Ponyville,

And Canterlot,

Central Equestria

She was going to be sick.

“—As you can see, darling, the crimson and gold compliments your coat wonderfully,” the pristine white unicorn went on, her brilliant blue telekinetic field performing minor adjustments to the lay of the dress on her boutique’s latest customer. “And see how the silk just shimmers in the light? That’s because I added a little bit of ruby dust to the fabric. Now that does mean that it’ll have to be cleaned with magic, rather than more mundane means, in order to avoid ruining it,” the seamstress clarified with a dismissive wave of a well-polished hoof, as though the need for more costly care of the garment in question was hardly a consideration worth taking into account.

“But, I hardly think that’s a concern for a mare of your means!”

The ivory unicorn with a purple mane—that was surely more product than hair to be able to keep that shape—broke out into a tittering laugh. Autumn Brisk felt her false smile strain even more as she forced herself to join in. She was barely even aware of what was being said by the boutique’s owner, her mind was too preoccupied with the numbers that were presently swirling through it. Specifically, the numbers on the price tags that the other unicorn was very subtly trying to hide from view, for politeness' sake.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t afford to pay the boutique owner for the dress…or the matching saddlebag. Or the vest and tailed coat that she was also buying. Or the not-quite-a-maid outfit that was also going on her tab. Actually, that was a bit of a mischaracterization of the situation: She absolutely could not ‘afford’ any of this; but she did have the bits to cover the bill—no matter what it would eventually come out to be.

The problem was that they weren’t, strictly speaking, her bits. A slip of paper in Flashover’s saddlebag with the words: ‘Bank of Ponyville’, ‘Line of Credit’, and a blank space where the total value was waiting to finally be inked in, was somehow crushing Autumn beneath its weight with every pricy addition the seamstress made to their order.

I’m going to have to sell myself into indenture, the teal unicorn concluded numbly. I’m going to be paying this debt back for years!

She stared at the mare looking back at her in the mirror. Her mane had been recently washed and expertly styled at the town’s spa—which offered considerably more services than Autumn Brisk would have assumed, given the size of the settlement it was based in. Her coat had been shampooed and brushed to within an inch of its life and was presently glittering in the lights of the boutique almost as brightly as the silk of her new dress. Her hooves, likewise, possessed a shine so fine that she could see Flashover’s reflection from where he was standing by the door when she looked down at them.

The pony in the boutique's mirror appeared to be that of a noble lady of wealth and means. Just like the kind she’d hoped to become one day. The thought nearly evoked a rueful snort from the envoy.

The talon on that Griffon’s Claw really curled in on me hard, didn’t it?

This was all just a farce, of course. Autumn Brisk was no ‘noble lady’. The fiery-orange unicorn standing by the door with a mane that had been combed for what was likely the first time in the stallion’s life was not her butler. The granite pegasus mare next to him—who certainly wasn’t actually a batpony—wearing black and white frills was not a maid in the employ of her family’s household. By this time tomorrow, all of them would be exactly who they had been yesterday.

Or in prison on charges of treason—and who knows what else, the teal mare thought bitterly to herself. Or dead. Granted, the latter was only likely to happen in the—she was assured— highly unlikely event of a catastrophic failure of their plans. Which, when it came to what their team was expected to accomplish, wasn’t quite as far out of the realm of possibility as the unicorn would have preferred.

I'd much rather have gone with the good Lord Cravat...or even Captain Corsair.

“Oh!” The boutique owner’s eyes widened as she was hit with sudden inspiration. “I have just the hat that goes with this!” Of course she does. “I’ll be right back, darling; just hold tight~” and the mare trotted off into the shop’s backroom.

“You know,” Flashover ventured, sensing that it would be safe to talk candidly for at least a few moments while they had relative privacy, “I didn’t believe Cravat when he told us we’d be able to find clothes in this town that would let this part of the plan work,” he admitted. "We're lucky there was a mare living here who knew how to make fancy-looking dresses!"

