Rarified Airs

Chapters

1: The Queen's City
2: Crystal Empire
3: The Rich Lands
4: The Mongrel Lands
5: The Great Northwest
6: The Tangle

1: The Queen's City

It could be lonely, up there in the sky. She had learned young to climb quickly, to get out of reach of the magic of the unicorns of The Queen’s City; even today, after her entire lifetime of flying, still thousands of ponies saw a body in the air and assumed it was a dragon or a griffon trying a mad long-distance raid. What else could it be?

Pegasi, after all, had been extinct for a thousand years.

Her hooves shoved a couple of clouds together. It felt so natural, she’d had a long time when she was a filly coming to understand that neither Mommy nor the Princess could touch clouds like she could. Not until the Princess studied her and figured out a spell for it, anyway, and even the Princess couldn’t make that spell last more than a day at a time. So only little Dashie got to have the most comfortable bed in the world, a little puff of cloud in her room.

If nothing else, no matter what happened, being a freaky science experiment had those benefits. She had the sky all to herself, and she had the best bed of anypony in Unicornia anywhere she looked. If she went high enough, only the Princess could reach her clouds to pull her back down. Even the weather mages couldn’t reach as high as she could fly. Any time she got to feeling a little overwhelmed, the sky was always there for her. Princess Twilight said it was natural for her to need to get outside a lot; being a flying species probably meant a tendency toward claustrophobia.

Rainbow Dash was pretty sure Princess Twilight knew she used that as an excuse to get out of her lessons and experiments a lot more often than it was true. It didn’t always work. When the Princess was really excited about a subject and wanted to share it… or when Dash had gotten her really good with a prank… then there was no getting around it. Fortunately, the Princess was really, really smart, and some of those experiments when Dash was a little filly had shown how her brain activity skyrocketed when she was flying, so the Princess didn’t make her sit on a stool for lectures except when she had to take tests. So she got to learn her way, which nopony else in all Unicornia could do, from the best teacher anywhere.

Having a horn of her own, she still sometimes thought, might have been worth not being special, though. She was pretty, she knew that; her mother was Princess Twilight’s personal tailor and fashion designer, and every time she came home with a dress singed from lightning or torn from getting grabbed by magic, Mom always sighed that such a beautiful little pony deserved a dress that could keep up with her, and Dash did usually feel bad then. Not that it stopped her from going back out in the next one, unless Mom had a real drama-fit complete with fainting couch to show it was time to settle down for a bit.

Dash looked down. At least Mom didn’t try to make her wear dresses on a regular basis anymore. She’d even designed the new outfit just for her. Tight-fitting so it wouldn’t mess with her flying, but still modest enough to walk around Canterlot in if she needed to. And stylish enough she could yank on a skirt and get into some Court meeting or whatever without making a social faux pas. At least by fashion choices. Any faux pas she made after that were her own doing. And usually intentional. When she saw Princess Twilight’s ear give that telltale twitch, that meant it was Dash Time.

Last time it had been the griffon ambassador being just way too obnoxious, so Dash Time that time meant pulling out one of the Big Ones. The ones Princess Twilight helped her plan in advance. The ones that meant a loud, angry official scolding and then laughing herself sick at the Princess’ side in one of the private tea rooms in front of an enormous cake later. And she never got to play with other fliers, so having a furious griffon chasing her through the halls had been awesome. That perfect little last-second jink to the side to leave him stuck waist-deep in a too-small window, she was proud of that. He might have a culture of flying, but she was just better.

She looked down at the city below. All the unicorns walking through the streets, doing their own thing… they probably never got lonely like this. Mom and the Princess were great, and the Guards and the staff were too, and so on. But she was different. Most of the time different was fine because it meant awesome. But sometimes it just meant… not having anywhere to hide. The clouds were out of reach, but never out of sight. The Princess’ greatest triumph ever, always on display. Usually that was good. Usually she liked having all eyes on her.

Usually.

Lately, though, she kept losing her train of awesome and getting into a blue mood. Even the Princess had noticed, and for all her smarts and her political savvy, she wasn’t usually all that great at picking up on feelings. They’d been down in the castle yard, where Dash usually got her lessons, flying laps and sometimes doing obstacle courses with rings and stuff, while the Princess lectured from the middle, and Dash would just pick it all up without noticing. Three times in the last two weeks, the Princess had called her in after just a couple of laps. Today made a fourth, and the Princess had hugged her and told her to take a break, and that never happened.

So here she was. Alone in the clouds. Nothing around her but air in any direction.

Why did it feel like she was in a cage?

***

“Rainbow, darling?” came Mom’s voice through the door. It just made Dash feel guiltier. Here she was, getting Mom upset for no good reason, and she didn’t even know why.

“Yeah, Mom?” she called back, and got to her hooves. The puff of cloud silently shifted as her weight moved, its single thin sheet tucked into place underneath her. She had to turn the key in the lock with her hoof; the thing was only there as a symbol, something to show that Mom would respect it even if they both knew she could turn the key from outside any time she wanted. A foal lock, but Dash couldn’t use an adult one.

“I saw you in the clouds all afternoon, dear.” Mom’s perfect white coat and expertly-coiffed purple mane were waiting outside the door, along with her worried expression. “Is something wrong? Is there anything I can do to help?” She reached out a foreleg to pull Dash against her.

Dash let her. Mom could have used her magic, but she never did. No unicorn in The Queen’s City used her magic less than Mom. At home, anyway. Another little way Mom tried to make Dash feel less alone. She’d seen her at work, guiding what looked like a hundred needles at once, all in different patterns, and knew that Lady Rarity was a unicorn of rare talent. But at home, she did things the way Dash did them. By hoof. From breakfast to hugging to making the bed.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, leaning into the hug. “I just start feeling… stuff. Maybe it’s another pegasus thing?”

Mom’s hoof moved to brush along Dash’s wing, a very slight preening movement, but one that always made Dash feel better. Mom had taught herself how to preen a pegasus filly’s wings with hoof and mouth, so that when Dash got old enough to learn, there’d be someone to teach her. Even if now, with all her own practice at it, she could recognize how clumsy Mom’s technique actually was, it still felt right the way Mom did it. Even if she had to fix the feathers herself later.

“It might be,” Mom said. “But I know it happens to a lot of young unicorn mares. You grow up and start to wonder about your place in the world.” Her hoof ran down to pat Dash’s cutie mark. The tri-colored rainbow was no more sensitive than anywhere else on her flank, and much less sensitive than her wings. “Just because your mark says something about you, doesn’t mean it says everything about you.”

“Controlling the weather is what Princess Twilight made me for,” Dash replied. The day she’d learned she could make clouds spit out lightning bolts by jumping on them had been one of the best days of her life. Princess Twilight had been thrilled - not just with the proof that the ancient records of pegasus abilities were validated, but that Dash had shown that pegasi could indeed develop a Cutie Mark via the normal process of discovery and not, as some of the other, more fantastical stories had it, only by cutting them from defeated unicorn foes. It meant that pegasus magic had something in common with unicorn magic after all. “That and pumping out a bunch more pegasi, eventually.” She felt mixed about that one. She’d have other pegasi, at least, but they’d all be babies. Her babies. Her as a mother. That just sounded weird even in her head.

“Originally, yes,” Mom conceded. “But ever since the day you were born, we’ve both known that you’d decide for yourself who you are.”

“Well… when I figure it out, I’ll let you know, I guess.”

***

Rainbow Dash was used to getting a Royal Summons. Sometimes several of them in a day. Princess Twilight came up with new tests for her all the time, and liked to share tea or lunch or whatever with her. Sometimes she had all sorts of scientific stuff she wanted to share, and she said Dash was her best audience for telling her if she’d condensed it down properly. She could never quite trust that her courtiers wouldn’t go study on their own so as to follow along, but she knew if Dash wasn’t getting it, she’d just say so.

Not that a Royal Summons was always a good thing. A couple of times when she was a filly, she’d had to walk up in front of the whole court and apologize to some noble or another. One time when she was a teenager and had done something that in retrospect was really, really dumb, she’d been called up in front of the throne and a steaming-mad Princess Twilight had the guards spank her flank bright red with a paddle on the grounds that if she was going to be foalish, she’d get a foalish punishment. But this one was in the Royal Labs, which almost always meant some sort of test, which could go either way. Rainbow Dash didn’t know any unicorns who liked having blood drawn any better than she did.

Princess Twilight was sitting at her primary lab table when Dash came in. She wasn’t wearing her goggles or any other protective gear, and the table was completely cleared off. That wasn’t a good sign or a bad sign; that was just unprecedented. There’d always be something on the table for an experiment.

Princess Twilight spoke first. “Come in, Rainbow Dash. I have some results I want to show you.”

Dash felt like her feathers were trying to stick out every which way in nerves. She kept her wings tightly pressed to her sides. She had lots of practice not making her wings too obvious. Results? Princess Twilight didn’t show her results. She showed her the papers at the end, if anything. Other than when the results gave her something to compete against, a new personal best, like the wing-power thing. Anemometer. Maybe a prank? Princess Twilight didn’t tend to pull pranks, though. “Results, Princess?” she asked cautiously.

Princess Twilight smiled. Her head was down a little bit, though; not an attack position, despite the lowered horn. A sad head-down, but not like to her chest. Just a little down. “Yes, Rainbow Dash. Results.”

The pegasus walked in and settled herself on the stool across from Princess Twilight. She’d long since internalized the no-flying-in-the-lab rule. Too much stuff got tossed around by the air moving. “Results on what?” she went ahead and asked. Maybe she’d messed up some test lately, or not done as well as the Princess hoped? A bolt of fear ran down her back. Was there something wrong with her? Was she going to turn into some mutant pony-eating monster?

The princess’s purple aura lifted a neatly-bound set of papers from a drawer on the table and set them in front of her pupil and experiment. “Read,” she said. Ordered, technically, but she’d always given Rainbow Dash lots of leeway on that. Dash usually obeyed anyway.

Rainbow Dash read. Princess Twilight had clearly spent quite a bit of her precious time on this, boiling tons of results down into graphs with nice clear labels and meanings. She still took her time. Sitting and reading wasn’t her thing, usually, but there was something big up. It didn’t take her that long to hit the first major bit.

Her head snapped up. “If I’d been a unicorn, I woulda been set to challenge for a throne,” she said. It wasn’t angry, or wondering, or excited. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “But all that magic goes into my wings instead.”

Princess Twilight smiled a little at her. Just a little. “If you hadn’t been destined to be a pegasus, I don’t think I would have combined those particular genetic strains. The feather aside, Lady Rarity might not have objected, but my brother had another mare in mind. Fortunately, Princess Cadence talked him into contributing. So you have two powerful bloodlines behind you, and I do assume that whatever pegasus originally owned the feather I used was a late-surviving and therefore powerful pegasus himself. It’s not really surprising that you have powerful magic. Keep reading.”

Rainbow Dash forced herself to keep going, even though she really, really wanted to sit and let that one percolate in her head for a bit. All that magic, and she couldn’t use any of it except to fly… which, to be fair, was worth a lot. She went to the next page. “... Birds?”

Another royal smile. “The first non-caged, non-predatory songbirds to be verifiably spotted building nests in a thousand years, Rainbow Dash. Near the southern border, but definitely in Unicornia. They left when the pegasi died, but somehow they know you’re here. They’re coming back.”

Dash huhed. Well, pretty cool, she guessed. She’d seen the caged songbirds at the palace often enough, and they seemed to like her pretty well. She kept going, and then her head snapped up. “I am not a bird!” she protested, hurt. There hadn’t been any shortage of unicorns who’d called her that, all her life. But neither Mom or the princess had…

“Of course you aren’t,” Princess Twilight immediately said, holding up a hoof in a placatory gesture. “But you do have some non-unicorn characteristics, and they’re the closest model. You need more sugar and more protein than a unicorn, and less calcium. But more importantly, you display more and more signals of claustrophobia around this time of year.” She smiled, the fond kind, not the sad kind. “Even if I don’t count the ones you faked to get out of a lesson. Simply put, Dash, a pegasus is supposed to move.”

“But I do move,” Dash said, trying to figure out where this all was going. “You’ve got a new exercise routine?” she guessed. “Those are fun, sometimes.”

Twilight laughed. “Not like that, Rainbow Dash. No, I mean move like migrate. Travel. Not stay in The Queen’s City all the time.” She reached over to put a hoof on the pegasus’ shoulder. “I’m assigning you to a diplomatic caravan. I want you to go show Unicornia what the future holds - and the place you have in it. You’ll be travelling with an ambassador and plenty of guards, but hopefully this will help you.”

“And make lots of data,” Dash added.

“And make lots of data,” Twilight confirmed. “But first, read the last page. I haven’t shown you this part before because I don’t want you to be reckless, but… well, things can happen on the road, and you might need to know this part.”

Rainbow Dash immediately flipped to the next page. Reckless? Okay, that sounded like fun. All the best stuff involved being reckless. She looked at the graphs on the last page, then tilted her head. “... Are you sure this isn’t backward?” she asked.

Twilight laughed quietly. “I checked six times. You sprained your wing falling out of bed a few times as a foal… and you recall that time we did speed trials out by the Whitetail Woods?”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “You called it off after like ten minutes and wouldn’t even say why.”

Twilight set her hoof on Dash’s shoulder again. “You clipped the tops of the trees. At the speeds you were going, I thought you were about to die. Instead, your wing sheared right through two feet of solid wood and you didn’t even notice. The thaumometer recorded the whole thing. The faster you go, the more magic you put out - and the safer you are. So if you get into trouble, if there’s something dangerous - or, worst of all, if you run into a griffon raid - then fly. As fast as you can. The guards can take care of themselves, and that’s what they’re trained for. You just fly. All the way back home, if that’s what it takes to keep you safe.”

Dash looked over her shoulder at her wing. It didn’t look like she was hiding a buzzsaw back there. “... I cut through a tree? And you didn’t tell me?”

Twilight nodded. “I didn’t tell anypony, Rainbow Dash. Do you understand what it would mean if this got out?”

“Ummm… I’d have a lot more respect?” Rainbow Dash guessed, picturing it. Those jerks in the court all with their jaws dropped as she like chopped her way through marble columns or something…

The Princess shook her head. “There would be a demand that I stop this experiment,” she said flatly. “History says unicorns defeated pegasi because pegasi couldn’t do anything against magic. What you prove is that a sufficiently powerful pegasus could in fact get up to speed and be able to overcome unicorn magic. That the War of Survival was not as one-sided as history says.” She sighed. “That we won because we happened to have more powerful ponies at that moment, not because every unicorn was destined to defeat the other tribes. And that means if I bring back more pegasi, and they turn out to be as powerful as you, they might decide to avenge the falls of Roam and Pegasopolis.”

Rainbow Dash gaped. Not at the idea of ponies wanting her ‘experiment’ ended; some of them said that kind of stuff to her face in court all the time. But… “I’m not gonna do anything like that!” she exclaimed, horrified. “I’m not a unicorn, but I’m still a loyal Unicornian! And… and if anypony brings back pegasi, it’d be you, and they’d all know you were doing it because you’re a good princess, and that you really care about ponies, even pegasi! They wouldn’t turn on you! They couldn’t!”

Princess Twilight reached across the table and hugged her. “I know they wouldn’t. But other unicorns might not want to believe it. So don’t let anypony know. Just stay safe for me. Let the guards do their jobs, and if something is overwhelming them, then fly back to me. Don’t be a hero. You’re too special for that.”

Being a hero… That had never been on the horizon for Rainbow Dash. Famous, maybe, and even important in her own way as part of Princess Twilight’s plan, but a hero? … She sort of liked the idea of it. Saving the guards from a dragon attack, kicking some scaly firebreather right in the face.

“Rainbow Dash?”

Dash ummmed. “If there’s trouble, Princess, then I’ll fly.”
Princess Twilight Sparkle smiled ruefully. “I suppose that’s the best I’m going to get.”

2: Crystal Empire

The caravan was… nice. In the ‘interminably slow’ sort of way. The caravan could only roll along as fast as the stallions could pull the carriages. Most of the nobleponies in the carriages could have walked faster, but it was one of those dumb diplomatic things that meant they all had to be fancy. And a couple of the older ponies really did need help. At least the road was well-maintained; with Princess Cadence marrying Princess Twilight’s brother, the Queen’s City and the Crystal Empire had some of the best inter-regional relations in Unicornia. Rainbow Dash wished there was something faster, but only really powerful unicorns like Princess Twilight could teleport, and there was no way she could get herself all the way to the Empire, let alone an entire caravan.

Dash couldn’t even fly overhead; too dangerous. Some out-of-sight unicorn might spot her and try to zap her. And if she flew high enough to be safe from that, then she’d be out of contact with the rest of the caravan. So she had to do her least favorite thing in the world: sit and wait. Just because she had a lot of practice at it didn’t mean she’d ever learned to like it any better.

At least they had brought along a bunch of royal cooks and stuff. She could spend her time nibbling. They made the best cookies and cakes and other pastries, and they’d brought along plenty of already-made nommables to last them way longer than they’d actually be on the road. Even with Dash’s prodigious appetite for sugary treats, she wasn’t going to run out any time soon.

The ambassador, Due Respect, was sharing the carriage with her. He was a naturally stuffy stallion, but nice anyway, as long as he thought Rainbow Dash was being dignified enough for his tastes. And she still remembered one time when she’d been a little filly and some jerk at court had reduced her to tears with ‘bird’ taunts, and Due Respect had stepped in and given the bully the sharpest tongue-lashing Dash had ever heard, then given Dash a surprisingly warm hug and escorted her to her mother himself. So… even if he scolded her sometimes for being wild, she counted him a friend. He got underestimated a lot, with that weird eye of his and a plain gray coat.

“The Crystal Empire is going to be our easiest stop,” he told Dash, looking up from his packet of notes. “It doesn’t adjoin to any other regions of Unicornia, so we’ll have to pass back through Princess Twilight’s territory to continue, but it does border on griffon lands. Accordingly, even had Princess Cadence not been romantically involved with Shining Armor, the Crystal Empire would have had excellent cause to wish to remain on good terms with the Queen’s City.”

“Yeah, and the griffons are all riled up right now ‘cause they just got a new leader of their own,” Dash supplied, to prove she’d done her reading too.

Due Respect cocked an eyebrow at her. “So they are, indeed, fractious. You have read the materials? It had been my impression you considered this trip objectionable.”

“What? No, getting to go outside the Queen’s City is pretty cool,” Dash said, tilting her head. “Why’d you think I had a problem with it?”

“You’ve done little but sulk, eat cookies, and stare out the window since we left,” he said. “Between bouts of fidgeting, at least.”

“I didn’t think I was sulking?” asked Rainbow Dash, though it wasn’t much of a question. “It’s just so slow, and I can’t get out and fly around. I get antsy when I have to sit for a long time. Princess Twilight says it’s probably a pegasus thing.”

‘I suppose you will have an opportunity to clean up after we arrive tomorrow,” Due Respect said slowly. “It would be ill-advised to take to the air, but if you would prefer to exercise your legs and expend some of your excess energy that way, you could walk rather than ride. You will need at some point to review your instructions, and it would be difficult for you to do so while walking, lacking any magical ability to hold the documents for you.”

“I read ‘em before we left,” Dash said with a shrug. “Or sort of. I don’t learn well when I sit. I’ve gotta be flying. So Princess Twilight told me what I need to do while I was doing laps.”

“Interesting,” Due Respect commented. “I shall keep that in mind, then. So your objective in the Crystal Empire?”

Dash rubbed the back of her head. “Mostly, meet my dad.”

***

It took three days for the caravan to roll into the Crystal Empire. Dash could have made the trip on her own in an afternoon. It rained on the second day, but at least that meant Dash could go fly above the clouds in safety - and get the pulling stallions on her side by clearing the clouds away over them so they weren’t getting soaked all day. Trotting along atop the clouds in perfect sunshine while ponies below were seeing nothing but rain was one of her favorite secret special moments.

On the third day, they were getting up into the high elevations around the Crystal Empire, and the rain turned to snow. Due Respect observed the swirling winds and told Dash to stay inside the carriage. She argued halfheartedly that she could clear the sky overhead again, but she could see how the wind was making the snow that had already fallen swirl all over anyhow. The stallions doing the pulling were working hard enough to get by with just a scarf and snow goggles, but all the other ponies bundled up inside the carriages. Except Dash. She never felt much effect from the cold. No matter how high up she went, she never felt a chill.

That all changed the moment they set hoof inside the Crystal Empire. One moment, bitter arctic cold; a step away, a warm, sunny day. Rainbow Dash could feel the storm raging all around, but the Empire’s Crystal Heart kept the snow at bay. A small stage was waiting for them, and a pair of unicorns sat on thrones at the center of that stage. A sudden surge of nerves made Dash’s feathers ruffle, and she swallowed. That pony, right there, the white-coated stallion… that was him. Shining Armor. Her dad. Technically. She’d seen his portrait, sure, but he couldn’t leave the Crystal Empire.

What if he didn’t like her? What if he thought she was a freak? What if he was one of those snooty unicorns and said she was a mistake? What if he was just a jerk? Princess Twilight grew up with him, sure, but he hadn’t been a prince, then. Maybe he’d think she should be… have her experiment ended. She fought to keep her hooves on the floor, not start chewing at them, to not curl up and whimper. She hadn’t felt so… unsure of herself in a very long time. She wanted to bolt back into the storm, find a cloud, and hide. She hadn’t felt this self-conscious since she was a little filly who kept having to walk out in front of all those big, hostile nobles at court.

A hoof patted her on the back. Due Respect’s voice was very soft in her ear. “He has read Princess Twilight’s reports and he is very proud of you,” he whispered to her. “You’re going to do fine.”

Dash closed her eyes for a moment and leaned into him. Her muscles relaxed and her feathers laid themselves flat to her sides. She’d put on the flight suit that Mom had made for her, with the fancy skirt that made it more official-looking, and that left her wings displayed. Normally something she was proud of, but it meant her wings would give away her nerves. But… Due Respect was an ambassador. He’d met Shining Armor a bunch of times. If he said Shining Armor was proud of her, he’d be proud of her. She could do this.

“You’ll follow behind me,” he said into her ear quietly. “You can say whatever you think best. Just wait for me to present you.”

“Okay,” she said back in a matching voice. Reassured or not, she swallowed anyway.

The door opened, and Due Respect lifted his hoof from Rainbow Dash’s back, then began to march regally down the waiting red carpet to stand before the stage. She waited for him to get a few paces in, then got out. She had to step down from the carriage, so naturally she flew a few paces to smoothly land instead of having to reach down for the ground. She heard gasps from the ponies watching all around. She always liked that bit. But she kept her head forward, watching Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor.

They were smiling. That was good. Due Respect was walking in front of her, and she made sure to match her pace to his, so she wouldn’t run up into him or fall behind. He didn’t look nervous at all; his tail was held down in a modest position, he was moving with a practiced, smooth step, and his head was high. She did her best to mimic him, stopping when he did and waiting while he presented the caravan.

“On behalf of Her Majesty Princess Twilight Sparkle, Sovereign of the Queen’s City, Duchess of the Canterlot Range, Lady of the Heartland of Unicornia, I, Ambassador Due Respect, do greet you, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, Prince Shining Armor, Sovereigns of the Crystal Empire, in friendship and peace.”

Princess Cadence nodded her head regally back. “We greet you, Ambassador Due Respect, and welcome you to the Crystal Empire. The Empire has long been proud of our strong friendship with the Heartland of Unicornia and the Queen’s City.” A smile crossed her face. “And my beloved sister-in-law. And is this my niece I see behind you?”

Due Respect didn’t give any hint of surprise, so Dash supposed that they’d already decided what they’d call the relationship between her and Princess Cadence. ‘Step-daughter’ would’ve been another option, but then that would mean technically Rainbow Dash would be considered in line for the throne, and that wouldn’t have gone over well. So ‘niece’ made for a good way to acknowledge her without putting her into the succession.

“Indeed, Your Highness, it is. I present to you Rainbow Dash, first pegasus citizen of Unicornia.”

And that was all it took. Dash took a deep breath and stepped forward. She’d tried writing a speech or something she could make, but it always came out sounding completely lame. So she’d decided she was just going to wing it. Now she really wished she’d made something ahead of time after all. Well, too late.

She raised her head and spread her wings wide. The ponies to the sides gasped again. She set them back down and bowed her head. “I’m glad to meet you,” was what she came up with. The crowd was quiet.

There was silence from up on the stage, and then Princess Cadence said, “Not as glad as we are to meet you, my niece. Please, come up to join us.”

Dash felt her wings trying to spread, to fly her away as fast as she could, to get back to the safety of the palace. Why had they paused? Why didn’t Shining Armor say anything? The crowd stayed hushed, watching. She kept her wings pinned hard to her sides, walking slowly up the stairs onto the stage instead of flying up. What was wrong? Did she mess up? Had Shining Armor changed his mind?

At least Princess Cadence was still smiling at her. Shining Armor… Dash couldn’t read his expression at all. He looked frozen as the ice outside the Heart’s effect. Dash’s hooves felt just as cold as she approached them. What did she do wrong? What..

A mass of white-coated muscle engulfed her, and two strong forelegs wrapped around her. A blue mane was in her face, and she felt wetness on her neck. Tears?

“You’re beautiful,” a deep male voice rasped in her ear. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there for you…”

Rainbow Dash felt tears running down her cheeks too as she wrapped her forelegs around him in return, and saw Princess Cadence stepping in to join the hug.

“You’re here now,” she said, and that was the last thing that needed saying.

