Spa and Order

Chapters

1. Apodyterium
2. Frigidarium
3. Tepidarium
4. Hypocaust

1. Apodyterium

I run.

I run, hooves pounding against cloud. My eyes are white-rimmed and my nostrils are flared, gulping at the icy high-altitude air. I can feel the blood pumping just beneath the skin of my face, and the flesh of my muzzle feels hot.

I ponder wings. I ponder flying. I dismiss the notion. My wings are not trustworthy. 988 years old, but only a pitiful fraction of that spent anywhere other than solid ground. My horn flares teal as I gather my cloak around my body. Keep running. Keep r—

Out of the dark, another one leaps. A bright light lances at my eyes. I recoil, whinny, wheel about, bolt off in a new direction. I don't know where I am anymore, completely lost in these twisting and map-defying streets. Carefully sculpted cumulus towers, dotted with windows of chilly yellow lamplight—pegasus cloudominiums—rise on either side. They carve sharp moon-shadows across my path. I do not stop to admire the sight. I run.

A meeting of alleys, a choice of direction. I pause, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar streets, glancing frantically back and forth between three dispiritingly-similar canyons of cloud. Beneath my heavy hood and cloak, I sweat, and even the cold night air of Cloudsdale cannot wick it off me. I pause—

—and then there comes the noise of wings behind me and I have no more time to hesitate. I choose the leftmost path on little more than the strength of instinct and bolt as though stung by a hornet. I run. I run.

I hope to the stars as I gallop that my choice will eventually lead me home, or rather, the closest thing to "home" I have: a private guest room in the modest manse of the Hegemony's resident minister. "Home" was supposed to be the ambassador's quarters at the Hegemonic Embassy, back when things were right and good. Things stopped being right and good the moment I set hoof in this city and they have not recovered since.

The noise of wings rises behind me again (how is it possible they are so fast how is it possible). The safety of my guest room seems so very far away right now, too lofty a goal to hope for. I whittle down my list of goals to a single entry: get free of the ponies with the cameras.

I have already lost, of course. They have already caught me on film. Tomorrow's Acta Diurna will be abuzz with news of Princess Cadance, the Canterlot Girl, muzzle-to-rump in the bread-lines with the common poor, waiting for her annona. If I'm lucky, they will call me "Canterlot Girl." Sometimes the press will snidely refer to me as "The Flamingo" because I am large and pink and ungainly and do not fly at all well; and on top of that one of them managed to discover that I sneak shrimp from the griffons whenever I can, which really hammered the metaphor home. I cannot bear to think about the look on Lt. Armor's face when he sees the Acta tomorrow, because he will look wounded and stern and resolute and above all he will blame himself for failing to prevent me from sneaking out of my private quarters after leaving me for the night, and he will vow to keep an even closer eye on me, regardless of my wishes in this matter. Things have gone very, very wrong, and it's all because I just couldn't help myself, all because I was so very hungry.

The tears do not even have a chance to form before the vicious wind whisks them away. No. That's not right. They haven't gone wrong. They were wrong from the start.

A pony flutters out of an alley of cloud to my left. There is a flash—

* * *

—I smile for the picture, just in time.

"Thanks, Princess!" says the morning-colored photographer, tipping his hat to me. My photogenic smile melts softly into something serene and genuine.

"You're very welcome," I say, in my practiced Princess Voice, and he flits away across the arcade's airspace, whistling.

I turn back to my Royal Guard retainer, sitting across from me at the little café table. My eyes are twinkling. "They like me, Lieutenant Armor," I say. "They actually like me."

"As you say, Your Highness."

I make a tut-tut noise. "Now, Lieutenant," I say. "You've got words hiding behind your words. I thought we discussed this: no secrets, no deference."

"Sorry, Ma'am."

I give him an encouraging smile. "I'm resigned to the fact that you will be shadowing me and reporting back to Canterlot on my actions and progress, but I can't stand the idea of spending every waking hour in the presence of a hall monitor. I'd rather you be a friend to me."

"Are you ordering me to be your friend, Ma'am?"

I shoot him a wry look. "You are absolutely infuriating, Lieutenant," I say. "But, if that makes you more comfortable... sure. Yes, that's an order. Not to be my friend, because I obviously can't mandate that, but at least to act like one. So, let's start this conversation over. I say, 'They actually like me, Lieutenant Armor.' And then you say...?"

I gesture, signaling his cue.

Lt. Armor bites the inside of his cheek for a moment. "They don't actually like you," he says. "They like the novelty of you. There's a difference."

"There," I say, blinking, a little stung; but I did ask for it, after all. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"No, Ma'am," he says, gingerly poking at the last remnants of a falafel on the glittering plate in front of him. The plate is ice, or rather, a stabilized high-altitude ice-cloud amalgam. Another proud product of the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation! Kitchen cleanup in Cloudsdale is a cinch; when you're done with your dishes, you just toss them away, and they melt into raindrops that water the ground below. It also showers the land with little bits of food, I suppose. (It's all right, I am told, because it's accepted that the cloud city will create something of a blight beneath it, so it is never stationed directly over an inhabited area.) They really do the most wonderful things with ice and cloud here, or so I have read in my preparatory research. I am anxious to see it all for myself.

I am also anxious about that falafel. Lt. Armor is just sort of playing with it, and my stomach has a gnawing feel that tells me I am coming due for yet another shameful alicorn gorging. How unprincesslike would it be for me to ask if I might finish Lt. Armor's food for him? Terribly, probably. Far more proper for me to just stay silent, stick to my own plate, now empty. Very, very empty. I probably oughtn't to have even eaten as much as I had, for propriety's sake.

However, you can't eat propriety, and my appetite is not a cooperative beast. Obviously the leftover bits of the lieutenant's lunch are not going to completely suffice, but maybe it would kill the cravings a little until I can find a suitable cake to devour in its entirety somewhere behind closed doors. I feel comfortable that I'll be able to sort something out once I'm set up in the embassy, so no sense in worrying about it now and really he's just playing with it what is he even doing doesn't he realize—

"Ma'am," says the lieutenant, "would you like to finish this?"

"Oh," I say, blinking. "Oh, certainly. I mean, it's not something I was going to ask, of course. That would have been rude of me."

"More rude than hovering over it like a cat on a mouse hole?"

My eyes narrow. "Lieutenant Armor," I say. "I'm not sure I care for—"

The lieutenant nudges the remaining bit of falafel to the left. Despite my best efforts, my eyes follow it as it moves. Shoot.

Lt. Armor gives me a lopsided grin and levitates the leftover bit of falafel over to my side of the table. I pluck it out of the air with a sullen look, feeling reluctant to prove him right, but there is only so long I can hold out. I crunch down on the last remaining little ball of oil-fried chickpea. The tahini sauce is sour and garlicky and phenomenally delicious. Humility never tasted so good. In the fullness of time, a slim, mustachioed pegasus flits over and presents us with a bill. I clop my hoof down upon it before Lt. Armor can say a word, and count out an appropriate number of bits (making certain to tip generously, of course!) and the pegasus flits away.

I smile at the lieutenant. "You've got questions in your eyes again."

He nods, and takes a little breath. He's getting much better at this "lack of deference" thing. "Coin purse," he says, quietly, his steely blue eyes watching the other patrons of the little café as he speaks. "You paid in bits, but you have a literal pile of cheques to the Royal Bank of Canterlot in your saddlebag you could've signed over to him. They might be more secure."

"Secure or not, I won't be using them," I say, plucking one of the notes from my saddlebag. It flutters like a castle pennant in the strong, chilly Cloudsdale wind, and then I theatrically let it go. The wind takes it I know not where. "This is princess money, Lieutenant Armor. This is money I get for being who I am, not for actually doing anything of use. I refuse to live any more on a royal stipend. I plan to earn my way in this brave new world."

"So, the cash...?"

"Foalsitting savings!" I say perkily. "Money earned through hard work, Lieutenant."

"Right," he says, with a smirk. "Twiley can be a hoofful at times, can't she?"

"Nonsense, Lieutenant. Your sister was a pleasure and I'd have watched her for free; not so much the Lulamoon girl, or the young Countess D'Heartstrings, or that odd little Twinkleshine."

"So how long are you planning to live on foalsitting money?"

"Not long," I say. "But no need to worry. You'll obviously be supporting yourself on the Regiments' coin, but I myself will be drawing ambassador's pay very shortly. It's been a great comfort to know I have a job awaiting me."

I smile, pop the final bit of hummusy pita into my mouth and give it a polite thirty chews. This has the unintended effect of making my next sentence sound unusually portentous.

"Everything is working out perfectly," I say.

* * *

"Sorry—she's... what?"

"She's not retiring," says the prim, ice-blue pegasus stallion at the desk in front of me.

I am still smiling, because my smile hasn't gotten the message to fall over yet. "I'm not sure I understand."

"Very little not to understand, I'm afraid," says Mr. Weather Eye, Canterlot's Resident Minister to the City-State of Cloudsdale. "Her Excellency Sunny Smiles has decided she will not, in fact, be resigning her post as originally planned. As a result, the vacancy you were brought in to fill no longer exists." He plucks a decorative snow globe from his austere gray stratus desk, gives it a good shake between his hooves, and sets it down again, watching the little flakes swirl around the tiny model of Cloudsdale within it. I must assume that they are, in fact, actual snowflakes. "Ah," he says, watching them fall.

"There must be some sort of mistake," I say, feeling sweat begin to prickle the skin beneath my pink coat. "I've got paperwork and everything. Lots and lots of paperwork. My Aunty—I mean, Princess Celestia made sure everything was completely handled before I arrived. She accounted for every eventuality."

"Not the eventuality that Her Excellency Sunny Smiles would change her mind and choose to stay in her position, I'm afraid. And while I'm certain your 'Aunty' could forcibly retire her from her position if she saw fit, I'm reasonably certain your portfolio does not currently contain an ejection notice."

"No!" I say. "Of course it doesn't! This was a done deal, Mister Weather Eye."

"Apparently not." He shrugs.

"I have to meet with her. We need to speak on this."

A sharp bark of a laugh. "Best of luck with that. H.E. Smiles hasn't left the walls of the Embassy in about a month. Not that she ever was much of a trot-around mare; unicorn, don't you know. Not everypony is as blessed as your lictor."

"My what?"

"The sober-looking lieutenant parked outside, the one with the city crest that gives him pegasus hooves." He waves a hoof absently. "Pegasus term for an attendant-slash-personal guard. Status symbol. It's a cultural thing."

"She doesn't have to leave the Embassy! I'll go to her!"

"H.E. Smiles takes meetings very rarely these days. Does most of her work by mail. I should know; I've tried and failed to sit down with her and discuss the distribution of Canterlot's tax bits on a number of occasions."

I blink, trying to find words. "You're saying she'd refuse to meet me? I am an alicorn princess of Equestria, Mister Weather Eye! One of two!"

"I doubt it would matter."

I shake my head, sitting back on my cushion a bit. "This is... I'm trying to find a word for this, Mister Weather Eye. I just passed 'unbelievable' and am quickly closing in on 'outrageous.'"

Weather Eye leans forward. He locks eyes with me. "Yes," he says. "Yes, it is. Completely outrageous. To be quite frank, I've been waiting for your arrival. Somepony with Celestia's ear needs to tell her what's going on here. H.E. Smiles has been a faithful servant of the Tiara for years upon years now, and it just isn't like her to behave so erratically. I was hoping you could carry this news back to the Sun Princess when you return to Canterlot."

