Inside the dining area there was a feast of…. Cloud cream?

Cloud Cream pancakes, cloud cream bread, cloud cream yogurt, cloud cream croissants, cloud cream muffins, and even cloud cream juice! Everypony present, excluding the royal family, stares down at the food presented to them with a puzzled look.

King Thunder signals for the guarding attendants to pull out the seats for everypony, afterwards motioning for the standing ponies to sit down. Pipp happily takes the seat to the right of her father, while Zipp positions herself on the far end of the dining table, to the left of her mother. King Thunder mumbles something under his breath when he see's that Zipp chose to sit next to her mother, but he resets his expression back to being stoic.

Izzy sits in the middle right side of the table, while Sunny sits across from her wearing a quesy expression from all of the sugar presented in front of her. Hitch is about to sit next to Zip who is patting the seat next to her before King Thunder clears his throat.

His expression was hard to decipher but seemed very calculating, "Ditch"

"Hitch...."

"Doesn't matter, you shall be seated next to me."

"Out of all the empty seats at this table why should he be sitting next to you." Zipp gestures at the 6 unoccupied seats surrounding the table.

"Why Princesss, why are you so passionate about this? I'm just trying to get to know your friends better. Especially this one... Haven you said he was some type of general correct?"

"He is the sole sheriff and police force for the earth ponies, yes."

"How interesting....I wish I didn't have any responsibilities like you."

Before Zipp can retort Hitch sits down next to King Thunder and says in a calm voice, "I'm glad my life reflects off as being so easy to you. Must mean I've done something right yesterday."

King Thunder chuckles at this response and then waves for the attendants to leave the room, proclaiming in a booming voice, “Let the cloud feast begin!”

Sunny stares at the platter presented in front of her not even having the strength to pick up her spoon. She shakily raises her hoof, "So Queen Haven you don't happen to have any... fruits or veggies on hoof right??? I just really like to keep my usual...balanced... diet"

She says the "balanced" part quietly to where nopony could really hear her.

"Why yes! But they are being kept for the scheduled lunch time. Don't fret Sunny! This is an pegasi staple when it comes to our cuisine. See of this as a way for me to formally introduce you to our culture because we remember how the last time went..."

Reluctantly Sunny adds the cloud cream pancakes and muffins to her plate. With the amount of sugar present in front of them she takes a mental note of how many seconds she can stay in this room before she'd like to puke from the smell alone. She makes a mental note to buy a wagon full of fruits and veggies to avoid this issue from happening again.

Before she can take a nibble out of her muffin, Izzy magics away the cloud cream items and teleports an apple to her.

"Sorry Queen Haven, but Sunny doesn't really do well with a lot of sugar. It makes her insides do flips, if you know what I mean~" She takes a big gulp out of the large array of sweets in front of her,

"OH! Why didn't you say so Sunny? I'm sorry if I've made you uncomfortable, I just assumed because of your smoothie business that you were fine with sweets. Next time please tell me if something makes you uncomfortable? Then I'll arrange with the proper ponies to fit your preferences. I would hate if I was the reason why my daughters friends didn't have a good time while visiting."

"Why thank you Queen Haven for being considerate. I just didn't want to insult you or the pegasi's wonderful culture by not being open to eating something..." Sunny looks down feeling a little shy.

"Nonsense! If you were insulting us than you probably would have thrown the food away." Queen Haven flicks her fork and some of the cloud cream lands on Zipp's face.

"Mom!" Zipp grumbles

"Oops sorry..." Queen Haven quickly rubs off the cloud cream with her spare handkerchief.

"Its fine...but like my mom said Sunny its not that bad. The only one in our family that could actually eat this is that pile of rocks over there." She points her hoof towards where PIpp is sitting.

"Hey!" Pipp quickly gets up from her seat about to send the biggest punch she could muster to the sister she JUST made up with. Siblings smh...

"Not you, him!" She adjusts her hoof to where it's face to face with Thunder.

Thunder chokes on his food, not really expecting such a forward insult, "Cough... didn't your mother teach you that it's not polite to point at ponies? Cough... all this fuss over one stupid earth pony."

"Shut it." Queen Haven waves over an attendant and looks at Sunny expectantly, Sunny, is Avocado toast good for you?"

"Yes! That would be perfect!"

