I charged a line of lances in Maregypt, but now I can’t work up the courage to approach a front door…

Qasam had been pacing and fidgeting in front of the Manehattan stoop for the better part of ten minutes. A couple times now he had made advances on the door, having finally resolved to make his presence known…only to waver at the last moment and retreat back down the steps. More than a few passing ponies had cast inquisitive looks in his direction, trying to puzzle out what the Saddle Arabian in their midst was trying to accomplish.

You are being a silly old horse, Qasam. Just knock!

Knocking was going to be the easy part, of course. It wasn’t the knocking that continuously stayed the horse’s hoof.

It was what would come after. The words.

Words that the recently retired miralay had been spending weeks meticulously crafting, and recrafting, and rerecrafting…because, no matter what words he thought to use, he was unable to see them as anything other than inadequate. His words would inevitably be useless—more than useless, surely. After all, what mere words could possibly suffice in this situation?

And yet…words were all that the old horse had to offer. He was not a rich stallion, and offering money would most certainly be poorly received besides. Forgiveness cannot be bought.

It had to be earned.

He had heard the saying that ‘actions speak louder’ than mere words, but Qasam was also an old stallion, and sick besides. The doctors in Saddle Arabia had proclaimed his heart to be nearing its end. The healing done by the pony doctor in Saddlesbury had bought him a little time, but not much, they’d said. It would only be months—not quite a year, at most—until he’d breathed his last. No time for him to do anything that would matter. Not in this.

Qasam hated that he could offer only words. He hated it more that he couldn’t even offer words that would be satisfying. Everything he wrote down or rehearsed sounded…insufficient.

I could simply leave. They’d never know, the old stallion thought, and not for the first time. It wasn’t like the ponies in the Manehattan townhome were actually expecting him, or even knew who he was. He very much doubted that these ponies would have been told such specific information. Surely saying nothing would burden them less than saying the wrong thing…

The ponies wouldn’t know…but he would. And he was here as much for himself as he was for her. For them.

Qasam wondered, and not for the first time, if that made this whole endeavor selfish? Did it irrevocably taint the words he would end up using, whatever they turned out to be?

He was about to conclude—and not for the first time since leaving for Manehattan—that his motives were ultimately too impure and that it was best for him to leave before he ended up defiling her memory with his selfishness…

…when the door suddenly opened.

The beige unicorn stallion whose salted cyan mane placed him a fair bit past middle aged that had opened the door had clearly not expected to find a horse standing on the other side of it and drew up short as he stared up into the face of the foreign visitor. “Oh! Sorry, can I help you?”

Qasam’s throat had somehow gotten dryer. “I…” You are committed to the charge now; either couch your lance or die. “...was told that I would find a Colonel Bivouac here?”

The stallion issued a soft huff of amusement as he continued to mostly warily regard his visitor. “Long since retired now, but that’s me. How can I help you, Mister…?”

“My name is Qasam.” He didn’t like the slight tremble that he could hear in his own words. He was equally unfond of how every version of the speech he’d prepared for this moment had suddenly slipped from his mind as well. ‘No plan survives contact’ he bitterly thought to himself even as he forced words to continue to spill out of his mouth. Silence wasn’t an option, and so he had to speak!

“I was at Saddlesbury.”

‘A malicious quill can inflict more pain than a barbed lance.’

The old horse had heard the pony saying before, of course. He was seeing the efficacy of the expression play out before him now, as his four simple words struck a visible blow across the face of the unprepared unicorn. The pony’s expression was wiped away in an instant, all sense of curiosity at the purpose of this meeting sublimated by freshly-reignited grief and anger. Qasam saw the flashes behind the pony’s eyes, the maelstrom of emotions that had not had enough time to properly sort themselves out in the weeks since the battle that had claimed the life of his elder sister.

If there was a saving grace to be had, it was that the emotional blow had also appeared to rob the pony of his ability to speak, which meant that Qasam was able to continue on in an attempt to salvage the situation. The old horse lowered himself onto his belly beneath the unicorn and bowed his head in his outstretched hooves.

“I regret what happened,” he verbally fumbled, every utterance twisting his gut as he heard the insufficiency of it, but he pressed on regardless. He had to speak. “I did not desire that battle—it shouldn’t have even happened! Brigadier General Reconnoiter and I were talking—we’d worked out a solution!—and then…

“I collapsed. A failing of my heart,” Qasam bitterly admitted. “I don’t recall much. I am told that the general sent me to her medics. They saved my life—she saved my life.” The knowledge twisted in his heart like a dagger. “...My subordinates—” No, that will sound like an excuse. She deserves better. “...I chose my officers poorly. I failed to instill in them the discipline required for the situation.

“Because of my failings as their miralay, your sister—and so many others—are dead.

“I am sorry.”

This was a mistake.

The silence that followed felt like it dragged on for an eternity, every passing second weighing on him more heavily. It was as though the gods were adding another stone to his back every time his heart beat, watching and waiting for the old horse to simply break beneath the burden building up within him. And yet…Qasam dreaded the end of the silence all the same. Because when it finally ended—and surely it had to—the words would finally come. The pony’s words of condemnation and rebuke. Words of anger—of bitter hatred.

Words that the Arabian deserved—and so much more besides…

He heard the sigh first. Then the words followed. But not the words that Qasam had expected. “‘A saddlebag full of sand is preferable to a heart full of vengeance. It weighs less, and would be more useful besides.’ Or something like that.”

Qasam looked up at the shorter stallion, blinking in surprise as an older Saddle Arabian adage was recited back to him from the pony. The unicorn’s lips effectuated a smile, but there was still the dull ache of loss visible in his eyes. No malice accompanied it though. He gestured with his hoof for the horse on his doorstep to rise. “You should probably get up before the neighbors see. Delilah is pretty nosy and I don’t need her pestering me about why a horse is cow-towing on my doorstep.” The unicorn nodded idly to a townhouse across the street before stepping aside and motioning for his visitor to get up and follow him through the open door.

Still feeling a little bewildered by the unanticipated civility of the pony’s response, Qasam rose and stiffly walked up the short flight up steps. Like most pony homes, the furnishings were noticeably on the smaller side for a horse. It was a little like being in a foal’s playhouse for the Saddle Arabian. So, instead of risking doing harm to the lounger of the living room by laying upon it as the unicorn was motioning for him to do, Qasam instead simply sat down beside it on his haunches.

“Tea?” The pony offered. “I just had a cup.” He gestured to a low table in the middle of the room. A mug was still there, the dregs of the drink it had held still visible at the bottom. It wasn’t the typical sort of cup used for tea-drinking by ponies, Qasam knew. The ‘Blue Balls’ lettering on its side had a slightly more vulgar undertone to it that he’d have expected too. “The leftover water in the pot should still be hot.”

“Thank you. No,” the old horse shook his head, still feeling a little bit in shock.

“Something stronger maybe? It’s not too early for some cider—”

“Colonel—” Qasam tried to start his apology over again, feeling that he must have gotten something quite wrong in his earlier delivery to be getting this sort of reception. Perhaps the unicorn was in shock? Maybe even a little touched in the head…

“Mister.” The correction was firm, but not forceful. “I’m retired. Have been for some time now. But even that’s a little too formal for me these days. I spent a lifetime with everypony calling me ‘colonel’ and ‘sir’ all the damn time.” The chuckle was rueful. “I just want to hear my name for a change.

“So, please: Bivouac. Or even ‘Bivvy’, if you’d like. That’s what most of my friends call me.”

Touched, surely, Qasam thought privately to himself. He can’t possibly think of his sister’s killer as a ‘friend’!

