If Twilight didn’t know for a fact that magic which manipulated time didn’t exist, she would have seriously considered checking to see if an enchantment had been placed upon the island which was affecting its flow. Because the last week had passed the unicorn by in the blink of an eye, while also lasting for seventeen consecutive eternities.

The first eternity of monotonous unending torment had been inflicted upon her psyche during the second morning of Chancellor Fancy Pants’ visit, within the walls of the Griffonian Republic’s embassy. The second had been endured after lunch in the Dragon Lands embassy. Twilight knew in her soul that both of those gatherings had lasted for several painful eons; and yet she could not presently recall even a single detail about either of them. She only reasoned that she’d attended them because her day planner had those gatherings checked off and she was positive that, had she been anywhere else, she would have memories of that elsewhere.

Even if she had slept through that entire day, the mare was confident that she would have recalled at least one of her dreams.

Meetings, conferences, speeches, tours, and parties. A whirlwind cavalcade of official events that had been packed in as tightly as possible in order to take advantage of the chancellor’s physical presence on Harmony Fortress to the fullest; and Twilight had been at the stallion’s side throughout very nearly all of it, except for where her own duties occasionally required her to be elsewhere.

Yet, in defiance of all expectations, despite being in Fancy Pants’ presence for the next best thing to the entirety of a whole week, Twilight hadn’t been able to share a meaningful conversation with the other unicorn and inquire about the details of how it was that she’d ultimately been chosen to command the first functional Harmony Fortress. She’d only managed to successfully broach the topic just once during his visit, and the stallion’s response had been a less-than-fulfilling: “You came highly recommended!” before he’d been pulled back into another discussion with a foreign delegation.

Twilight hadn’t been able to extract any details regarding precisely who it was that had recommended her to the chancellor, and so she knew nothing which might help her to construct a list of likely suspects.

If there was one thing in the little purple mare’s life that she hadn’t lacked for, it was letters of recommendation. Professors, senior officers, librarians…plenty of ponies were willing to vouch for Twilight's competency and character.

But that was just the thing: “plenty of ponies…”

"Iasking the right creatures"

The pink earth pony’s cryptic message suggested that there had been an individual who wasn’t a pony who might have the answers she was after, but that didn't make any sense. Twilight hadn't even formally met any non-ponies of any real note prior to arriving on the island. So unless that one kirin exchange student Twilight had helped to source some asbestos blankets in her sophomore year had turned out to be a highly-placed political figure with a keen interest in Twilight’s not-then-existent military career…

As Colonel Twilight Sparkle watched the Fleur De Lis’ topgallants finally vanish beyond the curve of the horizon, the little purple unicorn let out a final defeated sigh. It looked like she was going to have to content herself with drafting a letter to the chancellor and hope that Fancy Pants was willing to divulge more details in a response.

Or she could try to get a word in edgewise the next time that pink baker made an appearance.

She was less convinced that she’d be able to get answers that way. If the earth pony had had those answers, then surely she’d have just provided them in her note. Right? Or was it that the mare simply derived more entertainment from seeing Twilight’s visible frustration?

…It could very likely be the latter.

With ‘Equestria One’ no longer in sight, Twilight allowed her attention to drift to the only other visible ship that suggested it was worthy of note at the moment. At least where her own duties on Harmony were concerned. A paddle-steamer flying the flag of the Griffonian Republic just above a pennant which marked it as an official diplomatic courier, was on its final approach to the Mission Docks. No doubt she would be hearing about the news that it was bringing during tomorrow’s Council meeting.

The wider world had not seen fit to sit idly by and maintain the status quo while Fancy Pants had been visiting Harmony. Twilight’s morning briefings with her staff had contained periodic updates regarding the mounting hostilities between the griffons and the dragons. The latter had been rapidly building up and fortifying Rock Haven Island. What had once been a hatching ground for the dragons in ages past was now being repurposed into a clear launching point for future seizures of nearby islands that were still held by the Republic. The only real question that Twilight had at this point was whether or not Ember was going to bother throwing together any more pretexts for those invasions beyond: “we want them, and we finally have the means to seize them”.

Honestly, it had reached the point where the unicorn would have respected the blunt candor of the dragons simply coming out and announcing that they intended to annex every island in the Scaly Archipelago because they regarded the region as their rightful ancestral territory. It would have perhaps been more realpolitik than most seasoned diplomats wanted to pretend they were, but there would have been a refreshing directness to it that Twilight was finding she missed.

In the military, written orders were always very plain and direct. They articulated exactly what the objectives were, how they were to be achieved, where the operation was to take place, and who was supposed to perform each specific part of it. Those versions of the orders that were disseminated at the higher echelons even outlined the reasoning and specific intent behind the drafting of the order. Everything was spelled out in exacting detail, and there was never any underlying motive that was going unspoken.

