From Stalliongrad With Love

by LoyalLiar

Rating: teen
Tags: Princess Celestia, Slice of Life, Main 6, Princess Luna, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders
Length: 95870

When Guard Captain 'Red Ink' is sent away from Canterlot as punishment for abusing his position, he finds that writing Friendship Reports and living a normal pony's life in Ponyville is much harder than any exile to the middle of nowhe

Honor Guard Captain Red Ink is a proud warrior, the son of the Stalliongradi Tsar, and something of a legend amongst the Equestrian Guard. Until his mistake, some would have said he was atop the world. But a reckless violent streak and a disrespect for the common pony carry him away from his lofty post aside Celestia.

He expected a frigid post on the dragon border to carry the rest of his days. Compared to that fate, delivering a letter to the Princess's student in Ponyville seems a delightfully easy task. If he had known the fate the Princess had prepared for him in the tiny city, he might well have exiled himself. Fate can be cruel indeed to a warrior staring down at a nearly blank piece of parchment, knowing his life depends on filling it with words. The beginning, after all, is always so very easy.

"Dear Princess Celestia..."

A Price of Loyalty story.

A spin-off of Where Loyalties Lie, though you don't need to have read it.

Published 2012-12-17 06:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-12-29 21:25:31 UTC

Ponyville Is Not Enough

II
Ponyville Is Not Enough

August 29th, 1452 A.S.
Golden Oaks Library
Ponyville, Equestria
1100 Hours

Red Ink sat in what was quite possibly the least comfortable seat he had ever endured. It wasn't poorly padded, or ill-sized. In fact, its discomfort did not stem from the cushion itself. Rather, its source was the mare sitting across the small coffee table, watching him with a gentle smile.

"So, Red, I guess we should figure some things out."

"Yes, Ms. Sparkle, I am thinking that."

She cringed, though whether the expression came from his formality or his butchered grammar, he could not tell. It lasted only a moment, and her speech carried it away quickly. "You can call me Twilight. Do you have somewhere to stay in Ponyville?"

"I had no plan to stay long."

"Well, you're welcome to use the library's guest room until you find somewhere of your own. I'll have Spike set it up for you when he gets back. How about work? You mentioned you had been a guardspony?"

Ink contemplated the question for a moment, then answered with a curt nod. "I am having strong legs and stronger magic."

"You know Empatha?" It was clear from Red Ink's expression that he did not, at least in Equiish. "Uh, that's the proper name for pegasus magic."

At the explanation, he nodded. There wasn't much of a need for words, and he was never really one to overuse them anyway. He preferred to consider himself a stallion of action. The action of lighting himself on fire, for instance, was becoming increasingly tempting.

Twilight seemed awed at the prospect of a pegasus mage; her eyes took on a distinct twinkle, and her smile grew ever so slightly too wide for comfort. Feeling surprisingly threatened by the mare, Ink spoke up. "Perhaps you are having labor jobs in town? I can lift much weight for pegasus."

"I was actually thinking you might be the perfect fit for the weather team. Do you know anything about weather management?"

He laughed. "There is only one weather in Stalliongrad, and it is not being seen here in summer. Though I can be fast learner at times."

"Well, then I guess we've got some options for you." Twilight's magic grabbed a little pamphlet off the library's central table, and levitated it over. Upon closer inspection, Red Ink recognized it as the absolute worst kind of tourist brochure. Its face said 'Welcome to Ponyville' in a disgusting, bright yellow font, above what looked to be a foal's crayon drawing of town hall. Inside, he would no doubt find what effectively amounted to advertisements for the town's most expensive restaurants and pathetic excuses for tourist attractions. The center of the space would be devoted to one of those 'artistic' maps of the town, drawn without real scale, where all the items of interest were three times as big as everything else, and half the streets were concealed behind 'artistic interpretation' of the way things were supposed to look.

He barely suppressed the urge to groan at the revelation that he was spot on. Twilight unfolded the brochure as she claimed a quill. "Now, we're here." She circled the library, he noted, in red ink. The back of his mind began preparing fortifications for the inevitable puns. "Golden Oaks Library. You're going to want to first visit my friend Rainbow Dash." She put a big red 'X' at the end of Cranberry Lane. "She lives in a huge cloud house here. You really can't miss it. She's in charge of the weather team, so she'll be able to get you a job if you're interested. Before you make up your mind, though, head over to..." Her words were drawn out in time with the dragging of her quill over the map to the very outskirts of town. An overemphasized apple orchard was clearly depicted on the map. "...Sweet Apple Acres. My friend Applejack and her family were looking to hire a farmhoof so they could get some new orchards planted. If you want something a bit more physical, that might be what you're looking for."

"I see. Then I am coming back here?"

"Yeah, but there's no need to hurry back. Take some time to wander around town and meet some ponies. When you come back tonight, we'll write your first friendship report. Sound good?"

"As fine as anything," Red responded in a less-than optimistic tone. He rose and took a few steps toward the door.

"Oh, before you go, here are some bits. For lunch."

Twilight levitated a bag toward him, but he brushed it away with his wingtip. "I cannot be taking your money, Twilight."

"Oh, it's just a little bit. Call it a gift from a friend."

"Last time I am taking 'gift from a friend', he was wanting me to break romantic rivals wings."

Twilight cringed, but shook her head. "Well, I'm not going to ask you anything. Especially not something awful like that. No strings attached, Red. Just take the bits."

He sighed, tucked the small bag into his jacket, and walked out the library door. She didn't hear his parting utterance. "Shame. They were easiest bits I ever made."

Ponyville, Equestria
1110 Hours

Red Ink stared down at the awful brochure, trying to figure out if he was three streets laterally removed from his destination, or merely pointed perpendicular to it. He uttered a few choice phrases in Stalliongradi which bear neither translation nor repetition. His stomping utterances carried him through three elaborate swears and onto a fourth (concerning not only the parentage, but also the lineage of anypony claiming impressionism as an art form) when he heard a sort of gasping–not unlike a tank of volatile weather chemicals slowly leaking highly explosive gas into the air immediately prior to a large explosion.

He turned in time to see the threat approaching. An earth pony mare was charging, eyes locked directly on him. An assassin? He'd dealt with a few before, and this one wasn't exactly subtle. She leapt into the air, ready to tackle him. He knew better than to let himself get pinned by an earth pony. His hoof flew like lightning, catching her in the throat and forcibly smashing her into the ground.

"Who are you working for?" he shouted, earning the gazes and glares of the lively ponies walking the streets. "Masquerade?"

Despite the fact that he was fully prepared to snap her neck, the mare giggled like a schoolfilly. "Nope!"

"Soldier On hired you, then?"

"Guess again!"

Ink pounded his free hoof against the road, creating a small concussive blast that made his incredibly volatile nature even more difficult to ignore. "You are thinking this is game? Was it Grizzaloo?"

The mare, completely unperturbed by his threat, slipped out from under his hoof by perhaps the most flexible motion the ex-guardspony had ever seen. Then she quite literally hopped up to her own hooves and leaned toward his face with a goofy grin. "Well, gosh, you're the one who started guessing. I work for Mr. and Mrs. Cake! But that's not why I'm here."

Ink glared at her. "Then why–"

"Because you're new, silly! I'm Pinkie Pie, and it's my job to welcome new ponies to Ponyville." The words were accompanied by the young mare hopping around him in a circle. He followed her motion with narrowed eyes until the action began to produce a headache. "Oh, I almost forgot, let me go get my welcome wagon, and–"

"No." Red Ink bluntly shoved the mare aside.

"Aww, but you'll–"

"No," he stated again, walking past the mare whom he had shoved into a sitting position on the road.

"Well, at least let me throw you a party."

At the request, his hooves stopped cold. "Party? Will there be..." he paused not out of true contemplation, but because his Equiish had failed him again. "Warmed mares? Or perhaps drinks."

She cocked her head to the side, clearly confused. "Well, it is August, so I'm sure all the mares will be pretty hot. It–" She stopped, and then laughed. "Oh, I get it. Good one! Well, you bet! And I'll make my classic 'Party Punch' too! So you'll come then?"

"I suppose I am having nothing better to do," he answered. Pinkie proceeded to leap into the air at a height that would make most pegasi envious, and then run off sideways without properly landing. The guardspony watched her go with a raised brow, and then decided that his sanity likely depended on disregarding the encounter. His decision made, he turned back to his path and went about the business of insulting impressionist 'artists' once more.

Ponyville, Equestria
1112 Hours

The sensation of knocking on a cloud door had always seemed silly to Red. He couldn't shake the feeling that his hoof was going to punch a hole in the surface, and while he was amused by the concept, he knew that homeowners generally frowned upon such behavior. Especially when the house in question was at least three times as valuable as the neighboring architecture. Ink wasn't a specialist in the subject, but there was no way the opulent cloud house hanging over Ponyville was worth anything less than twice the value of Twilight's library, or for that matter, town hall.

Restraining himself as fully as he could, his hoof tapped on the door twice in succession, rather lightly. He waited, but nopony was quick to answer. After a moment of silence, he knocked again, harder. Again, his wait proved fruitless. He repeated the process twice more, before finally growing agitated and lunging into the door with his full weight.

While not a particularly tall pegasus, years of combat practice in the harsh streets of Stalliongrad had given the stallion a surprisingly developed build. When he put his force into something, it tended to move. In the case of the cloud house, the door shattered into tiny wisps. Ink glanced around quickly, only to find himself comforted by total solitude in the quiet skies. Seeing no better alternative, he plodded quietly into the home.

"Rainbow Dash? Are you being home?" Nopony answered.

It was at this point that Red Ink performed a maneuver that he would personally have referred to as a 'tactical breach'. In laypony's terms, this is to say that he utterly disregarded any sense of personal property or privacy, and proceeded to rummage around Rainbow's residence without permission or hesitation.

Red Ink knew vaguely of Rainbow Dash from a recent and rather notable Honor Guard investigation, though his actual involvement with the mare had been incredibly brief. Given the rumors of her exploits, he assumed she had to be some sort of war hero in Canterlot, much as he was known to be in Stalliongrad.

