As a general rule, Colonel Twilight Sparkle didn’t ‘do’ spas.

It wasn’t that she had any particular principled aversion to them or the services that they provided. She simply preferred other means of relaxation when she felt the need to relieve mounting stress. Typically, this relaxation came in the form of reading or study. The unicorn attempted to distract herself by occupying her mind with something novel. This method of stress-reduction possessed the added benefit of allowing her to acquire new knowledge or skills. Which meant that, not only were the little purple unicorn’s thoughts no longer mired with whatever it was that had been preoccupying her before, but she’d also bettered herself as an individual.

For many years now, that approach to relaxation had worked more or less flawlessly.

There was only the slightest hitch in the mare’s gait as she briefly pondered—and not for the first time—how many of her degrees were essentially physical manifestations of her stress that she wore like badges of honor.

The last time Twilight had thought for too long about how healthy that ultimately was, she’d wound up with a minor in chemistry.

While relaxing with a good book was generally how the little purple unicorn recentered herself, she’d met with considerably less success than usual since yesterday. Try as she might, Twilight hadn’t been able to keep her attention focused on the contents of the book she was trying to read. Her thoughts refused to abandon the nascent war that had broken out, as well as the probable ramifications of Fancy Pants’ death. The little purple unicorn had eventually concluded that the principal issue had come down to one of environment: her surroundings kept reminding her of the very stressors that she was attempting to dispel. Her quarters, her office, the ships moving around the island, the mere sight of The Citadel looming over everything…

Twilight couldn’t look at any of them and not think about how Harmony Six was going to be affected.

…How it represented the ultimate failure of the fortress’—and her own—primary mission.

A change of scenery was in order, and that wasn’t nearly as easy to achieve as it sounded when one considered that Harmony was actually a rather small island when one got right down to it. At only two miles in length and at just over a mile across at its widest point, Harmony possessed less land area than even most of Equestria’s smaller towns. It was possible to see nearly every other part of the island from just about anywhere with even a moderately high perch.

So coming up with a list of places that she could go on the island that would provide for truly novel scenery had been an initially daunting task. But, as Twilight didn’t ‘do’ spas, she reasoned that visiting one might provide her senses with just enough unfamiliar sights and sensations to help distract her thoughts from her present troubles.

There were quite a few spas on the island actually. More than one might have guessed after being told how small the fortress was, certainly. It helped that the island was rather densely populated for its size, but the inflated number of spas was almost influenced by the wide variety of creatures which resided on the island, many of whom had differing needs or expectations when it came to what helped them to relax or feel rejuvenated. Some of these preferences were also mutually exclusive, which made it nigh-impossible for any single establishments to cater to all needs simultaneously.

Dragons, for example, felt most at ease while lounging in a pool of actual lava while breathing in air that was saturated with sulfur dioxide. That particular gas was exceptionally lethal to most other species, even in small quantities, which would have made it beyond reckless for a spa to place a room containing such gases anywhere near any place where non-dragon patrons might be. Kirin preferred places that were hot and humid. Abyssinians couldn’t stand humidity. Yaks couldn’t tolerate heat particularly well and desired places with rooms that were kept well below freezing.

With such a wide range of tastes present on the island, an equally wide range of spas and parlors had opened up to service those disparate clientele. For those species which made up a larger percentage of the population—especially ponies—there were even multiple competing establishments; with one or two ultimately emerging as the ‘premiere’ choice for members of the serviced race.

Among ponies, the general consensus was that the ‘La Ti Da Spa’ was where one simply had to go if they wanted to receive the most luxurious services available on the island. At least, that was the opinion which Major Rarity had expressed on multiple occasions. Twilight had yet to encounter a pony who vehemently disagreed with the assessment of her executive officer, and so had decided that if she was going to try and clear her mind with a visit to a spa, then she might as well try one which came highly recommended.

Of course, being held in high regard by a majority of the island’s inhabitants also meant that a particular business’ services tended to be in equally high demand—few were those who would deliberately seek out the products or services of the second best business without a good reason. This usually meant having to schedule one’s appointment well in advance, or so Twilight had learned when she stepped in through the doors to the La Ti Da. Not having patronized a spa before, the unicorn hadn’t been aware that they functioned like high-end restaurants, with ‘walk-ins’ generally not being accommodated as a rule, if for no other reason than because many of the services offered by a spa—massages, hoof-polishing, mane styling, and so forth—required the active engagement of one of the spa’s staff members.

Fortunately for the little purple mare, rank—and position—had its privileges.