Diplomacy was…nothing like that, in Twilight’s experience thus far. The more she read of the theory behind it in her books, the more clear that became. But, as much as the unicorn might not particularly like how the posturing during negotiations was conducted, she was slowly becoming adept at understanding it.

Ember didn’t want to come right out and blatantly acknowledge that the goal of the Dragon Lands was to ultimately annex all of their ancestral islands because that would have been tantamount to a declaration of war against the Griffonian Republic, who presently exercised de facto—and they’d argue de jure—control over many of those islands.

For the moment, the griffons were mostly preoccupied with using their military to molest their other neighbors. That would change if the dragons laid their intentions out in the open. The Republic would almost certainly immediately abandon all of their machinations elsewhere in order to concentrate their forces on countering the dragons’ aggression. If for no other reason than because it would offer them an opportunity to reoccupy the entirety of the Scaly Archipelago if they emerged victorious.

Ember might be inclined to disagree, but Twilight couldn’t help but feel that the dragons were only making as much headway as they were in their operations simply because they were putting the entirety of military up against far-flung nominal anti-marauding garrisons that weren’t being supported by the Republic's naval fleets. So far, there hadn’t been any direct confrontations between the navies of the griffons and the dragons. The unicorn was less certain than the ambassador seemed to be about how well an actual battle would go for the dragons.

Although it certainly didn’t look like there was going to be one any time soon. If Equestria’s information sources were to be believed, then the Republic didn’t appear to be doing much to counter the military build-up on Rock Haven Island. A small flotilla of griffon ships had been cobbled together in the region and dispatched towards the archipelago, but most of them were reportedly troop transports. There were a few smaller warships that would serve well as escorts for those transports, but certainly nothing that would be able to meaningfully assist in any sort of assault against a fortified and dug-in defender.

Twilight assumed that they were intended as additional garrisons for some of the Republic’s other island holdings in the region. She just hoped that those ships left those islands carrying as many civilians as possible away from the potential fighting. In her estimation, unless and until the Republic chose to cut their losses with the kirin and the hippogriffs and redistribute their warships, they were going to continue to lose territory to the dragons.

Frankly, given some of Ember’s comments during the function that she’d hosted for Fancy Pants, it had sounded to Twilight like Dragon Lord Torch was interested in setting up some additional ‘depth’ around their islands after they’d finished reclaiming the entirety of their ancestral lands. Depth which included at least one island that the Republic had held for the better part of five hundred years; and that no dragon had ever set claw on in the recorded history of any race.

Twilight wasn’t sure how the dragons intended to frame any sort of justification for such an operation. Though maybe that was the point when the dragons would stop bothering to obfuscate their intentions and simply submit their formal declaration of war against the Republic, intended to do to the griffons what was done to them.

The small purple mare heaved a despondent sigh and turned away from the observation deck’s railing, returning to The Citadel’s interior. Now was as good a time as any to work on that letter to the chancellor.

Colonel Twilight Sparkle didn’t know everything. The little purple unicorn knew a lot, thanks to her many years spent pursuing higher education; but there was a lot that she didn’t know. If anything, her rough decade spent in academia had taught her far more about how much she didn’t know. If only because it had allowed her to glimpse the true vastness that was the sum total knowledge accumulated by all of the creatures of the world across their respective recorded histories.

Twilight was only one mare and she only had one life to live. That math wasn’t hard to work out: she simply didn’t have enough time to learn everything.

Even so, she didn’t let that objective impossibility disillusion her desire to learn all that she could with the time that she did have. Even if much of that learning took place in ‘less formal’ settings. Having a diploma from an accredited institution which certified her expertise on a subject was nice; but there wasn’t much point in acquiring those diplomas for subjects that she didn’t seek to pursue professions in.

Twilight wasn’t going to make a career out of being a diplomat. So she had no intentions of pursuing degrees in political science, communications, equinities, psychology, behavioral science, or law, in order to make her a more effective negotiator. Which wasn’t to say that she intended to learn nothing about how to be good at her job. She was reading treatises on those subjects written by every renowned academic expert that she could get her hooves on—regardless of the author’s species—as well as several memoirs and a few core textbooks associated with those aforementioned degree paths. The mare doubted that she’d learn everything there was to know about being a good diplomat before her tenure as Harmony Six’s commanding officer came to an end in a couple years, but she believed that she could learn enough.

There was quite a bit to be said for the efficacy of ‘on the job training’. Her military career had prepared her for that much. The cold reality of military service was that it took a lot of time to train somepony to be an expert at their assigned task. Service contracts were often for only a few years. Every additional month spent keeping a soldier in a training environment was a month that the soldier wasn’t actually doing that job, and it was one less month that they would have to do that job before finishing their contract and leaving the service.

It was more cost-effective—and time-efficient—to teach a soldier just enough about what their specific job was to keep them from being a liability and then toss them into their duty, hoping that they might achieve something approaching ‘expertise’ as they floundered along.