"'Return'?" I say. "I'm not going back there!"

The stallion nods, taking this in. When he speaks, his words are carefully measured. "Not much for you here, though, at this point?"

"I'm not going back," I repeat, more forcefully, tapping my gold-shod hoof against the desk and causing the snowflakes in the globe to billow up. "You don't know what it was like living with her! You don't know what it's like being the functional daughter of She Who Brings The Dawn! She's... she's..."

Two deep, chuffing breaths. Then, one slightly more measured one. I bring my hoof to my chest on the inhale, and let it out on the exhale. Just as the Sisters always taught me to do. "...she's testing me," I say, my voice perfectly even.

"Pardon?"

"This is a test. The mare is testing me, seeing how I'll react to having my world jerked out from underneath me. Again. The entire Hegemony's dealings with the City-State of Cloudsdale are being jeopardized by an old nag trying to teach me a life lesson." I laugh, shaking my head. "This is so her!"

"I'm sorry," says Weather Eye. "You think H.R.H. Celestia and H.E. Smiles are in collusion on this?"

"I know so. She's trying to frustrate me and stress my patience again. Just like she did with that nice Dotted Line back at Names and Standards. Except he, bless his heart, was as much a victim as I was. Oh, I'll send her a letter describing what's going on, all right, but it'll be the sunniest darn letter you ever read! I am not going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me crawl back to Canterlot. As far as I'm concerned, Mister Weather Eye, this city is my home, and I'm not giving up my home that easily."

"Your home it may be, but... where are you planning to live?"

I frown. "The embassy, I thought...?"

"The ambassador's apartments at the embassy are for the use of the ambassador. Q.E.D."

"I'll find a place."

"Places take time to find, here," says Weather Eye. "Doubly so places on the firmament."

"Do I... need one of those?" I cannot believe how out of my depth I am. I thought I researched this, I really thought I did...

"Your lictor may have pegasus hooves, but he most certainly doesn't have pegasus wings. This immediately limits your possibilities. Certainly a place in the Column is right out. Likewise the Reach or the Archipelago. Won't matter if you can't fall through the clouds if the path leading to your home is on an 80-degree incline, or simply doesn't exist at all that day. New Veneighzia might be a possibility, out by the old Weather Factory—lots of earth ponies there, lots of bridges—but it's an unsavory part of town, not suited for mares of your standing. You'd bring shame on the entire Hegemony living there. So yes, you'll want a place on the firmament. Either that, or an apartment somewhere on the Bahamoot herself, Duchess Portolan's old dry-docked flagship."

"I saw it from Point Cumulus. I'm familiar with it."

"Then you'll be familiar with how prohibitively expensive it is to live there—though, on second thought, at least that won't be a problem for you?"

I think of the cheques in my saddlebags. I set my mouth in a hard line.

"No stipends," I say. "I make it here on my own."

Weather Eye gives a heavy sigh and looks at me with a slightly frustrated expression. He picks up the snow globe and gives it another quick shake. I have breathing exercises; he has his snow globes. We are not so dissimilar.

"Well," he says, eventually, "I see that you're adamant. But you're also a princess, and I absolutely cannot stand the thought of one of Equestria's alicorns living in a wet little nimbostratus loft above a thermopolium. This is not the sort of thing that happens in my city. Ergo: you'll be a guest of my home for as long as it takes to get your hooves under you. This may take some time unless H.E. Smiles abruptly goes sane once more, but until that happens, the resources of my household are at your disposal."

I bow my head, lowering my horn until it is nearly level. I smile warmly. "Many thanks, Mister Weather Eye. I am sure we will not trouble you for long."

"There is no trouble," says Weather Eye. "My house is yours. Take whatever you need from the stores; just make certain you document it."

My smile drops just a touch. "Document... my food, for instance?"

"Food above and beyond formal meals, yes. Those are already documented by my chef. Apart from that... sundries, toiletries, whatever. You don't need to limit yourself; take whatever you need. Just make sure it's documented."

I start to say something, then stop. I start to say something else and then stop that too. Banish it. Banish it all.

"Wow," I eventually manage, stupidly. "You must be a good record-keeper!"

"One of a hoofful in this city, I'm afraid. We are prosperous and generous here in Cloudsdale, but we are also sloppy. Case in point: the annona."

I know the word. "The government's bread allotment. One loaf per citizen per day, whenever they require it." It was something I'd been particularly excited to read in my preparatory research. As though there wasn't enough to love about my new city, Cloudsdale's government believed in stability through generosity! Could they be any neater?

Well, Weather Eye seems to think so, given his theatrical snort. "Oh, yes, 'One loaf per citizen per day' is the idea. In reality, the situation's a mess. A pony could hypothetically hop from distribution point to distribution point collecting loaf after loaf and nopony would be the wiser. And the busier distribution points don't even verify a pony's citizenship before handing it over. It's a ruinous state of affairs, but whatever the Senate may think, my household is mine, and I will run it as I see fit. That means good records, Ma'am."

"Very commendable of you," I say. My stomach growls, which then causes my gut to churn with despair.

"I'll have my staff redirect your bags to my home, and when you're ready, one of my air-carriages will take you there as well. You'll doubtless wish to discuss the unfortunate news with your lictor."

"Yes," I say. "Doubtless I will."

I absently raise my hoof for the traditional kiss. It is a completely mechanical gesture. I barely even feel it when it happens.

"Please do sort this out, Your Highness," says Weather Eye.

"Of course," I say.

I am still smiling.

* * *

"I knew it," says the lieutenant. His eyes are squinted and he is looking down and to the left slightly. This is Lt. Armor's Serious Thinking face. It's sort of sweet; I wish I could be more charmed by it right now. "I knew there was a reason the sitting ambassador didn't send a welcoming delegation to Point Cumulus. You're being snubbed, Your Highness."

"It's not so bad," I say, trying to keep my voice light as I gaze at the scenery outside the window of the tiny pegasus-drawn dirigible. It is extremely strange to see so much white and so little green.

"It is, in fact, so bad. You need to meet with her. If she refuses to meet you, you need to make her meet you."

"That'd seem incredibly rude of me, Lieutenant. Wouldn't it?" I raise my chin and fold my hooves before me on the seat. "As an alicorn princess of Equestria, I must be patient with my subjects, even the mysteriously intransigent ones. I suspect H.E. Smiles is just getting a bout of cold hooves at the prospect of retirement. It's something that happens to mares of her age. I give it a week, two tops. Then she'll vacate both her post and the Embassy and we continue the plan as though none of this ever happened."

"And meanwhile?"

"Meanwhile, we are guests of Mister Weather Eye, who seems at first glance to be a very nice stallion. Strict, certainly. Controlled. But very nice."

"So why are you so worried?"

"I'm not."

"You are. Ma'am."

I am now beginning to regret this candidness thing. "No, no worries whatsoever. Just... maybe a little concerned about the kitchen situation."

Lt. Armor studies me with that piercing gaze of his. "You have to tell him about the food thing."

"Absolutely not. Out of the question. We are princesses of Equestria, Lt. Armor; we cannot be seen in so undignified a position. Ponies should not know of it. You should not know of it. And you wouldn't know of it, had Aunty not forgotten to lock the door during high tea."

"If he's boarding an alicorn, he needs to know what that means. I know you don't want to look rude, or weird, but he needs to be told how much energy you burn and how it affects him as a host. Up front."

"I am perfectly capable of restraining myself for a few weeks. If I need to supplement, I can get my own food."

"Using foalsitting money?" Lt. Armor looks dubious.

"Among other things. I have a few ideas."

The balloon carriage swings around a towering cumulonimbus pillar on the power of the tireless wings of its draystallions, and the bright and shining Pegasopolian Acropolis comes into view. It is achingly white in the midday sun, and the sky rimming the soaring structures is a transfixing high-altitude indigo. There is not a cloud in the sky—or rather, there is, but we're literally on top of it. My eyes water at the glare even as my heart leaps in my breast.

"It turns out, there are all sorts of possibilities in this city."

* * *

And that brings us to tonight, when it all goes to Tartarus.

If you were to take all the pictures of me printed in the Acta and put them in a sort of flip book, you would see that, to my credit, my smile has never fallen once during the past few weeks. Your flip book would, on the other hoof, reveal a certain dimming of the sparkle of my eyes, concurrent with heavier and heavier makeup to hide the hollows and dark circles underneath. But on the surface, no change.

And that's the goal, isn't it? Cheery perfection, timeless in the face of change. Changelessness is what alicorns are about! Even as the headlines on the variety pages change from facile celebration to tongue-in-cheek mockery. Even as the editorials change from cautious wait-and-see opinion pieces to satirical near-assassinations praising H.E. Smiles for not prematurely ceding her post to a mare whose primary qualification is more than the usual number of extremities (all praise to her aunty the Dawnbringer, of course). Cloudsdale is not the Hegemony. They do not bow to me here. They do not show deference to me here. It is, in short, everything I wanted in a first posting.

I am miserable.

It is sunset when Lt. Armor and I skulk back into the shadow of the resident minister's colonnaded cloud-manse and throw off the heavy hooded cloaks that hide both our horns and his lack of wings. We are free to come and go as we please—thank the stars Weather Eye's stern control of his household does not extend to attempting to impose a curfew as well—but we keep to the shadows so that nopony knows where we've been and what we've been doing there. We slink up the back stairs down the darkened upper hall, and finally find ourselves outside my tiny guest room. I do not complain about the space of my accommodations. More was offered, but I declined. I am polite. Polite and hungry.

"Well," I whisper, in as cheery a fashion as I can manage. "Another successful mission! Two ponies, two distribution centers, four loaves. Mathematics!"

"Yeah," says Lt. Armor, levitating a fat, crusty-looking loaf of bread out of the folds of his cloak and across the threshold of my guest room. I take it and place it next to the others on the sideboard. It is all I can do to not straight-up leap upon them. The lieutenant watches me as I organize the spoils of tonight's gathering session, his mouth a hard line.

"You do realize we can't keep doing this. Right, Ma'am?"

"Of course we can't," I say. "This has always been a stop-gap, just until we get our hooves under ourselves. But I finally have a meeting scheduled with H.E. Smiles, on the books and everything. I'm certain when I finally get a chance to just sit down and talk with her I'll be able to convince her to see my side of things. Work out some sort of paid internship or something."

"You don't get it, Ma'am," says Lt. Armor, increasingly testy. "We don't need to stop it soon, we need to stop it now. We are taking bread intended for the needy just because you refuse to cash a single stipend cheque."

"Lieutenant," I say, "are you lecturing me?"

"I... guess I am!" he replies. Then, a flicker of fear in his eyes. "Is that still okay?"

I huff out through my nostrils. "Yes," I say, after a moment. "Yes. This is still better than dealing with a blank wooden puppet staring at me all the time."

I sigh, then, a bit more gently. "As for your concerns, yes. Yes, I understand that what we're doing sounds bad, but you know as well as I do that this city has bread going spare. The public granaries are overflowing, the distribution points are never exhausted. The Senate wants the ponies of this city to be happy. Why shouldn't I be included in that?"

"It looks bad, Ma'am. It looks really, really bad. This is not the image you want to present to this city."

"Hence, the cloaks," I say, hanging mine on a hook near the door. "Hence, the secrecy."

"Okay, but," says the lieutenant, "all this creeping around and wearing disguises to try and feed yourself, all this is legitimately better for your pride than spending your stipend? Or explaining the situation to our host?"

