— Carnelia —

For all that Carnelia was the least rough-and-tumble of the dragons in their group and probably the most even-tempered of them aside from, perhaps, Drift, she didn't find sitting and meditating to come particularly naturally to her.

This was, no doubt, at least partly due to having only had the slightest hint of an idea what sitting and meditating actually involved, aside from the sitting part. That she presumed that she had sufficient experience with, though even in that she couldn't be certain.

Questionable progress aside, though, it was still a relief just to have a moment alone to put some distance between herself and the absolute mess that the day had become and what it meant for her going forward. She had not expected, at the beginning of the day, for Ember to turn on them all.

Perhaps she should not have slapped Ember. In hindsight, that was when things had gone from bad to unrecoverable, but hindsight never solved anything. Ember had already been lashing out at that point, but only at Spike, Kindle and Drift who were slightly lesser in Ember's eyes, having grown up around ponies rather than their own kind. It didn't make Ember's reaction okay, but Carnelia had expected her shared background with Ember to give her at least a little leeway with her estranged empress and shock her into realizing exactly what she was doing and saying.

Instead, Carnelia had only managed to paint a target on herself and ensured that there was no one left that might have been able to reign Ember in once she had calmed down...

If she calmed down.

It was entirely possible—likely, even—that if she had not acted and Slag had not knocked Ember out, they would all be wishing now that they had taken the Ring of Ashmund from her when they'd had the chance.

They did not need their so-called empress growing large enough to pick the roofs off all the buildings in Ponyville in search of her book, let alone whatever the pony princesses and their demigoddesses would do in retaliation to stop her.

Having to be the one to deal with the ornery ornament was a small price to pay, really—though it did leave Carnelia with the question of what she would do with the thing if she did manage to remove it.

It was probably wishful thinking to assume that returning it would calm Ember down.

Did they dare risk getting someone else to put it on, though? They knew that the ring had accepted Ember; they did not know if it would accept Slag, Kindle, Drift or Spike.

Carnelia was just thinking that her right arm might be feeling a small bit lighter when she was startled by a heavily-accented shout.

"Ah hah!" some pony or other yelled from behind her. "Ah knew it! Ah knew there were dragons stealin' mah apples!"

Carnelia twisted herself around to see who was bothering her, tempted to show her displeasure in the same way that she'd gotten the message across to the blue pegasus, but the realization of who exactly it was that was shouting and what it was that she'd said stopped her cold.

It was another one of the demigoddesses. One that she didn't know much about, except that her name was Applejack and the mountain that they were both on hadn't been there until she'd created it.

Normally, she probably wouldn't have thought much of it since the demigoddess had come off as mostly reasonable when they'd met on the train to Canterlot for the Celestias' coronation, but after learning what the shiest of them was capable of, being a down-to-earth country mare suddenly didn't seem nearly as reassuring as it had been before.

And Carnelia had already managed to anger her, just by being here.

She hadn't even eaten any apples.

"I—that is—" she stammered, starting to defend herself, when all the fight and aggressiveness seemed to drain out of the mare.

"Aw, shucks, you're just a little one, aren't you?" she said, relaxing. Walking closer, she grew concerned. "Shoot, you don't so much as got any wings. How'd ya even get up here, kid?"

Carnelia blinked, realizing that Applejack hadn't even recognized her, instead assuming her to be an actual baby dragon with a—well, her monstrous arm was slightly less monstrous, so maybe she hadn't noticed it from behind.

"Ah, well, recent events necessitated that I seek out serene surroundings to sooth myself and ease this troublesome transformation," Carnelia said, raising her comically large and malformed arm where the demigoddess could see it. "Rainbow Dash suggested this setting, and the sole apple I have touched was soft and used to express my displeasure at her incessant discourse, wherein she insisted on unnecessarily seeking to sell me on the virtues of this specific site."

It was Applejack's turn, then, to stand there and blink as she came to terms with the new influx of information, not the least of which was, apparently, Carnelia's identity.