***

The rest of the official greeting was anticlimactic; Cadence and Shining Armor insisted that Rainbow Dash share the stage with them while the rest of the caravan presented their credentials. Mostly Cadence listened; Shining Armor was too busy holding Dash against his side. She kept a wing across his back in return, leaning into him, while somepony talked about tariffs and things until the ceremony was over.

Cadence and Shining Armor escorted Rainbow Dash to their personal chariot, with a quartet of crystal ponies waiting in their gleaming armor to pull them back to their palace. Both royals insisted that since Rainbow Dash was family, she didn’t have to say ‘Prince’ or ‘Princess’ - even if politics said she couldn’t call Shining Armor ‘Dad’ in public, that degree of familiarity would make the point clearly. Dash had never felt so… well, so awesome.

They gave her a personal showing of the Crystal Heart and explained how the happiness of the Crystal Ponies empowered the magical stone, keeping the frequent northern storms safely at bay and letting the Empire do the mining work it was so famous for, extracting valuable gems and magically-potent crystals for the rest of Unicornia, along with a variety of specialized crops that didn’t grow anywhere else. Their lenses and glassworks were unmatched anywhere else as well.

Dash, in turn, gave them the greatest flight display she’d ever put on - with the help of Princess Cadence single-hornedly projecting an announcement into the sky over the Empire inviting all of her subjects to watch. Having the entire population concentrated in that single city, with no outlying stragglers, made messages like that much more effective, and Princess Cadence’s skill with large-scale images was known across Unicornia. Her line stretched back to Mad Prince Sombra, and ever since his infamous conquest of the Changelings, his line had been marked with green eyes and a talent for illusion.

So Dash showed them just what she could do. Her rainbow trail blazed behind her all afternoon, and she dove between clouds, spinning them, starting and ending rainbursts (avoiding soaking her audience, of course), and showing off the lightning bolts that had won her her cutie mark. She’d never put on a show that long before, and she was bone-tired at dinner and all evening, but she found it a worthy trade. Taking Princess Cadence’s cue, the Crystal Ponies were cheering her on - and Dash was falling in love with the Empire at the same time.

An entire region of Unicornia that likes me and accepts me? Maybe the only reason they’re such jerks in the Queen’s City is they think I’m getting in their way, she thought happily as she fought to keep her head off the table at dinner. She barely noticed what she was eating; tired as she was, her body demanded fuel, and everything was delicious. Her wings were sore, and she’d brought a cloud down to the luxurious bedroom Cadence had set aside for her. She was so ready to sprawl herself down on that unmatchable softness and sleep like a spell-stunned hydra.

The moon rose through one of the tall crystal windows in the palace dining room, held in the combined glow of dozens of unicorns all laboring together, all knowing that they risked their very horns each night to overstrain. Dash watched that clear, bright surface shine, a silver glow contrasting with the yellow flames of the table’s candles. She was seated next to Shining Armor, and every so often his hoof would reach over to brush along her wing, as though to reassure himself that she really was there. It felt nice. Not like Mom preening her wings, but just… being there. It was so wonderfully cozy she felt like purring like Mom’s cat. She felt… close, like the air was wrapping around her more closely than it had all day, and beyond the window the light glinted from falling flakes of snow.

“It looks so pretty out there,” she drowsily commented to Shining Armor, pointing a hoof at the window. He turned to see, but he didn’t have the snug, comfortable response she expected. His eyes widened and he jumped to his hooves.

“Cadie!” Shining Armor gasped out. “SNOW!”

His wife turned. “What?” She followed Dash’s pointing hoof, and her shock matched Shining Armor’s. “The Heart!” she cried out. “Guards! To the Heart!” And she didn’t wait for her orders to be obeyed, galloping out of the dining room herself.

Rainbow Dash’s tired mind wasn’t putting two and two together, but seeing ponies running sparked something in her that said she should run with them. So she did, and even as sore as her wings were, she rapidly caught up to Princess Cadence.

“What’s wrong? It’s just some snow,” she asked, keeping pace smoothly at Cadence’s side.

“Snow insidethe Empire shouldn’t be possible!” Cadence gasped, her breath coming much less easily than Dash’s. “The Heart keeps the snow away! Dash! You’re faster! Go ahead! Go!” Rainbow Dash didn’t need to be told twice to go faster. The Heart was in a nice prominent location, so it was easy to remember where to go.

Even if it hadn’t been, it would have stood out a lot right at the moment. It was the place with a half-dozen dead guards sprawled in front of it. The holes of horn-stabs in the backs of their necks suggested that they’d never even seen their murderers’ approach. Their enchanted armor would have protected them against spells, but a purely physical attack through a gap was unblocked. The moonlight made their pooled blood shine like black crystals on the ground. Dash didn’t have to even go inside to see that the Crystal Heart was missing.

***

It took Shining Armor and Cadence a few minutes to catch up. Dash spent the intervening time doing the only thing she could think of that might do some good - look for hoofprints. With so much blood splashed around, it seemed impossible that the unicorns who killed the guards could have walked away without leaving tracks, but the clouds were rolling in, the snow was already increasing in intensity, and the moon’s light was hardly enough to make out fine details. Rainbow Dash had better eyesight than any unicorn could boast, but she wasn’t suited for the night.

Shining Armor came out of the oncoming street first, a pace ahead of his wife. His face went grim the instant he saw the blood, and he tried to stop, to make Cadence turn before she could see it as well, but he was too late. Even in the dim light, her eyes watered and her face paled.

“Solid Stalwart… Rocky… Subtle Spell… Big Apatite… Jack of Diamonds, you silly pony, you weren’t even supposed to share a watch with your brother… Bright Flash, it was his first time guarding the Heart…” she whispered. It did not surprise Dash at all that she knew each of them by name. She had little doubt that the princess could have named every unicorn in her guard.

Shining Armor put a hoof across her back, holding her against him, but she wouldn’t turn her eyes away from the carnage before her. That the Heart was missing was producing no reaction from her at all, compared to the loss of those she cared for. But the tears never fell from her eyes. A Princess of Unicornia could never show quite so much weakness.

The guards who came with them were less sentimental. One of them, a red-maned mare, snapped out to Dash, “Which way did they go?”

The pegasus could only shake her head. “I don’t see any tracks. They must have teleported or something.”

The guard, evidently the ranking officer while Shining Armor consoled his wife, shook her head grimly and glared at the bodies, as though their failure to guard the Heart was a far greater sin than mere death could expiate. “There aren’t a dozen unicorns in the Empire who can teleport at all, and they’re all academics. The lot of them put together couldn’t take down six guards without giving them time to shield.” She looked up to the sky, watching the snow fall down as though it was an accomplice.

“Princess!” came a cry from another street, and a brown-coated, white-maned unicorn came charging in. Not a guard; this mare was wearing a bathrobe - that nonetheless had leather patches on the sleeves. And Rainbow Dash had thought Twilight’s collection of professors were monomaniacal about advertising their status. “Princess! It’s snowing! The Heart! Something’s wrong with the Heart!”

Cadence lifted her head, all signs of woe vanished in a twinkling; her eyes cleared and her voice was steady. “The Heart has been stolen,” she admitted. “Detailed Study, you must gather the mages. Every mage you have. We need to find out who did this, and we need to ward the skies. If the snow is allowed in, the Empire will be reclaimed by the Northern Wastes in days, and the perpetrators must be caught.”

The professor gaped at her. “Princess… we don’t have any weather mages. We’ve had the Heart. We’ve always had the Heart. I don’t know if all of us together can brute-force a spell to hold back the storms, let alone spare the hornpower for a no-clues Empire-wide scan at the same time. We’ll have to break to raise the sun, too.”

Rainbow Dash was still circling, taking wider loops, hoping to spot something further away, but still in the open area around the Heart’s display. Her wings were aching again now that the surge of excitement was wearing off, after that aerial display all afternoon. Still, she could hear through a hurricane. Hearing a loudly-protesting academic was impossible not to do.

Nor could she miss the steel in Cadence’s command. “Find a way. We cannot let the Empire be lost, and we cannot let the Heart be lost.”

Nor the fear and despair in the response. “We can’t. There isn’t a unicorn in the Empire with a talent for weather manipulation, and it would be days to bring them in from the Heartland.”

“No unicorns,” Rainbow Dash called out before thinking about it. Her wings were already killing her, but she brought their attention on herself anyhow.

The professor blinked and then made the unaccustomed motion of looking up to see who was talking to her. Her mouth gaped. Dash assumed she hadn’t been looking out a window. Like, all day long.

“You can do that?” asked Cadence, and her voice betrayed surprise - and a hint of wonder. “You can hold back the snow, by yourself?”

“Princess, no!” yelped Detailed Study. “Let the guards do the search. My colleagues and I will do the weather spells! We’ll make it work! We can’t trust the Empire’s safety to some mrmmph!” A blue glow wrapped around her mouth.

“Think very, very carefully before you choose your next word,” said Shining Armor in a very soft voice. His horn was burning bright enough in the night to send shadows scattering around the courtyard. “Perhaps you don’t know who her father is.”

“... Novice?” improvised the professor weakly. “I read Princess Twilight’s publications, Your Highness. She has not set Rainbow Dash to regular weather work. She’s too valuable to risk a fall from such a height.”

Dash felt like the other colors in her mane were going to shift to join the red. A fall? Her?!? “Sorry, can’t hear you, too busy saving the day,” she snapped out, and launched herself into the air. Even in the dim light, her rainbow trail blazed brightly.

No magical auras reached up to snag at her as she flew. The rest of the Empire was indoors or asleep; most Unicornians rose and slept with the sun. It was only the wealthy and the highest-ranking who would spend the bits on candles to prolong the evening. The snow felt… close, and stuffy, to her, pressing in, as though eager to fill the spot that the Heart had so long carved out of the Northern Wastes. Barometric stabilization, ran through her head, and Dash dutifully filed that away to write down and send to Princess Twilight later. She could feel the pressure moving in with just her natural senses. Another data point for her to squeal over; pegasi really were weatherponies by nature.

She really, really wanted to land on top of the Heart’s chamber and rest, but there was way too much to do. The clouds were moving in fast, and even if Detailed Study had gone running back to the Imperial College at top speed, they were going to be trouble before the mare could rally the scholars to cast together. Once again, Rainbow Dash was alone.

And she was going to kick some soft puffy vaporous flank.

Shining rainbow trails criss-crossed the sky over the Empire as she blasted her way through the clouds, like a thick spiderweb shining impossibly brightly in the moonlight. Her leading hooves struck the soft, yielding surface of the clouds, and by her will alone - or, as a Twilight-trained part of her mind prompted, by a unique application of her innate magic - she demanded the vapors burst. She accelerated. The faster she went, the easier it was. Just like Princess Twilight told her. Her heart raced and her eyes ached, the wind whipping salty drops from the corners of her eyes as her tear ducts tried to keep up with the loss of moisture. She really, really wished she had a pair of goggles. Those big laboratory goggles would be perfect.

Nothing tried to grab at her, so she assumed that Cadence wasn’t going to try to make her come back. For hours she raced the storm, darting back and forth across the Empire to destroy any dark fluffy harbingers of doom that trespassed on that bubble of warmth and life in the midst of the deadly ice. Her wings screamed at her and she ignored their protests; for all the pain, exhilaration and pride kept her going. This was it, this was what she was made for, she was flying harder than she’d ever flown in her life and she was saving the entire freaking Crystal Empire by herself!

She hoped they were going to be able to track down the murderers who killed the guards. And stole the Heart, that too. Her hooves lashed out at another cloud. Then another. Her legs were getting tired; her wings had transcended exhaustion and felt like they had passed beyond her control entirely, responding to her thoughts without providing the slightest bit of feedback to her brain.

Her mind fogged. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud. Spotting the next intruder and mercilessly obliterating it became reflex, not conscious action. Something changed, but she didn’t process what it was, just kept chasing the clouds. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud. Cloud.

Something was very bright and it kept flashing in front of her eyes when she turned. The sky had changed colors, too. Bluer, easier to see the clouds. Something pink showed up next to her, making noises. It had the wavery look of an illusion. That should mean something. She didn’t have the spare energy to wonder what that something was.

Finally, her eyes closed and her wings locked out to the sides. In a long, slow, lazy spiral, the unconscious pegasus circled back down to a four-hoof landing in the courtyard, her sleeping body operating entirely on ancient reflexes. Then, safely on the ground, she fell forward onto her face.

***

She was hot. Way too hot. Way, way too hot. And the bed was ridiculously hard. She never slept away from her clouds. Why would she? They were the best beds ever. Cool and soft, just right. But now someone had stuck her in a hard unicorn bed and piled blankets over her like an invalid, and she was roasting. She threw them off, and then her eyes snapped open as the movement made her body snarl at her.

Oh, by Platinum’s line were her wings not happy with her. She had never felt them this sore before. What had she…

Oh. Oh. Oh. Right. She shook her head sharply and rolled out of bed, looking around. A rich-looking room with a big now-mussed bed and...

… and Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor apparently had not thought to hide their very naughty paintings on the far wall when they brought Rainbow Dash in to recuperate in their bedroom. Dash’s face went red. Then it went purple as she realized that the stallion in that painting was her dad. Doing…

On the plus side, she found out that hastily flying out of a bedroom was a great way to stretch sore wings and work out the kinks in a hurr…

To work out the sore muscles in a hurry.

A pair of guards were stationed outside the bedroom. Only one of them had reflexes quick enough to jump out of the way of the door swinging open. The other got a sore nose and horn when the door hit and then a sore skull when the back of her head hit the wall. Dash didn’t have time to feel sorry for her.

“Did they find the Heart?” She didn’t need to ask if the snow was falling. She could feel it at a distance, not close by. Not much of it, either. The academics must be holding off what was left after Dash’s overnight efforts.

“No, not yet,” the still-standing guard said. “Are you able to fly?”

“I just did,” pointed out Dash. “Open a window and let me get back up there!”

“Princess Cadence gave orders to have you brought to her so Her Highness can personally update you,” the armored pony said, holding up a hoof. “At the very least she needs to tell the College to stop casting first.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” asked Dash. “Which way to Princess Cadence?”

***

Cadence and Shining Armor were in conference with their top-ranking guards, coordinating the search efforts while the professors handled the weather. The air was getting colder, but the northern storms were in a lull. The relatively few clouds that made their way into Imperial airspace were slow enough for the university’s academics to clumsily shove them back out. The guards at the door sent Dash right in.

Shining Armor was moving little models of unicorns around the city, directing the patrols, but Cadence looked up. She looked tired; Dash doubted she had slept a wink. Her voice was loud and clear, though, as she called out, “Our hero arrives! Rainbow Dash, how do you feel?”

Dash trotted over and was pulled (first magically, then physically) against Cadence’s chest in a tight hug. She was a really good hugger. Also a really strong hugger. She got her horn into it. But not too hard; just enough to feel firm and close. Dash felt vaguely guilty for admitting it to herself, but she couldn’t deny that Cadence gave the best hugs she’d ever felt. When Shining Armor joined in, it was maybe the homiest moment Dash had ever had. The one out by the boundary of the Empire had been in front of a whole crowd, so she hadn’t broken out her full powers, Dash thought.

All good things must come to an end, and all three of them knew they had other duties, so the hug broke all at once, and they turned back to the model of the Empire. The guards had kept positioning their figures all around, politely not looking at the family moment.

Family moment? Dash thought to herself, then mentally shrugged. Yeah. It was.

“I’m ready to go back up,” Dash finally said. “There’s not a lot of clouds on the way, though. I don’t think I can do much about the cold air coming in.”

“There aren’t many on the way?” asked Shining Armor. “Did you go up and look?”

Dash gave him a proud grin. “Don’t need to. I can feel it. Pegasus thing. It’s gonna be light cloud cover for a few days. Nothing but maybe some flurries here and there.”

“That helps,” one of the guard captains said. “If we can get more of the eggheads working on searching spells, they might actually find something.”

“So, uh, no luck so far?” Dash asked, looking at the city model. It looked like the guards were just sort of scattered all around, but she figured there was probably some logic to it. Or else they really had just decided to go random. Princess Twilight told her a bunch of times about randomness being useful for some things.

“We haven’t found a trace of the Heart,” Cadence said with a shake of her head. “It’s a powerful magical artifact, so it should be standing out like a zebra in the Queen’s City. But there’s nothing. Even if it was a long way off, we ought to be able to get something from it. So someone has to be shielding it, but we should be able to detect some sign of that.”

“We’re looking for links to the blood that the perpetrators got on their horns, too,” Shining Armor added, looking over the model again. “Blood is one of the most potent magical traces there is. Any unicorn with blood on their horn ought to be the easiest thing in the world to find. But… not a thing. We couldn’t find so much as a red hoofprint.” He held up a leg. “I had to scour my hooves to a gleam to get the tracking spells to stop finding me. I don’t know how somepony could have horn-jabbed all those guards without walking through it all. Everypony who came on that scene got it on their hooves.”

“Not everypony,” Dash said, and waggled a hoof back. “I never landed. But I don’t have a horn.”

Shining Armor groaned and dropped his face to the table. “Flying. The attackers flew.”

“What? No! I just said I don’t have a horn!” Dash protested.

Cadence gave her a reassuring hug. “Not you, Rainbow Dash. You’re not the only one who flies. We have neighbors who can do that too.”

“The griffons?” Dash asked. “But that would start a war! They’ve gotta know they’d get their beaks kicked in.”

“Maybe not, if they got away with it. They’ve got a new leader. He’ll be looking for something that will solidify their clans behind him and make a place for him in the history books,” Shining Armor said, moving more and more of the pieces on the table toward one particular building. “If the Empire got buried in snow last night, we’d have been busy for days trying to recover. If the Heart stays gone for long, the Empire will freeze anyway. The griffons would have the Heart, the Empire would be ruined, and I don’t know if anyplace in Unicornia other than the Heartland would come to our aid at that point. Twiley would stand with us. Tiara, Zecora, and Blueblood? Who knows?”

“I didn’t think they would take a risk like that, but it makes sense,” Cadence reluctantly conceded. “Their embassy has warding runes built into the stones. The Heart could stay hidden inside there.”

“Along with spears,” Shining Armor added. “They wanted to throw us off the track and make us think it was our own.” He moved another quartet of units across the model, surrounding that one building. The griffon embassy.

“If it’s not them, we could start a war ourselves by accusing them,” said Cadence, taking a deep breath. “It could still be somepony else. Maybe Filthy Rich sent his agents in to try to trick us into starting a war, so that he could claim it was my own fault, and then take the Empire for himself later.”

“The Donager is only named Filthy, Cadie,” Shining Armor said. “He’s ruthless, yes, but he’s not a bad unicorn. He wouldn’t betray all of Unicornia like this.”

One of the guard figures on the table, one of the ones near the griffon embassy, flashed, and then a scroll appeared in midair. Shining Armor’s horn glowed, catching and unrolling it. He snorted. “Corporal Blackhoof reports heightened activity inside the embassy. They’re doing something, and doing it fast.”

Another figure flashed. One of the other guards caught the paper this time. “Sire! They’re moving out!”

Dash blinked. “Wait, those are linked to real guards? Not just planning?”

Shining Armor waved an impatient hoof at her. “Yes, one to each actual guard. We move, they get orders. Half the guard is converging on the embassy right now. Give me a second, let me think!”

“Do it,” said Cadence, and put her hoof down hard on the table. “If it means war, then so be it. Do not let them leave.”

Another figure flashed. Another scroll; the other guard caught this one too. “They’re in the air!” she cried out. “Magic-disrupting armor. They’re too hard to grab, and at that range they’re shedding bolts!”

“Take them down,” said Cadence flatly. “Do not let them get out of the Empire under any circumstances.”

The window cracked as Dash blasted through it.

***

This is so dumb this is so dumb this is so dumb, ran through Rainbow Dash’s head like a mantra as she flew, gathering speed. There’s a ton of trained griffon soldiers and they KNOW how to fight each other air-to-air. Princess Twilight is gonna be so, so, so, so mad I got myself killed.

The embassy was toward the edge of the Empire, about two-thirds of the way between the palace and the border. She could see magical bolts shooting up into the air already, and her sharp pegasine eyes could make out shapes ducking and jinking in the air.

Okay, they’ve got armor, but they’re afraid of getting hit too much anyway. They’ve got to dodge, but they’re climbing. Think, Rainbow, think! How would the old-timey pegasi have fought? How would they have done it? She kept accelerating as neared the griffons. Something felt warm for a moment against her side, but it passed after a moment. Then another. She looked down just in time to see a third magical bolt coming at her. She didn’t have time to dodge.

It didn’t matter. The bolt seemed to fizzle as it got near her, where she could feel the air wrapped around her, letting her push forward faster than wings alone could possibly manage. She felt a bit of warmth from that one too.

So much for keeping that a secret. Maybe they think they missed. Now think! They’re gonna gang-rush, and…

A thought made her stomach churn. If she could fly through two feet of solid wood, she could probably fly through armor and bones and flesh, too. She could probably chop all of those griffons to bits just by flying at them. Just thinking about that made her feel like she’d never be able to preen enough to make her wings feel clean again. No.

The academics were still trying to keep the skies clear. A cloud, surrounded by a half-dozen mingled magical auras, was wobbling along nearby. Dash’s eyes lit up.

That’s it! If there are just enough clouds left to make this work…

She put on another burst of speed. Then she held onto it and pushed for another. She veered away, toward the nearest cloud she could find. Rather than dispersing this one when she hit it, she pushed it in front of her. Her rainbow trail blazed behind her as she looped around the Empire, hoping the ground attack would keep the griffons slowed down enough they wouldn’t get out before she finished her lap.

She ended up with seventeen clouds - or, rather, one medium-big cloud that had previously been seventeen smaller clouds. She let go, then used one extra wing-flap to jet herself forward, atop the cloud, still racing across the sky.

The griffons were getting higher too, away from the weaker casters and heading toward the range at which only the long-range artillery casters would be able to hit them. But they weren’t as high up as Rainbow Dash.

She waited, the cloud rapidly decelerating now that she wasn’t pushing it any more. A little more… a little more…

She jumped away from the cloud and raced up as fast as her wings would take her. Something told her that anything less than everything she had was going to leave at least one griffon in a very bad mood and ready to fight back. She had to get them all, right now.

She got up as high as she dared take the time for and braked, hard… then turned about and began beating her wings, propelling herself back down as hard as she possibly could. Her left foreleg reached out in front of her, guiding the air to ease her path; the other foreleg stayed against her barrel.

A hundred feet. Fifty feet. Twenty feet. Ten. She pulled her left foreleg back, and the air ‘broke’ around her. The wind buffeted her harder than she’d ever felt. She began to swing with the right foreleg. Five feet. She could feel the cloud waiting for her. It was like it was waiting for her, eager for her to tell it what to do.

Her hoof connected. The cloud erupted. It wanted to dissipate, to turn into harmless puffs of air, but she held it, made it take all of that power she could feel inside and concentrate it in a split second.

The flash blinded her, but she couldn’t stop now. She ripped a neat hole straight through the cloud, following the lightning bolt’s path. The griffons below looked like puffballs, feathers and fur alike crackling and charred in the wake of the lightning. The thunder hit her like a physical blow, making her wings hurt, slamming her chest like a kick from a guard, but she kept flying down. It was the loudest thing she’d ever heard, but it didn’t hurt her ears. Unicorns on the ground dropped, hooves going to their heads, the sheer volume dazing them.

She couldn’t see, but she knew exactly where the Crystal Heart was when it tumbled free of its bearer. Her wings beat the air like a hummingbird as she blasted after it blindly. The feeling of sheer magic coming off of the thing was palpable, even to a pony without a horn. She brushed past something and grabbed the Heart. It felt warm and happy just to hold that magical artifact against her chest, and she braked in midair again. Something bounced off of her flank and left her feeling wet right there.

Nothing else hit her. It belatedly occurred to her that a whole lot of unicorn guards were just a minute ago shooting up at everything they saw in the sky, unicorns couldn’t see as well as she could, and they had to know she was holding the Heart. An urge to get as high as she possibly could hit her… but then a feeling of calmness soothed her. They wouldn’t shoot at her when she was holding the Heart, would they? The ones who hadn’t been blinded by the flash or incapacitated by the thunder. And they all saw her flying around… was it just yesterday? Yeah. It was. So they knew who she was.

She was still really, really glad when her eyes cleared and she could see, anyway. It looked like the entire Imperial Guard was down there. She’d never been so happy to get out of the air before. They were all staring at her. At the Heart.

When her rear hooves touched down, the Empire exploded in celebration.

***

The next couple of hours passed in a blur, even for a pony as fast as Rainbow Dash. The griffon ambassador came to the palace on his own, swearing up and down that the murderers were wanted outlaws within the griffon kingdoms, and clearly acting entirely on their own. He got that much out in the first thirty seconds. That was all he got before Cadence informed him that he and his staff were now persona non grata and had fifteen minutes to get out of the Empire. Then she and Shining Armor were busy with the guards, with calming the city, and with arranging a victory celebration, and all the other details that went with ruling the Crystal Empire.

Rainbow Dash spent the first part of that time breathing in and out of a series of large paper bags. Her impressive lung capacity kept bursting them. She’d been doing just fine until she saw that one of the griffons hadn’t survived. He’d probably made it through the lightning bolt just fine, but there was a huge slice halfway through his torso, and crossing one leg. His falling claw had bounced off of Rainbow Dash’s flank.

