Servant of the Queen

Silver Rose dropped the last stack of bottles down by Crystal Prep’s entrance, breaking out just a bit of sweat from the activity. While the weather had cooled since summer, she guessed she didn’t need to keep up appearances anymore, but at the same time, she didn’t want to go expending love energy for something as trivial as moving crates, so here she was, slightly sweaty, but doing very much okay.

The bottles in the crates contained some kind of flower extract that Eastern people loved so much. She didn’t know why people even wanted to drink flowers, but she wasn’t going to argue. After all, she’d seen her aunt drink bleach for who knows what reason.

“All done, Dean Cadance.” Silver approached the teacher as she stood by the steps, ticking off things on a clipboard.

“Well done, Silver Rose,” Cadance smiled. “All that’s left is the wasabi. Do you think you could help Lemon Zest with that?”

“Umm, sure, yeah.” Silver straightened her uniform and went back into school.

It had been so weird around the Shadowbolts lately that she herself had also found herself staying away from them, at least in the form of conversation. She didn’t know what to do around them anymore, especially Sunny, though on the upside, at least she hadn’t had to entertain that girl’s sexual needs for a while now.

And thank goodness for that…

Sunny might’ve tasted good, but Silver felt she was going to die if she had to keep it up, not just because her aunt didn’t agree with it.

The changeling soon found Lemon Zest hanging in the science lab, stacking up a cluster of little boxes into a crate.

When she noticed her, Lemon suddenly jumped and turned her headphone’s volume down. “Oh, Silver Rose! Do you need something?”

“Oh, well… Dean Cadance asked me to come help you move the uh, Weh...Wehsayby out.”

Silver had heard her aunt mention it just once, but other than that, she didn’t remember anything else about what this was.

“Oh, sure!” Lemon picked up more little boxes. “Just put them in the crates and then take them out front.”

Silver did as she was bid, putting the condiment into the crates and stacking them on a wheeled trolley to be pushed out to the front of school. She didn’t have this trolley earlier, and it would’ve seriously helped if she did.

She expected Lemon Zest to begin questioning her about herself or her ‘witch powers’ again, but thankfully and surprisingly, she didn’t ask anything. In fact, she didn’t say a word, which was rather odd as well. Maybe she was listening to some loud music. Or perhaps she was still suspicious of her.

Silver sighed. They had every right to be suspicious. She’d made just too many blunders in the recent months that surely her mother would give her a good beating if her aunt wasn’t around. But the one to take that metaphoric cake, and cake was so delicious, was her leaving her fangs out for Sunny to see.

Well, nothing I can do about it now… Silver thought dejectedly as she pushed the trolley through the halls of Crystal Prep. On the way out, she smelled the soft ambience that was Dean Cadance, as well as the rancid stench of a certain stuck up principal. Principal Cinch was standing there inspecting the Eastern goods almost like she had a stick up her-

“Everything is right on schedule, Principal Cinch,” Dean Cadance was saying as she pointed to her clipboard. “We’ll be ready for the moving trucks to take it all to CHS in about two hours.”

“That just means we have to be here for another two hours,” the principal grumbled. “This whole event with Canterlot High is truly a waste of time.”

“Come on, Principal Cinch.” Cadance put her clipboard down for a second. “You agreed to this to strengthen our schools’ friendship after the Games.”

“The Games which Crystal Prep should have won, were it not for that confounded ‘magic’.”

Cadance looked displeased. “Like we discussed, this isn’t about competition. This is about friendship. Bonds. We’re here to establish a relationship that would last generations.”

“If it’s anything that will endure, it’s legacy.”

That mean old bag will never understand. Silver watched them talk as she rolled her trolley on.

As Silver made her way back in to get more crates, she quickly made a pit stop by the girl’s restroom to wash Cinch’s stench off her face and nostrils. It was really sickening to be around her even for a minute. When she was done, she reached into a pocket and removed a little blue tablet that was about the size of a pea.

Moonglade had been asked to the Eastern Fair by Home Run. Chrysidea would want more than anything to go with him, but that meant Silver Rose couldn’t be there to man the clothing stand. She had to have a reason to miss out on her duty and that reason was this little blue pill.

Her aunt had given it to her and while a cyanide pill would be lethal to humans and she was no human, nor was she a full blown changeling, which were immune to poisons. But it would certainly give her quite the stomachache.

She placed the pill onto her tongue and swallowed it. It tasted bitter, but a drink of water soon rectified that. Then she left the restroom to go back and get more crates of that wasabi, whatever it was. Once she brought the trolley back outside again, Dean Cadance was still checking things on her clipboard, but Cinch seemed to have gone back to her office. Good.

There was a passel of other students packing and securing things for the movers who would come to get the stuff later. Silver ignored them and went over to the dean.

“Dean Cadance?” Silver said as she got closer to the dean. “Is there anything else I can help with?”

Cadance looked down at her clipboard and shuffled through a couple of pages. “I think we just about have everything taken care of,” she said with a smile. “Why don’t you head over to the buses and wait there? We’ll be going to CHS to set up the stalls and other sundries soon enough.”

“Actually,” Silver said slowly as an unpleasant burning feeling began to show itself in her stomach. “I’m not feeling too well. Do you think I could go home early?”

