Stormageddon: Changeling Spy

Chapters

The Cold Open
Fumble Beginnings
Plea Bargain
The Canterlot Welcome
Burning Drive
The Dotted Line
Ask Me Again
To Dance with a Nightmare
L.A.U.G.H.
Ponyville Redux
From Dust 'till Dawn
Pressing the Apples
A Piece of Cake
Interrogation
Night Shift
Stronger Than Stone
Queen Takes Pawn

The Cold Open

A prison cell has a funny way of making you look back on the choices you've made in life.

If you asked me now why I did it, I probably couldn't tell you.

Then again, hindsight being what it is, it seems like one long string of "it was a good idea at the time" moments.

But if ever there was one choice that marked a big, bright, red line in my life that divided everything that happened before and everything that happened after, it was that one moment, that one day, at the road leading out of Sweet Apple Acres, that I turned right, instead of left. It was as much of a literal fork in the road as well as my life.

"So why'd you do it?" she asked, sitting across from me on the train. She was a pegasus of rather plain appearance. Her fur was the color of dark charcoal, with a sheen to it that could make it look jet-black in the right lighting. Or lack there-of. Her mane and tail were a dull, grey-ish shade of blue, almost like the color of old, worn denim. Her eyes though! Her eyes were a piercing viridian hue. The were alight with the flame of an ambition I had never know myself. Her cutie mark was a simple fern. She called herself Sweet Leaf.

We were the only two still sitting up in the observation cab that late at night on the northbound Crystal Empire Express. The rest of the occupants were asleep either in their sleeper cabs or down in their coach seating. The barren wastelands of the Frozen North whisked by outside. But for the flurry of snow, the flat white land seemed motionless, unchanging in appearance as we passed.

"Don?"

"What?" I asked, shaken from my daydreaming.

"Why did you leave the farm?" she clarified. "From what you've been telling me, it sounded like you had a nice life there. Family. Friends. Three square meals and a roof over you. Why leave all that?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time," I told her, as honest of an answer as I could offer. "I don't know. I'm just not a farmer. With Applejack and Big Macintosh getting older, Apple Bloom taking over the family business, I just-" I sighed. "I just wanted to do something more than heavy lifting and kicking trees. I just needed... something."

"What did you need?" she asked. I leaned back and put the back of my head against the window. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, admitting at last, out loud, what had been gnawing at me all these years.

"I needed to feel alive. I just wanted to do something outrageous. It's just that there is so much that I wanted to do with this life and it's like I haven't done any of it working on that damn farm. And I just wanted to be able to look back and say 'see!? I did that! I was reckless and I was wild and I bucking did it'!" I huffed, feeling myself sweat from the outburst. She leaned back in her seat, contemplating my words, seemingly satisfied with my answer.

"Is it because you were adopted?" She asked.

"I don't know. Maybe," I said. "The way Applejack tells it, I showed up on her doorstep one day at the hooves of somepony telling her to look after me. Telling her that I'm 'important'."

"Your father?" she asked.

"Hmm?"

"The pony that delivered you to Applejack. Was it your father?"

"No. But whoever it was, they knew who my parents were. Or are."

"What do you mean?"

"I asked Applejack if she knew who my parents were. She said that she did, and that they are still alive, but she swore a promise to never tell me. That it would be 'revealed to me when the time was right'," I said, making grand gestures in the air with my hooves. "Well it's been over eighteen years. I've waited long enough."

"Is that why you agreed to this?" she asked. I shrugged.

"I always wanted to get enough bits to hire a private investigator to find out who my parents are. I figure I'll have enough bits from this to be able to do just that."

"Just that?" she asked, arching an eyebrow. "Half of this take will be enough to buy an entire P.I. firm!"

"I'm not just in this for the money, Sweets. I'm not greedy. I just want to take what I need after we sell it and go my own way."

"Fair enough I suppose," she smiled. A sliver of light crested the window. It was not the sun. Spires of crystal and light rose from the horizon, shimmering in pale white, pink, and blue lights.

"The Crystal Empire," she breathed.

"Wow. I've never seen anything like it," I said. She gathered up her bag, opening it and putting on layers of clothing. I opened my bag and did the same, covering everything except my eyes, saving that for the goggles. The border of the empire neared. It was the point of no return.

"Are you ready? she asked. I nodded. She turned and kicked out the large window. Instantly the arctic air blasted into the warm cabin, screaming in icy fury. "GO!" I jumped out of the window. She jumped out right behind me. We both tumbled into the drifts of snow as the train sped away, leaving us out in the cold open.

"We better get moving. There are things out here that we really don't want to run into after dark," she warned.

"What kind of things?"

"I'd rather not find out. Come on!" She cantered toward the light of the Empire, running parallel to the train tracks. But the deep snow and the wind was not making it easy for either of us.

As we neared the magical barrier surrounding the city, she veered away from where the train tracks entered, opting for an entrance into an area less guarded, less well-lit. Jumping through, it was like a portal to another part of the world entirely. It was an instant change from stabbing-cold, sub-zero arctic winds, to a calm, temperate pasture. The deafening howl of the wind was muted by the barrier. Inside was silent but for the distant sound of the train arriving at the station and the labored breathing of Sweet Leaf and myself.

For all of the light that the city seemed to be emitting out into the frozen wastes, inside the barrier it was clearly night. The spire of the Crystal Palace gave off soft waves of ethereal color into the sky, helping light the way between the few street lights as we ran through the city.

"So what do we do once we steal it?" I asked, running beside her.

"Once we have the Crystal Heart, we can do whatever we want with it. Sell it on the black market, heck, even ransom it back to the Empire. In any case, we'll be set for life!" Beyond that, there wasn't much for conversation between us, neither wanting to spare our breath during the run. It was a long trek to the center of the empire on hoof. But time was on our side. The nights lasted a long time this far north. But eventually we arrived at our destination.

The Crystal Palace was a massive spire above the surrounding city, perched up on four supporting legs. We each huddled behind a house near the palace, surveying the area. The Crystal Heart spun, suspended in mid air, between spires above and below it, beneath the palace.

"If it's so valuable, why leave it out in the open like that?" I asked. Indeed, where it hovered and spun it was barely a pony's height off of the ground, where anypony could just grab it.

"Shh!" Sweet Leaf said nothing else, crouched, scanning the area methodically with her vivid-green eyes. No sign of any guards. No indication at all of any protective measures whatsoever. Just run up and grab it. It really looked as easy as that to us both. But you know what they say about something that seems too good to be true.

"Wait here," she said. I stayed put and watched as she casually strolled out into the open. Her eyes darted all around, looking for any sign of guards. Nothing. She casually walked beneath the palace, past the massive crystal legs supporting it. Nothing. No alarm. Nothing at all. She walked past the spinning Crystal Heart, making an 'oh, shoot' motion with her hoof, for any here-to-unseen suspecting guards looking on. She turned back around, passing even nearer to the Heart, reaching out, waving her hoof incredibly close, above and below it. Nothing still. She trotted back to my location.

"Looks like it's all clear," she said. "Now, just like we planned; grab it and we'll run back to the train station."

"Right." I walked out into the open area under the palace. It wasn't an overly complicated plan. Just a simple smash-and-grab. We'd both be out of there before anypony even knew it was gone. I walked past it a little ways and turned around, going into a sprint to grab it as I ran. I snatched it from between the two spires as I passed.

By the stars and stones! It was like somepony had pulled the plug on the entire city! The colors pulsing from the top of the palace blinked out and everything went dark. Which would have been helpful for our escape but for one little detail. The Crystal Heart was glowing brightly in my hooves. It shone out like a beacon as the blare of alarm horns began to rise up all around me. I peered into the darkness to find Sweet Leaf, but I was blinded by the light of the heart. I tried to run in what I took to be the right direction.

"Stop right there, criminal scum!" came the gruff voice of a crystal guardspony, punctuated by the thud of a very solid baton to the back of my head.

Fumble Beginnings

A false start.

Stealing the Crystal Heart wasn't the beginning. It was past the point of no return. The fatal choice already made, and it would get worse before the end.

The past is a puzzle, like a broken mirror. As you piece it together you cut yourself, your image keeps shifting, and you change with it. You see the choices that you didn't know you made.

Sitting in this cell, I think of the cold laws of cause and effect...

...and I think of home.

Home was an orchard back in Ponyville called Sweet Apple Acres. I'm not sure where my life began. But my story starts there. It's a fine little establishment in a fine little town. A real story-book kind of place that you read about in fairy tales, if you know what I mean. Princess Twilight Sparkle is the ruler, and has her castle there, but everypony knows that old Mayor Mare is the one that really runs the place behind the scenes.

Sweet Apple Acres is run by an earth pony named Applejack, and her brother, Big Macintosh. They inherited it from their grandmother, who died shortly before I came on the scene. If you ever visited the place, you'd likely see their younger sister, Apple Bloom, doing most of the legwork in the orchard.

And me.

But I'm no 'Apple'. From what Applejack was willing to tell me, I showed up on her doorstep in a basket at the hooves of somepony whose identity she promised to keep a secret, even from me. She promised me that the truth about my parents would be revealed when 'the time was right'.

You may have noticed that I began my story with a quick, snappy scene of danger and tension — but then quickly moved on to a more boring discussion of my childhood. Well, that's because I wanted to prove something to you: I am not a nice pony. Would a nice pony begin with such an exciting scene, then make you wait almost the entire book to read about it?

No. I am not a nice pony.

I'm not even a pony at all.

I'm a changeling. My birth name is Stormageddon. (A name given to me, I assume, because my father wanted me to have a lifetime of awkward introductions.)

But those are the only two true things I know about myself. Everything else, I've made up along the way.

With my sudden appearance, a lot of ponies widely whispered that I was the bastard colt of Applejack. I never said anything to confirm that rumor, but neither did I make any real effort to deny it. With something like that, it doesn't matter what you say one way or the other. Ponies will believe whatever they want to believe.

Quite in fact, it was a rather pleasant fiction that even I found myself indulging in from time to time, quietly hoping that it was somehow true, that Applejack really was my mother. It was a nice story that I would tell myself as I laid down to sleep at night. But in the morning, when I looked at the black carapace staring back at me in the bathroom mirror, I knew it wasn't real.

Even after I would shape-shift into my pony form, it was still impossible. As a changeling, I fed off of love. And Applejack had none for me. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't that she was cruel to me, or even unpleasant. Quiet the opposite. She was a wonderful friend and caregiver. But she could never love me like a mother, or a sister. In our hearts, we both knew that.

I never knew my parents. It was something that Apple Bloom and I shared. She and Applejack never talked about them. And Big Mac never talked about much in general. AJ only mentioned in passing that she had a few memories from when she was very young, but never talked about the manner of their passing. I never pressed the issue.

The farm was all I knew in the world. I was rarely allowed to venture far from it. Occasionally I would go into town with AJ. She introduced me as Pineapple, and the name stuck to me like a bad stink. I was some kind of distant cousin, she would say, adopted because of extenuating circumstances or some such nonsense. I could always tell when Applejack lied because she was never any good at it.

I, myself, grew to be an excellent liar.

I had to.

My entire existence was one big fabrication. And I had to keep my story straight.

But hey, at least I could kick trees and lift heavy things.

"Come on, Pineapple, we gotta clear out the west orchard by the end of this week!" Applebloom said. Applejack's little sister was mare of yellow fur and a deep red mane.

"I really wish you wouldn't call me that," I said. She stopped, putting down one of the apple baskets.

"But Don, Applejack says we should 'practice like we play'," she said. Don was my nickname for Stormageddon, which, admittedly, was a muzzle-full. Or Dawn if I felt like being the fairer gender that day. "We need to both get used to the name."

"She could have picked anything else and it would have been better!" I said.

"Well, with your yellow fur and spiky green mane, you kinda did look like a-"

"Yeah, and now I have to give myself this every morning!" I said, pointing at my 'cutie mark' of a pineapple. "Like, how is that even a special talent? I'm good at pineapple...ing?"

"Hmmf," she huffed, "When I was younger, I would have given anything to be able to give myself a cutie mark like that. Even if it was a pineapple."

"I just wish that she had sat me down that morning and told me that she was going to introduce me to other ponies. And that whatever I was wearing that day, I was going to have to wear forever! I certainly wouldn't have picked- *bleh* -yellow and green. What was I thinking!?"

"Sounds to me like you should have been-" she kicked a tree, "Hyah! -should have been Sour Apple." She smirked.

I shape-shifted into her form, including her voice.

"Maybe you should have been-" I changed her cutie mark on my flank "Rotten Apple" I teased, mocking her in her own voice. Apple Bloom panicked, looking around for anypony that might have seen me.

"Hey come on, Don! Applejack said you're not supposed to do that! What if somepony sees you!?"

"I honestly don't give a flying feather at this point!" I barked. "I'm tired of living a lie! I'm tired of getting up every morning at dawn and kicking trees all day. I'm tired of moving buckets of apples from sunrise to sunset. Is this really my destiny!?" I kicked a basket of apples over, spilling them onto the grass.

"Hey! Pick up this mess!" she shouted. I rolled my eyes and shape-shifted into Princess Twilight Sparkle's form. She was the resident purple alicorn, with both a unicorn's horn and pegasus wings. Unlike the other princesses of Equestria, she kept her violet mane combed straight down.

"Ooh! I read a book about this once!" I said in her voice and using my horn to levitate the apples back into the basket. It was somewhat appropriate, as Twilight herself did come by once a week in my youth to secretly tutor me in magic. I don't know if the Princess knew who my parents were or not.

She was much better at lying than Applejack was.

"Don! Stop it!" Apple Bloom begged. I relented, shifting back to Pineapple. "Why don't we call it an early stop. Tonight's the big night!"

"No, it's not," I grumbled.

"Don-"

"It's not my birthday. It's the anniversary of the day I showed up in a basket."

"It's cake and presents."

"I never get what I want," I growled, storming off to the farm house for the night.

"Nopony does," she sighed.

"... happy birthday dear Pineapple," the three Apple siblings sang together to me at the dinner table. For Big Mac, it was among the most he'd said in weeks.

"I hate that name." I muttered under my breath

"Happy birthday tooo youuu!" they finished, clapping their hooves for me. It was the eighteenth anniversary of the day I showed up on their doorstep. And apparently that meant 'cake and presents'.

"Blow out your candles and make a wish," Apple Bloom said.

As I sat there, staring at the small flames melting the wax sticks, the cynic in me scoffed at the mere concept of wishing. But part of me, a big part of me, wanted to believe. Maybe, just maybe, it would work this time. Maybe this would be the year.

I regarded my life as I knew it. There was a lot that I was dissatisfied with. There was a lot that I wanted to wish for.

But I wasn't so blind to not see that I had a lot to be grateful for as well. Just the same, I made my wish and blew.

"Yay!" the mares cheered. I cut into the cake, serving myself a slice.

"Apple cake," I deadpanned in complete lack of surprise, "groundbreaking."

"The best in the land!" Applejack said, beaming with pride.

"So what did you wish for?" Apple Bloom asked. I said nothing, taking a bite of the apple cake. It tasted like apples. Big Mac spoke up.

"Now Apple Bloom, if you say what you wished for out loud, it might not come true," he said. His big, deep voice came out of an equally large, red pony. I didn't really subscribe to that theory. But in the realm of superstition, you don't want to take any chances.

"Eeyup," I agreed, borrowing the stallion's catch phrase.

"Besides," Applejack said, "this year is a special one." I perked up in my seat. Could it be? Would my wish finally come true?

"I'm finally going to know who my parents are!?" I asked excitedly. Her smile faded.

"Are we really going to do this every year?" she asked.

"That's entirely up to you," I told her. "You could tell me and we'd never have to fight about this again."

"You know I don't like not being able to tell you. You know that. But I made a promise to somepony important to me," she said.

"More important than me!?" I said. She frowned, sinking into her seat without an answer to give. Looking back now, I realize how much those words must have hurt her.

"Pineapple,"

"Don't call me that!" I shouted, shedding my disguise and slamming the table with my hard, chitin hoof. None of them wanted to look me in the eyes. I wasn't the only one that wanted to pretend that I really was a normal pony. A real member of the family. But nopony at the table wanted to face the angry, black changeling in the room. Nopony wanted to face the truth.

Least of all, myself.

Apple Bloom put her hoof on mine.

"Don, please," she asked. I huffed and calmed down, putting on my familiar appearance of the yellow and green pony.

"We have something special for a present for you this year," Applejack said, lifting the large box up from under the table, pushing it across towards me with her orange hooves. It was big, and heavy. She brushed her blonde bangs aside and waited with excitement. Apple Bloom was likewise fidgeting in her seat. Even the usually-stoic Mac looked anxious. That alone was enough to earn my curiosity.

I tore away the wrapping paper, decorative ribbons and bow. It was a plain brown box underneath, held closed with a bit of tape. I snapped it open and lifted the lid. I looked inside and paused, in a brief moment of disbelief, dubious of what my eyes were reporting. I looked up and Big Mac, and back inside again.

It was a large, round and wooden ring, with two metal pegs sticking out of the top of it. The inside of it had been worn smooth from years of use. It was Big Mac's old yoke, given to me. I lifted it out of the box, looking through it at the three of them. I felt the weight of in in my hooves. It felt heavy. Burdensome. In fact it felt exactly like that.

A burden.

"Congratulation!" Applejack said, moving around the table towards me. "Here, let me help you try it on!"

She took it from my hooves, as I sat there and she moved it towards my head. In that moment, I realized that this would be the anchor, tying me to this place for the rest of my life. That if I put this on now, I was never going to be taking it off again. At least not for many years until I could find some young colt to pass it off on, as Big Macintosh had. The walls started closing in on me. The heavy, wooden sides of it passed my face, enclosing me in it. My world shrank. I suddenly felt very claustrophobic. Something inside of me screamed.

"NO!" I panicked and jumped out of my chair before she could put it on me.

"Don, are you okay!?" Apple Bloom asked.

"No, I mean yeah, I mean, I just- I just need a minute!" I stammered, inching towards the door. "It's just- it's just such a- an honor, I- I wasn't expecting this! I just need some, some air!" I ran outside, into the cool air of the evening. I needed to be outdoors. I needed space. Wide open space.

The sun had just set, but the sky was still light red. I looked down the hill of the orchard. I could still see the details of the trees, which ones still needed to be harvested. I looked beyond. I could see the houses of Ponyville. I could see the silhouette of Castle of Canterlot in the distance, dark against the sky, perched on the side of the mountain. All my life I've heard so much about the city of Canterlot. But I have never been there. Even as I could see it, every day of my life, up there, taunting me as an adventure I would never have.

"Don," Apple Bloom asked from behind me. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Of course I wasn't, and we both plainly knew it. But as much as I had acquired a comfort with lying, I never like doing it to her. So I did the next best thing and avoided the question.

"I just, need to take a walk I think." She didn't argue or make any movement to stop me.

I took a walk. It usually worked to clear my head. Most often I'd find something that needed to be done around the farm and work on that. And before long, I had forgotten all about whatever was bothering me and it was time for bed.

I walked down the path to the farm's entrance gate. Shortly beyond that was the main road. To the left, it led into Ponyville. That was where my walks usually went. I'd go into town. Maybe get something to eat that wasn't apple. Say hi to some ponies. Impersonate a few of the locals, commit some petty theft, and walk back. Did I mention that I was not a nice pony?

All that was off to the left. To the right...

Actually, now that I had stopped to think about it, I hadn't ever gone right. Not really. Not very far anyways. I felt a small voice in the back of my mind, urging me on.

Go right.

I looked back over my shoulder. Apple Bloom hadn't followed me. I swapped out my yellow and green for something a bit more subtle. Some nice, dark, earth tones.

I went right.

If you asked me now why I did it, I couldn't tell you. I should have gone left. I should have just headed into town, had a cider or six, and went home with a headache. I would have calmed down by the next day and accepted my role as a farmpony for good at last. In time I would have seen the wisdom in it, in a nice stable life. But I was young, and reckless.

And I went right.

It went in the general direction of Canterlot. I think it was the old hoof path to the city before the advent of the railroad. I don't know how long I had been walking on it. But it was long enough for it to get properly dark. And that was when I met her.

"Howdy stranger," I heard her say, from seemingly nowhere. I looked all around myself, out into the dark. "Hey, up here." I looked up in the tree nearby. In the pale moonlight I could see the pegasus fluttered down from one of the branches. "I haven't seen you around here before. What's your name?" she asked.

"Don. And you?"

"Call me Sweet Leaf."

"Hello."

"So where are you headed off to at this late hour? Don't you know it's dangerous to be on this road at night?" she said.

"I'm not afraid."

"Oh, but you should be," she said with a wide smile, her teeth shining bright white in the moonlight. "You really should be. There's no knowing who or what might be out here, waiting to pounce on you from the darkness," she said in a predatory tone that could only be described as sultry as she walked in a small circle around me.

"What about you? What are you doing out here in a tree?" I asked her.

"Sleeping."

"Sleeping?"

"Mhmm. Most ponies do that at night. And a tree is a pretty safe place to sleep when you're traveling."

"It doesn't seem like you were sleeping to me."

"I'm a very light sleeper. You woke me up."

"I was being pretty quiet,"

"So you never told me where you were going," she said.

"That's correct."

"..."

"Has anypony ever told you that you're very shrewd?" she asked.

"I get that a lot. But then I did just meet you. Maybe I just don't trust you."

"Well that's smart, on your part," she said. "Mind if I walk with you for a while then?"

"If you want."

"Yes. Then we can talk and get to know each other. Then you'll trust me and you can tell me where you're going."

"I don't know."

"What? What wrong with that plan?" she asked.

"Nothing. You asked me where I'm going and honestly, the answer is 'I don't know'."

"Oh."

"What about you? You said you were traveling. Where are you going?" I asked. She smiled again.

"I'm going to the train station," she said.

"The train station isn't a destination. A train station by its very nature is a means to an end. So to be looking for that mean you're looking for a means to do... what?" She walked with me, quietly for a time, and then she smirked.

"Don, let me ask you something. Have you ever been to the Crystal Empire?"

Plea Bargain

I think this is about where we came in.

Sweet Leaf and I, on a train to the Crystal Empire. Her, selling me on the idea of hitting it big with the heist of the century. Me, getting bludgeoned in the head by a Crystal Guard Pony.

And now, me sitting in a jail cell.

A guard sat at the desk outside of my cell. I had never seen a crystal pony before. I heard stories that you could see right through them. But behind the desk and in the uniform, I couldn't really tell.

He had a mustache that looked like somepony had taped a push-broom to his face. Plus he was fat. I don't know if he became fat as a result of sitting behind that desk, or was assigned here because of it. But judging from the way he had his hooves up on the desk as he slept, I suspected the latter.

I crawled out of the cot and shook my head to try to get the drowsy sense cleared from my head. I immediately regretted the decision as the motion sharply replaced drowsiness with pain. The lump on the back of my head throbbed.

"Hey Sweepy McBroomFace!" I shouted, holding onto the bars on my cell for support. He barely raised his head to acknowledge me. "Hey! I know you can hear me! Or are your ears too fat too!?"

"Shut up, scum!" he barked at me.

"Hey! I need a doctor! My head doesn't feel right." He stood up and walked over to the bars of my cell, brandishing his baton.

"You're lucky to be feeling anything below the NECK after the stunt you tried to pull!" he shouted, slamming the bars with his night stick, forcing me to back away. I sat back down on my cot, holding my head. The door leading out of the dungeon, behind him, opened. He saw who it was and immediately stood at attention. "Captain!"

The stallion walking in was tall, muscular and fit. He had white fur and a two-tone blue mane. A cutie mark of a shield with stars over it. He addressed the guard.

"At ease, son." The guard relaxed, but only a little. "Is that him?" he asked.

"Yes sir!" the guard answered.

"Hey, Snow White, I need a doctor!" I told the new guy. The guard slammed the bars of the cell with his baton again.

"You will NOT speak the the Prince unless he addresses you first you thieving turd!" the guard shouted.

"Prince?" I asked, surprised.

"Shut your mouth!" he shouted again. The 'prince' put a hoof to the guard's chest.

"Easy now," the prince said, strangely calm. The guard took a few steps away. The prince turned back to me. "You're in quite a bit of trouble, son," he said to me.

"Don't call me 'son'. You don't know me!" I scoffed. The guard huffed and looked about to lunge at me again.

"You will show respect!" he yelled.

"Oh yeah, open up this door and come in here and make me, Lunchbox!"

"Enough!" the prince said, perhaps not as loud, but very firm. He rubbed his forehead, just below his horn. "He's already in a cell. He's not going anywhere. And neither is this conversation." He looked at me again. "Okay. If 'son' doesn't suit you, what is your name?"

"Don," I answered. He took out a pencil and pad of paper.

"Dawn like the sunrise?"

"No, D-O-N."

"Don. Got it. Is that short for something? Donovan, Donald?"

"It's short for Stormageddon," I said. His pencil stopped moving. His eyes glanced up at me, and then at the guard.

"Sargent, why don't you take a walk. This guy is clearly making up fake names, and I don't want there to be any witnesses for what I'm about to do," he said. The guard grinned.

"Yes sir, Your Highness. Enjoy yourself. I'll see to it that you are not disturbed." He turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.

The prince tore what he had written out of the notebook and incinerated it with his magic in a heat-less flame. He looked at me and shook his head. He went around to the other side of the desk and grabbed the chair, dragging it over toward the cell. I took a step away from the bars, anticipating the beating about to commence. But instead of lifting it to be wielded as a weapon, he slumped into it, looking utterly deflated.

"Stormageddon..." he muttered, to himself it seemed, as he rubbed his face with his hooves. "What you tried to do was incredibly, incredibly stupid. Trying to steal the Crystal Heart like that."

"It wasn't terribly well protected," I said. "It was very easy to steal it." He laughed at me.

"Do you know why nopony has tried to steal it?" he asked me. "Nopony has ever been that crazy. Do you have any idea what would have happened?" I shook my head. "It's the only thing keeping the Empire from being consumed by the cold and storm of the Frozen North! Even if you hadn't been stopped, and the Heart restored, even if you didn't freeze to death before you ever made it back to the train station, by the time you got there, the train would have already been buried in snow and ice. It would have been a death sentence not only for you, but everypony in the Empire!"

"Oh."

"That's all you have to say? 'Oh'? What in the world made you feel rocked by the urge to do something like this?"

"It was another pony, Sweet Leaf. It was her idea. Steal it, sell it or ransom it," I told him. I described her appearance to him. He wrote down her details.

"And she was with you last night?"

"Yes."

"Well, she must still be in the Empire. I'll post guards at the train station looking for her. She won't escape. And as for you..."

He stood up and walked over to lock the door to the room, turning back to slump back into the seat outside of my cell wearing an expression of deep disappointment as he sighed. "What the heck are you doing off the farm? Does Applejack know that you're here?"

"Oh for pony's sake," I groaned, falling back into my cot. "Is everypony in on the big secret but me?"

"I should hope not," he said. "This is a new look for you." He motioned at me with his hoof. His horn glowed, sending out a quick pulse at me, stripping away my disguise, leaving me in my bare, changeling form. "What am I going to do with you? Was Sweet Apple Acres really that bad? Does Applejack even know where you are?"

"No. I ran away from the farm because I was afraid of feeling like a prisoner."

He smirked, looking at the bars of my cell.

"Fate it seems, is not without a sense of irony." He sighed, rubbing his temples. "This crime can not go unpunished. I'm going to conduct your execution-"

"Execution!?"

"Not really, you dolt! But we need you to disappear! Faking your death is the easiest solution. You need to get yourself out of the Empire! Go home. The farm is the safest place for you."

"I'm not a farmer!"

"Would you rather be a prisoner!? Or dead!?"

"No. I just- no."

"You will be on the next train leaving the Empire. That is not up for negotiation! I am going to escort you personally after your 'execution'. So you may want to get 'changed'," he suggested, unlocking the door to my cell. I shape-shifted and threw on an orange mane with a mare's magenta fur coat. A rising sun for a cutie mark. I fluttered my eyelashes at him.

"How's this?" I asked in a feminine voice.

"And whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?" he asked.

"Dawn. Like the sunrise."

"That'll do fine." I stepped out of the cell and his horn glowed, casting a fireball at the empty cot, incinerating it and leaving sooty scorch marks all over the floor and walls. "Congratulations. You're dead. Not let's get a look at your head." He looked at the back of my head where I had received the blow. Shape-shifting can't mask my injuries. "Looks like you've got a pretty good bump. But you should be okay in a day or so. I'll get some ice for you."

"Great."

"Do you have any questions before we leave?" he asked. Him knowing my true identity had been a surprise. It made me wonder who else knew. The truth about me, and my past. I needed to know.

"Who else knows about me? The truth about me?" I asked.

"As few ponies as possible," he explained. "That's the point of a secret. Me, Princess Sparkle, Applejack, Big Mac and Apple Bloom too, I assume." I nodded. "That's what I figured by now. And a couple others know."

"Who?"

"That is also part of the secret! It's for their protection. And yours!"

"Who are my parents?" I asked. He winced a little.

"You will find out when the time is right," he said, echoing Applejack's words. It was infuriating.

"Do you know who they are?" I asked.

"Yes," he sighed.

"Can you at least tell me about them? Something! Anything at all! My mother? My father? Do they even know that I exist? Do they even care?" I asked desperately, trying to keep the tears from my eyes. He took a deep breath.

"Your father loves you. I know that. As for your mother..." he trailed off. "I don't know. I can't really speak for her."

"Can't or won't!?" I accused.

He looked at me. He could see the turmoil in my face. "I'm sorry. I really do wish that I could tell you more."

My emotions were a hurricane. I felt angry, happy and sad all at the same time. I was furious that he knew more but wouldn't tell me. But at the same time I was happy for what I did learn. I had a father. He was alive. And he loved me. Or so I had been told. But my mother, I still knew nothing about her other than the fact that she was still alive. I felt sad and afraid. But now, also hopeful.

It was a step closer to learning the truth. That would have to be enough for now. I was grateful for that at least.

"Thank you," I said. He gave me a weak smile.

"Come on. Let's get you home."

"Do we have to?"

"You can't stay in the Empire."

"I mean, do I have to go back to Sweet Apple Acres?"

"Yes. At the very least, you owe an explanation to Applejack for you absence."

"Okay." I resigned.

He opened the door leading out of the jail, making sure the way was clear. We made our way up and out of the lower levels of the palace. On our way, we passed a different guard pony. He went to attention and saluted as we approached.

"Captain."

"At ease. I have an assignment for you,"

"Yes, Your Highness?"

"I interrogated the prisoner that tried to steal the Crystal Heart. Before he died, he confessed that he had an accomplice.

"Died?" the guard asked.

"Yes. When I was through with him, I carried out his sentence. His actions were unforgivable, putting everything and everyone we love in jeopardy. My family. Yours." The guard gulped at the thought of his family's peril.

"His accomplice is a pegasus mare named Sweet Leaf." He went on to describe her to him. "Have guards checking everypony boarding at the train station. It's the only survivable way out of the Empire. We cant let her escape."

"Yes sir! And who is this?" he motioned to me.

"This is my new assistant, Dawn. She's going to be helping me with the paperwork with this case."

"New? Is she an intern or something?"

"Save your interrogations for our prisoners, Corporal, not my staff, unless you want me to put you on latrine duty until your mother forgets what you look like!"

"Aye, Sir!"

"I've got a scorched jail cell downstairs. Double-time it down there and make it sparkle!"

"Proceeding sir!" The guard made haste past us towards the dungeon.

"Wow," I whispered. "Savage."

"Anypony can become a prince by marrying a princess. But being a leader mean also not taking any guff from your subordinates."

"Oh?"

"Well, there's more to it than that, obviously, if you want to be a good leader, rather than just a boss," he explained as we reached the main floor. The foyer of the palace was a flurry of activity. Ponies of all sorts were moving about in all directions. Those that caught eye contact with the prince did a quick bow or curtsy, moving out of the way as we passed. One in particular made it a point of moving into his way.

She had white fur and a brown mane tied up in a tight bun. Her brown eyes were framed by thick, black glasses. She was carrying a clipboard with a pen and some papers. Her cutie mark of a pen and inkwell suited her.

"Prince Armor," she addressed, him.

"Good morning, Raven," he answered. "Is everything still set to go for my trip?"

"Yes sir. Your things are assembled at the station, ready to depart," she said, glancing at me. "Should... I make it a plus-one?"

"That will not be necessary. Just a friend that I'm unofficially accompanying home to Canterlot," he said.

"Oh. Well then, your train will be departing within the hour."

"Thank you." He took a roll of paper from his bag. "Raven, this is Dawn. She witnessed what happened last night. Dawn, could you please imagine the appearance of Sweet Leaf?"

"Um, sure," I said. I closed my eyes and thought about her. Her deep charcoal fur, her teal mane, her bright viridian eyes. Damn those eyes. No sooner had I coalesced the image in my mind than did her image appear on the scroll in his hooves.

"This is one of the ponies that tried to steal the Crystal Heart," Prince Armor said. "Her name is Sweet Leaf. I need 'wanted' posters up all over the Empire, with the promise of a substantial reward for her capture. I want guards posted at the train station, checking everypony that goes through. She can not be allowed to escape."

"Yes sir."

"That'll be all, Raven." He dismissed her with a wave of his hoof.

We moved quickly through the rest of the foyer and headed out of the palace. Outside, a coach carriage was waiting for us. Well, for him anyway. It was hardly plain. But it wasn't nearly as ornate as I would have expected for a prince to be riding in. Wooden, with a bit of scroll work along the edges. Curtained windows for privacy. Springs in the frame for the axles for a smooth ride over the cobblestone roads. Practical luxury.

"Your Highness," the driver greeted. The prince nodded back. He came to a stop just beside the carriage, clearly waiting for him to open the door for us. "Your forgiveness sire, but I've received a specific message that you are to be seen off by the Princess momentarily."

"Which princess?" he asked.

"Daddy!" we heard from behind us.

"Well, that answers that," he said quietly, turning on his hoof to face the voice. "Hey, Sweetie!" he greeted her as the young alicorn trotted into his waiting hooves. Princess Flurry Heart was a little taller than me. Her white fur was tinged with a bit of pink in the fringes of her wings. Her mane falling to either side of her horn was a two-tone blend of purple and pink with a streak of sky-blue running through it and her tail. Her bright eyes were the color of sea-foam. The dress she was wearing occluded her cutie mark. She looked stunning.

"Are you leaving again!" she accused him, halfheartedly.

"I'm sorry baby. It will only be for a couple of days," he said as he hugged her. "I love you."

"I love you too, Daddy," she said.

I felt a rush of energy. As a Changeling, I'm very sensitive to the emotions of the beings around me. I can feed off of love. The family farmhouse on Sweet Apple Acres was filled wall-to-wall with it. But there really was nothing quite like the love of a parent for their child. It was powerful, and concentrated, and unconditional. It made the fur on the back of my neck tingle being so close to it, like having too much espresso.

"I hope 'a couple of days' doesn't turn into a couple of weeks again, Shiny," I heard another mare say. We all turned to see Princess Cadance walking toward us. She was taller than even the prince. Her fur was bright pink, framed by her long, curly mane which was a three color blend of creme, magenta and violet. The same violet of her eyes tinged the tips of her wings, like her daughter. I recognized her famous crystal heart cutie mark.

"It won't this time, Cadie, I promise," he answered with a nuzzle. She smiled and returned the gesture before giving me a look. I politely tried to avert my eyes.

"Who's this?" she asked, her smile fading. He spoke for me.

"Uh, this is Dawn, one of the clerical interns accompanying me to Canterlot," he said.

"Dawn?" she asked.

"Like the sunrise!" I said a bit too cheerfully, in a sing-song voice with a practiced smile. Shining cleared his throat pointedly at me, reminding me to whom I was speaking. "Uh, like the sunrise, Your Majesty." I amended with a quick curtsy.

"Sorry. She's new," he defended. "Why don't you go ahead and climb aboard. I'd like to have a word in private," he told me. The cab driver opened the door as he spoke.

"Yes, Sir." I did another quick curtsy to them, playing the part, and boarded the carriage. The door closed behind me. The inside was comfortable, but again, not overly lavish. I peeked out through the curtains. I couldn't hear what he was saying but I watched Flurry leave after a moment. He hugged Cadance close. I could see his lips moving as he whispered something into her ear. When he broke the hug and turned to join me on the carriage, she shot a look at the window where I was sitting. Her eyes narrowed and her brow furrowed. It was not a nice look. It was cold and distant. Shining sat down opposite of me in the carriage and we started to pull away from the palace. She stood there and stared until we were a couple of blocks a away and turned a corner out of her sight.

"What did you say to her?" I asked.

"That's not your business," he said.

"She gave me a look, as if you told her you were about to have an affair with me. It was... icy. Should I have been a male?"

"No, it's nothing like that."

"Well what is it then?" I asked, pressing the issue. "I'm tired of all of these secrets."

"Me too." He sighed, letting his head list to the side, staring out the window, watching the buildings and ponies as the passed by. I could see the gears turning in his mind, the mental debate he was having with himself, on whether or not to tell me. After a few moments, "I told her who you are. Who you really are," he said.

"What!? Why?"

"She knows about you. I mean, she's known about you all along."

"Great," I said sarcastically. "It seems like the only one who my life is a mystery for is me! So why was she giving me a look like I just ran over her dog with a chariot?"

"She- " he trailed off, trying to find the words. "She has a thing, about changelings. Are you familiar with the Invasion of Canterlot, twenty two years ago?"

"Yes. Princess Twilight taught me about it from one of her Modern History books. I know it was an invasion of changelings. She- spared me the details, for my benefit I guess."

"It wasn't good," he said. "It was- well, it was really bad."

"Well yeah, nopony invites an invasion."

"I mean because it happened on the day of my wedding. Our royal wedding. Cadance had been taken hostage and imprisoned in the caves beneath the city, replaced with a changeling trying to marry me. I was brainwashed for most of it. But my sister helped the real Cadance escape, and together, Cadance and I were able to repel the invasion with a combined spell," he explained. "And ever since then, well, she's had no love for your kind." I sat and thought about it. The details about the invasion that Twilight had left out, about what happened to whom. It made sense why Cadance would not like me now.

"So why do you?" I asked. "You have just as much reason to hate me as she does. How come I'm not a greasy, burnt stain on a jail cell wall right now?" He rubbed his chin with his hoof and took a deep breath, carefully choosing his words.

"You're not automatically our enemy just because of what you are. Deep down, she knows that too. But she can't help how she feels. I know the same truth about you as she does. But it means different things to each of us. To her, you're a living reminder of a time she'd rather forget about. But to me I see..." he trailed off, trying to mask the expression on his face with his hoof. But I could see it, there, at the corner of his eye. It was the faintest hint of a grin.

"What?"

"An opportunity," he said.

"For...?" I asked, insistent. He leaned back in his seat, bringing his hooves together in front of his muzzle in contemplation, weighing his options. The carriage slowed to a stop outside of the train station.

"Tell me, Storm," he said at last, "have you ever considered joining the Royal Guard?"