Twilight Sparkle was not the sort of mare who would deliberately leverage her rank in order to receive preferential treatment or personal gain—certainly not when it came to a civilian business. However, that didn’t mean that the spa’s proprietors—for the owners appeared to be twin sisters—were themselves above leveraging the unicorn’s rank for their personal gain. Appointment or no, the two earth ponies were quite keen to accommodate Twilight’s patronage; reveling in the prospective further boost that their already highly-regarded establishment would receive when they spread the word that the La Ti Da was the preferred spa of the fortress’ commander!

The little purple unicorn’s protesting that a singular visit didn’t make her a ‘regular’ fell on deaf ears as the pair of pastel spa ponies eagerly—and loudly—pushed their ‘favorite client’ in the direction of one of the bathing rooms while they finished final preparations for Twilight’s ‘usual’ Executive Deluxe Package, which was apparently presently being offered at a discount to any customers who wanted to sign up for a Passion Flower Tier spa membership. A few of those in the waiting room did at least look at the brochures promoting the spa’s membership tiers from what Twilight saw before she was finally shoved deeper into the building’s interior.

The proprietors spoke rather quickly in thickly accented words which Twilight didn’t catch all of before she suddenly found herself in one of the hot baths. There had been quite a bit of thanking the unicorn for choosing their spa, assurances that her experience at the La Ti Da would be the most memorable that she’d ever had, and a clipped apology that her bath wouldn’t be exclusive, and assurances that the colonel wouldn’t find the unintended company objectionable.

Twilight found out what that meant when the door closed behind her, drawing the attention of the other two mares who were already lounging in the small pool of warm water. Both mares were immediately familiar to the little purple unicorn.

“Colonel,” the ivory unicorn said, her sapphire eyes widening in mild surprise, “I didn’t realize you were planning on coming here today, or I would have invited you to come along with us.” She waved her hoof in the direction of her companion, and equally familiar yellow pegasus.

“Apologies, but I didn’t know I was going to be here either, major,” Twilight dryly replied as her gaze darted between the two mares, lingering on the cool stare being leveled against her by the clinic’s physician. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I should just go—”

“It’s not an imposition at all, colonel,” Rarity insisted. “Is it, Fluttershy?”

“...It’s…fine,” came the eventual response from the pegasus, in a tone that didn’t at all convey the feeling that the doctor did, in fact, feel that the situation was ‘fine’.

Twilight was briefly tempted to leave despite the assurance from her executive officer, as it was fairly evident that staying would just create an awkward tension between the three of them. On the other hoof, the unicorn supposed that—while hardly relaxing—interpersonal tension just might get her thinking about anything other than the war and instability looming on the horizon. Which was her ultimate purpose anyway.

“Alright; thank you.” Twilight finally relented. She stepped over and slowly eased herself into the hot bath, keeping a respectful distance from the other two mares. A great deal of the tension melted away almost immediately upon contact with the heated water, much to Twight’s delighted surprise. The contented sigh that escaped her lips as she sank down to her withers was actually a good bit louder than she had intended, causing the purple unicorn to flush with embarrassment.

Major Rarity smiled broadly at her commanding officer. “It is nice, isn’t it, colonel? I make it a point to come here once a week to help myself unwind.”

“Do the two of you often come here together?” Twilight asked, looking between the two mares.

“Actually, it’s usually three of us: Captain Applejack usually joins us too, but she couldn’t make it today,” the ivory mare explained. “She’s working out those revised patrol patterns in response to…recent unpleasantness.”

So much for getting my mind off the war, Twilight thought bitterly to herself.

She wasn’t ready to give up on that endeavor though. “If that’s the case, then maybe we can convince Captain Rainbow Dash to join in and the five of us can just conduct our daily briefings here,” the purple unicorn suggested, doing her utmost to inject as much levity as she could muster into her tone.

“Oh, I wholeheartedly second that motion!” Rarity said with a chuckle, before shooting a smirk in her commander’s direction. “Though in order to get Captain Dash to join us, I think we’ll need to find a way to make the spa sound sufficiently ‘cool’,” the unicorn held up her hooves and waved them so as to appropriately bracket the last word in quotes.

Twilight permitted herself a small chuckle of agreement. “It actually wouldn’t take all that much work to get her to internalize thinking that coming here was ‘cool’,” Twilight said casually. “I’ve read some books on behavioral psychology. All it would basically take is a form of exposure therapy.

“If we arrange for enough other ponies around her to talk about how much they enjoy going to the spa, combined with leaving fliers for the La Ti Da laying around the flight barracks, and maybe assign her some flight patrol routes that take her over the building a couple times a day? It would take a couple of months, but after sufficiently saturating her senses with the concept of coming to the spa, she’d eventually come here of her own volition.”

