He Who Speaks for the Sun

Blueblood had never experienced true, swallowing silence until nightfall on the dunes. The rest of his cohort had all filed off to sleep shortly after dinner, exhausted from the long journey to the oasis. In truth, Blueblood was just as tired as they were; Canterlot aerobics hadn’t prepared him for long treks under the Saddle Arabian sun. Yet despite the sleep gnawing at his bones, he sat awake beside the dying embers of their cookfire, watching the sparks rise to meet the stars. A half-moon illuminated the dunes with streams of silver. Unshackled from civilization's light pollution, the stars burned brighter than Blueblood had ever seen them.

Beyond the circle of his fire, something stirred in shadow. Blueblood touched Pride with his magic and narrowed his gaze.

“Cousin,” Princess Luna intoned softly as she solidified in the firelight. Her eyes flicked to his blade. “I would not advise you to draw.”

Blueblood’s magic faded away as he released his sword. Luna stood at the border of his vision, where the light and shadow comingled. In the guttering embers, her expression was as stern as stone.

“I expect you know why I have come.” Her voice was quiet and effortlessly authoritative.

“I don’t suppose you’re here to help me?” Blueblood’s tone was sharp and clipped. “Or to tell me that Celestia has dispatched her lapdog to assist me?”

“Neither.” She stepped fully into the light, her vantablack feathers seeming to roil with shadow as she spread her wings. “This isn’t something I want to do, mind you.”

“It’s something Auntie asked you to do, isn’t it?” Blueblood laughed acidly. “She can’t spare the time to do it herself.”

“No,” Luna spoke and the embers burned to cold, silent ash. “She was…” The princess worked her tongue behind her teeth, fishing for words. Exhaling slowly, she found nothing eloquent to complete her thought. “She was devastated by your letter. Devastated by what it would mean. What she would have to do.”

“So she pushed it onto you.”

“Blueblood, I had to raise the sun for her this morning.” Luna took a step closer to him, bowing her neck to stand at eye level with him. “Do you know how long it’s been since I took control of her sun?”

Blueblood swallowed hard.

“She couldn’t do this herself.” Luna shook her head, the stars in her mane blinking mournfully. “And she has asked me to relay that she hopes this will only be a temporary measure, but—”

“She thinks I’ve failed.” Blueblood interrupted, hoping to prolong the inevitable. “That she made a mistake sending me.”

“Cousin…”

“She entrusted this to me and I ruined everything.” Blueblood could feel pinpricks of fresh salt welling in the corners of his eyes. “That’s why she’s so upset. Because she finally realized she was right about me all along. I am exactly what she always said I was when she thought I wasn’t listening.” He brushed his burning face with the back of his hoof, his throat constricting and cracking as he tried to go on. “Weak! Powerless! Outmoded the second that a half-decent wizard dropped into her lap!” Blueblood’s spine was throbbing, wings that would never be pressing like needles into muscle and sinew. “This was my last chance to show I’m worth a damn, and look where it got me!”

Luna’s jaw twitched. “You know that’s not true. She loves you more than—”

“Why?” Blueblood’s hooves trembled furiously.

“Why?”

“Why does she love me?” His breath came in shallow, ragged puffs. Tears streaked down his cheeks, despite how hard he tried to repress them. “She has her successor.” The words hurt his teeth. “You and Celestia both know that I’m no Twilight Sparkle. I don’t— I can’t be her. I’ll never be her.”

“Can Celestia not love you both?”

“No.” Blueblood dug his hoof into the sand. “No, she could never love me. Not when she has somepony better in every way at her side.” He dragged in a breath and sniffled. “She doesn’t need me anymore.”

Luna’s wings embraced Blueblood as his last defenses were broken. He couldn’t stop himself. Words failed him as he dropped to the sand and cried. He screamed into the sand, his voice muffled as he soaked the earth with tears. Luna knelt beside him, shielding him with her wing.

“Oh, Blueblood,” Luna whispered, her voice scented with the dust of far-off worlds. Her hoof rested on the small of his back and he recoiled at the touch. She sighed softly. “You remind me of another pony I once knew, thousands of years ago, who also thought love and necessity were one and the same.”

“Who?” Blueblood’s voice was small and meek.

“Me.” Luna touched him again, and this time he didn’t flinch. “I wanted to be loved for a thankless task. I wanted somepony to see the hard work I did and acknowledge me for it. When nopony did, I assumed…” A flicker of sorrow danced across her features. “I assumed I was unloved. Loving somepony and needing somepony are two very different things.”

Her eyes drifted from him and towards the camp behind them.

“Cousin, would you say that you need Trixie?”

Blueblood blinked away the shock as he lifted his face from the sand. “I— Do I need her?”

“Yes.” Luna was calm and collected in the face of his clear embarrassment. “Could you not replace her with a Canterlot-trained battlemage and get better results? I’m sure somepony with more training would teleport you where you needed on the first try, rather than the seventh.”

“I suppose.” He sniffed, his cheeks burning bright red.

“But you don’t.” Her lip curved in a crescent smile. “You seek her out constantly, despite not needing her. Despite having a thousand other ponies more qualified to do her job.”