The Canterlot Welcome

We passed through the extra security at the train station with little difficulty. The prince and his guest tend to receive an expedited pass in these sort of situations. They even went so far as to make sure we had a wide berth around us as we waited on the platform to board. I could see a couple of pegasi installing a new window where I had jumped out with Sweet Leaf.

"Here," Shining said, passing me a notebook and pencil.

"What do you want me to write down?" I asked.

"Everything I say."

"Why?"

"So ponies don't wonder who you are!" he whispered. As he did, I looked around at the ponies around us, whispering to eachother and giving me curious looks. I suddenly felt very exposed.

"Yes sir!" I said, playing the part of his assistant. He went on to recite a bunch of boring scheduling items, appointments, and whatnot. Nonsense to me, and I knew it perfectly well. But it did the trick. I was just another assistant. The other ponies stopped looking at me and paid me no mind. The repair pegasi finished sealing the window and gave the all-clear signal to the train porters.

"All aboard!"

We boarded first, ahead of the mob, and headed toward the back of the train.

"I'm just saying," he said, continuing the conversation from the carriage, "you should consider joining the Guard."

"Seriously?" I asked, incredulously, "After just escaping-" I didn't want to say 'prison' aloud so near a crowd, "...you know? Now you're suggesting that I go back? Into the lion's den?"

"Sure. It'd be the last place anypony would look for..." he trailed off, leaving out whatever word he had in mind. 'Changeling', 'criminal' etc. "I'm just saying, think about it. It might be the opportunity you've been wanting to see the world." I didn't respond. I tried to honestly consider it. But the very idea of it just seemed inconceivable. Me? In the Royal Guard? I'd be trading one form of prison for another. If I thought I was taking a lot of orders from ponies before... We settled into the royal car of the train. It was a caboose, made up into a lush sleeper car with a king-size bed, couch, desk with chair, and even-

"A mini-bar!" I squeed as I opened the cabinet.

"Get out of there!" he shouted.

"Hey, gimmie a break. I almost died today."

"The fact that it's 'almost' IS the break you're getting!"

"You're no fun," I said as I dug through the bottles. "Wow, you have some really top-shelf stuff!"

"You're barely old enough to drink. How would you even know what the difference between good liquor is?" he asked.

"That's the nice thing about being a changeling," I said, shape-shifting into an older pony from Ponyville, Berry Punch. "Built-in fake I.D." I grinned at him before resuming my raid. "Holy macaroons! This Applejack Daniels is older than I am!" I held it up, showing it to him. "Come on! We gotta!"

"We don't gotta do anything. Now put that away before-" He was cut off as the train started to pull away from the station. He staggered and sat into the chair at the desk. "Seriously! Don't-"

*K-sssst*

"Too late!" I said, opening the pristine seal on the bottle, bringing it to my lips. By the stars! It was smoother than silk-wrapped jazz coming out of a Teflon saxophone!

*Bloop bloop bloop*

"Hey!" he protested as I imbibed with utter disregard for moderation. I held a 'one moment' hoof up to silence him. "That's a four-hundred-bit bottle of cider!"

*Bloop bloop bloop*

He gripped the arms of the chair in frustration as the train moved and wobbled, getting up to cruising speed. I finished my greedy pull.

"Ahhhh!" I sighed at last, feeling the sweet burn of the liquor in my belly. "You can put it on my tab," I said as I offered the bottle to him, pointing it in his general direction.

"No thank you," he said through his clenched teeth.

"Really? Seems like you could use it. You seem awfully tense," I said, motioning to his hooves gripping the chair.

"I don't drink anymore," he said.

"Oh. Well, now you do." I shape-shifted into his form, taking another swig.

"Hey!" he shouted.

"What's the matter? Did I get your bad side?" I asked, shaking my new, white rump at him.

"Change. Now!" he ordered.

"Sheesh, sorry!" I feigned, swapping back to Berry.

"What in Equestria is wrong with you!?" he asked. I held up the bottle in one hoof, partially peeling back the disguise, revealing my true, black chitin beneath.

"Well, if I had to take a guess..." I said with an overwhelming amount of sarcasm.

"Do you just have completely no changeling self-preservation instinct?" he asked, rhetorically I presumed. "You never take the form of the same pony in the same room!" The light turned on in my head.

"Ah, I get it. You wouldn't want anypony coming in and then the whole 'he's the impostor, kill him!' scenario," I said, with an extremely inappropriate grin.

"How can you be so cavalier about this?" he asked. "And how are you at all able to stand in a moving train after drinking so much!?"

"Well, for the first question, it's easy. When you've almost died as many times as I have, everything else tends to get the volume turned down. And since I can just change into anypony else at will, stealing a few bits here, buying a drink there, I never need to be accountable for my actions, so... you know, no consequences. As for the second question, uh, wait, what did you say?"

"Standing. Train. Drinking," he recited, curtly.

"Ah, right," I recalled. "Well you see, years of pulling this little stunt-" I did a little sashay with my tail as an older mare, "has made me a... what you would call, an-" I belched, *Braaarrpp* "advanced drinker."

"Great..." he groaned.

"You... you sound like Applejack, like that. All disappointed and judgmental-like," I said, pointing the bottle at him again. "But you've never had to trot a mile in my horseshoes. Doing what everypony tells you to do. Always having to hide who you really are. Everypony acting like they're ashamed of the very fact that you exist!" I took another drink. "And now, there you sit, all shocked and surprised that I turn out messed up. Well YOU would too!" I shouted. He just sat there in silence. His expression was unreadable. But then so was everything at that point.

"Everypony seems to know the BIIIG secret about me except ME!" I shouted, "It's like- is there some higher force at work here!? Am I asking too much out of life to want to know the truth about it!?" He sighed, resigning to let me vent my frustrations. "Dibs!"

"Dibs?" he asked, confused.

"DIBS!" I repeated pointing at the bed as I finished the bottle.

"You can't call dibs on MY bed!" he said.

"Too late!" The floor began to move out from under my hooves. I tried to aim my fall toward the massive mattress.

My last clear memory.

I don't dream often.

Or hell, maybe I do. But I just don't remember it. That's usually the case for most ponies, right? Especially after a tango with the cider bottle. Sometime I dream about my parents. I've never met them. But in my dreams, they're tucking me into bed. I can't see their faces because my eyes are closed. Or the lights are off or something. Stupid dream logic.

"We love you, Storm."

"I love you too, Mom."

"We're so proud of you."

"Thanks, Dad."

"Burn them all!"

"Wait- what!?" My head popped off the pillow. My heart was racing and my pillow was wet. With sweat or drool. Definitely not tears. I remembered having a dream about my parents, and then... fire? Flames, burning...

The morning sun beat down on me through the window. I kicked the hot covers off of myself. Celestia's sun bore into my eyes as a not-so-gentle reminder that the happiness of cider has a cost eventually. I wanted to shape-shift into a pony that didn't have a hangover. But it didn't work that way. Mages of olde have tried for centuries. But there simply was no magical cure.

The empty bottle rolled back and forth on the floor in a slow, oscillating pattern as though- the room was moving. The room was moving! I sat up and felt the blood exit my skull in a sudden drop in blood pressure. My vision dimmed and I fell back down against my pillow. Even with the sack of down feathers cushioning the blow, the sudden accelerations of my head felt like my brain was being rattled around inside my skull with a bunch of broken glass. I cradled my head and tried to steady myself, sitting up again, slowly this time. I surveyed the room.

Bed, couch, desk, world rushing past outside- I'm on a train! It all came rushing back. Prison, the Prince, the train. I felt movement in the bed beside me. Prince Shining Armor was still fast asleep.

So of course, since I'm an a-hole and I routinely make poor life choices... I shape-shifted into Princess Cadance.

Here's the thing about shape-shifting:

Most ponies think it's all about appearances, but it's really not.

Sure, getting the look right is hugely important... at a distance. But up close, it's all the other things that matter. The sound of their voice, the smell of their scent, the texture of their fur. Those details are much more difficult to master. And I had barely little interaction with the Princess to get the finer details down. I just hoped to get the smell of cider off of my breath as I whispered,

"Good morning, sweetie."

His eyes opened, focusing on mine. I didn't even have a chance to get out a quick chuckle before his horn was glowing, gripping me in his magical grasp. I immediately regret this decision.

"No," he growled, rising from the bed in a slow, steady motion, as he held me in the air with perfect focus. "No!" Even as he held me, he slammed me with his nullification spell, stripping me of the disguise. He added something to it. I want to say it was... fire. Unlike the first time he peeled it away, he did so this time with a side of pain! And there really isn't enough exclamation points to describe the hellfire that ran over me as he peeled the disguise away along with, what felt like, the top layer of my skin. It was the kind of pain so sharp that you can't even scream. You can't even breath. You literally can't even.

"Do. Not. Ever! take Her form," he growled, pressing my black carapace to the floor. I could feel myself flattening somewhat beneath the weight of his magic. The floor boards under me creaked from the force pressing down on me. "If I ever catch a changeling taking her form again, I will END them on sight! Do you understand!?" I had neither the freedom to move my head to nod or air in my lungs to comply. Thankfully he assumed the affirmative and released me.

"Huuuuauaaaaah!" I hadn't meant to make any noise. But apparently that was what lungs sound like having air rush into them after being crushed completely empty. I gasped and panted on the floor like a spastic fish out of water. I wanted to say some kind of apology. But he clearly didn't want to hear a thing from me as he stared out the window. Counting to ten, I presume.

See, I have this really bad habit of finding where ponies' lines are by crossing them. Well... I had just found his.

Occasionally I get little reminders like this in my life. Even though I can shape-shift into a unicorn, I don't have the same clout with magic as the real thing. 'Time and training,' Princess Twilight would say during our lessons. 'Time and training'. But the part she left unsaid was 'patience and dedication', ' studying and hard work'. All, virtues I lacked. That, and a fair bit of common sense, basic decency, and manners. If shape-shifting into a changeling victim's loved one wasn't evident of that enough. No, there was no verbal apology enough for that. Even still...

"Sorry," I gasped. I didn't expect forgiveness. But what else could I do? He didn't turn to look at me. Counting to a hundred, I suppose.

"We're nearly there," he said, with a calm I wasn't expecting, "You should get dressed." I hadn't packed any clothes. But I understood perfectly well what he meant. I shape-shifted back into Dawn. I sat there on the floor a while longer. The room was quiet but for the sound of the locomotive and the wheels of the train on the track beneath us. And the empty glass bottle rolling on the wooden floor. I picked it up and put it back in the cabinet, closing the door. Shadows whipped across the floor.

I turned and saw the skyline of the city cutting across the low, morning sunlight.

"Canterlot," he said, turning around at last. The train began to slow. "The station is coming up quick. It's not very far into the city," he said in an even tone, seemingly as content as I, to pretend that none of this just happened. But just the same, I would walk away from this moment with an important lesson: Prince Shining Armor was not a stallion to cross.

The train came to a stop in the station, and he and I stepped out onto the platform. Guards were there, waiting. I felt myself getting nervous before remembering in whose company I was. Standard fare for royalty, as they escorted us to a carriage to Canterlot Castle.

I feel remiss in failing to describe the Crystal Empire in detail. See, at the time, I was a little preoccupied with stealing the Crystal Heart to notice the architecture. Plus it was dark. And then again, when we were leaving, I was focused on the stallion in the carriage with me. But from what I saw through the window of the carriage and train defied words. It's truly a splendor to behold, an inspiration for poets, both in it's colors and architecture. The way the crystalline structure refracted the ambient light in a thousand-thousand different ways, offering a unique spectacle to every part of the surrounding land.

I mention this now, in comparison to Canterlot. Not to say that the Crystal Empire is any more magnificent than Canterlot, or the reverse. Canterlot has a beauty all of it's own that is different but equally difficult to adequately articulate. I would say that it's beautiful in a more traditional sense, which I find ironic, given that the Crystal Empire is a great deal older, if the historians are to be believed. Perhaps the experience is subjective for every pony.

For me, seeing Canterlot up close was an affirmation of the reality of the place after seeing it so faintly in the distance all my life, whereas the Crystal Empire felt almost alien, like it was a lucid dream, made real.

Even perched on the side of a mountain, Canterlot just seemed to make more sense, physically. The Castle especially. It was wider at the base, and grew more narrow on the way up, as opposed to being suspended in the air aloft four crystal pillars like the Empire's Palace. It had all the basic parts of a castle that I had come to expect from the literature, both fiction and reference alike. Towers? Check. Battlements? Check. Moat? Check.

"Even a drawbridge!?" I asked aloud as I watched it lower for our approach.

"Even a drawbridge," he answered, clearly accustomed to the reactions of first-time visitors to the city. We rolled in through the gate. I could see the eyes of every guard fixed on our vehicle as we rolled through. "Are you sure you don't want to consider joining?" he asked, motioning to all of the uniformed ponies.

"I... can't see myself doing that," I said. He nudged my shoulder, gaining my attention.

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right," he said.

"Hmph. All the adventure of guarding a wall," I said.

"There's more to the Guard than babysitting the wall. You should see for yourself," he said. I erred on the side of cautious optimism.

"Consider it considered."

"I guess that'll do, for now," he sighed. The carriage came to a halt and the door opened. He stepped out first, and I followed, notebook in hoof, recording everything he said, like a good assistant. "Let's get you to your room." The bellhop took his bags. He followed the bellhop. I followed him, up into the Castle.

The inside of the castle had a weird effect. It was simultaneously overwhelming and yet boring. At first glance, it completely blows your mind at the staggering scale of it all. Seriously. Those first couple of minutes were magic. I was entranced. But as I began to scratch beneath the surface of all the flash, the stained glass windows and tapestries, I found that the halls and walls were repetitive and same-y. Rectangular bricks, right angles, even the archways were basic construction underlying the superficial glamour. Perhaps my eyes had just been spoiled by the random geometry of the crystal buildings of the Empire.

We stopped outside of a door in a hallway that looked like many of the other doors in other hallways et cetera et cetera. It was a wonder that ponies were not constantly lost around here. But then, perhaps that was an intentional defense. The bellhop opened the door.

"This will be your room," Shining said to me as the bellhop moved down to the next room to place Shining's bags inside. "Thank you," Shining said to him, dismissing him with a tip of a few bits, waiting until he was gone. He turned back to me. "I need to attend to a few things here in Canterlot. You have room service. Feel free to use it. Just... stay in your room okay? Stay out of trouble for just- twenty four hours. That's all I ask." He was practically pleading. "I mean it. Do NOT mess this up for me. Promise?" I nodded. "Say the words!"

"Okay. I promise."

"I need to take care of a few things and visit somepony. I'll be back later tonight, in the room next door. We'll leave for Ponyville at dawn. Just..." he waved his hoof at me emphatically, as though he were trying to strangle the point into me. "You already promised. I- trust you," he said, as though the words tasted bad in his mouth. "Don't betray that." He turned to leave. Silence on my part would have been a suitable option. So of course,

"Visit who?"

"That's not your business!" he called back, leaving the hallway through the doorway at the end.

"Whom," came a voice.

"The hell!?" I asked of the phantom voice from apparently nopony in the hallway. I spun around a couple of times, searching.

"Whom," it repeated. I looked up at one of the hanging banners, the relative source as best as I could figure. A pony peeked out from behind it after a moment of enjoying my befuddlement. "You meant to say, 'visit whom'," she said, hanging upside down.

"Whom are you?" I asked. She rolled her eyes, which now that I had gotten a look at them, were slit pupils like a cat.

"No, 'whom' doesn't work there," she said with a yawn, stretching her wings. Her wings were not the usual wings of a pegasus, with feathers. They were a navy-blue leathery membrane, like a bat's wings. She grinned. "First time seeing a bat pony?" she asked.

"Um, yeah," I replied.

"I could tell," she said, slinking down from the drapery, shuffling her dark-blue two-tone mane over her grey fur. "I always can. It's that same combination of shock and curiosity every time."

"So do you always make a habit of correcting grammar while eavesdropping?" I asked.

"No. But I find the confusion of 'who' and 'whom' particularly grating," she said.

"Really?"

"No. Not really."

"Okay..." I was unsure how to proceed. Usually I was the crass one in a conversation. Was this what it was like talking to me? No wonder I had so few friends. "So... why are you eavesdropping?"

"I'm surprised that you are surprised by it. Didn't anypony tell you that the walls have ears around here?" she asked. I shook my head. "Well then, a little bit of advice. Watch what you say. You never know who's lissstening," she said with a bit of a hiss. Just looking at her ears, I believe it. They weren't comically huge, but disproportionately bigger on her head than a normal pony, with long tufts of fur at the tips.

"You're very good at dodging questions," I said. She walked over, tapping me in the chest with her hoof.

"You know what? You're right." She smiled.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I work here."

"Here?" I pointed at the drape.

"In the castle. I'm a Royal Guard Pony," she said. I raised a dubious eyebrow. "Night Guard," she added.

"Yet, no Royal Guard armor," I pointed out.

"Again, Night Guard. And as you can see..." She motioned to the window. Bright sunlight poured in. "I'm off shift." She walked around me in a small circle. "Knowing what's going on in the castle is my job. Eavesdropping just happens to be a way of doing that." She leaned in, uncomfortably close, grinning, revealing her fangs. "I just correct grammar for fun."

"So... if you're spying on me, doesn't revealing yourself kind of defeat the purpose?" I asked. She shrugged.

"Maybe. But something tells me that you have just as much to lose by reporting me as I would. Something tells me that you're not supposed to be here either."

"I was invited here. Escorted by the Prince himself, as I'm sure you plainly saw. What other authority do you need?" She just kept smiling that confident smile of hers.

"Oh, just something about the way he was practically begging you to stay in your room... almost as if he doesn't want anypony to know that you're here."

"What do you know?"

"I know a great deal, in fact. I am a trafficker of information. I make it my business to know everything that I can," she said with a glint of pride.

"Care to share?"

"Ah, but information has a price, no?" she said.

"What's your rate?" I asked. She shrugged.

"Depends on the information."

"Whom is the Prince going to go see?"

"I believe that he said it's not your businessss," she said.

"Why thank you. I'm so glad to have you around in case my ears don't work anymore," I said with sarcasm thick enough to sink in a pool of mercury. "I heard what he said. Why won't he tell me?"

"Ah, a 'why' is more tricky to answer than a 'whom'," she said. I was doing a poor job of hiding my frustration. She leaned in, "Here's a free one. The Prince is going to visit his mother, Twilight Velvet, who lives in Canterlot. He's been a mama's colt since before he joined the guard. Everypony knows this." She gave me a bit of a sideways look. "Well, almost everypony. He visits her more often, now that his father has passed, consoling the widow, presumably."

"And why would he not want me to know then?" I asked. She shrugged again.

"Perhaps he was assuaged by the idea that at least one pony was unaware of his 'mama's colt' stigma. It does carry a bit of a shame with it, no?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Would you not? Fassscinating," she said, smiling.

"So why tell me this?"

"Because I find you interesssting, Dawn," she said. It occurred to me then that I had never told her my name.

"How do you know my name? I never told you."

"It's my business to know," she said. "It wasn't hard information to come by. 'Dawn. Prince Shining Armor's new assistant'," she recited. "And yet... that's all there isss. Just a name. No other records at all. Almost like you just fell out of the sssky." I narrowed my eyes at her. "The Prince has been doing a good job of covering up having an affair with you. I admit, I admire the effort he's made to erase you just for an affair. I would ask you about it myself, but you would just deny it."

"We are NOT having an affair," I scoffed.

"I say it here, it comes out there." She shrugged.

"It's a baseless accusation, with no proof!"

"Then I guess you'll have to forgive us if we keep an eye on you while you're here," she said, turning to leave.

"Wait! You never told me who you are."

"You're right," she answered flatly. "But feel free to ask."

"Who are you?"

"Ask me again," she said.

"What?"

"Ask me again."

"Okay. Who are you?" I asked a second time. She smiled, utterly radiating smugness. Of what, I couldn't understand.

"When you can ask me twice, while only asking once, you'll know my name," she said, cryptically.

"Who-are-you-who-are-you?" I asked quickly. She smiled and patted my head.

"Don't overthink that little assistant brain now," she said, giving me a quick kiss, nibbling my ear, before taking off, flying down the hallway and disappearing into the dark rafters.

I stood there in the hall a few minutes more, staring into the darkness, straining my eyes, and ears. I couldn't see it, but I'm sure there were more than one set of eyes looking back. All I could hear was my own heartbeat. It was beating faster than I would have cared to admit. I stepped inside my room and closed the door behind me. Behind the double walls of the fortified castle, I wouldn't have even thought to bother locking the door knob. But after that encounter, you better believe I did.

The deadbolt too.

Burning Drive

Despite my original intention of exploring, I actually did as I was told this time, and stayed in my room. I didn't even go down to the kitchen for dinner. Not that I needed to. One of the perks of being a changeling is the ability to feed off of latent love for sustenance. Actual food was pleasant, though. The room itself was nice enough. Better than back on the farm for sure. It lacked for entertainment though. The window had a great view of the wall of the building next door, and there was no mini bar. There were a couple of books, but they were just light, coffee table readers about the local sights. Sights that I would be missing during my visit, confined to my room. Partly from a royal order from the Prince. But mostly from a healthy dose of paranoia after my first encounter with a bat pony.

There was so much going on that I didn't know. And I really don't like not knowing. But it seemed the more I asked, the more I managed to only become aware of just how much I didn't know.

"That and smug bat ponies feeding me riddles," I said aloud to myself in bed, glancing around the room, half-expecting something to jump out at me. "Yeah, I said it. What of it?" I said into the empty room. Still nothing. Whatever. The fastest way to pass this time was to sleep through it.

BANG
BANG

"Gaahh!" I gasped, nearly leaping off the mattress from the shock of adrenaline.

"Dawn!" I heard from the other side of the door.

"What!?"

"It's dawn. We're leaving." I recognized Shining's voice now. I looked out the window. Indeed the sun was rising. It was tomorrow already. It had been one of those weird nights of sleep where it feels like you just blinked. No dreams, no waking up in the middle of the night. Not really feeling very rested either. But it was hard to tell with my heart going two hundred beats per minute. "Hey!"

"What?"

"Come on!" he shouted. "You locked the deadbolt."

"Oh." I climbed out of bed and opened the door. He looked inside, inspecting the room.

"Alright, let's go." He turned and we began to walk out of the castle. "Thank you, by the way."

"For what?"

"For staying out of trouble," he said. "I don't get very many days off. I appreciate being able to enjoy it. So, thank you."

"You're welcome."

Part of me, the a-hole part, wanted to ask him how his mother was. Just to see his reaction to the question. But I thought better of playing my cards all at once. It would mean a whole bunch of questions from him. And he would have far more to gain from the exchange than me. So I just kept it my little secret. After all, I hear that secrets are valuable. Who says I never learn anything?

"So, Ponyville then?" I asked.

"Yes."

I waited. It was something about the way he said 'yes'. As though there was more he wanted to say. Or not. The difference was subtle, and I might have been imagining it. I kept waiting for an 'or', 'but' or an 'and'. None came. But I wanted to be sure. So I took a guess.

"But...?"

"No buts."

"It seemed like there was something else you wanted to say," I said. He snorted.

"Hmff. There's plenty," he said, glancing up at the walls around us. My eyes followed his to the banners hanging from the beams and shadowy alcoves, and I understood immediately. Whatever it was that he wanted to talk about, he didn't want the locals listening in. We walked the rest of the way down to the foyer in relative silence. The bellhop pony from the day before was waiting by the main entrance with Shining's things, to load them onto the carriage to the train station.

The sun had only just risen as he stepped into the carriage. I lifted my hoof to climb aboard but hesitated at the last moment. I glanced back, over my shoulder into the castle, peering for anything that would look like a pair of slit, amber eyes looking back.

"What is it?" Shining asked. I waited and listened. My eyes and ears reported nothing, but I could sense it. I could feel it, just behind my eyes. That feeling that gives you chills and makes your fur stand up. That feeling of being watched.

"It's nothing," I said, getting into the carriage and closing the door. The driver pulled away from the entrance and we crossed back over the drawbridge, leaving the castle grounds. Looking out the window at the various sights again, I recognized more of the sights from what I had read in the magazines.

"So," Shining said after a few minutes of comfortable silence, "Now that you've had a chance to sleep on it, have you put any thought to my offer?"

"Offer?"

"To join the Royal Guard."

"Oh. Yes."

"You want to join?" he asked.

"Well, I mean, 'yes, I've thought about it'."

"And?"

"And... I've also thought about Sweet Apple Acres," I said. "And while it's not the life I would have chosen, I have responsibilities there. I can't just up and leave all of that."

"Seemed like you had no problem doing that a few days ago," he said. I looked away. He was right. But looking back on it now, the more I thought about it, the more it felt like I wasn't thinking clearly. Maybe it was the shock of the way my birthday went or something else. It all seemed so absurd to leave the safety and comfort of the farm life and almost getting killed. And for what? The vague promise of a stranger?

"I was a fool," I said. "And besides, they need me on the farm. Applejack and Big Mac are getting older. And Apple Bloom can't do all of the work herself."

"You don't think that they would be able to hire on somepony while you were in the Guard?" he asked.

Maybe they would.

"I don't know."

"Well, I just want you to know that my offer stands. The Guard will always be there if you decide to join," he said as we neared the station.

"So why are you so hot-to-trot for me to join the Royal Guard, anyways?"

"Well, I just think that somepony of your unique-" he glanced toward the front of the coach carriage, unsure if the driver could hear him, "skill set would be a great asset to Equestria."

"Oh really? Because so far it seems like the only thing I've been good for is kicking trees. Unless you count rampant, borderline full-blown alcoholism, theft, and almost destroying an Empire."

"You know-" he lowered his voice, "you know perfectly well what I mean! Your ability puts you head and shoulders above anypony else in the field."

"Oh? Is that how I got this?" I asked, pointing to the lump, still on the back of my head.

"All you need is a little training. No recruit comes in perfect," he said. I didn't answer. I was still unconvinced. He contemplated a moment, himself, wrestling with the idea of what he wanted to do next, and whether or not to actually do it.

He played his ace card. "I just thought that you would want to join the Guard so you could follow in the hoof steps of your father."

"My father was a Royal Guard Pony!?" I asked, practically leaping off of my seat. He just smirked and averted his eyes, teasing me. "Don't lie to me like that!"

"Hey! There is a lot I can't tell you about your past and parents, and I'm sorry. But I would never actively lie to you about them."

"Sir!" the driver called out. We arrived at the Canterlot Train station, coming to a stop. The way his yell was muted by the thick walls of the cab made me confident of our conversation's secrecy. Shining shot me a look for me to get into character. I nodded and took up the notepad and pen. The driver opened the door for us and I followed along after him to the train, obediently writing down everything he said. Which was nothing.

The train ride to Ponyville was about ten hours. If we played our cards right, I'd be able to make it back to the farm in time for dinner that evening. Although, in spite of it being a daytime trip, the gentle rocking motion of the train car and lack of restful sleep from the previous night had caught up to me. As soon as I settled into the couch in the Royal caboose, I was out.

"Hey." I felt a tap on the shoulder, nudging me awake. "Hey," he repeated. "We're here." I blinked my eyes open. The train had already stopped. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and got myself upright.

"What time is it?" I asked. He glanced out through the window and the clock tower in the center of town.

"It's a little after five," he said.

"Okay. Dinner is at six, sharp, every night. Sweet Apple Acres isn't very far. If we hurry, we can make it there within the hour." I quickly brushed my mane in the mirror before we disembarked. I was still wearing the orange and pink of Dawn. I would change once we got back to the farm. "Applejack always cooks more than we can ever eat. It's usually leftovers enough for breakfast and lunch the next day." Shining checked the bulletin board on the train station wall for the scheduled departure back to Canterlot that night. He decided he had time to stay for dinner.

"That sounds really nice. I haven't had Applejack's cooking since she catered our ten-year anniversary party," he said. I vaguely remembered that. It was a big event. But of course, I didn't attend. I stayed behind with Apple Bloom to watch after the farm. But I remember it was the first time that it was just the two of us alone as the two elder siblings did the catering.

Apple Bloom had even invited the Cake twins over. Pound and Pumpkin Cake. They're about a year older than me. But Pumpkin seemed to have taken a liking to me (as Pineapple). But of course her brother was being overly protective, even if he was only older than her by a minute. We've kept in touch since then, of course.

Pumpkin was certainly a mare worth coming back to Ponyville for. I smiled at the thought of her as Shining and I left the station. I enjoyed her company and friendship. But I could never see her and I being together. What with her being a pony and me...

...not.

ding ding Ding Ding DING DING DING!

We both staggered back off the street as a fire carriage came barreling down the street, bell ringing the whole way. Several ponies, both in and out of fire suits followed in a hurried gallop. Our eyes followed the commotion down the street heading through town, toward the setting sun.

No. Wait- The sun was behind us. The eastern horizon glowed brightly, just over the hill, smoke billowed up from a-

"Fire!" Shining and I both yelled. The retired Captain sprang into action. His training took over. Without a moment's hesitation, he ran toward danger, when most others would flee. I was hot on his heels. Over the hill to the east meant only one place.

Please, no!

I'm no athlete. My drinking sure doesn't help. I do manual labor for a living, but I'm hardly the strongest pony I know. Even if I shape shift into them, beneath, it's still my homologous muscles. For all the running I've done in my life, I'm hardly the fastest either. But I was that day.

I had never run so fast before in my life. I passed the veteran guard pony, and the mob of ponies following the fire brigade, whose job it was to be fast. The familiar road beneath my hooves flew past in a blur. The houses and trees turned to streaks of color in my peripherals. The orange glow ahead of me grew brighter as I neared. I crested the hill, arriving on the scene.

I've read about a place like this. Where bad ponies go when they die. Fire and pain. That's what this was. We'd had some decent size bonfires when I was younger. They were so hot you couldn't get very close. This was worse. It was worse than my nightmares. Sweet Apple Acres. In flames. The farmhouse was completely consumed in the blaze.

"Applejack! Big Mac! Apple Bloom!" I yelled at the house and the barn. I called out their names at the top of my lungs as I ran towards the inferno. The fur on my legs singed. I ran around the burning structure as close as I could bear, panting from the run, sucking in dry, hot smoke, continuing to call out to them until my throat burned. I heard beams snapping as the roof caved in. I felt dizzy, stumbling to the ground. My vision narrowed. A hoof on my shoulder. I didn't even look to see who was dragging me away. I couldn't look away. The bright fire in the night, burning into my retinas.

Everything slowed down. Fire ponies ran past me on either side in protective clothing, toting a hose from the water carriage. They were shouting, but it sounded so distant over the roar of the blaze. I couldn't understand what they were saying.

They fought the fire for hours. I could do nothing but sit there in the grass and watch. They fell back from the barn as another wall fell in. They focused on keeping it from spreading, spraying down the nearby trees, saving the rest of the orchard. The buildings were a total loss. There was nothing they could do but just let it burn itself out. It wasn't until midnight when the last of the flames were extinguished, leaving naught but a pile of smoldering ash and charred embers.

My hooves had been treated for my burns and wrapped in gauze. They were clutching the blanket that had been given to me by the first-responders. It was all I had left. It was almost midnight. The onlookers has already left once the excitement had ended. The fire ponies left once it was safe to do so. Only I remained, still sitting where I had been dragged. Just me, and the pony who dragged me away from another one of my near-deaths.

He had missed his train back to Canterlot. But he didn't say anything about it. He probably wanted to get some kind of lodging in town. But he didn't mention it. He said nothing. He just sat there beside me in silence. What would he have said? What could he have said, to somepony who had just lost everything. His home, and the closest thing he had to a family.

I sat there all night, leaning against the tree. I don't know when I fell asleep.

Burn them all

"Don!"

"Gah!" I jumped awake. The morning sun peeked over the town. My eyes focused. I had fallen asleep out in the orchard again. It was all just a bad dream.

My hooves were wrapped in gauze. I could still smell smoke.

"Oh no." It wasn't a dream. The sun lit up the area. The carnage of the farm homestead was total. There was nothing left more than a few feet high.

"Don!" I heard from behind me. Shining was walking toward me from the orchard with a small basket. "I- I thought you might be hungry." He offered me the basket. Apples. I spent my whole life getting sick of apples, and now strangely, I found myself wanting them more than ever. I took a bite of one. It was perfect. The taste and texture both. Juicy and delicious. That was when it hit me. The whole night had been so surreal. It didn't even really register to me what had happened. It was almost like it was a bad dream, even as it was happening. I felt my heart rip in half. I coughed and choked, gasping for air, spitting up the chewed bit of apple.

I cried.

He waited while I wailed out to the empty sky, falling to my knees and crying out to the heavens or whoever would listen. His only solace was a hoof on my shoulder until I had no tears left to shed.

"I'm sorry."

I tossed away the rest of my apple. I was still hungry. But I couldn't bear to taste it again. I stood up and marched straight over to the remains of the house. The metal door leading down to the stone cider cellar was still in good shape. It had debris on it, but after clearing it away, I was able to open it.

I had been given a bedroom in the farmhouse. But in my rebellious teenage years, I decided to move down to the basement. It was where my bed still was. It was a strange fate that it and I were the only things to survive. I walked into my room to collect a few personal effects I had left behind before. Though I had no idea where I'd even be bringing them. I had no plan. Nowhere to go. A familiar plain brown box had been put under my bed. I pulled it out and opened it. It was Mac's yoke and my birthday card. I opened it. Inside was a fern leaf.

A fern leaf

In a flash, my dark despair was burned away by intense anger.

"Need a hoof?" Shining asked from the stairs. I turned to show the leaf to him.

"This fire was no accident," I said. He looked at the leaf.

"Sweet Leaf, you think?"

"I KNOW!" I barked, crushing the leaf in my hoof. "It's identical to the one on her cutie mark. I've never seen a fern like this growing anywhere around here. There's no other explanation." I stormed out of the cellar, looking all around the open of the farm for any sign of her. "How could she have possibly gotten out of the Empire? And then beaten us here?" I asked.

"I don't know. She must have been on the first train, stayed on to Ponyville instead of getting off in Canterlot like we did. I'll put out an Equestria-wide APB. We'll get her," he said, "I promise."

"No! I'll get her!"

"Don, don't make this personal."

"It's already BEEN made personal!"

"Let the Royal Guard handle this," he said. I turned back to the ash of the barn, kicking a bit of it with my hoof. All my life, all I've ever wanted was to know who my family was. Now I did. And now they were lost. Now all I wanted was my revenge. But I wasn't going to be able to do it alone.

"Maybe I can do both," I turned back to him. "There's nothing for me here. I want to come with you to Canterlot and become a Royal Guard pony like my father."

The Dotted Line

We didn't stay in Ponyville. Pineapple needed to die in that fire too. If I showed up at Town Hall trying to lay claim to the property, questions would be asked. Uncomfortable questions. Questions about who I was and my official relationship to the family that I wasn't going to able to BS my way through. And Prince Shining Armor or Princess Twilight Sparkle wouldn't be able to help me without raising even more questions.

Dawn couldn't show up back in Canterlot again, either. She was a watched mare. Instead, I opted for a white pegasus stallion with a blonde mane. A grey cloud for a cutie mark. Totally ambiguous. I finished reading the material Shining had given me about the Royal Guard.

"Now look, being in the Royal Guard is no trot in the park," Shining said, sitting across from me in the train. "It's not just a job. It's a commitment."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it."

"I'm not sure if you do. Celestia's training is very vigorous," he said.

"Princess Celestia is going to be training me!?"

"No. But it's her training regiment for her Guard, by her guards."

"Oh. What about Princess Luna?" I asked.

"Hmmf." He stifled a laugh.

"What?"

"To be on the Night Guard, you need to be a bat pony."

"Well..."

"No! I already had my sister draft up documents for you. So you had better get used to this look," he motioned to me with his hoof, "and name." He passed a large envelope to me.

"Storm Cloud?" I read out loud, "I can dig it."

"I figured you'd like that better than-" he paused in somber realization, "Pineapple." I felt a sharp pang in my chest. For as much as I had hated the name before, I suddenly found myself wanting to hear it from the mouths of the ponies that gave it to me. I tried to push those thoughts from my mind. I would avenge them soon enough. I read on, trying to break the tension.

"Born in Cloudsdale... Blue Yonder Orphanage... since destroyed by a rogue tornado along with all other records... well that's convenient."

"It is," he added. I flipped through the rest of the papers. It wasn't very much. I tucked the envelope into my satchel, pulling its strap close to my body.

"Is there anything else I should know about... myself?"

"I tried to keep it as open-ended as possible. You can fill in the details as you go." He motioned to me with his hoof. "You seem like you've been pretty good at that so far." He poured himself a bit of apple juice. "The guard trainers aren't going to make it their mission to know your life story. Just do as you're told, and you'll just be another number to them."

"And after training camp?" He shrugged.

"You have a few weeks to figure that out. But you're a pretty accomplished liar thus far. You know well enough to not tell ponies more than you can keep track of."

"And what if I... get in trouble? What if I need- help?" I asked. I planned on being on my best behavior. I planned on not getting caught. But I would be a fool to not have a plan for the worst. He sighed.

"I... have a public mailing box. You can write to me when you are able, as a citizen sending mail to a prince. I'll prioritize any letter I see from Storm Cloud. Beyond that..." He trailed off, shrugging. "I can't really get directly involved without implicating myself. I'm already late getting back to the Empire. There's going to be hell for me to pay for that as it is. Both officially, and... to my family." He looked away for a moment. "I'm already in enough trouble as it is. This last train ride, and that envelope, is it from me. I hope you can appreciate the risk I'm taking, already."

"I do. Thank you," I said. He looked out the window again. A familiar skyline was growing near.

"Canterlot is coming up," he said, reminding me of our plan. "Are you sure you're alright with-" I cut him off with a wave of my hoof.

"Don't worry. It's not my first time jumping from a speeding train." I opened the door to the train car. The cabin of the train was filled with the roar of the wind rushing by.

"Storm!" he said over the noise of the wind. I turned my head back. "Good luck!"

"Luck!?" I scoffed. I readied myself to jump and spread my wings. "Luck- is NOT a factor!" I vaulted into a back-flip from the back of the train, catching the wake with my wings and gaining altitude. The train sped away beneath me as I made my own approach into the city.

I like to say that I learned how to fly from the best. It was my snarky way of saying that I was self-educated. What? You didn't think that Princess Twilight taught me, did you? Sure, as a tutor in magic, she has no equal. But when it came to flying- well... I don't want to say she was useless. She could be used as a bad example.

I glided in and kept my approach low, per his advice regarding the city's no-fly-zone restrictions near the castle. The last thing I needed was a scuffle with the very institution I had hoped to join. A block or so from the castle grounds, I touched down onto the streets. I hadn't really had the opportunity to enjoy the view of the city like this before. It as nice. It was... something I could get used to.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, I thought. Because I'm so good a judging these sort of things.

I approached the civilian entrance to the barracks which, from this side of the wall, served as the local police station. Inside there was a reception desk for ponies to file police reports, and the dispatcher. The walls were covered with public service announcements and 'Join the Guard' propaganda.