Fluttershy frowned. “Psychologically manipulating somepony into going someplace doesn’t sound very…nice.”

“It was just a joke, doctor,” Twilight said with a sigh. “I’m actually not in the habit of casually behaviorally modifying my subordinates.” Offhoofedly, the unicorn added under her breath, “Even if there are some things about that pegasus that I’d like to change…”

Rarity cleared her throat, clearly uncomfortable with the visible animosity between the other two mares. “Captain Dash does have some…abrasive qualities; but she’s a fine flier. Her squadrons are top performers when compared to other flights in Equestria.

“In fact, just about all of our senior staff here on Harmony Six have exceptional records,” the ivory mare continued. “Command really did set us up for success!”

“Considering our mission was to try and foster peaceful relations between the other races, it looks like we weren’t actually as set up for success as we could have been…” Doctor Fluttershy dryly pointed out. “Since it failed.”

“You’ll pardon me, doctor, if I don’t give a convict’s opinion of my abilities all that much weight!” Twilight snapped at the pegasus, fixing the flier with a vitriolic glare.

The bath fell immediately silent, save for the trickle of fresh hot water flowing in from the tap. Rarity’s eyes were wide, her jaw agape with visible shock as she stared at her commanding officer. Fluttershy’s expression wasn’t as easy to read, looking as close to neutral as one could get under the circumstances. The yellow pegasus mare returned Twilight’s piercing amethyst stare with her own unblinking gaze.

“...I wasn’t commenting on your abilities, colonel; or your efforts,” the physician finally said in a quiet tone. “I was simply pointing out a fact.

“I’m well aware that it’s possible to fail…even when you do everything you can to succeed. Every doctor is,” Fluttershy added in a more subdued tone, her eyes closing briefly.

Twilight’s jaw slammed shut. It took her less than a second to review what the pegasus had said, and realize that it indeed probably hadn’t been intended as a slight towards her competence. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had essentially the same thoughts since the Council meeting.

She’d just…not been in her right mind when she’d heard the physician’s. Her stress level had already been high, she’d spent most of the day analyzing everything that had happened in Council meetings between the griffons and the dragons since she’d taken command of Harmony Six, looking for anything that she could have done differently to affect the outcome. She’d been thinking that she wasn’t good enough to do the job that she’d been assigned competently.

This was Twilight’s first command of an installation. On top of that, it was arguably both one of the most strategically and politically important forts that Equestria maintained. By all rights, this command should have gone to a general. Or somepony with experience running what was basically a city. A pony who’d been around diplomats and politicians for years. Somepony who was an experienced negotiator.

Twilight hadn’t learned any of those things. She wasn’t ready for a command like Harmony Six.

A posting this important shouldn’t have gone to somepony like her. In hindsight, it hadn’t been reasonable to believe that she’d be able to succeed.

Who’d chosen her for this?

What had they been thinking?

…Had the plan been for her to fail all along—

Now Twilight had taken out her frustrations on a pony who hadn’t earned it.

Fluttershy let out a breath before turning around and raising herself out of the water. “Doctor,” Twilight began. The pegasus paused, but she didn’t turn around. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I’m just—”

The little purple unicorn paused, let out a quiet snort, and shook her head. She started again. “I could give you all kinds of excuses for what I’d said, but that’s all they’d be: excuses. For the inexcusable.

“I shouldn’t have said what I did. It wasn’t—” Twilight hesitated when she realized what the next words out of her mouth were going to be, and who she was about to say them to. She briefly debated rephrasing, but ultimately decided to push on, albeit with an added sardonic chuckle. “...It wasn’t very nice to say.

“I should be the one to leave.”

Twilight rose back up onto her hooves and turned for the bath’s edge. She stopped when she heard Fluttershy speak. “But is that how you really feel, colonel? That you value me and my opinions less because I spent time in Fetlock?”

The impulse that immediately jumped to the forefront of the purple unicorn’s mind was to deny it. It was how Twilight was supposed to answer that question: that the Cavalry had commuted the remainder of the physician’s sentence at the disciplinary paddock and restored her license, so Twilight should treat her debt to the Cavalry and Equestria as being ‘paid’ and give her the same regard as she would any other pony. That was the ‘correct’ answer to the question.

It wouldn’t have been the truth though. She’d told enough lies since coming to Harmony Fortress though. The thought of telling another reminded her of how Captain Applejack had regarded her during the incident with the zebra marine. The security mare’s emerald eyes felt as though they had a way of drilling deeper into a pony’s very being than a batpony’s Enthrall ever could.