Blueblood could tell what she was getting at. He couldn’t meet Luna’s eyes, so he fixated on the damp spot in the sand where his tears had fallen.

“Celestia loves you. I love you.” Luna’s hoof gently rubbed his shoulder. “You’re the best cousin I’ve ever had.”

“We’re not really cousins.”

“I know.”

“I’m also your only ‘cousin’.”

“I know that too.” She chuckled, her laughter like a tolling bell.

A moment passed between them. Blueblood couldn’t find words to express himself, so he didn’t bother trying. He placed his hoof on top of hers, hoping that his meager display of affection was enough. It was. Luna's wing brushed his cheek, his tears sparkling on her feathers like starry dew.

“Of course,” Luna’s voice regained its regal register. “There’s still unfinished business.”

Blueblood cursed inwardly. The princess rose from her seat and spread her wings, smiting the stars in their shade.

“Your power and authority were invested upon you by Celestia and myself. In light of your recent actions, we have chosen to divest you of those powers.”

It was the moment he was dreading from the moment Luna arrived. Knowing it was coming didn’t make it hurt any less.

“You are no longer a Prince of Equestria. To represent yourself as such is to go against the will of Celestia. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“You are furthermore stripped of your status as Minister of Foreign Affairs. You are not to meddle in Equestria’s foreign policy from this point forward. Do you understand?”

Blueblood bit his lip. He tasted blood. “I understand.”

“Lastly, you are hereby discharged as Equestrian Ambassador to Saddle Arabia.” At this, Luna met his eyes. Something within them sparkled faintly, a hint at some deeper meaning. “Any actions you commit from this moment forth are not under the ordainment of Equestria. You do not represent Celestia, Luna, or any other member of the royal lineage. Celestia wanted it made clear that your actions henceforth are your own to choose.”

A long pause. Luna let her words and their implications sink in.

“Do you understand?”

Blueblood turned it over in his mind. Your actions are your own to choose. That was what Celestia wanted to stress above all else.

She was removing his claim to the throne, yes, but she was also unbinding him. If he didn’t represent Equestria, then he was just a pony acting of his own volition. Celestia couldn’t be held liable for anything he did, and he didn’t have to act under Equestrian law. Not that he intended to let the law stop him in the first place, but this was a tacit endorsement. That, he hadn’t expected.

“I understand.” Blueblood nodded solemnly.

Luna’s magic reached out and plucked the crown from his forehead. She held it in front of her snout and turned it over. “It would be cruel to take this from you when it's nearly all you have to remember home.”

“I’d like to keep it if you’ll allow me.” He said softly, pleading with his eyes. “I’d give you my blade, but I have a feeling I’ll need it.”

“Keep it.” Luna tossed it back to him and he caught it in his hooves. “Remember, you’re loved. Wherever you are.”

“I will.”

“And whatever you do.” She faded into the shadows of the desert, leaving only her ghostly smile behind. “Make us proud.”

She vanished on a desert breeze, with only shimmering hoofprints to mark her passing.

That was when Blueblood awoke with a start. He sat beside a shallow pit of embers spitting sparks into a starry sky. His heart was racing, like he had just been shaken from a nightmare. Clutching his chest, Blueblood took a few shaky breaths and steadied himself. His crown had fallen onto the sand beside him, and he raised it with his magic.

Celestia’s sunburst sigil was no more. Sapphires and diamonds formed the handles and blades of two crossed swords, backed by a ruby flame.

Blueblood smiled faintly as he crowned himself. The band felt heavier than usual upon his brow.

*****

“What do you mean you don’t have a plan?” Chicory said as she stared across the horizon.

The Asil Oilfields loomed in front of them, studded with jet-black derricks that pumped in stiff, metronome unison. The sand itself was so dense with the stuff that it was liberally splotched with onyx stains. It looked like somepony had started writing a letter with a dull quill and overturned their inkwell. Even at this distance, they could smell the heavy chemical stink of fresh crude. With sleek pipelines and gleaming metal storage tanks painted with the sunny yellow apple of the Appleoosan Oil company, it looked like a city of tomorrow sprung from the desert sand. Yet in the shadow of every derrick stood hundreds of ramshackle structures for the workers. Shacks of sheet metal and cloth hastily erected at nearly no cost. Blueblood couldn’t help but contrast them with the very modern-looking guard towers that surrounded the property.

“I didn’t say I don’t have a plan.” Blueblood picked at his breakfast. “I said I don’t have a good plan. Very different thing.”

“So, what’s the bad plan?”

Well, the way I see it,” He gestured vaguely to the shantytown that stretched between the pipelines. “The workers outnumber their guards roughly five to one. What they don’t have are arms.”

“Indigo, we don’t have weapons to spare.” Chicory clutched her jezail protectively. “Not to mention the ammunition we would need.”

“Like I said, it wasn’t a good plan.”

“It’s not even a plan! It’s the vague suggestion of a plan!”

“I feel like you’re being really critical when I’m still in the planning stage.” Blueblood pouted. “Just let me think it over.”

“Indigo…” Chicory huffed, rubbing her temples. “You brought us here because you said we needed to start earning victories.”