"My situation with Aunty Celestia is very complicated, Lieutenant," I say, feeling a prickle in my hackles. "As best as I can tell, she engineered this entire situation as a test of character."

"Correct me if I'm wrong," says Shining Armor, telekinetically lifting a letter from a stack on my vanity, "but doesn't this letter you shared with me earlier seem to belie that?"

"You'd think so, Lieutenant. You don't know her."

"'My dearest Mi Amore,'" says the lieutenant, reciting the first few lines. "'I hope this letter finds you well, especially under the present circumstances. I received H.E. Smiles's puzzling retraction of her resignation shortly after you departed for Cloudsdale, and I am as startled by this development as you doubtless are.'"

"Ha," I mutter. "Likely story."

"'My inquiries into the matter are ongoing, and I will keep you informed of anything that I learn. You are my duly appointed Ambassador Plenipotentiary, and I have full confidence in your ability to fill this role whenever you are able to work out a resolution with H.E. Smiles, the nature of which I leave to your more-than-capable hooves. In the meantime, you are an adult and are free to take residence wherever you wish; but if you choose to remain in Cloudsdale rather than under the aegis of the Mountain, please exercise the utmost care.'" Lt. Armor folds the letter back up and returns it to my vanity. "Sounds to me as though she's as in the dark as anypony."

"And yet," I say. "And yet, isn't that exactly what she'd want me to believe?"

"It would... depend on what her goal actually is, I suppose."

"Exactly!" I cry. "You have no idea how deep her game is. I have no idea how deep her game is. The only sure thing is that the only reason she can do what she does is that she's reading your field reports, which does, honestly, make you part of the problem. So please do not test my patience on this. Please."

Lt. Armor nods. He is Serious Thinking again.

"Okay," he says, at last. "Sleep well, Ma'am. I'll be right downstairs if you need anything, and I do mean 'anything.'"

"Thank you, Lieutenant," I say, making a conscious effort to smooth my composure. The lieutenant turns and goes, presumably to his bed in the servant's quarters. Lt. Armor does not like this house any better than I do; he wants desperately to hover closer, but he obviously can't sleep in my room, and short of having him curled up in front of my door like a dog, this is the best we can do. I smile, briefly, despite myself, at the thought.

Then, I shut the door and get to work on the bread, first retrieving a quarter-pound of butter from the little elemental cold-box underneath the cloud-amalgam sideboard, purchased with literally the very last bit of foalsitting money, and my meeting with Her Excellency Smiles (which I am convinced will sort this whole thing out) seems a lifetime away. The bread is... not wonderful, less good than it looks on the outside. Far too much oat flour, not enough durum. I am pretty sure I can taste mill-grit. I have absolutely no right to complain. The first loaf is gone practically before I am even aware that I am eating it. I make an effort to take my time with the second, and more-or-less fail at that. Similarly the third. My stomach burns through them like tissue paper, thrown on the all-consuming fire of alicorn metabolism, and I cannot make it stop.

I stare at the fourth loaf for a long time. I actually whine a bit.

Then I turn away sharply, disrobe, and step into to my private shower-bath, hooves clicking against amalgam tile, hoping the distraction will kill the cravings. It does help a bit, because bathrooms in Cloudsdale are wonderful. Back in Canterlot, we thought hot water and indoor plumbing were pretty fancy, but they're nothing on even an average shower-bath in Cloudsdale. Ablution in this city is a sensory miracle, accomplished via an in-room cubicle of weather delivered to your exact specification by the 'ducts (another proud product of the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation!) Feel like a fog bath? Touch a control, and it's done. Fancy sitting in a gentle snow shower for a time? Touch a control, and it's done. Want to steep yourself in an invigorating summer storm, to the rumble of distant thunder? Same thing. I dial up a setting that has quickly become my favorite, a many-jetted pool accompanied with drizzles of hot rainbow and the smell of spring wind, and let it transport me for a short time.

Okay, a long time. The frogs of my hooves are getting a little pruney by the time I am able to pull myself away. I towel myself off, dry my mane with a sustained gust of hot Leveche from the 'ducts, put on a fresh robe, and... set up camp before tonight's last loaf of bread again. Banish it to Tartarus.

I hold out for longer than I expect to, but pretty soon, it follows the other three down my gullet. Not even crumbs remain. With the tiniest snarl of frustration I step out onto the cold little private balcony adjoining my room and look out over Cloudsdale. Its blazing white has gone to night-blue in the sharp moonlight, and the stars above glitter like razors. I stand for a moment watching the city's peripheral clouds undulate and break against its more solid and structural central masses like waves crashing against a beach, as hot plumes of stray lightning crackle overhead. Laughter and music begin to drift up from the public fora and gathering-places, as the bright pegasi of the greatest city in the sky prepare for another night of play.

Their happiness seems so close to me right now. Just barely, but forever, out of reach. In one desperate moment I am seized with the overwhelming urge to run sobbing back to Canterlot, to just grab the lieutenant, cash a stipend cheque, hop a redeye at the sky-docks and be back to the easy, predictable comfort of the Hegemony by morning. The thought of a private Equuish breakfast with Aunty, complete with piles of mushrooms and stewed tomatoes and stacks upon stacks of fried bread, is enough to make me literally cry right now, so I do.

Then, I gather myself. I force my weakness behind me. I'm staying in this city if it kills me. I just need a little more to eat.

And, conveniently enough, I know of a distribution point for the annona I have not visited today, one that may well be open late into the night. It's a bit far down the cloud-mass, and I hate the thought of venturing back out into the frigid streets especially after my nice warm bath, but given a choice between that and documenting an uncommonly large midnight snack with Mr. Weather Eye's pantry police (and all the unbearable Polite Understanding I'd have to face in doing so) I know what I have to do. And I know that Lt. Armor would not understand, which is why I'm doing it all aloney on my owny.

I duck back into my room and grab my cloak; then leap from my balcony into the shadows and join the pulse of the city. I do not make a sound.

2. Frigidarium

Back in the world I intended to live in, I successfully retrieved one more loaf of bread from the gradus before it closed for the evening. Exercising extreme willpower, I managed to hold off on eating it all the way back to the resident minister's manse. Then, feeling a bit guilty about my earlier barbarism, I cut the bread into neat, civilized slices, ate them all, proceeded to assault my senses with an even more dramatic bath than my first of the evening, and finally fell into a fitful sleep.

It would have gone down exactly that way, except for one very ill-timed trip over the hem of my concealing cloak combined with one very ill-placed photographer, and a photograph that the public would inevitably see as the first step down a long spiral toward self-destruction. Celestia's haughty and useless niece, the very face of the Hegemony, reduced to waiting in bread-lines? Journalism gold.

As little as a week ago, I would still have been high-minded about the pegarazzi. I'd have dithered a little and said that that the whole situation wasn't exclusively their fault. After all, if nopony actually wanted what they were selling they would move on to some other trade, like basket-weaving. But, since prosperous societies are bored societies, there is always a void for drama and scandal; and where there is a void, you'll find a pony willing to fill it.

That's what I would have said of the pegarazzi a week ago. Right now, in this moment, they are suddenly, horribly different. It is the difference between studying a book on apiculture and being swarmed by angry bees.

In fact, it's a whole lot like bees, like treading on a hive. One little misstep and suddenly the very air around you is alive, hostile, and out for blood. Soon, panic takes over, and you are scrambling pell-mell with no other goal than to get away. And no matter what you do, they just. Keep. Coming.

So I run. And run. And run. I run until my normally-tireless earth pony strength is nearly exhausted, until the clouds are strange beneath me and I simply have no idea where I am. I am lost in this city, desperately clinging to a few last tattered shreds of privacy. Still I run.

I run until the susurrus of wingbeats begins to fade and I literally cannot run further. My heart thuds as though it is about to burst, my knees are swollen and aching, and there is a stitch in my side that burns like a spear point every time I breathe. With a sharp cry, I duck into an alley of fraying old clouds and collapse against its nebulous walls. I am wound taut like a guitar string and ready to snap. Had the alley been occupied by a photographer, there is a very real possibility that I would have bitten or kicked her in blind animal panic. Thankfully for my reputation, I am alone here. I breathe and sob in equal measures until my heart stops racing and the redness leaves the edges of my vision.

When reason returns to me, I haul myself up off the clouds and peek out of the alleyway. I do not recognize the neighborhood I find myself in. The buildings around me are not the clean, white amalgam structures of the Acropolis. These clouds are old, dense things, wing-carved out of the hearts of ancient thunderheads, solid enough to support structures of wood and brick and even marble on their backs. There is a sense of earthiness and solidity here; but only in clumps and chunks. The neighborhood looks like a sheet of small cottony islands stretching out into the peripheral sky, and tiny white werelights gleam from the tops of intricately sculpted bridges connecting cloud to cloud. New Veneighzia, I think to myself. The earth pony quarter. This has to be it. The very act of being able to put a name to the place I'm in fills me with a spark of hope, gives me a rock on which I can start to rebuild my composure.

It was strange to me when I first learned of earth-tribe ponies living here during my preparatory research. Cloudsdale isn't all pegasi, of course. Griffons, for instance: not the norm, but still plentiful enough to have an entire neighborhood dedicated to them. But earth ponies? It seemed nothing short of madness, since only a fraction of the clouds that make up the bulk of this city are dense enough to support ground-dwelling ponies. But, live here they do, throwing every scrap of their legendary capacity for balance and coordination into not falling to their deaths on a daily basis. Some come to build and maintain the Weather Corporation's airships. Others come to capitalize on the trade opportunities; Cloudsdale spreads weather to every corner of Equestria, and it picks up trade goods everywhere it goes. You can find pretty much anything here if you've got the bits and you know where to look. And when I arrived, I learned of a third source of earth-tribe ponies I'd never even considered.

"They're... born here? Earth ponies, to pegasus parents?"

"And why not?" said Weather Eye, glaring over his tiny spectacles at the morning Acta while sipping a tiny cup of intensely black coffee. "Correct me if I'm wrong—I've been away from the Mountain for some time—but last I checked, it's not exactly headline news when a unicorn couple has a throwback pegasus foal once in a while, yes?"

"Well, yes, but—"

"'But' nothing. Same mechanics at work. You won't find any of their kind in the Senate, but they help keep the city running. All part of the great harmony that is Cloudsdale. There are more here than you think."

"It's just... I hardly ever see them."

"Well, they cluster in neighborhoods of their own kind, of course. For convenience and familiarity. Older, shabbier parts of the city. I'd steer clear, were I you. They can be a bit sketchy."

I'd taken Weather Eye's advice, but now, looking out at the delicate and twinkling web of intertwining wood and stone and cloud before me, I am beginning to regret having done so. Perhaps it's my upbringing; I was born in a village of earth ponies and raised by a sisterhood there, and the earth pony aesthetic has always felt like home to me. Or perhaps it is that, as an alicorn, I am literally one-third earth pony, and New Veneighzia speaks to a long-neglected part of my being. Maybe I need to spend a little more time here—

—the wingbeats again. The damnable wingbeats. I wilt back into the shadows of the alleyway as a wheeling pair of pegasus photographers spin into view, still obsessed with the thought of humbling and humiliating me. No. Not even that. They are obsessed with the bits they'll earn by humbling and humiliating me. They've actually ceased to think of me as a pony at all. I am suddenly struck by how dull their eyes look; I've seen sharks with a livelier mien. This is life in the public eye, and it turns out that it's absolutely horrible. Aunty Celestia shielded me from so much.

