. It was all about teamwork. That was the pegasi way.

“Misty Fly! Spread out the lightning! Spread! Don’t cross the streams!” She directed her fellow Wonderbolt expertly, waving with her right foreleg. Just the same, she could see and read the signal from one of her peers to turn around. Glancing back, the Wonderbolt Captain saw the approaching changeling swarm.

There were... a lot of them.

By the Princess, there were a whole heck of a lot of them!

Ponyville literally teemed with the buggers and from on high Spitfire could see most of the battlefield spread out below. Four thousand ponies were down there fighting six thousand changelings across fifteen square miles, and now it looked like one of those six thousands was taking wing and heading in her direction. This far away, it was like watching a cloud of parasprites, except once they were closer, it would become clear that every one of those little black specks was a pony-sized monster out for blood. These monsters were organized, too.

“Like us,” Spitfire whispered to herself, seeing formations within the thousand-strong changeling swarm. “Just like us...”

But there was no time to dwell on that sobering realization.

“It looks like they don’t want to wait for us,” Spitfire yelled to her teammates nearby. Despite her concerns, a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. Her blood was pumping, yes, with a little fear, but also with anticipation. It brought to mind a name and face, one Spitfire hadn’t ever expected to see again.

‘Ritter, by all that’s holy, you’d have loved this,’ she thought, but quickly banished the distraction.

Spitfire turned to her right and flicked her tail. Soarin saw it and flicked back. He’d have the Wonderbolts assembled before the changelings hit them. The hastily assembled Cloudsdale Cavalry would be able to handle things themselves under their own officers. They would be looking to the Wonderbolts for courage and inspiration.

For the first time in more than a century, the Wonderbolts were going to fight together, as a team.

None of them noticed the faint red glow in their eyes.

‘Still me.’

. . .

Underground.

“I know this magic,” Princess Celestia murmured, a distant look in the one violet eye not obscured by her mane. “Crystal pony magic...? But how? Who?”

“So that’s the Queen?” “Kill her!” “Hang her!” “Let us at her!”

“Gentle stallions, good mares,” Blueblood tried to placate the mob of ponies. “Please, understand, we need her alive...”

“She’s a monster!” An irate mare tried to push past the thin line of Royal Guards. Forelegs flailing, she was not exactly gentle in trying to beat her way through the guards to get at Chrysalis.

“Ma’am, please! OW! My eye!”

“My dear, please refrain from bruising this young lad,” Blueblood said softly, trying to talk her and the others down while keeping safely out of pummeling range.

“Hey! I’m not a ‘lad,’” Flash Sentry objected, rubbing the bruise on his face and eliciting a chuckle from his older guardspony comrades. He trotted out of the line and sat down protectively between the angry ponies and the corner of the cellar where Cadance despondently tended to the still-comatose Shining Armor. Her color had paled, the result of her suffering from a fraction of the love poison coursing through Shining’s veins, but the Princess of Love had refused to leave her husband-to-be or to suffer anywhere but by his side.

“You can’t keep her from us!” A bedraggled looking stallion yelled, glowering over the shoulders of another guard. “It isn’t right! She needs to pay!”

“She shall,” Blueblood promised, more than a little anxious at the chaos this had become. “You have my word as a Prince and as a stallion. And yes, I know I do not appear to be a stallion at the moment, but still, you have my word!”

Just getting Chrysalis back to their little underground shelter should have been the hard part. All the ponies they had freed from cocoons in Cadance’s original escape were taking refuge there, but they were exhausted, mentally and physically. Surely they wouldn’t cause trouble, or so the thinking had gone. The truth was, nopony, Prince, Princess or Bridesmaid had really considered what the ponies here would think when the royals returned with their unexpected prize. Certainly, nopony had foreseen that the bedraggled former-captives would try and rip the changeling Queen limb from limb the moment they realized who she was.

“As if trash like you are fit to judge me,” Chrysalis hissed in their general direction. Despite her handicap, she fearlessly laughed at the angry mob and favored them with a mocking smirk. “Don’t make me laugh!”

Blinded and bound, the changeling Queen been left under the capable control of Miss Heartstrings. She couldn’t use magic or hurt anypony, not physically, but they’d been unable to do anything to fix her wagging, vile excuse for a tongue. Even under these circumstances, with a thin and weary line of ponies being the one thing keeping her from being killed by a much larger crowd of other ponies, her victims, she just couldn’t resist spitting her special brand of poison. Damn her.

“She has to pay!” Another mare-turned-stallion yelled, and this one Blueblood recognized.

It was Twilight Velvet.

“Evil must be punished,” Velvet declared, and more than a few took up the call. She (currently a he) was Twilight Sparkle’s mother... and an archmage of considerable skill. If she tried to use magic to get at Chrysalis, then things could get very messy. Very, very messy!

“My dear mare,” Blueblood tapped into his most charming and disarming tone of voice. Like before, it was rather ruined by his currently being a mare thanks to Twilight Sparkle’s remarkable new spell. “Please, friends, nobles, country-ponies, consider the situation... I’ve explained why we need her alive several times now. Auntie?”

He turned to his aunt and Princess. Celestia had been quiet for a while now, glaring down at her hooves and lost in thought. “Auntie, maybe a word or two? Something to put minds at ease?”

Celestia seemed to snap out of some sort of funk.

“Nephew?” She glanced up at him. “Yes. Yes, of course.”

Narrowing her eyes at him, she took a breath and trotted over. Even as a stallion, her grace, stature and poise brought everypony to attention, even the most irate members of their little lynch mob. For his part, Blueblood was just glad to see her looking more hale and hearty than when they’d first left. Her physical wounds were the blemishes, the only ugly scars, on her otherwise perfect self.

Scars left on his dear Aunt by the damned Changeling Queen, come to think of it...

The same one at their, at his, mercy. True, they needed Chrysalis alive, but that did not mean her cruelty and evil couldn’t go unpunished. Perhaps Twilight Velvet had a point. Cadance had already seen fit to remove one of the evil Queen’s wings. Who knew what else she could survive having removed? Perhaps it was time to find out? They could start with her--

“Calm yourself, nephew,” Celestia said, softly, snapping the Prince out of his dark thoughts. He blinked, surprised and a little disoriented. Celestia was resting her wing on his shoulder comfortingly.

“What?” he asked, blearily.

“A spell has been cast, above and beyond that used by Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia explained, and leaned in closer to her nephew. “I can see it in your eyes... this is crystal pony magic, the use of a device to magnify and control emotions. How or who is doing it, I can not say, but I can see it.”

‘That’s me. Me. Me. Me!’

. . .

“Prince, Princess, Peasant, you’re all just puppets in the end,” Euporie said to herself, eyes closed as she sat in front of the prototype crystal heart. In her mind’s eye, she could see - or rather sense - some ponies more strongly than others.

It was not a sensory perception tied to magical strength, but to emotional sensitivity. Stretching out her senses into the crystal heart, she could feel how it resonated. The power of the heart was to make a sympathetic connection with ponies. In ancient times, this had been used to spread love and goodwill throughout Equestria and the Crystal Empire.

When Prince Sombra declared himself King and turned to darkness, the legends say he perverted the original Crystal Heart to spread hatred and anger. Other, less jaundiced accounts, say that he tried to use the heart to sap the independence and joy from ponies in order to make them more obedient and compliant. Having read both accounts, Euporie was inclined to believe the latter. Sombra’s own writings were notable for his reverence for an orderly society, a clockwork kingdom that was flawless and eternal like unblemished crystal.

To ward off strife and dissent, Sombra used the heart of the nation to try and turn ponykind into drones and cogs in his machine. First he did this to his own Empire, then, he tried to extend it to the rest of the world. Of course, the Princesses stopped him, ending the alliance that had existed between the Crystal Empire and Equestria at the time. But that was the sad story of Prince Sombra.

“That won’t happen to me,” Euporie said to herself, chuckling at the comparison future ponies might make between them. There were no mighty and immortal Princesses to intervene now. Luna was up and about, valiantly fighting the changelings, but the chance of her tracking down or even detecting the crystal pony magic was negligible; only party-type ponies were so attuned. As for Celestia, nopony knew where she was, but the former Lady of the Sun wasn’t at full power anymore. Neither of them would be crashing this party. Neither of them could stop the new blood-soaked dawn that was to come.

Still, there was one potential problem heading her way.

“This one... the one getting closer,” Euporie said softly, scowling even as her eyes remained firmly closed in concentration. It could only be one pony. “I’ll make you regret coming after me...” Only one pony would dare. “Pinkie Pie.”

. . .

The Party Wagon’s speakers boomed an upbeat remix of one of Pinkie’s own standby Get-the-town-hopping songs.

Luckily, Pinkie Pie kept a stash of them around in Canterlot as well as Ponyville, just in case of Ballad Emergencies. After all, you never knew when you’d have to break into a song and dance routine to save the day from evil. ...or to convince ponies to eat at Sugar Cube Corner because tomorrow was Cocoa Tuesdays. But that last one didn’t really count. Mister Cake was just really enthusiastic about advertising ever since he went to that convention in Baltimare.

The beat was entirely instrumental, but in her head, Pinkie had thought up a few potential lyrics to it to use down the road. Maybe something about smiling? Or candy! Oh! Or balloons! Or balloons made out of candy that you could eat. Was that even possible?!

Plucking her trusty pink notepad out of her mane, Pinkie jotted down a reminder for later.

“Note to self,” she scribbled in incomprehensible shorthand decipherable only to Pie-kind. “Edible balloons? Floating candy? What sort of taste goes well with helium? Look into it!”

Stashing the pad and pen back into her mane, Pinkie tried to clear her thoughts. What had she been narrating to herself about again?

‘Ballad Emergencies.’

Oh yeah!

You never could tell when you’d need to break into song and dance.

‘You thought that already.’

We did?

Pinkie shook her head, stray thoughts falling out her ears. It was hard to think sometimes... or maybe it was too easy to think sometimes? It was hard to think about just one thing.

Vinyl glanced back over her shoulder and Pinkie smiled down at her encouragingly. She stuck out her hoof - hoof’s up! - but Vinyl didn’t seem to know what that was. The offbeat DJ arched an eyebrow at the strange gesture, probably dismissed it as ‘Pinkie being Pinkie’ (a common enough sentiment that Pinkie herself was aware of it) and went back to the records and the music.

She was doing a great job! Pinkie did want to make sure she knew that. Vinyl was great, and a super fun pony to hang out with and be friends with. They’d both come a long way since college.

‘Yes, college.’

Vinyl was from Ponyville but she’d gone to a music school in Canterlot and roomed with some grumpy cello girl Pinkie didn’t know very well. Pinkie had taken all of two courses there too, to train to be a better Party Pony, and she and Vinyl had hit it off right from the word ‘GO!’ They both loved to party; they both loved to get a crowd jumping and happy, Pinkie just focused more on the party thing and Vinyl worked the music angle. But that was fine.

Every party pony did it a little differently after all.

Some focused on parties as a way of keeping their town happy and harmonious. Others were more into music and concerts. Others jumped at the chance to entertain with cultured plays or festive shows or hilarious comedy or awe-inspiring magic. All of them felt the same calling deep in their hearts to a greater or lesser degree. Privately, Pinkie liked to think of it as Equestria’s most important and least formal sisterhood... or was that least unimportant and most informal?

Anyway; Vinyl was great, and she was doing a great job keeping them from being torn apart by the angry mob that surrounded the Party Wagon on all sides. There was that, too.

Pinkie smiled brightly at the crowd that slowly parted before the oncoming wagon.

The park here was stocked full of ponies who had fled from other parts of Canterlot. Many had been given some weapons and whipped into a frenzy to fight the changelings. Pinkie wasn’t sure why: why Euporie was doing this, why she had (probably) been told to do this, or anything like that. What was important was that in her gut, in her instincts, she knew it was a bad thing. That it was wrong. That something had to be done about it.

‘If these ponies fight the changelings like this, a lot of them will die,’ the thought was rational and reasoned. ‘You know that much.’

It was more of her own thoughts, really, but sometimes they sort of lingered like a sweet smell in the corner of her brain and it almost seemed like she had two thoughts rattling around in her skull at the same time. Pinkie thought about that a second. Then again, maybe it was because the smarter stuff, being deeper, heavier thoughts, bounced around a bit - that way it was still floating around when she’d already moved on to new material. Who knew?

“This is a rough crowd!” Vinyl yelled over her shoulder. “But at least they’re not glaring at us anymore!”

“Yep!” Pinkie agreed with a smile and turned to her left and right. “Hey Flimmy! Flammy! You guys like the beat right?”

Flim snorted dismissively.

“We prefer showtunes,” Flam explained, reaching up to his (currently her) face and looking dejected about the lack of a moustache. “Plus a little of the old razzle dazzle to get the crowd going!”

“Ohh! Showtunes are super fun, too! When this is all over, we should totally put on a show together!” Pinkie smiled at him and Flam quickly blushed and turned away.

“D-don’t do that when you’re a stallion!” he-turned-she grumbled. Flam’s horn flickered with viridian light as he kept control over the Party Crasher 10000. “Just be sure to keep focused on what’s ahead. Once you get to Euporie, I’m not sure how much help we’ll be.”

“You guys have already been a huge help,” Pinkie assured them, throwing a big smile Flim’s way, too. The clean-shaven brother rolled his (her) eyes and kept focused on driving.

“Yes, well,” Flim groused, “it isn’t like we had that much choice, given the circumstances. We’ll keep the crowd here under control. You just try not to die. I’d rather not risk reverting back to her control.”

Pinkie giggled girlishly, a strange sound coming from a stallion’s body. “Don’t worry! I totally know what I’m doing!”

“Really?”

“Nope!”

Flim groaned, but didn’t waver in his piloting of the Party Wagon. Pinkie reached way over and gave him a playful pat on the head for good luck. That done, her course well and truly set, she relaxed and rested her front legs over the lip of her platform atop the Party Wagon. They were almost there, and all without having to blast anypony with wubs or fireworks or a party cannon either! Super! Everything had gone just super so far!

In fact, Vinyl’s remixes even seemed to be warming up some of the ponies surrounding them on either side. The sight of a little filly starting to smile nearly broke Pinkie into a giggling fit. The glow in their eyes was fading as the music lifted their spirits. It wouldn’t make the fighting in Canterlot disappear - Pinkie wished it could - but it would clear ponies hearts so that if they fought, they fought for the right reasons.

‘Well, well, that was actually rather insightful. Bravo.’

“Thank you, brain.”

‘Yes, well, don’t start talking to yourself now. Ponies will stare.’

Oh yeah.

Pinkie’s mood, upbeat by default, flagged slightly as a sudden lance of anger struck her. A discordant tone entered the melody of her heart, foreign and sour like a bad note trying to spoil the whole song.

The source of it was straight ahead.

Euporie’s ponies had erected a pavilion around her in the center of the park here. Beneath the canopy of festive blue and white canvas tents she had stacked up loads of weapons and other equipment. Guardponies moved slowly around the perimeter, protecting the other approaches and the sky beyond from changeling attack. Cannons, not of the party variety, pointed at likely avenues of attack. Strange glowing spires stuck into the ground like lamp-posts crackled with strange magic spells.

On top of all that, stretched out between the Party Wagon and the central pavilion was a slowly parting crowd of ponies of all shapes and sizes. Like parting a sea, they retreated to the sides and sat or lay down to watch the confrontation that was to come. It looked like they were going to have an audience for their duel. Pinkie was not oblivious to the irony. It hadn’t been all that long ago when Monee had expressed her annoyance at Pinkie bringing most of Ponyville to watch her fight Rarity.

Past the rows of ponies, Euporie trotted out into the open, naked and unencumbered.

“Pinkie Pie,” she said, not yelled, and yet Pinkie, Vinyl, Flim and Flam could all hear her a quarter the length of a hoofball field away. “That music of yours is ruining my little party.”

“Heya Euporie!” Pinkie greeted her with a sunny smile. “You don’t like Vinyl’s music?”

“Everypony’s a critic,” the DJ quipped.

“Anyway!” Pinkie was still bubbly, still smiling, still bright eyed as she faced the flowing Euporie. “I totally came to stop you! Just like I said I would!”

“So you did,” Euporie agreed, and lowered her head enough to hide her expression. Her wild blue mane began to vibrate, her horn thrumming with raw magic. “You’re the type who always keeps her promises, no matter how crazy they are.”

“That’s right! That’s right!” Pinkie agreed, yelling into the microphone so everypony could hear her. “You totally get it!”

“I do. I keep my promises, too.” Euporie looked up and her eyes were wild and savage beneath the spreading pool of magic emanating from her horn. “And I promised to kill you... so that’s what I’m going to do!”

Pinkie pronked away from the Party Wagon a second before a lance of blue-white magic roared, punching clean through Flam’s magical barrier, popping it as easily as a needle ripping through the skin of a balloon. Pinkie hit the ground and cartwheeled away as a second blast carved a bleeding furrow in the soil, blades of grass and steaming chunks of dirt pelting dozens of ponies watching the fight.

“Keep playing!” Pinkie yelled one last request to Vinyl Scratch.

No matter what, she had to keep playing. Looking back Pinkie saw the DJ covering her head with her hooves, visibly shaken by the fact that Euporie’s magic was strong enough to hit her. The upper platform of the Party Wagon was simply gone - blown to smithereerns. And wasn’t that a funny word? Smithereens!

“Don’t stop for anything!” Pinkie didn’t dare linger on Vinyl or the Flim-Flam brothers for too long. Euporie was braced, all four legs firmly planted on the ground as she channeled magic into her horn. Just like Twilight.

‘Exactly.’

Luckily, Vinyl swapped in a funky track with a nice bounce to it. Pinkie used it, timing her own pronks as she evaded the spears of unicorn magic from the snarling Euporie. Any rational pony watching this fight, if it was a fight, would think it was no contest: Euporie Mosaic was, by all accounts, a genius at magic, like Twilight or Monee. But unlike Antimony, she also had a lot of raw power to throw around, though probably a lot less experience using it in combat. Either way, Pinkie Pie was just a silly party pony from Ponyville. There was no way she could take Euporie Mosaic in a fight.

Luckily, super-duper luckily, this wasn’t a fight.

‘Or, rather, the moment you think of this as one is the moment you’ll lose.’

“Silly brain, just sit back and watch the show!” Bouncing forward, her eyes widened as Euporie’s next beam split in two. “Eeepp!”

Sucking in her gut as she stood upright, Pinkie’s profile narrowed at the middle and expanded at the top. The forked blast passed right past her, missing by inches and exploding as it hit the ground. A pair of ponies too close to the blast cried out in surprise as they tumbled away from the blast.

“How did...?” Euporie hissed. “That should’ve...!”

“Should’ve what?” Pinkie wondered, letting out the breath she’d been holding and returning to her normal shape. “I should warn you: I never lose in a game of tag!”

“Annoying. I can see Berkelium's Blinding Beam isn’t up to task, so what about Berkelium's Blinding Ball?” Euporie asked, and the next swell of magic coalesced into a ball of blue fire.

The ball shot from her horn like a cake out of a cannon, but it was still slower than the beam had been. Pinkie jumped again to avoid it and the ball hit the ground with another ear-shattering boom, blasting out a crater large enough to turn into a sandbox. Even before her hooves hit the ground, though, Euporie was summoning up energy for a second ball. The second released with even more force than before, eliciting a wince from the unicorn who had to brace her hooves and keep still to unleash it.

Flattening herself like a pancake, Pinkie narrowly avoided the second blinding ball. She was in mid-pronk when a light from behind caught her eye. One blue eye glanced back and identified the source of the fire: it was the ball. Somehow, it had turned around and started chasing her.

“Berkelium's Blinding Ball is different than her beam!” Euporie explained, firing off a third round. “Bounce all you like! You won’t escape!”

“No way!” Pinkie yelled back, smiling brightly. “I love dodgeball!”

Abruptly hopping backwards, she spun in a tight spiral, grabbing the first blinding ball with her hooves. Hitting the ground with a spray of grass and dirt like a spinning pink top, Pinkie served low and underhoof, tossing the ball back the way it had first come. Euporie’s eyes widened in surprise, the third blinding ball just leaving her horn... when the first blasted past her, missing by inches and scuffing the side of her left cheek.

For a moment, Euporie just stared, incredulous, the scrape on her cheek hot and raw.

“How?” she snarled between clenched teeth.

“As long as you can catch the ball, you can send it back!” Pinkie cheerfully explained, grabbing the second ball out of the air with lightning quick hooves. She spun in place again and threw this one back over-hoof.

“No!” Euporie growled, intercepting the second blinding ball with a blinding beam that broke it apart before it could get too close. “No! This isn’t dodgeball!”

“It isn’t?” Pinkie asked, grabbing hold of the third ball and holding it overhead. She turned to the vibrating pulse of raw arcane energy in her left hoof and turned her eyes to rest on Euporie. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t know how you’re doing that,” Euporie answered, and dodged to the side as Pinkie threw the ball back at her. “And I don’t care,” she added, starting to gallop forward. “I’ll just crush you with my own hooves!”

“Sounds like fun!” Pinkie cheered, also breaking into a fast trot. “Let’s do it!”

A little predictably, Euporie spun around at the last second and tried to buck with her hindlegs. Pinkie neatly sidestepped the old earth pony trick only to come face-to-face with a rather sharp looking horn. In which case calling it ‘face-to-horn’ was probably more accurate, right?

“Yipes!” Pinkie spun away, Euporie’s horn just barely nicking her forehead.

“You may be an earth pony, but don’t think you have an advantage in a hoof-fight!” Euporie roared and a vortex of magic encapsulated her right front hoof. Standing on her back legs, she delivered a precise backhand that knocked Pinkie flat onto her back.

“I’m a prodigy in every sense of the word! A genius! And what are you? NOTHING!” Euporie was triumphant, her left hoof - also enshrouded with magical power - descending to cave in Pinkie’s pretty pink tummy. Which was totally not cool. Without her tummy, how would she eat stuff?

“Whoops, missed!” Pinkie twisted to the side at the last moment, Euporie’s hoof hitting the ground with a crash. The ground beneath Pinkie’s back cracked, buckled and ruptured.

“Impossible... I hit you...” Euporie fell back a step, still balancing on her hind legs. “How are you even conscious?”

“That’s a silly question!” Pinkie replied, flipping back onto her hind legs as well. “Let’s wrestle!”

“Pink idiot!” Euporie snarled, eyes aglow with magic and rage. Her enshrouded hoof slammed into Pinkie’s chest, a pulse of spent magic blasting away from the point of impact with enough force to rip into the grass at their hooves.

“Blue meanie!” Pinkie retorted, unfazed by the blow. With her own right front hoof, she swung a wild and lazy haymaker at her opponent. It was a blow a a ‘genius’ pony like Euporie saw coming a mile away.

She sneered and moved just enough out of the way to contemptuously dodge the hit.

“Grrgh!” Euporie Mosaic spat, stumbling backwards. Even with her cheek red from the blow, there was confusion and surprise written all over her features. She knew she’d been hit, but couldn’t understand why or how.

Averting her stumble with a hard step, Euporie raised her hooves up to protect her face.

“What the... what was that? How did you hit me?” Euporie didn’t wait for an answer, she surged back into the attack. “I won’t fall for your stupid tricks!”

“They aren’t stupid!” Pinkie yelled back, swinging her hoof like an amature boxer. Euporie was a second too fast. Another empowered blow slammed into Pinkie’s midsection, and a second took her across the jaw. She stumbled, regained her balance, and hit back. Again, Euporie saw the attack coming and tried to effortlessly dodge it. Pinkie’s hoof passed by her nose, missing entirely.

And again, Euporie winced as something hit her in the face.

Driven into a towering fury by the blow and by her inability to see how Pinkie was doing it, Euporie focused entirely on her attack: trying to beat down her enemy before her enemy could do the same. Pinkie juked left and right, trading impossible blows with the unicorn prodigy. Any one of Euporie’s attacks should’ve sent Pinkie flying, or at the least knocked sense into her--

‘Good luck with that.’

--but none did.

Ducking under another blow, Pinkie slammed her right hoof into Euporie’s chest, put her left to the small of her back, and lifted her up off her hind legs. With a grunt and a heave, she picked Euporie up and bodily slammed her down to the earth. As her back hit the ground, Euporie’s magic cracked and lost cohesion, the enchantments on her hooves shattering and violently buffeting her with an arcane backlash.

“This...” she groaned through clenched teeth. “This can’t be...”

“And now! The Dreaded Pink Elbow!” Pinkie fell to earth herself, slamming her elbow into Euporie’s alabaster-white midriff in the process. The genius unicorn gasped at the force behind the silly looking strike - it had knocked the air out of her!

“The three count!” Pinkie announced, fumbling for one of Euporie’s legs.

“Get off me!” Euporie kicked Pinkie away, her voice hoarse. Slowly rising up, trying to get her bearings, she watched with confusion as Pinkie backed away.

It was almost like she was pushing against something. Then Pinkie sprang forward like a rocket, head lowered like a battering ram. Euporie conjured a magical barrier in response.

Except Pinkie passed right through it.

A mat of wild pink hair filled Euporie’s vision as Pinkie crashed into her, knocking her off her hooves. It very nearly knocked her back onto the ground, but Euporie Mosaic was no normal pony. She stumbled back, spun around, but kept on all four legs. Breathing heavily now, she glared accusingly at her opponent.

“Hey now,” Pinkie warned her, grinning as her poofy mane - the same in her own body or a stallion’s - bounced back into shape. She wagged a hoof as if to admonish Euporie’s bad behavior. “No fancy magic in a wrestling match! That’s cheating! Like using a steel chair! You don’t wanna be a heel, now do you?”

“This... I told you! This isn’t a game!” Euporie tensed to leap at her opponent--

“Wait. This isn’ta game,” she repeated, cutting herself short. Reaching up, Euporie wiped a bit of spittle away from her lower lip with the back of her right hoof. For a moment, she just stood in place, looking at Pinkie but also looking past her, thinking, remembering...

‘She’s going to figure it out.’

Figure what out?

‘Figure out why you aren’t a smear of pink paste right now.’

OOOHHHH. Wait, what?

‘Do something you idiot! We should do something! Tell Vinyl to blast her! Order Flim and Flam to do something!’

Can’t.

‘Of course you can.’

Nope. Rules are rules. If you don’t follow the rules of a game, you’re a cheater.

“I get it now!” Euporie interrupted Pinkie’s internal narrative. She eyed Pinkie warily, like a mongoose would a particularly venomous snake it was trying to size up for a meal.

“You!” she declared, pointing accusingly with her hoof. “You’re like Eunomie. Except where Eunomie can control an area with a magical contract, you do it by treating things like a game!”

“A game?” Pinkie asked, blinking a few times.

“That’s right!” Euporie explained, and her smile widened as she saw she was onto something. “And don’t you even try to play dumb! When you caught my blinding ball, you said it was because this was a game of dodgeball. When we fought, you hit me without hitting me because it was wrestling. And my blows didn’t hurt you like they should have for the same reason! And before that, you said you were playing tag, avoiding my magic.”

‘Well. We’re boned.’

Quiet brain. I wanna hear this.

Euporie stood back up on her hind legs and began to laugh, just a little at first, and then uproariously. Raising her hooves up to her face she laughed.

“Oh, Princesses! What irony! What stupidly... unlikely... improbably... BAD LUCK!” Euporie roared, her laughter abruptly cutting out. She looked down at Pinkie with an expression of mixed amusement and anger, her upper lip curled in a sneer and her amber eyes wild and savage.

“Bad luck?” Pinkie asked. “Who?” She looked around and eventually pointed to herself. “Me? How do I have bad luck?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Euporie asked and snorted mockingly. “I bet you’ve gone your whole life taking advantage of your ability, treating everything like one big game in order to gain advantage. To play to your strengths! Very crafty! Very clever!” Euporie clopped her hooves together, still standing on her hind legs. “But today, you ran into one of the few ponies not only able to figure you out but who knows just how to beat you. That’s why you’re unlucky!”

“Oh.”

“Indeed!”

“Hmm.” Pinkie tilted her head cutely, thoughts bubbling around in her head. “I guess you could see it that way... but actually, I think I’m super lucky.”

“Do you?” Euporie inquired, laughing softly. “And why’s that?”

“Because!” Pinkie smiled brightly, and the gesture alone was enough to wipe the mocking grin off Euporie’s face. “Because I finally met somepony who knows me and understands me.” Pinkie’s smile broadened as she explained, “The truth is, I didn’t know that thing you just said: about me using games and stuff. Maybe I knew on a subconscious level, but I never really understood how any of it worked. I was just me and things happened because they happened.”

By now, Euporie’s smile was gone, replaced with a blank stare. “You... didn’t know...?”

“Nope!” Pinkie shook her head. “Twilight tried to figure it out, once, but after a while she decided it was just me being me and gave up. Actually, I was kind of happy at first that she didn’t know how to explain it. My Pinkie Sense and my Pink-Pinkie-Pinkieness makes me special, right? And I guess I kind of liked the idea of being somepony so super special that even Twilight - who is just super duper smart - couldn’t figure out.”

Pinkie crossed her front legs as she thought about it more. “But it made me kind of sad, too, because I can’t stop being me or doing what I do, and I want my friends to understand that part of me not just brush it off as me being silly. That’s what caused all those problems with the Parasprites. Nopony tried to understand me or what I was saying or what I was doing. They just said ‘Pinkie’s being Pinkie’ and ignored me.”

Euporie was still shocked silent, clearly at a loss for words.

“But you know how this stuff works, right?” Pinkie asked, and she was suddenly right up in front of Euporie, on all fours with her neck craned upward, almost nose to nose with the other mare-turned-stallion. “Right? You get it! And that doesn’t make me any less special! It makes me happy! Because that means there’s others like me out there!”

“W-w... w...”

Euporie stood over Pinkie and her lower lip began to tremble.

‘That doesn’t make me any less special! It makes me happy! Because that means there’s others like me out there!’

‘Because I finally met somepony who knows me and understands me.’

‘Nopony tried to understand me or what I was saying or what I was doing.’

‘I finally met somepony who knows me and understands me.’

‘Actually, I was kind of happy at first that she didn’t know how to explain it. My Pinkie Sense and my Pink-Pinkie-Pinkieness makes me special, right?’

‘Somepony who knows me and understands me.’

The noblemare’s eyes watered against a backdrop of growing horror and dew-like tears began to inch out of the corner of her eyes. Her mouth moved to form words, but the words refused take shape, coming out as inarticulate groans. Gasping, Euporie staggered and fall backwards, just barely landing on her front legs. Immediately, a hoof flew up to wipe away the tears and hammer against the side of her forehead.

“You,” Euporie finally spoke, low and strained. “You! I hate you!”

“You don’t hate me,” Pinkie corrected her, slowly trotting closer to the retreating mare. “You’re just scared of me for some reason.”

Euporie kept backing away.

“I can see it in your eyes,” Pinkie said, closing the distance between them. “I saw it then, too. I didn’t know why until now.”

“You saw it... before, too?” Euporie growled, still backing away until both ponies were under the tattered awning of the pavilion. Not far behind the hedonistic mare was a fancy iron pedestal with a strange looking crystal built into it near the top. It had to be whatever was letting Euporie send her bad mojo all throughout the city.

Euporie remembered it, too. She glanced back at it, and then turned to Pinkie Pie with renewed determination. Magic began to build up first along her horn and then like spreading fire all down her neck. She didn’t even say anything more.

She simply struck.

Pinkie grimaced as a weight wrapped around her heart, dragging her spirit down like a lead weight. Clutching at her chest, she felt the blow - the emotional blow - almost like it was a physical nail hammered into her chest.

. . .

“Oh, Pinkamena...”

Daddy towered over her, a pillar of strength, but even a little filly Pinkie could feel the disappointment in his heart. Even if her feelings were wrong, she could hear the tones of dismay in his voice. He sighed and shook his head, looking to the heavens for some sort of answer.

“I’ll do better next time!” Pinkamena promised, reaching out to hug his leg. “I’ll do better! I just made a few mistakes, that’s all!”

“That’s right, Dad!” Marble spoke up from the side, standing in front of her perfectly formed and flawless block of granite.

“We’ll help her get better!” Limestone said, one hoof resting on her own granite block. It wasn’t as nice as Inkie’s or Maud’s, but it was still good enough to make Daddy smile. “Isn’t that right, Maud?” she asked her older sister.

“Pinkamena is too easily distracted,” the young Maud Pie deadpanned. Unlike Marble and Limestone and Pinkamena, she didn’t have a granite block. She was the oldest sister and she’d already proved herself three years ago when she was a filly.

Daddy sighed again, a rumble in his chest that his youngest daughter felt through his legs.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Daddy was sad and it was all her fault! Burying her face in his leg, Pinkie sniffled and promised to do better with the rocks next time. Even if she probably wouldn’t ever be as skilled as Inkie or as smart as Blinkie or as dedicated and passionate as Maud, she could still help! She was still a Pie!

. . .

The lead weight around Pinkie’s heart pulled her lower, down into the freezing waters she tried to leave behind. Her mane began to sag and droop and her eyes stared off into the distance.

. . .

“Pinkamena Diane Pie!”

Mother was scary when she was angry, and boy-oh-boy was she angry.

“Look at this mess! Just look!” Mother gestured with a hoof to the wrecked kitchen. Pots and pans were strewn about, batter was inexplicably caked onto the ceiling and eerie moans were coming from the oven where Daddy was jabbing something with a metal poker.

“I was just trying to make a cake,” Pinkamena muttered, cringing in shame. “It was supposed to be a surprise...”

“Maud!” Mother yelled, and craned her neck to look past Pinkie. “Take your sister upstairs while your father and I handle this.”

“But...!”

“No buts!”

A strong hoof rested on Pinkie’s shoulder and turned her around. Maud was only a few years older than she was, but she always seemed to mature and so grown up. Mother and Father were so proud of her. Not for the first time, Pinkie wished to Celestia that she could be more like her oldest sister and less like... like Pinkamena Diane Pie.

“Well, dear, the good news is that it isn’t getting any larger,” Daddy said, and Mother turned to talk to him about how they were going to clean up the mess. “The bad news is that it keeps asking for ‘fresh meat’...”

“Well you tell it we don’t have any!” Mother snapped, and sent one last look at Pinkamena before stomping over to the oven. “Oh, never mind. Let me at it!”

“Come on,” Maud said, and gently ushered Pinkie out of the kitchen.

“I just wanted to surprise everypony with a cake,” Pinkamena tried to explain, shuffling along in front of her sister as they made their way to the stairs.

“You animated the yeast,” Maud explained on the way upstairs.

“Huh?” Pinkie blinked, and Maud had to give her nudge up the stairs to get her moving again. Her oldest sister wasn’t one for long talks, but she always had a way of explaining things so they made sense.

“Enchanted citrine and powdered graphite in the presence of water and a heating element,” she said, giving her little sister another nudge up the stairs. “Animated yeast.”

“I still don’t understand!” Pinkie cried, and turned to look through the rails of the bannister. She could see into the kitchen, and from across the house, she could truly grasp the mess she’d made. No wonder Mother and Father were always so upset. She was a screw-up, just one big worthless screw-up, no matter what she tried to do!

. . .

The deeper her heart sank, the quicker the bad memories returned, bad feeding on bad.

. . .

The foals in town snickered and whispered amongst themselves whenever she showed up at the town market. While Daddy handled most of the business on a personal basis, Mother still occasionally sold things in town and the family couldn’t eat rocks - despite Maud’s insistence that it was entirely possible to do so if she ‘just got the chemistry right.’

Town in this case was just a small farmer’s market on a long street with a few shops. Almost everyone lived in the farms and everypony was a son or daughter of a farmer learning the family business. Blinkie was the first to spot one of her friends and run off. Inkie headed off by herself. All too soon, even Maud was lured away by some of the older fillies and colts. They were all talking about one of them that got a scholarship to go to school somewhere far away and Pinkie, young though she was, knew that Maud wanted to go to school and learn all sorts of new things about rocks.

Pinkie sat alone, by herself, rolling a rock around under her little hoof.

. . .

“Why isn’t this working?” Pinkie asked herself, glaring at the geode she had grown. Holding the body of rock in her little hooves, she directed her ire towards the vug or cavity within it, where hundreds of little garnet crystals should have taken root and grown.

Marble Pie’s geode was overflowing with brilliant red and orange garnet.

Limestone Pie’s geode was smaller, less prolific, but glittering brightly in the light of the firefly-lantern.

“This is all your fault!” Pinkamena yelled, throwing her geode down and trying to smash it. “Stupid rock! I... I hate you!” She picked it up again and tried to drop it harder, to break it. But it was too tough. She was too small.

‘I can’t even do this right.’

“I hate you!” Pinkie screamed, and rushed to the side of the workshop to fish out a hammer. Galloping back with it between her teeth, she took one last look at her geode. The few crystals inside that she had managed to coax out were all funny shapes and colors.

Just like her.

The wrong shape, the wrong color, the wrong everything!

The hammer came down. “I hate you!” Again. “I hate you!” And again. “I hate you!” And again.

Until it was all in pieces. Until it didn’t matter anymore. Until...

Breathing heavily, Pinkie turned to her sisters’ geodes, safe and secure in their wooden stands. Tomorrow... tomorrow... Marble and Limestone would show them to Daddy, and he’d see - yet again - just how talented and awesome and great two of his daughters were... and how much of a failure one of them always, always, always was. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. Not even a tiny bit of it was fair!!

Hammer clenched between her teeth, she walked slowly towards the geodes.

It wasn’t fair.

. . .

“Awwgh!” Pinkie cried, falling forward, legs turning to jelly. “Oh Celestia...” A mat of loose rust-pink mane pooled around her as she covered her eyes and sobbed. “I’m so sorry... I didn’t mean to...”

Standing over her, Euporie Mosaic was breathing heavily, a sheen of sweat trickling down her forehead. She had to narrow her eyes and blink to keep it out of her eyes.

“I am impressed, your resistance is like nothing I’ve ever felt before,” Euporie muttered, but relaxed at the soft sounds of crying coming from her opponent. Pinkie Pie was broken, emotionally, and that... that was the key to defeating her physically.

“You see now? This is no game,” Euporie said, allowing a small, sinister smile to take form. “I told you that you’d regret crossing me, Pinkie Pie. Wallow in that despair.” Her smile grew a fraction and she stepped closer to loom over her fallen opponent. “For an encore, and as a small mercy, I’ll turn that sadness into rage, and then... I’ll turn you against anypony and anything I choose.”

Despite her smile, she shuddered and her eyes were full of fury.

“Then you’ll see!” she spat. “Then you’ll see what I tried so hard to show you at the party: the lie of it all. You’ll see. Just like I do!”

‘No.’

“No.”

“No?” Euporie whispered, amber eyes aglow with blue magic. “No...?”

Pinkamena choked out a sob but summoned up the will to look up at her. “I feel...”

“Despair,” Euporie said. “I know.”

“I feel...” Pinkie blinked and fixed her eyes on the victorious Euporie. “I feel so... sorry for you.”

Euporie flinched, her upper lip still frozen in a sneer. Even as a stallion, she was a beautiful pony, but only when she wanted to be. When angered, her fine white features turned into a rictus of anger and her amber eyes burned with an inner rage.

“To do this to somepony else,” Pinkie said, and reached out to gently grab hold of Euporie’s front legs. “I’m so sorry. I know you’re sad and you’re scared, but you can still smile...” Impossibly, despite being weighed down with despair and hopelessness, she still managed a weak smile up at her better. “You can,” she promised.

“Don’t... don’t touch me,” Euporie hissed, but didn’t tear herself away. “Don’t...”

. . .

Magical bursts filled the air overhead, fizzling and popping with festive colors to mark the season. At the center of it all, a filly Euporie smiled proudly as the adults watched and lavished attention on the young prodigy. The magical spells weren’t even that hard, not really, but the grown-ups were certainly impressed. They ‘ooh’ed and ‘aah’ed with every snake-like streamer that burst into a rainbow of colors. A few clopped their hooves in applause when a particularly potent spell burst into a stylized sun in celebration of the Eternal Princess.

“Isn’t she spectacular?” Mommy said, proudly, when the show was done and a grinning Euporie stepped down off the stage. Mommy wore the exact same dress as Euporie, just much larger. Apparently adults thought the matching outfits were ‘adorable.’

“My little Euphoria,” Olive Branch said with a smile, patting her daughter on the cheek. “Very good work, dear!”

Euporie looked up to her mother and smiled back, used to the praise. “Thanks, mom. It was easy.”

A long line of adults were soon swarming around them, eager to meet the impressive little filly with the gift for magic and, even moreso, to reconnect with her famous and powerful mother. Olive Branch was the Marquessa of the Equestrian Reach: it included all the country’s lesser colonies but, as a consequence, also oversaw sea trade and other important duties. It had started off as another royal office but had evolved into a loose Duchy in all but name.

Mom was an important pony, Dad, too, but mostly Mom. She was a skilled negotiator, so much so that the Princess herself had praised mother’s skills after the treaty with Saddle Mareabia just last year. Olive Branch was a tall, regal unicorn, at least in her daughter’s eyes. The very example of what a mare should be!

“It is good to get a breath of culture and refinement so far from civilization!” A tall stallion in a tuxedo suit was raising a toast. “To our Good Lady, Olive Branch, and the welcoming embrace of her famous household!”

“Here, here!” Another noble stallion seconded. And then a third.

“Speaking of which,” a tall pink mare interrupted, a strange sort of smile on her lips. “When do the real festivities begin?”

The adults started to laugh and jostle about, amused by some kind of private joke. Euporie just watched them, not quite understanding what was so funny. What, were they drunk already?

“Zephyr!” Olive Branch commanded, and Euporie frowned as a zebra mare made her way through the crowds. Zephyr was mom’s name for one of her favorite servants... a zebra from the Sunset Lands who had been brought to court by a famous explorer.

Euporie didn’t like her.

There was just something... off about Zephyr. All the other zebras who occasionally appeared at Zephyr’s beck and call were the same. They were all creepy. They all felt wrong. It was probably bad that she had nothing but negative feelings towards zebras, but there was just something about the way they acted and the way they looked at you. Maybe there was something to that rumor about zebras being enchantresses?

Either way, Euporie didn’t like her and she didn’t like them. Mom liked them, though. She always kept Zephyr around for some reason or another. Some of the other servants whispered that the two were lovers, but that was silly. Mom already had Dad. Why would she need a lover... which sounded like some sort of backup Dad? None of it made any sense.

“See Euphoria off once the festivities begin,” Olive Branch ordered.

Zephyr, dressed in equestrian silks, inclined her head in respect. “Of course, my Lady.”

Zephyr did what she’d ordered a half hour later and ushered Euporie out of the room. Back in her quarters, Eunomie was pouring over the magical books and trying to cast a simple firecracker spell. She was just so hopeless! But she’d gotten at least a little better over the last few hours. Maybe by tomorrow afternoon she’d actually be able to cast a single firework spell correctly!

Bored watching her sister struggle, Euporie had instead used another spell - one the servants didn’t know she knew - to sneak off. It was high past time she found out what the adults were up to. Whatever it was, Euporie could guess that it had to be good.

Peeking out from behind a curtain, thanks to a spell she had cast on it earlier during the fireworks display, she was able to see through the fabric one-way without anypony being the wiser. Her ears twitched at all the strange sounds. All the adults were wrestling and rolling around and the servants were feeding them and wasting food by smearing it on them and doing all sorts of strange things. Euporie found herself unable to turn away. It was all so... strange. A fluttering feeling in her stomach made her wonder if she’s eaten something bad.

“Pleasure, my friends!” Mom declared, a pony that was definitely non-Dad mounting her from behind. It had to be another one of mother’s friends. She had many of them, after all. They had to be the best of friends to do Mom and Dad stuff with them. “Pleasure is the only true sensation in this world! In the end, all is fleeting and all is dust... unlike our great Princess, all ponies die! And when we do, all we have in that moment are our regrets!” She laughed and poured out her glass of wine onto the floor, moaning and laughing all at once.

“My friends!” she cried. “I promise you, the one thing you will not regret is living life to its fullest! Live for the moment! Live for your pleasure! Revel in it!”

“Friends...?” Euporie whispered to herself, still trying to understand what she was seeing and hearing. “Is this what adult friendships are like?”

. . .

Euporie sat stock-still, her horn flashing involuntarily.

. . .

“Dad’s... dead?” Euporie asked, staring up at her mother.

“I’m afraid so,” Olive Branch leaned over to nuzzle her emotional daughter. Euporie was still too shocked to feel much of anything. How could he be dead?

“He was alive only last night,” Eunomie said, no hint of anything more than curiosity in her tone. “Please explain.”

“Something took him in the middle of the night,” Mother answered, and pulled her daughters in close for a hug. “Don’t you worry, though. Mommy’s here. I’m not going anywhere.”

. . .

Another twitch, another flash of magic. “Liar.”

. . .

This thing wasn’t mother.

It was a monster wearing mother’s skin. Wearing mother’s clothes. Speaking mother’s words. No one saw. No one understood. No one believed.

“You always were clever,” Not-mother hissed, and her smile was razor sharp and full of teeth no equine would call their own. After weeks of letting things go, she had at last cornered her prodigy daughter after dinner. Though only a fraction of her not-mother’s size, she tried not to show fear.

“Your mother is dead and rotting in the ground,” Not-mother said, leaning down and forcing Euporie back up against the wall. “Beetles are eating her as we speak. They’ll eat you, too, if you cause any more trouble.”

Despite herself, despite being a so called “genius,” despite telling herself not to be afraid...

She was afraid.

Euporie cringed away from not-mother, closing her eyes in terror. The sight of those teeth on her mother’s face... it was just too much. To her shame, the little filly felt wetness around her hind legs and realized she had peed herself. That never happened. Why? Why?

Why was she so afraid, so pathetic, so weak, so helpless? So useless? Her? The prodigy? The genius? The one Mom and Dad were so proud of?

“It would be unwise to harm her,” a deadpan voice interrupted, and Euporie dared to open her eyes. She could see not-mother was looking, too.

“Eunomie!” Euporie cried. “Look out! She isn’t...!”

Not-mother hissed, trotting away from the terrified Euporie and stalking towards her even more helpless sister. Eunomie was an idiot. She had no skill in magic or anything else. It took her forever to learn the things Euporie mastered in an hour. Even their real mother had kept her out of the spotlight to save her embarrassment. Against this monster, what could she do?

“What did you say, little one?” Not-mother asked, flashing that horrible smile again. “What was that?”

“Suspicion will rise if we die or are harmed so soon after father’s death,” Eunomie explained, unflinching even when not-mother towered over her, looking for all intents and purposes like she was a heartbeat from snapping the little filly’s head off as easily as a pony might nip off the head of a flower.

“We are the most valuable aspect of your cover. It is clear you intend to replace her, given your activities over the last six days.” Eunomie looked up at the monster in their mother’s flesh, unaffected by any of its attempts to intimidate her. “If she is dead, then it is too late to do anything about it. The logical thing to do is come to a mutually beneficial agreement.”

Not-mother scowled, but took a step back. Away from Eunomie.

“Yes, true,” she mused, in mother’s voice. “Very well... an agreement, then.”

. . .

Euporie’s mane, a wild and untamed mass of blue, began to slacken. The magic around her horn subsided, too, growing dimmer. “Eunomie...”

. . .

“They’re all liars.”

Eunomie had her nose buried in a book. “Who?” she asked, simply, not bothering to look up.

“Everypony!” Euporie hissed, sitting down opposite her twin. Her head hurt and she felt sick again. A doctore from Bitaly had prescribed some nasty smelling tea to calm her nerves and settle her stomach, but then she’d caught him at another of not-mother’s parties and the next time he visited she’d thrown him off a balcony. The tea was vile and he was vile. They were all vile, rotten, liars to the core.

“None of them can see what that thing out there really is,” she kept her voice low and conspiratorial. It was unwise to talk about it too openly. Not-mother had ears everywhere in the house. “They’re blind and all they do is party and mount each other like animals.”

Euporie clenched her hooves, pressing them down hard into the floor.

“I can’t stand it. I can’t stand any of it,” she whispered, eyes downcast. “Is this all mother’s friends visited her to do? Is this all she meant to them? Is this all there ever was?” She stamped her hoof in agonized frustration and hung her head as the tears came back, staining her cheeks. “What kind of friends are they... friends who can’t see... can’t even tell--”

Eunomie looked up from her book at her sister, but said nothing.

“Damn them.” Euporie sniffed and wiped her eyes with her hooves, smearing her tears over her cheeks. She was crying again. Why? Why did this keep happening? Why was she so pathetic? At least only Eunomie was around to see it. Only her. Nopony else. Nopony else could ever see.

“Damn them all.” She hid her face behind her hooves, her whole body shuddering as she cried. “They’re all useless. I hate them.”

. . .

“Just puppets and liars.”

. . .

“You’re all puppets and liars, dancing to my tune.” Euporie reclined on the chaise lounge, older, wiser, colder. The party was in full swing, with ponies cavorting and laughing and utterly ignorant of the changelings among them.

“A wonderful feast,” the vile creature sitting next to her agreed, in the guise of Lady Tea Leaf. The changeling smiled... the same terribly toothy smile Euporie remembered as a filly. This creature was one of not-mother’s brood.

“Yeah.”

“I can see why my mother keeps you around,” the changeling hissed happily, hardly even bothering with the pretense of keeping up her superficial disguise. “You are a useful pony, most useful indeed.” She took a long, contended breath and looked out over the orgy. “But I wonder... doesn’t it bother you, doing this to your own kind?”

“My own kind?” Euporie repeated with a sneer. Boldly, she snagged the changeling by her mane and brought her in closer until they were almost nose to nose. “Don’t insult me to my face again. Nopony is ‘my kind.’ Certainly not these idiots!”

The changeling trilled angrily, but didn’t dare do anything rash before Euporie released her. The changeling staggered backwards and a fiery green ripple flowed across her surface, smoothing out her disguise.

“Emotions are just food to you,” Euporie said, already setting her attention back on the party at hoof. She gestured at the guests dismissively. “To me, they’re strings, just like the strings on a puppet. Ponies live their lives lying to each other, smiling fake smiles, laughing fake laughs, pledging fake friendships. None of it means a damn thing,” she spat and raised herself up off the lounge chair, “so why not let you freaks eat your fill?”

“Where are you going?” the changeling demanded to know, but didn’t dare try and stop her. Euporie’s mercurial moods were already well known and feared among pony and changeling alike.

“To do what I please to whoever I please,” she answered with a snort. She narrowed her eyes and sent a chilly glare back at the changeling drone. “Don’t get in my way.”

. . .

“Our new father,” Eunomie said, sitting by the side of the bed. “Welcome, father.”

“Looks like she really worked you over, huh?” Euporie quipped, resting her forelegs on the side of the bed. “Well? You still alive in there?”

Alpha Brass lay on his back, splayed out on the wedding bed. The monster wearing Olive Branch’s skin had feasted on him, draining his emotions dry. That’s what it looked like anyway. Euporie had seen her mother’s victims before: glassy eyed broken toys and fawning slaves, their minds twisted around the changeling’s crooked horn.

Their new father, the result of an arranged marriage, wasn’t that much older than his new step-daughters. He was handsome in a Prench sort of way, but not-mother hadn’t been particularly gentle in her handling of him. Eunomie had found him still in the master bedroom, unwilling or unable to move. Olive Branch had left him there to recover while she attended to other business. Maybe she was off to lay a few more eggs with her new love meal.

Euporie rested her head between her front legs, trying to get a feel for this new guy. His emotions were... strange. They were definitely there, she could almost feel where the love had been ripped out, where the hole was slowly filling back in, but... but it wasn’t filling in with love like it should have been. There was something else there, mixed in, turning the hole in his heart black and septic.

You couldn’t tell by looking at his blank face, but...

“I’ll make it right.”

Euporie’s ears perked up at the voice. She and Eunomie exchanged a quick look.

“What?” she asked.

“You’re awake, then, and aware of your surroundings,” Eunomie reasoned.

“Forget that,” Euporie snapped, and leaned in closer to the motionless stallion. “What did you just say?”

He stared up at the ceiling, broken, but not beaten.

“I’ll make it right...” he vowed, softly, weakly, and Euporie could feel the jagged edges of his mangled emotions. She had always been sensitive to the emotions of others. Lord Brass’s emotions were reacting differently to the changeling feeding process. Eunomie was oblivious, of course, but there was an old legend about Arsenic and the poisoned blood of the Terre Rare. Could it be true? Euporie decided then and there to let her sister take care of their new step-father’s body. She would heal his mind, and together... together they would show everypony just how wrong they were.

. . .

“Don’t you get it?”

. . .

“Don’t you get it?!” Euporie reached down and lifted Pinkie up, hooves buried in the short coat that covered her chest. “Don’t you understand? You’re just a puppet! A puppet with strings I can cut or yank any time I want! I saw it right away!”

Pinkie slowly shook her head.

“They were all laughing at you!” Euporie yelled, her vision growing blurry. The flashes coming from her horn were intermittent now, too short, too erratic. “They never liked you! They never knew you! Nopony does! All those times they smiled and all those times you smiled... they were all lies! Why...” She shuddered and gave Pinkie a strong shake. “Why can’t you see that!?”

Slowly, Pinkie’s front legs came up, but not to push away or dislodge the mare holding her by a vice-grip. Instead, her legs fell over Euporie’s shoulders, one over and one under.

“What’s wrong with you?” Euporie tried to squint through her blurry vision. “Why can’t you see it?”

. . .

“You will understand one day,” Maud promised, and a comforting hoof rested on Pinkie’s flat, smooth mane. “Just like I did. Just like we all do.”

. . .

“I know what it's like to feel helpless, to feel useless. To lash out.”

Euporie shuddered in Pinkie’s grip, slowly shaking her head. “Shut up.”

“But it’s never too late to be yourself, to make others happy and to be happy. Maybe we are puppets, but our strings,” Pinkie whispered, tightening her hug around the weakly resisting Euporie, “they’re what bind us together... they’re what make life worth living. They might make us hurt, they might make us foolish, they might blind us to what’s right in front of us, they might make us weak... but without them, what are we?”

Euporie’s hooves flew up to her face, to the sputtering magic of her horn.

“Stop lying to yourself!” Pinkie yelled into Euporie’s chest, her hug tightening like a death grip. “Look at yourself! You have strings, too! Are you going to tell me your own feelings are a lie?”

Eunomie.

Alpha.

...Mother.

Secure behind its edifice, the prototype crystal heart cracked clean down the middle with a sound like distant thunder. The instant it did, Euporie Mosaic cried out, her magic burning out of control, shaking back and forth as she pawed at her eyes. Licks of blue fire shredded the heavy canvas of her pavillion tent, striking savagely at grounded lamps and anything else magically conductive around her. Guards and onlookers dove for cover, their trance broken, their eyes wide and free of compulsion. The big tent of the pavilion exploded into a thousand burning streamers, ripped apart in the gale of unleashed mana.

Pinkie’s body shook, too, as she tried to keep a hold on Euporie. The unicorn mare was sobbing, hooves buried in her mane as she screamed, violent whips of magic raging out of control. Pinkie’s own mane, still flat and straight, slapped against her back as pulses of energy threatened to knock her away. All of Euporie’s magic was escaping her, stretched to the breaking point between her own shattered mental state and that of the now broken crystal heart. Euporie was a prodigy, a genius, a powerful unicorn in all respects, but even her magic exhausted itself in little more than a few terrifying seconds.

And when her magic was spent, so was Euporie Mosaic. Her hair fell loosely and limply like a pale blue shawl around her shoulders and back. Her breathing slowed, calmed, her struggles disappeared.

“You... you’ve ruined it all,” she whispered back, whispered to the mare who had beaten her. “No... I... I ruined it.”

Pinkie felt a hoof press against her chest, pushing her away.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Pinkie insisted, but gave Euporie some space if that was what she wanted. The unicorn mare was defeated, mentally and physically, and exhausted to boot. She had her head down, but Pinkie could still see droplets falling from behind the mat of blue hair.

“I did,” Euporie cried, softly. She quickly covered her face with her hooves, trying to hide. “Oh. Oh no. No no no. Don’t look at me. Please - please don’t look. Please.” Pinkie carefully touched the other mare on her shoulder and Euporie’s whole body began to tremble.

“What’s wrong with me? I’ve... I’ve hurt so many ponies... used them... toyed with them. I told myself it was because they were false, that their feelings didn’t matter, that it was all just another way to manipulate ponies and deceive them--” Her voice caught and she gasped for breath. “I knew it was wrong. I knew. But I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop!”

Pinkie remembered standing over a trio of broken geodes, hammer falling from her mouth as it slowly dawned on her what she had done. All the frustration, all the helplessness, all the anger, all the confusion, all the fear and uncertainty and jealousy... even when she began to cry, knowing she had done something terrible, there had been a strained smile on her face. That chapter of her life had been closed the day she got her cutie mark, the day Maud’s promise came true, the day everything became clear. She wasn’t Pinkamena anymore, not really, but Pinkamena was a part of Pinkie and always would be.

Looking up, Pinkie saw the growing crowd of ponies and guards warily circling them, inching closer. The music had stopped. she couldn’t see the Party Wagon, only the faces in the crowd around them. They were confused, too, and afraid. Nopony really knew what had been going on, only that something in them had changed... reverted back to normal. They couldn’t be sure, they couldn’t know, even if they did suspect.

It was that lead weight around their heart.

It was Euporie; she was gone.

Only Euphoria was left.

Author's Note

This was actually one of the tougher chapters to write lately. All this emotion stuff!
Hopefully it came out alright, though, since this was Pinkie's Crowning Moment in the fanfic, plus you guys know I try to do the Pink Terror justice. :pinkiecrazy:

Now (aside from a few more scenes that'll come later) I think I can finally get back to and stay with Rarity in an almost clean streak to the end of the story. We'll see...

Chapter Sixty-One : The End of Equestria

Author's Note

Update. Yes. With a chapter. An entire real-life-boy chapter.

I know there's going to be mixed feelings about me coming back after so long. I can't just start posting again now, like I didn't leave you all in the lurch for... like two years, basically. For those who care, I'll try and explain a bit.

It wasn't the other projects that got in the way, like Psi Effect... it was an experience in real life. More than a year ago, for the first time, I had my association with bronydom enter my rather carefully delineated real life. Specifically, a girl I had been dating found out about it. Following the resulting debacle, I took a few steps to divest myself of too casual an association on the idea that it would prevent a repeat of the incident. In the process of it all, I just sort of drifted away. But I never forgot how much I loved this fandom and my amazing readers here, who would dissect the most well hidden plotlines and catch even the most obscure references. Heh. I am honestly sorry I made you guys and girls wait so long.

Happy Halloween.

Chapter Sixty-One : The End of Equestria

. . .
. . .

Ponyville

Ponyville was a smoking ruin.

One hoof on a crumbling wall where it met a broken and blasted iron-framed window, Sweetie Belle felt light-headed, dizzy even, seeing it in full, in the light of the new day. When word first came of an emergency, most of the townspeople had hunkered down in Blueblood's manor, abandoning their homes and shops, their farms and farmlands. The once-courtly estate had kept them safe, repelling the changeling attacks again and again: those horrible worms from underground, the diving changelings with their bombs from above, and the attacks coming over the walls again and again and again. Attack after attack left the beautiful walls and facades a smoking wreck, destroying hedges and gardens Sweetie remembered playing in just the other day. Like most foals and young ponies, Cheerilee had kept her below, first in the basement and then in the first floor when the worms came, only occasionally letting them help by fetching water or food for the guards defending them.

Looking out from one of the smashed bathrooms on the second floor, Sweetie could actually see the Ponyville they'd left behind – the only home and the only town she had ever known. The streets were littered with broken carts, twisted wreckage and mangled barricades. Fires burned out of control, gutting rows of colorful buildings. Black smoke choked the streamers and flags that usually danced merrily in the wind. Magical fire occasionally erupted from buildings or streets as ponies and changelings fought over the town.

Green eyes scanned the horizon, searching. It began to dawn that there would be no school tomorrow... the schoolhouse had been hit by cannon fire. Sweetie could see the remains of several guns and their wooden frameworks nearby. The changelings had clearly taken refuge in the building and, Sweetie suddenly realized, it was the very same guards that had defended them for the last half-day that must have destroyed her school in their effort to silence the changeling guns. There were changeling bodies in the playground, left where they fell like broken toys.

Past that, Sweetie could just make out Sweet Apple Acres. There was fire there, too, and flashes of light as ponies and changelings continued to fight over the hills overlooking town. She could see the barn next to Apple Bloom's home, though, and it was collapsed. On the opposite side of town, the other farms were flattened by weather and storm, thunder and lightning, as the might of Cloudsdale fought the changelings in the sky from behind. It was a dizzying dance overhead that Sweetie could barely make out. Her head hurt trying to comprehend it all, and in the distance, she could just barely see the broken spires of Canterlot itself.

Still light-headed, every landmark she tried to see, to reconcile with, Sweetie realized it was damaged or destroyed. The changelings. It was all because of the changelings. Even her home… her parents' home…

It was all gone.

"You see it, don't you, Equestria?" a voice whispered in her ear and Sweetie sniffed and wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hoof.

"Our old magic, our old ways, have failed us."

Sweetie reached up to her little horn. Everypony had magic, but unicorns especially, and what good had hers been? How could magic be magic but still be useless?

"Our nobles have failed us."

Sweetie sniffed, remembering when Lady Antimony had visited her class at school. She had talked about noble ponies, and how they were there to give order and safety to Equestria. But all a foal had to do was look outside to see how badly all that had turned out!

It had all been one Big Lie! Equestria wasn't safe. They'd never been safe.

"Even our Princesses have failed us."

"Even the Princesses," Sweetie couldn't help but think, agreeing with the little whisper. Celestia and Luna were so beautiful and amazing and strong, but why weren't they here? Why hadn't they stopped this?

Everything was gone! Her home. Her school. She still had her family and friends, thank the Pr- thank goodness, but even that was no guarantee. Two times, the changelings had broken through and gotten deep inside the manor. Two times, Sweetie had seen their monsters and their faces as they hissed and bit and reached for ponies. The sound of their hissing would be something she never forgot; the sight of them dragging a pony down and into the ground, even as he fought for his life…

"Little Ponies! Do you want to live in fear?"

How could the whisper even ask that? Of course she didn't! Nopony did.

"Little Ponies! Do you want to be helpless?"

"No," Sweetie said, feeling a spike of a headache under the base of her horn.

"Sweetie Belle!" Apple Bloom yelled. "You done in there?"

"You okay?" Scootaloo asked a second later. "Something really weird's going on."

Sweetie ignored them.

"Do you want to be more than you are now?"

"I do!" Sweetie answered, and she found she wasn't crying anymore.

"Join me." The whisper implored, and Sweetie saw a burning effigy appear in the air before her, shaped like a hoof. "For those with the will. Join me. Take my hoof."

The door to the bathroom swung open. Through a haze, she saw Apple Bloom, her bow ripped but still there so it trailed behind her like a second red tail. Behind her, she saw Scootaloo… her first real friend. They were both holding up better, Sweetie knew. Apple Bloom was always the toughest of them, and while Sweetie knew that Scootaloo was easily scared, she was also always the first to want to prove she could overcome any obstacle.

Their mouths were moving. They were saying something… but Sweetie couldn't hear them.

She turned back to the burning hoof-mark.

"Take what is yours. Take this power! Join me! And never be afraid again."

Lifting her own hoof, Sweetie Belle pressed it to the burning mark.

. . .

(61)

This Platinum Crown : The End of Equestria

. . .

"Vinyl…?"

"Tavi...!"

It only took a second to see Octavia emerge from the crowd behind Lady Euporie's bodyguards. Jumping down from the Party Wagon, leaving the turntable controls behind, Vinyl Scratch galloped half the distance and swept her friend up in a relieved hug. Octavia, normally the reticent half of their pair, enthusiastically hugged her back, nuzzling her cheek affectionately. Ever since they'd been separated, after that whole mess back at the radio station, Vinyl had worried that Octavia would get into some sort of trouble. Exuvia had promised not to let any harm come to her 'precious artists' provided they cooperated, but Exuvia was also a changeling Princess. Vinyl trusted her about as far as she could throw her, magic excluded.

"What the heck are you doing here?" Vinyl asked, both mares-turned-stallions coming apart to legs' length, hooves on one another's shoulders.

"Exuvia let me go," Octavia explained, and smiled softly. "Long story. Very long story, in fact. You won't believe the story I have to tell."

"Ha! And you won't believe where I've been!" Vinyl laughed, and Octavia joined her a moment later. They hugged again, relieved to be reunited and - for the moment anyway - safe.

"I was picked up by some of these Terre Rare guardsmares," Octavia said, casting a quick look at the Party Wagon and the two pinstriped mares atop it, Flim and Flam. "They wanted me to fight and... and I think I was actually going to, but..." She shook her head. "It was all so strange! And what on Equestria's green fields is that... thing?"