That was more or less how things had gone with Twilight’s assignment to Harmony: her career up to that point had taught her the management skills necessary to run a command on the island’s scale, and she possessed sufficient decorum to—hypothetically—not utterly embarrass herself during a Council meeting.

The rest she would learn as she went.

As it turned out, picking up the procedural aspects of diplomacy had been rather easy. After all, there were all sorts of protocols and policies related to official negotiations which had been written down. All Twilight had had to do was read them and apply them the way she’d been applying Cavalry Regulations her whole career.

Dealing with the other representatives had been the trickier part. Equestria possessed dossiers on nearly all of the diplomats and ambassadors that the other nations had sent to Harmony Six which detailed what was known about their careers and personal histories. It had provided Twilight with at least some insight into who she would be negotiating with.

But those dossiers had hardly been anything like manuals. Twilight couldn’t have known how any given representative would vote on a proposal or react to the wording of any given resolution put before the Council. She could guess, based on specific information that she was provided with prior to resolutions being put on the docket, but that wasn’t the same as knowing. It left far more variables at play than the unicorn generally liked dealing with.

However, Twilight had managed to gain some additional knowledge about the creatures that she was working with in Council meetings during her few months on Harmony Fortress as a result of her ‘on the job training’ which hadn’t been presented to her in an intelligence brief.

For example: she had learned that the Mulan ambassador brought coffee to meetings when his government had sent instructions for him to vote against his personal preferences. He liked his drink to match his mood.

If the Kirean ambassadors weren’t actively smoking just a little bit, then they weren’t actually as upset by a proposal as their loud blustering might otherwise suggest. With diamond dogs, Twilight looked at their tails. For Saddle Arabians, she listened for whether the delegates used the high-formal or low-formal honorifics when commenting on proposals put forward by another nation to judge whether they actually supported the measure or were simply paying lip-service for the sake of appearances.

In a lot of ways, it was like looking for ‘tells’ at a poker game.

Though the fact that the ‘chips’ in this particular ‘pot’ were the livelihoods and wellbeing of millions of creatures across the world rendered the ‘game’ analogy far less amusing for the unicorn…

Colonel Twilight Sparkle didn’t know everything; but she knew enough to be able to identify what most of the representatives’ various moods would herald during a meeting.

Case in point: when Ambassador Gilda of the Griffonian Republic walked into the Council chamber with a broad smile on her beak and a lively bounce in her step, Twilight knew that her day was about to take a thoroughly unpleasant turn. The known list of things which brought the griffon ambassador the currently displayed level of joy was a short one, and the unicorn didn’t particularly care for any of the items on it.

The little purple mare’s gaze darted reflexively towards Ambassador Ember. While not everything in the griffon representative’s world actually revolved around the dragons, it was often the safest bet to at least make that initial assumption. According to Major Rarity, there was a thin line between love and hate; and her XO occasionally attempted to lighten the mood during discussions about the two ambassadors by suggesting that, under different circumstances, the two belligerents’ actions might actually have been covering up for a shared intense carnal desire for one another. The look that Ember was shooting at her griffon counterpart at the moment was indeed ‘intense’. And while Twilight didn't note any of the usual indications of amorous intent in the dragoness' gaze, the unicorn was aware of several species of animal which existed where that sort of look might indeed herald a desire for a certain kind of sexual relation.

She had once witnessed a snake performing an act of sexual cannibalism during the war.

“Colonel Sparkle!” Ambassador Gilda greeted as she plopped herself down comfortably at the chamber’s main table. “How how you been since the party? Trendy Pants make it back to Equestria yet?” She reclined languidly in her seat. The hen’s satisfied smile put Twilight in mind of the expression: ‘like the cat who’d caught the canary’, and briefly wondered if the griffons possessed a similar metaphor. The unicorn couldn’t imagine that they used the version ponies did, given their dual feline-avian nature, but she was hesitant to ask lest she come off as sounding…impolotique.

“Fancy Pants,” Twilight lightly corrected the griffon on reflex. “And it’s only been three days since he left; it’ll still be some time before his ship reaches Equestria.” The unicorn noted that other representatives were still filing into the room, so there would still be a little more time before their day’s deliberations began. Time enough for her to try and get a reason for the Republic ambassador’s uncharacteristically good mood…and an idea of how bad of a taste it was going to leave in her mouth later.

“You seem to be in high spirits, ambassador. Good news from home?” Twilight recalled the courier ship which had docked the other day.

“Great news, actually!” Gilda confirmed, all but purring as she spoke. Her golden eyes sparkled as they darted in Ember’s direction. “And I just can’t wait to share it with all of you…

“—In fact!” The griffon sat up and reached into her satchel, withdrawing a small roll of parchment and extending it towards Twilight in her talons. “I’d like to amend today’s proceedings with some new business.

“I know it’s late notice,” Gilda acknowledged with what was an objectively appropriate amount of deference in her tone—but was a previously unheard of quantity for the griffon, “but I wanted to confirm a few details with my government and make certain that everything was in order before it was made official.”

