1. Declassified, Part One
Author's Note
"I have returned from the dead to give the living haircuts."
~George Washington, upon being reelected for a second term as President
1. Declassified, Part One
Moon and stars, glinting down on the roofs of Canterlot, and Aydin returning to the Night Court after another day of pencil-pushing. If it wasn't that, it was field missions, but he supposed paperwork was more relaxing than hitting the streets, even if he hated it. A rare moment of peace, indeed.
He glanced up at the royal castle, eclipsing the moon as it began its ascent and he began his trek through the gardens. He looked around at the hedges kept impeccably trimmed and the bushes of flowers that always seemed to be in bloom, no matter the time of year. The castle doors were always open as well, very much unlike the noble elite of Acadia, his home country. If a common man were to even look at some highfalutin' baron's house the wrong way, he'd be living in a cardboard box faster than someone could snap their fingers. Aydin scoffed absentmindedly. The truth was, that might have happened hundreds of years ago, but continued contact with Equestria and the surrounding nations had mellowed them out. It was then Aydin overheard some whispering, indistinct, but close by, and he looked to his right to see two Lunar Guards standing around one of the topiary bushes muttering to each other. He couldn't make out what exactly they were talking about, but he could definitely hear the term "pinkskin" getting tossed around. Aydin slowed, faced them and crossed his arms, and coughed. The two guards looked in his direction and upon seeing the Moon Emissary, immediately straightened up as if they hadn't been doing anything. "As you were, gents, as you were," he chided under his breath before he turned and left.
Well, the men of Acadia had mellowed out somewhat.
Aydin passed through the halls and arched corridors of the princesses' castle. Even after three years, he couldn't get over how...fluid the architecture was. Curved corridors and domed ceilings, graceful gold and silver trim lining the details of doors and stained glass windows. Truly, he was one of the lucky ones to be accepted here, the Sun Emissary notwithstanding. But then again, he wasn't here for sightseeing, and he picked up his pace has he navigated the halls straight to the Night Court.
In time, Aydin came to a magnificent door colored a deep obsidian, watched by two sets of Lunar Guards. He did nothing but bow to them graciously before he rapped on the double doors three times. From behind it, he hard a woman's voice call, "Enter!"
And enter he did, into a massive circular room separated into two levels, a ground floor and seats in the upper section obviously meant for larger audiences. The ceiling was domed and covered in murals of Equestria, historical scenes of the ponies working side-by-side. There had been a recent addition that covered up some old empty space in the painting, a depiction of Canterlot diplomats meeting ambassadors from Tifervale, Acadia's capital, for the first time. On the floor was a massive mosaic. Celestia had one just like it, but it had been installed on the ceiling instead, and was drenched in the symbolism of day. This one was Luna's and an outer ring held the sun and moon on opposite ends, locked in their cycle, and inside that ring were stars and the constellations, and a stylized depiction of Luna dead in the center, wings spread, arms raised; part of the cycle through and through. In the back of the room, on the opposite side of the doors, was a throne chiseled of lapis lazuli and obsidian, laced with dark purple velvet cushions and flanked by two more guards. On that throne was the Diarch of Night herself. If there was one thing Aydin could admire about Canterlot, they never did a half-assed job.
He strode forward without missing a beat and knelt down a respectable distance from the throne; the architecture was old news to him by now. "Your Majesty," he said after glancing up.
Luna nodded once and commanded, "Rise." He did so, and suddenly she went from sitting straight up and staring straight through him to leaning back and resting her head on her fist. "And now that we're done with those formalities..."
"You and your formalities," Aydin responded with a chuckle. He pushed himself back up and continued, "Any news tonight?"
Luna rolled her eyes, deep in thought, and muttered, "Hmm..."
"Oh, come on," Aydin interrupted. "Don't tell me you haven't heard anything. I reckon that's highly unlikely."
"You have not even let me say anything!" Luna chided with a grin. Aydin only rolled his eyes as she sighed and continued, "Of course I have an assignment for you. I have been hearing reports of multiple disappearances in Vanhoofer." She stood up and looked to her left, and the guard quickly pulled out several pieces of paper and deftly handed it over. Luna took it and walked down the small ornamental stairwell to her throne while rifling through the papers. "These disappearances...started approximately two months ago, if I am not mistaken."
She held out her hand and Aydin took the invitation to read the papers over. The first page was part of a newspaper from Vanhoofer, and one of the headlines read, "Multiple Disappearances in the South Side of Vanhoofer Leaves Authorities Scratching Their Heads." Aydin pursed his lips and his mouth turned downward. He flipped the paper over, and on the next page he saw several pictures, each one attached to a name: Thunder Tail, Star Eyes, Solar Cupcake, Sandy Shadow, River Breeze, Lucy Swirl, and at least twenty others. He immediately rifled through the rest of the articles. Interesting stuff, barring the dark subject material; every single disappearance was taking place close by a major club, and if the profile pictures were anything to go by, the targets were in the sixteen-to-twenty seven year-old range, ratio of two females to one male, and every single one was a pony. No other humans to be found on the list of missing persons, which immediately tipped Aydin off to who might be behind it all. "Bit of an odd lineup for a missing person's, I'd say." He was talking to himself, but his tone gave away his suspicions.
Luna was silent for a moment before she sighed mournfully, crossed her arms and shook her head. "I truly wish our ponies would take some initiative to combat these problems, and tell the human leaders to pass laws against such horrid actions on our soil."
"They won't. What the elite can't profit off of, they ignore. Still leaves me to clean up the mess, of course," Aydin commented.
"At least we do not commit violence against our kin for violence's sake," Luna said.
Aydin scoffed. "Well, humans aren't made of sunshine, cotton candy, and lollipops." He took another look at the papers and said, "Either way, I'll get it sorted and send you my report after I'm done. Shouldn't take me longer than...two days."
Luna nodded solemnly. "I trust you will. You have not failed us yet."
"Boy, will that be a cold day in Gehenna. That all?"
"For now. I have no doubt something else will surface before the night is through." She pointed to the doors and said in her most commanding, regal voice, "'Where mine hand shall point..."
"'...Thine blade shall strike,'" Aydin finished. He knelt respectfully and then turned to leave. When he pushed the double doors open again, he strode forward and hung a hard right, down the same long hall he was just in, but away from the entrance. His destination was the armory, and by now, he could probably walk there blindfolded.
This was the reason Acadia's peacetime status was constantly "tentative." Equestria, Yakyakistan, Saddle Arabia, and almost every other country in the world was always on edge around them, and the actions of the few always reflected badly on the many, but more than that, it was obvious that humans and ponies (and every other species on the planet) had completely different mindsets. Ponies seemed to have an innate sense of trust built into them; for humans, that trust had to be earned. And ironically, the fact that humans could engineer machines that could duplicate even basic magical spells was both their greatest asset and greatest downfall. The machines had been introduced to pony society to jumpstart some of their technological advancements and in return, those same machines could be enchanted to do things once thought impossible. On the other side of the coin, using an enchanted glass-cutter and security spell-negation bombs to rob priceless artifacts was one of many causes for concern. Granted, there were also ponies who went power-hungry and tried to take as much as possible for themselves, but those cases were always handled by the Elements of Harmony; few, if any, humans could be trusted with that power without finding a loophole to abuse.