“And we will! I just need a minute to—” He trailed off into thought. His eyes drifted to Trixie, who was seated on the sand munching on a slice of toasted bread with some of the preserves the camels had given them. “Are you going to help, or just eat?”

Trixie swallowed her mouthful and wiped her lips. “You were the one who insisted on discussing this over breakfast.”

“You can plan and eat at the same time.”

“You always complain about me talking with my mouth full!”

Blueblood exhaled sharply through his nose. “Do you have any ideas to add, or not?”

“Well, there’s already one flaw in your conceptual plan.” Trixie took another bite of her toast, mushing her words through the preserves out of spite. “Even if you arm the workers, the guards are gonna be all over them in seconds.”

“And you still don’t have a way to arm them,” Chicory added impatiently.

“I’m working on it.” Blueblood swatted their complaints away with a swish of his tail. “And we can’t take their guards in a fair fight…” His eyes scanned the oilfields again. The bulk of the structures were situated in a dip between a pair of dunes, which concealed the approach from both sides. “But what if we split their force?”

Chicory followed his eyes. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“We distract them on one dune, attack from the other. Easier to face half their guards than all of them, right?”

“And where do we get a dist—” Before Chicory had even finished speaking, her gaze drifted to Trixie’s jam-smeared face.

“Leave that to me.” She tipped her hat with a smirk. “I can be very distracting.”

“That just leaves the problem of finding arms.” Chicory was pacing back and forth, a nervous tic she had seemingly inherited from Blueblood. “Cause unless we can count on a worker uprising backing us, it's suicidal to attack their guards, even with a diversion.”

Blueblood clapped his hooves with a crack. “The armory!”

“What?”

“Look at all those guard towers.” Blueblood pointed to the slick, stainless steel structures that surrounded the property. “If they’re employing that many soldiers, they need weapons, ammunition, and repairs, right?”

“I follow.” Chicory nodded.

“So they have to have an armory. It's just a matter of figuring out where it is and how to get into it.” He paced back and forth on the crest of the dune, munching on a piece of toasted bread with a tart lemony jam. “And if we can get into it, we can arm the workforce. Then it's simple, overpower the guards, give some motivational speeches, swell our numbers, strip the place for supplies, and move on to the next target.”

“That’s still barely a plan.”

“But it's more than we had a minute ago.” Trixie butted in, holding up a hoof.

“And what if they don’t let you into the armory?” Chicory raised an eyebrow. “What if instead they just shoot you dead?”

Blueblood’s lips curled into a cruel smile. “Not if I have a hostage.”

“And how do you intend to get a hostage?” Chicory snorted. “You’re not just going to walk up to the gates and get an audience with Razor Russet himself!”

*****

The entry gate opened as Blueblood gave a grateful bow to the guards. “Just to confirm, I follow this path straight, take a left at the fork, and that will bring me to Mr. Russet?”

“You’ll know his office when you see it. Shouldn’t be too hard to find.” The guard leaned lazily against a chain link fence, gesturing with his musket. Blueblood noted the manufacturer's stamp. Fairweather Firearms of course. “We’ll send a message ahead letting him know to expect you. We don’t often get visits from royalty out here!”

“So it would seem.” Blueblood snorted haughtily. “Canterlot this is not.”

Lifting his snout, Blueblood strode confidently into the compound, unharassed by the guards that buzzed about like flies. The news of what had transpired in Sutaf was still trickling out in waves. Snatches of conversation revealed that they knew there had been a coup, though who had come out on top was still in the weeds. Thankfully, nopony seemed to have Blueblood’s name on their lips. His role in the proceedings was still entirely unknown.

As he walked, Blueblood paid close attention to the workers he passed by. Tried, haggard, and overworked, horses and jackals trudged from one task to the next. They were drilling here, extracting there, checking purity levels in between, and repairing tools everywhere they could. He saw how they glared at the guards with obvious animosity, how they whispered and narrowed their eyes as he passed them by. They hurled stinging insults is Sarabic under their breath as soldiers marched past them in crisp, clean uniforms. Blueblood could feel the tension bubbling like kerosene beneath the surface. All it needed was a spark to set it off.

He made a left at the fork and realized quickly that they weren’t kidding about Russet's office being obvious. Surrounded on all sides by stark poverty was a manor that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the more posh suburbs of Canterlot. It was a split-level, plantation-style home transplanted into the middle of the desert, surrounded by a lush lawn of sweet-smelling grass. Blueblood could only imagine the cost to maintain the sod. He wondered if the grass made more money than the workers here.

Russet himself stood on the porch beaming with pride. A lavender-coated, golden-maned earthpony dressed in a black leather vest and a wide-brimmed stetson leapt from the porch and galloped towards Blueblood, all too eager to please visiting royalty.

“Well, I’ll be an orangutan’s nephew!” His hoof clapped Blueblood’s with a resounding slap. “Prince Blueblood in the flesh! What brings a feller like you down to the Asil?”

Blueblood shook hooves vigorously and plastered his brightest smile on his lips. “Well, I imagine the same thing that drew you this far from Equestria! Profit!”

“Speakin’ my language right away! That’s what I like to hear!” Russet tipped his hat and motioned for Blueblood to follow. “Let's getcha outta the heat! Absolutely ghastly place to be without air conditioning, lemme tell ya!”