It was therefore to his considerable surprise that, within her opulent and expensive cloudhouse, Rainbow Dash was a slob, a ravening fangirl, and perhaps worst of all, a closeted egghead. The latter was the worst; though Red had little respect for the empty, crusty pizza boxes that filled the kitchen, and even less for her shameless adoration of the overly glorified combat unit that barely ever even fought, it was the unforgiveable presence of juvenile adventure fiction that filled his blood with (metaphorical) fire. He very nearly transformed the sensation into real fire, stopped only by Celestia’s lingering threat to his life. Besides, as he reminded himself in a fluent Stalliongradi mental monologue, arson wasn't really his style.

His tromp back downstairs to the living room of the small abode was interrupted by a surprisingly firm object. He took a step back in surprise, quite certain that nothing so solid had been in his way before. A quick reassessment of the situation revealed that the object was, in fact, a cyan pegasus mare.

"Uh, what are you doing in my house?"

With an utterly blunt tone, Red Ink responded with something resembling honesty. "Looking for work."

"Wait, that accent… do I know you?"

At this point, a question of honesty was raised in Red's mind, before being decided just as quickly. "I am thinking not, Rainbow Dash. Sparkle send me to ask about weather jobs."

Rainbow's brow made its way surprisingly high onto her head. "So you bucked down my door because you want me to hire you?"

Ink stared at her with a perfectly straight face for a moment before shrugging. "This is trick question, yes?"

"Ah, whatever. Come with me." Rainbow tromped downstairs, allowing the larger pony to follow in her hoofsteps. Their path wound down the stairs, across the living room, and out the door to a sunny August sky. "Now, what's your name?"

"Red Ink."

"Okay then, Red, here's what I've got to say. I don't know if you've ever worked weather before, but Ponyville is probably the hardest weather assignment in Equestria. It might not be important to the higher-ups in Cloudsdale, but we have to put up with the Everfree Forest messing with all our plans all the time. It gets dangerous here, so when I say that I need you to listen to me perfectly, you answer…"

Unable to resist a quip, Ink picked up quickly. "That I will burn down forest."

"Wrong!" Rainbow yelled before his words had actually processed. She stifled a small chuckle, and then glanced out at the sky. "Okay, I like your style Red, but I'm not hiring you for just that. See that cluster of Altocumulus there? I want it gone, as quick as you can. I'll be…" Ink took off before the words were even done. "…timing you."

Red Ink was not a legendary flier, like Rainbow or her beloved flying team. He knew nothing of fancy flips and reckless dives. Beyond their most basic forms, they served little purpose in his life. He had, however, learned how to fly with incredible efficiency. He cleared the distance between Rainbow's 'porch' and the target clouds with only three beats of his wings. On arrival, his hooves lashed out with a speed that did earn him just a little bit of Rainbow's envy. Like boxing out one of his subordinates after a long day of patrols in Stalliongrad, he downed the clouds with a flurry of furious foreleg kicks, never needing more than a single strike to send raw white puffs spilling across the sky. It didn't take long for him to eliminate his targets, and from there he flew back to Rainbow without delay. "How I am doing?"

Rainbow shook her head. "A lot better than your Equiish. That was twelve seconds. Not the best I've ever heard of, but it's pretty darn good."

"I am being better at many things than Equiish. My mentor was not considering it necessary."

At the subtle mention of his predecessor, Red Ink saw a change on Rainbow's face. It morphed quickly from the mildly impressed bemusement of a parent watching a child open a present on Hearth's Warming morning to the grimace of irritation and fury that such a child might bear when their parent stepped on it. "You're that guardspony from the funeral?" Before he could answer, she continued with pointed spite in her words. "The weather team doesn't need you. Get lost."

No stranger to the spite of ponies he barely knew, Red Ink was smart enough to simply leap into the sky and soar away.

Sweet Apple Rd.
Ponyville, Equestria
1148 Hours

Apple trees. Apple trees everywhere. The road was like the screaming nightmare a pony might wake from after ten years of eating nothing but the red and green fruit. Red Ink half-expected to find a nightmarish half-apple, half-pony creature stalking the orchard. There were simply too many. Part of his mind wondered where the proletariat horde that harvested the countless trees was being oppressed by the cruel Apple-owning bourgeoisie. That part of his mind was quickly brought to a dark corner and summarily burned to death, on the grounds that it was stupid.

Red Ink considered himself something of a wheat-and-potatoes stallion (avoiding the obvious rhyme because, despite his love of violence, he was still a pony). He enjoyed the rare sample of sweet fruit, or candy, but what he saw as he walked toward the distant farmhouse was utterly intimidating. Nevertheless, the warrior in the stallion forced him to press on. Somewhere within the inhospitable wasteland of endless apple trees was the promised land, where he would be able to find a job.

A sign of civilization appeared on the horizon in the form of a young yellow filly in a red cape charging down the road. She kept going as fast as her stubby legs would carry her, before shedding her momentum in a slide of her hooves that finally stopped a mere foot from his own legs.

"Heya! I'm Applebloom! What's yer name, mister?"

"I am being called Red Ink, small mare." He inspected her slowly, from the bushy red mane tied back in a pink bun to the enormous smile she offered him as she subtly leaned to the side to inspect his flank. Grateful for his naturally red coat, Ink nevertheless couldn't help but feel uncomfortable at the intimate attentions of such a young filly. "What are you doing here?"

"Huh? Oh, ah'm headin' in ta town ta see mah friends. That's a nice coat ya' got there."

Red Ink smiled lightly. His (incredibly cheap) jacket was literally the only garment he owned, and it was therefore also his favorite. The fact that it was consequently also his least favorite failed to enter into his thought processes at all, as the ultimate point was that he was very fond of his jacket. He twisted the lapel lightly to reveal more of the fur collar, genuinely made from some dead animal. Though incredibly comfortable, it wasn't the most appropriate choice of clothing for a scorching August day far away from the snows of Stalliongrad. He realized this quite pointedly when the sensation of sweat appeared against his neck. Without thinking anything of the action, he removed the heavy garment and slung it length-wise over his back across his wings.

This only encouraged the filly, who he had to imagine was experiencing her first heat. Her glances at his backside grew bolder with every moment, even as he shifted to keep his more intimate parts out of view. While he had no shame about his body in size or capability, there was a special circle of Tartarus reserved for stallions who took advantage of little ones like her. Their little dance continued for a few moments before she finally snapped.

"Gall, just lemme see yer' cutie mark already!"

Red Ink slapped his face with his hoof and shook his head. "I am thinking you should be heading somewhere to cool off, and avoiding stallions, filly. You are maybe thinking I am attractive, but–"

"Eww, gross. Gosh, creep, I just wanted ta know how ya got yer special talent." Ink recoiled, but found himself forced to reach out and stop the earth pony as she tried to run away. "Ah! Get offa me! Stranger danger!"

"Be listening little one," Ink insisted. "I am sorry, but. At my age, where I am from, when filly looks at my flank, it is often for different purpose. You are wanting to see my mark, there it is. Look." He released her, and turned around to reveal the mark to Applebloom.

For a moment, she was tempted to run, but his lack of further hostile action earned back the slightest bit of trust. She stared at the strange symbol. A quill made of a red feather (standing out only from his coat by virtue of a thin black outline) traced a curved line across his flank. Trailing behind it was what might have been a mark of red ink, or perhaps blood, standing out on his flank only by its sheen and distinct tone.

"Well, ah ain't never seen a mark like that. What'd ya do tah get it?"

"Story of my mark is not for small ponies," Ink muttered crossly. "Your parents would be most angry to learn that I was telling you. Now, be running along, but first telling me. I am on the way to farm, yes?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah! Just a little farther on. My brother and sister oughta be workin' out front. Can't miss em."

Red Ink watched the inquisitive filly run off with a curious expression, as his mind recollected mares of a more appropriate age who had eyed his back side for much more entertaining purposes. Much like the rest of his life, most of them had been left behind in Stalliongrad, while he was sentenced to live out his days 'making friends' in this hellhole of civilians and apple trees.

The memories of a better time, and far better company carried him out of the apple trees and up to a relatively clear hillside where a much more diverse farm had been centered around a large red barn converted into a home. Sitting in front of this home were two ponies on stools, sharing a platter of clearly apple-based lunch. He walked towards them calmly as he analyzed them out of habit.

The younger was a healthy mare who was probably only two or three years younger than himself. Her body bore the lean, toned strength of an earth pony who knew the meaning of a hard day's work. Beneath her hat, he couldn't help but smile at the freckles on her face. He might very well have asked her to a drink then and there were it not for two factors. The first was his dedication to finding work, as the first step to getting the buck away from the accursed tiny town. The second was the presence that could only fairly be described as her older brother.

Ink hesitated to call him a 'pony'. Other terms came to mind instead. 'Stallion'. 'Horse'. 'Titan'. 'Monument'. 'Edifice'. Of course, all these terms were in Stalliongradi within the confines of his mind, and he uttered none of them for fear of his own life. The other red stallion was the largest pony he had ever seen, if only by a hair. The mare he had narrowly beaten out was the source of the near-deadly scar that ran across Ink's chest.

"Hey, Mac, looks like we got company!"

"Eeyup."

The siblings rose together and strode over toward him as he approached. The fact that the stallion was able to cast a shadow over Ink's face was terrifying, given the fact that it was high noon.

"Howdy, mister. Ain't seen you 'round these parts before. This here's Sweet Apple Acres. I'm Applejack, and this is my brother Big Macintosh. What can we do ya for?"

Resisting the urge to answer with a sum of currency, Red Ink instead smiled. "I am being told by Twilight Sparkle that you are hiring farm hoof for help in harvest season?"

Applejack's smile dropped slightly as she glanced to her big brother. Big Macintosh, ever the stoic, uttered only a single word. "Nope."

"See, sugarcube, we was hirin', but we picked somepony up just yesterday. It's been busy here on the farm leadin' up to applebuck season, so I ain't told Twi yet. Sorry if ya' walked all this way for nothin'. Why don't ya join us for lunch?"

Against his better judgement, Ink nodded. "I am having nothing better to do, I suppose." He followed Applejack over to the table as Big Macintosh leisurely sauntered inside their home, returning with a hoof-carved chair. After it was placed, Ink tossed his jacket over its back and sat down to the heaping helping of apples he was quickly being offered.

"So, what's yer name?"

"Red Ink," the pony lied as a matter of habit, growing quickly tired of the question.

"And yer from Stalliongrad?"