"That?" Vinyl chucked and waved towards her ride. "We call it the Party Wagon! You've got to see how tricked out this thing is. I soooo need to get one of my own someday."

To Vinyl's surprise, Octavia didn't object. Instead, she tapped her chin and gave a thoughtful, "hmmm." As if she wanted one, too!

"Come on!" Vinyl said, and called out to the two mares atop the Party Wagon. "Flim! Flam! Let's go see what's going on!"

"A fine idea," one of the twin mares said, the one with the white lick in her mane.

"Lead the way, brother o' mine," the second suggested, following the other as she hopped down. It looked like the fight was over at least.

"And how are you two involved in all this?" Octavia asked, but gasped when she remembered her manners. She nudged Vinyl not-so-subtly, prompting for an introduction. Around them, ponies were still milling around and trying to make sense of the situation, feeling the aftereffects of Euporie's berserker spell.

"Flim. Flam." Vinyl pointed to one and then the other pinstriped mare. "This is my friend, Octavia Melody."

"Charmed," Flim spoke first, and dipped his eyes respectfully.

"Very much so," Flam chimed in.

"Gentleponies," Octavia greeted them, projecting an air of femininity despite being a rather hunky stallion at the moment. Vinyl rolled her eyes. No matter what body she was in, Octy was still Octy, always trying to be refined and proper. Worst of all, in Vinyl's view, was that she didn't even notice how sexy it was. She just did it. Infuriating!

"Anyway! This way," Vinyl said, motioning them to follow her as she moved through the crowd. "Pinkie's right up ahead. I can see her mane."

"Pinkie...? Wait? Just a moment. Is this the Pinkie Pie?" Octavia wondered, frowning a slightly. "The same Pinkie Pie you used to have parties with? The same Pinkie Pie that trashed our old dorm room and left frosting in the pillow cases?"

Vinyl nodded enthusiastically. "That's her!"

"Uh!"

"Oh, come on, Tavi. You'll like her!"

"Yes," Octavia conceded, "I suppose trivial things like that hardly matter now, and-" The cellist gasped as they came through the crowd and saw Pinkie and Euporie together. Octavia pointed accusingly with her hoof. "Just one moment! I know that mane! She was at the Gala!"

"She didn't cause trouble, did she?" Vinyl asked, reaching up to adjust her tinted shades. "'Cause I know Pinkie can be a hoof-full, but..."

"It... well, it was strange, but not too terrible. Lord Blueblood suggested we take requests and picked her, and soon we were playing all sorts of... unusual music," Octavia paused with a thoughtful mein. "No, it wasn't all that bad. Just strange. Especially when the Princess joined in. That never happened before."

"Like I said, Pinkie's a hoof-full, but she's harmless."

"Harmless?" Flim wondered aloud as he trotted alongside her. "After what we just saw, harmless is not the word I would use to describe her."

"She is a mare of unusual talents, brother," Flam argued.

"Are you soft on her, brother?"

"Hardly, brother! It isn't like that at all!"

"And exactly how are you two involved in all this?" Octavia asked them.

"Ah. Well," Flim explained for the both of them. "Some time ago, we signed a contract with Lady Euphoria Mosaic and her sister. It was magically binding, you see?" Octavia nodded, she understood some of the intricacies of unicorn magic.

She was Canterlot born and bred after all.

"Suffice it to say, Miss Pie extricated us from a very uncomfortable situation," Flim went on. "The contract was effectively transferred to her... and... well, afterwards she just let us go."

Octavia blinked, a little confused. "She let you go? You mean she nullified the contract?"

"She said we were free to do whatever we wanted," Flam explained, picking up for his brother. "But she asked if we'd be willing to help her, anyway."

"So you helped her," Vinyl reasoned.

"After some debate and discussion... and after carefully weighing our options, yes," Flim answered, "we decided to assist her."

"It was the prudent thing to do, brother."

"We'll see, brother. We'll see."

Pinkie Pie and Euphoria Mosaic were sitting on the ground, face to face. A circle of ponies had more or less formed around them but at an appropriately cautious distance. Euphoria's guards, also slowly coming to their senses, were just beginning to fan out to keep the crowd from closing further in. Vinyl and her crew slipped through the cordon.

Pinkie looked okay, unhurt despite rushing headlong into the magical jaws of the enemy. Her mane looked a little darker - probably due to the dust - but still poofy. Vinyl saw her rummage around in it with her hooves to fish out a balloon that she quickly started blowing into to inflate. Euphoria was hanging her head, her wild blue mane falling over her shoulders and back. The color of it reminded Vinyl of her own mane, when she cared to grow it long and when it got wet enough to go limp.

"Hiya guys!" Pinkie greeted them with her customary oversized smile. "I toldya I'd be fine!" She wrapped a leg around her new victim's shoulders and pulled her in those. "This is Euphoria! Don't worry! I got her good with the old friendship double-wammy!"

"Don't press your luck," Euphoria grumbled, but there was a ghost of a smile that Vinyl could see, even with her eyes and nose downcast. She held Pinkie's balloon in her hooves with a strange, almost confused expression.

"Hey, so! I wanted to ask!" Pinkie quickly went from wanted-to-ask to straight-up asking, "That contract thingie with Flim and Flam..."

"I don't really have any control over that," Euphoria interrupted her, looking up slightly and brushing her bangs away enough to reveal her amber eyes. "If I did, I'd have taken control of them the moment I saw them. It was Eunomie's contract... they're all her contracts, except Chalice's."

"Ohhhh," Pinkie sounded sad, like she'd broken a promise. She turned to Flim and Flam and shrugged. "Eunomie is more up Twilight's alley. But I'm sure she and Fluttershy'll fix things before you guys know it!"

She tapped her chin with a bright pink hoof, "Hmmmm"ing as much as humming.

"Actually, I wonder what's going on back there?" She pointed her hoof towards the distant but still flying mass of the Hanging Gardens. It floated serene and untouchable despite the fighting and growing pegasi-directed weather-works in the sky around it. There seemed to be some sort of barrier around it, too; every so often it would flash when something struck it.

Her bright blue eyes turned to Euphoria. "You wouldn't be up for a little exposition, would you, party-pal?"

For her part, the noblemare rolled her eyes. "I don't mind explaining some things, but I doubt it will matter at this point. I lost control of the crystal heart prototype, but Alpha won't let that stop him," Euphoria said, brows creasing in thought. "Nothing can stop what we're going to do, now. It would have already begun."

"What are you trying to do?" Vinyl asked, sitting down near the two mares.

"Exuvia talked about Lord Brass," Octavia added, sitting next to Vinyl. "She believed that he intended to destroy the changelings..."

"He was... we are," Euphoria explained, sighing. "We are planning to destroy the changelings. But that wasn't enough. It isn't enough to destroy just the changelings. If they could threaten Equestria like this then others could, too. Most ponies don't know it, or don't care to think about it, but way out past the frontier and the colonies, we have no shortage of opportunistic enemies. I'm sure the Storm King and the Queen of Tears or even the Dragon Lord will hear about the invasion eventually and want to try their luck. The problem was never just the changelings... it was Equestria itself. More than that…"

She frowned, growing a bit hesitant to say more, but after a moment, she continued.

"The problem isn't just Equestria," she said, and there was still a dark ember of fire in her eyes. "The problem is Equestrians."

"The problem is... Equestrians?" Octavia asked, and pointed to herself. "You mean: us? As in the problem is ponies?"

Euphoria nodded. They wanted the truth, ugly or not, and this was apparently it.

"That's it exactly. Alpha wants to save Equestria by doing away with its weak link: Equestrians themselves. He wants to empower them... as many as possible. At least twenty thousand at a bare minimum, particularly younger ponies under fifty. That's what they'll need for a stable long-term breeding population."

"A whaa?" Pinkie scratched behind her ear. "Breeding Population? I don't get it."

"A new race," Flim whispered, just loud enough for the mares to overhear. "By the Princesses... you're talking about creating a new race."

"Another tribe?" Flam fell back on his (her) rump. "How?"

"Is that even possible?" Vinyl crossed her forelegs over her chest. "Transforming thousands of ponies into... into what?"

"Due to our origins, the equestrian body is more malleable than almost any other in nature," Euphoria assured her fellow unicorn. "History already has ample examples... the crystal ponies were magically modified earth ponies, though their physical forms were tied to the original Crystal Heart. The thestrals or 'bat-ponies' were created in The Chaos a thousand years ago out of pegasus ponies, and the same goes for shades and unicorns. To the south, hippogriffs have existed for centuries, but recently, our spies confirmed that they developed a magic to turn themselves aquatic. All three of the main tribes have altered forms that were created in just the last thousand years, and now we have proof that even hybrid ponies are mutable. If the legends are true, before the migration there were even more varieties..."

She took a breath, and steeled herself.

"I know what father plans can be done... because it has already been done," Euphoria stated, and took in the four looks of surprise - and one look of confusion - on the faces of her listeners. "Before we committed to this plan, Alpha created prototype infusions using single-use torcs. We transformed volunteers and tested them. We needed to be sure of what we were doing before..." Her eyes drooped and she focused on her hooves. "Let's just say we needed to be sure."

"All of this was to prepare for the ascension ritual," she admitted, and laughed softly to herself. "I didn't come down here just for fun, you know. I had a mission, too. I was sent down with the prototype crystal heart to make ponies angry and desperate... after a day and a half of fighting for their lives, it wasn't hard. But again, we wanted to leave nothing to chance. My magic would be what pushed thousands over the edge. We needed ponies to be willing to sign the contract when it went out."

"Another contract," Flim growled. After being manipulated by contract magic, the unicorn brothers had little love for it. Nevermind that they had probably used legal loopholes before for personal benefit. No one liked being on the receiving end.

"The Grand Compact is Eunomie's masterpiece," Euphoria told him, smile stabbing at her cheeks for a moment before fading away. "Written into the reforged Platinum Crown and amplified through the Crystal Heart we built."

"The heart connects one pony to thousands," Vinyl realized, momentarily stunned by the implications. "To tens of thousands!"

Octavia's eyes were wide as she saw the grand scheme take form. "Exuvia mentioned that armies were mustering around the city... ponies from all over Equestria!"

Euphoria nodded. "Well within our radius of effect."

"So you guys wanted to turn thousands of ponies into... super-ponies?" Pinkie wondered and smiled. "That doesn't sound so bad! I've always wanted to have a super transformation but could never find enough rings..."

Five ponies stared flatly at her.

"What?" Pinkie asked, pursing her lips. "It's true!"

"You don't understand," Euphoria warned, turning away and hiding her face behind her mane. "But you will, sooner than you think. Defeating me only forced them to move now rather than later."

The gathered ponies turned their eyes upward to where the Gardens floated above a devastated Canterlot. A strange glow emanated from the topmost spire in the center of the Sky Palace. A faint ripple passed through the air, then, and Vinyl and Octavia both held up their hooves as their male disguise began to flake away and disintegrate. Twilight's spell was fading away. Flim and Flam sighed in obvious relief, exchanging nods of approval at the return of their stallionhood… and in the return of Flam's moustache. Everywhere, ponies were returning to their normal form.

"The changelings?" Euphoria barked, addressing one of her guards. "The changeling disguises should still be scrambled. Check them to make sure!" She frowned, facing Pinkie Pie with a grave expression and serious amber eyes. "Until the window of opportunity is lost, the spell will continue. Like it or not, this is the beginning of the end for Equestria as you know it."

. . .

"Update: two thousand, six hundred and eighty and rising."

. . .

"The Field is ours! Victory!" Luna reared up and roared to the heavens, wings flapping mightily as she reveled in the carnage and the thrill and glory of combat. "Victory most glorious!"

Such a battle was this! The clash of hooves! The sting of magic bolt and the glint of steel spear! Added to the chorus of the battlefield were the thunder and smoke of new weapons of war: these marvelous new cannons and other devices wrought by her subjects over the last thousand years. Luna reveled in it! She had not fought thus since the days of Sombra or even the original invasion of the New World! Oh, what a war that had been! Ponies of this Soft Age could scarce imagine the powers unleashed by the hard-hearted might of the Old Kingdoms and the Founders! Oh, to be locked in combat with Knights of the Mighty Helm! To drive into the ranks of Pegasus Shieldsworn!

"Yes! We-"

Though the Princess of the Night failed to notice it, a reddish tint began to fade away behind her eyes. Blinking, she slowly lowered her hooves down to the ground.

"No, no, no… those were dark times, desperate times, a cruel fire not to be rekindled again," she spoke softly to herself, a little thrown by her earlier thoughts. "What came over me? What was I...?"

Luna shook her head, clearing her head of the strange thoughts.

The battle here was very nearly done, the fighting dying down. Cloudsdale's bottomless stream of reinforcements were the key; pegasi were constantly overhead, keeping the changelings grounded and allowing the earth ponies and the unicorns, noble and common alike, to pin the enemy down and grind them to dust. The changeling forces here had either fallen back in disarray or hunkered down in smashed buildings lining the bombed-out roads. Digging them out would be grueling and messy work.

"Well, now!" Lady Rarity trotted up alongside the Princess. "I dare say the tide has turned!"

While a finicky pony, the new Baroness of Ponyville seemed to be surviving well enough with a frazzled mane and coat stained black by spent magic. She had remained in the rear with a rank of unicorns using their powers for support and barrage purposes but had not escaped the fighting, either in duels with the green changelings or depredations by the reds and yellows. Most fortunately, none of the great Tatzlwurms or their brown changeling parasites had seen fit to join their fellows.

"I can't speak for anypony else, but I am utterly spent," Rarity sighed in a mannered, genteel way. Luna smiled slightly on hearing it; she truly would fit in well with the nobility, and it seemed, at least in a crisis, they had truly rallied around her. When the time came for her to wear the Platinum Crown, and it would be reforged eventually, she would have ample support among her lordly peers.

"But the view," Rarity continued, and turned around to take in the sight. "That is what truly takes my breath away."

"It's just Cloudsdale," Rainbow Dash drifted by, coming to a gentle landing next to her friend. The chromatic mare tossed her mane, wiped her brow, and also took a long look. "Though I guess it usually doesn't move this fast."

Above Canterlot, the sister city of Cloudsdale had begun to rise.

Built upon a foundation of ancient clouds, some more than a thousand years old, Cloudsdale was smaller than the mountain-dwelling Canterlot, but no less impressive. Grand palisades and columned courts and citadels peeked out from above the cloudstuff, all patterned in a stark purest white. Color came in ample supply from the rainbows that were the city's trademark. Fountains and cascading waterfalls of it provided a superabundance of color, droplets of it mixing with normal flowing water to produce a stream of tiny rainbow spirals that drifted in the city's massive wake.

Cloudsdale, a mobile city by nature and design, had accelerated at maximum speed towards Canterlot, answering the ancient distress call of her embattled sister. With her, Cloudsdale had mustered pegasi from across Equestria. Many still flew escort, paving the way for the city, enhancing her wake to speed her along. For the first time in generations, the twin sister cities that had survived the ancient war of a thousand years ago were reunited. Luna had no doubt that the sight of the pegasus metropolis emboldened and heartened ponies all across war-torn Canterlot.

With Cloudsdale came the promise that Equestria had not forgotten them; that they were not alone. That help was coming from across the land! That hope had returned in force!

"Equestria, Heck yeah," Dash said, softly, but still loudly enough to be overheard by those close to her. She was grinning up at her home town, at her city, with radiant pride.

"We got 'em on the run! Ho-ah!" Applejack cheered, jumping up to join them. A ray of light caught her golden mane as she breathed a sigh of relief. "They ain't surrenderin' but they ain't fightin' much anymore either." She turned to Rarity and the Princess. "You reckon we got this won?"

"Perhaps," Luna replied, wary of counting her candies before they were in-hoof.

A bugle sounded from far off, and with it, a signal-firework exploded in midair.

"Last we heard, Lord Snow Drift had fully secured the Sky Harbor and all the surrounding venues," Rarity answered, more confident than her alicorn counterpart in speaking for their progress in the war. She took a moment to fuss over her mane, a little moan like cry escaping her lips as she inspected some of the ruined curls.

"Lady Wallflower and Lady Sand Dune were both pushing into the city. I have no doubt those two will buy us the room we need to retake the city," Rarity went on to say with a sniff. "Especially Sand Dune. She still wishes to take Canterlot for herself someday, after all."

"And that sits well with you?" Luna asked, raising an imperious eyebrow at the Element of Generosity.

"Darling," Rarity answered with a little laugh. "I've learned to live with it." She smirked and flicked a bit of smoot off her purple mane. "If nothing else, my new friends will keep me on my hooves."

She gave Applejack a particular sort of stare.

"Much like my old friends, actually," Rarity added.

"Hey now, what's that mean?" Applejack shot back, also grinning. "All ah try and do is keep you honest. Not an easy job either, sometimes!"

"You know what's funny?" Dash asked, wings flapping and lifting her just off the ground. "I felt the strangest thing a couple minutes ago... and now I feel... good. I mean, we won, so of course I feel good, but... this feels kinda different, too. Dunno how to describe it exactly."

"Worry not about such things, Rainbow Dash." Luna felt much the same, but she hid it well, projecting her most regal self as she oversaw the battlefield below from their perch atop the rubble. "Many enemies still await us before our city is free. Many battles remain to be fought."

"I dunno!" Dash argued with a shrug. "I say we've got 'em on the run!" She play-punched with her front legs like a boxer. "This fight is as good as over!"

"There ya go temptin' fate again," Applejack groused, her hoof covering her face.

"Indeed, please stop doing that."

"Verily."

"Whaaaat? What'd I say?!" Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes in sarcastic dismissal. "You guys are always going on and on about me tempting fate or Murphy's Law or whatever." She pointed at them with her right wing. "Sure, a couple times things happened, but that's just coincidence. Total coincidence. Even a broken clock is right twice a day! Don't be so superstitious!"

The three mares stared at her, and then, it seemed, past her and over her shoulder. Applejack even lifted a hoof to point. Very slowly, Dash lowered her wing and turned around. Scattered amidst the army around them, she could see flashes of darkness, a little like changeling transformation magic. But that was impossible. They'd just routed the changelings. She could see panic as ponies ran around, trying to make sense of what was going on around them.

"Darnit."

. . .

"Update: eight thousand, four hundred and seventy-six… and rising."

. . .

"This magic!" Celestia spun around as the ponies in the sanctuary began to lift their hooves, vanishing in pillars of black light. "The magic of the aether?"

The majestic First Princess of Equestria was almost wide-eyed with panic once her mind made sense of what was happening around her. Trotting in a circle, looking around frantically, she saw more and more ponies begin to turn. Up in the rafters and the second floor, only a few at first, but then it spread like a plague. She could hear them muttering to themselves, agreeing with some unknown voice, like a distant chorus. Celestia could only barely hear the few nearer by, whispering under their breath.

"That's right." "We can't rely on them." "I just want them all to go away." "I'll join you!"

"Nephew!" Celestia yelled, turning to the stallion that had saved her and served her so well, especially after meeting Rarity at the Gala and finding renewed purpose in life. He had to sense it too!

Instead, she saw him staring at something she couldn't see.

"Oh ho." Blue eyes blinked before, to her relief, focusing back on her. "Auntie? I do believe we have a problem."

"These ponies," Celestia began, stepping away when one of her own guardponies abruptly vanished into a cocoon of black fire. "Nephew, are you hearing a voice?"

"Yes. One directing me to sign a contract," Blueblood answered, having already dismissed the bargain himself. "Would that I had my lawyer with me, I- oh blast!" His eyes widened and he raced over to where Cadance and Shining Armor lay.

He grabbed her hoof as she reached for something in mid-air.

"Don't," he warned, not letting go even when she tugged at her hoof to free it.

Princess Cadance had been through a great deal. Blueblood understood that. Celestia understood that. She had been kidnapped, tortured, mentally and physically; she had been jailed by her own friends; when she escaped, it was to find the city she had grown up in aflame; then, when she finally managed to corner the source of her suffering, Chrysalis had manipulated her with hateful words, poisoning her and revealing that the love of her life was doomed to die, turning a moment of triumph into despair.

"Let me go, Blue. If I were stronger I'd be able to save him!" Cadance snapped, narrowing her eyes at her step-brother. "I said. Let. Me. Go!"

"You've been to the Vault before, Cadance," Celestia reminded her, quickly catching up to her nephew and standing over the young Princess. "You know the sort of beings that dwell there." She frowned, her tone stern. "There is always a price to pay for more power. Always."

At Celestia's rebuke, at least, Cadance hesitatingly relented. There were tears in her eyes, and not just from the pain. The changeling love poison in her veins was burning out her magic, bit by bit. She lay side by side with the insensate Shining Armor, trying to spend what time they had left together.

"Auntie," she said, softly, almost painfully. "Look around you."

More than half the ponies in the sanctuary's gallery were wrapped in what looked more and more like black wings, glittering with stars. Colored streaks of magic had begun to appear on the first few to transform, just a few solid lines the color of their coats providing outline against the black. Of those few who resisted the mysterious call, they had already begun to huddle together in the lower level, afraid of what was to come. Twilight Velvet was among them, soothingly running a hoof through her unconscious son's mane, providing what comfort a distraught mother could for her dying son.

"Look around you!" Cadance said again, but with more heat and force. "We failed Equestria! That this happened at all… is our fault!" Her eyes crushed shut for a moment, forcing out more tears. "And yours, too! Auntie!"

Celestia visibly recoiled at the accusation, lifting a hoof and wincing. Celestia couldn't say Cadance was wrong, even in her anger and grief. Ponies didn't just look to the Princess for guidance, they looked to them for protection as well, and by any standard she had failed to protect thousands of ponies in Canterlot and elsewhere. Celestia already felt that failure keenly. She had felt it the moment she was cut down at the wedding. She felt it when, immobile and helpless, she saw the changelings slaughtering her subjects. She felt it, personally, when Chrysalis turned to her as a source of amusement and mockery. She felt it when her nephew had risked life and limb to rescue her, for all that she had failed Equestria.

"Maybe there is a better way!" Cadance was desperate for anything, any shred of hope she could cling to. Blueblood held out some hope they could save her, with her alicorn constitution, but Shining… Shining was…

"Maybe this – whatever this is – can save us!" the Princess of Love pleaded. "Maybe it can save Shining!"

"Or it could damn him," Blueblood argued, shooting Celestia a quick look. "Cadance. We have no idea what is happening here! I heard that voice, too. I recognized it. That was Eunomie Mosaic. I don't know her very well, but I certainly wouldn't trust her."

"At this point I wouldn't care if it was Discord himself," Cadance argued back, but then she seemed to deflate. Twilight Velvet had touched her gently on the shoulder.

"Then I will do it," the mother and arch-mage said with steely resolve. "I would gladly trade my life for the chance to save my little colt."

Blueblood grimaced. "A noble sentiment, Lady Velvet, but-"

"…no."

The conversation abruptly froze and all eyes fell back on the crippled Captain of the Guard. It was the first word Shining Armor had spoken since they'd saved him from the castle.

"Shining!" Velvet and Cadance yelled, crowding around him. His eyes were open, bloodshot, but open, and as he raised a hoof, it was almost as if he was grasping for air. Velvet called his name again, sobbing as he seemed to come to. Cadance turned silent, however, when she noticed it.

"What's happening?" Chrysalis hissed, near where Lyra and her aethereal familiar still had her bound. Missing one wing, the Queen had been abusive and unrepentant, mocking the powerless of her captors to save their city or themselves, whether she herself lived or died. Now, though, a distinct note of panic began to fill her voice. "What is this magic? I can't see – what's happening?"

Shining Armor continued to grasp at something, just out of reach.

"He wants this," Cadance realized, and looked up at her mentor and step-brother with tear-filled mauve eyes. They could see her mind was already made up, then and there.

"Are you sure?" Twilight Velvet asked her, when Celestia and Blueblood were left shocked silent. Even in this state, he had heard Eunomie's call?

And worse: he agreed with it?

Celestia's heart broke; her own Captain of the Guard had lost faith, and she could not blame him. Not after all he had endured. Not after he must have seen Chrysalis, captive but unrepentant, in the same room with them. He didn't know, couldn't know, that Chrysalis had set things up to collapse if she died. She had rigged parts of the city with explosives as an immediate threat, and worse, purposefully raised her cruelest and most malicious daughter up to succeed her, so if she died, a slaughter would be the result. Then again, Shining was dying. What sane pony wouldn't reach for any possible salvation?

"I'm sure," Cadance answered her would-be mother in-law.

Velvet nodded back, and together, the two mares took Shining's hoof and lifted it higher. Celestia watched it all, helpless to stop it. For all her power… once again, she was helpless, as the world around her spun out of control.

Shining's hoof seemed to touch an invisible surface, leaving a brief burning imprint in mid-air. Releasing him, mother and wife pushed back to give him room. They had seen what came next.

Shining Armor's eyes widened and cleared as he sucked in a mighty breath. There was only a moment's delay, and then the aethereal miasma began to pour out of his horn, deforming it. He groaned, his entire body convulsing. This close, Celestia could see the miasma cutting a spiral pattern out of his horn along the natural grooves… but much deeper, painfully deeper. The black light expanded rapidly down the rest of his body, and within moments he was completely engulfed by it.

"By the Princesses…" Twilight Velvet wept, and turned to her Princess. "What have we done?"

"This magic," Cadance said, squeaking in pain as she forced herself up on all fours. "Is a lot like what Lyra uses. The magic she got from the torc. It can save him, I'm sure of it."

"Aethereal magic," Celestia explained, her visible eye narrowing in thought. "I warned you of it… but none of this makes sense. Contracts with celestial beings are not shared. Most are jealous by nature. Even when the power of Sun and Moon were shared among dozens of royal ponies, it never had this effect. This is something different..."

The Royal Princess grimaced at her own lack of knowledge. "Luna. Luna would know more, I suspect. She spent more time delving into the mysteries of the dark than I did as a young mare. Though that same curiosity may have abetted her fall."

"Guys!" Lyra blurted out, pointing with a hoof up at the upper level of the underground sanctuary. "Look!"

The first ponies were emerging from their black shells.

. . .

"Update: sixteen thousand, two hundred and twenty-nine… and rising."

. . .

Celestia trotted backwards, carefully, mindfully. Blueblood did much the same, keeping close. Up in the gallery, she saw one of the first ponies to embrace the contract become visible beneath her starry feathered wings.

Her hooves glowed with a pale white light that burned like fire over charcoal, and so did her eyes, her lashes replaced by wisps of white flames. Celestia recalled this pony. She had been an earth pony before, but now she had a highly grooved pitch-black horn, distinct from her yellow coat color, that glowed and crackled with colorless white magic. Her wings, too, though possessing a base where the black merged into the yellow, were as dark as her horn and glittered with faint stars. Most of her mane, too, had been consumed by black, leaving just a few wild strands of the original color un-homogenized.

To her right, another mare emerged, flexing her wings and running a hoof along her new dark horn. A few meters away, a stallion likewise appeared, fixated on his wings. Unlike the others, he spun around, and in the process revealed his flank. There, Celestia could see his cutie mark. It was intact, for which she breathed a sigh of relief, but there were black cracks in the skin around it.

"Auntie, I have a rather unsettling feeling about all this," Blueblood murmured. "Would you think less of me if I screamed like a little filly?"

Celestia met his eyes with a level stare. "Nephew, would you think less of me if I beat you to it?"

"Hm."

"Quite."

Around the royals, all along the second floor and looking down on them, more and more transformed ponies appeared. All shared the same black horns, wings and hooves, wreathed in white flame. All had their manes bleached nearly wholly black with only a remainder of the original color as a thick outline. It quickly became clear that the remaining normal ponies on the first floor were completely surrounded by their former friends and comrades. Those same former friends looked down coldly at the ponies and Princesses below.

"What are they?" Cadance asked, trying to hide her fear. Her wings were spread in challenge, though, and her body language betrayed her.

"Alicorns… of a sort," Blueblood reasoned, still turning around in circles and trying to take it all in. "The body parts don't match, though."

"They are not True Alicorns, like you, Cadance," Celestia speculated, but kept her voice hushed. "That only comes from ascension… from harmonizing with yourself. This process is different, artificial, more forceful; I've never seen the like before."

"Damn it! What's happening?" Chrysalis yelled in the brief pause that followed. "What's happened?"

"Princess!" one of the mares in the second floor finally spoke.

"My little ponies!" Celestia addressed them in turn, adopting a stately pose and regal bearing. "You appear safe. What has happened to you? Could you describe it to me?"

"We were given real power!" another mare answered, a glowing hoof raised in triumph.

"That's right!" a stallion agreed. "I feel amazing! Like I could fight a hundred changelings!"

"Or a thousand!" another mare said with a dark laugh.

"And there must be more than just us!" another added, contemplative. "How many other ponies out there are like us, now?"

"An army!" a young mare blurted out.

"That's right!" a stallion laughed. "And to think: we were so afraid before?"

"I can fly!"

"And I can use magic!"

"-like I could kick down a building!"

"-or crush a changeling!"

"Like a bug!"

Around and around it went, the ponies reveling in their new power, talking amongst themselves. They quickly decided to put their new power to the test: to find and hunt down the changelings and avenge their families and their capture before. Celestia felt the change in the air. Like Pinkie Pie, she also had the emotional affinity that came with being what – in the modern era – was called a "party pony."

She could feel it in the air.

Malice.

Malice and miasma. Her little ponies didn't feel like ponies. They looked like them. They spoke like them. But their feelings and emotions were warped. It was like she herself had been taught so many ages ago: power, especially aethereal power, always came with a price. Somehow, somepony had forged a contract with something in the Empyrean Vault… something with no willpower to manifest itself, but that didn't mean the connection was free of influence. The darkness in the Vault had already seeped into these ponies' hearts and souls.

"Brothers! Sisters!" One of the mares in the gallery spoke up over the others. "We are getting ahead of ourselves. Is there not a changeling right here? The Queen of them all?"

There were murmurs of agreement, almost instantly.

They hadn't forgotten. Not so long ago, when Chrysalis had been brought in, the ponies had demanded she be punished for her crimes. Princesses and Prince alike had talked them down, and having guards around to keep ponies back helped, too, but there had been promises that Chrysalis would pay for her transgressions when the time was right. Preferably when her various doomsday plots had been taken care of. They hadn't even had the chance to use her against her Princesses yet as a hostage.

"My little ponies-" Celestia began to say, projecting her more authoritative voice.

One of the mares above, the boldest one, jumped down. Her black raven-like wings flapped slowly as she descended. There was a cold and cruel look in her eye.

"Justice," the dark mare whispered. "For my son."

"For my wife," a stallion joined her a moment later.

"Justice." "Justice!" "Justice!" "Justice!" "Get her!" "Kill her!"

"My little ponies," Celestia warned, quickly moving towards where Chrysalis lay, minus one wing, blind, and still restrained by Lyra. "This is not justice! Do not do this!"

"Friends!" Blueblood also tried to turn on his most charming with a smile and a soothing voice. "Gentleponies, listen, please. We cannot smite this foul creature – believe me, we all want to – but we cannot until we have unraveled her plots!"

"Stay back," the first mare warned, having landed softly nearby. Almost as an afterthought, she added, "Your Grace."

Boldly, four of the false alicorns stood in front of the two royals, refusing to budge. They spread their dark wings and stamped the ground hard enough for it to shake.

"Uh, guys?" Lyra Heartstrings huddled close by Chrysalis. She had been tasked with being the Queen's jailer, empowered as she was by the lyre. The glowing hand of which was still holding Chrysalis by her horn. For all that, though, she was clearly uncomfortable with how more and more of these false alicorns began to surround her. "Getting kinda surrounded here!"

"Stupid fools!" Chrysalis barked, sensing she was about to be pounced on. "I don't care what magic you've found or what miracle you cling to! If you strike me down, Equestria will suffer! Your city will burn! Instar shall kill your loved ones, one and all! You have yet to see my greatest weapons! Test me and you will regret it!"

By the end, her voice had a frantic and terrified edge to it. She clearly tried to back away, only to bump into Miss Heartstrings.

"Don't you touch me!" she roared, her voice rising in pitch while she blindly pointed a chitinous hoof at figures she couldn't see. "Don't touch me, I said! Did you not hear me? Stay back!"

Celestia, gritting her teeth, prepared to wade in. This could not be allowed to continue.

"Gentleponies!" Blueblood tried to push through the growing throng. With him, their remaining guards also moved to try and control the situation. Before, it had been doable. The ponies had complained but they had ultimately relented.

This time, things were not going to plan.

Celestia saw one of her guardponies go flying, brushed aside by the wing of one of the false alicorns. He tumbled through the air and crashed into an antique table stand. Another tried to use his magic, only for his horn to end up seized by a black star field. Of course, to make matters even worse, these pones would have aether-enhanced magic, too! If their entire bodies were protected by it, and it seemed they were, then this would be tricky, even if she were in her normal state.

"Guys!" Lyra sounded frantic, and Celestia could no longer see her. "Guys! Help!"

Chrysalis started to scream.

Spreading her wings, Celestia mentally prepared a spell. Blueblood flew through the air next, violently rejected while trying to push past a pair of dark mares. As if sensing her growing power, one set of baleful eyes after another turned to regard their Princess. They had not moved against her, but looking at them, Celestia only saw coldness. They were truly not her little ponies anymore. By Faust, they were actually going to fight her.

"WAIT."

The voice came from her right, where Cadance and Velvet sat, staring as Shining Armor's black wings parted. Shining Armor rolled onto his side, planting a burning hoof on the stone floor with a thunderous CRACK. He had completed the transformation quickly, more quickly than the others, and as he rose to his full height, apparently cured of poison and changeling abuse both, Celestia saw his ice-blue eyes flicker behind the crackling white glow that was characteristic of false alicornhood.

"Shining!" Cadance exclaimed, reaching for him.

"My colt!" Velvet was just staring in wonder. "Thank the Princesses! You're alive!"

"I… am better than alive. Mother. Cadance." Shining Armor exhaled slowly, shaking his now blackened mane and spreading his new wings wide. "I am free. I am FREE."

Standing up at his full height, he could almost look Celestia herself in the eye. As a guard, Shining had never been the largest of his peers, but he had always been strong and hearty. This transformation seemed to have brought all that roaring back and then some, though Celestia could see that the dark cracks surrounding his cutie mark were deep and numerous. He turned his head, briefly, and kissed Cadance on the crown of her head by her horn.

"Free at last," he said again, and quickly began to move away from his family.

The throng of transformed ponies around Lyra and Chrysalis parted without a word. Celestia saw their faces: they were all grinning. They knew about Shining Armor and at least some of what he had been through. They all seemed eager to see what he would do. They seemed willing to defer to him. If power translated evenly from their previous forms, there was no doubt he was the strongest false alicorn of them all.

"My dear Shining," Celestia said, soothingly, as she caught the look in his eye at the sight of Chrysalis. "You must rethink this. I beg you. We need her alive, at least for a time."

Shining brushed past her, walking slowly towards the changeling Queen splayed out on the floor.

"Shining?" Chrysalis muttered, and against all logic, she smiled. "Is that really you?" Her smile broadened. "It is you! I can still feel you, my Shining Armor. There is an empty pit where your heart used to be, but it still beats… and your love, your once-sweet love has turned to vinegar. But I never forget a taste."

Blind, and facing certain death, Chrysalis began to laugh. Like a madmare.

"I see. I see. I understand! This is what he wanted all along! I can see it now!" Chrysalis threw back her head and laughed before lunging forward and falling on her front hooves. "Very well! You have my permission! Shining! Kill me then!" She screamed, slamming her right hoof on the floor. "Shining Armor! For everything I've done to you! For everything I've done to her!"

Shining's hooffalls were like thunder as he closed in on her, trailing white fire.

"Do it!" Chrysalis cried, spittle flying from between her lips. "Do it! Let me be your whole world, one last time!"

Looming over her like a mountain, Shining Armor suddenly stopped. For a moment, everyone and everything was still, waiting on baited breath for the violence to come. Shining Armor turned to his left, searching the faces of the other false alicorns, then to the right. Like Celestia, he could feel the bloody-minded anticipation in the air.

"All those times she spoke as if I was not there," Shining said, coldly, addressing his fellow alicorns. "I remember almost every word, now. I have two daughters. I have two daughters!" he yelled, suddenly raising his voice to a roar. "Instar! Ecdysis! Changeling Princesses!"

At his hooves, Chrysalis looked… confused.

Shining Armor trotted in a circle, spreading his wings and gesturing to the other aethereal alicorns. A nasty grin graced his features at what he said next.

"Let's go kill them!"

The other alicorns all roared their approval.

A blink of an eye later, and they vanished into thin air.

Dust motes and sparkles of spent magic lingered in the rays of light as they left, leaving the remaining little ponies, two Princesses and one Prince. Blueblood had crawled back into his hooves, but was clearly left shocked at what had transpired. Lyra was still huddled near Chrysalis, having loyalty kept her magical reins on the Queen throughout the terrifying ordeal. Cadance and Velvet were silent, in various states of shock. Celestia hung her head in dismay.

Too soft to hear, Chrysalis whispered something to herself, holding her head in her hooves. Then her whole body went slack, boneless, like a puppet with her strings abruptly cut.

'You've realized it,' Celestia thought, guessing what had to be going through Chrysalis's mind. 'You've killed them all. Every one of your children.'

"Shining," Cadance said, simply, but rather than give in to despair she took a breath and turned to her foster-family. "We need to get top-side. There's only one pony who could have done this."

"There are still ponies down here," Blueblood reminded her, gesturing to the few who had not lost faith and not given themselves to the contract. They were a frightened lot, huddled together at the edges of the underground sanctuary. Even the royal guards, originally freed alongside them, looked terrified at what has just happened. Worse for them, they had just seen their Captain of the Guards turn along with two of their own number. Flash Sentry seemed to be trying to rally them to negligible effect.

"We must see them cared for, nephew, but Cadance is correct," Celestia answered, spreading her wings wide. "This is madness. Our little ponies have been corrupted, and we must put a stop to it, now, while we can still salvage a measure of control over the situation."

She looked to Cadance for an explanation. "Who has done this to our little ponies?"

"And to my son," Velvet said, very quietly. "I know my colt, and that was not him."

Cadance lowered her eyes, as if guilty.

"Brass," she finally replied. "Alpha Brass."

Chapter Sixty-Two : One Last Breath

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter Sixty-Three: If I Had a Heart

Just so you all know my last update wasn't a one-off thing. No, you won't have to wait another 2 years for a chapter.
TPC is my priority, over all other non real-life-work stuff.

As an aside, while looking around for things, I found what seems like a playlist for TPC that someone made! I wish I knew who, or when, but with the name and the three lists (Rarity, Blueblood, Chrysalis) what else could it be for?
If you want, you can check them out here:
https://8tracks.com/explore/this_platinum_crown/hot/1

. . .
(63)

This Platinum Crown – If I Had a Heart

. . .

“Found you!”

Shining Armor grinned as wall caved in before him.

Going underground had not been his preference, but one of his new comrades had a tracking spell, and it was best to let her do what she did best: track magic, while he did what he did best. The guard drilled ponies in specialization and Shining knew when to let another take point on patrol. As long as it led them to his very particular prey, he was happy as a colt in a candy store. Sure enough, a little patience, a little prudence, and the universe had rewarded him!

In the chamber up ahead, amid a gaggle of changeling drones, one stood out as taller and more menacing than the rest. It had to be a Princess!

Except…

There were other Princesses, too? Collapsed on the floor? There were a few ponies on the other side of the cavern, and what looked like a squad of diamond dogs in armor and livery, three diamonds on a blue field. The changelings were sandwiched between the two forces, Shining and his team in the rear, these other ponies at the front, but that didn’t explain the extra Princesses. From what Shining Armor recalled from his previously lost time, there were only five true daughters of Chrysalis.

“More intruders?” the Changeling Princess hissed. “No. No. Not now! Not here!”

“Curious,” Shining Armor said with a rumble, exiting the hole in the wall and resting his wings along his sides. He made way to allow two other aethereal ponies to join him, flanking his left and right; they were his companions for this little hunting trip, and it was cramped in that hole in the wall. Before ascending, the pony to his left, Purple Rains, had been a pegasus, and Lucky Star on the other side had once been a petite unicorn mare. She was still relatively petite, but what they were now had no name, at least as far as Shining Armor knew.

“Meddlesome equines!” the changeling Princess snarled, and magic rippled across her body alongside a high-pitched trill. To Shining’s surprise, several of the smaller changelings began to grow and warp, turning into duplicates of the larger Princess.

“That’s new,” Purple Rains growled, flexing his starry black wings. “Is it an illusion?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lucky Star’s soft voice was nonetheless cold as ice crystal. “At least one of them is the Princess, right?”

“So, we just kill them all,” Shining finished her thought and grinned even more broadly. “Elegant in its simplicity.”

They took their time advancing on the changelings, especially since they also seemed to be fighting the group on the other end of the cavern. Those changelings who didn’t turn into Princesses themselves could not transform at all, thanks to some sort of blanketing city-wide interference magic, and instead had to rely on their natural talents in the form of poisonous fangs, sharp chitin hooves, and an assortment of melee weaponry.

The most dangerous, Shining had learned, were the ones with enough drill and discipline to form up in squads or larger squares for defense. This was a classic Equestrian Guard maneuver. It had been a bit of a surprise to see changelings using pony tactics, but they had likely been stolen from captured equestrians… stolen like so much else. Other changelings, though, simply rushed in to use ferocity and fear to their advantage. Most of what they faced here were the latter.

Purple Rains scoffed, horn and wings glowing as he pulled together moisture to form a cloud. Cloud control was elemental pegasus magic, and though their new bodies seemed to possess all the power of the three pony tribes, and then some, what it did not do was grant any extra experience or knowledge. Rains knew pegasus magic, and so he used Pegasus magic…

Unleashing the cloud, it violently expanded, the fluffy white turned a darker stormcloud grey, infused and enhanced by a faintly sparkling aethereal light. It thundered like a stormbank ten times its size, unleashing sharp jagged cracks of electricity. Most changelings were wise enough to go out of their way to avoid it, but a few, either too impetuous or unable to maneuver, ended up caught. Not a one that entered emerged from the dark roiling storm.

“Below us,” Lucky Star grunted, a moment before the ground cracked and a changeling lunged upwards at her throat. It was a clever move, Shining Armor thought, and the changeling had been well situated to lay her ambush. It would’ve worked on a normal unicorn, too, especially as the changeling knew to strike for the neck and clip the horn at the same time.

Lucky Star was quicker, though, simply by virtue of knowing where the changeling was even before it broke cover. Juking her head to the side, she avoided the slash to her throat, and with a hiss of her own opened her mouth wide. Her dentition, like his, was mostly equine… mostly. Their new transformation had given them a double pair of canines, and Lucky Star put them to work when she bit down on the changeling in an ironic inversion of exactly what the shapeshifter had planned.

Shaking her neck like a terrier catching a rat, Lucky Star whipped the changeling left and right, violently enough the limp body hit the sides of her barrel. Her starry mane became a brief blur until, just as swiftly, she let the changeling go. It spun in midair, hitting the ground in a boneless sprawl of limbs.

“Now there’s a flavor you won’t find at Joe’s.” Lucky Star spat. “Nasty.”

“You haven’t had one kiss you,” Shining dryly commented, frowning as a changeling rushed him. His horn flashed, just momentarily, and the mid-air changeling became locked in a maroon-red bubble. It fell to the earth with an unceremonial thud.

Shining continued his steady advance, sparing the trapped changeling a mere look. It hissed at him as he passed by, beating itself against the confines of the bubble. Shining paid it little mind, instead catching a second in the same trap, and then a third.

“Princess,” Star warned, motioning forward with a nod of her head.

“I see her,” Shining replied, forming a barrier around himself as green fire splashed against the shield. The Princess and two drones were laying down alternating fire, and when Lucky Star shot a quick blast at them, it was deflected by a green-hued shield of their own. Given the burst of light from the bigger changeling’s horn at the same time, it was the likely culprit.

“Three for one, then,” Shining Armor said with a sneer, dropping his shield and re-focusing his magic. One of the green blasts hit him, straight on the chest, but hardly did more than sting. This new aether-enhanced body was far stronger, far superior, to his old one. Signing that contract had been the smartest move of his life, and not just because it had saved his actual life!

Chuckling darkly, he watched as a larger shield enveloped not just one but all three changelings as a group: the Princess and her two drones. The creatures hissed in sibilant tones and tried to break through, but their green fire did little but singe themselves.

“Give it up,” Shining said as he trotted by. “You’re already dead.”

Two more changelings needed to learn the same lesson, one throwing a spear and the other pouncing like a cat. Shining deflected the spear with his starry hoof, even as his magic caught the two offenders. Just like all the others, they fell to the ground, trapped in their bubble shields turned prisons.

By then, the battle had clearly turned.

“Kyyraah!” a piercing cry split the air, and one Princess in particular fell from the air to land in a smoking heap. “Noo! Not again!” She struggled to get back up, only for a hoof to plant itself on her throat. “H-how?!”

“You’re hardly the first creature to think my eyes are my worst weapon.” The mare pinning the Princess to the floor glanced down at her with a half-lidded stare. “But that is an interesting trick, allowing others to mimic you instead of mimicking them yourself. It even bypasses Twilight’s spellwork.”

“You! I know you,” Shining announced over the dim of battle, approaching the mare.

“And I you,” the mare answered, looking up at him, her eyes still at half-mast. On some mares, the look would have almost seemed seductive, but on this one…

“Lady Antimony,” Shining said, smirking.

“Captain Armor,” Antimony returned the greeting. Yes, it was her alright. Shining remembered that day, years ago, when the main line Rares of the Bismuth house had summoned all the branch families and cousins to attend to the naming of the new successor. He had just been a colt at the time, and Antimony a young filly, but even then, he remembered her being intimidating. She had more of the swanlike Princess-figure than her sisters or cousins, and even now, her long two-toned purple mane was done up in intricate braids only partly ruffled by combat.

For just a moment, she reminded him of a darker, more sinister Cadance… but that was just a superficial physical similarity. Antimony wasn’t nearly so thin, and then there were the eyes. Even partly covered, they seethed with something distinctly unnatural and off-putting.

Shining grinned again.

It seemed they were on more even hoofing, now.

“Is that the real one?” he asked, pointing to the pinned changeling Princess. “I believe this one was… Ecdysis, right?”

“This is the real one, yes,” Antimony replied, conversational but guarded. “This is my second time dealing with her little trick. More importantly, what are you doing here and how are you free? Your entire body is… changed… and I know they don’t teach dark magic at the academy.”

“Me?” Shining lifted a hoof and casually waved it back and forth. “The Queen of these bugs had me under her hoof for a while. I was dying, actually, but couldn’t do anything about it. Then Cadance freed me, and this nice little contract spell appeared just in the nick of time. I’m not exactly up to Twily’s level when it comes to esoteric magic, but I’d guess it taps me into the aethereal firmament.”

“Did you know that at the time?” Antimony asked and shot a look to her left in time to catch a changeling with her telekinesis. It hung for a moment in the air, until an enchantment clicked into place over its wings. The changeling hissed as a suddenly massive weight caused it to drop out of the air like a lead anchor. It hit the ground with a thud, hard enough to kick up dust.

Antimony returned her eyes back to their normal half-lidded stare.

“I was half dead at the time,” Shining explained, ignoring the interruption. In the corner of his eye, he saw Lucky Star wrestling another changing down to the ground with her new strength and blasting it, point-blank, with magic from her horn.

“Either way,” he continued, “I’m not complaining. I feel like a million bits! And I want to share this feeling with Chrysalis’ nearest and dearest.”

“Ah. I see.” Antimony blinked, her voice and expression level. “Well, you can have the others, but I need this one. She and her ilk have been planting demolition charges under Canterlot. Some sort of a much larger scorched earth plan.”

“Then hurry up and find out what you need to know, cousin,” Shining stepped closer to the noblemare. “Because I’m taking her. Sooner. Not later.”

Antimony stood at her full height, and she was tall for a mare, but still had to look up to meet his nose. All the same, she did not back away or cringe. As Shining would have expected, from the successor of the notorious Bismuth Rares. They were a fearless lot, and dark enough that this was unlikely to be Antimony’s first exposure to aether magic.

“And how am I supposed to--”

“Use those gorgon’s eyes of yours,” Shining interrupted her, poking her on the horn with his hoof. “Twilight told me a little about them in a letter. Chrysalis’ magic made whole tracts of my memory hazy, but she wanted me to preserve certain details to pass onto her. Some things, I remember clearly.”

“My duel with Rarity,” Antimony stated. With a grimace, she grumbled, “Twilight.”

Yes, Twilight. She’d mentioned her before, too.

“Are you really working together?”

“We are,” Antimony replied. “We’ve put aside our differences, for now, all of us.”

Shining Armor tried to imagine it. Tried and failed. “Hard to believe.”

“Your sister Twilight, Lady Rarity, Pinkie Pie…” Antimony almost seemed about to say more but cut herself off. “I don’t know if we’re friends, certainly, Rarity and Twilight are both obstacles to my taking Canterlot, but we aren’t strictly enemies either. I… I like them.”

Shining Armor barked out a single, mocking laugh. “Isn’t that sort of thinking kind of soft, for Arsenic’s successor?”

At that, Antimony finally narrowed her eyes dangerously. “Push me any further, Captain Armor, and you’ll find out how soft I really am.”

“I think I’d almost like that,” he whispered in response, almost nose-to-nose with her. Antimony glared right back at him, arrogant and defiant, but she kept her evil eyes in check. For all that she did, though, there was something intoxicatingly dangerous about her. Shining was almost a little struck by it when he realized his own excitement. Was it frustration? The desire for a good fight? The need for a good fuck?

Shining Armor looked away at that thought, that disgusting, taboo thought, and shook his head.

“Captain,” Antimony said, as if sensing his thoughts, “The magic is warping your mind, you--”

“You have sixty seconds!” Shining Armor snarled, cutting her off and turning around. “Do what you have to do. Sixty seconds!”

“I can’t…”

“Fifty-nine!”

Shining didn’t immediately turn back around. He continued to count down, but he didn’t turn around. His head was still spinning slightly, not enough to impair him, but enough to be a little vexing. In all his life, he’d certainly never had… thoughts like he just had. Not that noble families didn’t marry cousins often enough, but he loved Cadance. He loved Cadance. He hadn’t even thought of another mare in years. Even in private fantasies. Only Cadance.

He loved Cadance.

And yet… when he thought of her… he longed for her, pined for her, but something felt… missing. Some … thing that slipped through his mental hooves, like grains of sand.

“Ugh,” he groaned and tried to pick up where he’d paused. “Fifty. Fifty.”

Turning back around, feeling more in control, he saw Antimony had used her front hooves to force Ecdysis’s eyes open. The changeling was on the floor, her legs kicking weakly, blood streaming from her tear ducts. Antimony’s eyes, meanwhile, were wide open and blazing with an orange ingot-hot malevolence. As she worked, the braids of her mane came undone, whipping in the air behind her head and neck like an angry bed of snakes.

She truly was as much a monster as a pony.

It wouldn’t surprise in the least if her mane could turn into a literal nest of serpents.

“What sort of magic is that?” Lucky Star asked, delicately wiping ichor off her star sworn horn.

“A couple generations back, an ancestor of ours tore out the eyes of a catoblepas… a type of gorgon, like a giant fire-breathing bull,” Shining explained, counting down in his head. “This one here somehow inherited them.”

“Her foalhood surge must’ve been…”

“Terrifying? I’d bet. I heard she killed her first pony when she was still in diapers,” Shining recalled, his grin now comfortably back in place.

“There’s something else, though,” Lucky Star said, peering more closely at the Terre Rare successor. “I can almost see it.”

“See what?” Shining tried to see it too, narrowing his eyes but not seeing anything else amiss. Lucky Star was the tracker who had led them here, though, and Shining knew she had superior magical senses compared to his own. Senses that had been magnified by their transformation.

“Magic… like ours,” Lucky Star murmured, cupping her chin and pausing to think. “But all bundled up and buried. There’s a bit of it around her cutie mark, too. Skin-deep, like a brand.”

“But she isn’t like us,” Shining argued, gesturing towards the mare. “I mean, just look at her.”

“You said our magic came from… what was it?”

“The firmament,” Shining explained, and it was weird that he had to. Lucky had better senses, but no Canterlot learning. “The space between our world and the sun. That’s my guess anyway. I only took Intro to Esoterica back in the Academy, but I am a Captain of the Guard. I know enough.”

“The buried magic in her is like what we have, but with…” Lucky struggled to find a word. “Consciousness, maybe?”

“Interesting.” Shining ‘hmm’d. If it was what he suspected it was, it was getting him excited again. Maybe even it was why he had gotten excited before. Certainly, it was more comfortable to ‘blame it on the cosmic.’

“Twenty!” he barked, then.

Antimony twitched, clearly hearing him, but continued her work on Ecdysis.

“Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…”

“You know, I’m hungry,” Lucky Star thought aloud. “Anypony want to get a hayburger after this?”

“Where are you going to get a hayburger?” Purple Rain returned from the fighting, shaking green ichor off his left wing. “I don’t think there are a lot of working diners in Canterlot right now.”

“Eleven, ten…”

“I can make a hayburger,” Lucky argued, ignoring the countdown. “I’m not helpless. I just need to find some ingredients.”

“Will you make me one?”

“What, for free?”

“Seven, six…”

“I didn’t exactly transform with my wallet on me, Lucky.”

“Alright, alright, fine. I saw a ruined Five Mares topside. We’ll hit it up after this.”

“Two, one!” Shining announced with a stamp of his hoof. “Hope you’re done in there!”

Antimony looked up from her victim, eyes still ablaze, only to quickly close them behind her eyelids. “I need more time. She fought me every inch of the way; I don’t know if I got all of them.”

“I’m sure you did fine,” Shining said with a shrug of his withers. “Now for my turn.”

“Where? Back here?!” Ecdysis came to her senses extremely quickly, quickly enough to kick Antimony away from her with her back legs and roll onto her hooves. “It can’t end like this! I have to tell--”

“Chrysalis?” Shining suddenly appeared, blocking her way. She tried to go around him, but the big stallion batted her down with one of his new wings. Like a flyswatter, he thought.

“Ugh!” Ecdysis grunted, forcing herself back up. Tenacious bug.

Her horn flashed, a moment before Shining’s right wing battered her into the ground again.

“Armor!” Lucky Star warned.

Shining armor grunted, seeing the attack. One last pair of drones had come to the defense of their Princess, and mid-attack, Ecdysis’ magic kicked in and enhanced them. They expanded, becoming copies of her, growing in both size and power. Shining’s dark-hued horn blinked, twice, with magenta magic, and the pair of attackers were caught in shield bubbles.

One bounced harmlessly off his side before hitting the floor.

“That was actually rather close,” he noted, and grabbed Ecdysis’ throat with his hoof, lifting her easily off the ground. “You’re one of Chrysalis’ daughters, aren’t you? The third one, am I right?”

“Ecdysis,” the Princess hissed, trying to cut his foreleg with her own chitin hooves. “You’re… Shining Armor… I… I came from you…”

Shining’s eyes lowered into a glower.

“I’m… I’m your daugh--"

Ecdysis slammed back into the floor, her sentence turning into a pained gurgle. Shining Armor mantled her, legs spread wide, lifting her inches off the ground and then slamming her back down by the neck. Again, and again, he struck, his eyes going wide and wild and a savage roar escaping his throat. The two other aether ponies simply watched on with amusement as their leader lost himself in an aethereal rage.

“Cousin!”

Shining lifted his prey off the ground one last time, holding her there. He turned to the voice. Antimony was watching him, standing close by, a look of disapproval on her face.

“Is there a problem?” he asked, baring his teeth at her. “Hmm?”

“We are nobles,” Antimony stated, simply. “Or have you forgotten that?”

“Yeah, thing is… I never really bought into that noble pony attitude, cousin,” Shining said, but let Ecdysis go. The battered changeling fell to the ground with a weak gasp.

“Always acting reserved, always composed, unflappable,” he continued, turning to her. His horn shimmered and a magical orb enveloped the beaten Ecdysis. “Don’t you ever get tired of it?” he asked, walking up to and past Antimony. “It’s all so pretentious! All so pointless!”

“We must set an example,” Antimony argued, watching him warily as he trotted around her.

“An example of what… exactly?” Shining asked, as one of his legs hooked over her back and rested on her left shoulder. He slid up next to her, leg over her back, like an old friend leaning on a drinking buddy. Antimony felt an involuntary shiver run down her neck and her jaw clenched.

Her eyes turned to him, smoldering behind her eyelashes. “You’re being overly familiar, Captain. Unhoof me. Now.”

Antimony interestingly stressed his rank rather than their admittedly somewhat distant blood relation. But then, as Shining Armor thought about it, it made sense. Antimony was noble, through and though. Rank and decorum mattered to her. It was worse for a pony to behave inappropriately relative to their station in life than it was for cousins to metaphorically kiss.

Shining felt that uncomfortable feeling from before, and quickly removed his leg.

“This will clearly take some getting used to,” he said, to her, and to himself. “But I got what I wanted. Time to go.”

“Good,” Antimony’s voice was even, unflappable, but he imagined there was just a bit of relief mixed in there, too.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Shining Armor clucked his tongue and concentrated, his horn glowing hot, reconnecting with his existing shield bubbles. “Shrink.”

Across the battlefield, his shields from before began to constrict. It hadn’t been so long since he made them, so the changelings inside hadn’t passed out from lack of oxygen. One by one, as the barriers shrank, their hisses and cries turned to screams…

And then just cracking, crunching sounds.

“No! No!” Ecdysis was the last of them, and the strongest. She held out longer than the rest. “Father! Don’t do this!” Desperate, barely holding the shield back, she turned to the only other pony who could possibly help. “My Lady! Lady Antimony! I surrender! I submit! Please! I was only following Mother’s ord--”

Antimony winced but didn’t turn away as Shining’s last shield constricted with a crunch.

“One Princess down!” Shining Armor announced, waving to Lucky Star and Purple Rains. “Let’s get to work finding another one!”

“But I wanted a hayburger!”

“Yeah, we’re going to hit up a Five Mares after this.”

“Seriously?” Shining asked, sounding hurt and annoyed as the trio trotted casually back together. “Come on. Work with me here.”

“I’m helping out as a favor, Mister ex-Captain.”

“Fine, fine.”

And then they vanished in a blink of teleportation.

Left behind, Lady Antimony let out a sigh of relief and brought a strong but delicate hoof to her lips. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that many of her guards, and even some of Rarity’s diamond dogs, were still watching her uneasily. Others were retching at the mess Shining Armor had left behind in his wake. Antimony felt her own nausea rise, but all the same forced it back down. It was unbecoming and unwise to appear weak in front of one’s subordinates.

“Compose yourselves!” she commanded, turning around to address them. “Summon the sapper unit commanders and get me a line with the outside! We must move quickly! Canterlot is still in great danger!”

. . .

“You call that a kick?” the starry alicorn laughed, effortlessly catching Applejack with her magic and lifting the earth pony into the air. She lowered her front hooves, having just used them to absorb a fierce buck of the apple farmer’s hindlegs, seemingly none the worse for wear.

“Let me go, con-sarin’it!” Applejack struggled against the twinkling star field that ensnared her. “Let me go and fight like an earth pony!”

“But I’m not an earth pony! Not anymore, anyway!” the mare announced, sticking out her tongue as she concentrated on her newfound magic. “I’m getting a hang for this nifty unicorn magic! Multi-tasking is pretty hard, but it seems intuitive enough.”

Applejack twisted in the air, angling her hooves and trying to get a feel for the magic around her. It wasn’t that long ago when Yumi, Shigure, and her bunch had passed on a few tricks when it came to tusslin’ with troublesome unicorns. It’d only take a minute…

“You were an earth pony?” Applejack asked, narrowing her eyes at the starry mare she’d been fighting a moment ago. Her opponent had a dark yellow coat and what must have once been a pink two-toned mane, the color now shifted to the outline. A pair of bows in her starry mane had once supported ponytails. The mare’s wings, though, and her new dark horn, made her original tribe impossible to discern. The transformation seemed to erase the original pony before adding in the alicorn bits.

“You sound surprised!” the mare announced, looking up at the suspended Applejack. “The name’s Prickly Pear.” She pointed with a wing to the flower cutie mark on her flank, though it seemed to be framed by cracks in the skin. “What? Did you think I was a warrior? Or a fighter? Almost all those types got sent to the surface to hunt changelings. I’m a gardener. But now? Now it doesn’t matter!”

The former earth pony stood up on her hindlegs and laughed, triumphantly.

“It doesn’t matter at all, anymore!” she crowed. “Thanks to Lord Brass, we’re powerful! More powerful than changelings! More powerful than royal guards! More powerful than you, Miss Element of Harmony! We’re invincible, now!”

“Shucks, invincible, ya’ say?” Applejack sighed, defeated, and ran a hoof through her mane.

“Close enough to it,” the starsworn mare amended, still grinning in triumph. “Now, let’s see how your friends are doing. The Princess might be trouble but…”

Prickly Pear turned her head for just a moment.

She did catch sight of the other fights going on around the terrace: the seamstress turned Baroness, the Princess Luna, the pegasus with the rainbow mane… but there was no time to really digest what was going on. Movement in the corner of her eye set off an alarm bell, but she barely had time to turn her head back towards the source of the movement. It shouldn’t have been possible.

Applejack’s hoof had pushed free of the star field, indeed, about a fourth of her body was out of Prickly’s telekinetic hold. Applejack was visibly straining to do so, but that she had pushed through it at all was remarkable. Her hoof just barely brushed Prickly Pear’s forehead.

“Ehhh?” Prickly stepped back, away from the apple farmer. “You got free a little bit? Don’t know how you did it, but it won’t help--”

Prickly concentrated on her unicorn magic, but it abruptly evaporated, dropping Applejack back to the ground. Sputtering in shock, she felt something constrict around her horn, and reached up to remove it. Applejack, meanwhile, landed easily on her hooves. Her mane hung loose over her withers, and Prickly Pear realized the thing stuck around her horn was the red ribbon Applejack had been using for her hair. She’d got it loose when she ran her hoof through her mane.

“It… it’s not coming off?” Prickly muttered, pawing at her entangled horn. Magic sputtered out of it, unfocused and unrefined. “What’s going on?”

“First rule of fightin’ unicorns don’t seem different than the first rule of fightin’ alicorns,” Applejack explained, pointing to her head. “Ya go for the horn, first.”

“So… so what?” Prickly Pear snarled, snapping her wings out and starting to take to the air. “Even without a horn, I still have the powers of an earth pony and a pegasus! That’s twice what you’ve got!”

Applejack’s response took the form of a lasso clenched between her teeth. Prickly Pear’s eyes caught the movement, however, and she intercepted the lasso’s ring with her foreleg, preventing it from catching around her neck or barrel. The knot of the lasso tightened, catching her foreleg, but otherwise leaving her unimpaired. The false alicorn’s starry wings flapped, kicking up great gusts of wind as she tried to take flight.

“Come on!” Prickly yelled, gritting her teeth and flapping her enhanced wings even harder. “Come on!!”

Applejack took a step forward, wrapping a length of rope around her own hoof and foreleg. She bit down on the tense rope a second time, holding it firmly, and allowing her another step forward to repeat the process. With her jaw otherwise occupied, she had little to say, except to advance, bit by bit, against the gale-force winds Prickly Pear kicked up beneath her.

“How… are you still holding on?” Prickly yelled, starry sparkles scattering from her wings with every mighty flap. “Just blow away already!!”

Applejack coiled another loop of rope around her foreleg, reeled Prickly in another half meter, and bit down on the lasso again. Around her, pieces of plants, bits of debris, chairs, tables, and even loose bricks tumbled through the air, blown away by Prickly’s aether enchanted wings. Her hat, at least, flew off, but the farmer herself seemed to be rooted to the ground.

“Blow away!” Prickly yelled, as Applejack drew closer and closer. “I’m stronger than you! Why can’t I blow you away?!”

Applejack, finally drawing her opponent back into hoof’s reach, gave one last titanic heave, pulling Prickly Pear down to the ground, and then into a buck from her right hindleg. The false alicorn took the blow clean to the torso, but then curled in her legs to protect her body. Applejack let some slack loose in her lasso, took a step back, and then pulled Prickly back in for another hoof-strike. Like a yo-yo, she repeated the process, methodically letting go and reeling back in, bouncing Prickly Pear off her hooves, front and back, over and over.

It took dozens of blows, but Prickly Pear finally deflated and fell to the ground, landing on her rump. She still had her forelegs up, including the one caught on the lasso, trying to protect herself. When the blows paused, she let her forelegs fall to her sides, revealing a broken nose and a black eye.

