The Tempest

Chapters

At Least Their Absence Can Sometimes Bring Others Closer Together.
Or Maybe All it Does is Forment All Manner of Fankles
Really, You're Just Better Off Waiting For It All To Blow Over.
Just Be Sure To Steady Yourself Afterwards.
You Never Appreciate the Laws of Physics Till They're Gone.

At Least Their Absence Can Sometimes Bring Others Closer Together.

In the long instant of teleportation that followed, Burro tasted the sound of a saw cutting wood, heard fuchsia, and saw flashes of cloying sweetness interspersed with splatters of jolts from an electric prod. His unconscious mind screamed all the while, and his conscious mind was quite inclined to go along with it.

Then clarity, sweet as pelting sea air and as shocking as a kick to the danglies. Discord’s grip around his middle vanished, and Burro tumbled in freefall. Given air at last, he opened his mouth to release a pent-up yell.

“Aa - unk!” emerged when he abruptly greeted a solid surface face-first. Burro rolled onto his side, blinking away stars, spitting away the taste of pennies from his bitten-on tongue, and trying to make sense of the pinkish-blue-white haze all around him. A groan sounded at his side, and he recognised the great white form of Celestia.

Burro shook his head and blinked. His vision cleared, and the open sky greeted it. An expanse of blue, marbled with white clouds. A high and cold breeze cut across his back, and he shivered. He looked down, and immediately regretted it. A vertigo-inducing distance down, there sprawled a pastoral landscape of gently rolling hills and ant-sized villages, currently rocking as if in the grip of the tide. By a ridge of mountains, a great white city ambled around on stubby white legs, its footfalls like distant thunder. It carefully skirted any small villages, all the while grumbling to itself about these flimsy modern steadings.

“Canterlot?” muttered Burro, rising to his hooves as he regarded the city and tried not to throw up. No respectable donkey, barring aeronauts of course, had any business rising higher than a lookout point. “Equestria?”

“Ucchk,” came from beside him. He turned to see Princess Celestia, her mouth restored, rising to her hooves with some difficulty and blinking drowsiness from her eyes. She glanced from side to side, and her mouth set in a hard line. She jabbed at the air in front of her with a hoof, and the world shimmered pink around them. Burro peered closer, and saw it was made of thin intersecting lines. He glanced down, and saw the same grid pattern running under their hooves.

A cage in the sky. The pink lines began to fade away, absent any impact. The sun overhead casually rotated on its axis, blithely whistling.

Burro realised his mouth was still open and drooling a little blood. He closed it, swallowed, and tried to cast his mind away from its immediate environment and back towards recent events.

“What?” he managed.

“Hmm,” muttered Celestia. “Not promising. He wouldn’t do this unless ...” Her voice trailed off, and a sudden flash of light filled the air between her horn and the cage surface. It thundered off to no avail, apart from briefly making the cage light up again. A kick from her forehoof followed, and the unmarred cage shimmered. She gazed around, examining the wide extent of the shimmer with a clinical regard. “We’re trapped. Unless there’s some way to break this. Not that I’ve had much luck in the past trying to match his sort of magic directly.”

“What?”

“There’s invariably a loophole. If we simply go around ...” Celestia focused, gathered magic, and was surrounded by another flash of light. The cage grid blazed vivid, and the flash faded away. Celestia was left where she’d been standing, and staggered for a moment before regaining her composure. “Ah. No teleporting out, it seems.”

“Celestia, listen to me. What?”

Celestia breathed out and turned to Burro, as if only now registering his existence. “We have been trapped by Discord, Burro.”

“I’d gathered!” The air was bitterly cold, his tongue ached, his city had just been subject to forces most likely beyond description, and it had been at least an hour since his last cup of coffee. If there was a more justifiable time for snappishness, Burro couldn’t conceive of it. “Perhaps there’s some important background to all this I ought to be privy to!”

“There is, Burro. Time and the need for discretion have prevented me from telling you before,” said Celestia, now the very picture of calm and composed dispassion. “I ask for clemency, and for a few more minutes before I delve into the details.”

The aggravation boiling in Burro settled down to a low simmer. “Why a few minutes?”

“Because I strongly suspect that we’re going to receive more company in short order. And I suspect the same details won’t be any more palatable for constant repetition.”

On cue, a sharp crack sounded and a broad slash suddenly opened in the air next to them, multicoloured flames rippling around its edges. It widened, and a griffon suddenly came tumbling through it with a discombobulated squawk. The slash slammed shut and winked out of existence as abruptly as it had appeared.

“Gellert!” said Burro, starting forwards. The griffon sprackled on the ground before pushing himself up with his powerful front claws. Chieftain Gellert of the Fivecrags Tribe - and suzerain through vassalage of nearly every other griffon tribe on Ungula - gathered himself, brushed his rumpled feathers down, and greeted Burro with a weary grin.

“Burro, you old bag of bones, it’s been a fair while,” croaked Gellert. He took in the surroundings, brow-feathers furrowing, and said, “I shan’t lie, under the circumstances, I wouldn’t have minded it being a somewhat longer while. What just kidnapped me?”

“Excellent question! I have no idea.” Burro gestured at Celestia. “A full account of sorts has been promised. By certain parties who are apparently completely in the know.”

Gellert stared up at Celestia, who nodded down at him. “Chieftain Gellert. I recklessly assume I find you well.”

“Princess Celestia,” replied Gellert. “Under the circumstances, I’m sure you’ll understand if we omit the pleasantries and skip straight to the colourful blasphemy. What in the name of the Simurgh’s saggy paps was I just -?”

“A spirit of chaos and disharmony known as Discord, unwittingly unsealed from captivity,” said Celestia. “The fuller explanation may have to -”

“Wait? Depths take it, Celestia, your two closest allies are here,” said Burro. “Let us know anything crucial or necessarily discreet now, before anyone - or anything - of a less benevolent disposition shows up.”

As he said it, there came another loud crack through the air, and Burro turned to see another portal opening, from which feathers and a choir of aggrieved squawking issued. The sinuous shape of Discord appeared first, its hand and claw pulling on some circular object. A magical aura surrounded the object, which twinkled under the sunlight. Burro’s heart sank.

“Listen,” said Discord to some unseen creature on the other side of the portal, “You’re being very inconvenient about this and I think I’m being exceptionally patient, so if you could just put the crown down now -”

“No!” wailed the unseen creature, whose head became visible past the portal’s edge - a female ibex whose servant’s livery was covered in loose feathers, a magical aura around her horns seething with effort and her hooves digging into the ground even as she was pulled along, inch by inch. “Put the Unfettered Highness down! Please!”

“You could do very well to listen to the menial, interloper,” rasped a voice from the crown’s depths, the tone of it incongruously bright and cheery. “Did you know that each second you maintain an unpermitted hold on me adds another hour to the time between now and your death? I employ some very capable caprids who have got that down to a fine art. A science, even.”

“Yes, yes, that’s adorable. Do shush,” muttered Discord, who grunted and yanked sharply on the Crown. The ibex tumbled into the cage with a terrified squeak, and Discord tossed the crown to one side. It clattered upside-down on the cage’s floor, to be left ignored while Discord rounded on the ibex.

“Honestly. This was an exclusive affair I’d planned. But if you’re going to insist on gatecrashing, I suppose you’ll just have to fit in. Does Antlertis still exist? No matter. Hear ye, hear ye, I do proclaimeth What’shername to be the new Queen of Antlertis, long may she reign over the earth entire and all that tosh. There. Are you happy? Now go play with the others.” Discord stalked off through the portal, which vanished behind him.

Celestia, Burro, and Gellert all turned to the crown on the floor and to the wide-eyed ibex, who met their gazes fleetingly and then made a valiant attempt to hide in open air. They were interrupted by a cough from the crown, the jewels covering its sides gleaming red for an instant.

“So tell me, menial,” said the Capricious Crown of Capra, “How long are you planning to leave me like this?”

The ibex paled with terror and hurried over to pick the Crown up within a magical grasp, holding it upright at a safe distance before her as if handling an irritable scorpion or alchemical explosives. Burro looked to the Crown. He felt its own attention fall across each one of them, like cold water trickling down his spine, as pale blue jewels around its rim glittered.

“My word, the whole gang’s on its way,” remarked Gellert. “At least this Discord doesn’t seem to be discriminating on the basis of species. Or allegiances. Or sanity.”

“How lovely to see you too, my fellow sovereigns. What a pleasant day for an unexpected meeting.” The Crown’s voice had lost its brightness, and was now a mere flat rasp. “But I can’t help the impression that there’s some minor notes of context I’m missing. Such as, what in the Blackness Beyond was that thing? Why have I been brought here? Why have you been brought here? Is there some entity or entities behind all this in dire need of a throat-slitting?”

“That thing was Discord,” replied Celestia calmly. “A powerful and ancient spirit of chaos, beyond our immediate means to fight. I promise a full account once he’s finished collecting us and will be less likely to intrude.”

The Crown’s attention seemed to fall upon Celestia, and then withdraw in what passed for chary silence. “Goody. Full accounts. I do so enjoy those in due course. Superb for whiling away captivity. By ‘us’, I take it you refer to each sovereign on the continent?”

“Yes.” Celestia looked to one side, past the fading suggestion of the cage bars and to the open sky. Her expression ever-so-slightly darkened. “And maybe beyond.”

“Spirit of chaos, spirit of chaos,” mused Burro. “I suppose it makes sense to target us, then. No need for any leadership anywhere, if simple anarchy is your objective.”

“We could be something like a stabilising influence, if regarded with a charitable squint,” said Gellert. “Or at least, he wouldn’t want our particular blend of disharmony mucking up his own. Good thinking, that Discord.”

“Yes, a great thinker. Masterful tactician. Clearly, turning Bellbylon into a flock of budgerigars was some move in a game beyond our feeble understanding,” said the Crown. Behind it, the ibex suppressed a sneeze and tried to discreetly wipe a feather off her snout. “The creature’s motives are plain. I find his means rather more interesting. Indeed, I find it fascinating that he was able to capture and contain dear Celestia.”

“Regrettably, dear Crown, none of us are invincible.” Celestia didn’t turn to speak, her gaze still somewhere past the sky. “Even if we come close to it, in practical terms.”

Celestia’s expression then softened, and she turned her gaze towards the ibex. “I’m exceedingly sorry you were pulled into this mess, my dear. All of us here will try to solve it as soon as possible. May I ask you your name?”

The ibex’s mouth opened and closed for a few seconds before she mustered a reaction. “I … ah, Your Grace, I am ...”

“Unimportant,” said the Crown. The ibex fell silent. “Spare us your manipulations and coy wee ingratiations, Celestia. For whatever follows, at least.”

The silence that descended then lasted only for a moment, before another sharp crack and flourish of light ended it. The portal opened, and out from it tumbled a massive quantity of dirt, spraying with abandon across every corner of the sky cage. Burro and Gellert cursed and recoiled, the ibex hopped back and positioned herself between the dirt and the Crown. Celestia stood still, and any splatters that hit her vanished in a flash of golden smoke.

The portal vanished, and at the centre of the dirt pile, a large, dark figure writhed and turned the air blue with archaic blasphemy. A large pickaxe glinted in its grasp, and Burro found his attention drawn to it as it whirled in the air.

“...Dwellers Below encoil thee in their squamous grasp and indulge their ardour in unseemly ways!” blazed the figure, mud streaming off his shaggy coat. “Vánagandr assail thy nethers with a pointy stick until th’art sorry! Firedamp fill thy lungs and -!”

“Lord Alpha!” said Celestia. “Lord Alpha Rex! He’s not here any longer. Command yourself.”

Burro’s ears pricked up as he recognised the looming figure as a Diamond Dog. He’d exchanged correspondence, but had never personally met their leader - or at least, the first among equals from those who ruled each of the great Diamond Dog underholds. His attendance at the irregular conferences in the Circle Chamber had left something to be desired. Burro had put it down to simple reclusiveness, and not wanting to be embroiled in wider affairs.

Given the circumstances, Burro couldn’t much blame him.

Rex, Lord Alpha of the ancient underhold of Beryllium, settled. Mud continued to drip off his shaggy black coat and sturdy waistcoat, only a few embroidered gems here and there betraying his rank. His cold blue eyes radiated malice.

“There I was,” Rex snarled, gesticulating with the pick-axe, his guttural voice inflected with High Canine. “There I was, sounding out a new channel with a team of Dig Dogs. Fine new fat seams of copper, zinc, and mithril, gleaming away. A decade’s worth in them. Easily! Ask me what transpired!”

In the brief battle of glances between those present in possession of eyes, the ibex servant lost. She ventured, ”What transpired, Your Gra-?”

“The mithril turned into kittens! Hast thou ever tried to mine kittens? They just splatter everywhere and their kin attempt to claw at thine eyes! Doth thou call that ideal mining conditions? I bloody well do not!”

The ibex started to mumble that she’d both never tried to mine kittens nor did she consider that their presence would assist the mining experience, and was overwhelmed by another tide of invective from Rex.

“And then what should add itself to the list of woes but this accursed chimeric thing rising from a sundered kitten and informing me that I was required here and that my opinion on such a matter was perfectly free and good but would not actually affect a damned thing! We checked the thaumic signatures before beginning the delve! It couldn’t have been a Dweller Below or any such eldritch thing! What was it?”

“A spirit of chaos, known as Discord,” said Celestia calmly, a sudden dam against the ranting tide. Rex fell silent, and his eyes narrowed as the pick-axe fell to his side. Celestia continued, “He has been released, and is intent on bringing all who rule to this place. I am sorry he forced your involvement, Lord Alpha. If it’s any consolation, none of us have received any gentler treatment.”

Rex’s posture relaxed then, and the fire in his expression diminished. “Queer sort of consolation, but I shall accept it. For the time being. Dost thou vouch for the trustworthiness of those here unknown to me, Princess Celestia?”

“All those present share a common predicament, Lord Alpha. Collaboration and mutual amity will be required of us all,” replied Celestia. Burro observed that no direct answer to the question had featured in the answer, and mentally thanked the Depths that he’d never have to run against her in Parliament.

Rex grunted and sat down at one side of the cage, his paws experimentally tapping at the floor. A moment’s hush passed before he said, “So, who else is yet to -?”

“The Tyrant of Ovarn. Bullwalda Greenhorn of Bovaland. The Fire Queen.” Gellert scratched his head. “Has a new Cormaer arisen in Corva? They might get roped in as well.”

“Yes,” Burro said grimly. “Received word just a few days ago. At least that particular problem’s been overshadowed for the moment.”

“Queer consolation,” grunted Rex.

The Crown deigned not to comment, beyond a few of its jewels briefly glittering golden.

The air stirred then, and the portal reopened with a sound like a drawn-out yawn. Burro turned his attention to it, praying for someone sane and helpful. The Tyrant, with any luck.

Sometimes, providence delivered. A diminutive elderly ewe wearing pince-nez spectacles and dark velvet robes trotted primly through the opening, paused upon seeing them all, and didn’t show any reaction as the portal at her back slid shut with a prolonged satisfied groan.

Tyrant Fairy Floss of Ovarn cast a critical gaze over each member of the company. “Princess Celestia. Arch-Minister Burro Delver. Chieftain Gellert. Lord Alpha … Rex, I do believe. Crown. Crown’s servant, I presume. I’d express sentiments to the effect of what a lovely surprise this is, but I’ve spent a few decades too long in the game for that to be sincere.”

“Likewise, Fairy Floss,” said Celestia, nodding her head. “May I enquire after your own off-kilter circumstances?”

“Well, since you ask, dear, all the statues in my palace became animated and very much alive not ten minutes ago. Along with all the mosaics, tapestries, frescoes, and associated decorations. That sufficiently loosened my suspension of disbelief for when the city walls and towers turned upside-down and fell up towards the sky, which itself had started singing indecent albeit accurate limericks about my past personal life.” Fairy Floss’s gaze sharpened over the top of her spectacles. “Can I infer everyone else here has experienced something of a similar nature?”

“Broadly, yes. I got ship-krakens,” said Burro.

“Mithril into kittens,” grumbled Rex. “How is one to work with kittens?”

“Bloodily, I imagine, dear. Regardless, I then did the sensible thing and sent telegrams to the thirteen Archons, ordering the imposition of martial law in their cities and to mobilise their deme’s phalanxes until the crisis was resolved.” The Tyrant took a steadying breath. “Whereupon my telegrams turned into butterflies in mid-air and began systematically swallowing surprised members of the Black Company. So you can imagine I was somewhat out of sorts when some creature calling himself Discord materialised in my office and promised answers on the other side of a portal.”

“And you took him up on that?” Gellert’s head was cocked to one side.

“Not until after some token hoof-pointing and some blood-curdling threats were issued, of course. But when one is alone in one’s office with an omnipotent assailant and one’s personal guard are preoccupied trying to kick themselves free from the stomachs of butterflies, there’s really only one sensible option. Regardless, I would rather like some answers. Celestia, I hope you’re not too offended if I choose to stare hard at you at this juncture.”

“No offense taken. I do know more about this situation than others here.” Celestia sighed and shifted her weight from hoof to hoof, drawing Burro’s attention to the packed saddle-bags on her back. “I beg a reprieve until everyone’s here, though. I’ll rather start explaining once Discord’s less likely to jump in and interfere.”

“Hmm. Granted, then.” Fairy Floss lay down, her motions deliberate and trembling, and tried to make herself comfortable on the cage floor. “But I do hope the others do arrive soon. Else, I may start pressing -”

“Desecrator!”