"Hol' up there a second," Applejack said, holding up one hoof and getting a closer look at Carnelia. "The way you talk, with all of them hissed s's... yer not... one of Spike's friends—Carnelia?"

"Yes," Carnelia confirmed. "I am she."

Applejack sat down right where she stood, stumped. "Ain't you supposed t'be... you know... taller?"

Carnelia sighed with resignation. Getting up, she walked closer and plopped herself down right in front of Applejack with uncharacteristic gracelessness and began to explain.

"The situation... such as it is, is rather serious..."

— Spike —

To Spike's surprise, rather than disappear back to their duties in Canterlot, the Celestias had stuck around after lunch, seizing the opportunity to get some time on the ground in Ponyville and see how the city was integrating the recently-downsized dragons, though exactly how representative it was with both dragons and ponies stopping on the street to get a look at them was debatable.

With all the hullabaloo around Ember declaring herself empress, Spike had mostly forgotten the practical side of the fact that all the dragons had come to Equestria because of the Celestias, but by the way the dragons stopped and stared right alongside their pony counterparts, they had not forgotten—or if they had, they were now being reminded of the fact quite strongly.

Spike, for his part, didn't quite get it. He supposed that he had to admit that the Celestias' long, whiplike white-scaled tails were rather eye-catching in how they swayed back and forth, trailing fire and rainbows as they walked, but that was it.
He still didn't feel whatever ineffable draw it was that had brought all the dragons to Equestria, and he wasn't sure why.

The ponies, of course, didn't need any mystical force to get their attention, being, as they were, taught from a young age what that ethereal rainbow mane meant, even if it was brighter, sharper and richer on Celestia Corona.

Celestia Candesca, on the other claw, gave the impression that she was on fire, so it went without saying that she attracted almost the same amount of attention, even if it was of a slightly different type.

Eventually, their path took them to a park located just outside of the old city limits which had once been a potato farm and now sat as a barrier between the city center and the burgeoning industrial sector. Spike wouldn't think that a plot of land could be turned into a proper-looking park so quickly, but he guessed that with enough earth ponies, anything was possible—especially if it didn't involve crystal shipped in from the northern mountains.

"I shall not be so crass as to ask if something is bothering you," Celestia Corona said as they stopped to watch a group of foals playing alongside a dragon their age. "But I will ask if there is any way we can make this easier on you."

"Ah, well..." Spike scratched nervously at the scales along his once again chubby jawline. He briefly looked to Kindle and Drift to see if they had any input, but they seemed to be letting him take the lead. "I guess the immediate thing is that I'm not really sure where we should... go?

"I mean, we kinda decided to let Ember cool down, and hopefully Carnelia and Slag can talk some sense into her, but we left them at the old library, which is where we were living before, and I guarantee you that Ember thinks of the new place as 'hers,' so if we don't want to run into her, well..." he gave a shrug, suggesting that that didn't really leave them a whole lot of options.

Celestia Candesca let out a displeased huff that the original Celestia never would have allowed herself. "The entire point of that display was for all of you to set an example for the rest of the dragons, so I'd say that you have more right to it than she does, but I do get your point. Don't worry, Spike; we will hardly let you sleep on the street." She shifted her eyes to include Kindle and Drift as well. "Any of you."

Celestia Corona nodded along with her sister's statement. "Of course, there is one simple place to start, which is to check on them," she said, developing a faraway look in her eyes as she proceeded to do just that. "I doubt that once she leaves the library—which does seem to already be the case—that she will desire much to return." She paused then, reconsidering her words and growing slightly confused. "...Though you may not wish to either, as it really is quite the mess. When did lightning strike inside the library? Twice?"

"Err..." Spike thought back to the library as it had been when they had moved out, but nothing came to mind. "I mean, we were trying to do magic—dragon magic—so there might have been a few burns here and there, but..."