When I killed him ran its course as the only thing she could think, she threw up. One of the guardsmares helped her along; Rainbow Dash wasn’t paying attention to where she was going. She knew just when it had happened, and she hadn’t paid any attention to it. She’d barely felt it. She killed a griffon and hadn’t even noticed. The griffons were going to demand Princess Twilight hand her over. She’d do it, to avert a war. And they’d… they’d…

She threw up again. By the time her frantic imagination made her stomach rebel a third time, the guardsmare had gotten her into the guard barracks, and a toilet to upchuck into. After one more and some dry heaves, the guard put a hoof on Dash’s back.

“You’re not a bad pony,” the guard said, firmly. “You are not a bad pony.”

“What?” asked Rainbow Dash, her mouth tasting like… well, like the last time she’d been sick. Nothing else had quite that acidic, bitter, nasty taste to it.

“You are not a bad pony,” the guard repeated. “Say it. Say ‘I am not a bad pony.’”

“I am not a bad pony,” Rainbow Dash said back, numbly.

“Again,” the guard demanded.

“I am not a bad pony.”

“Again.”

“I am not a bad pony,” Rainbow Dash repeated. It… felt good to hear that. But… of course she was a good pony. She just...

Another round of dry heaves followed. The guardsmare got her a glass of water, which Dash was very happy to use to rinse her mouth out.

“It’s healthy to feel like this after your first taste of combat,” the guard said, quietly. “Hurting, even killing doesn’t come naturally to unicorns. I think I’m glad it doesn’t come naturally to you either. But sometimes you have to do hard things or else even worse things will happen later. You saved the Crystal Empire, ma’am.”

Dash felt like her legs were rubber, and she sat down where she was, looking into the bowl. “... Have you ever…?” she asked.

“Not a griffon,” the guardsmare said softly. “There was a minotaur lord with some servant goats. One of the servants went mad. They said later that he had a sickness. But he killed the minotaur and the other servants, then went into the streets. I was the one who found him. He came after me, and I blasted him.” She paused. “... I didn’t stop crying for three days. I wouldn’t look at my armor for a month. So… I know how it feels to think you’re a bad pony. And you’re not a bad pony.”

Rainbow Dash couldn’t think of anything to say, and the guardsmare didn’t seem to have anything she needed to add either. After a while longer, the other mare helped Dash into the barracks’ communal showers. It took about two hours, all the hot water the building had, and help from the quiet guard, but eventually Rainbow Dash couldn’t see the blood on her coat anymore.

***

The next day was way, way better. For starters, it started with a cool, soft cloud for a bed in her room at the palace, and mercifully, wonderfully blank walls. She would never again take that for granted.

They let her sleep in, too, and then had a huge brunch waiting when she did get up. Pancakes, waffles, breakfast cookies, muffins, cupcakes - all the sugary treats her rapid metabolism could handle, and then some. And she was starving. She thought she saw some of the servants exchanging bits as she blazed through plate after plate. She remembered her manners, as much as she could, but she didn’t exactly have a horn to pick up a fork with, so she couldn’t do much better than foal-manners - which meant not splattering anywhere or getting too much on her face.

She was amused that a lot of those bits being traded were ending up in Due Respect’s custody. He didn’t crack a smile, or show anything but his usual polite expression, but she grinned for him. Served ‘em right for not doing their homework about what their guests would be eating.

After brunch came something even better. A parade. A parade for her. All for her. With the guard band marching and the royal chariot and everything. She’d dreamed about a moment like this all her life, of a cheering crowd all around with her in the chariot by herself, in the symbolic position of honor, tossing roses and other treats out, and now… now here she was.

The tight-fitting flight suit Mom had made for her was in pristine condition; somepony had found time to clean and press it to perfect sleekness. They hadn’t put the skirt on, either; she was okay with the skirt, but that was for court wear. Today she was showing off her pegasus-ness. To a cheering crowd. Who all were there to bask in her awesomeness.

And then it kept getting better and better. At the start of the parade, Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor had a stage set up, and Cadence was using her impressive illusion talents to project her green-eyed image in the sky overhead, along with a magnification spell for her voice.

“RAINBOW DASH,” her voice boomed across the Empire, then adjusted down to a more comfortable, still clear level.

“Rainbow Dash,” Cadence repeated. “I think there is no unicorn within the Crystal Empire who does not know by now of your heroism. You single-hoofedly saved the Empire from being buried beneath the northern snows, in what already the songs are naming the Night of Rainbows. You rescued the Crystal Heart from a murderous band of griffon thieves with a lightning bolt that was itself a wonder to behold. Your loyalty, determination, and strength will be remembered as long as the Empire itself lives. For your great service to the Crystal Empire and Unicornia itself, we create you Lady Rainbow Dash, Countess of the Imperial Sky, Lady of the Wonder Bolt.”

And she dropped a different illusion, one around the top of the palace itself. Etched into the crystal itself, near the top of the central spire, a triply-streaked lightning bolt blazed downward from a cloud. Rainbow Dash’s breath caught in her throat. Her cutie mark. Cadence hadn’t even put her own mark on the palace - nor had any other ruler. Not even Mad Prince Sombra. There were only a few times in history Dash knew of that the Queen’s City had even flown flags of some hero’s cutie mark. Even the stained-glass windows of the Heartland’s palace only showed a single ruler at a time, with previous ruler’s glass portraits removed to the museum. Nopony ever marked the building itself.

And then the cheers of the crowd drew her to look out across them instead. They were cheering for her. By her new title.

“WONDER BOLT! WONDER BOLT! WONDER BOLT!”

She couldn’t help it. She did a loop-de-loop. And they cheered.

***

The caravan stayed in the Empire for another three weeks. The guard on the Heart was doubled, the slain guards were buried with Imperial honors, the griffons held up their flimsy facade of innocence by not expelling the Crystal Empire’s ambassador in return, and Rainbow Dash had the best month of her life. For the first time ever, she could fly any time she wanted, as fast and high as she could go. She started doing tricks. Real tricks, fun stuff that Princess Twilight would never let her do - ‘too dangerous,’ of course. She crashed more than she ever had back home, too, but never too bad, never more than enough to leave her sore for an afternoon.

It felt like tying ropes around her wings when they finally had to leave. The sky over the Crystal Empire was small when the Heart was keeping storms away, but when the clouds weren’t there, she could fly for miles, and every unicorn in the place knew who she was and wasn’t gonna try to grab at her in midair. On the way back to the Heartland, though, it was back to the carriage. Too many rural yokels who’d try to yank her or blast her.

Due Respect had spent the whole time in the palace, doing ambassador stuff. Trade agreements, checking over the books to make sure there wasn’t too much smuggling going on, talking about cross-border crime things, and all the other paperwork that Rainbow Dash was incredibly glad she didn’t have to deal with. He was even smiling a bit in the carriage on the way back.

“You seem to have taken a shine to the Empire, Countess Rainbow Dash,” the ambassador commented, as Dash watched out the window while the Empire’s towers shrank in the distance.

That made Dash snort in amusement and turn to face him instead. “See, now, that sounds funny when you say it. Think they’re gonna flip out at court when I show up with a title of my own and outrank a bunch of ‘em?”

Due Respect’s mouth quirked. “No doubt there will be some discussions already in progress. It is my educated hypothesis that one faction shall have already emerged declaring that only Heartland titles may be considered relevant to rank within the Queen’s City, while another faction, comprising largely those unicorns with external titles, will prefer instead of insist that only unicorns with titles ought to be considered worthy. A third faction, smaller but more influential with Princess Twilight Sparkle, will point out that to deny external titles or to limit the accepted impact of titles to unicorns alone would lead to certain diplomatic quandaries with regard to our foreign trade. And a fourth faction, consisting largely of the Princess herself, will opt to let the court squabble among themselves and thereby distract themselves from issues of more immediate import, and thus get some actual work done.”

Dash’s ears perked. “That’s kinda more cynical than I thought you’d be.”

“Congratulations, Countess,” he said drily. “You are no longer primarily defined as Princess Twilight Sparkle’s personal project. As a Countess in your own right, publicly acknowledged as a relation of the Prince and Princess of the Crystal Empire, you will, whether or not you wish it, become involved in the power struggles of the court. Those of lower rank shall now be obliged to, if not obey you promptly, at least consider it. Those of superior rank shall, in turn, be aware that your primary recourse is no longer to run for the Princess’ support. You will find yourself with hangers-on of your own - both those of the Heartland and those of the Empire. As such, you will now require a certain degree of attention to court affairs than you have been accustomed to.”

She swallowed and sank back into her seat. “... I was thinking it was gonna be hard just getting used to hearing everypony calling me ‘Lady Rainbow.’”

He nodded his head to her. “You might prefer ‘Lady Dash,’ or one of the other titles that Princess Cadence bestowed upon you. ‘Countess Sky’ would be entirely appropriate, to use your rank as well as the name of your domain, or ‘Lady Wonder Bolt,’ as she also dubbed you. But to refuse to use a title would serve you poorly. It would diminish your own standing, minimizing your rank and making it an even more foreign thing than it already is, and it would come across as a grave insult to Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor, a declaration that their titles were worth so little that you would choose to remain outside the nobility rather than acknowledge them. Your social position will, I fear, remain entirely precarious no matter what you do, so you must learn to balance with uncommon agility. Fortunately, you do have the remaining months of this diplomatic tour to learn - which is far more than most nobles have upon their arrival at court.”

Rainbow Dash rubbed at her forehead with a hoof. “I think I wanna join that faction that says Imperial titles don’t count.”

3: The Rich Lands

The ride across the Heartland was long and interminably boring. Due Respect tried to teach her a bunch of useful stuff about the court, but it just went right in one ear and out the other. If she couldn’t fly, she couldn’t learn. Simple as that. She told him all about it, but it wasn’t until his third attempt lost her attention that he learned his own lesson about teaching her. Not that it stopped him entirely. He was a clever pony. He could understand how to be diplomatic with anypony, not just foreign rulers. He picked a different tactic. They had a long time while traveling, and it wasn’t like Rainbow Dash was totally unable to remember anything at all when she wasn’t flying; she just didn’t learn stuff the same way.

So he told her stories about court life instead. Lots of them were old historical events from before she was even born, but the way he told them, there were duels and intrigue and plotting and outright battles going on like all the time. Sometimes he made them funny stories, sometimes tragedies, mostly epics. He tried telling her a romance one, one time, and that actually turned into a regular old conversation instead of a story at all.

“Mom loves romantic stuff, but it doesn’t work for me,” Dash said.

“Not much into the ‘mushy stuff,’ then?” Due Respect asked, gesturing with his hooves. Dash thought she’d started to figure him out a lot more than she guessed most unicorns ever got to. Underneath all that dry exterior and calm voice, and the cynical side he’d let her see about the court, and that one always-askew eye, he was a proud pony, and he took his job very seriously. He wouldn’t let anything go wrong if he could help it. But respect went both ways, and he would give Rainbow Dash her due too, if he thought she was worthy of it. And a pony he could respect was a pony he could trust to relax around.

“I just can’t relate to it,” she admitted. “I mean, I just saw with Cadence and Shining how some ponies really are like that, but… it’s just not me, you know?”

He nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose I do. Considering how very carefully controlled your entire upbringing was, you are an exceptionally independent pony anyhow. You don’t want a stallion to sweep you off your hooves; you want one who’ll be charging in at your side.”

“Sorta,” she agreed. “But… well.” She looked down at the carriage’s floor. “It’s hard to think about romance when you know most of your life’s job is gonna be dedicated to making foals, and anypony you think about is gonna have to get checked over for genetics and stuff… if I even get to look for myself. Even with a title, I’m still Princess Twilight’s experiment, and I can’t just let pegasi die out all over again by not picking anypony, or making a bad choice.”

Due Respect reached over to pat her on the shoulder. “I understand, Countess. If it helps, you may rest assured that many generations of nobility have borne a very similar burden. To carry the weights of expectations and history is no small thing. I believe you will handle it well. A mare of your active nature will attract a stallion of similar type, and Princess Twilight will understand the difference between a genetically optimal match and one that will make you happy.”

“Do you have a family?” Dash asked.

The stallion shook his head. “I have often felt the lack,” he acknowledged, “but my duties demand that I travel often. I could not inflict on a foal either an unsettled life on the road, or an absent father. I have time.” He sat back on his seat, his hoof sliding from Rainbow Dash’s shoulder. “I have dreamed of having a filly,” he told her. “She is impatient with me, asking when she can ‘come around.’ It is hard to imagine the change my life would take when I settle down, but at the same time, in my dream, I know that she is worth it. I like to think that I will be as fulfilled in such a life in reality as I am in my sleep. One day I will find out.”

“You’ll be a great dad,” Rainbow Dash told him. “If you love her like that before she’s even born, you’re gonna do everything right.”

He gave her a smile - not one of his usual small twitches of his cheeks, but a full smile. Rainbow Dash could suddenly picture him, a filly on his back, laughing down the streets of the Queen’s City, maybe heading down toward the sleepy suburb of Manehattan, all that proud reserve cast aside for the only reason good enough.

She thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have some little pegasi of her own one day after all.

***

They passed through Baltimare and skirted Horseshoe Bay on the way down to the Rich Lands in the southeast. Rainbow Dash did know the history of that area; Twilight had taught her about it before leaving. It used to just be called ‘the Southeast’ for a long time, but then about sixty years ago, Stinking Rich had taken the whole area over. He hadn’t been the strongest unicorn around, which was the traditional way to claim a throne, but he’d been the smartest.

Stinking Rich started out with a pretty big base; the Rich family had owned factories making equipment for mining for a long time. He used a string of clever deals to corner the market - and then he deliberately engineered a shutdown. Without a source of equipment, the mines of the Southeast went into an economic tailspin, and Stinking Rich more or less bought the throne outright, paying the former Princess to abdicate in his favor, then using his wealth and newfound political power to prevent any rivals from challenging him. Seizing their homes and savings was a favorite tactic, forcing them into poverty and then offering them a sizable ‘relocation plan’ for themselves and their families - in effect, a comfortable exile to some other region. Many of his targets were his biggest supporters, never realizing he had caused the turmoil that he then saved them from.

He had a colt after a while, named Filthy Rich. Stinking came up with a clever plan to ensure he wouldn’t have any more challengers to worry about in the long run - he abdicated in favor of his own son, who was still too young for anypony to challenge, but kept all the power for himself. As the Donager Prince, he could run the entire area of the Rich Lands behind the scenes. When Filthy Rich grew old enough to rule in his own right, he had his own filly, the current princess Diamond Tiara, and retired to take on the role of Donager himself, while Stinking Rich retired for real. Princess Twilight didn’t much like the loophole the Rich line was using to prevent challenges, but unless she wanted to start a civil war, there wasn’t much she could do about it.

The Southeast was dominated by the Hayseed Swamps, the Badlands, and the Platinum Hills. The Badlands were nothing but rocks and sand, and the Hayseed Swamps were basically filled with the descendants of bandits, eking out a living from the muck, scavenging for rare and sometimes-valuable ingredients for magic spells that didn’t grow anywhere else. But the Platinum Hills were what made the area worth having.

The Hills were on the south of what were still called ‘Buffalo Territory,’ even though the buffalo tribes had long ago been driven west into the Mongrel Lands or south and out of Unicornia entirely. A few little towns dotted that dry grassland, but it wasn’t considered viable to do much farming except for unicorns with a particular talent in the field. Princess Twilight had considered trying to restore the old Earth Ponies and see if they were really as good at farming as the legends said, but the problem there was finding any Earth Pony genetic material to work with. Feathers got preserved for being pretty, but an Earth Pony had just looked like a hornless unicorn. So Buffalo Territory stayed a dull and lifeless place to cross. Fortunately the caravan had plenty of supplies. There were no clouds at all most days, though, so Rainbow Dash had to settle for sleeping on cushions like everypony else.

It was upon entering into the Platinum Hills that Rainbow Dash found her new Least Favorite Place Ever. The capital of the Rich Lands was Rich City, in a valley past the first ridge of mountains at the edge of the Platinum Hills. There was a tunnel that had been magically blasted through the rock, permitting an easy and safe road from the mines out to the roads beyond instead of having to haul the gold and silver bits from the mint out over the steep and dangerous pass. It was quite well constructed, with a smooth floor and carefully-reinforced walls. And Rainbow Dash hated it.

She couldn’t hide her twitchiness from Due Respect, and he tried to help, but at the end of the day, it was a long walk through a narrow passageway with no room to spread her wings - even if she had gotten out of the carriage - and with thousands and thousands and thousands of tons of rock all around. She didn’t freak out or anything, and she didn’t say anything too rude to Due Respect, but they were both tremendously relieved when they emerged on the outskirts of Rich City and she could calm down.

Rich City was a series of terraces carved into the mountains. The highest terrace dominated all the others, with a grand, graceful castle overlooking everything else. White marble walls and gold-domed towers shone in the sunlight with an ostentation that might as well have had ‘RICH’ actually written on the walls in twenty-foot tall letters.

Large homes on the next level down vied with each other for gaudiness; the sheer size of the manors there and the ornate, neatly-trimmed gardens around each made it tremendously clear that these were the homes of rich, powerful ponies who could afford to waste bits on that sort of display. The homes on the next tier down were far more modest, and the ones below that were wedged in between workshops and factories, where a haze of soot clung to the buildings. And below that were the ugly gashes of the mines themselves. One side of the valley was an open pit going straight down; the other had holes boring into the mountain across from Rich City. Dirt-covered unicorns trudged around both mine types with weary hooves.

But the caravan headed upward, not down. As a diplomatic envoy, the first order of business for Due Respect was to present his credentials. A tour of the mines was on the agenda, but not until later. Rainbow Dash was not looking forward to that, after riding through the entry tunnel.

The palace was way shinier than anything in the Queen’s City. Gold leaf decorated pillars and arches, the doors themselves were simultaneously overly-ornate and menacingly functional, and the pleasant holes along the entryway for airflow were just big enough to stick a horn into and shoot. The Southeast’s miners had never been the happiest of subjects, and more than one revolt had tested the castle’s defenses through its history. Some of those had succeeded, and then the new Princess had found herself interested in her new home’s defenses as well. To say nothing about the possibility of dragon raids.

***

The caravan pulled into a wide courtyard and stopped with Due Respect’s and Rainbow Dash’s carriage in front of a line of steel-armored unicorns with spears at their sides, enchanted tips lightly glowing. Dash had added the skirt back to her flight suit, and Due Respect was impeccable as ever. He led the way again.

There wasn’t a red carpet this time, just a tiled stone floor. Their hooves rang off the stone loudly as they passed. There was no crowd either, just the guards. Rainbow Dash much preferred the Crystal Empire already. Shining Armor’s land was warm and welcoming. This was a land that expected trouble and prepared accordingly.

Princess Diamond Tiara was sitting in the throne room beyond; ranks of “advisors” sat in attendance. Mostly younger nobility, bored with nothing to do but jockey for position until the Princess became Dowager in turn and made her courtiers meaningful. Older nobles couldn’t wait that long, and attended the Donager instead. The Princess had settled sideways on the throne, looking with undisguised contempt at the diplomats heading her way. Meeting with the Donager would be where anything of note happened, but the protocols had to be observed.

Due Respect stopped at just the right position, and Rainbow Dash stopped behind him. “On behalf of Her Majesty Princess Twilight Sparkle, Sovereign of the Queen’s City, Duchess of the Canterlot Range, Lady of the Heartland of Unicornia, I, Ambassador Due Respect, do greet you, Princess Diamond Tiara, Sovereign of the Rich Lands, in friendship and peace,” he intoned.

The pink unicorn rolled her eyes, and her voice was laden with sarcasm as she gave the required reply. “We greet you, Ambassador Due Respect, and welcome you to the Rich Lands.” With the bare minimums of courtesy completed, she added, “So what did you bring me?”

Due Respect cleared his throat and twitched his head. Rainbow Dash stepped to the side as several of the caravan’s haulers, unhooked from the carriages, came forward with a series of trunks. “As a token of friendship, the Heartland presents to you these products of our artisans and our friends of the Crystal Empire.”

The stallions’ horns glowed, and the trunks opened. One trunk was clearly from the Crystal Empire; neat rows of magical gems glowed inside. Another was filled with dresses and accessories; Rainbow Dash recognized a couple of outfits that Mom had been working on for a while. A third was full of what Dash could pick out as a new sort of card game that had been catching on in the Queen’s City. A fourth had finely-crafted dolls - one of them was of Dash herself. And so on. It didn’t look like a region paying tribute; it looked like a particularly over-indulged foal’s birthday party.

Princess Tiara seemed unimpressed. She waved a hoof at the display. “Yeah, yeah, put it over with the rest.” And she gestured at a wall, where dozens of similar gifts sat. The wealth of those unused presents alone would have made for a minor house’s fortune. “Now gimme the real one.”

Due Respect regarded her, nonplussed. “The real one, Your Highness?”

Princess Tiara snorted. “Yeah. That one.” And she pointed at Rainbow Dash.

Due Respect cleared his throat. “Indeed. I present to you the Lady Rainbow Dash, Countess of the Imperial Sky, Lady of the Wonder Bolt.”

Rainbow Dash started to step forward, but then a pink magical glow grabbed her wings and hauled her up into the air. “Hey!” she blurted out.

Princess Tiara smirked nastily. “Princess Twilight’s pet freak. How fun. Guess she wanted to get some matching decor.”

Rainbow Dash squirmed, but that magical grip was holding her wings pulled to the sides; she couldn’t build up any speed to break free. “Matching decor? What are you talking about?” she demanded - and then found herself spun around in the air.

Above the throne room’s door, where they had passed underneath to enter, a large frame held a pair of pegasus wings outstretched, neatly cut at the base. The feathers were still bright after all the intervening years. A plaque underneath read in large, clear script, “War Trophies Claimed From Commander Pansy, Last Commander of the Pegasi.”

Rainbow Dash felt her stomach drop underneath her in a way that had nothing to do with a sharp dive. Then she yelled as the magic holding her yanked hard - and ripped out a pair of primary feathers on each side. Princess Tiara dropped her, and Dash didn’t have time to break her fall before she landed hard on her back. Four blue feathers floated over to hover in front of Diamond Tiara’s face, red drops clinging to them each at the base.

“These should make a nice contrast,” she sneered, then gestured. “Now get that thing out of here. This is a court for unicorns, not performing animals.”

Due Respect’s voice betrayed no rancor as he said, “Your hospitality is noted, Your Highness.” And he turned and helped Rainbow Dash to her hooves, and out the door.

Her wings were bleeding; red trickles ran down her sides from where the feathers had been torn free. Due Respect waited until they were out of sight of the throne room door, then asked, “Are you all right, Countess?”

Dash tried stretching her wings. Nothing had been strained or torn, other than the missing feathers, but they were still bleeding. They hurt, though. And her head and her tailbone were sore where she’d hit. “I’ll live. I dunno what to do about these, though. My feathers molt in the spring, but those don’t hurt or bleed. I don’t remember ever tearing any out early. What a horrible little brat!”

Due Respect made a small noise that in no way disagreed with the sentiment, without actually saying it himself. “Perhaps we’d best get you to the castle infirmary. If nothing else, they may be able to disinfect the wound and stop the bleeding.”

Dash looked over her shoulder and glared in the general direction of the throne room. “Yeah. Geez, I never thought I’d start rooting for a dragon raid inside Unicornia.”

***

The doctors in the infirmary had already heard the word from the throne room by the time Rainbow Dash and Due Respect arrived, or had been warned ahead of time about Princess Tiara’s opinion of the world’s only living pegasus. “Try a veterinarian” was their sneering response. Dash’s wings were still bleeding, but the ‘bird’ taunts stung far worse anyhow. She gritted her teeth, and was angrily pleased to see that even Due Respect was tensing up alongside her.

Fortunately, a higher power intervened. The duty nurse, Nurse Tenderheart by her nametag, scolded the doctors back to their patients, then personally took Rainbow Dash into a room to tend to herself. A pale rose unicorn was in the room’s other bed, but was asleep, with wet wraps strapped around her horn.

“I can’t pretend to have much experience with pegasus wings, but bleeding is bleeding,” Nurse Tenderheart said, carefully examining the injuries. “If I disinfect these and pack them with gauze, that should help it clot. Since I don’t know what effect a magical healing spell might have, I’m not sure any of the doctors could have done any better even if they weren’t such a bunch of stuck-up prigs.”

Rainbow Dash snorted in amusement. Due Respect calmly raised an eyebrow. Nurse Tenderheart rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, they are. The miners’ hospital plays at court games down below, and the doctors who get called up to be Palace Physicians let it go to their heads. I have to browbeat them into paying any attention at all to unicorns who aren’t noble in the first place.” She gestured over at the other bed.

“Take Rose Quartz over there. Poor dear is a weak caster, but she can’t afford to leave the mines. The Donager does provide a stipend for ponies who get injured on the job, so the only way for her to make ends meet is to work until she burns out her mana reserves, then come up here for an infusion. I try to keep her as long as I can, but in the end, she just doesn’t have enough magic to keep up with her job, and there’s no amount of rehabilitation that can help. If I don’t personally escort these stuffy twits into the room to prepare the horn-wrap for her, they ignore her, every time.”

“That’s awful,” breathed Rainbow Dash, then “Ow!”

Nurse Tenderheart patted Rainbow Dash on the side. “Sorry, dear, but I find that the ‘this might sting a little’ warning just makes ponies tense up. But that disinfectant is strong stuff. You shouldn’t have to worry about anything other than anything but more of those beautiful feathers from there.”