The attendant then rushes off to the kitchen to relay the order, mumbling under their breath a few choice words that is not suitable for young ponies to hear. He comes back 30 minutes later with a half burnt toast and messily cut avocados sprayed on top, with few to no spices added.

"Wow! Send my thanks to the Chef for guessing my preferences! How did they know I love burnt toast, Queen Haven your castle staff is amazing!" Sunny quickly starts munching on the toast.

Queen Haven shrugs and bites into a muffin, "I guess I'm just very lucky. I remember when I requested for the Chef to change Pipp's plate when she was younger since she was acting very funny, and she makes another plate except this time with no peanuts. That's how we found out about Pipp's allergy, we are so lucky to have her."

Thunder starts to choke again on his food, but this time he's trying to hold in a laugh.

"What's so funny...dear?" Queen Haven glares at him from across the table, stabbing her food in the process.

"Nothing...nothing...haha, just I found something interesting" King Thunder wipes his mouth with a napkin and reaches out for another cloud cream muffin.

After this interaction the dining room grows very quiet, the only sounds being heard were that of the silverware clinking against each other.

It continues like this for thirty more minutes until Izzy decides to have enough and asks King Thunder in a happy tone, “So, you just came back from a war with the northern pegasi right? Can you tell us some war stories of what the north is like?”

“Oh yes! Seeing as I’ve been in Maretime Bay for the longest time, until you know we brought back magic. Plus, I’m very interested in the history of the pegasi kingdom and why they are split between the north and south.” Sunny pipes up interested in the topic.

King Thunder finishes his last dish and looks up at the two ponies with a grin, “And I suppose you would also like to know about our military strategies?”

“YES! Ahem, I mean if you could, Maretime Bay is lacking greatly in law enforcement so more safety tips would be amazing.” Hitch exclaims.

King Thunder looks at the table of curious ponies and smiles to himself. He liked discussing history, but he really loves talking about his war pursuits and battle victories! So seeing this many curious ponies lead to him being in a very happy mood.

Zipp rolls her eyes and gets up, "While you guys listen to his boring tales I'll be going to meet up with an old friend."

"What friends? Last I checked you were always holed up in your room doing who knows what." Pipp points out

"Pinion."

"I stand corrected, who names their kid that." Pipp snorts,

Zipp rolls her eyes and exits the room. Queen Haven ushers for one of the guards to follow close behind her.

"Now dad please tell us everything about the north!" Pipp leans close to him interested. Since they didn't have much time to hang out the past day, this can be a good bonding moment. Later on she can fly back to her room and check off share stories with dad, in her list "500 Things To Do With Dad!"

“Well then, if it’s what the ponies want, then I shall give the ponies what they want! Now listen carefully, back when I and Haven were your age, there was a north and south pegasi empire, yes, but we were still the same kingdom! The north was actually situated where the ancient Cloudsdale remains were but the architecture they made from the remnants let me tell you was absolutely stunning! You would think that they were just renovating the whole entirety of Cloudsdale!"

He notices how he's done nothing but praise the northern pegasi city, while bringing down Zephyr Heights... he bites his tongue at this realization,

"*cough* I mean, Zephyr Heights has much more amazing structures, I mean look at our castle and our technological boom.

That was one of our major differences…they were stuck in the past and didn’t like our inventions, but that didn’t bring problems to us! In general, the north was where we did most of our farming, and apparently…they were able to make rainbows. But if that was possible we would have lost that war many moons ago.

Now, where was I…”

Flashback sequence. . .

There a very young-looking Thunder was standing in front of a mirror admiring his now outgrown buzz cut and overflowing luscious mane. After 8 moons of being in the military academy, he was starting to miss his grown-out tail and mane.

A knock could be heard from outside the hotel room he was currently residing in, “Come in!”

When the door was opened there stood Queen Haven..you know what let’s just call her Haven. Thunder continued to look at the mirror, not bothering to look back at whoever entered the room until she spoke, “So that’s it, no hello, I miss you? A glance in my direction would even suffice at this point.”

Haven now states annoyed, leading to Thunder whipping his head back and engulfing Haven in a tight hug. Haven looks down and blushes before using her wings to push him away.

“Well I guess that will work, but did you really have to grow out your mane that fast? I was looking forward to seeing you almost bald” Haven jokes now free from his tight grip.