Well. Aunty Celestia isn't here, and Little Cadance is resourceful and can feed and take care of herself, thank you very much. I back away from the mouth of the alley and make my way back into the darkness and the shadow, hoping to find something other than a dead end.

I find... something similar to a dead end. After a few twists and turns, the alley empties out into a narrow channel of open night sky. Peering down into the channel, I can see Equestria itself stretching out below me, impossibly huge and impossibly distant in the moonlight. Beyond the gap, another alley twists away into darkness. There is a wavering in the air channel, a sort of heat haze that distorts my vision, but I don't feel any heat. If anything, the air in the channel feels a little bit colder than usual.

I make a puzzled little "Hm!" sound. I'm not certain what's causing the atmospheric disturbance, but it seems innocuous enough. With just a little hop, skip and a jump to the other side of the channel, I'll earn another street's worth of precious distance between myself and the prowling photographers. The choice seems clear. I gather my hooves beneath my rump, unfurl my bizarrely-canted alicorn wings just in case, and leap across the channel—

—I am frozen. Just like that. Not ice; ice would be bad enough. The instant my body touches the odd, gas-like substance filling the channel, I am filled with an aching, metallic numbness. It rushes into my wings and my hooves and my horn like a river of cold lead and I lose all feeling. A brief, panicked cry. I scrabble desperately for the edge of cloud on the far side, but can't find a grip with my dulled hooves. Before I even fully understand what's happening I am falling away from the city, toward the distant ground, my wings flailing uselessly against the air, and—

—there is a blur of descending shadow. Something sharp and hornlike seizes me by the pastern and hauls me back to the cloud above, where I collapse, heaving and breathless, onto the cirrus cobbles.

Shining Armor, my mind blearily volunteers. Then it adds, Oh, no, no, no. I can't face the lieutenant's crushing disapproval. Not on top of everything—

"Do mind the gap," a voice from above me says, in a quick, lilting tenor. "Seriously. Do mind. It seems your life depends on it."

"Wha—" I say, blinking up into the shadows, trying to get the form of my rescuer to resolve. My tongue feels thick in my mouth. Whatever was in that channel hit me like a thunderbolt.

The shape above me moves into a shaft of moonlight. It is pale gray of feather and charcoal of fur, with glinting yellow eyes and a strong, hefty-looking beak. I catch my breath. "Y—" I try and say, hardly even managing the letter.

"Yes," says the griffon, his eyes darting both skyward and up and down the alley, scanning for, I hope, the pegarazzi. "Believe me, this is even more awkward for me than it is for you. I was waiting to have this meeting at a better time, perhaps over a nice dinner, but reservations are frightfully difficult to come by in this city. You'd think a thousand years worth of contacts in the restaurant business would give you some sort of leverage, but that's the thing about letting your personal life slide, you go away to attend to some personal business for a clawful of decades and when you return, everyone's dead or retired or passed the business on to a son or daughter, and wouldn't you know it they're never as good as the previous generation despite the fact that they're presumably using the same recipes. I mourn for ratatouilles gone by, Your Highness. Countless ratatouilles gone to dust whose like I shall never see again. It tears my very soul apart."

"Y—" I try again.

"Oh, dear," the griffon continues, in his odd, cultured staccato. "It appears I'll have to do the talking for both of us. Thank Horus I'm up to the task, eh? I'll do your part now." He clears his throat, and adopts a painful falsetto. "Why, you're that devilishly handsome griffon from the airship that my dreadful stallion-at-arms told me about!"

I muster through the numbness if for no other reason than to get him to put his voice back down in the normal register. It's hurting my ears. "He told me... told me you said you knew my mother. Said... said that made you really old or really crazy."

"He does me too little credit; why can't I be both? But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Auric Turncoat. I'd hold out a claw for you to shake but you appear to be mildly paralyzed at the moment, and I'd say that it's a pleasure to meet you, but I'm experiencing absolutely no pleasure at all. More sort of a mix of panicked rage and frustration."

I haul myself up to my hooves, all a-tremble like a newborn foal. I cough once or twice. "W—wanted to talk with you. You vanished on cloudfall. Never saw you again."

"Yes. I also wanted to talk with you. Funny how unavoidable circumstances make it so we can't always get what we want, by which I mean it was unavoidable that I would curl into a tiny ball of self-loathing promptly upon arrival and then drown that feeling in an endless stream of Black Cows from a rather nice dairy bar up in the Foreign Quarter. We should visit there someday. I've heard they make an Orange Whip that's completely out of this world."

The warmth is gradually seeping back into my jaw and my wingtips. I shake out. "I am so sorry, Mister Turncoat," I say, glaring in puzzlement back at the stream of weird flowing substance that nearly sent me plummeting all the way down to terra firma. "I haven’t even properly thanked you for saving my life. You are absolutely not catching me at my best. What is that stuff?"

"That, my dear, is archonium. It's a funny little element with many interesting qualities; chief among them is that it isn't strictly supposed to exist there."

"It doesn't... exist?"

"Do try and keep up, Your Highness," says the oddball griffon, gesturing with a claw. "Of course it exists. It's right there. It's merely not supposed to be there. Archonium lives in the coronæ of ancient stars, a long, long way off. It's so fantastically inert that it temporarily neutralizes mystical energies that come in contact with it. That includes the magic you channel through those wings of yours to keep you airborne. Did I mention how much I admire pegasus wind-magic? Marvelous stuff. Much fancier than the brute wingpower we griffons rely on. Teensy detail, though: despite the fact that you ponies can make tornadoes and carve clouds into snow with those wings, the one thing you can't do is dive through a river of magic-sapping slurry and remain aloft. Now ask me what a river of magic-sapping slurry is doing here in Cloudsdale."

"What... what's a—"

"No idea!" he says, throwing his talons wide. "None whatsoever. One of the many puzzles of this city. In the grand scheme of things, I hope you'll be the one to figure it out. It seems like an alicorn-grade problem, and it would restore a smidgen of my long-lost faith in destiny and higher purpose were you to do so. Of course, that all needs to come second. First, I've got something I need you to eat."

I am absolutely unable to keep up with Auric Turncoat, and am reduced to dumbly parroting his last few words. "Something you need me to—"

"Don't worry. It's delicious. It's also a thousand years old, but put that disquieting fact out of your mind. All we need to do is—"

Auric's head shoots up in alarm. He cocks his head to the left and right, his pupils expanding and contracting.

"What?" I whisper.

"It's them again," he murmurs, his voice grave. In a rustle of wings he shoos me out of the alley. I am so bewildered and so numb that I can offer little resistance as he sweeps me into the streets of New Veneighzia, practically carrying me.

"Who?" I shout. "Who's—"

"The pegarazzi! I swear, you would think there's nothing else going on in this city tonight! I need to get airborne to plot the best course back to your home grounds! Also to put the fear of the ancestors into those feather-brained pests. But we need to find a place to stash you first. Thankfully, I know just the place, and it's not far."

"Are there guards there?"

"Better. Posey's is defended by the fiercest pre-Mark filly you'll ever meet. Not that you'll meet her, assuming you stay on her good side."

"A filly. You're kidding."

"By my word, I am not. She has this thing she does with her eyes that sucks the will right out of you if you cross any of her charges." Auric looks slightly uncomfortable as though probing an aching tooth, though this is obviously one malady he will personally never suffer.

Asking questions of Auric only leads to more questions. I am borne along with his bustle, unspeaking and offering no resistance. As we cross bridge after ancient bridge, following the canals of open sky and keeping to the shadows at the edges of the broad piazzas, I briefly wonder if it is wise to trust this mad stranger so completely. I soon dismiss the thought. At this point, I would follow Tirek himself back into Tartarus if he were to promise me relief from the photographers.

And then, finally, we arrive. Our destination is a long, low building of nut-colored wood abutting a narrow alley. All about are ornamented spires of mixed cloud and earth, fraying a bit at the edges with age and presumed lack of regular pegasus maintenance. This building, by contrast, is humble, unimposing and solid. Where it is worn, it is worn like wood wears, slick and smooth and dark. A small shingle outside the door reads, simply, "Posey's Balineum." Cosmopolitan as it may be, Cloudsdale still has a lot of signage in Pegasopolian only, and because that happens to be my mother tongue, I recognize this as a bathhouse. I am filled with joy at the sight of it. It looks like the buildings back home. Reduit. My first home.

"Auric," I say, my voice breathy with relief, "thank you for—"

I turn, only to find the griffon gone, vanished as swiftly and silently as a cat's shadow. I shake my head. What a strange, strange creature. Shrugging and mustering my determination, I push my way through the door into the building. The tinkling of a tiny bell heralds my arrival.

"Hello?" I call out, glancing around the small reception area, which appears to be decorated with the same dark wood as the exterior of the building. The walls are lined with benches interspersed with empty cubicle racks. Quiet, tasteful curtains of deep red velvet accent the room and dismiss the otherwise-austere feel. From somewhere, there is the noise of trickling water, as of a small fountain. I can't immediately identify where it's coming from.

The room is empty, and save for the sound of falling water, intensely quiet. I make my way cautiously in, ducking my head slightly to avoid ceilings optimized for smaller, less-gangly non-alicorns. "Is anypony here?"

Just barely audible above the trickle of quiet water, I hear the faintest suspicion of a voice from beyond a curtain that appears to lead deeper into the building. The voice sounds like it is intoning a desperate rattling catechism, as though its owner is trying feverishly to convince herself of something. I squint and prick my elegant pink ears, trying to make out a word or two.

"It's okay, Posey," says the voice. "It is just a new customer. New customers are exactly what your business needs. You will walk right out there, and greet her with your best smile. Smiling is for winners, and you're a winner, Posey. You can do this."

There is a deep breath, and a single butter-colored hoof sweeps the curtain aside.

"Welcome!" says the earth pony standing in the doorway. "Welcome to Posey's Baline—"

The young mare's eyes lock on my horn, then on my wings, then on my stature in general. Her eyes go wide as tea-saucers, she makes a little noise that sounds suspiciously like the word "eep," and she promptly vanishes behind the curtain again.

I blink. "Hello?" I try again. "Are you open?"

A squeak.

"I'm sorry," I say, with what I hope is gentle encouragement, "I didn't quite catch that."

Squeak.

"One more time." I give the words my brightest and most photogenic grin.

"Yes," comes a tiny voice from the curtain.

"Good!" I say, cheerfully. "I read on your sign outside that this is a bathhouse?"

"Yes," says the voice again, a little more measured. After what I can only assume is a considerable struggle, the hoof pulls aside the curtain again. Barely seen before but now in plain view is a little yellow earth pony with a long, pink-hued mane. Her flank bears a mark of three pink and white flowers, presumably her eponymous posies. "Hello. I'm... I'm sorry about that. It was just... I'm not used to waiting on royalty. You're the new Princess of Equestria in town, right? I mean, you have to be."

"That's right!" I say, fluffing my wings and continuing to show friendly teeth.

"I'm sorry. I always read such awful stories about you in the news." The pony glances off to the right and down, failing to meet my gaze.

You'll be reading yet another tomorrow morning, I think to myself, but do not say. "Not half of them true, I'm afraid," I say, trying for "easygoing and encouraging."

"Oh, no," says Posey. "Oh no, oh no, oh dear. I didn't mean that you're awful. The stories are awful. Like the one where they laughed at you for not trimming your fetlocks. I thought that was particularly mean."