"How are you telling?" he asked sarcastically. "My good looks?"

Applejack laughed as she dropped a scoop of applesauce onto a plate already saturated fully with the fruit. "Nah, I figure it's on account a' your enormous head."

So she could do the dance. Red Ink smiled as he gulped down the first bite of a small roll on his plate that seemed devoid of apples in any way. The flavor that lingered on the back of his tongue told him he had been mistaken. "So, Applejack, you are friend of Twilight Sparkle?"

"Oh, yeah!" Applejack slammed down a quick tankard of apple juice before continuing. "The girls and I go way back. Five years ago, we… well, I don' want ta' blow up my own head with braggin' 'bout us girls."

"You are Element of Harmony, then, I am guessing? Forgive me, I am reading names in Stalliongrad newspaper, and faces are not coming to mind. You are… Kindness?"

"Nah, that's Fluttershy. She lives out by the edge a' the forest with her animals. If you stick around long enough, you'll meet her, though if she ain't exactly the social type at first, don't hold it against her. How about you? How do ya know Twi?"

"That is… long story. To make it short, I am friend of her brother." Never before had Red Ink told a more bold-faced lie, and he knew it. He and Shining Armor had a relationship that disguised itself as a mere 'office rivalry', but which would on closer inspection be nearer in description to 'government conspiracy' or 'shadow war'. "She is letting me stay with her in Ponyville for time being."

"Oh, that's great! Like I always say, we here at Sweet Apple Acres sure do love making new friends."

Her smile was so saccharine that Ink almost puked up his apples. After a moment of digestive distress, he looked her straight in the eye. "You always say that?"

"Eeyup!" she answered, earning a small glance from her brother.

"Stop," Ink responded just as bluntly. Something in his gut told him their conversation was taking a turn far-too heavily toward a disgustingly infantile ideal of 'friendship'. Given that the meal was already saturated with apples, he had no more reason to remain. After gently rising from his seat and tossing his jacket over his back, he tossed a glance up to the sky. It meant nothing to him, but gave the impression that he was checking the time by the sun. "Be forgiving me. I am late for meeting with… 'Twi', and am needing to be gone. Eat well. Goodbye."

His wings carried him into the sky before either could respond. He could not bring himself to care.

The Chartreuse Café
Ponyville, Equestria
1235 Hours

Red Ink was very confused. He had, for his entire life, believed that chartreuse was a shade of purple. If that were truly the case, however, he could not understand why a café so named would choose to paint its walls what he internally described to be 'vomit green'. And, indeed, if that color were the true tone of chartreuse, what idiot used it as the name for a restaurant?

Thankfully, despite its awful color scheme, the café was more than willing to serve him a gin and tonic, alongside a hearty celery soup that together were clearing the taste of apples from his palate. They had even been offered on the house. Of course, that was likely the result of him punching out a waiter for asking if he didn't prefer vodka instead. He felt entirely justified in his course of action, given that nearly no-one had been around to see the incident, and that the restaurant staff was all-too willing to keep the maître d's faux pas effectively hushed up. He sat in the corner, brooding over his fate and staring out the window while silently wishing that it were raining. Brooding at a window that looked out on a sunny day somehow felt wrong.

His life was falling down around his ears, and he needed to find a job. Having never struggled for such a task in his life, he had nearly reached the point of cursing Celestia and screaming about the economy (which happened to be in a particularly prosperous period). If he failed, living with Twilight Sparkle was going to become very awkward, and he knew all too well that was the first step on the road to Celestia's final judgment. The real challenge, though, was not losing his edge while living in the midst of these pathetic civilians who had likely never seen a day of combat in their lives. Part of him was tempted to simply make a living hunting monsters in the nearby forest the ponies seemed so afraid of, though he feared quietly that such an action might earn him Celestia's scorn.

Red Ink was so absorbed by his thoughts that he nearly failed to notice the mare walking up to take a seat opposite him at his table.

"Excuse me, sir. Could I have a word?"

She was an earth pony of about his age, with a beaming smile and a cerise coat. In this instance, Red Ink would have defined cerise as 'a word that the accursed, damnable impressionists use to inflate their egos while referring to purple', were he familiar with the term and able to speak far better Equiish. Instead, he said none of those words, and chose to answer with the far more socially acceptable "Yes?"

"Well, you see, I couldn't help but notice your cutie mark, and I had to ask…"

Ink put on his most charming smile. "Yes?"

"Are you a teacher?"

Hopes of a companion for the night dashed against the rocks, Red Ink considered turning her away. However, the reality of the fact that 'teacher' was an occupation made him reconsider. Further, his mind added, he had already answered identically twice. He knew there was some sort of saying, about the third time trying something being better for some reason. Though he couldn't recall the Equiish words, he had no better thought than to try them out.

"Yes."

"Oh, Celestia, thank you!" The mare pulled herself fully into the opposite seat and stared at him. "I'm sorry, I should introduce myself first. I'm Cheerilee."

"Red Ink." He offered a hoof, which she shook gently while stifling a chuckle at the implication of his name. "Why are you looking for teacher?"

Her eyes widened for a moment. "Oh, my, you're Stalliongradian? Well, to answer your
question, I'm the teacher here at the Ponyville Schoolhouse. Classes are starting up for a new year in three days, and of course, my crazy sister decides that two days is enough notice for her wedding in Trottingham. There aren't actually any other teachers in Ponyville, so I was afraid I would have to miss the wedding. So I guess what I'm asking is if you could substitute for me for a few days."

"Certainly, if it pays."

She nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, of course! I hope you can forgive my excitement, but it's like Celestia herself sent you here to help me."

The irony of the phrase was not lost on Red Ink, as he gulped down what ought to have been three sips of his gin and tonic in one go. "You are less joking than you think."

"Well, tell her thank you, then." Cheerilee smiled. "But before we keep going on this, why don't you tell me about yourself? What do you teach? What's your specialty?"

At that question, Red Ink's body stiffened up, and his mind began to race. In his youth, the stallion had possessed a reputation amongst tutors for being a lost cause. He only took to a few subjects–as previously mentioned, Equiish was not amongst them.

A lie came to him slowly, but it would do. "I am teaching older students usually, I think, than yours. But I can do math for them, and I am good at history. Magic, too, if you are wanting that."

"Magic?" Cheerilee raised a brow. "Most of our students are earth ponies, and I can't help but notice you aren't a unicorn either. How do you–"

"Every pony has magic," Ink responded with a grin. "I am thinking students will like that lesson. Many fun things to do."

"Is it safe?"

The stallion's smile grew slightly wider still. "They are learning to use bodies and gifts responsibly. It is important lesson. Every pony should be learning. More important than math, or history."

"Or Equiish," Cheerilee teased. "You certainly seem like you might make an excellent substitute for my class. Why don't you come with me back to the schoolhouse, and we can draw up a curriculum for while I'm gone."

Golden Oaks Library
Ponyville, Equestria
1613 Hours

"Twilight, I am ‘home’!" Red Ink called as he threw open the door. A moment lingered in silence as a soap opera's canned applause utterly failed to materialize.

"Sorry, Red, I'll be with you in a second!" The Unicorn's voice had come from upstairs, shouted from behind a closed door. Seeing no point in waiting, the pegasus tossed his coat over a nearby chair and trotted calmly up the stairs.

Twilight screamed when he pushed open the door. The slight grin on his face faded when it was revealed that he had failed to interrupt her in quite as private a moment as he had imagined. Instead, a burning scorch mark in the doorframe a mere inch from his head marked what had nearly been his death.

"You are trying to kill me for opening door?"

"I was practicing a dangerous spell! Don't just barge in on me!" Her magic shut a dusty old tome which she levitated onto a nearby table before turning her attention back to her guest. "Sorry. You were out for quite a while. Figure out a job?"

"Yes. I am teaching elementary."

There was a sort of awkward silence before Twilight finally found words. "But… but you can't even talk."

"I am resenting that."

"You know what I mean! I heard Cheerilee was looking for a substitute, but I had no idea she was so desperate!" The unicorn began pacing as her spiel continued. "I mean, it's not like I don't know the subject matter. I could teach the students about Starswirl's Last Proof, and gravitational theory, and…"

"Are you thinking perhaps she is not choosing you because foals are not understanding your lessons?" Ink cocked a brow at the subtle hint of confusion mixed with rage and insanity that flickered across Twilight's face. "Just a thought, Twilight Sparkle. Now, I am going to party tonight–"

"Yeah, Pinkie came by to invite me. She does it for every new pony in town. You'll be able to meet a lot of ponies there. Maybe make some more friends."

"Of course," Ink answered with an utterly false smile. "First, though, you were saying earlier that we are writing letter to Princess?"

"Oh, yeah! Let me go get some parchment and a couple quills." The pony darted into and out of the room with both a speed and an enthusiasm that Red Ink felt would be utterly inappropriate for literally any piece of correspondence, let alone one with such a ridiculous premise. Nevertheless, she returned only a moment later, bearing the aforementioned objects. "Okay, here's how we start…"

Princess Celestia,

I am writing to you today for first report on 'friendship' study. My subject is being 'impressions'.

Today, I learn that how pony approaches others is having large effect on being able to make friends. If first time pony sees you is stumbling through their front door–it was accident–they are being mad at you and not likely to be friend or offer you job on weather team. Similar thing is happening if you are assuming mare is interested in you when she is not. However, if one is being decent, and using kind words, one can soon find other ponies who are willing to offer what you need, and so are being friends to you.

I am hoping to make good impression tonight at party. Perhaps this time I am meeting mare who is interested in me. Be careful, Princess. If I am not coming back soon, there are being too many ponies who want to keep me here, like in my home.

Here is hoping my 'assignment' is done soon.

"Red Ink"

Parties are Forever

III

Parties are Forever

Outside Sugarcube Corner
Ponyville, Equestria
1858 Hours

The still-fresh scar on Red Ink's chest itched relentlessly. His hoof ground down in the dirt road, as he restrained himself from the pleasure of scratching it. To do so would be a weakness he utterly refused to acknowledge in the presence of such weak ponies. The toned muscles of his shoulders flexed and surged, pulling the front of his signature black coat open. All around, the world seemed to fix on his determined expression. The three mares running a floral booth nearby stared, until the youngest swooned and collapsed. For Red Ink, it was a good night.