Beside him, the not-a-batpony turned her head to regard the stallion with narrowed eyes, appearing to be trying to figure out if the unicorn was making a serious statement or not. When it became clear that he had been, her lips broke out into a bemused smile. “Do you…actually not know who that mare is?” She flicked a feathery wing in the direction that the shop’s owner had trotted off in.

The stallion’s expression creased in thought before he shrugged. “No. Why? Is she, like, a famous fashion designer or something that just happens to live in a podunk little town like this?”

Saccharin—as that was the name that Rein Doe had told them to use while she was a pegasus—opened her mouth as though to rebuke the stallion…but then she hesitated. “I...I mean…kind of, yeah?” She did not seem to particularly enjoy having to admit that the unicorn had partially undermined what she was going to say by being technically correct with his guess. It certainly wasn’t the answer that she—or Autumn, for that matter—would have given if asked the same question. “It's not what she's best known for though.

“Don’t you read newspapers?”

“Just the funny pages.” Flashover did not sound particularly abashed about that admission. “And the entertainment section. Hoofball scores.”

The two mares exchanged looks. “I kind of don’t want to tell him,” Saccharin said. “I think it’s funnier if we don’t tell him.”

“Tell me what?” The stallion frowned, looking between the ponies who were openly conspiring against him.

Autumn managed to find a more genuine smile now. “Nothing,” she informed the other unicorn sweetly. The smile transitioned back into its slightly more plastic appearance when the ivory unicorn designer returned a moment later, a wide-brimmed hat floating ahead of her in her magical grasp.

“Found it~!” She sing-songed. “The felt is made from Bullivian wool, which everypony knows is the absolute finest in the world in terms of quality. I think that you’ll agree, Countess, that it’s well worth the price…”

As the hat was set down on Autumn’s head, she caught sight of the tag with the price scribbled on it. The extravagant ruffles of the new dress she was wearing hid the shudder than ran through her body. She mentally tallied it to the rest of the cost for the clothing they were buying here. Then she factored in the cost of the First Class carriage on the train that they’d reserved for the exclusive use by the three of them—

Maybe my grandfoals will have it paid off in their lifetimes.

“Now, as to hoofwear,” the seamstress prompted. Autumn Brisk managed—somehow—not to audibly whimper. “How do you feel about…platinum?”

Maybe…

Equestrian Intelligence Service policy was that agents and operatives weren’t supposed to bring any of their work home with them. If whatever case they were working on was going to end up taking extra time, or whatever, then that meant that they were going to be stuck doing it at whatever field office they worked out of. There was no checking out files so they could take them home and enjoy dinner with the family before working on them further in whatever passed for their ‘home office’.

A lot of what the EIS dealt with was far too sensitive to risk it being lost during a burglary, or even something as innocent and innocuous as a family member moving and misplacing it.

Any paperwork, files, messages, correspondence—basically anything that existed on a physical medium of any sort—that was part of an official investigation, stayed at the office. No exceptions. For anypony.

Of course, since the files that were presently spread across Nocturne’s coffee table weren’t part of an official investigation, the batpony judged that the policy wasn’t applicable here. He also noted that none of these files were EIS property. The cavalry likely had similar rules in place to safeguard potentially sensitive information about its ponies, but Nocturne wasn't a member of the cavalry and so wasn't subject to their rules either.

So he'd felt perfectly free to review the contents of the recently delivered files while lounging on his couch and drinking the last of the earl’s brandy. He idly made a note to swing back by Bitter Creek’s office at some point and snag another bottle before all of this was over. Maybe two if it felt like the earl wasn't going to be inviting him to participate in any future schemes for a while.

So far, the operative’s peek through the records that Maniple had sent him hadn’t revealed all that much. Captain Corsair’s file had—even to his surprise—not contained anything special. Up until Gallopoli, the pegasus had led a perfectly unremarkable career for somepony in the Frontier Corps—the reputation of her temper notwithstanding. ‘Mild Mare Corsair’, is more like it, he snorted before flinging the packet onto the table with the others he’d already looked through.