They entered the manor and immediately Blueblood was met with a wall of cool air. After two days in the desert, he shivered at the sensation. As he glanced around the entryway, all Blueblood could think about was the cost. Dark oak floorboards imported from Equestria squeaked beneath his hooves. Portraits of Russet and his associates lined the walls, each of which had been painstakingly hoof-painted. A chandelier at the top of a nearby staircase tinkled softly, the sound of real crystal resonant in the quietude. As he was ushered into the sitting room and offered a glass of lemonade, he wondered how hard it was to get real sugar this far from home. Razor Russet was wealthy, almost indescribably so. As he sank into an easy chair by the window and observed his empire at work, Blueblood wondered just how far that wealth could reach.

A taciturn unicorn stood in the corner of the living room, sword at his hip. He regarded Blueblood with a cold nod.

“Just one minute,” Russet waved his guest towards a comfortable, plush chair by the window. The unicorn silently handed over a hoof-sized metal box to his superior, who held it to his mouth and depressed a button on its side. When he went on, his voice echoed through the streets outside, amplified and repeated at every intersection of his factory. “Alright, ya’ll. Lunch break is over! Back to your scheduled positions!”

Sliding the device into his vest pocket, Razor Russet beamed with pride. “Ever seen one’a these? Picked it up in the Gryphon Kingdoms. They call ‘em Squalk Boxes. They got some real geniuses up there!”

“Must’ve been expensive.” Blueblood smiled faintly, resting his hooves on the chair.

“Celestia’s mane, what happened to your hoof there?” Russet pointed to the still-healing wound on Blueblood’s foreleg. “Looks like ya either got stabbed, shot, or bit by a rattler!”

“Hm? Oh, this?” Blueblood lifted his foreleg and tried to be nonchalant about it. “Got it the other day while I was fleeing the capitol.”

“Ah, yeah. I heard somethin’ was goin’ down there. Didn’t they kill the Caliph or somethin’?” Russet sipped his lemonade and shook his head. “Always somethin' goin’ on. Probably jackal-related. Them dogs just never content, I tell ya. Give ‘em a good payin’ job, roof over their heads, put food on their table, and what? All for nothin’. They’ll find somethin’ to grouse about sure as the sky is blue. Horses too. There just ain't the kinda work ethic you get in Equestria, I'll say.”

“Honestly I’m still not sure.” Blueblood shrugged. “Everything happened so quickly that it was hard to tell what it was all about. I’m just glad to have gotten out with my life.”

“Hoo-boy, you know things are gettin’ bad when a Prince of Equestria ain’t safe!” Russet clucked his tongue, chiding the world. “So, y’said you were interested in learnin’ about the business, eh? Lookin’ to invest?”

“It’s a sector of the Equestrian economy that I’ve never given much thought. I’ve always been aware of the oil industry, but never really seen it up close.” Blueblood propped a hoof beneath his chin in thought. “For the life of me, I can’t understand where the demand comes from. Airships run on natural gas, ocean-bound vessels burn coal, and carriages.. well, they’re quite literally run by ponies! So why then, do I constantly get requests crossing my desk to secure drilling rights in Buffalo lands? Surely there’s not that large of a market, is there?”

“True, there ain’t much demand in Equestria just yet.” Russet chuckled softly, polishing off his glass of lemonade. He plucked out one of the ice cubes and loudly crunched it between his teeth. “I reckon that’ll change soon though. For now, we do a lotta business up north with the Gryphon kingdoms. Kleinkrieg, Schadenfreude, and Glucksfeder are all pretty darn huge customers of ours. You ever seen them big machines they use for harvestin’ their fields? Big ol’ threshin’ machines that roar like a stampede and stink like the devil!” He wrinkled his snout at the recollection.

“I believe I saw one when during my last visit to Kleinkrieg. Thankfully I wasn’t close enough to smell it.” Blueblood smiled faintly.

“All of ‘em run on oil! Same with the airships up there, plus they got some new-fangled contraption they’re callin’ the ‘auto-carriage’. They say it's a horse-drawn carriage with no horse!” He slapped his knee. “Imagine that! Course, they got their own oilfields up north, but we undercut the price by oh… ten percent or so. Saves a lotta money in the long term.”

“I guess that would explain all the requests for more drilling rights then.”

“Oh, since I gotcha here, and we’re talkin' about drilling rights! I meant to ask,” Russet leaned forward in his chair. “I just got a survey team back from Yakyakistan, and they were sayin’ there’s a huge untapped reserve down under the Bos Plateau. Could be a billion bit payout! Now, I know you’re hurtin’ after Saddle Arabia kickin’ you out in a coup, but maybe, since you’re all over that foreign affairs hoo-ha, you could send somepony to the Yaks who might talk em into openin’ up? See, we talked with some of the locals there and they didn’t take none to kindly to our first offer. But I figure you’re all about that smooth talkin’ wheelin’ and dealin’ mumbo jumbo, so—”

Russet’s voice faded into the background as Blueblood retreated into his comfort zone of nodding politely and smiling. As long as he feigned interest, Russet seemed perfectly content to regale him with tales of profit to be gained, black gold to be extracted, and new markets to tap. All Blueblood needed to do was let him ramble until it was time to make his move.