Sweet Leaf's portrait was among the 'Wanted' section.

"Can I help you, citizen?" the dispatcher asked. He wore the uniform of the Royal Guard. No surprise there.

"Uh, yes. I'm here to enlist," I said.

"Right through there." He pointed at the door to the side labeled 'Recruitment Office'.

"Thank you."

"Oh, no sir, thank -you-," he said with a smile that looked dangerously sinister. The door was partially open. I pushed it open and walked inside. It was less of an office, and more of a long, wide hallway. Nearest me was another guard pony, in a similar uniform, at a desk. Behind him, on either wall of the hallway were two long rows of benches, lined with ponies. None of them looked excited to be there. Many were clutching their stomachs. Probably feeling butterflies from being nervous about the 'big scary guard boot camp'. The guard at the desk didn't even look up from his paper work.

"Are you a walk-in?" he asked. I looked behind me, where I has just walked in.

"Um, like, in the literal sense?" I asked. I didn't see it at the time, but the vein in his neck bulged. He hid it well.

" 'Yes' or 'no' will do. Are you preregistered?"

"Umm," I actually wasn't sure. I grabbed my envelope of documents from my bag. He sighed in frustration.

"NAME please," he asked/ commanded. But hey, at least he said please, right?

"Storm Cloud," I answered.

"Papers." I gave him the envelope with my pertinent paperwork. He flipped through my papers, and then his own list, finding what I assumed was my name, and made a little check mark beside it. He pulled a small packet of paper, stapled together and flipped it to the last page. There was a line at the bottom for me to stamp.

"Stamp here on the dotted line, please," he said.

"Um, I feel like I should maybe, read this first."

"It's the same packet you received when you preregistered. You've had ample time to read and understand what it is you are signing up for since then," he told me.

Damn. Shining had given me a lot to read on the train ride up. Rules, regulations, things to expect, do's and don't's. I could only assume this was among it. He was clearly growing impatient with me. I dabbed my hoof on the ink pad and stamped the paper. He quickly took it back and filed it away in his desk, standing up.

"Congratulations, kid. You're officially property of the Crown." He walked around the desk, extending his hoof. I reached out to shake it.

He pulled it back at the last moment and sucker-punched me in the stomach. The other ponies in the hall winced, clutching their own stomachs as I fell to the floor. He stood over me.

"YOUR TRAINING BEGINS NOW, PRIVATE!" he shouted in my face. "Lesson one, expect anything! Trust nopony!" I gasped, having the wind knocked out of me. I struggled to get my breath and groaned.

"...Article one zero eight... dash two..." I was able to get out between gasps, "...destruction of government property..."

What can I say, I'm a fast learner. As I mentioned, I was given a lot to read on the train. And if there's one thing I'm good at, it's retaining information. Well, that and drinking. Those are my two strengths. I drink, and I know things.

"Well look what we have here. An honest-to-goodness SCHOLAR! Private Smarty Pants! On your hooves!" he barked, grabbing me by the strap of my bag, picking me up. "Go plant it on the bench!" he shouted, giving me a shove in the general direction. I took a seat on the bench, clutching my stomach like the rest of them.

Yeah. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. The likeliest of scenarios, since thing have just been going sooo well for me lately.

"I'm still waiting on one more. I don't want to hear a peep out of you, or else you're getting another!" He waved his hoof at me menacingly. "You understand?" I kept my mouth zipped and just nodded to the affirmative. He sat back at the desk. I exchanged a few 'what did I just get myself into' glances with the other recruits. Then I just stared at the floor, contemplating my enlistment; just another, in a long line of bad decisions. After a few more minutes, another pony came trotting in.

"Are you a walk-in?" he asked the pony, just as he had asked me, in a calm, even tone. I didn't even look up.

"N-no sir. I'm preregistered."

"Name, please."

"P-pound Cake, sir."

My head popped up. Pound Cake? Sure enough, Pumpkin Cake's lanky pegasus brother was standing there, giving the guard his papers and getting ready to stamp on the dotted line.

"Congratulations, kid. You're officially property of the Crown." The guard began to rise from his seat. This time I saw everypony around me wince.

I had known Pound and his sister, Pumpkin for most of my life. I had liked Pumpkin a lot for a while. And I could tell she liked me too. But he was always in the way of us ever becoming more than friends, being the over-protective brother. I'm pretty sure he could tell how I felt about her, too. He was less than cordial to me most of the time. In fact, if you'd asked me my opinion of him five minutes earlier, I would have called him a prick. He routinely made life difficult for anypony that had the misfortune of being born a colt and who tried to be friends with his sister.

The guard extended his hoof to shake his. Maybe Pound had it coming.

"He's gonna punch you in the stomach." I said, loud enough for all to hear. The others gasped. The guard froze and did an immediate about-face.

"Who said that?" he asked. "WHO THE BUCK SAID THAT!? WHO THE BUCK JUST SIGNED THEIR OWN DEATH WARRANT!?" He shouted. It was a moot question. Everypony had their eyes glued on the floor like their life depended on it. Everypony except me. His eyes locked on mine. He quick-marched over in front of me. "WAS IT YOU? YOU LITTLE STRING-BEAN PIECE OF GARBAGE?"

"Yes. Sir," I answered, as ordered.

"ON YOUR HOOVES!" I calmly stood up, never taking my eyes off of him. We just stood and stared at eachother as the clock on the wall ticked away, each of us seemingly waiting for the other to expire. That was fine with me, he looked like he had a good twenty year head start on me.

"Private Smarty Pants, of all the recruits, you were the only one to speak up to protect your fellow squad mate. You passed the test. SQUADRON," he addressed the rest of the recruits, while still looking at me, "MEET YOUR SQUAD LEADER, PRIVATE SMARTY PANTS! Congratulations," he said, extending his hoof.

fool me once

In a flash I caught his hoof just as he was about to sucker-punch me in the stomach again. I brought my own hoof back to sock him one in the face. I stopped my hoof just a hair shy of crushing in his temple. Nothing like a few bar brawls to teach you a thing or two about hoof-to-hoof combat. My eyes never left his. His never left mine. He gave me a look that said 'Just try it. Give me a reason. I dare you.' I withdrew my hoof and pushed his away.

"My, my. Aren't we a fast learner," he purred. "SQUADRON, ON YOUR HOOVES!" Everypony stood up. "ON YOUR FACES!" Everypony got down into the push-up position. I moved to get down as well. "Oh no, not you, Squad Leader Smarty Pants," he said. I remained standing. "PUSH!" he barked. Everypony began to do push-ups. "YOU TOO LIGHTWEIGHT!" he yelled at Pound Cake, still standing by the recruiter's desk. "We love to exercise, don't we squad?"

"YES SIR!" everypony answered.

"THANK your Squad Leader for giving you this opportunity to exercise!"

"THANK YOU SQUAD LEADER!" they all answered on command, rather than from actual gratitude. He walked back over to his desk between the rows of ponies pushing the floor, giving Pound a kick to the ribs. It wasn't too hard. Just enough to knock him down. "I DIDN'T SAY YOU COULD STOP!" he shouted at him. His push-ups were sloppy and shaky. Pound clearly struggled as he tried to push through the pain and to get back up each time.

I looked around the room. Each pony pushed as they were commanded. Each were giving me a glare as they did. Except Pound. He looked like he was busy trying to just not die.

The rest of basic training went about as you would expect for me after that.

Zero Night, as it was called in the guard. It was the whole shock-and-awe show you would expect, trying to break our will. A lot of yelling and intimidation. We were all herded into the training barracks, assigned a cot to sleep in, and a box in which to store our issued equipment. Nopony spoke. We all just laid in our cots. Some slept, some wept.

I could hear other ponies crying into their pillows. In the pitch dark, you couldn't tell who was doing what, unless they were right next to you. For example, I learned that night that Pound Cake snores. Dear Diary, it has been two days since I've had a cider. By the stars, I could go for one right now. I was too tired for it to matter.

CLANG
CLANG
CLANG

"RISE AND SHINE LADIES!" Our drill sergeant shouted as he threw on the lights, banging on a soup pot with a spoon as he walked between the rows of beds. We all staggered out of bed trying to stand. My eyes struggle to focus. But from where I was standing, I could see the clock on the wall. It said 4:30. It was still dark out. "Inspection! On your hinds, hooves to the sky!"

We all stood on our hind legs, reaching for the ceiling. He walked past each of us, giving us a quick look-over. It wasn't the same Guard pony that gave us all a big, hoof-shaped bruise on our midsection. This Guard pony was a little older.

"I see sergeant Window Pain has already given you all the traditional welcome into the Guard." He took a few more steps, completing the row. "As you were!" We all dropped back down to all-fours. "I am sergeant Hard Tack, your senior Drill Instructor. By a show of hooves, who among you have accepted Princess Celestia as your divine savior?" Most ponies raised theirs hooves. A few didn't, including myself. "Well you can stow that load of horse apples right now! Princess Celestia is no goddess. And she sure as sugar ain't gonna save you now. As of this moment, I am your god, and you will obey my word as such! Do you maggots understand?"

"YES SIR!"

"Do as I say, and I will not feel the need to use physical correction as Sergeant Pain does. HOWEVER, if you do not, you will find yourself wishing for one of his 'love taps' after what I will do to you. Do you maggots understand?"

"YES SIR!"

"You have fifteen seconds to get your butts outside and formed up! MOVE!"

And out we went. Morning exercise before dawn became our routine. Then we hit the showers. Then the chow hall. Afterwards, we would trot back to the squadron building. If somepony ate too much at chow, we would find out during that run.

"BLEEAAAGGHHH!" As we ran, Pound Cake fell out of formation to retch into the bushes before resuming his place, still wearing half of his breakfast. It was a lesson quickly learned. Once we returned, we had academic military knowledge beaten into our brains. What war happened when. Who killed who, and why.

And then after, it was physical education, which was exercise, but with an obstacle course of some kind or another. Weapons training. Hoof-to-hoof combat for the earth ponies. Combat magic for the unicorns. Aerial combat, tactics and strategy for the pegasi, like myself.

Basic Training was like being in a pocket dimension. Time had no meaning anymore. Every day was the same. PT, showers, chow, class, chow, training, chow, sleep, rinse, repeat. If you were a slow learner and made mistakes, you pushed. You either got smart, or you got strong. I was a fast learner. And I was brought up on manual labor. I did my best to just stow my attitude and keep my head down. "Just do as you're told, and do your time," Shining had told me.

I didn't do bad as Squad Leader. Which isn't to say I did good either. Hell if I ever got any praise. I was mostly just the go between for the Drill and the rest of the squad. Whenever we screwed up, it fell to me to get yelled at. I imagine the idea was for me to delegate the yelling down to everypony else to take the heat off of Sergeant Hard Tack. It didn't matter what it was, PT, weapon maintenance, marching, you name it.

"DO IT AGAIN! BETTER!"

We would do it better.

"DO IT FASTER!

We did it faster, and better. At best he would just say nothing, which was as high a praise as we could hope. When he yelled at me, I just took it for the team, rather than pass it down. His yelling never scared me anyway. The way I saw it, I already died in a barn fire in Ponyville. What kind of threat are you going to offer a ghost? I could see how it would rattle most normal ponies, preparing them for the horrors of battle.

Some ponies had tiny photos of their family, or sweethearts that they would look at from time to time. I had nothing of the sort, but for my memories. As much as I would have liked a warning from Shining about the 'traditional welcome', he did give me one important piece of advice, "You are not an individual, you are a squad. You succeed or fail, as a squad."

I made sure we pulled as a team. We worked together to help the weakest links in our chain. Nopony was left behind. Nopony excelled at the cost of another. I tried to stay positive with the squad, in spite of the initial play by Pain to try to turn the squad against me. And it worked.

Six weeks later, nopony had washed out, and we all graduated well above average. As a team. We were ponies of the Royal Guard.

As members of the Pegasi Air Corp of the Royal Guard, Pound Cake and I could be tasked with patrolling the skies over Canterlot, or scouting distant territories, or even-

"Cleaning this pony-forsaken wall. AGAIN!" Pound complained beside me.

"And you better make it sparkle, Private!" our staff sergeant shouted from the ground. I contemplated 'accidentally' dropping my water bucket. But I thought better of it.

"Look, don't worry about it," I said to Pound after Sarge left. I dunked my brush and scrubbed my section of wall. "We all have to pay our dues as Blank Ranks before we earn some stripes." He huffed and scrubbed his section and we worked out way across, back and forth, working our way down. "The way I see it, as long as we're doing this, they can't make us do something else."

"I would rather do literally anything else," Pound complained.

"Hey, we could be on latrine duty," I reminded him. He shuddered.

"I know, I just-" he sighed, "I just always thought that we'd be, you know, fighting dragons or roughing up criminals or something. After all of that combat training, none of it prepared me for- this! Nothing in the brochure said anything about being a glorified janitor."

I had to agree with him. I hadn't expected life in the guard to be like this either. After all the nationalism in training, I was geared up to take on anything, praying for war. But peacetime guard served more in a police role. But with crime as low as it was, there was little need to enlist unless you needed a steady job, food, and a roof over your head. Which was why I was still baffled that Pound Cake had left his home in Ponyville. We never had much opportunity for small talk in Basic, at least, not without twenty eight other ponies listening in.

"Is that why you joined the Guard?" I asked, "To fight dragons?" He didn't answer right away.

"...No."

"So why then?"

"It's... complicated," he said. I looked at the rest of the massive wall, yet to be scrubbed.

"We've got time," I said.

"Yeah well, it's complicated, and I don't really want to talk about it."

"Okay." I didn't press the issue any further.

"What about you?" he asked.

"I wanted to fight dragons," I said, stalling.

"No, seriously. Why did you choose to join?"

"Well, it wasn't really so much a choice as it was a lack of options," I said. He raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "I never knew my parents. I was an orphan in Cloudsdale. I worked a few odd jobs, to eat, growing up. This just seemed like a steady job."

"And that's it?" he asked.

"Well... I was maybe persuaded to do this to avoid jail time," I said.

"Ha! I knew it."

"Oh?"

"I could tell. There was always something about you in Basic. The way you were always looking over your shoulder, sizing things up. You look like a pony who's afraid of getting caught for something. Like you're planning on stealing anything in the room that isn't bolted down. I know the type. You like to get into trouble."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. When I worked at my parents' bakery, I could always tell when somepony was fixing to snag a cupcake from the counter when they thought nopony was looking. I always made sure to keep an eye on them until they left or paid. Especially this one guy-"

"Who?"

"There was this one colt that used to try to steal stuff on a semi-regular basis, kept trying to date my sister too. But I didn't want her associating with him, you know?"

"Heh, heh... sounds like a real jerk," I said. "What's his name?" I asked, suspecting the answer.

"Well I- I don't want to talk bad about him," he said. I looked around at the wide open space.

"Why? Afraid he'll hear?"

"No. Because he's dead. He died in a house fire in Ponyville," he said.

Oh. Right.

We kept on scrubbing the wall. Not really saying much else until lunch. Even then it wasn't much aside from the odd, lewd comment about passerby mares outside of the range of our voice.

"What about her?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely."

"Dude, she has a foal!"

"Well yeah, you know she puts out then."

"What about her?"

"Totally."

"Bruh, she looks like she's sixty!"

"Hey, there's just something about a mare with no teeth, amirite?"

"Egh!"

"What about her?"

"Uh, no."

"Dude, she's hot!"

"That's a guy."

"What?"

"Yeah. That's a guy with a long mane."

"..... dammit."

Oh yeah, classy. We were model citizens. After lunch we resumed our work until the sun started to set. I had to admit, we had done a good job getting that wall white. It shined especially bright with the reds and oranges of dusk. We both flew up to the top of the wall to collect our cleaning supplies and head back to the barracks for the night. A pony flew toward the wall to fly over, into the restricted airspace. Pound flew up to intercept her.

"No, Pound, wait!" I tried to stop him.

"Ma'am! This is restricted air space! Halt!" he commanded and put up a hoof to stop her. She stopped just outside of the wall and grinned at him.

"Hm hm ha ha ha!" She giggled. "Adorable. What are you going to do, scrub me to death?"

"Pound! She's Night Guard! Look!" I said, pointing at her uniform, before I myself saluted. It was different from the brass armor of the Day Guard. It was black and purple. The rank on her armor told me she was a lieutenant. Hence, the salute. Everything else about her told me she was a-

"Bat pony!" Pound said.

"That's Lieutenant Bat Pony to you," she said. I elbowed him in the side. He tore his eyes away from her slit eyes, and managed to fumble a salute to the ranking officer.

"Sorry, ma'am, he's new," I said. She looked at me.

"So are you, ssslick-sleeve," she said, gesturing to my blank rank. "Either that, or somepony's been very bad."

"Can't I be both?" I asked playfully, searching her face for recognition.

"Hmff," She forced, clearly bored with the exchange already. "Have fun cleaning up, boys." She fluttered past us, kicking over the bucket of filthy water, running a big black streak down the side of the wall.

"Hey!" Pound shouted. I punched him in the shoulder. She was an officer and we were of lowest ranking enlisted. If she wanted to make our lives hard, there was nothing we could do to stop her.

"Wait, what's your name?" I asked as she flew further away.

"Ask me again," she said, flying away before I even could. Damn, I knew I had recognized her. I couldn't tell right away with the helmet, but it was definitely her voice. She was the same bat pony I had met before. Now I needed to find out who she was.

"Get this stuff back to the barracks," I told Pound.

"What? No!"

"I'll buy you lunch tomorrow."

"Ugh, fine. Wait, where are you going?" he asked. I grinned.

"To get into trouble," I said, taking off after her.

Ask Me Again

This is a bad idea.

You ever have that thought? I know I do. Sure, there are plenty of times when I just act without thinking. Even more where it seems like a good idea. Times like this were rare, though, where I was conscious of the fact that I was making a bad decision. Of course, it wasn't actually enough to stop me.

I abandoned my wing-pony, Pound Cake, at the castle wall, leaving him to return the cleaning equipment to the barracks for the paltry promise of a lunch tomorrow. I flew after the bat pony Night Guard. She was definitely the one that I had met before, when I first visited Canterlot as Dawn and asked her name. 'Ask me again', she had said, just as she had then. 'When you can ask me twice while only asking me once, you'll know my name.' It was a needlessly cryptic response to a fairly straightforward question. And I didn't know the answer to her little riddle. I hated not knowing. She barely knew me but knew exactly how to get under my fur.

I think the fact that she knew how to get under my fur so easily irritated me more than teasing me about her name. Which, admittedly, I knew I was letting her. I was letting it bother me. And that made me irritated with myself even more. I knew that becoming a Royal Guard Pony meant that I would be an instrument of Equestria's protection. Even still, I didn't like feeling like I was being played.

The sun slipped below the horizon as I scanned the area in the direction I had seen her heading. The moon would be up momentarily, but in the meantime, the last light of dusk vanished, shrouding the land in darkness. My eyes struggled to adjust as I flew over Canterlot Castle. I never saw it coming.

POW!

"Restricted airspace!" I heard shouted, punctuating the swift kick to the ribs, sending me reeling from the air. I spiraled downwards into the courtyard, struggling to recover from the strike, narrowly avoiding a pillar. At least I managed to land on all fours before tumbling to the ground for, what I would call, a graceful crash. Even hurting as I was, my training jumped in, and I was on my hooves in a flash, ready to defend myself. My attacker lofted down to a hover just above me.

"Hey! I'm Royal Guard! What GIVES!..." I shouted. I saw the officer rank on the lapel of her armor, "... ma'am!" I rendered a shaky salute.

"You're not on duty. You're Day Guard. And it ain't day," she said. It was her.

"It isn't." I corrected.

"What?"

"You said it ain't day. It isn't day. Ain't ain't a word." She glared at me. "...ma'am."

"So is that why you joined the Guard? To correct grammar?"

"No ma'am. I joined the Royal Guard to defend Equestria from all enemies, both foreign and domestic," I deadpanned, quoting the Guard's Pledge. "And as you've said, I'm off duty. I just correct grammar for fun," I said, quoting her. It was a gamble. But it was one that gained me a raised eyebrow. She narrowed her eyes at me, searching my face for recognition as she landed silently on the grass. It took all my will to keep from smirking. I knew she something that she didn't. And she knew it. And it was maddening for her.

"Who are you?" she asked. I obediently snapped my hooves to attention.

"Private Storm Cloud, Ma'am," I reported.

"What are you doing flying over castle air space after hours, Private?"

"As I was ordered."

"By whom?" she asked.

"By you," I answered. She stood there in silence a moment. Her expression was a combination of confused and annoyed. It was an expression I saw often on ponies that I spoke to. Just before it turns into anger. "You told me to ask you your name again. As was doing as ordered, ma'am, following you to ask you your name."

"..."

"So, what is your name?" I asked, again. Her wings flared and propelled her into the air with a powerful flap.

"Good job, Private. You've carried out your objective. You are relieved to your barracks." She turned and began to fly away. I wasn't about to let her out of my sight again. I took off after her, catching up alongside of her. "Stop following me."

"You didn't answer my question."

"Wow. You must be like, a detective," she said with a sarcasm I had only known to come from myself. "Don't you have a curfew to be late for?" she asked angrily.

"I just want to know your name."

"You're pretty damn tenaciousss, I'll give you that," she said as we flew higher. "Fine, I'll tell you. It's... Restricted Airspace!" She said, turning to kick me again. But I was ready this time, dodging her strike with a parry, giving her hoof a swift twist, forcing her into an inverted roll. I maintained my hold on her, as I had been trained, keeping her wings from generating lift. My own weren't strong enough to carry us both and we started to free fall. "You are assaulting a superior Guard Pony!" She shouted as she tried to wrench herself free.

"No! Merely a higher-ranking one!" I shouted back. My wings barely slowed our fall as I tried to guide us out away from the castle structures.

"Are you crazy!?"

"Wanna find out?" I asked, pinning one of my wings back, sending us veering sharply to the left, out over the edge of Canterlot.

"Let go of me!" The street level of the city flew up past us as we careened down parallel along the sheer face of the mountainside. "You're going to get us both killed!" She pulled her leg back, pulling me along with it. She brought her other hoof forward to meet my face. My hooves were still holding onto her leg, torquing her upside down, but I narrowly dodged the punch. Even still she managed to grab a hold of my ear. She leveraged herself into another punch. I couldn't duck out of the way while still being attached to my ear. I let go of her leg to block it. She let the momentum of her missed punch spin her around, right-side-up, and reared to buck me square in the chest with both of her legs.

The ground was rushing up towards us in a hurry. I spread my wings at the last second, arresting my fall, making her kick a glancing blow before she, too, righted herself. Each of us skimmed along the valley floor to burn off the speed of our fall. She angled her flight back upwards toward the city. I took chase, shouting after her.

"What's! Your! NAME!"

NAME Name name name.

All I got back was my voice off the cliff face. She turned and stopped above me, looking down. I hovered closer, staying out of her range. She smiled, secure in her defensive altitude advantage.

"Well there's your answer, sssweetie," she said. I briefly gave her a puzzled look. She slapped her hooves together in a solid clap. The sound of it echoed off of the cliff.

"Echo?"

"Mhmm." She nodded.

"And why couldn't you just tell me that!?"

"Because that wouldn't be nearly as fun. Because I understand the value of anonymity. And because, Storm Cloud," she hovered closer, speaking quietly, "We are all so much more complicated than our namesss." She turned, swishing me with her tail. "Fly along now! You don't want to get caught out after dark. Nightmare Moon will come gobble you up."

"There's no such thing as Nightmare Moon," I said.

"Heh heh," she half-laughed, with a knowing grin that made me nervous.

"There isn't," I said. She started flying back up to the city.

"Whatever helps you sleep, Ssstorm." I flew after her. She noticed. I wasn't trying to be sneaky about it. "What."

"Nothing," I said flying alongside her.

"You figured out my name. So what do you want, a prize?"

"No."

"Then why are you still following me?"

"I'm not. I'm just flying back to Canterlot. Why are you following me?" I asked.

"Has anypony ever told you how irritating you are?" she asked.

"No. Usually they just punch me by this point." I smirked.

"Hmff." She rolled her slit eyes. We flew together in the relative quiet of the night on the wind currents, riding the updrafts rising up along the cliff face from the warm valley floor. Occasionally I would catch her stealing glances at me when she thought I wasn't looking. When we got back up to the city, we could see the glow of the street lights guiding our way back to the palace. I needed to divert my flight path to head back to the barracks. I continued forward with Echo instead.

"I would guess most ponies don't know your name," I said.

"You would guess correctly."

"Do you always make them plummet over the edge of Canterlot to figure it out?" I asked.

"No. Most aren't as stubborn as you. Most just give up." We neared the perimeter of the castle.

"Are you going to kick me out of the restricted airspace again?" I asked.

"Maybe." She smiled. "That dependsss."

"Depends on what?"

"On how much money you have."

"What, is there a toll?"

"Something like that," she said. I checked my pocket.

"Umm, sixty four Bits."

"Ehhh..." she wavered.

"Hey, I'm just enlisted. I don't make officer bank like you guys do." She didn't reply. We each flew over the wall of the castle. I expected another sucker punch. Another few moments of flying, and none came.

"Fine. It's enough this time. But next time, bring more!"

"Bring more where?" I asked. She flapped her wings harder, heading to the west wing of the castle. I hurried after her. I didn't want to stray far from my Night Guard escort, lest I get a similar airspace-greeting from a different bat pony. We headed up towards the backside of the castle.

In the old days, the castle had been built to also serve as a fortress in times of conflict. Away from the exterior, it also had special structures that served as houses of worship, when Celestia and Luna were regaled as deities. After her sister's banishment a thousand years ago, Princess Celestia discontinued the practice. But the architecture remained, falling out of use. We flew together up to the tallest tower of the old temple, where the Great Bell once summoned the citizens of Canterlot to services.

She landed on a ledge of the tower, between a couple of gargoyle statues, strutting past them. I landed where she had.

"Halt!" I just about jumped out of my fur as the gargoyles moved to intercept me, crossing their spears. They were actually bat ponies that had just been standing very still on guard.

"He's with me," Echo said. The guards moved aside to let me pass, but both gave me a nasty glare. Yeesh, if looks could kill... We walked into an alcove in the wall, between a couple of buttresses. There was an old, heavy, wooden door. Standing beside it was another bat pony. Standing, but not really guarding. And by standing, I mean, leaning. He greeted Echo.

"E."

"Evening," Echo replied.

"Who's this?" he asked, motioning to me.

"I'm with her," I said.

"Shut up," Echo snapped at me. He regarded me from the door. He looked at me up and down and made a disgusted face like I had just farted on him.

"E, I've known you for a long time, and I may never say this to you again, but you can do better," he said. Echo bristled, letting loose a barrage of chirps, squeaks and whistles that made my fur crawl.

SKREE SKREE He responded in kind with even more agitated bat pony noises. The two of them bickered in a language to the tune of two chipmunks on helium fighting over a nut. Listening to it felt like chewing on tin foil. At last he threw his hooves up in defeat.

"All right! Fine!" He turned and opened the door for us. Echo walked inside. I walked in after her, giving the door pony a smug grin. A quick jab to my jaw from him made quick work of wiping the smile off of my face. Expect anything. Get punched anyway.

"Hahhaha!" Echo just laughed at me as I staggered back, trying to regain my footing. She grabbed me by my collar and pulled me inside before there was any further exchange. Inside the doorway she hung her uniform on the coat rack. I did the same. Mine was the only brass in the rows of ebony armor. "Don't mind him. He's just jealous."

"Of what?" I asked, rubbing my jaw.

"He thinks you and I are dating," she said.

"Dating!?" She rolled her eyes, opening the inside door.

It opened up into a large room, with a bar. Above the bar was a carved wooden sign. The Belfry: Where the odds are good, but the goods are odd. The room was full of tables and chairs with mugs of ciders, decks of cards and piles of Bits. Oh, and, lots and lots of bat ponies. The first time I had seen a bat pony's eyes, it gave me the willies. Now I was looking at a hundred of them. And they were all looking at me. The chatter of the room fell silent. In a room full of ebony, purples, blues and dark grey, in walks a stallion with fur whiter than the driven snow. I didn't even need a spotlight.

I was a spotlight.

Echo walked towards the bar. I followed closely behind. Every eye in the room followed me. She shoved a vacant bar stool aside and sidled up with an elbow on the bar.

"Two ciders," she ordered. The bat pony behind the bar filled two mugs, passing them to her. She grabbed the first one and brought it to her lips, drinking it. She didn't stop until it was empty. She brought the mug back down onto the worn, wooden bar counter with a solid thud, resounding off of the walls in the silent establishment. She turned back to the rest of the room. "THE BUCK YOU ALL STARING AT!?" she shouted. The rest of the room turned back to their own tables and card games, resuming whatever chit chat they were engaged in before we arrived, filling the room with the familiar background din of a tavern. I reached for the other mug. She grabbed my hoof, twisting my wrist. "Git yer own," she growled through her teeth, shoving my hoof away. The bat pony sitting on the other side of her smirked.

I knew almost nothing about Echo aside from her name. But in the brief time that evening, I found her to be the most mercurial pony I've ever met. And yes, I've met Pinkie Pie. In minutes her mood had gone from hostile, to vaguely flirty, to mocking, to protective, and back to hostile again. Every time I thought I had another puzzle piece for her, the puzzle kept getting bigger.

"Just one for me," I said to the bar keep. He poured me a mug. I reached out for it. He pulled it away.

"Four bits," he said. I looked at Echo. She was already ignoring me. I didn't hazard to ask why I had to pay and she didn't. I just pushed the coins across the counter. He relinquished the mug to me. I took a sip. My first since before joining the Royal Guard. It was good. Really good.

"Come on," Echo instructed, grabbing her second mug and walking away from the bar. Again, I followed closely behind her. We wove our way through the room to a table set way in the back corner. She sat down across from the other occupant at the table. Never before had I been so relieved to see a complete stranger in a strange place. I had never seen one in person before, but it was a pleasant respite in a sea of bat ponies to see a gryphon.

His fur- well plumage I guess, was white around his head with a dark grey patch around each of his amber eyes, like a raccoon. His beak, wings, and talons were likewise dark grey. The rest of his body was light brown.

"Well look what the bat dragged in," he said as he shuffled a deck of playing cards behind a pile of coins. Aren't I the popular one tonight. "What's your name?"

"It's-"

"Wait," he cut me off with a wave of his talons, "I just remembered I don't care. You got Bits?" I nodded. "Well lay down your money, Sunny." I put my Bits on the table. He looked at my short stacks of coins "All of it."

"This is all of it," I said. He looked across the table at Echo.

"You've got to be kidding me," he said to her.

"He'll bring more next time," Echo said. He pulled most of his own bits back into his money pouch until his pile matched mine. Echo also put just sixty Bits on the table.

"If there is a next time," he muttered before taking a drink of his own cider mug. I had been surprised to see a gryphon. Not just here, among all these bat ponies, but in Equestria in general. There had been an uneasy alliance between Equestria and the Gryphon Kingdom for the past couple of decades since the war. But the scars of conflict run deep. Generations of ponies and gryphons telling tales of the enemy to their children had tainted foreign relations for years. Few gryphons traveled to Equestria. Fewer still ponies ventured to Gryphonstone.

He dealt out the cards. "Five card draw. Ante up." I put in my ante Bit and picked up my cards. A lot of paint. Two pair, kings over jacks. Nice.

"I raise." I pushed ten Bits into the pot. It was a bit too aggressive.

"I fold," he said, pushing away his cards, face down.

"So what about you? What's your name?" I asked the gryphon.

"Griff."

"Griff?" I asked, trying not to laugh. "Is that your real name? Griff the gryphon? What, did your mother not like you or something?"

"My real name isn't important. In fact, it's real UNimportant. You got it?"

"Easy Griff," Echo said with emphasis. "I'll call." She put in ten of her own Bits. We each tossed a card and drew a new one. I ditched my nine. Picked up a third jack. A full house! I passed the bet. I didn't want to scare her out of giving me more money. "I'll raise," she said. She pushed in another ten Bits, trying to scare me away. But as the sign above the bar said, the odds were good.

"I'll call." I pushed in my Bits and threw down my cards. "Full house!" I raised my hooves in triumph. She flipped her cards.

"Four queens," she said. My hooves dropped to my sides, deflated. She pulled the pot toward herself.

"Ha," Griff said in place of a genuine laugh. I watched Echo stack up a third of the money that I had brought with me after just one hoof of cards. "You know, you really should try to pace yourself," Griff added with a smug grin, "The night is still young."

"So how's the chess game going?" Echo asked him. His expression became serious again.

"Does he play chess?" Griff asked, cutting his eyes at me.

"What chess game?" I asked. Echo ignored me.

"Don't worry about him," she said. He shrugged.

"Most of the pieces are in place," he said, gathering the cards from the table. "Just a couple of Pawns left and we should be ready to check." Echo took the deck of cards and started to shuffle.

"Solution for mate?" she asked. He looked around the room, nervously.

"Not yet," he said.

"What's... going on?" I asked. If you're confused reading all that, believe me, I was just as confused listening to it. Echo ignored me and dealt out the next hoof.

"Ante up," she said. I put in my Bit and looked at my cards. Off-suit garbage.

"Four." Griff put in his bet. Echo called. Even if I got the right card, the best I could hope for was a pair of eights.

"I fold," I said, pushing my cards away.

"So who's the X?" Echo asked Griff. "The Bishop?" He nodded.

"Mhmm."

"What about our Knight? Covering?" Echo asked. Griff shook his head and purposefully cleared his throat. Echo slumped back into her chair with her hoof over her mouth. "When?" He looked toward the entrance, then back at his cards.

"About three days ago. I had to wait to be sure before coming here," he said.

"Do you think he..." she trailed off and touched her lips with her hoof.

"No. If he did, I wouldn't be here," he said. Echo sighed and raised her mug.

"Here's to him," she said. They clinked their mugs and drank. To him I guess. "I'll... include it in my report." After a moment of awkward silence for me, she discarded a card and drew a new one. He did the same. "Eight," she bet.

"Hmmm." He pondered for a moment and pushed his cards away, folding. "Did you have it?" he asked. She gathered up the cards and shuffled them without ever showing her own.

"Sorry, Griff. I don't remember." She collected her second pot.

"You're such a tease," he said. "Your deal, Sunny."

"The name's Storm," I told him.

"Still don't care," he said. Echo gave me the deck to deal. I shuffled and dealt.

The money moved around the table over the course of the evening. I even won a few hooves. But it was mostly moving back and forth between the two of them. Before long, I was down to my last seven Bits.

"Another round?" Griff asked, tapping his empty mug.

"Sure."

"Why not." The three of us walked up to the bar. They each got their cider. I waited for mine.

"Four Bits." I sighed and paid for my drink. Again. I returned to my seat and let my last three Bits clatter onto the table. The cards from the last hoof were still laying face-up on the table. Griff took a big gulp of his drink before setting it back down. He picked his up and looked at them again.

"I really thought I had it, that last round," he said tossing his cards to Echo to deal.

"Yeah, but then you... didn't. Aha ha ha!" She laughed.

I sat there, holding a couple of my coins.

"You can rub them together all you want but they ain't gonna breed," Griff teased me.

"DELTA WING!" came a shout from the doorway. Echo turned in her seat to look at the clock.

"Dammit! I gotta go! My shift." Echo said, slamming the rest of her drink. "You too," she said to me, "come on!" I drank the rest of my cider in a hurry as she scooped up her winnings. I grabbed my three Bits and we both got up to leave.

"You can't work, you've been drinking!" I said.

"YOU'VE been drinking!" she said. "He won't serve us anything hard while we're working. You're off shift. Why do you think you had to pay for yours?"

"I dunno. I just thought he didn't like me. No wonder you guys were beating me at cards!"

"Next time bring more Bits to lose!" Griff called out after us. Echo and I became a part of the mob filing out of the bar, grabbing uniforms in the coat room. Mine was easy to find. It was the only one that was brass. Outside, Delta Wing took to the air on patrol as another shift flew towards the Belfry.

"You really, really need to go home now," Echo said.

"When will I see you again? How do I find you?" I asked. She smirked.

"I'll find you," she said. I grinned like an idiot. She rolled her eyes again. Ponies tend to do that a lot around me. "Now get out of my air space!" She shooed me away. "And watch out for Nightmare Moon!"

I flew back to my barracks...

...in a rather crooked flight path.

Author's Note

Image sauce
http://equestria-prevails.deviantart.com/art/The-Shady-Trough-319986368

To Dance with a Nightmare

Before I even opened my eyes, the first sensation I felt was cold. Not nausea, or even the headache I was expecting after a night of hard cider. Just coldness. I opened my eyes. I was sprawled out in a drift of snow. Tiny flakes fell silently to the ground all around me. My uniform was missing, as was my disguise. I was in my changeling form, bare to the world to see. The stars and moon above illuminated the white ground around me.

My world, it seemed, terminated not very far away, steeply falling away in all directions. And snow? It was barely even autumn. I peered over the edge. Light from below shown from a distant city. There was a castle down there. By the looks of it, I could have swore it was-

"Canterlot?" I wondered. But the only way it could be below me was if- "I'm at the summit of Canterlot Mountain!" How in Equestria did I end up all the way up here? "I must have been drunker than I thought," I mumbled.

"Well, you're half right," came a disembodied voice. I quickly shape-shifted back into Storm Cloud and I squinted out into the darkness.

"Who's there!?" I shouted. I heard back only a low murmur of a chuckle. It was coming from above me. I looked up towards the pale light of the moon. A face shimmered across its surface. "What am I half right about?"

"You are drunker than you thought. But you are not at Canterlot Peak," the face in the moon said. "One night hence, you will go to the gate of the West Castle Courtyard alone. There you will meet a pony. You will say to them, 'I am here to dance.' And you will say nothing else. You will tell no other pony of this," she said.

"And why would I be doing any of this?" I asked.

"Did my voice go up? Because that wasn't a request." Her face vanished from the moon, and the world around me went dark.

AWAKEN

I wish I could have seen it. I wish I could have been a spectator. All of the Royal Guard Ponies in the barracks gathered around the Section Chief, soup pot and spoon in hoof, hovering over the hapless Private, laying hungover in his cot, still wearing half of his uniform. I would have loved to see the look on his face as he put the pot over his head and clanged it repeatedly with the spoon, shocking him awake. Making what would have otherwise been a rather tolerable headache into a pretty damn painful one.

I would have loved to have seen that, rather than be the one to experience it.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG

"RISE AND SHINE!" The entire squadron shouted as the pot clanged around my head.

"AHHHHHH!" I screamed in surprise and pain, writhing in my tangled blankets. The pot was pulled off and my Section Chief stood over me.