"Now, Red, there's sort of a way that Pinkie Pie's parties tend to go…" Twilight Sparkle, who had utterly failed to swoon (or even notice) observed to her guest.

"Please, Sparkle. Do not beat around bush with me. Go straight to bull. Grab by horns."

Twilight cocked her head. "That… may be the single most mixed metaphor I have ever heard."

Ink looked to be confused by the statement. "Is… 'met-uh-four' a type of drink? Or food?" At Twilight's muffled snickering, he groaned and continued to pace toward the nearby bakery. "It is something my father is used to say. Sounds better in cleaner tongue."

Rather than enter into a debate on the respective merits of linguistics in Stalliongradi and Equiish, Twilight forced her wayward mind back to her original topic. "Uh, before you go in there, I just want to ask you: what are you expecting?"

Red Ink could have responded with another question, wondering as to the purpose of her inquiry. He could have ignored the query entirely. In point of fact, he could even have lit himself on fire and gone on a murderous rampage through the streets of Ponyville, ridding himself of his ridiculous assignment and the unbearable company all at once. However, at that moment, the stallion did none of those things. Instead, he chose to exercise control, and to answer the question calmly.

"I am expecting party. Drinks. Beautiful mares. Dancing. Late night. Early morning. Good times."

Twilight smiled just a little bit at the humorous bluntness of her companion. She saw that he was at least being sociable, a trait she had been poorly lacking in at her first party. She decided to tease him, just a bit. "So you're here for mares? Haven't you already met some?"

Ink watched as Twilight twisted her mane, looking for all the world like the biggest dork who had ever lived. His vastly drier sense of humor responded with a teasing statement of far greater magnitude. "Pinkie Pie's mane is not… how do you say? 'Doing it' for me? Blue pegasus was fast, but might be too small." With every word out of his mouth, Twilight's smile shrunk. It was a struggle for Ink to keep from breaking into laughter. "Apple pony has excellent hips, though voice and fruit are both disgust me. And, since clearly you are suggesting yourself, let me be saying this." Red Ink rapped bluntly on Twilight's skull twice with his right forehoof. Despite the simplicity of the motion, it was quite painful for the mare. "Princess is choosing you as student for what is up here. Not down here." Twilight yelped incredibly forcefully when Ink swatted her cutie mark with the same hoof.

As Red Ink swaggered away with an air of overwhelming confidence, he had no idea the chaos that remained in his wake. The ponies of the small town would be talking about his action for days, if not weeks. For Twilight's part, the only thing that saved the stallion from being transformed into some humiliating form then and there was that her fury at his words and actions had completely overcome her ability to think straight. By the time she regained consciousness that she was standing in the street on the way to a party, her 'guest' had already made his way inside Sugarcube Corner.

Unlike his previous introduction to Pinkie Pie, Red Ink managed to resist the urge to pick the mare up by the throat and pin her to the floor. When she tackled him with a hug, his response was to remain perfectly still.

"Inky! You made it!"

"Inky?"

"Well, everypony needs a nickname!" Pinkie Pie moved to take Ink's coat. He slapped her hooves away suddenly, with a vicious glare in his eyes. She didn't seem to mind much, instead giving up the motion entirely and turning toward the crowd of random ponies. "Everypony, this is Red Ink. He's new in town, so say hi!” There followed a lot of waving and muttered greetings, all of which the Stalliongradian stallion ignored in favor of pursuing a beverage.

His eyes met three bowls. Some fruity pink garbage filled the first, while the second held sarsaparilla, and the third cider. He sniffed it hopefully, only to find his expectations shattered by the utter lack of alcohol. As he poured himself a glass of the sarsaparilla, he resolved to accept the challenge. He imagined he could party dry. His imagination was tragically and yet almost comically unprepared for what the night held in store.

"Silly, this is your welcome party!" Pinkie Pie yelled into his ear, causing no small portion of his drink to spill on the floor. "You're supposed to say 'hi' back. Come on, I'll introduce you to everypony."

Red Ink did not like being snuck up on, and he also did not like the pink mare, but he resolved to endure both in the interest of avoiding a conflict. Her hoof slid over his shoulders, and she guided him towards a cluster of ponies. Gray, green, tan, blue, and enough other shades that Ink rapidly came to miss the naturally duller coats of his home city. His own blood red would stand out like a sore hoof amidst all the shininess.

"This is Derpy, our mailmare," Pinkie introduced a smiling gray mare. "That's Lyra and Bon-Bon. There's Colgate, and Dazzler, and…" The list dragged on and on, as Red Ink nodded until his normally balanced mind lost track of 'up' and 'down'. His eyes caught Twilight Sparkle walking into the room, looking for all the world like she was about to spontaneously combust. Then Ink remembered she was a unicorn, and could not possibly perform such magic. Nevertheless, ever the capable warrior, he knew better than to remain somewhere that the mare might pull him aside and introduce him to the business end of her horn.

"…and then Mayor took off her cravat, and we realized it just a funny piece of lettuce. I mean, can you believe that? Who'd wear a vegetable as a accessory?"

"Perhaps you are needing new mayor," Ink commented off-hoofedly, having missed the entire story. "I am very good at revolution."

"Me too!" Pinkie explained, before beginning to rapidly spin in place. Ink missed the joke entirely, as his knowledge of Equiish was too limited to comprehend the synonym she was playing upon. Nevertheless, Pinkie's turn at petty pun-craft offered the stallion a chance to escape her presence, and find a comfortably shadowed corner in which to lurk.

As the guest of honor, it did not take long for the value of the darkness to wear off. Happily chatting ponies just so happened to idle their way toward the stallion, who was rapidly beginning to realize the value that one might place on Discord's perception of friendship. Unable to snap his non-existent fingers as a means of escape, and unable to snap necks under penalty of his own death, he instead turned to the most attractive of the approaching ponies, wearing a completely disingenuous smile. "What is your name, ma'am?"

The white mare with the purple mane covered her slight smile with a hoof. "Rarity, dear. While I do appreciate your kindness, there's no need for 'ma'am'. I'm certainly not a guardspony, and you'll make me feel like an old mare if you keep that up. Do I detect a Stalliongradi accent?"

Red Ink's right eye twitched, rather violently. "I am from...” He paused to consider his phrasing, and the difficulty of translating properly. “...from Stalliongrad, Rarity." Despite the premeditated statement, his face resisted the butchery of the city’s name with involuntary spasms that momentarily made the mare question his sanity.

Fortunately, like all good social mares, she hid the concern behind a compliment. "Oh, that accent is so exotic." Rarity took a small sip of her beverage, and in her moment of silence, Red Ink pondered his next move. His thoughts weren't given enough time, as Rarity's diminutive, ladylike sip ended quickly. "Tell me, Mr. Ink, what do you do for a living?"

"Я убиваю пони," he answered on instinct. Almost immediately, blood rushed to his face as he realized his mistake. Fortunately, the natural tone of his coat covered his concerned blush.

Rarity cocked her head in confusion. "You… do something to ponies? I'm afraid I don't know what 'ubeevayu' means. I've only been to Stalliongrad once."

"Teach," Red Ink lied, before going on the offensive to hide his falsehood. "I teach ponies. Both stallions and mares."

Rather than taking the hint about her continued mispronunciation, Rarity chuckled. "I'll forgive your misunderstanding, but in Equiish, such a phrase could be viewed as quite forward. On the other hand, seeing as you are a teacher, it isn't hard to understand what you see in our librarian."

"I am not understanding… Sparkle?" Ink's brows formed a tilde, as one dropped into a glare and the other rose in surprise. "You are thinking I am with Sparkle?"

"Oh, perhaps I let slip more than I meant to," Rarity muttered as her eyes wandered away from the stallion. "But I certainly didn't hear such a rumor from a certain trio of florists just a few moments ago. Regardless, I'm sure such a thing will run its course quickly. That is, after all, simply in the nature of a small town like Ponyville. Or would that be 'po'nyjvil'?"

Ink twitched at her forced accent, but then realized the joke and broke into a healthy, entirely non-megalomaniacal, bloodthirst free laugh. No one would ever accuse him of turning every head in the bakery, after all. By the time his laughter had abated, Rarity had turned a full ninety-degrees to the side, and focused her attention very pointedly toward some yellow pony in the distance, as if to make it clear that she was in no way associated with the stallion's exclamation.

"That is being very good one," Ink noted with a smile, once the noise had finally died down. "I am liking you, Rarity." The pegasus didn't notice the soul-scorching daggers glared at him by a baby dragon across the room. He did observe Rarity's focus, and turned his head toward what was suddenly a very empty wall. "You are looking for pony?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm sorry, darling, but I'm afraid you may have frightened off my dear friend Fluttershy."

The name pulled a cord from earlier that morning in Ink's mind. "Fluttershy… Apple pony is telling me of her. She is one who lives alone, near dangerous forest?"

"Oh, yes. I rather think she enjoys the privacy. She's magnificent at handling animals. Perhaps I shall go… check on her?" Without waiting for an answer, the unicorn mare hurried away at a rapid, but still socially acceptable pace.

Red barely noticed, as engrossed as his mind was with the sole glimmer of hope he had just been presented. He compiled what he knew of this 'Fluttershy,' and a smile worked its way onto his face. She was quiet, and hard to find, as demonstrated by her ability to disappear within the crowd from right in front of Rarity's eyes. Further, she survived on her own while living on the border of perhaps the most dangerous piece of land in all of Equestria. If Rarity's words had any truth at all, she regularly demonstrated the capability to 'handle' the creatures in the forest, and she did so with ease. His foremost desire in that moment was to meet her, and so determined, he set off into the crowd.

His path didn't continue long from his dark corner, however, before he was faced with an uncomfortably smiling Twilight Sparkle. "Oh, hello, Mr. Ink. I've been looking for you everywhere."

"Yes, well, Sparkle, I am–"

"Just Twilight is fine, Red. After all, if we're such good friends that you can go around slapping my flank, we really don’t need to be so awkward. Right?"

Genuinely unnerved, Ink took a step back. He could see the hairs of her mane rising up and springing out of their own accord, reacting to the potent magic from her horn, which was quickly growing palpable in the air. "It was just joke, Sparkle. No offense meant."

"No offense? No offense? Do you realize what all the ponies here have been saying about me? About us?"