The portal announced itself with a shout of fire and a burst of mad cackling, and a huge figure trailing smoke came skidding out from it. Burro recognised the form of a huge bull - an aurochs in heavy metal barding - before magic suddenly flared around the bull’s horns and teleported him straight to a standing position, his armour clattering all the while. He rose, steadied, and pawed at the ground, steam blasting from his nostrils.

The Bullwalda of Bovaland didn’t seem on his best form. The young aurochs' decorated barding was battered and scorched, and his quivering muscled sides and red eyes betrayed recent exertion. His unblinking attention was fixed on Discord, standing in the portal’s opening, clothed in a toreador’s outfit and waving a red cloth.

“‘Toro’ is the phrase, isn’t it?” said Discord innocently.

“You!” snarled Bullwalda Greenhorn.

“Me!”

“The bones of my ancestors cavort through the streets of Cromlech Taur! The dead disturbed! Desecrated! You named yourself responsible!”

“The skeleton of your dearly-departed great-grandfather showing your great-great-great uncle’s skeleton a good time may be a thing I bear some degree of responsibility for,” said Discord. “And I think I deserve a round of thanks for -”

“Stand and face me!” Greenhorn’s red eyes bulged, so far that Burro felt they might pop right out from between the slits of his visor. He broke into a trot, then a canter, and then a full-blown charge straight at Discord, gathering speed with all the stately unstoppability of a locomotive.

Discord remained still. Then, as as the bellowing Greenhorn was about to descend upon him, he snapped his claws. The floor beneath Greenhorn’s hooves turned into another portal, and Greenhorn fell with a cry of “AAAAAaaaaaa...”

The cry diminished for a few seconds, and then Discord snapped the claws on his other hand. Another portal opened in the cage’s top, parallel to the bottom one, and Greenhorn descended from one into the other. “...aaaaaaAAAAAaaaaaa...”

“Well? I’m standing, as asked,” said Discord, his arms outspread as Greenhorn’s falling form swept past once again. “Honestly, some creatures ask you for things, and then just don’t account for themselves. Rude, I call it. Rude.”

“Enough, Discord.” The cold voice was Celestia’s, and she stepped past Burro to stare down Discord. “You have made your point. You don’t need to wallow in it.”

“Don’t I?”

“...aaaaaaAAAAAaaaaaa...”

At his left, Burro felt Gellert tense and flex his wings. “Don’t mind me, old boy,” the griffon muttered. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to calculate this sort of timing. Can’t let the daft lad fall forever.”

“Be careful,” whispered Burro. “Being hit by the better part of a ton of armoured aurochs seems like something best avoided.”

“Celestia’s distracted, and the ibex’ll catch hell if she drops the Crown. Who else will?” Gellert grinned. “I’ll be alright.”

To their front, Discord and Celestia were all but muzzle-to-muzzle. “Celestia, Celestia, Celestia,” said Discord, “Who are you to stop me wallowing now? I can indulge fully. I can … well. I can do whatever. I. Want.”

Celestia looked to the falling Greenhorn. And then back to Discord, unflinching. “And this especially pleases you, does it?”

Discord seemed to consider the question, and shrugged. “Not particularly. But look at the expression on his face!” Two claws bent to form a circle, and a small image of Greenhorn’s face mid-fall appeared in it, spittle flying. “Look at those cheeks wobble!”

Celestia’s expression remained unmoving. “The Discord I knew and fought was a great many things. Callous. Unthinking. Directionless,” she said. “But sadistic was never amongst them.”

Gellert lunged in that instant, just as Greenhorn fell from the top portal with a heralding cry of “...aaaaaaAAA-” The griffon’s bulk slammed into Greenhorn’s armoured form in the air, sending the two tumbling off to the cage’s side in a cursing, flapping, lowing heap.

Discord quickly turned from Celestia to regard them with a crooked smile, shaking his head and holding up a finger. “Tsk. Spoilsports, all of you. Without exception.” He turned back to Celestia, his expression betraying nothing, before another portal opened behind him. “I’ll be back. With yet more of your friends.”

He stepped back and vanished with the sound of a blown raspberry. Celestia’s form slumped, and she bit back a sigh as she stalked over to Gellert and Greenhorn’s slumped forms.

“Out cold. Must have landed head-first,” said Gellert, motioning at Greenhorn’s still and faintly groaning form. He pushed himself upright with some difficulty. “I’ll expect tea and possibly cake for my heroic action there, of course. And even a medal.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” said Celestia, leaning and inspecting Greenhorn briefly before rising again. “We’ll leave him in peace for now. Even my healing magics sometimes fail to beat an old-fashioned rest.”

“And it defers your ‘Discord, chaos spirit, explain later’ spiel, of course,” said the Crown.

Celestia didn’t respond, insteading trotting to the other side of the cage to regard the sky once more. “A little more time,” she muttered. “Just a little more.”

“A little more time for what, precisely?” said Fairy Floss. Past her, Rex had opted to disregard proceedings in favour of experimentally tapping at the cage side with his pick-axe. After a few initial swipes had availed nothing, he drew out a few oddly-glistening pebbles from a pocket and placed them on the floor, watching them with a hawkish expression.

“A little more time until I can act in confidence. And explain matters as well. Time has cultivated my ability to multi-task, if nothing else.”

Rex brought his pick-axe down on the pebbles with a sudden bark, connecting with a flash of light and small peal of thunder that did an admirable job of temporarily blinding and deafening Burro. The old donkey blinked and shook away the latest assault on his senses, and found the Diamond Dog critically regarding the patch of floor where the pebbles had sat.

“Unmarred,” said Rex approvingly, before his face fell into a scowl. “And likely unbreachable. If I possessed more firestone, or perhaps some corvid black powder, then it could be surmountable.”

“Hold that thought,” said Gellert, as another slash of light appeared in the air. “If the next one in is the Cormaer, you might just get what you wish for.”

The portal opened, and a black, feathered shape was flung through as if released from a slingshot. Burro started and then peered closer - it was a raven, if he was any judge. It righted itself in the air with a mad flourish of its wings and dove straight at the portal with a rattling, furious caw.

Discord’s laughter sounded in the instant before the portal closed, and the raven flew through empty air, barely correcting itself in time to avoid bouncing off the opposite wall. It alighted on the ground, body seething with agitation, and then let out one last hiss before turning suddenly to the others.

Burro had rarely encountered a corvid. Asincittà had its properly cosmopolitan share of the species, but at a definite - and in his view, rightfully - minority. The raven stood upright on two thin, lean claws, fixing each of them with a cold, black regard. Wings at its powerful body’s side could have spread into a wingspan rivalling Gellert’s own. Sharpened steel sheaths covered its claws and a thin plaid sash was draped tightly around its body.

The Cormaer of Corva’s beak seemed to tighten at the edges of the flesh, as if in mockery of a smile. “Guid to ken confusion loves company,” she said - for past the rasping, nigh-indecipherable burr, the voice was female. “Ye’ve all been similarly kidnapped?”

Burro noticed Celestia’s expression darken imperceptibly, saw Gellert and Fairy Floss tense, saw the Crown’s jewels lighten with interest, and saw Rex and the ibex simply looking confused. Appointing himself the group’s diplomat in that moment, he stepped forward. “Yes. With varying degrees of sense in the world before said kidnapping in each case. This Discord’s apparently set on imprisoning each leader on the continent. You’re the new Cormaer, I take it?”

The Cormaer’s smile sharpened. “Aye. Ye take it right. And I think I ken ye. The Asinial high heid yin?”

Burro hesitated. “Yes, I think.”

“Affa dab. And tae yer rear, we’ve got … the Ovarn Tyrant. The griffon laird. The Capric’s crown and some flunkey.” Her smile somehow managed to sharpen further upon seeing the slumped form of Greenhorn. “Och, the wee kye king’s not fared tae well. Pity, that. And lastly ...” She looked up, and yet further up, to meet Celestia’s gaze. “Cuddy queen.”

Celestia nodded, her jaw’s lines set.

“Well then.” The Cormaer continued to meet Celestia’s gaze. “Whit lofty company. Pleased tae introduce myself. For my part, by right of ability and conquest, the Eighth Cormaer.”

“I am aware,” said Celestia. “I killed the Seventh.”

The Cormaer’s smile fell then, but was quick to reassert itself. “Tae yer credit. A hundred years since, aye? We’ll dae better next time.”

“Will you now.” Celestia’s voice was as cold and unyielding as an avalanche. “For my part, I would advise peaceful diplomatic overtures, Cormaer. Choose your approach, and you will find us willing to respond in kind.”

The Cormaer’s black feathers bristled and her dark eyes narrowed. “If ye respond,” she growled. “There’s mony a debt that collects, cuddy.”

Further reasonable diplomatic discourse was drowned out by the sound of another portal opening. And a great deal of deafening roaring.

Burro recoiled away from the newly-opened portal in the air, his ear drums all but shrieking at the sheer volume coming from it - as if a volcano was making its displeasure known at point-blank distance. He was vaguely aware of the others falling back alongside him, as well as of Discord emerging from the portal’s opening, heaving something massive and red over his shoulder. Something like the bladed end of a dragon’s tail, hued red and embedded over with glittering gold coins, larger than a respectable building.

Burro’s gut turned cartwheels in him as he realised who Discord was bringing to the meeting.

“Not the Fire Queen!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, and barely registering himself past the sheer din. “This is not that big a cage! This is not that big a cage!”

“If the naysayers could stop harping at the draconequus in the arena,” snapped Discord, heaving on the colossal tail. From behind him, a tide of coins and jewels flowed, followed by a billowing, forge-like heat. The roar resumed with greater force, and Burro all but felt his ear drums whimper, curl up in a corner, and beg for death.

Discord glared up at the cage ceiling, seemed to mutter something under his breath, and looked back at the Fire Queen’s larger form behind him - Burro gauged her to be on a scale comparable with Asincittà itself. Discord threw up his arms, snapped, “Oh, for goodness sake!” and dropped the thrashing tail to the cage floor. He marched back through the portal while Burro and the others desperately shimmied back to avoid the tail’s motions.

The tail shivered. Then it rapidly withdrew back through the portal, seeming to shrink as it went.

The roaring vanished as well, and Burro almost collapsed with the sheer comparable euphoric bliss of quiet hitting his ears then. All other considerations went clean out the window.

A moment later, Discord’s claw shot back through the portal, holding a small red figure, and dropped it on the cage floor. The portal closed, and Burro and the others were left staring at the Fire Queen.

A tiny red dragon whelp with huge reptilian eyes and little vestigial wings stared up at them, and then down at herself. “What in Stygia is this?” she hissed.

“Och,” said the Cormaer, beating the rest to the punch, “She’s adorable.”

The Fire Queen boggled up at the Cormaer, small flames lapping along the length of her little forked tongue. She then looked to each other member of the company, her eyes widening all the while.

“What in Stygia is all of this?”

“A kidnapping, by a spirit of chaos long-hoped to be sealed,” said Celestia quickly. “Old as you are, I’m sure you recall what I speak of.”

The Fire Queen paused. “I do,” she said. Her tone lowered. “I certainly do. Why be coy around the others, though?”

“Because I’ve yet to give an explanation to them, and waited before I’d have to repeat myself over and over,” said Celestia.

“The gang’s all here, everyone from Ungula worth mentioning,” said the Crown. “Stop dithering and tell us what’s happening so we can contrive something so arcane as a solution.”

The look Celestia gave the Crown was as briefly frosty as a winter wind, but she sighed and took a breath regardless. She sank to a lying position, levitating the saddlebag off her back as she did so. “Assail me with questions,” said Celestia. “Pardon me if I work on other things as we speak.”

“I’ll take first crack at that, if you don’t mind,” said Fairy Floss. “Firstly, what is that creature, Discord? Where did he come from, and what are his -?”

At one side of the cage, there was the sound of the portal opening. Celestia rose in an eye’s blink, slinging the saddlebag back onto her back. “Later,” she hissed at Fairy Floss and the others. “Later.”

“You didn’t think I was finished, did you?” came the sing-song tones of Discord. “There are other continents out there. And so much space in this cage to fill.”

Or Maybe All it Does is Forment All Manner of Fankles

The first voice to interject itself past the rasp of the opening portal was Rex’s. “Vánagandr’s priapic … who else is there?”

“The Dactylian and Ceratos contingents, I believe,” said Fairy Floss, as the portal ceased rasping and instead began trilling the opening bars from Beethoofen’s fifth symphony. “How delightful; we so rarely get the chance to meet them in person. I imagine their knowledge and insight will be every bit as useful as our own.”

The old ewe’s voice was calm, if suffused with a certain tetchiness. Burro could only imagine how badly recent events had rattled her if chinks were starting to appear in her armour. Depths knew he didn’t feel especially at grips with it all himself.

The first thing to have hit him as the portal splintered its way open was an ever-escalating unease. He’d started all this out of his depth, and was now about to share these same depths with an unknown number of angry sharks. The Asinial Republic’s Merchant Fleet, wonderful and forceful a tool of international diplomacy though it may be, wasn’t the sort of thing that tended to make one friends in the usage.

The second thing to hit Burro was a stallion in silk livery, who came hurtling out of the portal and knocked the old jack off his hooves, sending them both to the cage floor in a bone-jarring flurry of flailing limbs, yelps and monosyllabic oaths.

“Gah!” Burro reflexively slammed a hoof into the stallion and sent him sprawling backwards with a pained whicker. “Get off!”

“Arrgh!” retorted the stallion, a tall brown-coated earth pony, silk vestments flying wild around him. He struggled to his hooves and regarded the gathered company with some consternation. “What the deuce just -? Celestia? What’s going on?”

“At ease, Viceroy Simoom,” Celestia said, her clear voice managing, as always, to dampen down any more bewildered invective that could have come spilling forth. “There’s an explanation behind whatever’s just befallen you, and I assure-”

“Is there? Really? My word,” the Crown said under its breath.

“- Assure you that it will all be resolved in short order.” A hint of steel entered Celestia’s tone. Just a hint.

The stallion, Simoom, looked vaguely reassured. “Well,” he said. “Well, that’s good. That’s jolly good. I was rather wondering what that rainbow-coloured haboob hitting Tabuck and spraying confetti everywhere was in aid of. I take it that sort of thing’s not just happening in Saddle Arabia?”

The Cormaer chuckled briefly. “Aye. Ye could say that.”

Simoom’s gaze swept to her, and then to each of the others in turn. Nothing slipped in the expression of befuddled amiability he sported. The effect was only slightly undermined by the embroidered images on his silk saddle and halter becoming animated and throwing rude faces and ruder gestures at everyone present. “Oh, well,” he said. “At least we’re not alone in this whole silliness. I’m sure we can get it all cleared up in short order.” His smile brightened. “I say, are the rest of you rather important as well?”

A moment’s silence held before the Fire Queen broke it. “If we’re in here long enough, we eat this one first.”

“Gracious, a little dragon?” Simoom leaned down on his forehooves to regard the Fire Queen eye-to-eye, his expression delighted and curious. “You’re an adorable little specimen, if I may say so.”

“From the hooves up,” growled the Fire Queen.

The Capricious Crown had spent a few moments in studious silence, the jewels at its depths holding a steady blue glimmer. “Viceroy Simoom of the Viceroyalty of Saddle Arabia, an island dominion of Equestria’s off Dactylia’s north coast,” it said suddenly. “Independent in all but name, of course.”

“That’s the place. Have you ever been there?” said Simoom.

“A recorded population of just under sixty thousand, not counting itinerant traders,” the Crown continued relentlessly. “Chief exports of unrefined natural pitch, glasswork, and tourists with newly-acquired sunburns. A standing army of two.”

“I’ll tell Dune and Sun Spot you mentioned them. They got these spiffy new uniforms just last week, and they’re very keen to do their pa-”

“Thank you, we’ve established your fantastical irrelevance. Be quiet while the big people are talking.” The Crown’s attention turned back to Celestia. “What are you hoping to achieve by dithering, Celestia? Do you think any nation further away from the heart of the action is going to make anything like a useful contribution? The only powers whose opinions are worth anything are in this cage right now. Perhaps they should start putting their heads together right now.”

“Any plan we concoct while Discord is likely to return at any moment is doomed to failure. He has already negated one of my countermeasures; he will not hesitate to tear apart any other he finds out about. This is not the time for risk-taking.” Celestia’s eyes had narrowed, and her jaw had tightened.

“Then at least tell us what you, in your ever-so-gracious wisdom, think we ought to know about Discord. Where did he come from? Why is he now active? How can we have him strapped down and screaming by the day’s end?”

“We don’t need to be stuck in endless dreary repetitions of the same essentials. I’ll speak on the matter when everyone is here and equally able to discuss and contribute.”

“Why? Why bother to have them in the loop? Who here cares about Dactylia or anywhere else’s offerings?”

The cowed-looking Simoom ventured, “I care what -”

“Be silent, you bleating speck.”

“Enough.” Celestia’s voice was pure steel now, cold and cutting. She looked to one side, out towards the open sky and the rolling landscape of Equestria. Sections of the ground had split off and were floating around in the sky, idly ramming into one another. Distant specks huddled at their centres. Canterlot drifted helplessly through it all, kicking its stony legs futilely and cursing a blue streak.

Celestia’s expression was as cold and empty as the night sky. “I will not be gainsaid. I will not be lectured on the necessity of haste.”

“Gwuurgh?” Something that was half-bellow, half-groan, and all discombobulation came from where Greenhorn lay, diverting all attention. The auroch’s eyes fluttered open past his helmet’s visor and one hoof pawed at the ground, as if trying to heave him up. “What ju - ugh.”

