Tears of Harmony

"Twilight is MY mentor, MY teacher! She saved me from my dark path! She gave me new life! I don't answer to the Princesses and I never have. If this is what Twilight wishes to teach to me, then who am I to turn my back on Her lessons?"

Behind the bar, through a backroom was an alleyway, secluded from view by all the buildings built around it. Sixfour and I had been told to head down the alley to a door marked by orange paint, on the left side of the alley. Through the hall beyond and onto the street on the other side we were to take a right and follow the street to a warehouse ringed by a fence, a Sons of Gilda mercenary patrolling the outside of the warehouse. We were told to speak to the mercenary, to tell him that Gralish(whom I assumed was the bartender) had sent us. The mercenary had let us into the warehouse, where we boarded a skyboat. After a half-hour's flight over the streets of The Dome we'd touched down at another, larger, warehouse. Two Sons of Gilda had then escorted us out into the streets to a non-descript building, what may have been an apartment complex.

The Griffon escort had told us to wait outside while they went in, and so Sixfour and I had merely stood on the side of the street, idly looking out across The Dome. The street that the apartment was on ran along the edge of a cliff, offering an oddly enthralling view of The Dome. The metropolis sprawled out beyond the lip of the street, countless streams of skyboats and small vessels soaring between what few skyscrapers dotted The Dome. The streets below those skyboats teemed with millions of land-based vehicles, pedestrians, and all manner of buildings.

After a few minutes of waiting outside the Griffon escort came back out and told us to follow them. We entered the building and were led up stairs, through a hall, to a beautiful studio apartment, the windows adorned with crimson curtains. The Griffons left us, though there was no one else in the apartment. Sixfour and I were left to ourselves, and so I took to admiring the modest grandness of the apartment. The floor was marble, and there were pieces of art scattered about. A few paintings of legendary Griffons, the colors sharp and frames clean. A few large photos; of Griffonstone, of voidships racing into the cosmos, of a gorgeous tower that I did not recognize.

Of Empress Twilight.

I paused, staring into the eyes of the mare I once knew as my aunt. The picture had been taken after her Ascension, but before she had usurped the throne. She stood with wings spread, standing at an oblique angle to the camera, her face turned slightly away but eyes boring into the lens. Into the viewer's own gaze. Her eyes were bright, her smile wide. She appeared to be standing in a room, the walls around her black, her form illuminated by a single, bright spotlight. A few books and scrolls were around her, but there was nothing else. Just her, alone in a room, smiling at the camera.

I reached out with my magic, lifted the picture off the wall, and turned it around. Written in the bottom left corner of the frame were the words 'Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship. In commemoration of the Princess's first birthday as an Alicorn.'

Below that there was a hoofwritten note, faded and taped over to protect it from the elements, but the words written upon it were as sharp as they'd been the day the ink had first dried.

'Oh darling, may you shine as brightly as you do in this photo, for all time.'

The note was not signed.

"Feeling homesick?" I heard a voice call from behind me; I turned my head back and lifted the frame back up onto the peg it had been mounted to. A silver Griffon stood in the threshold of the door that separated the bathroom from the rest of the apartment, his fur and feathers shining a brilliant sheen. Beyond him I saw the mirror in the bathroom was foggy, the last of the steam from a shower filtered out by the vent and the cooler air of the rest of the apartment. He had a kind of suave aloofness to him, and was bearing a rather bemused smile, but I could see the way his fur had been brushed to cover the scars of a life spent fighting. Could see the way his pale blue eyes held no spark even as they danced with a confident mirth.

"Reminding myself of the enemy, more like" I replied, turning to face him. At this his smile spread and bared his pearly whites, though he was missing a few. He leaned against the doorframe, regarding me with those pale blue orbs. He hadn't even cast a glance at Sixfour, or if he had I hadn't seen.

"Tell me, what could have driven a pony to consider her Empress to be her enemy? She has provided everything to you, and lifted you and all the rest like you up by weighing the rest of us down, like some twisted scale. That a pony could stand in my apartment, in The Dome, billions of miles away from Equus, and call her Empress her enemy gives one pause" the Griffon said.

"She took from me, too. My parents, my friends. Harmony, she took from an entire world. She tried to take my life, too. She took from everyone that once called Equus home; some just prefer what she gave in return" I explained.