He just hoped he didn’t need to wait too long.

*****

“What do you mean you’ve never heard of me?” Trixie stomped a hoof in the sand as she stood outside the gate, demanding entry. “I have a contract to perform here in—” She craned her neck to spy the time clock in the guard booth nearby. “Just under an hour!”

“Nopony has a magic show on the schedule for the day.” The guard, a sunny-coated pegasus with pronounced bags beneath her eyes, reiterated for what felt like the hundredth time. “If Mr. Russet orders entertainment, it's on the docket months ahead of schedule. This is the first I’m hearing about this supposed, ‘All-Employee Magical Extravaganza’ as you put it.”

“Well check again!” Trixie folded her hooves over her chest.

The guard ran a hoof down her face and sighed, pulling the calendar from within her tiny office. She tapped a hoof on the date, which was empty. “Like I said. Nothing on the schedule.”

Trixie harumped and tossed her mane. “Now see here, miss…”

“Citrus Tang.”

“Miss Tang.” Trixie leveled her gaze from beneath the brim of her hat. “I’d like to speak with your manager.”

“Sure, lemme grab her.” Citrus flashed a chipper smile and stepped into the guardhouse. There was the sound of papers shuffling, a few muffled expletives, and a glug from a bottle. Citrus emerged from the guardhouse a few seconds later, the faint odor of gin on her breath. “Okay, my manager is here.”

“Is she…” Trixie’s eyes darted from side to side, her voice dropping to a hush. “Invisible?”

“No, she’s me.”

“But I wanted to speak with—”

“The joke is that I’m the manager.” Citrus’ wings chafed with frustration.

Trixie’s cheeks burned as she swiftly averted her gaze. “Well, that’s not a very funny joke.”

“I’m a soldier, not a comedian.”

“Evidently, you’re not a scheduler either.”

“No, that’s up to Russet, who very clearly did not schedule you.”

Swallowing hard, Trixie cast a quick glance to the ridge to the east, waiting for gunshots that never came. Already a small crowd of guards had gathered to watch her pathetic display, nudging one another and sharing repressed snickers. She needed more. She needed to draw as much attention as possible. For that, she needed to speed things along. She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but she was left with no choice. Steeling herself, Trixie took a deep breath and prepared the next act of her show.

“Please, please, please just let me in!” Trixie flopped down in the sand and stared up at Citrus through tear-clouded eyes. “I haven’t had a gig in months! I’m nearly at my wits end trying to pay the bills and I thought if anypony would take mercy on a poor, traveling magician it would be the magnanimous, philanthropic, generous soul of Razor Russet!”

“Uh,” Citrus threw a glance back to the gathering throng of bored guards observing the scene and shrugged in confusion. “I have no idea why you thought he’d be interested in a magic show. I mean, usually, the entertainment is more along the lines of fancy cocktails or—”

“But alas, the rumors are true!” Trixie lay flat on her back in the sand, gasping with sobs as she gazed into a cloudless sky. “Gone are the days when the wealthy of Equestria patronized the arts with their limitless bits!” She arched her back and inched across the dirt like a worm, flailing her hooves like a petulant little filly. “Now poor, brilliant artistes like myself must suffer and scrape just to put crumbs on the table!”

Trixie rolled onto her stomach and sighed as dramatically as she possibly could, enough that the dust scattered on her breath. “What a fool I was! What a poor, deluded fool I was to think there was any kindness and decency left in Equinity!”

“What’s she goin’ on about?” A unicorn with haphazardly trimmed stubble shouted from behind the fence.

Citrus rolled her eyes and rubbed her temple. “Something about the cruelty of the world or some guff like that.”

“Is life even worth living? Would it be nobler to walk into the desert sands and die of thirst rather than beg for the scraps at the gate?” Trixie clutched her throat and retched, extending a frail, trembling hoof towards the guards.

“If you had asked for water I’d have brought you some!” Citrus groaned and ducked into the guardhouse, rummaging through her belongings. She reappeared holding a paper cup full of water, which she extended to Trixie.

“You think now you can placate me with pitiful charity?” Trixie swatted the cup away, spilling it on the sand. “Ha! No! I shall die with dignity and—”

A report of gunfire suddenly shattered her scene. Trixie’s eyes whipped to the eastern dune, where Chicory and her rag-tag rebellion were reloading their jezails. It was hard to make out any details at this distance, but Trixie could already hear the clamor of hooves as guards on the eastern side of the oilfield raced to grab their weapons and mount an offensive.

Citrus and her squadron immediately forgot about Trixie’s theatrics, scrambling to mobilize and join their comrades. That was precisely what Trixie sought to prevent. With all eyes off her, she ignited her horn beneath her starry hat and set off a flurry of prepared spells.

Noisy explosions rocked the ridge to the west, shots screaming and exploding in clouds of white, sulfurous smoke. The peak of the dune was shrouded in misty gunsmoke as Citrus threw herself to the ground and clapped her hooves over her head. After checking herself for injuries, she leapt to her hooves and flared her wings.