Hell, the entire point of the Sun and Moon Emissaries was a kind of peace treaty to make sure Celestia and Luna didn't raze Acadia to the ground (and if some rumors were to be believed, cause mutually-assured destruction). The Sun Emissary was always the face of Acadia, however. Whoever was chosen as the Moon Emissary was relegated to working behind a black curtain. He'd be lying if he said he didn't prefer working behind the scenes, though.
Aydin huffed as he continued climbing the massive staircase that led to the Royal Armory. He came to the top and was given a view of a long hallway, lined with large windows. There were no other rooms in this wing of the castle, because the door at the far end was all that was needed. Aydin proceeded forward, opened the door, and was greeted with weapon racks with swords, pikes, halberds, and body armor. On the left side, all the supplies were colored gold and white, accents of fiery reds and oranges. On the right, armor and weapons of deep blue, purple, and silver, but he was not interested in those. They were for the standard guards, and he walked past them, to a cross-connector in the middle of the room and turned right. There was another door at the end of the hall, which he strode up to and held out his arm, his palm facing the door and he muttered, "Ego diataso es, anoixe."
The door flashed blue and opened on its own after a second, revealing not an advanced stockpile of weapons, but instead, a utility belt, a scabbard, and some sort of thin, S-curved structure made of brass. Aydin took the belt and scabbard and attached both to his waist, and he pulled the hilt out, revealing the blade inside. It was a shortsword, though the cutting edge was slightly curved back near the tip. So maybe that made it some sort of cutlass or scimitar hybrid, he didn't care. The blade was actually colored blue, and the top ridge was dark purple to match Luna's fur. The hilt was forged from bright platinum and hammered into the shape of the crescent moon, and wrapped in dark leather. It was called "Knight's Fall," and according to Luna, an ancient earth-pony smith named Searchforge gifted it to her many, many years before she became corrupted by the Nightmare Force. The brass structure, on the other hand, was a more recent addition...
Aydin sheathed the sword and grabbed the twisted hunk of metal off the hooks it was hanging on. It was meant to conform to the curvature of the spine and Aydin threw the thing over his shoulders and held it over his back. When he brought it closer, he felt magical tendrils reaching out, latching onto his clothes, and when he let go, the brass mechanism locked itself into place. Aydin then reached back and pressed on two circular buttons on either side of the central ridge in the middle. They both popped open and the machinery inside shot out with them. It was some sort of semicircle piece of tech mirrored on each side, and Aydin grabbed both and pinched them together. They had been connected by wires, and he took the completed circle and placed it the back of his neck. It attached itself to his skin and began beeping, running calculations, and Aydin felt his pecs twitch involuntarily. He ignored it and walked away; the first time it had felt weird, of course, but he'd gotten used to it after three years. The door sensed he was leaving and closed itself up behind him.
He walked back down the hall and out of the armory, and back down the stairs he came from. He only went down one flight this time, because there was a balcony on the floor below him, just down the next hall and on the left. Aydin pushed the glass doors wide open and stepped out into the cool night air.
The door led to the other side of the castle, which meant he didn't get a view of Canterlot proper, just the outskirts and the train station that led from here to Ponyville and Fillydelphia. He did catch a glimpse of a blimp crossing the starlit sky, and judging by the earthly bronze color and added stabilizers and the smoke coming out of the back, it was an Acadian model. It was the only way humans could legally enter Canterlot.
Aydin took his eyes off the blimp and stared off into the distance. There were no lights, only long stretches of empty grassland between here and Vanhoofer. He cracked his neck, and with but a thought, wings popped out of the sides of his backpack. The supports were made of brass, and it was modeled after pegasus wings, and the chip attached to Aydin's neck allowed him to control them through electrodes connected to his brain and muscles. But again, it was mostly metal and synthetic fiber; by all accounts, there was no way it could carry a human. But the greatest human engineers and the brightest unicorn minds told those accounts to shove it and step aside, and the result...
Aydin stepped onto the marble railing, took a deep breath and flapped his wings once. They heaved, and just like that he was in the sky, and the wings kept flapping and he kept climbing until he was soaring among the clouds. He straightened himself out parallel to the ground and his wings angled themselves so that when they beat again, he was pushed forward. In no time, he was speeding along though the air, toward Vanhoofer.
The result was something truly magnificent in the right hands. There was a reason Aydin's codename was "Meteor Star."
Three clubs scanned and so far, no luck. Downtown Vanhoofer was packed and it should have given Aydin an ample stockpile of suspicious subjects, but so far...nothing looked out of place.
He snorted in frustration and stood up to full height. He'd been jumping from rooftop to rooftop, highrise to highrise, scoping out the streets below. The wings made him look like an ordinary pegasus with the lack of light from the moon landing on him, which, granted, he was hoping he didn't get spotted anyway, but it might at least allay suspicion from potential perpetrators for a few seconds. He had a flight machine on his back, not an invisibility cloak, for gods' sakes.
Aydin continued to watch the club front entrance and all the ponies stumbling out of it either intoxicated or trying to control their intoxicated friends. There was some shouting, some cheap dares going around, some spilled cider...the works. He kept watching as patrons kept filing out, one after the other, though not always immediately. Sometimes, there would be two or three in a row, then a long break, then three to five more would walk out later. Aydin didn't know exactly how long he'd been sitting there, but he wasn't willing to spend more than an hour on this one. The street was fairly busy, and while it wasn't an urban center, it was crowded enough that whoever was doing these kidnappings wasn't going to do it with so many watchful eyes in one location.
Even if some of them were wearing beer goggles.
"Ho-kay..." He stretched his back and heard several vertebrae pop back into place and groaned. "...Ow. Time to get a move on. What time is it?" He lifted his sleeve and took a peek at his watch. Almost eleven-thirty. "Damn, what a bloody slow night. Been at this for almost three hours and nothing to show. Hope my report won't look too dull," he muttered as he pivoted and began to walk away, his wings unfurling. Before he could take off, however, he thought he heard muttering, but he brushed it off. It wasn't until he heard someone laugh from the back alley below him that he took his hearing seriously and quickly dropped down to his knees and retracted the wings as he glanced over the edge of the building. It wasn't too high, only about four stories, so he could get a clear view of the alley from where he was, and what he saw found and kept his attention.
There were three humans standing around near some garbage cans and dumpsters, and one of them bashed another on the head with his fist, and must have done so pretty hard, because the receiver yelled a few expletives and covered the place he was hit with his hands and began to massage it. Aydin could barely make out what the offender, who wore some standard Tifervale high nobility robes, said afterward. "...cork in it, you scum-sucking fuc...Do you want...? We can't risk being spotte...before I get myself a new mai..."