Thunder stares down at her with a sheepish grin, “ Well then am I glad that you hadn’t visited me in the academy.”

Haven gives him a slide glance and goes to carry the luggage out of the room,

“Why was it only you who arrived to welcome me back?” Thunder moves to where Haven struggles to pick up the baggage carrying all his hair gel and products.

She looks up at him with a blank stare before moving to the other bags available and picking up the one that weighed the less. She motions for him to follow her and he does without question until he sees the surroundings of the motel room.

Paparazzi were surrounding the whole street, probably lining up for a whole mile. Once they saw that Thunder left the room the cameras started stuttering with their bright lights every 2 seconds.

Haven pulls out some sunglasses from underneath her wings and hands them to Thunder, pulling down the ones that were resting on the top of her head, and she “flies” up towards the royal’s airship, baggage in her clutch. Thunder pretends to do some dramatic poses for the cameras while making sure to check the security details on how to get to the aircraft.

A flash is then made, blinding all the citizens and paparazzi cameras, and some wires are hooked onto Thunder by the guards quickly with this distraction. Thunder waves goodbye at the citizens and starts flapping his wings as he’s lifted up towards the aircraft.

When he is inside the entrance is closed. Thunder unhooks himself from the wire and trots towards the flight deck where Haven sat studying a magazine and his best friend, Boeing Wings, is piloting the plane.

“Eventually we need to find a more convenient system, that whole hooking thing is such a pain to do, plus time-consuming.” Thunder complains.

Haven looks up at him with a smirk, “Well it’s the only way to fly outside unless you will finally let us dump these things?”

“Never, these aircraft are way too beautiful to be abandoned.”

“Then it’s your problem”, Haven comments and starts flipping through her magazine again.

Thunder rolls his eyes and trots to where Boeing is piloting and sits next to him, “Do you have anything you want to say to me?”

Boeing quickly glances at him with his icy blue eyes then back to the skies, “Nope don’t think so.”

Thunder starts poking him as a way to get his attention,

“Oh come on! You aren’t happy that I’m back?” Boeing keeps on trying to ignore his pokes before finally having enough and setting the plane on autopilot, and facing him with an annoyed face.

“Thunder, I literally saw you three months ago. I think it’s safe to say it hasn’t been that long.”

Thunder then makes a pretend shocked face, “So you are saying you don’t care about your best friend?”

Boeing looks at him with a serious face but breaks into a laugh after seeing Thunder start to fake cry, “Please never do that again, you suck at being cute. Welcome back to pony society bud.”

Thunder gives a satisfied smile, “What do you mean? I have a naturally adorable face. My daughters can even prove that.”

“Hah, yeah no, cuteness is my strength, yours is your scary expression. Plus Zipp gets her looks from her mother, same goes for Pipp, who sadly inherited your chin.”

He blows at his red bangs, and Haven puts down the magazine approving of what Boeing said. “The only thing Zipp got from you, thankfully, is your snout.”

“I thought you were supposed to be on my side”, Thunder replies a little annoyed,

Haven winks at him, “The only side that I am on is the truth which currently is with Boeing.”

Boeing gives a small smile to Haven and looks up at Thunder smugly, “Don’t be mad dude you should be lucky that the both of us are telling you this instead of somepony else.”

Thunder lunges at Boeing and traps him in a choke hold, Boeing tapping Thunder’s hooves with his wing struggling to get out of it, “Mind repeating that?”

Boeing continues tapping Thunder’s hooves and eventually, Thunder lets go of him and helps him up before slamming his hooves on the back of Boeing leaving him to fall again.

“Haha, maybe you shouldn’t be provoking me this soon after I got out of the camp hmm, bestie?” Thunder moves to Haven and she looks up at him unamused,

“Oh right before I forget to tell you there is a meeting with the North today, it should be starting at 5.”

“Well that doesn’t give much time, that is 5 minutes from now” Thunder comments checking the clock. Boeing goes back to his pilot seat and lands the plane. “Then it’s a good thing we arrived!”

Hearing this announcement, both Haven and Thunder rush to the exit. Boeing trails behind them as the royal guards situate themselves in a protective formation around the royal couple. They reach into the ballroom where they find a foal Zipp and Pipp playing around, sorry, torturing their nanny.