“...It’s not that you spent time in Fetlock,” Twilight said evenly—honestly. “It’s why you were there. What you did.”

“Because I ran away.”

It hadn’t been a question, but Twilight supplied her confirmation anyway. The two of them still weren’t looking at each other. “Yes.”

“You think that I’m a coward.” It was another statement.

“A lot of ponies left Equestria to get away from the war,” the unicorn deflected. It wasn’t a ‘lie’, as such. She simply felt as though she’d insulted the doctor enough already.

“...That wasn’t a denial,” Fluttershy calmly observed. Twilight didn’t have a response for that.

She wasn’t looking in the pegasus’ direction, so she couldn’t see what the mare was doing; but the sound coming from behind her suggested that the other mare was lowering herself back into the bath. There was a soft sigh, one of resignation rather than contentment. “...Lay back down, colonel.”

Twilight was very tempted to decline the invitation. Things were awkward enough between her and the doctor as it was. Today’s events were far from likely to help matters. It probably wouldn’t matter in the long run. Once the senior military commanders in Canterlot got word of the imminent war and its wider implications, they were bound to replace Twilight with an officer more familiar with defending island fortifications. Just in case the war escalated to the point that Equestria was dragged into it. Harmony was a long way from the mainland. It would need to be able to defend itself without support for a week or more if the worse happened.

In the end, Twilight lowered herself back into the water. Just because it was unlikely that hers and the doctor’s relationship would improve was no reason to further antagonize things by blatantly rebuking the pegasus. “Again, I’m sorry I—” the unicorn tried once more, stopping when Fluttershy held up her hoof.

“...Did you know that I was the first pony to ever meet a zebra? At least, as far as I know. If there was a meeting before mine, a public record was never made of it.”

Twilight blinked in mild surprise at the declaration, but then her expression quickly morphed into a frown. “I thought everypony else aboard the Maddox died in the Fisher Atoll Incident?” She said, referencing the well-publicized initial encounter between zebras and ponies, during which an Equestrian frigate that was charting the atoll was ambushed and destroyed in a surprise attack by a zebra cruiser. There was only a single pony survivor reported: one of the frigate’s pegasi, Silver Jewel, who’d been scouting the reefs ahead of the Maddox when the frigate was sunk.

“I actually met some zebras long before then,” Fluttershy said. Both Twilight’s and Rarity’s eyes widened in response to the revelation, as this appeared to be news to the fortress’ executive officer as well. “Though it wasn’t on purpose.

“I went abroad shortly after finishing medical school,” the pegasus explained. “I traveled to the usual places that ponies went to if they worked up the courage to leave Equestria back then: Griffonstone, Mount Aris, Mulan. You’d hear about the zebras of course, but you’d never meet them in the flesh. They didn’t interact with many races back then.”

Twilight nodded. One of the more surprising outcomes of the war between Equestria and the Zebracan Conclave was that it finally brought the zebras to the negotiating table—any negotiating table. Like the alicorns, they’d apparently declined to receive diplomats from any of the other races on the planet since…well, any given race’s recorded history. Nor had they ever sent any delegates of their own. The extent of the typical ‘exchange’ between a zebra vessel and that of a ship from another race was that of gunfire. Specifically: a warning shot across the bow.

It hadn’t taken long for word to get around to stay away from zebra ships. It had at least seemed like zebras weren’t interested in seeking out aggression. Which was fortunate, as no other ship afloat could outrun a zebra cruiser.

What had prompted the zebras to forsake their typical standoffish nature when their ship had come across the Maddox was unknown. The zebras had insisted that the Equestrian ship attacked their vessel first. Silver Jewel had attested that, while he hadn’t seen how the fight started with his own eyes, by the time he got back he did see the zebra cruiser sink the Maddox from well outside any range an Equestrian cannon could have accurately managed from a ship at sea.

The divergent accounts still remained unresolved. But, in the wake of the war and the zebras’ offer to surrender, little further interest had been paid to finding the truth. The ink on the treaty was still wet enough that nopony wanted to risk ruffling any manes by figuring out who exactly deserved to have the hoof pointed at them over the war.

The doctor’s story continued: “Then, one day, I was on my way to meet with a Kirean ship that was reported to have a sick crewmare onboard. She’d broken a leg and it had gotten infected. They were worried about moving her and were still days away from making port.

“But I got caught in a bad squall on my way there.” A grimace creased the yellow mare’s features. “I’m…pretty much the opposite of Captain Rainbow Dash when it comes to flying: I’m not very good at all. It was all I could do just to make it to a cloud to hold onto to keep from getting blown into the sea.