Ink was lost for words. For the first time ever, he was grateful when Pinkie Pie and Apple… pony wandered over toward them. The latter's signature hat was tilted sideways, and her mane was a bit of a mess. "Well, Twi, ah'll be. You two really are hittin' it off?"

Twilight groaned as her eyes danced wildly in their sockets, though Pinkie beat her to the next words. "I think they make a cute couple, Applejack. A teacher and a librarian? That's, like, a perfect excuse for a book party! Oh, and just think of the–"

Ink put a hoof on Pinkie's mouth. He honestly held back no force, and so was surprised that the outright punch didn't stagger her in the least. Her muzzle felt like jelly beneath his hoof. "We are not pair, Pink-ee Pie."

Twilight sighed. "Thank you, Ink."

A disappointed "Mmmph," issued from behind Ink's hoof, at which point he lowered the appendage. Pinkie shook her head. "Well, I'm sure you'll find somepony someday, Inky. For now, why not just enjoy the party. I've gotta go refill the punch."

Ink cocked his head. "Punch? That is name of drink? Perhaps she is mixing me 'roundhouse buck' too." The comment earned a chuckle from Applejack, though Twilight didn't seem to see the humor in it.

"That's a good 'un, Red. But I didn't know you were a teacher, what with you showin' up lookin' for farm work yesterday 'n all. You fillin' in for Ms. Cheerilee?" Ink nodded, at which point Applejack cracked a rather large smile. "Well, ah'll be. Maybe you can get some math into mah sis' Applebloom's head."

"I am trying," Ink answered.

Twilight shook her head. "No, Red, it's 'I will try.' I still don't think it's a good idea for you to be teaching school-foals when you still have so much trouble with speaking proper Equiish."

Ink's response came in a twisted, stilted cadence, as he struggled to match Twilight's tone. "And I don't think it's a good idea you to be spend-ing so much time with me after everypony is thinking you and I are… what is Equiish term? Sleep together? Rut? Bu–mmph?"

Twilight's horn lost its glow as Red Ink struggled with the zipper that had appeared on his lips. The unicorn had no shortage of indignation. "I can't believe you! When the Princess said you had trouble making friends, I assumed you'd be shy, or awkward, but not… this!" Her hooves gestured to make perfectly clear that the 'this' in question was the entirely of the black-coated stallion. "Also, watch your language! There are fillies and colts here, just like the ones at the school you shouldn't be teaching at."

"Uh, Twi'," Applejack interrupted, rather sheepishly. "Not that ya ain't right, but the Crusader's 're havin' a sleepover in their clubhouse, 'n we got our new farmhoof, Resistant, ta keep an eye on 'em while she's out finishin' a few old trees. That's actually how come Mac made it. I ain't seen any other foals, neither." Clearly, the explanation did little to help Twilight's point, as indicated by the all but literal fire connecting her eyes to Applejack's. The farm mare backed up two steps and lowered her head. "Ackshully, you know how Mac is… I oughta go… check on him or somesuch…" The muttered excuse faltered with each cluster of thought before at last, it was abandoned completely. Applejack turned her back and darted away.

In her absence, Red Ink found himself once more enduring the displeasure of Twilight's ire bearing down. "I don't appreciate you touching my flank, or my horn. And I really don't appreciate all the comments I'm getting." Her words were followed by the grinding of her teeth, and through them, she continued. "So here's a friendship lesson for you: mares don't like tasteless, feminizing jerks! I don't care how, but I want you to stop all these stupid rumors. Until then, you should probably find somewhere else to sleep, because you aren't sharing a roof with me." She started to walk away as Ink finally managed to undo the zipper on his lips, only to dig himself a deeper hole.

"What is big deal?" Ink asked jovially. "Joke was funny to everypony else, clearly. Besides, most Stol'nogradskiye mares are killing to 'share roof with me'."

She whirled to look him in the eyes. He saw fire in hers. "Then go home! I know I am!" In a muffled pop of magic, the mare was gone.

Across the room, a group of close-knit friends absorbed the entire scene. Applejack leaned over to Rarity's ear. "He looks like a puppy that ya beat on the nose, who don't know what he's done wrong."

"I can't imagine any stallion could be that clueless. Surely he has to know."

The young dragon at Rarity's side found the ensuing silence an ample opportunity to voice his curiosity. "So, does this mean Twilight and Mr. Ink are breaking up?"

2320 Hours

"So then I am saying to him 'Serp, buy this pony drink.' But Serp is deaf in one ear, so he takes drink, and break her front knees instead." Red Ink laughed alone, as the ponies around him drifted away. His consumption of nearly half the bowl of punch (which in his opinion, could have used a bit more 'kick') fueled his lack of self-control. Much like the horrible facial burns of a down-on-his-luck counterfeiter, however, Ink's drunkenness was merely a symptom of a simpler condition. Rather than a face-first dunk in a vat of molten bits, however, the warrior's concern was for how quickly his attempts at earning some quick friends had failed.

Soon, only Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Rarity remained in the presence of the inebriated stallion. Their motives were a mixture of pity, disgust, and obligation. As one, they cringed when he looked their way.

"Mares! Excellent! Coming here, coming here!" He gestured in what could vaguely be construed as their direction. Pinkie was the first to move.

"Uh, Inky, I think you're scaring away the party. You've had too much to drink. Why don't we just play a game, and have some fun, rather than–"

"Pshah." Rarity and Rainbow glanced toward each other, astounded at his ability to slur something which wasn't even a word–especially given how decidedly unslurred his broken Equiish was. "We are having fun. Just be looking at..."

Realization dawned like... well, rather like this simile: awkwardly. The main room of Sugarcube Corner was completely deserted, save the four ponies who had gathered around the mostly empty punch bowl. After a moment of processing the thought, the stallion's eyelid began to twitch rather erratically. A few gulps were issued when Ink turned back to the table, though he did nothing so drastic as they were expecting. Instead, four glasses of the remaining punch were poured, and three were set onto the floor in the direction of their intended recipients.

Rainbow Dash swatted one away with the tip of her wing, spilling the liquid across the ground. "Look, guardspony, we don't want your booze, or your attention. Just get out of Ponyville, and go back to the Princess, or whatever you're supposed to be doing!"

Pinkie shot Rainbow a confused glance. "Wait, isn't Inky a teacher?"

"Stop calling me that," Ink snapped. "And what I am is not important. I would like very much for not to be in stupid, backwater village, wasting time with 'friends'. But options are few." Ink turned to stalk away, only to be caught with a hoof over his shoulder. He turned back in time to receive a cyan hoof between the eyes.

"Don't you dare talk about Ponyville that way!" Rainbow yelled. The words were mostly lost as Ink staggered, and fell backwards onto the table of leftover snacks and drinks. The punch bowl shattered under his sudden weight, and the table itself cracked in half. Glass shards, juice, and splinters decorated a thoroughly furious stallion, who struggled in vain to find his hooves. He was bleeding from the shards of glass that cut through his coat, though the wounds didn't seem to bother him as much as the tears of his black jacket. The woolen garment was shredded into tattered ribbons and frayed ends. Simple glass shouldn't have done so much damage, it seemed, and yet the evidence was plain and clear. Without a word, he rose to his hooves and spread his wings. It took only a moment for a spark to ignite on his wingtips, and then rich orange tongues of flame engulfed his alcohol-soaked body.

Rainbow, in response, dropped low and flared her own wings. Her right hind leg scratched against the inside of its partner's fur, producing little sparks of electricity that threatened an unimaginable quantity of damage. Their eyes met, judging one another, each found the other wanting. There might very well have been another fire and more deaths on Ink's record, were it not for a white hoof wrapping itself around Rainbow Dash's chest.

"Rainbow, please control yourself." Rarity shook her head as she watched the door.

"You heard what he said!" the young mare responded.

The seamstress turned to offer a disappointed glare in Red Ink's direction. Nevertheless, her words were clearly meant for the stunt flyer. "Yes, I did. And you responded with violence. I can't imagine allowing you to continue would serve us any better than your hooves did against Discord, or the Changelings, or any of the other times you've tried to solve our problems with force. Pinkie, hand me that last glass of spiked punch, and then take Rainbow outside to cool down."

Pinkie slid the still-intact plastic cup over, and watched in surprise as it was downed in a single gulp. "You really want his drink?"

Rarity smiled a sad smile as she watched the flames fade from the Stalliongradian stallion's body. "Mr. Ink has unfortunately been separated from his temporary residence, and I have no intention of leaving him to roam the night alone. As such, I'm afraid I may be about to do something very generous." The way Rarity proceeded to roll her neck was not only unladylike, but also quite intimidating for the cracking noises it produced. Afterwards, as if by rote force, she readjusted her mane. "Now, you should be going." Pinkie's normally carefree expression indicated no small degree of concern, though Rarity simply held her forced expression. "Trust me."

It didn't take long for the pair to leave, when all was said and done. Rarity waited until the door out of Sugarcube Corner had shut completely before turning back on a scene of carnage and tragedy.

The green floorboards were covered in a mixture of splinters, wet confetti, and the aftereffects of spilt drinks. The colors clashed horribly, sending spasms across the edges of Rarity's vision. She knew she needed to do something, though she didn't have the time to actually clean. Her solution was to lift one of the green throw rugs from the slightly darker green floor, and sweep the disgusting mixture underneath it. While the rug was now bumpy and wet, the mess was at least out of sight. It might even have looked passable, given a bit of lace and give or take twelve-thousand amethysts.

Regardless of the interior design tragedy, her attention next turned to the subject of no small amount of her ire. Red Ink cradled his slashed and bloodied coat in his arms, as a father might a dying child. Chunks of ash burnt away by his fire crumbled off of the slits where his wings stuck out. Alongside those burns, patches of cloth and loose threads were ripped all across the garment. What was left of the body was a segment of thick black wool that seemed too small to even properly garb a newborn filly. Only the similarly black faux-fur collar remained untouched.

"Mr. Ink? Are you alright?"

He recognized the false accent on the unicorn's lips. "Go away," Ink answered. As if to spite him, Rarity wandered over to his side, close enough that their coats brushed together.

He drew away slightly, and she glanced back at the spot where their sides met. Unlike his own blood-toned coat, the stains of his vital liquid were clear on her pure white body. The sheer quantity of blood from their small contact stole her breath. "Goodness, are you hurt?"