"Mmm. Most ponies who come here, they do so because this is the only place left in the cosmos that will take them. Banished from Equus, banished from Equus Prime, banished from Ascension, banished from Starlight. They either become nomads, take their chances in Siren, or come here. I wonder, what has driven you here? Were you banished?"

I hadn't heard of any ponies fleeing to the Siren system, and so I wondered just what this bird had meant. "In a sense. To the realm of Tartarus. Upon escape, I chose to leave Equus."

"Oh but it wasn't really a choice, was it?" the Griffon asked, pushing away from the doorframe and walking towards me. "After all, who would really want to come to The Dome, if they could live on Equus, or Ascension, or Starlight?"

"Someone looking for something. And looking for someone who can find them that something."

A silence befell the room as the Griffon and I stood before each other, Sixfour in the corner watching silently. We stared into each other's eyes, myself waiting for the Griffon to introduce himself properly, the Griffon likely running all sorts of ideas about who I am through his mind.

"I am Koss" the Griffon said at last, stepping back. "I am a, shall we say, independent organizer of shipping for this region of The Dome. I mostly work for the Sons of Gilda; around here, folks don't very much appreciate it when creatures such as myself arrange deals for the competition."

"I am Flurry Heart" I replied simply.

"Tell me, Flurry Heart. Who are you?" Koss asked as he walked to the kitchen. I trailed lazily behind him, staying in the living room. Koss pulled open the door to an ancient refrigerator and reached in, pulling out a tin of sliced meat.

"What's to say? I'm a pony mare, in search of something, as I said. Some unorthodox goods, and a creature who can find and broker deals for said goods. I'm an exile of Equus, with no family and few friends, and now I spend my days toiling away in search of the means to strike back at the Empire that has wronged so many" I explained.

"Mm, I see. And what kind of 'unorthodox goods' do you seek? Most of what you'll buy in The Dome is unorthodox. Certainly all of what you'll buy is stolen, produced by slave labor, or illegal. Perhaps all three, in some extreme cases. Though I suppose The Dome itself is a den of extremity. I just...am so taken by curiosity over what a pony such as yourself would hope to find here."

"Soul gems."

Koss stumbled as he stepped away from the refrigerator, looking across the apartment at me, to see if I was serious. I did not back down, and my expression was firm. He composed himself and shut the door to the fridge, setting the tin down on the table and walking around to me. "Surely you can't be serious?"

"I can, and I am. Six of them, to be precise" I answered.

"One alone would be a significant investment, let alone six. I dread to think of what use you will find for them..." Koss said, turning around. He turned a chair at the table around so that he could face me as he sat, seeming to be in thought. I stepped closer to him and sat on the floor, patiently waiting for him to give me an answer. I'd had no intention of telling him what I'd do with the gems.

"I can assure you the price will be astronomical for each. I wonder if you could even amass the funds to pay for them conventionally" Koss commented.

"If you ask me to sleep with you as 'payment', I'm leaving."

Koss laughed. "Goodness, no. You're not my type. Since you are serious, then I'll get the gems for you. Soul gems, thankfully, are not in high demand these days, so they shouldn't be so hard to find. It shall be up to you to find the funds to pay for them."

"Well how much will they be?" I asked. I wasn't worried; the Starborn had been financing us well enough from the minerals and metals mined and sold. We'd even been able to afford to buy hydroponics equipment, shipborne weapons, and even facilities to begin constructing and repairing our own ships.

"50,000 bits apiece, I should think" Koss replied. "Market prices tend to fluctuate wildly here, though there is more structure to our economy than you'd think."

"Goodness, that is a lot. I'm surprised you'll even take Imperial bits out here" I stated. Koss smiled and leaned back, his talons folded behind his head.

"Coin is coin, my dear. Will there be anything else, besides the gems?"

"No, that will be all."

After the meeting I left the apartment, standing out on the street with Sixfour by my side. "One step closer, Great One" he commented. I smiled at him, and we began to trot back to the spaceport to return to the corvette, where we would rest each night(as much of a night The Dome could see). Koss had explained to me that I was to return to him in a few days, at which point he'd have had enough time to locate a few sellers of the kind of good we were seeking.

"One step closer" I replied.