Aydin squinted at them intensely, as if limiting his eyesight would suddenly make his hearing ten times sharper. He tried to hide himself as much as he could against the roof to limit his exposure. Sure, the three of them couldn't see him at the moment, but who's to say an errant shadow cast by the light of the moon would give him away? Either way, part of him knew he had his ticket. Whether it was his ticket to this missing persons fiasco or not was to be decided, but he knew he'd found something. The third one spoke up, but he was obviously a lot smarter than the other two hooligans, as he kept his voice too low for Aydin to hear. His body language, on the other hand, gave everything he needed to know away.
He spoke something to the others, and tossed his cigarette on the ground and put it out, and jerked his head back before he turned to leave. The other two followed him. Aydin had no idea what the speaker said, but all the same, he watched them walk down the alley, away from the main streets, and when they were a few paces ahead he stood back up and ran across the roof and leaped over to a next one over as he continued tailing the other three. Seeing any more than two humans anywhere that wasn't Los Pegasus or Canterlot was an unusual sight. More than two humans hanging out in some grimy alley and whispering to each other? Aydin would have swooped down and detained them right then and there if he didn't think tailing them would lead him where he wanted. He jumped across another gap between buildings and landed in a combat roll, muffling his sound and displacing the shock, then popped back up and kept himself low as he skittered to the edge and peered over.
The three humans were still grouped together, but they quickly took a turn down a straight alley, relative to Aydin. He glanced from them back to the skyline before he he huffed and grit his teeth. Aydin jogged back, pivoted, and ran full tilt back to the edge before launching himself across the gap, his wings acting as stabilizers that gave him just enough airtime to make it over, and he landed without a sound. Still, he took a cautious glance over the edge of the new building he was on just to make sure. From the looks of it, the three strangers were still walking at a leisurely pace. Aydin supposed he'd give himself the benefit of the doubt this once; none of those three looked like they knew how to tell if someone was following them without knowing someone was following them.
They kept walking up the alley until they came to a T-intersection and turned left, and Aydin followed them from the two-story building at the end and he glanced over the edge. To his surprise, he found his search over; the three of them filed through a rust old door. The building he'd stopped on must have been an office with a built-in factory floor, once upon a time; this was most likely his jackpot. He pulled away from the ledge and got a look around. This building was once one of many offices, if he had to hazard a guess. "Now if I was going to nab innocent people," Aydin mused to himself, "I'd stash'em all underground."
He walked over to the opposite side of the office building, back onto the roof of a lower story that was still connected. He also made a mental note to check whatever was in this part of the place when he got inside. Aydin approached a window and drew Knight's Fall from its scabbard. The hilt glinted in the moonlight, and Aydin raised it up as if he were studying the edge to ensure its sharpness...except he was holding the thing the wrong way.
After a moment, the blade began to leak celestial blue energy that coalesced into flames on the sword. Yet, no heat came from it, but Aydin could feel the magical energy radiating away in deep pulses. He wasn't a unicorn, or a pony at all, of course, which meant he could overload the thing with magical energy and not have to worry about the "backdraft" giving him a near-fatal aneurysm. Well, not completely. It was a standard byproduct of the arcano-augmentation process; it would take an extreme amount of magical energy from an artifact to cause one as opposed to the amount needed to cripple a pony, but using his innate magical power...that was a different story.
Without any more hesitation, he plunged the sword into the glass window in front of him, and the sword didn't stop until it was halfway through. Aydin pulled down, and the sword kept cutting the glass like a hot knife through butter. He pulled Knight's Fall out and immediately stuck it back in horizontally, dragging another line from the bottom of the cut he just made to the other side of the window. He repeated it twice more before he had cut the entire glass pane out, and he stuck the sword back into the top edge and pushed up on the hilt. Little by little, the glass became loose and easier to move before Aydin pulled it out with his fingers and set it down on the roof before he clambered inside.
He found himself in a small office that had been cleared out, a couple chairs had been fitted together to make an ad-hoc sofa, desks and cabinets were shoved up against the wall, and there was a well-designed but ultimately ratty throw rug on the floor. Aydin pursed his lips and glanced around once more before he stalked over to the door and pressed his ear against it. He didn't hear anything and he didn't see any light coming from under the frame, so he unlocked the door and pushed it open. The hall was dark, silent, and devoid of life, so Aydin crept out, shut the door behind him, and made for the stairs immediately to his right and took a precautionary glance around. When he didn't see anything moving, he began to sneak down the stairs as quietly as he could with a utility belt full of pouches and a sword in a boiled-leather scabbard. The journey was long, longer than usual due to Aydin creeping through obvious enemy territory and trying not to get caught out in the open and unaware. He was a good fighter and he knew it, hell, that's what he'd been trained in, but he didn't like overestimating his chances.
After several minutes of excruciating pain as he inched his way down the stairs, he reached the bottom, and was greeted with a beige metal door, and even a few feet away, he could hear a commotion on the other side of it. He huffed in annoyance and looked around for a moment before he spotted a vent cover to the upper-right of the door on the wall. He unsheathed his sword and wedged it under the bottom edge. "It's a good thing I never considered option one," he muttered to himself as he pushed one last time and the bottom screws screeched and flew out of their sockets. Aydin wasted no time clambering up and into the vent with the help of his wings. When he was inside fully, the vent cover rattled shut.
Just in time, too, because before he could crawl forward, he heard the door open along with some confused muttering, completely indistinguishable from the commotion inside whichever room they'd come from. He heard the door shut again and that was enough to spur him onward. Aydin crawled forward and then hung a left and kept moving. After another few seconds, he could hear voices, getting louder. He grinned to himself. He was getting closer to his target, he could feel it. He eventually found that the ventilation shaft went vertically up about seventeen to twenty feet and he clenched his jaw in thought for a moment before he placed his back against the wall and his feet on the opposite wall and began to work his way up the shaft the old-fashioned way. When he got to the top after several minutes and dozens of expletives, he gripped the edge with one hand, allowed his body to fall, then gripped with the other hand and pulled himself up into the next section. From there, it was a straight shot to another ventilation grate.
When Aydin peered through it, he could see an entire open floor, cleared out and now stuffed with people. The human kind. It must have been an assembly floor before the office was vacated for whatever reason, but now there were dozens, maybe a hundred humans all standing around and talking with each other. There were cigarettes, alcohol, and probably several different illegal substances in both Equestria and Acadia. After pushing his head into the vent walls to get a good view of the surroundings, Aydin found that, to his luck, the vent cover was directly over a horizontal beam. "Well, on the bright side, maybe this earbash is exactly what I need," he said as he reached over to grab his sword.