Dash flexed her wings. The gauze was in place, and the sting was already ebbing. “Thanks,” she said, then, “So… why are they such jerks? A sick pony is a sick pony, right?”

Nurse Tenderheart’s mouth twitched. “Not everypony takes the Hippotherapan Oath seriously once they start competing against each other,” she said. “Especially when they get in here and find out that the fashion is to declare every non-noble unicorn a ‘mud pony in the making.’ But that only applies to the doctors themselves. Thankfully, nurses are ‘lower’ and so we’re not in any of that muddle, and I can choose my staff based on actual talent and readiness to do their jobs properly.”

She checked Dash’s wings one more time, then nodded. “I’ll be back in an hour to look at these. If they start bleeding again, yell and an orderly will come get me. I have to go drag Doctor Horse out of Lady Fleur’s room or he’ll stay there fawning over her all day.” She patted Dash on the side, then said, very quietly, “The court is a terrible place for a filly to grow up. Her father was an awful colt too. They get better when they get older. Don’t count her out.” And then she retreated from the room.

Due Respect sighed quietly. “I’m afraid I must depart as well, Countess,” he said. “The Donager has graciously agreed to let me delay presenting my credentials to him this long, but I must not keep him waiting. I’ve directed one of our haulers to retrieve some reading material for you, but it might be a while. Will you be all right here for an hour or two?”

Rainbow Dash adjusted the pillow under her head. It wasn’t nearly as soft as her clouds, but she’d had to get used to unicorn pillows on the ride lately. “Yeah, I can wait that long. If they can find the Scooter Pilgrim ones, I’m like halfway through those.”

“The haulers will likely be here before I get in touch with them, but you can give them directions when they arrive,” Due Respect told her. “I promise, they are every bit as appalled at the treatment you received as I am, and will be quick to retrieve whatever you ask for. I may not be back for a while myself, however. The Donager Prince will have a much more extensive reception and actual trade details to discuss, so I likely will remain occupied until late into the evening.”

Rainbow Dash nodded. “I understand. Good luck.”

He nodded back to her. “Thank you. And to you as well.” And he stepped out of the room as well.

The door had barely closed when an unfamiliar voice, high and a bit thready, spoke up. “I’m sorry you got hurt, milady.”

Rainbow Dash looked over to the other bed. The pale pink pony still had her eyes shut, but that was where the voice came from. “You can call me Dash,” she said. “You’re Rose Quartz?”

“Yes, milady,” the unicorn said quietly. “I hope you don’t mind sharing a room with a low-born pony. I can’t stand up right at the moment, but if you want I can try to go away…”

Dash cut her off. “You don’t have to go anywhere. You were here first. And you look like you’re feeling a lot worse than I am.”

“It does hurt a lot,” Rose Quartz confessed. “I try so hard, but every few weeks my magic just gives out and I pass out again, and come back here. The Donager is so generous, taking care of me all the time even though I’m not a good worker.”

“You shouldn’t have to work like that,” Dash said, adjusting her pillows so she could sit up. “I mean, hard work is one thing, but if it’s hurting you like that, there oughta be something else they can find for you to do.”

“There’s nothing else,” Rose said, eyes still shut, laid on her back. “The Quartz family’s been digging rocks as far back as anyone knows. It’s all we’re good for. Just mud ponies in the making. It’d be better to be mud ponies. At least then I’d have a reason to not be any good.”

“Hey!” objected Rainbow Dash. “Don’t talk like that. Just because you aren’t good at magic doesn’t mean you aren’t any good at all! I don’t even have a horn, but I’m still awesome!”

The pink unicorn turned her head and squinted over. She had to rub her eyes; a short sharp intake of breath said that the light made her headache spike. But she looked anyway. “... What are you?” she asked, blinking. “A half-griffon? Is that even possible?”

“I’m Rainbow Dash, and I’m a pegasus,” Dash said firmly. “Princess Twilight figured out a way.”

“A way to what?” Rose Quartz asked, still rubbing her eyes. “How did she turn your horn into wings? Did it hurt?”

“Um…. No. I’m a pegasus. You know, like, flying pony? Wiped out a thousand years ago? The whole thing with the Windigos and Princess Platinum and everything?” Rose Quartz’ expression showed no sign of enlightenment. Dash wasn’t sure she wasn’t being pranked. Not believing her was one thing, but not knowing what she was talking about? What was that about?

“There were flying ponies? So… mud ponies were real too? It’s not just a taunt about how weak we are?” Rose Quartz timidly asked.

Dash blinked. It had simply never occurred to her that some ponies might not have ever heard about pegasi. Or Earth Ponies. Or the whole War of Survival. She mentally thanked Princess Twilight for figuring out how to teach her, way back when, and making her learn all that stuff. “Yeah. They were called Earth Ponies. They were strong and really good farmers and stuff. But with no magic, they lost really quick. And pegasi could fly and move clouds, and I proved that part is true, but the unicorns could grab them in the air.”

Rose Quartz’s eyes were still wet. “Then I wish I was an Earth Pony. If I was strong, at least I could push carts. Or I wish I was a pegasus and I could just fly away from here forever. Do… do you think Princess Twilight wants more unicorns to turn into pegasi? I’ll volunteer. Does it hurt? I don’t care if it hurts. It hurts to be a unicorn worse.”

Rainbow Dash winced. “I never was a unicorn. She had to make me be a pegasus before I was even born,” she said. “And it’s dangerous to fly. Unicorns see anything in the air and want to pull it down.”

“Unicorns see anything and they want to pull it down,” said Rose Quartz. “Mountains, the moon, the sun, other unicorns, it doesn’t matter. I wish pegasi won. Maybe then I’d be a pegasus. And you’d still be one. We could fly together then.” She started crying.

“Hey… hey,” said Dash awkwardly. She wasn’t used to being on the ‘comforting’ side of things. “Look. Um. Uh… I’m here doing a diplomatic thing. I’ll try to talk to the Donager and see if he can fix things for you. He can probably find something for you to do that you’d be better at, okay? He’s supposed to not be a bad pony, so he probably just doesn’t know how bad things are. I’m sure he’d want to help if he knew about you.”

Rose Quartz’ tears stopped and she stared at Rainbow Dash. Then she started laughing. Hysterically. Before Dash could do anything, the pink unicorn passed out.

***

Nurse Tenderheart came back about forty minutes later, and pronounced the bleeding apparently stopped. She told Dash to not move her wings around very much for a day or two anyway, to give the wounds time to heal up, or they might tear open and start bleeding again. Rainbow Dash didn’t much care for that idea, but doing some kind of permanent injury to her wings was an even worse idea, so she unhappily agreed.

Then Dash asked about Rose Quartz. Nurse Tenderheart sighed softly and shook her head. “I was hoping she would stay asleep all day,” she admitted. “She’s an unhappy pony at the best of times, and when her horn is disabled she goes into full-blown depression. She’s had hallucinations before when it’s particularly bad. She probably thought you were one. I doubt she’s ever heard of pegasi before. I don’t think she’s had enough education to write her own name.”

“Aw, geez, that’s really awful. I told her I’d ask the Donager to help. Do you think he can do anything?”

Nurse Tenderheart stared at Dash. “You’re going to just go ask the Donager to help a miner? What did she offer you?”

Dash looked back quizzically. “Nothing? She just needs help.”

Nurse Tenderheart looked over at Rose Quartz. “Nothing is all she has. Miner foals go into the mines as soon as they can walk. Schools are supposed to be free, but miners can’t afford to have a mouth that’s not earning bits for food, let alone paying for school supplies.” Then she reluctantly said, “I suppose in her condition, things won’t get much worse.”

“Worse? What do you mean, worse? I’ll tell him how bad things are for her and he’ll fix it.”

Nurse Tenderheart took a deep breath. “Countess… I don’t know how things work in the Heartland. But in the mines, getting the attention of the bosses is never, never a good thing. Even getting noticed for being a good worker means being assigned even more work. Every pony I’ve ever met from the mines is afraid to tell me anything at first. They think they’re in enough trouble having been brought here at all. Even if the Donager does help her, do you think the other miners will be happy for her? They’ll resent her for getting special treatment.”

Dash slumped back against the pillows. “I can’t just leave her sitting around being miserable, can I? She needs somepony’s help.”

Nurse Tenderheart put a hoof on Dash’s side. “I’m helping her, Countess,” she said gently. “As much as I can. She’s a very unhappy unicorn with a very serious, chronic problem, but I can help her manage it.”

“Well… I can help too,” Dash said, after a bit. “It’s not like anypony else would even try to talk to the Donager about her, right?”

Nurse Tenderheart slowly shook her head. “I suppose not. All right, Countess. For all the good it’ll do. The mines chew unicorns to bits, and all the Donager cares about is how many bits he gets out.”

***

Despite his warning about not returning, Due Respect came back in the middle of the afternoon. Rose Quartz had not woken back up, even when one of the haulers came in. Thankfully, the box the hauler had with him had included the Scooter Pilgrim series, so Dash had plenty of reading material. It kept her engrossed enough that she didn’t know Due Respect was there until the cockeyed stallion cleared his throat.

Dash’s head shot up. “Wha! Due Respect! Did I read all night?” She looked around, but the sun was still well in the sky.

The diplomat gave her a small smile. “No, Countess. The Donager was courteous enough to request a break in our meeting to tend to some internal affairs, by which he meant giving me time to see how you’re doing.”

Dash flexed her wing carefully. “Everything seems to be doing okay. The nurse says to not flap it in case it breaks the scab, and she wants me to come back until she’s sure it’s healing right, but I’m basically okay now. Can I come with you to see him?

Due Respect tilted his head. “You wish to meet the Donager? I can certainly request an audience for you, if you’re well enough to move around. And if you promise to abide by Nurse Tenderheart’s restrictions. Might I inquire as to why? I had thought you would be relieved to have as little contact with court meetings as possible, after our disastrous contact with Princess Tiara.”

Rainbow Dash gestured with a hoof at the other bed. “I promised her I’d help. She’s got like a really bad horn, and she’s super-poor, and really unhappy. Unless you wanna invite her to join the caravan and let Princess Twilight come up with something for her, I figured the Donager would be the best pony to help.”

Due Respect looked over, then back. “He is a very busy pony, you understand,” he warned. “He may well be annoyed at being asked to take the time to interfere in a single one of his employee’s situations. I understand compassion, but politics is a poor arena for compassion to make a stand. Why do you think this one miner’s problems are worse than all the other miners?”

Rainbow Dash looked at the sleeping unicorn again. “Maybe they’re not. And I know I wouldn’t wanna go down into mines like that. It probably does stink to have to do that. But… maybe he can make it stink less.”

“It is not the place of a diplomat to tell another Princess - or ex-Prince, in this case - how to run their land,” Due Respect said cautiously.

“Good thing I’m not very diplomatic, then, huh?” She looked back to him.

The corners of his mouth moved upward again.. “I suppose it is. You are intent on this, then?”

Rainbow Dash nodded. “I just… something makes me wanna see her smile.”

***

The Donager’s throne room was just as enormous and overdecorated as the rest of the palace. It was a little bit smaller than the Princess’ throne room, but the activity inside made it utterly clear just where the real power was. Princess Tiara’s throne room was filled with bored young nobles gossiping and plotting with each other, awaiting power that lay years down the road. The Donager Prince’s throne room was tumultuous, with speeches, bargains, and wheedlings all being spewed about the place at the same time.

It reminded Rainbow Dash of the throne room in the Queen’s City before Princess Twilight came in to call it all to order. But in this case, Filthy Rich was sitting up on the throne cheerfully taking part in the babble. Somehow he was keeping track of all the conversations at once, it seemed, because he jumped in and out of everything. Voices were sharp but civil, and the most aggression Rainbow Dash could see was between two mares giving each other the ol’ stink-eye while delivering what were surely biting barbs veiled under shared references, but to Rainbow Dash they just sounded like they were dickering over a delivery of fish that was overdue.

They weren’t sticking to their seats, either, but somehow the way always opened up as Due Respect stepped forward, pushing Rainbow Dash in a wheelchair in front of him. She totally didn’t need it, and she’d argued with Nurse Tenderheart, but the nurse was adamant that she stay in it at least to keep herself from forgetting to stay on the ground, and Due Respect had pointed out that appearing to be wounded would impose a certain impetus toward reparations on the part of the Donager. So the wheelchair it was.

“My lord, the Countess Rainbow Dash,” Due Respect pronounced, once they got to the front of the room. Filthy Rich’s face turned to them, a smile on his lips.

“Countess! Such a pleasure to meet you,” he declared, as cheerful as his daughter had been sulky. “I heard about your mishap earlier. Fillies will be fillies - and lessons will be lessons, I promise! Can’t have her pulling feathers or she’s going to get into an awful lot of trouble with the griffon ambassador, next time they send one.”

“Uh, yeah,” Dash agreed. “They’re making enough trouble already.”

Filthy Rich winked at her. It was simply amazing how trustworthy he seemed within just a few sentences of meeting the stallion, as though he was sharing an inside joke with her already. “Oh, indeed! I’ve heard all about your heroics up north, Lady Wonder Bolt. I’m not the illusionist that Princess Cadence is, and I’ve got quite a lot of outlying prospectors who aren’t terribly good with their letters, so it would be rather difficult to ensure a safe clear sky for you around here, but one day I’d love to see those rainbows of yours. SCRIBE! Have somepony start looking for a place suitable for an aerial performance!”

A colt in a boxy hat and a belt with scrolls, quills, and inkbottles trotted up. He had a cutie mark of a quill and paper as well. “Bad Flank, milord,” he suggested. “Near the entrance to the Badlands. Hit by a dragon raid sixteen years ago and deserted ever since.”

Filthy Rich flicked a gem at the scribe. “Right! Get somepony on that. Next time you come by, Countess, we’ll have an arena ready at Bad Flank - hah, didn’t even get that at first - for you to show us all what you can do.”

“Dragon raid?” asked Rainbow Dash.

Filthy Rich nodded briskly. “Every so often some young dragons decide to try to steal a hoard and attack one of my towns. Keeping a big enough garrison to defend every town would be too many mouths to feed for the town to support, so I keep up roving patrols. Sometimes a raid gets through, sometimes we catch them.”

“Oh. That… stinks for the ponies who get caught up in it.”

Filthy Rich nodded. “It certainly does. I put shelters in the towns, so there’s rarely loss of life, but losing a town is a hard thing for anypony. They can always come back to the mines!”

“Uh, about that,” Dash said. “I met a pony who works in the mines. She’s really unhappy…”

Filthy tsked. “Well, that’s no good! Happy ponies are productive ponies, after all. What seems to be her problem?”

The volume level in the court was dropping steadily, and more eyes were on Dash. She kept going anyway. “She’s not good at magic, but she can’t do anything but mining, so she’s always hurting.”

Filthy shook his head, the very paragon of sympathy. “That poor filly! Well, if she works hard, and takes some night classes, I’m sure she can…”

Dash interrupted. The remaining other conversations stopped. “She works until she passes out, and she can’t read.”

Filthy Rich blinked at her. “She can’t read? What’s wrong? More problems than just magic?” he asked, a degree of uncertainty entering his voice.

Dash shook her head. “No, she never learned how. She couldn’t afford to. She had to go work in the mines.”

“School is free,” Filthy Rich said, but his tone promised he knew there was another horseshoe to drop.

“Food isn’t. Paper isn’t. Her family couldn’t afford for her to take the time to go.”

“Abacus,” said Filthy Rich calmly. In the newfound quiet of the room, his voice echoed a little. “What was it you told me about the enrollment rate last year?”

A mare with an abacus on her flank swallowed and stood. Her face was ashen. “Full enrollment, my lord.”

“You’re fired,” Filthy Rich said, without heat. “Bloodhound, comprehensive audit on Abacus, starting now. Countess Dash, thank you for bringing this to my attention.” He sat up in his throne and openly glared around. “If there are ANY OTHER PONIES who would like to ensure their Royal Funding has been properly used, I suggest they get it done IMMEDIATELY, as audits are going to be UNCOMMONLY thorough!”

The room was still silent as he dropped back down. “Now, Countess, I’ve had an idea,” he said, voice back to his genial, personable tones as though he hadn’t just threatened all the most powerful ponies in his realm at once. “If matters underground have gotten quite as bad as your friend seems to think, then there ought to be a pony tasked with making sure that my workers are happy - one who isn’t in a position to benefit from making them miserable instead. Mining is a dangerous profession, and I will not hide from you that it’s hard and unpleasant work, but I am a fair pony, and what’s more, I am not a stupid pony, and making the miners miserable is how you get a revolution! So you go back and you tell Rose Quartz that she is now the Mining Morale Monitor, and she will be assigned an assistant until she learns to write her own reports, and she will be reporting directly to me! How’s that sound?” And at the last, Rainbow Dash could have sworn she felt him laying a foreleg across her shoulders to strike the deal, even though he was still sitting in his throne.

“I think she’ll be happy to hear that,” Rainbow Dash said, and then blurted out, “You don’t mess around, do you?” She was half-stunned. She’d been expecting to argue for hours, maybe to have to try to convince him to spend a few extra bits to make the miners’ lives better instead of hoarding them for himself. And probably have a bunch of other ponies denying anything was wrong at the same time. She had enough court experience to know that anything somepony brought up for debate would get a counter-argument. Having it over and done with that fast? Princess Twilight would be done with court every day by noon.

Filthy Rich beamed at her. “Time is money, Countess. And I waste neither.”

***

It wasn’t until Due Respect had pushed her almost all the way back to the infirmary that something clicked and Rainbow said, “Hey, I never said her name!”

Due Respect nodded his head briefly. “I suspect that the Donager made quite sure to learn of the arrangements for your care as soon as he heard of your injury. He is as good with details, in his own way, as Princess Twilight.”

“Do you think he knew about the school thing already?” Dash asked.

“I sincerely doubt it,” he replied. “Filthy Rich has an excellent head for details and coordination, but he does not have the time to personally double-check the information provided to him. If the former head of the school system was falsifying her enrollment figures and skimming the excess off the top, I have little doubt that he trusted her and believed her up to that point.” He paused, and then a quirk showed at the corner of his mouth. “Actually? Now that I consider the matter…. Filthy Rich is a very clever pony, and, as I said, he has an excellent head for details. Consider. His daughter, the titular leader of the area, committed a gross insult in full view of the Heartland’s ambassador and her entire court. By taking your charge seriously and taking immediate action, he demonstrated that he, by contrast, takes you seriously and trusted you. He may have been looking for a reason to replace his Minister of Education already, in which case you also provided him cause to act without allowing her court allies to defend her. And if he wishes to conduct larger-scale reforms, but faced internal opposition, your blunt declarations tore through normal court decorum and provided him the opportunity to clean his own house. And all starting from a single poor unicorn’s life story.”

“Okay… I think I get that,” Dash said, then shook her head. “But stealing from schools… That’s really low.” She reached out a hoof to push the door open, as they returned to her room.

“Indeed it is, Countess,” Due Respect said gravely. “I suspect that the Donager will view the matter the same way. Along with a number of other matters.”

Rose Quartz was sitting up in the other bed, staring at them. “I didn’t make you up,” she whispered.

Dash beamed at her. “Nope! I’m as real as you are, and I’ve got good news!”

Rose Quartz just repeated it. “I didn’t make you up.” She sounded surprised.

Dash’s smile got a little more forced. “No, you didn’t! And the Donager is gonna fix stuff around here!”

The pink mare shook in her bed. Then she said quietly, “How… how do I know I’m not hallucinating again? That I’m not going to wake up and… and…”

“Do you ever dream about flying?” Dash asked.

Rose blinked and looked at her. “... Sometimes.”

Dash got out of the wheelchair. Due Respect cleared his throat. “Countess, Nurse Tenderheart advised you to rest your wings,” he reminded her.

“Diplomatic immunity,” Rainbow Dash said, and walked across the room. She pushed open the window and turned to Rose Quartz. The pink unicorn was staring at her. “If everyone sees you flying, then is it real?” Dash asked.

Wordlessly, Rose Quartz nodded. Rainbow Dash came to the bedside and stood by it. “Can you climb on?” she asked. Her roommate nodded again and turned over. She was still moving weakly, but she managed to pull herself across Rainbow Dash’s back. Dash adjusted her wings to get them clear…

… and a rainbow burst through the window.

Rose Quartz was screaming at the top of her lungs in Rainbow Dash’s ear, but the pegasus didn’t care. It was the good kind of scream. The kind that said that whatever happened before or after, right now everything was so awesome, the only thing anypony could do was scream to let it all out. Dash’s wings felt fine. The rainbow trail that blazed behind her was as bright as ever, shining across the valley of the Rich Lands. No magics reached up to grab at her - or, if they did, they couldn’t catch hold.

She curled about in the air, not putting on a stunt display like she had in the Crystal Empire, but turning, letting Rose feel the pull of the air. Inspiration struck, and she went up, up, and over, making a loop in the air - and then spinning an S-curve on the way down before levelling out. Rose was still screaming in delight, and Dash thought she might be going a bit deaf in that ear, but she didn’t care.

Some days were for being awesome for the whole Empire. Some days were for being awesome for just one pony at a time.

***

She came in neatly through the window and landed perfectly; Rose let go at just the right moment to tumble right off of Dash’s back and into bed. The covers even somehow ended up rolling right back over her. The wind had turned her straight mane into a wild tangle, and her pale pink coat seemed to have deepened in her exhilaration and the sunlight. She was laughing, crying, hugging at herself in glee.

Rainbow Dash saw Nurse Tenderheart waiting there, but she had one last thing to do first. She grinned at Rose Quartz. “Oh… and the Donager says you’re the new Mining Morale Monitor, you’re gonna learn to read, and you report to him directly now. So you’re gonna make a lot of ponies very happy, Ms. MMM!”

“You can make me very happy by getting your multicolored tail back into bed and letting me check your wounds, Countess!” snapped Nurse Tenderheart.

“Yes, ma’am!” Dash had never felt quite so little bothered by medical attention.

***

For the next few weeks, Due Respect had a lot of boring diplomatic work to do, talking with Filthy Rich about exchange rates for various kinds of gems, and deals for stuff the Heartland produced from the Platinum Hills’ mines, and things like that. He told Dash about it in the evenings, but mostly it was lots of watching the Donager’s underlyings running around like crazy backstabbing each other to try to blame all their embezzling on each other. Sometimes literally. It turned out there were a lot of horns at Filthy’s court with blood on them. Not just miners’ either; one secret feud came out that had already been going on for six generations when Stinking Rich launched his coup.

Rainbow Dash didn’t have to go to court and see any of that for herself. For all the drama, it didn’t sound all that exciting to her - lots of speeches and secrecy, but not much out in the open. She spent her time with Rose Quartz instead. The newly-promoted pink unicorn was beside herself with glee; she just about bounced everywhere she went, her wind-tossed mane a riot of tangles atop her head.

Meeting the Quartz family was a shock, despite having heard from Rose just how poor they were. Dash had never met anypony who was genuinely poor before. Living in Princess Twilight’s castle was not a way to run into the lower classes. Their home was made of rock slabs poorly fused together by magic, and they were all very skinny ponies. Her father, Four Quartz, and her mother, Cloudy Quartz, gaped when they first saw Rose laughing, and then they had the biggest, most tearfully happy family hug Rainbow Dash had ever seen. They pulled her in, and Rose’s sisters, Smoky Quartz, Sugar Quartz, and Phantom Quartz, joined in, too. It was like hugging steel cables - all wiry sinew and bone, not an ounce of fat on any of them. Dash thought it might have been the first time any of them had ever smiled.

Dash went with Rose to help her start her report on the miners’ morale. Since Rose couldn’t write, Dash started showing her how. With a foal’s mouth-pen, the same one she used to write her own reports to Princess Twilight. It felt incredibly weird to be on the teaching end of things, but good, too, like she was passing something along that she’d been given. She tried to be really patient and encouraging, and was surprised at how easily it came to her. She’d thought she’d get bored with it, but there was something that felt really warm inside her to see Rose Quartz making progress. Dash put that into her report to Princess Twilight, too.

She also wrote down the results of going with Rose Quartz down into the mines one day. Dash stuck it out, but it was even worse than the tunnel. It didn’t feel all that awesome to admit it, but she knew Princess Twilight would want to know, so in it went.

By the time the caravan left, Rose Quartz could write her own name, and all her family’s names, and the miners’ wages had already gone up. Rose promised that she’d write reports to Rainbow Dash, just like Dash wrote her reports to Princess Twilight, and gave her a rock sculpture that one of the miners had made. They’d taken a geode, pretty but useless, and inset a pair of quartz crystals inside, carved into two pony shapes. The top pony was a pegasus - an okay likeness, Dash thought, for an artist who’d clearly never seen her up close - lifting a unicorn below toward the top of the geode. Rose said the artist had named it Rising Spirits.

4: The Mongrel Lands

The caravan’s next stop was the Mongrel Lands, in the southwest. Princess Zecora ruled there, and it was by far the most fractious part of Unicornia. Mostly because it was the only part where non-unicorns lived. Other than Rainbow Dash. The buffalo had been driven there when Unicornia was settled, and when the Donkey Emigration came, they’d been allowed no further than the Mongrel Lands either. When the Diamond Dogs were found and forced out, they’d ended up there too. And the zebras from the south could go nowhere else when the Dry Times had scorched their grasslands. There were even a handful of griffon immigrants.

“So… I don’t have a lot I’m supposed to do in the Mongrel Lands,” Dash told Due Respect in the carriage. They were skirting the San Palomino Desert, which meant she could get out and fly sometimes, but it was just so hot that even she was happy to stay out of the sun. There weren’t any clouds around to make shade with for the caravan, unfortunately. “Princess Zecora’s never given any indications about how she feels about me, and the desert doesn’t make a lot of stuff the Heartland wants.”