"I survive." The stallion did not look up from his jacket, even as the viscous red river that spilled from his body began to pool on the floor. "Fire closes wounds."

"Oh..." Rarity wasn't quite sure what to say next, but she forced herself to speak up for the sake of her friends if nothing else. "Well, I can't simply leave you sitting here alone with this mess, can I?"

"You should." The words were blunt, harsh, and factual. "Go. I am taking care of myself."

"Absolutely not!" She indicated about the room with a hoof. "If you want to wallow in a puddle of your own misery, I suppose that is within your right, but you've done enough damage to Sugarcube Corner for one night. You're going to come with me this instant, and perhaps when you've had the time to sober up, you'll be prepared to accept responsibility for this."

He didn't actually say anything to acknowledge the demand, though he did at least rise to his hooves. Rarity moved for the door, only to find herself waiting as he reverently stowed the remnants of his destroyed jacket atop his wings.

Rarity stared at the garment, and her mind immediately analyzed its value. Dyed wool with a thin lining of burlap, a bit of false fur, a distastefully long cut, poor shoulder stitching–she wouldn't have paid three bits for the thing. However, the fashionista knew very well that clothing often bore some deeper meaning than its mere appearance and function. She could see the pain in his eyes, even if he thought he was good at hiding it.

The stallion that paced over to the door was clearly not the same one who had earlier been hitting on every mare in sight, telling cruel stories in broken Equiish and reveling in his own glories. With an almost broken gait, he paced to the door. It was the first time that Rarity realized just how short the stallion really was. Not only was he small for a stallion, but the designer's analytic eye realized that she was the taller of the two. Perhaps that curious trait explained at least a bit of his behavior, even if it did nothing to excuse it.

He pushed past her into the street, spreading even more blood, spilt punch, and other miscellaneous grime across her coat. It didn't take much effort to imagine him tromping down an alleyway and curling down to sleep. She donned the same face that often accompanied a scolding for her younger sister and spoke up firmly. "Frankly, Mr. Ink, I'm disappointed in you. Whatever reason you have to dislike our town and its inhabitants is no excuse for heavy drinking and perverse behavior. However, I would like to believe that I understand your circumstances, and I would also like to believe that you're a better stallion than this. So tonight, I am going to invite you into my home, and I shall also repair your jacket without charge. In exchange, I expect better behavior and honesty from you. Do you find this agreeable?"

He looked at her with an expression that somehow managed to border on rage and self-pity all at once. The former of the sensations fell away quickly, though the latter did not. "Very... kind."

Rarity had to stop herself from correcting him by muttering 'generous', and instead smiled. The expression quickly faded when his words continued.

"But I am not needing pity."

The unicorn huffed, face donning a slight red tone. "Well, that's excellent, Mr. Ink, because I'm not offering you any. You've earned everything that happened to you tonight. I'm not doing this because I feel sorry for you; I'm doing it because even with how much of an ass you have made of yourself, I feel compelled to keep you from sleeping on the streets tonight. Now, are you coming with me or not?"

Ink's shoulders rose and fell in a single deep breath. Then he nodded.

"Excellent," she forced through a clenched even jaw line. "I imagine the night has been stressful enough for both of us. Why don't you follow me?"

They trudged through the summer dark together in silence.

August 30th, 1452 A.S.
Carousel Boutique
Ponyville, Equestria
0021 Hours

Whether it was from the loss of his sheer adrenaline or simply an effect of further time to digest, Red Ink had to finish his journey leaning on the taller mare. Rarity momentarily considered dropping the pegasus on her fainting couch, but a glance at her own side caused her to set him on the floor beside the door instead. She knew that even if there was a certainly regal quality to the tone of his coat, she had no desire to stain it into her most precious piece of furniture.

"Now, Mr. Ink, I shall go draw a bath for you. Once you are cleaned up, we can see you to bed, and in the morning, perhaps we'll go about setting things right for you." Rarity turned toward the stairs.

"No."

The mare rounded with a twitch in her eye. "Excuse me?"

"No," Ink answered. There seemed to be more he intended to say, but those words were instead stolen away, to be used as pavement for the road to Tartarus.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, I see. You are..." He paused as his eyes momentarily lost focus. "...not just mishearing me. Good. Jacket first."

Her mouth opened, and then shut. "Frankly, Mr. Ink, it's..." She took a moment to glance toward the room's sole clock. "...past midnight. While I'm no stranger to late hours, I have no intention of starting work on such a project right now."

Despite the lack of focus in his eyes, he managed a respectable glare. It might have frightened a rabbit, though it did very little to Rarity. She answered with a far fiercer glare of her own.

"If I may ask, why is such a... well, frankly, such a cheap garment so important to you?"

He stood up, took a step forward, and very nearly lost his footing. "Not important. Fix it."

Rarity groaned in exasperation. "Even if I wanted to do it now, I lack the proper materials. I'll have to go out to the east hills with Spike and dig up some nice dark rubies and opals–"

"No."

"I'm getting quite tired of hearing that word from you, Mr. Ink."

"No gems. No frills. Just fixed." The ex-guardspony wandered shakily over to a mannequin and tossed the remnants of his garment over its body. Then, with barely audible clarity, he uttered a word which gave Rarity a little start of surprise simply by its sheer desperation. "Please."

Suppressing a yawn, the mare wandered down to once more stand by Red Ink's side. Her eyes narrowed toward the subtle details of the garment, though it did not hold much of her attention. She spoke softly to him, hoping to coax forth a softer side in the stallion. "This jacket seems important to you, Mr. Ink. Care to tell me about it?"

He shook his head, and she sighed gently. "I would like to know why I should put urgency into this project. You and I both know that this will still be here in the morning."

Red Ink looked away, and his normally harsh voice lost a great deal of volume, though little of its buried pain. "My brother bought it for me, day he died."

"I'm sorry. Was he ill, or–"

"Not so pleasant. Frostbite hired assassin; same one from... incident. She killed him. I could not stop her."

Rarity recoiled. "I... forgive me for bringing it up."

"I am not caring." The stallion twisted his neck back and forth, eliciting a pair of almost terrifying cracks. "It is truth, and not changing now. But I am rather not to talk about it." He sucked in a breath, and let it out through his lips in a strange, twisted nickering. "I should not be telling you this. Perhaps it is drink in my head. But I am not nice pony. Not even as Sparkle thinks. Rainbow Dash is right. I am guardspony."

Almost immediately upon delivering the words, Ink collapsed to the side. Rarity managed to catch the burly stallion, and he offered her a meaningless smile by way of gratitude. It still proved better than nothing, and so she accepted it without comment. "I am tempted to believe the drink has gone to your head, Mr. Ink."

"Please. Tomorrow, when I am sober, you are calling me Mr. Ink. Tonight, Roscherk is being fine, while I am too stupid to not pretend we are already friends."

"Row-shirk?"

"It is real name. Roscherk Krovyu. Now, I am thinking bed is perhaps good idea. You are having spare room?"

Rarity sighed gently and nodded. "I suppose I do, yes, though it may be a bit frilly for your usual taste. I keep it for my sister, Sweetie Belle..."

"Maybe she's lost her true love, and came to Ponyville to start a new life," the marshmallowy unicorn filly proposed in a whisper as she adjusted her red cape. "That would be so romantic."

"Blegh." Her orange friend feigned gagging herself on a hoof. "That's not just boring, it's sappy too. I still say she's a spy."

The third member of the little group rolled her eyes. "She's just the new farm hoof. Yer both bein' thick."

Whether through callous disregard or actual ignorance that words had been spoken, Sweetie Belle continued her conversation with Scootaloo. "Don't you think she's a little big for that? I mean, where would she hide?"

"Uh, y'all there?"

"She doesn't have to," Scootaloo observed. "That's what's so smart about it. Nopony would ever think she's a spy. She even fooled you!"

"Tha's ridiculous, Scootaloo. Ain't it, Sweetie Belle?" Her unicorn friend clearly did not share her assessment.

"Wow... I never would have thought of that."

"Oh, fer real? Look, we can just go ask her. She'll tell you she's jus' here fer work, you'll see."

"Well, duh. That's exactly what a spy would say." Scootaloo flared her tiny wings to emphasize the point. "But how do you think she lost her ear, if she's just a farmpony?"

"Well, maybe she was usin' an axe 'r a scythe–"

Scootaloo was having none of it. "And how come she's so huge? I mean, she's like as big as your brother."

"It's probably cause she works as a farmer. Ya know, as a farmpony."

Sweetie Belle piped up at this point. "But your sister does that too, and she isn't that big."

"Oh, come on, Sweetie Belle. Don' tell me yer' buyin' this too?"

"I don't really think she's a spy," the unicorn answered hesitantly. "But it does seem like she isn't just a farmpony. Like, how come she doesn't come into town? I didn't even know you'd hired somepony until today."

Applebloom groaned. "Okay, that's enough. Y'all aren't just bein' thick; this is ridiculous. I'm gonna go show ya that she's just a normal pony."

Scootaloo darted in front of the door to the clubhouse as she called out. "Whoa! You can't just go out there! If you wanna figure out about her, we have to do it sneaky."

"That's stupid, Scootaloo. I ain't afraid o' her." Without further word, Applebloom pushed Scootaloo out of the way and marched out of the clubhouse. Her friends spared one another a brief glance before running after her.

Outside, Sweet Apple Acres was filled with the sounds of wood groaning and creaking. Scootaloo spared a moment to catch her breath beside Applebloom before looking her in the eye. "What is she doing?"

"Well, sis' said there's this old tree that ain't got enough water or sumthin', so it isn't given enough apples. Resistant's gotta take it down, so Mac can plant a saplin' there in time fer next year's Applebuck Season."

"But this season isn't even here yet, right?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"It takes awhile fer a tree to grow," Applebloom responded noncommittally. "Anyway, the sooner we talk ta Resistant, the sooner we can get on ta findin' our Cutie Marks."

It wasn't long after that three heads peeked synchronously out from behind the trunk of an apple tree to observe the subject of their scrutiny. The first fact that came to mind was how Resistant had a very curious method of taking down the tree. She had chosen not to simply press against the tree with her hind legs in a long drawn out buck, as Applejack or Big Macintosh would have. Instead, the mare's strategy was to rise up on her hind legs and attack the tree as if they were rival wrestlers from Scootaloo's comic books. Her eggshell mane rippled in the air as her hoof swung around wildly, and the collision tore a huge chunk of the tree aside. The wounds of many more such blows could be seen scattered around the mare's hind hooves, in the form of sawdust and splinters on the grassy ground.