“I don’t… understand,” she groaned, holding her head. “I have all the powers…”

“Of an earth pony, pegasus and unicorn,” Applejack interrupted, lasso wrapped almost entirely around her right front leg. She looked exhausted, but she was also unhurt. “Ah know. You’ve said as much a bunch’a times. And it’s true, ya got all those abilities… ya can hit hard as mah big brother, flap those wings harder than Rainbow Dash back there, and yer magic ain’t no joke either.”

“You’re just an earth pony,” Prickly groaned, glaring at Applejack with one swollen eye.

“But ah’m better at bein’ one than you are at bein’ an alicorn,” Applejack replied, looking down at the starry pony with a sad expression in her green eyes. “Ya don’t even realize it, but pegasus ponies and unicorns got weaknesses, too. Yeah, you’ve those powers, sugarcube… and all those weaknesses, too.”

“Weaknesses?” Prickly shook her head. “No. No… I, I don’t…”

Applejack took a step towards the fallen pony, and a little reluctantly, brought back her hoof to knock her out. Not that it was easy with this one. Prickly Pear had already absorbed a dozen blows. It wasn’t just her having the powers of an earth pony, pegasus and unicorn, either. Applejack understood her own constitution. If their places had been reversed, she wouldn’t be conscious enough to mutter to herself about her loss.

And then… there was something else, too.

Applejack, hoof still drawn back, froze. It took a moment to even realize why, as her brain caught up to her body. It was fear. Her body was screaming an instinctive warning. Prickly Pear still had her head lowered, her wings deflated, her horn sealed by red ribbon. She looked beaten, but there was something unnatural hiding behind the façade.

In a flash of memory, Applejack remembered once, years ago… when she and Winona had strayed too close to the Everfree Forest. It was near the farm, after all, and she’d gone exploring looking for wildflowers. By pure bad luck, they’d run across a wounded timberwolf. Winona, of course, had run after it, barking, and Applejack had followed to try and call her back. The wounded timberwolf, with a blighted front leg, seeing the dog approach, backed up against a tree and started to quietly snarl in warning. Applejack had managed to call Winona back before her curiosity caused a fight, but that look, the look of a cornered beast, stuck with her. And something about Prickly Pear was reminding her of that.

“mmrrrRRRAAAHHHH!!”

Applejack yelped in shock and fright, instinctively throwing her foreleg between her neck and the blur that jumped up at her. It was well she did. Prickly Pear’s teeth bit down hard on her leg, and to Applejack’s growing dismay, the former-pony’s jaws drew blood. Before she knew it, Applejack was on her back, fending away murderous hoof strikes and snapping jaws. It was like a frenzy – like a monster attack – nothing like how a pony would fight.

Not a normal pony, anyway.

“Gah!” Applejack barely juked her head to the left, avoiding another snap. She managed to tuck in her hind legs, pressing the hooves into Prickly Pear’s torso. “Get offa me!”

The kick that followed wasn’t elegant, driven more than a little by fear and desperation, but it worked. Just so. Prickly flew through the air, only to land on her hooves, crouching low like a tiger. A pale glow in the back of her eyes burned behind the retinas, leaving an eerie trail as her head swayed left and right.

With an inarticulate charge she pounced—

Only to be caught in midair, first by a familiar magical aura, and then by midnight blue legs that wrapped around her neck. Princess Luna’s own wings flapped, bringing her opponent down to earth in a choke hold. Prickly Pear roared in rage, struggling against the princess and the magic, her horn sputtering fire and her wings kicking up violent wind. Applejack watched in morbid fascination as the pale alien light behind her eyes dimmed and the former earth pony turned starsworn at last slipped into unconsciousness.

“At last,” Princess Luna said with relief, letting the body go to fall limply to the floor.

“Thanks, Princess.” Applejack wiped a bit of nervous perspiration from her brow, still sitting on her rump. That hadn’t been normal. She turned to look around, to check on her friends, and saw Rarity and Rainbow Dash. The two seemed fine, but they were also standing over an unconscious star pony, looking a mixture of relieved, exhausted, and terrified that it would pop back up.

“You are most welcome,” Luna replied, and offered her hoof.

“Ya know, she said her name was Prickly Pear,” Applejack said, taking the Princess’s hoof and getting back on all fours. “First Pear I think I’ve ever met. Granny always used to talk about our feud with ‘em.”

She looked down at the unconscious pony. “Ah wonder if… ah, shucks, nevermind. Just a flight’a fancy.”

Princess Luna tilted her head slightly, not quite following, she quickly moved on. “There is little time to dally. We must…”

Then, the Princess of the Night’s eyes widened.

“Wait!” she gasped, narrowing her turquoise eyes in suspicion. “Something comes. I know this feeling, this sense of--”

The dour Princess craned her neck, focusing her attention on a doorway to the terrace. As if to punctuate her glower, the oak doors shook with a sudden thud, the hinges cracking under the impact. Something was coming. Another thud, and the doors visibly strained on their steel hinges, screws popping and flying through the air from another impact.

“Whatever it is, it sounds big!” Rainbow Dash said, landing near Luna in a fighting pose. “Boss battle time!”

“My word, can’t we get a break?” Rarity bemoaned, trotting up alongside her Princess. She tossed her mane and a roll of linen cloth circled her protectively.

“No rest for the weary, ah guess,” Applejack added, rolling onto her back and then flipping onto her hooves with a flourish. She held up a hoof as she walked, snagging her Stetson and another red ribbon out of the air – courtesy of a certain seamstress – using it to tie back her mane as normal. Together, the four mares braced themselves as the doors finally broke, falling to the ground with a loud crash.

“LU-NA!!” a huge white shape leapt out from the darkness, wings spread and radiating light. “I found you!”

“Ah, sister,” Luna deadpanned. “I thought it was you.”

“P-p-princess…?” Dash stuttered.

“Celestia?” Applejack finished, also aghast.

“When? How?” Rarity asked, and seemed poised to say more, when her mouth froze. More ponies were emerging from the room, partly obscured by Celestia’s great white wings.

“Hey! Applejack! Rarity! Rainbow Dash!” Lyra Heartstrings trotted forward, emerging from behind Celestia and waving excitedly. A strange yellow claw of magic also waved at them. “What’s up?”

“Such a dramatic entrance, I--” the third pony was Rarity’s stallion, Blueblood, and he also seemed momentarily at a loss for words. Instead, he smiled contentedly, his eyes to Applejack’s right, where Rarity also seemed to be smiling slightly. “Hello there, my dear.”

“Blueblood? Is it truly you?” Rarity asked, trotting forward. “Really and truly you this time?”

“I was replaced, I know,” the foppish Prince replied, also picking up the pace to close the distance between them. “My dear, I hope it didn’t…?”

“It didn’t,” Rarity answered quickly, and the two seemed to say as much unspoken as they did spoken. The first of their two groups to meet up, both ponies slowed slightly, lowing their heads to gently touch horns. Applejack blushed a bit at the intimacy, rather unique to unicorns, but universally understood. It was like earth ponies touching noses or pegasus ponies holding wings. Rainbow Dash, naturally, tried to find something interesting in the opposite direction, while still sneaking quick stealthy glances at the couple with her red eyes.

“I was worried for you,” Rarity whispered. “The real you.”

“There is no real me without you,” the Prince whispered back.

The muzzles of the two seemed to inch closer, only for both ponies to fly apart as if burned.

“Oh!” Rarity gasped. “One moment, please!” She whirled around like a dervish, erecting a black screen with her magic. Her silhouette was the only thing visible, and Applejack could see her frantically trying to fix her mane.

Worse, she wasn’t the only one.

“Ah, same here!” Blueblood also seemed to be muttering to himself as he fixed his appearance, a cosmetics case materialized and held in a magical field as he quickly rubbed some sort of crème over his cheeks and forehead. A mint popped into his mouth as he rapidly tried to make himself presentable.

“Yeah, those two are clearly gonna need a minute,” Dash noted, straight-faced.

“Sister.” Luna meanwhile held out a hoof. “We are most relieved to see you yet live…”

Princess Luna’s eyes widened as her big sister swept her up with her white wings, hugging her briefly but still long enough to dangle the smaller Princess of the Night in the air, off all four of her hooves. Luna, clearly taken by surprise by this, chuckled uncomfortably, but with genuine amusement.

“Sister, we are not a foal,” Luna admonished, tapping her sister on the head with a hoof.

“I know,” Celestia replied, letting her fellow alicorn go but still grinning broadly. “It just… I’m just so glad we’re all together again. The whole family.”

“Indeed?” Luna inquired, seeing another alicorn emerge from out of Celestia’s literal and proverbial shadow. “Our niece, too? We are glad to see her in the flesh, this time.”

“Auntie Luna,” Cadance greeted her elder with a polite dip of her head. Applejack had seen pictures of the youngest princess in Equestria, but especially with her being replaced by a changeling, had never seen her with her own eyes. She definitely looked like a Princess, with that stately alicorn princess-look, but she also seemed weary and even more physically and emotionally exhausted than the other ponies on the terrace.

Applejack didn’t know any of the details, but she could imagine some of what the poor mare must’ve been through. She must’ve been rescued, or maybe escaped, but changeling captivity sure enough wasn’t going to be a trot in the park. Whatever had happened, she looked like she was near some sort of emotional breaking point…

“How’s it going, Dash?” Lyra asked, to Applejack’s left, amiably bumping hooves with the weathermare.

“Fighting monsters, cracking jokes, same-old same-old,” Dash replied with a grin, and followed up by pointing at the strange magical hand in the air. “Since when did you have that thing? And what is it?”

“Handy’s my new magical buddy! Apparently, I signed a contract that gave him my soul.”

“Uh... huh. What?”

Applejack was about to ask the same question. WHAT?

“My Dear! You are a sight for sore eyes!”

“Darling, you look wonderful!”

Applejack turned, and sure enough, Blueblood and Rarity had finished their 11th hour preening, fixing manes, cleaning teeth and freshening breath, whitening their coats, and all the other frou-frou stuff the pair seemed to go nuts for. The two dignified ponies then spent a moment admiring and complimenting one another’s appearances before Rarity jumped into her special somepony’s forelegs, sending them both to the ground in a pile of nuzzling and kissing, quickly undoing all their work fixing their manes and coats.

“Aw, shucks,” Applejack muttered, quickly lowering her hat to cover her eyes.

Not that other ponies had as much respect for privacy this time.

Dash whistled, hooves in her mouth and wings flapping, and Lyra hooted with a goofy grin on her face. Even the two elder Princesses seemed to agree to pause in their reunion to stare, Luna with wide eyes and Celestia hiding a grin behind her gilded hoof. The third Princess, Cadance, meanwhile… she carefully walked around the scene, a perplexed expression on her face.

“Amazing. It really is true,” she said, just loud enough for Applejack to overhear.

“What is?” the farmer asked, raising her voice to let the pink Princess know she’d been overheard.

“Blue. Up until now, a part of me still suspected…” Cadance shook her head, pursing her lips and refusing to continue that sentence. “I guess, maybe, I just haven’t felt real love in a long time. Not this kind of love. Not outside the dream realm. I’m just in a bit of shock.”

“Yeah, well, not a lot of time for lovey dovey stuff with a war on our doorstep, sugarcube.”

“No,” Cadance agreed, but there was a deep note of sadness and resignation to it. “I’m happy for them. Feeling it… actually makes me feel a little better.”

“You can feel love?” Applejack asked, confused. “Like a ch--”

“Not like one of them!” Cadance interrupted, her burgeoning smile fading, but her temper still under control. She exhaled, calming herself again. “Please, understand, I’m not like them. I am the Princess of Love. If I can’t feel love around me, it… its…”

“Like me not having mah family or mah farm around, ah understand,” Applejack said with a nod of her head. “Ah know that empty feelin’.”

Cadance lowered her eyes, a flicker of some repressed emotion in her violet eyes. “Yes. That’s it exactly.”

“Nephew, if you are quite finished?” Celestia’s voice recaptured Applejack’s attention, and she saw the Prince and Ponyville’s new Baroness were both on their hooves again and looking rather bashful. Well, more Rarity than Blueblood. He was grinning and wiping lipstick off his muzzle with a disposable serviette.

“Finished? No,” the stallion replied with a sly wink. “Satisfied for the moment? Yes.”

“Uncouth,” Rarity murmured, elbowing him on the front leg. She bowed her head in due deference. “Princess. My apologies for the spectacle.”

“No apologies necessary,” Celestia assured her, still grinning behind her hoof, a twinkle in her eye. “I hear you’ve managed to keep our noble houses from splintering. It must have been like herding cats!”

“They are not so much trouble, Princess,” Rarity replied, but stood tall and puffed out her chest with pride at the compliment. “I merely had to remind them of their duty… and that rivals can still be friends, at the end of the day.”

Celestia turned briefly to Luna, who nodded.

“Baroness,” Celestia said, returning her attention to the former dressmaker. “Luna says you have her trust. Now, let me say you also have my blessing. You have more than earned it.”

Applejack tilted her head slightly, not quite understanding. Blessing for what now?

Rarity’s eyes watered, though, and she dipped her head again in a polite bow. “Thank you, Princess. I know what it means, now, to have you say that, and I am humbled that you would place your lives in my hooves.”

“What’s that mean?” Applejack whispered, hoping at least one pony would have a straight answer.

“The Platinum Crown,” Cadance explained, but also didn’t really explain. “It is at the heart of all this.”

“All well and good, Auntie, but we need to find the blasted thing first,” Blueblood interrupted, his napkin winking away in a puff of magic. “It may not even be intact.”

“It was broken before,” Luna reminded him, and stamped a hoof for emphasis. “But they fixed it, reforged it, though I thought such magics lost in this modern era. It exists, nephew, minus two signatures on the fine print.” Luna gestured to herself and Celestia. “We must find their Aether Forge.”

“I agree,” Celestia added. “We must renew our connection to the Sun and Moon, and we must find a way to save our little ponies.” She turned to look over the other mares present around her. “You have all seen what this transformation is doing to them.”

“Can we reverse it?” Dash asked, gesturing with her hooves. “You know, switch ‘em back?”

Celestia opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated.

“Perhaps,” she answered.

“No, it is unlikely,” Luna disagreed, ignoring her sister’s frown. “There is no point clinging to false hopes and impossibilities, sister. Our best-case scenario is a form of damage control. Our worst case is that every pony affected must be sealed… except even Tartarus could never hold so many.”

“I will not condemn tens of thousands of ponies to Tartarus, simply for wanting to feel safe,” Celestia told them, but clearly directed most of her ire at her sister. “I will not, Luna.”

“You may have no choice, Celestia,” Luna replied, and not to be cowed, she met her sister’s glare with one of her own. The showdown lasted only a moment before Luna trotted away from her elder sibling. “It is wise to entertain all possibilities.”

“At least we’re all together again,” Applejack said, trying to look on the bright side. “Well, almost all of us.”

“Yeah,” Dash agreed, trotting slowly over to an open space. “It sure would be a SURPRISE if Pinkie Pie were to show up right now!”

She then held her hoof up to her ear.

“She ain’t gonna just appear ‘cause you say her name,” Applejack groaned, massaging her head with her hoof. “That’s just silly.”

“You think so? Pinkie Pie, Pinkie Pie, Pinkie Pie!!” Dash quickly kicked over a piece of rubble.

Revealing nothing.

“See?” Applejack chided.

“Hmm. I guess.” Dash turned around with a sigh. “I thought for sure I had this thing figured out by now.”

“Oh, hi Dash.”

“GAH!!”

The rainbow Pegasus all but jumped out of her coat, leaping into the air at the unexpected voice. Applejack boggled, too, but with a little forewarning she wasn’t entirely shocked. Dash spun around, coming face to face with, not a pink earth pony, but a butter yellow pegasus.

“Fluttershy?” she flew over to give the shy pony a hug. “Where’d you come from?!”

“Oh, I uh, I flew in when I heard all the noise.” Fluttershy pointed back to the end of the terrace that was basically a balcony open to the air. “Pinkie said to hide near here last night.”

“Of course, she did,” Dash grumbled.

“Where’s Pinkie Pie now?” Applejack asked, and her ears twitched as she heard Rarity also trot over to welcome their demure friend.

“So good to see you, darling,” Rarity said, taking Fluttershy’s hooves in her own. “It must’ve been dreadfully frightful hiding here.”

“I had some animals to keep me company,” Fluttershy said with a warm smile of thanks. “But it was scary. All the ponies here… turned. Even a griffin transformed, down in the kennels. Everypony but me.”

“A griffin became one of those things?” Dash asked, incredulous, pointing at one of the three unconscious star ponies on the terrace. “I thought it was only ponies? What did she even look like?”

Fluttershy shuddered. “Scary.”

“I need details!” Dash protested. “Details!”

“Pinkie Pie?” Applejack repeated, hoping to steer the conversation back to something productive.

“Oh, she went down to the surface with Vinyl Scratch,” Fluttershy answered, while Dash fixed her with a betrayed look for want of scary-transformed-griffin details. “She said she was going to throw a party for Euporie and that if she didn’t die, we’d know.”

“Well, that’s helpful!” Dash shook her head. “How would we know?”

“I think she’s fine,” Fluttershy assured her fellow pegasus. “I don’t know how, but I’m sure of it.”

“I have faith in her, too,” Rarity spoke up then. “I’m absolutely certain she’ll pop up again when we least expect it. But what about Twilight? The three of you were together, weren’t you?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Yes. We crossed Canterlot and got to the radio tower, but a changeling princess was there, and she blew it up. We, um, we came here to use the Gardens instead.”

“You turned into a stallion, right?” Dash asked, suddenly sliding up to Fluttershy and playfully wagging her eyebrows. “What was that like?”

“Oh, um.”

“Were you a cutie?” Dash pressed, ribbing her. “Huh? I know I was super-hot.”

“Like yer pops,” Applejack couldn’t help but add.

“That was a slip of the tongue!”

“Of course, it was, sugarcube.”

Fluttershy, meanwhile, seemed to have turned beet-red.

“You were adorable, weren’t you?” Rarity leaned in to whisper.

Fluttershy didn’t respond, but she did hide her face behind her pink mane.

“I shan’t pry further,” Rarity assured her, though she clearly had her answer. The shy Pegasus had obviously been irresistible. “What was the rest of the story?”

Fluttershy happily changed the topic. “The spell worked… and Pinkie Pie used the confusion to leave. Nopony was sure who anypony was anymore, so it worked out well. I stayed. Twilight, though, other ponies were saying she vanished and ascended after the spell.”

“Ascended?” Luna inquired, trotting over with Celestia and Cadance.

Fluttershy nodded again. “That’s what I heard, Princess.”

“I suspected as much,” Celestia confirmed. “I felt it back when we were hiding underground. I don’t know how she learned the secret, but that spell of hers had to be five alliterations. That’s far from a guarantee of ascending, raw power alone can’t do it, but Twilight always had the potential. What I worried about was her getting trapped in the Vault.”

“Oh, no, she’s back.” Fluttershy looked up at the two Princesses. “I heard talking.”

Celestia sighed in relief. “That’s good to hear. So, she’s here?”

Fluttershy nodded once more. “Um. I think so, yes.”

“You’re wrong,” Luna said, then, a frown on her face. “This is not good news, sister.”

Celestia narrowed her one visible eye. “How is it not good news? Twilight is… oh.”

“Oh?” Cadance asked. “I don’t see how that isn’t good news. If we can find Twilight--”

“If Twilight Sparkle is here, then why isn’t anypony worried about her?” Blueblood seemed to have also figured it out, perhaps being a bit more attuned to pessimism than his sister. “To hear Miss Fluttershy talk about it, the ponies here were looking forward to her return, and when she did return?”

“They were happy to welcome her back.” Applejack also saw where this was leading. “You don’t mean…?”

“Aye. I do,” Luna answered, her ears folding back in dismay. “It may be that Twilight Sparkle did not come here just to use her mega-spell. It is likely she had a hoof in this transformation, and indeed, she may be here not as an ally but as an--”

“Don’t say it,” Celestia interrupted, turning away from the group with a swoosh of her wings and tail. Both were looking faded, far from their usual resplendence, but they were not gone just yet. “We will find her.”

“Sister?” Luna muttered.

“We will find her,” Celestia repeated, her back to them and her face hidden from view, “and we will set all this to rights. We will set Equestria to rights. By the Stars as my witness.”

“You have an idea where to go, Auntie?” Blueblood asked, and Celestia’s wings lowered slightly. It was clear she didn’t. They could wander for hours and not find this Forge they were looking for.

“Actually,” Fluttershy peeped, clearly hesitant to re-enter the spotlight.

“Um, well,” she gulped, as everypony, from Princess to weathermare turned to her. “I… think I can help with that.”

. . .

“Lady Twilight!” “Lady Twilight.”

The two guards standing outside Alpha Brass’s quarters saluted as Twilight Sparkle turned the corner. Like virtually everypony else in the Gardens, they were enhanced by aether – the ‘Starsworn’ she had heard the name making the rounds. These two mares in particular had already been quite tall even before their transformation, with long legs and necks but more muscular and solidly built than the usual princess-like physique. Now starsworn, they were even more imposing, standing like sentinels to either side of the carved oak doors.

Yet both dipped their heads respectfully as Twilight and Chalice approached.

“Lady Chalice,” one added, respectfully, but almost as an afterthought.

A floating eye became increasingly distinct, drifting in midair on unseen currents. Around it could just barely be seen parts of the socket and face, belonging to Eunomie Mosaic. This was her familiar, or rather, one of her many familiars, a magical homunculus called Galen.

“They are expected,” Eunomie’s voice came from the floating eye. “Lord Brass wishes for privacy.” The eye turned to Twilight and Chalice. “Chalice, would you remain outside with me, please?”

“That’s fine,” the soft-spoken Chalice agreed. “Twilight…”

Twilight already had one hoof on the door but paused before pushing it open. She glanced back at Chalice, and the other mare stared down at her hooves, avoiding eye contact.

“I hope things go well,” Chalice finally said, barely raising her voice. “I think my brother… needs you more than even he knows.”

Twilight’s smile was wan, but she nodded. “I think you may be right.”

The door opened before her, and Twilight entered.

Alpha Brass’ personal study was adjacent to his actual quarters: a circular room with mahogany walls decorated with inscribed alcoves of gilded gold. Three large windows, the middle one larger than the two flanking it, dominated one side of the room, looking out over a flowering garden of greens, whites and purples. Potted plants framed each window, jutting upwards with thick aloe-like leaves. Will o’wisps in red and yellow danced around the leaves, suggesting a less than mundane origin for the faintly glowing plants.

A ticking grandfather clock dominated the wall directly to Twilight’s right as she entered, the color of the wood much darker brown than the walls around it. It, too, was lined with etched gold and electrum. A half dozen paintings were on the wall to the right of the clock, the largest reaching from the floor to the ceiling, and the smaller paintings arranged three on one side and three on the other.

The largest painting was of a younger Celestia and Luna banishing King Sombra, notable in that it depicted Luna as the one striking the final magical blow, while a wounded Celestia recovered. Usually that was reversed, indicating that those was likely a very old painting indeed, perhaps second century, given the more simplistic proto-realism artistic style.

Next to it was a classical painting of a unicorn pony, her body limp, being held up by another pony, her face contorted in grief, while a third pony tried to shoulder the first’s weight. In the background, several tall graves loomed like black towers, and the sky churned in wrath. Twilight was unsure what event it depicted, but it was clearly a scene of great loss and grief, as the ponies struggled with what had to be a fallen loved one.

Another painting, this one an oil painting, was of a crowded hall, where a unicorn in a stately robe was teaching magic. Given the colors and clothes, Twilight guessed it to be the famous Prench astronomer and mathematician, Laprance. They had translations of his treatise on the magic of celestial mechanics in the Royal Canterlot Library, but it was a rare tome; her own library didn’t have a copy. Laprance was dictating to a crowded hall of unicorns, gesturing while his horn burned with orange magic. The ponies in the hall were watching him, talking, looking to him and to one another, one checking a book, and more. It was a lovely piece of scholarly art.

Twilight also recognized in the next painting an interpretation of the famous “Pegasus Bound,” wherein Pegasus – the mythical mother of ponykind – was punished for her gift of magic to her children by being dragged away in the talons of an eagle. According to legend, ponies were eternally cursed to search for their mother, but no matter how close they came, the eagle would always drag Pegasus away. In this version of it, a small group of ponies are struggling to reach Pegasus, hooves out over an abyss, or holding other ponies back from falling as they strained to reach her, while Pegasus struggled painfully against the Eagle’s cruel talons to almost brush her hoof with theirs.

Another piece Twilight recognized, in part, was a surrealist painting that looked to be by Silver Draylí. In it, misshapen limbs reached up towards the sun in the sky, even as they melted like wax. Next to it was what seemed to be a stencil, done without ink and instead sealed permanently onto the parchment with magic, depicting three ponies tending to a sick stallion. Two were mares, one trying to feed him soup, the other praying, while a stallion doctor looked on with an expression of helplessness and dismay. The sick stallion, meanwhile, seemed to be pleading with his last bit of strength, and Twilight got the impression it was for something much stronger and more final than a bowl of broth.

The next painting was less overtly macabre: oil on canvas, depicting a Saddle Arabian being startled by a lion half-in and half-out of the grass. The pony, though Arabians were tall ponies, seemed shocked and terrified, rearing on her legs and dropping her saddlebags. The lion, however, seemed only half awake. It had likely been napping when the pony came across it. There was a strong sense of irrational emotion in the piece, and Twilight guessed it to be a product of Canterlot’s Romance period.

It was quite a collection… as one would expect of a gentlecolt of Brass’s station in life.

The rest of his study, however, was less ostentatious and more functional. By an ornate marble fireplace were two comfortable looking couches, and further down the wall she saw a pair of alcoves turned bookcases, the books themselves kept safely in place behind glass along with a number of bronze and obsidian busts. A coffee table with neatly arranged flowers dominated the middle of the room, with two more couches, until one came to the desk to the left of the windows. It was plain wood, sturdy and engraved, but with no gold or other rare metals – earth pony craftsmareship. Alpha Brass stood behind his desk, not in his chair, his back to her as he examined a large map of Equestria and the world around it.

“Brass?” Twilight asked, hooves muffled as she trotted across the soft carpet.

“Welcome back, Twilight,” Alpha Brass replied, looking back at her with a warm smile. Like everypony else, he was changed, imbued with aether magic and in possession of new starry wings to go with his altered horn and hooves. His golden mane was now starry like the night, except for the outline, where the colors blurred. He was different, transformed, but still handsome to her eyes. He always had been, even back when he was just a picture in a book (maybe even more when he was a picture in a book) and he had the same small smile.

One other thing was different, too.

“You shaved!” she exclaimed, picking out one detail in particular.

“Well, I remembered you preferred me without the chin-warmer,” he explained, tapping his jaw with a hoof. “Too scratchy, right?”

“Beards make stallions look old,” Twilight told him, reaching his desk and resting her hooves on it. “My father grew one once. Shining tried to grow one, too! Emphasis on the tried.” She giggled into her hoof, remembering her brother’s fondness for his wispy little chin hairs.

“You must forgive us stallions a bit of experimentation,” Alpha replied, and rounded the desk. “You’ve become an alicorn, Twilight. A true alicorn. You’re beautiful.”

The compliment immediately brought a hot blush to Twilight’s cheeks, and she suddenly found her front hooves very interesting in the way they clopped together. “W-w-well, that’s not surprising, I guess. Princess Celestia has been the standard of beauty for a thousand years, and, and I remember reading in a book once about how she set an unreasonable standard for mares. It was – it was kind of critical towards her, so I disagreed, but it made some good points too, and, uh, yeah.”

She felt a little more adventurous back in book territory, so she looked up at him. “Have you read any books on that… sort of stuff?”

He shook his head, leaning a bit closer to her. “I’m afraid not.”

“You wouldn’t prefer if I looked like…” she motioned to one of his dark starry wings.

“No,” he assured her, placing a hoof on her shoulder. “I wouldn’t want you any other way than you are now. You are still you, all the aspects of you, in harmony. That’s what’s so beautiful. What I have, what I’ve given to others, is an imitation of what you achieved.”

The praise warmed her heart and when he dipped his head, she carefully brushed her horn against his. The contact was electric, as it had always been in the past, and set her heart beating a mile a minute. A part of her had worried that there might be some violent rejection or reaction, with the way his magic was now, but it was still the same as before: strong and steady, like an iron column, like a mighty rock, offering shelter against the crashing storms of an uncertain future.

It also reminded her… that they had to talk.

“Brass,” she said, savoring his smell for a moment before pushing away. “Now that I’m back, we need to talk about some things. Some things that aren’t right.”

“Yes. We do need to talk,” he agreed, and slowly made his way back to the map behind his desk. “But before we do, I have to ask: do you know who made this map?”

Twilight tilted her head slightly. “No…”

“You actually know him,” Brass answered, grinning over his shoulder. “It was our very own fifty-second Blueblood. He provided it to the crown just a few months ago, based off the newest surveys and other data. It is actually quite a superb piece of work, not just in terms of accuracy, but artistry as well. It has become my favorite map, of late.”

“It is a pretty nice map, big, too,” Twilight agreed, though she didn’t quite see what was so important about it. Blueblood was the Grand Veneur, the equivalent of a crown huntsman in other kingdoms, but for Equestria it mostly meant he handled the crown’s lands and saw to their sustainable use and preservation. Twilight had seen Blueblood at work a few times, mostly when he dealt with the Everfree or other nature preserves.

This map…

This was a much bigger map than usual, in both size and detail. It covered all of Equestria proper, with Canterlot in the center, Cloudsdale to the west, and all the many earth pony cities and settlements from east to west, connected by rails and roads: Fillydelphia, Baltimare, Manehattan, being the Big Three in the east, and Vanhoover and the semi-terrestrial Los Pegasus in the west. Approaching the Old Country in the northeast were the Duchies of Prance, Germaney and Whinnychester, and further still to the north she saw the Nhorse lands of Scandineighvia and Bugbear country, all the way to the Old Country itself, now an abandoned frozen wasteland, save for the Lost City of Tarpan, where an ancient tribe of ponies was said to dwell even today.

To the south, there was Bitaly, the lone duchy there just as Neighpon was the sole duchy in the west, off the coast. The map covered that and more: the southlands were even more of a mystery than the Old Country and the lost realm of the Crystal Empire, also far to the north. There were jungles and deserts in the south that ponies were ill prepared for (and disinterested in) mapping out. She saw Saddle Marabia, of course, and the distant Zebra lands across the sea, most of them unmapped except for the coast. Serpents and other strange creatures filled in the unknown regions, while dragon migration routes were plotted with meticulous chronological detail.

“This struggle begins with the changelings, Twilight,” he began, “but it doesn’t end with them.”

Alpha Brass used his magic to highlight parts of the map, starting with an area in the south.

“It isn’t on the map, but I know Chrysalis keeps her primary hive cluster here, in the wastelands, protected by an anti-magic field. Our victory in Canterlot will mean only a token force remains. We can capitalize on our momentum and crush them there!” He stomped a hoof, not hard, but just enough to emphasize his point. “Seizing the throne for ourselves. It will make for an excellent weapon against any future cosmic threats, like Discord.”

“After that? Look here,” he continued, lighting up another spot. “This one is on the map. Do you see this little trading city in the south, Klugetown? I have eyes and ears there. My network employs more than just ponies. According to them, the Mountain City of Aris, here to the south, has fallen, its Hippogriff inhabitants vanished without a trace. See here? Abyssinia across-the-sea? Also fallen. A warlord of the south called the Storm King is the one responsible. I don’t know what he’s after, but we must prepare for a confrontation.”

Brass’s magic spread to cover the southern regions of the map, blotting out nations and foreign cities. They were far from Equestria’s borders, though Twilight knew ponies lived in many foreign realms far from Equestria itself. Could this threat in the south really be a menace to them here, in the temperate north? They had mountains and seas and deserts protecting them. And then there was what he had said before, about the changelings. Brass had never before spoken about future threats after the changelings. Was it really that bad, out beyond the borders of Equestria proper?

“That isn’t all,” Alpha assured her, and his magic sparked anew to color the frozen northlands. “My astronomers, and others as well, are estimating that we are approaching the hundred and first northern convergence since the banishment of Sombra and the Crystal Empire. I have sent teams to map the leylines in the former kingdom, and douse for magic.”

There was a tremor in his voice, and he braced himself against the wall with a hoof.

“Just as I feared, just as I thought, the ambient levels of magic are increasing!” He pointed, accusingly, this time with his hoof. “The Crystal Empire will return. The signs are all there. That means a second Crystal War, not just within our lifetimes, but in a matter of years. Years!”

“That… that can’t be,” Twilight said, eyes going over the map.

Enemies to the south and the north? Equestria would be squeezed between them!

“There’s more, still, always more,” Brass promised. His horn lit up another area. “Yakyakistan. The Hermit Kingdom. Smugglers speak of a new Prince, and a desire to end their isolation. We must prepare to confront them on the border. It was more than six hundred years ago when the Yakish Khan invaded Equestria, and that was when we were arguably at the height of our magical power. Yaks are notoriously prone to declaring war at the literal drop of a hat, and I would rather strike first than wait to be struck. If they attack while we are already engaged on two fronts, it will be a disaster.”

“And here! Maretonia and the Griffins are realms in flux,” he continued, highlighting two more regions on the map. “They are our allies, for now, but Maretonia has a separatist movement that needs to be dealt with, and the griffins are divided… as always, squabbling like feathered foals. Equestria must incorporate them, as it did the duchies. Otherwise the instability will spread. We can cut them up into two duchies and a march, I think: Crown Roc… Griffinstone… Winter’s Fall. Shouldn’t be too difficult, but the sooner we act the better.”

By this point, Brass’s magic had spread across half the map, painting enemies all around Equestria, growing, closing in, like a lasso or a noose around their collective necks.

“And last, but not least, I hear that the reigning Dragon Lord is soon to look for a successor,” he seemed to be talking to himself, now, lost in his own world. “This is not good. It won’t do. The three most likely dragons to claim the Bloodstone Scepter are all potential enemies of Equestria. We have no choice but to--”

A hoof on his shoulder cut him short.

“Brass,” Twilight said, pulling him away from the map. “Just, stop a moment.”

“Stop…?” he scoffed, looking back at her with a cold fire in his emerald green eyes. “Stop? I can’t stop. This is all I have left in me, Twilight, this is why I exist. This is what I was made for. This is why Canterlot is on fire, below us. This is why so many have died! Ponies I knew. Ponies I respected. I killed them, crossed their names off a list, so many of them, and it was for this! This is our world, laid bare, naked, and without pretense! Enemies within, enemies without, and us… helpless… praying in the dark…”

He turned around completely, and there was a hardness, an unbending determination in his eyes, a dark parallel to the steadfastness and resolution she so admired in his magic and in his keen mind. Yes, this was a stallion who would stand against a storm, but he was also one who would always look for that storm… who needed the storm.

“Celestia never told her little ponies,” he all but spat the words, as if being a little pony was a slur, “the truth, of just how close we all are to extinction! Of just how precarious our place is in this world! Of how our weakness invites attack, like blood in the water. But I know.” He slammed a hoof into his chest, hard. “I know! And I did something about it. No More Little Ponies.”

Twilight lowered her eyes and exhaled, a shiver running down her neck that left her hair standing on end. No more little ponies. Brass had said that this was what he was made for, why he existed. Twilight suspected it was one of the few things that still felt right, that still felt good, after the changelings tore out his ability to love. But life couldn’t just be an endless struggle, lurching from one conflict to the next. Even if there were more threats out there, and she didn’t discount that there were, this was…

This wasn’t healthy, or right.

“I think my brother… needs you more than even he knows,” Chalice had said. Twilight understood, too, what Chalice had left unsaid.

“I saw Celestia and Luna’s thrones in the Empyrean Vault,” Twilight raised her voice and looked up, still standing close to her intended, but across a growing chasm. “Is this really why?” she asked, her voice growing softer, quieter. Her ears folded back against her head. “Why you didn’t fix their connection? Because you… hate them?”

‘Because you hate that you’re a pony?’

Brass didn’t answer, and that said all Twilight needed to hear.

“We have to save the Princesses,” she told him, holding her head higher. “Brass, listen to me! We need them. Celestia…” She struggled for the right words, to reach him, to make him understand. “Celestia is a good pony. She’s The Princess. If you just talked to her--”

“She’s just a Princess, not the princess, a princess,” Alpha Brass argued, his voice conversational, but without mirth or amusement. “Equestria existed without her before, it can do so again.”

“The Sun and the Moon--”

“You’re afraid of them running wild?” Brass asked and Twilight flinched. That wasn’t it. “You can’t imagine a world without an artificial sun and moon. But it existed once. This world is far older than Celestia and Luna. Far older than unicorns. It was unicorn pride, unicorn hubris, unicorn vanity… that is why we move the sun and moon! The world doesn’t need it. We do it for our own pleasure! For our own convenience! The celestial clockwork ticked before us, and it will tick long after we are gone.”

“Let the nights darken; let the sun burn hot,” he argued, raising his hoof to his face. “The Fourth Tribe can weather it all. I’ve come to think it actually may be for the best, to let some things return to a natural state. But...” He lowered his hoof and sighed. “I agree: the shock may be too much for ponies right now. I don’t want widespread starvation or chaos.”

“But make no mistake,” Brass clopped a hoof onto the side of his desk for emphasis, this time harder, with a lack of control he hadn’t shown before. “This is a New Age. The Starsworn will protect Equestria, and Equestrians! No more unanswered prayers! No more fear! They will be shield and spear, a guiding light in the darkness. In generations, when all ponies are star sworn, then…” He let out a breath, calming himself. “Then unnecessary trappings like micromanaging the sun and moon will be completely irrelevant… relics of the past.”

Twilight shook her head.

“Brass, no. No tribe can just replace the others,” she argued back, trying to make him see. “We are all ponies, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Even these new ponies. And we need Princesses. We need The Princesses! You don’t know Celestia like I do. I’m not afraid of losing the sun and moon. I’m afraid of losing her! And all she represents. All she’s given us! You say this is a New Age, but it sounds like the Old One we left behind, a thousand years ago!”

“All things begin and end, Twilight. All things.” Brass reached for her hooves, taking them in his own. “And it is the nature of things for children to replace their parents, for new ideas to supplant old ones; new generations may stumble, they may make mistakes, but they inherit, and they adapt, and they grow. Without this change, without the old making way for the new, all you have is a dollhouse, frozen in time. That’s not life. That’s not living. Worse: it’s weakness. It’s stagnation. And we have stagnated.”

“It is time for a new generation of Princesses,” he stressed, squeezing her hooves gently. “Twilight, I mean you. My Princess of Magic.”

“I know, but…”

“But not you, alone. Cadance. Chalice. Eunomie. Breaths of fresh air. Ask yourself: what is a Princess, and more importantly, what kind of Princess would you be? Do you think even Celestia herself wants more subjects, or more equals?”

Twilight thought, not for the first time, about that cursed question. She had told Antimony, back when that mare first posed the question, that to her a Princess was a problem solver. Of all of Celestia’s traits – her kindness, her patience, her generosity, her intelligence, her diligence, her beauty – it was her ability to see and solve problems that Twilight most admired. When she reduced the role of a Princess to first principles, the one indispensable factor of leadership and responsibility was that the pony needed to be able to see a problem, analyze the problem, and then solve the problem. Like checkmarks on a list, that was what a Princess was to her: the mare everypony looked to for help.

“You are Celestia’s student, but you aren’t her copy or her clone,” Brass’s words prompted her ears to flick, and she realized he was right in his own way.

She wasn’t Celestia. She admired Celestia, she loved Celestia, but she wasn’t her. For all her flaws and failings, she was Twilight Sparkle, not Celestia come again. She wasn’t Celestia, or Luna, and… and she didn’t want to just be a copy of either of them.

That aside, though, could they be… replaced, like that?

It seemed wrong. Wrong on every level. To imagine an Equestria without Celestia. But, looking back at nature, children did take the place of their elders in time. What would Sweet Apple Acres be like if Granny Smith ran it, forever? What would Applejack’s future be then? While Applejack didn’t plan to radically change the farm, not like when she was younger, she had spoken about some changes she planned to make when she inherited it. And she deserved the chance to make those changes someday, for good or ill. Applejack loved her grandmother, but she still expected to step out of her shadow one day.

For all that Twilight thought about her mentor, she’d never really thought before about Celestia’s immortality and what affect it might be having on Equestria. It was always just… there… an indelible and intractable part of being. A pony didn’t think about the sun vanishing in a puff of smoke. She didn’t think about the air burning away. It was always there and always would be there.

“I don’t know,” Twilight muttered, eyes downcast. “This sort of decision… I can’t… Celestia is…”

“Twilight, you’re an academic, aren’t you?” Brass asked, leaning in and lifting her snout so they were eye to eye. “That’s one of the things I most admire about you: your intelligence. Think about it. Why are ponies weaker now than they were a thousand years ago? Why are you the first in generations to use five alliterations? It isn’t just unicorns, either. All the tribes have gotten weaker. Why are we less magical than our forebears?”

The question stabbed Twilight in the heart like a spear. Why indeed? She’d wondered the same, back when she’d begun planning her mega spell, and again when she learned more about Arsenic. Even back when Rarity had her duel with Antimony. Why? Nopony knew. It was something of a taboo even to talk about in most scholarly circles.

“You can’t think…” Celestia? Twilight shook her head, violently, rejecting the very notion. “No! No, she wouldn’t. I know her!”

“Do you?” Brass wondered, letting Twilight go and stepping back. “It may never have been anything malicious, but it is what it is. This happened under her tenure. If a pony never stands on their own, what happens to their legs? They atrophy.”

He turned around, back to the map, before slowly making his way around the desk.

“War is coming,” he promised, sweeping a hoof over the map. “From the north. From the south. From within. From all sides! The truth is that nothing has changed in a thousand years. All the world is our enemy… and we are more vulnerable than we’ve ever been.”

Reaching into his desk, he pulled out a plain iron circlet, ringed with platinum and twinkling with ice crystals. He dropped it onto the hardwood with a thud, betraying the weight of the crown, physical, magical, emotional. Twilight knew what it was the moment she saw it. Brass left it on his desk for her taking.

“This is Our Platinum Crown,” he said, sitting back in his chair for the first time.

Twilight reached for it, but hesitated. This was what they’d been working for…

But Celestia and Luna? That had not been part of the plan. And the Fourth Tribe… there was something wrong with them. It was hard to say exactly what, but for all that they cheered her, her alicorn senses were telling her they were… wrong, somehow. She needed to double-check the research papers from before, from the short- and long-term studies done using torcs.

“Celestia and Luna are coming here, aren’t they?” Twilight asked, hooves resting on his desk.

“They are,” Brass confirmed, watching her with emerald eyes. There was curiosity in his eyes and in his tone, but also anticipation. “They are coming to stop us. To stop me. Maybe even to kill me. I don’t blame them; I’d do the same. But what are you going to do, Twilight Sparkle?”

Closing her eyes, Twilight thought back, recalling the faces of her friends and family. She’d been drawn into this whole mess, first when she trained Rarity to magically duel, and then when her family were threatened by the main branch Rares. Blueblood and that night in his study came to mind, and Celestia’s secret message back then, a mix of jocular and insightful, saying exactly what Twilight needed to hear in her most vulnerable moment.

The face of Twinkling Star Light appeared, an immensely powerful unicorn but utterly lacking in social or even family skills, looking to solve every problem with ever more excessive displays of magic. Twilight saw the dread pool that contained what was left of Arsenic, the tendrils of it snapping out to consume and possess her chosen successor, the result of one mare’s inability to come to grips with life’s twists and turns. She remembered her own breakdowns, her fears of failure and her inability to reconcile her cutie mark with her situation in life. She recalled, just hours ago, finding her earth pony and pegasus counterparts in the Empyrean Vault, arguing over the fire that was her soul.

All of it came down to this, and what she did now.

“Well, Twilight?” Brass asked, eyes closed as if prepared and at peace with whatever came next. “The choice is yours. What are you going to do?”

“I’ve decided,” she answered. “I know what to do.”

Twilight took the Platinum Crown.

. . .

“You’re being awfully quiet, darling.” Rarity gave him a gentle nudge as they walked. “Was it something I said?”

Blueblood exhaled in a not-sigh; his thoughts troubled. “Partly.”

The hallway before them stretched out, welcomingly, without any opposition since leaving the terrace. The long hallway soon descended into a gently curving gallery area, where somepony had a rather exhaustive museum of wax sculpted body art. There were ponies and griffins, hippogriffs and manticores, donkeys and dragons, all stripped of their hides and scales and reduced to red muscle and white cartilage and fat. The wax sculptures were posed, some by themselves, some with each other. There were scenes of lovemaking and scenes of fighting, pegasi in flight and earth ponies wrestling.

It was raw and primal and beautiful and terrifying, all at once, seeing what they all were on the inside. The exhibit went on and on, and though there was the occasional flap of wings outside, nopony and nothing attacked them. They were left entirely alone to continue on their way. Celestia and Luna took the fore in this, leading their group, and behind them followed Lyra, Princess Cadance, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Applejack. Rarity and Blueblood kept to the rear, which allowed them a bit of relative privacy.

It gave them time to talk, to catch up, and to trade stories.

“Partly?” Rarity asked.

“Well, I truly am struggling to imagine all those noble mares not at each other’s throats,” he admitted, a small smile on his snout. “Antimony, Sand Dune, Yumi, even Ritterkreuz… it isn’t just their own ambitions and animosity, these are families that have feuded on and off for generations. I can’t quite imagine them all getting together after this to model for you, my dear.”

“I’ve already made quite the fabulous dress for Lady Antimony,” Rarity countered, smiling wistfully at the thought of all those noble ponies in her hooves, so to speak. “She has a lovely frame, and such grace. It reminds me of Fluttershy, just a little. Lady Yumi has this severe look that would be just delightful to play around with, and Sand Dune… well, her reputation precedes her.”

“Yet the only one of them I ever really knew was Ritter,” Blueblood mused. “And I cannot imagine you subduing her long enough to get a dress on.”

“I think she has a certain… purity to her,” Rarity closed her eyes, clearly lost in a brief imagination-spot where a snarling pegasus mare wore a pure white gown. “Ferocious, but guileless, and true to herself, no matter what the world says. I find that beautiful, too!” She sighed. “But you’re right, I’m afraid. That one really isn’t the dress wearing type. Perhaps if I strapped some sequins on it and called it armor?”

The Prince chuckled, shaking his head. “Perhaps.”

“Now tell me truly, what is on your mind,” Rarity ordered, giving him a serious look. “I can read you like a book, and something bothered you when I told you about my dealings with those mares.”

“You really can tell, can’t you?” Blueblood did sigh this time. For a moment, he allowed himself to be distracted by a wax sculpture of a unicorn, without skin or coat, but holding up a mask over her face. It was an eerie juxtaposition.

“Alright,” he explained, dispelling the strange sight from thought. “I suppose I was thinking… before all this, that I really did want to spare you having to deal with those mares at all. I never really intended for you to be ennobled… to lose your old life… to burden yourself with the byzantine machinations and ambitions and greed of it all.”

He turned to her with sadness in his voice.

“You were so happy, back in Ponyville. I thought I’d have been perfectly content giving up my own titles if it meant being with you, there. But that was never truly an option; just a foolish flight of fancy. And I do enjoy being a Prince, but… but I hate that all this caused you to uproot your life. You’ll never be able to run a boutique, you’ll never see your fashion lines on sale in Mareis or Manehattan, and I wonder if you’ll still be happy without that.”

“It was my choice to become ennobled, Blueblood,” Rarity answered, using his name for a little added effect. He glanced back up at her after a moment lost in thought. “My choice, and I don’t regret it.”

Rarity faced forward, thinking back on all that had led her here: meeting Antimony, facing that challenge, becoming ennobled, struggling to be a Baroness of Ponyville worthy of her friends and family, and fighting, always fighting. Not just the duels, but the fight to prioritize her friends’ visions on the future of the town. The fight to do what was right, rather than what was easy. The fight to put aside one’s differences. Ruling was fighting, always fighting, for ponies, for causes, for funding, for allies, for legitimacy, even just to be heard.

Yet, she didn’t regret it.

“Blueblood,” she explained, having sorted and wound her strands of thought. “Listen. The boutique was important to me, truly, it was, but it was just a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. I can’t make money off making dresses, but I can still make them, still give them out as gifts, and still make waves in the world of fashion.”

“It is true, I’ll never have a fashion line,” she admitted, and it did hurt, even now, just a little to come to terms with it, “but the clothes I make, worn by ponies I call friends and allies, will inspire others. The boutique and the business, it was there to support the creativity and expression… the art. More than anything, I just loved the feeling of seeing others wearing what I made, and how it made them feel beautiful, or confident, or special.”

“And yet this sweet mare is also a wily negotiator?” Blueblood wondered, and Rarity shared his smirk with one of her own. “I will have to see it to believe it.”

Rarity fixed him with a vixen’s gaze, her smile more than a little predatory. “I think I’ve shown you my negotiation skills many a time, my Prince. When was the last time you denied me, again?”

“A totally different sort of negotiation,” he argued, coughing into his hoof and walking briefly on three legs. “A stallion like myself is all but held hostage.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Rarity giggled, also covering her mouth with her hoof for a moment. The pair walked side by side, trailing behind their companions, a light up ahead finally hinting at their destination. It occurred then that they were walking down, again, leaving the wax sculptures behind and descending somewhere new.

“I’m worried, too, though,” she continued, narrowing her eyes at the approaching end. “Not about myself, really, or about those noble mares or my boutique. I just have a bad feeling. I’ve had it since this morning. Twilight and I made so many plans… some have panned out, other went awry, but I worry about her, and the moment I saw this Sky Palace rise in the sky… I…”

Rarity shivered. “I had such an ominous chill. I wanted to tell somepony, but…”

“You didn’t want to appear vulnerable,” Blueblood guessed, and Rarity nodded.

“You must be strong… for them, even when your knees shake and every muscle you have wants to turn you around and run,” Rarity explained. “Because if you run, then who will be left to stand?”

“Mm,” Blueblood murmured, but nodded in agreement. “You know, you mares don’t get the credit you deserve, not just for being Elements of harmony, but for being brave. Even in the face of evil, you have a courage that defies reason.”

“Don’t let Rainbow Dash hear you say that; I don’t think her ego can take more inflation.”

The two unicorns chuckled, a bit of shared laughter that only intensified when Dash – paces ahead – turned back and gave the duo a sour glare and a hint of pink tongue. Rarity’s giggles were infectious, though she tried to mutter some apologies after her whispered, ‘oh dear, she heard us!’ and his ‘Heard you, you mean.’

“Rarity, this is it,” Blueblood whispered, as Celestia and Luna stepped down from the light, over what must have been a flight of stairs leading down. Somewhere up ahead, a pony was singing. It was a sad, haunting melody with no words, giving the impression of the chamber ahead being nothing less than another world.

“This is it,” Rarity agreed, and angled her horn slightly towards him. “Whatever happens next, we meet it together.”

Blueblood touched his horn to hers, even if only briefly. “Together,” he promised.

. . .

Author's Note

Another long chapter, though mostly talking. But at last we're through the buildup, and ready for the final confrontation and conflict of the story.

Thanks out there to everyone who has stuck with it, this far!
You've been reading with me for literally hundreds of thousands of words, almost a million now, making Platinum Crown my longest solo project and probably the single most ambitious multi-faceted fanfic I've ever written. And I've written quite a bit.

I'm just glad and honored to still have readers who are willing to take this journey with me, even after so long on hiatus. I think we will finish by chapter 65 at the latest. Two more!

Chapter Zero and Table of Contents

Author Notes - Chapter Zero!

In response to comments and criticism from a group of readers, I have endeavored to better bridge the gap between TBNE and TPC with a "Chapter Zero" as a prelude - while reading C0 is not essential to the story, based on early screenings, it goes a long way to reducing the "culture shock" of many of the societal concepts in play in This Platinum Crown. I would strongly recommend that everyone go back and give it a read through. I am re-ordering the chapters as appropriate. Below is also a copy of my own table of contents used as part of my fanfic master file.

Table of Contents
This Platinum Crown

Chapter 0

Following the events of "The Best Night Ever" and the time-looped Gala, Rarity's introduction to Canterlot High Society finally gets into swing. However, all is not well within the glorious castle city, and on top of preparing for Twilight's birthday party, Rarity soon hatches a plan to begin bridging the divide between two powerful stallions: Blueblood and Fancypants.

Chapter 1 : Antimony

Back in Ponyville, Rarity loses herself in preparations for an upcoming Art Festival, hosted at a newly built estate just outside town. The bright expectations for the event are soon clouded by the appearance of a noblemare from Equestria's northern province of Prance.

Chapter 2 : Rare Earth

Shocked by Lady Antimony's claims, and with Blueblood still on a visit to distant Crown Roc, Rarity quickly tried to arm herself with knowledge of her new foe. Who is this Baroness, and how deep does the influence of her family go, even in Ponyville?

Chapter 3 : It Has Been Decided

Prince Blueblood makes haste to head back to Equestria on news of his unwanted engagement. Rarity resolved herself to stand up to Antimony, but missing a crucial piece of information. Spike, too, must make a choice of his own, one with a profound impact on events to come.

Chapter 4 : A Kiss on the Cheek

Drawn into a magical duel with Lady Antimony, Rarity finds an unlikely and unexpectedly effective mentor in Twilight Sparkle. But, really, how is this nonsense training? And does it have to be this humiliating?

Chapter 5 : The Harsh Education of Dewdrop Dazzle

Preparation for the duel continues, the training switching to a most unexpected place. Naturally, since the Cutie Mark Crusaders are involved, everything will go off without incident.

Chapter 6 : Determination

It's a tailgate party, from Ponyville to Everfree! Antimony awaits, while Rarity and her friends make their way through the forest. Once again, a fight waits for them at Everfree Castle, but this time one of them will have to fight alone. What is really at stake here, not just for Rarity, but for Ponyville and Canterlot?

Chapter 7 : To Go So Far

The duel begins at last, but can Rarity's creativity and drive stand up to her opponent's experience and overwhelming skill? With her dreams on the line, Rarity refuses to back down. Of course, there's nothing in the rules against a tactical withdrawal!

Chapter 8 : In This World

Lady Antimony had never been defeated in a duel. Her record is a bloody litany of triumphs across Equestria, all in the pursuit of one goal. All for her family's supposed destiny. At the mercy of the Baroness, lost in a cruel and unending illusion, Rarity struggles to hold onto her own dream. Only one mare can wear the Platinum Crown of Canterlot.

Chapter 9 : Baroness

Rarity, newly entrusted with the restored Barony of Ponyville, leans on her finances and charm to make her mark on her beloved home town. Fully aware that her challenge has not ended, only entered a new phase of battle, she prepares to defend the title so hard won. Meanwhile, the town has the honor of being directly under this generation's dragon migration while in Cloudsdale a Wonderbolt tenures her resignation with vicious force.

Chapter 10 : Grow

Having followed the dragon migration to the volcanic breeding grounds of his kind, Spike tries to gain perspective on just what it means to be a dragon, and how it conflicts with his pony upbringing. In the end, he faces a choice that will have life altering ramifications. Back in Ponyville, Luna and Blueblood have plans of their own for Equestria and the upstart Terre Rare lords of Prance.

Chapter 11 : Challenge

Enter: Lady Yumi! The battle for the crown begins anew as the heiress to the land of Neighpon challenges Ponyville to a passage of arms. When Applejack runs afoul of the foreign ponies, Rarity rallies her response. High above both groups, Ritterkreuz is watching and waiting to pounce, but on whom?

Chapter 12 : Return the Favor

Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Applejack face off against Yumi's trio of hoof-picked retainers to break the pas d'armes outside Ponyville. Do they stand a change against the veteran knights from Neighpon? A certain former Wonderbolt also picks her target, taking advantage of the confusion.

Chapter 13 : Motivate

Ritterkreuz and Rainbow Dash clash above the skies of Ponyville and across the countryside. The battle on the ground may have ended, but the air war has only just begun! Lyra accepts a dangerous invitation and Flim and Flam meet up with two mysterious benefactors on the road to Sweet Apple Acres.

Chapter 14 : Circle the Wagons

Rainbow Dash meets with the Wonderbolts to discuss her run in with their former member gone rogue while Lyra begins to settle into the comfort of Alpha Brass's Hanging Gardens. Scootaloo makes a new 'friend' and Twilight Sparkle is the recipient of a shocking letter from home.

Chapter 15 : Battles of Honor and Cider

Rarity shares her concerns over the previous few days with Blueblood. Plans are laid for her gifts to Ponyville and Flim and Flam's Cider Garden opens, cornering the cider market and threatening to push Sweet Apple Acres out of business.

Chapter 16 : The Lyre and the Letter

Applejack continues to look for a way to improve sales in the face of new competition while Spitfire puts Rainbow Dash to the test. Lyra makes some strange acquaintances and Twilight goes a little loony trying to find a solution to her personal dilemma.

Chapter 17 : To My Faithful Student

Twilight's 'brilliant plan' results in a kidnapped Prince, of sorts, and a discussion of her future and the future of the Terre Rare extended family. Isn't there some way to satisfy the needs of both friends and family? Elsewhere, Alpha Brass sees off his step-daughters, Eunomie and Euporie and his sister Chalice. Their destination: Ponyville!

Chapter 18 : The Knight and the Enchantress

In a gambit to save her farm and her way of life, Applejack proposes a cooperative venture to the Flim Flam brothers. Scootaloo takes on chickens and Twilight Sparkle’s mysterious visitor reveals himself. After one seemingly crushing defeat or let down after another, a certain pony has a second chance to win back something that was lost.

Chapter 19 : Battles of Earth and Sky

Ritterkreuz, Spitfire and a crack team of Wonderbolts battle across the skies of Ponyville. Blueblood and Shining Armor lock horns and Applejack struggles against the seemingly immovable challenge before her that is Late Rains.

Chapter 20 : To Move a Mountain

Applejack’s uphill battle concludes, while Fluttershy entertains a few friends, old and new, for Decoration Day. Lyra prepares for a unique celebration and Shining Armor and Blueblood defend their precious honor. Well, Shining Armor does anyway. Blueblood has other intentions.

Chapter 21: Metaphors and Parables

Ritter and Spitfire see their grudge match to the end; Fluttershy has some unexpected guests and Chalice shares some insights on starstuff. Lyra and Alpha Brass have a long overdue talk and so do Twilight and Eunomie.

Chapter 22 : Deals, Regrets, Decisions

The sanctity of Fluttershy’s hearth and home is not to be taken lightly, and in that place, a deal is forged. Twilight seeks out Applejack and Pinkie Pie for advice and a financial plot is uncovered in the process. Euporie’s mischief irks Ponyville’s premier party planner, and fresh from a long day’s shooting with Photo Finish, Rarity finds an angry friend waiting for her.

Chapter 23 : What You Want From Me

Twilight plans out her meeting with Alpha Brass and the potential terms of their alliance, and Euporie provides some insight into Eunomie and herself. The Cutie Mark Crusaders make a new foul mouthed friend and Applejack finds that she may have an unexpected ally of her own.

Chapter 24 : Plans, Partnerships and Poison

Eunomie and Twilight learn more of one another, Applejack comes to a decision, Rarity begins welcoming guests for her New Barony's art festival and Pinkie Pie lines up a date for Euporie's party. Meanwhile, Alpha Brass and Chrysalis maneuver, the fate or doom of Equestria in their hooves.

Chapter 25 : Brass and Twilight

Twilight Sparkle finally meets her ally: the pony who will help her, and help Rarity, defang the Prench Terre Rare and secure peace among their families and Equestria as a whole. Her ally and potential husband, in a pact sealed by blood. Alpha Brass.

Chapter 26 : Party

Blueblood makes a decision and Twilight struggles with knowledge gleaned from her new alliance. Pinkie Pie, meanwhile, attends Euporie's grand new party as a special guest of honor.

Chapter 27 : The Games We Play

Pinkie's experience at Euporie's party takes an unexpected turn. Chrysalis and Alpha Brass have their final meeting and, for one of them, a knife moves in the shadows, poised to strike where least expected.

Chapter 28 : A Celebration of Art and Culture

Rarity's Art Festival begins at last, her great bridge between Ponyville and the high society of Equestria. Pinkie Pie makes some new friends and Applejack introduces one new friend to one older one. Rainbow Dash and Ritterkreuz prepare for their confrontation and Lady Sand Dune arrives bearing gifts.

Chapter 29 : Drawing Blood

Chrysalis' agent makes her move and the Art Festival is thrown into disarray. A melee is in the making, and in the Everfree Forest, a fateful meeting is about to occur.

Chapter 30 : Friendship is a Battlefield

Rainbow Dash and Ritterkreuz. Yumi and Chalice. And, if that wasn't enough, Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie and Applejack quickly find a grand melee of their own as the Art Festival becomes a wild and unexpected battlefield. As the conspiracies entwine and unravel, who will come out on top?

Chapter 31 : Escape

There are few lands more dangerous than the Everfree. Chalice unleashes her true power against Yumi and Shigure, and Fluttershy and a certain Everfree native are forced to intervene. But there are more than just monsters in the Everfree. There are changelings afoot, too.

Chapter 32 : Reveal

Rarity deals with the fallout from Yumi's sacking of her Art Festival, and between a poisoned Prince, a gaggle of avaricious teenage dragons, and a fraying relationship with Applejack, her oldest friend, the new Baroness has her hooves full almost to the breaking point. Can she cope, and can she discover the threat in her midst? Twilight, meanwhile, makes a rather unexpected discovery.

Chapter 33 : Friendship is an Alliance (I)

Chalice seeks out Fluttershy to talk about what she saw in Everfree, the changelings consolidate their hold on power, and Rarity begins her counterattack by forging a most unlikely set of alliances. But can Lady Sand Dune be trusted?

Chapter 34 : Friendship is an Alliance (II)

Twilight and Fluttershy ply one of their captives for information, and Rarity continues her alliance building. Can the charismatic baroness and element of generosity find a way to bring together not just friends, but enemies as well?

Chapter 35 : Interlude (the beginning)

Arsenic and Celestia. Chrysalis and Alpha Brass. Eunomie narrates the history of the conflict that set the stage for the revolution to come.

Chapter 36 : Interlude (the end)

The echoes of the past are heard in the future. The secrets of the Terre Rare, of the struggle for power and prestige, of the changeling conspiracy and those who would see it crushed. Brass. Cadance. Twilight. Euporie. Eunomie. All have a vision for Equestria. Only one will come to pass. Eunomie continues her story, describing the plots and schemes behind the Platinum Crown.

Chapter 37 : Cadance: The Spider's Law

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Held captive by Queen Chrysalis, Cadance struggles against her own helplessness and the cruelties of her captor, yet this Princess has an ace up her sleeve. The question is when and how to use it. With the wedding fast approaching and her brother languishing in despair, Cadance finally makes her move.

Chapter 38 : Sweetie Belle - Equestrian Girls

Blueblood is trapped within a looping nightmare as the changelings try to break him to their cause. Pushed beyond endurance, it falls on the shoulders of a few extraordinary mares to pull their family member back from the brink. This includes a face from the past. (note: this controversial chapter harkens back to the 'sweetie belle chronicles' crossover with TBNE)

Chapter 39 : Blueblood - Press Ever Forward

The truth behind Cadance and Blueblood's falling out is revealed as both royals confront the misunderstandings and mistakes of the past that led to their current situation. But even with Luna's help, escaping the dream realm will not be easy.

Chapter 40 : Lyra - Breakout Beatdown

Chaos breaks out in the crystal caverns below Canterlot, as Cadance, Blueblood and Lyra orchestrate a mass escape of captured Equestrians. As the escapees make their way to the surface, more than a few dangers, and more than a few shocking revelations, stand in their way.

Chapter 41 : Applejack - The Lion’s Den (part 1)

Mere days before the Gala, Rarity and her entourage from Ponyville meet up with a visitor from Prance and Germaney: none other than Lord Cruciger and Lady Twinkling Star Light, and their four thousand strong personal guard. The mares from Ponyville venture into the Lion's Den to tame the beast that is the Terre Rare.

Chapter 42 : Pinkie Pie - The Lion’s Den (part 2)

(second part of above)

Chapter 43 (and) Chapter 44 : Twilight - Equestria's Strongest Couple

Twilight Sparkle and Alpha Brass make their play to assume control of the Terre Rare family, but despite Rarity and Antimony's plans, the Element of Magic may face the battle of her life against Lord Cruciger and Lady Twinkling Star Light, said to be the most powerful unicorn couple in Equestria.

Chapter 45 : This Day's Aria

The "duel of the strongest unicorns" is over. Twilight Sparkle recovers while Rarity and Antimony lay out their plans to save Canterlot. But where has Alpha Brass disappeared to? Everyone's final pre-wedding commitments are made, and Queen Chrysalis begins her wedding march up the chapel steps.