“Mmmm,” said Due Respect noncommittally. “You may find it useful to spend some time in court, then, simply observing. Any court has some similarities that could prove… Ahem.” He cleared his throat and looked up from the dossier he was reading. “Never mind. Sitting and watching is not your preferred mode of operation. Well. To put it simply, the griffons are suspected of attempting to stir unrest in the Mongrel Lands, and the Heartland desires to coordinate a response with Princess Zecora, above the usual run of trade agreements and border issues. Exactly what manner that coordination may take is currently fluid. Much of my work here will be simply determining what Princess Zecora wants and is willing to do to get it, in that aim. Your non-unicorn status may be helpful to her, indicating Princess Twilight’s openness to other types of Unicornian citizens, or may be viewed as an attempt at pandering. Thus, I will present my credentials up front and attempt to discern whether it would be useful to present you to the court as well.”

Dash leaned back and pffffed out a breath. “If she has a set of wings hanging on her wall, I’ll send my regrets.”

“If I should see any, I shall be sure to not introduce you,” Due Respect agreed.

Dash blinked. “I was kinda kidding there. You think she might have some?”

Due Respect shrugged. “It is possible. Do recall that it was Princess Tiara who had the wings in her throne room - a symbol of power and strength, of unicorn might, to combat the reality that she herself was almost entirely powerless. Princess Zecora is a half-breed. Her unicorn magic is known to be unimpressive in and of itself, a deficiency she remedies with the use of traditional zebra magics. This is a matter of some controversy, and she has retained her throne by the use of force thus far. There have been several serious challengers to her rule who were stronger unicorns, but lost due to her use of unconventional magic. She may well have chosen to adorn her courtroom in similar symbols of power and strength, to enhance her mystique. And so, indeed, should I see any wings hanging on her walls, I shall seriously reconsider introducing you at Princess Zecora’s court.”

Dash shook her head. “Geez. If she has to fight like that, I’m surprised she even wants the job.”

Due Respect shrugged again. “Power is attractive in its own right, Countess. Many ambitious unicorns want it for nothing more than to have it. We shall see what Unicornia’s most enigmatic ruler reveals of herself.”

***

Princess Zecora’s palace was built along the banks of a river. It wouldn’t have been anything special back in the Heartland, but in the dry Mongrel Lands, it was clearly an important location. There wasn’t really much life out there that wasn’t near a river, other than sparse cacti, dry bushes, and vultures. The farms along the riverbanks were the only green Rainbow Dash could see.

And it was hot. In the wide-open spaces between towns, Dash had been able to fly if she wanted, but without so much as a cloud to rest on, that quickly turned into an exercise in overheating. And so she was reasonably glad to go into the adobe building and get underneath the white tiles of its roof. She and the rest of Due Respect’s traveling party had rooms in the palace, since they were officially representing the Heartland.

Due Respect went off to go present himself at court, and Dash settled in with the rest of the Scooter Pilgrim series. She hadn’t gotten through much of it once she started helping Rose Quartz, and it had all been packed away for the long hike from Rich City to the Mongrel Lands. So she had plenty left to read. All day, as it turned out.

Due Respect finally came to Dash’s room after dinner. He had to tap her on the shoulder to get her attention; she was just getting to a chase scene. But she set Scooter Pilgrim aside for him.

“I’ll be presenting you to the court tomorrow, Countess,” he told her. “Princess Zecora has bedecked her throne room with no few grisly trophies, but in a distinctly egalitarian way.”

“What’s she got against eagles?” Dash asked, straight-faced. She knew the word; she couldn’t have grown up under Princess Twilight’s tutelage and not picked up a big vocabulary.

Due Respect acknowledged the joke with a brief eye-roll. “Princess Zecora has a number of skulls hung upon her walls,” he said. “Among them are unicorns, griffons, Diamond Dogs, and what I presume are zebras by the lack of horn. Some of her courtiers are of the opinion that the skulls are used in some form of zebra magic, giving her an advantage over challengers in her throne room. Others advance the theory that she wishes to remind her subjects that anypony, of any species, dies, in the ultimate display of even-hoofedness.”

“So what’s she like?” Dash asked.

“Very reserved,” he told her. “After the formal court presentation, I met with her Minister of Finance, Little Bits, to discuss trade relations between the Heartland and the Mongrel Lands. They would like to trade more, but there simply is not much that comes from these regions that is in high demand in the Heartland. And there is no way to get the food the Heartland grows out here without a massive and expensive haulage process.”

“So this is gonna be a pretty boring stop, huh?”

Due Respect shook his grey-coated head. “I would prefer that it was. The Minister of Finance is no fool. She knows that hers is a poor land. If I can offer a favorable tax policy, all to the better, but no great trade boom is likely in any regard. But details matter, and so it took some few hours to discuss everything with her.”

He glanced around to make sure the door was shut, and then his horn glowed with a privacy spell that lit up the walls briefly. Once that was done, he turned back to Rainbow Dash. “I then met with her Minister of Security, a mare named Rattlesnake. We exchanged certain information of national import, not least of which was my report on your actions in the Crystal Empire, and the efforts of the griffons to disrupt Unicornian unity. Minister Rattlesnake acknowledged an increase in griffon activity within the Mongrel Lands as well. There are some griffon immigrants, usually political refugees fleeing unsurvivable feuds in their own land, but lately some unfamiliar griffons have been spotted, and not just talking with other griffons.”

Dash shook her head. “They’re coming a heck of a long way. I mean, either they have to fly all night and hide all day, or they’ve gotta circle all the way around Unicornia to spy here. A griffon trying to walk through the Heartland wouldn’t make it far.”

Due Respect made a quiet mmm of acknowledgement. “I suspect they are using ships to head for the zebra lands to the south, then moving up from there. Griffons in search of glory would not be unduly bothered by a long sea journey. In any case, their agents appear to be trying to encourage local unrest, urging the non-unicorn population to revolt. Some loyal Unicornians have reported their claims. They suggest that a successful non-unicorn revolt would lead the unicorns to abandon the southwest, leaving a multi-species kingdom behind, and that Unicornia would have no interest in retaking the area.”

“... Do they really think that anypony’s gonna be that stupid?” Dash asked. “Like Unicornia’s gonna just let a quarter of its land go. Have they even looked at maps? Blueblood could do it himself without even using his army. Just dam up like four rivers and the whole southwest would go from ‘dry’ to ‘dead’ in a couple weeks.”

Due Respect raised an eyebrow archly. “I was not aware that Princess Twilight shared strategic planning sessions with you.”

Dash hehed. “We kinda play war games on her big Unicornia map sometimes. She figures all her generals and stuff are trained in how wars are fought and were fought before, but I don’t know any of that stuff so sometimes I come up with ideas they don’t. The whole southwest is a crummy place to defend. There’s lots of downsides to messing with the rivers like that, but if it was to keep Unicornia together, yeah, it’s the easy way to win.”

“An interesting pastime,” Due Respect said. “And naturally she presents you with different scenarios?”

Dash nodded. “Oh, yeah. One time she had us both start with a whole bunch of pegasus units, and I actually won starting with the southwest that time. I had my pegasi pull clouds from the ocean and water a big corner of the Mongrel Lands, and then it was way more productive and defensible.”

“Good to know,” Due Respect said. “In any case, that is the message the griffon agents have been trying to spread. I suspect word has yet to reach this area about the failure of the griffon attempt to cripple the Crystal Empire, so the local agents may still believe that their plot is continuing undisturbed. And it is still possible that a griffon invasion effort against the Empire would distract Unicornia’s attention long enough to make disrupting control over the southwest into a viable possibility. Even if the new griffon ruler failed to take and hold any new territory, they would account it a victory to cause Unicornia to lose its grip on the Mongrel Lands.”

Dash grinned. “So whatcha gonna do? Sneak around and hunt down some griffons and make ‘em squawk?”

Due Respect gave her a droll look. “That is hardly my forte, Countess. And, I regret to say, the security plans of the Mongrel Lands are not a subject for casual conversation, even in a secured room. Nor, for that matter, are they a subject you are well-suited for yourself. Your shining aerial displays are rather distant from cloak-and-dagger counter-espionage.”

“I can be sneaky if I want to,” grumbled Rainbow Dash, but without heat. “But there’s gotta be something I can do, right? I mean, I can’t let you have all the fun.”

“I assure you, Countess, I will be far from ‘having all of the fun.’ The bulk of the activity taking place involves Princess Zecora’s own agents, and I am myself not privy to their operational details. But, after your presentation tomorrow at court, I will be meeting with Minister Rattlesnake again. Perhaps we will find some way to make use of your talents. You are, after all, very good at making very visible displays.”

***

The throne room had a low ceiling, unlike the dramatic high arches Dash had seen in the Heartland, the Crystal Empire, and the Rich Lands. The windows were open gaps in the walls with shutters that could be drawn, instead of being covered with glass. That left plenty of space for air to blow through off the river, offering what cooling was available. Dash appreciated that much.

The skulls on the walls were everything Due Respect had said. A variety of species were represented, both equine and non-. He hadn’t mentioned the dragon skull, though. Just a little one, but still, pretty cool. And they were all laid out on the walls weirdly. Dash couldn’t tell if it was magic, or just meant to look like it was magic, but either way, weird.

Princess Zecora sat on her throne, shrouded in an ornately-embroidered brown cloak. Her zebra heritage was easy to see; she had faded stripes on her flanks and her short-trimmed mane alternated white and grey stripes. Due Respect was in front of Dash, providing the introductions.

“Princess Zecora, I present to you the Lady Rainbow Dash, Countess of the Imperial Sky, Lady of the Wonder Bolt,” he said briskly, then stepped aside.

Rainbow Dash stepped up. Since Due Respect presented her, the next response was supposed to be from Princess Zecora acknowledging her, but the zony on the throne was simply sitting there, regarding her. Dash waited an uncomfortably long time, then raised a hoof. “Uh… hi?”

That cued a reaction. Princess Zecora leaned forward. “So. Twilight Sparkle’s creation has left her court.”

Dash tilted her head. “Well, yeah. Your Highness. She said pegasi are supposed to move.”

The zony sat back again. “And you will mother a great many pegasi, then. Will the Heartland abide a winged race to live among them, when they will not suffer stripes nor claws nor even my humble donkeys to share their land?”

“That’s what Princess Twilight wants me to do, yeah,” Dash agreed. “The whole ‘mother’ thing is still kinda weird to me, though. But maybe if they get used to pegasi, they’d be okay with non-ponies too?”

Princess Zecora regarded her, and just said, “Time will tell.”

And that was that.

***

Dash went out into the town around the palace after that. She didn’t have anything else she needed to do and didn’t feel like sitting around reading all day, so she figured she’d go wander around and see what the town was like. She never got to go out in the Queen’s City without guards around, so just walking around was still pretty cool and new. Having a bunch of non-unicorns around was really weird.

There were donkeys walking around, who looked like, well, gray, knobbly-kneed, ungraceful hornless unicorns. A Diamond Dog had an outdoor stall, but he was curled up on top of it taking a nap. There were more unicorns than anything else, yeah, but them not being the only race around was different. Nopony seemed to realize there was anything weird about her, either, and that was really different. They were used to going around with weirdos, so they weren’t paying attention to her.

It wasn’t a really big town, though, mostly laid out along the river, and then it was just farms beyond there. A blacksmith did minor metalwork repairs, a bunch of stores for hats and cloth and food and stuff, a school, stuff like that. She went up and down the street twice to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. The only place that wasn’t kinda boring was the saloon. The Queen’s City didn’t exactly have one of those, and Princess Twilight probably wouldn’t have been real thrilled with her going to visit a bar, but she was exploring, right? And she’d write up a report and everything.

Rainbow Dash pushed her way through the swinging doors and looked around. There was an old piano with nopony playing it, a bar with a polished stone top, a bunch of heavy-looking tables also made out of stone, and creaky wooden chairs, and a dartboard on the wall. And the bartender and patrons, too. The bartender was a brown-coated unicorn stallion in a vest. He gave Dash a long look, then pointedly looked back down to the glass he was cleaning with a rag.

A trio of Diamond Dogs were sitting around a table, lapping something from bowls. Most of the tables had unicorns at them, quietly drinking. A donkey and some kinda big thing with horns were sitting at a corner playing a card game. Nopony was fighting. Dash was kinda disappointed about that part. Saloons in the Mongrel Lands were supposed to have brawls going on like all the time according to all the books. Well. All the interesting ones.

Dash took a seat at the bar. The bartender slid her a glass without looking, the glow from his horn barely visible. She looked down at it. It had some kind of pale amber liquid in it. She shrugged and tried it. In the ‘picked it up in her teeth and drank it down’ sense.

One second later she was down on the ground choking. Her throat was on fire and something incredibly foul was clinging to her tongue. There was a burning feeling down in her gut, too. It was like that time she’d tried some super-hot peppers that some ambassador had brought to court, but worse. Her head was spinning.

The bartender leaned over the bar. “First time tryin’ blue agave mescal, eh?”

Dash spluttered, coughed, and managed to get back onto her hooves. She didn’t figure there was much point to denying it. “Uh, yeah. That stuff… what the hay is it?”

“Mescal,” he said, taking the glass back behind the bar. “You ain’t from around here. What are you?”

“I’m a pegasus,” Dash said, still rubbing her throat. “From the Heartland.”

The bartender didn’t react much to that. He just started wiping out the glass. “Lot of you moving in?” he asked blandly.

“I’m the only one there is,” Dash said. She wanted to put it more awesomely, but her throat was still on fire and she was feeling really funny.

“Only one? Tough to do that,” the bartender observed. “What happened to the others?”

Dash took a few deep breaths, and it seemed to help. “They’ve been gone like a thousand years. Princess Twilight found a way to bring one back. Me.”

“So you’re a thousand years old?” the bartender asked. “Never drank in all that time?”

Dash snorted. “No, like, she did stuff with genetics. You never heard about history?”

The bartender shook his head. “History’s not much of a priority around these parts. Most folk are busy with today.”

Dash looked around the bar again. “Busy?”

The stallion nodded lazily. “Busy. Want another?”

Dash winced. “Got anything that’s, y’know, not on fire?”

The bartender cracked a smile at her. “You took your shot. I reckon you can order down from there.”

***

Due Respect must have been incredibly mad at her in the morning. Rainbow Dash couldn’t imagine any other reason why he would be casting a spell to make her head hurt, her mouth taste like a whole bunch of things had crawled into it and died, make her eyes blurry, and make her in general feel like she’d crawled out of a grave at some point. He wasn’t saying anything, just standing and waiting for her to get up. He seemed to have surrounded himself with a painfully bright halo, too.

“Good morning, Countess,” he screamed at her. She thought. She whimpered as his voice echoed in her head for at least ten seconds. What the hay happened?

In fact, that seemed like it might be important to know. “What happened?” she croaked. Her own voice boomed just like his did.

He cleared his throat. It rang in her skull worse than thunder. Thankfully, he lowered his voice. “I believe you have educated yourself on a topic that Princess Twilight prefers to ignore, Countess. I am uncertain as to the details, but you put on a rather impressive show and seem to have made a new friend.”

“I am awesome,” she reminded him, even though she was feeling the diametric opposite from awesome at the moment.

“Indeed,” he said. “And from the fraction of your performance I witnessed, I suspect a number of others would agree. Also reckless and well-nigh suicidal, based on the reaction from the griffons at the court. The hen in the air with you seemed to be impressed.”

“The hen?” Dash asked. Her head still hurt, but her eyes were starting to clear up, and her ears were getting back to a normal range.

“The proper term for a female griffon, yes,” Due Respect said. “After your aerobatics came to an abrupt end, she carried you back to the palace and said, quote, ‘Tell Slash I believe it, and she is not such a dweeb after all.’ I don’t suppose you recall meeting her?”

Dash groaned and rubbed her head. “I remember I went into a saloon, and the bartender gave me a glass, and… then it all kinda went blank.”

Due Respect gave her a slight smile. “You passed the local initiation ritual, then. Blue agave mescal is quite potent.” He cleared his throat. “I would prefer you had brought a guard with you, however. While Princess Twilight may be pleased to learn that one of her hypotheses has been validated, she will be less pleased to know that you went out drinking alone.”

“What’d I validate?” asked Dash. “And… oh, thanks.” There was a large glass of water by the bed, with a pitcher next to it. She drank the glass in one go.

“Princess Twilight estimated that your biology would lend itself to extremely rapid intoxication, given your lower body weight and high metabolism, Countess,” Due Respect told her. “However, that same metabolism ought to ensure the resultant hangover passes rapidly as well.”

Dash didn’t bother refilling the glass. She just started drinking from the pitcher. “Ten seconds flat,” she said. And she was feeling better already.

“Good,” said Due Respect. “May I assume you have learned the consequences of drinking to excess, or will you require a guard’s escort?”

Dash snorted. “I’m too awesome to forget how awesome I was being. I won’t do that again.”

Due Respect nodded. “Duly noted. In that case, you may be pleased to know that your actions did inspire some positive results. First, despite you flying all over the sky, it appears that the locals are sufficiently used to griffons in the air that no attempts were made to seize you, as at no point were you jerked to a stop. If you wish to fly, it appears it may be safe for you to do so in this area.

“Second, you seem to have inspired a number of locals, as your multicolored etherealization provided many of them with the first view they ever had of a rainbow. Rainstorms in this area are rare, extremely intense, and short, drying out very rapidly afterward and leaving little chance to view rainbows. A number of questions were asked last night at court regarding you, and you would seem to have made a number of fans.

“And third, Minister Rattlesnake has come up with a task for you. Since you have already befriended one of the local griffons, in this case a second-generation hen by the name of Gilda, Minister Rattlesnake suspects you may be able to gather further information about griffon activities in the area. If you would be willing to take such a risk, of course.”

Rainbow Dash got to her hooves and started stretching, working the ache out of her muscles. “Danger is my middle name!”

“That hardly seems Lady Rarity’s style, Countess,” Due Respect said.

Dash laughed. “Okay, okay. Miriam is my middle name, but it’s Danger by adoption,” she insisted. “So what do I have to do?”

“Mostly, go meet your friend and see if she tries to recruit you. I would send guards with you, but given the circumstances - and given that you and Gilda will likely take to the air - that seems rather pointless. So do be careful, Countess.”

“Of course I will!” Rainbow Dash agreed.

***

It didn’t take much to find Gilda. Or, rather, for Gilda to find Rainbow Dash. There was only one flying pony, so when Dash left the palace via a window, a griffon with purple eyeshadow came right up to meet her.

“Hey, Slash!” the hen called out cheerfully. Rather louder than necessary, even. “How’re you feeling? Just a little bit hung over, maybe?”

“Nah, I’m cool,” Dash called back. “You’re Gilda, right?”

The griffon smirked. “So you remember something, huh? Not bad. That was pretty hot stuff you were showing off yesterday. You think you can do it again?”

Dash grinned. “Oh, anything I did yesterday, I can do at least twenty percent better sober. Uh… what’d I do, though?”

Gilda snorted. “That’s more like it. You were doing the craziest dives and fastest turns I’ve ever seen. And you told me all about taking on a squad of griffon soldiers. How much of that was true?”

Dash rubbed the back of her neck. The feel of something warm and wet bouncing off her flank made her shiver a bit. A severed claw. I am not a bad pony, she reminded herself, and it eased. “I did take ‘em on, yeah.”

Gilda nodded and held up a curled talon. “Respect! Hard to find a pony with guts. Taking out a real warrior? Heck, all I could find for my first kill was a freakin’ desert hare.”

“Your… first kill?” Dash asked. “You had more?”

Gilda laughed. “Do I look like I’m meant for gnawing chunks of cactus all my life? Yeah, first kill. Not a lot out to eat in the desert, but a couple of times a year I get my number called and I get a chance to find something more substantial for myself. First blood’s a pretty big deal for griffons, y’know?” She gave Dash a smug grin. “And after I dropped your drunk butt off, I went and looked up pegasuses at the school. You guys are badflank. Probably coulda given griffons a run for the bits in the air, judging by you. Where’d you come from?”

“The Queen’s City,” Dash said. “Princess Twilight kinda made me.”

Gilda whistled. “They’re not kidding when they call her the Madmare of Magic, then! She freakin’ made a pony? Are the rumors true, then? She’s gonna challenge all the other royals and make ‘em crown her Queen?”

Dash blinked. “... What?”

Gilda laughed. “Oh geez! I take it all back! That expression! You are a dweeb! You have no idea at all, do you? All right, all right. A dweeb who flies like a crazy chief, though. All right, c’mon, lemme see what you can do when you’re not sloshed to the gills.”

***

Hanging out with Gilda was awesome. Gilda introduced her to some of the other griffons in town, and they told her a whole lot about flying that she’d never found out herself. Like, she already knew about thermals and all the sciency how-it-works, but all that book education didn’t show her how to adjust her feathers in a turn to really grab the air just right to twist so sharply her rainbow trail looked like it was making an angle instead of a curve, or how to make an attack dive. And the books definitely didn’t teach her anything about how to fight in midair.

That part was pretty scary, actually. Dash didn’t have a beak or claws, and her teeth weren’t anywhere near sharp enough to hurt a lot, and she didn’t have any clouds around to use for lightning. But the griffons were just sparring, not really trying to hurt her, and after a while she learned how to put her hooves to good use instead. She couldn’t plant and buck hard, but she was faster and more nimble in the air than the griffons, and if she kept moving and hitting quickly instead of hitting hard, she could wear them down.

She kept her speed down, though. One night she had a nightmare about going too fast in a spar and cutting Gilda in half. She kept holding back the next day, until Gilda called her a dweeb, which she did a lot anyway, but this time she sorta sneered it differently and that was enough to get Dash to really come after her again. And Gilda seemed happy with that.

Flying all over town was awesome. It was like being in the Crystal Empire all over again. Everypony - and everydonkey, everydog, and so on - down on the streets waved at her instead of grabbing. Dash made up her mind that if she did have to spend most of her life being a mom, she was going to move to some little town where everypony would get to know her, where she could teach her foals to fly out in the open, instead of having to scramble for height as fast as she could every time.

There was one thing hanging out with Gilda didn’t do, though. And that was find out anything about spies or unrest or international intrigue or whatever. After the first few days, Dash sorta stopped thinking about that at all. Gilda wasn’t trying to break up Unicornia as far as she could see. Gilda was just, well, fun to fly with, and was teaching her a bunch of stuff about griffons and about flying. All her friends had grown up in Unicornia too, after their parents had all ditched the griffon lands during some sort of bloodier-than-usual internal fighting. They even took a sort of perverse pride in being from the driest, most inhospitable part of the country, on the grounds that it was making them way tougher than they’d be if they’d grown up with prey all over the place.

Rainbow Dash dutifully wrote up her reports for Princess Twilight - even the one about getting drunk - and put in anything she learned, but most of that was about flying or about griffon culture. She didn’t have anything to say about the griffons trying to upset the Mongrel Lands. In fact, from her flights, Dash thought everypony down below seemed more cheerful than when she’d first arrived.

Due Respect couldn’t tell her much about what he was doing with Minister Rattlesnake; he just urged her to keep working with Gilda and see if anything came up. He came back with a cut down his leg and a limp one day, but he wouldn’t say anything about how he got it. Dash had taken a bunch worse cuts from sparring herself, but she didn’t think Due Respect was a brawling kind of pony. But since he didn’t want to talk, she didn’t press him.

By the time the caravan left, Rainbow Dash hadn’t gotten anything done about stopping the griffons from attacking Unicornia. Due Respect seemed pretty satisfied, though.

“Sometimes, Countess, you have to let somepony else have a turn,” was all he said.

5: The Great Northwest

After the arid heat of the Mongrel Lands, crossing north into Blueblood’s realm was a relief. Weather-wise, at least. Coming back into more populous lands, where everypony was a unicorn, meant Dash had to walk or stay in the carriage again. She wasn’t so thrilled about that part. Due Respect made sure to prepare her, as long as she was stuck on the ground.

“You’ll find that Prince Blueblood keeps the most classical, conservative court in Unicornia,” he told her. “The Blueblood line is reputed to run straight back to Queen Platinum, and he keeps his court highly formal as a result. At his court, any noble is expected to promptly present themselves to him upon arrival - Countess. So there will not be an option of you avoiding him. I recommend you minimize the chances of a faux pas by presenting yourself, saying ‘Greetings, Your Highness,’ and then blandly agreeing with anything he says until he dismisses you. The Prince is frankly known to be a boor, so try to ignore any rudeness he may show you.”

Rainbow Dash flexed her wings. “He can’t be worse than Tiara,” she muttered.

Due Respect gave her a small smile. “No, but as a stallion in a position of power, he can be bad in much more offensive ways.”

Dash blinked. “What do… oh. OH! … Wait, really?”

Due Respect nodded. “Simply put, Prince Blueblood’s personal tastes set the fashion for the rest of his domain. As such, all his life, his whims are social mandates. Mares squabble for a word of praise from him. As a result, he is… indiscriminate in exactly what he considers ‘praise.’ He is, in a word, crude.”

Dash tilted her head, thinking about that. “Is he any good at actually ruling?”

Due Respect gave her a small, respectful smile. “An excellent question, Countess. In his own way, one might say that he is. But the details of that, I believe I will leave to his steward, Nice Guy. Nice Guy is a friend of mine, and I suspect you will find his commentary enlightening.”