Addled or not, the unicorn deserved a more fitting apology than he’d managed outside, and an offer of fair recompense as well. “...Very well…Bivouac. As I said outside, I was at Saddlesbury. I realize what happened there can not ever truly be forgiven. Brigadier General Reconnoiter—”

“Rico.” Again the correction was not forceful, but there was an insistence behind it that could not be easily overlooked. “Her friends called her Rico.”

‘My friends call me: Rico.’

‘I must like you, miralay.’

The memory pained the stallion more than his heart attack had. The image of the smiling face of the older powder blue mare, relieved at having found a way for them to avoid bloodshed, flashed through his mind—a heartbeat later he saw that same face misshapen and bloody in the sand and he winced. Qasam was forced to blink away the moisture he felt building up behind his eyes.

It would have been a closed-casket funeral, the horse thought to himself. A military officer would have realized why that was so. That his sister had not simply died, but that her body—her face—had been mutilated beyond decency.

“I was in Maregypt, you know.” The non-sequitur statement caught Qasam off guard. He could only stare in silence at the beige unicorn as he continued to speak. “Both of us were. Not in the same unit, obviously, but we both saw a little action while we were there.

“I know what it looks like when horses and ponies fight, Qasam. So did Rico.” The unicorn looked at him now, staring into his eyes for several long, silent seconds. Then, “...So do you. Even before Saddlesbury. I can see it in your eyes.” The horse trusted himself only to nod.

“They told me what happened,” the pony continued. “A couple of Rico’s battalion commanders—what they knew, anyway. They came by for the funeral.

“They said you and her met to talk. Before the fight.”

Qasam nodded again. This time, he even managed to find his voice. “We reached an arrangement,” he said. “A way to avoid a battle.” Those last words tasted bitter, knowing how the effort had turned out.

A sad smile made a valiant attempt to work its way across the beige stallion’s muzzle, and even managed to achieve a margin of success. “Good. I’m glad. That probably made her really happy that you two did that.”

Another vision of a baby blue face with a broad smile.

A bloodied corpse mashed into the sandbar.

“It didn’t matter.” Qasam was unable to withhold the bitterly spat words.

“It mattered.” There was such a finality to the statement, that the retired miralay was once more drawn to regard the unicorn pony sitting across from him in the room. “It always matters when we try.

“How much worse would things have been if you hadn’t?”

A purple mare clad in battered and bloody armor, looking up at him as he walked by, holding the corpse of her friend in her hooves. Orange eyes swearing vengeance as they watched him pass.

They wouldn’t have surrendered.

Qasam didn’t manage to form an answer to the pony’s question. Which was fine, as it had been rhetorical anyway. Both of them knew the answer already. They’d seen it, playing out across a broad desert in a foreign land, long ago.

“...Tell me about her?” The horse tentatively ventured. “About…Rico?”

The unicorn’s expression creased slightly with the telltale signs of a grief that was still quite raw. He reached out and took the empty mug in front of him into his hooves, holding it for several silent seconds. Qasam started to doubt that he’d be granted his request.

Then the pony’s horn started to glow. It reached out for a photo album that was sitting out in the open, clearly having already been revisited quite recently. The binder opened up on the low table and turned so that the horse could see the pictures within. The first one that his eyes locked onto was of a much younger—but still immediately recognizable—Reconnoiter wearing a brilliant white military uniform that was bereft of just about any pin, medal, or decoration. Her expression was stern, the mare’s features drawn into serious lines as she faced a similarly younger-but-familiar beige stallion dressed in an identical—if more prolifically adorned—uniform as she rendered a form-perfect salute to her sibling-superior.

The photo next to it featured the same two ponies, though now Rico was being held in the tight embrace of an obviously proud and beaming Bivouac. All semblance of formality and seriousness had been cast aside as both ponies grinned broadly at the camera, though the mare’s expression was strained slightly as a consequence of her elder sibling’s hoof appearing to rub furiously into her mane.

“She told me that I’d be the one saluting her someday,” Bivouac said, a fond—though obviously quite fragile—smile resting on his lips. “I believed her too.” His telekinetic aura flipped several pages ahead and highlighted an image. Both siblings were considerably older now. Rico’s uniform was speckled with the flecks of silver, gold, and precious stones of a generous quantity of awards and commendations. A pristine crimson sash glittered brightly in the sun. The beige stallion was standing across from her, looking appropriately serious as he now saluted his sibling-superior.

Again, the photo next to it mirrored the shift in tone from the first pair the horse had been shown, with both unicorns holding each other tightly, their cheeks squished up against each others’ as they both grinned broadly at the camera. Her hoof was now planted in his own much thinner mane. The miralay's eyes found it hard to look away from the familiar joyful creases in those blue cheeks.

“She had a nice smile,” Qasam softly said as he looked at the image.

“Yes,” Bivouac agreed. “She did.”

The two old stallions spent the rest of that evening talking about the things that had made Rico smile.

Corsair tapped her hoof on the doorframe of the modest hospital suite.

The room’s sole occupant glanced up from the book that she’d been reading, her muzzle breaking out into a broad smile when she identified her visitor. The older emerald mare slipped a bookmark between the pages before closing it and setting the book aside to give the new arrival her full attention. “Good morning, captain!”

The wince that passed across the pegasus’ face was too brief for the noncom to catch, hidden behind a grin of her own; though one that was far more forced in nature than the one the crystal mare wore. “It’s actually after noon,” she said as she stepped into the room.

Shillelagh balked for a brief moment, her gaze darting towards the window as she took note of the sun’s relative position. “Huh. So it is.” Her eyes then turned back to the closed book in front of her on the bed, specifically taking stock of how many pages further along the bookmark was compared to when she’d opened it that day. A small frown creased her lips. “I don’t suppose A.K. Yearling is going to be publishing a new Daring Do book in another day or so? Apparently I’m about to finish the series.”

“I didn’t know you were a Daring Do fan,” Corsair remarked as she finally entered the suite, sitting down on her haunches by the side of the bed. She craned her head to peer at the cover of the book, noting that it was indeed the latest publication in the widely popular adventure series.

“I wasn’t,” Shillelagh clarified with a shrug. “Used to have better things to do with my time. Then I found myself laid up in a hospital for the better part of a month.

“I needed something to do in between yours and the counselor’s visits, so I asked the nurse for book recommendations.” She patted the cover with her hoof. “I have to admit, I do see the appeal: a hero braving adversity to accomplish something important that’ll change the world. Or, at the very least, keep it from ending,” the crystal mare added with a wry smile. “Can’t imagine what that’s like…”

Corsair chuckled. Then her expression became more thoughtful. “Have you ever thought about writing a book of your own?” She ventured, tentatively. “An autobiography or something? You’ve led a more ‘exciting’ life than most ponies, you know. Especially the stuff from when you were in The Resistance.”

The crystal mare’s muzzle crinkled up as she thought over the pegasus’ proposal, but she was soon shaking her head. “Nah. I’m not much for writing. At least not anything that’s not an after-action report. Plenty of other ponies fought against Sombra; at least one of them has to be better at writing than I am. Let them tell that story.”

The cobalt blue mare hesitated briefly. Then, “...I’m sure you’d do fine with a little practice. Invest some time. Find an editor. You wouldn’t have any trouble getting an interested publisher, I bet.”

Shillelagh regarded her commanding officer with a mild frown now, finally taking the time to more acutely study the other mare’s features. They’d been together long enough that the crystal mare could tell when something wasn’t being said. “I imagine that I’d be a little too busy to write,” the emerald noncom’s tone was more even now as she watched for her commander’s reaction to what she was saying. “What with me having a whole company to run and all.” There was another pause, followed by a deepening of her frown. “Assuming command ever gets around to talking to me about my next assignment.

“Lately, it’s been nothing but Cavalry doctors telling me about how old I am and how rough my recovery’s going to be,” the older mare gave a derisive snort. “Like I haven’t been fucked up worse than this while I was fighting Sombra…” She managed to flash the pegasus another smile.