Celestia Corona shook her head. "No, no, they're definitely lightning burns," she said, frowning. "Right in the front room—and it appears as if ponies may have been struck, as there are hoofprints right in the center of each of them."

Spike took a moment longer to think about that, when he suddenly got it. "Oh," he said, openly relieved. "I should have thought of that. It was probably just Rainbow Dash; she's made of lightning, remember?"

"I've gotta say, though," Kindle interrupted, keeping a self-conscious eye on the Celestias. "I'm not that convinced that Ember won't go back there. She's kinda the type that I'd expect to go back and look again and again, just in case she missed something or it spontaneously returned."

"...Yeah, you have a point," Spike admitted unhappily. "Jeeze," he said, sighing as he looked at his small baby hands. "As if going back to this size wasn't bad enough, I feel like a coward running and hiding from her like this."

Kindle couldn't help but mimic Spike, stretching out her legs and wiggling the claws on her foot. "Yeah, but she has the ring and I really do not want to get into that fight."

Celestia Corona, who had been silent for a while, interjected at that point. "She doesn't, actually."

Suddenly, the rainbow-maned alicorn had the attention of all three dragons and her sister as well.

"She doesn't... what?" Spike warily asked, not sure if he wanted the answer.

"Ember does not have the Ring of Ashmund," Celestia Corona stated as plainly as possible, sending a thrill of something down Spike's spine. Whether it was relief or dread, he wasn't sure.

Celestia Corona's voice was softer when she continued, "She is curled up in the farthest room, alone, and seems to have made a worse mess of the manor than the library."

"Wait—she's alone? What about Carnelia and Slag?" Kindle asked, which, yeah, was kind of concerning, but not nearly as much as the idea of Ember breaking down after losing the ring, Spike thought.

Especially it was because her father had found her when she was alone.

"Slag appears to be in Ponyville General Hospital with another injury to her tail," Celestia Corona reported with a great deal of concern. "But Carnelia is nowhere I've looked."

Okay, that was worrying. "It sounds like ex-dragon-lord Torch has struck again," Drift said, coming to the same conclusion as Spike.

"I dunno," Kindle said, definitely concerned, but still doubtful. "If it was actually him, I don't think he'd waste any time returning himself to his usual size and announcing himself."

"I think," Celestia Candesca suggested, "that it will do no good guessing. Whatever has happened, the time for leaving her be has passed."

Celestia Corona, once again in the here-and-now, looked over the dragons present and decided, "Candesca and I will see to her immediately; it might be best if the rest of you head over to the hospital and see what Slag has to say about whatever happened. With her being here in the city and Ember out at the manor, it's quite possible they will have separate stories to tell."

That... seemed like a good idea. "Yeah," Spike agreed, understanding that Ember probably wouldn't appreciate their presence right now. "Yeah, we can do that—and we'll see if we can't find Carnelia, too."

The Celestia's silently nodded in acknowledgement, and abruptly demanifested, quickly fading away like a mirage.

Spike stood there for a moment, thinking.

Then another moment.

And another.

"You don't know how to get to the hospital from here, do you?" Kindle guessed.

"Look—I had wings this morning, okay?" Spike insisted.

"Yeah, that's fair," Kindle commiserated, glancing back at her own missing wings, which she'd had for significantly longer than Spike.

Slowly, the two of them turned to Drift, who was the only one of them who had retained her transformed size.

Drift rolled her eyes, but she was smiling as she lifted the two baby dragons onto her back.

— Carnelia —

"Well, if that ain't a right mess," Applejack said, shaking her head. "Ah can't say if I'da done the same thing, taking the ring, but Ah can't say you were wrong to, either."

"I suppose there is that, at least," Carnelia said, somewhat mollified to know that the pony demigoddess agreed. "I don't suppose you can suggest any procedure to extricate it from my person, though?"

Applejack crossed her forelegs and rubbed her chin with one hoof. At length, she shook her head. "Ah can't say that Ah do. Ah doubt that a jar of petroleum jelly is gonna help any, and that's about all I can offer you."