The dean noticed the sweat drops on Silver’s face and the pasty color of her complexion.

“Oh my.” She put the clipboard down and placed a hand to Silver’s forehead. “You’re burning up.”

Really? I can’t tell. At least on the outside.

“I think you better go to the Nurse’s Office.”

“Actually, could I just call my aunt?” Silver doubled over and held her stomach. “She’ll know… what to do.”

“It looks serious, yes, please do call her.”

One phone call and fifteen minutes later, Silver saw the black car pull up and her aunt seated at the driver’s seat. By now, the young changeling was barely able to walk, Dean Cadance was nice enough to support her on the way to the vehicle.

Once Silver was securely seated inside the car, Ivory Wings floored the accelerator and drove them away from the school.

“Busy day, princess?” Ivory asked as she passed her niece a small vial of opaque green liquid.

Silver popped the cork off and drank the entire thing in one gulp. It tasted like a minty dried cat was running down her throat, but in only a few seconds, the pain in her gut subsided and she felt much better.

“You could… say that, Aunt Ivory…” the girl panted. “Thanks for the antidote.”

“Any time. I suppose now that you’ve an alibi for why you can’t be at the fair as this persona, you have all the excuse to go there dressed as Moonglade.”

“Mhm!” Silver looked out the window as they neared the estate. She was really looking forward to it. As Moonglade, of course.

It would certainly be a good time to take things up a notch with Home Run.

But first, she would have to swap personas and get ready for tomorrow.

“Now, I’ll be attending the fair as well, since your mother has me following you everywhere,” Ivory told Silver, to her disappointment. “I’ll be wearing my mail-backed kimono. I don’t think it would be a good idea to go all the way and become Scarlet Lily here, seeing as she’s supposed to be long dead, or at the very least, missing. But rest assured, you will not be unguarded.”

“Oh,” Silver said. “Do you have to?” She had been looking forward to spending some time alone with Home Run.

“Would any self-respecting bodyguard leave their principal unguarded in a potentially dangerous environment?” Ivory arched an eyebrow.

“You did once.”

“And look what happened. You would’ve been mugged if you weren’t a changeling. And what’s more, your mother was furious. You don’t want her to be furious again, do you?”

“Oh. No, I guess not,” Silver sighed.

Ivory noticed her niece’s displeasure and exhaled slowly. “Tell you what, for now, let’s just focus on getting you dressed up for the fair. Other than that, things will take care of themselves.”

“Dudes!” Lemon Zest smashed the door open to the classroom Sugarcoat and Sunny Flare were packing snacks in.

“What?” Sugarcoat asked, clearly annoyed by the sudden entrance. “You probably put a hole in the wall. You’ll have to pay for that.”

“Whatever. But dudes!” Lemon waved her arms.

“What?” Both Sugarcoat and Sunny asked.

“I was on my way to see where Silver Rose was. She was helping me pack the wehsayby.”

“It’s wasabi,” Sugarcoat commented.

“It looks like wehsayby to me. Anyway,” the lime haired girl continued. “I decided to take a bathroom break when Silver entered the bathroom.”

She paused.

“Stop pausing.” Sugarcoat bumped a fist against the table. “Hurry up.”

“Well, Silver came in and swallowed some kind of blue thing. I think it was a pill, but I couldn’t quite see it from the cubicle. After that, she got really sick and had to go home.”

Sugarcoat rubbed at her jaw. “So she took something to induce sickness… What does she hope to accomplish? One would normally think to make an opponent sick, not themselves.”

“Maybe she’s trying to get out of work?” Sunny shrugged. “I definitely would like to go home already. We still have to lug all these off the trucks over at Canterlot High’s side. Ughhh…”

“But why would Silver want to skip out on all this? It’s not like she’s lazy like you.”

“Hey!”

“What do you think, Sunny?” Lemon asked. “You’re her girlfriend. You know her best.”

Sunny rubbed her head. “Actually… Now that I think about it… I don’t really know a whole lot about her.”

“You what-” Lemon began, struck dumb by this new piece of information.

“It’s cause all she thinks about is sex.”

“No it’s not!” Sunny protested.

“Yeah, she thinks of Silver’s body too,” Lemon snickered. “Oh, and her pus-”

“It’s not just that!” Sunny’s face turned red.

She tried to process her thoughts, but after a few minutes worth of thinking, she realized Lemon might’ve been right. Whenever she would talk with Silver, she would just think about her body and how amazing it was. She never really talked much about anything else.

Sugarcoat shook her head. “Well, whatever it is… Silver’s trying to get out of today’s work. We could be overthinking it to think that there’s more to it than just that. It’s weird, yes, but we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions just yet.”

“But it’s so late into the day. You don’t think… You don’t think she’s trying to skip the fair as well?”

Lemon guffawed, spitting saliva everywhere. “Now who on earth would want to skip that awesome fair? It has everything an Eastern fanatic would want!”

“Is she an Eastern fanatic, though?” Sugarcoat pointed out.

“I’m just saying who’d want to miss this? Intentionally.”

“I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.” Sugarcoat sighed.

There was nothing conclusive they could come up with with what they had. But what could they even find out? Whether Silver Rose was skipping the fair? If so, why?