Chapter 46 : Here Comes the Bride

Queen Chrysalis stands at the cusp of 'her' wedding. Twilight and Rarity spring their trap, and all hell breaks loose as the changelings make their long awaited move on Canterlot. The invasion has begun and Equestria is riven by disunity.

Chapter 47 : Fury of the Setting Sun

Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack hurry to rescue their captured sisters while Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and two close allies launch a second expedition across the battleground that is Canterlot. Meanwhile, at the burning ruin across town, Celestia faces off against Chrysalis and her Bridesmaids.

Chapter 48 (and) Chapter 49 - The Red Queen (or Fighting is Magic)

Battles rage across Canterlot. Twilight, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie try to make their way to the Royal Broadcasting Tower and face a running battle through the Crystal Mall. Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash try to rescue the captive Cutie Mark Crusaders and battle the bloody changeling Red Hive and their Queen. Opponents assail them on all sides but every single one of the mane six prove themselves up for the challenge. Celestia faces off against the might of Chrysalis and her bridesmaids revealing her own incredible power. Meanwhile, Queen Sarai recalls how Queen Chrysalis began her long and hard-fought war to unite the changeling hives into a single unstoppable swarm.

Chapter 50 - Losing the Daylight

Twinkling Star Light reunites with her captive son Alpha Brass. The Congress of Four Winds meets in Cloudsdale to decide on their response to the crisis in Canterlot and the battle continues in occupied Ponyville. The fates of Luna and Celestia are explored, and Chalice finally gets her hooves on the Platinum Crown itself. What she does with it rocks Equestria to the core.

Chapter 51 - The Blueblood Gambit

The story of how Chrysalis assembled her 'changeling nation' is revealed in dream to a lurking Princess of the Night, and Luna soon explains to a waiting Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash the details and consequences surrounding the Platinum Crown and its creation. Blueblood, meanwhile, gambles all on a chance to save Princess Celestia.

Chapter 52 - Turn Up the Night

Luna, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash spearhead the largest counterattack in Canterlot, facing the wrath and power of some of the changeling nation's greatest warriors and Queens. Outside the city, Yumi puts in motion the plan to assassinate the Blueblood changeling and prevent an inter-Equestrian war.

Chapter 53 - Explode

Rarity's conspiracy makes their move against the changeling-replaced Prince Blueblood in an effort to prevent an inter-Equestrian war. Twilight and the rest of Team Pinkie finally make it to Her Majesty's Wireless Broadcasting Tower, only to find Vinyl Scratch and a changeling Princess, Exuvia, waiting patiently for them to arrive. Eunomie reveals a secret.

Chapter 54 : Brass

Alpha Brass, wounded and alone, attempts to get to safety. Along the way, he finds a family menaced by changelings. What does it mean to be Terre Rare? What happened during the Sisters' Duel between Antimony, Chalice and Polished Jewel? Arsenic's dark legacy begins to unravel. Eunomie fills her step-father in on how and where their plans have gone right and wrong.

Chapter 55 : Fury of the Setting Sun

Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack hurry to rescue their captured sisters while Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and two close allies launch a second expedition across the battleground that is Canterlot. Meanwhile, at the burning ruin across town, Celestia faces off against Chrysalis and her Bridesmaids.

Chapter 56 : Return

Exuvia calls in Octavia to recap the events of Platinum Crown and prepare for the dark eventuality of a changeling loss in Canterlot. Twilight Sparkle, Alpha Brass and Eunomie make final preparations for rising the Hanging Gardens and laying the groundwork for an overdue Equestrian counter-attack.

Chapter 57 : Captive

Cadance, Lyra, Celestia and Blueblood sneak into the occupied Royal Castle to free Shining Armor but find he is not alone. Twilight begins her ascension, literally and figuratively. Chrysalis and Cadance come to blows.

Chapter 58 : Endless Twilight

Twilight Sparkle recalls her fateful meeting with the supposedly deceased Lady Arsenic. The fate of Equestria is in her hooves and her gamble that the titanic gender-swap spell will nullify changeling shape-shifting. Yet she is unaware that Euporie is also planning to unleash her own spell...

Chapter 59 : Ascend

Pinkie Pie and Vinyl Scratch head out to confront Euporie Mosaic and her city-wide rage spell together with some surprising allies. Meanwhile, deep within the star-haunted Empyrean Vault, Twilight Sparkle drifts precariously between ascension and oblivion.

Chapter 60: Pinkamena and Euphoria

Pinkie battles her way to Euporie and confronts the madmare in an effort to break her spell over Canterlot. Meanwhile, around and within the ruined city, battles intensify and the Equestrian counterattack threatens to annihilate the Changeling Swarm.

Chapter 61: The End of Equestria

Alpha Brass's ultimate plan is unleashed, and ponies for miles around begin to transform. One by one, they sign contracts, binding their souls to the Celestial Firmament.

Chapter 62: One Last Breath

Two groups: Luna, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash, and Celestia, Cadance, Blueblood and Lyra, emerge to access the nature and scope of the madness gripping Canterlot. Twilight returns from the Empyrean Vault, freshly ascended to alicorn status. And, for Queen Chrysalis, the bitter realization of what her plans have wrought for the changeling species sinks in at last.

Chapter 63: The End of Equestria

The ponies of the Fourth Tribe are ascendant. Shining Armor hunts down his changeling "daughters," and even Lady Antimony won't get in his way. Meanwhile, high above the burning city of Canterlot, a long awaited reunion occurs, and Twilight confronts Alpha Brass and makes a final decision.

( 0 )

Chapter Zero

Rarity's body all but melted into the sweet scented rose water, the occasional cherry colored petal floating past her clean white coat. Light Touch's hooves and magic were simply heavenly. A golden brush with bundles of little bristles ran through her long, wet mane, massaging her scalp and the back of her neck. Another pair of hooves and gentle magic touched warm cream to her face and cared for her eyelashes. Utterly relaxed, soothed and sinfully pampered, Rarity sighed with unabashed contentment.

This was truly the life.

"Well, somepony sure seems to be enjoying herself," a distinctly masculine voice interrupted her reverie. "Is it wrong that I find this rather animating?"

Rarity slowly opened her eyes, started across the bath as its other occupant, and gave him a not-so-subtle kick beneath the water. "Mind out of the gutter, if you please."

"My dear, I assure you: my mind is not in the gutter. You'll find it is very firmly focused on what lies under this water."

"Shall I kick a little higher next time?"

The stallion laughed and rose from the rose-tinted water. A few stray petals stuck to Blueblood's own white coat as he stepped over to a clean white mat laid out on the floor. Bathed in the light from the circular oculus of their pavilion tent, he glowed with cleanliness and vigor. One of his two maidservants, Sandy, a shy younger mare with a fawn-brown coat and wheat colored mane, pulled away from her work on Rarity to help the Prince dry off.

He remained calm and still as she magically dried his blond mane, using her hooves to more vigorously towel off his coat and body. Still half submerged in the decorative cast iron and porcelain bath-tub full, her mane being combed and brushed behind her, Rarity watched him with a small smile. Not that she would admit it, certainly not aloud, but it was perhaps just a little empowering to lay back and watch as...

"Oh-h!" She covered her face with her hooves in embarrassment. "Now your lascivious thoughts have spread to me as well!"

"My sincere apologies," the Prince replied in a tone that was anything but apologetic.

"You have the most beautiful mane, Lady Rarity," one of the mares aiding her in her soak whispered. "Please relax. Pay no mind to His Grace."

"What are you whispering about over there?"

Rarity did relax a bit at the sound of Light Touch's voice, splashing a little water in Blueblood's direction. Not hard enough to reach him, but enough to get the point across. He rolled his eyes and resumed standing still and tall while Sandy brushed him down, paying particular care to smooth out and groom down his tail.

"It is so nice to be working with another mare for once," Light Touch dared another whisper. "Please tell me when you wish to get dressed, my Lady."

"Oh, I could just soak in here for hours!" Rarity stretched out her legs and started to rise. "But we do have our appointments. Which reminds me, I still need to get something for Twilight's birthday. Blueblood, what do you think about a dress?"

"I think I'll pass."

"I mean as a present! For Twilight."

"Just get her a book. You can add your name to the one I'm getting her to save money."

"Honestly, be serious for once!"

"I was sort of serious," Blueblood replied with a snicker. "The book I'm getting your friend isn't exactly cheap. But I guess she likes dresses? So make her a dress?"

Slowly emerging from the water, Rarity took Light Touch's hoof as she gingerly stepped down onto the floor. Though convention kept them both on the tournament grounds, the Prince's tent still enjoyed many of the comforts and amenities of a suite at the palace. Running water was one of the exceptions, but a nice hot bath was only a raincloud and a spell or two in the making.

"Thank you so much for that insightful response to my question," Rarity said, hooves on solid ground. "I was thinking something casual, but dynamic, subdued and chaste but extravagant and willful!"

"Something light," Blueblood wondered. "But dark?"

"I'd splash you if you were closer."

"I know you would. That's why I'm way over here."

Rarity huffed at him in all-too-obvious annoyance, but soon the pair soon broke into laughter. A book and dress it would be. Soon the fashionable unicorn stood on a clean white mat of her own being dried off. Both Sandy and Light Touch were skilled beyond the basics - Rarity experienced this first-hoof as Light Touch did up her long mane in preparation for this afternoon's appearance. She would be wearing her mane up, today, in a multitude of tucks and curls instead of her usual single-curl left and single-curl right.

Soon she was dry, powdered, brushed and immaculately clean. A faint hint of roses clung to her from the bath, precluding any need for perfume. Suitably prepared, she retreated behind a floral Neighponese folding screen to dress. Here, she assisted Blueblood's maidservant, being more used to clothing herself than being dressed by others. For this afternoon, Rarity had chosen a dress and saddle in silk and cotton gauze (one of her own designs that didn't seem to sell as well as it should have) with dropped shoulders and wide puffs around the sleeves. As a personal touch, she had also picked out a feather-trimmed bonnet and choker with white shell-in-cameo.

Emerging from behind the folding screen, she saw Blueblood stretching his legs from under a barded caparison. The cloth covered him from hindquarters to collar and from shoulder to his ankles, presenting a collage of stylistic suns on one quarter, moons on another, spades on another and the last one occupied by a repeating field of compass-roses in the colors and style of his cutie mark.

The ceremonial armor of his crinière wrapped protectively around his neck, and she could see a bit of silver-steel peeking out from where his peytral covered his chest from the front and side. The caparison itself was clearly draped over and fastened from the front where it was open. Being sport-armor, there was no need for a heavy croupière to protect his flanks, as with Royal Guard barding.

"Well, to no-pony's surprise, you look amazing and I look ridiculous," Blueblood quipped, uncomfortably stretching out the padded metal protecting his neck with a dismissive scoff. "You wouldn't be amenable to trading outfits for the afternoon?"

"Absolutely not!" Rarity replied with a laugh, trotting over to give him a close inspection. "You look very handsome. You'd probably look cute in a dress, too, but let's save that idea for another time."

"What frightful subjects we broach in jest," the Prince joked, and walked around in a slow circle. "They fit this to each stallion, you know, and it always feels tight. I have always suspected some sort of scheme or conspiracy among Equestria's tailors to keep everypony coming back for refitting. Clearly the blacksmiths and farriers are in on it, too. The fiends."

With a flick of his horn, Blueblood magically levitated a final piece of covering over his sides and shoulders. Sandy hurried, catching him as he stood still, but Rarity interposed herself. The Element of Generosity snapped one of three small clips together over his chest, securing the extra piece of cloth in place. It fell entirely over his right side and bore the heraldic seal of the family: the proud bust of a regal unicorn backed in royal purple, wreathed with diamonds.

"You look fabulous, trust me. If it is a little tight," Rarity explained, pulling the chain a little taut. "That is because tight looks good."

"How wonderful. Then I will look good while getting charged at and trod upon. Just what I hoped for!" Blueblood's pout was more coy than put-out. He winked at her. "At least I have one thing in my favor. Be sure to wave when I salute you so the crowd knows to envy me."

"You'll be perfectly fine!" She quickly nuzzled his cheek. "Now, which suitably horrific mask shall you be wearing?"

"It is not a mask, my Lady, it is a champron! Very different."

Blueblood turned briefly before retrieving a steel and faux-leather faceguard. It bore a small rounded spike beneath and above the circular opening left for the unicorn's horn. Sturdy metal flanges critically protected the eyes. Decorative bronze embossing covered the rest, giving the appearance of a stallion's face: the false eyes narrowed in anger and a mouth clenched tight, bearing teeth. A large fleur-de-lis stuck out and up from behind the ears like a crest, inlaid with gold and bright blue.

He fitted it in place, Rarity helping to secure it, and flipped it up so only the framework covered his face. He would need to make several rounds for the crowd before his match began and it was expected and traditional that everypony see the competitors to know for sure they were who they claimed they were. It was all part of the spectacle the nobility put on from time to time, for their benefit and for the ponies they ruled over.

"Thank you," he said, craning his neck back and forth. "I suppose I am ready to meet Sir Diamond."

"What was his full name again?" Rarity asked. "Something silly, wasn't it?"

"Virgin Diamond," Blueblood answered with a chuckle. "It is a bit of a silly name, though I would not say so to his face. More importantly, you recall who you are sharing your booth with?"

"Of course!" Rarity replied.

"Good. Most of them aren't very important, but I do hope you will get along well with Lady Fleur. Her family has been a vassal of mine for generations and she is well connected around Canterlot, despite having fallen on hard times."

"What I don't see is why we have to indulge Upper Crust and Jet Set," Rarity protested, her expression showing her distaste for the two pretentious and sycophantic unicorns. She had run into them, by chance, on her first day in Canterlot. They had gone on to, in the span of less than a minute, find cause to praise her fashion sense, then dismiss that fashion sense because it was from "a rural backwater," then effusively apologize for their presumption upon leaning she was staying in the castle with the Princess and Prince.

"Both are exceedingly wealthy," Blueblood answered with a shrug. "They could be half-camel half-griffin with the personality of a Diamond Dog, but they are still rich as sin and I need their bits."

"I hardly know what they even did to-"

"They're from two banking clans," Blueblood said, off the cuff. "And yes, they are ruthless social climbers. You'll get used to their sort, even find them useful at times."

Rarity shook her head, but agreed that maybe he had a point. "It doesn't mean I have to like them."

"No it doesn't, but in time you will want your own circle of cliens," he explained, tucking a few stray hairs back and out of the way of his champron. "Many of which you will dislike personally but find useful politically. Sadly, that is just how things are in Canterlot and in court: compared to Ponyville, it is a pit of snakes eating other snakes begetting yet more snakes. My advice is to always be at least a little wary, but the one you should be really be careful of is Fancypants. Though I doubt he'll be here today."

"Canterlot's most fashionable and charming stallion?" Rarity inquired, amused by the look of jealousy that briefly crossed the Prince's face at her glowing endorsement of the other pony. "Why would I need to be careful of him?"

"While Fleur and her family are counted as old and trusted allies, she has taken up with Fancypants over the last year, and he is no friend of mine. If anything, I would like you to keep a watchful eye on her."

Blueblood planned to end it there, with just a warning, but read Rarity's expression - she needed to know more. He knew that look, all but demanding, 'is that so?' So he relented.

"If you must know, some time ago - when we were both younger - I was new to holding court. My mother had only recently passed on and Fancypants had just made a small fortune on Vaudeville. We met at the theater one night and struck up a friendship of sorts. Fancypants has been many things over the years: artist, inventor, speculator and investor. At his heart, he has always been an entertainer... and trend-setter, I suppose. I enjoyed his company and frequented many of his establishments and shows."

Rarity nodded. Most of this was information she knew. Fancypants had made his fortune organizing, writing and promoting in Canterlot and Manehattan. He still had a hoof on the pulse of both cultural juggernauts. Later his interests had spread to other aspects of science, magic, technology and engineering. He was often called a renaissance-stallion, as skilled with investment as he was with a slide-rule or oil brush.

"A year or so later, he petitioned me several times for knighthood," Blueblood continued. "I denied him all three times. He had not yet earned it in my eyes, and I told him as much. I also wasn't sure if his friendship was genuine or just an attempt to curry favor. I offered to accept him as a cliens instead, which I saw as a compromise, but he refused, not wanting to be chained down. Especially to a Duke who refused to give him a title. That's how I saw it anyway."

"Is that all?" Rarity asked. "Why-"

"That isn't all," he said, motioning for her to wait before jumping to a conclusion. "A few years after that, he was involved in building some sort of zoo or park near Fillydelphia. He had been buying land clandestinely, but he did tell the Mayor of that great city about his plan. He had to. The Mayor in turn told me, as I had taken on the mantle of Grand Veneur and Fillydelphia has long been tied to Canterlot and the Bluebloods."

"I blocked the project," Blueblood finished. "Partly out of spite, and partly because I disliked how it involved a fake copy of Canterlot castle built to scale. At the time it seemed insulting. I said, 'better swampland than this abomination.' I actually wrote that on the rejection letter. He still owns the land but can not build on it. There was that, and sadly others. So you see... bad blood between us is the result."

Rarity's slim shoulders slumped. "Was his project truly so awful?"

"In retrospect, I suppose it was not, but... things were different with me then." Blueblood started towards the flap of their large tent. "Very different. Looking back I regret my haste, but what is done is done. I have tried to come to terms with him before, but things always conspired against it. I can't afford to lose face changing my mind, not right now. Maybe a few years down the road, when I shore up more support in the Stable of Lords, I can afford to flip-flop on more of my earlier mistakes and indiscretions."

"There's just so much to do, fixing the mistakes I've made," he muttered, just barely loud enough for Rarity to hear.

"Ah, but...!" He pushed open the flap with one armored hoof. "For now, I go to tilt Sir Diamond. Three rounds horn, three rounds dagger, and then I can enjoy a day of falconry. See you on the field, my precious jewel!"

Rarity waved to him as he left, but her mind was already on his words from before.

"So amends can not be made without losing face?" she asked herself with a smile. "I-de-a!"

Celestia damn it, but Sir Diamond hit hard for a stallion with the word 'Virgin' in his name.

Blueblood groaned, shook himself off, and hastened to his side of the palace tiltyard. Virgin Diamond, a large teal colored stallion of good unicorn stock, was still parading around, the ripped cloth of Blueblood's family crest whipping about on the tip of his horn. Common ponies in the stands were stomping their hooves in excitement and appreciation for the display of skill, while more reserved aristocrats in private booths clopped their hooves with polite self-restraint.

It was a full attendance, but then tournaments were always popular in conservative Canterlot. It was a chance for the nobility of all stripes to put on a show; attendance, food and drink were all free and anypony from the castle city or the outlying lands had permission to attend. Other nobles from across Equestria also came, though they typically stuck to private booths and other areas where they could mingle with a select crowd. These days, the richer segments of the mercantile classes also found their way into these exclusive circles, the better to sniff out potential cliens and benefactors.

In a place of honor on one side of the tiltyard, one booth in particular stood out.

Virgin Diamond trotted over to that booth and raised his horn high. Princess Celestia, and a somewhat sleepy looking Princess Luna, presided over the games of the tournament. Equestria's first alicorn and revered leader magically removed the torn family crest from the knight's horn, smiling down at him graciously. Blueblood groaned. He had yet to present, having lost the first two passes.

The attendants affixed a third herald to his right side, preparing him for the final exchange of this part of the challenge. Despite the padded barding, Blueblood could feel a sore spot swelling in the muscle of his chest where Virgin Diamond's horn-cap had slammed into him. Without the armor, and the other unicorn's horn-cap, it was likely the injury would have been a punctured lung. As it was, it hurt, both Blueblood's body and more importantly his pride.

One of the colt attendants checked the Prince's horn cap, making sure it was on tight. He gave it a little pat, yelled that all was ready, and bowed quickly before the Duke of Canterlot. Blueblood belatedly thanked the colt, flexing the muscles of his shoulders, and cantering back onto the field. Virgin Diamond soon met him, standing at the opposite end, his horn lowered.

A blast of magic from the sidelines signaled the next tilt.

Blueblood snorted through the cramped heat of his champron, straining to properly identify the point on his opponent he needed to aim for. It was hard to see much of anything through the protective flanges around his eyes. Muscles straining, he picked a target and assumed a full gallop. Dirt blasted back behind him, he made one last adjustment in response to Virgin Diamond's change of pace, and then he put horn-on-point and committed.

Impact, a shudder, a hit on his own side -

And he was through!

Blueblood raised his horn, blue eyes looking up to try and see if he had struck true. Beneath his champron, a wide, childish grin blossomed. A single large piece of cloth hung from the cap of his horn, speared and ripped free. He couldn't see the heraldic symbol on it from the angle it was at, but knew it to be a checkered spear-tip flanked with maple leaves. The crowd stomped and clopped in his victory.

Blueblood also noticed that Virgin Diamond had been close to taking his herald a third time in a row. There was a small rip on one corner, but it still hung on his right side, proud and intact. Trotting triumphantly around the tiltfield, for all the crowd to see, he stopped only to present the prize to his Auntie. Celestia took the offered herald, won in fair contest, with a smile and wink.

One out of three - it wasn't bad, especially since tilting was not his forte.

The stallions shared a canter around the field, this time with their champrons up so the crowd could see their faces. As had been rehearsed before hand by seating and tradition, they both stopped by one private booth. There, Virgin Diamond saluted a thin framed mare with a dark gold coat and mane adorned with feathers and gold chain. There, Blueblood bowed deeply to his rather prettier mare (in his royal opinion, anyway, and whose else mattered?). Leaning over the railing, Rarity magically dropped a light scarf, the same one she had used to wave at him as he trotted by earlier. The other mare did the same, both ponies dropping their embroidered silk fabrics for their suitor to retrieve as a reward for their effort in the field.

Tucking the wispy cloth away, safely and securely under a latch on his champron, Blueblood inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. He could smell her on it: the sweet scent of roses from the bath they had shared, the subtle flavor of the shampoo she used on her mane, and her own unique smell. It was much more subtle than the heavily perfumed essences of the noblemares in Canterlot. It reminded him, for a moment, of Ponyville and his trials and struggles there, trapped in the Gala time loop. Who could have imagined he would ever look back on it with fondness?

But all that had led him to a good and wonderful place, where he had both the will and desire to make a difference, and in that place a generous mare stood by his side. Momentarily lost in his memories and thoughts, Blueblood only heard the tail end of the announcement.

"...now meet honorably with daggers, in the style of ponies of old!"

Returning to the present, Blueblood dipped his head to his Lady once again and headed off to have his horn-cap removed. The herald would stay, just as Virgin Diamond was not getting a replacement. Despite the ostensibly threatening title of 'contest of daggers' it was really much safer than the tilting with horns. There was very little risk of injury. It was mostly a bit of show for the crowd and a chance to wind down a bit: pomp and magic, the two cornerstones of Canterlot.

Blueblood magically twirled the offered dagger in the air. It was blunt, of course, just as horn-caps were used to blunt that natural weapon all unicorns bore (it also softened the blow on both sides of the clash). This so called 'blade' would not be piercing armor or even padding anytime soon. It was there only to try and catch and remove the heralding from the opponent. The aim was much the same as the tilting earlier, but the honor was less. Prizes were not presented to the Princess, but to one's fair and loving partner waiting in a booth nearby.

The Prince affirmed to himself that he had to get Rarity at least one prize.

The two stallions, still in their barding, circled slowly. Virgin Diamond's magic was a teal-green, similar to his coat, while Blueblood's was a soft white-blue. They made a few feints, lunging and jumping. A dagger in this case was no rapier. It required particular sorts of fencing.

Blueblood made a lunge, intending to rip off Sir Diamond's heraldic crest, only to miss and stumble for a moment. It was all the opening the other unicorn needed. A quick stab and swipe and he ripped off Blueblood's herald. Again.

Back to the sidelines, for another replacement.

Trotting in place a bit, keeping relaxed and loose - his old trainers had always emphasized fluidity of magic and movement - he re-entered the field. Virgin Diamond lunged almost immediately, intending to use the element of surprise. Silly pony. That was a good Element, to be sure, but it was no Element of Harmony to guarantee victory. Blocking, parrying, and side stepping, Blueblood spun around. Diamond did the same, momentarily losing track of the Prince's heraldic crest. A blunted dagger spun, like a saw, and nimbly ripped free a prize.

"Ah ha!" Blueblood exclaimed, holding the torn crest aloft. He hastened to the side while Diamond fitted a replacement, magically removing the dagger from the herald and holding it up high. Rarity reached out, taking it with her hooves, smiling encouragingly.

Blueblood chuckled as he headed into the last round, his spirits high.

Rarity kept the two heraldic crests Blueblood had won for her neatly folded, mostly since she wasn't sure what to do with them. She also made a mental note to check some of her romance novels when she got back home. They were sadly her first and oldest source of information on courtly culture, and while the knightly stallion presenting a trophy to his true love was quite a common scene, the authors never much went into what the mares did with the prizes. Keep them, she assumed. Somewhere. It wasn't as if she had many pockets in her dress, and the ripped cloth clashed far too terribly with her ensemble to try and wear it somehow.

Taken by a sudden idea, Rarity injected a little transformative and restorative magic into the ripped cloth. With a glow and a poof, the ripped fabric repaired itself and merged together. A little more stylistic tweaking, and it became a passable shawl, the two checkered heraldic icons on either end. In a last second spark of inspiration, remembering that the prizes were very much prizes because they were ripped, she left the ends purposefully ragged.

Draping her new shawl over her shoulders, Rarity heard a titter from the seat next to her.

"I don't believe I've seen that done before!" A shapely thin mare with a figure to resemble a Princess' sat to Rarity's left, watching her with amusement. Unlike most of the mares and even stallions present, she wore very little: only a sun hat to keep herself cool.

"You do have some interesting tastes... and that magic?" she inquired.

"I find almost anything can do with a little extra fabulosity! Don't you?" Rarity replied with a confident grin. "I'm Rarity."

"Fleur-de-lis," the other mare formally made introduction. "Of the Iris Family."

Rarity winced inwardly at not having a family of her own, in title, to add to her introduction. Still, she smoothly swept forward. Fleur seemed like a very informal mare.

"A pleasure to meet you, Fleur-de-lis." Rarity held out her hoof, show-down. "May I call you Fleur?"

"Fleur or Lily are both fine."

"Your name is Prench, isn't it?"

"It is," Fleur answered, relaxing into easy conversation. "We used to have land there, even a small estate. But that was a long time ago; I can't even speak the language anymore!"

"May I ask what brings you out here?"

"Besides watching silly stallions try to mangle one another in tight armor?"

The two laughed, and Rarity gestured to the booth attendant. He presented a small list of flavors and available refreshments, sparing the guests of the private booth from having to mingle or leave to wet their palate. To tide the two mares over, he already had two trays of sweet strawberry gelato.

"Besides that," Fleur explained, taking a tiny spoon to the thick low-buttermilk ice cream. "As you may know, Lord Blueblood and his family have been... patrons of my family since we came to Canterlot. Fancy was out on the town so I snuck off to put in a little political face-time with my benefactor."

"Is that often a concern among the court?"

"When it comes to Canterlot, appearances are everything... and nothing," Fleur warned, but quickly added in a friendly tone, "Are you staying at the castle? May I ask what it's like? You've met the Princess herself, haven't you?"

Rarity happily shared her experiences, though she had to admit to not having any experience to describe the contrast between the palace life pre and post-Luna's return. Sitting in the shady overhand of the booth, as the unicorn competitions gave way to the earth pony nobility trying their hoof at wrestling and other traditional contests, Rarity found herself rather liking Fleur. Which was doubly fortunate, as she had hoped from the start to enlist the other mare in her little scheme.

It wasn't long before she had an invitation to meet Fancypants at his private box at the Wonderbolts Derby. It was just perfect. The best part was that this plan also overlapped with her earlier half-formed plan to insinuate herself into Canterlot high society. She already had an "in" thanks to Blueblood, but she didn't want to make introductions purely on his account or by riding his tail.

It was time for Rarity Unicorn to become the toast of Canterlot.

Twilight's dress... she'd start on it Tuesday. When she had some more free time. It wasn't like it was going anywhere, and there were places to go, ponies to impress, and two feuding stallions to bring together!

"Blueblood? Would you believe me if I told you that Rainbow Dash was training the Wonderbolts?"

A dismissive snort was all the response the Prince felt he needed to share. Holding out one leg he held still as Light Touch carefully brushed and cleaned the sole and frog of his hoof. The Prince was one of the few ponies in Equestria to wear new ultra-modern aluminum horseshoes, 'light as a feather' as they were advertised. The metal was almost as expensive, per ounce, as pure gold. Inspecting the finished product and trimmed fetlocks, not too short and just a little wild, he nodded in approval and raised the other leg.

"Not to backstep," he remarked in passing, eyes wandering to where Rarity was again getting changed, behind a different folding screen, this time in the castle proper. "But why on Equestria would you even ask such a thing?"

"Such a what?" Rarity inquired, sill out of view. A frilled yellow saddle flew out from behind the screen to drape over the top. "Oh, you mean Rainbow Dash and the Wonderbolt thing? Nothing much. She just came up yesterday."

"Yes, you mentioned attending the derby the other day," he recalled, magically retrieving a tall glass of grapefruit juice to help start the morning.

"I enjoyed the event and it was an opportunity to mingle a little," Rarity explained, tossing a hat out from behind the screen to deftly land on a nearby rack.

"I wonder if there is still time to trade tickets to the big fight tonight at the Canterlot Hexagon instead of spending the evening watching Le Sacre du Printemps?"

"Don't you dare," Rarity responded, discarding yet another hat, this time in favor of first a gold and sapphire tiara and then a vermillion beret. "Oh! This one doesn't work either! I'll need something more subdued for the opera, and then there's the gallery... maybe this one will...? Ah-ha! Perfect! Now where did I put that black turtleneck..."

Blueblood closed his eyes, waiting for his manicure to finish. It was a couple of seconds before he realized Rarity was singing something softly to herself behind the folding screen. A song? He strained his ears to listen. After the events of the Gala, he had come to expect the occasional musical number when visiting one of the Elements of Harmony. How they came up with these things on the fly, he still couldn't imagine.

"I'll be the toast of the town,

the girl on the go...

I'm the type of pony everypony- everypony should know!"

Curiously, both Sandy and Light Touch had chorused 'everypony' in that line.

Mares. Go figure.

"I'll be the one to watch,

the girl in the flow...

I'm the type of pony everypony-everypony should know!"

No sooner had she finished cleaning his hoof, Light Touch quickly hastened to help Sandy with Rarity behind the folding screen, filling in the lines of chorus as needed. Blueblood was left standing alone, one befuddled eyebrow raised. It was certainly nice that his two maidservants, who he had come to know via the loops of the Gala - notsomuch to their knowledge - were taking so well to the Element of Generosity. But wasn't singing along with her taking this whole thing a little too far?

His attention was also drawn to a rather surly looking feline perched atop a wooden display easel. Never having had a pet himself, unless one counted Dream Catcher, the tercer he used for falconry, Blueblood usually gave Opalescence a wide berth. The little creature always seemed to have a set of nasty claws, no matter how often Rarity took her in for a trim. The white cat now rested on top of the easel, batting a paw in dismay at some sort of picture.

It was, on closer inspection, a picture of a dress.

"What an impossibly impractical dress. Where would you even find feathers that long?"

Opalescence mewed, jumping off the easel.

"Rarity?" Blueblood asked, but she was still lost in song so he decided to wait things out.

Slowly trotting over to a heavy crystal display case, the Prince lowered his horn an applied a bit of specific identification magic. A golden clasp clicked, wound and unlocked. Inside was a gold and firesteel collar, intricately carved and decorated with a multitude of tiny clear droplet-sized jewels. From the front dangled a small aries symbol in fine gold. Next to it was a wax seal, also made of gold. Blueblood took a moment to brush his hair back and slip on a cream white waistcloak with a high collar.

Normally, he preferred a bow tie, but today he had some special business. Floating out the chain, he slipped it around his neck and tucked it in and under the cloth. This concealed all but the dangling clasp and black and gold silk ribbon that fell to left the right. He pulled it tight around his throat and tucked the ribbons to form a discrete loop.

Turning around, hearing Rarity's song at an end, he smiled at the sight of her.

"I do believe that's a new look for you," he commented with a snigger.

"You don't like it?" Rarity asked, gracefully pirouetting in her beret, black turtleneck and matching hoof slippers. Her mane was styled down, straight down, with a little wave at the end.

"You look like you've escaped a sorority at the Academy of Arts and Magic."

"You don't like it," she stated, clearly wanting a yes or no answer.

"I like it," he assured her, and grunted as Light Touch swept in to finish buttoning up his waistcloak while Sandy retrieved his overcoat. "It's actually quite fetching, I'm just not sure why you're wearing it."

"I'm sneaking off to an exclusive art gallery opening before the auction tonight," Rarity explained, mollified by his compliment. "Modern Art, not the Classical and Neo-Classical you enjoy."

To prove her point, Rarity pointed to one of the oil paintings adorning the east wall opposite the windows and balcony. On it, an amaranth pink unicorn mare reclined against a bed of flowers and vines, reaching out. A white stallion in flowing cloak and finery was holding high a spherical glass globe, just about to place it in her hoof. With his other hoof, he was reaching down and pinching her nipple (a task easier said than done for a pony). Behind them, the regal visage of Celestia celebrated the union with wings wide and high, a beatific expression on her face.

"Why is he doing that?" Rarity asked, meaning, of course, the nipple pinch.

Blueblood chuckled at her discomfort at the piece of art.

"If you take stock of every painting in the Royal Palace, or in any of my own properties - all traditional art - you will notice that mares are never depicted as pregnant. The pinching of the nipple by a stallion is an implication that the mare in the picture carries an heir. The passing of the globe indicates the sharing of power and authority between husband and wife," he explained.

"I see." Rarity nodded, 'hmm'ing softly.

"Now, if the stallion is cupping the breast, that is something else entirely!"

She batted him on the shoulder with an exasperated sigh. "I'm sure it is!"

Lowering her hoof, she also noticed the collar he had put on earlier.

"I've never seen that before either," she said, pointing to his throat. "In fact, this is the first time I've seen you wearing jewelry. Ever. No neckcloth today?"

He shook his head, shifting a bit as Sandy buttoned up his overcoat.

"Special occasion," he replied. "The Order of Aries is knighting one of Auntie's special guards. As a ranking member of the Order, naturally I must attend the ceremony with the proper regalia and pay my respects. A Brother can not refuse the summons of another Brother."

He indulged in a small, private laugh.

"I really wish I could tell you who we're knighting, too! You might have heard of him."

"I understand perfectly," Rarity told him with a teasing smile. "This whole 'military order' nonsense is terribly secret, but fun, isn't it?"

"I don't much like that phrase."

"Exactly why I used it," she leaned forward and up to kiss him quickly on the cheek. "I'll see you again this afternoon. Enjoy your morning with the boys."

Then it was back to that song of hers.

"Becoming as popular-as popular as can be,

Making my mark-making my mark on high so-ci-ety!

I'm the bell of the ball, the star of the show,

I'm the type of pony everypony-everypony should know!"

Blueblood finished getting dressed and secretly hoped the little tune didn't end up catching in his head again. The last thing he needed was to end up muttering the lyrics during the Grand Master's speech. Even if he was a pony on the go; the type of pony everypony-everypony should kn - damnit!

See how they hang on every word that I speak?

My approving glance is what they all seek!

I'm the crème de la crème, not just another Jane Doe,

I'm the type of pony every pony should know!

At home at the opera, on a fancy yacht..

Becoming the talk-the talk of all of Canterlot

I'm the crème de la crème, not just another Jane Doe,

Yeah, I'm the type of pony everypony-everypony should know!

"Four hundred wing-power, actually! The sails can generate a very impressive rate of acceleration. There? You see that ripple in the air? We don't even need a Pegasus team to start the process anymore, the Princess Hesperus is among the first of her kind to..."

Rarity rolled her eyes as the Prince continued to show off his new toy to a predominantly male audience. Freed from the confines of Canterlot proper, he had changed into a (relatively speaking) casual and very modern shirt with a black double-breasted overcoat and blue cravat. Golden epaulets and a stately captain's hat with formal gold buttons, motif and chin strap worn over the brim.

Unfortunately, from the moment the party began on the Princess Hesperus, still docked on the side of a mountain breezeway, it had been impossible to pull him away from his fellow aero-nautical enthusiasts. From the deck to the engines to the balloon - an 'envelope' he called it for some reason Rarity couldn't fathom, correcting any and every reference to it as a balloon - he seemed to be on a personal crusade to show off every inch of his new airship.

Crossing the broad sun deck of the ship, Rarity saw the other object of her little scheme.

Fancypants had been lured aboard but thus far remained with his own clique. Having met the charming and famous unicorn at the Wonderbolt Derby, and accidentally managing to impress him with an inspired and unexpected bet on the first race, she had attended several events with him, often striking up conversation. Blueblood had implied that the other stallion held a grudge, but if he did (and his behavior on the boat, er, ship, today supported that) then he was a big enough pony not to let it interfere with how he viewed her.

Her plan had been to bring Fancypants and Blueblood together to start to mend the fences between them. After several days of furious socializing and maneuvering she had managed to get them not just at the same party - that had been managed the day before - but in a relatively casual environment. From what she had learned, both stallions enjoyed air-yachting, having much stronger stomachs for heights than herself. The dozen or so ponies lounging around on the yacht's sun deck had already been plied with wine, sweets and perfect weather.

By virtue of operating in Canterlot, many of Fancypants' own informal circle were formally beholden to the Duke in whose city they did business. Over the last few days, Rarity had spent much of her time bridging that divide, and in the process she had noticed something. As colloquial and charm-less as some of Blueblood's tastes occasionally ran - such as his preference for gauche liquors and his uncanny skill at darts - more often than not he still mingled within and among his social bracket in Canterlot.

This meant only the landed and titled nobility, much like the current crop of ponies hanging on his every word as he described the acre and a half of imported cotton that made up his airship's big balloon (or envelope or whatever). Jet Set and Upper Crust seemed to be making an attempt to be the exception, sticking close to their patron. There was still something about the two wealthy unicorns that set Rarity on edge, but she tried to put it aside in favor of more pleasing company.

She noticed Fleur levitating a colorful glass of rum and fruit and beckoned her over.

"Any luck?" Rarity asked, hoping for some good news.

"Fancy wants a yacht just like this now," she answered, sipping her drink with a straw. For once, she had been talked into wearing a dress, albeit a plain one of fine imported silk. "But he's still being his usual stubborn self. I asked if he wanted to join me in touring the ship with His Grace... he gave some excuse about wanting to see the ship himself."

"I think we should get them to try and meet below decks somewhere private," Rarity told her. "Blueblood doesn't want to lose face on this and I think Fancypants is much the same."

"He isn't normally this proud," Fleur said with a sigh. "This over-proud, anyway. I'd almost think he would sooner not build that silly park of his rather than make amends."

Going over their plan, the two mares soon returned to their respective parties on the airship. Conveniently, it wasn't long before a steward called the guests to the aft exterior deck for coffee and a choice viewing of Celestia lowering the Sun. As the realm's domain switched over to Princess Luna, Blueblood's guests were treated to entertainment, drinks and expensive imported treats from the far south in the partly enclosed sky lounge. Later in the evening, the nobleponies and their wealthy peers would enjoy a dance in the airship's small but luxurious ballroom and stateroom amidships.

That was when Rarity determined they should make their move.

"Rarity," Fleur said, just as they made to part ways. "Do you really believe this to work? His Grace really thinks to make amends with my Fancy? They have not been on good terms in many years, and in all the years I have known him, Lord Blueblood never struck me as the type to - well... how to put it politely?"

"He is a good stallion," Rarity assured her. "As is Fancypants. I know it will work! We just need to give them a chance... and a little prodding!"

"I must admit, I don't think I share your optimism." Fleur's voice grew more quiet as she said it.

"Don't worry!" Rarity politely touched a hoof to Fleur's elbow in comfort. "Things will work out. I promise!"

"Wait here?" Blueblood asked, having been interrupted on his way back to the salon door and the busy stateroom full of influential and expectant ponies. Rarity had interposed herself between him and the exit.

"Rarity, please," he continued, but stopped. "I have guests to attend to."

The dressmaker placed a hoof to his chest. "Just stay here a moment longer. I'll be right back!"

Rarity straightened and primped her vanilla and eggshell dress as she left the room, leaving the Equestrian Prince behind. Perplexed, Blueblood almost objected again, but finally opted to sigh and wait as she had requested. When she had first pulled him aside and into the private salon within the Princess Hesperus, he had rather hoped she wanted to talk - or do more than talk - away from the prying eyes of the ship's guests. Instead she had stood around for a few minutes, silent and increasingly anxious.

No hanky-panky, then.

The question remained, then: what was she up to? Turning from the door, he trotted over to one of the bookshelves. The salon and smoke room was small, as one would expect even in a luxurious airship yacht, but well furnished. Like the state room, it was made in an imitation Trottoman style, with soft divans, low tables and high vertical taboret cabinets. The walls were plain, save for geometric designs near the ceiling, instead relying on the shelves of books to provide color. It was a nice room, but compared to the library under construction at his newest property near Ponyville, it was nothing at all.

The opening of the door behind him prompted Blueblood to slowly turn -

And rein in his surprise. "Upper Crust? Jet Set?"

"Your Grace," the wealthy unicorn mare greeted him with a bow. Jet Set followed a moment later by inclining his head in respect and deference. Both unicorns were impeccably dressed in shirt and bundle sweater about the shoulders, a popular ensemble of fine taste but little creativity.

"To what do I owe the pleasure? I was expecting... well!" Blueblood chuckled. "I'm not sure what I was expecting!" he admitted, and asked, "Ah, yes, so what is all this about?"

"My Grace, you'll pardon us for intruding," Jet Set replied, adjusting the small glasses perched on his nose. "But we have become aware of some disturbing rumors."

"Rumors?" Blueblood asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity. "Well, out with it. What rumors?"

"We have heard that you seek to re-negotiate with Fancypants," Jet Set continued, sounding confident of the fact. "Is that true?"

"I have no such plans," Blueblood's response was icy. "And I question where you heard it."

"Pardon, but - your mistress, Miss Rarity," Upper Crust said the name with a little huff. "She has been spending time with Fancypants, plying him with words of your desire to make amends."

"Amends?" Blueblood asked, taking a calming breath.

"Perhaps it would be best to see to this ourselves? Rather than rely on hearsay?" Upper Crust suggested, bowing obsequiously. "We saw Miss Rarity speaking animatedly with Fancypants on our way in."

"Did you?" Blueblood rankled, and bulled past the pair. "Yes, let us see what gossip infects ponies ears, and what truth there is to it."

"Miss Rarity," Fancypants had long since lost his genial tone. "While your sentiment is appreciated, we have no desire to bow to the Duke's whims. Not again."

"That isn't what I meant!" Rarity all but pleaded, and hastened to keep her voice low. "Only that - only that if you two were to talk about this, about these issues, then..."

"I have already been informed as to what you expected from this little scheme," Fancypants cut her off, face drawn into a frown. He glanced over her, at the party going on at the far end of the stateroom, and flexed his neck, working out his mood and putting on a cultured and collected tone of voice. Even if they were speaking quietly enough to be discrete.

"I am an independent stallion," he stated with what had to be waning patience. "I bow only to her Highness, the Princess. Certainly I have no need to bend knee to Lord Blueblood. I see now why you went so far to find my good graces - you wished to bring me into his fold, did you?"

"No!" Rarity objected. "No! Didn't Fleur tell you?"

"She was the one who warned me."

"But! Why would-" Rarity stammered, and looked around for the other mare. She found her approaching, circling around from the side of the room without a care in the world. "Why would she say something like that? Why would she-"

"It is true, is it not?"

"No!"

"Isn't it?" Fleur-de-lis asked, seamlessly inserting herself into the conversation and knowing exactly what was under discussion.

"You know it isn't!" Rarity had to fight to keep her voice down and not make a scene. "Fleur-"

"I am sorry, Rarity," the model and noblemare said, and turned to her husband. "Fancy, please, can we just go? I'm tired and coming here was a mistake."

Rarity was on the verge of screaming, even lunging at her friend turned traitor, but the look on Fleur's face stopped her tongue. Whether she was a convincing actress or genuinely distressed, the other mare seemed truly pained. She leaned close to Fancypants, said something under her breath, and it was enough to make up his mind.

"My dear, perhaps it is best we retire for the evening?" Fancypants looked from Fleur, to Rarity, and then back. As always, he kept his poise and fine bearing, even as he excused himself and escorted her from the stateroom.

"What just happened?" Rarity reached out for the retreating couple, still stunned by the turn of events. The sound of muttering and half-whispered voices seemed to close in on her, quickly silenced by the sound of aluminum clad hooves on the mahogany deck.

Approaching her were a rather irate looking Prince Blueblood, followed by a smug Jet Set and Upper Crust. Rarity stepped nervously away, seeing them make their way through the crowd. Everything she had planned had been thrown upside down! Why? Why had Fleur turned on her? She had seemed to supportive, so - so...!

She had seemed like a friend.

"Miss Rarity," Blueblood said, a cold greeting from him given how much had passed between them since the Gala. "I would ask that we have some words."

Pulling the dressmaker aside, Blueblood lowered his head until they were eye-to-eye.

"I warned you to be cautious of Fancypants," he whispered. "What has he put into your head?"

"Nothing!" Rarity whispered back, hotly. "Nothing at all! And I'm insulted you would think so little of me."

"Jet Set and Upper Crust told me you were spreading rumor of what I said about my past trouble with him. That was spoken of in confidence! If I appear to bow to Fancypants, who else will saunter up to me expecting recompense?" He shook his head, blue eyes pleading. "Rarity, I am not just Prince, I am Duke. Did it not occur to you that I have cliens and ponies, Jet Set and Upper Crust included, who would..."

"Fleur," Rarity said, putting the pieces of the puzzle together. She pushed Blueblood to the side, getting a good look at the two rich unicorns. They were exchanging pleased looks.

"Fleur told them," she realized.

"She was in on this, too?" Blueblood asked, raiding his head to look, not at the wealthy financier ponies, but at the exit Fancypants and Fleur had passed through a moment before. Rarity was looking there, too, still unable to fathom what had happened.

"I just don't know - all I wanted was... was for you two to...!" Rarity choked back a sob as the realization hit that not only had she failed to bring Blueblood and Fancypants together, the situation had been made worse by the sharing of her indiscretion. Her eyes watered and she shamefully crushed them shut and galloped for a door - any door. It didn't matter, as long as she could be alone.

She never saw Upper Crust snort in disdain.

"Not the most dignified of displays," the wealthy unicorn muttered, just loud enough for her husband to hear. "I knew she was crass-"

"Muzzle your wife," Blueblood hissed, not bothering to even turn around. He didn't need to add a threat to make his intentions clear. Jet Set made a quick, upset face that seemed to ask his wife, 'Celestia's throne, did you really have to say that?' For her part, Upper Crust lowered her head and said nothing else.

With all the dignity he could muster, the Prince followed to find his special somepony.

Fleur and Fancypants, and their maneuverings, could wait.

Rarity was not easily consoled. Not really. Her state of mind that evening was not difficult to discern, not to a stallion of great experience and keen insight. Which was to say -

"I can NOT believe her! I can not - OOOH! All that work! And to think I thought she was my friend! OOOH! If I ever get my hooves on her!"

Blueblood craned his neck as a belt of fabric flew through the air, missing him by inches.

"Ahh... Rarity," he tried to say.

"She set me up! Set ME up! Oh, I must've looked like an absolute foal!"

"Ahhh..."

The Prince ducked as a pair of long feathers whipped through the air.

"The next time I see her! OOOH! You just wait! You just wait!"

"Uhmm..."

And there went a flying needle, a little too close for comfort.

It was time to put a hoof down.

"Rarity!" Blueblood barked, finally raising his voice. "Fewer lethal flying objects, please?"

The angry mare turned on him, glaring fiercely, only to melt a moment later into contrition. For all that she had comported herself, or tried to, between the mess on the airship party and the return to the castle, her confusion and frustration and grief were as easy to see as the puffy redness in her eyes and the running of her makeup. Giving him a silent apology with her eyes, Rarity returned to venting her roiling state of mind on her mannequine and Twilight Sparkle's would-be dress.

"I'm sorry," she finally said, after jamming a few needles into the helpless wooden figure.

"I really don't think you should be designing when angry," Blueblood observed, walking up to her and tapping a hoof to the mismatched and savaged dress on the poor dummy. "Unless this is some kind of gothic vampire-pony look?"

She shook her head, sniffing. "No. It isn't."

Rarity rested her forehead against the abused mannequine and mangled dress.

"I - I'm so sorry I told Fleur about what you said! I am! But... would - would it have worked?" she asked, turning to him with hopeful eyes. "If I had gotten you two alone?"

Blueblood took perhaps a second or two too long to answer.

"Who can say?" he quickly changed the topic, "But I bear responsibility too. This was not how I wanted to introduce you to Canterlot's high society. You had good intentions and I could never fault you for that."

"I just don't understand why she would...!" Rarity sucked in a breath, shaking her head and tossing her mane back and forth as she struggled to keep from sounding as angry and betrayed as she felt. "She seemed so supportive of the idea when we talked before. Maybe she was right. Maybe this was all just a mistake..."

Rarity continued to work on Twilight's dress, though as much to settle her own thoughts as she hurried to meet the deadline for her friend's birthday tomorrow. Blueblood stayed up, mostly just keeping an eye on her as she stitched and transformed fabric. Only when she began to drowse off did he float her over to the bed and seek out a quill and linen scroll.

He also retrieved a certain teak case with a chain and wax seal, one rarely used.

So called "Hunting" lodges were not, as one could imagine, terribly common in Equestria. The reason for this was the most obvious: ponies had a deep connection with the land and the animals that populated it. Within domesticated zones, the parts of Equestria that ninety-nine percent of ponies never left, tamed animals of all sorts also had a degree of intelligence. This was particularly manifest in the belt that ran east to west across Equestria proper, with Canterlot at the center. Only the northern and southern borders, and the far west, were still somewhat wild and contained un-tamed versions of the critters most ponies took for granted.

In light of this, most ponies would rightly balk at hunting, especially since they had little predatory instinct themselves. This was as true of noble ponies as was for commoners - hunting lodges were a cultural shibboleth and relic from a time before most griffins had been driven north and most diamond dogs retreated into the earth. Little actual hunting took place, and even then only if one counted things like recreational fishing, falconry, or flushing.

Noble families tasked to maintain a lodge did so primarily to officially oversee and ensure the continued domestication of the area, for example, by keeping pest populations in check. Pony-forming was not permanent and any realm could revert if not constantly cared for. Outside of this critical but mundane function, the lodge was also a convenient retreat just outside city limits, typically also attached to a small noble manor house.

It was also Twilight Sparkle's family home.

Ptarmigan Manor cradled itself among the high peaks that also hosted Canterlot's mighty foundations. Nestled against the side of a promontory, it was reachable only via air-chariot or through a short path that wound around Canterlot's primary mountain. The region was green and bright in the cool mountain air, with sparkling clear lakes dotted between the mighty outcroppings of rock and the verdant lands below.

A small waterfall served as scenic backdrop for the two story lodge and the small manor house adjacent, twinkling droplets of mist forming a faint cloud tinted with cascading rainbow. A channel had been cut beneath the main lodge to allow the lake behind the buildings to flow underneath and into an artificial lake with manicured grass and a track for landed chariots. Today, that lakeside parking was at a premium, with a half dozen chariots in gold and silver waiting for their owners to return.

"Twilight! My baby!"

"Hi, mom!" Twilight beamed at her mother's affectionate embrace, the older unicorn quickly starting to fuss over her mane and appearance. She had made the trip from Canterlot to Ptarmigan on hoof and still wore a set of plain saddlebags. Since she had already decided to visit Rarity and have her birthday party in Canterlot, it made sense to drop her things off at home and stay the night rather than catch a late train back to Ponyville.

The idea of all her friends staying over was appealing, too - it could be another slumber party! She made a mental note to write a physical note to better organize this one ahead of time.

"Are you getting enough to eat in Ponyville? I hear all they have are apples in that town!"

"Mom, please!" Twilight rolled her eyes at her mother's babying. Twilight Velvet's mien quickly morphed back to a lady of station after one last pinch to the cheek and she led her daughter past the lodge to the main house. The reunion with her daughter had clearly lifted her spirits, but Twilight noticed an absence or two.

"Um, mom?" She looked around, half expecting a surprise to jump out of one of the empty rooms. "Where's dad? Or Shining Armor?"

"Your father and brother were called off for some big secret meeting," Twilight Velvet replied, annoyed by their untimely absence. "First yesterday and now this? They didn't even have time for breakfast, but they said they'd be back just after noon."

"They took a chariot?"

"You probably would've run into them on the road if they hadn't. You could've taken one, too, dear. We'd happily have paid for a rental. Or you could use the family carrier."

"It was just a short walk. Besides, I've been trying to get more exercise. You know I won fifth place in the Running of the Leaves in Ponyville last year? It's probably a little unrealistic, but if I get fourth or even third this year I'll be pretty happy!"

Soon they were at her old room on the second floor; Twilight emptied her saddlebag of everything except some bits and a few other necessities. Of course, she had every intention of staying at Ptarmigan for a few hours to meet up with the rest of her family. Then, come afternoon, she'd drop by on Rarity with the rest of the gang taking the later train. It was so nice of Princess Celestia to let them use the palace ballroom for her party! Rarity seemed to be having a very hard time in the castle-city, and it just wouldn't have been right to have the party without her.

"Oh, were are those two?" Her mother had the drapes to the room opened wide, and she gasped and smiled at the sight of a chariot circling around from above. "There they are! Finally!"

"So how have things been?" Twilight asked, and quickly added, "I'm sorry I haven't written more often."

"There isn't much going on here, but your brother has been having the most interesting time at the castle! But I'll let him fill you in on that!"

She hurried back out the room, and Twilight followed at a more sedate pace. It was nice to see home again, though with all the years spent in Canterlot's palace and sanctum, with Celestia, it was almost like her old home was a second home. She could vaguely remember being very small and looking up at the same walls and paintings and antiques; she could remember going to events in the nearby lodge and marveling at all the rare crests and heraldic flags on display, donated by visiting nobles.

But was this really "home" anymore?

Twilight wasn't sure. Lately, Ponyville had begun to seem more like home than even Canterlot. She had friends there, and a job at the library, and more than enough adventure to boot. The Princess was in Canterlot - was she the reason Twilight had once thought of it as home? Her parents were in Ptarmigan - it had been home too, but was it because of them? Was Ponyville her home because of the connections to ponies she had made there?

"I noticed a bunch of other chariots outside," Twilight remembered, following her mother down a flight of stairs. "Is there a reception at the lodge or...?"

"A few of your cousins dropped by to see you," her mother replied, magically opening a door to the side of the manor facing the lodge and the waterfall. "Your aunt Sly Sparkle is here, too. Mostly unicorns from your father's side of the family."

Twilight nodded - that made sense. Her father was the one who belonged to a major clan. Most extended unicorn families splintered after a generation or two. Only the larger families, the older ones, or the richer ones had the finances and political inclinations to keep in touch across Equestria and to make one-pony's interests into larger entire-family interests. There were also, not coincidentally, the families that had the most to lose and to gain depending on who individual family members married. Having a large active family with connections across the country made for a strong social safety net.

"Anypony I know?" she asked. In a large family, and her father's extended family numbered almost fifty strong, it was hard to keep track of everypony. What she meant was: anyone whose name I should absolutely know when I meet them.

"Lord Alpha Brass is in Canterlot so he came by," Twilight Velvet recalled, waving to her husband and son as they exited their chariot out by the front lake. A flight of wide stone steps could lead them up between the manor and the lodge.

"Skipping Stone is also here, with his wife. They flew in from Cloudsdale just to see you. Your little cousin Jay is here, all grown up, and - how could I forget? Lord Wrathenow. He's a little hard of hearing, so you may have to speak up when you see him. I had expected Prince Blueblood to come by as well, but..."

"He's with Rarity in Canterlot," Twilight said, having that tidbit of information already. "I'm sure I'll see him later."

"He is our Duke," Twilight Velvet demurred. "But, Twilight, are things.. serious between your friend and His Grace?"

"I don't know. I suppose? Why?"

"Oh... No reason."

"Twilight!" Crescent Moon, Twilight's father, finally reached greeting distance. He was a tall blue stallion with midnight blue mane, neatly combed into a single short curl. Twilight was a little surprised to see him in formal clothes. Both her father and mother preferred the natural look.

In fact, he and Shining Armor were dressed similarly: in formal looking high-collared shirts and vests. Shining Armor wore his with a belt, Crescent Moon without. Twilight couldn't place the type or design of the clothes themselves, but they seemed uniform-like. Which made sense on her brother, a Royal Guard, but less on her father. He hadn't served as anything more than a Ducal Guard Captain and that was years ago. A small golden pendant was tucked into both stallion's collars in the form of a strange looking "Y" ... Twilight recognized it, after a moment, as the symbol for the constellation Aries.

No matter.

It was time to catch up with some estranged family.

The Elements of Harmony.

What a wonderful sextet of mares. They were sure to absolutely destroy the garden party this afternoon. Pure coincidence, surely, that Auntie Celestia had given them the palace ballroom right next to the one stretch of castle green where two dozen of Canterlot's finest were sure to be snootily enjoying themselves. Given what he had experienced at the Gala - over and over and over and OVER - Blueblood really wondered if he was right in the head to be looking forward to it.

At least this time he would be anticipating the party-smashing fun.

"How nice to see you all again," he greeted them with a broad, honest smile. One of his regrets, after the Gala, is simply being unable to find the time to get to know the five other mares he had studied so closely in an attempt to manufacture that elusive, perfect Gala night.

"Well, howdy there, yer lordship!" Applejack, of course, was the first to not only speak up but grab his hoof and shake vigorously.

"J - J - just a minute!" Rarity called from inside the suite, still putting the finishing touches on Twilight's dress. Blueblood lingered a moment in the doorway.

"It seems she isn't quite decent yet," he explained.

"Ah, we've all seen her naked. In fact, most of us are naked right now!" Pinkie Pie tried to sneak a peek past him, forcing him to divert a hoof to physically push her off his back.

"You know how Rarity is." Rainbow Dash gave a groan before finally landing. "One hair out of place and she freaks out."

"While we wait..." And by 'we' he meant all of them. "Is there anything I can do to help set up this party I've heard of? I wouldn't want you to lack for anything. Explosives, perhaps?"

"That's sweet, but I brought plenty!" Pinkie replied, bouncing in place.

"Naturally you did."

"Hey!" Twilight suddenly said, pointing to his collar. "You have one of those, too?"

"Ah, yes, this." Blueblood coughed, covering the little golden pendant. "I forgot to take it off."

Thankfully, before prying questions could be asked - questions he was honor bound not to answer - Rarity called from behind him that she was 'ready.' Which meant that she'd managed to fix up the dress enough from the other night to make it presentable. The thing had gone through a half dozen revisions overnight as Rarity's mood drifted from anger to resignation to determination to lethargy (around when she finally fell asleep) to panic to yet more panic, but with white trim.

"So sorry to have you wait," Blueblood said, stepping aside and motioning for the five Ponyville mares to enter.

The six friends quickly met in a group hug, which he took as a cue to stealthily remove his collar and return it to its case. It was also fortuitous timing to retrieve his own gift. From what he had learned of her during and after the Gala loops, Twilight was a rather easy mare to shop for - she just loved books. This was convenient in several respects given who and what she was.

"Rarity, it's so plain... so simple... so practical... so ME!"

Blueblood raised an amused eyebrow, smirking at the sight of Rarity caught in Twilight's excited embrace. The dress, which had gone through more permutations and reallocations than Equestria's fiscal budget, had ended up as a rather chaste little cream-yellow sundress. Which was a bit of a shame, since the scandalously sexy black number Rarity had made around one in the morning had potential. Luckily he'd squirreled that one away for later, just in case its creator wished to... revisit it... sometime.

"It's the perfect dress for my birthday party! I love it!"

"Twilight, you do not know how happy I am to hear you say that..."

On went the dress, and to Rarity's credit, it did look... chaste. 'Chaste' was definitely the best way to describe it. No feathers, no inlay, no stitched in gems or lace. The pink shawl gave it a little lively color, but even that was - ah - 'chaste.' Twilight loved it, though, which was what mattered. It was a work of love. Also frustration and panic. But mostly love.

"You're thinking something weird, aren't you?" Pinkie Pie invaded his personal space, staring up at something over his head. What? Did she expect a cloud to be following him around, projecting his thoughts like some kind of weird illusion spell?

The fact that he even thought that probably meant he needed to see a shrink.

"My thoughts involve nothing outside the ordinary," he assured her, stepping back.

"Twilight, everypony, I am so glad to see you. Truly! Yesterday was just terrible!" Rarity had already found a hat to go with her sundress in preparation for going out. "Thank you all for coming out to Canterlot. I was in no state at all to take a midnight train back to town."

"Aw, twern't nothin!"

"Yeah, don't sweat it!"

"We're gonna sleep over at Twilight's house! I think this's even better than having the party in Ponyville!"

"As long as we're together... um... I think that's what matters most."

"Exactly!" Twilight agreed wholeheartedly with her friends. She then turned to the one pony present outside her normal clique. "Ahm, you can come too, if you want to?"

"I had planned to attend the garden party next door regardless, so it would be a pleasure." Blueblood snickered inside, knowing it was only a matter of time before one party crashed face-first into the other. No wonder Auntie had been unable to resist inviting her Elements to crash the Gala. This was devilish fun.

"I do hope you have popcorn," he added, but soon coughed and remembered, "But before that, I also have a present for you. Happy birthday, Twilight Sparkle."

He levitated open a nearby glass case.

The typically visible field of magic indicative of unicorn telekinesis then formed, moved through the air, and hovered to his side. Really: he did have a little too much of Auntie in him these days. The look of confusion on their faces was just priceless. He knew just what they had to be seeing: nothing. Just an empty magical field.

"Would you stop playing around?" Rarity remarked, spoiling the fun.

"Oh yes," he remarked with a grin. "I forgot to wrap it."

Plucking a cut red ribbon off Rarity's easel nearby, he wrapped it around his magical field, then over, pulling it taut. The ribbon, which should have pulled into a knot, instead caught on something solid. Something small and square. A book.

"An invisible book?" Rainbow Dash asked, flying over for a close inspection. "Uh... that doesn't even make sense!"

"Oooh! I wonder if it's written in invisible ink!"

"Uh, I don't think it would matter much, sugarcube. Invisible ink on invisible pages...?"

Floating the book over to Twilight, she first took it in her own magical field, and then touched a hoof to the ribbon. Her eyes shot wide open.

"I can see it!" she exclaimed, though it remained invisible to everypony else.

"Ya can?" Applejack asked, shooting Fluttershy a confused shrug. "So only unicorns can see it?"

"Now that she has touched it, only Twilight can read the actual pages or even see the cover," Blueblood finally explained.

"Hiding in Plain Sight," Twilight read, sparkles in her eyes. "The Art of Invisibility. Unabridged edition!"

"Hey. Does it really have to be invisible itself?" Rainbow Dash asked, growing a little suspicious.

She was definitely smarter than she let on.

"The spells within are not for common use," Blueblood said, and it was the truth. Not the whole truth. But enough of it.

Enough to convince the competitive and sharp eyed weathermare.

Twilight tightened the ribbon on the book and bowed gracefully. "Thank you, Your Grace!"

"I'm glad you like it; you may find it useful some day."

"Now that we're ready, let's go party!"

"You said it!" "All right!" "Come on, Fluttershy! You can just jump off the stairs out here." "I, um, I'd rather just walk..."

Closing the door to the tower suite behind them, Blueblood noticed Rarity watching him and lingering behind her friends. Letting the five mares get a little distance, he slowed, expecting she had a few words to exchange. The pair of unicorns slowly descended the winding tower stairs together, side by side.

"There's something odd about that book, isn't there?" Rarity asked.

He chuckled. "It is an invisible book."

"The perfect thing to hide secrets in."

"Oh? That never occurred to me."

"Are you going to tell me what's really in there?"

"I don't see why," he quipped. "You can't read it."

And there she was, looking cross at him. He held off saying more, at least until she pouted. That was harder to resist.

"Fine," Prince Blueblood relented with a helpless shrug. "If you must know, that book contains dark and unimaginable secrets with which to subjugate Canterlot or even all of Equestria. One could call it a key to the very gates of hell itself, written not with quill and ink, but with dreams made solid, manifest and terrible."

Rarity stared at him, long and hard...

Before shaking her head. "If you really aren't going to tell me," she replied, sounding mildly upset but not too worried. "Then you could at least put effort into make up a more convincing lie."

"Alas, Lady Rarity, that's simply too much work."

Fight it all she could, Rarity just couldn't help herself.