She’d been anticipating receiving a vote of encouragement from her commander. Words of agreement that the doctors shouldn’t underestimate the seasoned fighter. Maybe even an offer from the Frontier Corps officer to put in a recommendation with some of the corps’ senior officers regarding Shillelagh’s resilience and experience.

What the crystal mare hadn’t expected, was for the pegasus to agree with them.

“...Maybe you should look into that, Top.” Corsair was staring down at the cover of the book in front of the crystal pony so that she at least wasn’t staring at the floor or her hooves. Celestia knew that she couldn’t bring herself to look Shillelagh in the eyes. She didn’t want to see the look of betrayal that she knew would be there waiting for her.

Shillelagh wasn’t smiling anymore. Instead her face was a mask of concern. “What do you know, ma’am?”

Another wince, this time it was far less well concealed. There wasn’t much point to hiding anything anymore, after all. “I know that you don’t need to call me ‘ma’am’ anymore,” she finally relented with a defeated sigh. “Or ‘captain’, or anything else like that.

“They finalized my discharge yesterday.”

“They what?” Shillelagh had thought that she’d prepared herself to hear anything. She hadn’t expected that. She couldn’t understand it. Her commanding officer—former, apparently—had been sacked?! “Why? I thought they’d cleared everything up,” she protested, her brow still furrowed in confusion. “Didn’t you tell me that the board cleared you—cleared all of us—of any wrongdoing?”

Corsair was nodding even before the other mare had completed her indignant response, having broadly anticipated this sort of reaction. She’d mostly gone through a similar reaction herself when approached by the small cadre of officers she’d spoken with a little over a week ago about this matter.

The night of their infiltration into Canterlot had been something of a rollercoaster of emotions; for all concerned. Corsair had barely been in her holding cell for more than a couple of hours before a pair of Night Guards came by to retrieve her and escort her to the palace, where the pegasus had been debriefed by the princesses. It became immediately apparent to Corsair that they’d heard most of the story about what had happened at Gallopoli from Cravat, given that the questions they asked her were specific to several events that couldn’t have been known otherwise—such as the descriptions of the creatures that had been waiting for her and her group in Trotter’s Bend.

Corsair had provided the most thorough—and, of course, truthful—answers that she could. Any time she was offering conjecture, the pegasus was sure to stress that what she was saying was simply a guess and supplied reasons for why she’d come to those conclusions. What she didn’t do was level hard accusations.

The bottom line was that she didn’t have any actual proof about who was behind the whole affair. All of the ‘evidence’ that she or the others had was entirely circumstantial, and there were a dozen other equally plausible explanations that could account for the otherwise damning ‘coincidences’ that Bitter Creek and Maniple would no doubt be leaning into hard to support their own claims of innocence. If Corsair’s testimony was going to be of any real use against them, it would have to look as objective and as unbiased as possible, which meant avoiding attributing actual malice towards anypony unless she could cite bona fide facts to support her claims—which she couldn’t.

That had turned out to be merely the first of several interviews, though none of those that followed involved Their Royal Majesties themselves. Most were with the Director of the Equestrian Intelligence Service. The specificity of the weathered batpony’s questions had certainly proved her suitability for the position she held.

After the EIS was done debriefing her, Corsair was then passed over into the custody of a Court Martial for a review of what was being referred to in official proceedings as: ‘The Gallopoli Incident’. Each time she heard that name, Corsair felt her blood pressure spike. It hadn’t been an ‘incident’; what had taken place that night had been a massacre—a slaughter. A butchering of innocent horses and good ponies.

But, to make it digestible for citizens and politicians alike, it was a mere ‘incident’ in the reports and articles that were now circulating around Equestria, and likely the world at large.

Just as with the princesses and the EIS, the Court Martial had had many questions for Corsair. Most had been the same questions, just being approached from different angles. The triumvirate of generals presiding over her case—of which, interestingly enough, Brigadier General Maniple had not been a part—had been mostly concerned with her tactical choices: how she had set up her company’s sentries and watches. How many ponies had been assigned to patrols. What the spacing and intervals had been.

Essentially, they’d been evaluating whether or not the town or her ponies getting ambushed had been her fault.

At first, Corsair had been incensed. She’d assumed that the board of bench-warming generals had been looking to hang her out to dry as the reason why the horses of Gallopoli had died; as though she were expected to have done more to prepare for the sort of underhoofed ambush that nopony could reasonably have seen coming. An ambush that had been tailor-made for her by her own superiors back in Canterlot.

However, after a record-setting three hours for what was surely the shortest Court Martial in Royal Cavalry history, the board had proclaimed Corsair and her ponies completely blameless for the whole affair and closed the inquiry. She was officially absolved of any blame in the debacle. The pegasus captain’s military acumen was not found wanting and none would be able to say that she hadn’t done the best she could for her ponies or the horses of Gallopoli.

Save for herself, at least…

Then the other horseshoe had dropped.

If there’d been anything approaching a silver lining, it had been that Major Gladius—one of the few officers in the Frontier Corps that Corsair genuinely respected—had been the one to lay out her options. Or rather, more accurately: deliver the Cavalry’s ultimatum. For that was what it had effectively been.

Sure, on the surface, it looked like a perfectly amicable ‘choice’: Corsair could return to duty with her cleared name and restored record, or—and there had been no subtlety in the major’s stressing that this was the preferred option—she could accept an otherwise unprecedented ‘retirement’. It had been an offer which had confused Corsair at first, if only because the pegasus knew that she was many years away from having logged enough time in the service to be entitled to receive a pension—she was over a decade short of having the years required in fact. Besides that, her career had, in many ways, only just begun. There was plenty of time yet for her to climb the ranks and retire later at a much higher rate of pay for her pension.

So why, under Celestia’s golden sun, would she ever choose to get out now?

That was when Gladius had, quite bluntly, explained what her future in the Cavalry would be like if she stayed in. It was good that the major—a pony Corsair would even go so far as to consider a friend as much as he was a superior—had been the one to talk to her about this. Had it been anypony else, the pegasus probably would have bucked them square in the jaw—regardless of their rank.

The cobalt mare had briefly wondered if that had been the real reason Gladius had been saddled with the task of breaking the news to her: he was the most likely officer to leave the room unharmed after delivering the offer.

“I was cleared,” she confirmed with a nod, still not looking up from the cover of the novel as she relived the conversation that she’d had with Gladius. “This wasn’t punitive,” the bitter tone she used around that word made it clear that the semantics at play weren’t much consolation. “The Cavalry was actually doing me a ‘favor’.” Again, her tone left little doubt as to her perspective on the whole affair.

“My record—my official record—is clean, sure,” she said with a heavy sigh, “but that doesn’t change the fact that everypony knows what happened in Gallopoli: that my last command was wiped out, nearly to a pony.”

“That wasn’t your fault, ma’am,” Shillelagh reflexively insisted. Celestia bless the mare’s heart, she meant it too. Maybe there was even some truth to it.

If only the truth mattered…

“Would you have signed on with a resistance cell in the Empire if you heard that its leader was the only pony to make it out of their last op alive?” The cobalt pegasus asked of her—former—senior noncom. The wince visible on the crystal mare’s face was all the answer Corsair needed. It was the reaction she’d expected. “No battalion in the Corps wants me. I’m cursed goods.

“And, if the Corps can’t find me an assignment…” Corsair didn’t finish the thought. She didn’t need to. Shillelagh was familiar with the Cavalry’s ‘get up or get out’ policy where it came to career advancement. There was no room in any branch of the Cavalry for an officer—or a higher-ranking non-commissioned officer, for that matter—who was simply languishing around and not ‘pulling their weight’ by trying to advance and better their career in some way. If Corsair couldn’t get a new assignment, then she’d have been discharged anyway; and not in a way that would have qualified her for any sort of pension, given her lack of accrued years.

