After the grey mare had done the story telling to Celestia about the events inside the train, she stared at her, as emotionless as usual, waiting for new orders from her. She was simply dismissed by her through a wave of her hoof. Blade flew away, headed to… Somewhere. Most members of the S.E.U.P. were hard to find.

As for the captain, he simply ordered the soldiers who were in the scene to clean the mess inside that wagon once the stallion inside exited it.

The sun monarch unexpectedly walked towards the vehicle and entered it. Leaving everyone left in the scene shocked, they never could have thought that the princess would ever walk into a place full of blood and dead bodies.

She peeked inside, looking to the left. There were two corpses, one had an axe incrusted on its face and was holding another on its left paw. The other one still had blood pouring from its open neck, its weapon next to its right.

Looking to the right, ignoring the griffin who was slashed in half and the one right below her in the entrance, she saw another two. A hooded one whose wound couldn’t be seen since it was facing the floor and whose weapons were missing as well, and, on the far front of the wagon, another one, female, with a crossbow in the floor to her left. Opposite to where she was facing was Policy, sitting and looking down, as if thinking deeply.

The alicorn walked to him, still worried.

"What troubles your mind?"

Poll then acknowledged that she was next to him, scaring himself in the process.

"Aah! Err, nothing, I was just thinking." Poll was speaking nervously.

"What were you thinking then?" She said as she sat next to him, she had to ensure his well-being, even if it meant invading his privacy.

"Nothing important to her majesty for sure." Answered the stallion, his tone didn’t change.

"It won’t interfere in the congress right?" She hated being objective in such a sentimental time for the diplomat but the fate of Equestria, no scratch that, of all the kingdoms, depended on it.

He got back on all fours before speaking again.

"No, it won’t. You have my word." He said with a reassuring smile.

"I pray that you are speaking the truth." Replied the tall mare while standing up herself, still worried, not about just another subject, but the most important of them all.

"I am, don’t worry." Was the last thing he said before they both walked outside, headed to the castle.

The trip to it wasn’t as painful to him as his previous one. They were transported by royal carriage so nopony had the chance to see him besides the guards, and they wouldn’t cast a sting eye on him, hell, they wouldn’t even breathe if it wasn’t an order. I’m not joking around; they weren’t allowed to do anything if it wasn’t ordered to them before while in duty. Celestia had indeed ordered all of the guards to breathe when the E.U.P. was first created. That strict were the rules for every branch of the army since then. And that’s why Poll preferred being around soldiers to standing near citizens.

Around ten minutes it took the carriage to reach its destination. No one had uttered a word along the trip, instead, the orange stallion looked to the city which was very beautiful to see from there, or so he thought at least. Celestia, on the other hand, stared blankly at the sky. She was in that moment when one tends to be not asleep, but not awake either. A weird place between both, where the craziest and inconsistent ideas are formed for no reason at all. She thought of the randomness of the shape of the clouds. "Wouldn’t they look better if they had a certain form?" She thought. The idea of sending the wonderbolts to make them cake-shaped crossed her mind. Her castle was the next in her mind. "How would it be if it was made of glass? Despite the fact that it would be beautiful, it would probably break down pretty easily, and gluing it back together would be really hard and tiring."

Her half-dreams were interrupted without warning with the bump that came along the carriage´s landing, which also made her forget everything that she was thinking just moments ago.

They had landed in the west courtyard, the sun deity knew how Policy felt around the citizens so she had ordered to land there, not wanting to disturb him in any way.

"Here we are." She said as she got off the vehicle, the stallion followed close after her.

He looked around and noticed the statue of Discord. He chuckled as he remembered his thoughts back on the train. For doing evil stuff he received a statue of himself for everyone to admire. Sure he was trapped inside but the facts were still the same.

Just like in the way there, both ruler and Diplomat stayed quiet as they entered the castle. Once in the hallways though, the silence was broken.

"The congress date has been changed." Said the princess, she had the plan to update him as they walked towards his bedroom for the night. He had at least suspected to receive a bedroom so it wouldn't surprise him if that was their current destination.

"It has? How come?" He wasn’t expecting any kind of change; the plans were to get to the embassy of Equestria in the dragon lands in the afternoon, sleep there, and present himself in the congress the next day. It wasn’t his fault to not be prepared though, Blade (to who he didn’t want to blame for anything since she had just saved his life) didn’t explain how big were those “change of plans”.

Celestia took a small breath before speaking. "King Flamepath has died." Flamepath was the name of the actual… Well, previous leader of the Dragons.

The stallion had to process that information for a few seconds. Who would have known that four simple words could take so long to be understood? And even then, his reply was not the most brilliant.

He stopped dead in his tracks. "W… What?!" Was the only word he managed to say (It was difficult for him to express that I must add).

"It’s true, that’s why the meeting was delayed by one day." They both resumed walking.

"B… But how?" Replied the shocked pony.

"Apparently, he was sick."

"Sick? Of what?"

"We don’t know. His sickness was kept secret to all nations, including their own. My agent there discovered that he was very sick some days ago, he couldn't find out more than that."

"Lucky for them, he was a respected king."