Maybe it was the sight and sound of the orchestra playing Schumare's 'Moonlit Night' outside. Maybe it was the elegantly dressed ladies and handsomely attired and groomed stallions. Maybe it was the shaded table of delightfully colorful and delicious looking amuse-bouches, with its ice-sculpture of Princess Celestia and waiters making the rounds, offering treats to chatting and scheming elites. Maybe it was the perfectly cut and maintained lawn, framed by fountains of crystal water and immaculate hedges cut into elaborate topiary, vines and rose bushes curling up to reach the sun. Maybe it was even the cultured game of crochet underway.

Maybe it was one's uncultured buffoon of a Prince wagging his eyebrows at her as he enjoyed the party, taking every opportunity to remain obviously in view of the ballroom. Chatting away with a small crowd of mares. Annoying. Making exaggerated gestures as he savored bite-sized Hors d'oeuvres and cocktails. Vexing. Laughing with celebrities and - and was he flirting with that cellist?! Destroy.

"No! No!" Rarity swooned, dramatically, for good measure. "Must! Resist!"

Besides, no matter how... attractive and cultured and wonderful...

No, no matter how nice the party out there looked, half the ponies in that garden were probably working some scheme behind the back of the other half. Hadn't Blueblood himself called Canterlot's court a 'pit of snakes eating other snakes, begetting other snakes?' That was nothing to aspire to! All she had to do was pretend it didn't exist.

Mind over matter.

"Hey, look at the fancy party out there! Whatcha think they're doin' with that bat?"

"That's a croquet mallet, AJ."

"How do you know?"

"I've been to tons of posh parties in Cloudsdale, and I'll have you know I'm totally awesome at that game."

"Oh, look at all the song birds."

"And snacks! But no chocolate. How can they have snacks but no chocolate? Oh! Oh! We should so totally bring them chocolate! It's too addictive NOT to share! Wait a second. I don't see even one balloon. Somepony tell me they aren't having a balloon-less party. Even funerals can at least have black balloons."

So much for mind over matter.

Her friends were just about to return to their curious mixture of eating fondue and breaking open a piñata - at the same time - when Twilight, perceptive as always, noticed one of her friends lingering longer than the others. Rarity just couldn't help it. Even after the disaster last night, even after being upset with herself and absolutely furious at Fleur, the garden party outside was like a siren drawing her to sea in a rising tide of fashion and high culture. What made it really unbearable was that she knew, she knew without a doubt, that she could fit in with Canterlot's elite. All she had to do was try. All she had to do was want to.

"Rarity," Twilight said, still wearing the incomplete and frankly plain dress her friend hadn't been able to finish. "That other party... do you want to go?"

"Oh, Twilight, I - I couldn't!" Rarity forcefully pushed herself away from the ballroom window. "This is your birthday and... I... I'm! So! Selfish!"

"I don't think so! It makes sense!" Twilight blinked and smiled, somehow not comprehending Rarity's own confusion and guilt on the issue. "The Grand Galloping Gala is in a couple months, and look at all those posh ponies. I bet you could sell them lots of dresses! It's just good business sense!"

"Well, yes, it is... I could..." Rarity replied, a little hesitantly. A little warning bell was already ringing way in the back of her mind. A little warning telling her that any second now-

"Hey, yeah! And we could come too!" There it was.

To cheers and the squeaking wheels of an unlimbered party cannon, the Elements of Harmony left the building.

Canterlot's roads were designed from the start to be smooth and easy on carriage wheels, with cobblestone only on pedestrian walkways and the sides of major streets and venues. Fancypants hardly felt the occasional bump or jolt. He had on his preferred three piece dinner jacket, minus the bow tie. That item of clothing remained, unbound, in a small case by the side of his seat. Reaching up to his neck, it was easy to recall that morning, when he had worn a different item under his collar.

A Brother could not refuse the summons of another Brother.

Even if that so called "brother" in the Order was Blueblood.

Fancypants flicked the collar of his shirt in annoyance. Not so much at the arrogant, ignorant noble who had, years ago, so rudely denied him a well earned knighting. The same teenage Prince who had tried to shackle him by making him into a regional cliens. The same former friend who had scuttled his plans for an amusement park where the children of nobles and commoners could mingle freely, with no booths or boxes or hedgerows between them. It was not that pony that vexed Fancypants at the moment.

"So it was him?" Fancypants asked, nodding to himself. "He put you up to this? You are absolutely sure?" He turned to Fleur, the beautiful unicorn seated next to him. "I want to trust you, my dear. I really do."

"It is impossible to be entirely certain," she replied, eyes downcast. "But yes."

"And your family has already been rewarded for your little stunt?" Fancypants chuckled in dry amusement, floating up his bow tie and snaking it around his upturned shirt collar. "How sad for that cruel little colt, then. It changes nothing."

"I am sorry, Fancy. I - I thought... you and Blueblood..."

"Would not reconcile? I would not have thought it either. We may still not, as - aw, blast it all!"

"I'll get it." Fleur's soft pink glow eased into his own magical field, helping to tie the purple bow to just the right length. A little tug, to pull the neckcloth together, and it was all in place. Fancypants glanced down and smiled approvingly.

"I am so sorry, Fancy," she said again. "I wasn't just thinking of my family, I was thinking of you. And us."

Fancypants sighed and closed his eyes, the steady rhythm of the carriage Fleur's only response.

"In other circumstances, my dear... in another world perhaps, there could be a me and a you, in a carriage just like this one, on our way to a garden party." He opened his eyes and glanced at her, not with anger or hurt, but with honest affection. "And that Fancypants could well be lauding you for your move. But I am not him, and he is not me. I will give His Grace the chance to prove he has changed."

"And..." Fleur said the name quietly, "Lord Brass?"

"Yes. Him. I find it interesting he would trade an estate, even a small one like your family sold back in Prance, all for the chance to keep me and Lord Blueblood at odds. He must know I have no desire to play these political games. I am independent. I am neutral in this inane family feud-"

"No pony can stay neutral, Fancy," Fleur said it like an indictment, and with enough heat to cause him to turn his head. "Especially not if he gave you the knighthood you wanted. I don't know what I was thinking..."

"I can not remain angry at you, my dear. I fear love has blinded me, even in my good eye. Make no mistake, however," he cut her off, his expression hardening. "I am disappointed in you. I know exactly what crossed your mind. You were thinking: I can gain much, if I sacrifice my principles just a little. We are all presented with choices like that, but it is up to our better nature to prevail against it. Perhaps I am a little guilty as well. But there is the chance that, this afternoon, we can both make up for it."

"And," he added, before she could say more. "And possibly even save two friendships, tossed aside in haste and bad judgment."

"How come y'all aren't doin' any yard work? This is a garden party, isn't it?"

Applejack - uprooting random plants. That had to be worth a drink.

"Yeah! Yeah! Who wants to get down and dance?"

Twilight - oh sweet Celestia, was kind of dancing was that? The epileptic boogie?

Was that Pinkie Pie, face first in a cake?

"I need another drink," Rarity said, still reeling a bit from downing her last one. Surely after a few more glasses, inebriation would kick in and it wouldn't seem quite so bad. Ideally all the other guests could get hammered as well. Perhaps everypony could just forget what happened!

"Oh, this is priceless! Simply priceless."

"You," Rarity growled at the nearby Prince who, since the fiasco began, had done nothing but sit back and watch. "Aren't you going to do something, Your Grace?"

"Me?" Blueblood asked, pointing a hoof at his illustrious and stainless self. "I'm not getting anywhere near that cake. You see this right here?" He pointed at the ground, and to a line in the dirt. "This is just outside the disaster radius. Which means I'm nice and safe."

"Oh, are you? Safe, that is?" Rarity brandished her glass, with a little bit of seven-and-seven left at the bottom. The shot or so of lime soda and whiskey splashed around, dangerously crashing against the remaining ice left inside.

A pony could imagine it getting on his or her nice clean shirt, or perhaps all over their smug face.

"I see!" Blueblood shot up, as if from an epiphany. "You're worried about your reputation and your friends making a scene!"

Rarity could only stare at him. "You think?!"

"If you absolutely insist, then... Oh-ho?" Blueblood pointed across the garden to a newly arriving carriage. "Is that who I think it is?"

Rarity recognized the carriage, too. "Fancypants?"

It was the straw that broke the camel's back. She started to slump, bonelessly, against the punch table. Having a similar sense, Upper Crust and Jet Set had also retreated to the table, partly to get away from the new party guests and partly to try and pick up where Rarity had left off in convincing the Prince to do something. Probably and preferably something that involved kicking ponies out and-or calling for security.

"Fancypants, too!" Jet Set, for the first time, seemed to stiffen his resolve. "Your Grace, you must do something!"

"About?" Blueblood picked that time - the worst time as usual, in Rarity's opinion - to play dense.

"About these... these country bumpkins!"

"Ah. Those." He tapped a hoof, impatiently. "I suppose I should do something."

"Yes, Yes!" Jet Set cheered.

"Please do!" Upper Crust chimed in.

Blueblood, with all his royal majesty, infrequently applied... headed off in the wrong direction, leaving the two wealthy unicorns gaping. It even left Rarity rather surprised, until she noticed where he was headed. It was not to get involved with her friends and their merry making (and whatever it was Twilight was doing). He was headed for Fancypants. The other stallion, having just exited his carriage and gotten a look at the garden party in progress, was left stunned. Behind him, Fleur was also looking on, perplexed.

"Oh no. No! Don't get into a fight!" Rarity broke into a gallop, almost losing her hat in the process. A rush of wind caught it, forcing her to nimbly circle around, grab it with magic, and fix it back on her head. By the time she got close, Blueblood and Fancypants were already -

Already... greeting each other...?

"I say, I've never seen a garden party quite like this before."

"I figure we can have fun reining things in a bit. Do you remember that play you sponsored? The Lusty Mareabian... and the garden party scene?"

"Oh yes, one could hardly forget that!" the two stallions laughed heartily.

Leaving Fleur and Rarity to exchange confused looks.

"The Lusty Mareabian?" she mouthed, and then asked, "Do I even want to know?"

"It seems we've both been the victim of a conspiracy," Fancypants continued, levitating his monocle back on and straightening his collar and coat. "A conspiracy to try and set right some past misunderstandings."

"So it seems," Blueblood agreed, and beckoned Rarity closer with a dip of his horn.

"But... last night?" Rarity asked, looking from one to the other. "I thought...?"

"That was all my fault," Fleur spoke up, but didn't meet Rarity's angry glare.

"Before you admonish her," Fancypants said, leaning down to touch his cheek to Fleur's, sharing a brief but very public display of affection. "I am here because of her. I would hope you do not make the mistake His Grace and I have, and let a mistake poison a potentially profitable relationship for another ten years."

"Of course, being the bigger pony," Blueblood explained with a haughty grin. "I am willing to first extend the olive branch."

"And if I were to extend the olive branch first, Your Grace?"

"I'd probably take it and ask for more."

"You would," Fancypants remarked with a shake of his head. "I shall allow you to go first then."

"Oh, you shall, shall you?"

"I shall!"

The two headed off, right into the mess of the garden party.

"Those two...?" Rarity felt a sudden headache coming on. She decided to blame the alcohol and ice. In the interests of peace among ponies. Then again, there was one pony that had made that difficult.

She turned to Fleur-de-lis.

"Before either of us says anything else," Rarity demanded, "Tell me why."

Fleur sniffed, raised her head and looked the Element of Generosity straight on. Rarity could see that she was just a little defiant, even if she looked distraught. She took a deep breath, and spoke.

"Money," she explained.

"Money?" Rarity snapped. "You made a foal out of me! I was - I was put through that, for money?"

"I was asked to interfere in any reconciliation between Blueblood and Fancypants," she continued, looking away briefly before forcing herself to own up to the mare she had turned against. "In return, my family would get back lands we had sold."

"You're nobility," Rarity argued. "Why would you need more land?"

"My family is noble... but poor," Fleur said it with a shudder. "Every generation, we have lost more and more. My grandmother sold our ancestral estate in Prance. My mother sold her wardrobe. I was lucky enough to find a way to make money without causing us to lose title. Celestia knows that title is all we have left. I can't just ask Fancypants to support us - it isn't right. It isn't honorable."

"So when the opportunity arose to get some of that back, I took it. Fancy and Blueblood... I really couldn't imagine that they would ever make up. It was a long shot, anyway, right?" She asked, trying to make her reasoning clear. "Besides, Lord Blueblood... his family sponsored mine when we left Prance. He was supposed to help take care of us, and we've sworn oaths to him for a hundred years. What has all that gotten us?"

She sniffed again but kept her chin high.

"I'll understand if you can't forgive me," she finished, blinking away tears. "I feel - I am sorry I did it. But you wanted to know why? That was why."

Rarity frowned, but lowered her eyes. She had heard of impoverished nobility. Most ponies considered it an amusing sort of turnabout: the once noble family, with little more than title left. It was even the brunt of the occasional joke, about the rich stallion or mare from the middle classes, picking up a wife or husband and gaining title along the -

"Fancypants!" she realized, and asked softly, "He isn't...?"

"No." Fleur smiled wanly at the question. "I asked if he wanted to. But he wants me to marry into his family, not the other way around. He wants to earn a title, not just inherit it."

"Fleur, is... is it really that bad?"

"It isn't like the story books or moving pictures, where we have to move around like gypsies." Fleur actually laughed at the notion. "Nopony is starving. We simply slipped into debt, little by little. Without other estates or a strong new patron, leaving Canterlot is impossible. My mother... she learned how to dance, how to sit at court and display the finest manners, to speak old Equestrian and to defend her taste in art and spellwork. She could even write poetry. None of it helped her to actually make money."

"But that isn't important right now," Fleur stressed, walking up to Rarity. "I should have trusted in you, but I didn't. I should've given you a chance. I don't know if you can trust me again, or... or if you hate me for what I did."

Rarity didn't - couldn't - answer right away.

The truth was, she wasn't sure if she could trust Fleur again. The anger of the night before had bubbled over, but deep down, she wasn't the sort of pony to nurse a grudge for very long. What was left was regret and disappointment. Fleur-de-lis had been the first pony she had called friend in Canterlot, Blueblood excluded. She and Fancypants weren't just pretty ponies with charm and money - they had both genuinely seemed like ponies she could get along with. She had felt like one of them, and Fleur had kicked that out from under her.

It was hard to forgive.

She stole a look over at the garden, where Fancypants seemed to be commenting approvingly at Twilight's dress, much to the shock of Upper Crust. Blueblood was already floating his way through the records the girls had brought over, probably looking for the most inappropriate music he could find. More of that 'jazz' from the Gala even.

"If those two can try and put the past aside... I can, too." So, hard as it was, she did it anyway. Rarity shrugged, as she remembered, "Besides, you did say not to trust you, now that I think about it."

"Hmm?" Fleur wondered, blinking innocently. "I did?"

Rarity stared at the other mare. "You said, and I quote, 'When it comes to Canterlot, appearances are everything... and nothing.'"

"OOH!" Fleur reached up to bonk the side of her head. "I'd completely forgotten about that!"

Feeling a little vindicated, Rarity nodded. "So you see, I should have expected-"

"Actually, I was talking about clothes!" Fleur exclaimed, and did a little pirouette. "And how they always go out of style. Another reason not to bother with them at all!"

Rarity's face fell. "That was it?"

"I think so. My word, is that pink pony throwing cake?" Fleur's eyes widened with delight as she pulled Rarity along. "How sinfully decadent!"

"W-wait! At least let me take my dress off first! Fleur!"

The quill moved in slow, elegant strokes...

Dear Princess -

Or should I say, 'daddy's little princess' instead?

I heard the most interesting story the other day. It had to do with rats.

Bear with me. You see, imagine you have a small pack of rats in a nice little cage, all family and friends, squeaking and nibbling cheese. You then remove one of these rats, wash off all scent of her, and return her to their fellows. The rats, it is said, will turn on their former friend and family member, biting and clawing and screaming and scratching. They will not recognize her as one of the group. However, if you do the opposite and take a rat from outside the group, but wash it in the appropriate scent, it will be accepted into the new group. They will treat it as one of their own. Isn't that interesting?

Naturally, dear little sister, I first imagined: what must it be like for that first rat? Returned home, so nice and clean? She can smell her friends and family, but upon her return, they turn on her? Can you imagine the terror of what that rat must have felt, to be bitten and clawed at by friends and family? To not even know why?

Now, if you will humor me, sister, imagine you are that second rat. Dropped in a cage with however many strangers. They smell all wrong to you. You want to bite them and claw them and drive them away, but they surround you. They smell you and accept you, and you know it is a lie, so you bide your time. They will never smell like your real friends or your real family. So you wait, for a time, until you eventually forget who you were. You forget the smell of one pack and blend into another. How terrifying is that, sister? To lose oneself? Would you rather be that first rat, or the second?

Both scenarios amuse me, of course, and I would see such theories put to more practical application. But I can imagine you now, reading this, and narrowing those frightful eyes of yours. Do not fret. I have merely had some harmless fun with the rats in Canterlot. On first glance, I would have to agree with your earlier observations. Our Prince will most certainly go out of his way to stick his nose into any attempts to sideline his new bed-warmer. It may comfort you to know that I don't like her either. She is naive, yes, but with a disarming charisma. Never underestimate the sex appeal of innocence.

Lastly, and the matter you have no doubt been waiting for as you read this letter:

Regarding our own family here in Canterlot, most all are good, loyal and pliable. If ignorant. They can be counted on to act in the interests of the family as a whole, however, there are problems. Lord Wrathenow will be dead within the year. Though he did not say as much, I have the impression he will pass authority of the Canterlot branch of the family over to Crescent Moon. One last death-bed snub in response to Father's little mess, twenty years ago. This is potentially troublesome. Not only is he father of the Element of Magic, Moon has both the skill and the background to learn all he needs of our rites from Wrathenow. Both have been sympathetic to our Blueblood cousins in the past.

The following is purely my recommendation, for I would not presume to give orders to you, little sister. You should visit him when you come to the city. You are the designated heir, after all. Impress on him that the main branch of the family is watching him closely. Shining Armor is to be wed within the next half year, to Princess Cadenza. This works well for us. Perhaps Twilight Sparkle, a fine looking lady of good breeding, could also be married off? Preferably to someone loyal to us. Use those nasty eyes of yours if you have to.

The Canterlot branches of the family must be fixed firmly to the trunk of the tree. Or they must be pruned. Father and I both share this assessment.

With love, sincerity, and deep devotion,

Your dear, sweet brother,

Alpha Brass

Chapter Five : The Harsh Education of Dewdrop Dazzle

(5)

The Harsh Education of Dewdrop Dazzle

Rarity entered the library refreshed after a good night's sleep. She'd even had time to cook a quick breakfast with Sweetie and her parents before gathering a few things and heading out. True, yesterday's 'training' had been rather embarrassing, but it had produced some tangible results so it could be forgiven for appearing so unorthodox. Celestia had trained Twilight properly, after all, and Rarity trusted Twilight to similarly show wisdom in passing on what she had learned.

In a good mood, she was even happier to see Spike answer the door.

"Good morning, Spike!" she favored the little dragon with a friendly smile. He returned it, a little nervously, but with innocent affection.

"H-hi, Rarity," he swooned, but just as quickly, seemed to deflate. Biting his lip, he took a step back. "You - you probably don't want me in the way, so..."

"Not at all! In fact, I brought something for you!" Rarity wiped her hooves on the library's entryway mat and entered, closing the door behind her with a swoosh of her tail. She'd come with one of her favorite little saddlebags on her back, a dark red number she had picked up on a trip to Canterlot. Using a bit of magic, she retrieved a white bag tied with a loop of golden thread.

"For me?" Spike asked, wide eyed with wonder and excitement and hope. "Really?"

"Yes, I was thinking the other day, that this whole terrible experience with Antimony has really shown me how wonderful all my friends are. Everypony seemed so worried about me, the very moment they heard; I just had to repay them somehow. Not a dress this time, but maybe a hat?" She leaned in to ask in a conspiratorial tone. "Twilight doesn't have many hats, does she? Or wigs?"

The image of Twilight Sparkle in a puffy white wig caused the baby dragon to cough, rather than laugh out loud.

"I really hope not," he said, choking back a snicker. "I really, really hope not. But hats!" He quickly amended. "I don't think she has any hats. Not stylish ones anyway, like you'd wear, Rarity."

"That is so sweet, but I bet you're wondering what I got you?" she asked, and levitated over the little white bag. "Just between you and me, I've come into some very interesting materials lately and seem to have a few extra. I know you love gemstones, so I wanted to see if any of these are to your liking?"

Spike slowly and carefully opened the gem-bag before reaching in with three fingers and then a whole hand. Opening his palm, he saw a number of sparkling silver and pink pearls, some round saltwater cultured, and others freshwater and bulb-shaped. There was also an oval shaped amethyst and several cut pieces of watermelon tourmaline. The last piece, at the bottom of the bag, was wrapped in paper: a small, rare scarlet emerald, also known as red beryl.

"A certain somepony has a dislike for anything but very small, very fine gemstones," Rarity explained with a frown. "I just finished her neckline and flourish last night, and thought: wouldn't it be nice to give these to someone who will actually appreciate them?"

"Spike?" she asked, when she noticed he hadn't responded. "Oh, you don't like-"

"I love them!" he blurted out, staring up at her with wide green eyes. "I do."

A little conspicuously, though, he slid the pearls back into the bag first.

"Especially this red beryl," he muttered, licking his lips and staring into the rose colored, multifaceted gem. It was small, but extremely rare in the otherwise gem-rich Equestria. "There's only one deposit that produces it in the entire country! I've never had one before!"

"Well, bon appétit!" She started as he ran over to embrace her in a hug.

To her surprise, he started to sniffle.

"Spike?" she asked, blinking in confusion. "Are you alright?"

"I'll make it up to you," he said, quickly stepping back and putting the gems away in their silk bag.

"It was a gift," she reminded him, further confused by how her response only seemed to deepen his frown. "You don't need to make it up to me. We're friends. You're my Spikey-Wikey!"

"I - uh - I'll go get Twilight!"

Leaving the perplexed unicorn mare behind, Spike ran off.

"How strange." Shrugging, Rarity quickly put aside the peculiar behavior and took a look around the library while waiting for her friend to come down. The town library was very cozy and inviting, even for the less than literature-obsessed. Most interesting of all, there was a table with a sheet over it - some sort of experiment, knowing Twilight.

A dozen books were also on reading podiums or bookmarked and stacked around the table.

Definitely some sort of experiment, then. Further evidence was in the blackboard-on-wheels that lay reclined against the wall. Sketches, diagrams and arcane script covered all but two corners of the chalkboard. A long list of names were crossed out. Rarity, curious, trotted over for a closer look. The pony names, on inspection, were actually the names of gemstones.

Hearing hoofsteps descending down the stairs, Rarity turned to the table.

"Good morning, Rarity!" she heard Twilight call down. "Did you eat already?"

"I had a light breakfast, yes, but thank you." She inspected the sheet on the table. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you working on under this?"

"Go ahead and take a look!" Twilight replied, Spike close behind her.

"Don't mind if I do. What could...? Oh, I recognize this!" Rarity folded up the white sheet she had pulled off of the supposed experiment in progress. "This is that relic Lyra brought in the other day, isn't it? Some sort of archaic torc?"

Twilight nodded, but sighed in frustration. "That's it! I've been working on it in my spare time: checking the dates, trying to find sources in my books, things like that. I even had a picture taken and sent to Canterlot to see if they had any more information to help in reconstructing it."

"It doesn't appear broken to me," the dressmaker replied, leaning closer for a better look. The torc was positioned over a wooden bust of a unicorn mare, her chin held high as she looked off dramatically in the distance. The artifact seemed terribly antiquated and out of fashion to Ponyville's trendsetter, lacking even in the overly romanticized exaggeration of period pieces. The loops around the neck looked uncomfortable and far too small, too tightly bound together, and the ring around the horn also seemed far too gaudy.

It was a little hard to believe that unicorns used to wear such things.

She did, however, see what Twilight had to be referring to. Peering closer, she saw the tiny empty depression in the strangely shaped golden leaves about the head. There were two of them.

"You mean these little pits?" Rarity asked, pulling back. "I can see what you mean. Something would've been embedded in them."

"Gems, probably," the other mare replied. "I tried everything to find out what used to be in there, but: nothing! Every spell came back without a clear response."

Rarity pulled up a foreleg to tap her chin.

"Did you try Clover's Clairvoyance?" she asked.

"Clover's Clairvoyance was the very first thing I tried," Twilight replied, and gave a soft 'hmm' before listing off her other attempts. "After that, I tried Insomnia's Intuition, Insight and Information. Decal's Dedicated Discernment. Decal's Dweomer Detection, both regular and advanced. Then I tried Penny's Penetrating Precognition and even Starswirl's Sixth Sensing."

"Nothing!" Twilight exclaimed, clearly at the end of her magical rope. "Sixth Sensing and Decal's spells told me that there was something missing, but not what. Penny's came back with 'try again later' and Clover's Clairvoyance, which usually works so well, returned 'inconclusive' three times. I think I've exhausted what I can do here."

"Well, Twilight, you could always have asked me to help," Rarity noted with a broad smile, briefly rubbing her hooves together and trotting up closer to the troublesome torc. "I know a little about the delicate art of lapidary myself, and while I respect the work put into all those spells, I'd like to try one of my own to see if I have any luck."

Twilight, just then, seemed to recall how Rarity had taught her more than a few gem-related spells, all of which she had created herself. The gem-finding spell in particular was one Rarity took pride in, having combined an illumination spell, a detection spell, and a transparency spell. The result was a unique piece of magic-weaving that made finding buried gems as easy as seeing them glow underground, like a lamp beneath murky water.

"What do you have in mind?" the librarian asked, stepping aside and out of the way but watching her friend closely. A bit of a prodigy herself, she could copy many spells just by seeing them once, or by reading incomplete formulas in books.

"You could call it a 'sense style' spell," Rarity explained, pacing before the torc and wooden bust. "Call it... Rarity's Rubric Refinement."

"It passes the alliteration test," Twilight joked, "But what does it do?"

Rarity bowed her head to the artifact, already beginning her spell; energy pooled from her horn into a glittering field as the magic took 'shape.'

"Like I said," she repeated. "It senses style. Other spells, like Clover's, investigate an object as if it were a word with a letter missing. That works well if you already understand how the common pronunciation and language structure exists. But it would be less useful in a different language. Just the same, Decal's spells work by attempting to analyze the magic as if it were a chemical formula, looking for the missing element following known rules. But if you don't know the rules..."

"Then you get an inconclusive result," Twilight realized, nodding in agreement. "But that would mean there was something strange with the object in the first place?"

"Not strange," Rarity corrected her friend, the spell unfurling from her horn to engulf the torc. "Just unfamiliar. This spell I'm using attempts to feel for the artistry of an object - to read the intention of the maker, left in the material. If whoever made this put their heart and soul into it then there should be an imprint of their desire left... reaching for somepony to make it whole."

She gasped, and licked her lips, having found something.

"A little illusion and..."

Rarity's magical field expanded, just for a moment, and an enlarged image of the five-fielded spade - definitely not a hand, contrary to what some pony said - appeared. In the center of it, where the depression had been, a clear diamond-like sphere pulsed with energy. Colors reflected within it, seething as they attempted to break free. Rarity could hold the projection for all of a second and a half before it got away from her and shattered, turning to dream dust.

"I lost it," she lamented, falling back onto her flank. Reaching up to the side of her head, she closed her eyes and tried to recall what she had seen and felt. "There was... a pony... pouring something. It didn't feel like a normal gem. It wasn't. Something special. Reflection. Purity. Something... pure...?"

"Something... pure?" Twilight asked, and her violet eyes lit up. "Spike!"

"Uh, yeah?" Her always handy, always capable assistant jumped out in front of her.

"I think I know what it is!" she exclaimed, and looked down at him. "Water! Spike, you know where I keep the pure water?"

He nodded, stealing a look at Rarity, who still seemed to be recovering from her spellwork.

"Yeah," he said, after that moment of hesitation. "Downstairs, in the lab area, bottom drawer? Bunch of glass and crystal vials?"

"That's them," she confirmed. "But!" she stressed, suddenly. "I need the one in the tin bottle, inside the brown box. It has the pictogram for 'virgin' on it. You know that one, right?"

"Not really... but I got it! I'll find it and be right back!" He took another look at Rarity, convinced himself she was fine, and ran to the door to the basement lab. Watching him go, Twilight could've sworn she also heard him mutter something about 'silly pony pictograms' but then he was gone.

"Twilight?" Rarity asked, coming back to her senses. She looked confused. "Water? I'm fine-"

"Not for you," her friend tried to explain. "The answer is water. It wasn't a gemstone at all. It was water."

"I'm afraid I don't follow," the fashionista admitted.

"Water," Twilight said again, and clarified her meaning a moment later. "Pure water. The ancients considered it a powerful alchemical reagent, and we still use it for certain spells and enchantments today."

"But... really? Water?" Rarity frowned. The revelation seemed like a let-down; she had clearly been expecting something more fabulous or dramatic, like an Ingot of Living Lava, or a Moonstone, or an Eternal Eye.

"Just... water?" she asked, failing to see why Twilight was so excited.

"Not just water," the studious pony replied. "Pure water. Don't think of it as the kind of water we drink, like from a well or a river."

"Magically purified water," she explained, with the certainty that came from being convinced she had finally solved a puzzle after days of hitting and missing. "They gather it from mountain glaciers or from the northern pole and store it in airtight glass. The glass itself still contaminates some of the ice, so when it gets here, they discard some of it. The rest is repeatedly distilled, passed through magical filters and then treated by..."

Seeing Rarity bracing for a long technical lecture, Twilight groaned and cut to the point.

"Magically pure water has less than one particle of contaminant for every trillion particles of water," she said, hoping it got the point across. While far from scientifically minded, Rarity did seem to realize, at least a little, just how unusual this ultra-pure water was.

"So these... gemstones, that aren't gemstones... are ice?" Rarity reasoned, looking at the torc sitting on the wooden bust.

"Magically crystallized," Twilight answered, and turned as they both heard Spike come up the stairs. The little dragon had a medium sized, carefully wrapped case in his hands. Thick thread kept the entire package bundled up.

"This is it, right?" he asked, lifting it up so Twilight could take hold of it with her magic.

"Just what we needed, Spike! Thank you!" Twilight Sparkle sounded almost giddy as she opened the infrequently used case. Within the bundle, a much smaller cylinder emerged, looking more like a liquor flask than a proper magical vial. It was a far cry from the test tubes and expensive crystal ampoules downstairs.

"There used to be a time when this," she said, pointing at the metal flask caught in her telekinetic aura. "Was worth a hundred times more than gold. It's still pretty expensive, actually."

"Is that why you probably haven't used it in..." Spike tried to guess. "I don't even know how long?"

"Not since you were little, when I started learning basic alchemy under Princess Celestia." Twilight cocked her head at the metal flask. It was impossible to tell if there was even any water in it anymore. She gave it a little shake. "There's still some in here!"

"I still don't quite see why this water, however purified it has become, is so special." Rarity stood back up, determined to watch whatever Twilight did next.

"Truly pure water was considered to be impossible to actually make," Twilight said, trotting over to the torc, and leaning it - and the bust - on its side. "In some alchemical and philosophical circles, there is power in trying to achieve the impossible. Because water always has some tiny impurity, no matter how hard or how long it was processed, some ponies believed 'True Water' would take the form of a perfect element, transforming whoever made or it drank it into a similarly perfect being."

"Some sort of philosopher stone, I guess?" she speculated and shrugged. "That's all ancient history, but highly purified water does have magical properties under certain conditions. When magically frozen, for example, it doesn't melt or warp when exposed to heat. Highly precise lenses are sometimes made out of magically frozen pure ice, and... in ancient times..."

She activated some kind of switch on the flask's nozzle, and a drop of sparkling clear water fell.

Right into the empty depression in the torc.

"They called it a Captured Star."

The moment the drop hit the concave pit, it froze and crackled, loud enough to hear. It seemed impossible that such a small object could produce such a sound, like a glass shattering. Twilight ignored it, focused on her task, and quickly spun around the torc and the wooden bust. Another drop fell, landing into the second depression. The sound repeated itself, and this tiny sphere of water also crystallized into a perfect, pure orb.

Setting the bust and the relic back in place, Twilight trotted back, wide eyed.

"Wow. Wow!" she enthused, excitedly clapping her hooves together. "It actually worked! Wow! And that sound! It must've been an exo-magical reaction!"

Almost Pinkie-like, she started examining the newly restored torc from every angle, inspecting it from one side and then the other and then from below, and then from above. She even reached out to touch it... only to quickly draw back at the last second.

"No. Wait. No touching," she reminded herself in a quiet voice. "No touching until you know what it does! Remember rule number fifty seven..."

"Twilight?" Rarity asked, remaining far enough away so as not to trip the other unicorn up as she pranced around.

"Hm?" Twilight suddenly appeared to the fashionista's left side. "Oh! Sorry! This is just so interesting!"

"Well...?" she asked. "Is it magical, or...? What exactly happened?"

"I have absolutely no idea."

Twilight's deadpan response prompted Rarity to shake her head in despair.

"No!" Twilight stared into her eyes. "I really have no idea! Isn't that amazing! Isn't that exciting!?"

"If you say so," Rarity replied, taking two steps back and forcing her friend to quickly regain her balance or fall forward.

"Yes, well, thanks to you, I think this afternoon will be very interesting indeed!" She quickly composed herself, the silly high from a moment ago being put away for later. When she was alone. Alone with so many books to read and so many experiments to run!

"Before that," she reined herself in again, and pointed at Rarity. "We need to cover your training for today."

"Yes, I do suppose we must," Rarity agreed, her enthusiasm not quite up to task. "What outlandish spectacle am I to make of myself today?"

"That depends entirely on you," Twilight replied with a little grin. "Today, you're going back to school."

"School?"

"School. Kindergarten to be exact."

Rarity blinked, twice, just in case this Twilight had been replaced by some sort of mirage or doppelganger. An insane one. Or perhaps she was actually Pinkie Pie in a clever disguise?

"You must be joking," Rarity said, finally. "You must be."

"I am absolutely not joking," the town librarian and eccentric Princess's apprentice replied, still with her grin intact. "You are going to kindergarten today. That's your training."

Rarity raised an elegant eyebrow. "Really?"

"I guess I'll explain it from the beginning," Twilight Sparkle began, her mind drifting back to the not so distant past...

"Remember when I said that ancient ponies put stock in achieving the impossible? When I was learning magic from the Princess, one of her favorite tricks was to ask me to do either something nearly impossible or something completely impossible. In the former case, I quickly learned that what she wanted was to see me either cheat or find some roundabout way to do what she wanted. In the latter case, she mostly wanted to see me try."

"So, she'd say something like..."

"Twilight Sparkle!" Celestia declared with a smile. "Today's assignment is to find a human and ask him his name!"

"Or..."

"Ah, Twilight Sparkle! Today's assignment is to tell me, in your own words, what a star smells like!"

"Or..."

"Twilight, have you read this fascinating novel about this Daring Doo character? It says here, she found the recipe for dragon butter. Can you imagine it? Dragon butter! I would love some for my toast tomorrow morning. Why don't you look into that!"

"You get the idea," Twilight grumbled, one eye twitching. "The Princess especially liked the human ones. What kind of music would a human like? How much wood could a human chop if a human could chop wood? Ugh...! Anyway, after one of those failed assignments, I returned to her empty-hooved."

"Twilight Sparkle!" she declared, but with a titter proving she wasn't serious. "You have failed me, for the last time!"

"I wasn't too worried, since I could tell she was holding back laughing. But then she said..."

"As punishment, you can spend tomorrow in magic kindergarten."

"Magic kindergarten?"

"Magic kindergarten."

"I see."

"I laughed, thinking it was a joke. But then she said..."

"I'm not kidding." Celestia loomed over her fully grown but still much smaller student.

"Oh dear."

"Magic kindergarten!?" Twilight-the-student gasped, one eye wide and the other shrunken to a pinprick. "Wh- wh-"

"It's just a shame you'll be the only grown up pony there!" she added with a mischievous grin, her wings wide behind her in anticipation and amusement. "Oh well!"

Rarity boggled. "She actually...?"

"Sent me to magic kindergarten. Yes, she did." Twilight nodded, remembering it well. "I spent the rest of the day thinking about what she had said, especially the fact that it was a 'shame' that I was going to be the only grown up pony in the class. Everypony was sure to laugh at me! That was when I got the idea: I didn't have to be the only grown pony in the class!"

"You didn't?" Rarity asked, but Twilight didn't answer. Not right away. She waited.

And Rarity got it.

"Of course!" she realized, blue eyes wide. "An illusion spell!"

"I studied the spell and disguised myself as a filly," Twilight confirmed, nodding slowly. "I almost made it to the end of the day, too... but I lost my cool, the spell broke, and everypony laughed at me."

"The next day, Princess Celestia said that since I had so-ooo much fun in kindergarten, that I could spend a week there. So she sent me to another, different magic kindergarten for five days." Twilight noted the end of the story with pride, "And I went those five days without the illusion breaking even once."

"So I have to maintain this illusion all day?" Rarity asked, seeing now what her so called training was based on. She didn't sound confident in her chances. She was already quite skilled with illusionary magic, but this was different than a short ten minute presentation or fashion show. This was an intricate, body-wide illusion maintained for hours on end.

"I guess I don't have to pretend to keep you in the dark at this point," Twilight replied, and answered honestly. "First, you don't have to keep the illusion up all day."

"Oh, thank goodness, I-"

"Just all school-day!"

"Ugh."

"Second," Twilight continued, grinning at Rarity's put-out expression. "This exercise will test you, not only on endurance, but on finesse. You'll need to maintain an illusion that is contact-sensitive, around dozens of ponies - even if they are very young - all while interacting with them and multi-tasking. If you can do this, then you'll have no problems either using illusions or countering them during a duel."

"But," Rarity protested, already starting to resign herself to this latest (potential) humiliation. "I don't know an illusion spell quite like this."

"I'll use it on you, and then you just need to maintain it," Twilight assured her, and put a hoof to her shoulder in comfort. "Don't worry! Of course... if the illusion breaks, you won't be able to re-cast it... so make sure it doesn't break, and make sure you don't lose your focus, and you'll be fine!"

"Wonderful," the fashionista remarked, dreading the upcoming day's 'training.' "Is that all?"

"Well, maybe one other thing..." Twilight remarked, and lifted a hoof-

A hoof with a tennis ball in it.

"No. More. Tennis. Balls."

"Hello everypony! I'm Dewdrop Dazzle! Wonderful to meet you!"

Rarity smiled through the illusion. From her perspective, Cheerilee appeared to be staring at her chest rather than her face. Of course, from the school teacher's perspective, Rarity was a pint sized little pony with an aqua blue coat, purple eyes and a pink and yellow mane that fell over the left side of her face and neck. The color scheme was not Rarity's preference in design for her alter ego, which Twilight had considered to be "Perfect! The more you dislike how you look, the better! You should never get too comfortable in your own illusion!"

Hence, Rarity - now Dewdrop Dazzle - stood at the front of her little sister's class. Behind her, her name had been written on the blackboard in chalky, but elegant and flowery script. Even if it wasn't her real name, the least she could do was present it with a little style and flourish! Twilight had refused to say whether Cheerilee was aware of the classroom deception or whether she was playing along or what.

"Best you don't know," the librarian had said, wagging a hoof and sporting a mischievous grin.

To Dewdrop Dazzle, that probably meant: "She has no idea!"

Heavenly bodies, this was a recipe for disaster.

"My, what lovely penmareship you have, Dewdrop!" Cheerilee remarked, staring at the name on her board and then back to the rest of the class. "Everypony, why don't we all introduce ourselves to our new transfer student?"

"Hi, Dewdrop Dazzle!" came the chorus from around the classroom.

Followed by the little fillies and colts introducing themselves. So far: so good. No pony recognized her through the illusion. The biggest danger was in physical contact. Anypony waving a hoof above her head could well catch themselves on her real mane, or even end up poking her eye. Just sitting in these tiny seats was going to post an uncomfortable and unwelcome challenge.

Lost in her own thoughts, Rarity - which was to say: Dewdrop Dazzle - missed a few of the introductions from around the room. Still, she wasn't worried about that. She knew Sweetie's friends from school... most of them anyway. It wasn't terribly hard to recall which one was which. They were all such a cute bunch!

"Why don't you take a seat, Dewdrop?" Cheerilee gave her a gentle nudge forward.

"Thank you, Cheerilee-"

"Miss Cheerilee, please?" the older pony corrected, forgivingly.

Dewdrop nearly planted face in hoof.

"Miss Cheerilee, of course!" She laughed nervously. "I'll just be taking my seat!"

Okay: that probably didn't sound too relaxed.

'Relax you foal!'

She leisurely, but not too leisurely, and quickly, but not too quickly, took a seat. In retrospect, it may not have been all too wise to take the seat next to her little sister, but having Sweetie Belle close by was comforting. Dewdrop had been trying to keep her little sister out of Rarity's business - and this was getting confusing - suffice to say, Sweetie Belle did not know much about Twilight's bizarre training and it would be best if she remained unburdened by the whole misadventure that had descended on Ponyville and it's resident dressmaker.

Thank Celestia, she had no idea her sister was in disguise as a classmate!

Knowing poor Sweetie, she would have blurted it out five minutes into the charade.

"Now class, why don't we continue where we left off, with Equestrian vocabulary and sentence structure..."

No disrespect or offense to Miss Cheerilee, but there was not much to her teaching that could invigorate the mind of a mare her own age. Nor should there be, really. This was a class of young ponies, not an evening at night school or a seminar. Uncomfortably wedged between her desk and chair, and trying not to have her illusion come apart like an over-ripe melon, Dewdrop slowly but surely began to slump forward. It was hard to keep good posture in an uncomfortable chair when one was bored out of one's mind.

Thought straying again, she remembered the last seminar she had attended, back in Canterlot. It had been during a fashion exposition. Hoity had invited her but then disappeared for the entire event, leaving her to mingle freely. Guest speakers from across Equestria had held panels on the future of the industry and especially in the marketing of new fabrics and textiles. Two handsome unicorn brothers had been there, too, trying to sell a new "patent pending automatic weaver" of some sort or another. It had been a marvel of modern unicorn magi-technology, at least until it jammed.

What had their names been again? One of them had the most fabulous moustache...!

"Dewdrop Dazzle!"

It took a moment to sink in that Cheerilee - Miss Cheerilee - had been calling her name.

"Oh! Oh, yes?" She quickly sat up straight, eyes forward.

The earth pony schoolteacher had a cross expression and tapped a ruler in the corner of her mouth against the blackboard. For emphasis, no doubt.

"Would you mind telling me which of these sentences contains an irregular plural noun?" she asked, despite the ruler between her teeth.

Dewdrop Dazzle stared at the three sentences written on plan, blocky text:

- The three pegasi had a race.
- Four dogs chased a ball.
- The stars were very bright outside.

Beneath her illusion, Rarity frowned. What in Equestria was an irregular plural noun?

Thinking quickly, she realized, of course: it was a noun! There were a few nouns in those sentences. A plural one, then. Those were... 'stars,' 'dogs,' and 'pegasi.' Naturally! One of them was irregular, then. Whatever that meant. Was this really elementary Equestrian?

"We're waiting," a high pitched voice joked from the front row. The source, easily identified by her snickering, was a rather self-satisfied looking little pony with a tiara on her head. Was that really allowed in school? What happened to the dress code?

"The... first one?" Dewdrop finally guessed, grinning anxiously at the still-waiting Cheerilee.

"That's correct," the schoolteacher replied, with a tone that implied she knew the supposed transfer had guessed the answer and gotten lucky. Dewdrop breathed a sigh of relief. Getting an elementary school question wrong? That would have been simply unforgivable, even if nopony knew it was really her.

"An irregular plural noun," Cheerilee explained, probably not for the first time. "Is one that we can not simply add an 's' or 'es' to at the end. Here are a few more examples, in several categories..." She took the chalk in-hoof and wrote on the blackboard. "A single leaf becomes several leaves. One mouse in a house can mean many mice hiding where you can't see them. Some nouns are the same in singular and plural, like sheep."

She turned to the class, continuing the lesson.

"Who here can name other irregular plural nouns? Let's go around the room. Remember that in Equestrian, the transformation of a singular that ends in a 'y' is not always irregular. 'Donkeys' is regular while 'ponies' is technically irregular..."

Around they went, in a less than organized fashion, as students yelled out whatever words they could come up with. Hoof and Hooves, Tooth and Teeth were quickly taken, and as the class thought up ever more exotic words, Cheerilee sorted them into various types on the board: 'oes' transformations, 'ies' transformations, and so forth. A filly with a curly red mane quickly added two exotic additions, displaying her knowledge of the material: 'ae' and 'ices.' That one was definitely the study-bug of the group.

It actually wasn't terribly boring.

Which, from Dewdrop's unique point of view, certainly had to be seen as a credit to Cheerilee's teaching and personality. She loved her job, and it was reflected in how engaged she was with her students. Sadly Sweetie Belle appeared to lose interest once her teacher went back to constructing example sentences of some of the suggested words. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, too, began to appear less than studious.

When Dewdrop finally saw her sister taking notes, she took a moment to chide herself. Sweetie did well enough in school! Of course she was paying attention. Though she really should learn to use her magic to write; it allowed for much more attractive use of script. Still, at least she was diligent.

And then Sweetie Belle, her dear sister, folded her note up, tapped Scootaloo on the back, and passed her studious notes off to her friend. To copy. Surely.

Scootaloo hunched over, opened the note, and clearly tried to restrain a laugh.

Passing notes in class!

"Sweetie Belle!" Dewdrop leaned over to whisper. "Just what are you doing?"

"Nothing!" the other filly whispered back.

"You're going to get in trouble if you pass notes. What would your - I mean, don't pass notes!"

"I won't get in trouble if you don't tell on me," Sweetie hissed back, and looked away with a huff.

Rar-

Dewdrop sat in her chair and stewed. Sweetie Bell was definitely going to get a talking to later. It would have been nice to say things got better as the day wore on, but as they often did, things got progressively worse. After Cheerilee turned the subject to mathematics, Sweetie all but began to zone out. Dewdrop knew that expression well! It was the same 'I'm bored! You better keep an eye on me!' look that she had seen in her Boutique many times before. Usually right before she didn't keep an eye on her sister, freeing her to cause some trouble in an attempt to be useful or productive or creative.

That aside, though - and not to tempt fate - things were going quite swimmingly!

Recess.

Despite the encroaching chill of fall, the weather was still pleasant enough to allow everypony to eat and play on the grounds surrounding the schoolhouse. It was one of the few times all the various grades could mix together, though they tended to segregate by age group. Older colts came together with some of the mares to race or play hastily organized team sports; some of the pegasi, a minority in Ponyville's school system, practiced flying; many others just relaxed, enjoying their time away from lessons, blackboards, and well meaning teachers.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders had their own reasons for getting together at recess.

"Lemme see what ah got for lunch today... looks like apple fries! Apple juice! Apple sauce! And Apple noodles!"

"Apple noodles?" Scootaloo leaned over from where she sat to take a look for herself. "Those don't look much like noodles to me."

"Ah think it's a Manehattan recipe," Apple Bloom replied, holding up a round, foil-wrapped dish from her lunch box. Inside was an orange crumb-encrusted casserole with a whiff of cinnamon. "It may look a little funny, but it's good! Wanna try some?"

"Uh... No, I'll just take your word for it."

The three fillies ate quickly under the shade of a well manicured oak tree, many of the leaves already mottled with reds and oranges not yet ready to fall to the ground. Acorns, though, were in abundance, freely trampled into the ground by playful pony hooves. Those not so interred were quickly requisitioned by a large colony of Ponyville's tame squirrels. Scootaloo finished first, her lunch being granola bars and energy drink. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom took only a little longer, though the former picked at her small lunch as much as she ate it.

"Hey, Sweetie Belle, there something wrong?" Scootaloo asked, already having found a large red and blue ball to occupy herself with. She wasn't so occupied she couldn't pick up on her friend's moods, especially when they were pretty obvious.

Sweetie shook her head. "I've just been thinking... about my sister Rarity."

"Ya mean about how she was doing that weird balance-on-a-log thing yesterday?" Apple Bloom asked, packing up her cleaned place and finished drink. With a little click, she closed her lunchbox and put it behind her.

"Mom and dad didn't wanna talk much about it, but even before yesterday I noticed her acting a little strange." Sweetie Belle glanced down at her salad, mostly finished, and then back up at her best friends. "I don't know if it'll help us get our cutie marks or anything... but if you guys want to help me...?"

"Of course we'll help!" Scootaloo spoke first, grinning happily. "Like you even need to ask!"

"Yeah! We didn't get our cutie mark crusader spies, counter-spies, or spy wars cutie marks last month, but that doesn't mean we can't get some other kinda investig- investigative... cutie marks!" Apple Bloom pumped a hoof. "I bet ya already have some kinda plan, right, Sweetie Belle?"

"A plan. Well, yeah, kinda." The little white unicorn turned to her side, picking up her book bag and opening it in front of her. "I figured... my sister seems to write a lot to Prince Blueblood, so maybe one of their letters says what the problem is? It must be pretty serious for Rarity to be willing to get soaking wet over."

"Or make a scene like she did yesterday!" Scootaloo bluntly added. "Course, it was pretty fun hittin' her with tennis balls!"

"Ah'm kinda glad we didn't get a cutie mark for that. A throws-things-at-other-ponies cutie mark? That'd just be weird."

"So these are the letters?" Scootaloo asked, as Sweetie Belle finished picking the handful of scrolls and envelopes out of her bag.

"A bunch of them, anyway," Sweetie replied, spreading them out on the cool grass. "I didn't have time to check the dates."

"Ah thought ya said she was hiding these from ya?" Apple Bloom held one of the scrolls, tied with red thread, up to eye level. It even had a little velvet bag to keep it in. Fancy!

"She just left them lying around. It was a lot easier to pick up a few while she wasn't looking!" Sweetie Belle, livened up by the participation of her friends in her attempt to find out what was wrong with her sister, really did not see how this plan could go wrong. Really. Not yet, anyway.

"We've only got a little more time before class starts again, so let's get to it!" Scootaloo declared, arbitrarily swiping one of the envelopes. Slipping out the paper inside, she started reading only to make a disgusted face. "Aw, it's all mushy lovey-dovey stuff!"

Apple Bloom wasn't quite sure what to make of the letter she picked first.

"Ah don't even know what a buncha these words mean. What language is this? Prancy?"

She could at least recognize it, since she had learned to speak Prancy. For a few hours, anyway, thanks to Heart's Desire and some creative zebra alchemy.

That had been an odd day.

"Not this one," Sweetie said, carefully putting the scroll back in its case with the string.

"Hey, Scootaloo, what's this word? This one here?"

"Hm." Sweetie Belle finished the letter, even checking the reverse side. "Not this one either."

"Hey, Scootaloo. See this word? Quee- cue-es, no, wait. Kwee-es-ents? Hey, Scootaloo, are you listenin' ta me?"

Sweetie looked up from her letter to help Apple Bloom with whatever new word was giving her difficulty. Scootaloo seemed completely immersed in one of Rarity's letters. She hardly even noticed her earth pony friend poking her on the side.

And why were her wings starting to flare out?

"This one is too hard!" Apple Bloom finally gave up on Blueblood's scroll and decided to instead investigate just what had her pegasus friend so distracted. Leaning over and stretching her neck, she started reading aloud:

"My dear Prince. Your last letter left me a titter for our reunion. In return, I think it only fair to ask if you remember that summer's day you reserved the spa for us. Do you remember, my beloved stallion, how..." Apple Bloom's voice trailed off, her lips moving but not forming words.

"Yeah," Scootaloo muttered, though not to any question in particular. "This is an interesting letter."

"Wouldn't that hurt?" Apple Bloom asked, seriously contemplating the matter. "The animals on the farm sure don't do it that way."

"What are you two talking about?" Sweetie Bell demanded, only to gasp. "Quick! Put them away!"

It only took a moment for Apple Bloom to see what she meant. Two very familiar fillies were headed over, no doubt looking to cause trouble. She scrambled to scoop up the letters on the ground, grass and all, dumping them into her arms and them making for Sweetie's bag. The little unicorn, meanwhile, tried to get the last offending letter out of her other friend's hooves without ripping it.

"Scootaloo! Come on!"

"Just - just a second. This can't be right. I just have to read it one more time to be sure."

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?"

At the sound of Diamond Tiara's voice, even Scootaloo managed to bring herself into the here and now. The cutie mark crusaders glared at Ponyville's richest, most spoiled little filly. Silver Spoon wasn't exactly welcome either, especially since she was basically attached to the other filly's flank half the time. The two were the only fillies in the school to wear actual jewelry to class, as if everypony didn't know who their parents were and how much money they had.

Silver Spoon, gray on gray with her mane in a fashionable braid, stuck out her tongue in childish pique. Clearly, she didn't quite respect the Very Important Business that the cutie mark crusaders were oft involved in. Very Important.

"Look at these blank flanks!" she said, raising her voice to add volume to Diamond Tiara's more soft spoken condescension. "What sort of stupid schemes do you think they're up to this time?"

Diamond Tiara sighed in mock despair. "How long has it been again? More than a year? Pumpkin Cake will probably get her cutie mark before you foals do."

"Nuh-uh! She's barely a few months old!" Sweetie Belle declared, having clearly identified a logical fallacy in the other filly's supposition. "There's no way she'll get a cutie mark before we do-"

Sweetie paused.

"Oooooh," she realized with a pout. "I get it. Anyway!" She pointed dramatically at the two interlopers. "At least we don't smell! Smell bad. Because you don't shower. Or bathe. You're smelly."

"I hope you three aren't holding out for a trading-insults cutie mark," Diamond Tiara quipped.

"What do you care?" Apple Bloom intervened, just finished stuffing Sweetie's bag full of notes and grass.

"Yeah!" Scootaloo declared, pointing... and then trying to smooth her wings out.

"I would, but you three and actual reading materials, all existing in the same space?" Tiara smirked. "Something's up. Isn't that right, Silver Spoon?"

The other filly chuckled. "Maybe they're reading about the cutie marks they'll never have. I bet they never get cutie marks!"

"Not very creative, but whatever," Diamond Tiara didn't spare her friend from her share of criticism. "Since we came all the way over here, why don't you tell us what you're up to? It'll make for some after-lunch entertainment."

"No way!" all three cutie mark crusaders declared in unison-

"These are my sister's!" One of the crusaders just couldn't stop while she was anywhere near ahead. "You'll never get your hooves on them!"

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom just stared at their unicorn comrade.

"Oops?" Sweetie Belle chirped.

"Great!"

"Can you even imagine?" Scootaloo snickered. "This one letter would just blow their little minds!" She then glared at her wings, still poofed out. "Arg! Stupid wings! Stay down!"

"Now I'm really curious. Why don't you just-"

"SWEETIE BELLE!!"

The roar came not from Crusader, Tiara or Spoon. Instead, the new transfer student from Canterlot seemed to be running in their direction, hell on hooves. Actual honest-to-Celestia steam seemed to be billowing out of her flattened ears and a crazed look filled her eyes with a primal fury. The five fillies could only stand frozen in place, stunned, at the oncoming demon that was an enraged Dewdrop Dazzle.

"You give me those letters right this instant!!"

It took a moment for the demand to sink in... and for a response to percolate.

"N - no way!" Sweetie Belle yelled back, and with what little magic she had she made a grab for her bag and ran for it. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, with more excitement than was probably natural in little fillies their age, jumped between the crazy transfer student and their friend.

"Those aren't yours!" Apple Bloom yelled, setting her hooves in the ground and bracing herself.

"Yeah! So back off!" Scootaloo, not one to wait, charged in on all fours.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon could only stand, dumbfounded, and watch as the charging Dewdrop Dazzle juked to the left, jumped and twirled acrobatically overhead, neatly leaping right over both Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and themselves. As she passed overhead, something invisible managed to lightly smack both fillies in the face... and then the aqua-colored blur was gone.

"What." Diamond Tiara gaped.

Silver Spoon touched a hoof to her cheek. "The?"

"Heck!" Apple Bloom cursed, racing past the duo. "Let's go!"

Followed a second later by another blur of amber and purple.

Sweetie Belle's little legs carried her clear over a sandbox, pilfered letters and book bag slung over her shoulder. Fillies and colts in the grade below flattened themselves and stared up as another figure, and then another, and then another bounced right over them in a madcap chase around the schoolyard. Around another tree and between two bushes, Sweetie Belle dashed through a trotting course, startling the pair of runners working off lunch by cantering around the school.

'How?!' her pursuer couldn't help but curse. 'How can she run so fast with such little legs?'

Four skid marks ripped up a long patch of grass as Sweetie Belle cut, hard, and ran right. The sudden course change nearly threw Dewdrop, whose longer legs - outside the illusion - struggled to make the same tight turn on already uprooted sod. Her target was back to running in a straight line.

A line that took her right into and through, a hoofball game.

Naturally, the universe working as it did, the ball ended up nestled purely by chance in the speedy little unicorn's bag. Beneath her illusion, it took all the self control she had for Rarity not to scream, "COME ON!"

"Our ball!"

"Is that out of bounds?"

"Oh, what? Hey!"

"Catch. That. Filly!" One of the older players yelled.

And, in the span of a few seconds, it seemed as if half the school was on Sweetie Belle's hooves.

"WHY!" Dewdrop Dazzle could be heard to scream. "Why is this happening today of all days?!"

"Detention. I can't believe I have detention."

"You deserve it. I was just keeping my sister's stuff safe!" Sweetie Belle, clearly, didn't like her situation much either. The two sisters, though only one of them knew the relation, had been left to stand outside the classroom on either side of the door to 'think long and hard about what they did and how ponies could have been hurt by their recklessness.'

"Mom and dad are gonna kill me!" she lamented, banging the back of her head against the wall.

"You bet they are!" Dewdrop promised. "What were you thinking going through m-mmMissss-" good recovery there. "Rarity's stuff?"

"None of your business!" Sweetie continued to sulk.

Between them, through the wooden door, they could hear the class inside in progress. Sweetie would be saddled with extra homework to make up for what she was missing. Dewdrop too, though Rarity had no intention of actually doing homework, no matter what her bibliomaniac friend-turned-trainer Twilight Sparkle had to say about it. A line had to be drawn somewhere, for Celestia's sake.

"You're sure Miss Cheerilee has all the letters?" Dewdrop asked, closing her eyes and trying to keep her illusion spell up. It had come disturbingly close to slipping during that insane chase around the school.

"None of your business."

"For your information, it is my..." The disguised unicorn cut herself off. There was no point going down that road, not now. "I mean: those letters weren't yours to take or to read, Sweetie Belle." She sighed, seeing that her little sister was intent on ignoring her. Of course, there were supposed to be quiet in the hall, not having a conversation.

Still.

"How would you have liked it if I read that letter you passed to Scootaloo?"

"That's different!" Sweetie protested, glaring for all of second before looking downcast. "I didn't do it to be mean."

She scuffed her hoof against the hallway floor.

"I just... I was just worried. I just wanted to help," she muttered, wiping the tears from her eyes. Then she turned defiant again. "I don't even know why I'm talking to you. You got me in so much trouble."

"Sweetie Belle..." Rarity, beneath the illusion, had to fight herself not to try and hug her sister, seeing her so distraught. The source of it, really, was sitting right outside Cheerilee's homeroom. The whole reason why Sweetie Belle had been so desperate to try and find out what was wrong.

"I kind of know your sister," she tried to explain, since dramatically declaring 'Sweetie Belle - I am your sister!' was likely a bit too over the top. "Miss Rarity. She talked about you a lot, you know? I bet if you ask her, and show her how worried you are, she'll do everything she can to explain things and make you feel better."

Dewdrop smiled, seeing Sweetie give her a curious look.

"I'm sure she never meant for you to be so worried about her," she said, and Sweetie smiled back before looking down at her hooves. After that they kept silent, letting the time slowly trickle by. It was actually a bit relaxing. Dewdrop found it much easier to concentrate on the illusion when there was nothing else to interact with or offer distraction.

If only it wasn't leaving her so tired; had Twilight really spent days like this?

It seemed impossible, even for her.

"Hey, Rarity?"

"Yes, Swee-e-ee - oh...!" Dewdrop planted her face in her hoof and turned to see her little sister grinning triumphantly. "I can't believe I fell for that."

Unbelievable.

"How did you figure it out?" She had to know.

Sweetie Belle blushed and shrugged. "I dunno. I just had a funny feeling when you were chasing me earlier. Like it was familiar."

"So much for nopony knowing," Rarity-as-Dewdrop replied, rolling her eyes. "Let's just keep this between us, shall we? No need to tell Twilight."

"Tell Twilight what?" Sweetie asked right back. "I still don't know what's going on."

"I'll explain it later."

"You promise?"

"Hm."

"And you meant what you said before?"

"Of course."

"And you aren't mad at me?"

"..."

"And you aren't mad at me?"

"..."

"You aren't mad at me."

"..."

"You aren't mad at me? Rarity? Yeah. You're still mad, aren't you?"

Before they could go on, however, the door opened.

Miss Cheerilee stuck her head out, glaring at the two fillies. "Have you two learned your lesson?"

"We sure have, Miss Cheerilee!" Sweetie Belle answered, looking up with dewy puppy-dog eyes. "No more rough-housing! Promise!"

"Ah, yes. It is an incident never to be repeated," Dewdrop replied, trying to look more contrite than she felt.

"Okay," the schoolteacher decided, opening the door wide. She rarely closed it. "Come on in. We have a special guest arriving soon."

Dewdrop followed Sweetie into the classroom, one question left on her lips.

"Special guest?"

Inside the Dewdrop disguise, Rarity's eyes were wide in shock.

But of course. Of. Course. With her luck today, who else would the 'special guest' be?

"Everypony," Cheerilee addressed her class with a happy smile. "Let's all give a warm welcome to our special guest for today. We're very lucky to have her visiting the school..."

"Lady Antimony," she finished, bowing her head to the mare standing before the classroom. "The Baroness of Mareseilles."

Who else?

It was Lady Antimony in the flesh. The noblemare was wearing a delicate seashell and honeydew chiffon shawl and saddle, undoubtedly custom designs she had brought with her from Prance. A cloak, different in color than the one she had worn to the Boutique, was loosely and comfortably draped over her shoulders. Her mane, too, had been styled and done up in a looped knot high on the top of the head behind the horn, flanked by intricate curls. Dewdrop - Rarity - quickly identified it as a neoclassical look, and the shawl especially seemed to be of very intricate design.

If only she could get a closer look at it!

No. No. Now was not the time to think about fashion.

Antimony's new look also implied that while one of them had been training her toned flank off, the other had been spending hours at the mane stylist! That fact did little to brighten Dewdrop's mood.

"Hello, everypony," she greeted the class with stately little inclination of the head. "A pleasure to meet you."

A mixture of "Hello, Lady Antimony" and "Hello, Baroness Antimony" greeted the noblemare from all around the classroom. For her part, Dewdrop mumbled her own greeting. Antimony's perpetually half-lidded eyes passed over the class of fillies and colts and Dewdrop had to repress an involuntary shiver as that gaze came and went from her as well.

The illusion, however, held.

"Lady Antimony is here to talk about her home and about life as a member of a noble court," Cheerilee explained, and Dewdrop got the impression that the class had been given at least some forewarning about a guest. Only she had been caught unaware.

"Did everypony find Two Rivers and Prance on the map after school yesterday?" the teacher asked, and the classroom replied with a variety of yeses. "In that case, let's all listen carefully to what Lady Antimony has to say. I'm sure she'll be happy to answer questions when she's finished."

"Your Ladyship?" Cheerilee finished, bowing her head and walking back behind her desk.

"My little ponies," Antimony began, smiling warmly at the class of children. "As you know, I am Antimony. Though a Baroness, please informally address me as just 'Lady.' I was born twenty three years ago in northern Prance, in a family keep and estate in the country. My loving father was the great Duke, Lord Cruciger, and my mother the learned scholar and poet, Twinkling Star Light, second daughter of the late Duchess Dancing Star Spark. My Barony is the province of greater Mareseilles. Has anypony been to Mareseilles before?"

"Oh! I have!" Naturally, one little filly raised her hoof.

"How wonderful," Antimony replied, motioning for the little pony to stand up. "Would you please introduce yourself?"

"My name is Diamond Tiara!" the pink and lavender filly said, and gave a practiced bow. "My father is Filthy Rich and my mother is Patent Pending."

"I know those names," the noblemare commented after a polite pause. "Ah, yes, your father owns a retail franchise of some sort. Barnyard Bargains, I believe? Your mother is a noted inventor. I should like to meet her sometime. I assume you visited Mareseilles on business?"

"We were visiting family, Lady Antimony."