It took some fiddling, but he eventually managed to turn Knight's Fall around (after cutting into the ventilation shaft's walls) and stuck it into the upper half of the grate. Trying to push it down to break the vent open was a touch more difficult than normal, laying on his stomach, but the arcano-augmentations came through and he was able to force the grate. It clattered open, but over the conversations and the height difference, no one noticed as Aydin slinked his way out of the shaft and onto a support beam. From here, he could see the entire situation for what it was worth: all kinds of humans, gathered in an empty warehouse and surrounding a stage to Aydin's far left. There was another human standing on that stage, dressed in simple leather pants, boots, and a vest, and wearing sunglasses. Aydin watched him intently, and noticed, in the low light, there were other people moving behind the slaver, far away. He could barely make out something metal in the dim light, but the man's voice suddenly pulled him out of his concentration.
"Alright, alright, you mooks!" he bellowed into a megaphone. "Break time's over! Hopefully you've had your beer, or dragontail, or a pinch of snuff. Let's get back to the good part, shall we?"
This comment was met with scattered cheers and a couple "Hear, hear's" as the crowd began to congregate around the stage again. Aydin kept his eyes on them, but made sure to stare down the man onstage most of all. "Excellent," he exclaimed. "You folks really seemed to enjoy that last showcase! And you're in luck, because there's more where that came from!" This was met by more scattered cheers, some of them probably too drunk to see straight, and the man turned around and reached down to pick something up off the ground. The crowd went quiet enough that Aydin could make it out clearly; the metal he saw were chains.
In one grand motion, the announcer pulled on them, and out of the darkness came stumbling several ponies, shackled hand, hoof and neck. All of them cried out in pain, despair, and some in anger, but they were drowned out as the crowd erupted into excited hollering and whooping. The announcer kept holding the chains, glanced out to the crowd and smirked. "Whaddaya think?" This was met with more cheering. Aydin was stuck staring at him for a minute before his blood began to boil.
"Slaver," he muttered through gritted teeth.
"Now let's see..." the slaver began as he paced down the stage, eyeing the seven ponies he'd brought forward. "Who's going first?"
This was understandably met with looks of terror in the eyes of the ponies. A couple started to sob quietly to themselves as the slaver perused the row, but eventually he came upon a mare with a cherry-red coat and hair with pink highlights, and wearing a crimson red dress that was now ripped at its ends. The slaver glanced her over for a moment before he said, "Ah, what the hell? They always bid higher for the girls." He bent down, unlocked the shackle that kept her attached to the main line of ponies and grabbed the loose chain. He yanked on the cord and the poor mare stumbled forward and fell to her knees. There were bags under her eyes and several scrapes on her legs, but other than that she looked well. Of course, not all scars appeared on the surface. "Alright people, this lovely lady is premium. Do I hear fifty kronos?"
"Sixty," a thug in the back called.
"Sixty kronos." The slaver pointed at the buyer and called, "Sixty kronos, do I hear sixty-five?"
"Seventy!"
"Seventy kronos-"
"Eighty kronos!" someone else hollered.
The slaver pointed to the man who just spoke and called, "Eighty kronos, going to the gent in the fine fur coat! Going once-"
Someone else called out, "Eighty-five!" and the slaver pointed to them before someone else one-upped their bid with ninety, and then again with ninety-five kronos, then up to a hundred. "One hundred kronos! Do I hear anything else? like I said, this one's practically a steal!"
"A hundred an' fifteen!" someone else yelled.
"A hundred-"
"One hundred twenty!"
The slaver pointed at the man who just spoke, somewhere in the middle of all the chaos and declared, "A hundred twenty kronos for the lovely lady in the red dress, going once...going twice...going three times..."
No more offers.
"Sold."
There was a split-second before the crowd began either cheering or jeering whoever had won, but it was enough time for the context for all the shouting to change. It was joyful and excited for a less than a second before it rapidly switched to shock and horror as a blade flashed in the lights and the slaver's head was sliced off and hit the ground. On the stage was Aydin, weapon drawn and dripping with blood, facing the back wall after having dive-bombed down from the rafters and cut his head off in one swift motion. He immediately turned around and raised Knight's Fall over his head, and the blade began to burn with blue fire; he let loose a furious shriek and slammed it down as hard as he could, creating a line of raging cerulean inferno and crumpling a quarter of the stage. Not only that, but it also burnt a dozen humans to pathetic little cinders.
And that's when the massacre really got going.
Aydin threw himself into the crowd with reckless abandon, slashing at anything that was too close, and managed to cut down several more people in a whirlwind of blood. They could run, but Acadia's laws still applied to them, and the laws stated that no matter how the humans felt about the ponies, all crimes against them were liable for the harshest punishment; crimes committed on foreign soil were punishable by death. No questions asked.
He cut through another man in fine evening wear, covering his overcoat with blood and Aydin watched the life fade from his eyes. He always tried to go for the neck, as it was the fastest way to down a target, but sometimes he missed. Oh well, on to the next one, and all that. He caught a glimpse of someone else running at him in his peripheral vision. Some angry-looking woman brandishing a stiletto knife. He huffed and pivoted on his heel and pushed backwards, his wings keeping him balanced and upright. She swung, missed, and when she had bent forward, Aydin pushed himself back toward her, brought up his sword, and plunged it through the back of her neck. Acadia or Equestria, the high society is all the same, he thought to himself as she crumpled to the floor. The bogans think they know how to fight until they're watching themselves bleed out from the belly.
He swung his sword arm back on reflex and nicked another man on the chest; he'd turned those preemptive strikes into a habit. His assailant recoiled, glanced at his chest, and then came back in swinging, with about eight more people following him, carrying billy clubs, knives or their bare fists. Aydin grimaced as he blocked one blow from the front, knocking the one who tried to hit him off-balance, and he turned around to slash someone else's neck open. It distracted a couple others long enough for him to stab them both in the gut, jump over them, stab a couple more attackers, then turn his attention back to the first one who tried to hit him. He raised his arm and threw Knight's Fall, impaling the man straight through the head; he didn't drop until Aydin recalled the sword to his hand by force of will. "You're all a buncha no-hopers!"
Thoroughly riled up, the remaining members of the party came for him at once, and in their rage, he found his opening. He finally let loose, stabbing through the neck neck, slicing heads off, even flying circles around them to disorient them before he dove back in for the kill.
In no time at all, everyone on the warehouse floor was either dead or bleeding out slowly.
Aydin sheathed his sword and surveyed his handiwork. There was blood on the walls, the floor, arms and legs had been dismembered and flung in every direction, someone's intestines were slowly oozing down the brick wall to his right, all in all, the place was a mess. "...Transaction canceled. Sorry, mates," he muttered.
He nodded one last time, and turned around to face the stage. The ponies they'd enslaved were still cowering in the shadows in the back, and Aydin approached them slowly. The closer he got, the more he could hear them whisper: "Oh, Celestia, it's the Moon Emissary," "What's he gonna do? What's he gonna do?" and the like. Aydin ignored them. The job might have been thankless, but even he hated seeing innocent lives suffer. He walked up to the headless corpse of the emcee and began rooting around in his pockets and sure enough, he found the key.