That was true, he had first achieved the throne one thousand years ago the same way the next king would be decided, by battle. He won without much trouble, proving that he was indeed the strongest. For such feat, the now dead dragon was respected by all of his kind. He had around five hundred years when he ascended to the throne. The age his son currently had, more or less.

For the reasons previously given, the dragons all would keep themselves quiet and abide to the laws dictated by him, thus avoiding mayhem, the "luckiness" Policy was referring to. One of those laws was that “If the current leader dies, regardless of the reason of death, he or she must be buried properly”.

Most of the fire breathing creatures would attend that event, which was the reason for the delay, or so the earth pony and the alicorn thought.

They both walked for some minutes until a big pair of doors which were painted white and had topaz coloured stained glass entered the princess’ field of vision. She walked towards them, the diplomat close behind her.

"This will be your room for the night. I hope you like it." The doors were opened by her as she spoke, a smile clearly visible.

He entered the room and looked around. It had a double bed covered with blue sheets and two white pillows, a bedside table on each side of it with candles on top of both, a medium sized drawer with a big painting of a landscape on top of it, a door leading to the balcony and another to the bathroom.

The stallion just admired the room for ten long seconds. Then looked at his host.

"This is amazing!" He hadn't expected such a beautiful place to sleep.

"Thanks a lot!" He forgot who he was talking to, lost in his gratitude and in the beauty of the room itself.

She chuckled. "No need to thank me." Replied humbly.

"Of course I have to thank you! I may live in the best part of my building but this is still much much better!" He sounded like if they were close friends, still not remembering the fact that his words were addressing royalty.

She was now blushing. "Well, I have some matters to attend to. The staff of the castle is at your disposal, if you need me I’ll be in the throne room."

That’s when he switched back to reality and realized the way he had spoken to her. It was his turn to blush.

"Err… of course, have a good afternoon princess, he he." A nervous laugh came from within him, he felt like he had to do it. Indeed, his body made him laugh, in that moment he couldn’t control it, as if he was possessed by something.

"Thank you, I hope yours is as good." Another smile was sent his way by her when she said that. As she left, she closed the door behind her, leaving him alone in the gorgeous bedroom.

Hours later:

At nighttime, around ten o´ clock, Celestia couldn’t reach the land of the dreams. It was due to her thoughts always finding one way or another a path to the memory of when Policy arrived. Something was bothering him, he didn’t speak it up saying that it wasn’t a big deal, but she knew better than that. She never quite bought it but she also didn’t want to mettle in his personal affairs.

It was bothering her because his personal problems could interfere in the congress. Perhaps he couldn’t be much use if Lance got to be the next king but if it wasn’t like that, she needed him to encourage the other nations to unite against the bandits and barbarians, that couldn’t fail.

She rose up and got out of her bedroom. Although all the personnel that was still in the castle had to be awake (guards, guards and more guards) she closed the door very slowly, trying to not make any noise.

It didn’t take her long to reach the desired bedroom. She casted a spell to watch through walls and saw the stallion she wanted to talk to still awake, reading some papers. Probably the ones she gave him herself earlier about the deals and proposals he had to make in the meeting, plus the amount of bits and resources they could spend, etc. Afterwards, she stopped channeling the spell.

Three knocks were the amount she gave the door and, as expected, it was opened by the troubled pony.

Followed by closing the door, he made a gesture for her to go inside.

At the same time, in the main barracks of the Royal Guard back in Canterlot, the captain was in his office, alongside another pony, a dark blue unicorn.

A desk with a lightened candle to its left and an enormous amounts of papers of all kind on its middle occupied the end of the room. There was also a chair but it was to the far right of the place, John was on his fours, speaking with the other pony, who had an even darker blue mane and tail. His horn was pointier that the average. Pretty similar were his mane and tail, they both were somewhat wavy and had the occasional hair sticking out, in need of brushing. The latter of them was halfway to the floor while the former was significantly shorter. A tiny goatee was also present below his chin and a unicorn horn was his cutie mark.

"So, those are the plans to crush the bandits? Pretty good I must say." Said, while looking at the maps and other documents in the table, the unicorn.

"Then again, this is only saying that Equestria, the Dragon Lands and Griffonstone do form an alliance. What will you do if a war against the Dragons is held?"

"If we do have a war against them then the bandits will be the least of our problems. Besides, they would be caught in the crossfire and have more losses than earnings so I don’t think we have to worry about them on either case."

Confidence was present in the white stallion when he replied.

"Very well, you seem pretty sure about this. Do you really think I’m needed for this job though?"

"Certainly, the bandit´s leader is horribly strong. They say no metal can cut through his paws. We will need a magician of your skill for the job."

"If that’s true then I will be looking forward to that battle." Excitement could be noticed in his voice.

"Very well, that’s all I wanted to discuss. You may leave."

The blue stallion walked away, when the door was opened by him, however, the captain called him.

"Oh, and Remedy."

He looked back.

"Keep yourself easy to find, we will need you soon enough.

"Fine."

When he left he closed the door gently and left the strong pony alone, who started to check the papers on his desk.

Author's Note

Third chapter already woo!

Im really enjoying this, and again, if you find any mistakes please let me know, I want to improve at writing.