"I'll remember that." To Dewdrop, that phrase seemed just a little ominous. Then again, when it came to this mare, her opinions weren't exactly unbiased. "What did you think of my city, Diamond Tiara?"

The little filly took her seat again and bit her lip as she tried to remember.

"I was very little, but... I remember it being big. Not like Manehattan, with tall cloudscrapers, but very wide! With beautiful stone bridges and gardens and palaces and walls!"

"Yes. While some cities have grown upwards, like Manehattan, most older cities have grown outward as ponies settled around walls and along roads." Antimony began describing 'her city' of Mareseilles.

It was, to her credit, renowned as a beautiful and well maintained city and one of the jewels of Prance. 'Dewdrop' had seen pictures of it: more urban than most of the country, it boasted long, clean boulevards, wide and inviting streets and a large number of museums, churches, gardens and parks. More than even that, it was known as a city of palaces and villas built along a crystal clear and long-tamed river. The farmland around the city was dotted with rustic vineyards and unicorn monasteries dedicated to the study of magic. Ironically, the one thing it clearly lacked was the thing Antimony's father was most well known for: renovated and restored fortifications from the migration era.

The class listened patiently as she discussed more of her home and some of the noteworthy ponies it had produced over the centuries: composers, artists, inventors and statesponies of high office. All too quickly, however, fillies and colts began to slump or rest their heads on their hooves. Glancing over at Miss Cheerilee for some sort of assistance - a fact 'Dewdrop Dazzle' found secretly amusing - Lady Antimony quickly and wisely opted to skip ahead to the question and answer part of her presentation.

This was something even Dewdrop found more interesting: there was little information on Antimony in the public record. She raised a hoof and hoped to get at least one question in before the noblemare left for the afternoon.

"Diamond Tiara?"

It seemed Antimony had a favorite filly already.

"What's it like being a Baroness?" the little pony asked, conspicuously adjusting the expensive tiara in her mane.

"It is a lot of work," Antimony replied, always smiling. Oddly, Dewdrop got the feeling that she was genuinely smiling, at least this once. Even her eyes seemed to have lost their sense of bored, patient malice.

"The social functions we host are the most well publicized aspect of our duties as noble lord," she continued. "But they are only the public face of rulership. Parties are venues... opportunities... for alliances of interest to be made. It allows us to meet with other connected ponies and ply them for opinions or press them into compliance. Every social gathering is expensive and attracts attention; they are rarely held for pure personal amusement."

"To rule as a noble is also to bear great responsibility, bestowed on us by Fate and the grace of the Princesses." Here, those violet-red eyes turned on Dewdrop, just for a second. "You rule not for yourself, but as a member and representative of a noble family. Your actions reflect the greater desires of the family, and of the province, and of Equestria itself. Every noble hopes to bequeath a stronger, richer land to her son or daughter than she herself inherited."

"Don't you get to order ponies around, too?" Diamond Tiara blurted out, despite not being called on a second time.

"Some of them," Antimony answered with a sly look. "In practice, the only ponies most nobles 'order around' are our personal household, our guards, and our immediate subordinates."

"But - but aren't you in charge?" the filly protested.

"That is not quite how it works." The noblemare pointed to the class with her hoof. "There are four rows of desks in this classroom. Miss Tiara, let us call your row Prance. Apple Bloom, is it?"

Apple Bloom abruptly sat up. "Uh, yeah, but how did-"

"Let us call your row Whinnychester. To your left?"

"Silver Spoon!" The filly at the head of the row declared.

"Your row will be Bitaly. And the young pegasus on the leftmost row will represent Neighpon." Antimony neatly divided up the classroom. "Miss Cheerilee here will represent the Princess, at the head of the four rows. Imagine that every pony thus organized swears their allegiance to the one in front, with all four of you at the end of the row swearing allegiance to your teacher, the Princess. Together, you all represent roughly three million ponies."

"Diamond Tiara. Do you see how your authority is limited by this arrangement?" Antimony gestured to the front, at Cheerilee, and then behind her, to a chubby colt in the middle row. "You take orders from the Princess, and give orders to those immediately below you. Whether those orders are followed by your classmate depend on your relationship with those you rule. If... um... what is your name, little colt?"

"Truffle," the smoke colored colt said in little more than a shy whisper.

"If Truffle there is not an honorable pony, then he will not follow your orders or he will scheme behind your back. If he is in a stronger social position than you, then he will attempt to make you subordinate to him. Due in part to the great size of Equestria, a strict hierarchy of lords and ladies is necessary for society to function, from the divine pinnacle..." Antimony swept her hoof from 'Princess Cheerilee' to Diamond Tiara, Truffle, and blue coated filly behind him. "To the lowest Earl, to even the most humble stable-hoof."

"While the actual political organization of every province in Equestria varies, this gives you an idea of how the powers of even great lords are limited by personal strength and charisma."

Antimony then explained, "For example, in my family domains, all ponies now swear allegiance first to their Duke and then to their Earl or Mayor. In turn, their Earl vows obedience to their Baron, and every Baron gives their oath to their Duke. This is the system passed down to us by our wise matron and great mother, Lady Arsenic. Barons and Earls thus lose even more independent power in exchange for a more... progressive system of governance."

"Hey, wait! Ah just noticed somethin'!" Apple Bloom spoke up, twisting around in her chair. "Mah row's only got Twist in it, but Diamond Tiara's row has two other ponies! And Scootaloo's row has both Sweetie Bell and Snips and Snails in it, and they're the only three unicorns in class... except Dewdrop, I guess. But these rows ain't even!"

"No, they are not," Antimony agreed. "Not every province is as rich or as powerful as every other. Cities like Manehattan, Cloudsdale and Stalliongrad have disproportionately more power than their size would indicate. Cloudsdale in particular has tremendous influence, as it contains the largest pegasus population in the country."

"If I were to continue the analogy, I would say... Equestria is made up of thirteen rows. Five with one pony in it, four with three ponies, and four with two ponies."

As Antimony spoke, a small piece of chalk sketched out thirteen rows of different length on the blackboard, connected at the top by a pyramid. There, at the top of the pyramid that was Equestria, Antimony drew a globe with lines around it: a living sun.

"The balance of power is here, at the very top: it is found in the unquestioned strength and majesty of Canterlot, of the immortal Princesses, and of the noble Stable of Lords. And, of course, in the network of trade and friendship that ties our country together..."

"But you see how one's word is the cement that binds Equestria's social order together," Antimony concluded, looking around the classroom. "The greatest privilege of a noble mare is to serve and strengthen her realm, and to act with strength and honor. It is a privilege any noble must be prepared to put her life on the line for. Diamond Tiara: that is what it means to be a Baroness. My apologies for such a lengthy response, but it is a complicated question to pose. Authority does not mean autonomy."

"Any other questions?" Cheerilee asked, but most of the class had become quiet.

Finally, one brave colt raised his hoof.

"Snips?"

"Lady Antimony," the other chubby colt - really, Rarity couldn't help but think, colts these days did need to exercise more - spoke up, a rather goofy grin on his face. "You said a noble mare needs to be strong, right?"

"That is correct," Antimony replied.

"Do you know Trixie? Are you more powerful than her?"

"Trixie?" The name didn't seem to ring a bell and Antimony cocked her head in puzzlement. "I'm afraid I don't recall that name. Who is she?"

"The Great and Powerful Trixie!" Snips repeated, and then picked a target closer to home. "If you don't know her, what about Twilight Sparkle? She defeated an Ursa Minor!"

"Ah, yes. Twilight Sparkle, I do know, just as I am aware of her encounter with the Ursa Minor."

Dewdrop leaned in closer, finally and truly interested in Antimony's response. This: the subject of magic, was actually pertinent to her situation. If she were fortunate, she could even glean some information to help her in the upcoming duel.

"Twilight is the personal apprentice of the Princess herself, and by all I have read of her, she is a true magical genius," Antimony said, without even a hint of bitterness or reproach. If anything, she sounded a little proud of her distant cousin. "To add to this, she is also the Element of Magic and the fulcrum of the Elements of Harmony. We all expect great things from her. If I had to measure myself against such a mare, I believe I would be found wanting."

"Twilight Sparkle," she concluded. "I would expect her to be more powerful than myself, when it comes to most forms of magic."

Dewdrop didn't wait to be called on to ask, "Most forms of magic?"

Antimony didn't seem to have much worry explaining herself.

"Every since I was a little filly, trying to get my cutie mark, I have had problems controlling large star fields and auras. For you non-unicorns, that means the more magic I use, the harder it is for me to form it into anything useful. You may imagine it as a faucet. Turned just a little, you get the flow of water you desire, but turn it just a little more, and the steady stream becomes a blast. My sisters often found my situation very amusing, as they all mastered their magic at an early age."

"I resolved to master the arts of magic that required very little magical input, but that could benefit from a steady flow of energy," she said, and asked, "Can anypony here guess what those arts are? One of the unicorns maybe?"

"Oh! I know!" Sweetie Belle waved her hoof in the air and happily guessed, "Illusion magic!"

"That is one of them," Antimony confirmed. "Can anypony guess the other? Anypony at all? Perhaps I should demonstrate it, then." She trotted over to Scootaloo. "Excuse me, but you are...?"

"Scootaloo," the little pegasus answered, looking up at the tall noblemare.

"Hello, Scootaloo. Would you mind giving me one of your feathers for a demonstration?" Antimony inquired.

"Yeah, okay I guess." The only pegasus in the class, Scootaloo craned her neck to bite one of her loose feathers and plucked it with a wince. Lady Antimony levitated it out of Scoot's mouth, and into the air. She then passed it to Miss Cheerilee.

"Very carefully," she asked, "Could you hold this feather by the calamus?"

"I suppose so," Cheerilee agreed, cautiously biting down on the quill of the feather with her front teeth. "This isn't dangerous, is it?"

"Oh no, no danger at all. Just don't slip or touch the feather with your lips," Antimony replied with a reassuring smile. "That would be very bad."

Even as she finished speaking, the noblemare floated over a piece of paper, positioned it over the vane of the feather, and brought it down in a smooth motion. The stationary cut like it wasn't even there, and as Antimony brought it back up and down, repeating the motion, it shaved ever thinner strips of paper away. Like confetti.

Scootaloo's feather had been turned into a razor.

Then, for effect, Antimony put away the paper. A good thing, as Cheerilee was staring cross-eyed at the lethal weapon that she now held between her teeth. Replacing the letterhead, Antimony levitated out an apple from the teacher's desk. At the unicorn's will, it rotated and spun like a top before being introduced to the feather-blade. Within seconds, it had been diced into shredded peels of apple skin and flesh. Lastly, with the shredded apple still held in a magical field, Antimony lifted up a piece of chalk and dropped it into free fall.

It passed over and through the feather, neatly separating into two halves.

"I believe that should suffice for a demonstration," the Baroness decided, and raised an eyebrow. "You can give me the feather now. It's safe."

Releasing the quill, Cheerilee quickly stepped back and away as it floated, quite feather-like, to the ground. Antimony caught it before it could touch the ground and returned it to Scootaloo's desk. The little pegasus was very careful to touch it herself, just nudging it with a hoof before realizing it was back to normal.

"To alter the physical properties of an object to suit your desires without changing the appearance of said object," Antimony spoke up, raising her voice a little assure she was heard. "This is the essence of enchantment. When most discuss this art, they refer to it's utility: what spells can be attached to what object. Can this icebox be enchanted to keep my drink cold? Can this granary be enchanted to resist disease or repel pests and rodents? Can this torch or lamp be enchanted to burn, long after it should have extinguished?"

"Those are really only the simplest applications," she explained, and touched one of the thick textbooks on a shelf nearby. "At my desire, a book like this can become as light as a bubble."

Tossing the book into the air, it seemed to turn almost weightless. Like a bubble in the breeze.

"Should I wish it," she continued, but returned to the front of the class. "A feather can become as heavy as an anvil. A pillar of stone can become as malleable as jelly. Water can be as hard as glass. Straw as slippery as oil."

"Starswirl himself once said: a unicorn, at all times, strives for mastery over the world around him. When a unicorn's wishes and the world we call 'reality' are one and the same, then that being can be considered no longer a pony, but a transcendent being. Or, in his own words: invincible."

Antimony smirked, closing her eyes.

"No pony, even the Princesses, can be said to embody Starswirl's ideal, but that is why it is an ideal and not an actual goal. Since you are all here, and I have shown you my art of enchantment... why not also demonstrate... the power of my illusions?"

Lady Antimony's eyes opened, now bright red, and the classroom melted away.

Fillies and Colts gasped as desks disappeared, turning into dust. Cheerilee even reared as her desk and blackboard dissolved. The ceiling quickly followed, and as it disintegrated, a cloudy winter sky took it's place far overhead. Distant mountains where there should not have been any revealed themselves.

Dewdrop felt a change come over her, despite the illusion, and she looked around in a desperate bid to try and understand what was happening. Within a few heartbeats every trace of the classroom had been removed. The students were standing on a stone and straw covered parapet overlooking a citadel in the mountains. It was not built strictly to the Canterlot style, but in the older functional designs that had been copied from the Old Kingdom. Flags fluttered in the wind and the edge of a courtyard could be seen far below, studded with graves behind a beautiful ancient chapel.

It was not just the world around them that had been changed. Everypony had been dressed in a warm woolen parka, even Antimony herself. Dewdrop - Rarity - held up a hoof, feeling the chill of the air on it, but at the same time, the sheltering warmth of the garment she knew couldn't be there. This was one of Antimony's illusions?

This?

This was... insane... it was impossible!

"Where - where are we?" Cheerilee asked, even more perplexed than Dewdrop likely looked. She was moving in a small circle, staring with wide eyes at the sudden change in scenery.

"This is one of my father's refurbished keeps," Antimony said, trotting over to the crenellated edge of the round stone turret that they had appeared on. "The castle stronghold of Gaskinring. I spent my foalhood here. By all means, have a look around. This illusion is not limited by the size of the room you believe yourselves to be in."

Dewdrop still couldn't believe what she was seeing. Or feeling. Or hearing.

A faint, drifting snow fell from the clouds overhead. She watched as Apple Bloom opened her mouth and caught one of the snowflakes, clearly feeling it and tasting it on her tongue. Other colts and fillies were running around, playing and exploring. Cheerilee seemed confused about just how to handle the situation, running back and forth to keep everypony in sight before deciding to treat the whole strange experience as a sort of field trip.

It was all just... so impossibly real.

"You don't seem to be enjoying my illusionary reality, my little pony."

Antimony's voice sent a chill down Rarity's spine, cocooned within her own illusion. She glanced over her shoulder at the older mare. Antimony looked like she knew. After doing all this, how could she not know? Could she not see through -

Rarity's heart stopped, as she saw it.

There was something behind the Baroness. Something shifting and dark, with a single light within. Was it another illusion? Was it a part of this impossibly realistic but unreal world? Hadn't anypony else noticed it? The shifting pool of starstuff floated behind Antimony's mane and disappeared from view.

"This illusion is... incredible," Dewdrop admitted, backing away.

"Why thank you!" Antimony, for just a second, seemed ignorant of just who she was speaking to. Then her eyes narrowed and her smile widened, just a little. "I suspect you'll enjoy more of my illusions should we meet again."

The older unicorn's eyes trailed wisps of ethereal carmine as she turned and trotted away.

'She knows. She knows who I am.'

Dewdrop quickly caught up with the rest of the class as they wandered around the crown of the castle and then descended inside. The stone walls felt real. The heat from the many fireplaces, some of them massive and highly ornate, all felt real. One of the colts, Snails, even stubbed his hoof on one of the stone steps. Which should have been impossible. It wasn't real. How could anypony hurt themselves against something that wasn't even real?

"I think it's time we got back to the classroom," Cheerilee finally said. By this time, they had walked from the roof of the castle, through great halls and furnished rooms, and down into the courtyard they had first seen from above. The only thing missing were other ponies. The castle had been empty.

"We don't... have to go back up there to go back, do we?" the schoolteacher asked. "I'm afraid this sort of thing really isn't my area of expertise."

"Don't worry. We never left the classroom so returning you is actually quite simple." Antimony closed her eyes, and the world suddenly shattered. The feelings, the sounds, the cold air and warm clothes, it all vanished. As if it were never there. No: it hadn't been there. No matter how good Antimony's illusions were, they hadn't actually been there.

The classroom returned - everypony was still in their seats. They hadn't even moved. At the front of the room, Lady Antimony grinned; a confident smile directed at one student in particular. It was no wonder she wasn't worried about the duel, only a day away. It made sense now.

'She's... she's too... too strong! This is insane!'

"When an enemy can not tell where their reality ends and my reality begins," the Baroness remarked with a dark chuckle. "It becomes clear in their eyes. First confusion. Then fear. Then panic... and finally, anguish." The illusions within her eyes danced like inner fire. "Or as I prefer to call it: understanding."

'Dewdrop Dazzle' remained silent as the class said their goodbyes to Lady Antimony and thanked her for taking the time to visit not just their class, but apparently all the classes being held. Her parting words had been an upbeat: "Certain others in my family may disagree, but I believe with all my heart that Equestria's true strength is forged not in a barracks or factory floor, but in a schoolroom. Everypony study hard and do your best!"

It was a nice sentiment, though Rarity couldn't see many of the students cheering for the "study hard" part of the Baroness's farewell. To say nothing of the "anguish, or as I call it, understanding" comment.

Having her leave and the normal class resume was a relief; the 'Dewdrop Dazzle' facade was still intact and the illusion holding. The day was almost over, and despite feeling emotionally and magically drained, Rarity took some personal comfort in having basically pulled off Twilight's task - a task she herself had considered nearly impossible. Perhaps she was underestimating herself? Invigorated, and in spite of her fatigue, she felt a surge of confidence: she had almost done it.

It was almost over!

It wasn't until a few minutes later, after Antimony left, that that bubble of confidence burst.

"Generosity. Let me see you sweat."

The voice had been little more than a whisper in her ear, but it echoed in Rarity's mind, and as she gasped in surprise she felt the hairs of her coat stand on end. The illusion - her own illusion - shimmered in front of her eyes, and looking down at her front legs she could see white sticking out from beneath retreating aqua. Panicking, Rarity redoubled her focus, horn glowing hard as she tried to hold the failing, fraying illusion spell together.

Cheerilee continued to speak, her back turned to the class, and every pony's eyes forward. No one noticed! No one saw! Not yet!

'Come on! Come on! Hold together!'

Seeing the illusion fade around her legs, and even around her mane, Rarity desperately tried to layer a replacement directly on top, fixing the failing spell with a patchwork of new ones. It also proved her undoing, as the glow from her horn and furious spellwork attracted the attention her failing illusion didn't. In the seat in front of her, Silver Spoon turned around to stare, confused. She was followed seconds later by Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, that Truffle colt, and others. Even Cheerilee paused in her lesson to gape.

"D - Dewdrop Dazzle!" she finally cried out. "Just what are you doing, young lady?!"

"AH! Nothing! Wait!" Rarity stumbled back out of the too-small chair, waving her hooves. They were a mismatched quilt of replacement colors, each just a shade off of the ones below or above. Illusion spells normally came naturally to her - she was good at them! But suddenly everything was just going wrong or coming apart at the seams!

"I can explain this!" she cried. "It isn't what it looks like! Or, rather - rather! There is a good reason for this!"

"Dewdrop," a familiar voice whispered, and Rarity blinked, only to see Sweetie Belle holding onto her shoulders. "There's nothing wrong."

"Nothing wrong?" Diamond Tiara snapped, snaking her head in bemusement. "What were you doing? Casting magic on yourself?"

"Dewdrop," Cheerilee also spoke up. "Are you feeling alright? Do you need to see the nurse?"

Why - why were they still calling her that?

Couldn't they see...?

Rarity slowly got back into her seat, squeezing between it and her tiny desk. By all rights, by her own eyes, it looked like her illusion had failed. Hadn't it? She turned to Sweetie Belle - the only one in the room she knew, knew - and saw worry, but not panic.

She hadn't been revealed; the illusion hadn't failed.

It was - it was all -

"Antimony."

"Ma'am?" Gewitter whispered, her gruff voice kept low as the pair left the school.

Trotting alongside the burly pegasus hussar, Lady Antimony squinted her eyes.

"As expected, Gewitter," she replied, looking up and inhaling the crisp afternoon air. "The Elements are powerful indeed, even in a dormant state. I don't feel so bad about being cautious earlier."

The pegasus guard bore a look of surprise, eyes wide, at her Lady's admission.

"Ma'am," she whispered again. "Is something wrong?"

The noblemare slowly shook her head in the negative. "Not at all, Gewitter. I only find that I am looking forward to tomorrow. It is merely tension. Excitement. Anticipation."

Antimony led the pair as they headed downtown. There were arrangements to make with the Mayor; the debt starved town of Ponyville was all but in her hooves. Once the local obstacles were sorted out and the Elements of Harmony cowed, Canterlot would fall into the laps of the Terre Rare without so much as a mutter of discontent. Her intended, that simpering fool Blueblood, would not long survive the consummation of their wedded bliss. No matter how uncooperative he wished to be. At last, at long last, the base of the pyramid that was Equestria would submit whole and entire to the sons and daughters of Lady Arsenic.

It would be divine justice, an earth pony's justice, two hundred years in the making.

"Tomorrow," she whispered. "Tomorrow, as dusk falls, I will humble an Element of Harmony. Tomorrow, I will seal the fate of a noble house. Tomorrow I take my place. I almost wish my dear husband-to-be could make it home in time to see me crush his little mare-toy." Antimony's sniffed in dismissive disdain. "Not that he will, but I'm sure he will try."

In a nearby marketplace, ponies called out their wares, appealing to passerby. Ponyville's town center boasted an idyllic little street market, so common in the country. Watching the common ponies in this communal place, for once free from offensive cameras and predatory intrusion, it reminded her of where she had come from: the powerbase that was the country, the dirt and bones and soul of Equestria. It was from this that she had risen to seize the richest Barony in Prance and win her father's love and respect. It was strength. Personal strength. The power of just one pony, like the Princess herself, to bend the world to her unwavering will.

That was what mattered.

"I just..." Antimony hesitated to give voice to her thoughts, and for a time, the two walked in silence. "I just don't understand her. That Rarity. Does she really think she can win? That a few days of training will enable her to pull off some miracle? Is she stubborn or just stupid? A smart mare would give in. A smart mare would already have given in. I have not been unreasonable. We could have been close friends and sisters."

Antimony closed her eyes, making sure not to look at anypony or anything nearby.

"It vexes me." Her brows twitched, but she kept her eyes firmly closed. "Tomorrow. I'll make her pay for troubling me so, Gewitter. I'll make her kiss my hoof and beg for mercy."

Chapter Fourteen : Circle the Wagons

(14)

Circle the Wagons

Her Serene Highness, Princess Cadance, entered the Royal Lunarium with a pair of her personal Royal Guard. Waiting for her inside, Her Royal Highness, Princess Luna, sat on a raised silver and steel dais, also flanked by a pair of her own trusted Night Guard. The Palace Lunarium was her own counterpoint to Celestia's Solarium, the dark yang to her sister's yin. Arcing over the heads of the moon's mistress, a domed opaque roof replicated the Heavenly Vault in miniature, interrupted only by a large magical magnification of the moon that remained stationary at all times: the literal physical and spiritual center of a rhythmically shifting night sky.

It was never 'day' within the Lunarium. Luna had a natural and innate preference for the night that went beyond the cosmetic and that long predated her role as Princess; this was reflected in her personal chambers and antechambers. Specially treated and enchanted glass filtered out the rays of sunlight even in the middle of the day, maintaining an eternal twilight within the room to fit the never-setting night sky above. Many ponies forgot that, even as the sun and moon traded places in the heavens above them, the heavens themselves were unchanging and immutable. At least in this era.

Luna felt comfortable in her sanctum, not simply because of the atmosphere and design of it, but because it was also the centerpiece of her wing of the Palace. Her Night Guards patrolled the darkened halls both day and night. Since the Grand Galloping Gala and her public debut - with some help from her nephew - she had received more supplicants and more attention all hours of the day. Night Court alone was not sufficient. Princess Luna had been forced to fully rebuild her bureaucracy, including those servants of hers who worked during the sun-touched hours.

Some ponies came to her; others were summoned.

Princess Cadance had been summoned.

The young alicorn bowed deeply to her senior and superior, her timing, grace and elegance as perfect as one would expect. If anything, she extended the depth and length of her bow by a few seconds before gesturing for her guards to wait for her outside. Luna watched them go with outwardly impassive eyes. Cadance's current guards were Royal Guards themselves, distinguished from their normal peers by minor embellishments on their armor. From their roster, they were all pegasi... despite frequent rotation in and out of the general population of Celestia's Royal Guard.

Princess Luna's ears flattened at the sound of the door closing behind them, leaving only the two Princesses and the two Night Guards. The young alicorn looked to her elder with bright, expectant eyes and a cautious smile that Luna couldn't feel up to returning. There was something about Cadance that the Lunar Princess couldn't quite put her hoof on. She had expressed her doubts in this to her nephew, but he failed to truly grasp them.

Looking back on it now, it wasn't so much her Bitalian ancestry or any other sort of ancient history that lay at the root of Luna's well concealed wariness. It wasn't the awkwardness of seeing a mortal alicorn elevated - all ponies were born mortal after all. The immortality of two alicorn sisters in particular was the exception to the rule, circumstances there hopefully never to be repeated in all the annals of equine history. In Luna's time, many ponies had still harbored thoughts of immortality being a perversion of the natural order, though that line of thought had clearly died out over the last thousand years.

Nor was there fault or failing in Cadance's appearance or her magic or even her manners. Mi Amore Cadenza was a lovely young alicorn, her brand of magic was aesthetically appealing and befitting a Serene Princess Minor, her manners were impeccable and Celestia seemed fond of her...! There was something else. Something under the surface. For so public a figure, she had recently taken pains to erase her tracks. She was formal and proper, but not the outgoing lady Celestia and even Blueblood had described.

'Is it her, though?' Luna wondered. 'Or me? I can hardly say I know her well.'

"I am at your service, Princess," Cadance said, dipping her head for the faux pas of speaking first, even if only to ask for a command.

"We have not been long in your acquaintance," Luna replied and a unicorn servant floated over a plate of chilled sweets for the Princesses to share. "But we would wish to share words." Two large tulip glasses were gifted with a small portion of rosé wine, glittering as the two alicorns carefully picked their drinks up with a cantrip of telekinesis.

"Is something wrong?" Cadance asked, inhaling the smell of the wine before politely partaking in it. "This isn't a problem with the wedding, is it?"

"No, it is not," Luna answered, her ethereal mane glittering as it caught the light of the artificial moon overhead. "It does, however, involve one who would be your guest to the affair."

"Oh?"

"We would very much like to speak with you about Lord Alpha Brass."

The name evoked a small smile from Cadance, one that didn't quite reach her heliotrope eyes.

"Brass?" she asked, sipping from her wine to cover her pause. "He's an old friend of mine. What would you like to know, Princess?"

"We spoke with Shining Armor earlier," Luna informed the mortal alicorn but failed to elicit any visible response. "You three were friends as foals in Canterlot?"

"Before we all got our cutie marks," Cadance confirmed, her smile widening slightly. "I was new to Canterlot and the two boys were learning magic at the Academy. I believe Brass was under the care of the Bluebloods at the time while... our current Prince was in Crown Roc. Things came apart when the His Grace returned home, as you must know."

That much, Luna did know. Alpha Brass, like many high born colts, spent a fraction of his youth being raised outside his home province and outside the care of his family. Much as Princes were exchanged as hostages with other lands, noble young ponies were exposed to more than just their inherited realm to better build Equestrian unity. The practice originated in Equestria's founding as a means to centralize control in the years before Discord. As a beneficial side effect of the tradition, if the family members of noble families had to live in Canterlot then they were much less likely to incur Canterlot's ire. If anything, Celestia had let the last thousand years of peace erode the politically functional tradition.

During his foalhood, Duke Cruciger's only son had often been seen in the company of the newly adopted alicorn Princess Cadance and his branch family cousin, Shining Armor. This much had been confirmed not only by Celestia and Shining Armor himself, but also by accounts from the time. The Royal Governess, Matilda, had even recorded it in her papers.

The three did not seem that close anymore, but...

"Have you had much contact with the Marquis?" Luna asked, using Brass' official title as the husband of Lady Olive Branch.

"Not in an official capacity," Cadance replied, finishing her wine but seemingly disinterested in the chilled berries and treats offered. "We used to write letters to each other once or twice a year, just to keep in contact and remember the old days... and more recently he has become involved in the upcoming wedding. Lord Cruciger has tasked him with helping arrange certain things on behalf of the Terre Rare family and to assist in handling my inheritance outside Equestria-proper."

"And your biological parents?"

"What of them?" Cadance inquired, craning her neck slightly in curiosity.

"Your biological family is well known to us as political opponents of the Terre Rare," Luna said, trying to gauge the young alicorn.

"You'll forgive me for saying so, but my original family has been excluded from the wedding for good reason." Cadance's smile slipped away, indicating her displeasure, but she sounded almost apathetic instead of upset. "If they can not come to terms with my marrying Shining Armor, then that is their problem, not mine. Please, Princess," she continued, putting down her wine glass with a ting. "May I ask just what this is about? I leave soon for-"

"A party," Luna interrupted, cutting to the quick. "We know. Your itinerary indicates you have been invited to a party hosted by Lord Alpha Brass at an... unknown location."

"Unknown location makes it sound very ominous," Cadance replied with a polite titter, her gilded hoof over her mouth to hide the laugh. "He has a sort of airship, you see, that he uses to impress ponies."

"Shining Armor was also invited, though he tells us he is unable to attend." Princess Luna sighed. "The truth is that we have some concerns about the Terre Rare family. Recently, Lady Antimony attempted to press her engagement to our nephew, Lord Blueblood."

"I have heard the rumors." Cadance huffed, displeased. "But I also heard that one of the Elements of Harmony has somehow fallen for my so called step-brother. She has my sincere condolences."

The animosity between the adopted Princess and the lordly Prince was no secret. By virtue of being an alicorn, Cadance had been adopted by the Royal Household and raised as Princess of Equestria. Which was not to say she was princesses du sang, or a princess 'of the blood.' If circumstances had been different, it would have been likely that she would already wear Canterlot's Platinum Crown. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she was too close a blood relation to the Prince and the Stable of Lords had long since ruled against it (likely at the behest of Lord Cruciger).

"We spoke with Blueblood not more than a few days ago. In passing, your name came up and he spoke fondly of you," Luna told the Princess Minor. "Surely it is not too late to begin mending fences."

"If there were fences to mend, then perhaps you would be right." Cadance shook her head in the negative: no, there would be no reproach between them, at least not on her end. "I don't know what sort of leaf he's trying to turn over recently, but as far as I'm concerned it really is too little, too late."

"Is that why you were not present for the previous Grand Galloping Gala?"

"Exactly that, yes. As for Antimony," the young Princess continued with a carefully neutral expression. "The mare is as untrustworthy as they come. I am quite sure she will renege on her promise and attempt to find some other way to seize power in Canterlot. I have even heard... from Shining Armor... that she has recently mobilized her personal guard in Prance! Now, I do not pretend to be versed in military affairs or even court politics, but that sounds threatening, does it not? With all due respect, Lady Luna, Antimony is the bad egg in that family, and it is her you should watch for mischief. Alpha Brass is a true gentlestallion."

There was a chime-like ting as a glass settled down on the silverware platter, released by Luna's magic. Antimony. Antimony was another potential problem. It was true: she was making aggressive moves in Prance, but to what end?

"We have heard rumor of this and of other matters in the north," Luna admitted, closing her eyes briefly as she considered the potential implications. "Princess Cadance, if you can help us allay our concerns, we would be in your debt. Can you do this?"

"Naturally, I would be happy to pass on any rumor I hear while in Brass' company," Cadance answered after a moment's polite pause. "Though I can already tell you what little will be at the party."

She raised a hoof and waved it to the left and right, dismissively. "Brass will show off some new artifact or another, or perhaps some new 'talent' or artist he has discovered, or some philanthropic cause that has caught his imagination. Everypony will appear duly impressed by this before spending the evening in luxurious indulgence. If his daughters happen to be there, then everypony will either be passed out or in each other's hooves by midnight. I have been to many of these parties and they are all the same."

For a moment, a strange flicker passed behind Cadance's eyes, as if she was just realizing something. It was evident on her face for the first time in the conversation, like an actor deciding to improvise a new line in a play. Her smile broadened, revealing a few pearl white teeth.

"You could come with me," Cadance added, almost eagerly. "Uh, well, I didn't make it sound very proper before, but that's only because I've been to so many of these parties! As I said. You would enjoy it! Since Shining Armor can't come, so wouldn't it be a delightful surprise for us to show up together?"

The sudden exuberance in the young Princess caught her senior by surprise.

"We are afraid we must decline." Luna narrowed her eyes at Cadance, and the mortal alicorn shrunk back and quickly regained her proper poise. "Besides which, we would not be able to attend without a cadre of my Night Guard. We doubt Lord Alpha Brass would wish to see such an intrusion without advance notice."

"Yes, of course not..." Cadance suddenly smiled brightly. "What was I thinking? Sorry! I get like that sometimes! Don't worry, though! I'll be your eyes and ears at the party! You can count on me."

"We are pleased to hear this," Luna said, dipping her head in thanks.

The two mares exchanged small talk for a few more minutes before the elder Princess dismissed her junior. Outside, Luna could see the two Royal Guards that were Cadance's escorts on the Palace grounds. They followed her dutifully as she trotted away, one of them stealing a quick look back at the Lunarium before falling in step.

"Permission to speak?" a voice to her left asked.

Luna glanced to her side, where one of her faithful Night Guards had his hoof to his chin in thought. "As always, you may speak your mind, Wrath."

"Lady Cadance," he mused, brows furrowed. "She hasn't attended a Grand Galloping Gala in over a decade. Even ones not hosted and sponsored by His Grace."

"You know this, how?" Fury asked, standing to Luna's right side.

"I was a member of her guard for eight months. I shared the rotation with Point Blank three years ago." Wrath frowned as he recalled the Princess' words from a few minutes earlier.

Luna's eyes returned to the nose closed doors, and to the Princess who had once sat before her.

"Follow them."

Rainbow Dash held the cold compress to the inside of her left wing before settling back against her softest cloud chair. It was wonderfully plush and sinfully soft, giving a feeling of weightlessness; normally, she didn't like soft-stuff that much, but it was perfect for crashing on after a hard day's weatherwork. Or, more likely, a hard day's training. She'd never expected to fall back into it after barely surviving a midair duel with one of her former idols gone rogue.

"So what - what happened?" she asked, watching Spitfire and Soarin.

Not for the first time, the thought that the Wonderbolts - the Wonderbolts! - were hanging out in her house shot through Dash's head, making a few little loops this time to make sure she paid it some much needed attention. She mentally nodded to herself, agreeing that it was totally awesome, but adding the caveat that now was really not the time to go fangirl on things. Later. More vocal gushing could come later. Her little midair fight with Ritterkreuz had just left her too exhausted to muster more than a Fluttershy grade 'woo.'

Luckily her bachelorette-pad was nice and clean enough to give her two guests a good impression (as long as they didn't see her mess of a bedroom).

"What's going on?" she asked again, turning to the two ponies in her home. "Why did I just get into a fight with Ritterkreuz? Why did she say she was... that she had..."

Spitfire had been seated close by, a dire look on her face as she checked Dash's injuries.

"Ritter... Ritter's gone rogue," Soarin spoke up from further away.

He was distractedly examining one of the Wonderbolts posters on the wall in the living room, next to her cases of trophies, probably to give some privacy while Spitfire checked on Dash's wings. He had the hood of his uniform pulled back, revealing his face and azure-blue mane. Soarin was supposedly the goofball of the group, and a favorite among Wonderbolts fans - especially the mares. He chanced a look back at her with a grave expression.

"I never thought I'd see Wonderbolts fighting Wonderbolts," he muttered, and went back to staring at the poster. "Not ever."

"Ritter's always been difficult to work with, but turning against her own team?" Spitfire asked, shaking her head. It was unheard of for Wonderbolts to turn on their own. "She says she did it for fun, but that's what she says about everything. I don't think anypony really knows why she turned on us, just that we have to catch her and stop her."

"Twilight said she was one of the mares after Rarity," Dash recalled, thinking back to when the two of them had been ambushed.

Hopefully Twilight was alright; Ritterkreuz had done something to hold her down by the horn, preventing her from using magic. Dash had tried to keep the fight away from Ponyville, but now she couldn't help but worry about her friends. Even if Twilight was fine, what had happened with Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Applejack? The plan had been for everypony - well, except Fluttershy - to corner that Yumi mare.

"What's happening in Ponyville?" she quickly asked. "Do you guys know? Have you heard anything? There was this Yumi pony outside town..."

"We were briefed on that," Spitfire replied, nodding her head. "The situation in town doesn't seem to have changed, for what that's worth. We aren't here for Lord Yama's daughter, though."

"His Grace has given us the authority to let us chase down Ritter," Soarin explained. "But I don't think the Vice-Captain would want to get involved in unicorn feuds."

"Except Ritterkreuz is here for the same reason Yumi is! Twilight said so!" Dash winced as the cold compress under her wing slipped a bit against her ribs. "They're both here to mess with Rarity."

Seeing looks of confusion on Soarin and Spitfire's faces, Dash's shoulders slumped.

"She outright told me that she was originally planning to fight Yumi or Rarity, but then something changed her mind and she went after... I guess she went after me?" Dash found herself having some trouble putting certain things together. "Wait, so she knew who I was?"

"We all know who you are," Soarin spoke up, though he still had his back to the two mares.

"This isn't the best way to tell you," Spitfire continued for him. "But after what you did at the Young Flyers Competition, and with saving us, and recognition of the thing with Discord... a lot of ponies were speculating on when you'd join us."

"The Wonderbolts want me to join them?" Dash, injuries forgotten, bolted out of her cloud-cushion. "Oh my gosh! You aren't kidding, are you?" She landed in front of the seated Spitfire and began to shake her by the shoulders, eyes alight and sparkling. "Tell me you aren't kidding!"

"I-I'm n-not k-kidding..." Spitfire's orange eyes boggled as Dash's excitement got the better of her strength. "Aren't you s-still hurt?"

"I just got a second wind!" Dash proclaimed, throwing one hoof into the air in triumph. "A little good news is good medicine!" Abruptly, a shiver ran up her legs, then her body, and then up and into her hoof. "And there goes my second wind..."

Plopping down onto her cloud-couch, she devolved into little 'owie's.

"I'll celebrate later," she decided, her excitement slowly fading and giving way to the seriousness from before. "So, Ritterkreuz heard about me from you guys?"

"Probably," Spitfire confirmed. "She said she'd originally planned to fight Lady Yumi or Lady Rarity?"

"It probably has something to do with Blueblood." Dash snorted, not out of dislike, but distaste. If Ritter was like Antimony before her, then she wasn't even after Rarity's coltfriend out of affection or anything rational. She was in it for the power that came from a wedding ring. Rainbow Dash could understand two mares fighting over the same stallion, or even the same mare, but over some title?

"Antimony?" Ritter asked, shaking her head. "Not really. I couldn't care less about politics or about being Duchess. Blueblood's a good lay and we've had some fun times, but that's as far as it goes. Being a Wonderbolt was boring, especially since they kept telling me what to do. So I quit. There are some strong ponies in this town and I wanna crush 'em. That's all there is to it."

"Or maybe..." Dash wondered, red eyes glancing off at the floor. "I guess I'm not sure." She returned to Spitfire. "You knew her for two years, right? You were on the same flight team and the same squad."

"We flew together since her rookie year, but..." Spitfire frowned, looking back at Soarin for a moment. "The things she said. Maybe we weren't even friends? Maybe if I had... I don't know... but she was my wingpony. My responsibility!" Spitfire stomped her hoof against the floor of the cloud house in visible frustration. "I should have seen this coming! I should have-"

"This isn't your fault," Soarin said, walking up alongside her and giving her a friendly pat with his left wing. He turned to Dash, and she could see that his own frustration and anger was at war with his grief: Wonderbolts should not have to fight Wonderbolts.

Rainbow Dash couldn't agree more.

"Can you tell us about what happened?" he asked the weathermare. "We only caught sight of the Rain Boom."

Dash nodded and recalled the fight with Ritterkreuz from start to finish: from the initial rush through Ponyville to the lake to the chase into the quarry and finally to the Sonic Rain Boom. Soarin and Spitfire listened intently, and Dash privately wondered how combat capable they were. The Wonderbolts were mostly formation flyers, but almost all of them had a military background. She knew that many of her own stunts were originally based on military maneuvers: flying tricks and techniques that often went back hundreds of years. Then again, if a pony went back far enough, all of pegasus society was rooted in some martial exploit or another.

"The thing with her wings," Spitfire explained, as Dash finished her story. "The explosions... it's called the Galloping Grenadier. She used it to destroy an entire hangar back at Wonderbolt Headquarters. And," Spitfire paused a moment to collect herself and compose her growing anger towards her former teammate. "And she used it to wound Captain Thunderhead."

"So there really was no training accident?" Dash asked, having guessed at the answer. Of course there was no accident. Ritter really had turned on her team. She really had... hurt her superior officer and her former comrades. For a pegasus especially, it was unforgivable!

"She fought Captain Thunderhead when she quit. A few others have been injured, too, chasing her down."

"Nopony... you know? Killed?"

"Thank Celestia, no." Spitfire could breathe a sigh of relied at that, at least. "But as you've seen, Ritter is extremely dangerous. With her Galloping Grenadier, it's almost impossible to fight her in the air."

"The Vice-Captain thinks we have to wear her down or ambush her," Soarin added, raising a hoof to tap his chin. "The only other option is..."

"To be faster than the explosions," Dash finished, her body relaxed into the cloud-couch but her voice tense.

"Rainbow Dash," Spitfire said, pointing at her. "You may be the only pegasus who can do that. The alternative is more wounded Wonderbolts."

"The Vice-Captain wants to do this ourselves. For the honor of the team." Soarin picked up where his partner left off.

"But I think... Ritter picked a fight with you for a reason," Spitfire continued, lowing her hoof to the floor. "Because she thinks you can beat her. We can train you to beat her... without anypony else getting hurt."

"This is probably a lot to ask, but-" Soarin began to argue.

"I'll do it," Dash interrupted him. "I'll do it."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Just because we're asking, you don't have to..."

Rainbow Dash shook her head, and Soarin's voice trailed off before he could finish. Closing her eyes, Ponyville's number one weathermare - and one-time hero, nevermind Mare-do-Well - remembered the collectors card she had so prized just a few years ago. The Ritterkreuz she had run into, savagely grinning even as she dragged them both down into a crash, wasn't like the cocky Wonderbolt Dash had looked up to.

Had the last two years just been a charade? Had she just been pretending to be part of her squadron? How could anypony turn her back on her friends and teammates? How could any pegasus turn her back on being a Wonderbolt? It was just so hard to believe.

'I don't know... but...'

"I'll do it," she said again. "I'll stop her."

"We'll stop her," Spitfire promised, holding out her hoof. Soarin put his hoof on top of hers a second later, and Dash followed a moment after that. This wasn't exactly how the weathermare had imagined first working with her idols, to take down another of her idols, but so be it. It was a promise, now.

The rumbling of her stomach kind of ruined the moment, though.

"Sorry," Dash mumbled, holding her treacherous midsection. "Geez."

"I'll get something to eat," Soarin volunteered, grinning as he headed for the door.

Spitfire coughed, causing him to freeze in his tracks. "You're going for pie, aren't you?"

"...mayyybe..."

Just as he reached to open it, a knock on said door brought an early end to the lightening mood. One wing snapping out and back, ready to strike, Soarin opened the door a crack to look outside. Dash thought for a second about objecting: just from what she had seen earlier, if Ritterkreuz wanted inside, she wouldn't knock on the front door. More likely, she'd blow it up, or just punch through a wall. Was it Raging Storm and the other Wonderbolts, then?

Soarin stepped back, revealing a Royal Guard in gold and alabaster.

"My apologies," the guard said in practiced monotone, having already noticed both Soarin and Spitfire. The presence of two Wonderbolts didn't seem to affect him in the least. "The Prince sent me to fetch you, Miss Rainbow Dash."

Spitfire followed Rainbow Dash to the Prince's chateau outside Ponyville while Soarin returned to the Wonderbolts' mobile headquarters. Slowly circling around back the two mares could see a small group in attendance by the entrance of the hedge gardens. Their Royal Guard escort veered off to the side to find a perch on the roof near a set of ornate chimney pots.

Spitfire didn't join him, but she did keep back and out of the way as Rainbow Dash reunited with her worried friends. She also took stock of who she knew to be in attendance. The local Baroness, Lady Rarity, was quick to check on the town's leading weathermare. She wore a somewhat fanciful version of armor in style among courtly unicorns, with a variation of the usual gems and jewels motif. She was also coincidentally the mare who had nearly knocked Spitfire's teeth out with her flailing after her fall off the edge of Cloudsdale.

There was also a bouncy pink earth pony in contrast to a much more subdued straw-colored local, a pegasus mare with a pink mane and another unicorn all in shades of purple, save for the streak in her mane. These had to be the other Elements of Harmony, though Spitfire couldn't remember their names. The two stallions in the area were the Prince - who Spitfire knew - and a somewhat beat-up looking Royal Guard. The latter seemed to be briefing the former in hushed tones...

Then the noblestallion noticed her and beckoned the Wonderbolt over.

"Prince Blueblood," Spitfire said, inclining her head in respectful but still casual greeting as she approached. "Nice to see you again."

"And you," he replied, looking past her for a moment at the mares of harmony. "Miss Dash isn't hurt, is she?"

"Nothing serious. She's amazingly tough... but I guess a pony would have to be to pull off a Rain Boom."

"This is Sir Mercury, of Her Majesty's Royal Horse Guards," Blueblood introduced the battered and bruised Royal Guard. "Sir Mercury, this is Miss Spitfire of the Wonderbolts."

Despite the bandages, he bowed and offered polite respects. "Miss."

"We heard that Lady Yumi instituted a pas d'arms outside town?" Spitfire inquired, clearly wondering if that was where Sir Mercury had earned his current condition.

"It was swiftly broken up," Blueblood answered. "Unfortunately, Lady Yumi escaped along with one of her retainers."

"Only one?" Spitfire asked. "That doesn't sound so bad."

Blueblood shook his head sadly. "You'd think it wouldn't be, but..." Seeing the six mares regrouping and heading over, he opted to hold his tongue. "But the situation is more complicated than it appears."

Spitfire wanted to ask more, but bowed out as the Baroness and her friends came over. The Vice-Captain would be interested in what went on here and if there were other potential complications in the search for Ritterkreuz. The Wonderbolts couldn't afford to go into this without a plan, no matter how unprecedented it was. The fact remained that they were fighting a pony who knew them - knew their weaknesses - while they knew little of her in return.

What, then, did His Grace know that they didn't?

"I can't recall ever speaking more than a word to Lady Yumi before, but, well... I'll just out and say it," Blueblood told them as they relaxed around the shaded villa gardens. "Ritterkreuz and I were lovers for a time."

The reactions of the mares in attendance were varied. Fluttershy hid her face in embarrassment, Rainbow Dash was listening intently, Applejack still seemed to be missing her hat and for want of a replacement compulsively ran a hoof through her mane, Pinkie Pie was on the grass upside down, as if listening to a bedtime story... and Twilight Sparkle was, well, she was taking notes. Only Rarity seemed disinterested, having heard this before.

"We knew each other as foals in Crown Roc," he explained, keeping his tone aloof and professional. "We were both part of the hostage program that shuffled the children of nobles around Equestria and... sometimes outside of it. Later, as adults, we enjoyed each other's company. It was never anything serious, nor will it ever be."

He didn't try to explain that, for a time, he had enjoyed that fact about Ritterkreuz. The pegasus mare was of high birth in Cloudsdale, but not marriage material in the least. It had been empowering and refreshing to be around her. She had been right in reminding him that he had gotten bored of and disgusted with noblemares in Canterlot. She had been right in reminding him that she, alone, had been there to provide consequence-free company for him.

The times, however... had changed.

"Hostage program?" Rainbow Dash asked, freely interrupting. "So you guys swapped kids?"

He was a little surprised she knew about it, though her description was a bit brusque.

"Essentially," he confirmed.

"That sounds terrible," Fluttershy muttered, hoof scraping the ground in nervousness as her comment attracted attention from everypony present. "I mean... separating foals from their parents..."

"The experience was largely positive, in retrospect," Blueblood was mindful to say, and to make sure they all understood. "A noblepony can live his entire life in one wing of a castle. It is a good thing to have him - or her - experience life elsewhere in the country. It also serves to bring together ponies and other races who would otherwise be unable to form... friendships..."

Blueblood thought of Prince Mnemon for a moment, the boisterous griffin laughing as he held up a glass of mead in one claw and a cooing wench in the other. Colorful friendships were still friendships. Loony griffins. At the time, he had really hated being sent to Crown Roc, but now? He privately wondered how Rarity would take it, though. Sending away one's foal for years at a time could be hard on parents unaccustomed to the ways of nobility. He snuck a glance at her, but she had her eyes closed and her expression guarded.

"I don't think my personal background with her is that important, not compared to finding a way to keep her safely contained," he concluded. "I have given the Wonderbolts permission to pursue her, but my personal recommendation is that you leave her be."

"Let her be?" Spitfire couldn't keep quiet at that, speaking up from where she sat next to Sir Mercury. "You'll forgive me for saying so, but the honor of the Wonderbolts is at stake."

Blueblood nodded, understanding. "I know, but Ritterkreuz has always been encouraged by conflicts and especially fights. When we were little, I remember her not hesitating to fight griffins older than herself at the drop of a hat. My worry is that, if things go far enough, somepony could end up killed. We all want to avoid that, don't we?"

"If we let her be, she'll only come after you," Spitfire replied, pointing a hoof at the Prince, and then at Rarity. "Or you." Then Dash. "She's already come after you. You can't mean to just sit still and wait for her?"

"That's why I invited everypony here," Rarity spoke up, addressing first the Wonderbolt and then her friends. "I have been thinking about this since the business with Lady Yumi earlier today..."

She trailed off a bit, unsure how to proceed.

"Thinking about what?" Twilight prompted. "Rarity?"

"I..." the newly titled noblemare raised a curled hoof to her mouth, glancing away as she sighed softly. "This is such an improper way to ask this... you'll have to forgive me. But..." She faced her five closest friends, sucking in a breath.

"I'd like all of you to help me," she pleaded, lowering her head enough for her violet mane to almost touch the grass at her hooves. "Please. Become my gendarmes. I don't think I can do all this on my own."

"Gendarmes?" Applejack asked first. "Uh, ya mind translatin' that inta plain Equestrian?"

"Knights," Blueblood explained. "But without formal title. Are you familiar with coutilliers? Or, in your case-" He pointed at a certain pink party machine. "A couleuvrinier?"

Pinkie blinked up at him. "Actually, my party cannon is technically a type of saker."

"How you even know these things-"

"So you want us to be knights but without all the silly stuff like not being able to have jobs?" Pinkie jumped up in a single bounce to land near Rarity, wrapping her into a big hug. "Why don't you say so! Of course I'll help! That's why I came along this morning!"

"Ah'm still not sure ah understand..."

"Yeah," Dash agreed, nodding at Applejack before turning back to Rarity. "I mean, of course we'll help anyway we can, you know that."

"Yep," the apple farmer agreed.

"Definitely," Twilight Sparkle chimed in.

"I don't see why not." Fluttershy's enthusiasm was a bit restrained, but beneath it all was a clear desire to help her friend. Blueblood felt momentarily jealous of his would-be fiancée - she had no lack of good and loyal friends willing to stick with her through thick and thin.

"Thank you all so much, really, but you should know this position isn't entirely consequence free," Rarity warned, smiling from within Pinkie's enthusiastic embrace.

Twilight twirled her feathered pen in midair, momentarily taking a break from her notes. "We'd be able to help you out if other nobles try and challenge you or the town..."

"But," Blueblood reminded her. "Effectively, this makes all of you targets instead of just one of you. It isn't a matter to take lightly."

"You're assuming every pony looking to make trouble will also follow your rules." Rainbow Dash stepped forward and gestured to her left wing: bandaged, though not badly enough to keep her from flying. Her implication was clear: not every pony would give a flying feather about unicorn rules of challenge and protocol.

"Count me in," Dash demanded, her mouth curving into a smirk. "I've already got a fight on my hooves. May as well get a paycheck for it, too!"

"Huh. Y'all know I ain't the type to sit on the sidelines." Applejack also stepped forward. "Count me in, sugarcube!"

"I'd be happy to help any way I can," Fluttershy chimed in. "Though fighting isn't... um..."

"Don't sweat it, Fluttershy!" Dash zipped over to grab the other pegasus by the shoulders. "You can command our killer butterfly swarm!"

"Oh, but my butterflies would never hurt anypony..."

"This won't make us 'sir' this or 'sir' that, will it?" Applejack asked, turning to the resident noblepony. Not the little lavender one either, since Twilight's friends seemed to forget that fact about her: that she was still a high born noble herself, and the heiress of the Canterlot Terre Rare.

"Ser is a more popular salutation these days rather than Dame or Madam," Blueblood informed her before cracking a grin. "Ser Applejack."

The apple farmer snorted in bemused dismissal. "Still too fancy for my tastes."

"I think it's safe to say we're all willing if you are, Rarity," Twilight said, less caught up in the moment. She tilted her head to the side as she asked the other unicorn mare, "If I remember right, if we're going to be your gendarmes specifically..."

"I know," Rarity said, disentangling herself from Pinkie Pie as all her friends came together in a close circle. "I know I can count on all of you... and you can count on me. I promise: I will never let you down. And I will not let the Yumis or Antimonys of Equestria undermine Ponyville. Not on my watch!"

Lyra hadn't believed her eyes at first.

Set out before her, without pomp or ceremony, lay a Brayehard original, diatonic single-row harp with fully functional double-action pedals! An electrum stamp on the base even proved that it was one of the hoof-made pioneers in harp design, one of only fifteen made that year! The core was solid, cocobolo hardwood with a polished finish broken by intricate tropical inlays of vines and birds. Gold strings caught the light from nearby lanterns. She had expected a basic forty-seven string concert harp, not a priceless two hundred year old antique!

"Wow! Wow! Wow! Am I really allowed to use this?" Lyra looked up but her guard escort was gone. "Hello?"

She had apparently left the musician alone to prepare for the night's dinner entertainment on one of the garden terraces overlooking the cloud-grounds below. It was quite a sight, too! A table had already been brought out to the terrace with ornate chairs, all on a marble balcony overlooking an exotic garden built into the clouds. The delicate, distant murmur of running water came from a pair of brooks that flowed around and below the terrace. Amid the transplanted greenery statues raised up, posing as if frozen in mid-dance, serving as a backdrop for the small stage on which she stood.

Lyra sucked in a deep, calming breath and went about familiarizing herself with her instrument for the night. Little tuning or preparation was apparently required: the harp itself was in excellent shape, so it was mostly a matter of mindset. This was not the first personal audience she had been hired for. Harps, and her own preferred lyres, were high culture instruments in Canterlot. Lord Alpha Brass was the first Marquis, or pony of such high standing, to request her services...

Soon, servants had the table prepared and Lyra set up her sheet music to begin playing.

Alpha Brass himself was the first to appear, taking a seat at the head of the stately table. He was dressed casually for the brisk evening meal in the open air and shot a wink her way as he picked a wine from the cellars to be fetched by a servant. It was strange to realize that the wine cellars, in this particular house, were however-many thousand pony-lengths in the air. Even pegasi - fond of wine - normally had to keep it sequestered in mountains and other high places.

His presence was soon followed by that of an upset looking earth pony mare in white and her escort, an older, serious looking stallion. By their dress, their clothes almost robe-like, both were foreigners to the Equestrian heartland. The pair were followed by another stallion and mare, unicorns and not earth ponies, but these two were clearly a married couple. Both thanked Alpha Brass for the invitation, excessively in Lyra's opinion, before taking places at the table.

Finally, two younger mares entered the terrace from the side door, one bouncing in a manner that immediately reminded Lyra of Pinkie Pie, except this unicorn mare's mane was a wild, barely brushed blue. The other followed at a more sedate pace, her mane was deep crimson red. The two unescorted mares sat at the end of the table opposite Alpha Brass.

"Hi, daddy!" the blue-maned one said, smiling as she jumped into her seat.

"Good evening, father," the red-maned one said, bowing deeply and taking her seat with due Canterlot decorum.

"My daughters," Alpha Brass introduced them to the other four guests. "Eunomie and Euporie. We dine tonight with our good friend, Lady Yumi and Meister Late Rains and our guests Broad Way and Score Card. Please, everypony, sit and enjoy yourselves. Euporie, would you lead us in the Celestine Prayer?"

"Sure thing!" the blue-maned sister cheered, putting her hooves together in front of her. "Thanks a bunch, Princess Celly, for all the light and good stuff you give us! We totally owe you one and not just in a 'I'll pay you back later' way, or a 'sure, I'll help you move out of your apartment some time, let me just free up my schedule, ah, Tuesday? It has to be Tuesday? Yeah, Tuesday isn't really good for me' kind of way. But in a real deep and spiritual way. I think. A-PONY."

"Agimus tibi gratias, dilectissima Celestia," the other sister finished, a look of exasperation on her face.

Lyra has to choke back a laugh at the scandalized look on the two Manehattan ponies faces at the rather divergent liturgical approaches provided for the evening's repast. The two foreign ponies, on the other hand, seemed disinterested and confused, respectively, on the part of the older stallion and the younger mare. Though the names from before seemed familiar. Yumi? That was a neighponese name. Was she related to the Garland Family?

And then there were the two younger mares. Alpha Brass was so young, only a few years older than Lyra herself. It took a moment to recall that he was married to the much older Lady Olive Branch who had to be, what? In her fifties? These two had to be his step-daughters. Odd that he didn't have any children of his own, then.

No matter - it wasn't her business.

What mattered was her concentration on playing! Now was not the time to slip up!

Luckily, the music flowed from her harp more easily than she ever remembered it. Perhaps it was the magnificent instrument in her hooves and magical touch that made it all flow together so easily? It was, without doubt, the finest harp she had ever had the privilege to use. Or was it the relaxing atmosphere, with the night sky stretched out overhead in all its glory? The air this high up should normally be thin, she remembered hearing from pegasus friends, but it felt almost intoxicatingly rich where she was now. It was all so... so wonderful.

So perfect!

Closing her eyes, Lyra let her familiarity with one piece of music take her mind away. She almost slapped herself for risking it a moment later, but her magic seemed to have a mind of it's own. Even the guests at the table seemed lulled in by her playing, pausing in their conversations to watch and listen.

'I feel like I could do this in my sleep!' Lyra thought, finishing her piece to light clopping applause. 'No. Not just that. I feel... I feel like I could do anything...!'

The magic in her -

It felt thick and raw and hungry, like it hadn't since she had first mastered the lyre. It -

At the head of the table, Alpha Brass smiled at her and Lyra blushed before returning to her harp. What kind of silly thoughts had that been? She was just getting a little heady from putting on one of the best performances in recent memory. Magic was magic, after all.

By the final dessert course, the table had been lulled into sleepy contentment.

Lyra retired to her quarters only to meet a note on her bed. Next to it was a small case and what looked like a book underneath it. Leaving the dinner guests behind had strangely sapped the energy from her - as if the heady rush she had enjoyed while playing for them transformed into a groggy crash after she left. Lyra found herself looking forward to tomorrow. If it was the harp or even the air outside that had so invigorated her, so filled her with confidence in her skills as an artist and musician, then it would be good to repeat the experience.

In the meantime -

She floated up the note, to take a look.

"A superb performance deserves a reward," Lyra read, raising an eyebrow at the strong, flowing script on the vellum. "I look forward to seeing you with one gift, and speaking with you of the other."

Curious, the musician examined the discrete velvet case, wrapped in a loose light-green ribbon the color of her mane. Lyra's eyes widened at the sight of what was inside: a necklace of studded mint-cream colored pearls. Her tired grin growing into a full on smile, she hastily tried the gift on. The color was just perfect, the same shade as the edge of the white steak in her mane and tail! Where had - who had - well, it had to be the Marquis giving her these gifts, didn't it? Who else would?

Who else could afford to!

Oh, but Bon Bon would be SO murderously jealous when she got back!

Admiring the string of pearls in front of a body length mirror, Lyra remembered the book. Floating it over almost as an afterthought, she caught a few letters on the cover as she turned it over. It was an old book, with no picture on the front. Just the title.

The Equus Formicarius

The infamous text on witches and pre-classical cults! Flipping open to the first page, Lyra was greeted by a sigil she knew all too well: the constellation Orion! Depicted not as a pony, but as a mysterious two legged spirit-beast, just as it was worshipped and recorded by ponies centuries before the migration! She had tried to find a copy of the Equus Formicarius for years, but distribution of the book was prohibited due to it's heretical nature. Only academics could get their hooves on it.

How had -

"I look forward to seeing you with one gift, and speaking with you of the other."

Clutching the book protectively to her chest, Lyra's grin widened yet more.

It was a good thing she had two gifts, now. Bon Bon was going to be jealous, alright, but she probably wouldn't want (more) forbidden literature in their house. This little gift, Lyra knew to keep to herself. The pearls were great and all, but this - this was priceless!

Without further delay, she jumped onto the soft queen sized bed, flipping through the book.

"I think I'm gonna like it here!"

Cutie Mark Crusading was hard work; don't let anypony tell you otherwise.

It also came with certain occupational hazards. "Hey! Apple Bloom! Sweetie Belle! What happened to the first aid kit? It isn't lost again, is it?"

"Ah don't think so," Apple Bloom replied, trotting over to check the storage trunk Scootaloo had just opened. The apple filly ducked her head in to root around. "Now that's strange. Ah don't see it in here!"

"That's why I'm asking if anypony used it before today," Scootaloo turned to the third crusader; Sweetie Belle seemed deep in thought over a map of the town dotted by post-it notes, each one with a different cutie mark drawn on it. "Sweetie Belle? Are you listening?"

"Sorry, what?" the little unicorn asked, snapping out of her one-filly brainstorming session. "The first aid kit? Isn't it in the trunk?"

Scootaloo simply pointed to where Apple Bloom was flank-in-the-air as she tossed assorted bits of crusading equipment out of storage. Official CMC meeting minutes ended up on the floor, tumbling out of their folder, followed by official CMC headgear and official CMC wilderness vests and official CMC secret code lists. Most all of it was one-off stuff they'd used once and then retired, but the first aid kit was actually pretty important.

The pegasus filly scratched at the scrape she'd gotten after her last crash. Crashes, it seemed, were just a part of life. Rainbow Dash seemed to crash a LOT so it wasn't like Scootaloo felt bad about the occasional face-first into a fence, or a tumble off of a log, or getting scratched up by bushes and branches, or falling off of or buzzing into a tree, or that time she full-speed crashed into Rumble at the schoolyard or falling off of a table while secretly practicing dancing or -

Or maybe it was best not to dwell on just how often she ended up using the official CMC First Aid Kit. The answer being 'pretty often.'

"Well, it sure as heck ain't in here!" Apple Bloom emerged from the trunk, vigorously shaking her head to free it of clips and papers and scraps of paper mache (which they probably should have just thrown out). She hopped out of the trunk and into her hooves. "Ya should just go use tha one back at the house. Ah'm sure it'll turn up somewhere."

"I guess," Scootaloo said with a sigh.

"More importantly, you seein' any patterns emergin' yet, Sweetie Belle?" Apple Bloom soon forgot about the missing first aid kit, her attentions turning back to the elaborate post-it chart that now dominated part of their clubhouse's east wall.

"Patterns within patterns," Sweetie mumbled, a magic marker dangling from her mouth as she spoke. With one bold stroke, she connected Cheerilee's cutie mark around to City Hall, where three other cutie marks represented Mayor Mare, Filly Buster and Fine Print. All public servants, Scootaloo supposed, though their cutie marks were pretty different.

Sweetie Belle hmmed and turned her attention back up to where, in the right corner, she had written in the golden ratio of 1:3:5, the most common arrangement of cutie marks. It was in turn connected to a flying saucer and the words "Bitvarian Illuminati" and then to "Reinaissance Fairs" and then to Princess Celestia. And then to a slice of cake. Curiously, she had also traced a line between the Illuminati and Rainbow Dash.

Scootaloo didn't have high hopes that they would get their 'Conspiracy Theory Cutie Marks' anytime soon...

"Hey, how come ya haven't connected anythin' ta my robots square?" Apple Bloom pointed accusingly as a picture of a pony with a nut and bolt for a cutie mark.

"Robots aren't real," Sweetie Belle informed her as she made a note in the corner: Extra-Equestrial Hybrids and Pod-Pony Shapeshifters.