My perfect princess smile falters. "I have to admit that one was at least true. I actually hadn't shaved my fetlocks for a few days. I thought with the Equuish bell boots, nopony could see them anyway, but then I made the mistake of trying on a set of hipposandals. In their defense—"

"There's no defense," Posey repeats firmly. "They were being mean. They made it sound like you don't have the right to appear in public like that. Just because you're a princess. As though they own your appearance."

"As though they're entitled to a certain version of me," I say, blinking.

"Yes," says Posey, firmly. Then her face falls. "I mean... maybe. It's probably really presumptuous of me even talking to you like this."

"No!" I exclaim. "No, it's... it's really nice, Posey. Thank you."

"Okay," she says, abashedly scratching one of her cannons with the opposing hoof.

We stand for a moment in an awkward silence.

"So!" I say, eventually. "Auric Turncoat showed me here and told me you run a trustworthy shop."

"I'm sorry," says Posey, "who?"

Good gravy, I think to myself. Is that griffon a ghost? A self-defense hallucination? "Auric Turncoat. Big gray griffon. Tremendous beak."

"Oh, yes," says Posey, brightening visibly. "You must mean Gustave."

I raise an eyebrow. "'Gustave'?"

"Yes. He used to come here to New Veneighzia so I could practice grooming griffon wings! They're quite different than the wings of pegasus ponies. I haven't seen him in months. My daughter didn't much care for him, but once you get past his scary appearance he is a perfect gentlecolt. Gentlecock. Whichever's right."

"He appears to be a creature of many layers," I say. "I don't think your daughter has anything to be afraid of, though. He says that he's afraid of her, if you'll believe that."

"She can be intimidating," says Posey, nodding, her gaze firmly on the floor. "Like her father."

"I'm sure she's delightful. I'd like to meet her someday."

"Oh, she's here."

"Here... in this room?" I glance to the left and right.

"Yes," says Posey, her voice barely above a whisper. "She's hiding. She can be intimidating, but she's also terribly shy."

I look around again, just to see if I was wrong the first time, but no. I cannot see a single place in this room that could conceal an entire filly. The unseen filly has transcended mere shyness. She has elevated it to an art form.

"Well, there's no need to bother her," I say, still profoundly puzzled. "Listen, I'm sorry for the imposition. My only intention here was to get behind closed doors until Auric, or Gustave, tells me that the coast is clear."

"Oh," says Posey, her expression unreadable. "All right."

We spend a few moments looking awkwardly at one another.

We both breathe in.

"I don't suppose—" I begin.

"You wouldn't happen to want—" says Posey, simultaneously. We clap our mouths shut, and then giggle despite ourselves.

"You go first," I say.

"Well. This is a bathhouse."

"Yes."

"And you do look as though you're in a state. No offense."

"None taken."

"And I don't have any other clients right now..."

"Posey," I say, "I would love to."

"On the house, of course."

"I have to pay you," I say, withering slightly at the prospect of breaking my promise to myself.

"I wouldn't dream of it." She adopts an adorably stern mien. "Your money is no good here, Your Highness." Then she folds again. "If that's okay."

"You honor me with your generosity," I say, bowing my head. She pushes aside the curtain and gestures me into the back.

* * *

"So," Posey says, "how long has it been since your last trip to the baths?"

I frown. I hadn't realized I'd been sweating that much. "I showered earlier tonight, actually."

"No, no, no. Not when you last bathed. How long has it been since you've been to the baths?"

"Oh, right! Yes, social bathing. That's a traditional thing for pegasi."

"Most definitely!"

I hedge. "Well, you see... I'm still pretty new to the city, and..." I frown and come clean. "Never, actually."

"Oh, dear," says Posey, dithering. "There are some very fine bathhouses in this city. It's a shame your first time will be at so humble an establishment."

"I'm sure it'll be just perfect, Posey." She smiles back. Her expression is bashful, but filled with quiet pride. It feels wonderful to be spreading light and love, even in this most trivial and non-arcane way. "So. How do we begin?"

"Well," she says, earnestly. "First, we need you completely bare."

I tug absently at my ceremonial peytral, feeling sudden butterflies. Totally ridiculous, of course. Here was the mare who recently chucked one of the Equestrian Crown Jewels off of Point Cumulus in a fit of anti-princess pique, hesitating to shed a different status symbol in front of a common bath attendant. It's been a terrible few weeks. I am a different mare now, a hurt creature leaning more and more heavily on badges of authority to convince herself she is a lovable and capable being.

Putting a name to my anxieties helps me digest them, and I slip out of what remains of my princess regalia. It is not so bad. Alicornhood carries a certain indwelling biological regalia all its own, what with our theatrical manes and extra sticky-out bits. Soon, I am bare before Posey. I give the little earth pony a sheepish smile. "Now?"

"Now," she says. "There is a very specific order to a proper Pegasopolian bath. We have been doing this for thousands of moons, and I would very much like you to trust me with what I am about to say. May I, um, have your trust? Please?"

"I trust you."

"Good," says Posey. "Because we need to start by making you cold."

I quiver, but then gather my nerve. "Okay. I meant what I said. You're the expert, and you don't have to explain."

"Oh, but I want to explain. No matter if they're flying or running, pegasus ponies' joints can become very irritated and swollen whenever they overexert themselves, and a quick plunge bath can be just the thing. It looks as though your knees are a little sore tonight?"

"They are," I admit, wincing a little and shifting my weight.

"Just as I thought. But, don't you worry, ma'am. The frigidarium will fix you right up. You can leave your jewelry and boots right here. My daughter won't let anything happen to them."

The dandelion-colored pony leads me through another archway, to a round room lined all around in stone of midnight blue. My hooves click against tile and my breath steams the air before my muzzle. In front of me is the cold plunge bath, lined in the same deep blue stone tiles of the surrounding room. The lip of the bath is decorated by simple mosaics of white-and-blue waves, but the pool itself is absolutely still. It steams much as I do, and somehow seems to lurk menacingly in the dim half-light of the frigidarium.

"Cold brine therapy," says Posey, gently. "The pool's salt content allows us to keep it at a much chillier temperature than everyday water."

"This is a selling point?"

"Don't worry, ma'am. It won't take long. Just enough to bring down the swelling a bit. It will feel so very good."

"Okay," I say, lowering a hesitant hoof toward the water.

"Um, all right," says Posey. "If that's how you want to do it, that's, um, fine."

I glance back. Posey does not meet my eyes. "Is there a better way?" I ask.

She thinks a moment, clearly at war with herself.

"If it is worth jumping into," she says, "it is worth jumping into with all four hooves."

I smile at her.

"Posey," I say, "you're absolutely right. That's the best thing anypony's said to me all day."

She beams.

I take a deep breath, splay my wings, and jump.

3. Tepidarium

"Never again," I say, my teeth chattering. "I realize and acknowledge that was probably good for me, but I am never doing that, ever again."

"Um," says Posey. "All right."

There is an uncomfortable pause.

"I'm meant to do it again. Aren't I."

"Well," says Posey, earnestly, "it's just wonderful for the health of your pores if you go from the caldarium back to the frigidarium when you're done there." Her face falls. "But, the customer is always right."

I am at war for a moment. Then I shrug, helplessly. "Who am I to argue with the wisdom of the ancient pegasi?"

"Oh, no. Don't feel bad if you don't feel like it. It's not 'wisdom' so much as it is, um, the proper order of things."

This much I understood from my years in Canterlot. Even at the very heart of unicorn society, pegasi were a common sight (especially in the ranks of the Royal Guard) and I knew full well how much stock they put in order. Just as unicorns value erudition and culture, just as earth ponies treasure family and tradition, pegasi love rank and procedure.

"Structure is a big deal here in Cloudsdale," I say.

"Oh, yes," she replies. "Very." She pauses in toweling me off. "At least... it used to be."

"Whatever do you mean?"

There are words on the tip of her tongue, and she almost speaks them, but then they're banished with a quick little shakeout. "Let's just get you set up in the tepidarium. How about that?"

"Anything to get me away from that pool," I say. "'Tepidarium' says to me that nothing shocking happens there."

"Not at all. Just a nice warm room and a nice warm massage."

"Lead the way," I say, trying to control the zeal in my voice lest the little pony believe she's at risk of being eaten. Posey nudges me to a second room in her little bathhouse, this one decorated earth tones. It is beautifully warm in here after the icy frigidarium, and I feel the tension in my muscles beginning, ever so gently, to let go.

"Right there," says Posey, nudging me with her muzzle to a snout-down massage chair, delicate cherry wood padded with thick, eggshell-colored cotton batting. I as much as leap upon it; it creaks slightly beneath my considerable alicorn weight. I am not a little pony.

Posey gives a tiny little giggle, almost inaudible. "Ready to go, then?"

"Am I!" I say, as Posey drops a record onto the platter of a nearby gramophone, gives the crank a few delicate turns with her teeth, and then crosses to a small alcove nearby and begins fussing with something. As she works, I continue chatting. "My dear Posey, this whole night has been a living nightmare, and I know I'm just knotted up beyond belief from it all. Naturally I leave it to you to make the final determination, because you're the professional, but—"

I stop, thunderstruck. Something, a sharp, clean, mineral tanginess, is tickling at my nostrils. It becomes, in an instant, the most important thing in the entire world. I lift my head from the cushion and crane my neck to try and locate the source of the... smell, I guess. It's hard to describe it as such, but it's as close as I can get.

"What... what is that?"

Posey makes a little "eep" noise. "I'm sorry. I'll stop. It's okay, it's not important, we don't have to—"

"No, it's good! Great, even. Please, I'm just curious."

"Oh." Posey hastily steps aside and reveals a block of sunset-orange stone which glows serenely from within, its light dancing and flickering in the air currents of the room. "It's a salt lamp. They have such a wonderful color. Plus, when the candle inside warms the block, it charges the air with a tiny amount of electricity, and that's excellent for a pony's mood." Her sunny smile lasts only for a moment before it is doused by uncertainty and self-doubt. "At least, um, that's what I've read. It's really just something to set Posey's apart from all the other bathhouses a pony might visit. A little touch of the earth." She clicks her hoof against the heavy mineral block. "I like to import fresh flowers and herbs for my baths and poultices for the same reason. It's a little pricey paying the airlifting fees, but I think it's worth—"

She stops.

"Your Highness," she says, her voice barely peeping above a whisper, "are you... are you crying?"

The answer is yes, but I do not respond. I do not even understand what is going on.

"I'm so sorry," says Posey, mortified. She fumbles with her mouth for a snuffer.

"No!" I say, more sharply than I intended, which has the effect of rattling Posey even more. I tone down my voice. "No," I say, softly, mastering myself. "I... I don't know what's the matter, but it's very important to me that you leave that candle burning. If you please, Posey."

She takes a few calming breaths and, in a bit, looks less like she's going to bolt from the bathhouse entirely. "Okay," she squeaks. "Oh, this is why nopony comes here, isn't it? Even when I'm trying to do everything right something goes wrong."

"It's fine," I say, sniffling and regaining my center. "Sorry for making a scene in the first place."

"No, it's not fine! It's awful!" Posey says, practically sobbing.

It's more of a reaction than she should be having. It's more a reaction than anypony should... unless there's more to her story that I haven't heard. It is with this that, at last, I receive my cue. The night so far has been all about me. My hunger, my confusion, my humiliation. It is simply not in the nature of a Princess of Equestria to focus so much on her own needs, what with the pain and hurt of other little ponies staring her right in the face.