“It was hours before the storm died down enough for me to risk flying again, and by that time I had no idea where I even was anymore or how far I was from shore. Just flying out and hoping that I got lucky enough to find land only risked making me more lost than I already was; or so I reasoned at the time. I decided to stick with the cloud I was on and see if I came across a ship that’d be able to tell me where I was.”

Twilight could imagine what a harrowing experience that must have been: to be lost and disoriented in the middle of the ocean. It certainly wasn’t an experience that she wanted to have herself.

“Well…I eventually did. I came across a zebra ship.” A wan smile crossed the doctor’s lips now. “That was how I knew that I was really lost. Like I said: zebras didn’t interact with other races all that much. So if I was over a part of the ocean with zebra ships in it, then I probably wasn’t going to see any ships from the other races we knew about. And I’d already been floating around up there for almost a week by that time. I’d drunk most of my cloud already, and it wouldn’t be much longer before I was too weak to fly at all.

“So…I tried my luck with the zebras.

“They were actually pretty nice to me once they realized I was lost,” she said, a soft smile touching her muzzle as she relived the memories. “The language barrier made things difficult at first, but after a few days we managed to learn enough of each others’ languages to get across the basics. They really warmed up to me when they found out I was a doctor. Their ship had its own doctor—Doctor Xera—but she was glad to have the help in the sickbay.

“The captain diverted their course. They took me close to a Saddle Arabian port that they knew about. Close enough that I could fly there on my own. I thanked them and we parted ways.

“It was pretty easy to make it back to Equestria from there.”

Fluttershy was silent for several long moments as the faint smile melted away, her eyes growing haunted. “...A couple months later, ponies and zebras were at war.”

Twilight and Rarity exchanged looks. “That was an incredible story, doctor,” the purple unicorn said. “I never knew that a pony had had interactions with the zebras prior to Fisher Atoll.”

Fluttershy nodded. “I’ve only ever told that story once before,” the pegasus admitted. “And it was the greatest mistake of my life.”

Both unicorns balked now. “Whatever do you mean, doctor?” Rarity asked, sounding just as perplexed by the revelation as Twilight was feeling.

“When the war was going really badly, all sorts of ponies in the government and the Cavalry were asking everypony and anypony if they knew anything about zebras,” Fluttershy said. “And…I wanted to be helpful, so I told somepony that I’d been on a zebra ship and talked with them.

“They asked me all sorts of questions about the ship, but I’m not a naval pony, so I just didn’t know anything that was very useful—not the sort of things that the generals cared about anyway.” The yellow mare gave an anemic shrug. “Then they asked me what I talked with the zebras about, and I told them about how I talked a lot with the ship’s doctor and how we talked about medical treatments and techniques and things like that. I told them about how Doctor Xera and I discussed the different medicines that zebras and ponies used…”

The pegasus was silent for a few moments. Then, quietly, almost reluctantly: “...Then I told them about how some of the medications Equestria used were highly toxic to the zebras.”

Realization dawned almost instantly on Twilight’s face. It made sense, of course. Even from the outset of the war, things were going terribly for Equestria. The Cavalry’s tacticians and planners had been desperate for anything that might help to give Equestria a fighting chance: weapons, armors, spells. The revelation that ponies were already actively producing a substance which was toxic to the enemy would have been invaluable information. If a way could have been found to properly weaponize the delivery of that medication…

Chemical warfare wasn’t regarded as being a particularly ‘honorable’ means of prosecuting a war; but many of Equestria’s leaders eventually reasoned that ‘fighting dirty’ was far preferable to ‘dying with dignity’.

Twilight…wasn’t sure how she felt about that quite yet.

“...They wanted to know everything I’d learned about how to hurt zebras,” Fluttershy said, almost too quietly to hear. She raised her head and met Twilight’s gaze. “They wanted me to figure out the best ways to poison as many of them as possible.

“They wanted a doctor to teach them how to kill. En masse.”

The purple unicorn looked away.

—Twilight had developed the theories back in school. There’d been a research paper.
—She’d received high marks for it; because of course she had—
But it had been just a paper. All theory; no practical trials. A thought exercise and little more.
The Cavalry found the paper. They brought it back to its author.
They wanted the theory turned into a spell—
—Twilight usually enjoyed creating new spells—
Twilight had succeeded; because of course she had.
She’d cast the spell exactly once.
…Once had been enough…

“I ran,” Fluttershy admitted. “I was scared, and so I ran. Scared of what they’d do with the information. Scared of being called a ‘hero’ for my ‘contributions’ after the war.” Twilight still couldn’t bring herself to look at the pegasus, but she felt the other mare’s eyes on her all the same. “...And I was scared of how I’d come to feel about that.