"I guess I'll be right back." Scootaloo rolled her eyes and jumped down from the clubhouse, her wings doing little to catch the air before she hit ground. Sweetie Belle was a great friend and all, but sometimes she had very... unorthodox approaches to Cutie Mark Crusading. It had always been that way. The two fillies simply had markedly different views on what was and what was not the ideal way to go about earning a cutie mark and, typically, how much physical risk was involved along the way. At least Apple Bloom was having fun with it. Scootaloo could still hear her arguing about the plausibility of a "robot conspiracy" as she reached for her scooter.

It was just a quick ride back to the Apple family house.

Of course, it would've been an even quicker trip if she could fly. Even Rumble could fly. Scootaloo tried not to dwell on that too much; there were some unusual looking clouds overhead. Dozens of circular cloud-rings marked the sky at odd intervals along with a few faint contrails. They were probably markers for cloud construction or placement. Scootaloo scanned the air, looking for one weathermare in particular. She'd heard what sounded like a Rain Boom earlier in the day but after that? Nothing.

Catching a vault off of a slightly upturned rock, Scootaloo hopped off her scooter and landed on her hooves. Up ahead, she could see the barn and the farmhouse where Apple Bloom lived. Scootaloo remembered sleeping over with the other Crusaders there - and being spoiled by Granny Smith - but that had been in the first few weeks after they'd met Apple Bloom. A year ago, give or take.

If she recalled right, the first aid kit was in the downstairs bathroom -

Scootaloo was almost to the door when she paused, just catching what seemed like movement. Turning around, she narrowed her eyes to see if it would repeat itself, like the wind. Nothing. Tempted to just write it off and head inside, Scootaloo followed her gut, and her instincts told her to investigate. Creeping close to the door of the lofty red barn, she found it both open and unlocked. Craning her neck, she checked the fields for Big Macintosh. If there was some pony in the barn, it would probably be him.

"Big Mac?" Scootaloo asked, nudging the barn doors open a little wider. "Hello?"

There was no wind inside the sturdy old barn and no hanging fabric to catch it, except for a large blue tarp tied around a piece of farming equipment. Crusty old hay crunched underhoof as Scootaloo inched deeper into the shadowy storage shed. There were bales of the stuff tied together and stacked up like blocks along the walls. A long line of barrels broke up the monotony, one of them knocked onto its side. Drawn to this singular irregularity, Scootaloo caught a flash of red.

The first aid kit!

On the verge of picking it up, the little pegasus hesitated a second time, but not for no reason. Not far from the first aid kit, she could see splotches of red on the hay. It was easy to see that the normally stamped down straw had also been disturbed by something big. Turning around in a slow circle, purple eyes searched around the seemingly empty barn.

"Is somepony here?" she asked, nearly stepping on one of the bloodstains. "Are you hurt? I don't have a doctor cutie mark but..."

A trickle of dust fell from the rafters above the upper tier of the barn.

Scootaloo gulped as she caught sight of what had to be a small manticore, hidden among the rafters. It had the same scary wings she had read about and glowing red eyes and... and the tail was kind of droopy. And where were the claws? Reining in the urge to bolt for the exit, Scootaloo craned her neck and squinted to get a better look. It wasn't a manticore, it was... a pegasus?

"Looks like I've been spotted," a voice that was very much equine came from above. "What's up, kid?"

"I'm not a kid!" She recalled Shady Deal's preferred nickname for her; best to try and nip the name-calling in the bud. "The name's Scootaloo! Who are you and what are you doing up there? Did you steal our first aid kit? Are you hurt?"

"So you're not-a-kid." The pony in the rafters chuckled. "I'll call you runt then, instead."

"Runt is worse!"

The pegasus stalked among the shadows, making it hard for Scootaloo to get a good look at her. "Yeah, I did take that first aid kit from this little tree house. Sorry, but I think I needed it more than you did." A pause, as the eyes of the rafter mare narrowed. "Oh. I guess you need the band aids, huh?"

Scootaloo covered the scratch on her foreleg with her hoof.

"As for what I'm doing up here?" The strange pegasus continued. "Well, I'm on the run."

"From who?" Scootaloo asked, though she had a guess -

"Everypony, really," the mare remarked with a laugh. With a single swoop, she flipped back and glided around to land within a few hoof-lengths. Up close, she was as big as Scootaloo had imagined, towering over the orange filly.

Scootaloo backed up a step, but didn't let her anxiety show itself as fear.

"Everypony?" she asked. "Are you... a bad pony or something?"

"I don't believe in bad ponies... or good ones. I know ponies you'd probably think were good, and I've seen them do plenty of bad things." She stuck out a large hoof, pointing past Scootaloo and to the still open first aid kit. "You can take that back as soon as I finish with it. I promise."

"You can use it after I'm done with it," Scootaloo replied, not shrinking back.

The strange pegasus snorted a blast of air strong enough to ruffle Scootaloo's mane as she lowered her head to eye level with the filly. Her shoulders tensed... but only before she sat down on all fours, tucking her legs neatly under her. Large wings folded back and along her side.

"Fair enough, runt."

"I'm not a runt! I have a name!" The little filly pointed with her hoof, poking the large mare on the nose. "Scootaloo!"

The gray coated mare just rested her head on her crossed forelegs. She still hadn't given her name yet. Drawing up to her own full, albeit small, height, Scootaloo turned her back to the other pegasus and pulled over the first aid kit with her teeth. Inside were the band-aids she wanted and the first aid ointment. Dabbing a bit of the lotion onto the corner of her left hoof, she gently rubbed it over the scrape on her other front leg. A small hodgepodge of band-aids followed, sticking to her coat as a pair of messy X'es.

"How'd you get that scrape, runt?"

Scootaloo turned to glare at the somewhat frightening pegasus.

"How'd you get that scrape..." the rough mare repeated. "Scootaloo?"

"A tree," she answered, satisfied.

"Oh?"

"Crashing into the stream would've been worse," the filly reasoned with a grin. "At least I'm not wet, too."

There was a brief pause, before: "Can you fly yet?"

"Of course I can fly!" Scootaloo objected, but then noticed the doubtful look on her guest's face. "A little bit."

"You've got runty wings," the big mare said.

Scootaloo's frown said more than she felt the need to.

"Small, swept planform. Low aspect ratio. Only nine primaries. Means you're a finesse type flyer." the rude mare snickered, shamelessly, at her analysis. "A runty finesse type flyer."

"Do you always insult ponies younger than you?"

"Them and everypony else." She motioned with her head to the first aid kit. "You done?"

"Yeah... but before I give it over- " Scootaloo winced as the mare's look turned steely and markedly less playful than before. "Tell me the truth. Why are you hiding here? You said you were on the run. Are you some kind of criminal?"

"Does it matter?" the big mare asked.

"I don't want to get an 'aiding and abetting' cutie mark!" Scootaloo bounced back as the mare reached for the first aid kit. "Tell me what you did first!"

The gray pegasus mare growled, but lowered her outstretched hoof.

"I quit my team," she admitted.

"Why?"

The frown deepened, but she did elaborate. "Being with them was holding me back. Their rules pissed me off." She rudely snorted again, in the sort of way Cheerilee always said mares and fillies shouldn't. "It was only a matter of time before... before it got bad. So I left first. They weren't happy about it, and I don't blame 'em. We settled our disagreements with our hooves and teeth. I blew up their clubhouse when I left."

"Happy now?" the big mare prompted. "How about giving me the needle and thread?"

"...okay," Scootaloo decided, trotting closer with the handle of the kit in her mouth. "But this is Cutie Mark Crusader property. You only get to use it with my supervision."

The strange pegasus growled again, but nodded (rolling her eyes, too, but Scootaloo ignored that). The older pony had much finer control of her wings than Scootaloo did, to the point where she could even pick up a needle with them. She had clearly been using her wings, as best she could, to stitch up a bad cut on her flank where her hooves and mouth couldn't quite reach. After seeing the gist of what needed doing, Scootaloo tried her own hoof at it.

Pricking the needle and thread through the cut skin, she figured it was probably a good thing Sweetie Belle wasn't around. Even if she could get over her squeamishness, needlework was not her forte. Even she shuddered a bit whenever the needle drew the occasional bead of blood as it bit too deep. Scootaloo could only imagine that it had to hurt. The gray pegasus only watched, untroubled by the amateurish stitching.

"So I told you how I got my scrape, right?" Scootaloo swallowed her hesitation and dared to ask, "how'd you get hurt? A fight?"

"I was eaten by an eel."

The needle paused, mid-pierce, in Scootaloo's trembling hoof.

"What?"

"That rainbow bitch led me right into a nest of giant eels," the gray mare explained with a wide, almost ecstatic grin. "It was pretty fun."

"Rainbow... Dash, you mean?" Scootaloo asked, carefully.

The rough mare nodded, watchful but seemingly relaxed. "Yeah. Her. That was a great time."

"And, um - how did the fight end?" the little filly asked, trying to sound cool about the whole thing. "With Rainbow Dash?"

"I almost had her... chasing her down at angels five or six... but then she hit me with a point blank Rain Boom. You know what that is?" The mare let out a long, rumbling breath and Scootaloo shook her head, playing dumb. "A Rain Boom is like... being kicked by a dozen earth ponies all across your body. There's this flash of colors and then you blank out and it's all gone. I knew there was a pony who could do a real old-world Rain Boom, but I always figured she would be..."

She seemed about to say more, but stopped herself.

"Anyway, it was a good time," she said instead.

Scootaloo faced away and tried to finish the stitch on the pony's flank, her mind racing. The Rain Boom earlier - it must have been Dash fighting this pony. From the sound of it, she had either won or gotten away. So she was all right. Hopefully.

And this pony -

Scootaloo wondered what she would do when - or if, she had to also consider - she got free. By the older mare's own admission, she was some sort of fugitive. She didn't deny being a bad pony. She had fought with Rainbow Dash, and Scootaloo couldn't imagine why. Even if she had left her previous team, she sure as hay wasn't one of the local weatherponies. Why fight with Dash? Why fight with anypony?

The smug grins of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon reminded her not to be hypocritical.

"Thank you, Scootaloo." The gray mare stood back up, flexing her back leg. Scootaloo, snapped out of her thoughts, took immediate notice of the other pony's cutie mark. She had seen it before while working, but... were those explosions? What kind of cutie mark was that, and how did a pony get it? For blowing things up?

"You're still a runt, though," she added, nickering. "We don't have the same sort of wings, but... I guess I owe ya something for the help. And for not ratting me out." She turned her eyes down, assuming a rather more threatening expression, despite the smile. Or maybe because of it. "You won't rat me out, will you, Scootaloo?"

The little filly hid her face by closing up the first aid kit.

"Why were you fighting with Rainbow Dash?" she asked.

"What's it matter?"

"Rainbow Dash is... she's like my big sister," Scootaloo lied, and the fabrication was pretty easily exposed by her biting her lower lip. "She's... she..."

"I'm only interested in strong ponies," the gray pegasus stated, lifting her chin high. "She's the strongest pegasus in this town. I want to beat her Rain Boom. I want to surpass it and let all of Equestria know that I did it. You understand?"

Scootaloo shook her head. "Not really."

Rather than be angry or upset, the rough mare chuckled again. "Well, you are still a little runt."

"I'm not a runt!"

"You're a runt until you learn to fly," the mare told her, and with a swoop of her wing she picked Scootaloo off the ground, supporting her weight with a few extended feathers. "How hard are you willing to work to earn your wings?"

"Are you saying you can help me?" Scootaloo asked, rather than answer the question. She narrowed her eyes, not bothering to hide her skepticism.

"I need food, water, and a place to keep out of sight," the other pegasus explained. "Help me and I'll help you. Of course, if you aren't interested..."

Scootaloo checked her flank: no aiding and abetting cutie mark. Not yet, anyway.

"Let me think about it," she replied, and poked the older pony with a hoof. "Hey! What's your name anyway? I already told you who I am, now you need to tell me who you are!"

"Spike! Who left this-"

Twilight Sparkle winced as the absence of her number one assistant hit home, yet again. Owloysius was handy, but aside from flying over with the scroll in her claws she was a long way from giving any context on who sent it or when. Unlike her assistant, she also had little interest in the who-game, not when she had so many other things on her plate.

"Thank you, Owloysius," she said, floating the scroll out of the owl's talons.

"Who."

"You. Thank you."

"Who."

"..." Twilight's eyelids lowered as she caught herself being drawn in. Owloysius flapped, waiting for the inevitable response to play off of. Instead, Twilight gave a look that said, 'You know who.'

Incapable of chuckling, Owloysius flew back to her perch. She always got feisty at night and, knowing the bird well, Twilight magiced open a nearby oriel window. With a happy little hoot, the owl took off for the night. Hopefully, she didn't end up eating any of the town mice Fluttershy knew by name.

"Alright, now: this letter..."

Trotting towards the middle of her library home, Twilight rotated the scroll around to find the wax seal. Without Spike around, Princess Celestia had resorted to sending a few letters via courier. Given this fact of life at the moment, her dutiful student had expected to see the traditional sun-disk and radiant array behind it that was the signet-signature of the Princess of the Sun.

Instead, she took note of the eight-pointed asymmetrical star that was the trademark of her own family: the summer solstice arms pointing north-west and north-east left shorter than the winter solstice arms. The eight-pointed star itself was a symbol common in Canterlot, representing the creative octogram of magic and occult wisdom, going all the way back to Clover and Starswirl. No other family used an asymmetrical star, however. It was very distinctive, especially when paired with the family coat of arms: unicorn, waves, star, and either sun-disk or crescent-moon.

Breaking open the seal, Twilight unfurled the letter from home. Her eyes skipped only a few lines before prompting her to suck in a breath.

"Uncle Wrathenow... dead?"

She remembered seeing him on her birthday, back at Ptarmigan Manor. He was old, and sick, and mother had been right about needing to shout for him to hear her. That hadn't been very long ago; just a week or two before the mess with Rarity and Antimony. Wrathenow had been the head of the Kamacite descended branch of the Terre Rare, senior to the Neptunium branch but still inferior to Bismuth and the main line. If he was dead... then...

Twilight Sparkle,

My daughter, I write to you with grave news. Lord Wrathenow, your esteemed Great Uncle, has passed on. We all did what we could for him, but in the end, the doctors could only ease his passing. Our entire family mourns him, but this sad news is not the only reason I write to you now. It is merely the catalyst.

Before his death, Lord Wrathenow named me as family head in Canterlot, to represent and lead all of Lady Kamacite's descendants. I have already made to occupy Hocksbach Hall and to request the fealty of our relatives here. I expect most will comply without incident, but Lord Cruciger is also demanding a family convention in Prance where he will decide a new head of the Canterlot branch of the family. You must understand this, Twilight: we will not be going to Prance and we will respectfully decline Lord Cruciger's invitation. If you receive an invitation from him, or from any of our extended family outside Canterlot, you are to politely decline. With one exception.

I have discovered things, learned of things, from Lord Wrathenow. I can not speak of them here, but even if it brings us to conflict with Lord Cruciger, I must secure our family and uphold my promise to your Great Uncle. Know this: Lord Wrathenow was visited by Lady Antimony soon after your birthday. After that visit, he was unwilling to speak, even to his nurses or close family. The main branch silenced him, but not before he passed on much of his knowledge to me.

I have been so dreading this final part of the letter. What I ask of you now will be difficult, my daughter. Let me first say that I am so proud of you: I remember when you were just a newborn foal, when you first struggled to stand, when you fell asleep with your face in your books, trying so hard to learn magic. You've grown into such a fine Lady, accomplished so much, made so many wonderful friends, and become a national hero. I love you, Twilight. I do.

But, I must also ask this of you: for the good of our family, you and only you are in a position to bring to us Canterlot's Platinum Crown. With it, and your brother's upcoming marriage, we can secure the loyalty of all our extended family. We will have upheld the honor of our family's founder, Lady Arsenic, where the main branch failed. Without the Crown and the honor it represents, I fear we will soon fall into a period of family dueling that will only result in tragedy.

I pray you consider my words and that you can find common ground with your friend, Lady Rarity. Whatever you decide to do, I will accept your choice. You are my daughter, now and forever. Nothing can ever change that or take you away from me. Two final things. First, you must not let the Princess catch wind of this turmoil. The family must not be seen to lose face. Second, earlier, I mentioned an exception, a pony you can trust who is not from our branch of the family. I can not name him in this letter, but he will send somepony contact you. I have told him to use a name you will recognize.

Be safe and well.

Crescent Moon

Twilight Sparkle slowly rolled up the letter, eyes straying towards the un-stoked fireplace. Family politics was something she had been glad to escape from in becoming the Princess's apprentice. Eyes drawing into a frown, she conjured up enough fire to turn the crisped firewood inside into hot embers. Hesitation and a second thought prevented her from tossing the vellum into the burning pile.

Wrathenow... dead, and her father...

'For the good of our family, you and only you are in a position to bring to us Canterlot's Platinum Crown.'

The wax seal of the Sparkle family cracked as her magic grip on the letter tightened.

Chapter Twenty Two : Deals, Regrets, Decisions

(22)

Deals, Regrets, Decisions

Scootaloo was worried and, willing to admit it only to herself, a little scared.

Hiding in the rushes of a bush, she followed the three patrolling guardponies at a distance, just like she imagined Ritterkreuz would have done. Unlike the behemoth of a mare, Scootaloo was just a little filly. This made the job of keeping out of sight much easier, but it did raise the specter of what could happen if she was found out. Probably, they’d only scold her, but…

“Stop right there, criminal scum!”

One of the guards had been gleefully practicing saying just that on the road to Fluttershy’s cottage, to the point where the other two had been barked at him several times to shut up. They were after somepony, and that somepony had to be Ritter. What would they do if she found out somepony had been helping her? What would her parents do? She’d probably be grounded for, well, forever! And no pony ever learned how to fly by being grounded!

“STOP right there. No. No. Stop right THERE! Criminal scum. No. Too much emphasis on there. What’s so important about stopping there? Is there better than here?” At the rear of the trio, a young pegasus stallion in steel cuirass and helmet tilted his head left to right, deep in thought. “Maybe ‘Stop right there… criminal SCUM!’ Big emphasis on the scum part. Stop, because you’re scum, you criminal. Yeah. That’s good.”

“Would you please just shut up with that?” An older pegasus stallion in identical uniform growled over his shoulder. “You aren’t going to be graded on how well you shout.”

“But, sir!” the younger pony protested. “We need a good shout in case we find the target, don’t we? The perfect shout can demoralize an opponent or even get them to surrender!”

“Say whatever you like,” the mare at the lead of the three said, facing forward as they continued their patrol. “I don’t think words will get the one we’re after to surrender.”

“But she’s hurt, isn’t she?”

“Aye,” the older male confirmed. “But even after the beating those Wonderbolts gave her, she still managed to give the slip to the two we had following her.”

“That’s why I’m here.” The mare at the front was a unicorn, and Scootaloo ducked deep into the foliage as she saw the long scar that marked her face. Just where the cheek of her helmet met the strap, a strange looking burn ran from the edge of her mouth back and beneath the metal, towards the ear. The mare was silvery coated with a mauve mane, and she did not sound very understanding of fillies caught aiding enemies of the state – or enemies of her Free Company.

“We’ll find her and bring her to Sir Germoglio and the Lady Baroness in chains,” she vowed. “Form up and look presentable, now. We’re almost to the next house.”

“The place that belongs to the pet store filly?” the younger pegasus asked, but fell in behind his seniors. “She’s a cute one!”

The older male of the group glared back at him before tightening the strap of his helmet. The blue of his mane slipped out from behind an upturned lip of steel in the back to fall freely around his shoulders, like a sloppy ponytail. The younger pegasus did the same with his forest green mane, the front of the helm dipping enough to make the previously somewhat goofy guardpony look threatening. Both stallions stretched their wings, and their feathers, revealing metal hidden within the plumage.

Scootaloo followed them.

Normally, she would meet back up with Ritterkreuz somewhere along the road to Fluttershy’s place. She’d give the signal, and steal a muffin if Scootaloo brought one for her, and the filly would do the ‘chasing chickens’ thing she soooo enjoyed and totally wasn’t sick and tired of. After a little animal catching acrobatics, and maybe a snack thanks to Fluttershy, they’d meet back up and Ritter would have some other crazy thing for her to do before (or during) school. Scootaloo still wasn’t sure it was all doing much to help her fly, but it had been sort of fun, and it did keep her on her hooves. She even found trailing the three guardponies pretty easy, and hardly noticed how she slipped through the bushes with hardly a scratch.

The three Free Company ponies finally came to Fluttershy’s cottage and knocked on the door.

“Open up!” the unicorn demanded. “In the name of Her Ladyship, the Baroness of Ponyville!”

Scootaloo crouched low, trying to vanish completely into the bushes overhead.

The unicorn knocked again, harder and louder. “Miss Fluttershy! We are guards in service to Lady Rarity! Open the door!”

A moment passed, and the unicorn raised her hoof to beat at the door again, when it opened a crack. Knowing Fluttershy, it was probably Angel Bunny answering the door first. By the reactions of the three guards, Scootaloo knew her guess had been correct. There was a short scuffle and some confusion, and then a mare’s voice could be clearly heard.

“Oh, sorry, um, he didn’t recognize you.” It was Fluttershy, though Scootaloo couldn’t see her. “Is – is there anything I can do to help you?”

“We believe a dangerous pony may be hiding on the premises,” the lead unicorn said, and held up a piece of paper. “Have you seen this mare? She goes by the name Ritterkreuz, or Iron Cross.”

“Oh. Um. No. I mean, yes, but… no…”

“What do you mean: yes, but no?” the unicorn asked, pointedly. “Have you seen her or not?”

“Y-yes, last night. I did.” Fluttershy pointed out the crack in the door in some random direction. “I think she flew off that way. Have a nice day!”

She tried to close the door –

Except for the purplish glow that kept it stuck in place.

“She may still be hiding on the premises,” the unicorn told her, in a tone that didn’t brook argument. “For your protection, we request that you let us search your house and other structures on your property.”

Even Scootaloo recognized when a ‘request’ was just a polite way of saying ‘it’s going to happen, so get used to it.’ Fluttershy stammered and insisted that there was no need, and then, that it was okay ‘if they had to’ but that they shouldn’t disturb any of the animals too much. Once the three were inside, Scootaloo emerged from the bushes and scrambled towards a low stone fence. It went around and to the back. She’d know what to do once she was there.

Fluttershy tried to seem as un-intrusive and cooperative as possible, a state of being that was made a little easier by the company she kept at the moment. Her quiet little house was rather over-occupied at the moment with guests from the previous night. The guards had noticed this the moment they opened the door.

Three unconscious Wonderbolts were sleeping on rolls in the living room, bandaged enough to be mistaken for Nightmare Night mummies. Fleet Foot and Eagle Eye were both still asleep – Fluttershy hoped all the noise didn’t wake them up - but Overcast was already awake, the tough pegasus pony having been restless since they brought him in. Thank the Princesses, none of their wounds were crippling or life threatening, but they wouldn’t be up and flying for some time yet.

“Oh, wow! That’s Spitfire!” one of the pegasus guardponies stamped his hooves in excitement.

“Captain Spitfire, actually…” The peach and flame colored Wonderbolt was, like the others, out of uniform but still famous enough to be recognized in her natural coat. Besides the other bandages around her chest, she had a compress and enough cloth wrapped around her head to warp her normally upright flame of a mane. “What are you three doing here?”

“I’d ask the same of you, Captain.” The unicorn leading the company detachment wasn’t impressed by her celebrity. To her, the Wonderbolts were probably just another Free Company, and thus, more competition.

“As anypony with eyes can see, we are recovering from last night’s battle,” Spitfire replied, motioning towards her injured comrades.

“Really?” The unicorn mare asked, unconvinced. “Here?”

“Miss Fluttershy is actually quite skilled in first aid,” Spitfire explained. “Miss Cheerilee as well, and Lady Chalice has some medical magic.”

“Who?”

Spitfire turned her head, and Cheerilee and Chalice emerged from upstairs. The former looked utterly unafraid of the three guards, despite the unexpected exhaustion of last night and the fact that she had to be running on just five hours of sleep. Really, Fluttershy mostly knew how to treat animals, not ponies. Cheerilee and Chalice had done most of the real work, in her view of it. More timid, the unicorn of their group kept discretely behind Cheerilee. Chalice did look tired and she even rubbed one of her eyes with a hoof.

“I never got your name,” Spitfire observed, “Miss…?”

“I am Ser Gag Order,” The mare replied, emphasizing the feminine version of the knightly ‘Sir.’ “My companions are Sir Dart Thrower and Quiver, a squire in our company.”

“An honor to meet you, ma’am,” Quiver said, even though it earned a glare from his unicorn superior. “I’m a big fan!”

Spitfire rewarded the young stallion with a beaming smile. “I’m always happy to meet a fan, Quiver.”

The poor boy would probably have melted right then and there if Sir Dart Thrower hadn’t nudged him with a bladed wing. The younger male instantly stood up ramrod straight.

“As you must know, we are searching for the Wonderbolt Traitor, Ritterkreuz,” Gag Order said, no longer interested in formality. “Stand aside and let us be about our business.”

“You really think she’s here?” Spitfire asked, but stepped to the left to motion them past her.

“You fought with her last night, didn’t you?” Gag Order asked, and she and the other two began to fan out. “She was injured quite badly, according to one of our scouts. Could be, she hasn’t gone far. Could be, she’s lurking close by, thinking you’d never imagine looking for her right under your noses.”

“Could be, she’s flown off,” Spitfire argued, throwing the mare’s words back at her. “She was the only one who could fly, at the time.”

“All four of you, and you still couldn’t subdue her.” Gag Order scoffed, briefly inspecting the adjoining kitchen, looking for any place large enough for a pony to hide. She and the others were moving quickly through the house, convinced that Ritter wouldn’t be so bold as to try and hide inside.

“The Wonderbolts have truly lost their mettle,” she remarked, smirking at Spitfire’s resulting scowl. “When I was a little filly, Commander Bora killed the Pony-Eater of the Two Temples and single-hoofedly destroyed the Pirates of the Red Eyrie. Now, you cannot even handle one of your own, gone rogue.”

“Your concern for our reputation is duly noted,” she current Wonderbolt Captain replied, her tone frosty.

“I consider it an honor, actually, to be hunting down Commander Bora’s daughter,” Gag Order went on, magically opening the shutters and window curtains. A squirrel jumped out, suddenly, and she brushed it aside with a crackling magical field. “This house is infested with vermin. Are these really the sort of sanitary conditions you injured ponies should be in, right now?”

Fluttershy caught the squirrel in her forelegs. Gag Order had not been as gentle with her magic as Twilight or Rarity would have been, though both tended to startle if animals jumped at them. She cooed to the poor creature and quickly let it back outside. Turning, she saw Gag Order inspecting the ceiling, and began to frown.

“Please…”

“Eh?” Gag Order turned, noticing her again. “Oh, you. What is it?”

“Please be more careful with the animals here,” Fluttershy insisted, and almost said ‘if you can.’ She steeled herself just enough to get out, “They’re my animals and my friends.”

Gag Order’s nose flared, and she snorted, dismissively.

“Anything?” she asked her two subordinates. Dart Thrower and Quiver, both returning from upstairs, both shook their heads.

“You do know Fluttershy here is a personal friend of Rarity, don’t you?” Cheerilee asked, upset by the intrusion and whatever had happened upstairs. “It isn’t very smart to upset ponies, especially when they know your boss on a first name basis.”

“Nothing upstairs,” Dart thrower answered, giving Cheerilee a wide berth.

“We’ll take our business outside, then,” Gag Order decided, shooting a scowl at Spitfire, and then, Cheerilee. The Wonderbolt Captain followed close behind, but Fluttershy lingered by the window, breathing heavily as the guardponies left. Cheerilee trotted over, resting a hoof on her shoulder.

“You okay, Fluttershy?” she asked, worried.

“N-no. Not really,” Fluttershy admitted. “We have to follow them. If – if they find…”

Cheerilee nodded. “Out back, right?” She glanced back at the stairs. Chalice had come down again, and her head was turned towards the back of the house as well. The timid unicorn’s eyes were narrowed, and there was something stormy in them. “Chalice?”

“If they find her,” she said, quietly, but enough for the other two mares to hear. “Then what will we do?”

On the floor, two Wonderbolts remained unconscious and unaware. A third heard, but already knew. Overcast closed his eyes and said nothing, while Cheerilee and Fluttershy exchanged worried looks. They quickly headed out back after the guards and Spitfire.

“She’s one of us,” Overcast spoke up, just as the mares left, leaving only him and Chalice behind. “We have to be the ones to bring her in.” His eyes opened again, and he looked back at the unicorn noblemare. “Your family understands that sort of thinking, don’t they?”

Chalice dipped her head. “More than you know.”

The three guardponies were searching everywhere.

Scootaloo, for all her efforts, couldn’t remain hidden for very long. One moment, she had been secure under the branches of a thick bush, and the next a force pulled at her tail, yanking her up and into the air. It really was not the sort of “flight” she had in mind.

“What’s this?” Gag Order’s magic was vice-like as she floated the filly closer. “I don’t think you’re the pony we’re after.”

“Scootaloo!” Cheerilee exclaimed, running over. “She’s one of my students!”

“Do your students often hide in the bushes and spy on ponies?” Gag Order asked, but released her hold. Scootaloo fell back on her tailbone with an ‘ooph.’ The tactless unicorn then went on with her search of Fluttershy’s many animal enclosures and sheds. This, despite Fluttershy’s meek insistence that they not go into her shed.

“What was in there?” Gag Order demanded, as Quiver emerged from the forbidden hutch.

“Nothing of note,” the squire replied, shaking his head.

“Scootaloo…” Cheerilee checked on the filly, lifting her back up and onto all fours. “What on Equestria are you doing here?”

“I was just,” Scootaloo paused, trying to think up an excuse. “Just, looking… for… things… that would be… at Fluttershy’s place! That’s it!”

Internally, she face-hoofed. That was as bad an excuse as Sweetie Belle would come up with! Cheerilee frowned, sternly, wanting a real answer.

“Maybe I was going to let the chickens loose so I could catch them.” Even then, it wasn’t really the truth, but it was something Cheerilee would buy. In Scootaloo’s experience, nothing made adults more proud of themselves than when they caught somepony doing something bad.

“Why would you even do that?” her teacher asked, upset, but glad it wasn’t something worse. Like, say, trying to rendezvous with a wanted criminal…

“I was trying to learn to fly.”

“Scootaloo. Chickens don’t fly.”

“Yeah. I know.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes.

“Scootaloo,” Fluttershy said, trotting over even as she kept an eye on the guardponies going through her back yard. “I know the truth.”

“You… do?” Scootaloo asked, instantly wary. Which truth? What truth?

“Check the coop!” Gag Order commanded, and the three guards converged on the henhouse. It was the only large, or semi-large, enclosure left. A pony could fit inside without too much difficulty. Scootaloo ignored Fluttershy for the moment and rushed over. She had been around and even in the henhouse enough times to know that Ritterkreuz could be in there. It wouldn’t be spacious, but it was possible.

Chickens clucked angrily and fled as Gag Order opened one of the doors while Dart thrower covered the other exit. The unicorn balked at the feathers and smell but entered anyway. Quiver covered her rear, alert for any potential ambush. Scootaloo held her breath, wincing in expectation of the sound of a scuffle.

A couple seconds later, and Gag Order emerged, annoyed but empty-hoofed.

“Nothing?” Quiver asked, dejected. “I was so looking forward to saying, stop right there, c-”

“Shut up,” Gag Order growled, a burst of magic sealing the stallion squire’s lips closed. She motioned to Sir Dart thrower. “Let’s go. She’s probably in the forest somewhere.”

Scootaloo watched them go, confused, but relieved. Had she been wrong? Maybe Ritter wasn’t here at all? Fluttershy and Cheerilee both saw the three guardponies off, wishing them luck in their search elsewhere. Their words didn’t sound very genuine, and when the two mares came back, they were both visibly relieved.

“Miss Cheerilee? Miss Fluttershy?” Scootaloo asked, not sure what to think anymore. “What’s going on?”

“Just a moment,” Fluttershy answered, spreading her wings to take off. Scootaloo knew she wasn’t much of a flyer – it was town gossip among pegasus ponies even today – but when she put effort into it, Fluttershy had no problem leaving the ground. Unlike some little fillies. Her wide, butter yellow wings flapped just two times before she was airborne. Gracefully, Fluttershy landed on top of her roof, raised a hoof to shield her eyes against the sun as she looked out, and then flew back down.

Scootaloo didn’t like to admit it, but she was a little jealous of ‘Ponyville’s worst flyer.’ It was better to be a timid flyer than none at all. In fact, Fluttershy had very nice wings.

“They gone?” Cheerilee asked, guessing what the kindly pegasus had been checking into.

Fluttershy nodded. “Everypony always checks the shed.”

“What do you mean?” Scootaloo stomped a hoof, sensing she was being left out of the conversation. “Hey! What the heck is going on? Do you two know about… about…?”

“About Ritterkreuz?” Fluttershy asked, and nodded slowly. “I take it she was the one letting the chickens out every morning?” She sighed, as if expecting the news.

Without another word, Fluttershy led them back to the chicken coop, mindfully closing the fence behind them. Then she took them inside. It was just like Scootaloo remembered. The coop was a rather simple wooden enclosure with perches for the birds and nests along the walls. The floor was covered in straw and freckled with droppings. Needless to say, it didn’t smell all that pleasant inside, not that the chickens minded or even noticed.

Cheerilee looked up and made a sad murmur. “I was sort of expecting her to be hanging from the ceiling, like a ninja or something. Like Daring Do did that one time. Are you sure she’s still in here? Maybe she left this morning.”

Fluttershy didn’t reply.

Instead, she wiped her hoof against the thick mat of straw and bird droppings. Scraping, she began to part the fodder, revealing wood and stone beneath. After just a moment, Fluttershy found a leather strap, and pulled at it, sliding back a large section of the floor, like pulling away a mat or rug. Scootaloo amended her earlier thought. That was a lot of stone. From beneath the drawn away bedding, the filly and her teacher could see an iron handle set into a heavy cellar door.

“Everypony always checks the shed?” Cheerilee joked, laughing. “Fluttershy, you magnificent b-” the schoolteacher mindfully bit back what she was about to say. Probably Ritter’s favorite b-word, Scootaloo guessed.

“You magnificent pony,” Cheerilee settled on. “A trap door! What’s down there?”

“Oh. Um. Nothing big,” Fluttershy replied, blushing at the praise. She reached for the handle. “Just my root cellar.”

Scootaloo knew a root cellar was a place where ponies kept vegetables. Apple Bloom’s family had a few of them, built into the side of a hill back at their farm. A root cellar kept veggies from freezing in cold months and from going rotten in summer and spring. Fluttershy did have a garden of her own, and she must’ve needed a place to store food for all her animal friends. She didn’t keep tons of food in her own kitchen or pantry after all. It made sense she would have a cellar somewhere.

The trap door opened, revealing a staircase down.

Scootaloo followed just behind Fluttershy and Cheerilee. It was dark in the cellar at first, but then Fluttershy pulled down a lever on the wall. It clicked, and lights flickered on, making it much easier to see. The walls leading down were cut stone placed meticulously close together, and the steps were wide and broad so it was easy to move up and down while carrying things like boxes or barrels. A winch and rope ran down the side of the stairs, too.

They had gone maybe twenty hoof-lengths down into the earth when the stairs ended. There, Scootaloo could see the cellar itself. She had been expecting something large, and it didn’t disappoint. Rectangular and open, except for a few square support pillars, the walls were lined with shelves of stacked preserves, barrels and crates. Most of the labels indicated they were the usual stock of vegetables: turnips, carrots, potatoes, squash, melons, cabbage, apples, beets, onions and even pumpkins, but there were other things, too. There were salted fish, for some of Fluttershy’s more picky eaters – like that bear she hung out with – and even barrels of fresh water and alcohol.

Then there was the part of one wall with no foodstuff. That wall sported a rack with assorted nets, a few spears of various designs including one with a strange collar-like circle at the end, and a desk with some newspaper clippings hanging from a corkboard. Cheerilee whistled, appreciative of the sight, but Scootaloo ran over to the desk, instantly curious about its contents. Besides, everything else was just gross old vegetables.

Jumping up onto the desk, Scootaloo got a look at the newspaper clippings.

One old black and white picture was of a pegasus stallion posing with a massive, white bird. He stood off to the side of it, holding the beak open with one hoof. Scootaloo could see inside the bird’s cavernous maw; it looked big enough to swallow a small pony in one bite. A caption above the picture told the tale.

“Sir Bora Brings Down Pony Eating Roc,” Scootaloo read it aloud.

Another picture showed the same stallion with another giant bird, but this time he was surrounded by several huge buffalo who helped to hold up the dead monster. One big one, looking like a chief with his feathered head-dress, shared a smoking pipe with the pegasus, now sporting a bristly moustache and twill safari hat.

“Monster Hunter Saves Buffalo Tribe. Slays Thunderbird.”

Looking to another newspaper, Scootaloo recognized the monster in that one. It was a huge hydra.

“Giant Hydra Relocated to… Everfree Forest?”

Scootaloo shook her head. It couldn’t be the same one, could it? She leaned in close, and sure enough, there was the same pony, with the moustache and hat, surrounded by a few others in familiar blue uniforms.

“Hey, kid?”

“I’m not a kid!” Scootaloo turned around at the voice, and smiled at the sight of her stupid, careless criminal of a flight instructor. Ritterkreuz was leaning against a pillar, looking like she’d gotten in a fight with a landslide. Brown-stained bandages covered parts of her head, chest and legs. The filly smiled, but tried not to let the big, dumb mare know it.

“So you were down here,” she said, trying to sound disinterested.

“Yeah. Haven’t hidden in a basement in a while,” Ritter explained, and Fluttershy and Cheerilee walked up to the filly to pick her off the desk. “It’s better than fighting with a bear over a cave, though.”

“You leave poor Harry alone,” Fluttershy admonished the big gray mare. “He’s worked very hard on his den, and I don’t want you messing it up.”

For a long, long moment, Scootaloo could only stare at the two ponies. Next to her, Cheerilee was also looking amused at the sight before them. Fluttershy, with her smooth pink mane and soft yellow coat, and Ritterkreuz with jagged lime green mane and gray coat, wrapped in dirty bandages, one more than a head taller than the other.

“You said, your father…?” Scootaloo began to voice the insane thought that had taken root in her mind.

Fluttershy and Ritterkreuz glanced at one another.

“Our father,” the two mares said at the same time.

The little filly’s jaw went slack. She couldn’t imagine two more different ponies. “You’re SISTERS?!”

Fluttershy looked down at her hooves, shaking her head. “Oh, um, no, not - not really.”

Ritter snorted. “Same cock, different hens.”

“Hey!” Cheerilee objected, pointing over at her student. “Language!”

“What’s wrong with saying cock?” Scootaloo asked, staring up at her teacher for a second. “A cock is a rooster, right? So they have the same dad but different moms?”

“She – she!” Cheerilee stammered, “W-what she meant was – I mean, she – she was talking about – about…!”

Ritter snickered. “What was I talking about, teach? What time do they start sex ed these days?”

Cheerilee glared at the big mare. “Cocks and hens. Of all the analogies.”

“We’re under a henhouse, so it seemed appropriate,” Ritter explained, and pointed across her chest and over to Fluttershy. “She’s Posey’s brat. Bora was her sire. Old Posey’s even in some of those articles and pictures over there.”

“Please be careful with them,” Fluttershy asked, trotting over to make sure the newspapers and other memorabilia hadn’t been damaged. “Many of these are my mother’s. She’d be very upset if something happened to them.”

“Even I didn’t know you had a half-sister,” Spitfire said, walking in from behind the group. Ritter smirked at the fiery pegasus, an expression Spitfire returned in the form of a scowl. “But then, famous stallions don’t often advertise who they sire.”

“I take it the local mercenaries have headed off to chase geese in the forest?” Ritter guessed, accurately, and her smile became vicious, teeth bared in challenge. “You wanna finish our fight, Sparky?”

“The thought does appeal to me,” Spitfire admitted, slowly spreading her wings.

“It’ll be hard avoiding your fire in here,” Ritter replied, starting to laugh. “But a couple more burns won’t hurt me any!”

Fluttershy poked the big mare in the side, and a painful shiver ran up and down her body, from the tips of her hooves down to her tail and back again. Scootaloo could almost see the hairs of her coat stand on end. For a second her hooves left the floor as she kept from howling in pain.

“Ow.” Ritter turned her head to the shy animal lover. “That really, really hurt, you know.”

“No fighting,” Fluttershy commanded, and both former Wonderbolts drooped a little, admonished. Fluttershy’s turquoise stare froze them both in place. “You really should learn to get along.”

“But she-” Spitfire tried to object.

“No buts,” Fluttershy cut her off. “Ritterkreuz helped you and your friends last night, even though she was wounded and exhausted. She flew back and brought them here, one by one, and the moment she did, she collapsed.”

“Ha.”

“And you!” Fluttershy whirled on the battle crazy mare. “As long as you’re staying here, you’ll behave yourself, and that means no picking fights. Not with the animals and not with other ponies. I’m taking a very big risk to myself and my friends helping you.”

“You could always just kick me out,” Ritter grumbled, shying away from the smaller pony.

“I’ll admit I wasn’t happy to see you show up,” Fluttershy told her, and Ritter’s eyes drew down into a scowl. “But since you’re here, you may as well stay a while until you heal up.” She touched a hoof to the wounded mare, but it was a gentle touch. “We are family, of sorts, and we protect each other.”

“Miss Spitfire will leave you alone if you’re here, won’t you?” Fluttershy asked the Wonderbolts Captain. The titian mare frowned, but seemed resigned to some sort of compromise.

“Even if we don’t come after you here,” she growled, “it doesn’t matter. This isn’t over. We will take you down, sooner or later.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Ritterkreuz replied, glad to have a target to direct her ire at again. “Though if you think that Rainbow Bitch can pull it off where you failed…?” She laughed, a single barking, mocking chuckle. “Heh! You just watch. I’m going to destroy her Sonic Rain Boom. That’s a promise. Even if it kills me, that’s a promise.”

Spitfire’s jaw clenched, but she held herself back.

“You came back for Fleetfoot, Overcast and Eagle Eye. You pulled me out of the smoke.” She needed to know. “Why?”

Ritter scoffed at the very question. Scootaloo had to admit she was a little curious herself. Surprisingly, it was Fluttershy who provided the answer.

“Mercy and compassion,” she told Spitfire. “Only a strong pony can be merciful. That’s probably what she’s thinking.”

Spitfire narrowed her eyes at the two mares, but after a moment searching for the lie in Fluttershy’s words, she sighed, relenting. “You’re both nuts. Everypony in this town is nuts!” She stamped a hoof down onto the hard stone floor. “And I guess I’m nuts, too. Fine! The Wonderbolts will honor this place as neutral ground.”

Spitfire turned her glare on Fluttershy.

“I just hope this is a deal we both don’t end up regretting.”

Twilight Sparkle hadn’t eaten much since her conversation with her brother. Shining Armor had painted a flattering picture of his foalhood friend: Lord Alpha Brass had been his senior in birth if not in age but had treated the Canterlot Rare kindly, generously and fairly. More importantly to the selfless Shining Armor, Alpha Brass had been a friend and confidant to Cadance when Blueblood had returned from Crown Roc to find his mother dead and an adopted sister expecting to touch base. The Prince had not been accommodating or kind towards Cadance, a fact Shining Armor still held against him years later.

“It would be strange, but not in a bad way.”

That was how he had described his little sister marrying his friend and family ally: strange, but not in a bad way. He didn’t object, like Twilight imagined he would to most stallions she could have been with (she could only imagine how he would have blown his top if she had gone through with her original plans with Blueblood). To Shining, Alpha Brass wasn’t below her station, he brought the family as a whole wealth and prestige; he was in Shining’s view honorable and a friend to the family. The biggest objection had been over the timing.

“It is expected to at least grieve for a year before remarrying,” he had said. “Moving too quickly gives the impression of not properly honoring one’s vows.”

Twilight still wasn’t convinced, but then, she suspected she wouldn’t be until she heard back from her parents, her would-be suitor, and maybe most importantly: Princess Celestia. This was more than just a friendship report. This was accepting a pony she only knew in a vague way into her life. This was the future of her line’s material investment in her, if her family name – an important thing among unicorns – and it was the future of her experience in what ponies called love.

Twilight Sparkle already loved her friends, she loved her family and she loved Spike, and maybe, in a shockingly short time, she could love a husband. Maybe, it was more her struggling with that concept rather than her reservations over Alpha Brass that continued to niggle at her sense of doubt. Maybe, she had reservations about accepting a pony into her life in a way that would inevitably conflict with the life she had.

How could she continue to live in Ponyville, if she married Alpha Brass? Rarity was fortunate, in that Blueblood was already Duke of Canterlot and all the surrounding lands. It might have been inconvenient for him to build a new home outside Ponyville, but he had done it all the same to be with her. Rarity didn’t have to be away from her home or her friends. Twilight didn’t expect Alpha Brass to do the same. He was Marquis of the Colonies and the Frontier, and she would be Marquesa. She doubted Equestria’s borders could be ruled from a castle or tower in Ponyville.

It had been a leap just for Twilight to find true friends. That had only been a year and a few months ago. Before moving, she wouldn’t have considered a marriage to be anything more than a financial and political arrangement, but now, she expected there to be at least as much affection between wife and husband as there was between her close friends. If and when there was, would it compliment her relationships or strain them? It wasn’t just Alpha Brass himself – it was how to keep her life intact after such a momentous occasion.

Those thoughts at the forefront of her mind, Twilight approached the Apple Farm.

She needed advice. Without Spike’s dragonfire, and without Spike’s unfiltered, candid wit, it could be days before she heard back from the Princess, her parents or her suitor. Rather than wait around the library and let her worries and concerns consume her, she decided to ply her friends for their own thoughts and advice. She couldn’t be the only one of them to have thoughts like this, jumbled and difficult to order as they were.

The Apple Farm was still in cider season overdrive, fighting tooth and hoof with the Flim and Flam brothers in town. Entering their property, Twilight waved at Caramel as he began lugging a cart stocked with cider barrels into town. The shy stallion blushed and waved back, very nearly tripping on his own hooves. Saving what would have been a small disaster for the Apple Family despite his oft-lamented clumsiness, he squared his shoulders and continued down the road. Elsewhere, farmhands were helping with the two cider presses while Granny Smith ran quality control all by herself. Twilight recognized Big Mac on one of the press-powering belts, but not the other stallion. In fact, two of the stallions there were unknowns to her.

The one really missing was Applejack, and on seeing Twilight, Granny motioned her back towards the house. If Applejack was indoors, then Twilight wasn’t about to complain. It would make talking to her about things a little easier if there were fewer physical distractions.

Her earth pony friend wasn’t hard to find, but when Twilight did see her…

She couldn’t help but snigger at the sight of Applejack, hunched over a table, staring forlornly at a stack of papers and books. Band aids covered her like spots, more numerous than freckles, along with a wrap of white bandage around the barrel of her chest. Twilight recognized a slipper-sized hoof-cast correcting what had to be a split hoof: a painful injury when ponies had to walk on all fours. It wouldn’t be life threatening in the least, but like a sprained ankle it would be keeping the hardy apple farmer away from any strenuous activity for a while.

“Heya, Twilight!” Applejack greeted her, proudly patting the worn Stetson on her head. “How do Ah look?”

“You look happier than I’d be with all those cuts and bruises,” Twilight replied, but laughed when Applejack broke into chuckles herself. “You look much better with it back.”

“It was a close thing, though,” the farmer said with a rueful shake of her head. “Ah tell ya, Twilight, ah still can’t believe some’ah what I did. I’m just counting myself as pretty darn lucky.”

“So this pony you fought, he had the hat with him?”

“Funny you should ask that.” Applejack self-consciously ran her good right hoof against the rim of the Stetson. “He didn’t have it on him, but later, when the party came around and all the folks showed up to watch the fireworks and stuff, he and that Euporie gal had it with ‘em. Ah guess they must’ve found a way to get it from, well, wherever it was at.”

Twilight filed that bit of information away for later. Meeting Euporie was on her list. “I’m surprised you aren’t still relaxing in bed.”

“Now, don’t you go tryin’ ta pamper me like Big Mac and Granny,” Applejack protested, turning her eyes back to the papers on the old wooden desk. “Ah may not be able to work on the presses or with the barrels or even buckin’ trees, but ah can still make mahself useful goin’ over the books.”

“I thought Big Mac handled accounting?”

“Ah can’t let him do all the work. Besides, maybe there’s somethin’ here that’ll help. At least, maybe it’ll get mah mind off… this.” She waved her wounded hoof up in the air. It was also pretty obvious she wanted to get her mind off of other things, too.

“Is it still looking bad?” Twilight asked, edging closer to see for herself. Big Mac had very neat hoofwriting, but he used a lot of shorthand. He was a lot like Spike and herself in that respect, though he didn’t adhere to the traditional pictogram scheme that unicorns were taught.

“Actually, that’s somethin’ funny, too,” Applejack admitted, scratching her head. “Ah work up this mornin’ expectin’ the worst, but ah guess Mac did some tricks with the numbers last night. He’d got us in the black come the end of the season. Thing is, ah can’t rightly figure out how he’s doin’ it.”

“Does it matter?” Twilight asked. “That sounds like just what you needed.”

“It is, but ah still want to know how he’s doing it. Or, heck, how we’re doing it. Why don’t you have a look?” she asked, scooting over to make room. “You’ve got a good eye for this kinda stuff. You can also tell me what brought ya over.”

“I’d be happy to take a look, though I’m no accountant.” Twilight sat down next to her friend and started looking over the accounting ledger in a more systematic fashion. It was a very large ring binder full of stamped papers rather than a notebook, and thick as a magical tome. It probably went back more than fifty years, but the important and relevant stuff was up top in the last couple pages.

“Thanks a bunch, Twi.”

Identifying some of Mac’s symbols for various expenses took a little time.

“Applejack,” Twilight said while working. “I actually came over to ask you something.”

“Fire away, sugarcube!” The farmer was sitting very close, and Twilight shifted a bit, growing uncomfortable with the topic she meant to broach.

“Well…” Twilight hesitated, licking her lips and taking a deep breath. She had thought it would be hard to bring this up with one of her friends the first time. “Applejack, have you ever thought about settling down?”

“Ah am pretty settled down already, in case ya didn’t notice.”

“I meant… marriage.”

“Oh.” Applejack’s mouth froze in an ‘o’ for a little while before turning into a widening grin. “Twilight Sparkle, do you have your eyes on some lucky pony? It isn’t Caramel, is it?”

“No!” Twilight objected, not that she disliked the poor guy.

“Big Macintosh?”

“No!”

“Princess Luna?”

“NO!”

“Trixie?”

“Double NO!” Twilight slammed her hooves down on the desk, blush tinting her cheeks and nose red. Applejack, meanwhile was laughing heartily.

“Aw, ah’m sorry, sugarcube.” She wiped away a tear. “Ah just couldn’t resist!”

“Trixie.” Twilight scoffed. “Why her, of all ponies?”

“You two did have some chemistry and that beautiful magical rivalry, didn’t ya?”

“We definitely had nothing of the sort, ever.” Twilight used her hooves to forcible push the flush from her face. “If we can be serious for a moment?”

“Yeah,” Applejack relented. “Sorry again. But you really are fixin’ on some pony? Is he cute?” The farmer then added, more slyly, “Is she cute?”

“You’re really enjoying this,” Twilight observed, deadpan before returning to normal. “It’s a stallion…”

“Figures, but then, ya’ll are a noble, and ya did say ‘marry,’ so ah guess it’d haveta be.”

Applejack rested her cheek against one of her hooves, elbow propped up on the desk. She made a point. A titled pony married to pass on her title and her property to a legitimate heir. Equestria had more mares than stallions, but mares didn’t often marry one another formally. It didn’t bring much to the family in terms of material gain. Most mares, in relationships with other mares, kept the arrangement informal and therefor flexible. The exception was again nobles, who having more to lose – even second or third daughters – would generally turn even mare-to-mare relationships into political alliances, usually involving a shared sire for their foals.

“This some kinda arranged marriage?” Applejack guessed, serious again.

Twilight put her attention back on the accounting books, but nodded in the affirmative. “I’m the one arranging it, but yes, it is.”

“Who is it?”

“You wouldn’t recognize the name, but… Alpha Brass.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Applejack conceded and sighed. “Ta answer yer question before ah got a little carried away, yeah, I’ve thought about it. Ah’ve met a lot of great ponies at rodeos and farmer meet ups. Typical, a lotta the best ones are taken.”

“What kind of pony do you look for?” Twilight asked, not mentioning that Alpha Brass was also ‘taken’ in a fashion.

“Well,” Applejack began with a fond smile. “Ah don’t have too much of a preference for stallions or mares. What matters ta me is that the pony I’d want to be with is strong and hard-workin’ an’ interested in the sorta’ stuff I am. Somepony who ain’t afraid ta work all day… and still have energy once the sun sets, if ya get mah drift.”

Twilight blushed again and coughed. “I think so.”

“That same pony should be courteous and good with a family, an’ loyal to his family, or hers, but kinda funny and fun lovin’ too,” Applejack continued, happy to narrate her ideal mate. “An’ honest, of course. We’d never have any secrets and there’d be nothing we’d be afraid ta’ talk about, no matter what.”

“Alpha Brass is supposed to be very handsome,” Twilight shyly shared, and this one aspect of him she didn’t have to rely on knowledge first hand. “He is handsome. But… his family is… different.”

She remembered Antimony, stern and commanding and uncompromising. Even with her eyes at half mast, there was a threatening, mesmerizing power to the way she carried herself. Twilight didn’t relish having to fight her, if it came to that, and even if she thought she could win. Antimony wouldn’t make it easy, and she wouldn’t underestimate her the way she had Rarity. Twilight couldn’t remember meeting Polished Jewel before, or Chalice, but she had met Cruciger as a younger pony. She had seen him again at the duel, in the form of a magical projection. He had always been scary: big and unflinching and the color and coldness of black granite.

“I don’t really know how loyal he is to his family. The situation is so complicated,” Twilight admitted, hanging her head. “I’m doing this to help my family, and I think he wants to help both our families, but parts of his family would disagree. What does being loyal even mean in a situation like that?”

“A pony’s family tells the story of who they really are,” Applejack replied, resting her injured hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “And ah know you wouldn't be… how’d you put it? Arranging yer own marriage? If it wasn’t rightly important.”

Twilight gently touched a hoof to Applejack’s, glad for the gesture of solidarity. “It is.”

Drawing back her hoof, however, she moved it over to the accounting book.

“What’s that mean?” she asked, pointing to one of the pictographs. It appeared over and over.

“Ah think that’s a loan,” Applejack said, leaning in for a good look. “It is. Yep.”

“But look back here,” Twilight said, flipping back a couple pages to a similar pictogram of a book with a bit-symbol on the front. It was the same, except for a line underneath it. “There’s no line.”

“So… he just did somethin’ different lately?”

“Possibly, but…” Twilight turned the pages back to the most recent date. “Big Mac’s notation was very meticulous before this. And… here! This one was the old symbol, but it got crossed out and replaced by the new one. Why do that if they mean the same thing? It can’t just be a change of style, too, because at the top of this page, one of the old loans is written in the old way. It had to mean something different.”

“Well, ah’ll be.” Applejack leaned back, and tilted her hat back on her head. “Ah didn’t even notice!”

“Is that’s a loan, then… ah HA! Eureka!” Twilight pumped a hoof at having uncovered the puzzle. She pointed down a line of numbers at the right side of the page. “Interest rates! They’re the same, but deferred! It looks like you aren’t paying any interest for the next six months. That’s what’s changed!”

“But… but how’d Mac manage that?” Applejack gave the ledger a hard, long look. “Did he renegotiate the loans or somethin’?”

“These remind me of subsidized loans, like for students in the Academy.” Twilight Sparkle quickly moved on from her uncovering the secret in the numbers and now started brainstorming on the means behind the methodology.

“What do ya mean?”

“Basically, the Canterlot government covers the cost of the loan taken out by a student, so they don’t pay any interest until they begin repaying it after graduation…”

“The Canterlot government… covers the cost?” Something clicked then for Applejack, and her confused expression gave way to sudden comprehension and then a deepening frown. “Oh, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t!!”

“Who wouldn’t?” Twilight still hadn’t worked it out. “Applejack? Who…?”

“Rarity,” Applejack roughly pushed away from the desk, nearly spilling over the stacks of papers. Even injured, even with her hurt hoof, she made for the door outside and all but kicked it open.

“BIG MACINTOSH!” she yelled, turning her head to the left and right, like a searchlight. “You get over here right now! Don’t you try and slip away! I see you! You get over here right now and explain what in tarnation you’ve done!”

“Applejack?” Twilight asked again. “What’s wrong?”

“Twilight…” The earth pony’s blonde mane all but bristled with anger. “When you asked before, what a pony should look for in a mate…? It’s honesty. There’s nothin’ more important ta a relationship than honesty. An’ right now, there’s a certain something mah sweet brother and my old friend are tryin’ ta keep from me.”

“Somethin’ I’d wager they also want to keep from every other hard workin’ pony in Ponyville who ain’t gettin’ special treatment thanks ta some back room deal,” she snapped, before Twilight could say a word. “And Celestia help her if anypony else gets wind ah this. Every farmin’ family in the county will be after her for the same.”

“He. He. He! Oh. I think I just had a nice little chill run down my spine!” Euporie licked her lips in a way that had very little to do with food, a wistful sigh following soon after. “I do love getting chills, don’t you, Pinkie?”

“I sure do! Though usually I get twitches and itches and funny little tremors…!” Pinkie joyfully bounced up and down as she mixed in another scoop of flour. “Chills are usually bad stuff.”

“That’s why I like ‘em.”

Euporie and Pinkie were in the Cake’s kitchen, though only the latter was doing any actual work. The eccentric noblemare had come by to check on the progress of her “Pretty Pony List,” but while Pinkie prided herself on knowing everypony in Ponyville, she hadn’t had the time to actually a make any lists of them. Usually, her invitations went out to most anypony she could reach or sometimes just her super-duper close friends for very special occasions. It was all mostly based on whatever entered her mind at any given moment in time. Lists and stuff that made sense was really more Twilight’s thing.

“Anyway,” Euporie continued, finding her way back to the earlier topic of discussion. “You’ve given me a lot of fillies for the list, but not a lot of colts.” The blue-maned unicorn frowned at the half curled roll of parchment that floated like an ensorcelled snake around her shoulders. “The gender imbalance in this town totally blows.”

“Hoofington has it worse,” Pinkie assured her, hunched over a pot and mixing frantically. Splatters of goo flew in every direction. “Right after I finish up, I’ll double check who we’ve got down already. I bet there’s plenty of great colts we don’t have yet!”

“That reminds me, I checked one of the names you gave me, one of the mares, and she was very much not a pretty pony.” Euporie floated the list over so Pinkie could see it. ‘Matilda’ was crossed out, rather vigorously. “This one was a hideous, crusty old donkey.”

“Matilda’s supposed to be very pretty!” Pinkie objected, pushing the list away with a hoof.

“In whose opinion? A blind, horny wrinkle-monster?”

“Pretty… by donkey standards...”

“Donkeys have no standards. They have no taste,” Euporie cut her off. “They’re barely even equine. No donkeys, no Jacks, no Jennies, thank the Princesses I didn’t see any mules in town, but none of those either. Basically: no disgusting creatures unless the point of the party is shock value. Okay?”

“I don’t see what’s so bad about donkeys,” Pinkie argued, but ears dropping, she didn’t belabor the point. Partly, it was because she had her hooves full working, too. “Rarity doesn’t like them that much either. Is this some sort of unicorn thing?”

“It’s a civilized pony thing,” Euporie informed her with a chuckle. “Trust me; you won’t want any of your donkey friends at this party.”

“If you say so. Though I still don’t know what’s so different about this party…” Pinkie gasped, spinning around. “I know! You’re putting in a mosh pit!” Donkeys probably wouldn’t enjoy a mosh pit, since they were smaller than most ponies. “Oh! Or a limbo bar! Is this a limbo party?!”

She tried to imagine Matilda inching under the bar – the daydream ended abruptly with a loud, painful CRACK as her back gave way.

“I hadn’t planned to put one in… until now!” Euporie giggled, kicking her back legs as she reclined on a two bags of flour. “Oh, this’ll be fun!” But, just as quickly, she frowned and glared at Pinkie. “But what isn’t fun is waiting for you to finish all this lame baking.”

“It’s fun, too!” Pinkie told her, holding up batter-drenched pink hooves. “You should give it a try! Just imagine how happy everypony will be eating these super soft, monster sized cookies!”

“Hey, I like sweets as much as any other pony, but you’re going about this the wrong way. Here! I’ll show you!”

Euporie’s magic kept the snake-like scroll resting sleepily across her shoulders, even as her horn levitated a hoof-full of burned scraps out of the trash bin. Still giggling mischievously, she bounded out the kitchen window like a cat. Curious, Pinkie trotted up to the window to watch.

Outside, ponies were trotting by Sugarcube Corner’s small flower garden. The Cakes kept a water trough by the side of the store, just like some other places kept public fountains. Euporie took a few seconds to look around before picking a target - predictably, given her words not more than a minute ago, she motioned over one of the town’s few donkeys: a long legged young jack who worked as a farm hand half the year. Pinkie knew his name, too. Lanky. It was an odd name for a pony, but donkeys used their own sort of funny names. Euporie smiled and floated over the burned crusts she had magiced out of the garbage.

Pinkie wasn’t sure what to expect: most ponies didn’t want to eat baked bads. Not if they could help it. She had learned that the hard way. She had expected Lanky to make a screwed up face and shy away from the crushed together ball of black crusts, except he leaned in, smelled it, and nodded excitedly. Like it smelled like flowers and cupcakes!

“What the…?” Pinkie could only watch, in morbid curiosity, as Lanky haggled with Euporie over the ball of crusts. Despite saying that she didn’t like donkeys, Euporie had no problem drawing things out with this one, chatting to him and even batting her eyes flirtatiously. Pinkie wasn’t the only confused pony to see the transaction. A few other ponies also stopped to watch.

Euporie lead Lanky back to the window outside Sugarcube Corner.

“See, Pinkie?” she asked, snickering. “You don’t need to work all day in the kitchen to make sweet treats. Mister Lanky, take a bite and tell my friend here how good my cooking is.”

“You betcha!” Finally taking the crust-ball in his hoof, the poor donkey bit in –

And smiled, licking his chops like it was the best thing he’d ever eaten!

“It’s so-oo good! And really moist and soft, too!” Lanky complimented, and Euporie’s smile grew, revealing pearly white teeth. “I really love pumpkin flavor, but we’re still a month from harvest time! Where’d you get this?”

“Artificial flavoring,” Euporie told him, winking at a gob smacked Pinkie Pie.

“You actually like it?” Pinkie all but cried out. She hung, her hooves on the bottom frame of the window, one eye narrowed and the other wide. “But – but, how….?”

“Like I said, never underestimate the power of artificial flavoring.” Euporie chuckled, a quiet ‘He. He. He!’ sound.

“I don’t much care if it is artificial!” Lanky quickly finished off the crust-ball, seemingly either unaware or unconcerned that it had come from the bakery’s garbage can. “That was de-licious! Here ya go, Miss!”

He tossed Euporie four bits for the trash he had just eaten and skipped off, happy as you please.

“How…?” Pinkie repeated. “I don’t understand.”

Lanky was gone for all of a few seconds before Euporie’s smile turned into a sneer, and she tossed the four bits into the street. The noblemare didn’t bother to explain why she threw the bits away. They may as well have been trash themselves. It wasn’t long before less picky ponies noticed the free money and scooped it up.

“See how easy it is to make a pony happy?” Euporie asked, leaning calmly up against the side of the candy store. “Well, not a pony, in this case, but close enough. You don’t need to go through all this trouble, Pinkie Pie. If all you want is to make ponies smile, I can sell the gunk off the floor and ponies will eat it up like ambrosia.”

Pinkie blinked a few times as she stared at the grinning unicorn mare.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she finally decided. “That was a mean prank.”

“I… I don’t know,” Pinkie admitted, as she tried to put her distaste into words. She was hardly the pony to complain about pranks, after all… and Lanky hadn’t even known he had been made fun of at all. He had left smiling. He had left happy. Euporie had pulled a prank on him and he hadn’t even known it. In fact, Pinkie suspected he would even come back for more.

Was that it?

Was she uncomfortable with what she had seen because only she and Euporie really knew the truth? Was it the fact that Lanky had experienced one thing, and she another. Or… or was it just a twinge of jealousy, that ponies could prank other ponies and have a laugh without their victim getting hurt or even knowing about it? Was she a little jealous that Euporie could do something like that and she couldn’t, or wouldn’t?