“On your hooves, lad. You’ve had a nasty and spatially-confused fall.” Gellert padded over and extended a claw, helping Greenhorn totter upright. The weight of his armour should have unbalanced him, but Greenhorn didn’t even seem to notice it. His gaze swept blearily around the cage.

“I - I was fighting a creature. Something that came slithering up between the cobblestones of Cromlech Taur and wreaked .... havoc in the city.”

“That’s something of a common theme this day, dear.” Fairy Floss reached out and, straining, just about managed to pat his upper foreleg. “You’ll acclimatise. Maybe.”

“And … and now I’m sharing … mid-air? A cage in mid-air with all of you. Why? What’s the logical connector between these two?”

“The same creature, Discord, put you here,” Burro said. “He has his own designs on the world. Celestia has promised a full accounting of him once everyone he’s likely to similarly imprison has arrived.”

“I wouldn’t make a habit of asking any question reliant on logic today, though,” said the Fire Queen acidly. “Logic is fast approaching a vegetative state, and I imagine it’ll soon be put out of its misery, poor thing.”

Greenhorn looked around to find the source of her voice, and eventually looked down. “You’re … ah ...”

“Finish that appraisal in a non-asinine manner. Go on. Try it.” The Fire Queen’s tone tried for ‘growl’, but fell short to fall within the realms of ‘modulated squeak’.

“‘Asinine’,” said Burro dryly. “Excellent. We’re delving into the realm of specist slurs already, are we?”

“Now is not the time to quibble about etymology, you upjumped -”

Greenhorn’s gaze swept on, alighting on the Cormaer. He stood stock-still, and a reddish tinge once again entered his narrowing eyes. The Cormaer met his look and smirked.

“Kindly explain,” began Greenhorn, his voice calm and measured. “Why is one of their pestilential kind here?”

“Corva has its Eighth Cormaer, lang may she reign in beauty and wisdom.” The Cormaer’s eyes glittered darkly. “Did ye no get the invitation tae the festivities?”

“Both of you will kindly step away from each other,” Celestia interjected at that moment. “We will have harmony and common accord at this meeting, if nowhere else.”

“Ye hear that, kye? Play nice.”

“You do not share common accord with calf-eating savages.” Greenhorn’s calmness was evaporating like morning mist. “You do not let the eastern scourge fester and grow unchallenged!” He took a step forwards, and red-tinted magic glimmered up the sweep of his horns. “You cut it down where it stands!”

“Caw canny, wee kye, or I’ll send ye screamin’ tae yer ancestors.” The Cormaer’s smirk had become purely malevolent. Her wings twitched, her steel claws tapped against the cage floor, dark blue magic tendrils coiled around her pinions. “Though at least ye wouldnae be the first Bullwalda sent that way by a Cormaer’s claws -”

“Enough.”

Golden magic, briefly flaring brighter than the sun, seized hold of both Greenhorn and the Cormaer. They vanished with flashes of light and reappeared at opposite ends of the cage. A white alicorn strode forwards to stand in the space between them.

“Let us act as though we’re all sensible and self-preserving grown-up beings,” said Princess Celestia. “As though we share a common enemy this day, who poses an existential threat to all we hold dear, and who may only be stopped by our joined effort now. Shall we act as such? There would be nothing to envy about the alternative.”

She stood and turned her head to stare down both the Cormaer and Greenhorn in turn. They shrunk back, and all others there took an involuntary step backwards. Burro couldn’t help but feel the urge to avert his own gaze. There were a few things he’d managed to avoid over the course of his life, and, winds guard him, Celestia in a true and proper temper would continue to be one of them.

He’d spend the rest of this session being the nicest and most supportive ally she could wish for. That seemed only sensible.

Finding no challenge, Celestia turned and started to trot back to where she’d been standing. It was then, of course, that the portal exploded open again, right before her face. She jumped back, too slowly to avoid the two zebras that came spilling out from it. She wobbled only slightly as they bounced off her front and fell to the floor in a cursing heap.

“So tricky to decide between the two,” came Discord’s airy voice. “I doubt even they know who’s in charge of their own country. The next one might be even more of a challenge. Bear with me!” The voice vanished, and the assembled company was left to regard the two zebras. They snarled and recoiled away from one another, struggling to their own hooves.

“What in the name of all that - Celestia? What’s going on?” demanded one of them, a slender stallion in ornamental bronze-coloured barding over midnight-blue robes. His monochrome mane and coat were neatly styled, if somewhat ruffled from recent mishandling.

“Excuse you, but being the lawful Pharoah of Zebrica, I’ll do the talking.” The other was more heavily built, disheveled, and his iron barding was more practical and decidedly more battered. “Celestia, what’s going on?”

Burro clocked each one as they spoke. Punda and Milia, the two grasping sons of the long-passed Zebrican Pharoah. Twins at birth, because the Creator just sometimes liked to be an outright sadist.

“A creature of elemental chaos, Discord, has broken loose of his captivity and is bent on destroying all harmony in the world,” Celestia began. “So far, this has entailed -”

“Ahem,” said Punda, the slender one in robes, “Lawful Pharoah? Grand talk from somepony who cannot even hold onto Whickhen or Trotenu.”

“Ah. You can pass judgement, because you’re doing such a grand job of holding onto Marephis,” replied the sturdily-built Milia, whose grin came past gritted teeth. “Thank you for leaving the Black Crown there, by the way. It looks lovely against my complexion.”

Punda glowered. “How lovely for you. A pity you don’t have the White Crown to go along with it. Otherwise, well, it’ll just be useless to you, all things considered.”

Burro couldn’t help but recall some of the confidential missives he’d received over the course of the four-years-running War of the Zebrican Inheritance. The first had been from the princes themselves, bargaining for aid in exchange for consideration paid to Asinial interests before and after a victory. Those had petered out around the second year, and others had come from associated parties. The latest had been from the Lord Mayor of Abitdos. “Just assassinate one of them already, whichever you like” it had read. “Assassinate both of them, why not. We are past caring. This ‘republic’ notion intrigues us and we wish to learn more.”

“By all means, keep on denying me my birthright,” growled Milia. “One of these days, you’ll acknowledge that Father clearly favoured me before his -”

“And one day, you’ll become cognizant of basic maths and how time works, and realise I’m the first-born. Remind me where that puts me in the line of succession.”

“You call three minutes a mandate?”

Golden loops of light descended around their muzzles and tightened fast, muffling whatever retorts might have followed. Punda and Milia slowly turned to face Celestia, their expressions of startled outrage turning nigh-instantly into confused wariness.

“I’ve already spoken to the others about the necessity of focusing on our common enemy at this time,” she said calmly. “Shall I repeat it, or assume that you two can pick up the implications?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the two grudgingly nodded. The golden loops dissipated, and they took unsteady steps back. Celestia regarded them both with a faintly disappointed expression. “Honestly,” she said, “You were much more pleasant to each other when you were foals. Some of us remember.”

Milia glowered, and Punda opened his mouth. Celestia cut him off as she sharply turned to address the rest of the gathering. “Regardless, we do now have an opening. Discord said that collecting the next would take him a while, and I have reason to believe him. I intend to enact a few of my own contingencies. If anyone else has anything they can do, let it be known and let it be done.”

Burro wearily contemplated his own contingency of the Merchant Fleet’s firepower, now probably gradually accumulating in the belly of a ship-kraken. Maybe it would be worthwhile looking into how exactly to become an alicorn princess himself. But that could come later. “What exactly are your contingencies?” he asked instead.

Celestia’s saddlebag opened smoothly, and before Burro could even blink, a golden blade flourished from its depths, held securely by the glow of the alicorn’s magic. It was long, straight, and hiltless, intended for magical wielding alone. The dull sheen around all its edges betrayed a wicked edge, and a faint distortion in how the light caught it betrayed magical enchantment. Burro couldn’t guess at what type, though.

There was an intake of breath from Greenhorn, whose mood brightened upon seeing the blade. He leaned closer to see it, an action mirrored by the admiring Cormaer. “Now there’s a beauty,” he murmured. “Does she have a name?”

“It was known as the Sun Blade even before I acquired it - which, naturally, I had to do,” said Celestia, giving it an experimental swish through the air. “Older than anyone else here - perhaps older than all of us combined. A relic of Antlertis from before its Fall. I’ve little idea what it can fully do, or even if it can do anything against Discord, and my scope for putting it to proper use may be limited. Luna and Cadance might appreciate it, however.”

“The other princesses?” said Milia.

“We discuss these sorts of situations between ourselves. Cadance, lovely as she is, has a marvellously morbid talent for predicting the worst possible outcome of any event and proposing ways to counteract it.” Celestia smiled faintly to herself and jabbed the blade experimentally at the cage wall. The wall flashed, and it almost seemed to Burro that it might have been breached - but the flash faded, and the wall was unmarred. “They should have gone to ground, to evade Discord’s notice and to maintain whatever patches of order they can. If I can teleport the Sun Blade to a safe spot and they find it … well, that may just be to our advantage.”

“Can you teleport it out?” asked Fairy Floss, one brow raised.

“That … rather remains to be seen. The warding on this prison prevents us teleporting ourselves. But the magic of chaos is a scattershot affair, riddled with loopholes ...” Golden magic gathered thick around Celestia’s horn and unleashed itself on the Sun Blade. There was a blinding flash, and Burro’s eyes issued yet another fruitless protest.

He blinked away the aftereffect, and the Sun Blade remained in the cage, the pink sides shimmering. A faint and toneless chuckling came from all around them.

Celestia’s expression was drawn and cold as she regarded the blade; her voice was controlled and mild. “Well. He is apparently determined to not repeat the mistakes of last time.”

“Last time?” The Cormaer cocked her head.

“A story for later. Many stories over a great while a very long time ago, in fact. No matter.” Celestia breathed out heavily. “This annuls several of my other plans, but I have several more that don’t depend on it. The hatchling from the egg you generously granted me happens to be in a useful position, Fire Queen.”

“The ha-? Oh.” The Fire Queen smiled sharply. It brought out dimples. “Ensorcelled fire’s one of these handy things, is it not? I’m glad the little thing’s been of doughty service.”

“Indeed. Passage by fire circumvents many of teleportation’s usual rules. Transformation and passage via the essence of flame itself, rather than the arcane aether, may be a route Discord has failed to consider.” From her saddlebag, there rose a stack of papers. Burro glanced at them - a large stack of single-page notes, largely hoofwritten and in letter format. The fine details eluded him as they swept over to before Celestia’s nose.

“And what’s this, pray tell?” The Crown’s jewels produced a faint green flicker.

“One of my contingencies for Discord’s return has already … been thwarted.” Celestia glanced down the first of the letters, and a soft, sad smile fell across her features. “These could yet reignite it.”

Without any warning, gold-hued fire flickered at the letter’s base and rapidly grew to consume it all. It split apart into shimmering green-and-gold sparks rather than ash, which in turn spiralled off through the air. Celestia held her breath as she watched them, and breathed out again when they passed through the cage’s wall. Her customary subtle smile returned briefly to her features, and it seemed like an age since Burro had last seen it.

“And now we continue on like that,” she said absently to herself. A second letter was sent away in fire, mere seconds after the first. The rest regarded her.

“Something occurs,” said the Crown suddenly.

“Whit would that be?” said the Cormaer.

“Discord’s been taking a long time in acquiring the next ruler. He hasn’t taken this stretch of time thus far -”

Before them, at one end of the cage, a small white oval flashed into existence and started to grow. Celestia swept the papers into her saddlebag.

“Do us all a favour,” said Gellert wearily, “Kindly don’t tempt the universe.”

“Wait,” said Burro. Something bad had just occurred. “Wait, wait. If he’s working his way south down Dactylia, then the next port of call would be Gazellen, wouldn’t it? It swallows up everywhere from the coast to the Dactylian Interior for over a thousand miles.”

“Yes. Why?”

“Gazellen?” said Burro. “The Serene Confederation? The union of the dozens of little nations and kingdoms that pop up over there? It doesn’t have a ruler. It just rotates between the nations for a First Speaker!”

“Wait, so who would Discord bri-”

Burro couldn’t explain how he knew the Crown’s nonexistent eyes widened with realisation. He just knew.

“Get back!” said Fairy Floss, much too late. The portal finished widening, and through the white glow tumbled…

Tumbled…

Burro’s brain gave up on trying to assign a succinct description.

A horde of mismatched, body-swapped, chittering, yelping, swearing delegates tumbled through the portal in their droves, falling into a vast and flailing heap that gradually spread across the cage floor towards them. Burro tried to make sense of the medley of body parts and faces and other sundry things that flashed before his vision. None of it seemed to even remotely match.

One figure struggled to bull their way out from the crowd and make themselves known, even as the heap grew behind them. “What in the Creator’s name is going on!?” shouted someone who might have been the Emir of Al-Antelus. Except the antelope Emir didn’t have the disproportionately small legs of a warthog. Or the wings of a griffon. Or a certain deficiency of horns.

“Beg yer pardon, but whit am I looking at?” hissed the Cormaer, who was awkwardly hopping backwards alongside Burro. “Whit’s this stramash?”

“The Gazellen delegates, it would look like,” said Burro, his mouth working serenely and without any conscious effort from his brain, which was preoccupied with internally screaming.

“Such a stroke of luck, getting them all in their congress like that,” said Discord, poking his head through the portal as the last of Gazellen’s delegates tumbled through the opening. “They were dreadfully unaccommodating when I tried to explain the situation to them, alas, but what can you do?”

“Explain? You waltzed in out of the blue and took my body away! That’s not an explanation! What even are you?” The protest came from one delegate, whose long giraffe neck swayed precariously up from the lean frame of a Diamond Jackal. A laurel wreath flopped off one of her ossicones.

“It’s like an explanation.” Discord waved his paw dismissively. “Honestly, some beings get so persnickety about exact definitions and fail to grasp the advantages of their new position. Like having the Diamond Jackal alpha’s legs.”

“Those aren’t even slightly an advantage!”

“Charming,” muttered a jackal-headed figure at one side, with the front body of a gazelle and the striped backside of an okapi. “There goes thine special diplomatic consideration, then.”

“You know what I mean!”

“Oh, there’s no pleasing some ingrates,” said Discord sorrowfully, wiping ostentatiously at one dry cheek. “Here I am, putting in all this hard labour solely on your behalf, and what thanks do I get? None, I tell you -”

“Sacred skies, it jabbers on like one of the bipedal apes you find in the Interior forests. All they do is screech and try to show off their advancements in tool-using and theoretical mathematics to you.” This came from a warthog delegate, whose tusks had been replaced with an elegant pair of curving antlers, and whose legs had been awkwardly replaced with that of the giraffe’s. He tottered awkwardly as he glowered at Discord. “Tell us what you want or simply depart!”

Discord considered the demand. “Very well, I’ll depart,” he said blithely. “Just a couple left until I have the full set, anyway. Tally-ho!” He slipped back through the portal, and was gone in an eye’s blink.

“Wha - no! Tell us what you want! Tell us what you want!” The warthog delegate took one step towards the vanished portal before toppling over onto several other Gazellens. A chorus of cursing followed.

The delegates who had recovered their faculties with varying degrees of success turned towards the long-standing gathering. As one, they opened their mouths to speak. “Princess Celestia? What’s going -”

“Do me a favour,” said Celestia in a low murmur, leaning down to Burro’s ear. “Get the others and help distribute the ‘spirit of chaos, etc,’ spiel among the Gazellen delegates, and promise them my fuller account in due time. I intend to send off letters. As many as I can.” She looked out past the cage wall, where chunks of Equestria mingled with the darkening sky, suffused pink with the magic of chaos. “While we still have time.”

It was a flurry of hoof-pointing, accusations, and fevered hissing. It took every scrap of learned wheedling, veiled threats, and whatever other tools Burro had in his diplomatic repertoire to get the Ungulan contingent, Simoom and Zebrican princes on board, and even more than that to suitably pacify the massed Gazellens. But he persevered, and even managed to carefully avoid direct discourse with any of those Gazellens representing coastal nations.

Celestia owed him a favour. Celestia owed him several.

But it was done, for now at least. Now the Gazellens could simmer to themselves, along with whatever others chose to share their company or have their company inflicted on them.

“...Two barracks-pyramids ramming into each other mid-air, as if they were bulls at play!” he heard Punda mutter to a couple of Gazellens. “He outmatches us, plainly.”

“Outmatches you, rather,” replied the half-gazelle, half-jerboa delegate, and subsequent muttering took on a decidedly more hostile tone.

To Burro’s right, Simoom was speaking. “Why, yes, I’m rather confused about the whole thing as well. But I’m sure it’ll all work out for the best. We have Celestia with us, after all. What lasting harm could befall on her watch?”

At his back, he heard an unknown Gazellen say, “Is nobody else questioning why an infant dragon has been dropped into this -?”

“Finish that question,” purred the Fire Queen. “Finish that question and see your continent turned to ash.”

To his front, Gellert flashed him a brief, encouraging grin before turning back to conversation and swapping a cheroot with his axex counterpart, a dignified female whose wings had been inconveniently replaced with warthog tusks. To their side, the Crown was being borne by the ibex servant in the direction of the Cormaer, who was regarding their advance with detached appraisal. Greenhorn was deep in hushed discussion with Fairy Floss, with occasional backwards glances towards the Cormaer. Rex seemed to be having an amiable chat with the Diamond Jackal, a chat punctuated by motions that suggested swinging an imaginary pickaxe, in turn invariably followed by mutual chuckles. Punda and Milia were pointedly speaking to Gazellens on opposite side of the cage from one another.