Aydin stood up straight and held the key up as he walked toward the chained ponies. "Relax, kids, you'll be home free soon enough. Don't get your knickers in a twist." He approached the pony at the start of the line and unlocked his restraints, then moved on to the next one, and then the next one, and so on down the line. Eventually, all of them were free, conversing among themselves and consoling each other where need be. Aydin, on the other hand, was speaking with a mare who looked no older than him, colored bright yellow and dressed up in casual jeans and a tee shirt.
"And you said there were others?"
"Y...Yes," she said, "down in the basement. They were holding all of us there, ch-chained to the walls."
"...I see. On behalf of my people, I apologize. We'll find the ones this group of hooligans sold off and send'em back."
"It's...it's no big deal," she murmured.
But it was a big deal, and Aydin knew it. He thanked her for her time and let her return to her kin and face away from the gory mess he'd made, and Aydin himself hopped down and walked over to the wall, where a phone was hung up. He picked up the receiver and held it to his ear, and was met with droning white noise. The line was still operational. He nodded in satisfaction and held up his hand to the number pad, but before he could dial the proper authorities he noticed movement to his right, and turned his head on instinct.
What he saw was the glinting, shimmering outline of someone in a hooded robe, trying to make for a side exit out of the warehouse. It was obvious they had cast some sort of invisibility spell and counted on no one else being wise enough to notice, and in truth, he may have never noticed if they didn't decide to move when they did.
"Oi...!"
Aydin's call caused the outline to whip its head around to face him only for a second before the spell dropped. The figure was wearing a light-grey cloak, the hood covered up their face completely, and aside from that, they were wearing a multitude of violet robes under the cloak, embroidered with blue and silver. Not even one second later, they released a blast of magic from their hand and it threw the side exit door wide open and they dashed out. Aydin wasn't going to have any of that. "Oh, no you don't! Get your sissified arse back here!"
Aydin practically threw himself outside after the mysterious perp and glanced left and right to see them making a beeline down the alley to his right, toward the main roads. Aydin took off after him. "Hold it right there, ya loony!" he yelled after them. "If you stop now, I won't beat you within an inch of your life!"
The perpetrator said nothing in reply, but did launch a spell backward to try and hit him. He juked to the side and the spell went wide while the stranger themselves made a hard left around a corner, but Aydin kept pace with no problems. The masked perp threw a couple more spells back as he kept chasing, and he still dodged them both with no trouble. As soon as the second spell sailed past him, Aydin grunted, "Alright, mate, excessive use of force it is," and the brass wings spread out behind him. They flapped once, causing a gust of air to blow forward. It must have alerted the stranger something was up, because they turned around and seemed momentarily shocked. That was all Aydin needed to surge forward and yell, "You can't run from justice!"
What happened next went almost too fast for Aydin to process: he was sailing through the air for a moment, about to body-check the guy he was chasing hard enough to launch their skeleton out of their body, the runner turned around, and at the last possible second, landed a spell on him. It didn't kill him, but Aydin was suddenly sent tumbling into the gravel below as his wings locked up. He bounced, rolled over himself, and kept spouting curses the whole time until he finally stopped. Aydin lifted his head up and spat some loose gravel and dirt out of his mouth, but when he tried to lift himself up, his legs refused to move and he fell back to the ground pathetically. He rolled over to see what had happened, half-expecting the runner blew his legs off, but thankfully, that was not the case. There was only a magical binding over his legs and wings.
Easy fix. Aydin reached down, drew his sword, and swiped at the binding on his legs first and the spell came undone, and then he hacked away at the binding wrapped around his wings. First the right, then the left, then he was free. Aydin jumped up and glanced around. The suspect was gone, obviously, but Aydin didn't spend much time on the ground. He pushed himself into the air, far enough to see above all the buildings around him, but low enough he could make out whoever might be walking by. And yet, despite all that, he couldn't see the suspect he was tailing, no matter where he looked. It was like they'd just...disappeared.
He looked around for another moment in the air before he touched back down and started walking back toward the warehouse. "...Fuck me dead," he muttered under his breath. He moped all the way back to where he started, though he did feel a little bit better by the time he got back inside and resumed his earlier task of calling the Vanhoofer authorities. He remained in the warehouse room with the other ponies, idly making sure neither they got into trouble, nor did anyone else come looking for it. In time, the authorities surrounded the run-down office building and quickly set about escorting the captives out and back home. The head of city security, however, was busy chatting with Aydin to get his full input.
"...and that was when you decided to cause a ruckus, I'm guessin'?"
"Didn't bring enough biscuits and tea for us to chat over." Dry wit, thy name is Aydin Ambrose.
The head of security nodded as he scribbled on his notepad. "And how many of'em do you think were there? Roughly speakin'," he said.
Aydin quirked an eyebrow and gazed up at the night sky, deep in thought, before he answered, "Eh, eighty-seven, give or take."
There was a pause before the pony asked, "They all still in there?"
"...Whatever's left of them," Aydin shrugged.
The chief of security pursed his lips, nodded solemnly, and scribbled, "Another bloodbath," on his sketchpad. "...Alright, then," he said. "Thank you for letting us know, Sir Ambrose. We'll..." The old pony glanced back at the extra guards he'd brought with him and he had a feeling they were gonna need extra mopping buckets. "...We'll take it from here and notify Acadian customs they'll have bodies to identify."
"Thank you, and make sure you add notes for whoever raised them. Tell them they did a shit job," Aydin added as he turned and walked away. Before the other pony could interject, he was already up and away into the cold night air. In mere seconds, he was soaring above the highest rooftops of Vanhoofer and back toward Canterlot. He flew on in silence for a minute, before he decided that while he was in transit and not being useful, he may as well offer a progress report to Princess Luna. He reached down to his utility belt and picked up a small brass box on a tether. It was a state-of-the-art radio, built by the best artificers from Acadia, and enchanted to allow communication between two individuals in real-time without the need to keep it powered by batteries; which is to say, it was little more than a glorified walkie-talkie. Aydin lifted it up to his ear and spoke into it. "Princess Luna, you there?"
There wasn't even a brief pause before he heard her voice reply, "I am, Aydin. Is something wrong?" in crystal clear fidelity.
"No, nothin' wrong. Just checking in on what other scum-sucking fruitbaskets need to be dealt with."
"Ah." Luna went quiet for a minute, and Aydin heard papers being shuffled. "Yes, here we are. There have been a string of petty thefts in Detrot, in the Saddler Park area. If I may pry, however, how was your missing persons search?"
Aydin paused to consider his words before he replied plainly, "Eventful." He heard Luna scoff on the other end.
"Did the authorities bring enough body bags?" She meant it jokingly, but the accusatory edge to her voice was there. Subtle, quiet, and barely noticeable, but there.
"How should I bloody know? It's my job to kick arse and take names, I'm not a damn mortician," he replied with an eye roll. "By the way, I'll be sure to mention the full situation in my report, but one of'em gave me the slip."
he heard Luna pause, then murmur to herself. It was indiscernible but sounded concerned. "What did they look like?"