The unicorn private hadn’t been anything special either. Barely in the service a year, there hadn’t been much in his packet other than his enlistment paperwork. The envoy, Autumn Brisk, had been similar; but he’d expected that. The whole reason that the earl had picked that mare in the first place had been precisely because she was unexperienced, new, and naïve.

Disposable.

That was supposed to have been the reason that all of these ponies were chosen for the operation: their deaths wouldn't represent any particularly great loss to Equestria, and they lacked the skills that would make them troublesome to snuff out.

Thus far, the batpony hadn’t found anything that could explain how five average ponies had managed to escape, not just a reputable mercenary company of considerable renown, but also the custody of both the Frontier Corps and a ‘disposal team’ that he’d used previously for much higher-value targets in the past. As much as the stallion knew that, sometimes, pure dumb luck could count for a lot, he wasn’t completely sold on that as being the explanation as to how this group had managed to—

The last of Nocturne’s pilfered brandy was wasted on the cushions of his couch as the batpony’s shock prompted him to spit it out. His eyes boggled at the personnel dossier that he was holding between his wingtips.

...That dumb son of a mule!

Nocturne was sitting upright on the alcohol-soaked cushions of his couch now, completely ignoring the new stains as his amber eyes darted from one line to the next on the pages in front of him which detailed the history of the pony being discussed. A history which contained more than a few ‘items of note’ from before their enlistment in the cavalry.

‘Enlistment’, the stallion’s mind scoffed idly. They’d ‘enlisted’! They should be a fucking officer!

This wasn’t just some ‘common pony’, Nocturne realized ruefully. This was a pony of means, of resources! Maniple had had the two of them convinced that the soldiers in Bronco Company were all just a bunch of average noponies. How that was possible, when personnel files like this were so easily accessible to the general, was beyond the operative’s comprehension. Fifteen minutes of review—of checking the fucking name!—of the soldiers in that company would have revealed that the ponies of Bronco Company, Second Light Hoof, were absolutely not the sort to be labeled as ‘disposable’.

That moron probably didn’t look past Corsair, Nocturne sneered. If he did, it was just to glance at the other officers. Because a fool like that thinks only officers ‘matter’...

The operative closed the file, which was now stained with splotches of damp brandy, and tucked it under his wing as he rolled off the couch. The last remaining file which he hadn’t gotten to fell, spilling its papers all over the floor between the couch and the coffee table. He didn’t even notice them, his mind reeling with the fresh revelations about the pony mentioned in the folder clutched in his leather wing.

As a result, most of these spilled papers were stepped on as the stallion trotted swiftly to the balcony of his apartment. The personnel file got tucked into his shirt and the batpony leaped over the railing. He angled himself towards the palace, specifically the Royal Armory. He needed to have a word—though it was almost certainly going to be a yell—with Brigadier General Maniple.

We messed with the wrong pony, Nocturne seethed. Maniple had us worried about Corsair. We’ve been ignoring the real threat.

Luna, we as so fucked…

“You okay there, Shelly? You’re looking a little green.”

The crystal mare turned her head and gave the cobalt pegasus a flat look. Her hooves shifted uneasily on the cottony-white surface beneath her. The ministry envoy had assured her that the cloud-walking spell would last for at least twelve hours, and it had only been six since it was cast, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the cloud felt less…firm than it had when she and the captain had started their trip.

“I’m fine, ma’am,” she insisted, unconvincingly. “I just get a little motion sick.” She swallowed back another mouthful of—mostly—bile and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

The cobalt flier raised a brow before glancing around the interior of the cloud that the two of them were currently surrounded by. She then looked at her slowly flapping wings that were propelling the cloud leisurely through the sky, as though it was drifting on a gentle breeze. “...We’re barely moving at all,” Corsair finally felt compelled to point out.

“But we are moving, ma’am,” the crystal pony defended, swallowing again.

“You were fine on the train.”

“I could see that the train was moving. I can’t see anything this time.”