"Hope you had fun last night, Princess! Because you just got promoted to Latrine Queen!" he said, giving me a bucket and mop. "Now get up and make every can in this place sparkle!" I clamored to my hooves

"Aye, proceeding, Sir!" I managed to get out, before tripping over the bucket and falling over again. Everypony laughed at me. I quickly got back up and steadied myself. The room was still spinning. My head felt like my brain was bouncing around inside my skull with a bunch of broken glass. My eyes felt like they'd been replaced with cotton balls covered in sawdust. My mouth tasted like an ash tray. "I swear... I will never drink again, for as long as I live," I muttered to myself. "And this time, I mean it!" I added.

"Yeah, sure. Until next time," Pound Cake said behind me, holding a mop of his own. "Guess who they made Latrine King? I sure hope it was worth it." I struggled to remember everything. Echo, the bar, the gryphon.

"Wait, why do I have to be the queen?"

"I'm your wingpony!" he said. "We're supposed to look out for one another. We're responsible for each other. You left me on the wall, and I came back to the barracks without you. So we're both in trouble. You owe me an amazing lunch for getting me in trouble."

"Don't worry. I-" And then I remembered the part where I lost all my bits playing cards. "I'm gonna have to give a rain-check on that promise."

"Wow. You're a class act Storm, you know that?" He groaned. "Here," He gave me the scrub brush. "You can clean the toilets. I'll be doing the sinks."

"I guess that's fair," I sighed, following him into the first bathroom, standing in front of the first stall.

"No. Fair would be me not having to clean the bathrooms at all! But life isn't fair is it!?" he spat. His words hurt. More so than he meant, I'm sure. If life was fair, my deadbeat ass would have been in that burning barn, and not the rest of my family. They were good ponies. And I'm... not. My hangover, even as raging as it was, was something I could handle. But now I had that, the guilt of betraying the closest thing I had to a friend, and a visceral return of my grief.

"No. Life isn't fair." I forced back my tears. I had been awake less than five minutes, and already things were going terribly. At least it couldn't get any worse. Or so I thought. I stared into the brown abyss of my task. "Oh no, why- Why did I have to get into trouble on beans and cabbage night?" I wasn't normally one to be nauseous after a night of drinking. "HUURRBLAAUUGHH!" But I guess there's a first for everything as I added to the mess in the bowl.

But the thing about being Latrine Queen, is once you get through cleaning that first one, the rest all just kind of blur together. Your nose goes blind to the smell. And the sergeants tend to leave you alone. Really, how much worse can you make the day of a private already cleaning toilets?

And that was how my day went, going from one bathroom to the next with Pound Cake. Me cleaning the toilets, him doing the rest. Everypony was giving me weird looks. I figured it was because I smelled like, well, you can imagine. When I went to wash myself up in the sink for lunch, I finally caught myself in a mirror and figured out why everypony was giving me weird looks. Apparently several of the squadron artists last night had used my face as a canvas for several pieces of... let's just say, phallic imagery. I turned to shout at Pound.

"Were you going to tell me about this!?" I yelled, pointing at my face. For the first time that morning, he smiled.

"No. But do you have any idea how hard it's been to not laugh every time I looked at you today?" He said, finally laughing out loud, breaking the tension of the morning. "The big veiny one across your forehead was mine." He laughed harder. We finished washing up. I spent extra time scrubbing the 'art' off my face. And then we went to the chow hall. I wanted to be mad at him. But I couldn't be. I was just happy, myself, that he wasn't mad at me anymore. "I'm still mad at you, you know," he said. Oh well, never mind.

The chow hall was where Royal Guard ponies could go to eat without having to pay. You almost never saw anypony in there with more than three stripes. And you definitely never saw any officers. If you had the money to eat somewhere else, you did. Pound and I grabbed a tray and walked up to the counter to get (what they were passing off as) food. The pony working chow duty behind the counter looked at us. He proceeded to tell us about the exciting variety of menu items that they were offering that day.

"Do you want the brown soy patty with grey sauce, or the grey soy patty with brown sauce?" he asked. I looked at the 'food' through the glass. So much brown. My stomach churned in a conflicting pang of both hunger and nausea.

"Ugh, you owe me big, Storm. Grey with brown sauce, please," Pound said in a depressed tone.

"Um, I'll just hit the fruit bar today," I told him, heading over to the fruit buffet.

"You are what you eat, Latrine Queen," Pound snickered after me.

"Oh, ha ha." I deadpanned. I picked up the serving spoon and grabbed a scoop of everything, heaping it all into a bowl and bringing it to the table where he was sitting. I sat across from him. He ate a bit of his 'food'. "So, how is it?" I asked.

"Nnf." He shrugged. "It's not too bad. Once you get past the chewy texture, it kind of tastes like... depression."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, with just a dash of... shattered dreams," he grinned, amused with his own commentary on the chow food. "How about yours?" I took a mouthful of my fruit salad. The refrigeration unit had died in the salad bar. The fruit was room temperature and mushy.

"I'm pretty sure a dung beetle would pass on this," I said, sharing his smile. We both sat and ate our terrible food together.

"Remember when they tried making quiche?" he asked.

"Ugh, don't remind me! It was like they had ground up the gym mats!"

"Hahaha I know!"

"..."

"Pound... I-" I sighed, "I'm sorry about last night. You were right. I should have listened to you." I said.

"I know," he said glibly. "It's alright."

"Thanks."

"So...?" he asked.

"So what?" I asked back.

"So was it worth it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did you find out what her name was?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"And... I don't think she would appreciate me telling you. You have to 'earn it'." He gave me a puzzled look and snorted, leaning back in his seat.

"Ha, you're full of crap. You didn't find out did you? So what did you end up doing all night then?" I finished what I could of my meal.

"I went to a bar, drank cider, and lost all my bits playing cards," I told him.

"Now that does sound more like you," he said. We both took out plates to the wash counter and went back to finish the second half of our day. It went by a lot easier with my friend ~~not~~ less mad at me.

After we finished working for the day we got dinner chow and went back to the barracks in time for the sun to set and the shift change to the Night Guard. The sergeants could give me latrine duty and break my back. But they couldn't break my spirit. I guess that's the power of friendship that Applejack kept going on about. Applejack. I felt that pang in my chest again. I pushed through it. The last thing I needed was a breakdown in the middle of settling into my living space for the night.

Pound went off and joined a group of his other friends for some idle chit-chat before it was time for lights-out. I was never the social butterfly he was. I was plenty tired from the day. I just laid back in my cot and tried not to think about anything. I counted the pits in the ceiling tiles.

"Lights out!" came the call from the end of the room. Everypony went back to their own cots and got in. And then the lights went dark for the night.

Applebloom finished kicking the the apples from the tree beside mine. "Woohoo! The way you cleared through the East Orchard this week, you were on fire!"
on fire
on fire
on fire
"APPLE BLOOM!" I shouted into the burning barn.

"Gah!" I shot up in bed, my heart racing, my fur soaked in sweat. I panted, and tried to control my breathing. I squinted into the darkness of the room. The clock said it was just past 11:30 at night. There was somewhere I needed to be. I rolled out of my cot and bunched up the blanket and pillows to make it look occupied. Over by the entrance, I could see the pony on fire-watch detail, Cirrus. He was doing the telltale move of sleep deprivation, his head nodding off every so often. 'Bobbing for apples', we called it.

The entrance door had a squeak to it that was loud enough to wake even him. I made a plan. I chose my moment and darted into the vacant Sergeant's office, took a big risk and quickly shape-shifting into his form. As soon as Cirrus awoke, I walked straight over to him.

"I'd best not catch you nodding off again!" I whispered angrily, in our sergeant's voice.

"Yes sir!" He said quickly. And with that, I left through the squeaky exit.

"Wait, why am I even out here?" I asked myself. A voice reverberated in my mind's memory

Entrance to West Castle Courtyard

I felt compelled to go. I couldn't explain it at the time. But it drove me to action. I exchanged my sergeant for my usual form of Storm Cloud. I'd rather get in trouble for being out after hours than get found out and executed as a doppelganger. I learned my lesson from the previous night. I kept to the ground in favor of not getting drop-kicked out of the air flying over the castle. Even still, I kept my eye on the skies.

"I'll find you." She'd said. I don't know what it was about her. But I knew she meant what she said. And here I was out after hours, right in her back yard. My muscles were on edge, tense, ready for the surprise attack from Echo. It never came.

I turned toward the west, following along the wall of the inner keep, toward the West Castle Courtyard. It was a section tucked away abutting the steep mountainside. It offered little in the way of scenery, neither of the surrounding countryside or the city itself. It had gone mostly unattended, serving more as a wildlife sanctuary. The gate to it, a set of large, heavy, wooden doors, was closed. And it stayed closed.

I turned the last corner and the gate came into view. I could see the silhouette of a pony standing guard at the gate. My rational mind screamed at me to abandon this quest and return to the barracks before I was discovered or worse. But a force drove my hooves toward the gate with utter confidence. I intended to get inside that gate. I would say something to the guard and he would let me in. But I had no idea what. My throat went dry. I got close enough to see their face.

"Storm!?" Echo said. "What are you doing here!? You need to leave right now! You're going to get us both in so much trouble!"

There was so much I wanted to say to her. So much I wanted to ask her. I had so many questions.

"I am here to dance," I heard myself say. Her eyes went as wide as dinner plates, and she said nothing else. She simply unlatched the lock of the gate and pushed the door open for me, stepping aside. I walked inside without another word. The door closed behind me. I heard it latch, locked. What just happened? Why am I even here? What's going on?

The courtyard was a large, stone patio, illuminated in the light of the full moon. It was a checkered pattern of large squares of white marble and black granite slabs. On them, were life-sized chess pieces. One set was made from a dark mahogany, the other from a pale, sturdy oak. Both sets looked very weathered from the passage of time out in the elements.

Beyond the patio, I could see the shadow of a figure at the edge of the wild overgrowth retaking the castle from the mountainside. I could see the outline of a horn, it's magic glowing and plucking a blossom from a branch of the nearby tree. I stepped toward the figure, my hooves tapping against the solid stone of the patio with each step.

"Do you know what makes these blossoms so special?" she asked me. I was frozen where I stood, unable to speak. She stepped out of the shadows of the tree, taking the blossom in her hoof. The light of the moon shimmered through her blue, ethereal mane, unobstructed by the blue helm of armor she wore on her head. Within her mane and tail twinkled a thousand tiny stars, contrasted against her jet-black fur. Her deep, teal eyes practically glowed, with more light than could be accounted for, with slits, like a cat's eyes.

"They are unique among all other trees," she continued. "They bloom only one night a year. The night of the first full moon of the autumnal equinox." She cradled the delicate blossom in her hooves. "They have long baffled botanists. Blooming so late in the year, and at night only. It has no chance for honey bees nor hummingbirds to help pollinate it. And on the night historically known for having the stillest air, it cannot rely on the wind to carry its pollen. By all rights, this tree should never have survived beyond the first generation. Yet, here it be." She studied the blossom in her hoof closely, examining every detail of it with much care.

"You could spend your entire life trying to find the perfect blossom... and it would not be a wasted life." She levitated the blossom over to me, setting the stem of it behind my ear. "Each tree, found across Equestria, stands alone. If it were not for it's unusual blooming pattern, there could be forests of them. Every year, it could face its extinction. It sacrifices so much..." She looked at me in the eyes. "...to be unique."

I stood there, frozen. No external force held my hooves. I was held not by fear, no, but by curiosity. She walked up onto the large patio with me. She was tall. Enormous even. She towered over me as she drew near. "I received a report that a pegasus guard matching your description was fraternizing with one of my Night Guard officers," she said in a stern tone. "Imagine my surprise when I found you."

"I-"

"Won't be needing that," she cut me off. With a wave of her hoof, I felt my disguise fall away like so much dust blown from a bookshelf. My changeling form exposed, I panicked and tried to shape-shift again, but found that I could not. Her horn glowed blue. "Imagine my surprise," she repeated, "when I came to see what kind of a pony you were. Only to find that the pegasus fraternizing with my lieutenant was not a pony at all, but a changeling that had infiltrated our ranks!"

"I-"

"Stormageddon," she said. I felt my heart leap in my chest.

"How do you know that name?"

"I know a lot about you," she said, sauntering closer to me. "I know who you are. I know what you are. And I know why you're here," she said after a moment. "Do you know who I am?" she asked. "What do the ponies call me? Whom do they warn you of in the dark of the night?"

"You're the Mare in the Moon," I said, resolute, "Nightmare Moon." She smiled wide. Her sharp, white fangs shown brightly.

"Are you not afraid?" she asked, surprised.

"No," I answered. It was the honest truth. But even I didn't understand why. The rational part of my brain told me I should be afraid. But I just... wasn't.

"Tell me," she extended her hoof to me, "Have you ever danced with a nightmare in the pale moonlight?"

I didn't answer. At least not verbally. What happened next, I couldn't explain. After a long moment, looking into her eyes, I lifted my hoof and placed it into hers.

And we danced.
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I had never danced before in my life. I didn't even know that I could. But somehow, I did. We danced. Slowly at first. She led. Or she followed my lead very well. I couldn't be sure. But we danced on the stone patio in perfect rhythm, amid the ancient chess set. The black of her fur mirrored against the black of my changeling chitin. She never took her eyes off of mine. She looked at me, into me.

They say the eyes are the gateway to the soul. I had never put much stock into the notion. Or the idea of a soul at all before that night. But as we looked at eachother, I could certainly sense something... spiritual. It was like the uncomfortable feeling you get when you stare at a stranger in the eyes for any more than a brief moment. But this was the opposite.

"You know, I actually thought you were dead," she said.

"Yeah, well, the rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated," I said.

"Are you not pleased that it isn't so?" she asked.

"Maybe I should be."

"Pleased?"

"Dead," I answered. Her eyes searched mine. I tried my best to hide my pain. But she could see right through it. She changed up the step of our dance speed.

"You're not- as bad- as you think," she said in cadence with the steps of our improvised tango.

"At dancing?" I asked.

"In general," she said flatly, focusing on her dancing. "I understand your plight. Hiding from the public eye, for fear of what ponies must think of you."

"A monster," I said.

"A monster is defined by its actions," she said. "You of all ponies should understand that appearances are only skin-deep." Her form shimmered in my hooves. Her armored helm flittered away into dust, revealing her black tiara beneath. Her black fur became a deep blue. Her eyes became familiar, round, pony eyes. Her fangs vanished into normal teeth. Her amorphous, smokey mane became... slightly less so. And she was a little shorter. But still a good deal taller than myself. Her hooded cloak turned into bats that flew away into the darkness. I recognized her cutie mark.

"Your Highness," I greeted Princess Luna with a polite bow.

"Stormageddon," she nodded back in return of the gesture. She took my hoof and pulled me to her, resuming our dance together. "Tell me- What do you want?"

"Want?"

"We all desire something. It's what drives us. What drives you? What do you want? What do you really want?" she asked. I felt my jaw clench.

Sweet Leaf

"Revenge," I said. She pursed her lips just slightly, somewhat disappointed with the answer. She otherwise withheld her judgement. "I'm after a pony named Sweet Leaf. I was... told that joining the Royal Guard was my best opportunity."

"You have company in your quest. The one you seek is considered by many authorities to be one of the most dangerous enemies to Equestria alive." She danced with me a few more steps. "You mean to kill her? Would that give you satisfaction?" she asked. I thought about it. I was ashamed to admit that I had fantasized about the very moment many times. Exacting my revenge. But this time, I thought about it. I really thought about it. Would it bring closure? Maybe. Satisfaction?

"No," I admitted, feeling deflated.

"And now you find yourself in the Royal Guard," she said. I sighed.

"...Yeah."

"Your father would be proud," she said after a moment.

"You know my father?" I asked excitedly.

"Yes. I do."

"Who is he?" I asked.

"Your father's identity will be revealed to you-"

"When the time is right," I cut her off, "yeah, yeah, I've heard it a million times before," I groaned. "What's the matter? Are you afraid that I can't handle the truth?"

"To the contrary," she said. "I am quite certain that you could. But it is kept from you for both his protection, and yours. It's as simple as that."

"What about my mother?"

"That answer... is less simple."

"Why shouldn't I know!?" I demanded. "The first weapon in war is-"

"Knowledge, yes," she finished. "But it is more than to simply have it. An explosive catapult round is a weapon too, yes. But there is danger in simply possessing it. Just as the answers you are seeking are dangerous. A bomb that not only puts you, but everypony around you in harm's way. And I can not allow that."

"Fine then!" I huffed, throwing my hooves in the air. "It will be revealed when the time is right!" I recited. "At least tell me what I can do to bring that about!"

"Perhaps you might consider making the world a bit better for having you in it."

"I'm already in the Royal Guard. What more do you want?"

"I was thinking something a bit more in line with your particular... skill set," she said. "Something a bit more useful than cleaning walls... and stalls." She smirked.

"What do you propose?" I asked.

"I propose that you work for me. At the highest levels of secrecy."

"How can you trust me? I'm a changeling!"

"A changeling is what you are. It's not who you are." She did a few more steps of dancing, leaning over me as she supported my back. She lifted my face close to hers. "I can see it in your eyes," she whispered. "You're not the villain you think you are. Join my team." She pressed her cheek to mine. I could feel her warm breath in my ear. "Somepony out there loves you, Storm. It's time for you to prove to them that you're worth a damn."

L.A.U.G.H.

Looking back on it, I wish I had said something more profound. Something more in tune with the gravity of the offer that had just been given to me. There, on the patio of the West Castle Courtyard of Canterlot, dancing under a thousand stars with Luna, the Princess of the Moon herself. My changeling form, bare to her. Taking me in her hooves, and whispering the offer of a lifetime into my ear. 'Join my team.' My legs trembled. My heart pounded in my ears. My mouth was dry. My breath, ragged. My mind raced as she held me there in the final pose of our dance. Her warm body against mine. 'Join my team.' Her sensual cheek, held to mine. Her delicate blue ears awaiting my answer. My response?

"Okay."

Just the memory of it makes me cringe. She broke her embrace of our dance, setting me back down. She began to walk away.

"Come," she commanded. I followed after her to the doorway of the courtyard. She reached for the handle, but paused to look to me. "You may want to..." she trailed off, motioning to me with her hoof.

"Oh. Right." I shape-shifted back into Storm Cloud. She opened the door and stepped through.

"Your Majesty," I heard from just outside. I followed Luna to see Echo rising from her bow to the princess. "Storm?" she asked, surprised to see me again, as if she had forgotten.

"Agent Storm," Luna corrected.

"Agent!?" We both said in shock.

"Yes, Agent Echo," Luna said. "I'd like you to meet the newest member of L.A.U.G.H."

Echo and I followed Luna into the bowels of Canterlot Castle, down the stone stairways to the wine cellar.

"Okay, so what is L.A.U.G.H?" I asked.

"Luna's Agency of Undercover Guard Horses," Echo said as we walked past endless racks of wine bottles from ages long gone, "Spies." We walked between the rows of massive barrels. Another bat pony with an eye-patch waited at the far wall of the long cellar. He bowed as we approached.

"Your Grace," he greeted Luna.

"Agent Sunshine, what are you doing in here?" Luna asked.

"Why, guarding the wine, of course," he said with a smirk.

"Of course," Luna said. "Are the others already assembled?"

"Yes ma'am," he said.

"Well then," she waved him away, "after you." He nodded, then turned and walked through the stone wall. He walked through the wall. I don't mean that a door opened, or that it was a curtain. He walked, and vanished into, the solid stone wall. I imagine the look on my face was quite entertaining to the other mares. "Your turn," Luna said to me. I followed after him, and headed to where he had stepped through. And my head collided with very solid stone with a thud.

"Ow!" I rubbed my head. Behind me, Luna and Echo shared a snicker of laughter.

"Just a bit of hazing for the new agents," Echo said before walking past me into the wall with a shimmer, leaving me alone with the princess. Luna kicked a stone against the wall. It ricocheted off.

"You'll need the enchantment," Luna said. "Kneel." I took a knee before the princess. "I officially dub thee, Agent Stormageddon." She tapped me on the shoulder with her horn as it glowed blue. Her magic ran through me. It wasn't anything amazing. It was a barely noticeable sensation. Like a gentle breeze, over as soon as it started. "Rise." I got back on my hooves. She motioned to the wall. I took a deep breath, and stepped through.

The dank, cramped darkness of the wine cellar gave way a well-lit space. My eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden brightness. It wasn't so much a room as it was a cavern. The walls were lined with massive, reflective gems that made good use of the light. The space was filled with desks, and freestanding walls with maps, photos, and all sorts of notes. There were lockers and shelving units filled with all sorts of equipment of which I could only begin to guess at the purpose. A couple dozen various ponies milled about. The wall behind me shimmered.

"ROOM TENCH' HUT!" Agent Sunshine shouted beside me, snapping to attention as Princess Luna entered the room. Everypony stopped what they were doing and turned to face her.

"Carry on," she said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. Everypony resumed whatever it was that they were doing.

"What is all this?" I asked her. Luna huffed in frustration. Her tone, a mix of maternal and vaguely flirtatious while we were dancing in the courtyard, had shifted to direct no-nonsense.

"There's no time," Luna said. "I have a briefing to prepare. Echo, deal with him," she ordered.

"Aye, Princess," Echo said with a quick salute before turning to me. "Come on, Newbie." Echo pulled me in a different direction from where Luna was headed. "I can't believe she picked you," she said as soon as we were out of earshot. "You, of all ponies!"

"What?"

"Hmmf. Figures," she grumbled. "Clueless." We walked towards the row of lockers. Each one was numbered and had a name on it in decal paint. "This will be your locker," she said. Another bat pony was scraping some lettering off of one of them.

AGENT GAS

"Who's Gas? Does he have a flatulence problem or something?" I asked. Echo glared at me.

"Agent Gaston. He was our contact in Gryphonstone. But he's been terminated."

"As in... fired?" I asked. She gave me a dubious look.

"What do you think?" she said. I gulped. She sighed, regaining her composure. "Look, I'm not trying to scare you." She paused. "Actually, yeah, I am trying to scare you. I want to make sure that you understand exactly what you're getting into. In our work, lives hang in the balance. When we make mistakes, people DIE!"

"Isn't it the same with the Royal Guard?" I asked.

"It's not even remotely the same. And the very fact that you think so only proves your ignorance."

"Well I'm sorry. I only just found out that this place even existed a few minutes ago," I said.

"Exactly. We kind of make a point of keeping it that way." The other bat pony finished scraping off the rest of the name, the bits of paint falling to the ground. The last bit of evidence of Gaston's existence was swept off the floor into a dust pan. "This will be your locker," she repeated. She punctuated her sentence slamming her hoof against the locker. "If you live long enough, we might even bother to put your name on it."

We walked to a desk at the end of the rows of equipment shelves. There sat an elderly unicorn. "Agent Storm, meet Agent Quill Pen, our equipment manager. He's in charge of all of our-"

"Equipment?" I finished. I reached to pick up a slick-looking wrist watch on the shelf.

"Hooves off!" Quill snapped at me in a Trottingham accent. I withdrew my hoof. "Anything here needs to be checked out through me. This isn't some buffet that you can just go for a rummaging spree through!"

"Sorry."

"If you just take something without proper training, most of these things will kill you before I'll get the chance to," he added.

"Anything you need for a mission, you can get here," Echo explained, pointing at the various items. "Most of it is pretty standard. Grappling hook, night-vision goggles, tranq dartsss," she hissed through her fangs. "A lot of the stuff we have is disguised as other stuff. A camera that looks like a purse, flash-bangs built into a briefcase, audio recorder necklacesss. He can make our tools of the trade look completely innocuousss."

"What about this?" I asked, picking up a plate with a sandwich on it. "Pull the toothpick out of the top to activate the grenade?"

"Don't touch that!" Quill barked, quickly grabbing it from my hooves, "That's my lunch!"

"Come on," Echo said, pulling me away, "We've got a briefing to get to." I followed Echo through the complex.

"So, where are we exactly?"

"The caves beneath Canterlot. Once home to greedy unicorns who wanted to claim the gems that could be found inside. And now, our headquarters," she explained. Many of the other agents were heading in the same general direction, to the briefing.

"So is it mostly bat ponies?" I asked, seeing nothing else aside from the unicorn, Agent Quill.

"Yes and no," she said. "Mostly yes, now, here. But there are quite a few agents of other walks."

"And where are they?"

"Sleeping through Princess Luna's beautiful night, I would assume," she said with an air of contempt. "Day-trotters tend to get assigned under a bat pony for assignment delegation. They have civilian covers to maintain, after all."

"Day-trotters?"

"Oh, it's what we call the rest of... you people." She winced. "As I was saying, we attend the briefings to exchange information updates, and then we each delegate assignments to our diurnal counterparts." She gave me an examining look. "And by the looks of it, you've been assigned to me."

"Yay?" I said. She rolled her eyes. "What about her?" I asked, motioning to the mint-green unicorn with a harp cutie mark taking a seat across the aisle from us. I recognized her as Lyra Heartstrings from Ponyville. "What's her story?"

"Her story... is a bit above your pay grade," Echo said to me.

"Agent Heartstrings" Princess Luna said, quietly to me, as she walked past, "is our double-agent contact in S.M.I.L.E."

"Smile?"

"The Secret Monster Intelligence League of Equestria," Echo explained. "They operate by and for Princess Celestia."

"Don't we, as well?" I asked. Echo smirked.

"My sister is a bit of an idealist," Luna said. "That she thinks that everything can be solved by the power of love or friendship." She smiled. "I'm a bit more pragmatic than that," she said before heading up to the front of the room.

"We understand that sometimes, one must get their hooves dirty," Echo said. "When it comes right down to it, for the sake of Equestria, we must sometimes fight, and die for it. And, when necessary, kill."

"But I thought Princess Twilight took care of most of the major threats to Equestria," I said.

"HA!" Echo laughed out loud. "And she just always happens to know what's going to happen. She always just happens to find the magical artifact in time, the Elements of Harmony, keys to rainbow powers, or the secret to a monster's weakness. She just happens to always survive in the face of impossible odds."

"Um, yes?"

"Storm, you're so naive, you're almost cute."

"Really!?"

"Almost."

"Oh."

"S.M.I.L.E. does its part protecting Equestria, certainly, and Celestia likes to think she has the corner on the spy market. The threats that reach Twilight are only the ones you know about. The tip of a very scary iceberg. We have a responsibility greater than most ponies can possibly fathom. We are burdened with a knowledge that the rest of the world would rather not think about. That there are things that go bump in the night. And we-" she grinned, "are the ones who bump back."

"Celestia has S.M.I.L.E." she continued, "Princess Luna knows this. And Celestia knows that she knows. But Luna likes to pretend that she doesn't know. And Celestia likes to believe that she doesn't know, but knows that she knows. Everypony knows."

"And what about L.A.U.G.H?" I asked.

"As long as Luna doesn't try to overthrow her, Celestia turns something of a blind eye to her nocturnal activities. Including L.A.U.G.H. Call it a show of faith in her sister's reformation."

"I mean with regards to S.M.I.L.E. Are we so certain that they don't know about us?" I asked.

"We would know," Echo said in a serious tone. "It's our business to know. And secrecy is our profession."

"So is S.M.I.L.E's," I said.

"But we have the upper hoof," she said, motioning to Lyra.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, how do we know she's not playing both sides? A triple agent?" I asked.

"We would know," she repeated with certainty.

"Attention to order!" A bat pony standing behind a podium at the front of the room called out. The idle din of the room fell silent. Princess Luna stepped up beside him.

"Thank you, Agent Meadowlark. Good evening everypony. First order of business, I'd like everypony to meet our newest agent, Agent Storm Cloud," she said, pointing me out. The other's turned to look at me, including Lyra. "I'd like you all to give him a warm welcome." Lyra put her hooves on her ears. That right there should have been a sign.

SKREE SKREE SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE The bat ponies all around me called out in shrill unison. I could hear it in my eyes. Lyra and Luna both grinned at my surprised discomfort.

"All right, settle down," Luna said. "We've got a few things to cover tonight. Agent Heartstrings, anything from S.M.I.L.E?"

"Negative," Lyra reported. "The Manehattan branch is looking into a minor development in Appleloosa. But nothing really of note."

"What about the on-going situation in Gryphonstone?" Luna asked the general assembly.

"Agent Grey Fin is looking into it," Echo spoke up.

"Well he had best find somepony to fill in for Agent Gaston soon," Luna said, "or else he's going to be getting a promotion."

"He's aware of that ma'am," Echo said.

"Okay. What else do we have?" Luna asked the room.

"Hey," I whispered to Echo, "Isn't a promotion a good thing?"

"No. I'll explain later. Be quiet," she whispered back.

"We're still putting together a case regarding the allegations of Prince Shining Armor's extra-marital affair," another agent spoke up. I put my hoof up.

"Yes Agent Storm?" Luna asked. "Something to add?"

"Look, I'm sorry, I know I'm the new guy, but is an affair really a matter of national security that we have to worry about?"

"No," Luna answered curtly. "But if it is true, and we can find out about it, it means somepony else may as well. And they, or more likely, his illicit lover, may use this knowledge to blackmail and extort one of the most important and powerful ponies in the world. And that is something we simply can not allow." She turned back to the other agents.

"Now then, do you have any actual hard evidence?" Luna asked.

"Well, nothing that you would really call rock hard," he responded.

"It's actually pretty limp," the pony beside him said.

"Well then I suggest that you had better get some!" She demanded. "If somepony is going to try to have one over on my nephew-in-law, I want to be one step ahead of them!"

"Yes ma'am!" they answered. He continued. "According to witnesses, the target, known only as 'Dawn' was last seen in Ponyville. The trail ends there."

"I saw her in Canterlot with the Prince the previous day," Echo reported.

"And our contacts in the Crystal Empire reported seeing him with a mare matching her description shortly before that. She never left his side until Ponyville. Then she disappeared."

"Do you suspect foul play?" Luna asked in a grave tone. He hesitated a little.

"We can't rule it out. He may have suspected that he had been found out and had her... 'disappeared'."

"How do you want to proceed?" Luna asked.

"We could assign tasking of Day Guard to investigate a missing pony report. Anything they find may be useful."

"Very well," Luna said. "Agent Storm?"

"Ma'am."

"I'm going to task you with this matter. I'll have the duty assignment sent to your section chief in the morning,"" Luna said. "Echo,"

"Ma'am?"

"You will accompany him and provide supervising oversight and support. Report any finding back to me while Storm maintains his cover."

"Aye aye!" Echo said. Luna looked at me again.

"Agent Storm, uncovering the facts in this matter is what is important. One way or the other, we need to know the truth about Dawn's fate. But discretion in this matter is paramount. Is there somepony in your squadron that you can trust to work with you?"

"Yes ma'am... I can think of somepony."

Ponyville Redux

After the briefing, Echo escorted me back through the portal into the Canterlot Castle wine cellar. She walked with me in silence up and out of the castle, in spite of the fact that I could plainly tell that she had a lot on her mind. I could practically feel the tension radiating off her as she led me back to my barracks. I wanted to say something, anything to break the mood. But I didn't. It didn't feel like my place. I waited for her to speak first. She did, eventually, just outside the barracks.

"Here." She gave me a small, round piece of glass, about the size of a tangerine.

"What is it?" I asked.

"A little gift, from our 'friends' in S.M.I.L.E." she said, with the slightest hint of a smirk at the corners of her mouth. I lifted it to look at it. "Don't look at it!" she said. "It's a small mirror. You point it at a pony, and it will erase a small part of their memory. Usually it takes a unicorn to operate its magic. But our ponies in R&D have reverse engineered it to be loaded with an enchantment for a pre-determined amount of time. To let non-magic ponies use. In your case, five minutesss," she hissed.

"Okay." I slipped it into my pocket.

"Point it at your target, and say the key phrase, 'going my way?'. Then you'll have a few seconds to say one complete sentence to fill in their memory. They will accept it as the absolute truth. But keep it simple! It only has one charge. It should be enough to get you past your door guard tonight."

"Oh. Right."

"Yeah. Right!" She scoffed. "And what exactly was your plan for sneaking back in tonight, after all?"

"Uhh..."

"Yeah, exactly!" she scolded, jabbing me with her hoof. "You need to always have a plan. And a plan within that plan. And a backup plan to that plan! An agent of L.A.U.G.H. doesn't take a dump without a plan."

"Alright, I'm working on it. I'm still new to all of this," I said.

"The sun will be up in a few hours. You may want to get some sleep," she suggested before flying away. I waited until I could no longer see her before I opened the door to the barracks. Cirrus lurched from his half-asleep stupor.

"Who goes there?" he demanded.

"Cirrus, it's me," I said.

"Storm?" he asked. "What are you doing up after lights out?"

"I have a special pass," I said. I took out the small mirror, and pointed it at him. "Going my way?" There was a small flash and his eyes shrank to the size of pin pricks. "You stood guard all night, and saw nothing unusual."

"I stood guard all night and saw nothing unusual," he repeated as I put the small mirror back in my pocket. I crept back to my bunk and slipped under the covers while he was still in the trance. By the time the effect wore off, I was ready to sleep myself. It had been a long night.

"Rise and shine, ladies!" our section chief hollered as the morning light streamed in through the windows. I sat up in my bunk. Pound Cake sat up in his, opposite mine.

"Ugh," he groaned. "Wow, Storm. You look like how I feel." I caught my reflection in the glass of the window. My eyes were bloodshot from missing so much sleep last night. We each got dressed in our uniforms and headed into the day-room to get some coffee and our assignments for the day. Each of the other guards were given various tasks in addition to 'guard stuff'. This could include assignments like cleaning the wall, but also things like kitchen duty or equipment inventory. Each pony collected his envelope when his name was called. At the bottom of the assignment stack was a slightly larger envelope. I hadn't heard my name as he finished giving out the rest.

"Dismissed!" He shouted. We all got up to leave. "Not you, Private Storm," he called out. "Front and center."

"Sir!" I reported, standing before him. He waited for everypony else to file out and closed the door.

"We received a coded message this morning," he said, waving the letter at me. "You've somehow managed to get an assignment in Ponyville," he said with disdain, "Personal guard to Princess Twilight Sparkle."

"Sir, that isn't funny."

"I know it isn't. That's why we decoded it twice." He scoffed. "I've been in the guard twelve-going-on-twenty years. And I've never gotten an assignment like this. I've lived in Canterlot all my life, dreaming of a chance like this. Most ponies will go their entire career without ever getting a personal guard assignment."

"Aye sir," I answered. I reached for the envelope.

"There's more," he said. "You need to select one other guard pony to accompany you-"

"Pound Cake."

"Another Private!?"

"He's my friend."

"This isn't a popularity contest you jackass!" he growled. "You need somepony with experience to accompany you. A senior enlisted who knows the protocol of being a personal guard to the royalty," he said. I looked at the senior enlisted stripes on his sleeve.

"That sounds a little self-serving... sir," I said. He glared at me, his thinly-veiled ruse revealed. "You're from Canterlot. Private Cake is the only pony in the squad from Ponyville. He knows the area better than any of us," I said. He grit his teeth.

"Per the order, it is ultimately... your choice." He slid the envelope across the table. I went to pick it up, but he held it down with his hoof. "But I strongly advise against this."

"I have been advised," I said. He leaned closer to me.

"Look, I don't know what you did, or whose flank you had to kiss to get this, but do not -DO NOT- buck this up!" He released the letter at last. He motioned with his hoof to his eyes and pointed at me, letting me know that he 'had his eyes on me'. I walked out of the day room, back into the living quarters.

"Pound, pack your things. You and I have an assignment!"

"Uh, okay?"

"Storm, I don't know about this," Pound said to me on the train, now a good distance from Canterlot.

"What are you nervous about? Do you have an angry ex in Ponyville?" I asked jokingly.

"It's not that. It's you!" he said. "I'm afraid that you're going to get us in trouble!"

"No I'm not," I said.

"You're literally picking the door lock of the Royal Train Car. The one we're supposed to be guarding!"

"Shut up! I want to hit up the minibar!" I said, working the pick tools in the tumbles of the lock. But even without them, I could pick a lock with a paper clip. It was like, my special talent or something. That and shape-shifting. That too.

"How do you even know it has one?" he asked.

"It's the Royal Caboose. It's gotta have one," I reasoned. He looked unconvinced. "What? Do you think this is the first time I've ever picked a lock?"

"Unbelievable," he muttered. The lock clicked open.

"Got it. You coming in?" He put his hooves up and backed away.

"I'm not getting involved in this," he said. "I'm going to go use the restroom."

"Yeah, yeah. Go on you sissy. I'll grab a bottle for you. I still owe you for lunch."

"Please don't. And please don't get caught." He turned and walked away quickly.

"Your loss." I opened the door and walked inside. The caboose looked much the same as I last saw it, with Prince Shining Armor absent now, of course. I made a bee line for the liquor cabinet, opening it and grabbing a bottle.

"Are you enjoying yourself?"

I nearly jumped out of my fur, sending the bottle flying through the air. Echo caught the bottle with lightning reflexes. I turned to see the bat pony slinking down from her perch in the ceiling rafters of the tall car, bottle in hoof.

"What are you doing in here?" I asked.

"Guarding the Royal Caboose from intruders trying to rob it. You know, the very thing you're supposed to be doing," she said with a stern tone, still hanging inverted.

"Well what better place to hide the cider from thieves than the last place they'd ever think to look, my stomach. Give it here?" I said. She pulled the bottle away from my reach.

"Are you out of your gourd? You really going to pre-game royal guard duty for a princess?"

"The thought had crossed my mind."

"Royal Guard ponies go their entire career waiting for an opportunity like yours. And you have a responsibility to your mission for L.A.U.G.H. too. I keep trying to figure out what Princess Luna sees in you. But all I see is a massive liability to Equestria and everypony around you."

"Hey, I'm not so bad, once you get to know me," I said with a sly grin.

"I already know all about you," she said.

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, really. My research was very thorough. You've been nothing but a nuisance ever since you left Cloudsdale for Canterlot," she said.

I just smiled.

"What?"

"Echo, what you don't know about me, I could just about squeeze into Ghastly Gorge." I fluttered my wings, propelling myself up toward her.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to kiss you," I said, bringing my face closer to hers. She swung the bottle at my head. I caught it with my hoof, wrenching it from hers. "Thank you," I said, returning to the floor to kiss the mouth of the cider bottle instead, as planned. "Ah, still tastes great. You want some?"

"No."

"You're no fun. I figured you of all ponies could appreciate the importance of relaxing sometimes and just... hanging out."

"Yeah, because I've never heard that one before."

"Look, I promise I can behave, be a good personal Royal Guard for Princess Twilight, and complete our mission." I took another drink. "It doesn't mean I can't have fun doing it."

"Your idea of fun is the opposite of behaving."

"Not all the time." I closed the bottle and put it back in the cabinet. "See? I'm already on the wagon." I headed out the door. "Later, Taters."

Pound had come back to stand beside me at the door for the rest of the ride.

"You seem... lucid," he said.

"Well I thought better about pre-gaming before personally guarding a princess," I said. He snorted.

"There was no mini bar, huh?"

"Heh, you got me," I said with a sigh. The train pulled into the station.

"Ponyville!" the conductor called out over the PA system.

"Here we go," Pound said. "Follow me. I know the way to Princess Twilight's castle.