Past them all, in one quiet corner, Celestia sent letter after letter, allowing a few seconds' pause between each one. Her smile had long since faded. Her gaze occasionally rose to the tumultuous sky, before falling back to her task.

And to Burro’s right…

“So do you really have the biggest fleet in the world? My uncle says that Pachydermia’s fleet is greatest of all, but I suppose that’s not really the same thing as ‘biggest’. What does 'greatest' mean, then? Are we just the best at using ours? Why can’t donkeys use boats as well as us? I don’t think my Foreign Affairs tutor’s ever mentioned it. Maybe she should.”

The Shahanshah of Pachydermia’s arrival had been all but overlooked, and it had been a few moments before anyone had noticed the confused-looking and elaborately-dressed elephant calf in their midst. The more benevolently disposed of the leaders present had then held a brief conference.

“What do you mean, I ‘look kind and grandfatherly’?” Burro had hissed.

“You do, to those that don’t know your true heart of darkness,” Gellert had said dryly. “I wouldn’t suit. I’ve heard the axex nation doesn’t have a glorious history with Pachydermia and … well. Similarities. Celestia’s busy as well. She shouldn’t be distracted.”

“Personally, I just cordially despise children in all their forms,” said Fairy Floss. “Asking me to interact with him for a prolonged period is just a diplomatic incident in the making. Know thine weaknesses and all that.”

“I’m armour-clad, and all this is ideally removed by several pages over the course of a quarter-hour,” said Greenhorn, swaying and clanking as he did so. “Before then, my countenance may be somewhat imposing.”

“Donkeys aren’t intimidating. He’ll be reassured by you,” said one of the Gazellens, a rangy old female bactrian camel, whose two humps sported little sets of wings. “Didn’t think you’d be turning down the chance to get in the good graces of Pachydermia.”

“I’m not turning it down, I’m just objecting to the way it’s being presented. Not intimidating? How about when we’re releasing point-blank annihilation from the shoreline? How about -”

“Then, granted,” said the camel. “Maybe keep your voice down. I just saw the Grand Duke of the hippopotami glare this way.”

And so it was was that Burro found himself standing next to the Shahanshah-In-Waiting Sailears the Second of Ancient and Glorious Pachydermia, and nodding mildly along while saying, “I’m sure the Pachydermian Navy has many lovely ships to its name, Your Grace.”

“But do we? I’m never told anything.” A small amount of magic glowed up Sailears’ tusks, and his trunk waggled in an aggravated fashion. Burro took a judicious step to one side; the calf was nearly his height and substantially bulkier. “Uncle says I shouldn’t ask lots of questions but just listen to my tutors and him until I know enough to ask proper questions. What does that mean? Do you think he’s one of these evil regents? I’ve read stories about them. Should I just order him to be boiled in oil now? Or would that get the court annoyed at me?”

Burro considered his next sentences carefully. “I … don’t think ordering one’s uncle to be boiled ever solved many problems, Your Grace.”

“Uncle says that other barbarian countries just aren’t as old and wise as Pachydermia. Even the mammoths are smarter than everyone else.” Sailears casually prodded a tusk with his trunk and fidgeted in his heavy robes, casually forgetting about the prior thread of conversation. “Is that why donkeys aren’t good sailors? Uncle says donkeys are all scheming pluter - plutocri - greedy bastards who wouldn’t know what a mast was if they were beaten to death with one. Is he right?”

Withered and necessarily cynical Burro’s sense of national pride may be, it still existed in some form. His temper rose as a wave of heat through his skull. “Your Grace, kindly inform your uncle when you next see him that he is invited to take a mast and shove it sideways up his -”

At one side of the cage, there came a whisper that shivered through the air. All turned to see the portal opening once more, and Celestia discreetly slid her papers back into her saddlebag. The oval expanded and expanded, just beyond the size of Celestia herself, and finally stopped.

The long horned head of a rhinoceros emerged, topped with a tall headpiece coming to an elongated board bordered with a dangling fringe of jade bead strands. The rest of their body, draped over with elegantly-tailored green-coloured robes, lumbered into view.

The Ceratos Emperor stood before the assembly, slowly sweeping his head round to take all in. He barely blinked as the portal whined shut at his back, and his gaze came to alight on Celestia.

“We profess ourselves surprised by recent happenings,” he said, his tone mild. “Fair Procer, fain enlighten us.”

“A spirit called Discord has broken free from captivity,” said Celestia, wearing her most gracious smile. “He is intent on -”

“-On reducing all this stifling order in the world to cinders.” The voice boomed from where the portal had closed, and from empty space, Discord slithered into existence. He bobbed off the floor, his legs folded up before him, and smiled ingratiatingly. “I really can’t think why all of you seem happy in it. Still less why you pursue it. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.” His smile widened. “Just console yourself with all the differences to be found now.”

“Are you done with this foolishness?” snapped Fairy Floss.

“This particular foolishness? Oh yes. Hardly anything civilised and important left in this side of the world. I did take a little wander out into the Black Ocean. From the east and west, I might add.” His eyebrows waggled, and detached from his head to float off. He casually reached up to secure them. “But nothing on the world’s other side worth bothering with. Or at least, nothing you’d want to bother with -”

“Enough of this blithering!” Greenhorn’s bellow was a thunderclap in the cage’s closeness. Outside, the gathering pink stormclouds echoed him. “What are you after, Discord?”

“A good old storm of chaos, for everyone to revel in. I thought that was obvious,” Discord replied. “Really, all this predictability must be getting so tiring. How can you live like this?”

“Gratifyingly! At length! With no need to -!” started Milia, before Punda patted him on the wither to shush him, Milia reflexively complied, before sending a glare his brother’s way.

“Don’t bother,” muttered the Fire Queen. “Just weather it.”

“We are not idiots, Discord,” said Punda. “Your advantage has been demonstrated. We are willing to discuss terms. What do you want?”

“... I just said.”

“Tribute? Lands?” pressed Punda.

“I have all the land,” said Discord. “Most of it’s now reshuffling itself in a more aesthetically pleasing fashion. Or displeasing fashion. That’s the thing about consistency; you don’t need any. As for tribute ...” He extended an open claw, and gold coins trickled from it in abundance, falling through the cage floor to the fragmented fields below. “Fresh from the Fire Queen’s own hoard. You’re welcome, by the way.”

The Fire Queen produced a strangled hiss. “YOU SON OF A -”

“No, really, what do you want?” demanded one of the Gazellens, the giraffe-legged warthog. “Oaths of fealty from us?”

“You’re all a long way away from your seats of power, with all the power to influence affairs of a disgruntled gnat.” Discord considered. “How do I put this delicately …? Your oaths of fealty - which you can give if you like, no stopping you - don’t mean squat.”

“Direct servitude?” growled the Cormaer.

“Pfft. Do you think there’s anything I’d get from your servitude that I couldn’t do myself, in time?”

“Carnal favours?” suggested one of the Gazellens, an okapi whose torso and legs were those of a fennec fox.

Discord came apart at the seams with the ensuing fit of the giggles and blithely drifted apart in different directions, while the rest of the assembly turned to regard the okapi.

“What? Look, I’m just saying, he might have been tempted that way and playing hard-to-get,” said the okapi. “Some of us pay attention to our grooming, you know. It was a reasonable suggestion in the current context. Would you kindly stop giggling?”

“Ahem.” Discord reformed. “Is the point made? None of you really have anything I want or can’t get for myself. The world and its order are the prizes. Nothing any one of you can give me. This whole conversation is just me being polite. I’m told that’s a good thing to be, from time to time. Goodness knows who told me, though.”

He flexed a claw experimentally. “One moment, you’re a statue in Celestia’s garden, watching the world go by with all this pent-up power just simmering away. The next, after a little kerfuffle outside … you’re free. Don’t say fate can’t be nice on occasion.”

“Enough of this gloating.” Celestia’s voice was a flat growl. “Either make your intentions for us plain, or go.”

“Such grimness. Who’s to say I can’t do both?” Discord snapped his claws, and bars of the cage above him bent down into arms to grasp him gently by the shoulders. They slowly lifted him up and away, as he continued talking. “You’ll all be released in time, no fear. Just as soon as I’m sure that everything’s been set to rights. And wrongs. And lefts. And all things in-between.”

He was lifted clear of the cage top, and vanished into the pink sky as the bars closed. Clouds slid in to fill the void, and past them, the great and struggling shape of Canterlot was glimpsed.

Slowly, all eyes turned to regard Celestia.

Celestia breathed out, settled herself back on the cage floor, drew out another letter, and sent it away in fire. She reached for another.

“What did he mean, he was in your garden?” screeched the Crown.

Really, You're Just Better Off Waiting For It All To Blow Over.

Outside the cage, amidst a maelstrom of pink-and-red clouds, lightning warbled and thunder bloviated. Pieces of Equestrian countryside made vast, distant silhouettes all around, floating and rotating in what could only be described as an exceptionally stately and glacially slow waltz. Canterlot continued its helpless drift, its legs still kicking away for all that its torrent of curses had fallen to a steady grumble.

High above, another long silhouette undulated its way forward. Its front rose, in the manner of a hunting hawk, and two gleaming lights fixated upon Canterlot. At a point above the city, shrouded by stormclouds, it stopped, as cold and poised as a steel spring.

With one furious burst of motion, great metal tentacles flared out along its sides, and a battery of catapult fire roared across the sky. A grinding, cthonic ullulation pealed from its depths as its pennants flew, and the Fear Nowt descended upon Canterlot.

“Um,” said Simoom, whose wide-eyed gaze kept swinging between the display and Celestia. “Is … is anybody else seeing a metal sky kraken attack Canterlot? That’s not just -”

“Nobody cares, you non-entity.” The Capricious Crown’s attention remained fixed on the alicorn at the cage’s centre, who maintained her silence. “Celestia, I’d like to tell you all about these wonderful inventions we have in this day and age. We call them safes. Can you guess their purpose? There’s something of a clue in the name. They keep things safe. Did you know that? Things like, say, a enemy sealed away in statue form. Who might well escape from said statue form.”

“You may reasonably assume that I know of such precautions,” murmured Celestia, her attention elsewhere as she sent another letter off.

“Let’s say I had that sort of statue, and I wanted a good, secure safe to make sure it didn’t get out, better than what I might get from any normal market. Why, I might commission a good, thrice-folded mithril-and-adamantium alloy body for it from the Diamond Dogs. Have some of my ibexes and takins imbue it with strengthening and anti-magic wards and runes. If I ever wanted to open it again - goodness knows why, but bear with me - I’d put on a nice, reinforced door and place an order with one of these master locksmiths that crop up like weeds in Asinia. I could even go so far as to store it in a nice, reinforced facility, like a labyrinth which had had the personal and lethal attention of a Zebrican pyramid-builder. And then I’d kill every being involved at the task’s completion so that word didn’t spread. Those would all be lovely and entirely sensible precautions to take, wouldn’t you agree? It would be fantastically unlikely for anything adverse to happen to the statue then, wouldn’t it?”

“One might be charitable and guess that I am - and was - already quite aware of the potential for most of these to be used.”

“A garden.”

“Yes, Crown. A garden.”

“You kept this being contained in your garden.”

Celestia drew out another letter, and it vanished in a snap of fire. “There are some cages which are easier to defy than others,” she said grimly. “There are some beings against whom merely physical wards cannot suffice. Their confinement must be tailored to fit. Discord is a creature of elemental chaos, one of many of the world’s mysteries born in Antlertis’ Fall. He draws upon chaos for his power, and he resonates with it where it emerges in his environment. A note of disharmony can draw him out of dormancy, and has done so today.”

There came a pause. “Well, good for him,” said Fairy Floss. “I don’t see where that necessitates using a garden to house him, though.”

“A locked and trapped safe in any form would not suffice. Stone erodes. Iron rusts. Enchantments fade. Entropy and change invariably set in; the fundamental discord of order unravelling. Chaos would build over time. But a garden...” Celestia sent off another letter, and studied the motes of fire scattering through the cage wall.

“A garden where nature is kept in order, where green and growing things are constantly cultivated and kept in order? A garden where ponies gather in peace and friendship and foster harmony? A garden in my Equestria?”

Silence pervaded, and the smile she sported as the next letter was sent away was soft and brief. “It kept him contained for over a thousand years. Not a bad record, I think.”

“Until today,” said Rex. “What changed? Was his statue assailed? Was there some manner of insurgency in Equestria? Was thy nation’s stability undermined in any grand way?”

“There was a school trip,” said Celestia.

Silence pervaded, as best it could amidst all the thunder and high winds and sounds of a ship-kraken biting chunks out of a roaring city.

“A school trip,” said the Crown.

“There was some sort of scuffle between the children in front of his statue,” said Celestia irritably. “I didn’t think something so small-scale would be enough to free him. Better precautions will be taken in future, rest assured.”

“Excellent! Fantastic! We’ll all chip in! By all means, if you want to build a garden in the safe to be sure, we’ll indulge you. And we’ll be sure to put all manner of ‘No children allowed entry’ signs around it. No weak spot left uncovered.” The Crown dropped its chipper tone in favour of cold contempt. “But we digress. Your amazing catalogue of failures to one side, you clearly somehow imprisoned him once. How?”

“She has her Elements,” said the Fire Queen. “The same that apparently restored Princess Luna’s moral compass so very recently. Handy items, without a doubt. I am curious as to why they are not in use now.”

“Thank you, Fire Queen. I did indeed have my Elements. But ...” Another letter sparked away, and Celestia watched it go with tired eyes. “But the bearers were isolated by Discord. Twisted against their own wills and virtues. I am currently trying to get them back to their old selves.”

“How? Polite correspondence? ‘Dear brain-scrambled servile, please, if you would be so gracious, consider kicking that nasty old all-powerful chaos elemental out of your brain and give him a good wallop with the Elements. Sincerely, Princess Celestia.’ Blackness Beyond take us now.” The Crown’s jewels glowed like embers. “Do you have any other measures? How did you learn of Discord’s weakness against these Elements in the first place?”

“Through long and laborious effort.” Sparks glittered up into the red-tinged stormclouds. “We scoured through the accumulated lore left behind by Starswirl and Meadowbrook and many others. We hunted for any and every advantage, any new trick. Our very alicornhood is owed to our striving then. Even that was not sufficient. Eventually, we sailed ...” Celestia broke off with a weary sigh. “Well. The fine details aren’t necessary. Suffice to say that we were led to the location of the Elements somewhat closer to home than we’d expected. We secured them, used them, and ended Discord’s reign.”

“So they had a source. Could more be produced? If so, how would we use them?”

“Even if you finagled a way to break free of this prison, you wouldn’t find a fresh crop of Elements anywhere, rest assured. And even if there were … you’ll pardon my cynicism if I suspect none of us here to be capable of their use. The only hope I can see lies in restoring the current Element Bearers to their proper selves.”

“These same bearers who Discord’s already defeated once?” Fairy Floss interrupted. “We can’t afford to hinge our hopes on that, dear. We require something new.”

The alicorn said nothing, instead dispatching two more letters in quick succession, flashes of golden fire briefly painting the cage interior bright. “Then I advise coming up with something uncommonly good. If any of you have any plans, any sources of power or knowledge that you’ve been keeping undisclosed for a rainy day … consider the day to be in full deluge.”

A second note of silence, a second chance to breathe. Outwith, the Fear Nowt roared as one of Canterlot’s immense towers bent and slammed up across its hull.

Sailears, who’d been riveted by the exterior display all the while, said, “Why’s that flying thing got an Asinial flag at the top?” The Ceratos Emperor glanced over, mild interest showing on his face.

“Because Discord doesn’t seem to discriminate at all when it comes to mayhem, much as I’d like him to,” muttered Burro. He wracked his own brains for anything that could be played against Discord, any secret weapon Asinia possessed. The army and the Merchant Fleet were as helpless as anything else. Even the secret schematics for new ship designs and hitherto-undisclosed alchemical weapons that might skirt what was considered dark magic weren’t likely to cut it.

Not that they could have been deployed in any case, so long as he remained in this cage. He did have a few emergency signals on his person, however. One of the alchemical twists of paper held in a pouch at his middle would send out the order for the whole Merchant Fleet to assume a war footing when torn. Tearing another would simply demand the immediate attention of his personal guard. Another, his personal favourite, would summon a staff member bearing coffee, and he had every intention of reducing it to confetti if and when this all blew over.

Any port in a storm. Burro took off the pouch and rummaged through it as others began to speak around him. He looked into it, and red and yellow twists of paper looked up at him with sheepish eyes. Between them, a smaller orange twist wriggled and cooed.

Burro sighed and closed the pouch, looking up in time to catch the tail-end of the Cormaer’s suggestion.

“...nigh-on five-hunnert crates of black powder, stacked high,” she said. “Lure him in and set a fuse. If an explosion large enough tae flatten a forest wouldnae do it, I’d certainly no want tae be on the receiving end of whit would.”

“Where exactly is this black powder?” said Greenhorn. “Forgive me if I’d sooner not resign civilisation’s fate to the claws of corvids.”

“Nae fear of finding oot that, kye. But ye’d only have tae resign tae me. I can lure wi’ the best of them.”

“It’s a refreshingly direct approach, dear, I’m giving it that, and I’m sure your personal involvement would reassure us all,” said Fairy Floss. “But it also smacks of being too direct for Discord to succumb to. Would containing an explosion be any challenge to him-?”