“I could poke a hole—”

“No,” was the forceful—and almost reflexive—response by the older mare to her captain’s offer to let her see the outside. Specifically: to let her see precisely how much ‘outside’ there presently was. All around them. In every direction.

Most especially the downward one.

Shillelagh was having enough trouble reconciling what was to come as it was. Mostly she was doing this by not actively thinking about it. That effort was aided greatly by her ability to lie to herself about where she was in relation to the ground. With enough denial, the crystal mare was confident that she could convince her brain’s deep-seated fear of falling to her death at any moment that there wasn’t anything to worry about.

Those efforts would be thoroughly undermined if her eyes fed her brain evidence regarding the pair’s present altitude.

Screaming would give away that this isn’t just a cloud, the crystal noncom reminded herself. Again.

So would puking.

Another bitter swallow of an ever-more-vile tasting breakfast back down her throat.

“...How’d you get through this before?” Corsair asked.

“Get through what?”

The cobalt pegasus frowned and gestured around them with her hoof. “Infiltrating a city like this. Were you like this the last time you did it?”

Shillelagh saw where the misunderstanding was now and shook her head. “Oh, I’ve never done this before, ma’am.”

Corsair blinked. “What.

“But you said—”

“I said that I knew how to get us into Canterlot,” the pegasus’ senior noncom confirmed with a nod. “But I’ve never done it before. Not for real. There weren’t a lot of pegasi that stuck around when Sombra came to power,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“This method is mostly theoretical. But it should get us over Canterlot undetected.”

“Oh.” There was a long moment where the only sound was the rustling of Corsair’s wings as they propelled their little infiltration cloud across the sky. Then, “so you’ve never—?”

“Nope.”

“...How about an airship? Have you ev—?”

“Nope.”

More silence.

“Do you have a plan to deal with it?”

Shillelagh stared ahead of her, appearing unfazed by the question as she answered it. “Say a prayer to The Heart. Close my eyes. Bite down on my hoof to keep from screaming.

“Pissed before we left, so that shouldn’t be a concern.”

Corsair snorted and shook her head. “Thank Celestia for small favors.”

The pegasus ceased flapping and drew her wings close to her body. She poked her head down through the cloud to check their progress. She ignored the sharp inhale from the crystal mare at the visual reminder that the cloud she was standing on with the benefit of the envoy’s spell was still just, you know, a cloud. There was a mumbling sound from the noncom which could have either been a prayer to The Crystal Heart or a self-condemnation regarding her life’s choices.

“We’re over the city,” the pegasus announced after pulling her head back inside. She saw that her senior noncom had closed her eyes tight and didn’t look like she was inclined to open them again any time soon. Corsair managed to not audibly react to the conflicting expressions of relief and dread on the other mare’s face. Relief that her time inside the cloud had finally reached its end…and dreading the same.

She suspected that Shillelagh could hear her smile though. “So, how do you want to do this, Shelly? Want me to let you ‘walk the cloubank’ on your own…?” She noticed the crystal mare’s feature crease even further into a grimace. One of the emerald pony’s legs twitched briefly as she appeared to test whether or not she could manage to take even a single step forward. However, it looked like she couldn’t quite bring herself to trust that, should she lift her hoof away from the cloud, that the cottony surface would deign to support it when she set it back down again.

After what had probably been a few valiant attempts to edge herself forward, the crystal pony finally shook her head in defeat. She wasn’t going to be able to make herself move.

This mare would have bucked Sombra in his face if given half a chance, Corsair thought to herself with a genial roll of her eyes. But get her off the ground…

“Want some help?”

Another pause. A resigned sigh. A self-admission that likely stung the mare’s pride a little bit. Then, finally, a nod of her head. “Yes, ma’am; I’d appreciate—”

Corsair hopped. It was a little one—just enough to break her hooves from contact with the cloud—so that she could realign her own innate pegasus magic. While her kind didn’t ‘cast spells’ in the same way that a unicorn did, they were still bound by some similar constraints. One of which was: they could only perform a single magical feat at a time. Performing a new—especially an incompatible—task required ‘resetting’ their magic. Which meant breaking contact with the cloud to end her ‘spell’.