It was around this time that the pieces all finally clicked into place for Shillelagh too. She muttered a curse under her breath through her own resigned sigh. “...The medical discharge.”

The pegasus was nodding. “Unlike me, you have the years to retire—what with the Cavalry crediting you your time in the Empire,” she pointed out. “But this way you can collect a little extra ‘disability’ on top of the pension.

“They’re trying to help you.”

The sour expression on Shillelagh’s face made it plain that she didn’t particularly care for the Corps’ flavor of ‘help’ any more than the pegasus did. Yet, at the same time, the crystal pony recognized exactly what her former commander had: there was no fighting this. It was going to happen, and they could either accept the sugar cube being offered or swallow the bitter pill on its own.

A mirthless chuckle rumbled from deep in the older mare’s throat, earning a curious look from the pegasus. “I don’t know why I didn’t see this coming,” Shillelagh said with a sigh. “I already went through this once. Shouldn’t be surprised it’s happening again.

“You ever wonder why I signed up with the Equestrian Cavalry and not the Imperial Guard?” The crystal mare asked upon seeing the confused look she’d gotten from the pegasus. She didn’t hesitate long before answering her own rhetorical question. “It was pretty much for the exact same reason you just said: nopony there wanted me.

“I was ‘politically inconvenient’.”

Now it was Corsair’s turn to balk. “What are you talking about? You led a resistance cell against King Sombra—one of the more successful, from what I heard! How were you not some kind of national hero in the Empire?”

“Because nearly every single one of Sombra’s soldiers was a crystal pony thrall,” Shillelagh replied simply, a wan smile slowly appearing on her muzzle. “They hadn’t wanted to serve him. Everypony we were fighting against were just…innocent ponies made to wear mind-controlling armor.

“But they also wouldn’t have hesitated to kill any of us on sight if we gave them half a chance. It’s hard to win a fight if you’re holding back while your opponent’s playing for keeps,” she explained, her tone somber—a little detached, even—her gaze was unfocused. Distant. “We had so much working against us already. If we’d piled on trying to take his thralls down without hurting them too badly…”

She shook her head. “We were targeting military assets: armories, supply convoys, guard posts, prison camps…dead thralls were inevitable.” Another brief pause. Now it was hard for the crystal mare to look at Corsair. “We told ourselves it was all: ‘acceptable collateral damage’. That those ponies’ deaths would be remembered as ‘sacrifices for the cause’.

“The price of freedom—for all of us…”

Shillelagh took a deep breath. “When the Empire reappeared and Princess Cadance defeated Sombra for good, we were finally free. We could start to rebuild—to heal. We could talk about what happened. Try to reconcile some of it. Only…

“How do you ‘reconcile’ telling an orphan that you killed their mind-controlled parents ‘for the good of the Empire’?” Shillelagh’s laugh was mirthless and bitter. “As a new ruler of an empire, do you really want to celebrate that? Could you imagine giving out medals to the ponies who killed hundreds—thousands—of your citizens’ loved ones? You certainly don’t throw them a parade or call them ‘heroes’!”

“Realistically, everypony understood that it was all Sombra’s fault; not ours,” she went on. “He’d enslaved us. He’d enthralled our friends and families. Used our own citizens as living shields to protect himself. It was by design.

“Everypony understood. Deep down,” she repeated. There was a pause. Then, “...But they still didn’t want to be reminded of it. They certainly didn’t want to see ponies who’d killed their families getting medals.

“Every one of us—the ponies who played leadership roles in the various cells—were quietly encouraged to lay low and keep out of the public eye. Maybe—or even especially—pack up and start new lives elsewhere.

“They didn’t tell us to leave,” she carefully stressed while wearing a sardonic smirk, “but there was also a rather generous ‘relocation allowance’ offered to any of us who decided we wanted to emigrate. Enough to get settled pretty much anywhere in Equestria we wanted to. There was even an extra-large allowance for anypony who left the continent altogether.”

The crystal mare was quiet again for a time, looking as though she were contemplating the book in front of her. “...At least they’re not trying to buck me out of the country this time.”

“Yeah. At least there’s that.”

In all honesty, Corsair wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say in response to any of that. Shillelagh had been right: she hadn’t ever asked about why the crystal mare was serving in Equestria and not the Empire. She’d mostly just taken it for granted—assumed that the older mare had simply wanted a change of scenery. It wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of crystal ponies who hadn’t transplanted themselves into Equestria for various reasons. Some had done it in order to escape bitter memories of Sombra’s tormentous rule, sure; but there were plenty who had emigrated for the same reasons that anypony did: taking on a new job, marriage and family, retirement, or just about any other reason one could imagine.

But to hear that the Empire had—if only very politely—all but banished their more ‘politically inconvenient’ ponies…

Perhaps, in light of recent developments, maybe it actually wasn’t so hard to believe, Corsair decided.

At least all they wanted in my case was for me to leave the service…

Realistically, Corsair knew that she could have fought against it. But to what end? Whatever the truth of the matter was, the pegasus had a new reputation within the Cavalry now. She was no longer the ‘firebrand pegasus with a temper’. She was the captain who’d led her company into a trap and gotten them all killed. Whether it had been her fault or not—and she saw now that the Court Martial’s goal had specifically been to make sure the official record reflected that it hadn’t been her fault—the stigma was still there. It would always be there, regardless of what some generals wrote down in a report.

At the end of the day, this really was probably her best option.

“...Maybe I should write a book,” Shillelagh said with a soft sigh, still looking at the novel in front of her. “Heart knows I’ll have a lot of free time on my hooves.” She glanced over at the pegasus. “What about you, ma’am?” It seemed some habits weren’t going to be broken in an hour. “How are you going to spend your ‘golden years’?”

It had been meant as a joke to try and bring some levity to the otherwise dreary mood that had settled over the room. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as successful as the crystal mare might have hoped. Mostly because Corsair didn’t have much of an answer. “I genuinely don’t know, Shelly. I didn’t have much of an answer before I commissioned. The Cavalry was supposed to be what I did with my life—my career—and now…”

She offered up a helpless shrug—and the pegasus did feel the next best thing to helpless right now. “I just don’t know.

“Short term: I’ll move back in with my folks,” she said. “Just for a little while. Give myself time to adjust to civilian life. Figure out where to go from there.” It was plainly obvious that the pegasus wasn’t looking forward to any of this; there simply weren’t that many other options. “I think my dad would like having me around anyway. He always complained that I never wrote home enough.” Which was probably true, Corsair acknowledged.

“You’ll figure something out, ma’am,” Shillelagh said with confidence.

Another little smile touched the pegasus’ lips. “I already told you, Shelly: I’m discharged. I’m not an officer anymore. You don’t have to call me: ‘ma’am’.”

The crystal mare chuckled and looked at the cobalt flier. “I never called you ‘ma’am’ because of your rank, Vee. I do it because you have my respect. That didn’t disappear with your uniform.”

“I appreciate that; it means a lot.” And it did.

The two mares were silent for a long moment. Then Corsair spoke up once more. “Do you ever think about them? The ponies in your cell that…didn’t make it?”

“All the time,” the emerald pony admitted soberly.

More silence.

“Does talking really help?”

In the wake of everything that had happened, the Cavalry had sent Corsair to speak with a counselor. All of the survivors had been required to attend a couple of evaluations, if only to determine their fitness for continued service—Corsair didn’t know if this had been done before the higher-ups had made the decision to quietly push them out of the Cavalry or not. While the pegasus had been given the all-clear after a few sessions, the pony she’d been sent to speak with had encouraged her to continue to attend additional sessions regardless.