"Too wrapped up in cloth to tell. Must have been a unicorn, if the magic they were tossing around was anything to go by," Aydin replied.
"...I see." Aydin was expecting a lot of things, but being curt was last on that list. "Continue with your nightly routine and contact me if anything just as...intriguing arises."
"Will do. Goodbye." Aydin let go of the radio and let the wire it as attached to snap it back into place. With a swift about-face and a sharp twist of his torso, he adjusted himself to fly south by southwest, toward Detrot. Despite the fact that it was now definitely later than twelve-thirty in the morning, Aydin felt like it was going to be a long night. He couldn't see, of course, but all the way back in Canterlot, Luna was busy penning a letter. She didn't want to have to mail it...but it was better safe than sorry.
Connor awoke to a bright new day in his little cottage on the east outskirts of town. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and he already felt twenty years younger. Though he accounted that to how well he'd adjusted to Ponyville. He got himself out of bed, changed into his favorite brown tee and jeans, and set about making himself some breakfast. Protein options were rather limited in Equestria due to the prevalent veganism, but they were at least tolerant of importing and stocking actual meat. It wasn't like humans would ever try to to eat a pony anyway.
He slammed his coffee maker shut and let the machine press the liquid out of the beans, and while he waited, he pulled out some eggs and sausage. He was also about to pull out the pancake mix before he decided against it as something better left for a rainy day. Connor cracked the eggs into a shallow pan and took out a separate one for his sausage and lit his stove. The thing was charcoal-operated, due to the fact this house was one of the older ones in the town and hadn't been upgraded with everything an Acadian was used to, but he didn't mind. It was his house and he loved the place. Always homey, never too dull. While the eggs and sausage sizzled away, he slipped on a pair of grey loafers and opened the door up to the outside. It was clear and sunny as previously mentioned, and he also noticed the flag on his mailbox was up.
Connor walked up to it and turned the head on a pivot point built into the post itself and opened it up. He reached in and felt several envelopes; probably bills, ads, classifieds, bank notes, spam...
He froze when his hand brushed up against parchment that had no envelope over it and he remained still for a minute before he blinked and brought himself back to his senses and grabbed all his regular mail first and then reached inside again to pull out what had given him pause. What he retrieved was a scroll, rolled up and the wax was stamped into the shape of the royal crest. Connor stared at the letter for a moment before he haphazardly stuffed all his letters into one pocket, even ignoring the smaller ones that fell out, and unfurled the scroll.
His face went from curiosity, to confusion, to pensiveness, then to apathy before he rolled the scroll back up and walked back toward his front door (after gathering the letters he dropped). He sighed after a moment. "Sorry, Luna," he muttered, "I don't think I can help you out on this one."
Connor opened the door to the room he'd been assigned, and for a moment, his breath was torn away. He remembered it; everything looked almost exactly the same. The king-size bed backed up against the wall, the velvet sofa next to the fireplace to the right, a walk-in closet next to it, the blue and silver throw rugs on the floor and the large glass door that led to a large, private balcony. He swallowed as he took it all in. "...It's like nothing changed at all," Connor murmured.
He walked over to the bedstand and looked more closely at it; the lamp had been changed, admittedly, but as he rifled through the drawers, he found...old photos. Old photos that had been left where he'd kept them, most likely untouched by Luna. There were old pictures of him when his beard and hair hadn't grown out; he looked so ridiculously young. He shuffled through the small deck and found another picture of him in his uniform, one arm resting against a handrail in the castle; that one was taken very soon after he was officially elevated to Moon Emissary. His uniform consisted of a royal-blue trenchcoat and burgundy polo with blue-grey slacks and boots. He sighed and smiled at the happy memories as he shuffled through a couple more photos before he found a picture of him and Princess Luna, side by side. She was at least an entire head taller than he was, but she was smiling for the camera. And his younger self, oh, he was beaming with pride. Connor still remembered that day, the first day he was sworn in. Still the best day he lived through.
He shuffled through a couple more photos, more happy memories, until he came to one with him in casual garb, in the castle gardens. he was carrying someone on his back, a filly of no more than eight, wearing plaid blue shirt, bright gold skirt, and several red ribbons in her dark violet hair. She was smiling. Laughing. They both were. Connor stared at the picture for another moment and then quickly reshuffled the pile and blinked away the mist forming in his eyes, then tapped the pile to straighten out the photos before he put them back. He slid the drawer shut and walked over to the glass door, opened it, and stepped outside. The sun was hanging low in the sky, Celestia's handiwork on display for all to see. Connor couldn't help but smile; he never got the chance to talk with her much, but she really was just as wise, caring, and beautiful as the stories from Acadia's founding days said she was. No wonder most young boys wanted to become the next Sun Emissary. He remained transfixed on the sky for another few minutes before he heard a gentle knock at his door, and then subsequently heard it open. He glanced back to see Luna herself stride through and into the room. He made no objections to his invasion of privacy and only smiled warmly at her. "Wow, time for dinner already?"
"Oh, no." Luna regarded him with a bright smile of her own. "I...came here because I wanted to talk to you. Do you still remember this room?"
"How could I forget? I only slept in here about...oh, a thousand times," Connor replied with a smug grin.
Luna quirked an eyebrow and kept smiling at him. "And was it to your liking?"
Connor chuckled and looked back out over the balcony's edge, and the castle gardens. "Oh, you can read me like a book." He paused a minute and then added, "I can't believe you kept all my old pictures."
"They were fond memories. I could not simply...throw them out," Luna said. "...How are you handling your, um...your..."
"Depression?"
Luna shrugged and her smile disappeared. "...I suppose that's one way to classify it."
"Ah...I'm working through it," Connor waved his hand dismissively. "Just my own little cross to carry." He looked back up at Luna and said, "I take it the hair-trigger temper is his 'defect?'"
Luna cast her gaze out across the sky and sighed, "Sometimes, I swear he's aware of it but doesn't wish to curb it."
Connor nodded solemnly and he joined Luna in her 'sun-gazing.' He broke the silence after a couple minutes. "They're so much alike," he mused. "Her and Mister Ambrose."
Luna placed a hand on his shoulder. "Connor." He turned his gaze back up to her. "Have you checked your wardrobe yet?"
Connor blinked a couple times before he took a nervous glance over his shoulder at the door to the walk-in closet. He slowly, deliberately let go of the handrail and walked back inside, with Luna right behind him. Each step felt like a herculean task, even though Connor had no idea what was waiting for him in that closet. Oh, he had an idea, sure, but no evidence to arrive at that conclusion. He took what felt like hours to reach the door, and the he cautiously gripped the knob. He twisted. He pushed. The door swung open. The closet was empty, save for three hangers to his left. On one rested a finely pressed burgundy polo, on the other a royal blue trenchcoat, on the last, blue-grey slacks, and under them resting on the floor were shin-length black boots. Connor's breath hitched in his throat, but after he over came the surprise, he took a step forward. He reached out slowly, and took the trenchcoat off its hanger first and regarded it with an artisan's eye; not a seam was different, not a thread out of place. None of his old clothes looked like they had aged a day. He stared at the trenchcoat for another moment before he began to shudder and embraced it like a long lost friend; in time, small sobs escaped his lips, and Luna quickly walked up to his side.