When the pegasus mare’s hooves made contact with the fluffy white surface again, the floor of their ‘cloud capsule’ vanished in an instant, dispersed into vapor.

The results were immediate as the crystal pony, whose body had been enchanted with a 'cloud walking' spell, suddenly found itself with no cloud to 'walk' on any longer.

“—thaaaAAAAAAAGH—!”

It took First Sergeant Shillelagh a few seconds to get her hoof into her mouth in order to clamp down on it and stifle the screaming.

It took Captain Vought Corsair a few more seconds after that to stop laughing long enough to dive after her.

Nocturne stormed through the Royal Armory. He was not interested this time in being subtle. They didn’t have time for ‘subtle’. Honestly, there was a better than even chance that it was already well past ‘too late’ for anything! So the batpony brushed aside any and all attempts by the ponies in the building to curtail his efforts to reach General Maniple’s office. Anypony who tried to stop him, or ask him about the purpose of his visit, received a brusk “EIS business”, or “Top Secret”, or even the odd “Move out of my bucking way!” as a reward for their efforts.

He didn’t even hesitate for the general’s secretary any longer than was necessary to confirm that Maniple was, in fact, in his office. The earth pony was in the process of trying to physically stop the batpony when Nocturne kicked open the door to the general’s office. In the process, he also managed to deftly turn and bodily throw the colonel who’d tried to stop him into that same office.

“Maniple, you useless fuck!” Nocturne bellowed as he stepped across the groaning earth pony.

The auburn brigadier shot up from his desk in surprise, recoiling back from what could quite understandably be construed as an attempt to assault him. He’d likely have recoiled even further if the general had been aware of how quickly the perceived ‘attempt’ could change into a bona fide act, depending on how he responded to the batpony operative’s questions.

To Maniple’s credit—what little anypony might believe him to be due—he recovered fairly quickly to the violent interruption. He even managed to rally an angry scowl at the intruder. It was not nearly as angry as the batpony’s scowl, but the general also hadn’t had the benefit of the time it took Nocturne to fly over here to really build up his rage. “What in Celestia’s name are you doi—?!”

The operative didn’t let the stallion finish his attempt at furious incredulity. As far as Nocturne was concerned, the general had no grounds upon which he could justify being mad about anything at the moment, with how profoundly he’d screwed up their plans. He leaped across the room, his wings flared wide, and landed—hard—on Maniple’s desk. The sound of wood splitting filled the room, shocking the Frontier Corps’ general into wide-eyed silence.

He slammed the dossier he’d brought with him onto the table, baring his fangs at the earth pony. “Were you born this incompetent; or did you have to work up to it?!” Nocturne demanded of the now trembling officer. He could see the other stallion’s mouth start to move in an attempt to form words, but he didn’t wait for any to actually manifest. The ignorance of the stallion was obvious.

His hoof snapped out and flipped open the personnel file on the desk before slamming down on its pages several times to draw the general’s attention to it. “You told Fetlock the Bronco Company would be good patsies,” he challenged. “You told us there wasn’t anything special about them. That Corsair was a hothead and the others were noponies.

“Does this look like a ‘nopony’ to you?!” The last was loud enough to pinned Maniple’s ears back and make the stallion wince.

Again, Nocturne didn’t wait for the general to actually answer, or even to try and read through the file that had been brought. They didn’t have time to wait for the moronic general’s single, half-functional, brain cell to realize what the batpony already knew. It wasn’t as though he’d come here to get Maniple’s insight into how it was best to proceed with this ‘new’ information. Nocturne already knew that too. He just needed the general’s hoofprint on the order to start the necessary response.

“I-I-I—”

“Corsair’s first sergeant!” Nocturne’s hoof slammed on the file again before flicking away the sheet which was displaying a summary of her service record, revealing her other service record. From before she’d enlisted in the Royal Equestrian Cavalry.