“No,” interjected Celestia, who had worked her way through most of the letters.

“...Well then.”

“If we can get back to Zebrica, we can raise an army against him,” said Milia thoughtfully. “Many of the deathly regiments have endured the fighting thus far, and they’ll be secure in their barracks-pyramids. If they were sent out -”

“Spirits spare us from zebra necromancy,” muttered the part-okapi Gazellen.

“It’s not necromancy!” spat Milia, wheeling on the okapi.

“It’s sufficiently advanced alchemy!” said Punda the second after. “On a large scale and with all appropriate embalming and other esoteric sciences involved. You dribbling hick.”

“Hick? Hick? You stuck-up little ...”

“You’d send out your deathly regiments against Discord. I’m sure they’d make a triumphant display of things, truly,” said the Fire Queen, contempt lacing every syllable. “Before they all just collapse into their individual bones. Or collect into one mighty and very confused bone golem. Or just reappear in the homes of their descendants, helping themselves to coffee and moaning about the state of modern affairs. I’m sure Discord’s imagination is a far more fertile place on such affairs than mine.”

“I … well, what would you suggest?” said Milia. “Do you have any lore that could help us, Your Majesty? Anything helpful to add? Or do you presently find yourself short?”

The Fire Queen blinked, the motion slow and reptilian. A soft, subtle smile laid the tips of her needle-like teeth bare. “Amazing,” she said. “All of Dactylia wants to die burning. Who would have suspected?”

“I don’t think I want to die burning,” said Sailears helpfully.

“Indeed, little one. Indeed you don’t, thus far. You can be spared.”

Sailears smiled proudly.

Greenhorn spoke then, his tone hesitant. “I … have something, Celestia. Something that may of use to us all. It has always been one of Bovaland’s secrets, to expended only in the event of our very destruction threatening … but I suppose this qualifies.”

All eyes turned to the Bullwalda as he paused for breath, one of his hooves tapping an irregular beat on the floor. Burro was all too happy to indulge his own naked intrigue. He clocked Celestia lifting her head briefly, Fairy Floss’s eyes acquiring a certain glint, and the Crown’s jewels shimmering blue. The Cormaer shifted on her claws, her dark expression unfathomable.

“There’s a certain resemblance to Zebrica’s own deathly regiments, I suppose, but it’s of a decidedly more arcane nature. Perhaps more suited to combating Discord.” He paused to compose himself. “The Royal Barrow stands in Cromlech Taur, under which each passing king and queen is laid to rest along with their oldest huscarls. That much is public and known to all. But under the barrow, past twisting little passages and hidden doors, there is a cavern which each Bullwalda and huscarl endeavours to visit just before their passing. There is a ritual, and the processes elude my understanding, but … the soul, or the ghost, or the magical force, or whatever-you’d-name-it of each Bullwalda is taken. Collected. Mustered into the ranks of those gone before, to sleep until awoken by one of the blood royal, to defend Bovaland in one last battle when all our other strength is gone and our enemies are at the gates.”

Burro tried to dredge dates from memory. “How long has Bovaland been saving its kings and queens and huscarls for a rainy day, exactly?”

“Since we freed ourselves from the shackles of the old Capric Empire. Perhaps longer, if the legends regarding -”

Burro did some mental arithmetic involving the long span of centuries, the squadrons of personal huscarls reportedly acquired, and the chronic tendency of Bullwaldas to die violently and young, and produced an answer in the form of an impressed whistle.

“Spirits save us from Bovish necromancy as well. What’s wrong with the rest of the world?” muttered the okapi Gazellen.

Greenhorn rounded on him, but was cut short by the Cormaer. “How would ye awaken them?” she said thoughtfully. “Would ye have tae be in the cavern?”

“The legends say that I, or at least someone of my dynasty, would have to stand in the cavern and personally plead the air for aid. I can believe it; I have visited the cavern itself and the enchantments thick in the air, old though they may be, seem primed to respond to -”

“So, just as a wee hypothetical, if some nasty invading force wanted tae avoid that, they’d have tae make sure ye and yer kin were isolated from Cromlech Taur? Aye?”

Greenhorn stood stock-still before his expression slid into an enraged snarl. Something more than mere fury simmered in his eyes as he stamped forward. “You -”

Light violently flashed in the air between them, harsh and golden, throwing both Greenhorn and the Cormaer back. The light persisted, forming a glowing barrier. Past it, Celestia had risen, up and away from the few remaining letters. Her stance was poised, her expression was cold.

“Members of this company, I can’t help but observe a certain lack of fellowship in the discussions thus far,” said Celestia icily. “We have a common purpose this day. Keep it in mind.”

The Cormaer gave her a chilly, wary glance, and then looked away. Greenhorn glared daggers at the Cormaer, spat, and turned on his hoof.

“The same problem applies, of course,” said the Fire Queen. “Your ancestors’ ghosts are now undoubtedly enjoying life as household furniture, begonias, unmentionables, or whatever else flitted through Discord’s mind when he visited your city. Put them from your considerations.”

“Celestia is quite right, though it appalls me to say it. Let us focus on fixing her mess before we start planning for the future.” The Crown’s gems glittered a thoughtful green. “Fascinating and wonderfully brute-force as the solutions proposed so far may be, there’s another common fault between them all. Cormaer, we don’t currently have a stack of black powder to play with.”

“Mair’s the pity.”

“Punda, Milia, whichever you are, is there any barracks-pyramid here for you to command?”

Punda and Milia glared.

“Bullwalda,” the Crown said sweetly, “Are you currently standing in the cavern under Cromlech Taur?”

“Your point is made.” Greenhorn’s voice was curt, clipped. He had turned away, and stood looking outwards the churning sky. His expression was downcast and dark. “Prattle in some other being’s ear.”

“Why, I’ll prattle at everyone. And my point is indeed made. Let’s not waste our time with elaborate plans around elaborater tools when we’re still stuck a mile up over Equestria. Let’s focus on simply getting out of this cage. Celestia, you indicated that teleportation was closed to us, barring passage through magical fire.”

“Yes,” replied Celestia. She had settled back down to the floor and the remaining letters. “That warding is beyond my power to circumvent or force aside. None of you will have any better luck, even acting in concert.”

“Oh? Interesting conjecture. But we’ll put that aside and get back to it. Could you send one of us through the fire?”

“The dragon at the other end of this fire is young, his flames as yet only capable of letters and little else. I’m imposing enough of a burden on him as it is with this volume. Anything larger would hurt or kill him. As well as … terminate the passage. I’m assured that’s not a pleasant thing to happen.”

“Never mind, then. Could we simply breach the cage wall?”

“I have tried with my own magic, as well as with the Sun Blade. If I am not powerful enough to do it, then nobody else here will have any better luck.”

“Perhaps, Procer, if we were to utilise our magic in concert -” started the Ceratos Emperor.

“Even then,” said Celestia. “Even then. I am all too aware of my own capabilities.”

No challenge in the words, Burro noted, no boast or self-aggrandizement in her tone. A simple statement of facts. Celestia looked briefly back to the world outside as she sent off another letter. Three were left.

The Crown radiated a cruel, canny satisfaction.

“Tsk. How little you think of us. All we have to do is apply enough force in the right place with the tools available to us. And even if we fail … at least we’ve learned. Menial?”

The ibex servant froze, her magical aura flickering. “Your Unfettered Highness?”

“Don me.”

The blood ran from her face, and after a torturous pause, her voice emerged as a trembling whisper. “My - my life for Capra.” Her aura glimmered, and she lifted the Crown towards her own head.

“No.”

Tendrils of golden-tongued flame lunged into the ibex’s aura and tore the Crown from her grasp, all but pulling her off her hooves. Spinning through the air, the Crown was pulled to a stop before Celestia’s face. The alicorn had risen; her stance was controlled and poised. Her voice, when she opened her mouth, was soft. Her eyes were purest fire.

“You would dare do so in front of me?” she said, in a mild and pleasant tone with cold, deep undercurrents that made Burro want to hide under something safe. Ideally, a mountain. “You would dare?”

“Do be sensible about this, Celestia. Difficult, I appreciate, but try,” said the Crown. It helplessly rotated in place before Celestia, its tone casual and unchanged. “It’s not as if she’s doing anything useful with all that latent magic of hers. The least I can do is make sure it’s put to good purpose. If it’s enough to free us, then we’re freed. If not, then what’s really been lost?”

“If you imagine I would stand meekly by while you ground a being into dust before my eyes, then you know nothing.”

“My word, is this morality I’m observing? What an odd sort. Letting the whole world burn for the sake of one little caprid. Letting your Equestria burn for the sake of one little caprid. There’s a time and a place to indulge your benevolent streak -”

Celestia slung the Crown to one corner of the cage, where it clattered upside-down. A golden shield flashed to life before it, blazing magic flickering off it, blocking it off from the rest.

The Crown only laughed. “You’re far too used to being powerful, Celestia. If the stakes weren’t so high, I’d be fascinated just watching this play out.”

“Sit there and be silent. Your servant has no ability to retrieve you, so expect to get nowhere by issuing commands in your usual manner. Be silent unless you have something to contribute.” Burro swore he saw flames dancing out along the feathers of Celestia’s outspread wings. She shuddered and turned back to the others, all of whom had instinctively shrunk back. The fires in her eyes had diminished, down to pure points in the blackness of her pupils.

“Apologies for that display,” she said, sounding scarcely apologetic. “Let us return to the discussion. If anyone has any means of breaking free from this cage on their persons, I suggest employing them.”

A heavy silence hung, and was only quietly broken by the ibex. Her voice was all but a whisper, audible only to Celestia and Burro, hanging nearby. “Tundra, Your Majesty.”

“I beg your pardon, dear?” Celestia turned to the ibex, her expression softening slightly.

“You asked after my name. Tundra, Your Majesty.”

A smile crept onto Celestia’s face, and her wings fell back to her side. Her stance relaxed. “A good name to bear. I’ve known other noble caprids with it from times gone by.” She sighed and scooped up her letters, one of which she immediately sent off in flames. Two left. “Let me attend to what’s left of this, everyone. Discuss anything you might be able to venture amongst yourselves. If any viable plan emerges that requires my contribution, let me know.”

She turned to one side, the two letters rising before her. She studied them. The others remained silent. Outside, Canterlot succeeded in kicking off the Fear Nowt's lattice mast. Roars from both buffeted the cage.

“Dwellers Below take it,” snapped Rex. “If magic will not avail us, then mayhaps some technique from proper delving shall. Jackal Alpha and … whichever of thee is the Fennec Alpha, come palaver with me. Let some proper canine sense shed a light on all this.”

Burro watched them split apart into their own group and fall into a low, yipping discussion. Elsewhere, the Gazellens drew back into their own muttering cliques. Fairy Floss ambled over to join one of them, while Greenhorn remained where he was, staring at the sky. The Cormaer, after a moment’s hesitation, hopped over to where the Crown lay behind Celestia’s barrier. Green jewels glittered at her approach. Tundra stood unsure in the middle of it all, until Sailears wandered up to her, chatting blithely.

Celestia sat to herself at one side, and sent away one of her letters. She hesitated as she kept the last one close, and held it close to her chest for a moment as her eyes closed.

Burro took a step closer to her, but was stopped by a claw falling across his wither. “Pretty situation to be in,” came Gellert’s voice.

Burro sighed. “Makes you wish for the old days. It all seemed simpler then. Or we were just blissfuly ignorant. One of the two. Maybe both.”

“I’ll put ten rucats on ‘ignorant’.” Gellert ruefully chuckled. “Simpler times. I’m sure we had good reasons to get into the game at the time. Do you think it’s too late to just up sticks and wander back off to the Ceratos Sea? Always a career there for a pair of privateers, I’m told.”

“Tempting. My spur-fighting’s a little rusty, though. And Damasque would probably hunt me down and flense me to the marrow if I left the building for too long.”

A blast came from their right, and Burro glanced in its direction. Several pickaxes and pouches had been produced by Rex and the others, and they were all studying a point on the cage floor shrouded by smoke and drifting sparks. Punda and Milia wandered over, and more alchemical terminology than Burro’s brain was comfortable with drifted out of the subsequent discussion.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got anything that might spring us?” said Gellert. “I’d just like to be sure we’ve exhausted all our options before the dogs accidentally blow us to kingdom come.”

“Nothing useful on my person, no. All I’ve got left is inelegant pleading and harsh invective, and I used up most of the latter getting the Gazellens into line earlier. Yourself?”

“Nothing whatsoever.” Gellert looked at the clouds speculatively and motioned in their direction. “If some of these drift into the cage, I could try and work with them. Fashion them into a stormcloud and hammer the floor with lightning. We’d want a pegasus for an optimal job there, of course, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

Burro shrugged. “Ask Celestia. She’ll be able to manipulate weather. Doubt she’ll especially be in practise, but sheer power might compensate.”

“Delegate, eh? I like the sound of that. I’m sure she’d be up for helping.”

They looked to the lone Celestia, who held the last letter in the air before her. She closed her eyes, breathed out, and released it. Fire streamed up into the storm, her magenta eyes tracking it all the while.

“Come on,” Celestia murmured. A long moment passed before she spoke again, her voice quiet and impossibly weary. “Come on. Please, Twilight. I never taught you how to lose.” She looked imploringly out towards the storm, but it had no answer to give. Eventually, her neck slumped and her eyes closed, and the alicorn looked every one of her years.

“...Perhaps later,” said Burro. “We’ll have to wait for a cloud to drift in, after all. No point rushing.”

There was motion to his side, and he turned to see the great, lumbering form of the Ceratos Emperor, whose gaze calmly regarded one of the cage walls. Teal light flared around his horn to stab out at the cage. The lines swallowed the magic, flared pink, and then settled unmarred.

The Emperor tilted his head, and then shrugged as he turned to bestow a faint smile upon Burro and Gellert. “The barrier is indeed formidable. Perhaps one of the imperial sorcerers would have better luck. They are painstakingly trained and examined for this sort of circumstance, after all.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have one in your pocket, would you?” said Burro. He’d frozen upon the Emperor’s approach. He’d not relished the prospect of this particular encounter. But they did say the Emperor was kept pampered and cloistered. Perhaps he was blissfully unaware of the Merchant Fleet’s efforts.

The Emperor chuckled. “Alas, we doubt any would fit. Perhaps if the tapirs were capable of the arcane arts, some such arrangement could be made. We shall have a word with the census takers to remain watchful for such talent.” His smile widened. “You are an Asinian, correct? Would you fain settle a dispute for us?”

“Regarding?”

“What we understand to be your nation’s flag.” The Emperor gestured to where the Fear Nowt had somehow placed Canterlot in a headlock. The flag of Asinia, two horizontal stripes, red on top and blue beneath, centred by a yellow circle. “There is debate in the court about the exact symbolism. Such civil discussion is welcomed, of course, but our curiosity compels us to know the truth of the matter.”

“Oh? Well, I’m afraid to disappoint, but I’m afraid even in Asinia, there’s some debate. The blue represents the sea and the red the sky, that’s generally agreed upon, and most think the circle’s the sun. Donkeys then tie themselves up in knots about whether it’s a dawn sky, representing Asinia always coming into its full glory, or whether it’s a dusk sky, representing us always looking towards the horizon. And some in a properly self-deprecating mood think the sun’s actually a gold coin, representing our fixation on what we love most in all the world.” Burro grinned wryly. “Everyone in your court’s probably correct in some way.”

“Ah? We would usually be disappointed without a clear answer - but then, truth is very, very malleable in our profession, isn’t it?” The Emperor’s eyes seemed to acquire a certain sharpness despite his persisting smile, and Burro felt his footing in this conversation wobble.

“I’m glad to see cynicism isn’t a vice limited to myself,” he said airily.

“Quite. But there are some truths beyond denying.” The Emperor continued to smile. “For example, it is a truth that our proper rule is that of all under heaven. It is another truth that, for all practical intents and purposes, that rule is somewhat arrested by the seas surrounding Ceratos. It is true that to manage merely that domain requires us to stay constantly in the capital’s palace, delivering instructions and receiving reports each and every day. No province of the empire is beyond our vigil.”

“I sympathise. Asinia’s own bureaucracy, awful as it may be, probably doesn’t even compare -”

“It is another truth,” continued the Emperor, “that we have received a great many reports from the governors of coastal provinces, pleading for aid and forgiveness often on the very same line. They claim that they have been intruded upon, intimidated, even subject to the predations of donkey vessels, obliging them to open their ports to foreign treaties and unequal trade in spite of our instructions to the contrary.”

“I … corsairs are a sad fact of life upon the open seas. I can’t claim responsibility for such vessels and their crews, though my own fleet certainly acts to curb their efforts -”

“It is true that these vessels fly a device identified to us as the flag of the Asinial Republic. Red and blue fields, divided horizontally.” The Emperor leaned closer, and past the faint glimmer of magic playing around his horn, his expression was nothing like a smile. “A golden coin at their center.”

“That … that could ...”

“We would be fascinated by your account behind these truths.”

“Excuse me,” said Gellert amiably, stepping in between Burro and the Emperor, “Are things about to get unreasonable?”

The Emperor, who towered above the griffon, turned to regard him, his expression impassive. “Step lightly around matters beyond your concern, little chieftain.”

“Taken as a yes. Excellent. I’m good at ‘unreasonable’.” Gellert cracked the knuckles on his claws. “If you felt like being efficient and cutting out the middle-griffon, you could always just start screaming and bleeding right now. Or you could even walk away. Don’t say afterwards you lacked options.”