‘Everypony wins, right? Where’s the harm?’

(I still don’t like it)

“How did you do it?” Pinkie asked, staring hard at her new friend.

“Didn’t I explain it already?” Euporie asked, rolling her eyes. “If you’re worried about him, don’t be. Taste? Smell? The delectable, sinful squish of a fresh cookie yielding to that first wonderful bite? He experienced it all, just like he wanted. I wanted him to taste and smell something good, and so he did. That’s all there is to it.”

“You can… make bad things taste good?” Pinkie asked, though Euporie had already said as much. It just didn’t seem, well, fair. Could magic really make something taste different?

“He. He. He!” the unicorn mare continued to laugh, more loudly than just her earlier giggle. “My special talent is like yours, Pinkie Pie. We both make ponies feel good. Or would you rather Lanky there left with a frown instead of a smile?”

“No!” A frown was always a bad thing. “I just… I don’t know what to think.”

“Thinking deeply is overrated anyway,” Euporie argued, shrugging. “Go with what feels good. Now, about that list?”

“Oh. Oh! Just as soon as I finish!” Pinkie promised again, but still looking out the window, she soon saw a familiar face. “Oh, hey! It’s Twilight!”

“Ohhhh?” Euporie’s own expression was similar, but more amused than joyful. Her sandy amber eyes drifted over to the crowd and the approaching librarian. “So it is. I think I know why she’s here, too.”

“You do?”

“Mm-hmm!” She pushed off the side of the store and trotted backwards. “I’ll see you later, Pinkie. Oh, and one other thing for the party: bring a cute date.”

“A date?” Pinkie asked, but Euporie vanished with a soft ‘pop.’ Her grin lingered in midair behind her for just a moment, an arc of white teeth that faded away a heartbeat later. Pinkie shook the cobwebs out of her head and hopped back down and into the kitchen, closing the window behind her with a flick of her puffy tail.

Euporie was a… funny pony.

(A date, huh?)

“I guess I could ask Pokey,” she said to herself, quickly trying to get the cookies shaped and close to ready for the oven before Twilight came inside, if she really was headed for the Corner. If Pokey was busy, though, then she could probably ask Noteworthy or… or Soarin! She giggled at that thought, alone in the kitchen. Wouldn’t Dashie be super jealous if they went to a party together?

(Why not take all three?)

Hey, why not take all three?

Pinkie rapped her hoof against the side of her head. That sort of stuff, she could deal with later. Cookies first, crazy head full of thoughts later! Humming a song and a set of half-finished lyrics to herself, Pinkie Pie went back to work. On the baking sheet, the already two-hoof wide cookies would expand even more, so she had to remember to give them extra space. If they were too close, they’d mash up together like some kind of cookie…

Some kind of cookie…?

Cookie pile-up? No. Cookie car crash? What was a car? Oh, like a big, sloppy cookie orgy!

“What a funny choice of words, brain-o-mine,” Pinkie told her head. “Do you know something I don’t know?”

Nope.

(Maybe, maybe not)

“Well, if you do get any funny ideas, be sure to let me in on ‘em!” Pleased with having resolved that situation, Pinkie Pie finished forming up the cookies and placing them on the baking sheet, leaving more than enough room this time to prevent any spill over. It took two sheets rather than the usual one, but they were all ready by the time Twilight peeked her head in the kitchen.

“Pinkie Pie?”

“Hiya Twilight!” Pinkie hopped over and shook her entire body, expelling a cloud of flour and sprinkles in every direction. Snapping her tail, a trio of large chocolate chips tumbled through the air, up and over and down into her waiting mouth. Snapping them up in midair, Pinkie noisily munched away.

“So what’s up?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hoof.

“Well, I sort of wanted to talk about something,” Twilight began, stepping aside as Pinkie headed for the sink to wash up. “Um… relationship advice, sort of?”

“Sure thing!” Pinkie replied, water streaming over her sticky hooves. She was fully capable of just licking her entire body clean, but for some strange reason Mr. and Mrs. Cake objected to that particular brand of hygiene in the shop. They were probably just jealous that they had to lick each other clean. Not everpony could have a super long, super dexterous, super friendly tongue like hers!

“I know all about relationships!” she reached for a towel and gave Twilight an encouraging smile. “Tell your Auntie Pinkie Pie all about it.”

Pinkie listened intently as Twilight weaved a tale of family intrigue and court politics.

Needless to say, most of it was in one ear and out the other.

What she understood was that Twilight was looking for a pony to help her out, and among fancy noblepony unicorns, that was often somepony to marry. Who else could you trust to have your back more than your partner, after all? Mr. Cake would do anything for Mrs. Cake, and while her own parents had not been very openly affectionate, Pinkie remembered her mother and father sharing a few quick nuzzles from time to time when they came back from the rock fields. Whenever either of them had been too down under the weather to work, the other would put in twice the effort without complaint.

It was funny thinking of Twilight like that, though. She was the smartest pony Pinkie had ever met and she was super strong, too! Plus, she spent all her time with her books. What did she need a stallion for? Well, there was that, but ‘that’ didn’t require a stallion for more than a few minutes (on a bad night) or a few hours (on a good one!).

On the other hoof, Twilight’s foals would look super cute, and if she married some rich pony, they could have super awesome parties every year for their birthday! And there would be parties for when they first walk, and then when they learn to run, and then when they get their teeth and then when they lose their teeth and then when they get their teeth after losing their teeth and then when they’re weaned and when they first went to school and when they graduated and…

And there would be parties.

Lots of parties! Even before they were born! A baby shower was one of the few types of party Pinkie hadn’t been to, yet! OH! And a bachelorette’s party before the wedding! And then another party at the reception! And a honeymoon party! Was that a legitimate type of party? Would Twilight mind if she tagged along on the honeymoon?

“Pinkie?” Twilight asked, watching her with a hooded expression on her face. “Are you listening?”

“Sure I was!” Pinkie giggled, hugging the lavender unicorn and squeezing her tight enough to elicit a surprised squeak. “You can name your first colt Star Sprinkles and the second one Whipped Cream and the first filly can be Twilight Zone because she’ll be just like you and…!”

“That wasn’t what I was talking about at all!” Twilight teleported out of Pinkie’s grip, prompting the party pony to fall flat on her face. Luckily, she bounced right back up.

“I know!” Pinkie said, bouncing back onto her hindquarters. “You wanted to know if I thought you were making a HUGE-” She spread her forelegs comically wide. “-mistake!”

“Am I?” Twilight wondered, pleading with her eyes for Pinkie to be at least semi-serious. “Pinkie, you and Rarity are really the only ponies I know who have even been out on dates before. Is it… is it hard to get used to being with somepony else like that?”

Pinkie lowered her legs and thought, sort of, before answering.

“Twilight,” she said, tilting her head slightly. “Stallions are like chocolate. Sometimes they’re dark and sometimes they’re light, and sometimes they’re hard and brittle and sometimes they’re soft and squishy, but in the end they always melt in your mouth. Do you see what I’m saying here?”

The librarian’s mien was decidedly deadpan. “… Not at all.”

“What I think I mean is that ponies can change,” Pinkie explained, raising a hoof to lecture the poor, befuddled unicorn. “And that you can help them change, at least a little bit, for the better. Chocolate will always be chocolate. You’ll never be able to change it into vanilla or strawberry or mango or that sorbet with the swirls in it, OH! Or mint crunch or, or, or pistachio! I love pistachio!”

“What was I talking about again?” She rolled her head around on her shoulders. “Oh yeah! Stallions! And how they’re like chocolate! So chocolate is basically always going to be chocolate, right? I guess unless you use mind altering MAGIC, but let’s not go there. So even though you can’t change what chocolate IS, you can rough out the edges and get the chocolate to take a shape and form and taste that is better than when you first found it.”

“I still don’t follow,” Twilight admitted, still deadpan. “Are you saying that I can have a hoof in making Alpha Brass into a better pony than I found him? That I have to make things work, and not just expect them to by default?”

“Huh?” Pinkie drawled. “I was saying I want to marry chocolate!”

Twilight hung her head with a groan.

The signature woosh of a camera’s flash highlighted the pair of royal ponies relaxed by the pool, Blueblood lounging on his side in profile and Rarity in a two piece red bathing suit. The ambiance was relaxed but sophisticated, evoking the brightness and color of Equestria’s youthful new and future nobility. Innovative, fresh, haute couture lines were cut into the Baroness’s bandeau style bikini with satin highlights. Together with the gold and ruby bracelet, both made in Prance, it really was… magik!

Four thousand bits of pure magik!

Another flash, and another scene to capture for artistic posterity. The couple posed, walking down a marble rubble path with the villa in the background, shadows playing across statues of ponies flanking the walkway in contrast. The Princes’ wool felt sports jacket alone cost more than two thousand bits. Rarity’s ensemble of bitalian silver necklace, performance t-shirt and skirt, plus black bold laced boots went for more than twice as much.

“Nein! Nein! Tze umbrella! Give her the umbrella, and get me some veather here! Tze scene needs more energy!”

The pair relaxed, groaning, as an assistant ran into give Rarity a black umbrella to tilt back and over her shoulder. Photo Finish motioned them closer, and threw in one of the white mini-flap hoofbags. One of her pegasus assistants whipped up a little wind and cloud-shadow, giving the appearance of an ironically more ‘natural’ outing with a little artificial weather.

“Closer!” Photo Finish urged, waving a hoof behind the camera and then pacing over to the duo. “Closer! Be natural! You are walking and in tze conversation! Smile and pretend you are talking! Herr Blueblood, be more passionate vif her! Respond! Und you, Rarity, closer und a little behind! Yes!”

She ran back over, adjusted the camera some, and WOOF!

Magiks!

“This is exhausting,” Rarity muttered, standing still on a changing mat as Photo Finish’s assistants removed one outfit for another. Since she didn’t technically have a business anymore, she wasn’t even able to model her own tastes in fashion. Every picture they had of them wearing some designer’s clothing, from Prance or Bitaly or Manehattan, was another way to offset the staggering costs that characterized her brief administration as Baroness of Ponyville.

It may have been entirely practical, but it was still galling. She had often dreamed of being a model, but in those dreams she had been wearing her creations and showing the world her creative talent. To be so close to that, but so far removed? It was like a hoof to the gut, reminding her of what she had lost.

Not that she had gotten too far into actually achieving that particular dream…

“Now I know how Fluttershy must have felt,” she said, rocking back and forth as Photo’s assistants pulled a gorgeous red and black mid-length dress over her head, securing it around her waist with a large, glossy three-buckled leather and brass trim belt. Puckered black lace on cherry red stood on raised fabric over the dress, giving it a dramatic depth that couldn’t be achieved with flat, more two dimensional knitting. Photo Finish trotted around her while the finishing touches were being put in place, brusquely demanding that a velvet shawl be added over the shoulders, and then throwing one and then another off until one clicked just right to her.

“Give the impression of cold, und warmth!” Photo insisted, and there was no arguing with her. “Ve must have more contrast!”

“Is this ermine?” Rarity flinched slightly from the soft under layer and edging of the shawl. She distinctly recalled a noblemare who had visited her boutique, not too long ago, who only wore real fur.

“The color of the hems and collar...? So very realistic I...”

“That's because it is real,” Antimony explained, smiling as she continued. “Genuine sable from Castle Roc. I noticed you didn't have any.”

“Does it matter?” Photo Finish asked, and nudged her forward with the side of her head, her signature violet tinted glasses adding a little jab to the physical encouragement. “Come now! We have just the place for tzat and tze magiks do not make tzemselves!”

The stirrup buckle-boot hoofwear was only slightly uncomfortable.

She met back up with Blueblood, in a white cashmere double breasted coat. One of Photo’s fillies, the one who looked to be Neighponese – for a moment, Rarity imagined she could be an undercover ninja working for Lady Yumi, but dismissed it as too silly for even her life – was fussing over the Prince’s blond mane. Photo Finish came over, demanding, “More body! More waving! Can you not make it wave more?”

“What…? Like Auntie’s mane?” Blueblood asked, a little aghast.

“Ja! Ja! Can you do tzat?”

“I – I can, but… really, must I?” The Duke of Canterlot and Prince of the Realm shied back as Photo Finish leaned in, nodding excitedly. “If I must. One moment.”

Horn glowing a soft gold, his brows knitted in concentration. Rarity winced as one of Photo’s assistants picked that moment to tighten the belt and make sure it none of the dress below had gotten bunched up on the walk over. Shooting the earth pony mare a look, Rarity turned back to where Blueblood was releasing his spell, bit by bit. He shook his mane, and the golden locks began to grow translucent. Then, hints of shimmering light and muted tiny glittering lights emerged within the follicles as they began to melt into a single sinuous river of color.

“My word, that actually looks quite stately!” Rarity told him, trotting over as a leisurely pace. She reached a free hoof up – the boots only constricting her back legs – and gently poked the strange substance that his mane had become. Her hoof passed clean through with little resistance, as if his golden mane was now more smoke and mirror than actual physical filament.

“And it feels like I’ve been shaved bald,” Blueblood replied, but smiled a bit at how fascinated she was with his altered mane. Rarity poked her hoof in and out, and then tried to grab some of the waving color, but it slipped through every attempt to capture it.

“I can’t imagine how Auntie, how either of them really, go about all day feeling as breezy and barebacked as a randy schoolfilly.” He frowned for a moment, seeing the one upside. “Even if it does look rather dramatic.”

Blueblood’s horn glowed, and he toned down the Royal Mane effect. A ripple ran through his mane, then, and it became more substantial. Rarity squeaked in surprise as the hairs around her hoof suddenly took form, teasing her sense of touch. He then asked Photo Finish if it was enough “effect” and she gave it a curt and demanding, “Ja! Now, to tze positions! Ve vill use tze fountain background.”

“I’m still mad at you, you know,” Rarity felt the need to remind him, even as the camera captured them frozen in place before a green garden backdrop. Behind them, two stone seaponies squirted water out of their mouths.

“I don’t understand,” he feigned innocence with a gasp. “How can anypony stay mad at ME, the one and only Prince Blueblood?”

“Because you are immeasurably vexing.”

“That’s not a good reason.”

“Did it even once occur to you to discuss things with me before making this deal with Twilight?” she asked, adjusting her pose a bit to show off her shoulders more. “And then bringing it up during a tennis match?”

“I wanted to win the match, and I needed to tell you, so I just captured two birds with the same net,” he explained. “So to speak.”

“We don’t even have foals, and you’ve bartered one of them away.”

“Only their love life.”

Rarity took a second from the photo shoot to glare at him.

“I’m not happy about it,” he told her, uncomfortable at her gaze: it was more upset than angry at this point. “But necessity sometimes requires us to do things we would rather not have to do. Besides, Twilight’s foals will probably grow up as very nearly part of the family anyway with how close you ladies are. Am I proud of taking this choice away from our firstborn foal? No. Was it the right move to make to secure a future for that same foal? Again, yes. So I did it.”

“Assuming we have any foals in the first place,” Rarity quickly identified the weak spot in his strategy. The two posed for another picture, smiling and holding hooves, and then returned to their argument. “Which as I see it is entirely in my court.”

“Until I learn the secret of getting mares pregnant just by entering a room and striking a pose,” he said, straight faced. “Yes.”

Rarity sighed, positioning herself for another picture.

“If you really are against it, I will tell Twilight things have changed; that we have to call it off.” Blueblood stared forward at the camera as he said it, but Rarity felt him draw her in a little closer. “I was wrong to make this deal without you, but I won’t go through with it without you either. I’ll be going back on my word and Twilight will probably want to turn me into a frog but…”

“You big idiot.” Rarity gently poked him in the chest and he paused to look down at her. “You really can be charming when you want to be. Or when you absolutely have to be.”

“So you’ve come around?” he asked, chuckling.

“I can see why you and Twilight made the deal, and if I was there, I don’t think I would have objected. Much. I think you know me well enough to guess when I’ll be truly upset.”

“I would have called it ‘ballistic.’”

“You’ve never seen me go ‘ballistic.’”

“Haven’t I?” Blueblood wondered, and there was a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Perhaps if I were less afraid of getting dirty?”

“I don’t think so,” Rarity replied, and slid up closer to him… before slipping a leg between his hooves and pushing. With a whoop of surprise, he fell back and into the fountain, landing on his butt.

“Oops.” She raised a hoof to her mouth to conceal her grin. “How clumsy of me.”

“Clumsy of you? How clumsy of me, I’m all left hooves!” He reached for her, and with a yelp, Rarity ended up pulled back and into the water next to him. Her leather boots went along for the ride, getting soaked, to say nothing of the bottom of her dress.

“My tail!” she cried, and flicked it towards him, splashing his face and semi-transparent mane. In contact with the water, it took on a rainbow-like sheen.

“My tail is just as fabulous as yours, and just as soaked!” He returned the favor, and Rarity gasped in shock.

“Some Prince you are!”

“Some Duchess you’ll be!”

“Ja! Ja! Passionate! So passionate! So unrehearsed!” Photo Finish cheered, as the two continued to playfully bicker in and then out of the fountain pool. “Yes! What magiks! VAIT!!”

Blueblood and Rarity froze at the sudden shout, her hooves tangled in his translucent but tangible blond mane and his holding her down by the waist. The pair turned to stare at the famous photographer.

“Tze lighting is a wee, lee-tle bit off,” Photo Finish explained, and one of the assistants adjusted a reflective mirror. “Perfect! Now! Go on! Continue with tze spontaneous magiks!”

Blueblood and Rarity stared at her.

“Go on,” Photo urged, making kissy faces. “We must capture tze passion!”

The still kept staring.

“Pretend I am not here. Oh, wait, how is that even possible? I am Photo Finish!”

“I think we’re done,” Rarity said, giving Blueblood’s mane a little pull.

“I believe the phrase is: ‘we go?’” he suggested.

Rarity liked it. “We go!”

It was something of a surprise to see she had somepony waiting for her when Rarity returned to the manor house. Changed out of the long line of dresses she had worn for a morning and half an afternoon of photo shoots, Rarity was back in just her natural coat. Her mane and tail were still a little wet, but back in her preferred style and shape. Photo Finish had insisted that they try and recapture more ‘magiks’ later, but for now, she was fine with just the planning of what was to come.

“Applejack!” Rarity greeted her foalhood friend, taking a seat on a pillow in one of the manor sitting rooms. The apple farmer seemed comfortable enough, despite the bandage around one hoof that had to make putting any weight on it painful. “What a surprise!”

“Rarity.” Applejack’s tone was businesslike. “We need ta talk.”

The friendly smile slowly began to dissolve on Rarity’s face.

“About… what?” she asked, polite.

“Ah think you know what,” Applejack said with a calm in her voice that only hinted at the storm to come. A large grandfather clock ticked slowly, the only sound in the room for a few pregnant seconds. “Ah know what you and Big Mac were doing, schemin’ ta subsidize our loans.”

“Scheming?” Rarity asked, growing a little irate herself. “I was helping you out.”

“Then why didn’t ya tell me about it? Why’d you go behind mah back?”

“Frankly,” the newly titled mare replied, holding her chin high, “I went behind your back – as you call it - because you would have been too proud to accept my help then, just like you are now.”

“It ain’t helpin,’” Applejack argued. “Not if the only one gettin’ it is me. It’s a hoof-out. A free meal! Gettin’ somethin’ fer nothin’! Ah’ve never accepted help like that in mah life, and ah ain’t gonna start now!”

“All I’m doing is assuming responsibility for some of your family’s-”

“What? Our loans? Or our mistakes? You gonna bail us out no matter what we do?” Applejack took off her hat and put it aside with due reverence. Without it, she seemed a lot angrier than before, her blonde mane whipping behind her as she shook her head. “Ah run the Apple Family Farm. Not the Rarity Belle Family Farm.”

“You’re being ridiculous!” Rarity had to work to rein in her temper, it was starting to fray. “Absolutely, positively ridiculous! And ponies call ME a drama queen?”

“Oh.” Applejack leaned in and craned her neck, just a hoof or two from Rarity’s face. “Ah suppose you’d be doin’ the same if this were Carrot Top’s farm havin’ trouble?”

Rarity balked a little at the insinuation. “Applejack, we are friends…”

“Yeah, we are! But ah don’t expect mah friends ta bail me out with-”

“You keep calling it a bailing you out or a hoof-out or a free meal, but it isn’t like that-”

“It is! It is! This sorta special treatment n’ favoritism! Yer being corrupt just like the worst nobles out there! Don’tcha know what this sorta thing leads to?” Applejack let her voice raise a decibel, impossible to ignore even to those outside the plush sitting room. “Who were ya gonna tell about this, huh? Not me! Did Blueblood know? Did you even tell him?”

“Of course not!” Rarity raised her voice to match Applejack’s. “I am no foal, you know! I know very well that what arrangements I had with your family could not go beyond that. Do you even understand how difficult it is for me to be paying for the Apple Farm on top of everything else? I’ve had to all but beg Filthy Rich for money to finance everything I want – everything I need – to do in Ponyville! What do you think I’ve been doing all today? Half my time is spent trying to deal with my own debts, much less your own!”

Applejack surged off her seat, poking a hoof to Rarity’s white chest. “And ah never asked fer yer help, not if this is the kind yer gonna give!”

“You take that back!” Applejack bulled forward, all but butting heads with the other mare. “You take that back right now!”

“I will not!” Rarity yelled, not intimidated by the forceful Element of Honesty. “And I will not see the Apple Farm fall apart while I have the power to save it! Not when I am Baroness!”

Applejack stiffened, her breathing shallow and fast.

“I guess, in that case, it ain’t mah farm anymore anyway,” she decided, and spun around to stomp to the door. “Ah’m sure mah brother will run it real nice for ya, so good luck with that.”

“Applejack!” Rarity yelled. “Applejack!”

The slamming of a door was her only response.

Slumping down, her legs weak, Rarity fell onto her stomach, emotionally spent by the exchange with her oldest friend. Before Pinkie Pie had moved to town, before Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash had come down from Cloudsdale, there had been just Applejack and Rarity. They hadn’t always seen eye to eye, but there had never been anything like this between them.

“Applejack…!” she pleaded to the door, left ajar in the farmer’s hasty exit. “I just wanted to help…”

Author's Note

This is maybe my second author note at the end of a chapter. I gotta say, it was kinda hard writing that last scene. It was always in the plans for the story, but I sort of dreaded it as the plot moved forward. But friendship must be tested. Forgive me AJ…! Rarity!

(apple bucked into next week)

Chapter Forty Two : Pinkie Pie - The Lion’s Den (part 2)

(42)

Pinkie Pie: The Lion’s Den (part 2)

“Lord Cruciger, if I may, I would like to introduce Miss Pinkamena Diana Pie.” Rarity made the formal first impressions just before the start of the night’s meal. “She is Ponyville’s entertainment specialist and a mare of many talents.”

Pinkie introduced herself with a bow. “I’m super-duper happy to meet you, sir.”

Little did anypony know that beneath her calm exterior, Pinkamena Diane Pie had to fight her every impulse to spring around the gathering banquet party. Like some sort of springy-thing. Oh! Like a spring!

But it wasn’t her fault. After the exhausting performance on stage, she had downed another iced coffee (or three) and been quickly washed, groomed, and put into a dress for the second part of Operation Smiling Snake. Certain ponies, notably Antimony and Rainbow Dash, had probably derived a little too much enjoyment from tossing her in a tub and scrubbing her down with all sorts of non-candy scented oils and perfumes, but Pinkie had put up with it. This was just another test of her party-going skills, after all, and Rarity and Twilight needed her to buckle up and go for an unconventional ride. Every minute of it, she had prepared her body and mind for this.

Her body, as someponies tended to say, was ready.

It was time for fun! The most challenging fun of her life! So much deadly-deadly fun!

(Fun. Fun. Fun. Is that all you think about?)

Quiet brain, I don’t need any backtalk from you.

(Do you even listen to yourself think?)

Do you?

( …What?)

Exactly. Now let me work my magic.

“The mare who played Soothing Light,” Cruciger said, and his frowny-face really made Pinkie just want to jump at him and physically stretch his cheeks out into a huge smile. What was on his face now, it was just a big, mocking, frowny-frown, and suddenly she realized she hadn’t actually seen his alleged smile from before. It was nice to hear about it from Monee, and she didn’t doubt that it had happened, but she hadn’t been close enough to see it herself. Was it just a little quirk of his cheeks or did he show teeth? Did his eyes crinkle or close or light up? There were a million-billion ways to smile, and every pony’s was different and super special!

She wanted to see that elusive smile!

Pinkie chuckled as her mane fell over her face, partly obscuring her eyes…

Then she shot back up, tossing her mane behind her and smiling broadly. “That’s me, alright! Monee’s told me all about you, and here I was about to sit next to my friend Rarity for dinner, and I thought it’d be really neat to share a drink or two with you!”

Cruciger simply stared at her like she was some sort of gibbering alien. The big bay-colored stallion didn’t seem to have anything to say. It did, at least, give Pinkie a chance to get a closer, better look at her target for the night. She took stock of the missing eye, concealed by a black gem and silver metal, the hint of a scar visible beneath the vest over his chest, the austere gray mane and the somewhat scarily long horn. It wasn’t quite as pointy as Pokey’s horn, but it still looked sharp. More like a big, serrated sword than a needle, though. And then there was that frown that she swore to turn upside down. Oh! How she hated that frown!

Before she could make any progress on that front, though, she had to find out a way to converse and interact with him. She had to find out what he liked and didn’t like. Like the canny jungle chameleon, she needed to be able to blend in to avoid ninjas and strike at unsuspecting wild cupcakes with her sticky tongue. Or was that the noble aardvark?

“Sir, I’d be very happy and really honored to share a table with you, sir!” she announced, standing up straight and saluting, hoof to her forehead.

“I assume it won’t be a problem, Lord Duke?” Rarity glanced from Cruciger to his wife. “Lady Duchess?”

“Mmm, what?” Lady Star Light had two notepads floating around her head like a pair of paper ears. One dipped down as she jotted down a thought that only then crossed her mind. “Problem? No, no, something to distract him should be fine. I’ll be coming and going all night, I’d bet. So much to do! Don’t want to cause a planar inversion after all! Very bad! Potentially cataclysmic! Can’t test until outside populated areas.”

“Mother,” Antimony tried to protest. “It is terribly rude to work while--”

“This isn’t work to me,” Lady Star Light insisted, sigils appearing on the paper as a magical pencil jotted down her notes. “And if I don’t actively direct purple and orange, they’ll just go off and do their own thing! I hate to micromanage them, but those two just aren’t compatible! Yellow is better, but I don’t entirely trust her yet. Then there’s the blood work on blue! Why blue? Why blue? She shouldn’t be that kind of blue… unless…! Oh, no, no, shouldn’t speculate, not yet! Research first! Busy, busy, very busy, but work? Not at all!”

“Sounds fun!” Pinkie decided. Crazy fun.

“Then let us eat, drink, and celebrate the friendship between Ponyville and all the realms of the Terre Rare,” Rarity declared, and Cruciger nodded primly.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Come.”

They sat at the head of an exclusive table populated by the crème of Cruciger’s officer corps. There was an eclectic mix of uniformed mares and stallions, even a griffin and a scarred old donkey. Earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi were all in roughly equal attendance. Food was served in generous but not wasteful portions, a rich but not exactly bountiful feast from both the army and Ponyville. Most important of all, the wine, beer, and salt flowed freely.

Pinkie Pie sat next to Rarity, having to converse with her target from one seat away. Initially, she watched and listened, like the ever-cunning and predatory octopus that lies in wait in the tree for a passing fish to jump out of the water. Watching and waiting, listening and hearing, eavesdropping and observing! Wait, was that the octopus or the deadly Red Panda?

(Your analogies are terrible; watching and waiting is what alligators do, you know, like Gummy?)

Oh yeah!

(Anyway, focus on these two. Cruciger--)

Call him Cruccie.

(No.)

Do it.

(No.)

DO IT.

(Fine! Cruccie… he seems a little like Papa, doesn’t he? They’re both inveterate and unrepentant grumps. But while Pappy Pie and Mommy Pie are pretty like-minded, these two here seem really different. Did you notice that?)

Where did Rarity get baked, crunchy bread? Smells good, too!

(Focus already! Remember why we’re here!)

Oh yeah…

(Good. Are you paying attention? Alright. Look at Cruccie and Lady Star Light. He doesn’t seem to be very nice towards most ponies, but I bet if we watch and learn how she interacts with him, we’ll learn a bit about what we need to do. Especially with what Antimony--)

Monee.

(--with what Monee told you earlier. Will you please forget the food for a while and pay attention? Just… imagine being like Twilight. Okay?)

Okey dokey lokey!

(Remember: your friends are counting on you.)

I know. Geez! Get off my back, brain!

Nibbling on a piece of crunchy bread, Pinkie sat silently and watched her prey. Just like Twilight, she had to keep an eye on the details, and less like Twilight, she needed to get a feel for her target’s intangibles. It was the intangibles, after all, that made or broke a good party. Most ponies didn’t advertise what they liked when it came to music or entertainment or party themes. Especially if the party was meant to be a surprise! Nope! A clever party planner had to feel out these things. That was just what she had to do here, too.

Cruciger and Lady Star Light… watching them, Pinkie felt pretty sure that they weren’t much like her Parents Pie, or even like Mister and Mrs. Cake. Those couples where partners that shared each other’s interests. Here, their personalities seemed to be just so very different. Lady Star Light quickly ate and went back to darting from one notepad to another, speaking to those around her only curtly and dismissively. Cruciger, meanwhile, ate slowly and calmly spoke to the occasional pony, appearing aloof and bored next to his hyperactive wife, but anything but distracted. If anything at all, he seemed all-too-aware of the ponies around him, just that he felt little need to do more than quietly lord over them.

“Is there a problem?”

Pinkie jumped in place a little but quickly sat still. “A little,” she admitted. “I’m just watching and waiting.”

“Is that so?” Antimony asked. She turned to trot away, and Pinkie got up and followed her, using the excuse to draw the noblemare into a private conversation. Rarity noticed them go, but continued to sit politely at the table, sipping her drink.

“You said once, very quietly, that I reminded you of someone,” Pinkie whispered, following the older mare for a quick walk. “Was it your mother?”

Antimony continued to walk, never a pause in her stride. Like her father, she kept her expressions frustratingly closely guarded. The difference was, Antimony had wanted to open up to somepony – or so Pinkie thought – and simply being open-minded and friendly when she expected everypony to abandon her had been enough to win her over. When nopony else was looking, the Baroness of Mareseilles let a genuine frown of concern cross her face.

“My mother,” she said and slowed just slightly to avoid leaving their little zone of privacy away from the ears of anypony else at the party. Everywhere around them were lights, fires and magic. It was hardly a place most ponies would consider private, still in the very public eye, but everypony was also distracted with drinking, dancing and even wrestling, particularly the omnipresent pegasi up in the sky, chanting and boasting as they had contests of strength and stamina.

“My mother has a ‘condition,’ in case you didn’t notice,” Antimony explained. “Usually, her bouts of hypomania last a week or two, followed by a down period of depression. It isn’t severe, but most of the time she has little interest in responsibilities like running her realm or… other things. Either she is too irritable to be bothered to deal with it, too morose to care, or too distracted by her research. She has a truly brilliant mind, but living with her can be difficult to impossible at times.”

“And, yes, I thought you were the same,” she added, a half-lidded eye finding Pinkie Pie before focusing on the night sky. “That was when I first saw you. But I was mistaken. You’re crazy in a number of other ways.”

“I sure am!” Pinkie agreed with a giggle but just as quickly, she returned to being semi-serious. “Was it hard? I mean… having a mother who…?”

“My father looked after me. He raised me, and he raised my sisters, until we were old enough to compete for the right to be the family heir.” Antimony huffed. “He also cares for my mother, when her darker moods manifest and she needs somepony to be with her. I don’t know what Rarity or even Twilight Sparkle have told you, but he is a good pony. My father is a good pony. And a great stallion. My parents are both good ponies, and I have no regrets when it comes to my foalhood.”

Pinkie Pie stared at her, and the two walked slowly in silence.

“Why are you helping Rarity with this?” Pinkie asked and noticed Antimony’s neck tense, though she never turned her gaze away from the star-dappled heavens. “Why do you want your father too worn out to duel tomorrow?”

“To protect him,” Antimony answered, and Pinkie sensed it was an honest answer, but still very evasive. “To keep our family unified. That has always been my goal as successor to Arsenic, Bismuth the Elder, my grandmother, and now my father. I do not want my father to fight anypony but our true enemy. That is my definition of harmony.”

Pinkie couldn’t say she understood all of that, but the sentiment? That she did understand. Antimony loved her parents, for all their flaws. She loved her family, even when it was hard to do so.

“Monee--”

“Please don’t ask me how to soften my father’s heart,” Antimony told her, and Pinkie caught a smoldering look in the unicorn’s strange red eyes. “There is reason why you were chosen for this and not I. Making ponies smile is not my talent. It is yours.”

Pinkie wanted to argue, to tell her new friend that she was wrong, but she could feel it as much as see it in Antimony’s body language. It would be a waste of words. It wouldn’t work. Not today. Maybe… someday soon, but not today.

Still, she had a crazy hunch or two.

“Tell me more about them and how they met,” Pinkie asked her. “I need to know more.”

Rarity didn’t let it show, but she was starting to get a little anxious. Even before Pinkie left to take a walk with Antimony, she had sent out a few tentative feelers to see if she could help engage Lord Cruciger. She was a charming mare, or so she had always been told, and she knew she had a certain way with stallions. Yet her offer to dance with the Duke of Germaney and Prance was politely rebuffed. Cruciger appeared content to drink moderately, eat moderately, and be sure his wife did the same. Lady Star Light, for her part, hardly seemed to be paying attention to the other ponies at the table at all.

That was, until Pinkie Pie boldly – suicidally, some might say – jumped in between the Duke and Duchess.

“Heya!” she whooped, smiling and oblivious to the growing look of annoyance on Cruciger’s face. “Who wants to dance!? You’re done eating, right? So let’s have some fun! Let’s dance!”

“We don’t--” Cruciger started to growl, and Rarity could feel their entire plan coming apart at the seams. Any second now, Pinkie would grab onto the Black Duke’s foreleg to pull him away from the table and he would…

“Oh, huh, eh? Me?!” Lady Star Light yipped as Pinkie grabbed her by the hoof and dragged her along, floating notebooks spinning in place over the spot the noblemare abruptly left vacant. “W-w-wha--?”

Rarity blinked, momentarily stunned by the sight before her.

Had – had Pinkie Pie just dragged off the matriarch of the entire Terre Rare Family right in front of her husband? Oh Sweet Celestia. Cruciger began to stand, an intense look in his one still-living eye, and Rarity could feel a pressure begin to build around him as his horn channeled magic – an oppressive, heavy sort of magic that made the hairs of her mane stand on end with static charge.

“Please calm yourself, father,” Antimony interrupted, taking her mother’s seat and placing her hoof on one of his.

Not far from the tables, the band began to play a lively tune, the Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka. There were already ponies, mostly from the officer classes, out dancing, and they made way for Pinkie and the Duchess. With her typical exuberance and energy, Pinkie began to spin around the older mare, zipping this way and that through the crowd. As if simply to avoid getting in her way, it wasn’t long before Pinkie Pie had an entire set of other ponies dancing in tune to her, spinning around their partners and prancing around on the fresh green grass of the field.

“Hrm,” Cruciger grunted, easing himself back down.

He was watching his wife and her abductor carefully, warily, clearly protectively, but soon began to relax as he came to realize there was no harm or danger. Rarity tried to make some small conversation along with one of his subordinates, a pegasus officer in the hussars, and draw the Duke in on some of it, but he was wholly distracted. He only had eyes for the dance and for his wife.

Rarity could hardly believe it.

The big, bad Black Duke was a softy when it came to his crazy wife.

She smiled but kept the reason for it an unspoken secret. She had heard nothing but horror stories about this stallion, but the way he was watching Pinkie and his wife dance and laugh, he almost looked a little star-struck. His mouth was just slightly agape, and his one eye, usually so baleful and calculating… still seemed sort of baleful and calculating, but also betrayed a twinkle of amusement. The more he saw of Star Light enjoying herself, the more he became at ease.

Until, finally, he was comfortable enough to be able to look away. His demeanor hardly seemed to change; he was still curt and domineering towards those he spoke with, but when Pinkie Pie came back and started pulling on his foreleg… instead of shaking her off or blasting her into the upper atmosphere (as Rarity had sort of suspected he would)… he simply went along with the exuberant party pony.

The band began to play Dance of the Hours, and the hardened, battle scarred patriarch of Equestria’s most powerful family danced first with his wife, and then with a hyperactive pink pony, and then with both at once. Rarity couldn’t see much from her spot at the table, so when a handsome stallion in uniform asked her to join him in the famous Sabre Dance ballet, she accepted.

It was the perfect opportunity to do a little more snooping, after all.

Applejack stared numbly at the glass of cider in front of her.

“N-no more,” she moaned, tapping out of the contest. “No more… cider…”

“A worthy effort!” Lord Cruciger bellowed as he downed yet another pint from the dimpled pewter stein so similar to the very same ones the Apple family hoofed out to customers back at the farm.

“That just leaves you and me, Mister Big Hooves!” Pinkie chortled, also finishing off her cider and topping off the display with a distinctly unladylike belch. “Hehehehe!” And there was the old giggle-snort. “Big Hooves! You have bi~i~g hooves.”

“The better to stomp on things with,” The Great Duke insisted, holding up one of his admittedly massive hooves. Pinkie Pie then amused herself by poking it with her own little pink hoof, laughing drunkenly all the while. Not far from the pair, Antimony and Rarity both lay sprawled over one another, half asleep and entirely drunk. The truth was really the reverse, but if they were just playing the part, it certainly looked pretty convincing. Lady Star Light was less inebriated, but no less indisposed, her head cradled in between her forelegs as she snored, drooling on a pile of papers in the process.

“Hold, hold, hold,” Cruciger insisted. “I said hold!” he boomed, and Pinkie fell flat onto her back from the sudden noise. “I – I have a trick that I shall share with you lot.”

“Oh! Oh! A trick! A trick! A tricky trick!”

“Hrm. Yes. It has to do with stomping,” Cruciger explained and held up his pewter mug. “When we – er, I – when I was young, in the Guard you know, I perfected this trick. Weak ponies crush glass, but not I. Not Cruciger.”

Placing the heavy pewter stein on the table, then shaking his head and placing it instead in the cup of one hoof, he held it up for everypony to see. Which was mostly Pinkie Pie, as everypony else was asleep or wishing they were, but there were a few other mostly conscious onlookers. Cruciger paused and then tantalizingly held his other hoof over the lid of the stein.

“Ohhhh!” Pinkie Pie leaned in close, close enough that he had to shoo her back.

“Not too close, Pink-Pinkamena Pie…” he warned, and returned his hoof to hover over the stein. “Now. Watch.”

Applejack was watching, and she still darn near missed it. There was a thud and a rush of air, enough to blast her hat clear off her head, and then Duke Cruciger held up his hooves. Where once there had been a solid pewter stein, there was now only a flattened disk with a spiraling hoof-mark in it. Pinkie Pie giggled and laughed and snorted as he gave it to her to inspect.

“Wow-wee! You were like: stomp-smash! And it was super-fast, and now – now we have a free Frisbee! We can play Ultimate Frisbee! Oh! I have to show you how to play Ultimate Frisbee! Especially since – since you can, like, make Frisbees whenever you want!” She started to spin the discus around on the tip of her hoof. “Hey! Is Frisbee-stompy-making your special talent?”

“No, no,” Cruciger replied, shaking his head. “Merely a trick, as I said.”

“Some trick,” Applejack groused and passed her stein down the table with a wave of her hoof. “Was it some sorta magic?”

“It was power,” Cruciger stated, catching her stein full of cider. “Now! Servants! Fetch more drink! I command it!”

“Yeah! We have a mighty thirst!” Pinkie Pie agreed, waving her hooves in the air. “Somepony throw me a--” a mug promptly collided with her forehead “--ouch. A drink. Tha~a~anks!”

Plucking the stein out from an impression in her head, Pinkie raised it high and began to down the contents without delay. Cruciger laughed and matched her, finishing off Applejack’s drink with equal aplomb. By all accounts, the two had consumed enough alcohol to put most ponies in the hospital, yet they were still going. Then again, Cruciger was some sort of huge monster stallion, and Pinkie Pie was… Pinkie Pie. Also known as a bottomless pit where food and drink went to die.

“Pardon my fancy, but Ah gotta take a piss somethin’ fierce,” Applejack slurred, slowly meandering away from the table.

Not far from Rarity, she saw a loudly dozing Rainbow Dash wearing somepony’s grenadier cap, won up in the clouds during some sort of drinking or wrestling contest. Maybe drunken wrestling. Hopefully the good kind. Big Mac had vanished again, too, and Applejack was pretty sure he’d show up in the morning insisting he just found a nice tree to nap under and nothing else. As if he didn’t know how many mares chased after him around town, undressing him with their eyes! Not that undressing him with one’s eyes was hard, since he didn’t wear clothes, so maybe it was more accurate to say they were dressing him with their eyes.

Uggh!

“Nopony ogles my brother and gets away with it… except my friends,” she muttered to herself in between searching for the little filly’s room. Cruciger ran a pretty strict camp when it came to sanitation, so there was next to nothing near the lake. Anypony stupid enough to try pissing in the water there would probably end up as squashed-flat as that pewter mug.

And, Celestia, if seeing that wasn’t freaky.

What kind of a pony crushed solid metal between his hooves like putty? How could a pony even do that? Maybe Shigure could have, but metal didn’t just flatten like that, no matter how strong you were. Didn’t it?

“Ah ha!” Finally finding the object of her search, Applejack winced at the sudden ray of sunlight that emerged over the roof of the sanitation tent. Ignoring the disturbance for a moment, she pushed her way through the tent flap. It wasn’t a private bathroom, that was for sure, but at least there were only a few other mares still up and awake. Not including the poor guards who had to keep sober and alert their half of the night.

Finding the basin to wash her hooves, Applejack noticed a familiar face.

“An-Antonovka, howdy there, sugarcube!” Applejack called out to the other mare. Unlike most ponies, she seemed completely sober and, finished drying her hooves with a towel, the stoic mare glanced Applejack’s way.

“Brigadier General Antonovka,” the older mare corrected her, “if you please.”

Applejack also, for the first time, saw the mare’s bare flanks… and her cutie mark.

It was an apple!

Suddenly the name, the coloration, the earth pony build… the fact that she was an earth pony… it all came together. “Y-you, you’re… are you…?”

“Am I what?” the foreign mare inquired, scowling.

“Are you an Apple?” Applejack asked, though she knew she’d never seen this mare at any family reunions. “Applejack, of the Apple Clan! Ah… I’m from the Baldwin Apple side of the family? Ring any bells, sugarcube? I think we’re--”

“You’re mistaken,” Antonovka told her, bluntly.

“But--” Applejack tried to protest, standing between the mare and the exit. “--come on, ain’t nothing ta hide! We’re both apples growin’ from different branches a’ the same tree!”

Antonovka finally seemed to snap, stamping one of her hooves in anger. “Nyet! No! I do not know who you think I am, but I am not that mare!”

“But yer cutie mark…” Applejack protested, persisting despite the rebuff. “Yer name…”

“It is a type of apple, this is true, as is my cutie mark,” Antonovka replied, scowling. “Meaning what? You speak of family and kinship, but I was raised by Terre Rare family, and I serve them. There is nopony else. As far as I am concerned, my cutie mark represents my skill at procuring and organizing supplies for the ponies I command. Nothing more.”

Applejack felt a short surge of ire at how this other mare had snapped at her, but maybe she had some sort of point. Not every pony with an apple cutie mark was part of her extended family, not even every earth pony with that mark, and of those who were, not all choose to identify themselves as such. She’d gotten so excited about finding another distant relative she could talk to… she’d jumped at it, far too aggressively. Too roughly, as Rarity would often say. Though it was a little hard to wrap her head around the Terre Rare, a family of unicorns, ‘raising’ an earth pony.

“Sorry,” she muttered under her breath. “Ah didn’t mean ta be so pushy.”

Antonovka nodded, apparently satisfied by that, and turned to leave.

Except… she paused, briefly, at the cusp of exiting the tent. “Besides which, I could never be related to a pony I could not trust or respect. I know you and your co-conspirators are up to something, Miss Applejack.”

The apple farmer felt a chill run up her spine, whether at the threat or at being called a ‘conspirator,’ she couldn’t say for sure. It was true, after all. By virtue of Rarity filling her in on things and her choosing, of her own free will, not to act on it, she was involved. She was responsible. She was accountable. The dirt was on her hooves, too.

“What?” she asked, after what had to be a suspiciously long delay. “I – I, uh, don’t know what… yer talkin’ about, sugarcube!” She felt her face scrunch up at the near lie. It wasn’t entirely untrue. She did know some of it, but not all of it. So maybe she didn’t know just what Antonovka was referring to.

“Twilight Sparkle,” the Russian pony told her.

‘Oh, horse apples.’

“Your brother talks too much,” she continued. “And he knows more than he lets on.” Before Applejack could object or threaten her, she held up a hoof to cut her off. “Don’t worry. He’s perfectly fine. I would die before I harm one of my Lord’s honored guests, but in this army camp, my eyes and ears are everywhere. It is my duty.”

‘Darn that Big Macintosh and his Big Mouth!’

Just how the heck did he know anything about what was going on, anyway? Applejack gritted her teeth in frustration and indecision. What was she supposed to say? What was she supposed to do? This would’ve been a whole heckuva lot easier to deal with if she just hadn’t pressed Rarity for information earlier! She knew she probably had to keep denying it. Maybe this Antonovka mare was just making an educated guess? But compounding one lie on top of another? It left a decidedly bad taste in her mouth, even before she put that lie into words.

“I have been told you are the magical Element of Honesty,” Antonovka pressed, looking over Applejack with a discerning eye. “But, now, I rather wonder.”

Applejack bit her lip hard enough to feel a spark of pain. Antonovka’s statement may as well have been a kick to the stomach; it had the same effect.

‘Don’t say anythin’. Don’t say anythin’!’

Yet Antonovka remained near the flap of the tent, watching her, judging her, waiting. Another mare, a unicorn, trotted in to use the restroom, slowing as she nervously passed by the two earth ponies and giving them a wide berth. Applejack tried to will the older mare to just walk away, but Antonovka was more savvy than that – she could clearly see how her question and how her presence was making Applejack sweat. She wasn’t going to go anywhere, not before she got some sort of answer.

Applejack hung her head in defeat.

She couldn’t change who and what she was. Just like Rarity couldn’t just accept that the world she dreamed of – a world of noble fancy mares and proper, chivalrous stallions – couldn’t possibly exist, Applejack knew she couldn’t just accept that honesty was anything but the best policy. It was just how she had to be. It was something she couldn’t turn her back on.

“I’ll tell you,” she told Antonovka, finally, and the Général de Brigade smirked in satisfaction.

“Good--”

“I’ll tell you,” Applejack repeated, cutting her off mid-gloat. “If you tell me what you know, first. I’ll be honest with you if you’re honest with me, sugarcube.” She held out a hoof, an olive branch, for the other mare to take. “How about it?”

Général de Brigade Antonovka frowned, glaring down at Applejack’s hoof. For a long, tense second, it looked like she was about to snort in dismissal and leave, but something in her expression very tentatively, very slowly, softened. Applejack extended her hoof a bit further, shaking it in an open invitation to meet her halfway. Finally, in one quick move, Antonovka reached out and took Applejack’s hoof in her own, shaking it firmly.

“Very well.”

As the two shook hooves, Applejack hoped against hope that she wasn’t making a terrible mistake she and her friends would regret come the morning. Honesty wasn’t always the easiest path, but she had to believe it was the right one. If Antonovka tricked her, though, Applejack swore by every apple tree on the farm to buck her into next week.

“What is this?” Cruciger studied the tiny lithographic card held in his sizable hoof. “Where did you get this, Pinkie Pie?”

“A little filly was selling them in town!” Pinkie answered from atop her perch on the old stallion’s shoulders. At some point, she had chambered on top of his back for a ride… He had refused to give her one, but he also hadn’t bothered to dislodge her. So she had settled down, legs on his shoulders, like a filly riding her father. Or in this case, a drunken grown mare riding a drunken old stallion.

“Free Foal Press publications, magical trading cards… a cutie mark crusader copyright?” Cruciger read the fine print on the back of the card with a grumble. “Well. This is undignified.”

“But it’s you!” Pinkie reminded him, flipping the card back around to the front. There was, sure enough, a stock picture of him, glowering back at himself. Next to it, printed right over part of the picture on the lower right corner, was a hexagon, partly filled in with color.

“Hrm.” The big stallion grunted, squinting his one good eye to read what was written around and next to the hexagram. “Strength. Five. Speed. Four. Stamina. Unknown.”

“That one extends outside the chart!” Pinkie explained.

“Hrm.” He continued to read. “Magical Power. Unknown.” It also extended outside the boundary of the hexagram. “Magical Knowledge. Four and a half.”

“Oh! And the last one! Read the last one!”

“Compromise. Zero.” Cruciger ground his jaw in distaste. “That seems to be an odd category. There is information here about my dueling history, as well. Wins to losses ratio. What kind of nosy fillies are these ‘cutie mark crusaders?’”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Applebloom asked, watching with some concern as the school’s printing roller spat out one glossy card after another.

“Forget that, should we really be advertising that we’re the ones making these?” Scootaloo asked, holding up Rainbow Dash’s trading card. “Also, do you think I should get mine signed?”

“I thought I was taking pictures for a class project.” Featherweight said, confused, fumbling with the camera in his tiny hooves.

“I feel like I’m going to get grounded for this,” Sweetie muttered to herself. “I have that ‘I’m doing something that’ll get me grounded’ feeling.”

“Are you kidding?!” Diamond Tiara slowly turned around in her editor’s chair. Opalescence sat on her lap, mewing softly as she stroked the evil cat. “We’ll be rolling in bits! You three just keep coming up with numbers.” She leveled a hoof at Featherweight. “And you get me more pictures! Saucy ones! We’ll resell alternate versions of cards, label them as exclusive, and double the price on them!”

Diamond Tiara laughed maniacally. Her name wasn’t on any incriminating material, after all. With Silver Spoon handling distribution, she was free to be what she must have been born to be, a project manager!

“What are you doing with my sister’s cat, anyway?” Sweetie Belle drolly asked.

“I’m supposed to be watching her while Lady Rarity’s away,” Tiara explained and resumed her laughter. Bits! Golden, golden bits!

“Something like that,” Pinkie concluded.

“Hrm.” Cruciger was already reading over the next card Pinkie had all but forced into his hoof. It was hers, of course! “Strength. Two. Speed. Four and a half. Stamina. Unknown. Magic. One. Knowledge. Unknown. Unpredictability. Unknown and totally off the chart. That makes some sense, yes.”

“Pinkamena Diana Pie was born on a rock farm between Ponyville and Cloudsdale. She has two sisters. Known far and wide as ‘Pinkie Pie’ she is Ponyville’s number-one party planner. Cutie mark: three balloons. She has earth pony magic combined with some sort of crazy stuff. I don’t even know how to describe it,” he read straight from the card’s picture blurb. He grunted again, not quite sure what to think about that. “Hrm.”

“You should see Rarity’s card! She has a ‘five’ in drama for her extra statistic!” Pinkie rested her hooves on the crown of his head, matting over his dark mane like a bird in a nest. “But do you think your card is accurate? Huh? Do ya?”

“Perhaps,” Duke Cruciger rumbled. He less out a long breath and reached for another mug of cider, snagging a second with the same hoof. “Magical power is my specialty. It is what I am known for. My wife, Star Light… her magical knowledge far outstrips my own.”

He lifted both steins into the air, and Pinkie grabbed one of them from him.

“How’d you two meet, anyway?” she asked, dipping her cider to clink steins with her drinking partner. “My parents met at a rock expo! Rock-con! …I think. Or was that the music festival? Daddy did have really long hair back then, and a lot of necklaces! Either one! So how about you?”

Cruciger’s one good eye tracked upwards, and his chin raised as he tried to catch sight of the pony on top of his head. He entertained the notion of shucking her off or even just brushing her away, but ultimately just grumbled. No mare he had ever met had been able to handle so much drink. In a way, she had earned her perch.

“Twinkling and I…”

Lady Bismuth the Second pressed her son’s ink-stained hoof to the parchment.

“The deal is signed!” she announced, smiling down at the little dark-coated colt sheltered beneath her. “Congratulations, my son. You will be the most powerful stallion in all the world.”

Staring up at his mother, the little colt blinked. “I will?”

“A Duke of both Germaney and Prance,” a second mare said. Where Bismuth was a dark-coated pony, much like Cruciger himself and their midnight-colored forebear, Lady Arsenic, Lady Dancing Star Spark was a brilliant alabaster white with a sparkling golden mane. She was old nobility from the ruling family of Prance, a true Duchess in both name and appearance, majestic and inspiring to behold. Together, the two matrons were like night and day.

Beneath her, hiding behind one of her legs, Cruciger could see a little white filly with a rose-red mane. She was fiddling with a crayon and an expensive-looking doll, paying only a passing attention to the conspiring noblemares and mothers that towered over them. The doll, he noticed, had been shaved, and the crayon had been used to mark sigils and outlines across its body.

“We’ll need you to adjust your names, of course,” Dancing Star Spark went on, “to reflect the seniority of our grandfoals’ Prench ancestry.”

“Naturally,” Bismuth II Brandenburg readily agreed. “The House of Arsenic-Brandenburg shall henceforth use ‘Terre Rare’ instead of ‘Seltene Erden,’ as will our cousin houses. In the rolls, we will symbolically give precedence to Deux Fleuves over Germaney.”

“And your cousins will abide by this without complaint?”

“The Neptuniums may object,” Bismuth replied with a dismissive snort, “but I will crush them and bend their heads until they see reason.”

“Ah. Ah haha!” Dancing Star Spark raised a delicate hoof to her mouth to conceal her lips as she laughed. “So fierce, you Germanes! Like wild horses! But it is good and well that you also know how to swallow your pride, Duchess.”

“A thing like that matters little in the long-term. And we… Terre Rare know how and when to bide our time. Now, there is the matter of your other daughter…”

“OHH!” Star Spark lowered her hoof from her mouth to angrily stomp it, causing the filly beneath her to scoot back and away from the questionable protection around her mother’s legs. “To even speak her name feeds my fury! Running off with that vile stablecolt? I will have her head and his colthood for this offense! Wait until I catch them! Wait and see!”

“A truly heartbreaking turn of events for a mother,” Bismuth observed with a knowing, calculating grin.

While the two Duchesses talked, a young colt warily approached his counterpart.

“You are Lady Star Light?” he asked, sitting down next to the filly and her crayon-scarred doll.

“O-one-fifty. Two. T-two-ten,” she muttered, twiddling the crayon in her hooves. “Purple. I-I mean… yes. I’m… I’m Twinkling Star Light. You’re Cruciger, right? N-not one-fifty two two-ten. I, um, I might call you that a few times. Before I get used to the name.”

He tilted his head to the side, not really following, but then nodded vigorously.

“I can wait,” he assured her, though with a little colt’s voice, it was hardly very authoritative. “Please get used to my name, Twinkling Star Light. You are my wife, and I will always be your husband. Now and forever.”

“Forever?” Star Light asked and smiled. “You mean as time approaches infinity?”

“…and I do hope at least one of their grandfoals inherits my golden mane,” Duchess Dancing Star Spark continued to prattle on, heedless of the colt and filly under her torso. “You Arsenics have the magic to do that, don’t you? Altering your foals in the womb, rather like those Neighponese do? The Garlands? I had heard rumors. Oh, that sounds like such a useful spell! Star Light was unlucky enough to be born with her fraternal grandmother’s dreadful red! If I had that magic, I would’ve tailor-made all my foals!”

“We do possess such a magic,” Bismuth explained, through her downturned eyes did lend the colt and filly at their hooves some passing attention. Her grin was small, sharp, predatory. “But it is not meant for such frivolities. For a foal to inherit a golden mane, and his grandmother’s lively disposition, we can only hope and pray as all ponies do.”

“An arranged marriage?” Pinkie asked, as Cruciger’s story wound down. She had her drink in one hoof, the other curled around his horn to keep from falling off his back where he sat. “I don’t think I’d like that… Unless…”

“My three daughters,” Igneous Rock made introductions for the family in the sitting room, gesturing with a hoof towards his three teenage fillies. “Marble Pie, my oldest…”

Marble sat primly and obediently next to her father, blushing ever so slightly. Her long gray mane concealed half of her face, leaving only one amethyst eye to meet their guests’ gaze. She smiled warmly at being introduced.

“Nice to meet you,” she said.

“My middle daughter,” Igneous Rock continued, gesturing further down the line. “Limestone Pie.”

Limestone looked bored as she reclined on the floor. Her mane and coat were a lighter shade of less pure gray than her sister, with a bit of blue to her gray coat and a pale-white lightening her gray mane, done in a professional bob cut. She wore a purple top over her torso where her sisters were both bare, and despite being in farm-fit excellent shape, she munched lazily from a bag of potato chips.

“Hey,” she groused, hoof to her cheek propping her head up.

“And my youngest daughter,” Igneous Rock went on, “Pinkamena Pie.”

“Hi!” Pinkie chirped, not feeling the need to describe herself to herself. That would just be silly.

“Girls,” Igneous Rock said, in turn introducing their new house guests. “These are the ponies I mentioned yesterday...”

Sitting opposite the three fillies was a stallion and a mare, both pegasus ponies. Actually, that wasn’t entirely accurate. One of their guests was a pegasus mare. The other was male… but…

“That’s a panda,” Limestone pointed out the obvious before biting down on another chip.

“Growf.” The big black and white panda grumbled, holding up a sign that said: Hello Everypony.

“Oh my,” Marble Pie remarked, cementing a catch phrase. “What a well-trained panda!”

“You could’ve at least changed first! Stupid old pony!” The mare yelled, hitting the panda upside the head with her hoof. She turned towards the Rock-Pie family and crossed her forelegs. “Geez! Anyway, I’m Rainbow Dash. Sorry about this.”

“Rainbow Dash,” Igneous Rock said, turning towards his family. “To unite the farms, you must marry one of my daughters…”

“Stop right there, brain!”

“You know I don’t mood swing often enough to be in a romantic comedy!” Pinkie shuddered, sticking her tongue out in disgust and hiding her head under her hooves. “What scary alternate realities! Plus, I’d much rather ship myself with Mousse. I love chocolate mousse!”

Cruciger shifted underneath her, almost knocking her off his head. “What?”

“Nothing!” Pinkie assured him, going back to holding onto his horn to keep from falling off his back. “So: an arranged marriage? I guess it worked for you two, right? You lived happily ever after?”

He slowly shook his head, jostling her back and forth in the process.

“Tell me! Tell me!” Pinkie insisted, waving her cider mug around like a deadly weapon.

“Aren’t you tired yet?” the Black Duke asked, finally slipping a hoof under her to effortlessly pick her up off his back. For a few seconds, he held out his hoof, and Pinkie literally sat on top of it, her weight easily supported by the big stallion. How she kept balanced, well, who knew?

“Before I met you,” Pinkie replied, crossing her forelegs as she recounted the tale. “I once got into a drinking contest. It was the hardest of my life. I lost, in the end, but I never gave up. I just kept on drinking and drinking! I gave it my all, refusing to quit, and, even though I lost, I’m super proud of how I did to this day!”

“Ah!” Cruciger’s good eye widened slightly at her admission. She had kept pace with him the entire night, despite being less than half his size. “Who was this formidable opponent, to out-drink you?”

“I never got his name,” Pinkie answered, her expression serious. “But only later did I learn that he was actually just a sink, and I was too drunk to notice.”

“…”

“Yeah.”

“Hrm.”

“Another drink!” Pinkie called out, tossing away her empty stein. “And more stories!”

“Another drink,” Cruciger commanded, and it was done. The party pony and the noblestallion clinked mugs of frothy cider and resumed their contest.

Neither paid much attention as the horizon colored in preparation for the rising of the sun.

The Sparkle family, minus one Shining Armor, plus one potential son-in-law, traveled by Sky Chariot with only a small escort. The pair of gold-trimmed, carved wooden chariots passed just over a cloudbank under construction, the early morning shift of Pegasus workers pausing to point at the Canterlot couples they probably assumed to be on vacation. Each chariot had only a single guard flying alongside. The Sparkle family itself had only four household security specialists, but the Canterlot Terre Rares of which they were a part maintained a larger family guard, exactly as many aristocratic houses tended to do. The four Pegasus ponies pulling the chariots were just chauffeurs; as far as Twilight knew none of them had even a lick of guard training.

Hanging onto the front of the chariot with a groan, she silently longed for the peace and leisure of a nice, slow, calming balloon ride. While not quite as stately as an airship zeppelin, she had always found the isolated, little basket of an air balloon to be unexpectedly charming. It was like having a cozy little corner of your room, all to yourself, and literally removed from any possible interruption by miles of open sky. Where a zeppelin could be a crowded social venue and a chariot was cramped, bumpy and hurried, a balloon was deliberate, considered, slow, and – best of all – oh so private. Two ponies to a balloon would have been intimate.

Two ponies to a chariot were just uncomfortable.

“Not much longer, now,” a stallion’s voice assured her, loud enough to be heard over the wind, soft enough to be gently reassuring. A wheat-colored hoof touched her own in passing. Before it could withdraw, Twilight turned her wrist to catch it in-hoof, more thankful for the fleeting bit of contact than she wanted to say.

“Are you sure you’re okay with all this?” Twilight asked, and, sitting next to her, Alpha Brass nodded solemnly.

“Better us than any others,” he reasoned. “I wish no harm on my father, but harmony in the family must come first. Besides, we need the army he has rather conveniently brought to our doorstep.”

“And if the two contradicted?” Twilight wondered and felt his hoof tighten in her own. “I know you set all this up. What if you couldn’t have harmony and this army at the same time? What if you had to choose one?”

“Twilight,” Brass said with a rich chuckle. “I think you’ve come to understand me rather well.”

“Everything you do is to crush the changelings.” She gently extradited her hoof from out of his, returning it to the floor of the chariot beneath them. “Sometimes I think that’s all you ever really think about.”

Brass said nothing at that, simply staring forward over the rim of the chariot, his closely cropped mane flowing lazily behind him. There was still a faint outline where his beard had been, ever since he cut it at her insistence. The morning light had not yet broken over the horizon; it was a twilight hour, and what little light there was highlighted the features of the stallion she had decided to spend her life with. To save her family alongside. They had spent so much time together since first meeting in the Everfree, at Zecora’s hut, both before and after her own trip to see the supposedly deceased Lady Arsenic.

Yet, she still often felt she knew so little – too little – about the real him. It was a very ephemeral sort of thought, the kind that was more a feeling than a rational analysis like she preferred. Twilight couldn’t help it, nonetheless. What she knew about him was just what somepony close to him could have learned publicly. She knew what he clearly liked and disliked, what he had written about, what he told others, and with the changelings, she shared at least one secret of his with those close to him, like Euporie and Eunomie. But it still felt like there was so much more he kept carefully, guardedly, to himself: things he never talked about and, she suspected, he would never talk about.

But, then, perhaps that was how it had to be, at least for now.

She had secrets of her own, too, that she kept from him.

“I wish we didn’t have to do this,” she said, mostly to herself, but he overheard.

“Maybe so,” he replied, and she felt him lightly touch shoulders with her. “But I am glad I don’t have to do this alone.” She reached up, and soon her hoof was pressed against his.

“Our hearts yearn, so desperately, for peace and harmony,” Alpha Brass said, dipping his eyes before he faced into the distance again. “But harmony must be seized and peace must be won. It does not favor those who remain idle. You know this, better than anypony. This is why I believe, with all my heart and soul, that we must take the future into our own hooves. I truly believe that.”

“I do, too,” she decided, and faced forward with him. The sun still had yet to rise, and she wondered idly how she looked to him, in that fading twilight glow. There was little time to think on it. Up ahead, a formation of flying silhouettes headed their way on an intercept course. There were two dozen of them on combat air patrol, swooping in on the approaching air chariots. The lead pony of each fight crackled threateningly with electricity, a faint double-contrail of smoke and cloud extending out from behind him or her.

Twilight squeezed Brass’ hoof.

This was it. There was no turning back now, for any of them.

Author's Note

Thanks, as I've expressed before, to q97 for helping me edit.

This chapter is on the shorter side (only 8k), but that's mostly due to the cut-off point.

I've been waiting a rather long time for what's coming, actually. Certain things have been on my mind since I started the fic, and I've had to wait and wait and wait before I could write them. The battles to come should, I hope, be rather epic and befitting their place in TPC lore.

The next two chapters currently have the working title: "Equestria's Strongest Couple"