From before there had even been a ‘Royal Equestrian Cavalry’.

“Formally,” the batpony seethed as he slid the sheet in question closer to the general. “Commander ‘Shell Game’ Shillelagh of the Crystal Liberation Army!

“You took a mare who used to lead one of the biggest resistance cells fighting against King Sombra…” Nocturne had moved through the bulk of his rage now. He was on his way to hysterical mirth at the sheer absurdity of what he was being forced to recount. It was simply too unbelievable that he couldn’t help but laugh. In spite of how disastrous the news was for the three of them. “...And you put her right in the middle of our plans!

He swung back to rage once more, snarling at the earth pony. “This pony spent her life outmaneuvering The Black King! Blowing up his checkpoints in the Crystal City was just ‘another day at the office’ for her!

“What the fuck did you honestly think your ‘Frontier Fillyscouts’ were going to be able to accomplish against a team she was leading that Sombra’s whole army couldn’t?!”

Maniple’s face had visibly paled, which the batpony took to be a good sign. It suggested that the general was at least starting to barely glean the extent to which he had fucked up. He was on his way to recognizing his mistakes. And, as any pony with a serious problem knew—and losing track of a terrorist struck Nocturne as a fairly serious problem—the first step in solving an issue was admitting that you had one.

Fortunately for the Frontier Corps’ commander, he wasn’t going to have to worry about figuring out how to muddle through any of the other steps that came after it. Nocturne had decided that he, the only competent pony in the room—maybe even the whole building, now that he thought about it—was going to be making the important decisions from now on.

It was the only way to make sure things didn’t—somehow—get worse.

He leaned in close to the general’s face and growled low. “Get the word out to the Royal Guard. All of them. Give them Shillelagh’s and Corsair’s pictures. Tell them to start searching for them.

“Now.”

“They’re already in the city?!” The grown stallion’s voice came out as little more than a squeak.

“We know she’s on the way!” Nocturne snarled in response. “And considering she used to sneak into the Crystal City when Sombra’d basically turned it into a damn prison; getting into Canterlot would be a stroll in the park for a pony like her!

“Round-the-clock patrols. Street-by-street searches.

“Find. That. Mare!”

“W-what about the others?” Maniple somehow managed to stammer. “The earl’s envoy—?”

“They’ll obviously be with Shillelagh!” The batpony yelled back in exasperation. He felt like he was talking to a foal; it should be obvious to this pony what the plan for the Bronco survivor’s was: Have the pony, who specialized in sneaking ponies into heavily guarded cities, sneak them into the city!

“Find her! She’s the threat! She’s the one who can fuck all of this up for us,” Nocturne said, casting a leathery wing in a striking motion through the air. “Nopony else matters!”

“You’re going to make yourself sick,” Cravat cautioned his fellow cart-puller, though the dappled stallion issued his warning with a smile on his face. “An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but a whole wagon load’ll make your stomach explode.”

The colt in the harness on the other side of the wagon’s tongue paused mid-chew, juices still dribbling down his chin. He considered the stallion’s warning for a moment before swallowing and narrowing his eyes at the dappled pony. “...That can’t happen.” There was just the slightest hint of uncertainty in the Saddle Arabian’s voice.

“Fine,” Cravat shrugged. “Don’t believe a doctor when they tell you how a part of your body works.” He motioned for the two of them to pull forward so as to close the gap that had been left when the cart ahead advanced closer to the city’s gate.

Mesmet eyed the stallion next to him critically for a few long moments. When the pony didn’t react, he snorted and looked back at the cart the two of them were pulling. His tail whipped out and snagged another of the apples that were all but spilling out of the overfull baskets which filled it. With a deft flick, the shiny red piece of fruit was tossed into the horse’s open mouth and he proceeded to chew it loudly, staring at the stallion and challenging him to admonish his eating habits again.

Cravat chuckled. In truth, he didn’t at all begrudge the colt helping himself to as much of the produce that they were delivering to the city as he wanted. It was some of the first decent food that either of them had gotten ahold of since leaving Gallopoli a week ago.