Both Haven and Thunder have their eyes locked on the foals, it was an unspoken challenge, but they both knew they were going to compete to get to the foals first. Their eyes meet for a couple of glances before they run full speed to get to the foals. One second it’s Thunder in the lead the next time it’s Haven. It’s a relatively close call but eventually, Haven lucked out and swooped the foals into her arms, giving herself a good distance away from Thunder.

“Seems like all those moons in that military camp were spent for nothing, now then go get ready for those officials,” Haven comments smugly.

Thunder looks at her with an annoyed expression but decides to let it go and move toward his room to get ready for the northern officials.

5 minutes later

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE PLANNING ON SEPARATING FROM ZEPHYR HEIGHTS!”

Thunder’s voice booms across the table to the officials from the northern empire, everyone flinches other than the emperor whose eyes look down at Thunder with disdain. This angers Thunder, how dare he look down on him, the king of the strongest and most advanced kingdom?

The emperor, Flint Tint, slides the documents across the table to a fuming Thunder, “It is exactly as you heard it, it has come to my attention that Zephyr Heights is a thriving city of the future, yes, but a city of arrogant and superficial ponies.”

“And why does that lead to a drastic decision such as this?” Thunder asks emperor Flint angered by his words, but it would do no good to pick a fight currently.

“Well you tell me, with your whole city being arrogant and superficial, what do you think happens when they are left alone to do whatever they want? Your officials are a joke, your rules are close to nonexistent, your military is weak, and not to begin with the lies? Oh, I will laugh with glee the day your whole flying scam is exposed.” Thunder clenches one of his hoofs underneath the table and leaves the other lying on the table to seem cool-headed.

“Anyways we have been able to let it slide for this long, but the final nail in the coffin is when a whole group of your citizens travel to our kingdom and have the ill-manners of dirtying the streets and vandalizing our properties and stealing one of our national treasures, which we still want back.”

Thunder then erupts in laughter making everyone’s eyes turn to him scared,

“So the reason you want to separate your kingdom from ours is because of trash being found on your streets and your properties being damaged or painted on, coincidentally the same day as our kingdom visiting yours. How do you know it’s us? Maybe it could be one of your citizens wanting to initiate a war.”

“Oh? Because we have video proof.” Flint then clicks a button and a video plays where from the bus of Zephyr Heights trash is being dumped all over the streets and properties. By the time the Zephyr Heights bus left the whole city was covered in trash. “And this isn’t even the first time! One of the times that this occurred was when you, yourself were inside the vehicle!” Flint then flicks through the images and video one by one showing the damage that had been inflicted on one of his kingdom territories.

Thunder just looks at the gallery of images mixed in with videos with a bored expression on his face,

“Now as you can see, this is definitely the work of your kingdom. We were able to ignore this for some time but enough is enough. Now please hoof print these documents.”

“Now please Emperor, I think you are mistaking something, that land you are talking about is under our clutches. But due to the bad conditions there, we turned it into a trash dumping site. The only reason a Zephyr Heights bus can be seen through all these pictures is due to inspectors and the cleaners personally coming to dump off the waste.” Thunder throws papers at Flint’s face smug after seeing the face of pure rage that the emperor was emitting. “I honestly don’t understand why you would leave your citizens to inhabit a labeled wasteland.”

Flint quickly browses through the documents provided to him and scrolls at Thunder, “Do you hear the utter nonsense that you are currently spouting from your snout?”

“I am just stating the facts, so I would appreciate it if you evacuated all the citizens that you were mentioning about from before. After all, they are illegally residing on private property, and with that logic, I think that you are scamming them out of their money if you apply taxes for living costs?” Thunder stated fact after fact, his voice getting more and more arrogant with each thing he listed down and when he snuck a glance towards Flint the former emperor that looked down on him now was flaming red. Hah, victorious indeed.

Flint gets up from his seat and slams his hoof on the table, “This isn't over, due to you greatly insulting my nation you will see me again on the battlefield.”

“Then go on then, keep fighting for land that was never yours, to begin with.” Thunder ushers him out of the meeting room and calls the meeting adjourned. All of the officials then exit with worried looks on their faces.

Flashback Sequence Ends…
“And that’s it, that is why we got into a war.”

Thunder goes back to enjoying his cloud cream pancakes, and all the other ponies look at him in disbelief. Hitch turns his attention toward Queen Haven to check if Thunder’s summary is correct, and she shrugs looking down ashamed.