I relax, slow my breathing, and enter another place in my mind; and in a flash, Posey's love lights up the room.

Watching love is an enthralling experience. I struggle to find terms for it that make sense in the pony tongue. It's like, the words for it are all there, but in my heightened state they mean something completely different. It is the difference between you or I smelling the fur of a pet rabbit and a rescue Bloodhound tracking that same rabbit cross-country. We're experiencing the same sensation, but our fictional Bloodhound can process, analyze and transform that same information in ways we ponies can only dream of. Not to toot my own horn, but that's the way it is with me and love.

Posey's love is, for lack of any better words, sun-grass-orange-coal. It is bright, shimmery and wavy, solid but yearning, and it overwhelmingly dwells upon the bright dandelion-icicle-tea-puzzle of her daughter, now visible to me clear as day out in the apodyterium, walls be darned. The curls and twists of Posey's love float with electrical agitation around her body. It looks a bit like me on a particularly bad hair day. The force of her anxiety throws tangles and snarls into it, and while she bravely restrains the snarls from passing into the conduit she shares with her daughter, the stress of doing so curls back around and knots her own love all the more.

I'm sorry, this may be awkwardly-phrased. I promise you, I'm doing the best I can. It's not always easy to explain what it is I do. Aunty Celestia says that, as an alicorn, I have talents that transcend our conventional understanding of magic, and as such, they also tend to transcend language. Basically what I need you to understand is that spreading love is different than conjuring love, summoning feelings out of nothingness and forcing them onto ponies who never had them before. This would be monstrous of me, if true, and I can thankfully report that it is not. Nor do I grow love, like a gardener tending to seeds. The image is much less terrible, but equally incorrect.

The truth is, ultimately, that I am a very small pony standing beside a wide, clear, powerful river, poking into its wild depths with a stick. Love is beyond mastery. It is a thing far too big, too pure, too strong, for any one pony to claim or control as her own. What I can do is... nudge it a bit. I can find places where anxiety and fear have thrown up rocks in love's path, and when I find them, I can smooth them out and let love flow more easily. I can help ponies remember a love that they thought was lost, or rekindle a love that has always been in their hearts, dulled by age and time. All my aspirations toward ambassadorship aside, this is my job. It is my destiny. It is what I was made to do.

With a gentle illumination of my horn, I reach out and begin combing at the worst of the mats and tangles as an image of Posey's hurt begins to crystallize.

"The success of your bathhouse means a lot to you," I say. And then I stop and wait for the conversation to continue, because it is the polite thing to do. The truth is, I've already seen more of the picture than I let on, having read it in the patterns of her love like a fortune-teller studying leftover tea.

"Well, yes," she says, shyly, sniffling away her tears.

My brain races, reveling in the exhausting richness of my vision. Posey is a single dam, that much is clear. The father of Posey's little pegasus daughter is notably absent from her love, except perhaps as a threadbare and bruise-colored patch along one edge that I haven't yet identified. Posey's daughter is her everything...

"Also, your daughter," I blurt out. "You obviously love her very much."

Posey smiles. "She's a very special little filly."

Yes yes yes, I think, in a panicked staccato. She's obviously special to you. The paths positively shine. But there's still something hurt in it, a toothache at the core of her love, something dark-withered-broken, and my probing it feels like chewing on a ball of tinfoil.

Reeling in small desperation, I continue to babble on. "Posey, I'm sorry if I'm talking too much, or maybe, asking things that make you uncomfortable, but you've done me a great service tonight. If I can repay you in any way by lending you a shoulder or an ear, I'd be honored to be of service."

It's good. It's a very proper, princessy sort of thing to say. For the sake of my own dignity I hope she cannot hear the subtext of me silently begging her to tell me about the hurting part. Honestly, it's not even compassion at this point; the pain is beginning to twist at my own gut as well. I've let myself get too close. Caution, caution...

Posey scrunches her muzzle. "I just wish..."

"Yes?" I practically shout.

"Um," she says. "I just... sometimes I feel like the most terrible mother a little pegasus filly could ask for."

I inhale, sharply. Yes. This is it. "Posey, I'm sure you're a fine dam."

"I'm not fine," Posey insists. "My daughter should already be flying by now, but I haven't the faintest idea of how to start teaching her. She spends every day with me in the bathhouse, hardly stepping a hoof outside, and that's just terrible for her, but what am I supposed to do? If I let her wander too far she'll stumble and fall through a gap in the clouds, and I don't have a single feather to save her with!"

"Oh, Posey," I breathe.

"I know it's terrible. I know I'm planting the seeds of the height-fear in her. But what can I do? There are camps where pegasus fillies learn how to fly fast and well, but the thought of her going to one of those places eats me up with fear. What if... what if she gets knocked off a cloud by a more air-friendly foal and nopony notices until it is too late?"

"I don't know," I say. "I've read about flight camps, but I've never seen one with my own eyes. One would hope they would have safety precautions in place?"

"One would hope." Posey looks downcast, dragging one hooftip across the floorboards. "In any case, it's nothing I need to worry about yet. Flight camp isn't really in my budget right now. But she's eventually going to need experiences I just can't give her, in order for her to grow up to be a good strong pegasus mare. Sooner, rather than later."

She shrugs, then, looking up at me again. "So, yes. My business means a lot to me. I hope my little bathhouse will eventually be—well, not a sensation, exactly, because that would mean crowds of ponies clamoring for my services and the thought of that scares me too—but maybe, um, a sort of modest success. Maybe. Just enough to help my little filly to become a good, strong, sky-loving pegasus. The kind her mother isn't."

Posey's emotion washes over me in waves, and it is a little much for me to bear in my already-heightened state. I tremble for a moment, overcome. Frankly, I want to curl into a bashful little ball for a while at the memory of a life filled with petty little princess problems that I haven't faced with even a tenth of Posey's bravery. Then, I relax, the glow leaving my vision.

"Posey, I know this may seem like small comfort right now, but I am absolutely positive that it will all turn out just fine. Do you believe me?"

"I want to," she says, not meeting my gaze. "I really do."

I nod. "Well, then. My sincerest apologies for the interruption. We may continue, if and whenever you like."

Posey seems to summon her courage as I settle myself back into the chair, leaning my muzzle and forelock heavily into the padding. There is a brief moment of uncomfortable anticipation where I wonder if my hostess is too ejected from the moment to continue, but my fears are put to rest as I feel Posey's hooves upon my back. At that moment, that tension melts away along with a whole crowd of others.

I cannot tell you the last time I had a proper massage. Aunty, for all her odd and occasional decadences, doesn't keep a masseuse on staff, preferring instead to visit an odd, exclusive, secretive little place in Canterlot Town when she gets a mind to. I've never been there, myself; she is so very hush-hush about it that I always figured asking questions was bad form. And though I cannot tell you how long it's been, the moment that Posey's warm, solid hooves touch my back, the answer immediately becomes "too long."

It hurts, at first. Air hisses between my teeth as her patient, probing kneads encounter knot after knot. But she does not shy away from my reaction, and her hooves never lose contact with my coat. Sharp pain gradually dulls, then releases altogether as her hooves work my sore points, again and again.

"Oh, my," says Posey. "This must have been building up for quite some time."

"Ever since leaving Reduit," I say, without really planning to.

"I'm not even sure where that is," says Posey, working out the kinks in the thick, heavy muscles supporting my wings. Seemingly out of my conscious control, my wings spread and droop, lolling beneath the masseuse's ministrations. My eyes go half-lidded with contentment. "Was that where you were born?"

"Mm hm," I hum, momentarily unable to form coherent words. "Little... mmm. Little earth pony village overlooking the North Lunar Ocean." My eyes fall all the way shut.

Then they fly open again at the feeling of teeth against my neck.

Posey is nibbling me, working her teeth slowly up and down my neck. The sensation is electric, and yet, profoundly soothing, and it causes memories of my fillyhood to come rushing back to me. Not of the Abbey; this is never something the Sisters would ever have dared do to their little Princess-Goddess. But there were other ponies in my life, ponies who would sometimes curl up with me for a little bonding when the lessons got a bit long...

"This... this is really nice," I say.

Posey lifts her muzzle from my neck, delicately fishing a stray pink hair from my coat away from her lips. The maneuver is, frankly, adorable. "Oh, good. I'm glad you're enjoying it. I thought since you were raised with earth ponies you might appreciate a traditional tooth-grooming."

"See, funniest thing. It wasn't the earth ponies I was raised with. It was a unicorn, my teacher. She said she wanted to nurture all three parts of me, not just the unicorn part, so she bought a book on earth pony social rituals from a traveling peddler. We fell in love with it the moment we tried it."

"She sounds like an interesting mare."

"Absolutely. She taught me about philosophy and science and history and had all sorts of stories and parables and crazy predictions about what my life was going to be like. There was one time she informed me, in no uncertain terms, that when I found somepony who could answer the question of what love is, I'd find the pony I was meant... to..."

My eyes go wide. I'd... made assumptions, hadn't I? I'd secretly hoped that part of the unconditional triumph of my first diplomatic post here in Cloudsdale would involve finding my One True Love, at last. I had a picture of him in my head: a warm, sensitive creature, gentle, maybe a little shy, somepony who would lift me up on my bad days and help me to discover new wells of emotion in myself. And I had wondered where and how I was going to meet him.

I hadn't even considered it might not be a "him" at all...

All sense of perspective instantly leaves me. My brain spins. Is it possible?

Oh, my...

I mean, I know fillyfoolery exists, in much the same way I know that wild wolves have an amazingly complex social structure. I love that it's there, and it's fascinating to watch and learn about, but it's something that goes on in an entirely different plane. And yes, I've admired other mares' appearances objectively, but...

I mean, could I possibly be...?

Blood rushes to my head. I cannot perceive myself tensing up, but Posey does. She lowers her muzzle down close.

"Everything all right down there?"

"Yes! It's... fine, Posey, just fine." I take a deep breath. "Strange question, Posey—if I were to ask you what the meaning of love was, what would you tell me?"

Posey blinks. "I—I'm sorry, ma'am? What kind of thing are you looking for?"

"Humor me. I just want to hear what you'd say." My tone is artificially easy, which is difficult since I'm practically holding my breath.

Posey gives an adorable little frown. Then she begins moving her hooves once more, in slow, calming patterns. After a moment lost in thought, she speaks.

"I don't think there's just one meaning of love. Ma'am. If it pleases you."

"Your honest answer pleases me more than anything, Posey." I am tight with anticipation.

"All right, then," says Posey. "I've had my share of 'lovers,' but I'm not sure it's ever actually been 'love.' When I think about... um, the stallions in my life, I always seem to find ponies who are dangerous. I don't... I don't know why that is. Certainly I don't like danger. You may not realize it, but I'm actually kind of a timid pony. And while a dangerous pegasus can be fun for a little while, they always eventually leave, and you never know when that's going to be." She shrugs. "It's so hard to hold a pegasus down, to get them to show a little loyalty. So maybe if I had to imagine a pony I could really love, it'd be somepony nice, and predictable, and devoted, and not at all scary."

"Can you do something for me? Can you make it a single word? 'Love is...'?"

Posey thinks. "Safety," she says.

I close my eyes, and release my breath.

"Thank you, Posey," I say. "That's exactly what I wanted you to do."

"I didn't say the right thing," says Posey, shrinking. "Whatever it was you wanted me to say, I didn't say it."