Carnelia cocked her head at the demigoddess. "I was speculating something more similar to a skill or a spell."

Applejack balked at that, flummoxed at the very insinuation. "Wha—? Why on mah freshly-tilled earth would you think that Ah have anything like that?"

Carnelia stared and blinked. Had she misremembered. "You are one of the princess's demigoddesses, aren't you? I was so certain, especially since you seemed to recognize me through Spike."

Applejack got a sour look on her face, as if she'd just bitten into a rotten apple. "Well, Ah guess that's what you'd call it," she begrudgingly admitted.

Well, now Carnelia was just confused. "...And your sphere, such as it is, is the earth, yes? Something that would seem to have a serendipitous intersection with the essence of dragons." Carnelia still didn't like the idea of a demigoddess getting anywhere near her essence, but she was at least willing to entertain the idea.

Something that the demigoddess herself was apparently struggling with.

"Look," Applejack said, disgruntled and uncomfortable. "Just 'cause Ah've forgiven Twilight for what she did doesn't mean that Ah want anything to do with it."

That... didn't make any sense, did it? At least, not the way that Carnelia understood things. "My apologies," she hissed. "I suppose I must have misunderstood the situation."

Applejack nodded, fiercely insistent. "Ahm am what Ah am, and Ah'm no more like to up and start casting spells than you are."

Carnelia lifted one claw and opened her mouth to point out the issue with that statement, then decided that actions spoke louder than words. Lowering her claw, she instead blew a lick of flame over it, producing a finely detailed golden apple over the course of several seconds.

Applejack jumped to her hooves out of surprise of the sudden flame, but then her eyes went wide when she saw what Carnelia had done and she stumbled back and fell onto her rump. "What in tarnation?"

"I am uncertain if you would call it a spell, but it is dragon magic," Carnelia said, though, on second thought, the essence of the method had come from Twilight, so maybe that wasn't quite right. "...or perhaps it is just magic, in the raw and primal way."

Applejack, however, didn't seem to like that explanation, if she even heard it, because she seemed decidedly spooked. "Ah felt that," she said, quieter than Carnelia had ever heard her, as if she thought that if no one heard her say it, it wouldn't be true. "Ah felt that in mah bones."

A stray thought made Carnelia wonder if Applejack still had bones and if it would make her the only one of the demigoddesses that did, but there were more important things going on at the moment.

Besides, Fluttershy still had bones; they were just optional or something.

The image of Fluttershy's hoof falling off and turning into a pastel yellow squirrel was one that Carnelia was not going to forget for a very long time.

Carnelia's brief distraction gave Applejack time to... not come to terms with the revelation at all, apparently, because she was just sitting there staring at the golden apple in Carnelia's claw.

Maybe it was suddenly becoming aware of a whole new part of herself, or maybe it was the earlier suggestion that she was no more likely to do magic than Carnelia, but when Applejack lifted her forehooves off the ground to stare at them like they'd betrayed her, two tiny saplings sprung up from the ground in their place, each of them weighed down by a single golden apple.

Neat.

Applejack didn't seem to think so, as she scrambled back away from the two saplings as if they were serpents. Then, all at once, her apprehension turned to anger. Fortunately, it was directed at someone who was not present. "Damn it, Twi!" Applejack shouted, slamming her hooves into the soil, which, of course, produced another two saplings.

"I am confused," Carnelia plainly stated. Confused was, perhaps, an understatement.

"What's there to be confused about?" Applejack angrily snapped, gesturing at the golden apples as if to say, 'this, right here.'

The gesture produced another several saplings around the first.

"Spike spoke about pony magic," Carnelia informed the unsettled demigoddess in front of her, thinking that if she explained what she knew, that Applejack would be able to tell her where her understanding had failed her. "He said that ponies all have stars inside of them, which gives them magic, and in order to use that magic, they developed those... 'cutie marks,' which are supposed to symbolize your 'special talent'—something singularly special which makes you you."