"So...you guys got into a war because you both didn't know who the land belonged to?" Sunny tries to rationalize what she just heard.

"The land belonged to Zephyr Heights, look it even has our crest." Thunder orders a guard to bring him his old camera. The guard rushes out of the room and comes back carrying a rustic looking camera on a tray. Thunder picks up the camera and flips through the camera roll, then slides the camera down to Sunny.

Sunny looks at the picture of proof, the so called crest of proof is a rock formation in the middle. "I see, but didn't you guys have the same crest before you split...?"

"By a technicality, yes! The only difference is that their crest at the time was in the colors. Their main color was silver, we chose gold." Queen Havens explains,

"Ah..." Sunny slides the picture down to Hitch, that closely examines the picture,

"I think I can see what caused the misunderstanding..."

"I can't believe them Dad! How dare they look down on us!" Pipp fumes and then remembers something, "What happened to this Boeing guy? I don't seem to remember him..."

Queen Haven shrinks at the mention of his name, "Boeing was banished from Zephyr Heights when you were just a young filly... it was around the time that your dad was about to be drafted to the war. They had a mild disagreement..."

"What disagreement! He had the audacity to go against ME? His KING! Ugh just thinking about the moment has me growing a headache. All you need to know about him Princess is that he's a bad pony." Thunder pats Pipp's mane.

"The only reason he went against your ruling was because you were being stupid. He knew those ponies that were being carried to the war had no training and that the war could've been entirely avoided if you just admitted you were wrong and said sorry! We did NOT have ownership of that land-"

King Thunder cuts off Queen Haven by slamming the table, "Careful, what you are saying love. I think you might be feeling faint, should I call for a guard to escort you to our resting room."

"No need, I know when I'm no longer wanted." She wipes her mouth and slams the door behind her.

Pipp eyes trail after her mom and she looks down conflicted, "Dad, can you stop being so mean to mom...I know she makes mistakes but she's doing her best...she singlehandedly governed Zephyr Heights the whole time you were gone."

"Sorry sweetie, I don't know what came over me... you know that being back from the war has me still stressed and paranoid. I don't mean to be rude, it's just..."

"I know, you don't have to explain to me." Pipp rests her hoof on her dad's as a sign of reassurance.

King Thunder smiles at this, "Thank you Pipp, you are the only one that has been truly understanding since I've arrived back. Yesterday you said that you had some things you wanted to do with me? Well I'm coincidentally free this whole day, so what's the first thing on your list?"

"Oh my really! Wait! Let me get my list!" Pipp jumps out of her seat and speeds to her room, leaving a trail of pink smoke behind her.

Thunder wipes his mouth and clap his hooves together for the attendants to come and clean the table. He then walks out of the dining room leaving only 3 ponies in there, not bothering to address their existence.

The attendants start cleaning up the table and snatch the dishes from Izzy, Sunny, and Hitch.

Sunny blinks unsure of what she just witnessed, "So...that just happened."

"Yeah, Izzy are you ok? Your horn..."

Izzy's horn has been sparking for a good minute, her face dark, and strands of her hair was sticking out in every which way. When Hitch calls out to her she looks up and starts floating, her eyes glowing a deep red, and every piece of cutlery around her being carried alongside her. This causes the attendants to run away in fear for their lives,

"Ahhh! She's going to eat us! EVERY PEGASI FOR THEMSELVES" Some of the attendants scream while running around.

The Guards run up to her about the put the tennis ball on her head, but once they lock eyes on her they flee outside to conduct a lockdown on the castle.

Hitch clutches onto Izzy as a way to drag her down to the floor but he ends up being carried up alongside her, "Izzy stop please! This isn't helping!"

"How dare they trash that land! It had a beautiful garden and there were soo many cute animals! And that poor filly....I'll never forgive them!" Izzy says, her voice now altering to being something deep and demonic. She then starts mumbling something repeatedly under her breath, as if she's chanting a curse...?

"SUNNY DO SOMETHING!!!" Hitch calls out for Sunny.

Zipp bursts into a room, a stallion with a prosthetic left hind leg, follows close behind her. His dark grey eyes widen at the scene in front of him.