“To help you process any lingering feelings of guilt or loss that might be troubling you,” had been the cited reasoning. Corsair had politely said that she’d consider it, while internally resolving not to. That had been several weeks ago.

She’d also been advised to reach out if she found herself experiencing any additional issues, such as trouble sleeping or nightmares. Corsair had not.

Reached out, that is.

Shillelagh regarded her former commander for a long moment before nodding. “It can.” She put her hoof on the book in front of her on the bed and pushed it aside. Then she shifted herself around to better face the pegasus. “Is there anything in particular that you’d like to talk about, ma’am?”

Corsair’s lip twitched slightly. Then she nodded. “I’ve been working on a letter for the last few days. It’s for Lumier’s family,” she explained. “The trouble is, I’m honestly not even sure how to start it.

“I’ve written ‘those’ kinds of letters before.” The crystal mare didn’t need the pegasus to elaborate on what kind of letter she meant. “But this isn’t that. I want to write a real letter. I just…” Corsair gave an almost helpless shrug as she sat before the older emerald mare. Shillelagh was one of the few ponies that the flier would allow to see her being this vulnerable and indecisive. “...I don’t know what to say—what I could say—that would even matter.

“You know?”

“I do,” Shillelagh said with an understanding nod. “And while I don’t know how good I’d be at giving writing advice,” she cautioned while wearing a wry smile, “I can commiserate with the best of them.” She paused in thought for a moment. Then her smile broadened slightly. “You remember his first day in the company? I bet he wished he could do it all over again,” she said with a small chuckle.

It was Corsair’s turn to offer a little snort of her own. “We were both out of uniform coming back from the gym. He thought you were the CO.” She thought for a moment. “All things considered, he’d prepared a good introduction speech. It wasn’t as impressive when he delivered it the second time. Probably because of all the embarrassing blushing and stuttering.

“The blushing only got worse the next few days after he accidentally called me ‘Captain Corset’ during a morning briefing.” The pegasus mare rolled her eyes at the memories that had grown fonder with age. “I was sure his call-sign was going to end up being ‘Rosie’ or something because of how red his cheeks always were those first couple of weeks.”

“He found his footing eventually,” Shillelagh said with a smile of her own as she recalled the memories. “He shaped up into a fine XO.”

“He did. Best one I ever had,” Corsair agreed. Her features fell. “I don’t think I ever actually told him that, now that I think about it.” The regret in her voice was palpable. “I was going to write him one tartarus of a review though. Planned to ask Gladius to fast-track him for captain.”

“He would have made a good company commander,” the crystal mare agreed with a nod.

“I wrote him up for a Celestia Cross. Before they gave me the punt. Did it for all of them.” Another helpless shrug. “Doubt any of them will actually get it.” She gave a derisive snort. “Doubt anypony will bother to even read the recommendations in the first place now that I’m out.”

Getting her ponies one of the nation’s highest military honors was a known longshot. Typically a pony had to do something that placed them into a history book to merit receiving something like that. Realistically, her ponies would get a Pink Heart and some generic commendation medal of one sort or another. The Cavalry wouldn’t think of any of them as being ‘heroes’. Not in the commonly understood sense of the word.

But they were heroes to her. So she’d written out recommendations for each of her ponies.

“I don’t know that I particularly care whether or not the Cavalry thinks they deserve it,” Shillelagh said. “Not a huge fan of the Cavalry’s opinions in general at the moment, to be honest.” This earned the crystal mare a snort of agreement from the pegasus. “Whatever some general somewhere decides doesn’t change what the two of us know right here,” she tapped her chest with a hoof. “You did right by your ponies, ma’am. You always did.”

“Thanks, Shelly.”

There was silence for a few seconds, broken by the crystal mare snorting with amusement. “‘Captain Corset’,” she sniggered. “Ma’am, did I ever tell you what LaFarrier called me the first time we met? Now, I don’t know if you know this about the Prench language, but they pronounce a lot of letters way different from how Equestrians did a thousand years ago. So when he’d only seen my name written down and then tried to actually say it for the first time…”

Baron Muslin Cravat made a quick mental tally, and not for the first time that evening as he took another fortifying drink from the glass pressed lightly between his hooves. It was approximately the same color as the crystal berry wine that all of the guests were being served; however, Lavender had him the courtesy of substituting a much harder cider when she refilled his glass. The stallion found that the greater concentration of alcohol helped him put up with the evening’s inanity.

We’d have been better off just cutting a check ourselves, the dappled earth pony thought to himself, and hardly for the first time that evening. It probably wouldn’t be the last time either. Not that the total number of bits being raised is really even the point now, is it?

Somewhere in Equestria there was a group of Filly Scouts selling home-baked muffins in order to gather bits to pay for their upcoming trip to the Crystal Fair. Or an off-Bridleway performance being put on to fund the continued operation of a town’s community center. Maybe even a cart wash raising money for a team’s new hoofball uniforms.

What all of those events would have in common with each other—and which the current evening’s festivities did not—was that the initial investment in the fund-raising activity wasn’t going to end up eclipsing the amount which was ultimately raised in pursuit of the event’s stated goal.

Crystal berry wine, Minosian oat cakes, exotic Zebrican fruits…all told, tens of thousands of bits had been spent on event refreshments alone. Then there was the cost of decorating the repurposed ballroom for the event—which had reused exactly none of the decorations from any earlier events held that year, because doing so would have been absolutely ‘scandalous’! The wages for the extra staff that had been hired on to tend to all of the guests. There was also the factored in cost of all the artwork being auctioned which, while not a price which had been paid recently, the earth pony stallion reasoned shouldn’t be overlooked in the end.

Cravat took an extra-long sip of his drink as he watched a well-dressed duke write down a bid on a portrait of Celestia. A portrait which the dappled gray pony recalled his mother had acquired some years ago at a similar ‘charity’ auction held by the duke in question.

He shifted from his position just enough to glimpse the bid that the other pony had written down and promptly finished off his glass when he saw that the amount offered was substantially lower than what he knew his mother had paid for it. Lavender trotted by and discreetly refilled him without a word.

The young count reminded himself that, whatever the stated nature of this event might be, it possessed an alternate actual purpose: recouping the political capital which had recently been spent to oust Bitter Creek from his ministerial position. Tonight wasn’t really about raising bits to support Gallopoli orphans and refugees. It was actually intended to repay members of the Noble Stable for the votes that Duchess Golden Hour had asked them to cast in the latest political shake-up by giving them a chance to reclaim previously relinquished property at a considerable discount.

I hate politics.

“There you are, beloved!”

Cravat managed to suppress a grimace at the sound of the otherwise pleasant soprano voice calling out to him from a short distance away. He buttressed a warm smile of his own into place before he turned to greet the peach-colored unicorn mare who was trotting towards him, a dress of sheer magenta fabric billowing around her hocks. His eyes briefly darted towards the well-built jet black stallion following in his fiancée's wake before focusing back on the mare.

The pair exchanged a public nuzzle that was expected of two young ponies due to be married in just a few more weeks. The dappled count closed his eyes to keep himself from visibly looking at the other stallion when he noted the scent of the cologne on her neck that was just barely perceptible beneath the more recently applied perfume.

“I’m so sorry for being late,” Equestria’s current preeminent Bridleway actress went on, executing what Cravat conceded was a singularly flawless performance in her role as a prospective bride talking with the love of her life. “It simply took me forever to get my dress to sit right,” she explained, briefly pouting at the alleged offending garment. “I fear that the hemline wasn’t stitched as evenly as it looked at first glance. I’ll likely need to get it looked at again.

“I just wanted to make sure I was looking my best for you!” The peach mare performed an elegant twirl in front of the stallion before flashing him a sultry expression worthy of her three-time Pony Award-winning acting career.