“It’s a pincer maneuver!” She yelled over the sound of a second volley exploding from the ridge. “They must’ve positioned artillery on the bluffs! They’re gonna shell us from behind if we don’t take it out!”

“But what about—” An earthpony gestured to the opposing dune, where Chicory’s team fired a second volley and began to retreat. Citrus silenced him with a wave of her hoof.

“If we don’t take out those cannons, we’re as good as dead! Let the 38th handle the east! We’re gonna take the west!” The iron in her wings shimmered in the desert sun. “17th, on me!”

Five pegasi joined her as she took off, followed on the ground by columns of unicorns and earthponies marching at a brisk trot. Trixie couldn’t help but grin as she watched them speed off towards an empty target. With another flicker of magic, she set off yet another rolling barrage of magical fireworks to give the impression of incoming fire. Brushing the sand from her coat, she strode off through the slightly ajar gate with a smug grin.

All according to plan so far.

*****

“Basically if we can get the rights to extract at the Boddho Reservoir, we’d be in a position to make upwards of six billion bits a week in pure profit!” Russet slapped a hoof against the arm of his chair. “You’ve gotta be insane to skip out on investin’!” He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he continued, kicking his hooves up on a velvet ottoman. “So I’m thinkin’ maybe a twenty-eighty profit split if you can talk Chancellor Yunus into the deal. After all, it’ll still be my equipment and my employees doin’ all the hard work! That sounds about fair to me, don’t it?”

Blueblood opened his mouth for a noncommital reply, only for a round of echoing gunfire to interrupt him. He breathed a sigh of relief knowing he didn’t need to listen to another round of business proposals. “What in Celestia’s name was that?”

Russet swallowed hard, shifting in his seat and trying to make himself more comfortable. “Probably just the guards doin’ a lil’ target practice.”

When another, much louder roll of explosions rocked the room, Russet’s expression shifted. He rose from his seat and glanced out the window. Workers had abandoned their posts to stare off at the line of smoke wisping thickly on the dunes. The reality that his oilfield was under attack was slowly sinking in as his hooves worried the fabric of his suit.

“Seems like whatever trouble is goin’ down in the capitol has followed you here.” He gave Blueblood a faint, nervous smile. “Don’t worry, we’ve got some of Equestria’s finest guardin’ our facility here.”

Blueblood slid from his chair and finished off his glass of lemonade. “Unfortunately, the trouble is me.”

The unicorn in the corner didn’t waste a second. In a flash, his blade was out and traveling in a deadly arc toward Blueblood’s muzzle. Pride intercepted the attack and Blueblood quickly closed the distance between himself and his attacker. Russet turned to run, only for the prince to kick an ottoman into his path and send him sprawling.

The bodyguard disengaged, shattered his blade, and fired three shards toward their guest. With practiced efficiency, Blueblood deflected them with the flat of his sword, pirouetted around a fourth, and delivered a devastating slash to the unicorn’s throat. Retching, he fell, clutching his neck as his life gushed between his hooves.

Flecked with gore, Blueblood callously kicked the downed CEO, turning him over onto his back. Blinking stars from his vision, Russet stared up into Blueblood’s gunmetal eyes. The tip of Pride hovered a hair away from his nose.

Too stunned for eloquence, Razor Russet only managed a strangled, “Why?”

“Your armory.” Blueblood imbued his voice with all the royal authority he could muster. “Turn over your arms, or die.”

“You—” Russet scrabbled backward, his hooves clattering on the polished boards. “You traitor! Celestia ought to disown you!”

“She already has.” Blueblood kept his blade at the earthpony’s Adam's apple. His glare flicked to the CEO’s bulging shirt pocket. “Stand up. If you follow my orders to the letter, I might let you live.”

*****

As Trixie walked through the streets of the refinery, her nostrils flared at the thick, omnipresent odor of crude. She was getting a headache after being here only a few minutes, the thought of working and living in this miasmatic cloud was unbearable. There were workers everywhere, horses and jackals alike dressed in limp, ragged sarongs that showed off their lean and hungry forms. Some were still toiling away at their jobs, tuning out the din of combat. Most however had abandoned their posts, leaving tools and instruments haphazardly as they congregated on the facility outskirts, pressing against the fence to watch the battle.

That was until a loud squeal of static feedback made everyone wince.

“All hooves to the eastern rally point!” The voice of Razor Russet echoed from every intersection. “This is not a drill! All hooves to the eastern rally point!”

Trixie rubbed her ears and shook her head. She hoped that meant that Blueblood had accomplished his task. Confused voices whispered in Sarabic as the employees swarmed together into a single, teeming river of equinity. Trixie slipped into the waters and followed their flow, sticking out like a sore thumb in a sea of drab brown, black, and beige.

As they circled a massive, unpainted storage tank seemed to boil in the heat, Trixie could see the guards scrabbling to the top of the dune and unloading an uncoordinated volley. She swallowed hard, knowing that those bullets were aimed at her friends. Lighting her horn, she set off another round of firecrackers, hoping that the sound was convincing enough to keep the other half of the soldiers occupied.