"Well, you didn't say the thing. It's not wrong, or right. Sometimes I think half the reason my teacher gave me that prediction is so that I would go around asking everypony what love is and hearing all the different things they have to say. So on that front, you were an unequivocal success."

"If I'd given the answer you're looking for," Posey asks, "what would it mean?"

I hesitate, almost tell her, and then the moment is lost.

"Never mind. It's silly."

Posey nods. "Well, you sound a little disappointed, but you're certainly more relaxed. Shall we continue with a little preening?"

"Posey," I say, "that sounds like heaven."

4. Hypocaust

Posey and I are chatting amiably over a proper, long-overdue hooficure by the time Auric arrives for me. Specifically, we are at the point of exfoliating the frogs of my hooves with a quantity of caramel-colored sugar paste, which I am absolutely not going to start licking at mid-treatment, because can you imagine. I am wearing a fluffy white towel on my head, and a hot muslin parcel of aromatic herbs encircles my neck: ginger, lemongrass, a trace of camphor. The warm, medicinal vapors have profoundly slowed my heart rate and my breathing. I glance in a nearby mirror; it is difficult to believe that this luxuriated pony is the same creature who was running cold and ragged about the alleys of Cloudsdale little more than an hour past.

He bursts into our tranquil little scene with an alien, but not unwelcome, energy. Apparently he has been vetted and given the okay by Posey's trained guard-filly out front. Posey's face lights up when she sees him. "Gustave!" she cries.

"Mais oui, mais oui, ç'est moi!" says "Gustave," in elaborately affected Pfrench. "And 'ow is our petite princess ce soir?"

"She seems much more relaxed, if I do say so myself!" Posey gives my pastern a little rub. It is just as well she is looking at Auric and not me, else she would see me staring at him in confused disbelief. I catch Auric's eyes, and they twinkle at me.

Play along, those eyes say, and I do so. Auric is without a doubt one of the stranger creatures in my immediate circle.

"Doing just fine, um, Gustave!"

He nods back. Good girl. With a bit of befuddled alarm, I notice that he has attached an elaborate faux handlebar mustache to his beak. Stars above, who is this creature?

As I wonder, Auric continues speaking. All Equuish now, but still with a comically-overdone accent. "Your Highness will be 'appy to know her little journalism issue 'as been dealt with. She may return 'ome whenever she pleases."

I do not have time to ponder the sinister implications of the words "dealt with" before Posey replies. "That's wonderful news, Gustave! I imagine Her Highness is so very pleased."

"Of course!" I say, with my best artificial cheer.

"We're nearly done here," says Posey. "One more tepid bath and Her Highness will have had the full experience."

"But of course," I say, quailing at my needy stomach but determined to not interrupt Posey's all-important ritual. "Just a quick soak. Maybe put a bit of rainbow in it?"

I hate the little bitty pause that comes right after I've said something totally wrong but no one wants to say anything because alicorn. Sweet Aunty Celestia, do I hate it.

"I'm sorry, may I ask if something's the matter?"

Posey shuffles one hoof. After a moment, Auric-slash-Gustave comes to her rescue. "Rainbows are, 'ow you say…" He gestures aimlessly with one claw. "...Not so common around 'ere."

"I don't want you to be dissatisfied with your experience," whispers Posey.

"I don't understand. Don't rainbows come from the ducts?"

"Those ducts don't run to neighborhoods like ours."

"Why—"

"Rules, rules," says Auric, breezily. "Ze Weather Corporation 'as so many rules! Doubtless zere are many perfectly-good reasons for it. Safety may be a concern."

"Rainbows are beautiful," I feebly protest, my head swimming.

"Of course they are," Posey agrees. "Also kind of dangerous."

"But... you can literally take baths in rainbow."

"Yes, um, but what if somepony were to, um, drink it? Or something." Posey shuffles a hoof again.

"What kind of pony would even think of drinking rainbow?"

"Well, what if it was somepony new to the city, and—"

Auric more or less literally swoops in. "Perhaps not so good to be talking about all zis now. Ze hour is, how you say, very late. Posey, petite chou, would you consider interrupting all-important bath ritual just once?" He takes up her hoof in one claw and gives it a quick, dainty peck. "Pour moi."

She smiles at him, then looks to me for my approval. I shrug, somewhat disingenuously; much as I'm loving Posey's ministrations, the sugar paste on my hooves is looking more and more delicious each passing second, and my risk of doing something ridiculous is rising to a dangerously high level.

Posey relents. "Very well. For you, Gustave."

"Merci." The griffon bows, deep and gallant.

"You've done wonders tonight, Posey," I say, keeping my voice carefully even and trying not to whimper as she rinses my hooves clean of the presumably-delicious spa product and towels them off. Light pleasantries are exchanged, Posey once again haggles me down to paying nothing for services that single-hoofedly saved my sanity, and with altogether uncanny efficiency, Auric shuffles me out into the chill night air. Before I even completely understand what's going on, he and I are flying a broad, lazy, ascending arc in the direction of the Acropolis.

Once we are fully alone, I break out in a giggle. "What in Equestria was that?" I say, gesturing back in the direction of Posey's.

Auric shrugs, clacking his beak with amused rakishness. "Oh, you know how it is. Live for enough centuries, you eventually get bored and go off on a tear pretending to be outrageously Pfrench for a few decades. Breaks up the monotony, don't you know?"

"No," I say, in all honesty. "Auric, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm probably about as old as you are, and I haven't pretended to be Pfrench even once. Okay, yes, I was crib-bound for most of it, but even so."

"You should try it one of these centuries. It's marvelously therapeutic. Speaking of which: how was your introduction to proper Pegasopolian bathing?"

I swoon a little, and do a lazy mid-air flip. The solid professional preening I'd just received as part of Posey's services has done wonders for my flight-confidence. "Amazing."

"Aha," he says. "That's the pegasus in you talking, finally. You've been bathing as an earth pony for centuries, and as a unicorn for decades. Earth ponies bathe to get clean. Unicorns bathe to get clean and to luxuriate."

"I just did both those things."

"Yes, but you did so much more than that. Pegasi, my dear princess, bathe to connect. The very idea of sequestering themselves from the public gaze in a little claw-footed tub to perform individual ablutions is a profoundly foreign one."

I cock my head at him, raising one eyebrow. "Those are some six-bit words, sir."

"I purchase those little 'word-a-day' tear-off calendars, and I've had an awful lot of days. Irrelevant. My main thrust is that bathing is absolutely integral to this society. Works its way into the very language."

"'Bene lave,'" I say, shifting effortlessly to Pegasopolian.

"That's the one."

"I always thought it was a funny way to wish somepony well. 'Have a good bath!'"

"It's all about keeping the feathers in working trim. Going without a good soak once a day? Unthinkable. If you wish to fit in with Cloudsdale, you will bathe much more, and much more publicly, than you do now. I'm sure Posey would love to have your business, but it would do your reputation a world of good to visit the public thermae as well. Rub wings with the washed masses a bit."

"Do they—we—do that? Just... all together? Senators and weatherponies alike?"

Auric nods. "The great equalizer. It's been keeping Cloudsdale's society healthy since the Founding."

I muse for a moment. "But, apparently, earth pony neighborhoods don't get the same amenities as the pegasus ones do."

Auric's mien darkens. "Yes, well. No one said the city's health remains strong."

"So New Veneighzia doesn't get rainbows, but they do get streams of weird magic-numbing elements that shouldn't even exist? What's going on in this town, Auric?"

"I wish I knew," he says, sounding startlingly vulnerable. Then his eyes light up with purpose. "But perhaps none of this will matter in a few minutes. Perhaps we'll be able to leave this place behind and let your Aunty Celestia sort this out. Perhaps you and I will both be able to go home. Real home."

"I don't understand."

"All you need to know is that it involves you getting something to eat."

I ask no more questions. That is all I need to hear.

We are perched on Mast Seven of the Bahamoot, one of the largest and most popular masts of the impossibly-huge redwood skyship permanently anchored into the central mass of Cloudsdale. Far below us, beneath the acres of deck and deep within the maze of the ship's holds, is the gleaming headquarters of the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation, relocated here from the old Weather Factory for efficiency's sake. The towering Fo'c'sle is home to the city's financial district, where unicorn executives labor deep into the night (if the glimmering lights at the structure's portholes are to be believed). Far to stern is the opulent Aftcastle District, where many of those selfsame executives live. (I wonder for a moment how many ponies in Cloudsdale exist without ever even touching the substance that gives it its name.) Stretching out between the two structures, occupying the lion's share of the upper deck, is the Foreign Quarter, alive with music and lights and tiny docking airships, looking like schools of pilot fish swarming about the Bahamoot's sleek and sharklike hull. Duchess Blueblood's flagship, from her adventuring days, is named after an ancient mythical fish that was rumored to support all of existence on its back, and the metaphor has never been more clear to me than it is right now.

The Masts have long been stripped of their original function, of course, and have been lined with twining helices of pegasus-themed kiosks and comfortable cloud-lined observation perches. Mast Seven is not the tallest of them (that honor is reserved for Mast Three, which supports the Crow's Nest Lounge, possibly the most exclusive dining establishment on the continent), but it does have an amazing and dizzying view of the Acropolis off the edge of Point Cumulus. Auric and I watch as lantern-bearing couriers go about the business of governing the Greatest City in the Sky far below. The trails of light they leave look like passing fireflies.

We are alone and away from the crowds. Occasionally a trio of pegasus revelers will flap erratically past, laughing at jokes we sober folk cannot understand. They pay us little heed. The night is quiet, here.

Auric and I perch together but separated by an awkward cubit. The night remains cold, and I find myself envying the revelers, wishing that I too had a gaggle of silly marefriends to cuddle up with, but there is only me and my bizarre griffon savior. He and I are not at the cuddle point.

"So," I say. "Food?"

"Of course," he says. He rummages about in a sizable insulated satchel he picked up at some point between Posey's and here, and eventually emerges with a lovely crystal phial filled with a small measure of deep amber fluid.

"Honey?" I say.

Auric nods. He is oddly solemn as he passes the phial to me.

"Well," I say, "it would be ideal to have some scones or something, but, beggars can't be choosers." My stomach fairly roaring now, I remove the stopper, wondering for a moment at the ornate seal (but not for long). I telekinetically bring the flask to my lips—

"Stop," says Auric, his voice breaking. I am about to be irritated, but his tone and the expression on his face stops me cold. Blinking, I lower the flask.

The griffon breathes a couple times, his chest rising and falling. When he next speaks, his voice is distant.

"Many years ago. Well before you came to Canterlot. The age of the Shadowstar Tyrant, in the East. Two weeks into the Siege of Stalliongrad, we were all roused from our beds and told the Imperial Army would breach our gates within the hour. I had booked passage on the last airship to Griffonstone, called in every favor I had for it. There was... a mare, and her child. Barely a foal. I pleaded with the captain to let them come as well. You know the tales of the Tyrant, how he pressed into slavery any earth pony he could lay horn upon, to work his dread obsidian mines. The captain asked me for this phial in exchange for their passage, and I..."

Auric trails off. I set the honey down on the cloud-padded bench. "What was her name?" I ask, my voice small.

"Sugarbeet," says Auric. "Cinnamon Dust was her foal. I never found out what happened. I kept searching, once the smoke had cleared, for any trace, any story." He shakes his head. "Some things are beyond doing, Your Highness. Even for someone with all the time in the world."