Twilight hesitated for a moment before finally lighting her horn and accepting the scroll. This display of decorum from the usually much more abrasive ambassador was…disconcerting, if she was being honest. She unfurled the parchment and scanned its contents. It was a formal request to reserve the first fifteen minutes of the day’s deliberations in order to: ‘deliver a formal announcement’.

Exactly what it was that Gilda wanted to announce wasn’t specified, but that wasn’t unusual in and of itself with these sorts of requests. Frankly, the only ‘unusual’ aspect of any of this was that Ambassador Gilda was giving official notice at all. Her typical modus operandi for delivering her ‘announcements’—formal or otherwise—during a Council meeting was to simply yell them out whenever the mood struck her.

As hesitant as Twilight was to cede Gilda the floor at the very opening of deliberations, the unicorn understood enough psychology to recognize that the spontaneous demonstration of correct behavior in a usually disruptive individual shouldn't be discouraged. Rewarding correct behavior typically led to further correct behavior. If the Republic’s ambassador was actually going to go through the effort of drafting formal requests and abide by the proper protocols for offering her statements to the Council, then Twilight wasn’t going to risk curtailing this positive change in demeanor by rebuking the griffon just because the request was being made a little later than was strictly preferred.

Besides, what harm could Gilda realistically accomplish with fifteen minutes of talking?

“Very well, ambassador,” the unicorn said as her magic rolled the scroll back up and floated it over to her other notes on the table, “the first fifteen minutes will be yours.”

“Sweet! This is going to be good.” Once more, the griffon’s eyes lingered on the silently fuming Ambassador Ember.

Twilight instantly regretted everything that she had thought and said over the last two minutes. But…she had made her assurances already, and so she was committed to the mistake.

Mentally, the unicorn resolved that, should she ever give the griffon the benefit of the doubt again, she should probably be committed. After all, repeating a mistake in the desperate hope of seeing it result differently was a sign of insanity…

The little purple unicorn took her seat beside Ambassadors Zecora and Celestia and took a deep, cleansing, breath. Whatever Ambassador Gilda had to say would simply have to be weathered. Fortunately, there wasn’t much that the mare could think of that the Republic could do that would be too disruptive to the world at large—certainly when compared to what they were already doing. More than likely, the griffon just intended to make some threats or deliver some sort of ultimatum that was intended to leverage more of their neighbors for concessions. Twilight resigned herself to spending the better part of the next hour slamming her hoof on the table to restore order to the chamber, but that wouldn’t be too far removed from how she spent most of these sessions, to be honest.

After the last of the expected representatives finally shuffled in and took their seats Twilight Sparkle cleared her throat. “Good morning, everycreature; I’ll now call this session to order.” She tapped her hoof smartly on the stained marble block in front of her that was present for that purpose. “I will start by announcing a slight change to the day’s docket.

“Ambassador Gilda has formally requested the first fifteen minutes of today’s meeting in order to deliver a formal announcement on behalf of the Griffonian Republic.” The reaction from the other delegates was a mixture of surprise which mirrored Twilight’s own—that Gilda would have bothered with making a formal request at all—and general unease. The Republic rarely announced anything that other creatures liked.

“Ambassador, the floor is yours,” the unicorn stated, managing to keep most of the dread out of her tone.

“Thank you, Colonel!” The gold and ivory griffon stood up from her seat, her beak spread in a wide grin as her eyes slid across the room. “I would actually like to start off by asking a question.” Her gaze settled on the azure dragoness sitting—and glaring—across from her. “Ambassador Ember…” Her talons reached back into her satchel and withdrew another scroll. She held it up for all to see. “...This is a letter from my government, thanking the dragons for ‘looking after’ Ragnar Island for the Republic…”

The griffon hen’s sickly sweet smile dropped away in an instant, falling into a scowl before she tossed the scroll at the dragoness. Ember made no effort to catch the roll of parchment as it sailed past her and fell to the floor. “...Your dragons there have three days to leave. Our citizens are returning to their homes there.”

Ambassador Ember pursed her lips now, narrowing her eyes at the griffon as she studied the hen’s features. There was a brief moment of uncertainty—brief enough that Twilight wasn’t convinced that she’d actually seen it at first—but then the dragoness’ features firmed up and she resumed glaring at the griffon. “...No.”

Gilda’s scowl was gone. She wasn’t smiling again—not quite—but the corner of her beak had turned up into a smirk that concerned Twilight. “‘No’? I thought you dragons agreed that you’d leave Ragnar Island if and when the Republic asked you to?”

“It’s been months and the Republic hasn’t shown any interest in returning to the island,” Ember replied evenly. “The Dragon Lands actually have some pretty liberal adverse possession laws. Under the provisions of our legal code, Ragnar Island was officially recognized as ‘abandoned’ several weeks ago.