The eastern rally point was situated between a pair of buildings, one was identical to the small, plywood and sheet metal guardhouse Trixie had argued at earlier, but the other was unfamiliar. It looked less like an industrial building and more like a bunker lifted from a far-flung battlefield. It was dense, heavy, carved from sunburned and pitted concrete, and reinforced with rusty rebar that poked through in tangles. This had to be the place.

The whispers and murmurs peaked as Razor Russet appeared, trotting at sword-point with Blueblood close behind. Silence fell over the workers like a shroud and Trixie breathed a sigh of relief.

Trembling, the CEO lifted a key from his keychain and inserted it into the lock. He turned it with a thunk that seemed to echo through the crowd like a clap of thunder. Everyone gathered seemed to realize what this meant. They barely breathed as Blueblood entered the armory, leaving Russet standing by the door twisting his jacket in his hooves. When Blueblood emerged from within, carrying a musket slung over his shoulder, Trixie could feel the inhalations of hundreds of workers.

Language barrier aside, Trixie knew excitement when she heard it.

The air was electric as Blueblood raised the gun over his head. The diamonds of his crown cast dapples of prismatic light across his coat. He tossed the musket to a jackal at the forefront of the crowd, who caught it and clutched it with a look of awe etched across his mein. Blueblood flourished Pride thrusting it skyward as he bellowed with the Royal Canterlot voice.

The words were lost on Trixie, but the soon-to-be-liberated workforce heard him loud and clear.

“Cast off your chains and free yourselves! Rise!”

*****

One good thing about jezails was they had excellent range. They shot further than muskets or rifles and were damn accurate. Chicory had always preferred them for that reason alone.

The downside was they were hard to carry at a run, and the long barrel made them awkward and frustrating to reload at best. Suddenly, she was incredibly jealous of those muskets she had always turned up her snout at, with their stubby barrels and shorter ranges. As it turned out, less range meant very little when your enemies had double your numbers.

Another volley cracked behind her, and Chicory threw herself to the sand. Bullets whizzed around her, pockmarking the earth like a disease. She rolled to her belly, whipped around, and fired off a round in return, She had no idea if she hit anything. Scrambling to her hooves, she tried to stuff another cartridge down the barrel as she sprinted but gave up on it within seconds.

“Keep moving!” Chicory screamed, watching as her ragtag legion sprung from the dirt and raced after her, gasping raggedly for breath. Crocus reached the crest of a dune, turned, and drew a bead on a pegasus descending on their position. Slapping the firing lever, Crocus blasted them out of the sky in a spray of red feathers.

Another coordinated volley raked their line. Many of the bullets lodged themselves in the thick sand of the dune, but at least one struck home. blasting Shoresh in the leg and sending him sprawling. Under fire, Crocus and Chicory grabbed him and dragged him behind the dune as he snarled pain between clenched teeth.

This was the part of their limited strategy Chicory had been dreading. As a squadron of earthponies and unicorns ascended the steep, crumbling dune, Chicory held her breath. Her eyes flicked to a rocky plateau in the middle distance. Something familiar stirred there, and she prayed that it had the good sense not to attract attention.

Cedar stared out at the battle raging in the distance, narrowing his eyes and trying to focus. His metal armband glowed a burnt red as he held out his hoof and breathed slowly. He tried to remember what Miss Briar had taught him. The memories rolled through him; an exciting escape from the palace under cover of darkness, reuniting with a mother who existed only in fragments before, and a friend from another country who had risked everything to protect him. Emotion welled up in his chest until there was nothing he could do but release it.

Fire swept across the sand in a crooked line. Flames sprang up as if written by a divine quill, scorching the desert and reducing the earth to molten glass. The ponies' advance halted as the fire separated them from their quarry. Chaos erupted in their battle line. Ponies threw themselves away from the bubbling, steaming slag, bags of powder were hurled away as the blaze caught them, and a few terrified recruits began beating a hasty retreat.

The confusion gave Chicory enough time to rally her troops. Jezails were reloaded, a line was formed, and their guns were cocked.

“Aim!” Chicory screamed as her loyal revolutionaries sighted their weapons. She held her breath as she pinned a panicked unicorn in her eyes. “Fire!”

Eleven jezails belched fire in rapid succession. At this range, their guns couldn’t miss. Ponies dropped like flies under the devastating barrage, sowing chaos in their already panicked line. The attempt to reform ranks and return fire came too late. A second volley slammed into their division, the jezail bullets descending on them like leaden hailstones.

The tide had turned, however briefly, but Chicory knew it couldn’t last. As she struggled to cram another cartridge into her jezail, she realized it was her last round. Crocus looked at her with a worried frown as she did the same. If they ran out, it was all for nothing.

“C’mon, Indigo.” She whispered under her breath. “Don’t let us down.”

The ponies below were rallying. Their unicorns were gathering together, counteracting Cedar’s flames with thick blasts of frost magic. Ranks were reforming and stragglers were dragged back into line. Chicory’s hooves trembled on the firing lever. Time was running out.

Something shifted. The sand under Chicory’s hooves trembled. A sound like oncoming thunder joined the ambient crackle of the flames. Blueblood appeared at the zenith of a dune to the rear of the Equestrian troops, whirling his blade in the setting sunlight. Trixie appeared at his side, far less dramatically as she came out of a teleport with her cape wrapped around her legs and fell flat on her face in the dirt.