"After...after all this time..." he choked. Connor slowly looked up at Luna, fresh tears in his eyes. "I...I don't...c-can't believe th-that you...you kept it."
Luna regarded him warmly, and embraced him in a hug. "As if I would discard something so dear to me." Connor embraced her right back, sobbing lightly.
Somewhere else, on a rooftop garden holding arbors of ivy and potted plants of all colors and sizes, Aydin was busy. He wasn't training himself in the ways of combat, however, nor was he practicing his flight skills. Instead, his knees were bent and he was crouched down and staring intently at a group of flowers through a camera lens. His finger pressed down, there was a gentle click, and the Polaroid shutter snapped. After a couple seconds, a photo came out of the opening below the lens and Aydin snatched it out. He regarded his photograph fondly and nodded in satisfaction before he stood up and looked around the garden for his next subject.
He didn't need to look long. Right in front of him, framed by the wooden beams of the many arbors in the garden was the setting sun, its splendor written in pinks, oranges and vibrant reds across the sky. The clouds that covered it were bathed in color, making them look almost like oil paintings rather than natural weather patterns. "Ooh..." Aydin held up his camera and began straining his body in every direction to try and get a good angle. He stood up on his toes, then shrunk back down into a crouching stance, and tilted his upper body to the left, all the while turning the camera every which way to frame the shot perfectly. Eventually, he made a decision, kneeling down in the middle of the garden and getting the sun framed not only in the arbors, but also between two of the castle's spires as well, and he made sure to angle his field of view upward slightly for a more dramatic effect. He pressed down and the camera took a picture, and two seconds later, the photo was printed. Aydin snatched it out of the slit and looked it over; the more he did, the more his smile grew. "Aw, have a butcher's at this," he said to himself. He made a blow-kiss motion and muttered proudly, "What a beaut. I'll have to give this one to Princess Celestia."
Aydin walked over to a nearby table where he left a large folder and gently slid the two pictures he took inside. He then noticed, rounding a hedge, was Night Glider. As soon as she saw him, she perked up and waved. "Oh, hey, Mister Ambrose!"
His smile vanished and he muttered back, "...Aydin. And yeah, hi to you, too." Before she could keep talking, he turned his back and looked for more things to photograph, much to Night Glider's dismay. She didn't leave, though, instead opting to walk over and have a seat on one of the wooden benches nearby, a few feet away from the table. Aydin regarded her with a cautious look before he continued looking around the garden.
They spent the next few minutes in silence before Night Glider cleared her throat and said, "The princess really outdid herself, huh?"
"I guess."
Aydin glanced at a couple shrubs and brought his camera up. He hovered around them both for a moment before he took another picture, lifted it to his face, nodded, and continued on. He took a couple more pictures, one of a topiary bush from a worm's-eye view and one of a flower with a bee settled on one of the petals before Night Glider spoke again. "You, uh...really don't like talking, huh?" she asked.
Aydin glanced out from behind his camera and glared at her for a moment before he went back to his photography. "What tipped you off?" he said sarcastically. "No, I don't like talking to people. It's a distraction."
"Some distractions aren't all that bad, y'know," she replied. "And by the looks of it, you could use more."
"I have my camera and my job, thank you very much," Aydin replied flatly.
Night Glider leaned back and crossed a leg over the other. "Oh, come on. You have any friends?"
"Only Sienna."
"Who?"
"The Sun Emissary."
"Oh. Why haven't you made any more?"
"Because the more friends you make, the more likely you're gonna get burned." Aydin turned around and walked back to the folder with a few new pictures. "Sure, it might not be their fault, but so what? Doesn't just automatically take away the pain, now, does it?" As soon as those words left his mouth, Aydin's eyes seemed to widen and he glanced over at Night Glider, who was regarding him with a look of quizzical curiosity. He coughed and snapped his head away. "Erm...nevermind what I just said."
They both paused a moment before a smirk spread across Night Glider's face. "Well, and here I thought you just had a chip on your shoulder because it was fun," she replied snidely. "What was that little rant all about?"
"None of your damn business, piss off!" Aydin exclaimed defesively. He paused and looked to be going back to taking pictures for a moment before he stopped and faced Night Glider again. "And two, I do not have a chip on my shoulder!" He looked away again, and the two of them went silent for a few more minutes before Aydin seemed to calm down. He took another picture of one of the nearby spires, looking up at it from a worm's eye view, and then sighed and walked over to the table and picked up his portfolio. "Come on," he said, "dinner's probably ready by now. And if it ain't, we'll arrive early and make a good impression."
He walked away, and Night Glider got up and followed him. "Lead on, then."
Getting to the dining room took the better part of ten minutes from where Aydin and Night Glider had been. It was in a more centralized part of the castle, behind a frosted glass and oak door. He pushed the doors open first and stepped inside; the room was spacious and the walls had enough windows to allow ample sunlight inside. It was decorated with potted plants and a large gold chandelier hanging above the well-polished and wide dining table, and at said table were both princesses, Celestia at one end, Luna on her right and Sienna on her left. Next to Sienna was Connor, and next to him was Trixie. Aydin walked over to Luna's side of the table and took a seat next to her, and then looked up at Sienna; the fact that she was sitting next to Celestia wasn't lost on him, and he grinned maliciously and wiggled his eyebrows. She stared back wide-eyed and shook her head so slightly it was hard to see.
"Watcha smiling about, Aydin?" Connor piped up.
"...Nothing." He settled into his seat and Night Glider sat down next to him. After five seconds, a door on the far wall behind Celestia opened, and dozens of ponies came out with silver platters and carts full of food. They arranged themselves around the table and then quickly unloaded their many plates onto the table. Aydin reflexively leaned out of their way, as did Connor, though his movement wasn't as pronounced. Trixie and Night Glider were too enraptured by such a display of serving to give much thought to staying out of the servants' way; Celestia, Luna, and Sienna didn't move. Almost as quickly as they entered, the servants finished, and one of them, wearing a gold-plated name tag and epaulets, approached Celestia and muttered, "Princess...?"
Celestia looked over at the head servant and smiled happily. "Thank you, Miss Sassafras. Go ahead." The other mare bowed her head and made for the door that she and the other servants entered from. Not long after the door shut, Celestia stood up and gestured to the banquet laid before all seven of them. "I'm so glad you all could join us tonight. Go ahead and dig in!"
Aydin grinned and pulled the top of the platter off to reveal seared beef (imported from Acadia, of course), a side salad, and mashed potatoes. Connor had very much the same, Sienna had turkey sausages while the princesses and the other ponies had dandelion salads, hay-bacon, and black-bean patties. The rest of the table was laid with side dishes, condiments, and spices. Everyone at the table looked set to eat; Trixie licked her lips and immediately stabbed a fork into her salad, but when she picked it up and got a good look at what was on it, she screamed.