Has it really only been a week? Sun and Moon, it feels like that was a lifetime ago…

Between the two of them—and the three others that they’d parted ways with in Ponyville after Cravat had managed to establish his identity sufficiently at the town’s bank to secure financing for their plan—they’d worked their way through two bushels worth of apples before even leaving Ponyville. Most of those hadn’t been raw, but in pie form at the farm where they’d made the purchase. There’d been something of a waddle in the Arabian’s step by the time the old Apple matriarch had finally been willing to let a ‘growing colt’ leave her house. He’d recovered along the way though, and had even regained some more of his appetite.

‘Growing colt’ indeed, Cravat mused to himself. Mesmet was young enough that, had he been a pony, it wouldn’t have been unusual for him to not have his cutie mark yet, but the Saddle Arabian was already slightly taller than the medic.

They advanced their cart once more.

“Where are we going once we are in the city?” The colt asked in a slightly hushed tone.

“My mother maintains a townhome in the city,” Cravat explained, keeping his own tone casual-sounding, but also low enough so that his words didn’t travel too far. Nothing they were talking about was truly sensitive—they were just two ‘stallions’ chatting to each other while they waited to get their cart through customs, after all—but there was also no reason to talk so loudly as to draw a lot of attention. “We’re going there.”

The dappled pony had tried not to sound like he was dreading the prospect. He really had. He’d not met with a lot of success, and so the colt next to him started looking worried—even he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be worried about. Cravat rushed ahead to assure him.

“Oh, there’s nothing to be worried about. My mother’s a nice enough pony—especially to guests,” he assured the colt. “It’s just me she doesn’t get along with.” The stallion paused. Then he grimaced and rolled his eyes. “Or, rather: I don’t get along with her, I should say. It’s just family stuff.” Noble pony stuff. “We’ll be okay.”

It was finally their turn to be called up by the golden-plate guardpony who was doing the customs inspections. Cravat and Mesmet stepped forward with their cart. The dappled pony dipped his head into his saddlebag and pulled out the bill of lading that had been provided to him by the Apples. The armored white unicorn accepted the offered parchment and started scanning over it while he asked the standard questions. Bronco Company’s experienced in Gallopoli—prior to its sacking, anyway—had familiarized the medic with the process.

To include what ‘red flags’ would get them subjected to more scrutiny than their documentation would stand up to. While the bill of lading for the contents of the cart was genuine, the same could not be said of any of the other papers in their possession.

“Business is Canterlot?” The tone was the ‘professional boredom’ that Cravat was very familiar with. He sounded similar during his ‘sick call’ examinations.

“Delivering apples to Barnyard Bargains,” he replied. It stated as much on the paperwork the guard was looking at.

“Duration of stay?”

“Overnight,” Cravat answered with a shake of his head in the direction of the orange-tinted western sky. “It's going to take a few hours to finish the delivery. We're not keen on traveling back to Ponyville at night.”

“Mm,” was the acknowledging grunt he received from the guard. Then he eyes the pair more critically. Cravat suppressed a nervous swallow even as he mentally reviewed what either he or Mesmet could have done to earn that sort of look. “...Big Mac’s usually the one who does deliveries for Sweet Apple Acres.”

It wasn’t phrased as a question. The guardpony was stating a fact. One that he was intimately familiar with. However, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t still a question that needed to be answered. He wanted to know what there’d been a deviation from the ‘norm’. Deviations from established routines were the quintessential ‘red flag’ during inspections.

Shit.

There was a reason that the Apples had allowed him and Mesmet to make this delivery to Canterlot of course: Cravat had told the family that the two of them had been sent by Barnyard Bargains to pick up the order ahead of schedule because they’d sold out of apples sooner than expected. Unfortunately, the medic was unlikely to be able to use that same explanation now because their identity documents listed them as being Ponyville residents; and it would raise additionaly questions if he told the guard that ponies who lived in Ponyville worked for the Canterlot Barnyard Bargains branch..