"That sounds about right," Applejack distractedly said, eyeing a sapling that was growing taller over her shoulder, as if she afraid it was going to pounce on her and she was going to need to defend herself from it.

Carnelia furrowed her scaly red brow in all her baby-dragon adorableness. "Then what is the concern with possessing more magic if all it does is make you more you?" she tilted and craned her neck to get a better look at Applejack's flank. "Why do the golden apples disturb you when apples are your thing?"

"It ain't me!" Applejack insisted and stomped her hooves on the ground one last time in anger.

This time, she was not comically beset with additional saplings bearing golden apples.

This time, starting out from her hooves, the entire area turned brown and gray, every sapling and tree withering and rotting until there was nothing left. Even the golden apples turned to a reddish-brown dust and crumbled into the ground, except for the one in Carnelia's claw.

Applejack was breathing hard, her barrel heaving as she looked around, stricken at what she'd done. Closing her eyes, she told Carnelia. "Ah'm an Apple. Ah'm a simple, hard-working mare with a family that pulls together when times are hard and gets together with all mah kin when they ain't. That's who Ah am. You can't just make that more.

"And now Ah can make golden apples!" Applejack yelled, throwing her hooves up into the air. "More bits than Ah could ever need! No need to work another day in mah life! Never buck another tree! That ain't me! What's the point'a an apple you can't even eat?!"

That was... a lot, but, "You're missing one thing," Carnelia told Applejack.

"And what's that?" Applejack asked dispiritedly, coming down from her rant.

Carnelia took a bite out of her golden apple, which was nice and chewy.

"They taste pretty great, actually."

— Candesca —

Corona and Candesca manifested on the front lawn of the manor that Twilight had magicked up from nothing for Spike and his not-actually-a-harem.

Come to think of it, it was a good thing that they weren't actually a harem, considering all the power dynamics and domestic violence going on.

Being magical twins who had been the same person up until a short while ago, the two of them stepped forward both in sync, only to be confused by the crunch of something gravelly underhoof, which got both of their attentions. The emerald grass was slightly stiff, but not enough to crunch under the shoes of their regalia.

On closer inspection, the lawn seemed to be dotted with hundreds of grape-sized emeralds and rubies.

Corona and Candesca shared a look, but they were clearly both equally puzzled.

Weird, but not really the matter at hoof right now, aside from the literal sense. In the literal sense, however, they both found it remarkably annoying walking over a lawn sprinkled in grape-sized gemstones.

It would have been undignified to fly the short distance to the front door of the manor, though, so they walked and bore with it.

On reaching the front door of the manor, Corona paused and looked at her sister. "Would it be too indelicate for me to say, 'I told you so?'"

For once, Candesca wasn't quite sure what her sister was talking about. Looking in the direction which Corona had described the young empress curled up and possibly crying, she raised an eyebrow. "I think, whatever you have to say to her in that respect, that it can wait until the immediate situation has been handled. In fact, that seems unnecessarily callous."

Corona rolled her eyes. "I don't mean her," she clarified. "I mean you—I told you that letting her keep the ring was a mistake."

Candesca rolled her eyes back at her sister. "This is hardly what you were worried about. Besides; if the ring has been stolen, then I dare say Ember would have put up more of a fight than the crate it was stored in."

"The crate which it was stolen from," Corona reminded her.

Candesca nodded, as her sister had just proven the point. "Exactly. Now, we really should focus on the present," she said, and proceeded to knock on the manor door.

Not unexpectedly, there was no answer, and Corona closed her eyes to check if there was any response that was at all encouraging from the dragoness inside. Evidently, there was none, as Corona proceeded to open the door and step into the foyer of the manor.

Candesca followed her.

It was Candesca's first time seeing the inside the Manor. Corona had, of course, taken a look at it through her daylight even before the immediate situation had come up, but for Candesca to see it, she would have had to make the trip, which, while not a time issue, would have been rather lacking in subtlety while the dragons were all settling in.