“So I ran. Like a coward. I ran away to Griffonstone and stayed there for the rest of the war. When it ended, I came back—Equestria was still my home. I was arrested for desertion. I pleaded guilty.

“The rest…is in my file.”

The room was plunged into silence once more. In many ways, it was a more awkward one than the earlier doubt of quiet following Twilight’s ill-thought out snapped retort. Because, now that the little purple unicorn knew the full context behind the doctor’s incarceration, it was hard for Twilight not to see a little of herself in the pegasus.

Both of them had possessed knowledge that Equestria’s leaders wanted in order to help to win the war. Twilight had granted hers when asked; Fluttershy had fled to keep her knowledge from being misused. Now, with the benefit of hindsight on how those choices had turned out, Twilight wasn’t quite as certain about which of them had made the correct decision back then.

“I’m sorry—again—for what I said to you,” Twilight said. She was finally able to meet the other mare’s gaze. “I didn’t know about the details behind your incarceration—I couldn’t have known them—but that shouldn’t have mattered. I drew conclusions based on incomplete data.” The unicorn’s lips quirked upward into a wan smile. “I know better than to do that, and I did it anyway.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated.

Fluttershy gave a little nod. “...I’m used to it.”

“You shouldn’t be.” the little purple unicorn affirmed. “And, for what it’s worth: I don’t think you’re a coward. Sticking to your convictions in the face of adversity is one of the more straightforward definitions of bravery, actually.” The smile that spread across Twilight’s muzzle now was far warmer than many of her earlier ones.

“I agree,” Major Rarity said with a firm nod of her head. “I can imagine the sort of pressure that the brass would have placed on you in order to get you to reveal what you knew.”

So could Twilight.

“...Thank you.”

A gentle knock at the door drew the attention of all three mares. A soft pink mare poked her head into the bath. “Colonel, Major, doctor? Vee are ready to begin your massages now; if you vould care to follow me?” One of the proprietor mares asked.

The trio exchanged looks before Rarity supplied the answer on their behalf. “That sounds lovely, Miss Aloe; lead the way!”

Five minutes into the massage, Colonel Twilight Sparkle decided that regular visits to the La Ti Da was something that she was going to work into her schedule. It was almost as relaxing as reading a good book…

“Does this letter come with an explanation as to why it took so long to get here?” Ambassador Ember growled as she accepted the scroll from her assistant. All the while, the dragoness’ cold blue eyes didn’t leave the messenger standing on the other side of her desk. “Gilda knew the details days ago. And they came to her via ship.”

“You’re lucky we know anything at all, ambassador,” the crimson drake retorted, not seeming to be at all intimidated by the glare being leveled at him from the daughter of the reigning Dragon Lord. He likely believed that his rank afforded him some protection from Ember’s ire.

He was probably correct. With a genuine war now underway, the dragons couldn’t afford to shake up their command structure by casually defrocking air marshals just because they weren’t bowing and scraping enough. “Just about every dragon that survived the attack died shortly after being recovered,” Marshal Garble explained, sounding as frustrated by the news as the ambassador was. “That’s an account from the only one who managed to put together any kind of description of what attacked Rock Haven.” He nodded his muzzle in the direction of the scroll the dragoness was unfurling.

Ember grunted and began to read over the missive. Her eyes skimmed over everything she considered ‘extraneous’ until she finally got to the information she actually cared about: the identities of the forces that had wiped out their garrison on the island. Ambassador Gilda had insisted that it wasn’t the Republic who had launched the attack. The dragoness—obviously—hadn’t believed that for a moment. There was a very short list of races on the planet which possessed the military might that would have hypothetically been capable of dislodging the army that the dragons had been building on Rock Haven: the zebras, the alicorns, maybe the ponies—and even if one of them could have done the deed, none of them would have had any reason to launch a surprise attack.

The only race with the means and the motive to perpetrate this was the griffons. It simply had to be them, no matter what Ambassador Gilda might otherwise claim in the Council Chamber. Now that Ember had finally received proof of that from a witness, she could go back to the other representatives and reveal the griffons for the lying sacks of shit that they—

The cobalt dragoness’ eyes widened. Then they narrowed once more, her lips curling into a vicious sneer before she glared back at the drake who’d brought her this news. This profoundly unhelpful news. “Is this some kind of fucking joke?” She held up the parchment so that Garble could see its contents. The scroll hadn’t been sealed when Spike had received it from the marshal, so Ember presumed that the crimson dragon had read it over at least once already and was familiar with its contents. She still wanted to make her point though, jabbing a talon at the offending sentences in the letter.