“So we annexed it,” Ember stated with a shrug of her folded arms. “I can draft a formal proclamation to that effect if you really want one.”

Twilight Sparkle braced herself for an outraged tirade on the part of the griffon. Instead, something far more unsettling happened: Gilda smiled again. The Republic ambassador reached back into her satchel again and took out a third bound scroll. This one she tossed at Twilight, who deftly caught it in her magic.

The unicorn was in the process of unfurling it when Gilda revealed its contents to the whole Council, all the while wearing a satisfied smile on her face. “Well, under our laws, the Republic still sees both Ragnar Island and Rock Haven Island as our sovereign territory. We made a formal—diplomatic—request for it to be peacefully returned to us,” she gestured in the direction of the scroll laying on the floor that Ember had refused to accept, “and that request was refused.

“This illegitimate annexation of Republic territory will not be tolerated by my government,” Gilda continued, “and we regard it as a hostile act, as well as a de facto ‘act of war’ on the part of the dragons.” The griffon’s words had grown progressively sharper and colder as she spoke. Yet there was an unmistakable quality of satisfaction to them.

Gilda had been hoping that things would go this way.

Twilight Sparkle finished reading the contents of the scroll floating in front of her, and felt a cold lump form in the pit of her stomach. Beside her, Ambassadors Zecora and Celestia each craned their heads in order to glance at what the parchment said. The unicorn adjusted it so that the two of them could share in her horror.

The rest of the room’s delegates were clued into the scroll’s contents by the griffon’s next words: “The Griffonian Republic is left with no other recourse but to formally declare war on the Dragon Lands.”

Unsurprisingly, every delegate in the chamber had something to say about that, and they all strived to say it at the same time, and at a preemptively higher volume than whatever their neighbors might attempt to achieve. The large room was very quickly filled with an unintelligible din that persisted for several ear-splitting seconds before Twilight was even aware of it. The unicorn was still mentally reeling from hearing the scroll’s words uttered aloud.

“Or—order…Order!” The little purple unicorn finally managed to stammer out, eventually even achieving a volume with both shouted word and stomping hoof that overcame the cacophony and reached enough ears to begin settling down the other delegates.

“You’re not serious?” Ambassador Ember said, once the room had quieted enough for her to be heard clearly. The dragoness was staring incredulously at her Republic counterpart. Her lip pulled back into a slightly bemused smile. “Your navy isn’t anywhere near our islands.” Twilight doubted that anycreature missed the stressing of the possessive. “Meanwhile, our forces—”

“—Aren’t at Rock Haven Island anymore.” Gilda cut off the dragon with a light chuckle which belied no actual mirth. “At least, there were no dragons there to oppose our forces when they landed on the island five days ago.”

Ember’s jaw slammed shut with an audible sound. Her eyes briefly widened in shock, before then narrowing at the griffon, her lip pulling back into a sneer. “You launched a surprise attack on our—?!”

“We didn’t attack anything,” Gilda cut the other ambassador off again, flicking her talons dismissively at Ember’s assumption. “Until just now, there wasn’t a formal declaration of war,” Gilda waved at the scroll that Twilight still held aloft in her magic, “any sort of actual attack by our forces would have violated several international agreements.

“The Republic is a civilized nation that honors the treaties it signs.”

If Gilda heard the indignant mutterings from the delegates representing the nations that the Republic was currently harassing, she gave no visible sign.

“One of our scouts flying by the area noticed that none of your ships or garrisons were on Rock Haven anymore. We assumed you pulled them back home, and moved our soldiers back onto our island.” She leaned forward and grinned at the dragoness. “We didn’t have to fire a shot.”

“You’re lying.”

There was the faintest hint of a tremble in the dragoness’ words. The assertion being made by the griffon ambassador was so outrageous on the face of it, that it seemed as though the hen had to be lying. But…if she wasn’t…

Twilight could see on Ember’s face that the ambassador for the Dragon Lands was weighing all of the same information that the unicorn herself was. Both of them likely possessed very similar intelligence reports with regards to the disposition of the Republic’s forces. If anything, the dragons possessed far more information, given their closer proximity and likely active efforts to monitor griffon fleet movements in the area. In any case, both of them knew that the griffons couldn’t have taken Rock Haven Island by force. The dragons on the island were too numerous and too well fortified, and the griffons’ larger fleets were occupied elsewhere.

Twilight recalled the report she’d seen about the Republic troop transport ships heading for the archipelago. The timing lined up well enough that they could have landed at Rock Haven Island when Gilda said they had. The unicorn also knew that the fleet she’d seen the report about couldn’t have dislodged the dragon garrison being built up there. Any fleet big enough would have been hard-pressed to travel unseen over such a vast distance too.

The griffons couldn’t have forcibly occupied the island. So, either Gilda was lying—and Twilight couldn’t even begin to conceive of what the ambassador would gain by doing so—or the dragon garrison really hadn’t been there when the Republic’s transports arrived. Which Twilight also couldn’t think of a good explanation for why that would have been the case. Rock Haven Island was too strategically important for the dragons to have abandoned it without a really good reason.