While the young count might not have had the benefit of a cadre of acting coaches tutoring him during his youth, his upbringing in noble politics had provided him with an ability to feign emotions and expression which rivaled any professional actors, and so Cravat was able to favor his intended with a broad smile of his own as he leaned in and gave her a peck on the muzzle. “You are an absolute vision, Holly.”

He then spared a moment to formally recognize the other pony with her, nodding towards the golden-maned unicorn stallion. “Friesian.”

“My lord,” his fiancée's chauffeur inclined his head in a polite bow.

“Friesy, do be a dear and fetch me a drink, please?” The peach mare asked in an off-hoofed manner, not taking her gaze off her betrothed. “And some hors d’oeuvres, as well. You know what I like.”

Cravat very nearly bit off his own tongue in his effort not to let off a mocking cackle at the double-entendre. Instead, he had somehow managed to keep smiling warmly at the mare while her—for some reason as of yet unacknowledged—cavalier slipped off to do as he’d been instructed.

The stallion was a new addition to Cravat’s household staff, at his fiancée's invitation. In anticipation of the upcoming wedding and their imminent cohabitation, Count High Rock’s daughter had brought several members of her family’s staff onto Cravat’s own. Maids she already had friendships with, attendants who knew how she liked her mane and hooves done…

…And her personal ‘chauffeur’. An obsidian black unicorn stallion with a long flowing golden mane and a thick accent that suggested he was a recent transplant from Flankfurt. A pony whom, according to Holly Rose, possessed ‘more stamina than any stallion who’d ever driven her around’.

Cravat suspected that the mare genuinely believed that she was being circumspect with the remark.

“There’s the stallion of the hour!” A familiar—as well as a quite welcome—voice declared, distracting Cravat away from any temptation he might have had to make an untoward remark and focusing his attention in the direction of two approaching ponies.

One was a gracefully trotting teal unicorn mare wearing a purple cloak that was held in place around her neck by a sun-and-moon broach. The collar had an embroidered fusion of the Equestrian Principality and Griffonstone flags on it.

At her side was a fiery orange unicorn stallion sporting a fresh military uniform. However, it was not the crisp white dress uniform of the Royal Equestria Cavalry. Instead it was the silver-trimmed midnight black of the Mission Guard, a cadre of ponies who were tasked with protecting Equestria’s embassies and officials beyond the principality’s borders. They were a little bit like the Night Guard’s version of the Frontier Corps, in that they tended to operate outside of Equestria.

“I was wondering if His Lordship was ever going to be able to find time for us ‘common ponies’ this evening.”

Autumn Brisk flashed the pony next to her a mildly reproachful look before giving him a stern nudge with her shoulder. “Flashover; be nice!”

“Oh, come on, Autumn; Cravat knows I’m just messing around. Right?” The young stallion grinned broadly between the pair. Then his expression shifted into one which the dappled stallion was pretty sure the unicorn intended to be ‘suave’ as he allowed his attention to shift to the peach unicorn at Cravat’s side. “Holly Rose,” he said with a not-so-subtle waggle of his eyebrows before he bowed low towards her, “I’m a huge fan of your work.

“In fact—and I know you must get this all the time and I hate to be ‘that stallion’—if it’s not too much trouble, could you maybe sign this picture I have of you?” His horn lit as he drew forth a glossy photograph from within the breast of his uniform’s coat. There was a very briefly horrified expression on Autumn Brisk’s face until she caught sight of the photo’s composition, after which she let out a relieved sigh. The stallion floated over a simple and tasteful ‘glamor shot’ of the Bridleway actress.

The teal mare’s reaction had not gone unnoticed by her companion however, who gave her a wry smirk. “What?”

“Nothing,” Autumn Brisk insisted before turning her own attention fully back towards the couple they’d come over to see. “Baron Cravat. Lady Rose,” she lightly emphasized with a non-look in her companion’s direction. “Thank you for the invitation to this lovely party.”

“If anypony can appreciate what we’re trying to do here, it’s ponies who were there,” Cravat managed to say with a mostly straight face. Unlike himself, his two comrades likely didn’t quite realize how askew the scales were when it came to the theatrics of this event compared to how ‘productive’ it was going to be on the actual charity end of things. Ultimately, a considerable number of bits would be raised for the benefit of the affected Saddle Arabians. However, that amount would actually pale in comparison to what was being spent to host it.

I really hate politics.

“Aren’t I lucky to have found a stallion with such a noble heart?” Holly Rose gushed even as her magic took hold of the headshot that Flashover offered. “And I always have time for a patron of the arts!” The orange unicorn had even come prepared with a quill, which he also passed to the mare. “Who should I make this out to, gener…erm, colonel—?”

The noble mare’s otherwise flawless lines faltered as her eyes darted to the stallion’s chest and failed to locate any sign of an officer’s sash. Nor could she spy any glints of metal on his collar. Flashover eventually supplied the answer she was seeking along with a shrug of his chevron-emblazoned foreleg sleeve. “Corporal Flashover. But if you could actually make it out to: ‘My Dearest Flashy?’” He tentatively ventured.

Once more Cravat’s fiancée proved her acting chops by managing to keep her beaming smile in place as she signed her autograph for the low-born stallion that was—likely to her—inexplicably at a party for nobles and wealthy patrons. She returned both the photo and the quill to the uniformed pony—who spent several seconds appearing to visibly consider whether or not it would be publicly acceptable for him to sniff it—before turning her attention to the other mare.

Cravat felt his fiancée actually seem to relax slightly now that she was faced with somepony that possessed at least some amount of high-society breeding. There were few other ways to merit the purple cape of an Equestria Mission Attaché, after all. “And it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance as well, Lady…?” The last word possessed just the slightest hint of a desperate undertone to the dappled stallion’s ear.

“Lady Autumn Brisk, Cultural Attaché to the Equestrian Ambassador to Griffonstone.”

“Oh, my; Griffonstone! How exotic!” The actress tittered.

Behind her, Friesian returned with the drinks and food that she’d asked for. Holly Rose looked up and made a convincing show of noticing a pony off on another side of the ballroom signaling to get her attention. “Thank you, Friesian—oh! Do pardon me, please, Lady Brisk and…corporal. I won’t be but a moment!

“Later, dearest.” With a parting nuzzle on Cravat’s cheek, the peach unicorn pranced off for parts unknown with her dark furred attendant following after.

“Who’s the stallion?” Flashover asked after the pair left earshot.

“Her cavalier,” Cravat replied before taking another sip of cider.

“What’s that? Some Fancy term for ‘bodyguard’?”

The genuine innocence of the question actually prompted Cravat’s muzzle to break out into a wry smile within his glass. Meanwhile, the doubling in size of Autumn Brisk’s eyes upon his utterance of the word was all the evidence Cravat needed that the recently elevated attaché was aware of the title’s true meaning. He could also see that the mare was looking for a delicate way to explain it to her companion. Assuming that one even existed.

Being three glasses of cider into the event meant that Cravat largely didn’t care about being ‘delicate’ around one of his closest friends. “He’s her stud,” he stated bluntly.

Flashover balked. Then he looked between Cravat and the distant Holly Rose several times clearly wondering how indignant on his friend’s behalf he was supposed to be, given how nonplussed the dappled stallion appeared to be. The earth pony waived off any offer of affront. “It’s fine. It’s barely even ‘cheating’.”

“You’re engaged to her!” The orange unicorn hissed through his teeth in a low tone, displaying an uncharacteristic—for him—awareness of their surroundings and the possibility of prying ears.

“So? It’s not like we actually love each other,” Cravat shrugged. “This evening will more than double the amount of time the two of us have spent in the same room since our betrothal.” The stallion’s snort was completely mirthless. “Between my redoing my fellowship at the hospital to ‘shake the cobwebs off’ and her traveling the continent to perform, we’ve barely even seen each other since I’ve been back.