***

Blueblood’s castle, tastefully named Castle Blueblood, was the very picture of castle-dom. Literally. It was built to be as perfect a replicate of Queen Platinum’s palace as could be managed, and as such it looked exactly like storybooks and history books alike said a palace should look. Tall pristine white walls, spell-bleached to perfection on a regular basis, with proud horn-inspired towers overlooking the walls, with spell-matrix gems positioned below the parapets to guard against any hostile magical assault. Smooth paving stones lined the entrance and the courtyard within, and that was just the outer fortifications.

The palace within was every bit as perfect. Marble-clad stone made it gleam, with more marble for the floors and decorating the walls. Magically-preserved portraits hung on the walls, scowling down at those lesser mortals who dared to walk within the halls of Castle Blueblood. Each portrait had a little plaque underneath, detailing precisely when the depicted unicorn had ruled, and how many generations away from Queen Platinum they were. Princess Twilight had portraits of her family line put up too, but the Sparkle line had lost its records some hundred and fifty years ago in retribution for a failed challenge, so hers didn’t go nearly so far back.

Dash had put the skirt back on her outfit, but she was still feeling disturbingly underdressed. Most of the ponies she saw were wearing elaborate fancy gowns or ornate suits, and lots of them were wearing amazingly over-coiffed wigs. Next to all of them, Due Respect’s formalwear looked austere, and hers felt like nothing at all. Walking up the plush red carpet into the throne room was a weird experience. All the over-fashioned courtiers cleared the way and ogled them with poor attempts at disguise, but wouldn’t say a word to anyone in the caravan, since they hadn’t presented themselves to the Prince and thus hadn’t shown whether they were in his favor or not.

The throne room was just as classical as the rest of the castle. Tall marble pillars topped with scenes of victorious Blueblood battles throughout history supported the high roof, with gold and gold leaf liberally applied everywhere. Blueblood’s throne was wide enough for him to lie sprawled across its cushions, with one of his mistresses holding a bunch of grapes over his lips for him to nip at. The unicorns in the throne room were loudly talking, each trying to show more prominently than the next how well they were enjoying the Prince’s hospitality.

Due Respect came to a halt in front of the throne and cleared his throat. “On behalf of Her Majesty Princess Twilight Sparkle, Sovereign of the Queen’s City, Duchess of the Canterlot Range, Lady of the Heartland of Unicornia, I, Ambassador Due Respect, do greet you, Prince Blueblood, Sovereign of the Great Northwest, in friendship and peace.”

Prince Blueblood sat up and lifted his chin, waving a hoof to shoo away the mares doting on him. “We greet you, Ambassador Due Respect, and welcome you to the Great Northwest.” Then he sniffed. “For now, at least. Even if Princess Twilight were to come to her senses and acknowledge me as proper king, we all know Princess Tiara would never stand for it. Still, the brat must grow up someday, and then we can arrange to repair matters. In the meantime, all one can do it endure gracefully.”

Due Respect didn’t so much as clear his throat. “As you say, Your Highness. The Heartland and the Great Northwest have long sought to do best by Unicornia.”

Blueblood rolled his eyes. “Oh, I do see your goal, Ambassador, and really. You believe the griffons pose a threat to Unicornia? The Empire complaining about griffons, the Rich Lands complaining about dragons, or the Mongrel Lands worrying about a rebellion, it’s always the same. My ministers can soothe your fears, I’m sure. Now! I see you’ve brought Sparkle’s science project with you, eh?”

Rainbow Dash wanted to fly up there and slug him in that shiny white face of his already. There was just something so… smug about him, even if he hadn’t been spewing out insults with every breath. She gritted her teeth.

Somehow, Due Respect kept his calm. “Indeed, Your Highness. I present the Lady Rainbow Dash, Countess of the Imperial Sky, Lady of the Wonder Bolt.”

Dash stepped forward and stiffly bowed her head. “Your Highness,” she managed to get out.

Prince Blueblood looked down at her, then shrugged. “On the skinny side, but it might be entertaining to feel feathers under my belly sometime. And a rather stylish swimsuit. Perhaps if some sunny day presents itself, a trip to the seashore might be in order. You’ve more to introduce, Ambassador?”

Rainbow Dash’s jaw dropped. Crude was one thing, but THAT? Talking about using her like that to her face, not actually saying a word to her, and then dismissing her, that fast? She didn’t know if he had an heir yet, but suddenly putting an end to the Blueblood line with one well-placed hoof sounded like a really good idea.

“Exit the throne room, Rainbow Dash,” murmured Due Respect in her ear. “Nice Guy is waiting. Do not make a scene.” Then he cleared his throat and introduced one of the old nobleponies from one of the other carriages.

Dash turned around and walked out, her body shaking with rage. If he’d made a stupid ‘bird’ comment she would’ve been less mad. Those she heard all the time. Nopony had ever said something like THAT to her face, though!

A blue stallion with a white mane slid in next to her once she walked out the doors. “Come with me, Countess,” he said. He had a Scandaneighvian accent, though muted. “Ambassador Due Respect asked me to speak with you. I’m Steward Nice Guy.”

***

Dash was still shaking with anger, but she didn’t have anywhere else to go; she didn’t even know where their rooms were in the palace. If she could stand to stay in the palace. She felt like she was snorting fire as she followed the steward into a side room.

He closed the door, then sighed. “My apologies for the Prince’s behavior, Countess,” he said. “He has certain appearances to uphold. Please believe me when I say that he was, in his own way, doing you a tremendous favor.”

“FAVOR?” snapped Dash. “He said in front of his entire court that he just wanted to use me, then ignored me!”

Nice Guy flushed but nodded. “Yes, Countess. He knew what he was doing. Standards of beauty are based on the Prince’s preferences in the Great Northwest. By declaring you of some interest, he ensured that any other noblepony you meet will treat you as an attractive and favored mare, and one who might have his ear in the future.”

“That was him doing me a favor,” Rainbow Dash said flatly.

The blue-and-white pony nodded again. “Yes, Countess. Had he made no comment, you would likely have been subject to a wide variety of social assaults aimed at ensuring you would not catch the Prince’s eye at any point. Had he suggested an immediate assignation, you would have had to choose between accepting his offer on the spot, and thus being hounded by status-seeking stallions and mares alike, or rejecting him and being an immediate social outcast. He is not as crass as he appears, nor as foolish. But he maintains the appearance so as to keep the attention of the upper class on him.”

“I’m still gonna buck his precious family line back to Queen Platinum if he tries to lay a hoof on me,” grumbled Dash, glaring at the door and wishing she could suddenly discover a new pegasus power of heat-blasts from the eyes.

“That would be a distinctly bad idea,” Nice Guy said mildly. “Should that happen, I would find it difficult to raise the Blueblood Guard to assist Princess Twilight Sparkle against the griffons.”

“You would?” Dash asked.

Nice Guy nodded. “Yes, Countess. I would. You are familiar with the usual form of succession among Princes and Princesses in other regions of Unicornia, yes? The strong challenge and claim their thrones, and so on.”

Dash nodded. “Yeah… and the Bluebloods go way back, so they must be really strong, right?”

Nice Guy gave her a smile. “No, that isn’t how it works. They encourage that perception, certainly. But what keeps the Blueblood line on the throne is that they spend very little time actually ruling, and a very large amount of time preparing for duels. Prince Blueblood represents the power of the Great Northwest, yes, and his edicts are law. But he exercises his power very rarely.”

Dash blinked. “So… That means…”

Nice Guy patted her side. “That means in practice, the steward does the actual ruling. We have considered attempting a formal change in the power structure to make it official, but I suspect that the other sovereigns would object to ending the monarchy. And so, we remain unofficial.”

“Umm… Why are you telling me this?” asked Dash.

“Because Due Respect is a friend of mine, and he asked me to teach you,” he said. “That stallion is very good at seeing things from perspectives others miss. You will never be a princess, true. But you will be a ruler. The manner in which you one day raise your foals will set the tone for how pegasi will administer themselves.”

“That… is a different perspective,” Dash said slowly. “It’s hard enough to wrap my head around being a mom.”

Nice Guy chuckled. “Parenting is a very different kind of ruling, yes. I have a colt and a filly myself - No Way and Sweet Dish. I find I have to take a much more direct route with them. It is a worthwhile and important role.”

“It’s kinda different when you know you have to, though.” Dash glared at the door one more time for good measure. “And no way I’m letting him be involved.”

Nice Guy hmmmed. “Well, I can’t say I blame you, but it would have some benefits. Consider the implications of having your line sharing royal blood from three different regions of Unicornia, for example.”

“Not worth losing my lunch over at the idea of it,” Dash said firmly.

“As you prefer. You are in a particularly… unrestricted position, in many regards. Most noble lines have many considerations about family feuds and alliances to consider, but your only notable connection is to the Sparkle line, which is too close for you to marry back into at any rate. And there are few who would consider challenging Twilight Sparkle.”

“Yeah, she’s powerful,” Dash agreed.

“Every prince and princess holds their throne for more reasons than being powerful, Countess,” Nice Guy told her. “Every royal rules because they believe that they are the pony who should rule - and are willing to fight to make that happen. Princess Twilight’s predecessor stepped down rather than face her - but had she refused, then I have no doubt that Princess Twilight would have challenged her. Contestants in a duel may agree to abide by other restrictions or victory conditions, but in the end, no matter what other rules may be agreed to, it has always been the case that when only one mare is left, that mare is the winner. And Princess Twilight, no less than any other royal, would have accepted the possibility that she would have to kill. And then there are her famous gardens,” Nice Guy added.

“Wha? What about the gardens?” Dash asked. “Do they come alive and defend her or something?”

Nice Guy laughed. “No, it’s more the other way around. You have heard about Twilight Sparkle’s rather famous childhood magical outburst?”

Dash shook her head. “No, nopony ever told me much about Princess Twilight’s childhood. Why, what’d she do?”

“Turned her own parents into potted plants, temporarily,” Nice Guys told her. “It wore off, but… well, it has not gone without note that every so often a new pony-shaped topiary is added to her gardens. And she takes very conscientious care of those particular plants. Everypony is quite sure she’s much too nice to be turning those who offend her into bushes. But not sure enough to forget it.”

“No way,” said Dash. “She would so not do that. Never!”

Nice Guy chuckled. “She doesn’t have to actually turn anypony into a plant, Countess. By simply leaving the hint that she might, she creates the inkling of doubt in the minds of those who would even think about opposing her. That she is a very pleasant mare I have no doubt. But she is also canny and has to defend her position. Just like Princess Zecora has ensured that any unicorn attempting to unseat her will face immediate unrest from her non-unicorn followers, and Filthy Rich has arranged to ensure that any attack on his daughter, when she comes of age, will result in the challenger facing an overwhelming financial assault before ever starting the duel. It is better to be loved than feared - but it is even better to be loved and feared. The only way to rule without having to instill some degree of fear is to be so powerful that the uselessness of attacking you is obvious. Princess Twilight may approach such a level, and she has done quite well in spreading the myth of her own power, and making it hard to tell just how much of the story is myth, but even she is still, in the end, just a unicorn.”

“... That’s the only way?” asked Dash.

“Under Unicornian law, at least, yes,” Nice Guy said. “The griffons practice a far more extreme form of it, while certain donkey philosophers have proposed an alternative. The Great Northwest has adopted some of their ideas. In essence, it works by taking the nobles out of the day-to-day workings of ruling. Each village has a baron, yes, but also elects a mayor. The mayor tends to all the daily tasks, and the baron needs concern themself only with defending the town. The mayors then elect unicorns to gather and handle larger projects. And the Prince’s Steward oversees that gathering and arranges for royal funds to be distributed accordingly. Since the elections happen repeatedly, everypony has a chance to win sooner or later, and so is willing to peacefully tolerate the times when their ideas lose out.”

Dash blinked. Then blinked again. “Wait a minute, you’re running a republic underneath Prince Blueblood’s nose?” she asked incredulously. “Like the Earth Ponies did? But that left them all disorganized and weak, so the unicorns wiped them right out!”

Nice Guy smiled at her. “I’m not surprised Princess Twilight taught you about ancient history. But bear in mind that hoary old maxim: ‘History is written by the winners.’ In this case, the winners were unicorn nobles, who wanted to make sure everypony knew that a strong noble leader was the only way to run a country. My personal opinion is that the Earth Ponies were wiped out more because of their lack of magic than because of their organizational structure.”

“Well… I guess so,” Dash said dubiously. “As long as it works for you.”

“It does,” said Nice Guy. “You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”

***

Rainbow Dash stuck by Nice Guy while the caravan was in the Great Northwest. He showed her a lot of stuff about how to actually run the place. It wasn’t fun learning like flying with Gilda, and sometimes the screwy logic he used felt more like manipulating ponies rather than ruling. But it worked. The Blueblood Guard was raised and headed for the Crystal Empire to help ensure the griffons stayed on their own territory. All sorts of trade deals came through, and Nice Guy showed Rainbow Dash how to analyze the impacts of each one. Lower tariffs on wheat were good for a lot of ponies, but hurt the local wheat farmers, who had to charge higher prices because their soil wasn’t as good for wheat, but was better for water-intensive crops like tomatoes. So they had to get lower tariffs back, except that didn’t work as well because tomatoes didn’t ship as well. So they also had to get access to the higher-quality seeds from the Heartland. And so on.

It made Dash’s head hurt a lot, and she really wished she could just go flying. Not swimming, though. Blueblood’s comment about a day at the seashore made her never want to go in the ocean again. Nice Guy did explain that to her, though - by making a positive comment about her dress, disguised as an insult about it being swimwear, Blueblood had ensured that Lady Rarity would be sought out by any number of his nobles looking for the cutting edge of summer fashion.

She still wasn’t going to visit the shore as long as she was in the Great Northwest.

By the time Due Respect wrapped up all the polite political stuff he had to do, letting everypony see him dealing with Prince Blueblood every day and showing how seriously the Heartland took the Great Northwest, Rainbow Dash felt like her thunderbolt mark was about to turn into an inkwell. Nice Guy didn’t have her write anything official, but he asked her to take notes and figure stuff out a lot. Usually things he could have done himself in a heartbeat, she was sure, but she had to really pound her head against it. Or, once she told him, beat her wings against it - by getting a guard training area reserved for her to use, so she could fly low and get in the air while trying to figure out how the Great Northwest’s government really worked underneath the facade.

Still, Nice Guy lived up to his name. He never quite pushed her into anything, and he let her figure out just how he was talking her into doing all that work for him, so by the time the caravan was ready to go, she thought she’d really got it. At least the first bits of it. Enough that she wasn’t going to be caught off-guard once she got home and had Heartland nobleponies making all sorts of courtly forays at her again.

And if he taught her a few other interesting things that didn’t have to do with governing along the way, that was pretty cool too.

6: The Tangle

The trip from the Great Northwest back to the Heartland was a long and boring stretch for Rainbow Dash. All the big cities of Unicornia were coastal, so it was just lots of lots of small farming villages on the interior. It was weeks of walking along or sitting in the carriage, and the only time she could go flying was late at night or above the clouds on rainy days. She dutifully tried to organize her reports for Princess Twilight, but, well, writing the things had been a lot of work in the first place. Trying to make them all neat and scientific like the Princess’ own studies was beyond her. So she went through Scooter Pilgrim again. Just because Dash knew how the unicorn filly broke the seven evil hexes on the colt she liked didn’t mean it wasn’t still a good read.

She chatted with Due Respect too. He seemed pretty satisfied to be heading home. The Blueblood Guard was moving to reinforce the Crystal Empire and make sure the griffons didn’t get any bright ideas, whatever he’d done in the Mongrel Lands had worked out, he’d made a new trade agreement with Filthy Rich, the Crystal Empire was saved, and of course he’d be able to bring Princess Twilight’s prized experiment back safe and sound. He showed her the reports that he was writing, but those were more like letters, full of details about negotiating and court politics, not the sort of detached facts and initial observations that Princess Twilight liked.

“You have a remarkable memory for minutia,” he commented to her at one point, reading through one of her reports. “A very good ability to estimate distances and speeds, as well.”

“Yeah, it’s a pegasus thing,” Dash agreed. “If I’m gonna be flying a couple of thousand feet up, it makes sense I have to have good eyes and ears, right? And know how fast you’re going and all that other stuff. Gilda was good at it too. If you aren’t paying attention in the air, then you might not notice something coming for you.”

“You might consider court politics something of an analogy for flight, then,” he suggested. “Always keep an eye out for hidden obstacles and invisible threats.”

“Yeah, Nice Guy told me a lot of that stuff. I watched a lot of Blueblood’s court. Kinda amazing I didn’t see a lot of it before.”

Due Respect gave her one of his small smiles. “You have always been a particularly brash and direct young mare, Countess. It inspires those who dislike what you represent. You have thus tended to confront brash and direct challenges at court as well. But now you will have to take on a new role, one I hope to have prepared you for.”

She leaned over to give him a hug. “Couldn’t ask for a better coach.”

He leaned gently in to nuzzle her cheek. “Nor I a better student. Princess Twilight thinks very highly of you, and there are more of us at court who understand why than you might know.”

***

Coming home was oddly like arriving at any of the other four courts. In some ways, anyhow. The caravan reached the Queen’s City and had to report back in. Unlike the others, they didn’t have to go marching into court and wait for Due Respect to formally present them all.

No, only Rainbow Dash had to do that. Nopony else had gained or changed a title on the road. Other than inheritance, gaining a title was a pretty rare thing. So she couldn’t just go have a private family reunion with Mom and then give the Princess her report and stuff. She had to walk into court and publicly say, basically, “Hey, look, new noblepony in town.”

Well, actually, it was kind of cool to put on her outfit’s skirt and have Due Respect go in and announce her to Princess Twilight. That made up for not being able to go right in to Mom after all this time.

“Your Highness, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce to you the Lady Rainbow Dash, Countess of the Imperial Sky, Lady of the Wonder Bolt.” He kept it simple, formal, and yet so awesome. Rainbow Dash just had to strut in. Strutting in was very important. Walking humbly would have meant looking embarrassed over her titles. Flying would have probably got one of the nobles to try to yank her down to make her look foolish. She’d always thought it made ponies look snooty. Now that she knew the reason for it, she figured it probably made her look snooty too, but for a good reason. And she could make snooty look awesome. It had to look awesome. It was her.

Hoity Toity looked pleased for her, but he always looked happy for everypony who came to court. Dash honestly couldn’t tell if he was just a generally genial unicorn or if he had a really good fake smile, but he’d never given her any trouble. Jet Set and his wife, Upper Crust, were sneering at her, same as ever. They’d always been firmly in the ‘end the experiment’ camp and not shy about it. Lady Underbite was probably giving her the stink eye, but it was always hard to tell whether she was glaring or not because of all the wrinkles. And Duchess Lulamoon, always so frustrated at the impossibility of rising any higher, and the leader of the anti-Dash faction at court, was gritting her teeth.

“Countess Rainbow Dash, be welcome in my court,” declared Princess Twilight, a broad smile across her face. “Word of your selfless and heroic efforts on behalf of Unicornia have long since reached me, and I am proud to know that my niece has demonstrated such valor and strength.”

Dash blinked in surprise. Sure, Princess Cadence had said ‘niece’ too, and since Shining Armor was her father, that did mean Princess Twilight really was her aunt, but she’d never said so out loud before. But, there was only one thing to say to that.

“Yeah, I am awesome like that.”

And Princess Twilight laughed and came down to welcome her home with a hug. Mom came in to join a few steps behind.

***

After court was concluded for the day, Rainbow Dash came down to Twilight’s laboratory to deliver her report. The place was its usual self - papers everywhere, various experiments set up, writing all over the chalkboard. But all the experimental apparatus was sitting around unused, and there were a ton of books, folios, and even old lyric sheets across the tables. Dash’s sharp eyes could pick out the titles from across the room. Histories, and old ones, mostly.

What was more worrying than that was Princess Twilight sitting on a stool looking serious, instead of clapping her hooves in glee at all the data Rainbow Dash was bringing her.

“Um… Princess? Is something wrong?” She didn’t need to be all tactful and stuff when it was just the two of them, and Twilight knew she was a pony of action, so going right in was usually okay.

The princess nodded. “Yes, Rainbow Dash. Something is very wrong. Thank you for doing such a good job taking your notes, but I’m afraid it’s going to be quite some time before I can give your data all the attention it deserves. There has been a… development while you were gone.”

Dash groaned. “Don’t tell me the griffons are getting ready to attack anyway! We got like the whole country ready for ‘em, and they’re gonna get their tails kicked in.”

Princess Twilight smiled at her, but shook her head. “No, Rainbow Dash. The griffons seem to have pulled back for the moment. Their new warlord has figured out that Unicornia is more than he can handle. The last I’ve heard is that they’re massing their troops for an assault on the island nation of Minosia instead, home to a small but pugnacious population of rare bipedal cows. No, there’s something from Unicornia’s past coming back.”

“I… take it you don’t mean pegasi,” Dash said, then swallowed. “Or did something come back that would’ve stayed… wait, you mean I brought the windigos back?” Her eyes widened as her heart raced. If the windigos came back… well, the only way to get rid of them once had been to eliminate the other tribes…

Twilight climbed off of her school and squeezed Dash. Hard. “No. It is not anything you did,” she said firmly. “This was something that happened after the War of Survival. Pegasi were already gone. A different threat attacked Unicornia. A malevolent force that nearly destroyed us. Its name was Discord. And it’s coming back.”

“Good thing the armies are all ready, then, right?” Dash asked. “I mean, if something’s gonna attack, having the soldiers already lined up is the smart thing to do.”

Twilight let her go. “It’s not that easy. We had armies back when he attacked. Lots of them. It wasn’t that long after the War of Survival. They had more fighting experience in any given company than the entire Unicornian army has today, on average, based on the surviving records. Discord was a force beyond anything they could confront.”

Dash whistled. “That’s pretty tough. How’d they do it?”

Twilight took a deep breath. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. But this is bad, Rainbow Dash. Very bad. I’ve called a Royal Conclave. The others should be here by next month. I’m hoping to know how to save Unicornia by the time they arrive.”

***

A Royal Conclave was a Big Freakin’ Deal. As far as Dash knew, and she had a pretty good background on stuff like that thanks to Princess Twilight, there were only two reasons to call one. Either one of the royals wanted to try to choose a queen, or something was threatening all of Unicornia. The griffons threatening to invade the Crystal Empire hadn’t been big enough to call for a Royal Conclave. But this was.

Cadence and Shining Armor were the first to arrive. They had the shortest journey and the least reserve about coming when called by Twilight. It only took three days for the messenger to get there, a couple of days for them to arrange a regent, and three days for them to get to the Heartland. Twilight spent the entire time researching furiously, dragooning her guards in to help the librarians search through her extensive collections for anything relating to ancient history and the creature known as Discord.

The statue wasn’t hard to find. It sat in the middle of Princess Twilight’s gardens, an ugly, mismatched collection of parts with a permanent laugh on its face. The name inscribed into the base was pretty clear, too. And Twilight’s magical measurements had picked up a strange kind of energy coming off of it. At steadily-increasing levels. After some of her early investigations, she ordered that section of the gardens closed off except to specially-selected pairs of guards under strict orders to remain friendly, polite, and agreeable at all times when within two hundred hooves of the statue.

Having the incoming Royal Conclave meant that the court was completely preoccupied with the influx of royals. Even Lady Underbite and Duchess Lulamoon were too busy trying to arrange sudden galas and parties in honor of the arrivals to spend much time sniping at Rainbow Dash. Twilight being busy in the lab on the Discord project meant not having any time to do time trials and agility tests, so Dash got one of the guards to handle the stopwatch instead. She didn’t have any other ideas on how she could spend her time, so she figured at least she could see how all those tips from Gilda and Gilda’s friends had affected her performance.

Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor joined her after they arrived. It was a mark of just how seriously Twilight was taking the situation that she couldn’t even find time to spend with the brother she’d never expected to see in person ever again. They had an immediately full schedule of social events across the Queen’s City and Brook Lawn, sometimes even out in Stallion Island or the Broncs, once in that sleepy little island suburb Manehattan. But they came out in the mornings to watch Rainbow Dash fly.

Princess Zecora somehow managed to be the second to arrive, three weeks after the call. It wasn’t nearly enough time for the messenger to have reached the Mongrel Lands and her to have responded. Princess Twilight had to grind her teeth and take out a notebook, write ‘TO DO’ on the front, and write neatly on the first page, “Investigate zebra magics.” The zony princess and her (mostly non-unicorn, but no griffons) retinue took over a local estate for the duration, at the eager insistence of the owners. Notably fewer social invitations went her way. Some, though. Rumors and scandals almost instantly started to fly across the city about secret debauchery and strange events at that estate, but the lack of detail was breathtaking. Still, almost any noblemare in the city could be heard in one claim or another to have taken a Diamond Dog or zebra lover. Lady Rarity found some of the stories rather endearingly romantic, she confided to Dash, even as she found them hilarious at the same time.

Princess Diamond Tiara and the Donager arrived a few days after that, in a caravan train so long it resembled a circus more than a diplomatic procession. They’d brought their entire court along, it seemed, and Dash figured out why. Filthy Rich’s control over all of them was financial, not because he or Tiara could really stand up to a challenge. If he left them alone without him, they might find a way to get out of his control while he couldn’t respond. So he had to bring them all along. It took six estates to house them all. Rose Quartz wasn’t with them. She wasn’t powerful enough to worry about.