“Lay down your arms or be annihilated!” Blueblood’s Royal Canterlot Voice boomed as he aimed his sword at the soldiers arrayed below.

As the rumbling of his voice faded away, a melange of workers arrayed themselves alongside him. Jackals and horses standing shoulder to shoulder, armed with pilfered muskets and stolen sabers. Hundreds stood behind him, fanned out in wide wings that enveloped their former overseers.

Blueblood waited for a response and prayed. The armory hadn’t been nearly as well stocked as they had hoped. He had only been able to properly arm less than a third of the workforce, with the rest having to make do with whatever they could scavenge. Many of them carried only planks of wood, bits of corroded rebar, or their tools of the trade. While Blueblood didn’t doubt that a sledgehammer could be devastating in a fight, an untrained mob was nothing compared to trained professionals. They had to buy his bluff that his numbers were enough.

“Lay down your arms!” He repeated, hoping that the desperation in his voice wasn’t too obvious. “I won’t ask you again!”

One musket hit the sand.

Then another.

Then another.

Blueblood and Chicory both breathed a sigh of relief. The flames sputtered out as the ponies lifted their hooves in surrender. The captain of the 38th Battalion, an impressively sized earthpony with an equally impressive mustache, dropped his gun and approached Blueblood with his hooves raised.

“If you intend to kill me, then you had better—”

“I have no intention of killing you, captain.” Blueblood sheathed his blade. “After all, I'm not in charge here.”

Chicory scooped up a fallen firearm and tossed it to an unarmed jackal. "I, however, accept your surrender on behalf of the Caliph."

*****

By the time the 17th Battalion realized the ruse, it was too late. They returned to the oilfield to find it under the control of its former employees, many of whom were now armed and none too happy to see them. Under orders from Razor Russet himself, they too disarmed and surrendered. Chicory gave the order to provision them for three days travel through the desert, and used their Camish maps to chart them a course for the nearest train depot. There, they could hitch a ride back to Equestria.

The mood in the oilfield was one of celebration. Food stores were raided and stripped for supplies, the armory was picked clean of weapons and ammunition, and a few enterprising employees had broken the lock off one of the liquor cabinets in Russet’s quarters and had set up a bar on his front porch for all their comrades to drink. Trixie, naturally, was helping herself to a sweet white wine straight from the bottle, just the way she liked it.

The only one who wasn’t celebrating was Blueblood. He had holed himself up in Russet’s office and was dredging the company records for all they were worth.

Taking the oilfield was a military victory, yes. They had managed to outsmart their foes, swell their ranks, and fill their train with plundered supplies. All of that was a step in the right direction, but it wasn’t enough.

Someone knocked at the door and jolted Blueblood from his thoughts.

“Come in.” His voice was a raspy whisper. Using the Royal Canterlot voice that much in a single day was absolutely hellish on his throat. He felt like he had been gargling broken glass.

Chicory pushed open the door, Cedar bounding beside her with a massive grin on his face.

“Mr. Indigo, my mom wanted me to give you this!” He set down a steaming saucer of hot tea with lemon and honey. “She said it’ll help your sore throat!”

“Thank you, my Caliph,” Blueblood said with a bow of his head. “You’re very kind.”

Chicory pulled a wooden chair alongside him, resting her chin in her hoof. “You should celebrate at least a little. This was your plan, after all.”

“My plan, but your execution.” He sipped at the tea and hummed.

“Regardless, we have a win under our saddles.” Chicory pursed her lips as she perused the scattered papers on Russet’s desk. “But I take it you’re already preparing for the next step?”

“More an extension of this one.” Blueblood levitated a ledger of exports and passed it to Chicory. “Appleoosan Oil was mainly exporting to Kleinkrieg. Are you familiar with it?”

“Gryphon Kingdom, no?”

He nodded slowly. “The Asif ceasing production is a big deal. According to that ledger, it accounted for around ten percent of Kleinkrieg’s oil imports. That’s not something you just shrug off idly.”

“Retaliation?” Chicory bit her lip.

Blueblood smiled. “Cooperation.”

A flurry of emotions passed across Chicory’s mein as she processed the single word. At last, her expression settled on slight confusion. “But why?”

“The Asif is far from Kleinkrieg, much further than Equestria is anyway. Harder to maintain control in a foreign land than it is to cut a deal with the rulers.” Blueblood’s eyes turned to Cedar, who was rocking back and forth in a seat nearby.

Chicory’s eyes flickered with recognition. “And the legitimate ruler is right here.”

“Well, Caliph?” Blueblood raised an eyebrow at Cedar with a wry smirk. “Are you excited to meet some gryphons?”

*****

From the desk of Razor Russet, CEO of Appleoosan Oil Inc.

To whom it may concern,

The Asif Oilfield will be suspending production due to upheaval in the Saddle Arabia region. I understand this will cut into your supply rather drastically, but this can be a temporary measure. I am writing this letter to request a conference with the relevant authorities as soon as possible. The meeting location is attached at the bottom of this letter.

I anticipate your swift reply,
Vladimir Blueblood