"What is this about a unicorn attacking the attendants???" Zipp then looks up at the scene in front of her in disbelief. Without thinking she tosses the discarded tennis ball up to Hitch, who barely catches it and tops it onto Izzy's horn. It doesn't do anything other than make her magic more unsteady, "Dang it! Sunny!"

"I know! I'm thinking!" Sunny says pacing around the room, her alicorn powers flickering to where it's slightly visible before vanishing again. The random stallion stares at this phenomenon growing even more shocked.

"Zipp you didn't tell me your new friends were magical monsters!"

"Shut up and help me with pushing her down." Zipp is behind Izzy and trying to drag her down to the floor. The stallion joins her in trying to push Izzy down.

Sunny finally thinks of something, "Izzy look! A ladybug!"

Izzy looks down to where Sunny is pointing and a small orange ladybug is resting on her hoof. She then snaps out of her fit of anger and drops everything to the floor, and starts silently screaming her hoof extended in panic,

"Quick! Somepony take it off! I don't like it, i don't like it, I don't like it!" Izzy squeals,

Hitch now on the floor comes up to her and picks up the ladybug with the tip of a fork. He carefully carries it out of the room, then locks the doors.

"What happened why did Izzy do all that..." Zipp cracks her neck exhausted,

"Your dad told us the story of how the north and south went to war...and you know how connected unicorns are currently to nature."

"You can't even unicycle all of that trash! Zipp your dad is evil! Pure evil!" Izzy rants, and Sunny takes off the tennis ball on the top of her head.

"Who's this?" Sunny throws back the tennis ball to Zipp.

"This is the pony I was meeting, Pinion Rust, he's like my only friend here." Zipp catches the tennis ball with her wings and points at the stallion behind her dismissively.

Pinion waves at the other ponies. His wings has silver tip feathers on the ends to contrast against his natural copper coat, "Hello! Future mediator and mad scientist, and no...I do not know why I was named Pinion, you can just call me Pin."

"By mediator he means advisor."

"By mediator I mean mediator, you have a talent at angering the Zephyr Heights citizens, like what you posted yesterday. I had to hold a livestream late at night making some far fetched lie explaining why, you really messed up my validity the minute you decided to expose the flight scam and team up with a unicorn. Do you know HOW hated your family is currently???" Pin brings his phone to her face and quickly scrolls through every single article based on her alone, all negative. "Congrats you got your wish, now it's almost impossible for you to be queen. No pegasi would let you."

"Phew! That's a relief." Zipp jokes and pulls Hitch next to her, "Do you think me revealing my coltfriend will be enough to make my chances basically impossible?"

Pinion drops his phone diving to go strangle her, and Zipp dodges laughing.

"Congratulations...?" Sunny approaches Hitch confused and he just stares at the two pegasus who are flying around the already messy room.

"What did I get myself into..."

"Love~" Izzy answers Hitch's question,

"Yeah I know that but...what are you doing?" Hitch stares at the fork sculpture Izzy is making with all the forks on the floor.

"Unicylcing."

Pinion stops chasing Zipp and lands in front of Hitch, "While I admit he's cute, Zipp. Why are you so adamant on killing me!"

"Why thank you, but I'm not planning on sharing him." Zipp shoves Pin away from Hitch.

"...You're so mean..."

Emergency Alarms sounds around the castle and loud stomps can be heard outside the dining room. Pinion and Zipp flare their wings alert. Pinion tilts an painting and a hidden pathway is opened

"So...you guys want to hear about Zephyr Heights history, right? Follow me and I'll show you the truth, or you know you could stay in here and wait to be arrested by Zephyr Heights authorities and be exiled from entering the palace...maybe burned at a stake...you know! Typical safety measure!" Zipp jokes,

The three ponies rush into the pathway the second she mentions being burned, Pinion and Zipp trialing close behind them. The palace guards bust into the dining room, and look up in wonder at Izzy's fork sculpture. The palace attendants show up behind the guards excited to see the unicorn and earth ponies about to be arrested, but no all they were left was a large mess in the dining room that they would have clean. Curse you outsiders!

Said outsiders, follow Zipp and Pinion, and go down the hallway meeting up at the place where Izzy and Sunny really got to know Zipp, the Palace basement.

Author's Note

Outsiders is a nice movie and song... but for real, who names their kid Pinion???

(please let there be no mistakes I missed 😔 🙏 )