"What, you mean the enormous, gaudy crystal monstrosity towering over the rest of Ponyville, that I can see from here?" I said, pointing through the train window.

"Well- yeah. But it's your first time in Ponyville. I can give you a proper tour and show you the points of interest along the way there," he said. I just smiled patiently.

"Sure. Why not." He led the way. I followed him, knowing perfectly well the way through the very town I grew up in. As we departed the station, I kept looking back over my shoulder, checking to see if a certain bat pony was following me. And even though I never saw her, I knew she was.

~~~~~

"... and to the southeast, is Fluttershy's Animal clinic, near the border of- the Everfree Forest, ooOOooh!" Pound Cake narrated in an eerie voice.

"Too spooky for me," I deadpanned.

"This tall, round building in front of us is Town Hall. Down the street that way is Sugarcube Corner. And up ahead-"

"Isn't that your home?" I asked, knowing the answer.

"No. My home is in Canterlot now," he said.

"I mean, isn't that where you grew up? Isn't your family there?"

"...Yes."

"We should go see them." I suggested, hoping for a chance to see Pumpkin Cake again. "I'm sure they'd love to-"

"No!" he cut me off. "I mean, no, because we don't have time. I'll go see them later. We need to report to the Princess."

"Oookay," I placated. We trotted up to the front door of the Castle. He gave it a resolute knock. The small window of the door slid open, greeting us with a set of piercing blue eyes.

"Royal Guard reporting for duty," Pound said, with a firm salute. The window slid closed. Inside, Starlight Glimmer opened the door. Starlight was Princess Twilight's unicorn protege. Her fur was a shade lighter than Twilight's lavender coat. Her long, purple mane and tail has a streak of cyan running through it.

"Aegis! Bulwark!" she called into the castle. The sound of armored hooves clattered through the castle hallways. The two other royal guards appeared in seconds. Both had Non-Commissioned Officer rank stripes on their armor.

"Reporting, ma'am!"

"Your duty relief is here," she said. They looked at us suspiciously.

"Private!?" one of them said to Pound.

"Sir."

"There has to be some mistake. There's no way these two are our relief," he said to Starlight. Pound presented our written orders to Starlight. She looked it over. It was complete with the royal seal, and the cutie marks of those selected. Mine, specifically. Starlight inspected my flank, and showed the order to the NCO.

"There is no mistake. You are relived," Starlight said, dismissing them. They walked out past us, snorting.

"Hope you two like books," one of them muttered at us away from her range of hearing.

"What did he mean by that?" Pound whispered to me.

"You two, this way," Starlight ordered, walking ahead of us. We followed.

I had met Starlight before, back when I was Pineapple, so I knew what to expect. She wasn't curt with us for any fault of ours. Nor was she intentionally cruel. She was simply a pragmatic mare always striving for maximum efficiency in all things she did. Including speaking.

But for the chagrin imparted on her by Twilight for it, she would simply slam us with a spell to do her bidding rather than waste her breath on such trivial things like... us. Superfluous guard ponies.

Superfluous is the operative word for us. In the past, I had made the walk out of Ponyville to the wastelands where years ago Princess Twilight had fought Tirek. The battle had permanently scarred the landscape of the region with craters, gullies and broken mountains. In the wake of such awesome- and I use the word in the classical sense, by which I mean horrifying- in the wake of such awesome power, we were about as useful as kittens guarding a dragon. Speaking of which-

"Spike, have you seen Twilight? Starlight asked the resident drake of the castle coming the other direction. Spike was a purple dragon with green spines. Even though he was nearly forty, he was still in his youth as a dragon. Even so, he was already as tall as Princess Luna. When I had first met him in my own youth, his wings had just begun to sprout. Now he sported a wingspan wide enough to allow him to fly.

"She's in the library," he answered.

"Shocking." Starlight deadpanned.

"Hmm," his only reply passing by us. We followed Starlight to the library.

"Twilight! New guards!" she called up into the vaulted ceiling of the massive repository.

"I'll be right there," Princess Twilight's voice came back, from somewhere unseen. A moment later, she appeared in front of us in a purple flash of magic teleportation light.

"Good morning gentlecolts," Twilight greeted. "I'm sure you've both already been briefed, but I will give you the same introduction for completeness. Welcome to my castle, here in Ponyville. I am Princess Twilight Sparkle. This is my protege, Starlight Glimmer. In my absence, she will represent me in all capacities and you will obey her word as you would obey my own. Spike is the dragon that lives here. Don't worry about him. He won't eat you."

"They've met him," Starlight interjected.

"Oh, good. Now, whom do I have the pleasure of being guarded by?" Pound Cake took off his helmet. Twilight's eyes lit up. "Oh my goodness! Pound Cake? Is that really you?" He smiled. She hugged him. "I didn't expect to see you!" She stepped back again to get a look at him. "Oh, and you look so handsome in your uniform!"

"Thank you Twi- uh, Your Highness," he said.

"Oh, stop that!" Twilight said, waving away at him. "We've known eachother your whole life. You can still just call me Twilight. Starlight, you remember Pound."

"Yes, sorry Pound. I didn't recognize you," Starlight said.

"We had heard that you had gone to Canterlot to join the guard. Are you excited to be back in Ponyville?"

"Yeah. Sure!" he said.

"Oh, this is going to be so much fun having you here for this rotation. And who is your friend here?" she asked. She and Pound turned to look at me. I took off my own helmet.

"Private Storm Cloud," I said with an exaggerated bow, "Your Highness." Twilight's smile didn't falter. Not in her mouth, anyway. But I could see it at the corners of her eyes. She wasn't really smiling anymore. She was just wearing a fake one. Twilight was a mare of many talents. But those talents did not include a good poker face.

"Private- Storm Cloud. It's... good to meet you," she said. "Starlight, why don't you show Pound to the guard quarters where they will be staying for their duty cycle? Pound, if you don't mind, I need Storm Cloud's help with something in the library. It will give me a chance to get to know him."

Starlight led Pound out of the library into the hallway. Twilight waited until the door closed behind them. She turned back to look at me, still wearing her fake smile to a creepy degree, speaking through her grit teeth.

"What-the-hell-are-you-doing-here-Stormageddon?"

From Dust 'till Dawn

"Stormageddon! I thought you were going to be in the Royal Guard in Canterlot. What are you doing here?" Princess Twilight Sparkle asked me.

"Guarding stuff. Duh," I said.

"I'm serious!" she said.

"Hey, so am I," I said, walking around behind her desk in the library. "Hey, do you still have that tin of mixed nuts you keep in here?" I pulled open the second drawer. "Never mind, found them!" Twilight always kept a stash of snacks in her desk for when she spent long hours in the library past meal times. Such as when I was still living in Ponyville, as Pineapple. I would become a unicorn version of Pineapple when I visited Twilight. Since she was the only unicorn, well alicorn, who knew who I was, Twilight would personally train me to use magic.

"Hey, get out of there!" Twilight said, her magic taking the can from my hooves. "My brother and I went through a lot of trouble to give you a fresh start in Canterlot. I knew you wanted more 'adventure' in your life. And this is how you thank me? Showing up back in Ponyville like this?"

"Thanks. I missed you too," I said. "Besides, you should be proud of me. Not just anypony gets an assignment like this. I'm clearly doing something right."

"You've barely been in the Guard for two months," she said. She turned the paper over in her hooves, re-reading the assignment order. "This is Princess Luna's seal."

"Oh?" I feigned.

"Why would Princess Luna send you here? Why would she send Storm Cloud here?" she asked.

"She clearly recognized my hard work and dedication in the Guard and sought to rightly reward me."

"Oh? And would that be for..." she trotted over to her filing cabinet, pulling out a thick folder, "...for insubordination? Multiple counts of tardiness? Intoxication on duty? Gross negligence? It's been less than two months!"

"And clearly I've been very busy." She glared at me. I sighed in resignation. "Also I think she hijacked one of my dreams." Twilight sighed and slumped into her desk's chair.

"So Luna knows."

"Yeah."

"So why did she send you here?" she asked.

"I don't know," I lied.

"Fine," Twilight huffed in defeat. "She always was the secretive one. Whatever it is that she's up to with you will become clear soon enough. But since you're here, you might as well fulfill your role. Come on." She returned the can of nuts to her desk and led me out of the library. We headed down the hallway towards where Pound Cake and Starlight Glimmer were speaking.

"...eeping an eye on the place whenever we go out for friendship missions," Starlight finished as we neared. They were standing just outside the Guard quarters. It was a simple suite with two bedrooms and a shared bathroom. A far cry better than the barracks in Canterlot.

"Starlight, why don't we get these guys up to speed in the archives so they can pick up where the others left off?" Twilight said.

"Sure. This way." We followed Starlight downstairs. In my many times visiting Twilight's castle, I had never been in the archives. I had figured that all of her books and scrolls were all together in the library. I mean, that made sense to me. When we arrived, I saw the mistake in my thinking. The archive was nearly as big as the entire library itself.

"This castle seemed a lot smaller from the outside," I said.

"We get that a lot," Starlight said.

"Okay," Twilight began, "you two can pick up where they left off, organizing the archive by genre, then author, then by title."

"But shouldn't we be... guarding? You?" Pound asked. Twilight smirked.

"Well, yes. But if you would remember, your charge is to protect and serve. You can best serve me by doing this." She motioned to the room of books and scrolls. "As much as I would love to organize this myself-"

"And she would!" Starlight said.

"As much as I would, I would be better serving the citizens of Equestria in my role as princess, elsewhere. Therefore, unfortunately, it is a task that I leave to you."

"You can count on us!" Pound said with far more enthusiasm than our 'mission' warranted.

"I know I can," Twilight said. "I'm heading back upstairs. If either of you need anything, head up and find me. In my absence, you can ask either Starlight here, or Spike." She gave me a stern look and headed up with Starlight, closing the door behind them. I looked out at the sea of cluttered books in dusty stacks and groaned.

"This sucks a phenomenal amount of-"

"Dictionary!" Pound said, picking up the tome. "What genre is this?"

"Fiction," I said.

"Really? I would think that it would go in reference," he said.

"By golly, you're right," I said. "It seems like you've got everything under control here." I turned to leave.

"Hey! Where are you going?" he shouted after me.

"I need to go use the restroom. I'll be right back," I said, heading upstairs. Back on the main floor I headed toward the front door. Maybe I could sneak over to the Cider Hall. I knew that Twilight kept a dry castle. As she put it, 'Cider makes fools of stallions and harlots of mares'. Hmf, didn't stop her from coming to Sweet Apple Acres for some when it was that season. I stopped in my tracks.

But the farm burning to the ground might keep her from doing that now.

Spike, the dragon, came out of an adjacent hallway into the foyer with me. He was at that weird, in-between stage of dragon growth where he was equally uncomfortable on all-fours and being bipedal. He was carrying a couple of boxes, forcing him to walk upright.

"Are you lost?" he asked. I wanted to say something to him right away. I knew the layout of most of the castle very well from previous visits. I had become acquainted with Spike, as Pineapple. I tried to think of what to say. "Or did you just come up here to gawk at the monster?" he said in a cynical tone.

"What no! Spike I- um, I was just looking for the bathroom," I said, keeping to my original lie.

"There's the one in you quarters," he said. "And the one down the hall you just came from. The one on the third floor is Princess Twilight's. You're not allowed to use that one, obviously."

"Obviously," I said. He turned to head out of the foyer. I felt rocked by the urge to do something unwise. "Hey Spike, um, can I ask you something?"

"You just did," he said, setting the boxes down. "Yeah, sure, go ahead."

"Do you know Pineapple?" I asked, knowing the answer.

"I did."

"I was just asking, because he said that he knew you. A dragon. I just wanted to meet you for myself."

"You knew him?" Spike asked, laughing. "Let me guess, you arrested him one time and he dropped my name for bail."

"Heh, yeah. You got it. So you're his friend?" He raised an eyebrow.

"You've met Pineapple," he said. "How many 'friends' do you think he had?"

"Tell me about him."

"He lived on Sweet Apple Acres, up until he died in a barn fire a couple of months ago. I don't really want to say anything bad about the dead, you know?"

"How did you know him?"

"He came by often, visiting the Princess. She would give him private lessons. I don't know why she bothered with him."

"Because he wasn't a unicorn?"

"No. I figured she was training him in potions. I mean because the guy was kind of an ass," he said.

Ouch

"But once you got to know him, he was alright," Spike continued. "He was just a little rough to get used to." He picked up his boxes to leave. "But when he died, Twilight didn't seem upset at all. So I guess that should tell you everything you need to know him."

Or because she knew I wasn't dead.

Spike left, closing the door behind him.

"Storm Cloud!" I almost jumped. Starlight called down from the balcony above the foyer.

"I was just using the restroom," I answered without prompting.

"Oh, well I'm glad I caught you. Could you go into town for me? Twilight gave me a list of things that she needs me to pick up and, I would, except that... I don't want to. Do you mind?" She asked rhetorically and passed me the list.

"I live to serve," I said.

"Thank you." She gave me a pouch of bits. "This should cover everything. There should be a little extra. Feel free if you need anything for yourself." She headed back upstairs. Well, at least now I had a reason to head into town. I put the list in my pocket and exited the castle.

Ponyville hadn't changed a whole lot since I'd been away. Yet at the same time, everything looked different through the eyes of a Royal Guard. Some ponies smiled and waved. Others shied away. I found out that a great many things had a discount for Royal Guards. I worked my way down the list.

Quills
Ink
Scrolls
Candles
CIDER

(Guess which one I wrote in)

The pouch of Bits I had was far more than I needed. Either Starlight was severely out of touch with the prices of these things, or previous guards had been giving her inflated values. Well, why ruin a good thing? I pulled up a seat at the bar of the Cider Hall and set my helmet on the seat beside me. I flagged down the barkeep and ordered a mug.

"You on duty, sir?" he asked.

"No," I lied, "I'm thirsty," I truthed. He put a mug in front of me and I gave him the Bits. I sat there, enjoying my drink, thinking up excuses for being late getting back to the castle.

"Oh, you would not believe the line at Quills and Sofas!"
"I had to go to three different stores for this ink!"
"I wasn't sure what kind of scrolls you wanted. Brown, white, pressed, parchment, elder..."
"Can you believe they were out of candles? I had to sit and wait while they made more! Took half the day!"

I took my time and enjoyed my drink. But it wasn't long before Cider Haul was in front of me again. Cider Haul was the proprietor of the Cider Hall. And if he hears you make a joke about that, it's a fast track to finding yourself kicked out to the curb.

"Another?" he asked. My initial reaction was to say yes. But as much as I had lied to him about being off-duty, and as much as I wished it were so, it weren't so. And I didn't need one to turn into two, turn into ten. I needed to make the right choice while I still could, and not end up stumbling back to Twilight's castle.

"No, just the one, thanks," I said. I paid my tab and grabbed my bag, heading back to the castle.

You made the right choice.

"Conscience!? Is that you? I thought I killed you with alcohol long ago," I said to myself as I walked. It was just about dusk as I arrived. I stepped inside and crossed paths with Pound Cake in the foyer.

"There you are!" he said indignantly. "What happened? Did you fall in?" I gave him a weird look, and remembered that I had told him that I was going to use the restroom.

"Starlight sent me out to run errands," I explained, showing him the bag of items.

"Oh. Well I made a lot of progress down in the archives. Without you," he said with pointed emphasis.

"Private Cake, Cloud," Starlight said, descending the stairs from the balcony. I presented her the bag of items that she had requested. She nodded to me. "Thank you. You both did well for you first day. You are relieved to your quarters for the night."

"Thank you, ma'am," Pound said, with an unnecessary bow. I gave no such response or gesture. Starlight seemed to likewise not care. From my experience, I knew that she and I shared a similar disdain for such social contrivances. She exited the room with her bag of items. Pound headed toward our quarters and I followed him. Coming at us from the opposite direction were a pair of bat ponies. One of them was a stallion with an eye patch. The other- well... I'll give you two guesses as to who she was, but you'll only need one.

"See you at Dawn," Echo said, giving me a subtle slug to the shoulder with a very un-subtle wink. Dammit! I almost forgot about our mission for L.A.U.G.H. to find Dawn. All I wanted to do with my down time was head back to the bar and finish what I had started earlier.

'Ah, ha!' I realized. I could kill two birds with one stone. I could go out as Dawn and establish that she is, and has been, in Ponyville. But I needed an alibi. I changed out of my Royal Guard uniform armor.

"I'm heading out," I told Pound.

"Stay out of trouble," he said, settling into the couch of the guard suite with a book.

"You know me," I said.

"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about."

After sneaking out of the castle and getting somewhere unseen to shape-shift, I headed back to the bar. I delighted in my own genius, strutting through town as Dawn. I made eye contact and waved to as many ponies as I could along the way. By the time I got back to the Cider Hall, it was prime time. The place was buzzing with all of the regulars, as well as those who were only there for the end of the work-week. Among them was a regular mark of mine, Filthy Rich. I sidled up alongside him at the bar.

"Another Haymaker," he slurred. He wasn't wasting any time tonight. It had either been a very good week of business, or very bad. Judging from the size of his coin pouch, I suspected the former. He fumbled in it to grab a few bits for his drink. He settled on his bar stool, resting the pouch on his seat. Bingo! A bit of sleight-of-hoof, and he never felt the weight leave his belt as I relieved him of his bits. I quietly scooted away, giving him time to realize his loss. "Oh, I seem to be out of Bits."

"Well, I think you've had enough anyway," Cider Haul said to him, shooing him away. Rich frowned, but left as he was told, a coward to confrontation at heart. I waited until a few minutes after he left.

"Hey everypony, next round's on me, Dawn!" I yelled into the room in a mare's voice. I threw Rich's sack of Bits up onto the bar.

"Yeah!"
"Whoo! Dawn!"
"Thank you!"
"We love you Dawn!"

Everypony came up to the bar and got their drinks. One in particular sat down beside me with hers while I waited to get back whatever change I might have, if any.

"That was mighty -hic- generous of you," she said. She was a mare of mauve fur, and purple mane. Grapes and a strawberry for her cutie mark. Berry Punch. One of my regulars that I would impersonate to drink in the bar underage...

...and then not pay.

"Well you know, I like to pay it forward when I can," I said, taking my own drink in my hoof. "That's me, Dawn, a mare of the people." I said, clinking my glass to hers in a toast. I drank mine. She drank hers faster.

"Haul! Two more!" Berry shouted, pointing at us.

"C'mon Berry," he said, gesturing with his hoof. "You know you gotta pay in advance."

"Right, right." Berry said, searching her bag for Bits before he poured our drinks. "Apparently I've got a bad habit of drinking and not paying, 'cording to this guy." she gestured to the barkeep. "So I gotta pay in advance. No tabs for ol' Berry," she said. I felt a knot twist in my belly. All these years I had indulged myself, taking what I wanted, without ever contemplating the consequences for others. And now here Berry was, my scapegoat too many times, paying for my misdeeds. "But hey, as long as I get my drinks, 'ss not so bad," she slurred, clearly more than half-in-the-bag.

I had taken so much. I needed to give something back.

"I got this," I said, paying for our drinks.

Albeit, with Rich's Bits. What? Baby steps.

"So what do you do?" I asked, out of genuine curiosity.

"Well, I make fruit juice on my farmyard. That's a farm-vineyard. I grow strawberries and grapes. And then I make juice," she repeated, "But I always put a bit aside in a few barrels to age into, hehe, well, you know."

"No. What?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

"You know. Wine! Cider! That sorta thing. -hic- But I always gotta do thorough product testing, you know?" She gave me a grin that was far wider than was necessary for the conversation. The kind that only came with inebriation.

"How's that working out for you?" I asked. She shrugged.

"I dunno. I'd make more off of the juice if I didn't turn it into wine. The apple cider has the corner on that market y'know? I just- I don't know," she said, dejected. "I feel like I'd make more money and be successful if I tried harder. But then I feel like... I would rather not feel at all."

I could relate to that

She finished her cider.

"Thanks for the drinks," she said. She stepped down from the bar, heading for the rear exit of the bar, or rather, staggering. I had taken so much from her over the years, I needed to give her something back.

If you asked me now why I did it, I couldn't tell you.

The barkeep had been slicing some limes for some cocktails. As soon as he wasn't looking, I grabbed the knife from the cutting board and ran after her. I pushed open the door into the alleyway between the buildings. We were alone, she and I. Berry was, predictably, keeled over, hurling her liquor behind a garbage can. I gripped the knife tighter in my hoof, preparing myself for what I intended to do.

I ran up behind her, easily knocking her to the ground. I grabbed her by her mane, yanking her head back. To show that I was serious, I pressed the knife to her throat.

"Hooves behind your back!" I commanded. She was too weak or drunk to resist, doing as she was told. "Berry Punch... you are going to die."

"No nooo," she whimpered.

"Berry, why did you start drinking?" I asked her.

"I dunno!"

"HORSE APPLES! Don't lie to me! Why did you start drinking!?"

"I made wine. I made juice but I made wine! I started drinking the wine and I- I-"

"You what?" I shouted.

"I didn't care any more! I didn't care about making fruit juices, or punches. I just wanted to keep drinking wine, and cider, and not care!"

"You're going to quit drinking, Berry."

"C-c-come on, what are you-"

"You're going to quit drinking, and be the juicer you were meant to be."

"Nooo, I, can't, I..."

"WHAT? Would you rather be dead? On your knees, in an alley behind a damn bar!?" I pressed the knife harder to her neck, drawing a bit of blood.

"Nooo! Oh-oh ohhhnoo!" she cried out. Seeing the crimson staining her fur, I moved the blade away, shocked in spite of myself. I never meant to actually hurt her. I forced my voice to keep from shaking.

"I know where you live, Berry," I told her. "I'm going to check in on you. If I find out that you're drinking again... you will be dead. Do you understand?" She nodded with a whimper of abject terror. "Now run on home." I took a step back from her. Adrenaline had her on her hooves, sprinting into the darkness of the night.

I felt ill. I could only imagine how she felt. I tossed the knife into the trashcan and stepped back inside the hall. Part of me felt like a monster, terrorizing a mare like that. Part of me felt like some kind of twisted savior, altering the course of her life, hopefully for the better, like I had done something constructive with my life for once.

I don't know.

All I knew was that I needed a drink, a strong one. The irony of that thought was not lost on me after what I had just done to Berry. Even so, I headed for the bar, the hypocrite that I am. An orange mare was rolling in a shipment cart of cider. She brushed her blonde mane aside.

"Delivery," she said, shifting the stetson hat on her head. In that moment, I felt like a cannon ball had ripped a hole clean through me.

"Applejack!?"

Pressing the Apples

"Applejack!?" I said to her, unable to believe what my eyes were reporting. She glanced over at me. Her eyes scanned over my body, a pink mare with an orange mane. I walked closer.

"Do I know you?" she asked. I waved her in closer, to whisper in her ear.

"It's me, Pineapple."

Her face went through many expressions in quick succession.

Doubt, anger, confusion, sadness, and then anger again.

The last thing I saw was her cocking her hoof back and throwing her whole body-weight into the punch. Then all I saw were stars.

~~~~~

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the alleyway where she had, presumably, dragged me. She stood over me where I was laying against the wall. Her eyes were bloodshot. She had been crying.

"A.J. I-"

"How DARE you!" she growled. "After all this time! How dare you let us all believe that you were dead, and then just show up like this!?"

"A.J.-"

"I will have you know, that letting somepony believe that you are dead, when you are not, is exceptionally cruel!" she cried.

"I thought you were dead!" I said finally. Her angry sadness changed back into a neutral confusion.

"What!?"

"I thought you were dead!" I repeated. "All of you, in the fire! That was why I've been gone."

"What? No! We- we weren't even in Ponyville that night."

"Really?"

"You had gone missing! We were out looking for you!"

"Oh."

"Come on." She grabbed me by my hoof, pulling me up from the ground. My vision blurred a bit as I tried to stand.

"Where are we going?" I asked, trying to walk off the concussion.

"We're going home."

Back on Sweet Apple Acres, I changed into Pineapple. Applejack looked at me and winced.

"It's hard seeing you like that," she said. "It's like seeing a ghost."

"Yeah well... Imagine how I feel," I said, looking back at her.

"Pineapple!" Apple Bloom shouted as I walked into the farmhouse with Applejack. She bowled me over as she tackled me in her hooves. Big Mac came thundering downstairs at the sound of my name. I was in awe of the house itself.

"How?" I asked, amazed. "The last time I saw this place, it was nothing more than a pile of ash." Apple Bloom chortled.

"What? You think the farm's never been destroyed before?" she said. "There was that one time with the Parasprites-"

"When you crashed the wagon into it, at the family reunion," Mac said to AJ.

"All them Pinkie Pie clones," Applejack said.

"The dragon attack."

"The Ursa MAJOR."

"..."

"Oh, and there was that time that I left the coffee maker plugged in," Apple Bloom said.

"But that's why you have insurance, Sugarcube," Applejack said to me. "This is the eighth time we've rebuilt it. And we have become exceedingly efficient at it."

"So where in the hay have you been all this time?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Canterlot," I told them. "I uh, I joined the Royal Guard."

"That's not funny, Don," Apple Bloom said.

"Yeah well, I'm not laughing," I said.

"Wait, so what are you doing in Ponyville?" AJ asked.

"Well I'm actually guarding Twilight," I said. Mac scoffed. "No, seriously. And- actually there is something else too. Something I need your help with." I shape-shifted into Dawn. "This is Dawn," I introduced myself, and looked at Applejack, "I need you-" I stopped myself in my words, considering my idea to have Applejack lie. I pointed at Apple Bloom instead, "I need you to say that she's been working on the farm while I've been gone."

"Why Apple Bloom?" AJ asked. Everypony rolled their eyes.

"Well, we all know how good you are at lying," I told AJ.

"Hmff." She crossed her hooves.

"Dawn was a pony that I made up while I was... away. There's a missing-pony report out on her, and I need it to be closed as quickly and quietly as possible."

"Who's investigating it?" Big Mac asked.

"I am, actually. By which I mean-" I shape-shifted into Storm Cloud, "I am. This is Storm Cloud. He's my identity in the Royal Guard. You can pretty much expect to be seeing him most, nowadays."

"Lying begets lying, Don," Mac said as he shook his head.

"Listen guys, this will be the beginning and the end of it, I promise. From now on, I'm on the straight and narrow," I told them. "Which reminds me, I need to get back to Twilight's castle." I turned, but Apple Bloom grabbed my hoof.

"Wait! So that's it then? You're just going to leave?"

"I'll be back tomorrow," I said.

"And then what?" she asked with pleading eyes. I looked away.