“I genuinely don’t care who she’s fucking on the side. Just because we’re going to be married doesn’t mean she isn’t entitled to be happy.”

Flashover spent a few seconds visibly parsing out those last few words and was unsure how he felt about the expressed sentiment. Cravat took advantage of the stallion’s stunned silence to steer the conversation towards lighter topics. “Enough about me,” he insisted with a brief pointed look at his friend before waving a hoof towards both of them. “Should I be reading into the two of you clearly being in the same general field of foreign stationing or…?” He glanced between the pair.

“W-what?” “Sweet Celestia no!”

Cravat couldn’t quite keep the amused smile off his lips when he saw Autumn Brisk’s reaction to the orange stallion’s much more emphatic denial. “I beg your pardon? What do you mean: ‘sweet Celestia no’?!”

The dappled pony caught his friend’s attention and idly motioned with his hoof diagonally across his chest. A sign which a pointmare might give to the rest of the squad which was meant to convey that there was a dangerous area ahead that needed to be crossed, and that everypony should be extra cautious. Flashover blanched as he looked at the mare, his mouth wordlessly moving as he struggled for words that wouldn’t get him into even more trouble.

“I just meant that I’m already a taken stallion!” Flashover said in his defense.

In Cravat’s opinion, it was one of the wiser that his friend could have gone with. It was also one which invited further clarification. “Oh? Do tell! When should we expect her to finally sleep off what I assume had to be a whole barrel’s worth of grain alcohol before she finally started to find your pick-up lines clever and endearing?” He grinned broadly at the unicorn.

“Hardy har-har,” Flashover didn’t—quite—glare at his noblepony friend before offering genuine details about his special somepony. “We actually met the night we all snuck into Canterlot,” he explained. “She was one of the Night Guards that took us into custody: Ruby Jubilee. She approved of the thrashing I gave that prick Nocturd or whoever. Asked if I was up for sparring with her and the rest of her squad sometime; which I was.”

He shrugged. “After a few weeks throwing each other around on the mats, we ended up throwing each other around at her place.” It was the unicorn’s turn to grin now. “I take back everything I thought I knew about which kinds of mares were the wildest. It’s batponies. Hooves down, batponies are wild!

“Incidentally, all that helping you out with the medic stuff is really paying dividends now,” Flashover went on, earning an exchange of confused looks between the other two ponies. “There’s a lot more blood involved than I’m used to. I don’t know if it’s a ‘batpony thing’ in general, but Red’s quite the biter.

“I mean when I hit it just right, she’ll latch onto my shoulder with those fangs and—”

“Merciful Luna…” Autumn Brisk muttered under her breath. Her telekinesis struck out and whisked the glass off of the approaching Lavender's tray, bringing it to her lips and drinking its contents before either the server or Cravat could warn her about its deceptively strong contents. There was an only barely averted spit-take as the teal mare managed to swallow down the whole mouthful, which ended in a brief coughing fit and a judgmental look directed at the drink’s intended recipient.

The dappled stallion cleared his throat and waved Lavender off. Honestly, three glasses was probably more than enough for the night. “Well, I’m happy for you. Truly. And you,” he added, looking now towards a mostly recovered Autumn Brisk, nodding at her cloak. “Envoy to an attaché in just a few months? Quite the accomplishment.”

The mare deposited the still mostly full glass on a passing tray and nodded. “I’ll admit that it raised a few eyebrows at the embassy, but I’ve been able to prove I can manage the position so the grumbling is kept to a minimum. In terms of ‘sorry your last boss tried to get you killed’ gestures from the Ministry, it has proven to be quite agreeable.”

“And you?” Cravat looked back to flashover and indicated the new uniform. “The transfer’s a bit of surprise.”

Flashover gave a light shrug. “It’s actually easier for Ruby Jubilee and I to see each other this way, believe it or not. They rotate ‘Totally Not EIS Agents’ through the embassies from time to time. Ruby signs up to go through whichever one I’m at.”

The other two ponies shared another briefly confused look before Cravat ventured to get clarification. “Wait…I thought you said your marefriend was one of the Night Guards? Now you’re saying she’s an EIS agent?”

The orange unicorn held up both hooves in a gesture of helplessness. “Hey, don’t look at me! I just assume this is one of those ‘I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you’ things. The only rule she has when we’re together is to not ask about her job; and I’m perfectly fine with that being the only rule.” His smile was quite smug now.

“There is a difference between the Night Guard and Equestrian Intelligence,” Autumn Brisk’s words could have been taken as a statement of fact, if it hadn’t been for the waver of uncertainty coloring those last couple of syllables. The mare apparently elected to relinquish her earlier certainty with a final word that she tacked on as an addendum. “...Right?”

Another helpless shrug from the unicorn stallion. Cravat’s expression was more thoughtful, but hardly certain. “I wonder if not being able to tell is part of the point?” He proposed.

“Speaking of,” Flashover said, lightly redirecting the conversation, “has anypony heard from Nightjar recently? I haven’t seen her since that night.” This time his earlier gesture of ignorance was perfectly mirrored by the other two ponies.

“I hope she’s doing okay…”

Alabaster Fetlock didn’t look up from his desk when he heard the door to his office open. He hadn’t needed to, as the maid had announced her intent to enter only a few seconds prior in order to deliver him the day’s paper, along with his morning ‘constitutional’. Besides, he was busy making slight adjustments to the books for Sandalwood and Sons prior to submitting them to the Crown’s investigators. Once he was done with them, these documents would be sent via courier to his cousin Irwin for their signature before ultimately making their way into the hooves of Their Majesty’s agents.

Once that was done with, and the auditors had confirmed that Sandalwood and Sons’ dealings with the Ivory Company had been completely above board and legitimate and—most importantly—done with complete and total ignorance of the mercenary company’s intentions in Saddle Arabia, that should finally close the official investigation into The Gallopoli Incident.

He’d be free and clear.

For the most part, anyway, the earl thought to himself with a slight grimace. True to Baron Cravat’s word, the young noble and his mother, Duchess Golden Hour, had indeed managed to leverage her considerable political influence within the Noble Stable and see him stripped of his ministerial appointment. Alabaster had just barely managed to cover his misdealings with the Arabians—foisting the blame onto a few clerks within the embassies of both nations—before that hammer came down, so his unseating looked purely political and not punitive.

It meant that, in the fullness of time—once he’d built up some more political capital among his peers—he would be able to secure another ministry appointment if he wanted one. Of course, as vindictive as House Medicas was likely to be, there might not be much point, as he was confident those two would just set their sights on getting him bucked out again.

The maid deposited the folded newspaper on his desk, just off to the side of where the unicorn was working. Alabaster idly glanced at the visible page and noted several of the headlines.

He hesitated.

The earl’s horn lit with magic and he dragged the paper closer to better read one of the articles that was visible. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, ‘front page news’, as the maid had apparently arranged the paper in a slightly peculiar way when she’d laid it out on the tray. However, Alabaster did find the article intriguing enough to give it a quick skim.

DISGRACED GENERAL’S DEATH RULED SUICIDE

The unicorn’s brow furrowed as he read over the article. He was genuinely surprised to learn that General Maniple had managed to find the sort of willpower required to take his own life like that. Especially given the relatively light fallout that the senior officer had received. Alabaster had sculpted the narrative to deflect as much blame away from himself as possible, obviously, and that had meant shifting it to others. Maniple had been one of the ones to suffer some blowback as a result.