“Don’t listen to the little half-thing,” barked one of the Gazellens, who’d been pointed out to Burro as the Grand Duke of the hippopotami. His head certainly suited the bill, though his warthog body raised doubts. “I’ve had donkey ships menacing my sealine as well. If you want to extract satisfaction, rhino, I’ve got your back.”

“Half-thing?” Gellert wheeled on the Grand Duke. “Jolly good. I was wondering what to do with my other claw while beating the Emperor stuffingless. Thank you for being an answer.”

“Damn it, Gellert, this isn’t how you defuse things,” hissed Burro in the griffon’s ear. “I’ll buy you a drink later, but stand down.”

“Are you having a fight? Is the loser going to be sacrificed to the war god? Can I watch?” Sailears bobbed up at the back of the crowd that was gradually assembling.

“Creator’s quill, enough!” Celestia’s voice was a thunderclap; the alicorn rose sharply and all but bowled the assembly back with the force of her shout. “I ask for but a single session’s harmony! You all should have enough cause to seek it without my asking for it.”

“Forgive us, dear Celestia, for getting frustrated at not being able to correct your mistakes,” rasped the Crown where it lay, loomed over by the standing Cormaer. “Perhaps you’d concede that certain limitations aren’t making it any easier for us. For what it’s worth, some are getting along marvellously.”

“Aye,” croaked the Cormaer. “It’s an ill wind that blaws, and it’s yin o’ yer making. Are we tae have the tools tae undae it?”

“You,” said Celestia, and the word came flecked with anger before Celestia bit it back, “You should at least be able to set aside your differences and past hostilities, at least for now, no matter my faults. What does this bickering accomplish?”

“Lets off steam,” muttered Greenhorn, still silent at one side. He turned to glare at the Cormaer, the expression as cold and dark as a week-dead fire. “Establishes where we stand. Makes everything plain.”

“Plainer than yersel’, certainly, wee kye.” The Cormaer clacked her beak. “I’ve nae illusions. Dae the same and pray for yer nation.”

Celestia breathed deeply and inclined her head towards the ground.

“How are we to not bicker?” snapped Rex, lumbering away from his own group. “The mountains, the underholds, all boils below my paws, and all I may do is debate the most rudimentary of chemistry with a pair of striped inadequacies!”

“Forgive us if the latest advances in esoteric alchemy go right over your hairy head, you idiot cur,” snapped Punda. “How can you do anything with that pouch in your possession? Explosives? Don’t make me laugh.”

“Be silent,” said Celestia, her voice low.

“You get us all trapped here, you stop us using our most reasonable and pragmatic of contingencies, and you complain when our mood sours? I confess amazement, but not any sort reflecting well upon you,” sneered the Crown.

“For my part,” ventured Simoom, “I really do think it couldn’t hurt anyone here to just take a step back and -”

“Shut your vacuous noise-maker, you irrelevance. Spare us your insipid, useless pretence at morality, Celestia. If you want an end to this, undo this shield and give me back to my menial! Or do the noble thing and wear me yourself. Imagine Discord meeting that.”

“Be silent,” said Celestia.

“If we do anything productive here today,” said the Emperor, “we shall wipe this pirate off the face of our earth, and all who stand with him. We shall have peace in our empire.”

“You and what army? Or what other griffon?” replied Gellert.

“He wouldn’t have to go far to find support,” growled one of the Gazellens.

“No, but he’d be stretched to find anything worthwhile.”

“One wonders why the theatre was ever deemed necessary,” the Fire Queen said to herself.

“Be silent,” said Celestia. “Be silent! Be silent, you bleating, fractious, empty-headed children! BE SILENT!”

A tempest of magic lashed out on all sides, the flames of it outstripping light itself for speed. Burro barely gasped before it seized right around him, hurling him up to dangle helplessly in the air of the cage. Half-glimpsed, shrouded by whirling motes of light, the others flailed about him. Tundra and Sailears huddled on the ground, the ibex shielding the little elephant from the full brunt of the pelting force that filled the cage and battered against its walls.

At the centre of it all, Celestia, still as winter’s heart. White-hot flames wreathed around her form and mingled with the tips of her drifting mane, the dawn colours blazing. She opened incandescent eyes and spoke, and the thunder beyond was her echo. “I asked for nothing but a moment of peace. A moment’s harmony. A moment where you so much as acknowledged a problem greater than yourselves. What did I get?”

The magic rocked, and Burro slammed into the cage wall at his back. He coughed, tried to speak, and was utterly drowned out.

“Nothing but chaos, nothing better than outside! Why did Discord bother? Notes of harmony passing like sparks in darkness, gone with any passing gust! Nothing but what I’ve seen, that I am infinitely tired of, down century after century after century!”

The storm filled Burro’s senses, eclipsed all else, reduced his own thoughts to a dull roar, and past the darkness, he heard only Celestia, pure and terrible. “I once - once, during a very dark time - imagined I could simply put the world to rights. Conquer chaos. Peace at the end of a lance, and harmony ever after wherever the sun set and rose! I should have thought on it more then. I should have acted.”

Burro tried to so much as lift a hoof against the force that held him, and found himself as helpless as a foal. “I should have taken all your reins long ago!”

A note rang through Burro then, ran through the world. A single, still, and beautiful note that trilled right down to his core. The thunder stilled.

And then there was light, a prismatic wave that rolled right across Burro’s vision and left open sky in its wake. White fluffs of cloud in a bright blue expanse, with scarcely a violation of the laws of nature to be seen.

The other rulers and delegates drifted around him in a ring, confused and blinking and quietly terrified. The Gazellens were their old selves again, congruous all over. At their centre, Celestia hovered, the flames about her dispersing in the sunlight. She blinked and looked around, down to where the green, rolling landscape of Equestria had been restored. Canterlot perched on a quiet mountainside, reflecting the sun on every surface. For a moment, the universe simply drifted by.

A weary smile and a dry laugh escaped Celestia then as she shook her head. “Ah. Timing.”

Burro closed his eyes with the empty sky at his back, permitting himself to laugh. At last, at long last, a moment to breathe easily, to forget about everything, to get back to the conventional problems ....

Then physics remembered it had a job to do.

And although the reversal made for a decidedly more boring world, at least the next minutes full of falling and shrieking and dramatic flying rescues and the Fire Queen’s delayed growth didn’t lack for excitement.

Just Be Sure To Steady Yourself Afterwards.

In a large and sumptuous office within the Asinial Parliament Building, by a window that looked over the dark and moonlit harbour, Burro Delver sat and watched the world turn. The moon’s reflection cut a lazy path across the quiet waters, with only a few wandering tugs and fishing vessels marring its path.

He reached round to his desk and casually hefted the half-full coffee pitcher, dragging long and deeply at the spout. Cups on the desk gathered dust.

It had been a busy past few hours. Quite apart from pacifying Asincittà, he’d had to re-establish contact with the far-flung elements of the Merchant Fleet and check that their ships were all restored and not eating anything or anyone. Letters had been sent off in different directions. One had gone to Gellert, an invitation to meet and drink themselves out of their skulls the next mutually free moment they got. Another had been dispatched to Ceratos, apologising for the conduct of rogue elements of the Merchant Fleet and offering new trade terms privileged towards Ceratos for all the inconvenience.

The latter letter could have waited - Ceratos was happily half the world away once again. But after what he’d seen from Celestia ....

Her own letters on the matter of the Ceratos treaty ports had grown increasingly shirty over the last months. She could be spared any provocation.

Burro wondered if the rest of the world would have the same view. He sipped from the pitcher, and looked out towards the still night. As still as you got around Asincittà, at least. And only quiet for now.

If you sought peace, and all that.

“It’s probably unfair to assume they’ll all turn into krakens,” he muttered.

“Beg pardon, Arch-Minister?” said Silhouette, his secretary.

“Do me a favour, Silhouette. Before you retire for the evening, send a message to Ms Amiatina of the Brineside Shipwrights. The Asinial executive’s interested in placing an order.” Burro looked back down towards the dark and ever-churning tide, and heard the echoes of roaring and fire. “Enquire after the price she’d assign to three Fear Nowt-class ships. We’ll haggle, of course.”

“And with one quick swipe of a claw, I hefted the Dread Emperor of Ceratos up by his neck!” said Gellert, punching the log he was perched on with a fist. Light flickered up from a campfire and made shadows dance across his angular face. “He struggled and fought, but I held him fast using all the strength I had, bracing myself for the Grand Duke of All Hippopotami charging in while I was distracted. Onwards the scoundrel came, onto my other claw, as I swept overhead with the Emperor still in my grasp and drove the duke into the dust! Holding him there, I saw the fight wasn’t over. The Capricious Crown of Capra, glowing with dark magic, holding fast to the head of the biggest, ugliest, hairiest goat I ever saw, three times taller than I! Thinking fast, I met his advance with a stiff uppercut -”

“Dad, you’re somehow using three claws at once in all this,” said the griffoness at the fire’s other side, spearing a brace of salmon on a stick and roasting them above the flames. “If you’re going to embellish, at least keep it internally logical.”

“Nobody likes a griffon who nitpicks on the grounds of mere physics, Gilda darling. Now where was I ... ? Ah, yes, that was when this entire flight of dragons entered from the cage’s side -”

“Cough,” said Fairy Floss.

The butterfly looked sullen.

“Cough,” said Fairy Floss, in a tone of voice and with an expression that in conjunction had been known to make hardened Archons cry softly with terror.

The butterfly grumpily opened its mouth and coughed, bringing up a flailing, spluttering black-coated ram in steel armour. The butterfly discorporated in a flurry of chaotic sparks, and Fairy Floss waited as the black sheep rose unsteadily to his hooves. “A full Black Company once again. Excellent,” she murmured.

“Tyrant? I - ah, I find myself somewhat behind on events.”

“Don’t we all, from time to time,” replied the Tyrant. “The Archons have been summoned for an emergency meeting in the Thousandfold Chamber; other company members should be retrieving them as we speak. Be a dear and escort your sovereign. We have much catching up to do. And so much preparation to be done.”

“Bullwalda, with all respect, we’ve never bound ourselves to the west, to Equestria and Asinia, in such a manner. Loose pacts of convenience, yes, upon occasion, such as during the last Corvid Incursion. But these sorts of premature bindings … it flies in the face of our independence. Your sovereignty. If Bovaland is ever in a place to be dictated to ...”

The Royal Concubine of Bovaland, Steel Thews, a tall and strapping minotaur bull, spoke at length. The thick tapestries and carpets lining the royal bedchamber swallowed the sound, kept all discussions discreet, and muffled the sound of the rain outside. The Royal Consort, Goldtorc, a small and reserved aurochs cow, occasionally chimed in with agreement and fervent nodding.

Greenhorn ignored them both. His armour had been removed, and now rested on a stand in the room’s corner. His unburdened attention was on a cradle and its tiny calf occupant, sleeping softly under the candlelight. He occasionally reached out with his magic to rock his daughter gently.

“Please listen to Steel Thews, dear,” said Goldtorc. “The notion drives right at our very traditions. We cannot tether ourselves.”

“Even if it helps us keep our grounding?”

“Beg pardon, Bullwalda?” said Steel Thews.

“I have not decided upon this lightly, but rather in light of events today,” said Greenhorn quietly, giving the cradle another rock. “We must prepare. A snare draws around us, and to press on as we are risks it growing tight about us. The Crown grows ever-wilder. A new Cormaer threatens in the east.”

“Cormaers are the greatest calamities of the days in which they spawn, I do not dispute that,” said Steel Thews. “But her rule is new. She will need time to cohere the clans and beat the drums for war. We can yet marshal our own resources, Bullwalda. If the lords were mustered -”

“The clans are cohered. The drums have been beating since the end of the last great Corvid Incursion. And she has been negotiating with Capra, the older enemy.” Greenhorn dragged a hoof down his face and looked away from the cradle. “We will face a war on two fronts. We will need help. And I will not, in the last, go to my ancestors as the Bullwalda who lost Bovaland. Let me spare myself that shame.”

He rested a hoof on the cradle’s edge and said, in a voice so low neither Goldtorc or Steel Thews could hear. “No matter what, let me meet them with pride.”

“Forward! Forward, you sons of mothers! Take it on the points!”

Thunder clamoured in the depths as the Diamond Dog squadron advanced on the Dweller Below. The umbral creature flolloped all of its multitude of polyps at them, fires reflecting in its multifaceted eyes, and keened uncannily. Barks and yaps greeted it.

“Spears out!” barked Rex. “Fire lances!”

Spears jutted out from the tight dog phalanx, longer poles bobbing out from their midst, crowned with canisters and torches. Firedamp gas hissed out from the canisters as their bearers yanked levers, swinging the contraptions out towards the Dweller’s sides. Fire met gas, and a solid wave of heat and sound and light and fury erupted and all but blew Rex off his paws, intermingled with the perplexed toots and vwoorp-vwoorp-vwoorp sounds produced by the Dweller. Dazzled, it surged onwards towards the squadron, tentacles cutting through dimensions as it came.

“Brace! Brace!”

The whole squadron shuddered as the Dweller crashed down upon the bristling spear-heads. Sharp mithril met unspecified organic matter, and the Dweller was pushed off with one great heave, leaking uncoloured ichor from a dozen wounds. It chirped, discarded several acid-spraying protrusions in a fit of confusion, and then turned to blunder down into the depths of the tunnel.

“After it!” said Rex. Several other dogs opened cages, and armoured war-canaries took flight after the Dweller, pecking at its squamous back. Dig Dogs immediately started ploughing through the earth at their paws with cries of “Cut it off! Cut it off down below!”

“Infestations of the buggers all throughout the works!” snapped Rex’s lieutenant, slotting a new canister into a spent fire lance. “Barely took ‘em hours, amidst all the chaos!”

Despite it, Rex couldn’t help but grin.

Spare him the open sky and a pack of wittering half-wits and a berserk alicorn. Down here in the homely dark, you could trust things to be sensible.

Mirage, Vicereine of Saddle Arabia and the closest thing to anything like a competent authority figure in Saddle Arabia at any time, was withers-deep in management. So many enquiring Saddle Arabians, so many that had to be fobbed off with variations on, “I’m sure everything is being managed well by greater powers,” and “Our fate, as always, is in the hands of a psychopathic universe, Creator help us all,” and “Look, get back to your homes, you idiots! The evening sandstorm’s on its way!”

It had been hours since the magical chaos had died down, and hours more since Simoom had vanished. She was deep in the archives, calmly debating whether or not to bury herself in more work or permit a mild breakdown into panicked tears, when there came a knock on the door.

She turned, brushing quickly at her eyes, and stopped when she saw the familiar, wonderful, benignly vacant smile of her husband.

“Simoom? Simoom!” The mare rushed over to wrap him in a sudden embrace. “Where were you? I was worrying myself sick, you handsome idiot of a stallion -”

“It’s alright, dear, it’s alright. I was just out … somewhere. Equestria, I think.” Simoom kissed her and put on his best amiable smile. “Met a lot of world leaders there. Bit shouty, some of them, but I’m sure they all mean well.”

“Did … did you?” Mirage paused to consider all the possible terrible implications of this. “Simoom, darling, maybe you should sit down and tell me exactly what you said to each of them. I’ll get my notebook -”

“Just some helpful advice, here and there,” Simoom said airily. “There was more fun afterwards. I helped negotiate a ceasefire!”

“You what?”

“A partition, then.”

The stars hung silent over the meeting place between Punda and Milia, a upraised platform on the disputed border open to the elements. Several empty chairs and several empty bottles of tej shared the space with them, provided by a shuffling staff of mummified servants. One lurched over, trailing wrapping, and gurgled as they offered another bottle between their teeth; Punda took it and waved them away.

“A partition!” declared Milia. “Upper Zebrica for you, and Lower Zebrica for me. Like the two pharaohs in centuries gone by. Equal and resplendent and something-or-other.”

“Not … not permanent, though,” said Punda, who was trying and failing to stay sharp past the muddying influence of bottles of honey wine. “See, I have a plan. We settle down, right? We rule. Don’t step on each others hooves too much. And … we have firstborns! See?”

“Oh,” said Milia. “Oooh. Make the little bastards marry!”

“‘Zactly! They marry, since it’s only proper to keep royalty within the family. We die off sooner or later, and then they take the reunited Zebrican throne. Happiness all round.”

Milia nodded blithely, the wine forming a warm and comfortable cloud in his brain. Something niggled, though. “Hold on,” he said.

“What?”

“Suppose … suppose both our firstborns are colts? Or both fillies? That could play merry hell with the whole ‘siring future members of the dynasty’ thing. Bloody nobles like to raise a ruckus at the slightest lack of protocol.”

Punda sat in silence and contemplated, Milia and the stars as his audience.

“When you think about it,” he said eventually, swaying slightly, “that’s not really our problem. They'll sort something out.”

South of Ungula, the sea rolled on and on until it met the archipelago of the Burning Mountains, where the sky was painted black with smoke, the water in the sounds between the islands was cold and lifeless, and where the passages and caverns riddling the craggy islands were filled with gold.

Here Be Dragons.

It was possible - if only on the cusp thereof - to negotiate a path through the Burning Mountains, avoiding the usual circuitous trading routes to the Ceratos Sea and any other vessels one might wish to avoid. If you didn’t mind having to avoid storms and poisonous water and lava, of course. And the dragons.

Desperada had been smuggling through quick routes in the archipelago for decades now, in a little old-fashioned brig that was as hard and weather-beaten as the jenny herself. But there were still some things she could encounter here that would give her pause.