Resistant was not done, however. Using her other foreleg as a pivot, she lifted her entire body into the air and wrapped her hind legs around the 'neck' of the tree's trunk much like a wrestler might. Entirely unlike a wrestler, however, the motion ended with twelve feet of the tree's 'severed head' flying a good twelve yards into the distance of the orchard, where the huge segment of the tree was swallowed by shadows and night.

"Whoa," Scootaloo observed, unable to find better words.

"Shaddup!" Applebloom hissed. The damage, however, was done.

Resistant turned around to face the three fillies peeking out from behind the tree. Despite her rather masculine body form, and the sheer enormity of her physique, there was a certain grace to her motion. Her subtle green eyes sparked in the moonlight as she approached. Halfway to their hiding place, she spoke with a very subtle Stalliongradi accent.

"What have we here? Three little fillies running around in an orchard at night, long past when I told them to go to bed?"

"Uh... we were just..." Sweetie Belle began.

"-hungry!" Applebloom piped in. "An' we wanted some apples, so we came out ta' pick a few."

"Yeah!" Scootaloo continued, before making a sort of whoopee-cushion noise with her mouth that was probably intended to sound like stomach grumbling. It earned only a raised eyebrow. "Really hungry."

"Hmm. That's interesting." The titan of a mare lowered herself to look the fillies in the eyes. "I've never heard of fillies your age who'd go sneaking around trying to get an apple when there's ice cream back in the house."

Sensing some sort of trick, the Cutie Mark Crusaders shared concerned glances amongst themselves. After a moment of silent confusion, she chuckled and smiled. "...and I'm willing to give you some."

That got their attention. The three fillies eyes widened, and they sent forth a single word in unison. "Really?"

"I'm hungry too," the mare answered. "Now walk with me."

"Thanks, Resistant! Applejack almos' never lets me have ice cream at home."

"Well then," the farm hoof whispered loudly enough to be understood. "I think we should keep this between us. Now, Applebloom, you need to introduce me to your friends."

"Oh, sure. Uh, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, this is Resistant. Resistant, these are mah friends, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle."

"Nice to meet you!" Sweetie Belle offered.

"Yeah!" Scootaloo added. "Usually, Pinkie Pie throws a party for new ponies; how come you didn't get one?"

Resistant glanced away with clearly thoughtful eyes. The Crusaders, too young to pick up on such subtle social cues, assumed she'd seen something shiny in the distance. When her focus returned to the youths in her care, the farm hoof wore a subtle smile again. "I'm not staying here long; just until I have some money saved up."

"Do you not like Ponyville?" Sweetie Belle asked innocently.

"The town is lovely, Sweetie. It's not that I don't want to stay; I really can't."

"Why not?" Scootaloo asked.

"That's... complicated."

"Complicated like when Big Mac and Miss Flitter had a sleepover in the barn and stayed up 'til mah big sis found 'em in the mornin?"

Resistant's face reddened slightly. "No, Applebloom. It's not–"

Scootaloo piped in again before the mare could finish. "Is it complicated like why Rainbow Dash says she was gone for a week when I asked her what she was doing?"

"N–" The denial dropped off as revelation dawned brightly on Resistant's face. Had the comparison been any more clear, her expression might have melted off like a bad Daring Do special effect. "Actually, Scootaloo, that's a very good comparison.

"So you're a guardspony then?" Sweetie Belle asked.

At this point, it is worth observing the utter comedic tragedy that the mare then known as Resistant had no beverage in her mouth upon that particular inquiry. Had such a liquid been present, some physicists suspect the mare may very well have not just broken, but utterly shattered the world record for the greatest distance covered by a drink as part of a spit-take (and also the sound barrier). Unfortunately, due to the absence of such a liquid, Nightmare Moon's record remained intact. (Said record took advantage of the world's gravitational field, and evaporated partway through the atmosphere on the morning of March 16th, 448 A.S. In a sense, she hit her target when it rained in Canterlot three days later.)

Instead, Resistant's mouth hung open for just a moment, and her hooves stopped dead in their tracks. Despite her youthful innocence, Sweetie Belle did have the awareness to suspect she had said something wrong. "Uh, my big sister, Rarity, said Rainbow Dash had gone to be a guardspony for a week. I... kinda wasn't supposed to say anything..."

Her head hung low in a moping that might have stopped the heart of a more sensitive being. Resistant placed a titanic hoof on the filly's shoulder by way of comfort. "How about we just keep this our little secret, then? I'm not going to tell anypony if you don't."

"Okay." Sweetie smiled, and the group continued on their way.

As the apple trees passed them by, a small grin began to grow rather quickly on Scootaloo's face. She trotted over to Applebloom's side, and only when the two were nearly touching at the shoulder did she speak up. "Told ya."

"You didn't tell me anythin'. You thought she was a spy!"

"Spy, guardspony, who cares? I was way closer than you; you thought she was just a farmer."

"I am a farmer," Resistant piped in.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. "Well, yeah, right now. But you didn't used to be, right? Is being a guardspony your special talent?"

As if realizing what she had proposed, the three Cutie Mark Crusaders suddenly focused their attentions on Resistant's flanks, and the two interlocked horseshoes depicted there. "How'd you get your Cutie Mark?" Sweetie Belle inquired.

"I bet it's for being so good at whackin' stuff with her hooves, like that tree!" Scootaloo exclaimed.

"Nah, it's probably fer bein' super strong 'n fast!" Applebloom countered.

"You are all incorrect," Resistant said, as her thesaurus had run out of colorful synonyms for the term. "If you're expecting a story about superheroes, you'd do better to ask Rainbow Dash, or her father."

"Rainbow Dash has a dad?" Scootaloo asked.

"Duh. Now shaddup!" Applebloom lightly slapped her friend across the back of the head. "One story at a time."

Resistant cleared her throat. "Right. Well, where do I begin? I was about your age; my mark came late as you'd say now, though back when I was young, I was considered early."

"How old are ya'?"

"You aren't supposed to ask that," Sweetie Belle said. "Rarity always gets mad if somepony asks her that."

True to her name, Resistant shrugged. "You're right, Sweetie Belle; some ponies don't like to be asked their age. But it doesn't bother me. Applebloom, I'm thirty years old."

"Wow, really?" Sweetie Belle tried her best to imitate her sister's flattery, though it came across more than a touch too flat. "You look so much younger."

"More like a stallion, you mean." The mare casually tapped her unusually well-formed jaw line and shrugged. "Just who I am, I guess. Now, I was telling you my story. When I was about your age, I lived in Stalliongrad. My family were potato farmers, since they grew well even with all the snow."

"Ha! I told ya she was a farmer!"

"But she just said–"

Resistant sighed. "Please, girls. I've worn many hats in my life, and not all of them were comfortable."

"Ya'll ever worn a cowpony hat? My sis' got one, an'–"

"Yes, Applebloom, I have seen it, and it's a very nice hat. But when a pony says they wear a lot of hats, they often mean that they do a lot of jobs. In any case, the job I was doing at the time was picking potatoes. My father had thrown out his back in the fields, but we were also running low on food."

"Well, why not just ask your neighbors?"

Resistant smiled at Sweetie Belle's naiveté. "In those days, in Stalliongrad, there wasn't a lot of food to go around, and earth ponies had always been the poorest of everypony."

Applebloom's little face scowled in a mixture of distaste and confusion. "Wait, earth ponies? Why's that?"

The farm hoof knew that it would do no good to burden a young mind with ideas of social strata and the ancient castes of the city. However, after a moment's thought, an answer swept into her mind.

"Well, you know the Hearth's Warming Eve story, right?"

"Yup!" the Crusaders answered enthusiastically.

"We got to go to Canterlot a few years ago!" Sweetie Belle added.

"Yeah! Rainbow Dash was in it! She was the best!"

"Nu-uh. Mah sis did a way better job than her."

"What about Rarity? She looked so fancy with that big crown, and–"

Resistant chose to interrupt by quite literally picking up two of the ponies (Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle), and pulling them apart. "That's quite enough of that, I think. You wouldn't want to summon Windigoes here, would you?" The expressions on their faces left her with a small chuckle. "Well, actually, that's sort of the point. Do you know where the three tribes originally lived?"

The trio of fillies pondered for a moment. Despite her general social unawareness, Sweetie Belle's subtle cunning managed to solve the puzzle first. "You mean Stalliongrad is where the castle is?"

"Yes. Castle Burning Hearth is still standing there today, in fact. But, unfortunately, it isn't the only thing that still remains in Stalliongrad. The three tribes haven't really gotten along with one another for quite a long time in the city. Even if ponies learned harmony here, they aren't so nice everywhere. That's why you're very lucky fillies to be living here, in the Domain of Canterlot. Princess Celestia is a much better ruler than the other nobles."

"Plus we have Princess Luna, too!" Scootaloo added.

Resistant visibly winced, and it took her more than a few seconds to find words. "Yes, I guess you do. Now, where was I?" Her eyes glanced up at the dark, starry sky for a few moments. "Right, potatoes. Well, my family wasn't doing too well, and we needed the money from a good harvest badly. That meant we needed to get the potatoes dug up. My mom and my older brother and I all went out and started digging. They worked the whole day, but when they went in for the night, I wasn't really tired. I had my brother bring me my dad's big, bulky jacket and a scarf. I put them on, and kept digging. All night, up the next morning, and all the way through the next night."

"Wait, three days?"

Resistant nodded. "Three days. Back then, trains didn't do very well in the snow, so one only came into Stalliongrad every few days. That day was when the train was supposed to come in from Canterlot. Prices tended to be better if you could make it in time. I went inside and fell asleep. My dad found my cutie mark when he took his coat back, but I was too tired to wake up. I didn't find out until the next day."

"That's amazin'!" Applebloom yelled.

Scootaloo seemed less convinced. "Three full days? Yeah right. Can you imagine that much work, Sweetie Belle?"

"Well, no, but..." The unicorn hesitated, unwilling to contradict an adult's word directly.

"I doubt either of you could," Resistant noted callously. "I was using earth pony magic."