"I'm sorry," I say, not knowing what else to. Impulsively I do go in for a hug, but I meet his outstretched claw.

"In Maretonia," he said, the words coming more rapidly now. "On the verge of an epochal dust storm that buried the entire country. I skirted an ocean of sand ready to fall on me to recover this from one of my caches. On another occasion, I swallowed this phial and held it in my crop for six days on an overland trip through the dragon lands. I once literally walked into a burning building to retrieve it."

"Stars above, what is it?"

"That, dear Princess, is the last measure of crystalberry honey to be had anywhere in existence. Crystalberries were an important orchard crop of my home, your home. Honeybees went wild for the blossoms. They made of them a honey of exquisite character, unlike anything in the world since."

I swallow. "This is from the Empire? Really?"

"Yes. So it's both rather valuable and rather important to me. And I apologize for throwing this all at you, because I realize you must be famished by now, but I just couldn't let this happen without giving you a bit of context."

"Of course," I say. I eye it curiously. "Is it okay to eat? It must be a little past its sell-by date."

"Never goes bad, kept properly. And I've done my best to."

"And you're sure you want me to have it."

"Absolutely."

I look at the phial for a minute longer. It is not often that one sees the last-ever instance of something. Then I summon up the last traces of my politeness. "We should both have some, obviously."

Auric's face is at war for a moment, but the conflict soon resolves. "No. I won't risk everything on one moment of hedonism. If there's even a chance..."

"What is supposed to happen?"

"Just drink it, please. Before I change my mind."

I mull it over for a moment longer, then remove the stopper and consume the last crystalberry honey that will ever exist. It warms my throat as it passes, and then it is gone.

Auric stares at me eagerly, his yellow eyes piercing. "Well?"

"It was sweet," I say.

"And? What else? Anything?"

I open and close my mouth helplessly, then shrug.

Anger suddenly crackles across Auric's face, and it is terrifying. "Useless!" he shouts, and I cannot tell if he is referring to the situation or to me specifically.

I cower a little. "Sorry!" I say, but Auric's ferocious squall leaves as quickly as it blew in. The griffon's feathers smooth back down, and he is again as he was.

"No, no, it's all right," he says, absently waving a claw in a gesture that is just a bit too calculated and artificial. "Stupid to hope, in truth."

"What didn't I do right?" I say, still cowed.

"Certain rather silly individuals may have had the... apparently incorrect notion that if I were to reunite the last Crystal Princess with a true, pure memory of the Empire, that'd be what it would take to bring it back to the world."

I look at him, trying for "compassionate and understanding" but apparently missing the mark. "Oh, stop," says Auric, scooting to the far edge of the cloud and perching there like a chastised schoolfilly. "I've no need for pity."

"How do we know it didn't work?"

"The Empire was the crux of all Earth magic in Equestria," he said. "The light and love of the crystal ponies would burst into great arcs of shimmering color that would regularly fill the northern sky. I imagine we would know." He gestures, offhoofedly. (Offclawedly? Not sure.) "Also, I think we'd feel it."

"I'm sorry it didn't work, Auric."

"Stupid hope, like I said. Anyway, I expect you'll want some proper dinner." He fishes around in the bag some more, and emerges with a box of woven bamboo sheets. My eyes go wide, and I think I am literally drooling. "Under normal circumstances I would actually have prepared you something myself, but I was a bit pressed for time, what with threatening the life and livelihood of several unsavory members of the press should certain photographs appear in tomorrow's Acta. So, you will have to settle for this rather large box of steamed custard buns. Nai huang bao, I believe they're called. I'm not sure if you've ever had them or if the idea appeals to you and, oh, okay, wow, that's... rather a lot of them to try and cram into your face at once, Your Highness."

"Mphwhaufwghfoumouphouph," I say, decisively. Then, I conclude: "Pwhfh?"

"Why yes, I do have a second box."

"Pfwhee!" I say, throwing my hooves wide. Then I gesture at the bag. "Enh. Enh."

With an amused smirk, Auric tosses me the remaining custard buns. They are just as heavenly as the first ones: soft, cloud-white pillows of steamed dough surrounding mouth-watering centers of golden, sweet baked egg. I tear into them like a wolverine. It is quite some time before I am able to do anything more than eat.

Eventually, though, the roar of my metabolism subsides. I can still feel it lurking in the shadows at the edge of my being, but it is quelled, at least for the moment. I eye the wreckage of the meal. Perhaps it was the result of a poorly-placed box lid or some other act of camouflage, but it seems as though I might have overlooked the very last custard bun. I look at it forlornly for a moment.

"It would be awfully rude of me to—"

"Oh, just have it," says Auric. I dive for the bun, and it shortly follows the rest. I sit back against the cloud, momentarily sated.

"Thanks, Auric. That was absolutely wonderful."

"Mm," he says. Then he leans in, and while his voice remains soft, there is a flicker of that same intensity I saw earlier. "Never do that again."

"I know, I know. Abominable table manners for polite company. In my defense, I was absolutely famished, but I will promise you right now that you'll never see me eat like that ever—"

"No! Stars, how can you be so frustrating? I'm not talking about your table manners, I'm actually talking about your insistence on not eating. I know your Aunty Celestia runs a show of propriety and secrets, and it rubs off on pegasi like that stodgy old Weather Eye whose manse you're bunking in, but you're in Cloudsdale now, Princess. The ponies here adore heroic feats and accomplishments of the physical form, and yes, that includes eating. Pegasi feast beyond reason. They're famous for it."

"But... as a princess, and a representative of Canterlot, I thought surely—"

"What, that you shouldn't blend in? Shouldn't be anything like the natives? Cadance, I swear to you, there are certain night parties where you would absolutely be the star of the show were you to unleash that metabolism upon an unsuspecting buffet. I've been to such parties. They're tremendous. Look, I know you feel the Cloudsdale situation is a bit up in the air right now, pun absolutely unintentional, especially since H.E. Smiles has apparently gone insane in refusing to cede her post. I can't begin to fathom why you or your Aunty aren't stepping in and removing her by force."

"Well, it'd be… impolite, wouldn't it? Surely she'll see reason eventually."

He flicks away my words like an irritating insect. "Your reasons are your own, of course. My point is: you're an alicorn, Cadance. You don't need an official position to make this city yours."

I wonder at the sound of his words.

Below us is the mass of twinkling lights and thunder that is Cloudsdale. I lean forward, just a bit, tasting the air. Canterlot, the Mountain, is so utterly and completely my aunt's that it had taken me a long time to notice, much in the same way I imagine most fish do not notice they are wet. Reduit had been mine, I suppose, but in the way that an egg belongs to a chick; I smashed that shell emerging from it, and neither that Cadance nor that Reduit exist any longer. The Empire is a distant dream, singing in my bloodline but doing little else, and I have lived on dreams for so long I am hungry, ravenous, for something more... substantive.

Just for a moment, the part of me that is alicorn stirs, and opens its eyes…

There is thunder in my ears and lightning in my mouth. This is one of the hinges of the world, the last and proudest stronghold of the pegasus nation, which devours air and water and produces rainbows and storms, light and dark in equal measure. Their lives spin around me in a whirling tornado, reaching back to their near-mythical progenitors, the Hurricane and the Flower, and forward to a fate I cannot see but can almost touch. I smell bread, and salt, and rain, and sweat, and tears, and love, and hate, and rot, and growth, and I know that I can take this bit between my teeth and pull, it's right in front of me if I only want it enough…

It gets away from me. Auric, I realize, is still talking. "...not by rank. Not by position. But you could own this town as much as your Aunty owns Canterlot, and you could do it merely by living life as large as you actually are, Ms. One-Of-Two-Remaining-Alicorns. Neither of us is apparently returning to our actual home anytime soon. We may as well make the most of the forever we have here."

I look down on Cloudsdale. It's just a city again. But somehow more.

I begin to smile. "Yes," I say.

"Good girl."

"But! I'm still getting a job. If I'm making this my city, all the more reason to cut ties with Aunty Celestia." I nip up Celestia's book of stipend checks from my bags. "That means that these little things go bye-bye."

"Do as you will, of course," says Auric, his voice infuriatingly neutral.

I shoot him a bit of a half-glare, and grab up the promissory notes in my telekinetic field, preparing to chuck them right off the mast.

Then I stop.

"Or," I say, "I could decide to to be a bit less overdramatically childish and use them for some greater good, rather than just tossing them all over the Foreign Quarter."

"Go on."

"My stipend could send Posey's filly to flight camp. It'd be everything either of them want for. Maybe I should stop cocooning myself up in my own problems and start seeing myself as a part of the city I'm in."

"Ah," says Auric. "That's what I wanted to hear."

"You seem to be on good terms with her," I say, rather more meekly depositing the checks in front of Auric. "Would you mind apportioning them out?"

"Your wish is my command," he says, scooping them up. And then there is silence between us for a time.

"Auric?"

"Hm?" He raises an eyebrow.

"What was home like?"

"It varied. Depending whose rump was seated on the throne. When your father ruled alone, it was a cold, white country. But, when your mother arrived, and her love warmed the Snow King's heart... ah." His eyes get a faraway look. "Shining, green, warm as can be. Wonderful festivals. Vast rolling fields surrounding a city of faceted jewels, anchored by a tower that rose above them all as though it ached for the heavens. Happiness and well-being settled around the place in clouds, and I do mean that literally. When the sun would heat the crystals of the city, the air all around turned electric with joy."

"Posey had something in her shop. A little pink salt lamp. I'd never seen such a thing before, but the moment she lit it, I was floored."

Auric is still for a moment, but there is clearly some turbulence beneath his surface. Then he gives a heavy sigh. "That would be the smell of home," he says. "Apparently, it's in your blood. Would that I had known you were in there having authentic Imperial experiences without me. I could have saved the honey."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. It was just a thing. It's an exception to the old 'things can be replaced' chestnut, for it absolutely can't, but it's still less important than certain other old relics that did escape."

"Am I an old relic?" I ask, a smile playing on my muzzle.

"You've aged better than I," he says. "But, yes. We're just a couple of lost, lonely antiques of dubious provenance. Let's at least not gather dust, eh?"

I spontaneously try for the hug again, and this time, he doesn't stop me.

"Auric," I whisper, "what is the meaning of love?"

"I have lost everything I have ever loved, Cadance. It is my dominant association with the word."

"So love is... loss."

"Unfortunately."

"No, that doesn't sound right." I shake my head. "But then again, what do I know? I mean, I hardly even know you, and apparently you've been watching me my whole life."

"Intermittently. I have my moments. Don't make the mistake of confusing age with discernment, Cadance. I've merely experienced love. You're the Princess of it."

"Then… that's not right. 'Loss' isn't right."

"I suspected as much," he says, patting my withers with one claw. "But the night is cold, and you're warm, and I'm warm, and perhaps that's all either of us need right now."

We stay perched in the wind for quite some time, watching the never-sleeping lights of Cloudsdale far below, huddled into one another, gray feathers against pink fur.

"Your Lieutenant will be wondering after you by now. Almost certainly there will be Tartarus to pay when you get home."

"All the more reason to stay here a moment longer."

"As you wish, Your Highness," he says, and it is long past midnight before either of us moves.

Author's Note

Particular thanks to pre-reader Murcushio for basically writing the entire psychedelic paragraph where Cadance feels the pulse of the city while atop the mast; it was reproduced almost verbatim from his suggested possible treatment of this moment.