She crouched next to her daughter on the vessel’s deck, which itself rested beneath a sheltering lip of rock. In the distance, a colossal red dragon, so large that Desperada’s faint grasp of metaphors failed her utterly, perched on the side of one of the larger islands and growled as it tried to push its way down a tunnel in the surface. Said tunnel was sized for a much smaller dragon, however, and the effort was very much ongoing. Flocks of smaller dragons wheeled around in an attempt to be of use, and their roars were distant thunder.

“Ma, do we … do we help it?” said her daughter, the younger jenny cautiously cradling a heavy crossbow in her hooves. “If it’s trying to get at something in there -”

“No, Conquista. No, we do not help it. We avoid whatever this whole mess is, and we sail far away from it.”

Lord Regent Trumpeter of Ancient and Glorious Pachydermia lay behind the low desk in his office and regarded his nephew.

“And did you notice anything … unusual about the others there, Your Grace?” said Trumpeter. “Did they say anything to you that immediately sticks out in your mind?”

“Don’t know, uncle. What’s ‘unusual’?” said Sailears. He scratched one of his ears absently with his trunk. “I don’t think anyone was saying all that odd. Just all grumbling and shouting like when Court’s in session, except with more species. Nobody really stopped until the Equestrian princess went all firey and started yelling at everyone.”

Trumpeter, who had been tapping a quill pen against parchment, missed a beat. “Celestia? Yelling? Are you quite sure?”

“Yes. She was angry. Even angrier than you get sometimes. Does she do that lots?”

“I do not get angry, Sailears. I simply conduct myself so as to preserve a proper balance of humours,” said Trumpeter curtly. He controlled himself and continued. “And no. No, she doesn’t exhibit that … at all, to my immediate knowledge. She just lost control?”

“Yelled at everyone to shut up, went all firey, picked up everyone and threw them around, said something about conquering. And then a rainbow just swept through and it all just stopped. Why was that?”

Trumpeter didn’t answer, his gaze somewhere past his nephew. “I shall have to re-read the histories,” he said eventually, quietly. “This could be bad. Exceedingly bad. Pachydermia may have to take steps to control matters. I shall see who on Ungula may be receptive to a concord. If it comes down to projecting force, Asinia will certainly be an obstacle more easily removed at their end of things. I shall see.”

“What?”

“Never mind for now.” Trumpeter set his pen back to the paper, his purple magic shimmering up his tusks. “Did you speak to anyone there in any detail, Your Grace? I may have some sherbert in my desk for a bright calf who can recall an honest account.”

Sailears brightened. “I met an ibex. She was nice. I think she was a servant to someone else there, and she’d been pulled along by the -”

“Sailears, you mustn’t waste time talking to mere servants, no matter how nice they are. They have nothing useful to tell you, and it risks them thinking beyond their station. Did you speak to anyone more important?”

The little elephant considered. “I met the king of the donkeys, I think! I asked him about his fleet.”

“Oh?” Trumpeter smiled. “And what did he say about it, Your Grace? Any comparisons to our own? Any positions? Any plans?”

Sailears thought hard. “Well, he said that you could take a mast and shove it sideways up your -”

“Holy depths, you’re not seriously suggesting we pin our hopes on an expedition into the Interior?”

“We know the remains of Antlertian outposts still stand there, untouched by anything civilised since the Fall,” said the warthog delegate stoutly at the centre of the circular room. It had been one of the longest sessions of the Gazellen Congress in years, and everyone who was still upright and speaking had cultivated a certain hoarseness. “If there are any useful artefacts as yet unclaimed, that’s where they’ll be. I’m rather taken with the notion of having our own Sun Blade - or something greater - to defend ourselves with in light of today. Aren’t you?”

“Every expedition into the Interior has ended in disaster. The environment’s as hostile as anything outwith the Ungulan North. Even if there was something Antlertian to be salvaged -” said the okapi delegate.

“Failure isn’t inevitable; proper outfitting and planning is not beyond us,” the warthog replied. “There are always adventurers ready to risk themselves for a reward. Remember that pegasus that broke into that old temple in the outer jungle? She could be recruited -”

“Let’s not add a possible Equestrian agent into what could be a reasonable plan,” said the hippopotamus Grand Duke. “Does Celestia really need to possibly gain another Antlertian artefact? We do ourselves no favours by still regarding her as a benevolent force. Not now.”

“Oh, come now,” said the camel delegate. “Her whole style and manner wouldn’t let her -”

“Celestia’s style is to apparently sit on her dreams of world conquest until given something like an excuse,” said the Grand Duke. “I support this plan. Our conventional forces are not enough. We need a greater weapon. We need an unexpected edge, whatever form it might take.”

“I detect a certain hostility in the honourable Duke’s tone towards Celestia,” came a new voice. The gazelle delegate, sitting in a place of honour at one side of the room, their chair a deep shade of red.

“Does that seem so unreasonable?” said the Grand Duke. “You were there in that cage. You saw what could be unleashed, what they can bring to bear, what’s waiting. Equestria must be contained before it is too powerful to be stopped.”

“It’s more reasonable to set ourselves against that than the alternative?” said the gazelle. “So much as acquiring a weapon to wield against Equestria, even if for self-defence’s sake, will set us onto a certain trajectory. We may not like the end result.”

“We can venture into the Interior and at least attempt to arm ourselves,” said the warthog, “or we can remain defenceless. The choice is entirely ours.”

In the airy darkness of the chamber, delegates shuffled and muttered until the camel delegate sighed and rose. “Shall we put it to a vote?”

In far Ceratos, under different stars and indigo skies, the Emperor studied a foreign letter that had arrived mere moments ago. It had been carried by telegram wires and courier-fire and, for the final stretch, by palace bureaucrats. A sigil on the front presented the sea and the dawn sky. Or the dusk sky. And the sun. Or a coin.

He opened it, grimness passing like a shadow across his face. He read the contents, and was smiling by the end.

Emptiness, the philosophers said, begged for filling. A retreat, said the military tacticians, invited an advance.

“Attend us,” the Emperor said aloud. A rhinoceros servant stepped smoothly away from the throne room’s wall and kowtowed before looking up to the Emperor.

“Deliver our instruction that the Lord Ministers are to meet with us an hour earlier than scheduled on the morrow. We have several ideas we wish to see discussed, and would see them given ample time.”

The servant kowtowed once more and left. As they turned at the prescribed number of ten backwards steps, the Emperor permitted himself to smile.

It was true that Ceratos had a great many trees, a lot of metal, a lot of coastline, and a lot of catching-up to do. And it was especially true that the Emperor paid his debts with interest to spare.

Stormclouds darker than the night sky crowded out the stars over Corva, sending down wave after wave of light drizzle. They gathered, threatening thunder, and cold winds scythed through the tips of the vast forests and around the endless mountains.

At the top of a copse of titan pines, matching the mountains themselves for size, mingling branches had been woven into a rough circle. Several corvids perched around, dipping their beaks briefly into jars of whisky. A covered oil lantern dangled down at the centre, giving a measure of guttering light and something almost like warmth.

“Gie’s the clype, then,” said one of them, a lean and straggly magpie, one of her eyes murky. “Discord’s dealt wi’. Whaur’s he noo?”

“Wha can say? After all had passed, Celestia took off wi’ only a few parting words,” said the Cormaer. She was deepest into her own jar, and still steady upon the branch. “She’ll hae her own designs on him, I shouldnae wonder. Naebody after was up fer asking whit.”

“Even ye?” This from a small hooded crow next to the magpie. His tone held a hint - just a hint - of scorn.

The Cormaer was silent initially. “When the bards sing of the Battle of Dream Valley, some few dare tae sing that the Seventh Cormaer fell wi’oot a fight. He just burned.” She looked into the depths of her jar. “I believe them noo. The cuddy queen’s a force ye don’t daur meddle lightly wi’.”

“Ye dinnae mean ye’re just going tae give up, are ye?” The crow sneered. “Ye werenae acclaimed as Cormaer tae turn tailfeathers at the first hint o’ -”

“Weesht, ye shilpit gowk.” The Cormaer’s eyes narrowed. “The cuddies are as in my sights as they ayways were. As I’m sure they always were for every member of this company.”

Nods came from around the circle. A few were more hesitant than others. The Cormaer smirked and turned back to the whisky jar.

“Equestria’s still in my sights. We’re just gaunny … caw canny aboot it. I’ve approached others wi’ similar interests, we’ve had a guid blether. Arrangements are in the making. Equestria will have had its day. And we shall hae oor vengeance.”

“Others? Whit others?”

The Cormaer smiled tightly, and guttering fires danced in the darkness of her eyes.

In mountain-girded Bellbylon, it was long past curfew, and the city and central citadel were quiet. Thunder pulsed through the dark sky, muted by the enchantments plastering the fortress’s walls. Lightning tore silently through the sky. The Crown watched the storm play out, resting on a stone plinth atop an open-topped tower. Rain trickled down in rivulets around the nigh-invisible dome of force that protected the Crown.

The Crown thought. There were scarcely many other things it could do.

Today had been enlightening. So many revelations about the larger world, so many things inferred. Possible pressure points identified, who was vulnerable to whose actions, who was dependent and who wasn’t. What military forces were available where, different tricks each nation had to play. A great deal to plan with.

And diplomatic windfalls! The Crown had made an ally - an ally of convenience, certainly, who was as forfeit as any of the others come the final tally - but a formidable ally regardless. Corva had once sent a black tide thundering across all Ungula; and Capra could use that this time around. Others to be plucked, cajoled into a coalition - Celestia’s outburst could do her no favours in the medium- or long-term.

Admittedly, the Crown felt it had perhaps miscalculated in its provocations. That sort of outburst came with its own short-term disadvantages. Discord’s statue had been beyond retrieval and was now back in Equestria somewhere, most certainly beyond access. The creature could have been a good weapon, a good threat, or even another ally given enough of a soft diplomatic touch before being unleashed. Everything had its levers. You rode the chaos, rather than merely weather it. Other rulers had been cowed. No use beginning negotiations now, surely. Time would be required.

Several servants waited below the tower trapdoor in trembling silence, fleeting briefly across the Crown’s consciousness as the rankling thoughts passed by. But there’d be no need to vent this time. Today had been a good day on the whole.

Restore the Capric Empire.

The same old thought, the Crown’s heartbeat. It was a constant, and it pressed. There were days it hurt, days when progress to the goal had been stunted or avoidably delayed, days where it thundered and demanded attention to the point where the Crown vented with wild abandon, trying to lose itself in the thrill of battle, any battle. Curse its creator to the hundred hells on days like those.

But today, it was a mere satisfied whisper, almost as good as it had been back when the Asinial Dales and the far west of Bovaland had been forcibly re-annexed. Good days. Let there be many more like them.

Restore the Capric Empire.

The Crown couldn’t smile. But its jewels fleetingly blazed the colour of the sun, and that was close enough.

And in Canterlot, not a peep or grumble about the shoddy state of modern architecture was to be heard that night. At least, not from the city itself.

Alloy trotted down a set of stairs into the lower caverns of Canterlot, bearing a tea tray on one upright forehoof. Celestia had sent off the request, and although Alloy only had an approximate idea of where she’d based herself, he was sure finding it couldn’t be too hard -

The stairs wobbled and distorted around him, and Alloy found the descending stone staircase he was on vanish. He instead found himself in a small cavern, crystals glittering in the walls and plants sprouting up along the sides. Several orbs of sunlight drifted casually in the space below the high ceiling. A distressingly familiar statue sat at the centre of it all.

“Wuh?” he said, decorum briefly abandoning him.

“Ah, thank you, Alloy,” came the voice of Celestia to his left. Alloy whirled as the tea tray was plucked smoothly from his grasp by the alicorn, and quickly converted the motion into a smooth bow. He rose to see Celestia attending a row of flowerbeds, tulips sprouting up in a medley of colours from them. An ibex hovered near her, dipping a watering can over other flowering pots.

“Mind the quantities, Tundra,” said Celestia gently. “We don’t want to drown the poor things.”

The ibex immediately fell into a deep bow. “My apologies, Your Majesty, I truly didn’t intend -”

“Rise, Tundra. And please don’t worry. Earth pony magic does grant me a knack for salvaging them.” Celestia gently pushed the ibex up with a helping hoof. “Could you give the hedge on the other side another going-over with the shears? As close to straight edges as you can manage.”

The ibex rushed gratefully off, stopping only briefly as she passed by Alloy to bob a shorter bow. Alloy blinked, shrugged off the urge to bow back to her, and trotted closer to Celestia. The alicorn sipped gratefully from a cup of tea as she turned towards him. “My apologies if the stairs disorientated you, Alloy. I’ve taken the liberty of placing a memory-wiping ward on the route here so the pathway can never be exactly recalled by others. I hope that’s not too uncomfortable a prospect for you.”

“That’s quite alright, Your Majesty,” said Alloy, cursing internally. “May I enquire as to the new help?”

“Tundra?” Celestia glanced around at the busy ibex. “A … refugee of sorts. Things were said and done in a recent conference that may have brought ill upon her and her kin. Luckily, in this instance, she’s a foundling, and I was quick to offer her residency and work here. If she struggles to acclimatise, please help show her the ropes, Alloy.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Alloy looked back to the statue and the surrounding gardens. “Your Majesty … if I may be permitted a multitude of questions ...”

“Discord has been contained once again, thanks to the Element Bearers. And secured again, thanks to long-gone gem miners who needed a storage chamber,” said Celestia, smiling as she followed Alloy’s gaze. “Happily, a flaw in the previous defences was identified. Rest assured that no foals shall be permitted here without my strict supervision.”

“Ah ...”

“Please make certain parties aware of this situation, Alloy. I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate.”

“... Yes, Your Majesty.” If there was any situation more complex than being a spy, Alloy knew, it was being an exposed spy. “Is there anything else you would have expressed?”

“Reaffirm Equestria’s genuine friendship. And that we shall stand by them for whatever follows.” Celestia’s expression grew grimmer as she regarded the statue. “Frying pans and fires come to mind. I hope to navigate events with as few getting hurt as possible.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Alloy wasn’t sure how else to respond. He waited to be dismissed, but no order came. Instead, Celestia stood still, her countenance grim and creased.

“There’s a storm coming,” she murmured. “Not tomorrow. But some day, maybe sooner, maybe later. Perhaps it can be avoided, if there’s enough skill left in these old bones. If not … we shall simply batten down and bear through it as best we can. I’ve faced terrors in my time and pulled Equestria through them. Others have always helped shoulder the burden. Creator’s quill scribe it so, this time it shall not cost them dearly.”

Alloy didn’t react. Celestia kept her gaze upon Discord. “Interesting times await, at least,” she continued. “I imagine all sorts of strange alliances are in the making. Perhaps I’ll even make some of my own. We can but wait and see and act accordingly.”

She rose from her slight slump, snapping out of whatever mood had held her, and turned to smile at Alloy. “Retire for the night, Alloy. Tundra and I shall attend to the tea tray. Sleep well. The world will continue to spin.”

Alloy bowed and turned, and he heard Celestia’s soft voice at his back. “I will make sure of it, come what may.”

You Never Appreciate the Laws of Physics Till They're Gone.

Under an inside-out sun, the Canterlot Palace loudly pontificated on how things had been much better in its young days when young structures had respect for their elders.

“AND IF YOU GAVE CHEEK TO ANY OLD MOTTE-AND-BAILEY, THAT’D EARN YOU A BRICK-TANNING, SURE AS SUNFIRE!” it boomed to all and sundry and nopony in particular. Alloy tried to trot through the wobbling roads underneath it in as composed a manner as possible, which was hard when he was both trying to shield his eardrums and balancing on a street that was turning gradually into jam.

“AND NONE OF THIS WINTER RESIDENCE OR SUMMER RESIDENCE NONSENSE! WE HELD PONIES ALL THROUGH THE YEAR! AND IT MADE FORTRESSES OF US!”

Alloy cleared the last length of jam and leaped with some difficulty onto a nearby bench. The young mule stood there and trembled slightly as mayhem assailed his senses. In a courtyard to his left, statues had set up a bowling alley with the use of protesting spherical Nightguard. Towers to his right, whenever they weren’t hammering up and down like pistons, were apparently trying to copulate. Contrary-inverted-widdershins of his position, the purple-smelling air shrieked casually to itself. Above, the sun had apparently grown bored of being inside-out and was now floating around and eating stars.

Below him, the bench began to growl. He hopped primly off onto the grass - which, Depths have mercy, had failed to act contrary to the laws of nature thus far - and thought.

To his credit, he had at least tried to find out the reason behind it all, if reason was a thing that was on speaking terms with the world anymore. He’d marched around, authoritative and smartly attired in his Royal Household uniform, finding anypony that still had the mental and/or physical ability to speak. From a hysterical maid who he’d rescued from a baying horde of buckets, he’d picked up some story about a statue in the gardens coming to life after a school trip’s visit. From a colourfully sprouting gardener, he’d heard about the Element Bearers heading into a hedge maze.

There was surely some coherent narrative there, but damned if he could see it. All he had was what was before his eyes, and gauging that was hard enough without it changing every few seconds.

Fine. He’d report what he could to his masters.

Alloy, overt servant in the Princess’s Royal Household and covert Agent of the Asinial Republic, slipped off his saddlebag and rummaged around for paper, pencil, and an alchemically-treated paper twist of messaging-fire.

He set the pencil to the paper, closed his eyes as he composed the information he had, and opened his eyes again to find that his paper was fluttering off to enjoy its new existence as a parchment-coloured butterfly.