It took almost a full month for Prince Blueblood to show up. His caravan wasn’t as long as Filthy Rich’s, but it was far more opulent. He clearly believed in travelling in style, with an entire carriage devoted to a portable hot tub, magically heated by a pair of Scandaneighvian assistants. He was extremely put out at not having the castle itself offered to him - an indication, Dash picked up, that he was declaring himself unwilling to support any candidate for King or Queen except himself, since only a King or Queen could kick a Princess out of her own palace like that. The Duchess Lulamoon hosted him.

But, finally, they were all there. Princess Twilight’s magical monitors were showing a steady increase in the energy coming off of the statue of Discord, but it had slowed with her precautions. Somewhere between when Tiara arrived and Blueblood’s appearance, her frazzled look had settled, so Dash guessed she’d found something. And fortunately, Twilight called for the Conclave’s opening to be public, or at least before her court. Dash’s new rank qualified her to attend, and she didn’t have to worry about getting a seat, since she could bring in a chunk of cloud and sit comfortably in midair while all the unicorns had to squeeze in next to each other. Even the Donager, Filthy Rich, had to sit away from the table.

The throne of the Queen’s City sat empty. While the Conclave was going on, none of the royals would sit in it unless they elected a new Queen. Other than that, they sat around a large circular table that Dash had seen before sitting in an unused side room. Now that the dust cover was off, she could see that Queen Platinum’s appearance had been inlaid into the table’s surface, in platinum.

“Thank you, my royal peers, for accepting my call,” Twilight said in a loud, clear voice. “I now call this Royal Conclave of Unicornia to order. The subject of this meeting is the entity known to history as Discord, and the threat posed to Unicornia by its return.”

“What? We came all this way just because you think we’ve not being nice enough to each other?” sneered Princess Tiara.

“No, Diamond Tiara. Not the concept of discord. The creature named Discord, who has been imprisoned in stone for the last thousand years. It has sat in the gardens of the Queen’s City all this time, but my research has shown signs that the spell binding it has begun to weaken,” Twilight said patiently.

“So fix the spell!” Tiara demanded impatiently. “What do you want, a medal? I’m not making you Queen just for some stupid statue!”

Twilight rubbed her forehead with a hoof. Prince Blueblood looked amused already. Princess Zecora remained inscrutable. Only Cadence looked sympathetic. “I don’t have the power to do the kind of spell that’s needed. All five of us together don’t have that much power. All of Unicornia together might not have that kind of power,” Twilight explained.

“So you just wanted to let us know we’re all doomed because you can’t control a statue? Gee, thanks,” spat out Tiara.

“Would you like to hear my actual proposal, or are you having too much fun interrupting?” asked Twilight. A hair frizzed its way out of her mane. Dash took note of where the windows were. Just in case. Though she guessed being the only royal not turned into a bush would mean Twilight could unanimously vote herself Queen, but that probably wouldn’t go over too well in the other regions.

“Fine,” grumped Tiara, slouching back in her seat.

“THANK you,” Twilight said, and took a deep breath. “Some time after the War of Survival, after the departure of the windigos, the creature known as Discord came to Unicornia. Where he came from, the history books are unable to guess. His power was unstoppable; he brought chaos to our fledgling country, and the Princesses were as much his playthings as any of their subjects were. The exact nature of his actions were not well recorded, but houses flying off into the air, unicorns being attacked by their own crops, and entire mountain ranges being turned into statues of Discord were among the details that did get noted down.

“It was only when Princess Firefly discovered a magical superweapon of unmatched potency that he was finally defeated. It was called the Elements of Harmony. However, she was unable to activate it at first. Only when the other Princesses elected her Queen did the Elements respond. After she used it on Discord, she apparently decided the Elements of Harmony were too powerful to keep, because any pony with them would be unstoppable. It would have meant an invincible royal line, and of course that would have been a terrible idea then just as it is now. That the royal lines must prove themselves constantly is how Unicornia remains strong

“As best my research can show, the Elements of Harmony lie somewhere within the Everfree Tangle. It is my intention to enter the Everfree and retrieve them. Hopefully, there will be time after recovering them to experiment with activating them without being Queen, because I do not delude myself into thinking that we five could agree on a single ruler.”

Princess Zecora leaned forward. “I dissent from your intent,” she said firmly. “If a magical superweapon is hidden in the Everfree Tangle, then I cannot abide leaving it in your sole possession.”

“She rather has a point,” drawled Blueblood. “Why don’t we simply send the guards in to get it?”

“Duh, because then the guards would get it and then one of THEM would be the new Queen,” Tiara sniped. “Who’s gonna let that happen?”

Cadence leaned forward. “Are you seriously suggesting that the entire royal peerage enter the Everfree Tangle just because you don’t trust Twilight?”

Zecora leaned in as well. “Yes. Unless we are ready to elect a Queen here and now, none of us can allow the rest to gain sole possession of a magical artifact with powers such as Twilight Sparkle describes. Even if we think it only works for a true Queen.”

“What would we do if we were to encounter some difficulty?” Blueblood pointed out. “The Everfree Tangle is full of those terrible thorny vines and all sorts of awful creatures.”

“We bring along somepony who can escape and bring the guards to our rescue,” suggested Cadence.

“What good would that do?” Tiara complained. “If we get caught by something, anypony we bring with us will get caught too.”

Zecora looked away from the table, up to the cloud under the rafters. A lot of other heads turned to follow. Dash didn’t know what else to do, so she waved.

“My griffons none of you would ever trust, but there is one pony whose loyalty is beyond reproach,” Zecora said. “Should danger strike, Rainbow Dash would not leave her mentor nor her aunts in peril, and she could fly for aid. And should she obtain the Elements herself, she could clearly never rule.”

“Mmmm, I suppose that does make sense,” agreed Blueblood, leaning back and looking up at the cloud. “And a bit of fun along the way wouldn’t hurt.”

Cadence’s hoof slammed down on the table. “Countess Rainbow Dash is not some servant for you to tumble, Blueblood,” she all but snarled.

He held up his hooves. “Oh, of course, of course, Cadie. Of course I’d ask first! But really, who could ever say no to this?” He gave her a broad wink and tucked a rose into his mouth.

Rainbow Dash thought she might be sick, but she held it in for the sake of the ponies below who didn’t have umbrellas inside. Diamond Tiara was less restrained about making gagging noises. Dash felt conflicted about agreeing with the little brat.

“Then it’s settled,” Twilight said. “We set out for the Everfree Tangle tomorrow. Our separate guards will escort us to the edge, but once we reach the plundervines, it’s just the royals and Rainbow Dash.”

***

“Ugh, this is so gross,” whined Tiara from atop her father’s back. “Hurry up and find the stupid things so we can get out of here! I bet stupid Twilight made it all up just to…”

“That will be quite enough of that, young lady,” Filthy Rich said firmly, his horn glowing as he clamped Diamond Tiara’s mouth shut mid-sentence. “No matter how hot and humid it might be, or how uncomfortable the confines, that is no excuse for saying things you know aren’t true.”

“And there is certainly no shortage of hot, humid, and uncomfortable in here,” drawled Blueblood. “I say, did anypony bring a fan? This air is simply doing awful things to my mane.”

He had a point, Dash had to admit. Not about his mane. His mane was probably coated in so many layers of various hair goops that he could crack a rock with it. But the atmosphere was oppressive. Hot, yes, and stinky. It smelled like the plants had been slowly strangled in there by the vines for the last thousand years, and green things rotting were underhoof with every step. She wouldn’t have wanted to try eating anything in there for all the bits in Filthy Rich’s Royal Treasury.

Twilight was in front, using her magic to slice her way through the thick black vines without having to touch those dangerous-looking spikes. She had a magic meter hovering next to her, but the high levels of ambient magic made the device next to useless; it was almost constantly pegged. She kept it out anyway. Every now and then it could pick up a blip of something strong that she hoped were the Elements.

Filthy Rich let Diamond Tiara’s mouth free, and the filly scowled at the world in general. Dash just couldn’t muster up any sympathy at all. At least she wasn’t trying to rip out any more feathers. The spikes kept trying to do that, and the close quarters made her feel like she was back in the tunnel in the Platinum Hills all over again.

“Be careful,” warned Zecora, glancing cautiously around. “This place is filled with malice, and ancient evil. There is something very wrong with these vines.”

“Well, duh,” said Diamond Tiara, and poked one. “They’re all ugly and spiky. Why hasn’t anypony come in here and cleaned all of this out? Look, that right there, that’s an apple tree under all the vines!”

“Who would want to live here?” shrugged Zecora. “In a place so dark and filled with doom, a pony would need great cause to stay.”

“It’s not even near anything,” agreed Cadence skittishly. Shining Armor was busy glaring all around at the vines, as though daring them to just try poking his wife and seeing what they got. She was staying as close to the middle of the pathway as she could go.

“There was a rather nice view of the Canterlot Mountains on the way in, but the Tangle spoiled it quite badly,” Blueblood sniffed.

“If it weren’t for the Elements, I doubt there’d be anything in here worth having,” agreed Filthy Rich. He had to scoot forward to hop over a slithering vine, then duck to avoid one bending overhead.

Then he let out a yell. “DIAMOND!”

Dash spun around. One of the vines had snagged Diamond Tiara around the waist, and was pulling her off of her father’s back! The filly was squealing and flailing, smacking at the vine with her hooves.

“Ow! Ow! Ow ow ow! Dad! Help! It’s sharp!” she wailed out. Filthy Rich leaped at the vine, slashing at it with his horn, magic glowing around the edges. He had much less success than Twilight’s spells; he was almost headbutting the dark mass, but barely digging into it.

“Hang on, sweetie! Daddy’s coming!” Filthy Rich yelled. Shining Armor stepped forward, his horn lighting, but another vine swept in, and he had to form a shield instead. Twilight had no chance to help; vines were suddenly coming after her, and it was all she could do to blast them apart before they could reach her.

Rainbow Dash didn’t have a horn to fight them with, but she had her reflexes. Every time a vine slashed in her direction, she dodged out of the way. She tried hitting them, but they ignored her hooves. She thought if she could get going fast enough, she could probably cut through, but there was no room to build up any speed, just to duck and twist and turn. If she could just get UP! She had her hooves full, but only a few vines were actually coming after her; most of them were slashing at the unicorns.

And then there it was! An opening! She shot upward - and the vines followed her, twisting and turning in the air as they tried to grab her trailing tail. She turned to dodge them, and the vines followed right along. She barely had to think about what came next. A swift turn to the right, a drop in altitude, curl right back along the bulk of the vines, back upward… and voila. A perfect mass of knotted vines, thrashing against their own length, twisting and wrenching itself right out of the canopy below. The vines all reached up for her, strained… and then toppled over, leaving a gap back down to the path below. She’d barely had to think; she just knew how to deal with being chased in the air like that. It reminded her of that time the griffon ambassador chased her through the halls in Twilight’s palace. But that reminded her that Twilight was still in trouble, so she dove back down through the dense overgrowth.

Rainbow Dash landed. The vines had quieted again, but Filthy Rich was unconscious on the ground, and Diamond Tiara was still wrapped up in one. Twilight Sparkle’s lavender glow was holding that vine and keeping it from hauling the crying filly away, but she couldn’t hold it and pry it open at the same time.

Zecora stepped forward. Somehow, in all the fuss, she hadn’t been so much as scratched. “You must relax, Diamond Tiara,” she said calmly. “The vines will bind you as they can, but if you move like they, their grip will wane.”

“Just make it let go!” cried Tiara, struggling and hitting the vine with her hooves.

“Very well,” said Zecora, and stepped forward. She lifted a hoof, then blew something gold and glittery into Diamond Tiara’s face. The filly sneezed, then went limp. Her eyes widened. She was still able to speak, though, as she squeaked out, “Poison!”

Zecora shook her head. “A muscle relaxant, little one. Look!” And sure enough, now that she wasn’t struggling and stiff with fear, the vines were losing their grip on her, letting her slip down to fall onto the damp earth of the Tangle’s floor. The vines seemed to sag.

“Help! Dad!” she gasped out anyway, but Zecora patted her on the side with a hoof. “Your father will awake in time, but our respite here will not be long. We must move on.”

“I’ll get him,” volunteered Shining Armor, glancing around at the Princesses. “I can carry that much.”

Twilight’s horn glowed, and then Filthy Rich vanished. “No need,” she said with a broad smile to Shining Armor. “We’re not out of my teleportation range yet. He’s back with the guards.”

“Show off,” muttered Shining Armor, but he smiled when he said it.

Zecora settled Diamond Tiara on her striped back to ride until the relaxant wore off, and they continued on. Despite her young age, she was still a princess. If they found the Elements, they would need her vote.

***

The vines stayed back, but the royals kept a wary guard. Diamond Tiara’s legs were still too rubbery to walk, so she stayed on Zecora’s back. The remains of an ancient path were underhoof - or possibly just wreckage of some long-forgotten city that the vines had obliterated. It was impossible to tell. Either way, something kept the vines away just enough to be able to make progress.

“Queen Firefly explicitly refused to leave any information about the nature of the Elements of Harmony in her records,” Twilight said as they moved. “There are six of them, strongly magical, and the right pony will understand them. So when we find them, presumably one of us will be able to immediately identify them. The rest of us need to accept the possibility that one of us will be the new Queen.”

“Such a vote need not be taken on the spot,” Zecora observed. “Your ancient evil remains safely bound, for now.”

“For now,” Shining Armor agreed. “But we can’t all be split up and take a month to have another Conclave when it does break free. If we find the Elements, then we can’t end the Conclave without electing a Queen.”

“Or King,” Blueblood drawled. “I hardly think the Elements would decline a proper stallion for the role. Princess Platinum’s line would be a perfect receptacle for their power. Presuming they exist.”

“If they don’t exist, I am telling Daddy to declare war on Twilight right away,” groused Diamond Tiara. “Making me go through all this!”

“If the Elements don’t exist, we’re all in deep trouble,” Twilight said firmly. “There’s no record of anything else capable of withstanding Discord’s power.”

“... What about withstanding a door?” asked Rainbow Dash, looking up ahead.

“Withstanding a door?” echoed Twilight. “Rainbow Dash, what are you… Oh.”

The pathway widened, with vines all around an open space. A large, ornate door barred the way forward on the other side of the clearing. Vines curled over the top and all around; Rainbow Dash couldn’t see even a glimpse of sky beyond. The door itself looked to have been hammered together from the parts of a dozen different doors, all ornate but in wildly clashing styles. It had a single oversized handle on one side, made to look like a sort of goaty-serpenty thing. Actually, it looked a lot like that statue.

Mom would faint at the sight of that thing, Dash thought.

Then the knob spoke.

“Guests! How delightful!” it declared, beaming at the royal procession. “And so much mistrust and antagonism already! Oh, this is going to be such fun!”

“I’ll get it,” Shining Armor said. His horn glowed. Nothing happened.

The doorknob chortled. “You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you? Oh, yes, for a minute there, you kinda did, no need for you to say it. You’re trying to reach the Tree, aren’t you? Well, if you’re that desperate for Harmony, then it should be quite impossible for any of you to get through me - and if you can’t get through me, the vines will be coming in very shortly.”

“And how are we supposed to get through you, then?” snapped Shining Armor. He turned to buck the door, but his hooves just thudded against it.

“Not like that, no,” the doorknob smugly said. “It’s very simple. I can tap the Elements for power - otherwise, this spell would have faded long ago. But that means I have to be linked to one of them. And I am! To Honesty, in fact. So if you want to get through, one of you has to tell me three truths… that none of you want to hear.”

Rainbow Dash wracked her brains. Three truths none of the royals would want to hear? Twilight might not like her telling the others about how she bounced around going ‘yes yes yes’ when she figured something out sometimes, but at least Diamond Tiara would probably enjoy hearing that. And she couldn’t come up with anything else. Twilight was looking around, and for some reason blushing. Zecora had retreated into that blank expressionless face, and Dash figured she wasn’t going to share any zebra secrets. Tiara was just glaring at the door.

Shining sighed. “We’re doomed.”

The doorknob snickered. “Opinion, not truth. Yet! Doesn’t count.”

Blueblood cleared his throat, stepped forward, and then leaned against the door. Boredom permeated his every syllable. “My ponies do a far better job ruling themselves than I ever could,” he said first. Rainbow Dash didn’t miss the glances between the others. The knob didn’t say anything.

Blueblood continued. “I’m quite thoroughly terrified of the idea of being the one to lose the throne for my line. As unimaginable as that might be.” He looked down, made a face at the state of his hoof, and rubbed it against the door. The knob continued to stay silent. The royals weren’t looking at each other, suddenly.

“I’ve never paid a mare a compliment I didn’t mean,” he finished. Rainbow Dash’s eyes went wide, and she felt heat rushing to her face. She didn’t know if it made it any better to know that he really was, well, interested. From the looks on Zecora, Twilight, and Cadence’s faces, they had had a few communiques with him… and Shining looked distinctly annoyed with him, while Diamond Tiara was making gag-me-with-a-hoof gestures.

“... Jerk,” muttered the doorknob, as the door swung open. “First visitors in a thousand years and you won’t even stick around to be torn to shreds while I watch.”

“Note to self,” Dash heard Twilight murmur. “One of the Elements is associated with Honesty.”

***

The way narrowed again on the other side of the door, forcing them to shift to a single-file line. Tiara moved to Cadence’s back as Zecora moved to the rear. Dash was forced to walk; there wasn’t room to flap her wings. Twilight took the lead, her horn glowing as the vines grew denser and denser, cutting off the light. Shining Armor kept his shield up - around Cadence, warding the vines away from her, even as nicks and scratches left thin red lines on his white coat. Dash could see the lines, anyway, but none of the others seemed to notice.

Zecora cleared her throat, walking pointedly behind Blueblood. She kept her voice low, but Dash could hear every word. “So, Blueblood, my stripes you find so quite exotic, truly inspire thoughts… erotic?”

Blueblood laughed in a similar low voice. “Oh, Zecora, you minx, I do love it when you let your zebra side through.”

She was quiet for a while, then said back to him, “When we leave this gloomy tangle, perhaps more discussion we might wrangle.”

He gave a low amused noise. “More discussion? Princess Zecora, we are royalty. If we wish to form a royal union, what more is there to discuss?”

She took her time replying again. “Bringing zebra blood to Platinum’s line… which by purity has been defined. My subjects would surely celebrate, but yours might not find it great.”

Dash heard Blueblood’s tail swish. “Princess, you are simply teasing me now. Unless you have a cozy spot to slip away somewhere in the middle of the Everfree, we’ll have to pick a date later.”

“I can see it makes you shiver,” Zecora agreed. “Still, something to consider.”

“HEY!” came a shout from Twilight, up ahead - and then darkness rolled over the rest of them. Dash could hear grunts of effort coming from the princess. “I can’t get a light going!”

“Hang on… No, me neither,” said Shining Armor.

“Sheesh, a light’s the easiest… eas… easiest… dangit, work, stupid horn!” said Diamond Tiara.

“Mmmm, seems to be catching,” agreed Blueblood.

“I must confess, I’ve no success,” Zecora chimed in.

Something off in the mass of vines moved, the susurrus of scales against the ground announcing its presence. From the other side, something hissed.

“... I don’t like the sound of that,” Twilight said from up front. There was a pronounced quaver in her voice.

“Keep moving, Twiley,” said Shining Armor. Twilight let out a yelp.

“Shiny! Are you a foal? You do not poke a pony with your horn!” she exclaimed.

“Then you’d better keep moving forward. Take it slow, feel your way forward, carefully, and we’ll get past this section,” he said. He sounded like he did when he was giving his troops orders while they were lining up for the parade, Dash thought.

“What makes you think that’s going to do any good?” Twilight said, her voice getting sharper. “My magic isn’t working! What if something is surrounding us? Then we can’t just walk out of it! What if the vines attack again? What if this thing sticks to us? What if none of us can ever use magic again and so we can’t use the Elements and Discord gets out and all of Unicornia is destroyed because OW!”

“I’m keeping my head down, Twiley,” Shining Armor said, with a chuckle in his voice. “You remember when you were a little filly?”

“Of course I remember when I was a little filly! Even then you knew better than to poke me with your horn!”

“Do you remember when you were afraid of the dark?” he asked.

“No, I was never afraid of the dark!” Twilight protested.

“Exactly! So why start now?”

There was the sound of a hoof hitting a face. “Shiny, I am going to throw something at you as soon as I can find something to throw,” she promised. “This is not like being at home in the bedroom being afraid of the dark! This is the Everfree Tangle, we can’t see, and there is something moving out there!”

“And us standing still won’t make it go away, will it?” he asked.

Dash blinked and started forward. She thought she could see just a little glimmer of light. But it wasn’t far forward, and it was curved. It was right around where Shining Armor was.

“That’s not the point! The point is, it is perfectly reasonable to be a little bit nervous right now!” Twilight argued back.

Dash watched the light growing a little more. A shallow curve of light, going up at the ends. Not much, not enough to illuminate anything but itself, but seeing a spot of light at all made her feel better herself. And listening to Princess Twilight squabbling with her brother like, well, like normal ponies… that made her smile.

Dash’s eyes widened. She could see, just a little bit. Not enough for color, but she could make out the curve of Cadence’s tail in front of her.

“Do you want to turn around and get Smarty Pants? She always helped you when you were little,” Shining Armor suggested, his voice glowing with innocence. The light got brighter. Dash could see another source of light forming, illuminating his tail… and the one up front was getting big enough to let Rainbow Dash make out details. It had teeth in it. Flat, friendly teeth, in a broad smile…

Diamond Tiara let out a nasty snicker from Cadence’s back, and another light flared up.

“Darn it, Shiney, it is no fair bringing up Smarty Pants when we’re in a life-and-death situation!” called out Twilight.

“No, no, he’s right!” added Cadence. “You should get her a little throne of her own next to yours. It would be so cute!”

Shining Armor let out a snort of laughter. “We could get her a little crown, and make her Princess of Dolls for you! I’m sure we’d all agree to that!”

“Oh, rather,” Blueblood chimed in, from behind. Zecora let out a laugh as well.

“Now you’re all ganging up on me! If the Elements pick me, I’m going to make all of you take a doll for a co-regent!” Twilight declared, but the nerves were gone from her voice. Another bright smile shone through the darkness from her position at the front.

Shining Armor began to laugh, and the air shattered. And just like that, the light was shining all around.

“Laughter,” murmured Twilight, quietly enough only Dash could hear her.

***

They successfully navigated across a slowly meandering river; vines upstream and down kept even fish from living in it, but the water could get by. And under the water’s surface, green fronds swayed in the gentle current. The expanse meant there was room for Dash to get back into the air, playing lifeguard while the others carefully stepped from rock to rock. The remains of stone posts on either bank provided further reassurance that the way had once been a known and maintained path.

Cadence insisted on pausing to tend to Shining Armor’s scratches - and everypony else’s, of course. Blueblood was quick to agree, pronouncing the merits of a pristine forest river in regard to proper care of one’s tail. Diamond Tiara tried her legs and found the effects of Zecora’s muscle relaxant had worn off, and she went to take a drink.

Twilight slaked her thirst as well, then went to look at the ruins of the bridgeposts. Rainbow Dash joined her. Twilight pointed to a carving. “You see this, Rainbow?” she asked. “It’s the Old Ponese glyph for ‘pegasus.’ The ponies who built this bridge were familiar with pegasi, and… No, I can’t translate the rest. It’s too worn. But they definitely used that symbol. Probably it was a reference to not using the bridge if a pegasus army was in the area, for fear of flash floods.”

Dash tried to picture that. A whole host of rainbow-tailed flying ponies, stomping on clouds together, pouring out whole rivers of rain from the air. But in her mind’s eye, she kept seeing the unicorns below lighting up their horns and grabbing all the pegasi, yanking them down, and then the image of Commander Pansy’s wings on Diamond Tiara’s wall hit her, and she blanched. “That’d be a really bad idea,” she said.

“If they made it rain far enough upstream, the unicorns wouldn’t have been able to reach them,” Princess Twilight pointed out. Dash didn’t bother asking how Twilight had known what she was thinking; nopony could follow another pony’s train of thought like the smartest pony in Unicornia. “It was a favored tactic, using indirect means to attack. They tried holding back the rain at one point early on, before the fighting had actually started, and might have succeeded if Queen Platinum - still Princess Platinum then - hadn’t contracted with a dragon to break their cloudwall.”

Dash huhed. “That must’ve been expensive. Dragons aren’t exactly friendly.”

Twilight nodded. “It was right before the windigos attacked. After that… well, the pegasi stopped keeping the clouds clear, the earth ponies started hoarding their remaining supplies, and the unicorns had no choice but to drive off the windigos the only way they could.”

“I guess when you’re out of food, gold and gems aren’t all that important.”

Twilight nodded again. “Exactly. Gold and gems are worth only what they can buy. If you need food and you can’t buy food with gold and gems, then they’re worthless. So you might as well give them to a dragon.”

Twilight looked back over at the others. Blueblood was out of the water, Tiara was stretching out her legs, and Shining Armor and Cadence were whispering to each other. Dash went red in the face as she overheard a bit of it.

Twilight noticed. A grin crossed her face. “Let’s get moving before you turn permanently red. Getting back on the road ought to keep Shiny busy.”

***

Getting back on the road lasted all of a quarter-mile, mostly uphill. Then the road gave way to a deep chasm. The river went by down below, but the hill was rocky, with sharp stones visibly poking through the water’s surface. Another set of stone bridgeposts marked the path, and an ancient bridge of rope and wood dangled from their side, swaying. One of the side supports snapped while they watched.