“Heh, think what you want.” Gilda shrugged and finally sat back down in her seat. “You lizards living in denial is only going to help us in the short run. It’ll keep you from realizing that you should already be surrendering to us right now.

“The longer you morons fight, the more of you will die in this war.” Gilda’s smile was predatory now. “Which means more dragonhide for our tanners to make handbags out of—”

“Ambassador,” Twilight numbly warned. A declaration of war may have just been made, but that was no reason to let Gilda devolve into antagonistic threats with what remained of her time. The unicorn put away the scroll containing the declaration of war, and was idly working out how to word her report on its contents to her superiors back in Canterlot.

“Yeah, yeah; fine,” the Republic ambassador waved away the unicorn’s admonition, her eyes never leaving Ember’s. “I guess all I’ve got left to say is this: Are you lizards willing to surrender now, or are you really going to make the Republic spend valuable time and ammunition slaughtering all of you until you finally wise up and give in?”

The daughter of the reigning dragon lord shot up in her seat. There was a moment where Twilight feared that she’d have to grab the dragoness with her magic to keep the azure ambassador from leaping across the table to attack Gilda. But, fortunately, Ember managed—somehow—to restrict herself to merely snarling and pointing.

“We beat you turkeys once; we’ll do it again!” The Ambassador to the Dragon Lands snarled at her Republic counterpart.

“You go ahead and keep thinking that,” Gilda chided, snickering at the dragoness. “By this time next year, I’ll be picking out a spot on your islands for my new summer roost.”

“Over my dead body!” Ember snapped.

The griffon hen’s smile turned Twilight’s stomach. As did the ambassador’s reaction to the dragoness’ defiance. It started as a snicker, at first. A quivering in the griffon’s shoulders that soon spread to her chest. Soon the spasms spread throughout the griffon hen’s whole body. Her beak split, emitting a screeching, mirthful, laugh that sent a shiver down the unicorn’s spine, and prompted the dragoness leering at her to pull her lips back in a furious sneer at the overtly mocking crackle coming from the griffon.

“Oh, don’t worry, Ember,” Gilda wheezed, running a talon under her eye to wipe away a tear. “I wouldn’t want it any other way!”

The griffon hen allowed herself to be consumed by the unapologetic belly laugh that was quickly rendering her speechless. Meanwhile, multiple other delegates in the chamber were on their feet, paws, or hooves, as they expressed their views on either the declaration of hostilities, the implicit threat made by one ambassador towards another, or both. Twilight’s pounding hoof on the marble slab was having minimal effect on muting the rising din of voices.

The world was going mad, and in that moment, nocreature particularly cared about what one little purple unicorn was trying to accomplish.

Two—unproductive—hours later saw Colonel Twilight Sparkle sitting in her office writing up the dispatch that would need to be sent back to Equestria informing them of the state of war that now existed between the Griffonian Republic and the Dragon Lands. This report was important enough that it was going to be sent out via pegasus courier, and so the Equestrian government should have plenty of time to put measures in place to modulate the unrest the news would generate among the populace.

While this wasn’t a war that directly involved Equestria—yet—that didn’t mean that the hostilities wouldn’t affect ponies. Families would be concerned for relatives living or working overseas. Businesses and customers alike would want to know how the war would affect the prices of ware coming from or through those two nations, to say nothing of the goods being shipped through the regions where the fighting would be taking place. Privateering was a quite common practice after all.

Freight shipping was a complicated business. While—in theory—only griffon and dragon ships should be at risk, the reality was that what counted as a ‘griffon’ or ‘dragon’ ship could get murky. Ships were expensive. Not every shipping company actually owned any vessels themselves. They’d lease them. So: did a ship owned by a Republic company, but being leased by an Equestrian one, constitute fair game for dragon naval ships or privateers?

What about a pony-owned and crewed ship under contract with the dragons? Would the griffons attack them?

A Republic-built ship, carrying a Saddle Arabian cargo, crewed by ponies; were they a legitimate target?

The first casualty in a war was the truth. Such as the ‘truth’ about who truly were bona fide legitimate targets for raiding and seizure by both belligerents.

Equestria could try to put as many escorting cruisers as possible alongside any shipping that they considered to be ‘theirs’ in an effort to dissuade commerce raiding. Theoretically, just the presence of an Equestrian-flagged warship should be enough to put off griffon or dragon ships, as neither side would be keen on making an enemy out of a neutral nation. Twilight intended to talk with Ambassador Zecora and see if the zebras could make any of their much faster cruisers available as as-needed escorts for the commercial shipping of races that lacked any robust navies of their own, in order to help safeguard their own shipping that might be skirting those blurred lines of ‘legitimate target’.