"I'll be at Twilight's castle for a while and then I'll be going back to Canterlot." She looked hurt. "I'm not a farm pony, Bloom. You know that," I told her. "I'm not moving back. I can't. I'm in the Royal Guard now..." I sighed. "Pineapple died in that fire. It needs to stay that way." She started to cry. "Hey," I lifted her chin with my hoof, "I'll still be around. I'll come and visit when I can. I promise." I hugged each of them, and headed out, back to the castle.

~~~~~

There was one question burning in my mind more than anything else as a result of all of this. And I was going to find out the answer. I returned to the castle, opening the door with the key that I had been issued. I walked into the foyer. Not more than three steps inside, a weight dropped from the ceiling, spearing a leg into the middle of my back, pinning me to the floor.

"Hello, Echo," I groaned with the wind knocked out of me.

"Guess again," came a masculine voice. I looked up from the floor. One slit eye looked back at me. The other was occluded by an eye patch.

"Sunshine. Always a pleasure." I wrestled him off me and got to my hooves.

"You should be more alert," he said.

"Well what do you expect?" Echo said from the darkness. She lofted down from the rafters. "I can smell the booze on him all the way from here." She sauntered over to me. "So? Did you find anything at all before you found your way into a bottle?"

"Actually, yeah. As a matter of fact, I did," I told her as I dusted myself off. I motioned to Sunshine. "Why's he here?" I asked.

"I needed to select another bat pony for the Night Guard shift here while I was assigned with you, and Meadowlark was busy on another assignment," Echo explained. "Now, you were saying?"

"I found Dawn."

"Really?" Echo said with extreme doubt.

"Yeah. It wasn't hard," I said in a completely smug tone. "She was at the Cider Hall. Apparently she's been working at Sweet Apple Acres since the fire."

"You spoke to her?"

"Yeah. She bought everypony a round," I said.

"Other ponies saw her?"

"It was a Friday night in a bar. There were plenty of witnesses," I said. She stared at me. I leaned in closer to her. "This is the part where you say, 'Gosh, it sure is a good thing that you went to a bar'."

I grinned.

She didn't.

"How is it that the other Royal Guard ponies were unable to find so much as a trace of her before?" Echo asked.

"Well I don't want to call the Guard incompetent, but..." I trailed off, "...I don't know how to end that sentence," I said.

"Watch it," Sunshine barked at me.

"Anyways, the mission's complete. Problem's solved from here. She's not dead. And she's certainly not in the Crystal Empire having an affair with the prince."

"I should like to speak with this pony," Echo said.

"I thought you might say that. I've already made an appointment for me to go to Sweet Apple Acres tomorrow at lunch and collect written statements."

"I should like to speak with this pony, myself!" she said.

"Ooo-kay, well I, uh, could have her meet you someplace tomorrow night, so you don't have to lose out on sleep-"

"No. We will come with you tomorrow," she said in a resolute tone. I could tell that there was going to be no way that I would be able to reasonably argue with her with arousing more suspicion.

"Okay. If you want," I said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Thanks for the warning," Echo said.

The next morning, Pound and I got ready in our quarters.

"Alright. Are you actually going to help with the books today?" he asked.

"Yeah, of course!" I told him. We passed by the library. "But I have a meeting with the princess first."

"Really?"

"Yes. Go on. I'll be right there," I told him. I slipped into the library as he walked off. I still had a burning question than needed an answer, now.

"Twilight!" I shouted. She looked up from her desk, startled.

"Storm! There is no shouting in a library!" She scolded me in a harsh whisper.

"So when were you going to tell me, hmm!?"

"Tell you what!?"

"That Applejack was alive this whole time! And Apple Bloom and Big Mac!"

"I never said that they were dead," she replied calmly.

"Well I thought they were! Shining did too! We watched their home burn down!"

"Lower. Your. Voice!"

"I deserve answers!"

"You probably deserve to be court-marshaled by now," she said.

"How can you be so glib about this? They were- they are the closest thing I have to a family."

"Storm... Applejack is an Element of Harmony. If she was dead, I would have- no, Equestria would have far bigger problems to worry about than your feelings. It is unfortunate that you were misinformed. But I do NOT have to apologize to you for not keeping you up on current events!" She snapped her quill in half. She huffed and held her breath, motioning with her hoof in a sigh, calming herself.

"I knew putting you in the Guard was a mistake," she said. "But Shining was insistent. He wouldn't listen to me. But he doesn't know you like I do. You're in the Guard now. I suggest you start acting like it. Your insubordinate attitude ends now! Is that clear?"

"... crystal," I said. She retrieved another quill from her desk, dabbing the ink well.

"You are dismissed, Private." The door behind me flung open with purple magic. I left saying nothing else. The door closed behind me. Maybe she was right. Maybe being in the Guard was a mistake. But while I was here, I needed to finish tying up loose ends. I needed to warn Applejack that my visit today was going to be more... complicated than I planned. I left the castle without notice. I would deal with the fallout later.

"Getting an early start, I see," Echo said from above.

Or I would deal with it now

"Commendable," Sunshine said, beside her. I froze in my tracks.

"Well? Go on then. Don't let us slow you down," Echo said. I walked on, away from the castle, with the two bat ponies following close behind. I said nothing. My mind raced along with my heart. I struggled to form a plan. It was early in the day. Much earlier than anypony on the farm would be expecting me, well, us. There must be some way I could use that to my advantage. We walked through the gate at the road onto the farm.

"Looks, you guys really don't need to be here," I said at last in a final gambit. "Give me some credit. I can at least do paperwork for statements."

"I need to see this mare for myself," Echo said.

"Alright..." I knocked on the front door. After a moment, Applejack opened it. I was hoping for Apple Bloom. But as they say, you can hope all you want... "Good morning Applejack," I greeted, "I'm Private Storm Cloud. We met last night at the Cider Hall, along with Dawn."

"Good morning... sir," she said, glancing at the others with me.

"These are my Night Guard counterparts, Sunshine and Echo, here to help in the investigation concerning Dawn's whereabouts for the past two months. If you don't mind answering a few questions?"

"Where is Dawn? We'd like to speak to her." Echo interrupted from behind me.

"Oh, it's still early," I interjected. "She's probably still sleeping off last night, by the way she looked when I last saw her, heh heh."

"Yeah, she's- still asleep," Applejack said, following my lead.

"Miss Applejack," I said, "I hate to intrude but would it be alright if I used your restroom?"

"Seriously!?" Echo said.

"It's alright. It's upstairs, second door on the right," she told me, even though I knew perfectly well where it was. She was good at playing along at least.

"Thank you. I'll be right back," I said. I trotted upstairs and turned around the corner, out of sight.
"Oh, Dawn, good morning!" I said loudly into the empty hallway. Apple Bloom and Big Mac poked their heads out of their rooms. I silently made a 'shh' gesture and waved them away, back into their rooms.
"Good morning Storm Cloud," I said to myself loudly in her voice, carrying on the one-pony conversation. "You're here early."
"Well as they say, early to bed, early to rise makes a pony healthy, wealthy and wise. Heh heh. Could you head downstairs? I need to use the restroom for just a moment and I'll be right with you," I said, closing the door beside me loudly. I shape-shifted into Dawn and went back downstairs.
"Oh my goodness," I feigned surprise, as Dawn, at the bat pony guests.

"It's alright- Dawn," Applejack said. "These are Royal Guards. They just want to ask you a few questions."

"Okay," I said. They walked into the kitchen and each took a notepad from their bags.

"Please, have a seat," Echo said, directing Applejack and me to the kitchen table. "Ms... Dawn, we met in Canterlot approximately eight weeks ago. Do you recall?"

"Yes," I answered simply.

"You were with the Prince, Shining Armor, yes?" Echo added.

"Yes," I answered. Sunshine wrote down everything we said in his notebook.

"How would you describe your relationship with the Prince?" she asked.

"Professional," I said. "I was an intern to the Crystal Empire royalty, briefly. I found that it wasn't what I wanted in a career, and I wanted to move back to Ponyville. The Prince was kind enough to offer me a chance to be his assistant while he visited Canterlot, a stop on my way here."

"In exchange for...?" Echo asked.

"Excuse me?"

"What did he want in exchange? Favors?"

"Favors!?" I asked indignantly.

"Romantic favors?" Echo pressed.

"Well I never!" I scoffed "He did no such thing! The Prince is a married stallion, with a foal. His behavior towards me was nothing less than polite professionalism. He offered me help generously without expectations of anything in return."

"Begging your pardon," Applejack cut in, "But I've met the Prince, personally, on several occasions. And I can speak for the quality, and fidelity of his character. So if you have any other suspicions to his motives, I suggest you ask him yourselves!"

"Fine..." Echo sighed, flipping ahead a few pages. "And you've been in Ponyville ever since?"

"Yes," I answered.

"You've been hard to find, considering how small this town is," she said.

"I... mostly stayed on the farm," I said. "Miss Applejack was kind enough to offer me work here, helping to rebuild the barn after the fire, and working the orchard since."

"I see..." Echo ran down the list on her page. The frustration on her face grew. "Where the hell is Storm? This is his investigation."

"He's probably feeling a little sick after last night," I said, with a small smile.

"I'll get him," Sunshine said as he rose from his seat.

"ACTUALLY-" I cut him off, "I, uh, forgot my work boots upstairs. I'll check on him while I get them." I ran upstairs before he could object. I ran into the bathroom and flushed the toilet. "Oh, Storm Cloud," I said loudly, "They're waiting for you downstairs."
"Sorry, I was feeling a little sick from last night," I said in Storm's voice.
"Actually, I need to go, myself. Why don't you head down and I'll be right there."
"Okay." I shape-shifted into Storm Cloud and trotted downstairs. "Hey, sorry about that. What did I miss?"

"A lot," Echo said, clearly irritated with me.

"Well, give me the short version," I said.

"Dawn's been in Ponyville since the fire, working here, on the orchard," Applejack said. I looked back at Echo. She seemed unconvinced.

"Sunshine," Echo said, "Head outside. Get airborne and establish a perimeter. Make sure nopony tries to make a run for it." He moved without another word, out the door and taking to the sky. "She's hiding something," Echo said to me, "she's trying to avoid us." She stood up from the table, eyeing the stairway, ready to go up and apprehend Dawn.

"I'll run up and bring her down!" I said quickly, "You, uh, cover the exit!" I turned and ran upstairs, ducking out of sight into the bathroom. I glance out the window quickly. I could see the silhouette of Sunshine circling above. I closed the window and shape-shifted into Dawn.

"What the hell!?" I heard behind me. I turned and saw Echo, standing in the doorway behind me, her eyes were as wide as dinner plates.

Oh shit!

"Changeling!" she shouted. In a flash of motion, she was upon me, tackling me to the tile floor. She tried to force me into a grapple as we had been taught in the guard. And just as so, we had been trained to counter the move. I turned and rolled my body, flipping her up and over the edge of the tub. But she still had a decent hold on my neck, and she was squeezing tighter.

You see, the thing is, most ponies have never been in a fight before. A real fight.

The ones you see in the movies, it's all flashy, for show and spectacle.

A real fight usually only lasts a few seconds. All things being equal, it's usually the first pony to get in that one good shot on the other, to incapacitate them... or worse.

And that's the thing. A dirty fight to the death is easy. You either win or... well, you don't. But either way, it's fast.

But when you're fighting without trying to really hurt the other pony, it's more difficult. You pull punches. You try to be careful where you hit.

And I didn't want to hurt Echo.

She, on the other hoof, did not share my restraint. She pulled her service knife from her belt.

But if growing up on a farm had taught me anything, it was how to 'wrastle'.

I arched my back and rolled into a somersault, flipping her over again, trying to get her off-balance in the small space of the bathroom. She twisted back at me like a coiled viper. She dove with her full weight behind the blade. I wasn't going to be able to stop her. It was much easier to adjust her course, shoving her to the side as she came down. I grabbed her saddle bag and yanked it to try to get a hold on her. The top flapped open as she tumbled to the floor. Before I could even capitalize on the gain, she jumped onto my back again and wrapped her hoof around me, blocked only by my own. She pressed the knife closer by inches to my neck. She had more strength and she had more leverage than I did. It was only a matter of time before she'd slit my throat.

The strap on her bag let go and it fell to the floor under me. A small, round mirror rolled up between my hooves. I grabbed it quickly with my free hoof in a final gambit, pointing it back at us and I shut my eyes.

"GOING MY WAY?" I gasped as clearly as I could.

In a flash of light, her body went limp. I quickly scurried out from under her and took her knife from her hoof, putting it back in its sheath. Her eyes has shrunk to tiny slits, in the midst of the spell. I put the mirror back in her bag and, out of her sight, I changed back into Storm Cloud.

"You are satisfied with the investigation and you are now anxious to go home," I told her.

Heading out into the hallway. Applebloom and Mac both looked out into the hall, nervous from the noise of the struggle. I waved them away again. I didn't want them to get involved in this. After a moment, I could hear her coming to. She stepped out into the hallway.

"Oh, hey Echo," I greeted her as nonchalantly as I could after having been so close to my own death, "Was there anything else you wanted to ask Daw-"

"No. I'm satisfied with the investigation. Let's get going," she said.

"By your orders, Lieutenant," I said. I followed her brisk pace downstairs and outside. Sunshine was quickly right above us at the sight of movement.

"Sunshine, let's go. We're done here," Echo said.

"Ma'am," he obeyed, and fell in line behind her without another question. I followed them both, casting a glance back at my old home. My heart was still pounding. It was too close of a call. I needed to be more careful.

A Piece of Cake

I followed behind Echo and Sunshine, back to the castle. It was more or less on the opposite side of Ponyville from Sweet Apple Acres. It was later in the morning as we passed through town square, near Town Hall. More of the townsfolk were milling around, going about their business. For most, it wasn't their first time seeing bat ponies. But being the day time, we did still gain a few curious stares. If it bothered Echo or Sunshine at all, they didn't express it. But I suppose they were used to it by now. Just ahead on the left was Sugarcube Corner.

I was still a little rattled from the scuffle with Echo earlier. It made me realize just how reckless I had been trying to cover up Dawn. It would have been so much easier to just have her be absent from the house. It might have resulted in Echo and Sunshine setting out to track her down more ambitiously, but it would have given me more time to make a plan at least. You know, figuring out the best way to do something before you actually do it.

"Uh, hey guys, I was just going to stop into this bakery here and grab some food. I still owe Pound Cake a lunch, actually," I remembered. Echo and Sunshine exchanged looks.

"Do not dawdle. You're still on duty," Sunshine said.

"Yeah, yeah!" I agreed enthusiastically. "Piece of cake, just in and out. I'll see you guys tonight at shift change." Echo looked doubtful, but didn't voice it. They each left without another word. I turned and headed into the bakery. I pushed the door open giving a jingle of the bell.

"Welcome to Sugarcube Corner," the pink, energetic mare said from behind the counter.

"Hey Pinkie," I said reflexively, biting my tongue. So much for being more careful. Her reaction said it all. It was one of brief confusion. She searched my face, finding no familiarity.

"Well... this is strange," she said after a moment. "Somepony who knows me, but I don't know them. And I know everypony in Ponyville."

"Oh, well I-"

"Must be the new guard for Princess Twilight!" she cut in, "And I'm sure she told you all about me! After all, I'm her best friend!"

"Well, yeah I-"

"Are you here to give me a yeast inspection?"

"What!?"

"Twilight said that if I wasn't careful, that I would get a yeast inspection."

"I think she meant-"

"So are you here to inspect my yeast? We have all different kinds!"

"Pinkie I-"

"We have a bunch for different breads, and cakes."

"Pinkie,"

"Mrs. Cake likes to use baking powder."

"Pinkie!"

"But I think that's cheating. A real baker uses-"

"PINKIE!" I shouted.

"Oh, yes?" she said, stopping at last. I huffed and collected myself.

"I'm not here to give you a yeast... inspection." I shuddered and took a seat on the stool at the counter. "I just stopped in to get something to eat, and something to bring with me back to the castle."

"Oh." She leaned on the counter with a smirk. "You like to eat out?"

"Excuse me?"

"It's okay. I won't tell Twilight. A lot of guards prefer mine over hers."

"Uhhh,"

"After all, I'm a baker by trade. So it's no surprise ponies prefer my food," she said.

"Oh, right," I said. Mrs. Cake stepped out of the kitchen.

"Pinkie, we need more-" Cup Cake paused when she saw me, in uniform. "Oh, hello. Is everything alright?"

"Yes-sir-reedy-deedy Mrs. Cake!" Pinkie Pie said. "When he first came in I thought he was here to give me a yeast inspection and I was just telling him that we have all kinds of yeasts for breads and cakes and that you prefer to use baking powder but I told him that I thought that that was cheating and that a real baker uses"

Mrs. Cake caught my eyes. She just looked at me and shook her head. She silently mouthed 'I'm so sorry'. I just nodded and sighed. I knew how Pinkie was.

" ... and then he told me that he wasn't here to give me a yeast inspection and that he was here to eat and then take something back to the castle and I asked him if he liked eating out and-"

"Pinkie!" Mrs Cake put her hoof to Pinkie's mouth, ceasing her rambling the only way she knew she could. She looked back at me. "I'm sorry. Now what can I get for you, Mr...?"

"Storm Cloud," I introduced myself.

"Right then," Cup Cake said, "What would you like?"

"Could I just have a bagel please?" I asked.

"Ooh! What kind do you want?" Pinkie asked. "We have plain, blueberry, strawberry, oatme-" Cup Cake wrapped her hoof around Pinkie's face.

"I'm sure his eyes work perfectly fine! He can read the menu," she said. I didn't need to look up at the flavors on the chalkboard. I knew what they had.

"A cinnamon raisin please," I said. She lifted the door to the glass display and took out a bagel. Mrs. Cake went back into the kitchen. Pinkie sliced the bagel in half and placed it in the toaster. I always found this part entertaining. As soon as she pressed the lever down on the toaster, she would crouch there at the counter, watching the toaster intently. It wouldn't have mattered if there was a line going out the door and Celestia herself was at the front of it demanding service. While that toaster was toasting, she was watching it. In all these years, I would have thought that she would have had the timing memorized by now. But to this day, when the toaster finally 'popped'-

"AHH!" Pinkie Pie yelped in genuine shock and jumped back. Before her hooves even touched the ground she was smiling again. I guess for the pony who was the master of surprises, it was the only way she could surprise herself. "Ready!" She said as she put the halves on a plate and turned back to me at the counter. "Cream cheese?" she asked.

"Is that a serious question!?" I asked back, "Of course cream cheese!"

"What flavor? We have plain, blue-"

"Honey walnut," I said, cutting her off.

"OoOoh!" she grinned. She turned and opened the small condiment fridge behind her. She returned with the tub of cream cheese and a butter knife. "How much?" she asked. I smirked.

"How much have you got?" I asked in a completely serious tone. She blushed and she started panting.

You see, here's the thing. If it was one thing that I knew about Pinkie Pie, it was her love affair for cream cheese.

She opened the lid of the container. There was still foil sealing it.

"It's- it's brand new," she breathed.

"Go ahead, open it," I said. Her hoof moved nervously for the pull-tab on the foil. "Wait!" She froze. "Do it- slowly."

Pinkie Pie chewed on her lip as she gingerly took the tab in her hoof, giving it just the slightest amount of tension. And then- 'pop!'

"Hsss" she sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth as the seal broke. For a moment she just looked into my eyes, and there was nothing but the sound of the foil slowly pulling away from the plastic rim, until at last, it snapped free. "Hmmm," she purred. This wasn't just food to her now. It was foreplay.

"So..." she asked again, "how much?"

"A lot," I said. "I mean a lot. Like, just keep piling it on until you think that it's just an absurd amount. And then put more." She was practically trembling behind the counter.

"W-what if I use too much?" she asked.

"Hmmf, don't threaten me with a good time," I said. She called my bluff. She put the knife in the tub, running it around the entire circumference of it and then up-turning it over my plate, giving it a solid whack with her hoof, dropping a hockey puck of cream cheese on my bagel. "Mmm. Perfect. Thank you."

"You're welcome," she purred, leaning against the counter. I took the other half of the bagel and placed it on top of the cheese puck, making a sandwich. I cut it in half across the median.

"Would you like half?" I offered. She lit up. I pushed the plate toward her. She took half and ate it.

I'll spare you the details.

When she finished, I picked up the other half and held it in front of her.

"You don't want it?" she asked, almost heart-broken.

"I think I want to watch you eat it, more," I told her. I fed her the other half. In truth, it had already been a meal for me. The amount of love that mare had for cream cheese was a feast for me as a changeling. It was enough to satiate me for days. She grabbed a paper plate from the stack, fanning herself with it as she caught her breath.

"Mrs. Cake," Pinkie said into the kitchen, "I think I need a fiver,"

"Okay, Pinkie. I'll come out and cover the counter in just a second." As soon as Cup Cake came out of the kitchen, Pinkie slinked away upstairs for a break. "Oh my, is she alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, she's uh... yeah," I said.

"Oh, okay. What about you, dear? How was your bagel?" she asked.

"Mmm, delicious," I said.

"Well that's good to hear," she said. "How long have you been in Ponyville?"

All my life

"We just got in yesterday to start our rotation at Princess Twilight's castle," I said.

"Ooh, exciting isn't it? You know, I've know Twilight, oh, excuse me, Princess Twilight ever since she first came to Ponyville. Back before she was even a princess."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. She was just a regular ol' unicorn back then," she said.

Princess Twilight Sparkle without her wings. I couldn't even imagine it.

"So is this your first time in Ponyville?" she asked.

"Yes," I lied. I was very good at it.

"Well, welcome to our town. So how long have you been in the guard?" she asked.

"About two months," I said. She raised an eyebrow.

"Wow, and you're already guarding a Princess?" she asked. "I've never heard of anypony doing that so quickly."

I made a mental note to lie about that amount of time in the future.

"Yeah, well, they're doing a special... thing... where... new ponies can do... that."

So much for having a plan.

"Oh. Okay," Cup Cake said, accepting it well enough for an answer. She took a sip of her coffee.

"Pound Cake said I should definitely stop here if I was ever in Ponyville," I said, throwing a conversational grenade into the mix. Cup Cake coughed and sputtered into her coffee cup.

"You- know Pound?" she asked, surprised.

"Pound?" A voice came from the kitchen. A yellow stallion with an orange mane trotted out to the front counter. His eyes looked around the room quickly before settling on me. He was visibly disappointed. I wasn't sure how to take that.

"Uh, Carrot, this is officer Storm Cloud. Apparently... he knows our son."

"Yeah, he's actually in my squadron. Good guy. Hard worker," I told them honestly.

"Well, it's good to hear that he's doing well," Carrot said, turning to go back into the kitchen.

"Yeah. He even got the assignment with me to guard Princess Twilight," I said. Carrot froze mid-step.

"Pound is here?" he asked. "In Ponyville."

"Yeah. He's at the castle right now. Right down the street," I said. It was interesting reading his reaction. He didn't move. He didn't even turn back to look at me. He was deliberately non-reactive.

"Huh." He walked into the kitchen.

"Will there be anything else?" Cup Cake asked, changing the subject. I shook my head and she rang up my total. I passed the bits across the counter and left. And that was it. There was no 'say hi for us' or 'tell him we love him' or 'proud of him'. It was eerie. For as long as I had known Pound and the Cakes, back when I was Pineapple, they seemed like such a happy, close family. But now...

"Hey."

Lost in thought, I jumped at the voice beside me.

"You shouldn't sneak up on-" My voice failed me. It was Pumpkin Cake. Pound's sister. "...a guard."

"Oops," she said without sincerity, "I didn't think it was so easy to sneak up on a Royal Guard." She stood there leaning against the side of Sugarcube Corner. She was a unicorn with her father's looks. She had yellow fur and an orange mane. But her fur was a much paler shade. And her eyes were a vivid blue. The stick of a lollipop protruded from her lips.

Remember, Storm Cloud doesn't know her, I mentally reminded myself.

"Can I help you... Ma'am?" I asked. Her horn glowed, the magic pulling the lollipop from her mouth.

"You know Pound Cake?" she asked.

"Yes... But how-"

"I was in the kitchen. I'm Pumpkin Cake. His sister," she said, putting the pop back.

"Oh. Well, it's nice to meet you," I said, keeping as neutral as possible. "Do you make a habit of eavesdropping on customers?" I asked her.

"Mhmm," her reply. She removed the candy once more to speak. "Gets boring back there." For a moment, neither of us said anything. Her eyes narrowed just the slightest, almost-imperceptible bit. She looked me up and down, scrutinizing me. "Have we met before? she asked.

"I don't think so," I lied.

"You just seem..." she looked into my eyes, "familiar."

"Well... maybe you've seen me on the cover of Attractive Stallions magazine," I said.

"Heh."

The clock on the tower in town square chimed the hour.

"I need to get going. I have to report back to the Princess," I told her. I gave her a polite nod and excused myself. In all honesty, I really was running late.

Especially considering that I hadn't even ever asked permission to leave the castle in the first place.

As I made my way to the castle, another set of hooves trotted alongside mine. Pumpkin's.

"Yes?" I asked. She crunched the candy pop, chewing and swallowing the rest of it, and discarded the stick. "That's littering," I said at her brazen act, in front of a guard pony.

"You gonna arrest me?" she asked. I didn't respond. "There was something else I wanted to ask you."

"I'm sorry. I don't really have time to chat."

"Can you trot and chew bubble gum?" she asked.

"Is that your question?"

"No, I'm asking if you can multitask. Trot and chat?"

"Yeah, sure."

"You said you knew Pound."

"Yeah."

"Did he ever talk about me?" she asked.

Interesting

"He might have mentioned you. Your name is familiar," I said.

"So, not really, then?" she asked.

"No. Not really."

"..."

"So what was Basic like?"

"Why don't you ask your brother?"

"I'm asking you."

"Well unfortunately, I'm out of time," I told her, stopping in front of the castle doors. "This is me," I said, motioning to the castle.

"Oh. Is it? Are you sure it's not some other giant crystal castle?"

"Pretty sure."

"Why don't you tell me about basic some other time then?" she asked.

"Oh yeah? You want to schedule an interview?" I asked.

"Yeah. What time do you get off shift?" she asked.

"Sunset."

"Great. You can pick me up. Tonight. My place." she said. "It's a date."

"It's an interview," I said. She smiled.

"First dates are interviews," she said. I glanced back over my shoulder at the castle, half-expecting to see Pound glaring at me from a window. I leaned in to whisper.

"I don't think Pound would appreciate me dating his sister."

"Well then, I suggest you not tell him about it. Or this." She gave me a quick kiss on the snout. "Dusk. My place." She ran off before I could protest. I grit my teeth. I wanted to date her again. I really did. By the stars I really really did. But it was another complication that I really didn't need in my life right now.

"Dammit!"

I turned and walked into the castle. The door closed behind me louder than I would have liked.

-click click click Click CLICK-

"Private Cloud!" Princess Twilight shouted from the foyer balcony. "You have been absent, without leave, for eighty nine minutes and fifty three seconds! Under Article 86 of the-"

"Your Highnesss!" Echo called out, dropping down from the darkness of the ceiling rafters, "Your forgiveness I implore!" She landed and took a deep bow. "It was I who ordered the Private on the assignment out of the castle at my behessst. I acted alone, deceiving the unknowing Private, commanding him over your crown. If you are to punish anypony, it ought to rightly be me."

"Lieutenant!?" Twilight seemed confused for a moment, looking back to me. "Private Storm, is this true?" she asked. Echo gave me a directing glare.

"Every word, Your Majesty." I too, bowed in deference. Twilight paused for a moment.

"Lieutenant, this is unbecoming of you," Twilight said, "It is not your reputation."

"My deepest apologies," Echo said. Twilight regarded her for a moment.

"I'm afraid I must still report this infraction to your superior."

"I understand," Echo said.

"As for you," Twilight said to me, "report to the Archives at once."

"Proceeding, Ma'am!" I responded. I made haste to the archives. I hadn't time to think about what had just happened. "Why did she take the fall for me?" I asked myself aloud.

"Because, you jackasss," Echo hissed as she tackled me in the lower hallway, "if she reports you, it goes to the Day Guard command. And then questions get asked and reports get made. If she reports me, it goes straight to Princess Luna. And what do you think will happen next?" she asked me, pinned under her.

"Uh..."

"Nothing! I'm one of her top agents and we were acting on a mission! It'll get buried. As for you," she let me get to my hooves, "what took you so long!?"

"I was saving foals from a burning orphanage," I said.

"Save you attitude for somepony else. Do not buck with me right now. I just took a big fall for you."

"I swear, I just popped in for a bagel. Pinkie Pie made it for me. You can ask her."

"If the Pinkie Pie prepared food for you, then you should have been early, not late," she said.

"Yeah, but then she wanted to talk about it, and-"

"Say no more." Echo put her hoof up to stop me, "I understand. The mare's gregariousness is the stuff of legend." She sighed. "Our mission in Ponyville is complete. We have everything we need regarding Dawn to close the case. I don't imagine we will be in Twilight's charge for very much longer."

"Why?"

"After Twilight files her report against me, we'll likely be recalled to Canterlot for me to face my 'punishment' at the hooves of Princess Luna. If standard procedure holds, our replacements will be here within forty eight hoursss."

"What do you mean 'our' replacements?"

"You acted under me. So it will include you as well. It seems that Princess Twilight doesn't seem terribly pleased with your presence either. I can't imagine why," she said with intense sarcasm. Even so, I knew better than she did as to why. "At any rate, you've a job to do in the archives. Just keep you head down until we get back to Canterlot, would you?" she said, turning to leave. "In fact, just keep your head down in general. Remember, Storm, the secrecy of the Agency is paramount. It is more important than you can possibly imagine, more than my life, or yours. Is that clear?"

"Crystal," I said. She trotted off in the opposite direction. I headed downstairs to the Archives. I opened the door to find that the mountain range of unsorted books in the basement space had gone from ' hopelessly insurmountable' to merely 'daunting'. Pound had made good work on it. Speaking of which-

"Oh, OH! Look who finally decided to show up to actually do the actual job he was assigned to!" Pound shouted from across the piles. "I guess Cerberus will be surprised that the weather forecast for Tartarus calls for snow!"

"Ha. Ha," I replied. "What have you done so far?" I asked.

"Are you KIDDING ME!?" He shouted as he threw several books at me. I dodge what I could and blocked the rest with my hooves. "Are you KIDDING ME right now!? Are you seriously going to come down here after all this time and ask me an asinine question like that!? You should be the one doing this crap right now, not me! I outrank you!"

"Only by like, thirty seconds!" I yelled back. "And that's only because Cake comes before Cloud during the graduation ceremony!"

"Details!" he yelled, hurling one last book. "Besides you still owe me!"

A lunch. That I forgot to get when I was at Sugarcube Corner.

"Okay, okay! I'm sorry! Geez." I walked over to where he was working and dug in, sorting through the pile he was currently tackling.

"So where the heck were you?" he asked, a bit calmer now.

"I..."

I prepared a lie in my mind.

You see, here's the thing about lying. There's a big difference between lying, and lying well. Lying starts from a base of fiction. And as unstable as a web of lies, like that of a spider's, it is easily pulled apart and collapses in on itself with a modest bit of scrutiny. The key to lying well on the other hoof, is a firm basis in truth. And twisting that truth so subtly that they wouldn't even think to look any further than beyond your word.

For me, for now, it was the rooting in what would be surely reported by Princess Twilight.

"I got in trouble," I started. It was true. But more importantly, it was believable for Pound.

"Heh, I bet."

See what I mean?

"Lieutenant Echo asked me to go into town on an assignment. But she didn't tell the Princess that she was doing so. So really, Echo got in trouble," I told him, as the official report would corroborate. So far, so good. Far from the facts, it was the 'truth'. Truth as far as anypony other than she or I was concerned.

"Grr-alright," he grumbled. We sorted and stacked the various books and scrolls in relative silence. The Archives were like the casinos of Las Pegasus. There were no windows or clocks. So it was very easy to lose track of time.

"So..." I said after a few dozen books, trailing off. After only one word, I had already lost my train of thought. Perhaps it was my rational mind thinking better of what I was planning to say. But the Archives had a weird way of doing that to you. We each, over the course of the day would attempt to start a conversation, only to have a single word come out and then- nothing. 'So', I said, with nothing after. He didn't call me out on it. He barely even acknowledged that I even spoke at all. It wan't that he was hard of hearing.

"Anyways..." he said at one point, likewise trailing off into silence for another long while.

"Yup."

"..."

"Eeyup."

"..."

"Mhmm."

"..."

"So I, uh..." I strung three words together. It gave him pause for a moment, carrying a few books, about to move on. Part of me screamed to let it go, to leave it be. Be silent. But another part of me was too curious to let it go. I needed to know. "So I went to Sugarcube Corner this morning." Pound dropped the books he was holding. He tried to not react otherwise, but his hoof was revealed.

"Oh?" His only verbal reply as he quickly gathered up the books he dropped.

"Yeah. Met Pinkie Pie, and your folks."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," I said. I waited a bit. "Ordered a bagel." He sorted some books onto the shelves. I watched him as I pretended to do the same, waiting for a reaction. But he was being as inert as ever.

It made me think back upon my classes with Princess Twilight, back when I was still Pineapple. I remembered learning about chemistry and potions. I realized that ponies were a lot like chemicals. You can take a chemical, and ask it what kind of chemical it is. And it will lie to you right through its little chemical teeth. But mix them together, and add some heat... and they'll tell you all sorts of things.

"Yeah, I uh, met Pumpkin. I think you mentioned her at one point. She's your sister right?" I asked. He visibly tensed and bristled. I waited for him to say something. Anything. My irrational mind had already taken the wheel, anxious to see what would happen next.

I think there's a saying somewhere, about a cat and curiosity. Every alarm in my brain was going off, screaming for me to stop. But the words were already leaving my lips.

"You never said how cute she was." I had barely gotten out the 's' in 'was' before he grabbed me by my shoulders and pinned me against the solid wall, shaking several books from their shelves.

"You stay away from her, you hear me!?" he growled at me with a passion I had never seen before. "You STAY AWAY from her!"

Now admittedly, as Pineapple, I had experienced Pound Cake being overly-protective of Pumpkin in the past. But I had never seen him act like this. He was a completely different pony since the orchard fire. Thinking on it now, even Pumpkin was acting strangely. Hell, everypony seemed different. And I was no closer to knowing why. But for as much as I wanted to know, I wasn't going to get anything useful from Pound Cake. Not now.

Probably not ever.

Everypony had their line. And I could see it in his eyes, burning with rage.

I had just crossed his.

"Hey, easy, easy." I said. "Hey, I'm talking out of my rear. I'm sorry!" He eased his grip on me and shoved me away, realizing his overreaction. He turned back to his work of scattered books, gathering them up in aggressive frustration.

"You've got a big mouth Storm, you know that? It's gonna get you in trouble someday!" he growled.

"No doubt," I agreed.

"Just stay out of-" His voice cut out. But I could see his lips mouthing the words 'my life'. "Just stay out of that bakery. Get your bagels somewhere else, okay!?"

"Yeah. Hey, you got it," I said. He turned back to his work. I did the same. We finished our shift in uncomfortable silence. He clearly didn't want to talk to me anymore. And I just didn't know what to say.

I wasn't Pineapple anymore on the outside. But inside, I was still acting like the same asshole I'd always been. It reminded me of something that Spike had said before, and I felt it cut a little bit deeper.

"You've met Pineapple. How many 'friends' do you think he has?"

Part of me, a big part, wondered if I had just lost one more.

Interrogation

For the rest of the afternoon and evening, Pound Cake and I worked, sorting books and scrolls down in the castle bowels of the Archive. Until, after an arbitrary amount of time, the door at the top of the Archive stairs opened.

"Shift change!" Starlight called down to us. Pound and I finished what we were doing and followed her up to the castle foyer. There, Echo and Sunshine were waiting for us, ready to assume guard duty. Through the stained glass windows we could see the sunlight of day fade and change over to the dark of night. "You two are relieved," Starlight said.

Pound and I headed to our guards' quarters. He hadn't said anything since our confrontation earlier. Not even the odd monosyllabic blurbs to fill in the void of conversation while we worked. We each hung up our uniforms. He sat on his cot and opened a book that he'd borrowed from the archive to read for the evening. I quietly made my way to the exit.

"Just don't come back stinking of booze again," he said without looking up.

Now, dammit, I like drinking. I don't see any harm in it, really. But I hate being labeled as being so one-dimensional. I wanted to say something like, 'Yeah, yeah, whatever.' or even, 'Don't worry, I won't.' Even with the addition of 'I promise.' But in that moment, with him, I felt like any words I said would sound just as hollow to me as they would to him. So I left without saying anything.

Exiting the castle was easy enough. I had actually expected to be accosted by either of the bats, both with a similar demand for sobriety. But strangely, none came. I trotted out into the evening in Ponyville.

Now, even after having been to the Crystal Empire, and Canterlot, I would hardly call myself well-traveled. Even when compared with older residents of Ponyville who have never left the town in their whole lives. But, for what little outside experience I'd had, I could tell one thing for sure. If it was one thing that Ponyville did not have, it was what you would call, a happening night life.

I made haste to Sugarcube Corner, to meet with Pumpkin Cake. I pushed the thoughts of Pound Cake from my mind. In the past couple of months, I had considered him to be the closest thing I had to a friend, aside from anypony back on the farm. If he knew about any of this tonight, it would almost guarantee the end of that.

And what about the Apples? I wondered, as Sugarcube Corner came into view. I could just as easily head straight over there instead. Pumpkin Cake would be disappointed that I never showed up, and that would be that. She'd move on with her life. And I could spend some real, quality time with my... family.

I stopped in front of the bakery. The sign on the door said 'closed'. I'm not one to seek life giving me a sign, but this would certainly qualify as one to just move on and keep walking. Something in my mind that one could call 'wisdom' made me turn to leave.

"Hey," I heard from above me. I looked up. On the slope of the roof, Pumpkin sat. She dropped down from the edge, landing beside me. She had a simple yellow dress and a pink ribbon in her mane. It was kind of like the one that Applebloom used to wear, but smaller. She had a perfume that smelled like vanilla cake frosting. Or it was just from working in a bakery. "You're late."

"Yeah, well, my shift ended at dusk. So, you know, it took me a minute to get over here," I told her.

"Kay, whatever," she said as she rolled her eyes at me. I definitely didn't remember her being like this back when we had last dated. "So, where are we going?" she asked.

"The Bannered Mare?" I suggested. It was a decent enough combination restaurant and inn.

"Ugh! My parents go there," she scoffed.

"The Cider Hall?" I tried.

"That place is a dive!"

"Well you know what, that's where I'm going," I said, having enough of her new attitude. "You can come with me if you want."

"Fine, whatever."

I went to the Cider Hall. Pumpkin decided to 'tag along'. I took a seat at the table near the bar. She sat with me. I flagged down the waitress. I got myself a Haymaker.

"I'll have an Appletini," Pumpkin said. The waitress took our order and trotted off to get our drinks.

"So..." I started off.

"So?"

"So you wanted to interrogate me about Royal Guard Basic Training?" I asked.

"Interrogate?"

"Interrogate, interview, inquire," I said as the waitress brought our drinks over. I took a long drink of my beverage. "Ask? You wanted to ask me about Basic."

"Heh. You're funny," she said.

"I know that," I said, growing increasingly frustrated with the filly. "I don't need you to tell me." I finished the rest of my drink, intent on ditching her and sticking her with the bill. Coming here was a mistake, I realized. "You know, you're nothing like-" I bit my tongue, not saying 'how I remember', "...like what Pound described," I said instead.

"I thought you said he didn't talk about me," she said.

"Maybe he did. Maybe I asked him about you after this morning."

"And?"

"And maybe he was talking about some other pony," I said, standing to leave. She might have been used to manipulating colts in the past. I could likely count myself among them. But I wasn't the same person I was back then. And clearly, neither was she.

"No, wait!" She put her hoof on mine. In a flash, the look in her eyes changed. The flippant, aloof mask that she had been wearing broke. And for the first time since I'd come back to Ponyville, I saw a glimpse of the Pumpkin Cake I knew. "Wait, don't leave," she begged. I sat back down.

"Okay. What?" I asked.

"Could you tell me-" she trailed off. Her practiced poise fell. Her demeanor shifted back into the unsure filly I knew from before. "How is Pound?" she asked.

"He's a good pony," I said. "He's a good guard. He, uh, he cares a lot about you." I said. After all, given his reaction earlier, it seemed pretty obvious to be the case. After I told her, her eyes kind of looked off into nowhere. She smiled, but she did a good job of hiding it. It was subtle. Her mouth didn't move, but it was there, at the corners of her eyes. Her eyes smiled, like she was thinking of a good memory of somepony who was dead. It might not have looked strange, but for my certainty of him not being dead. "So why did he join the guard?" I asked, shaking her from her thoughts. "I mean, from what he'd told me, it sounded like he had a pretty good life at the bakery."

"Why did you join?" she asked me.

"To defend Equestria from all her enemies, both foreign and domestic. You're deflecting."

"So are you."

"..."

"Alright," I said, "I was in a bit of trouble, and I was given a choice between this or something worse."

"I figured."

"Oh really?" I asked.

"Yeah," She said, pointing at my empty glass. "You're pretty regular. There's only two ponies I know who could drink like that and neither would have anything good to say about their lives."

"And Pound?" I asked.

"What about him?"

"Why did he join?" I asked her again. She slumped into her seat and looked away.

"He was in a bit of trouble, and he was given a choice between that... or something worse." she said, echoing my words.

"Like what? What kind of trouble?" I asked.

"Why don't you ask my brother?" she suggested.

"I'm asking you," I said, echoing her from earlier that day. She drank the rest of her Appletini.

"I don't want to talk about him anymore," she said, with the kind of finality that might as well have read, 'I'm not going to talk about him anymore, and there's nothing you can do to change it'.

"So, what now then? You wanna dance or do a karaoke duet?" I asked. She sat back and genuinely smiled, laughing out loud with a full-belly laugh.

"Come back tomorrow," she said, getting up from the table.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I said so. That's why." She strutted out of the bar. I could have gone after her. Hell, I knew where she lived. But I couldn't very well justify banging on the bakery door after hours if she didn't want to be seen. The waitress came by with the check.

"Dammit!" I cursed to myself. She stuck me with the bill. "I invented that move!"

~~~

I paid the bill and left. I even gave the waitress a decent tip. I had been taking what I could of life without giving anything back so far. It didn't seem to be working out so well. I wasn't a big believer in karma. But at this point, I was willing to try anything. I certainly couldn't get much lower.

"Hey mister, spare a Bit?" a pony sitting against a building asked.

"Sure, why not?" I said. Another chance to gain a bit of the vaunted 'karma'. I reached into my bag. My luck had to change some time, right?

I never even saw the second pony behind me that clubbed me upside the head.

Water splashed on my face. I coughed and sputtered awake. I was wet and cold. Those were the first two things that registered. I was in a dark room, except for the one light pointed at my face. It wasn't terribly bright. But in the dark room, pointed right at my eyes, with a concussion, it was plenty bright enough. The next thing I realized was that I was hoof-cuffed to a chair. I squinted into the darkness. I could see the movement of the shiny, metal water pail.

I could hear his hooves clicking against the hard cement floor. I could smell the smoke of tobacco in the dank air. His face lit up a dull orange, briefly, from the hot cherry as he took a drag on his cigarette. It wasn't enough for me to get a good look at him. He flicked the hot butt as me. It bounced off of my wet chest and landed on the floor.

"Who are you working for?" he asked, quietly. I didn't recognize the voice. But I remembered my code of conduct as a prisoner of war.

"My name is Storm Cloud. I'm a Private of the Equestrian Royal Guard. My service number is- OOHF!" My answer was met with a swift punch to the stomach.

"We know damn well that you're not, Spy!" he said. "Now tell us who you're working for!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" I said.

He kicked me in a place that a stallion would not appreciate. On reflex, I shape-shifted just barely enough to sever the nerves to said location. A little trick I learned from my failures in the dating scene.

"Who are you working for!?" he asked again, significantly less politely. I said nothing. He turned around and pulled something from his pocket, throwing it at my face. A pink ribbon landed across my snout. It smelled like cake frosting.

"At least she was a bit more cooperative before the end," he said with a dark tone. The ribbon fell from my nose and landed in a small crumpled heap on the floor at my hooves.

"Heh, heh hehehehe!" I cackled. It was a strange feeling. I was angry, but it wasn't just about them killing Pumpkin. It was about the barn burning, and about never knowing my real parents. It was a generalized anger that I had been repressing my whole life that this guy definitely did not want to tap into. I honestly didn't know why it came out as laughter right then. Perhaps this was what it was like to go insane.

"Why are you laughing!?" He demanded. I was never a good pony. I was a bad pony. In fact, I had been downright awful for most of my life. But I never killed anypony. Oh well. I guess there's a first time for everything. "Why are you laughing!?" He demanded, kicking me again. I shape-shifted the bones in my wrist, pulling it free from the cuff.

"Because," I laughed, "Because, I'm going to tell everypony that you died, tickling my balls!" In a flash of movement, I was on my hooves, grabbing the chair and smashing it over his head. I jumped on top of him with one of the wooden legs, broken into a sharp stake. I brought it to his throat, pausing just before plunging it through his neck, "Tell me something, you ever dance with a nightmare in the pale moonlight?"

"Help!" he screamed. The door to the room burst open. Before I could even see who it was, I was slammed with a kinetic spell, throwing me off of him. My vision focused. It was Princess Luna, with Echo and Sunshine behind her. My interrogator scurried away from me toward them.

"What the hell is going on!?" Luna yelled.

"I should ask you the same thing!" I said. "What have you done to Pumpkin!?" Luna looked to Echo. Echo just shook her head in disappointment.

"Pumpkin Cake is fine," Luna said. "She has no knowledge of any of this. She's safe at home." I picked up the ribbon from the floor.

"And this!?"

"It's a ribbon, Storm," Echo said. "A scented ribbon. Nothing more."

"But he said-"

"He said exactly what he needed to, to get to you," Echo said.

"This test was to teach you one thing, Storm. Everypony has a line. A weak point," Luna said. "We needed to know where yours was. And you needed to, as well."

"He didn't break me! I never said a word about L.A.U.G.H." I said.

"You were about to kill him," Luna said solemnly.

"He kicked me in the junk!" I said. Her expression didn't change.

"That is not the point," Luna said "What good would it have gained? You missed an opportunity to gain information from an enemy. At the very least, to aid your escape. Have you any idea where you are? You need to act with your brain. Not your heart."

"This is why you can't let yourself get close to the ponies you care about. They cloud your judgement, and they're always the ones that end up getting hurt as a result," Sunshine said.

Luna turned to the other stallion. "And as for you! How did you let this happen?"

"He was cuffed to the chair!" the interrogator said.

"How did you manage to get free like that!?" Echo asked me, astonished.

"I- I studied escape art," I told her. They both looked at Luna. She just smirked knowingly, turning to leave.

"Didn't I tell you?" she said on her way out, "Didn't I tell you to not underestimate him?"

"Come on," Echo said, "Let's get you back to the castle. You should get some sleep. We're leaving in the morning."

"Leaving?" I asked.

"Yes. Our replacements will be arriving. And we'll be reporting back to Canterlot," Sunshine explained.

"But there were things that I wanted to do before we left," I said.

"Well that's too bad," Echo said. "Our mission in Ponyville is complete. The princess has our report on Dawn. The rest of the month could have been a vacation for us all, but between you going AWOL, and getting involved with the locals, that will not be the case. You have nopony to blame but yourself for thisss!"

"As usual," I muttered.

We left the old Ponyville municipal storehouse where my 'interrogation' had been. Princess Luna was already nowhere to be seen. A brief walk across town brought us back to Twilight's castle. Sunshine walked up to the door and let out a shrill squeak, in a frequency just at the edge of my range of hearing. The kind of noise that you didn't so much hear as much you felt in your teeth fillings.

Meadowlark had been keeping an eye on the castle while Sunshine and Echo dealt with my 'lesson'. He opened the door and let us in. In the lobby, Echo motioned for me to head up to the guard quarters.

"Hey," she said after me before I left, "I didn't know you were an escape artist."

"Yeah well," I smirked as I trailed off, "what you don't know about me, I could just about squeeze into Ghastly Gorge."

"You'll have to show me some moves some time," Echo said, in a way that, I could swear, was vaguely flirtatious. I was curious. Meadowlark had already left. And I couldn't see Sunshine anywhere around us. But I was certain he was listening from the shadows, so I didn't try to pry for her intent in the words. I went upstairs without another word.

I slipped into the guard quarters silently. The light of the moon through the window guided my way through the small space. As I walked past Pound Cake's bed, I noticed something for the first time.

Normally, when I would come back late at night, I was hardly in a state to notice details, let alone care about them. And I was never the first one awake in the morning. I never really slept very well. I hear that ponies with a clear conscious sleep better at night. I expected Pound to be sleeping soundly. But as I walked past him, I could see that his bed sheets were just as torn up as mine get from restless tossing and turning all night. His face was scrunched up in a worried frown in his sleep.

I suppose everypony has their demons.

I slipped into my own bed and silently hoped that I wasn't the cause for his worry. But then again, part of me hoped that I was. I couldn't imagine what else in his life could bring him more grief that I already had. The very thought made me shudder.

"Storm, wake up," Pound said. The sunlight was just starting to come in. "It's time to go."

"Eh?" I blinked awake at him. He was dressed, standing beside my bed. His bag was packed by the doorway.

"Our relief is here," he said.

"Oh, crap. I need to pack!" I said, lurching awake.

"I took care of it," he said, pointing at my bag, packed, beside my bed. My uniform was laid out as well. "Just get dressed."

"You didn't have to do that," I said.

"I know," he said flatly.

"Thank you."

"Getting back to Canterlot without incident will be thanks enough from you," he said, turning to leave. I got dressed quickly, grabbed my bag. and headed downstairs. Starlight Glimmer was already greeting our replacements.

"Ah, Private Pound, Cloud, this is Sergeant Battlebourne and Master Sergeant Greymane," she introduced.

"Sir," Pound greeted with a hoofshake. I didn't even slow down as I walked past them.

"Hope you like books." Walking down the dirt road outside, I could hear the hurried trot behind me.

"Storm, Storm! That was not prudent," Pound shouted after me.

"Prudent?" I asked. "I suppose that was less cordial than they were used to," I said with a shrug. "But it was the same greeting I got here."

"Crap rolls downhill, Storm. You know that!"

"Pound, I'm already probably going to be court-marshaled for being the key reason we're returning from our assignment more than three weeks early. You really think I give a damn if our replacements like me!?"

"Without. Incident. Storm! That was all I asked of you! Back to Canterlot without incident!"

"Starting now," I amended. True to my word, we went straight to the train station and boarded. I stood there beside him at our post outside of the door to the Royal Caboose with perfect obedience and boredom. He didn't seem particularly thrilled. But then I suppose I shouldn't expect a trophy for doing what I was supposed to be in the first place.

Back in Canterlot, the others in the barracks were surprised to see us back so soon. Our barracks sergeant heard us coming in and poked out of his office as I changed out of my uniform.

"Private Storm!" he hollered.

"Proceeding sir!" I replied, "Just unpacking first,"

"Don't bother."

Shit.