It was loud and sudden enough for everyone to look over at her, and they could all clearly see a severed finger stuck on one of the prongs of her fork. Sienna covered her mouth to stifle a horrified gasp while everyone else's eyes went wide. Luna, on the other hand, looked away from the scene. Aydin, inured to flying body parts and gore as he was, chuckled as he lifted a piece of meat up to his mouth and ate the whole thing. It hit his tongue and he found out that the barbecue sauce it was marinated in was, instead, "Devil's Drink" hot sauce.
He choked once, then screeched some incomprehensible gibberish that was halfway between a cry for help and a curse that would make the most pious priest of Acadia's church faint on the spot. Aydin reached for his glass of water, downed the whole thing in one gulp, realized it wasn't enough, and scrambled out of his chair and back into the kitchen. Sienna called after him and Night Glider looked down at her plate and scrutinized it for a second. She picked up a few lettuce leaves with her fork, stared at them for a moment, and then realized what was wrong. "...Why are there green pegasus feathers in my salad?"
Realizing he couldn't delay the inevitable, Connor gazed down at the platter and lifted the top up. Instead of a severed finger, feathers, or hot sauce, he found gummy worms sprinkled generously around the rim of his plate. He turned his eyes over to Luna, who had a hand in front of her mouth, trying to hide her smile. Connor grinned back and picked up one of the worms and deliberately bit into it without breaking eye contact with her. "Glad to see you really haven't changed a bit," he said.
Celestia herself watched the entire spectacle unfold in wide-eyed shock, and then slowly, deliberately glared over at Luna, who was still facing away. "Luna..." she began slowly.
"Ahem! Yes, dear sister...?" Luna swiveled her head back around and smiled innocently.
This, of course, did nothing to change Celestia's expression. "Did you sneak into the kitchen and put some...banned items on the dinner plates?" she interrogated, knowing full well that no matter how many of Luna's prank items she confiscated, her sister always seemed to have more lying around.
"Celestia!" Luna exclaimed in mock indignation. "You would accuse me of sabotaging my own guests' food? Do you not trust me?"
The conversation was interrupted when Aydin stumbled back through the kitchen doors, coughing like he caught the plague. He stopped, bent over, and placed both his hands on his knees before he shouted, "Goddammit, not again!"
Celestia glared at her. "Luna..."
"Hey, if it's any consolation," Night Glider chimed in, "I thought it was kinda funny."
Trixie was busy trying to get her breathing under control after she pitched the fake severed finger out of sight. "Speak for yourself," she murmured.
Everyone resumed eating with no further interruption, though Aydin now had a frown stuck on his face permanently. The minutes passed excruciatingly slowly with everyone under Luna's guidance knowing that, in the back of their heads, she'd be sending them back out soon. Eventually, they finished eating, and were conversing with each other...some more than others, of course.
"Oh, nothing special," Connor responded. Night Glider had asked him what he'd done before being enlisted as the old Moon Emissary. "I was just a dance instructor."
"Really? What kind?"
"Ballet."
Night Glider's eyes widened. "No way!"
Connor nodded, and Luna added, "Indeed. Under those robes, he's built like a brick house. I should know, I trained him."
"You certainly could have fooled Trixie. She thought you looked a little on the...'big-boned' side. N-no offense," Trixie said.
"None taken."
"Gods, I haven't been in Acadia in years," Sienna reminisced, "but I've been to Ponyville even less. How is it there? I heard the townsponies are incredibly laid-back."
Connor shrugged. "That's a bit of an undeserved rumor," he explained. "They're not so laid-back as they are just...slow. They do things slow all the time. If a human tells to you to call him soon, he'll be expecting it in a couple hours, maybe a day, tops. A pony tells you they need something 'soon?'" He took a quick swig of water from the glass still on the table and continued, "They mean anywhere from two to five days. The atmosphere's very relaxed there." Connor leaned back in his chair and sighed. "It's a good life. "
Silence reigned for a couple moments before Connor sat up and asked, "So, Aydin..." He turned his head to look at the current Emissary. "What about you? We've been working together for the better part of the day and you haven't said a word about how you got here. I thought I heard someone with the last name 'Ambrose' who owned and operated a journalism conglomerate out of Tifervale when I still lived in Voliport. You related...?"
Aydin said nothing; he only remained transfixed on his empty plate as if it were whispering the secrets of the universe to him, but he didn't stay quiet for long. He suddenly jerked his head and neck up rigidly, almost as if he wasn't in full control of himself. "...I think it's about time we got to the bloody point," as stated he slapped his palms on the table. "What are we supposed to be doing next?"
Everyone stared at him for a second before Celestia stood up and cleared her throat. "I suppose I had better leave you to it."
She turned and made for the door back to the main hall with Sienna following dutifully behind her. The silence remained when they left for a minute before Luna said, "Very well, 'Mister Impatient.' I received debriefing reports from the Vanhoofer police. They were all fairly standard...except two. One of the victims said they overheard their taskmaster talk about Cloudsdale. One other victim confirmed it, as they said they overheard something about some of the previous victims being shipped to a warehouse somewhere in the city; that is where you must go next, and find out who or what is acting 'as the middleman,' as your kind would put it."
Everyone was quiet again until Night Glider glanced around and asked, "What, that's it...? No...no spying on other ponies, no daring heist?"
"Hate to break it to you, mate, but this is what being the Moon Emissary's like," Aydin interrupted. He glanced back over at Luna and couldn't help but smirk. "Just takin' out the trash."
"It is not 'taking out the trash,'" Luna replied. She sounded only half-indignant. "You are doing both Equestria and Acadia great favors to ensure continued peace and cooperation between both nations." She stood up and quickly explained, "Back to the point, however, I don't imagine you will want to undertake this mission tonight. It is already late enough. You are free to turn in, and I shall see you off tomorrow. Any questions?" Luna paused long enough to see Connor raise his hand, and she continued, "Yes, Connor?"
"Are we free to have dessert...?"
The princess paused for a moment before a knowing smile crossed her face. "Yes, Mister O'Malley, you are always free to have dessert."
"Oh, hell yes." Connor immediately reached across the table, toward where Trixie was, to grab a bowl of chocolate-covered popcorn and he poured some onto his plate. Night Glider laughed and did the same, and then placed an apple danish in front of her; Trixie reached across the table with her magic aura to take a couple slices of strawberry cake. Aydin, however, did nothing, and only stood up and excused himself from the table and made for the doors to the castle halls. "C'mon, Aydin, where you goin'? Party's just starting!" Connor called after him.
He froze in place and turned his head to look at the other four still at the table, piling sweets on their plates. He only shook his head and waved Connor off. Didn't stop him from muttering, "Cunt," under his breath as he left the hall.