Twilight had already had a talk with Captain Applejack about the need for additional patrols and an increased presence on the island, especially near griffon and dragon-owned shops and neighborhoods. Tensions between the two had been high even at the best of times. The unicorn fully expected things to get—as the orange mare had so eloquently understated things: ‘downraight uncivil’ in the next couple of days as word of the war fully spread among the residents of the involved nations.

A few months ago, Twilight would never have imagined that she’d be thankful that the griffons and dragons living on Harmony had segregated themselves as a consequence of their shared animosity. But that self-imposed isolation from one another was doubtlessly going to greatly reduce the potential for spontaneous fights breaking out between residents. It wouldn’t negate it completely, but the fact that griffons and dragons wouldn’t be around each other in large numbers for prolonged periods of time would mitigate the violence that Applejack was sure they’d see in the coming weeks and months.

Twilight didn’t doubt her head of security.

Harmony Six’s commander was giving serious thought to the merits and detractions of imposing Martial Law on the island. At least for a few weeks; if only to preemptively ensure order in the fortress as the war got underway.

She would discuss it with her staff during their evening meeting.

A hoof rapped on her office door. “Enter,” Twilight called out, loud enough to be heard through the thick oak. A mare’s gray head cautiously poked in through the doorway. A few stray wisps of blonde mane had escaped the flight cap covering most of her head. Amber eyes which didn’t fully align with one another briefly glanced about the office before they—or, at least one of them—finally fell on Twilight at her desk. At that point, the mare smiled and entered the rest of the way, revealing herself to be an official courier.

“You’re early,” the little purple unicorn noted with audible approval. A few minutes to one side or the other would hardly make a difference when one considered that the flight from the island to Equestria was the better part of a day and a half, but punctuality was something the fortress’ commander would always appreciate. The quill clutched in her telekinesis resumed darting across the parchment. “I’ll have the report ready to go out in a few more minutes.”

The pegasus cocked her head in mild confusion as she approached. “Um…I’m actually here to make a delivery, ma’am,” the courier said. It was only then that the unicorn noticed the paper-wrapped box balanced on the mare’s back.

“Oh. Well, thank you.” Twilight split her magic and snatched the package off the courier’s back, floating it over to her desk. “I wasn’t expecting anything. Who’s it from? There’s no note,” she observed as her telekinesis deftly undid the bow knot and started to shed the wrapping.

“That? Oh, I don’t know,” the pegasus answered, even as she turned her head and ducked her head into her saddlebag. “Some mare hurr ber mur ur…” Whatever else the courier had tried to say was too muffled by her bag to make out.

Twilight frowned. An official courier should have known exactly who it was that sent the package, as enlisting one required filling out a detailed form which listed the sender, the recipient, and the contents. She supposed it was possible that this pegasus simply hadn’t paid all that close attention to the form, but she should still have had it on her. Presumably the gray mare was fetching it now so that Twilight could sign for the delivery.

She finally finished revealing the contents of the package. One of her eyebrows rose up in mild interest. Honestly, the sight of the cupcakes wasn’t as surprising as it probably should have been—Twilight was getting used to being gifted baked goods. She even had some idea regarding the sender, and was very curious to get a look at the delivery receipt to see what it contained under ‘Name’.

However, the decorations of these cupcakes were considerably more subdued than what she was used to seeing from her usual benefactor. Black and white were traditional mourning colors, and the pink earth pony baker was typically far more festive when coloring her pastries.

Had she recently suffered a loss?

“Here, ma’am; this is for you.”

Twilight looked up from the open container of cupcakes and saw that the pegasus was offering her a delivery receipt…and a letter bearing the seal of the Office of the Chancellor of Equestria. She spent several moments blinking at the letter in mild shock.

Were the cupcakes from Fancy Pants somehow? Why would he be sending her condolence pastries?

A few possible—though soundly absurd—possibilities offered themselves to the purple unicorn, but she swiftly discounted them out of hoof. The answer was literally being hoofed over to her; there was no need for idle speculation. “Thank you.”

Twilight swiftly signed the receipt, noting that the ‘Sender’ was listed as Neighsay, but once more didn’t think on that too much. She herself often delegated simple tasks to Rarity.

She took the letter, broke the seal, and started reading it.

The unicorn made it two sentences before she had to stop.

A part of her mind absently noted that it was a good thing that she’d already been sitting down. Twilight looked over those first sentences again to ensure that she hadn’t somehow grossly misread them. Then, with a hollow feeling in her chest, she continued reading further.

There weren’t many details. That was understandable. This was hardly a formal detailed report on the matter; more of an ‘For Your Information’ memorandum. And Twilight had likely only gotten it this way, instead of through official channels, simply because the Fleur De Lis was still so close to the island. It was possibly even in response to the letter that she’d sent to the chancellor, so that Twilight understood why she wasn’t going to get a response to her questions.

Ever.

Former chancellor, a part of Twilight’s mind further amended.