I marched into his office with my bag and closed the door before he even asked me to. I knew what was coming. But in that moment, it wasn't fear, or even dread that gripped me. It was a sort of certain calm. Like somepony walking to the gallows. They already know they are going to die. Being afraid won't change their fate.

I stood there. He stared at me. I stared at him. He was waiting for me to go to attention. What a waste of time. We both knew how this was going to end. But he still wanted the whole dog and pony show. I rolled my eyes as hard as I could while still being in my skull and snapped to attention and rendered a salute.

"Sir, Private Storm Cloud reports as ordered," I recited.

"Almost made it a whole week in Ponyville." He sighed and pulled a large envelope out of his desk, with a single sheet of paper stapled to it. "Department of Defense form two one four, Private Storm Cloud, you are here-by-"

"I'm going to need four or five days to out-process, sir," I cut him off, knowing perfectly well what a discharge form was.

"That won't be necessary. The other senior enlisted and I already did all of that for you." He waved the envelope at me. "All your paperwork is done." He smiled. "Private Cirrus!" He shouted.

"Proceeding sir!" Cirrus responded from outside of the office. The door opened and Cirrus snapped to attention beside me in front of the sergeant's desk and saluted. "Private Cirrus reports as ordered!" The sergeant stood from his seat and shoved the envelope at me.

"Cirrus, please escort Private- oh, excuse me, Mister Storm Cloud to the main gate."

"Aye aye!" He reached out to grab my shoulder.

"Touch me, and that hoof will never touch anything again!" I spat, turning to leave. As I walked out of the office, everypony was looking at me. The barracks were not a large place. And when anypony got called into the office, a hush would fall elsewhere. I knew that everypony had heard everything that had just transpired. All eyes were on me. All, except Pound. He just sat there on his rack, slumped over and facing away, unable to bear to look at me. I walked out of the barracks without another word. Out on the street in Canterlot, the main gate closed behind me. And just like that, I was out of the Guard.

I sat on the curb with nothing but the fur on my back and the envelope in hoof. I opened it. It was what I expected. My dishonorable-discharge paperwork, with a laundry list of my offenses both in Canterlot and Ponyville. But also something else. A smaller envelope. I opened it. It was a card.

"Blood grows the grass,
is our battle shout.
Don't let the door hit your ass
on your way out."

Signed by several of the senior enlisted.

"Cute." A small slip fell out. It was a five Bit gift certificate to The Belfry. On the back it simply read:

- E

Night Shift

The train trip from Ponyville had taken most of the day. My time back at the Guard was a brief hoof-full of minutes. And here I was, a civilian, all before the sun even had a chance to set. If only just barely. The shadows of the city buildings had grown long. I turned over the card in my hoof in the fading light.

I looked at the signature on the back of the gift certificate to The Belfry. Echo, obviously. Or it was somepony trying their best to be just as unnecessarily, irritatingly, mysterious as her. The Canterlot clock tower chimed the hour as the last sliver of the sun slipped below the horizon. The Pegasi Air Corps flew back to the Day Guard barracks, as the Night Guard took to the air, pouring out of the old temple tower. The Belfry. I looked at the card in my hooves again.

The ponies walking past me gave me a strange look. When you see somepony, out on the city street on a Tuesday afternoon or something, with nothing to do and nowhere to go, you just know. You can tell just from looking at them, that they have no purpose. It's not a good look.

"I don't need this," I said to myself. "What good has come of any of this?" It had been a mistake to drag Pound along to Ponyville. I knew that now. And then to get involved with Pumpkin again. All of the work that the Prince and Twilight had done to get me into the Guard. It all just seemed like a waste now. I had let them down. Then there was Applejack.

"I could always go back to the farm," I thought. The orchard was in good shape. The farm house looked as good as new. "I wonder if they made my room up for me," now that they knew that I was alive still. Start over again, a new life, without being yellow and green this time. I chuckled. It would be nice to have my old room and bed. Even if it meant wearing that damn yoke, it wouldn't be so bad. It would still be in that chest with my birthday card and-

the fern leaf

I stood up from the curb. I felt a heat on my face, just as hot as when I had ran around the burning farm. But this time it came from within. I grit my teeth with fresh resolve. I looked towards the Belfry. Out here on the street, I had no resources, no allies, and no leads on finding Sweet Leaf. But there was one pony I knew that had access to a vast network of intelligence-collection. And she had just left me her calling card.

"Alright," I muttered. "Alright. Let's see where this leads." I put the envelopes away in my bag and took to the night air. Flying over the castle grounds, I entirely expected to be accosted by either Echo, or one of the other bat ponies on patrol, for being in restricted airspace. But it seemed like they were deliberately absent. I wondered if that was a good thing, or a bad thing. Especially considering that it seemed deliberate.

Even as I neared the tower, the guards that I had mistaken for gargoyles before were missing. I glided down onto the ledge. I could feel the fur on the back of my neck sticking up as I walked towards the Belfry door. I was wise enough by then to trust my instincts. I could feel eyes on me. I reached out to turn the knob of the door.

"Storm."

"FOR BUCKS SAKE!" I shrieked, nearly jumping out of my fur. I looked up above me as Echo unfurled down from her inverted perch in the shadows. "I almost just killed you just now!"

"I doubt it. But even if you could, they would stop you," she said. In her hoof, in the moonlight, I could see the glint of her service knife.

"They?"

"Hmf. Even if you can't see them, they can see you," she said. I peered into the shadows around us. "Now tell me, what's my name?" I gave her a strange look.

"Why? Are you going to make me ask you twice, Echo?" I said. She glanced to either side of us and nodded. I could hear swords being put back into sheaths. "What the hell is going on?" Echo put her own knife away and dropped down from the rafters.

"Come on," she said as she opened the door, "We'd better talk inside." I walked inside and she followed after me, closing the door behind us. The Belfry tavern was completely empty. I took the card from my pocket and showed it to her.

"You have a strange way of asking me out," I said. She gave me a glare, but it quickly shifted to a worried frown as her eyes darted around the room.

"Storm, we don't have time for your jokes. Things have changed since we went to Ponyville," she said. "The agency is on high alert. The princess asked me to recall you personally."

"What's going on?" I asked.

"We're not sure. But she is going to brief all of us at HQ tonight once the rest of us are assembled. She asked me... to give you this." She passed an envelope to me.

"What is it?"

"I don't know. She said it was for your eyes only," Echo said. I looked at the envelope. It was closed with wax, impressed with Luna's official seal. Echo turned to leave. "Storm," she said, pausing for a moment before turning back to me. I could see all the things she wanted to say flitter across her face. "I hope she's right about you." She turned and left the tavern, closing the door behind her.

I broke open the envelope. The paper unfolded into a message, with a small memory-mirror inside.

Find me where we first met. - L

I always hated scavenger hunts. When I was younger, Twilight would set them up for me and Applebloom. But the prize always ended up being a book. Lame. I thought being a spy was going to be cool. But more and more it felt like a lame scavenger hunt to me. I considered the mirror. I considered just forgetting about the whole thing. Literally. Just go back to the farm and forget about all of it.

"No. That wouldn't work," I realized. Pineapple was still dead. I couldn't just go back to that. I couldn't just forget about everything that's happened. Everything that's made me appreciate the life I had. The life I'll have again, soon. Just as soon as I get some answers from Luna, and Sweet Leaf.

"... where we first met? The garden."

I left the empty Belfry and flew down to the courtyard garden. The trees there were no longer in blossom. The branches looked skeletal. The giant stone chess pieces were just as I had last seen them, where the princess and I danced. But she was nowhere to be seen.

"Princess?" I called out. Nothing. But this was where we had first met. "Or is it?" My first memory of her was in that dream that I'd had, where I was on the peak of Canterlot Mountain. My eyes moved up along the dark silhouette of the mountain against the moonlight behind it. The peak ended in the center of the pale circle in the sky. I took a deep breath and flew up into the night. I climbed higher and higher through the wisps of clouds above the frost line of the mountain. Even in late summer, the mountain still had snow here. I reached the summit at last, landing on the very peak. It was very cold, and the air was thin. And I had been sweating from the exertion of the flight.

"Princess?" I called out. "Princess!" I shouted. I waited. This had to be the place. But I was getting tired of waiting. I was getting just tired in general. I could feel my eyelids drooping.

"Stormageddon," Princess Luna said, getting my attention. I peered into the darkness of the night. Luna walked out of the open sky onto the snow covered mountain.

"Took you long enough," I said. "I want some answers!"

"Storm, there's no time!" she said, "Someone is killing my agents! The situation in Gryphonstone is deteriorating rapidly. This was sent to me." She produced a box and opened it. Inside was a batpony's ear. It had a couple of notches missing. I recognized it having belonged to the bat that was guarding the Belfry door. The one who punched me in the face the first night I went there with Echo.

"This doesn't mean he's dead though, he could still be-"

"The rest of Moonshine's head was in the next box they sent," she said.

"Oh,"

"No one else knows about this. I need your help. I need you to take up his identity and go to Gryphonstone. You need to find his contact there and find out what's going on."

"But if they killed him, won't they try to kill me?" I asked.

"Yes."

"... I refuse."

"Storm-"

"No! NO! I've had it!" I shouted at her. "I've had it with all of this! I don't care anymore! Send somepony else! I'm going back to Sweet Apple Acres to buck apples. At least they give a damn about me! Nothing about any of this interests me! I wanted your help to find the pony that burned our farm to the ground. And I've played ball long enough. What have you done for me in exchange? Huh?"

She lifted the ear from the box. Under it was a fern leaf.

"If they were sending a message," she said, "I think it was meant for you, Storm."

"That's not good enough! I want answers!" I demanded. My breath coming out as a cloud of fog in the cold.

"There's no time,"

"Why not!?"

"Because you're dying." She started to fade away. "You picked a bad place to take a nap."

Storm!

"Storm!" Pound shouted, pulling me out of the snow, "Dammit don't do this to me! STORM!"

"Dagobah system...

"Storm! Wake up!" he shouted, kneeling in the snow beside me. My eyes flittered open. My face was caked with snow, as was the rest of my body. I should have felt cold. But I could barely feel anything. He reached into his bag and pulled out a vial. "Hey, HEY!" he shouted, slapping my cheek, "Drink this! Say 'ah'!" I could barely understand him. "Come on Storm! You- you need to drink this!" My eyes started to close again.

"No nonono! Come on!" He panicked and started to sing "Uh, uh, Come on everypony! Let's do some shots! Shots! Shots!" My mouth snapped open on reflex. He poured the potion in, and held my mouth closed, forcing me to swallow it. It tasted like brandy and it made my belly feel warm in the same way. It made my whole body feel warm.

"It's a vasodilator. It'll save you from hypothermia for now, but we need to get you out of here!" The veins in my extremities opened. Blood flowed back into my limbs. My nerves woke up. I could feel. Much to my regret.

"Uh, ah! AH! AHRGH!" My eyes shot open and I screeched in the pain of the cold. He pulled me onto his back. The warmth of his body heat felt like molten lava against my frozen form. I reflexively tried to scramble away. He held me fast.

"You need to hold on!" He tied my hooves with rope together around him. Then he ran. He ran until the ground disappeared. And then we fell.

It was raining. It was a warm, summer rain. The ground was smooth and cool. The water ran down over my face. I opened my eyes. I was sitting on a tile floor. Pound Cake was sitting on the other side of the room. A first-aid kit was spilled open beside him. I was sitting under a shower. We were in a shower room. We were in the barracks shower room, I realized.

"Are you dead?" he asked. I shook my head. "Alright, come on." He helped me up onto my hooves, and gave me a towel. I dried off and he walked me out. The barracks sergeant and everypony watched him and I as we left. Outside, he escorted me to the gate. "What the hell were you doing up there?" he asked. I didn't know what to say. "Storm, suicide is never the solution."

"What!?"

"That's what they think you did," he said, motioning back to the barracks.

"Do you?"

"I don't know what to think."

"How did you know I was up there?" I asked.

"I was sleeping. I had a dream that you were trapped on the top of the mountain. It seemed so real."

Hmff, Luna.

"But if it was just a dream, why did you... why did you?"

"When I woke up, I felt compelled. I was so sure that it was true," he said.

"But, even so... why?" I asked. He stopped. I turned to look at him. He just looked at the ground.

"You can be a real asshole sometimes, Storm. You drink too much, you talk too much, and you act without thinking." He sighed. "But I know you mean it when you say that you're trying to be better. You're not an evil pony. You're just thick-skulled sometimes." He shuffled his hooves for a second. "And in spite of everything, you're my friend. And that's what friends do. They forgive each other."

"You're a better friend than I deserve," I said.

"No doubt. But I am certainly the friend that you need," he said, walking me the rest of the way back to the main gate.

"..."

"Well, this is me," I said, standing outside of the gate to the guard grounds. "I'm sure you probably need to- get back."

"Yeah, I do. Try not to die out there."

"Are you going to get in trouble?" I asked.

"For saving your life? I don't think so. Anyways, it doesn't matter."

"... Thanks." I turned to leave.

"Hey, Storm," he said.

"Yeah?"

"That's two you owe me."

I looked into the dark window of a closed Canterlot shop. Moonshine's reflection looked back at me. He looked just like he did that night at the door to the Belfry.

"Just this one thing," I repeated to myself. "Just this one thing, this one time. Go to Gryphonstone, find my contact, and get out." I took a deep breath. "And try not to die."

I turned and entered through the main gate to Canterlot Castle, nodding to the other batpony on duty. I entered the castle through the guard access, and navigated the hall to the stairs leading downwards to the wine cellar. In the back, Meadowlark was waiting by the secret entrance to L.A.U.G.H. HQ.

"Moonshine!" he greeted enthusiastically. I smiled back.

"Meadow."

"We thought you were dead! I'm glad you're not!"

"Me too."

"Obviously."

"Princess Luna said she wanted to see you right away for your debriefing!"

"Of course."

He stepped aside and I walked through the hidden portal in the wall, taking me to the crystal caves beneath Canterlot. There was a flurry of activity. Bat ponies and ponies alike moved about preparing for... something. Something big. A figure dove out of the mass.

"Moonshine!" Echo said. She ran over and wrapped her hooves around me. "I thought you were dead!" She hugged me tighter, and leaned in to whisper in my ear. "You know, I've been thinking about you, about us, dating again. And I was thinking about giving it another try."

I gulped.

"I- I, uh, I need to see Princess Luna," I stammered.

"Right, right. Debrief." She let go. "I'll see you later?" She bit her lip. "Think about it, okay? What I said?"

"Okay..." I began walking away.

"Agent Moonshine," Agent Sunshine addressed me, "This way. Princess Luna wants to see you at once." He escorted me down the hallway. "You know," he said as we walked, "when I heard about Gryphonstone, I thought you were dead."

"Yeah, I've been getting that a lot lately," I said. We stopped outside of the large doorway at the end of the hall. Princess Luna sat at a large desk inside.

"Your Highness!" Sunshine said.

"Thank you, Sunshine," she said, dismissing him. He turned to leave. "Agent Moonshine, get in here!" she barked at me. I walked inside and she shut the door behind me with her magic and locked it, and locked it again. "Take a seat." She motioned to the chair in front of her desk. I did as I was told. She cast a soundproofing enchantment on the door. And then the walls. And then the door again. Then she slung another spell at me, shredding my disguise.

"Holy shit, Luna! It's me! Stormageddon!" I yelped.

"Please, accept my apology. But we've lost several agents. Agent Heartstrings, our contact in S.M.I.L.E., says that they have been tracking an increase in rogue changeling activity across Equestria. I needed to be sure it was you," she said. "You don't live as long as my sister and I do without a healthy amount of paranoia."

"Yeah, whatever you say," I grumbled, shape-shifting back into Moonshine. "So when were you going to tell me that Moonshine was Echo's ex-coltfriend?" I asked her.

"Coltfriend?" she asked back, surprised.

"Yeah. Apparently they used to date," I informed her.

"Oh."

"Oh? Oh! Is that all I get!?" I threw my hooves up. "You don't think that this is going to be a problem!?"

"Well of course it's a problem," Luna said. "My agents shouldn't be getting involved like that. It's a liability."

"Yeah, I know. I already got this lesson," I said, recalling my 'interrogation'. "I find it ironic that it was Echo herself that warned me of the dangers of a relationship."

"Well, that's understandable now," Luna said. "At the time, she thought that Moonshine had been Killed In Action."

"Well, apparently not," I said, looking at myself. "So what is this all about? What the hell is going on?" Luna rubbed her forehead.

"The Gryphon Kingdom is on the verge of war," Luna said.

"War?"

"Yes. War with Equestria." She repeated. "And they're not alone! They've managed to rally the Buffalo tribes, Yakyakistan, and Zebreka to their cause as well. And maybe even the Dragons."

"But this is the first I've heard of this, any of it. We need to warn ponies! They need to know!"

"No, Storm. They do NOT need to know."

"But there's four nations out there ready to bear down on us! We need to prepare!"

"No! There is always a threat of war, or a monster attack, or a demigod of chaos, or a magic-absorbing-fire-spewing-demon that is about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, and the only way these ponies can get on with their happy lives is that they DO NOT KNOW ABOUT IT!" she said. I felt ready to throw up. "Right now, our only concern is Gryphonstone declaring war.

"But... but why? Why would they? Why now?" I asked.

"You're too young. But many ponies alive today still remember their fathers and grandfathers going to battle in the last war with the Gryphon Empire. Long ago, when King Grover discovered the Idol of Boreas, it united the divided Gryphon tribes, and gave them pride. It gave them the drive to come together and form a nation. But when it was lost during the reign of King Guto, the nation began to crumble. Their anger turned outward to those more fortunate."

"Equestria."

"Yes. It was a classic case of the haves versus the have-nots. United by greed, their army attacked Equestria."

"And then?"

"Under my sister's command, our forces routed them soundly, driving them all the way back to Gryphonstone."

"And they all lived happily ever after."

"Not exactly. The scars of war run deep," she said. "My sister, in her benevolence, sought to avoid as many casualties as possible. On both sides. That meant that a lot of defeated gryphon soldiers went home to a broken, bleeding country without occupation or purpose. Equestria offered to help them rebuild, but they no longer had a formal governing body. The disgraced King Guto vanished into obscurity. And the citizens were too prideful to accept help from the 'enemy'. And so Gryphonstone remained, lingering in constant state of civil unrest."

"So what threat can they possibly offer then?"

"It seems the 'late' King Guto has resurfaced, and has been allying himself against us with any that will have his audience. They lost the last war. They don't intend to lose this one. L.A.U.G.H. was close to defusing the situation from within. But something's gone wrong. We've lost our entire intelligence network in Gryphonstone. Either they've gone dark, or..." she trailed off, implying the worst. "I hope you can appreciate what's at stake, Storm. We can't afford to fail. Or else your farm will not be the last thing you see in flames before the end."

"Why me? I'm not the right pony for this!"

"You're right, Storm. You are not the right pony for the job. You're the right changeling," she said. I slumped into my chair. "I'm all out of Gryphons. Once you get to Gryphonstone, find our Gryphon contact, or ascertain his fate and, if need be, take up his identity." She passed me an envelope. "This is his dossier." I opened the envelope. It had all of his information. What he looked like. Where he should be located. Aliases. Everything.

"Heh, his name really is Griff."

"And... you'll be needing this one as well." She gave me a similar envelope labeled 'Agent Moonshine'. I opened it. A set of keys to his Canterlot address fell out. She continued to speak as I looked over both sets of documents. "Find out what you need to in order to get yourself close to Guto. Without him, the support that he has gathered should fall apart," she said. I raised my eyebrows.

"Without him?" I asked. She shifted in her seat.

"This... may be a sensitive subject for you. But Agent Heartstrings reported that S.M.I.L.E. is fairly certain that Guto has been dead for some time. His former kingdom is likely being led by an impostor."

"A changeling, you mean."

"If you should get the chance, Storm, you need to neutralize him."

"Neutralize?"

"Do I really have to spell it out for you?"

"No."

"Is that going to be a problem?" she genuinely asked.

"Killing?"

"Killing a changeling." She said. I looked down at the papers in my hooves and stuffed them back into the envelopes. I put them in my bag and gripped the house keys.

"If I do this, just this one thing... I want answers."

"Storm, if you do this for me, I'll tell you anything you want to know. Nothing held back. I promise."

"You promise?"

"I promise. I swear on my magic," she said.

I was a little taken aback. Promises mean more to a unicorn than a normal pony. There is a power in words. For a unicorn, or alicorn, to go back on a promise, especially one sworn on their magic, it could mean consequences on their abilities. The bigger the promise, the bigger the consequences. Luna would be a mare of her word. She had to be now.

The answers I wanted felt like they had been worth anything and everything for so long. And now I could feel them within my reach. My eyes drifted to the box beside her desk that'd had Moonshine's ear in it. The fern leaf rested on top of it. Everything I had ever wanted out of all of this misery, it came with an equally high risk. I would get it all, or die trying.

"Well then..." I sighed, "Gryphonstone it is."

Luna dispelled the sound wards on the door and walls.

"Go on," she said, waving me off, "Go back and join the others in the main hall for the briefing." I walked out of her office, back to the main room and took a seat. Echo spotted me and moved over to sit beside me.

"What's going on?" she asked in a hushed tone. "What did she want?" Before I had a chance to answer, Princess Luna took the stage.

"I'll tell you later," I whispered back.

"Fillies and gentlecolts," Luna began, "The last sixty hours have seen some extraordinary developments in Gryphonstone. Particularly concerning the 'late' King Guto. The intelligence that we've gathered strongly suggests that he has been gathering allies in an effort to launch a massive offensive against Equestria."

"Guto? Alive?" somepony asked.

"After a fashion," Luna said. "Agent Heartstrings, if you would please?" She motioned to Lyra. The mint-green unicorn walked up to the podium.

"Thank you, Your Highness. S.M.I.L.E. has been tracking a number of reports on rogue changeling activity. We believe that a changeling has taken the late King Guto's identity and has been using his influence to gather his forces. Agent Raven?" The unicorn in the back dimmed the lights turned on the projector. "This is a recent photograph from one of our agents in Gryphonstone. Does this Gryphon look like he's 118 years old?" she asked. The gryphon in the photo looked elderly, but not 118-elderly. "We believe he is doing this in Gryphonstone under the banner that Equestria has actually stolen the Idol of Boreas. As well as making a host of other empty promises to extremist factions of other nations, to include the Buffalo tribes, Zebraka, and Yakyakistan."

"What news from Draconia?" another asked.

"We have yet to receive word from Princess Twilight's ambassador," Luna said. "But we must be ready for the worst."

Murmurs rose up from the crowd. The combined air power of the Gryphons and the Dragons would be too much for the Pegasi Air Corps. And there wouldn't be enough Unicorns to divide into a battle on two fronts. The Earth pony reserves would be able to do little against a Buffalo stampede blitz, especially if the Yaks were augmenting their forces. To say nothing of the Zebras and their potions supplementing their troops. By the power of the Alicorns and the Elements of Harmony, Equestria may yet still not lose. But it would hardly win. The loss of lives on both sides would be catastrophic.

"By the Elements! What do we do!?" one voice rang out.

"Well, it's simple, really," Luna said. "We kill the king."

"Well if it's so simple, why haven't we done it yet!?"

"Because, we can't just kill him," Luna said, "We can't risk turning him into a martyr by Equestrian hooves. It would only bolster his forces. We have to kill his name. We have to disgrace him, and reveal him as a changeling, publicly. Once the deception is revealed, word will spread. The Gryphon tribes will fall apart once more. And no one nation would attack without the promise of the grand alliance. The sheep would be easily dispersed without the shepherd."

"So certain are you," I said. Luna glared at me.

"I am certain, because I remember," Luna said with conviction. "I'm certain of Equestria's future, not because of the path that lies before me, but because of the path that lies behind me. Because I remember that for over a thousand years, Equestria has faced revolutions, monsters, wars and worse. I remember when the dragons broke our walls and burned our fields. Walls can be rebuilt! Fields can be resown! And after over a millennium of conflicts, I remember that which matters most: We are still here!"

A cheer of high-pitched skrees rose from the crowd as they got to their hooves. They began to file up to the front of the room to collect their assignments. Most were to be scattered in three days time to spread the word about the 'false king' to his allies. Only one agent would be sent to Gryphonstone, since too many would raise suspicious attention.

I was going in alone.

"You?" Echo asked me. I nodded. "Your Highness, I should be the one going to Gryphonstone! Griff was my contact."

"Precisely," Luna said. "He was your contact. We can't know that he hasn't been compromised already. And you've been to Gryphonstone too much already. They know your face. And perhaps your name also. It's too risky. Griff knows Moonshine just well enough to recognize him without it being a liability," she said, looking at me. "And he's already been briefed on the matter."

"And where's Storm Cloud?" Echo asked.

"Storm Cloud is still too inexperienced. He will not be a part of this operation. He's on a separate assignment in Cloudsdale." She gave Echo an envelope. "You have your assignment, Agent Echo."

"Your Grace." Echo nodded and backed away in deference. I could see that her jaw was clenched.

"You had better get some rest," Luna said to me. "You leave Canterlot Train Station at first light."

"You got it, Loony," I said. That was not smart. I was about to leave when I felt a pressure in the back of my leg, making my knee buckle. A pinch in the base of my neck forced my head up from the impromptu bow. I looked up at Princess Luna. Her horn glowed faintly. Her expression was neutral.

"I beg your pardon?" she asked with a soft, even tone that belied her anger.

"Your- Grace," I managed.

"Ah," she said with a forced smile, releasing her hold on me, "such good manners befitting of such a polite gentlecolt."

Note to self: do not cross Luna.

I left the headquarters portal and walked up and out of the castle. Away from the palace gate, I rubbed my neck and began to navigate my way to Moonshine's home. My home now, I guess.

"Moonshine!"

I turned and saw Echo following me.

"Hey," I greeted.

"So..."

"So?"

"So, Gryphonstone, huh?" she asked, nervously.

"Yep."

"Nervous?" she asked. I wasn't sure. Did Moonshine get nervous? I kept my response neutral.

"Mmm,"

We walked together for a while in the streets of the Canterlot night.

"So... have you thought about what I said?" she asked.

"It's... been kind of a busy evening," I said.

"Yeah, I know, but..." she trailed off. I had never seen Echo act like this. She was always so sure of herself. And now here she was, tripping all over herself like a little school filly. It was really quite endearing. "It's just that, with everything going on, it's just so- hard. You know? We have to be tough all the time, and act like nothing ever gets to us. It's hard on your soul."

"Well, you should do something that's good for your soul then. You know, like playing an instrument, or painting or something."

"Or something." She stopped walking and took my hoof, pulling me to her. Before I knew it, she was kissing me. For a moment, I felt conflicted. I understood that changelings would assume the identity of others to feed off the love meant for them. But I had never done it before myself. I felt the love radiating off of her for her ex-coltfriend. I knew it would break her heart to tell her the truth. Besides, I reasoned, I'll probably be dead soon, too. Reason fled from my mind as I melted into her kiss. It was a flavor of love I had never tasted before. It was wild and hot and spicy. It was lust, and passion. She pulled me along up a small set of stairs to a door. She opened it with her key and stepped inside.

"What are you doing?" I asked as she stood inside the doorway of her home.

"Something else that's good for the soul." I looked at her. She made it pretty clear that she was waiting for me.

"May I come inside?" I asked. She smirked, pulling me by the hoof.

"Yes. Or wherever you like."

Stronger Than Stone

It was starting to get light outside as I sat on the edge of the bed. I didn't sleep well at all last night. I looked over at the vanity mirror on Echo's dresser. At Moonshine's reflection. But it wasn't him. It was just me, wearing a Moonshine disguise. Moonshine was dead, and Echo was fast asleep beside me. I put my head in my hooves.

I never thought that my first time doing... that, last night, would be as a changeling. I always knew that it would have to be as a pony. But I never thought that it would be like this. It felt... I don't know. I wanted to say wrong, but it didn't. It was like as a pony watching a wolf eating meat. It seemed like such a horrifying concept. But to the wolf, it was only natural. That was what it felt like, Predatory. I felt like a predator. A monster. I didn't like how good it felt. It made me uncomfortable in my own fur. Or rather, Moonshine's, as was the case.

And all because I didn't want to hurt Echo. I certainly didn't want to betray my secret identity either. But her pain was inevitable. I didn't want to be Moonshine forever. How could I be? She was a clever bat. She'd found me out before when I was careless. Even if I was careful, she'd discover my truth eventually. I looked at the mirror again. If I wasn't careful, it'd be my head in a box next time. Then again, it still might be. I stood up and silently crept out of her bedroom. I opened the fridge in the kitchen.

"That... is a lot of mangoes," I said to myself and closed the door. I would get something on the train, I decided.

It was still pretty dark when I reached the Canterlot Train station. I took a seat on the bench and played with the heart-shaped pendant on the necklace Echo had given me. "For good luck on your mission," she said, late last night. The train I was meant to board wouldn't be along for another hour or so. It was always hard for me to leave the comfort of a warm bed. Even harder when it was shared. The air was chilly on the station platform, waiting for the light of the coming dawn.

Kenopsia: The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place usually bustling with ponies, but is now abandoned and quiet. There was a strange sort of quiet to the train station at this hour. Objectively, it couldn't be any more quiet than silence. It just seemed all the more so for such a place to be quiet when it was normally so busy and noisy. It created a weird dissonance. Almost like a negative silence. Broken, suddenly, by the sound of a set of hooves behind me.

"You are a difficult bat to locate, sir." I turned to see Agent Quill walking towards me with a large duffel bag. He put it down in front of me. "You were not at your residence, as I had been made to expect. The princess said it was quite likely that you would be at the Belfry getting, quote, 'shmammered'. But at last, here you are. I am pleased that you are not of the ill effects of the drink."

"You're welcome. What's all this?" I asked.

"Your effects for your little... vacation. Do take good care of them. These items mustn't fall into the wrong hooves."

"Is there a sandwich in there too?" I asked.

"I should think not, sir."

"Darn."

"Good luck, sir."

"Thanks."

He turned and walked back out of the station. Once he was gone, I opened the bag a little and looked inside. There were several items. Some I recognized from his spy lab. Some I didn't. On top of everything was a pamphlet.

And there, on the front cover of the pamphlet,
in the middle of the center of the front cover,
in parentheses,
in capital letters,
in quotation,
with three exclamation points,
did read the following words:

("READ ME!!!")

And it got me to thinking. I don't think I had ever felt more attacked before in my life. And that's saying a lot considering I had been kicked in the jimmies less than a week ago. I never felt more attacked, by printed words, of all things. It was an attack on my sense of free will! It wasn't a request, or even a suggestion that I read it. It was an imperative. With no less than three exclamation points. Read me! Like I was some kind of inept foal. I rolled it up and got ready to stuff it in the trash bin. But then, Quill did seem to put a lot of effort into getting this stuff to me. And there was kind of a lot at stake. Fate of Equestria, and all.

"Fine. I won't throw it away," I said to myself. "But I don't have to read it right now, either." I stuffed it to the bottom of the bag.

Echo's contact, Griff, would be expecting a bat pony. But then, so would the enemy. I checked around myself to make sure that I was still alone, and shape-shifted into Storm Cloud. "One changeling, against the entire counter-intelligence network of Gryphonstone," I mused. "Heh. They don't stand a chance."

Yeah. Just keep saying that to yourself. Maybe it'll come true.

The eastern horizon began to glow brighter. I could hear other ponies approaching. I zipped the bag closed. The clock tower rung out the hour as the sun breached the sky. It wasn't a large crowd at that early hour, but enough to occupy most of the platform by the time the train rolled into the station.

"All aboard!" the conductor called out. I boarded the train and found my seat. It was in coach.

"Sheesh, you'd think they'd send us first class," I muttered to myself as I took my seat. As the train pulled away, I continued to rifle through the bag. The small mirror I already knew how to use. There were a pair of wide bracelets. "Ooh, pretty," I said, putting them on. There was also a small tin filled with, what looked like ping pong balls. A pouch of white powder. A reagent bottle wrapped in a handkerchief. A box of matches. "Good old-fashioned stick matches. Never know when you might need them." And of course, a lock-pick kit. "Aww yiss!" I looked back through the window of the door to the next car, towards the caboose. There were two guards in front of it. "Oh, right. Nevermind." I leaned back in my seat. It would be almost 18 hours before we got to Gryphonstone. "Maybe on the way home," I decided. "If I'm still alive."

Stops along the way were called out. Even as the sun began to pour into the windows, my sleep debt caught up with me. I nodded off with the gentle rocking of the train as it rolled along the tracks.

"Crystal Empire!" I heard called out. My eyes flittered open for a moment. Most of the ponies filed off of the train. Only a few boarded. The track to Gryphonstone had to go north of the Crystal Mountains to get to the strait just north of the Grittish Isles. It was useful having the transportation infrastructure already in place when the Crystal Empire reappeared. I nodded off again. We were only halfway there. There were still a couple more stops.

"Trottingham Ferry!" It was late afternoon. We were less than an hour away now. The rest of the passengers got off at the train station to head down to the marina. From there, one would take a ferry to Trottingham. No ponies boarded. "Next Stop, Gryphonstone!" Hearing the name Gryphonstone got my attention. I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes as the train pulled away from the platform, noting that I was the only passenger left on it. The train left Equestrian territory, crossing the bridge over the strait. I started to actually feel nervous.

"Well, we can't be having that," I said to myself. I grabbed my bag and headed to the back of the train. "Just one to calm me down. And then maybe four or five more to make this mission actually seem like a good idea." The train reached the other side of the narrow waterway, crossing into the eastern continent. I opened the door to the last car before the caboose.

"Excuse me sir, are you lost?" One of the guards asked me. "Do you need help finding your seat?"

Oh, right. These guys.

"Uh, no, I was just looking for-"

"Storm?" the other asked. He took off his helmet. "Storm? What are you doing here?" Pound Cake asked.

"Pound!? What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I'm a guard. We guard ponies. It's kinda what we do," he said.

"We're guarding the prince," the other said.

"You mean, you're guarding the prince's royal caboose," I corrected.

"No. We're guarding the prince." Pound repeated. "You see, while your actions in Ponyville got us sent home early, Princess Twilight actually wrote a glowing review for my efforts. So I got another royal assignment."

"Oh, so this is the notorious Storm Cloud I've been hearing so much about," the other guard said. "I'm surprised you're not up front, raiding the bar car. You know, Pound here was just telling me-"

"Wait! Why are you here!?" I asked them.

"I just told you!" Pound said, growing more agitated with me, "We're guarding Prince Shining Armor!"

"But why is HE here!?"

"Well I can't guard the prince alone," Pound said.

"I mean why is the prince here!?"

"HE WAS INVITED!" Pound shouted at me. "That's what national leaders do, Storm, they visit eachother. That's how diplomacy works. I swear Storm, sometimes I wonder how you ever managed to..." His voice faded away as I stopped listening.

The prince is here. Why is the prince here? Gryphonstone is preparing to attack Equestria. Why would Shining Armor visit Gryphonstone when they're about to-
Luna's words rang out in my mind, "... and the only way they can get on with their happy little lives is because they DO NOT know about it!"

Pound continued to ramble "...and if you had just listened to me about-"

"He doesn't know about it," I muttered.

"What? What are you talking about?" Pound accused.

"He doesn't know about it, the prince! Your Highness!" I shouted at the door.

"Storm! Are you drunk? Stop!" Pound moved in front of me, shoving me away from the door. "You've gotten yourself into enough trouble already!"

"We have to stop the train!" I shouted.

"Sergeant Aegis," Pound said. The other guard moved over to assist him, grabbing me by the hoof.

"We have to warn him!"

"About what!?" Pound asked, dubiously.

Behind me I head a screech. We all looked up at the door leading towards the front of the train. There was movement in the open airspace between the train cars. A gryphon popped up into view, showing the lynch pin he had just pulled from between the cars.

"Oh, not good," I muttered.

He grinned and tossed the pin away before flying off. The rest of the train began to drift away from us. Then three heavy weights landed on the roof of our cab.

THUD
THUD
THUD

"It's a TRAP!"

The windows on either side of us smashed as two Gryphon assassins swung in from the roof. Aegis was already at arms, running him through with his spear. Pound parried his attacker and sent him tumbling towards me. The bird fell onto me and I put my hooves up to defend myself. His weight bent my right wrist back, causing a concealed blade to spring out of my wide bracelet, stabbing him deep in the throat.

"Oh. That's what that does." Avian blood sprayed my white fur as his body fell limp and rolled off of me. I stood up as the forward door burst open. The third Gryphon jumped inside with a crossbow leveled at me. I put my hooves up. As I did, a dart shot from the left bracelet, catching the gryphon in the eye, sending him reeling backwards out of the train car. "Wow. I really should have read those instructions."

The screech of another lynch pin turned us back towards the caboose. The three of us rushed inside. It was empty. Behind us, another window broke. A large blinking bag landed inside. Aegis ran over to it and opened it.

"Well, I've got bad news, and some really bad news," he said as he quickly threw it back out of the window. "The bad news is that they got away with the prince. The really bad news is-"

--=BOOM=--

I had walked back to the royal caboose. I was going to pilfer some booze. When I came to, my body hurt and my ears were ringing. My whole world was sideways. I must have really overdid it. I was in no condition to be going on such an important mission. I'd have to call in sick on this one. My head was pounding.
Pounding.
Pound.

"Pound!" I yelled, remembering what had happened. I sat up, but fell sideways out of the seat, onto the wall. I fell onto the wall. Everything actually was sideways. One side of the train car had been caved in from the blast. The other side was crushed against the ground. "Pound!" I shouted again, crawling through the rubble of the train wreck. I had nicks and cuts from the broken glass, but I was otherwise okay. I found Aegis. Well, most of him. "Pound!" I yelled again. I saw the glimmer of his brass armor. He had landed between the mattress and the box frame, shielding him from most of the carnage.

"Storm?" he groaned. He had a bad cut on his shoulder. "Storm!?" I pressed a piece of the curtains into the wound.

"Hold this!" I ordered, grabbing his hoof with mine and applying pressure.

"Where're you going?" he asked. I turned and rummaged through the liquor cabinet, looking to see if any of the vintage bottles survived. "Wow, seriously?" I managed to find a lone bottle of Applejack Daniels, and pulled the cap off. I poured it onto his gash. "AHHH! OW! ASS!"

"Sorry. I forgot to say that it's gonna sting a little." I grabbed a cleaner drape and dressed the laceration as best as I could. "Can you walk?"

"Yeah, I- I think so," he groaned, getting to his hooves. That was when I saw his wing.

"Oh, oh that is... really not good," I said.

"Is it bad? It feels bad." His right wing was doing it's impression of a pretzel. I took a closer look at it.

"It's... it's not broken. Definitely dislocated," I said. "I need to try to... pop it back in." Pound took a deep breath.

"Okay."

"Okay. I'm going to count to five, ready?" I asked. He nodded. "One, two-" -POP-

"ARGH! What the actual buck!" He screamed. He let out a few more colorful pieces of language and calmed down. His wing was able to fold closed properly again. He glared at me. "Give me that!" He took the bottle from me. I braced myself. But for the crippling pain he would have taken a swing at me for sure. Instead he took a couple deep swigs of the liquor for himself, coughing a bit.