All in all, Candesca thought that the combination of Twilight and Ember had decent enough taste, though the lava fountain was a bit much and the fact that the whole place had been ransacked by one of the occupants rather brought the whole thing down.

Silently, Corona led them to where Ember could be found.

— Ember —

The hooves in metal shoes clopping down the hall was the first sign that Ember was no longer alone in the manor. That narrowed down who it could be since it ruled out any dragons, and probably all the demigoddesses, too, which was good, since she wasn't in the mood to talk to any of them right now.

Not that she was in the mood to talk to anyone at the moment.

It looked like she wasn't going to get that choice, though, since she sure as tartarus wasn't going to run away. She wasn't going to meet them curled up on the ground, either—or standing up like she was welcoming them—so she split the difference and got up just enough to sit with her back to the wall, facing the door.

Having ruled dragons and demigoddesses out, that pretty much just left the princesses or their guards that could be approaching from down the hall. It would be ironic if it was just a bunch of nobodies bringing Spike's things to the manor, but she kind of doubted it, so it had to be the princesses, then, and since the half-dragon ones lived up on the mountain, then it was the other two.

Great.

Ember didn't specifically dislike Twilight and Luna—they made slightly more sense to her than the Celestias, actually—but Twilight was practically Spike's sister.

And she'd definitely wanted a look at the book.

When the Celestias appeared in the open doorway to her ruined room, then, all she could do was blink and stare as suddenly all the reasons they might have problems with her ran through her head instead.

They hadn't wanted Ember to have the ring, had they?

They hadn't been happy about it, at least.

Now, though, they just stood there with the same unreadable look on both of their faces.

Were they waiting to see what she would do? Hmph. They may be half dragon, but they were underestimating the real thing if they thought she wouldn't sit here all day just to spite them.

"You're not hurt, at least," Candesca observed, sounding all soft and motherly.

Ember scoffed, while the other one eyed her more closely, paying special attention to her claws. It felt a bit vindicating until she realized that she was likely looking for the Ring of Ashmund, and the scowl returned to her face.

"And since you aren't hurt," Corona continued from her sister. "Nor are you snapping at the bit to do something about it, then... one of your friends took the ring?"

Ember was tempted to say something about not having any friends, but it would have sounded far too petulant, so she just glared as the two princesses slowly let themselves into the room, trying not to spook her.

"Slag doesn't have it either, so... Carnelia?" she concluded with some confusion. "Strange. I did not picture her as one who would start such a conflict."

"She didn't," Ember sourly admitted, only realizing after the fact that she'd said anything. "Slag got me from behind... but Carnelia sure wasn't shy about it afterwards. They were working together—all of them."

"I see..." Corona said completely neutrally, and the two of them stopped approaching before they got too close.

Candesca was more vocal. "Then, if I were to tell you that we just had lunch with Spike, Kindle and Drift, who were very much hoping that Slag and Carnelia would be able to reason with you, you would no doubt express a measure of disbelief, if not suspect me of outright fabrication?"

Somehow, Ember didn't have it in her to prove her right in just that moment. Maybe it was just that she was really at her wit's end and maybe it was that she was... slightly regretting the way that she had handled things, but the twin princesses also just had a presence about them—not the presence that had brought her and the rest of the dragons to Equestria, but a kind of knowing bearing that had a weight to it and made her feel small in an entirely different way to her father.

Ember hated feeling small, and she normally would have raged against anyone who made her feel that way, but it just seemed to go nowhere. It wouldn't make her feel any better about herself if she stood up and started proving that feeling right by screaming and yelling like a child.

Maybe it was because she knew, deep down, that they weren't really the ones making her feel small. Not really. It was something inside of her, and she just saw it reflected in their eyes.

"...Fine; maybe they independently betrayed me, then," Ember reluctantly allowed, still clinging to the idea that it was Spike and the others that had taken the book—the idea that it was someone she knew; someone she could find.