Fancy Pants was dead.

If there was any consolation to be had, it was that the letter indicated that the stallion had passed away in his sleep. His personal physician had listed the cause of death as heart failure. An unexpected revelation, given the chancellor’s age, physical appearance, and his general demeanor while he’d been on the island. But he would hardly have been the first outwardly-fit pony to suffer a sudden and lethal cardiac event out of seemingly nowhere. Anecdotes abounded of healthy ponies who went on daily morning trots collapsing one day during their regular runs through town.

Heart attacks happened. And now one had happened to the—former—Chancellor of Equestria.

He could have picked a better time to drop dead, Twilight thought darkly to herself. The ponies of Equestria were going to be stressed enough as it was, thanks to the war, without also having to deal with a sudden transition at the highest level of government.

A more selfish part of Twilight’s mind lamented that she was probably not going to get an answer to her appointment question now.

“Well, it was nice of them to send cupcakes along with the bad news,” Twilight remarked, offering a sardonic smile to the courier mare.

The gray pegasus blinked in confusion. “Oh, no, ma’am; the cupcakes aren’t related to the letter,” she explained. “Somepony gave them to me when I landed. She said something about sensing that you’d need them right now.”

…Or maybe Twilight’s initial guess as to who’d provided the baked goods had been correct after all. “An earth pony? Pink mare? Really pink mare?”

“Yes, ma’am; that’s the one.”

“I don’t suppose you got her name?”

“Sorry, ma’am; I didn’t think to ask. The way she spoke, it sounded like you two knew each other,” the pegasus said with an apologetic note in her voice.

Twilight closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. Then some realized something else that the courier had said which had almost slipped by unnoticed. “...You said that this mare was there when you landed?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I assume you landed on one of the lookouts? High up on the Citadel main tower?” That was where most couriers tended to land, as it saved those pegasi the trouble of having to walk back up several flights of stairs.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Which meant that the pink mare had gotten inside the Citadel. The—theoretically—most secure structure on the whole island. Aside from perhaps the armory—

Twilight’s magic seized her quill and jotted down a quick note as she had the horrifying thought. She wasn’t sure exactly how many more guards she was going to make Applejack assign to the fort’s magazines, but in light of this recent revelation the little purple unicorn was going to try to make a case for ‘all of them’.

She then put down the quill, touched her hoof to her chest, and slowly let out the breath that she’d only just realized she’d been holding since realizing the security of the tower had apparently been so casually compromised. To say nothing of the apparent reason for the compromise!

A couple of weeks ago, Twilight would have been climbing the walls of her office trying to figure out how that mare could possibly have known to send sympathy cupcakes along with news of Fancy Pants’ death, when the news of said death could only have arrived after the mare had baked the cupcakes!

…Unless the baker simply kept a wide array of freshly-baked cupcakes on hoof in order to account for any and all possible events that might occur on any given day?

That sounded like it was likely to get expensive quickly. The mare might be privately wealthy, Twilight supposed—she certainly acted eccentric enough to be wealthy. Maybe she consulted some sort of personally compiled almanac? Twilight was aware that races which couldn’t employ weather-control pegasi to regulate their rainfall were actually able to make fairly reliable predictions for upcoming temperatures and storms by collecting data from previous decades and creating predictive models based on trends.

Could something similar be done for major world events?

There would be a lot of variables that needed to be accounted for, certainly, but if a model could be formulated—

Twilight shook her head to dislodged the distraction, though she did jot down another note for later. There was too much going on right now for her to get lost in collating data and deriving equations to help her spot trends in major events. Two of the world’s major powers had gone to war—and nocreature yet knew how many more nations would end up getting dragged into it—and now Equestria’s chancellor was dead.

Twilight let out a resigned sigh. “...Do you want a cupcake?” She nudged the box towards the gray pegasus.

“Oh, no thank you, ma’am. Too sweet for my tastes. I prefer muffins.”

The unicorn checked the contents of the box once more, half expecting to find that she’d somehow missed spotting a muffin in the mix intended for the delivery pony. When she failed to find one, Twilight actually felt a measure of grim satisfaction that the mysterious pink baker pony wasn’t, in fact, completely omniscient. She’d managed to anticipate the death of the chancellor—somehow—but hadn’t accounted for the food preferences of the specific courier who would be tasked with delivering the news of his death to Harmony.

As far as ‘victories’ went, it wasn’t the most hollow that Twilight felt she’d ever experienced—

—Zebras hadn’t been the only creatures in White Tail when Twilight—

—but it was higher on her list than she cared to admit.

The courier dipped a wing into her saddlebag and withdrew a muffin, showing it to Twilight. “But don’t worry, that same mare already gave me some!” She announced. “They’re banana-nut too; my favorite!”

Colonel Twilight Sparkle’s frustrated scream was only mostly internal.

Author's Note

She probably keeps boxes of them stashed all over the island; for cupcake emergencies.

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