"I thought you didn't drink," I said, wrapping his wing.

"Yeah, well, I guess I've picked up some bad habits from you. Did you find Sergeant Aegis?"

"Part of him." He winced and took another drink.

"Alright..." he breathed, "Alright, as ranking guard-"

"Only guard," I corrected.

"Consider yourself deputized."

"Great." I muttered. "You ready to go?"

"Do you even have a plan?

"Yeah. We rescue the prince."

"THAT'S NOT A PLAN! THAT'S A GOAL!"

"Right. Okay, so we fly in and-"

"Storm!" he glared at me. I looked at his wing.

"Do you think you can fly?" I asked.

"Not on your life," he grunted, trying to flex the muscle. I frowned.

"... it might come to that." I took the bottle from him and took a couple drinks of it before I set it down. I salvaged what I could from my bag and helped him climb out of the caboose while I checked around us to make sure everything was all clear. It was going to be getting dark soon. Which was good, and bad. The night would help cover our approach. But there were things worse than gryphons out in the wild after dark. And the smell of blood was on the air. We walked along the tracks towards the city.

"So why were you going to Gryphonstone?" he asked.

"Oh, you know, To see the sights. Get a postcard. Assassinate the king. Tourist stuff."

"Ha. Ha." he deadpanned. It turned out that we were closer to the train station than I had thought. The international tensions were telling once you were looking for them. I looked at the stop in the dim light of the evening. It was in dire disrepair. I pulled down the faded tourist map from the wall. I could barely make out the word 'Gryphonstone' on the wooden sign pointing at a long dirt road leading away from the station.

"Seriously though, Gryphonstone is on the verge of war with Equestria."

"Oh come on," he scoffed. "How could you possibly know that?"

"It's... a long story."

"It's a long walk," We followed the road up to the main gate, moving quickly under to cover of the coming darkness. Given our odds of survival, I guess it didn't matter if he knew the truth now.

"Well, it all started when-"

"Hey, dweebs!" A gryphon appeared by the main gate, pointing a knife at us. "Outsiders gotta pay a toll! Gimmie your Bits!" Pound tensed, reaching for his missing weapon. I put my hoof on his shoulder to calm him. I opened my bag for the gryphon. I took out the reagent bottle and the cloth that had wrapped it. "What are you doing?" she asked, getting irritated with me.

"Well if you're going to flirt with me, I'm going to need some cologne," I said, pouring a bit into the cloth.

"Are you dense?" she asked.

"So I keep being told."

"Gimmie your Bits!" she demanded again.

"Alright, alright!" I reached into my pocket, grabbing one of the ping pong balls. "Here!" I tossed it at her. The smoke bomb burst in her face and I dove in after it, tackling her to the ground. "Hey, does this smell like chloroform?"

"ChlorofomffFMM!" I held the rag over her mouth.

"Shh, shh shhh. Go to sleep." She stopped struggling after a moment. I pulled her off the road and leaned her to sleep against the gate post. Her pouch of, what I presume to be stolen, Bits fell from her belt. "Ah ah. These are mine now."

"Where did you get these things?" Pound asked.

"Again, a long story," I said. I heard voices up ahead. "And not one we have time for right now!" I pulled Pound with me off of the road. I looked at the map from the station. Gryphonstone proper wasn't a terribly large place. Most of the residents were sprinkled around the mountains the surrounding area. The lay of the land was a relic of the old ways, before the Idol, when Gryphons didn't get along so well. I kept my eyes peeled, on the lookout for any of the locals, and making sure to keep us well clear. Griff's place on the west rim of the city was easy enough to find with the instructions I had been given. It was dark both inside and out.

"Wait here," I told Pound. Once it looked clear, I ran over to his door, giving it a quick knock. "Griff? Grey Fin? It's Moonshine!" I whispered as loudly as I could through the door without attracting too much attention. I heard nothing from inside. And the longer I was out here, the more likely it was that I would be discovered. I slipped the lock pick kit out from under my wide bracelet and set to work quickly. It was a surprisingly simple lock for someone who was doing undercover work. But I suppose with the window right next to it, if somebody wanted to get in, a thoroughly locked door would hardly stop them. I slipped inside and closed it behind me. "Griff? Griff!" I whispered again. That was when it hit me. The smell.

Everybody knows the smell of blood. It's one of the most basic, and fundamental shared experiences among ponykind. Even the most protected of foals lose their baby teeth at some point. And Griff's house smelled like blood. I managed to find, and light, a candle. I wished that I hadn't. The walls were splattered to the point that it looked like a modern art masterpiece.

"A study in crimson," I muttered as I searched the house. There was no sign of Griff. No body. I couldn't know if the blood was even his. If it was, whoever killed him hid his body elsewhere. If it wasn't, he must have done the same and fled. I searched as quickly as I could. We couldn't afford to be found here at a murder scene. But I needed to know if I needed to assume Griff's identity. The door was kicked open behind me.

"AHA!" said a gryphon that was not Griff. "We knew somepony would come looking for the traitor!" He brandished his sword.

"Oh, okay," I said putting my hooves up, "I guess he owed you money too."

"What!?" Success. I managed to confuse him.

"Say, let me ask you something, friend. Have you ever danced with a nightmare in the pale moonlight?" I asked. He pulled his sword and lunged at me. I barely dodged his blade's thrust. I put my hooves up to defend myself and flicked my wrist back.

SHICK

"HURK!" A blade in my right bracelet switched out, stabbing him in the neck. He dropped to the floor and I saw another figure in the doorway behind him.

"Uh, Storm?" Pound said from the doorway. I could see a gryphon behind him, holding a knife to Pound's throat. They stepped inside together. I recognized his face.

"Griff?"

"You!? Where's Echo?" he asked.

"It's just me. I hope that doesn't make you- laugh," I said, putting emphasis into the word. He slumped and shoved Pound away towards me.

"You've got to be kidding me," he groaned.

"No. I'm not."

"So you're here to-" he glanced at Pound Cake. "Does he... play chess?"

"No. But he's in the game now," I said.

"And you're the one they sent to... checkmate?"

"Yeah," I sighed. "Can you fly him out of here?" He grimaced and turned around, showing me the stumps on his back where his wings used to be. "Oh. So I guess that explains the paint job in here."

"I barely got out with my life. I hid the assassin's body and I've been staking out my own home for two days waiting for Echo, or... somepony to try to contact me. And instead you two show up."

"We need to rescue Prince Shining Armor" Pound said. Griff laughed.

"If he isn't dead already, he will be soon."

"They wouldn't dare!" Pound spat. "He's too valuable. They would use him as a bargaining chip or ransom him back to the Empire at least!"

"Why bother?" Griff shrugged. "It's not going to stop them from attacking. Why negotiate with someone you're about to destroy?"

"By the stars," Pound gasped.

"Do they have the dragons?" I asked.

"As far as I know, not yet," Griff said. "They're waiting to join the assault on Canterlot after the Crystal Empire falls. Which shouldn't be too difficult with the Yaks help."

"When?" Pound asked.

"It's too late. Everything is ready. King Guto has been coordinating everything to happen when he sends off the signal letters in two days."

"It's not too late yet," I said. "New plan. Rescue the prince. Kill the king."

"Again, those are goals. Not a plan," Pound said.

"Okay. We need to get to where the prince is. Where would that be? The castle dungeon?" I asked.

"Well that depends on how soon you get there," Griff said.

"Why?"

"Because depending on how long they have him, he may be in one place, or many," he said, pointing at his own back.

"Well then, there's not a moment to lose," I said. "What's the fastest way to the dungeon?" He pointed out the door.

"Take a stroll up to the front gate of the castle and hope they're in the mood for taking prisoners instead of killing you on sight."

"Let's... put a pin in that idea," I said. He grabbed my map.

"Well, around the south side of the castle, there's a waste tunnel that leads into the dungeon from below. Echo would be better for this. She's the one that got me out over a year ago. I have no reason to think that the way has gotten any safer. But it should still be easier to break into the Gryphonstone Dungeon than to break out."

"I guess that'll have to do," I said. "What about you?"

"Come with us," Pound said.

"Three against a hundred? It'll be a slaughter!" Griff said.

"That's the spirit!" I said.

"No, I mean our slaughter!"

"Well, it's three times better than I thought it was going to be when I got here," I said. "Failure isn't an option, or it will be everyone's slaughter. The alicorns aren't going to hold back this time if this war happens." Griff huffed an empty laugh,

"I guess I'm dead either way. I'm a marked bird here, and if I defect back to Equestria again, I'll be in hell's path."

"Unless we prevent it," Pound said, putting his hoof out. I put mine on his, waiting for Griff. He sighed, putting his talons over top.

"Alright guys," I said, "Time to save the world."

We moved quickly along the outer parts of the city. The lone guard watching Griff's home was all they had spared within the city. Aside from the contingent guarding the castle itself, most were assembled in the nearby military fortress on the next mountaintop, preparing for the invasion. Just as he said, the drain pipe was on the south side of the castle. The bars on it looked to have been cut. The rust told me that it had been some time ago.

"You know the way," I said, motioning to Griff to crawl in.

"I was barely conscious when Echo dragged me out of here," Griff said. "This is your mission." I looked at Pound.

"Ladies first," he said.

"Thanks." I climbed into the pipe. It was a straight shot for most of the way, until it came to a four-way intersection, including the way we had just come from. I lit one of the matches. "Which way?" I asked.

"I don't know," Griff said.

"Can you smell him?" Pound asked.

"All I can smell is sewage," Griff said.

"Alright. We need to split up," I said.

"And that was how they all died," Griff muttered to himself.

"We'll find him faster that way," I said.

"I... may never say this again," Pound said, "but Storm is right." I set the box of matches on the pipe.

"Whoever finds him first, bring him back here and burn this box of matches, then get him as far from here as you can." I said. "If you don't find him, come back here and check if the box is burned. If it is, get out of here! Everyone for themselves at that point. If not, place a match on the pipe in your tunnel and head down the one to your left to help if it doesn't have a match on its pipe."

"That's... actually pretty smart," Pound said.

What if one of us gets captured?" Griff asked. I looked at the ground.

"This is a rescue mission. To rescue the prince! He's all that matters. It should be pretty clear what that means for the rest of us."

"Expendable," Pound said.

"But! it shouldn't come to that. We still have the element of surprise. So we've only got one shot at this," I said. "Can I get a 'Go Team'?"

"No," Griff said and went up his section of pipe.

"Storm," Pound said.

"Yeah?"

"Try not to die."

"Yeah, you too." He walked up his section of the tunnel into the dark. I went up mine.

After a couple of minutes, I could see light up above. I moved silently as I got closer. I could hear muffled voices up above. I peeked through the grate.

"... ince in his cell. Tell... ... king. He's ...ing to want ... ... Go tell him! I'm going back to see the prince."

I watched the two guards walk in opposite directions. If I went up there, I'd only be able to follow one of them.

Okay. New plan. Kill the king FIRST, then rescue the prince.

I opened the grate and climbed up, closing it behind me. I followed after the guard headed to see the king. I closed the distance quickly and quietly. Following him until he was nearly there. Once I got close enough behind him I took the small powder pouch from my bag.

"Hey," I said, just loud enough for him to hear. He turned around, a bit startled. I flung the pouch at his face. The powder burst, knocking him unconscious. The 'Zzz' on the bag was all the instructions I needed. I dragged him into a shady alcove and shape-shifted into his gryphon form. I stripped him and donned his uniform. "Now, off to see the king."

The dark hallways of the castle gave way to a wide, well-lit throne room. It was mostly empty but for the sconces on the walls and the chandelier above lighting the room. And of course, the throne, and the king, alone. What guard he had must have been posted at the castle perimeter. I closed the door to the entrance and barred it from the inside. I didn't need unexpected company for this. I walked across the large room. My paws and talons were quieter on the stone than I was used to.

"Your Highness," I said, causing the elderly gryphon to stir from his sleep in the throne.

"Ah," his withered jaw stretched, "what news from our 'guest'?" King Guto asked. "Did he say anything useful before he expired?"

"Actually sire, he wanted me to ask you something."

"Oh?"

"Have you ever danced with a nightmare in the pale moonlight?" I asked. He narrowed his eyes at me with a glimmer of recognition. He sat up, and stretched.

"You don't need to wear that silly thing," he said after a moment. I agreed. The uniform was a burdensome hindrance to my movement. I shed it onto the floor. He smirked, pointing at me with a crooked talon. "Heh! No, no. I mean that." He set his crown on the arm of the throne, revealing the crooked horn protruding from his forehead. In a green flash, he struck me with a magic spell, causing me to shed my disguise. My bare changeling form was revealed. He walked down the stone stairs. His own disguise peeled away in a green shimmer.

"Ah, much better," she said in a feminine tone. She looked me over.

I had never seen another changeling before. Her carapace was black just like mine, with a blue shell on her back. Her eyes were the same light blue. And she had translucent wings too, but they didn't shimmer like mine did. But her body! It was full of holes! As were her legs, wings and tail! My body didn't have holes like that. Not at all.

"Ah, so it is true," she mused. "The infamous Stormageddon." She walked closer. "It must be nice..." She circled me slowly. I kept my guard up, never letting my eyes off her. "What is it like?" she asked. "What is it like to not know the hunger?"

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"I suppose you wouldn't know, now would you?" she purred. "It must be nice."

"Why do this? Why impersonate a gryphon king to rally a war against Equestria? What is this about? Conquest? Revenge?" I asked.

"You know, I'm actually glad you asked that because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan-" In a flash she lanced a spike of green magic at me. I was ready with my own shielding magic. It deflected off easily. She lobbed a couple more elemental attacks without effect. I fired back with a bolt of my own. She readied her shield also. It hit it and it caused the bolt to be stopped, but it also shattered her shield. I saw the fear register in her eyes. I understood. I was stronger.

"I'm stronger than you. I'm never going down at the hooves of the likes of you, because I'm so much better. And every part of me is saying 'go get her'."

She rushed me, flailing at me with her porous hooves. I could feel it, behind my eyes. I could feel her thoughts. Her intentions. I could predict her moves. "She's just using you!" she said as she pressed her attack. I dodged, parried, deflected. It was as predictable as if I was fighting myself. But I was faster, stronger, more agile. And I knew why.

"I am made of love. And it's stronger than stone."

"And it'll make a hearty meal!" she growled, flinging more magical attacks. It wasn't even a fight anymore. It was a dance. A dance of death. Her emotions only fueled my abilities. We were both changelings, true. But I was something more.

"Changelings are what we are, but this is who I am. And if you think you can stop me, then you need to think again. Because I won't let you hurt my family. And I won't let you hurt my friends." She grabbed a sword from the decorative armor stand and charged me. "I am made of love. And it's stronger than you!" I grabbed the sword with my magic and wrenched it from her hooves, using it to smash her twisted horn. Fragments of both her horn and the weapon skittered across the stone floor. She stumbled and fell at my hooves. I knelt down behind her and put her into a headlock, squeezing her airway in my elbow.

"You think you've won!?" she gasped as she struggled under me. "You don't even know what bucking game you're playing!"

"Playing is for foals," I said.

And then I broke her neck.

I sat there on the floor with her for a moment. For everything I had gone through to get here, the encounter seemed disappointingly brief. Almost too easy. I shape-shifted back into Storm Cloud.

"And now to rescue the prince and get out of here," I said to myself. Before I could react, a charcoal hoof wrapped around me, holding a rag over my mouth.

"Does this smell like chloroform to you?" she asked. My vision faded. Right. Because why should anything go right for me?

Queen Takes Pawn

When I came to, I had a splitting headache. It was one of the side effects of taking a chloroform nap. Apparently another side effect was waking up hoof-cuffed to a chair in a dungeon. In a cell on the other side of the room, Griff was sitting on a cot. In a chair opposite mine, Pound was likewise hoof-cuffed.

"Ah, awake at last I see," I heard a gravelly voice behind me say. I watched Pound's eyes follow him as he moved around beside me. A haggard looking gryphon in a dirty lab coat walked over with a syringe. I always hated needles. He took the syringe in his talons and injected me in the shoulder.

"You should swab first," I said. "I might get an infection." The gryphon smiled at me. He grabbed another syringe and injected Pound.

"I'll be back when this has taken effect," he said before he left the room.

"What did he inject us with?" Pound asked.

"A truth potion of some kind," Griff said. "Sodium Pentothal or something like it."

oh no

"Is it working yet?" Pound asked.

"I don't know," Griff said. "Ask him something you know he'd lie about,"

"Are they going to kill us?" Pound asked me.

"Yup!" I said.

"Yeah... It's working," Pound said. He looked at me. "Why were you on a train to Gryphonstone?"

"I was sent on a mission from Princess Luna to assassinate King Guto," I said.

"Shut up, Storm!" Griff said.

"Why?" Pound asked me.

"The king was rallying the enemies of Equestria into a massive coordinated attack."

"That is classified information!" Griff yelled.

"But it wasn't King Guto," I said. "it was a changeling."

"The king is a changeling?"

"Was a changeling," I corrected. "Now a dead changeling."

"The king is dead? Is that true?" Griff asked.

"It has to be," Pound said.

"Why are you here?" I asked Pound as I worked the small tool pamphlet out of my bracelet and into my hoof.

"I was trying to rescue the prince," Pound said.

"No, I mean, why were you on the train at all? Why are you even in the Guard?" I asked. "You never told me that."

"It was what I needed to do-"

"Why did you leave your home?" I asked.

"I was... made to leave," Pound said.

"Why?"

"I didn't love Pumpkin like I was supposed to," he said.

"You don't love her? But you're so protective of her!"

"Oh course I love her! Just... not like I was supposed to. Not like a brother should."

"Oh?... Oh." I realized.

"Yeah," he slumped lower in his chair. "When my parents found out, my father told me that I would be making a trip to the Royal Guard recruitment office, or the gelding office," he said.

"Oh. I'm sorry Pound."

"Yeah. Me too," he said. I looked around the dungeon room.

"Maybe you should have taken the knife. You don't deserve this," I said.

"Yes I do," he said as tears rolled down his cheeks. I winced. Under the effects of the potion, he told the truth. He really believed it.

"I'm gonna get you out of here," I said. Griff scoffed.

"Oh? has the potion worn off for you already?"

The door opened behind me again. The gryphon in the lab coat from earlier returned with another burly guard. The guard walked over to Pound and reached into his pocket, pulling out a pistol.

"No!" I yelled. The guard shot Pound in the neck. I could see the feathers of a small tranquilizer dart sticking out. Pound didn't fall unconscious, just sort of, limp. The guard holstered the dart gun and took the crossbow from the strap on his back, holding it in his talons, pointed at me.

The doc gryphon pushed a small cart over to us. He lifted the cloth from the top, revealing all manner of sharp instruments.

"You gonna torture me?" I asked.

"No," the Doc said. He put a pair of gloves over his talons. "I find that torturing someone is a very ineffective means of extracting information from them. Oh, sure, they may resist at first. But then they'll tell you things. Some of it might even be true. But often they will just say anything to make the pain stop. And I don't want to waste my time sifting through misinformation after the victim passes out from pain." He picked up a few of the tools and inspected them.

"No. I have a much more effective method," he said, taking the scalpel in his claws. He walked over to Pound. "I'm going to ask you questions. And if you give me an answer I don't like, I'm going to cut something off of your friend here. And believe me when I tell you," he said, looking at me, "they will be things that he will miss." Pound was barely aware of what was happening. The doc cut a small notch from his ear.

Like Moonshine's.

A dribble of blood ran down Pound's cheek.

"Ah, ah," The doc chided, putting a bit of clotting powder on the cut, stopping the bleeding. "We don't want you bleeding out just yet." The doc walked back over towards me. "Now then, is there anything you want to tell me before we start?"

"Yeah. Have you ever danced with a nightmare in the pale moonlight?" I asked.

"What a question," he breathed, "Why do you ask?"

"I always ask that of all my prey," I said "I just like the sound of it. To let them know that I'm going to kill them pretty soon."

"I see... How, exactly?" he asked.

"Well, first I'm going to use your body as a shield to soak up the bolt from his crossbow," I said, nodding at the guard. "And then I'm going to kill him by throwing that ice pick on the tray." I looked back at the doc. "And then I was thinking about... slitting your throat."

"Really!?" the doc asked. "And what makes you think that you can do all that?"

"You know my hoof cuffs?"

"Mmm?"

"I picked them."

I jumped out of the chair and grabbed the doc just as the guard was about to shoot me with the crossbow, catching the doc in the gut with the bolt instead. I grabbed the ice pick from the tray and threw it at the guard. It stuck him in the collar. Painful, but not lethal. I flicked my left wrist back and fired a dart from the bracelet into his wide, surprised, eye. Before the guard's body even hit the floor, I took the scalpel from the doc and jammed it into his neck. Griff stood up in his cell, watching me lift the keys off the guard. I unlocked the door to his cell.

"Pound, are you okay? Can you walk?" I asked.

"Jussa won drimk. Ngh m gud ta fly ofisher," he slurred.

"Griff, I need you to get Pound out of here. Please!" I told him as I unlocked Pound's cuffs. Pound slumped forward. Griff moved over to hold him up.

"Swear ta drunk mnot Celeshtia!" Pound mumbled. The three of us made our way back through the dungeon to the grate where I had come in. Griff dropped down into the sewer. I took the memory mirror from my pocket.

"What are you doing?" Griff asked, shielding his eyes.

"The right thing." I pointed the mirror at Pound. "Going my way?" I asked him, activating the mirror. His eyes lost focus. It erased his memory of this place and his painful confession. But more importantly, left him open to suggestion. "You're a good pony, Pound. Your family loves you. They WILL forgive you. GO! HOME!"

"...Kay," Pound said, drooling a little. I helped lower Pound down to Griff.

"Just get him out of here!" I pleaded with Griff. "As far away from Gryphonstone as you can. Get him back to Equestria. He doesn't deserve to be here. He doesn't deserve any of this!"

"Nu, u!" Pound muttered."

"What about you?" Griff asked.

"I still need to rescue the prince," I said, I started to close the grate.

"Hey, Storm," Griff said.

"Yeah?"

"You're alright," Griff said. "Try not to die."

"Right."

I closed the grate. I headed in the other direction, through the dim tunnel towards where the prince would be held. I heard voices up ahead. There was a crack in the castle's old foundation wall. I looked through. I could see the shadows of two ponies just out of sight.

"Shining, you should tell Stormageddon the truth about me," I heard a female voice say.

"No! He must never know the truth about you being his mother!" He shouted. "And he never will!" I could hear the metal of his sword being pulled from its sheath.

"No! Guards!" She cried out before her scream was ended as ran her through with his blade. I heard the door in the other room burst open. And he was overtaken by the guards.

"Storm?" I jumped at the voice behind me.

"Echo?"

"Storm, what are you doing here!?" she asked in shock.

"I came here to kill the king. He's dead."

"Guto's dead?" she asked. I nodded. "Great! Then I need you to help me find somepony. He should be fairly... near." She looked at my necklace. "Where did you get that necklace!?" She demanded.

"You gave it to me," I answered, still under the lingering effects of the truth potion.

Shit!

"Liar! I gave it to Moonshine! I was following him," she said. It dawned on me. The necklace that she had given to me for 'good luck' on the mission, it had a tracking spell on it. And now it led her to me. I guess I was just lucky. "Where is he?"

Oh, Echo, why did you ask me that?

"He's dead," I answered honestly.

"What? When!?" she asked desperately.

"I'm not sure. A few days ago," I said.

Please stop.

"Impossible. I just saw him!"

"That was me."

"What!?"

I tried. By the stars, I tried so hard to do the right thing. I did what was asked of me. I did what I needed to, not because it was easy, but because it was hard. I persevered in the face of incalculable odds to try to save lives. After all the crimes, and hurt, and lies. I've tried to just be a good pony, in the vain hope that the sins of my past would not come back to haunt me. But alas, I could not escape my fate. I had dug my own grave. It was time to lay down in it. My 'uppance' had come.

"You gave this necklace to me last night for good luck. I'm sorry, Echo." I shape-shifted into Moonshine, and then into my naked, changeling form. "I'm a changeling." Her face broke, first in the realization that Moonshine really was dead. And then it twisted up into rage at my deceit. She pulled her hoof back to punch me. I made no move to stop her.

"You bastard!"

I deserved this.

Her punch socked me in the jaw and sent me reeling. The impact shocked me from putting my hooves up to stop my fall. My head cracked against the stone floor.

"I'm sorry!" Her punch was followed by a series of kicks to my ribs and stomach. "OOF! It wasn't my idea!"

"What you did to me-" She cried.

"I'm sorry! I didn't know he was your coltfriend!" I shielded my face with my hooves. "I didn't want to hurt you!"

"You son of a-" she kicked me in a particularly tender location, "bitch!"

"ARRGH! Echo! I can only say 'I'm sorry' so many times!"

"WELL THEN SAY IT AGAIN ANYWAY!" she screamed at me.

"I'm sorry."

She reached down and broke the necklace from my neck and spat on my cheek. She turned on her heel and left me there.

"Echo," I whimpered. But she was already gone. My mind raced with thoughts.

Maybe the war was prevented. Maybe it wasn't.
Shining Armor just killed my mother.
Echo hated my guts.
But one thought rang out clear above the rest.

Oh my gosh,
my everything.
My everything hurts.

It hurt to move. It hurt to think. It hurt to be awake. It hurt to be alive. I could hear hooves approaching from the darkness. Which wouldn't be for much longer, I figured.

"That'll do, Storm." I squinted through my swollen eyelid. I looked at the charcoal pegasus with a teal mane and fern leaf cutie mark. Sweet Leaf. She looked at me with those bright, viridian eyes. "That'll do." She scooped me up in her hooves as my vision faded to black.

The warm summer sun beat down on Sweet Apple Acres. My home. Applejack served the volleyball up over the net we had set up on the sandy shore of the riverbank.

"I've got it!" I called out. I bumped the serve up for a set to Big Macintosh. The tall stallion jumped up to spike it. And set it into the net, making the ball fall on our side.

"Ha! Another point for the gals," Applejack laughed, giving Apple Bloom a hoof bump. "Are you sure you're not playing for the wrong side, Pineapple?" she asked me.

"Eenope!" I said, imitating Big Mac. "Your serve," I said to him, passing the ball. Big Mac took the ball and gave it a solid whack with his hoof, sending it sailing. I watched it arc up into the heavens. All strength, and no coordination. That was him. Good for kicking apples out of trees, but not much else. The ball flew into the underbrush of the forest nearby. "I'll get it," I said, running into the thicket. I pushed my way through the shrubs, looking for the wayward volleyball. I came face to face with a set of green eyes.

"Are you sure you're not playing for the wrong side?" Sweet Leaf asked me.

My eyes shot open. All I could see was green. Green light everywhere. I felt warm, yet terrified. I was submerged. I panicked and lurched upwards, breaching the surface of the fluid. I screamed a silent scream as my lungs purged the liquid filling them.

"HUUUUH!" I gasped, taking a first breath of air. I was in a big tub, no, a pod of some kind. I leaned over the edge and retched and coughed the rest of the fluid from my lungs as I fell out onto the floor. Strangely, I didn't feel like I was drowning. I didn't feel pain. No pain from the various punches, kicks, cuts, stabs, concussions, explosions and pony-knows-what else from the past few weeks.

"Feeling better, Storm?"

I looked up at the pony on the other side of the iron bars. I realized that I was in a prison cell.

"Sweet Leaf!" I growled. I rushed at the bars, reaching through to try to grab at her with my chitin, changeling hoof.

"Tsk tsk. Such ingratitude! After all that I did to save your life," she said motioning to the pod. "Such a wonderful thing. It can save you from the very ebb of death."

"Then why did you try to kill me!?" I asked.

"Kill you!? I don't want to kill you!" she scoffed. "What would I do without you?"

"You burned my home down! You tried to kill me and my family!"

"So certain are you?" she asked with a coy smile.

"You left your damn fern leaf for me to find!" I spat.

"Oh. Well... Isn't that convenient for all the ponies that wanted to control you," she said.

"What?"

"Oh? Still haven't figured it out yet, have you? Still using all the muscles except the one that matters?" she asked. "All your life you've had the ponies telling you what to do and where to go. Carefully guiding you along a very specific path to your predestination. Did it not seem suspiciously convenient to you that each time you dared to defy their will, a leaf would magically appear to set you back on the path they intended for you. The Farm. The Guard. L.A.U.G.H. Here, at last, in Gryphonstone to carry out their mission?"

Sweet Leaf leaned closer towards me.

"Do you really think they loved you?" she asked. "Or liked you? Or even cared about you? Any more than a carpenter cares about a hammer? Do you not feel exactly like that? A tool of their will? A pawn of their schemes? You were so bent on your drive for revenge, that you were blind to everypony around you using it to manipulate you. Did they ever care about what you wanted? What you really wanted?"

She stared at me. She stared with those haunting green eyes.

I stared back, unflinching. I didn't want to believe her. But it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore her logic.

"All you ever asked for from day one was to know the truth," she said. "The truth about your family. Your parents. Is that so wrong? And yet at every turn, the so-called benevolent ponies denied you that simple request. And based on what? A promise? Like so much carrot on a stick to do their bidding? Lies upon lies, Storm. And then they condemn you for doing the same. All I tried to do was expose their facade. And now they've sent you to eliminate me... Are you sure you're not playing for the wrong side?" she asked. I opened my mouth to speak. She put her hoof up. "Now, now. You needn't answer right away. This is an important decision, after all. If you would let me, I would like to give you the opportunity to get those answers. You want answers?"

"I think I'm entitled," I said.

"You want answers?" she asked again.

"I want the truth!" I demanded. She smiled.

"It's just through there," she said, nodding at the wall of my cell. She pulled a lever, lifting the wall. "A gift, my dear Stormageddon. A token of my good will. I give to you the stallion that murdered your mother."

On the other side, Shining Armor was kneeling on the floor, shackled to the wall by a collar around his neck. His hooves were tied behind his back. His horn was fitted with a magic inhibition ring. His mouth was tied with a rag. The guards had clearly had a way with him. He was in rough shape.

"You may free him, and leave if you like. As you were told to do. Or you may free him from this mortal coil. Unlike those ponies, I won't tell you what to do. Think it over, please. Take your time. Make your own choice." Sweet Leaf said.

"..."

"So, here we are again," I said. Shining Armor listed a bit to one side. "I only ever wanted one thing out of all of this. I just wanted the truth. And you wouldn't even do that. Last time, I was your prisoner. You spared my life. Perhaps I should do the same. Perhaps I too should spare your life with the motive of using you for my own needs. Does that seem about fair? Tell you what, If you tell me who my father is, I'll let you live. Or how about my mother?" I said. He struggled through the gag.

"MMffnnFFMFM!"

"Oh, that's right. It doesn't matter anymore because you KILLED HER!" I grabbed the sword from his scabbard.

do it

And I thrusted it into his chest.

"MMMFFF!!!" He slumped forward as the sword ran through him and cut his rope bindings behind him, freeing his hooves. I pulled the sword from his torso, letting his blood run. He lifted a crimson hoof to pull his gag free, and then he ran it across my cheek gently. Blood ran from his lips as he managed to utter a single word to me,

"Son..."

He fell limp onto the ground as his life left him. His sword slipped from my hooves and clattered against the stone floor. I looked down at the fresh blood on my black hooves.

Sweet Leaf smiled.

"Oh, this part is always fun," she purred.

And then pain.

Pain beyond all description.

For all the injuries I'd had in my life, none compared to this.

Not even close.

At once, holes bored themselves into my body. I collapsed onto the ground as the feeling of a hundred knifes stabbed through me at once. My legs. My wings. My tail. My body became riddled with holes. But none so large as the one that pierced my heart. I thought I knew what love was. What did I know? The unconditional love of my father died along with him beside me at my own hooves. My throat tightened and closed off my air, but my mouth gaped in a silent scream.

"I'll be waiting for you in the throne room. Bring me his sword when you're done." She opened the door to my cell and walked out of the dungeon.

I think this is about where we came into this story. Me in a prison cell. But not in the Crystal Empire. In Gryphonstone.

If you asked me now why I did it, I probably couldn't tell you. My father lay dead beside me. Murdered by my own hooves.

A prison cell has a funny way of making you look back on the choices you've made in life. Then again, hindsight being what it is, it seems like one long string of "it was a good idea at the time" moments. But if ever there was one choice that marked a big, bright, red line in my life, it was that one moment, that one day, at the road leading out of Sweet Apple Acres, that I turned right, instead of left. It was as much of a literal fork in the road as well as my life.

The past is a puzzle, like a broken mirror. As you piece it together you cut yourself, your image keeps shifting, and you change with it. You see the choices that you didn't know you made. Sitting in this cell, I think of the cold laws of cause and effect...

...and I think of home.

"ARGH!" I cried out, writhing weakly on the floor. "Why does it hurt so much!?"

"Because his love for you was real," A weak voice said from the prison cell across the hall. An emasculated husk of a changeling shambled towards the bars. It's horn was a broken nub. "Quickly, the pod!"

"What!?"

"Put him in the pod! It might just work to save his life."

"He killed my mother!" I growled.

"You're in a changeling dungeon!" she said. "What did you really see? What did you really hear? Don't believe any of it! Put him in the pod! Do it quickly before it's too late for you both." I released the collar on the prince. I carried Shining Armor across the cell and placed him into the pod. My father sank into the green goo.

"What about you? What happened to your horn?" I gasped.

"The queen broke it. No longer does her voice crawl within my skull. But I can no longer feed either. I'll soon starve to death."

"But, the pod-"

"It's too late for me. For both of us," she said.

"What do you mean?" I didn't hear her answer. Her voice was pushed from my mind. My own thoughts were pushed from my mind. It was no longer my will.

Only her will.

Stormageddon, come to me.

"Yes... my queen." I took the sword, still warm with my father's blood, and walked to the throne room.

I walked into the throne room carrying the sword. Sweet Leaf sat upon the throne and watched me approach. She sauntered down the steps to me as her disguise peeled away. A changeling like myself, but taller. My body just as porous as hers.

"Behold, your Queen, Chrysalis," she announced herself. "Oh, I'm sure your head must just be buzzing with questions," she said.

"Either that or it's the tinnitus," I said. "I was in a train wreck today."

"Ah, but look at you now, my son," she said with a toothy smile as she caressed my exoskeleton with her perforated hoof. "I've looked forward to this day for so long. Ever since the Canterlot Invasion. Come, walk with me, my child. Let me tell you the story of... your life." With a flex of her will, I obediently fell into step beside her.

"On the eve of the invasion, I made a threat against Canterlot, forcing Shining Armor to abandon Princess Cadance's side to fulfill his duty as the Captain of the Royal Guard. I took Shining Armor's form and led his bride into the Crystal Caverns beneath Canterlot, where I trapped her. But not before I ravaged her in his form. It was a decadent meal."

"But in my overconfidence, Shining Armor's sister managed to free the Princess, and the attack was repelled. But you already know that part." She sighed. "My second plan for conquest was quite naturally perfect. It was a work of art. Flawless. Sublime. A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure. An unforeseeable variable, a unicorn unknown to me, entered into equation and ruined everything." She snorted in frustration.

"Starlight Glimmer," she growled. "She took everything from me. All my years of careful planning, my kingdom, my hive, my SWARM! She took it all away from me! On that day, I no longer cared about conquest. Only revenge!" She looked down at me following closely beside her.

"This, you understand?" she asked. I nodded. "But in the years since, all of my attempts on her have been thwarted. She has focused far more on her own magical power than her Princess Twilight ever did. Starlight didn't waste her talents on the pursuit of friendship," she spat.

"And she matched it with a level of security that could teach even a changeling queen a thing or two about paranoia. Her power hexes. Her defense wards. The changeling detection fields she created. It seemed that I would never have the satisfaction of killing her myself. And even as ageless as I am, I'm too impatient to simply outlive her to the ravages of time."

"And so, I put my final solution into action. I used the gryphon kingdom to rally all of Equestria's enemies together in a final, great conflict to bring low the ponies who did so to me. I would have seen the world burn to be but queen of the ashes," she said with conviction.

"But now," her tone softened, "that needn't be. Luckily, on the eve of the invasion of Canterlot, I left Princess Cadance with a little surprise. An egg I had managed to deposit inside of her for her honeymoon. You."

"Me?"

"Yes. Your father, Shining Armor, unwittingly fertilized it. And months later, a horrified Cadance laid a changeling egg."

"Well, that explains a lot about her attitude towards me."

"I would have expected that they would have smashed it on the spot," Chrysalis said. "But for your father's love, and perhaps his ambition, he hid you away on an apple orchard. In hopes of using you one day against his enemies. They were wise to keep the truth from you. They understood the danger of the hive-mind."

"Hive-mind?" I asked.

"The shared consciousness of the swarm. We can share and read each other's thoughts. But your father's love and Princess Luna's meddling shielded your mind from me. Most of the time." She grinned. "I would get glimpses from you, once in a while. When you were experiencing strong emotions, or when you inhibited your own cognition... when you would drink, I was able to get information from you. And nudge you in the right direction."

Go right
Have another drink
Lie
Steal
KILL

"And the ponies did the rest. I collected information about Twilight's castle. The Royal Guard. The agents of S.M.I.L.E. and L.A.U.G.H." She bristled with excitement. "And best of all, I have their secret weapon. The one thing with the enchantments to walk right though their defenses, and get close enough to kill Starlight Glimmer, and all the rest." She turned and looked at me with those intense green eyes. A laugh rumbled from deep in her belly. "I have you. And now that your father is dead, you are under my total control now."

"I almost had you before, in the Crystal Empire. The wards surrounding the Heart protected it from me. But not you. Had we succeeded in stealing the Heart, your father would have perished then, and you would have been right there with me. But it all worked out in the end. Having you kill him yourself was just a bonus. But before you go back to Equestria to carry out your new assassination missions, let us celebrate your return to me, my suitor. After all, you killed my drone posing as the king, and the other traitor will soon starve to death. We have a hive to repopulate."

I obediently followed her towards the bedchambers. I followed the changeling queen that had been Sweet Leaf, the pony that I had vowed to kill. I had no choice in the matter. My hooves followed her instruction without my will. I would follow her. And I would mate with her. And I would kill ponies for her. I looked down at the bloody sword in my hoof. My father's sword. I looked at my hoof, at the holes in it.

I watched the holes begin to close. It felt like somepony let the air back into the room. I felt life within myself again. I felt my mind come back to me. The pod had worked, my father was alive! My father's love for me gave me strength. It filled me, and freed me from her hold on my mind.

"My Queen?" I asked as I followed behind her.

"Come now, there's no need for titles among lovers," she said.

"Sweet Leaf,"

"Please, my son, you needn't call me that,"

"Very well... Mother?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Tell me..." A smile crawled across my face as I gripped my father's sword tighter. "...have you ever danced with a nightmare in the pale moonlight?"

Author's Note

Stormageddon will return