“‘It was like the night itself came alive’?” Ember didn’t quite spit in derision. “‘Darkness attacked us from everywhere’? The fucking ‘darkness’ attacked them? What does that even mean?!

“Even dragon whelps aren’t afraid of the dark!” Then the ambassador’s claw drifted down to a not-very-helpful ‘sketch’ that had been included at the bottom of the scroll. “And what’s this supposed to be? Was the island attacked by an ink blot?”

Garble threw his arms up in an exasperated gesture of his own. Given his lack of surprise by anything that Ember had quoted, it was clear that the drake had read over the contents of the scroll at least once. The fact that the marshal looked like he was at least as frustrated as she was did exactly nothing to ease the dragoness ambassador’s frustrations. “How the fuck should I know?! I wasn’t even there for the actual debriefing! I’m just telling you what I was told by the dragons who spoke to the only survivor who managed to get out more than two words before dying. I’m told that he drew the picture himself.”

“I made more detailed finger-paintings than this when I was a hatchling,” Ember scoffed before she tossed the roll of parchment, and the amorphous black blob at the bottom of it, onto her desk. Had it not been specifically pointed out in the letter that the large dark splotch was intended to be a visual depiction of what had attacked Rock Haven Island, the ambassador would have assumed it was the result of a bottle of ink being inadvertently tipped over onto the scroll and immediately dismissed it as having any relevance whatsoever.

Learning that the splotch was meant to be important actually somehow made the dragoness more frustrated with the letter’s contents. Mostly because the ‘illustration’ looked exactly nothing like a griffon.

“Allegedly, it rose out of the water, was as big as Lord Torch himself, and spewed out a bunch of smaller little black and sparkly blob things that swarmed over the island. Nothing stopped them,” The drake shrugged as he related what little else he knew about the situation. “Not canons, not muskets, not even dragonfire. Though he said that the fire at least seemed to get them to react. Whatever that was didn’t even acknowledge being shot at by canons.

“Or so he said.”

“So, in summary, what you’re telling me happened is: a giant shadow showed up out of nowhere, gave exactly no fucks about being shot at with thirty-pound cannon balls, sank every ship anchored there, killed just about every dragon anywhere near the island…and then just fucked off back into the ocean like nothing happened?” Ember said, not bothering to hide her skepticism. “And all of this, what, a day or two before a fleet of Republic troop transports conveniently shows up at Rock Haven with enough griffons to occupy and fortify the island like we’d never even taken it in the first place?”

Marshal Garble didn’t appear to have a response to the ambassador’s—presumably rhetorical—question. It was perhaps just as well. Even Ember wasn’t sure if there was an answer that the crimson drake could have given that wouldn’t have just pissed her off even more.

“I looked over our most recent intelligence reports,” the dragoness went on. “Feel free to correct me if I’m out of date, being all the way out here, but I was under the impression that the Republic doesn’t even have any serious warship fleets operating in that region.

“Am I mistaken?”

“No, ambassador,” the drake admitted in a somewhat reluctant tone. He appeared to have already anticipated where Ember was going with her next line of questioning, and had decided that he wasn’t looking forward to providing the answers he knew he’d have to. “They have some lighter cruisers for anti-piracy and interdiction duties in the region, but all of their heavier frigates and battleships are elsewhere.”

Ember nodded. “So, the griffons had nothing nearby that could have supported an invasion fleet.” It was a statement, not a question, but Garble nodded anyway. “And how long had those troop ships been at sea before arriving at the island?”

“Five days.”

“So those troop ships set out for the island while it was still occupied by us, with nothing to help them support a landing.” Another statement.

“Correct, ambassador.”

“It’s almost like whoever gave the order to send those ships knew that our garrison would be dealt with before they arrived. In fact, only a complete moron would have sent out a fleet like that towards Rock Haven Island without first knowing that there wouldn’t be any opposition present by the time the transports arrived,” Ember deduced, receiving no pushback from the drake standing in front of her.

“Unfortunately for us—and despite their anatomy suggesting otherwise—the griffons aren’t bird-brained idiots. They knew the Rock Haven garrison would be dealt with when they sent those ships. In fact, they timed the attack almost perfectly, because if it had happened even a couple days sooner, we’d have had time to send out more dragons to reinforce the defenses—not many,” Ember acknowledged. “Not enough to hold off a real assault, but enough to fight off what the Republic actually sent.”