Low and heartfelt Asiniol blasphemy escaped him as the grass before his hooves grew and twisted, taking the shape of … of …

Of some horrible demon-goat-dragon-chimera thing, which loomed above him in a sudden flourish. It grinned, and reached down with a claw to tweak Alloy’s nose.

“Don’t fuss,” it said. “They’ll all find out soon enough. I’ll make sure.”

Alloy opened his mouth to query, to protest, to swear with sheer bewilderment, he had no idea. But another firm tweak from the creature’s claw stole the words straight from his throat to send them bobbing happily off into the open air, and any further interjections he mustered were swallowed by a tide of full-body confusion that rippled across him.

Alloy’s pony and donkey halves spent a great deal of the next while switching, separating, re-organising, and generally making a nuisance of themselves while he struggled forlornly.

“GET OFF MY LAWNS!” the Palace boomed, and was ignored.

At the same time and eight hundred miles eastwards, under skies in which the sun pretended to behave itself, Asincittà teemed. Asincittà hoached. Asincittà broiled.

Suchlike verbs applied at all times for the great donkey capital, of course. But today was the Revolution Day Regatta, and neither hell nor high water could have prevented the city’s inhabitants from crowding the waterfront and high towers. Some had even commandeered private airships and ornithopters to observe proceedings.

Arch-Minister Burro Delver of the Asinial Republic held pride of place above it all, seated on a balcony extending from the Parliament Building and surrounded on all sides by rows of rising seats and attendant guards. The thunder of the crowds below buffeted even his elevated position, mixed with the high calls of whatever enterprising merchants had had the foresight to set up stalls next to the waterfront, and backed throughout with the throaty growl of distant engines.

It was the ships producing these growls that fixated his attention. Oh, certainly, there were hundreds of smaller sailing vessels circling the harbour in a constant race, thousands of sails and pennants cutting jaunty slashes of colour into the blue sky and waters. Behind them, vessels sailed that represented individual companies or captains. Sleek windjammers, their sails billowing like clouds; puttering paddle steamers and small steamships; privateer battleships flying obscure heraldry proudly. But at the harbour’s centre there rested, still and stately, a squadron of armoured and heavily-armed ironclads from the Merchant Fleet. And to their side, several experimental designs from the city’s military shipwrights.

As was customary for relations between Asinia’s merchants and government, many of these same shipwrights had bought the seats next to the Arch-Minister, and were loudly extolling the manifold virtues of their ships.

“Feast your eyes on these lines, Arch-Minister,” said the young jack at the far right of the row, Vallaire, manager of the Cheval Sea Arsenal, as he gestured at an armoured sailing ship. “Strip out the steam engine, and the Regicide could still outsail anything else on the water. Several captains have already put in offers for her prototype. A Merchant Fleet with her as a mainstay could fly across the oceans to exert our will anywhere.”

“Then strip out the steam engine,” interrupted the elderly, austere-looking jenny to Burro’s left. Grand Noir, who was as close to a fixture of the maritime industries as any donkey still drawing breath. She casually glanced towards a squat, powerful-looking ironclad. “Waste fails to impress, pup, as does needless strain on the overseas coal reserves. Look to my own Horizon Chaser instead. She’ll outperform any current ship-of-the-line on any practical metric you may care to name, Arch-Minister. And at thirty thousand rucats per vessel, you’ll certainly call her a good deal.”

Burro, who’d dozed off through most of his Maritime Engineering lectures in school and had gone on to pursue jennies and a degree in politics in higher education, nodded and affected an expression of critical regard for the vessels. Damned if a lifetime in government had given him much, but it had at least imparted the ability to outpretend even stage actors. “Fine vessels, one and all,” he said, whilst juggling figures in his head to see how many Horizon Chasers he could get before haggling.

The jenny to Burro’s right hadn’t spoken thus far, but had simply observed the regatta and the bickering in the balcony with a subtle smirk playing around her features. He turned to her, and she simply toyed with a flute of wine while maintaining the smirk.

“Ms … Amiatina, was it?” said Burro, gracing her with a smile. “You went to the lengths of buying a seat next to me. Since we’re regrettably past the days where that would be for the pleasure of my company alone, I assume you also have a pitch to make. Would you care to make it?”

Amiatina grinned, drained her flute and rose to make her pitch, throwing one hoof out towards the cluster of ships. “My thanks for your attention, Arch-Minister. Look to the left, and find your reward there.”

Burro looked, and tried to stop his eyebrows rising as he properly took in the largest vessel there. No suggestion of a traditional ship’s lines and features in its massive, grey-armoured hulk; merely a great, imposing brutality blistered over with rows of weaponry. Enchanted ballistae and springalts, steel-wired catapults, and at its heart, two vast chimneys venting a sky’s worth of steam.

“Snappy names rather escape me, I fear,” said Amiatina, intruding in Burro’s enchantment. “The Fear Nowt is her working name, though I’m always open to suggestions.”

“The Overdesigned Rubbish?” suggested Grand Noir. “The Eater Of Coal Reserves? The Oh No, I’ve Overbalanced After One Broadside And Now A Thousand Sailors Have Pointlessly Drowned? My suggestion rates are very reasonable should you want more.”

“Where could you dock her?” said Vallaire, his own tone contemplative rather than acerbic. “I’m trying to think of anywhere else outwith Asincittà with the necessary harbour depth. Maybe Fort Foresight down in the Ceratos Sea, but apart from that ...”

“Her onboard coal stock could let her sail to our most far flung possessions four times over without stopping,” replied Amiatina smoothly. “If, as I suggest, she’s used to enforce Asinial interests down in that area of the world, then the issue should never arise.”

“Then thank the Depths unforeseen calamities never happen at sea,” said Grand Noir.

“I am aware of the factor of risk involved in any sea-going entreprise, Noir,” said Amiatina, a note of sharpness entering her voice. “And I am aware that any ship is susceptible to these risks, that any ship is a careful compromise between all these ideal factors we’d rather she held, a balancing note against the world’s chaos. And I’ll answer all of your complaints in short order, and one just now. The Fear Nowt is indeed very well designed. Designed to do her job perfectly! Contemplate the expression on the Ceratos Emperor’s face when one of Fear Nowt’s kin sails past a treaty port. Imagine his subsequent compliance. Behold!”

Amiatina gestured towards the Fear Nowt, some alchemical twist of paper burning in her hoof and sending sparks flying in its direction. A moment passed, and then Burro saw sailors on the ship’s deck angling lights down across her sides. Her armour gleamed fit to outshine the sun.

“Armour thick enough to withstand dragonfire, magical blasts, and any weapon in the world - and let me tell you, we employed some pretty damn good weapons in the testing.”

Another gesture, and each of the countless weapons on the Fear Nowt loosed at once. Burro winced at the recoil of the ropes and springs, but the ship remained steady and was surrounded briefly by a cloud of multicoloured lights - magical blanks and nothing more.

“Enough weaponry to challenge a whole other nation’s fleet, single-hoofedly. One stiff broadside could make a crater from a city.”

The tall lattice mast on the Fear Nowt flexed, and then curved down towards the rest of the ship. The behaviour reminded Burro of a curious animal, and he thought he saw the lookout inside struggling to hold on.

Amiatina frowned, and then rallied. “Flexibility in the mast’s structure, to bow before and withstand any inclement weather at sea. Let us spare our ships pointless breakages where we may!”

Sections of the hull near the water’s surface split then, and long lengths curved off to splay from the Fear Nowt’s side. They rose into the air, and Burro saw sailors on the ship’s deck pointing and yelling.

“...Combat tentacles? Clever donkeys, our shipwrights,” said Amiatina.

And then the Fear Nowt’s whole bow bent up sharply at a sudden hinge at the ship’s middle. Sailors tumbled back along the deck as it continued to rise and rise, revealing the remaining lowest section. Huge teeth slid into existence all around the sudden aperture’s perimeter, and the two navigation lights at the bow flickered to life.

“...Bwuh?” said Amiatina.

The bow rose. And rose. And rose, finally exposing innards that seemed to have become disquietingly fleshy. And then the ship roared.

The metal tentacles lashed out, faster than the symphony of shouting that rose from every quarter. They seized closed around a nearby smaller ironclad and neatly lifted it out of the water, provoking screams from the sailors on its deck and several scattered replies from the faster-thinking weapon operators. Slung bolts and stones glanced off the Fear Nowt’s hull, and the ship continued to lift the ironclad over its new maw. Other ships were only now turning to flee from or deal with the sudden threat. Ballistae mounted on the towers of the harbour loosed shot; ornithopters droned as several of the devices descended down through the sky. Screams and shouts and a few cheers thundered up from the watching crowd.

Burro turned slowly to Amiatina. His smile was still settled and gentle, but the expression dancing in the pits of his eyes was somewhat more suited to some grim, black-robed jack sharpening a worryingly curved knife. Behind him, Grand Noir and Vallaire were watching in mute admiration and taking discreet notes. Amiatina had subsided into opening and closing her mouth mutely.

“First things first,” murmured Burro, closing his eyes and breathing in. He turned to a nearby stunned-looking guard and gave him a hard poke, breaking his stupor. “Gallop to the Naval Secretary. Tell him to instruct the harbour authorities to scramble the aeronauts and deploy as many ornithopters with incendiaries to sink the Fear Nowt as needed. Keep their vessels and any civilians at a far distance. Thank you. Go.”

“...a year’s worth of provisions for a crew of six hundred ...” Amiatina mumbled to no-one in particular.

The Fear Nowt had since eaten the ironclad, and was now reaching for the Regicide. A stream of profusely swearing sailors were spat out the side of its mouth into the waters of the harbour, and stones and blasts of magic careened off its sides. Ornithopters dropped firebomb after firebomb across its now-empty decks, and several of the devices were snatched from the sky by metal tentacles for their trouble. The surrounding regatta had devolved into chaos, with the civilian ships either turning frantically for safety or enthusiastically steaming into the fray. Crashes, unkind invective, and brawls between impromptu boarding parties spun out of the cross-purposeful mess.

Burro regarded the display with a grim expression, one hoof rubbing at his forehead. The daylight shifted, and he looked up. The sun had donned a tutu, and its swerves and motions through the sky with its moon partner were something to behold. Several of the buildings to his side had grown and grown, and were flexing in time to an unknown beat pulsing through the ultraviolet sky.

Underneath his grim expression, something snapped. Burro smiled serenely up at the sun.

“This is something to do with Equestria, and I claim my five rucats,” he said to himself.

“Your cynicism is resented, for all that it may be correct,” said a familiar voice at his back. Exclamations came from several of his guards. Soft white light abruptly emanated from behind Burro, and he calmly turned and looked up to see its source.

Tall legs supported a white-coated equine form, adorned with gold regalia of state. A dawn-coloured mane flourished like a banner, past a expression that, while looking somewhat more harassed than usual, still managed to convey benevolence and thousand-year-old wisdom in every crease.

Celestia. Of course.

“Princess Celestia,” said Burro, with a polite nod. “Forgive Asinia the lack of a formal reception, but I wasn’t expecting your visit. Also, a ship in my harbour appears to have turned into a kraken. Would I be taking an inordinate leap if I were to suspect you know why?”

“That accurate cynicism again.” Celestia shook her head with a weary chuckle. Heavy saddlebags across her back shifted and rustled. “Yes, I do know the cause of this, and came to see that you were forewarned. Unnecessary, as it turns out.”

“Ah. Before I ask after that cause, could I prevail upon you to turn the aforementioned kraken into molten slag? It’s rather spoiling what was a lovely regatta.”

“My apologies. But in light of the cause, it’d be a plaster over a full-body wound, and be effort I cannot expend now,” said Celestia. “I cannot tarry. But time and energy permitting, I will come back and appraise you and help however I can. The others must be warned first, though, and my own preparations attended to.”

“What? Celestia!” snapped Burro. The alicorn was already gathering the magic for teleportation about her horn, and ceased briefly at Burro’s exclamation. “I’m calling in my favour from when Luna returned, for holding the fort here with the others. Tell me what’s happening and what we may do about it!”

Regret flickered across Celestia’s face. “I’m sorry, Burro. The favour’s acknowledged. But time isn’t on our -”

The magic around her horn winked out with a thhpt.

Both she and Burro glanced up, startled, before she tried to gather the magic once again. Golden light once again flickered around her horn, before thhpt cut it short after half a second.

“And to think they say blind chaos is cruel,” a new voice drawled, making Burro nearly leap out of his with its proximity. “Deary me. I’ve got nothing on when order gets its act together.”

Burro wheeled to the voice’s source, to the serpentine figure coiled around the railing at the edge of the balcony. It … his mind recoiled and floundered for any description other than hideous demon-goat-dragon-chimera thing. It waved at him with patchwork limbs and uncoiled from the railing to hover unsupported into the air. Vivid red-gold eyes sparkled above a snaggle-toothed grin.

Celestia ground her teeth, an action alone that would have alarmed Burro if there weren’t so many other alarmers in the vicinity pressing for his attention. “Discord.”

“Me,” the creature - Discord - amiably agreed. “You run to such interesting places. Is this the donkey high panjandrum? Does he like my handiwork?”

“Arch-Minister,” hissed one of the guards then, tramping up behind Burro. “I think it’s best we get you off this balcony and out of the city now.”

Burro breathed in, steadying himself. He gestured at Discord. “I’m inclined to agree, Captain Baudet. Before then, however, kindly introduce this interloper to the stonework teeth-first. Repeatedly.”

Baudet grunted, and hooves scuffed as he and the five other guards present trotted past the rows of seats and paralysed occupants. Their gazes were intent upon Discord, who sported a guileless smile.

“No!” said Celestia. “Stand down! There’s no point to it, you’ll just -”

She went ignored. The half-dozen guards, serious and professional jacks and jennies all, dipped hooves into their dark jackets for hidden spurs, compact crossbows, steel darts and hoof-blades. Baudet brandished his own crossbow, and opened his mouth to shout.

Discord snapped his talons. In the next second, the air was filled with ear-splitting brays and shrieks.

In the second after that, weapons and coats lay strewn across the ground. Above, six dark-winged butterflies flapped in a state of some confusion.

“Do you ever have days where you’re just in a butterfly sort of mood?” said Discord casually as the butterflies recovered and, professionals all, resumed the attack. They bounced off his face, one after another, and he absently waved them off. “I’m having one of those days; I should have one more often.”

Burro stood frozen. There was surely some sensible, practical route to be taken from this sort of encounter. The drums of panic hammering in his skull were making it hard to divine, however. He looked reflexively to Celestia. Infantile, perhaps, to look to someone greater to protect you when you yourself ruled a country, but when it was the immortal sun-wielding alicorn sovereign of Equestria herself …

It took him a moment to register and process the utterly unfamiliar tense, nervous scowl on Celestia’s face as she stared down Discord.

Celestia was nervous.

They were all going to die.

Possibly while screaming and on fire.

“Well then,” said Burro, mastering himself and turning back to Discord. “You appear to have us at a disadvantage. Consider your force thoroughly shown. Cease this ...” He gesticulated with his hoof, taking in the tumultuous harbour, the warping city, and the chromatically-confused sky. “... this silliness, and we can discuss terms like civilised beings, Discord. What do you want?”

“What do I want?” Discord purred out the words, stroking the tuft on his chin. “What do I want? Now there’s a question worth a ponder.”

“Burro,” said Celestia, her tone low and warning. “Don’t. He’s not anything that can be negotiated with, don’t engage with -”

Her voice cut out as Discord leaned across and casually stole her mouth, yanking it off her face like a plaster. Outraged muffled noises came from the base of Celestia’s throat, and the wriggling mouth in Discord’s grasp tried to bite him all the while. Burro tried not to whimper with terror, and failed when Discord loomed over him.

“Arch-Minister, I want you.”

One claw seized hold of Burro around his midriff, yanking him off the ground as effortlessly as if he was a foal in spite of his struggling. A third arm sprouted from Discord’s form and grabbed for Celestia. The alicorn, moving and gathering magic faster than Burro had ever seen, reared back, her wings spread, and lashed out with a thin cord of incandescent flame. Discord’s body smoothly parted down the middle, leaving the cord lashing harmlessly through empty air. His hand blurred in the air and gave Celestia’s horn an affectionate tweak, disrupting her magical energies. Her eyes blazed, and one of her hooves whirled through the air towards Discord’s grinning face.

It never connected. The same hand that held her horn released its grip to tap once upon her forehead. Celestia staggered as her eyes rolled into the back of her skull, and she slumped to the ground. Discord slung her over his shoulder, while Burro thought every blasphemy in every language he knew.

The old jack’s gaze flitted over Asincittà, desperately trying to take stock. The harbour was still in full uproar, with the ship-kraken casually eating more ironclads as shots and flames glanced harmlessly off its surface. The sky warbled and grumbled. Pavements coiled around the sides of buildings like angry snakes, with donkeys on them desperately trying to keep their footing. The crowds were either screaming, fleeing, milling around in confusion, or some combination of the above. Burro could swear he also heard entrepreneuring voices offering odds on which ship the kraken would eat next, and patriotic pride glowed briefly within him.

To his side, the others on the balcony had either fled or were trying to hide under their chairs. With the exception of Amiatina, who stood stock-still and looked to Burro with wide-eyed serene terror.

“Apart from all that, Arch-Minister, what do you think of the Fear Nowt?” she stammered.

“Ms Amiatina, why are you not already fleeing?” shrieked Burro, just as Discord stepped forward.

Pink light enveloped him, and whatever part of Burro’s brain dealt in trying to ravel sense out of the world gave up.