Corona sighed, and sat down in the middle of the room, followed shortly by her sister. "Do you know, for the longest time after sealing my sister into the moon for a thousand years, I blamed some external force for corrupting her?" she asked, and well, no, Ember hadn't known that because she hadn't known that she'd sealed her sister into the moon at all, let alone for a thousand years, and there seemed to be several things wrong with the concept.

Ember looked at Candesca, who was very much present. "...Weren't you split in two only recently?"

Corona blinked, then closed her eyes and chuckled with amusement. "Fair enough. I suppose it would be more correct to say that Celestia—the original Celestia—did so to her sister, who is Luna."

Oh. Right. Ember... probably knew that they'd been sisters. She guessed that Spike must have mentioned it.

"It was very different from your situation, of course," Corona acknowledged, which was certainly one way to put it. "You might say that it is essentially the opposite of it, in fact.... and yet, Celestia still felt that she did her sister a disservice, even though she thought better of Luna than she had actually deserved at the time. Do you know why?"

Ember really wasn't in the mood for thinking, so she shook her head, fully expecting the half-dragon princess to continue lecturing, only too happy to hear herself talk.

That isn't what happened.

"Really?" Corona asked, actually sounding curious. "Suppose you properly stole the Ring of Ashmund and managed to keep it a secret. Naturally, it means a lot to you, or you wouldn't have risked stealing it, correct?"

"...Sure," Ember said, easily able to picture the scenario and figuring the princess wouldn't get on with it unless she engaged with her a small amount.

Corona nodded as if Ember had given a long and considered answer. "Now, eventually someone is going to realize that the ring has gone missing and start pointing hooves. You're something of a public figure, and you've gone through a bit of a growth spurt recently, so a number of those hooves are pointed at you, but that's part of the fun, isn't it? You know for certain that there is no evidence linking you to the theft, and if feels good to get one over on them.

"Spike, though, is incensed at the insinuations, and defends you fervently. He insists that he knows you—you didn't do it—you wouldn't do it—you couldn't do it. He believes it completely."

"Bullshit!" Ember scoffed because, yes, it was bullshit. "Spike's a pushover, but he's not that blind."

"You'd think so," Corona said, nodding along. "But it's a good thing, isn't it? He's well-regarded in the city, so his entirely earnest defense can only help you."

"Please," Ember sarcastically remarked, rolling her eyes. "I never hid who I am from Spike—I practically rubbed his face in it and he was right there with me figuring out how to steal the ring. Spike knows me better than that."

Rather than being offended that Ember had rejected the narrative of her story, Corona looked pleasantly satisfied. "And that's why."

Ember thought back over what had been said over the last few minutes and followed the train of thought all the way back to Corona talking about Celestia thinking the best of her sister.

Because the immortal alicorn really should have known if her own sister would do something like that, right?

Just like Ember should really know if—no.

No. It wasn't the same. She hadn't even known Spike and the rest for that long. She still didn't know them that well yet.

But was that fair when she expected them to know her that well?

Enough that she'd object to it not being true in a stupid little story?

Author's Note

Ugh. I'm still not entirely happy with this, but it is what it is. The further I get into this story, the more I think I might have to go back and shift a few things around to make it flow better and fix a few things to make it more coherent. Serial fiction is hard, especially when you don't tend to plan things entirely out beforehand...

For anyone that saw the draft for this on Patreon three weeks ago, I've mostly just softened the last scene a bit, because it really was kind of overdone.

Thanks go out to those supporting me on Patreon and ko-fi, pomegranate horsie, Sunny, Zervon Tora, Katharine Berry, LD, Jan Sterba, senaxyva, Ersmiller, Canary In The Coal Mine, Денис, J T, Nineite, Andrew Pam, Southpaw, Andrew Denton, Trellmor, Kirishala, djthomp, SirHoli, IamUnknown, fused and CvBrony