“Probably,” Garble agreed.

“My point, marshal, is that this ink blot,” the cobalt dragoness stabbed the drawing on her desk with a claw, “is obviously associated with the griffons somehow. What I want to know is: how?

“Is it a new kind of magic that the griffons developed? Something they imported from another race? Is it some new kind of monster that they’ve managed to tame?

“I know you don’t know,” Ember headed off the drake as he opened his mouth to offer what was no doubt an admission of ignorance. “There’d have been an explanation in this letter if anydragon did. My point is that we need to find out.

“Comb through every record we have back home. Every record,” the dragoness stressed. “Intelligence reports, histories, myths, legends, fucking whelp stories—anything and everything that might mention anything that looks or acts like this thing,” Ember repeatedly stabbed the image on the scroll for emphasis.

“Reach out to the other races too. The kirins, the donkeys, the ponies—actually, no, not the ponies,” the ambassador amended.

“Why not?” Garble asked, sounding genuinely curious. “If this thing was at all magical—and ignoring cannon balls suggests that it was—then the ponies seem like the ones to ask. Aside from the alicorns, ponies are the most magically-inclined race on the planet.”

“Exactly,” Ember agreed. “They are incredibly skilled with magic. If any race was capable of creating something like this, it would probably be the ponies—or the alicorns,” the ambassador added with a dismissive note. While undeniably capable, it was well-known how non-inclined the alicorns were to share any of their knowledge with the other races.

The ponies on the other hand…

“The griffons sold weapons to the ponies during their war with the zebras,” the ambassador explained. “If any race was going to sell weapons to the griffons, it would be them.

“I’m not saying that Equestria is actively helping the Republic against us,” Ember hastily amended upon seeing the obvious question building up behind Garble’s widening gaze. “They could have sold whatever magical knowledge this is to the griffons years ago. Maybe some basis for it was something that got traded to the griffons in exchange for the weapons during the war. Who knows?

“My point is that this thing could be based on pony technology. If we ask them about it, then it’s possible that word about how much we know about all this might get back to the griffons.”

“So? We’re at war,” the drake stated the obvious. “Why do we care if the griffons find out we’re looking into where they’re getting help from?”

“Because they clearly don’t want us to know about whatever this thing is.” Ember said. “They don’t want anycreature to know. Otherwise why act like the attack never happened during the Council meeting?”

“Isn’t that even more of a reason for us to tell everycreature about it?”

“It is if we have real proof,” the ambassador countered, scowling. “The ravings of one half-mad drake on his deathbed doesn’t mean anything. If the griffons deny having access to something like this, and we don’t have any real evidence that they do, then we just come off looking like lunatics looking for any reason to explain why we just got punted off Rock Haven by our tails. If we’re going to find allies in this war, then we need our credibility to be as intact as possible. We can’t let the griffons undermine us by painting us as fools that are literally jumping at shadows,” she waved her hand at the scroll.

“The moment we have any concrete evidence of some sort that the griffons used that thing to attack us before their declaration of war, then we’ll release it to the world at large and expose them in front of the Council. But, until then…”

Ember shook her head. “Keep our investigation away from any of the races that might have working relationships with the griffons; which includes the other major races on the Council: no ponies, no alicorns, and no zebras.

“Frankly, if any of them were a part of this, then we’re pretty much fucked anyway…”

Garble nodded. “Understood, Ambassador Ember,” the marshal said with a sigh. “We’ll see what we can dig up.”

As the crimson-scaled drake turned away to leave, Ember stopped him with one additional question. “What are we doing to stop another attack like this?” She asked. “If cannons don’t work, and dragonfire barely gets a reaction, how does my fa—how does the Dragon Lord intend to fight it off if it shows up again?”

Garble was quiet for far longer than Ember was comfortable with before he answered.

“...The current plan is to fight it with everything we have, Ambassador Ember. No surrender; no retreat.”

The marshal hadn’t turned back to look at her when he’d answered. The ambassador didn’t say anything further to stop him from leaving. Her office was silent for a long while after the door closed, and it was only broken when Ember’s assistant, Spike, offered up a bluntly succinct assessment which almost perfectly mirrored the ambassador’s own private thoughts:

“I’ll be honest; that doesn’t sound like a very good plan.”

“No. No it doesn’t.”

Hopefully there would be better options available to them before it was too late.

Author's Note

Alternate chapter titles included: "Hey, look who finally passed the Bechdel Test!"

As always, a thumbs up and comment are greatly appreciated

If you like the cover art and want to see more stories get them, I've set up a Cover Art Fund if you're interested and have any bits lying around!