“He cracked a hoof while bucking apples,” Cravat eventually decided, doing his best to say it as nonchalantly as possible. Another lie. The big red stallion’s hooves had been perfectly fine when they’d seen him at the farm. "So they contracted out for the delivery this time."

The guard’s brow raised slightly. “Big Mac,” he began, sounding more skeptical than the dappled stallion would have liked. “Cracked a hoof.” The eyebrow rose even further up his head. “While…bucking.”

Again, the words were not given the inflection of a question. The unicorn sounded more like he was simply mulling the words over in his mouth in order to evaluate whether or not those particular words, when uttered in that particular order, actually sounded like a reasonably constructed sentence—and was leaning heavily towards: no. Cravat reacted similarly when he heard ponies in a play discussing serious medical matters, and it was clear that the writers of the script had simply thrown together a collection of terms that sounded serious but weren’t actually a real medical condition. It appeared to the medical pony that he had managed to commit such a verbal faux pas here.

Which was more than just a little frustrating since Cravat knew for a fact that cracked hooves were a fairly common ailment among farmers who harvested fruit trees. It had seemed to him like a perfectly believable explanation. But, then again, he now recalled that Big Mac had indeed been ‘big’. The powerful stallion probably didn’t damage his hooves often, if at all.

Maybe it’d have been a more believable excuse if I'd said it about the orange mare…

The guard’s expression wasn’t quite a scowl as he rounded on the two of them. “Okay, I’m going to need you two to—”

“Sarge!” A mare yelled from beyond the gate. The guard questioning us jerked and looked over his shoulder towards the source of the summons. “Sergeant Bolas!”

A pegasus in golden armor landed hard at the gate, her hooves carving shallow furrows in the ground as she skid to a stop. She was out of breath, panting heavily even as she clambered the rest of the way to the three ponies. The pegasus didn’t so much as glance in Cravat or Mesmet’s direction, her focus squarely on her noncom. “Intruders!” She panted. “Intruders in the city! Two of them! Wanted fugitives—very wanted! Captain needs you; wants you leading a search team.”

Mesmet swallowed and looked over at the dappled stallion next to him. Cravat didn’t notice it right away. His ears were canted forward, picking up on the barely-perceptible increase shouts and yells coming from within the city. Nothing that rose to the level of a ‘panic’, or anything like that. It was a recognizable fervor: guards being roused and rallied to respond to an emergency. Officers were calling for their senior noncoms. Noncoms were mustering their ponies. Marching orders were being issued.

The unicorn that had been questioning the pair of wagon-pullers scowled, glancing briefly away from the newly arrived mare towards Cravat. His own ears were twitching, picking up on the heightened alert that the medic had. His magic thrust the bill of lading at the pegasus. “Take over.” Then he was galloping off to find his captain.

The younger guardmare fumbled briefly with the paper in her wings, holding it up to inspect its contents. She then peeked over the top of it at the cart the pair was pulling, clearly full of apples like it said on their paperwork. The pegasus held the parchment back out to Cravat. “Welcome to Canterlot!” She said with a broad smile that didn’t look too forced and a tone that could have been mistaken for welcoming by anypony who didn’t know that she was just a little stressed. She was doing her best to project an air of: ‘The Royal Guard Has Everything Under Control! So Please Don’t Panic Because That'll Just Make More Work For Me!’

For his part, Cravat was perfectly willing to play dumb. He took the bill of lading back with his mouth and returned it to his saddlebag. “Thanks!” She waved them on ahead and turned her attention to the next wagon in line.

Cravat started directing them towards Canterlot’s Upper Terrace, where his mother’s apartment was. Beside him, Mesmet was looking around nervously, his ears pinned back in worry. “Hey,” the dappled stallion whispered, attracting the colt’s attention. He flashed the horse a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry; they’ll be fine. Top’s done this sort of thing before.”

“I’d be more worried about the ponies that get sent after her…”

Author's Note

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