“I’m glad we don’t need to give that a try,” Twilight said, watching a board tumbling down. “So, who needs help teleporting?”

Diamond Tiara raised a hoof. Zecora did too. Then Blueblood sighed and lifted a hoof. Then Cadence sheepishly did as well.

Twilight facehoofed. “Six of the most powerful ponies in Unicornia, and only my brother and I know how to teleport? How did that happen?”

Cadence rubbed the back of her neck. “I’ve always been better at illusions.”

Blueblood rolled his eyes. “I am quite competent at teleportation, but I specialize in teleporting rapidly over very short distances. As a duelling technique.”

Zecora shrugged. “I’ve no cause for indignation. I have not mastered teleportation.”

Diamond Tiara just hmphed.

Twilight groaned. “All right, so… that’s going to be unpleasant. We’re going to be here for a while. Teleporting two at once is tiring.”

Shining Armor snorted. “Tiring, she says. I’ll be worn out trying to take myself and Cadie together.”

They looked down at the fallen bridge. It swayed ominously.

“I guess I could cast a reinforcing spell on that, if we can pull it up,” Twilight said dubiously. Her horn glowed, and she groaned. “And it’s soaked in vine-juices. I can’t get a grip. Shiny, help me out here.”

Shining Armor lit up his horn, but a moment later shook his head. “No use, Twiley. I’m getting nothing at all from it. We’ll have to find another way.”

Dash raised a hoof. Twilight beamed. “Right! Flying it over it is. Here, hang on, let’s do this properly.” She opened her saddlebags and withdrew a coiled rope. “Proper exploration tools are very important. You never know when you’ll need to climb something. Or, in this case, pull. Just tie this down to the end, they fly across. If you can get the rope around the posts, we can pull the rope and draw the bridge up that way.”

Dash saluted. “Right! On it!” And she took the rope, then went down to get started. Tying it to the loose end of the bridge was a piece of cake, and then she just had to let the rope play out while she flew across. There was a little updraft, but that was easy to deal with. And then she was on the other side.

“Funny, isn’t it?” the doorknob’s voice said to her. Dash whirled, but there was nopony there.

“All that power,” it said, “but they’re trapped on the other side of that gorge. And if they can’t get across, they can’t find the Elements of Harmony. And if they can’t find the Elements of Harmony, then Discord will be free.”

“Well, duh,” Dash said, rolling her eyes. “That’s why I’m fixing the bridge.”

“Oh, of course, of course. But what about… not fixing the bridge?”

“You just said why that would be a bad idea,” she pointed out.

“Who says that Discord being free is a bad idea?” the voice purred in her ear. “Discord can’t happen if everyone agrees, you know. And you know what the biggest disagreement ever was.”

“Me and Mom over my second-grade portrait dress,” Dash immediately said.

The voice paused. “Well, the second-biggest disagreement ever was the unicorns and the pegasi. But it’s hard to have a disagreement when one side is gone, isn’t it?”

A form began to coalesce out of thin air. At first it was hazy and wavering, but then it just snapped into being. Dash felt her knees go weak.

He had a strong chin and a confident, roguish smile. His wings were broad and powerful, a deep rich blue at the feather-tips and smoothly fading to pure white at his shoulders, matching the blue of his coat and the white of his belly. A scar across his chest gave him a dangerous air. His legs and barrel were whipcord muscle. But his eyes were yellow with red pupils, clashing with the rest of him.

“There are a lot of us who’d love to come back for you,” he said, his voice gone husky. “You could be our Commander. An army of pegasi, all for you. We could rebuild Roam for you. A cloud city, filled with pegasi, every one of us knowing our Commander, our Queen, our savior, brought us back.”

Rainbow Dash couldn’t find the breath to speak. It wouldn’t have mattered if she could; the only words she could put together in her mind were Freakin’ gorgeous.

He leaned toward her, not quite touching her. “Please, Commander. Just… drop the rope. Leave them there. Your legions will cement the name of Rainbow Dash across the world for centuries.”

She swallowed. Hard. Twice. “Turn around,” she said.

He smiled at her, a dark and promising smile, and slowly trotted about in front of her, letting her see that pinnacle of pegasus perfection from all sides. “You won’t regret this,” he said. “Your loyalty to your kind will ring down through the ages.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice,” she said. “Being a loyal Unicornian is tough for a pegasus sometimes, y’know? But thanks for the show!”

And she pulled the rope around the bridgepost. “Okay, Princess, it’s all set!” she called out.

And the stallion let out a roar of frustration as he faded.

***

“We’re getting close,” Twilight Sparkle announced, checking her magic meter. “There’s a magical signature strong enough to overwhelm the vines coming through now. I think the Elements may have been protecting our path, or else the vines would have choked off the entire area.”

“It’s about time!” said Diamond Tiara. She was already scowling all around again, after the other royal ponies declined to let her continue to ride. She hadn’t bothered to ask Dash; she apparently had some concept of self-preservation, at least. “So where are the stupid things? What do they look like?”

“According to the old stories, the right pony will know them when she sees them,” Twilight said. “They might look like anything at all, physically.”

Diamond Tiara snorted. “Oh, real helpful. Fine. I’ll just go get them first and then I get to be Queen!” And she started to run ahead.

“Get back here!” demanded Twilight, but got only a raspberry in response. She groaned. “She was probably saving her legs this entire time just for that,” she said to nopony in particular. “Rainbow Dash, can you catch up to her?”

“On it!” said Dash, and zipped forward.

Something was odd about the vines, though. So far, they’d all been black and spiky. Now they were yellowy and spiky, or silvery and spiky. They didn’t seem to like her flying, either; she could see them moving as she flew, closing in up above, until she was forced to her hooves. The way was narrow, too, back to single-file - or would have been, if the others had been with her.

“Princess! Princess Diamond Tiara! Come back!” she called out. “They won’t do you any good without the rest of the Princesses anyway!”

There was no response. The vines pulled in more; Dash had to slow down and move carefully to avoid jabbing herself on the thorns. She could see little hoofprints in the soil below; Tiara could run safely, her smaller size letting her dodge the thorns. Finally, she couldn’t move forward at all; the vines were too low and too narrow for any adult pony to get by. Only Diamond Tiara could have made it through there.

Not that Rainbow Dash would let that stop her. She started yanking at the vines overhead, tugging and twisting at them until she pulled open a gap, and crawled herself in through. Right into another batch of vines. Only this set was even tighter, and she found herself stuck; she couldn’t even back up now without the thorns jabbing painfully into her. But she could see through a gap between the vines.

There was another clearing up ahead, surrounded by swirls of gold and silver vines. A dragon with those same yellow-and-red eyes was lounging on a vast pile of gold and gems there, a smirk across his face.

“So!” he said. “You want the Elements of Harmony, do you? I don’t think I can give those to you. But who needs them, really? Princess Purple Plot and her birdy buddy? Stripe-butt? They just want to keep everything boring. Unicornia would be much more interesting with you in charge.”

Diamond Tiara snorted. “I know, right? But they’re just going to side with Daddy and I won’t get to do anything until I’m old like them!”

The dragon leaned forward. “Oh? Oh, really? You won’t get to? No matter what?”

She took a half-step back. “Um… yes? They won’t let me?”

The dragon beamed a sharp-toothed smile at her. “But they need you in order to stop Discord from getting loose. And still they won’t make any perfectly reasonable concessions. How… selfish of them. If they had just agreed to let you be Queen, you could have the Elements and be done by now.”

“Yeah!” agreed Diamond Tiara, nodding her head once, then lifting her nose. “If they weren’t so selfish, I’d be Queen!”

The dragon patted her on the head. “You know, Discord doesn’t care for things like ‘rules.’ You would be just the sort of ruler he’d love to work with. You wouldn’t want to give up your chance at a thing like that, would you? Why, if you sided with him, I could give you a taste of power right now.”

The dragon held up a claw. In its palm, a sphere of inky blackness twitched and writhed, as though something inside was fighting to break free. “I found this quite a while ago, and I’ve been holding onto it,” he theatrically whispered. “By itself it would be very boring, but I think you would be just the right little pony to put it to its… full potential.”

“Gimme!” demanded Diamond Tiara. And the dragon laughed and pressed the dark sphere down atop her head.

Rainbow Dash’s eyes went huge as she watched. Pure blackness swirled around the little unicorn filly, who began to laugh in horrific delight. The darkness swelled, and she rose up higher on extending legs, her body blooming to sleek, sharp-angled ebon-hued adulthood in seconds. Her horn extended into a spear, and the tiara fell from her head. She stepped on it deliberately.

“Tiaras are for useless little princesses,” the black-coated creature declared smugly, looking down at the wreckage. “From now on, they can call me… Queen Diamond.”

The dragon laughed, triumphantly, and then it faded away.

Queen Diamond turned and gestured. The vines pulled away, making room for her to get by. Dash gritted her teeth as the shift caused one thorn to jab her in the thigh, but she kept quiet. She could feel a trickle of blood running down her leg. Getting caught now wouldn’t help Princess Twilight, though. She had to figure out a way to get Queen Diamond chasing her, and give Twilight and the other Princesses time to find the Elements. And right now she couldn’t move. But at least the transformed unicorn hadn’t spotted her.

Once Queen Diamond set off back through the vines, Dash started trying to twist her way free. Now that they’d moved, she could pry her way forward, as long as she didn’t mind getting scratched up. She could handle it.

She set off after Diamond, the pathway now clear and wide again. But she heard the sound of horns firing before she could see anything. Briefly. Her hooves skidded on the soil underhoof when she came out into the clearing where Diamond met the others.

Twilight Sparkle, Zecora, and Blueblood were upside-down, hooves wrapped together, with plundervines coiled about their horns. Cadence and Shining Armor were struggling to hold a shield up, but as Dash watched, the vines squeezed on the magical shield and shattered it like glass. And then those two were trussed up next to the others.

“I’m not some puny little princess anymore,” Diamond said smugly, the vines moving to line up the others in front of her. “I am Queen Diamond, whether any of you like it or not. Now… where’s your little birdy friend? I want her wings.”

Twilight’s eyes flicked for just a moment, but it was enough. Queen Diamond turned, then laughed. “Ah, just in time! Come here, little birdy!”

Rainbow Dash didn’t wait for that. She turned and took off. A rainbow trail laced behind her as she accelerated, and she felt something slimy and cold brush against her wings, but fail to catch hold. She didn’t have time to be grateful to Twilight for letting her know about speed being her defense. She was too busy racing for her life.

She sped through the clearing where the dragon had been, but it had vanished. It left the piles of gold and gems, though. Dash ignored the vast wealth. Money had never been much of an issue for her anyway. She wished she had Twilight’s magic meter, but she couldn’t have operated it anyway, since it needed magic to run, and the vines were still only allowing so many directions for her to go. Backward or forward, mostly. She could hear the vines moving behind her, and figured that Diamond was making the vines carry her and her prisoners.

Well. Dash hoped she was keeping them prisoner. If she thought she was already a Queen, she might…

Dash cut that train of thought off and cut around a corner. As long as she didn’t give Diamond a clear line of sight and as long as she didn’t slow down, she could still find the Elements. Maybe even escape with them. There had to be somepony who could find a way to use them if she got out.

First she had to stay free. Then she had to find them. Then she had to get out. That seemed like a lot. A horn-blast hit somewhere in the vines behind her. She pushed her wings to propel her faster.

The vines abruptly gave way to open air; the sky overhead was turning to evening, and Dash could see strange clouds with jaggy lightning somehow embedded inside them, partly sticking out. Her mind promptly whirled with thoughts of raining lightning down on Queen Diamond like the pegasus armies of old used rain, but that would mean slowing down - and Twilight said they preferred indirect attacks. So that probably wasn’t a good idea.

There was a wide crevasse in front of her, with rough-cut stone steps down. A rocky mesa was on the other side, surrounded by deep cuts in the earth all around. Vines, green normal vines, not plundervines, coiled around a small copse of trees in the middle. They were clustered near each other, so near their canopies were intersecting; Dash couldn’t make out where one tree ended and the next…

Her vision suddenly recategorized what she was seeing. Those weren’t trees. Those were pillars, overgrown with vines. And between them was a statue. A unicorn mare, head proudly lifted, with five arcs rising from her horn. Even without a horn of her own, Dash couldn’t miss the feeling of the magic coming off of the five rocky orbs, one at the end of each arc. They were even stronger than the Crystal Heart. Dash turned to race for the statue. There were five of them, at least. She’d figure out where the sixth one was later. At least she’d stop Queen Diamond from getting them. There was no way anypony in Unicornia could get to the Elements faster than she could, and Diamond was behind her.

Unfortunately, Diamond didn’t need to get to the Elements. She could sense them too - and before Dash was near the stone spheres, dark indigo magic surrounded them all and whipped them away. Dash tried to grab at the red one, but Diamond pulled it aside. Dash still couldn’t afford to slow down to try for another, and she had to pull up as she neared the edge of the clearing before she could turn.

A dark shield wall had risen around the mesa by the time Dash got herself turned around in the air, still racing to keep from letting Diamond’s magic catch her. She started to circle it, looking through the translucent mass. Diamond sneered back out at her, the five stone orbs circling her head.

“Mine!” she cried out from inside the shield, and then cackled. Vines swung forward, and the other royals spun through the air, landed hard on the stony ground, and then the plundervines wrapped around all of them in a thick, crude cage. “Now you’ve got to admit I’m the Queen,” she declared to Twilight and the others, a sharp-toothed smirk on her face. “Say it!”

Blueblood got to his hooves first inside the cage, then buffed his hoof against his chest. “I rather think not,” he said boredly.

Queen Diamond’s eyes bulged in rage. “SAY IT!” she screamed at him.

Twilight Sparkle was next to stand. “If you’re the Queen, then you can use the Elements,” she said, if breathlessly. “So?”

The dark unicorn’s eyes slitted. When they widened again, her pupils had turned catlike. “Fine. I’ll figure them out. Nopony can get in here, and none of you can interfere. And if I don’t figure it out before you starve, then no one will be left to object to my crown anyway.” She waved a taunting hoof up toward the sky. “Go bring the soldiers, birdy!” she called out. “I’ll have them for my new guard!”

Rainbow Dash kept circling, but gritted her teeth. That was what she had been thinking… but if the most powerful unicorns in the entire kingdom were held captive that easily, and Diamond could control the plundervines, the entire Unicornian army together probably wasn’t going to be able to get in there and be in any shape to fight. But she couldn’t just watch. She had to do something!

Okay. Plundervines. That was a thought. Diamond could control those vines, but if Dash could get just one of the Elements away from her and away from the reach of the vines, the army could contain her inside the Everfree Tangle. Then… she’d still have Twilight and Shining Armor and the others, but Unicornia would be safe from the threat of the Elements, at least. As long as Diamond didn’t have any other new powers. And as long as she couldn’t do something with them even without the full set. And as long as Dash didn’t mind leaving Twilight and her dad and Cadence and Princess Zecora and Prince Blueblood all in there with her.

Rainbow Dash swallowed. That was a lot to not mind. And some pretty long odds. She couldn’t calculate chances like Twilight could, but she got the idea of them. And none of it mattered unless she could find a way through that shield. She didn’t have a horn, so she couldn’t even try to blast her way through. She couldn’t smash through it, either; even she couldn’t lift a boulder big enough to break a shield that strong. But…

… She could break unicorn magic if she was going fast enough. So to break powered-up unicorn magic, she just needed to be going faster. Really, really fast. And if she wasn’t going fast enough, she’d just splat herself into that wall and then nopony would even know they needed to stop Diamond. But knowing wouldn’t do them any good anyway, so…

Her wings churned at the air. Altitude. She needed to start high. Diving down would help her go faster. Faster. That was it. Everypony was counting on her, even if they didn’t know it. Dad was counting on her. Mom was counting on her. Twilight was counting on her. The air got thinner, cooler in her lungs. She pushed higher. There weren’t any more clouds up this high, and the Everfree was a dark blot below her with a single indigo point in the middle. She furled her wings, let herself turn in the air, her momentum carrying her the last few hooves higher, an instant’s rest before starting the most dangerous experiment of her life.

Down. Gravity pulled at her. She welcomed it. She aided it, her wings buzzing like they’d never moved before. She felt her magic flowing inside her, felt it along the leading edges of her wing, gathering around her. She screamed downward as she raced, a pegasus cry of defiance from before ponies invented words.

The air thickened as she lanced down. It pressed into her face, forcing her lips back, her teeth clenched in the face of the gale. She fought it, pressed harder. It grew stronger. It felt elastic against her, trying to reject her, to refuse her, to throw her back. But she wasn’t going fast enough. If she was going to break that rapidly-growing shield below her, she had to be going as fast as ponily possible. She demanded more.

The air tore. She burst through, felt her magic come screaming through her, exploding all around her as it ripped the very air apart for her, gave her the speed she insisted on. It was like being a rubber band, one second straining, the next blazing at impossible speeds, ten times faster than she’d been going an instant before.

Her hooves met the dark magic shield, and it shattered like glass beneath her. At her velocity, she couldn’t stop, didn’t know how to brake or change direction at that kind of speed. She didn’t need to. She felt the magic blaze like iron around her hooves as she hit the ground upright, and felt the earth itself giving way.

A circle of rainbow light was spinning outward overhead. She was in a crater, four times her bodylength across and half her height deep. Diamond was staring at her from next to the Elements’ shelter. Dash could feel the Elements, circling Diamond’s head, like warm embers around an icicle. She didn’t bother saying anything. Words weren’t her forte anyway, for all Twilight’s efforts. And speaking would give Diamond a moment to recover. She launched herself forward, wings snapping at the air, rainbow trail dancing behind her as she aimed for the Elements.

A bolt of cold magic dug into her chest and flung her backward. She gasped in pain as she hit the ground near the plundervine cage. The indigo field reformed overhead - and a second one formed inside, around Queen Diamond. Dash could barely move, sprawled on her side, chest screaming at her.

“Stupid!” Diamond’s voice came out. “You were supposed to fetch me my guards! Now I’m going to have to get them myself, once I figure these out!” And she turned away.

Dash forced herself to her hooves. Her chest felt like it was on fire, but she could move. Obviously, she hadn’t been going fast enough to deflect a direct hit… but enough to keep it from killing her. Not that it helped too much. She was trapped now, too, and hurt, and didn’t have room to get going that fast again. But… she had to do something. She stumbled closer to the vine cage.

Twilight Sparkle reached out through the bars. A thorn scratched along her leg, but she ignored it, straining to press her hoof against Dash’s side. “Rainbow Dash… that was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

Dash tried to say something back, but she coughed instead. Twilight winced and rubbed her hoof against Dash’s side. Dash tried again. “Not… gonna let a friend down,” she rasped.

Twilight froze. Dash was looking right at her. She could see the Star of Magic form in Twilight’s eyes. Exactly what that meant, she had no idea. Twilight had never done anything freaky with her eyes when casting before.

“I call this Royal Conclave to order,” Twilight said, eyes flashing. “I nominate Countess Rainbow Dash as Queen, by right of necessity.” Rainbow Dash stared at her, paralyzed in absolute confusion.

What?!?

“What are you doing, Twiley?” asked Shining Armor, taking a half-step back at the sight of a magic surge.

“None of us can escape this cage. Only Rainbow Dash has a chance to use the Elements now,” Twilight said, her voice taking on an echoing, ethereal tone. “If we are to save Unicornia, only Rainbow Dash can do it. And she can only use them if she is Queen. So I say again, I nominate Countess Rainbow Dash as Queen, by right of necessity.”

“I second,” said Blueblood immediately. Dash looked to him in surprise, but he didn’t say anything else.

“Aye,” said Shining Armor and Cadence together.

“Aye,” said Zecora.

“The throne of the Rich Lands lies vacant, by forfeiture heard and witnessed,” declared Twilight. “By unanimous vote, all hail Queen Rainbow Dash! Now, Rainbow, the Elements!”

Dash blinked at her. Then gasped, “I can’t get them! They’re in there!”

Twilight pressed herself against the bars again, ignoring the thorns that dug into her. “The Elements are in you, my Queen. You gave of yourself to save the Crystal Empire, proving your Generosity and Loyalty.” A golden peytral with a red lightning bolt formed across Rainbow Dash’s chest. The scorch mark from Diamond’s bolt ceased to hurt. A matching golden solleret encased her right front hoof, with a purple lightning bolt.

“Your Kindness to a poor miner in the Rich Lands rescued many from lives of misery, and brought Laughter into a life that had none.” Two more golden hoofshoes settled into place, with bolts of pink and blue.

“Your Honesty in the Mongrel Lands won you Friendship from those you had thought your enemies,” she intoned. A fourth shoe with an orange bolt formed, and a golden helm settled itself on her head, but with an empty space atop it. Dash felt her mane slide through the back, a breeze from nowhere making the multicolored hairs twist and flutter behind her.

“And we have witnessed the power of your Magic, breaking the shield of Queen Diamond, a strength that all of us together could not command!” Twilight finished, and an indigo lightning bolt took its place atop the crown.

The power beat through Rainbow Dash like electricity. The inner shield fell, and Diamond burst out. “YOU!” she screamed. “GIVE THOSE BACK! MINE!”

“No,” said Queen Rainbow Dash. “Harmony comes from everyone.”

She spread her wings, and the rainbow burst forth. A ring of every color, sweeping out from her. She felt everything it touched. She felt the coldness of the thing inside Diamond as the power of Harmony blasted it away. She felt the vines dissolving into triumphant but malice-free laughter. She felt the land under her hooves in a way she’d never felt it before, real and warm and eager for her touch. She felt lives.

She heard, very distantly, an unfamiliar voice say, “I’m sorry. I should have…”

***

“Your Majesty?” asked Twilight Sparkle.

Rainbow Dash opened her eyes. She didn’t know when she’d closed them. It had felt so wonderful. Such… connection. All the unity that Unicornia had been missing, all coming out through her. The skies… she could still feel the skies. Every cloud above was listening to her. She looked at Twilight.

She looked down at Twilight.

That was going to take a bit of getting used to.

“You’re beautiful,” said Twilight Sparkle, tears in her eyes.

Dash was staggered sideways by a male body rushing into her side. “My little filly’s so beautiful!” cried out Shining Armor.

Rainbow Dash almost reflexively blurted out a question, but found she didn’t need to. She could feel it. She could feel everything. She knew. She knelt down to hug Twilight and Shining against her with her wings, and touched her new horn to theirs. She felt the magic dancing through her, dancing through everything, and wondered that she had ever been so blind to it before. She could feel it everywhere now, in the ground, in the air, in the sun and moon. It played through her mane, leaving a rainbow dancing behind her with every movement now, not just when she sped.

She let go a moment before the scream, and the filly on the ground had a wing rest across her back before she could scream a second time.

“My HORN!” sobbed the filly. It was gone. Her forehead was bare. Her pristine coat was soaked in the soil of the Everfree as well, a muddy yellow-green, and her mane had gone a bloody red. “P… please! Give it back!” she begged. “I don’t wanna be a cripple!”

Rainbow Dash brushed her wing along the filly’s back. “You’re not crippled,” she said, and smiled a little despite herself at how her voice sounded. There was a sort of a tone to it, like far-off windchimes playing in a cooling summer breeze.

“I’ve lost my horn!” was the immediate frantic reply. “Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Give it back! Give it back!”

Blueblood and Zecora were just staring. Cadence came up to join Shining Armor, watching.

“You’re not crippled,” repeated Rainbow Dash patiently. “You’re first, that’s all.”

“First? First what?” the filly asked, staring up at her over tear-streaked cheeks.

“The first of the Earth Ponies,” Rainbow Dash said. She could feel the magic in the land, flowing up through her hooves, flowing up through the filly, if only she could recognize it.

“NO!” screamed the filly. “I AM NOT A MUD PONY! I’M NOT!” And she stomped her hoof.

Rainbow Dash had only to guide the magic a little as it came out. The strength of life flowed into a tree that had been strangled by the vines, and the plant rose up straight and tall, leaves bursting out on the branches, and thick, bright red apples erupting into being almost instantly. The filly stared at them, then at her hoof.

Rainbow Dash brushed the filly’s flank with a hoof. “No, you’re not,” she said warmly. “You’re the first of the Earth Ponies. The caretakers of the land. They’re coming back now. They need someone to learn how to be an Earth Pony for them. That’s going to be you. You gave up being Diamond Tiara in the Everfree. That’s what the Everfree is, at its heart. A place where a pony can decide who she is.”

“... Who am I?” asked the filly.

Queen Rainbow Dash smiled and kissed her on the forehead. “By your mark and by your deeds, I name you… Apple Bloom.”

***

“The Duchess Lulamoon has petitioned for an audience again, Your Majesty,” said Chancellor Nice Guy. “I believe she wishes to complain about the rain allotment you have afforded to her domain. Again.”

Queen Rainbow Dash laughed. “Eleven months I’ve been Queen, and twenty times she’s filed that petition. Once not two minutes after I had sealed Discord back away. She should have been born a pegasus. Then she could do it herself. Oh, well. Her foals will manage.”

“Mmmm,” said Nice Guy noncommittally. “I had hoped to surprise you with that news. Queen’s City General Hospital has reported a foal born with wings to unicorn parents. Ambassador Due Respect, specifically. The filly was named, I am told in a gesture you will understand, ‘Dinky Danger Respect.’”

Queen Rainbow Dash laughed, then smiled at him. “I’ve known for months that this was coming, my little pony. Harmony needs many voices, just as discord does. In one generation, this will not be Unicornia any longer. I think I like the name… Equestria.”