Not a lot, relatively speaking, but enough to make his competence for his assignment questionable. A board of inquiry had only a week prior found that he’d failed to exercise proper operational security by allowing sensitive information about military deployments to fall into the claws of the Ivory Company, which allowed the mercenaries to kill so many of Their Majesties’ valiant soldiers. They’d concluded that this act had been negligent, rather than malicious, so no formal Court Martial had been convened to put him out of the Cavalry. However, he had been transferred to an administrative position.

Something in logistics, Alabaster was fairly sure.

It had been Nocturne whom Fetlock had saddled with most of malicious intent. Indeed, by the time the earl had finished massaging the truth, the batpony senior operative had come off looking like the mastermind of the whole scheme. Nocturne’s attempt to arrange for the assassination of a fellow EIS agent in order to cover up the Ivory Company’s murderous intentions had made framing him for treason a trivial matter. The genuine evidence stacked against the stallion had been enough to earn him a trip to the gallows. The fabrications contributed by the earl and his agents had simply been gilding the lily in that regard.

If a pony was going to hang for his own actual crimes anyway, then why not let him hang for the crimes of others too? In retrospect, it was the first time that the batpony stallion had actually managed to benefit the earl’s plans, as far as the unicorn was concerned.

Last week’s news that Nocturne had taken the initiative and hanged himself in his cell—to ‘go out on his own terms’, as it were—had not been surprising at all.

Maniple, on the other hoof…that was a little unexpected.

A small saucer was deposited on the table before the earl, upon which was a sniffer of his favored brandy. “Thank you,” the unicorn mumbled absently, his eyes still reading over the article. His telekinesis reached out and lifted the glass, bringing the drink to his lips.

“My Lord,” the maid intoned with a bow of her head as she withdrew from the table. She turned and started to tidy up around the modest home office.

Alabaster glanced briefly in the direction of the slate gray pegasus mare. He didn’t immediately recognize her, but that was hardly unusual. Members of his household staff often found themselves falling out of favor with his wife, and so there was something of a ‘revolving door’ where some of the servants were concerned. Especially the maids.

The earl’s brow raised slightly when he noticed the frankly comical black and white uniform that the pegasus was wearing. If that was going to be the new outfit that his wife was going with for the cleaning staff, Alabaster was going to have to have a talk with her and insist that she pick something a little less flamboyant. The pegasus was wearing the sort of outfit that a costume designer would create for a play so that it was clear to the audience that the character wearing it was supposed to be a maid.

At least the bangles on the mare’s wings were tastefully subdued, the unicorn thought to himself as he took a sip of the brandy.

Alabaster hesitated, lightly smacking his lips as he eyed the sniffer critically. “Is this the forty-eight?” He asked the maid.

The pegasus didn’t turn around from where she was standing by the door. She reached out with a wing towards the lock. There was a faint ‘click’ audible as she engaged it. “Yes, My Lord.” She then proceeded to walk back towards the desk and took hold of one of the chairs that visitors would sit in and dragged it out into the middle of the room, looking up and eyeing the chandelier in the middle of the ceiling as she did so.

“Because it tastes…off…” Alabaster forced himself to cough and clear his inexplicably dry throat. He quickly took another sip of the brandy, even though it had tasted far nuttier than the vintage should have. Bitter too. Curiously, the second sip only seemed to exacerbate the dryness of his throat. He coughed again, then sought to distract himself with the maid’s puzzling actions. “What are you doing?”

“Setting the scene,” the slate gray pegasus answered simply, nudging the chair over one direction with her hoof before appearing to decide it had been better where it was previously and sliding it back. All the while, her head was craned upwards to regard the chandelier. Once she was satisfied with the chair’s placement, she lightly bucked it with a hoof, tipping it over onto its side.

He was starting to feel light-headed. His lungs burned, as though he was holding his breath and they were starved for air. He wasn’t holding his breath of course. He was actively coughing. A lot. Yet it didn’t seem to help in the slightest. “...Help!” He gasped at the pegasus, his eyes growing wide with panic. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” the mare said dismissively as her wing dipped inside her maid outfit and withdrew a coil of rope. “I just need to finish up a few things first.” She fluttered up to the chandelier and carefully threaded the rope through the chain securing it to the ceiling.

She took one end of the rope and tied it into a noose before floating back down to the floor again. The pegasus then strode over and flopped herself down leisurely into the remaining chair in front of the earl’s desk, regarding the struggling stallion was a bored expression.

The unicorn’s frantic mind tried to make sense of what was happening. Why wasn’t the mare helping him?! He was clearly in distress! Some sort of allergic reaction or—

“Finally figured it out, huh?” The slate gray mare’s lips cocked in a wry smirk as Alabaster’s dawning realization became visible on his features. She snorted and shook her head. “Maniple never did. Idiot thought he was choking on something. Kept thrusting his gut into the table trying to cough up whatever he thought was in his throat.

“Nocturne realized it right away,” she continued conversationally, patently indifferent to the struggles of the pony on the other side of the desk that was slowly suffocating to death. “It was already too late, of course. But he made sure to tell me every vile thing he wished he’d done to me before he finally croaked.”

He was trying to ignite his horn. To get off a spell that would summon help, but his oxygen-starve mind couldn’t hold onto the magic long enough to make anything worthwhile manifest. His horn only sparked and puttered impotently. The pegasus looked wholly unconcerned by his efforts.

The mare cocked her head as she regarded the struggling unicorn. “Do you have any last words, Al?”

“My family—!” He managed to gasp.

His killer held up a placating hoof and shook her head. “They won’t be touched,” she assured him. “I don’t kill foals or innocent creatures.” Then her expression hardened into a glare. “Because, unlike you, I’m not a monster.”

“...Did it…for…Eques—”

“Shut up,” The mare sneered, cutting the stallion off. She was already aware of the earl’s misguided views on what was ‘best for Equestria’. “You almost sent Equestria to war, Al. Hundreds of horses and ponies died because of you; tens of thousands more would have if we hadn’t stopped you.

“You’re not a ‘patriot’. You’re a threat.

“My job is to stop threats.” Her smile was back now. It was not a kind one. “And I love my job.”

Alabaster’s vision was darkening. It was getting harder to think. His horn wasn’t even sparking anymore, he couldn’t manage any amount of focus on a spell. He was vaguely aware of falling out of his chair and hitting the floor. A few moments later, he felt the sensation of somepony biting onto his sleeve and dragging him across the plush carpet.

The unicorn was fully unconscious by the time the noose was looped over his head and tightened snugly around his neck. The Fourth Earl of Bitter Creek was dead by the time Nightjar was done hoisting the body into the air and securing the other end of the rope to the foot of his massive oak desk. The ‘pegasus’ shucked off her outfit and tossed it into the crackling fireplace. It was a shame to destroy such an expensive dress, but Nightjar knew that she wasn’t going to have need of it ever again, and it was too recognizable besides. The bangles she kept on for now. As well as the elegant-looking lace choker around her neck.

She didn’t spend any time lingering in the office to admire her handiwork. Instead, once she was sure the maid outfit would be reduced to ash in the fireplace, the mare simply deposited a short suicide note on top of the stallion’s desk and left through the window.

As Nightjar climbed higher into the sky, she brought a hoof to the choker around her neck and pressed lightly against it. “It’s done.”

A moment later, the magically projected voice of an older mare was audible in her ear. “Understood. Good work, senior operative. Sunrise.”

As the Director of the Equestrian Intelligence Service uttered the final word that signaled the operation’s conclusion, the choker around Nightjar’s neck dissolved into fine black dust which blew away instantly in the wind. The slate gray ‘pegasus’ smiled and angled herself towards Canterlot.

As she flew, she began to put together her pitch to the director regarding being allowed to return to Roam and reprise her role as Saccharin. For a little while, at least. Maybe just a night or two. It had been some time since she’d seen Captain Hawkwood, after all. The hippogriff was doubtlessly in need of some pleasurable company…

…and a stiff drink.

Author's Note

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