Applebloom cocked her head. "Say wha' now?"

"Earth ponies don't have magic!" Scootaloo protested.

"Really?" Resistant smiled knowingly. "I wonder... Why don't you three girls go find a rock, about this big." She indicated the shape and size of a small baseball. "I'll show you."

Though Sweet Apple Acres was well-maintained, it didn't take too long to find a few decently sized stones. The Crusaders returned to Resistant, and she set them up in a small circle around her, equally spaced. "Now, I'm going to count to three and close my eyes. Then I want you to throw the rocks at me."

"Won't that hurt?" Sweetie Belle asked innocently.

Resistant smiled toward the little filly with just a hint of pride. "It might if you actually hit me. Ready? One... Two... Three!"

What ensued was a scene that utterly invalidated the vocabularies of the Crusaders. The huge, four-foot tall mare jumped upward into the air, until her hooves were at the level that had once been her shoulder. In the process of the motion, she shifted her shoulders to the side and twisted, so that her body twisted like a sort of corkscrew. Despite her eyes being shut tightly, the stones flew between her legs without so much as a subtle tap against her coat.

The glory of the scene was rather subdued by the subsequent flop of her body against the cold grass, when she found herself wholly unable to put her hooves back under her body. Some might have mistaken the slap of her body against the ground to be a crack of thunder or the felling of a tree, had anypony apart from the Crusaders been around to hear. Thus, for philosophical purposes, she didn't make any noise at all.

Scootaloo was the first to react. "Cool! Can you teach us how to do that?"

Resistant wasn't particularly encumbered when the little filly ran up to her side, and put her orange forehooves over the older mare's side. She stood up quickly, and Scootaloo was surprised to suddenly find herself sitting on Resistant's back. "Firstly, Scootaloo, it’s earth pony magic. And even if you were an earth pony, I couldn't teach you. Every little earth pony has to discover it for themselves." She shot a knowing glance to Applebloom, having anticipated her next question.

"Aww! How'm I supposed ta get mah Cutie Mark in magic if I can't even do any magic! Yah gotta help, Resistant! Please?"

Resistant had, in her lifetime, faced hooves, swords, spears, the teeth of dragons, bolts of lightning, balls of fire, and even spells of outright disintegration. Apart from the missing segment of her right ear, her body had been entirely unaffected by such threats. Yet for all her endurance and her legendary fortitude, she had no armor against the overgrown eyes and slight pout of the little yellow filly. She knew she couldn't offer what the fillies wanted, yet she couldn't find it within her heart to just do nothing.

"Applebloom... I..."

Little tears had begun to form at the corners of Applebloom's eyes.

"Please, just..."

The pout began to twitch.

"Fine. Fine. Just make it stop." Almost immediately, the simpering mess became a massive smile. "If you want my help that badly, I'll... teach you three some guardspony tricks or something, I guess. Just remember this has to be a secret between us. Understand?"

"Got it!"

"We promise, Resistant!" Scootaloo added, quite literally yelling into Resistant's half-ear.

"Good. It's late right now, though, and I think you all still wanted ice cream?" She turned around to nudge the little pegasus on her back. "I bet Scootaloo and I can beat you there."

The 'Shy Who Loved Me

IV

The 'Shy Who Loved Me

March 16th, 1446 A.S.

Burning Hearth Castle, Stalliongrad

1329 Hours

Luna watched the bloody, bruised unicorn as he was dragged down the hall screaming and howling. His thick, purple velvet cape, trimmed in snow hare fur, was a stark contrast to the monochrome that defined both his own coat, and the garb of his assailants. He might have been a threat, were it not for the still-bleeding stump jutting only an inch off the front of his face. Marrow, sparking nerves, and flecks of gore covered the stallion's face. The disgusting, sickening mess did nothing to hold his tongue.

"Уберите от меня свои копыта, мерзкие птицы!" the noble shrieked.

Luna closed her eyes and ignited her horn. While there existed no true spell to translate the spoken word, within the realm of dreams and memories, the act of extracting meaning was simple. In only a moment, her ears began to hear familiar and welcome Equiish, even if it did not match the movement of the speaking lips.

" You're betraying Equestria for the lizards!" The pale blue unicorn's protests ground down into an agonized whimper as a hoof struck his jaw. Luna heard bone pop free of its socket, though it thankfully did not crack.

The two stallions dragging away the protesting noble were clad in black. The younger wore a heavy coat, long enough to almost be mistaken for a cloak, were it not for the sleeves covering his forelegs. Only his blood red face was visible above the collar. Despite a fire of pure hatred in his eyes, his own jaw wore a smile.

The elder assailant was more familiar to Luna. Clad in black armor, trimmed in gold, the blue-gray pegasus guardspony was the very definition of apathy. He didn't even look down as one of his well-toned hooves dragged his prisoner along the smooth stone hallways by his cape.

"There is no need beating him, Roscherk." Luna would normally have found a bit of amusement in 'the Commander's' struggles with the Stalliongradi language, but the brutality of Red Ink's dreams kept her mind from such levity.

A younger Red Ink responded to the chastisement by stomping on the pitiful unicorn's shoulder. "You've seen what he did to Stalliongrad, Mentor! I'm tempted not to kill him at all! Better that he gets to feel the sort of–"

"Stop." The word was not angry, nor did it even carry disappointment. It was a command, in a strict military sense. "Roscherk, you are not like this. You know better."

The native Stalliongradian sighed and nodded. "My hooves are tools, not toys."

"Correct. Now–"

"Do not waste your time, Equestrian." The unicorn on the floor grumbled through gritted teeth. "Some unicorn might have tamed you, but this one is a Stalliongradian pegasus. A wild animal, who only understands violence."

"It wasn't pegasi who started this war, Frostbite," Red Ink snapped.

"No, you're right. It was your disgusting cross-blooded ungrateful father. I have to wonder what he paid for your support, mercenary."

The Commander, as Luna knew the elder pegasus, responded not with words, but by continuing down the hall toward a pair of double doors hanging ajar. A bitter wind and stray gusts of snow had already begun to work their way down the frigid stone blocks that formed the castle floor.

Red Ink slammed the doors open, and flexed his wings. They ignited in fire as he stepped out into what could only be described as a solid wall of falling snow. And, to Luna's awe, the snow stopped.

"It's over!" he shouted, as the Commander dragged the stallion known as Frostbite up to the edge of the balcony. A paltry resistance was given, but it wasn't long before everypony in the streets below could see the battered and beaten unicorn in plain view. When Red Ink held up a severed horn, eleven inches in length by Luna's guess, all noise in the city stopped.

"My subjects, I–" Frostbite began to moan. Then Red Ink pulled back on his jaw, and the ruler of Stalliongrad died in plain view of his entire Domain.

August 30th, 1452 A.S.
The Royal Palace, Canterlot
0210 Hours

Luna slumped over in her bed, and was surprised to find feathers and a soft coat where she had expected linens and silks.

"Are you well, Luna? You frightened me."

It took the younger princess a moment to regain her surroundings. Delicate periwinkles and absorbing dark blues decorated the walls of her darkened chamber. Amidst the nighttime colors, Celestia's vibrant mane and pale coat stood out completely.

"We are fine, Sister."

Celestia's wing ran gently over Luna's shoulder. "Who's fine, Luna?"

"I am," she mumbled.

"Good. Now, tell me Luna, did you have a nice night wandering dreams? Or did you perhaps have somepony specific in mind this time?" The hint of a lifted vowel at the end told Luna that Celestia already suspected an answer, if she didn't outright know it.

"You told me of your new bodyguard... I was exploring his mind."

From the surprise on Celestia's face, it was clear that what she had thought she knew was wrong. "Red Ink? Why the interest?"

Luna tweaked a little smile. "Perhaps I hath a vested interest in... oh, what is the modern turn of phrase? Rooting for him?"

Celestia nodded with a smile of her own. "I see. And might I ask what that reason is?"

A shadow of a doubt flickered over Luna's face as she turned toward the glass doors of her balcony. Through their polished surfaces, one could see the night sky, and the full moon rising up over Equestria. "Everypony deserves a chance to earn forgiveness."

"Really?" Celestia held her sister closer against her own side with the same wing that had been draped over Luna's shoulder. "Then tell me, Luna, what did his dreams tell you?"

Luna sighed. "I have my doubts that he might ever champion friendship as your apprentice and her companions do. There is too much war in his past, and too much fire in his blood."

"So he's a lost cause?"

The younger sister nudged her elder playfully with the tip of her horn. "Do not presume to finish our thoughts before we have had a chance to express them, 'Tia."

"Oh, and here I thought I'd gotten good at that." Celestia's teasing voice was that shared by all older siblings across the world, as she turned fully away from the moon that had held Luna's focus, giving her sister undivided and total attention. "What are you getting at, Luna?"

"I would like the chance to answer his letters. Perhaps I might offer him counsel that you... might not sympathize with."

"As you wish, Luna." Celestia pulled herself off her sister's bed. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," Luna answered, as she laid back to once more wander the dreamscapes of her subjects.

Roscherk's Journal. August 30th, 1452.

Dog carcass in alley this morning. Must be. I can smell it, and... No, wait. Just my stench. From mouth. Far too much to drink. Also... blood? And coat is filled with ash, like being on fire. Waking up in mare's room. Perhaps I am having better night than I remember.

I am to be taking this journal for Princess, even though journal is stupid notion. Must write something; note on cover says so. I simply write what I am experiencing. Simple idea. Waste of time.

Slept poorly. Bed too soft, and empty. Dream of the Baron, and... why writing this? Not concern of Princess. Point is, woke in pain. Now writing, wondering about cause.

Know I did not kill anypony. Not in cell. No, this is... room of tiny filly? Filled with stuffed animals. Pictures of family. I recognize older mare in pictures. Sister? She is seamstress, name of Rarity, who gave me journal. She helped me after Polnoch's Jacket...

Red Ink stared down at what he had written in the hard-bound journal, before his eyes wandered to the note he'd torn off the front.

Rowshirk (apologies for spelling),

Twilight asked me to give you this journal, to write about what is going on. That way, once you two find your way back to speaking terms, you'll have some material for your reports to the Princess. I confess those weren't the exact words she used, but I'm sure she'll calm down eventually.

I'm not quite sure when you'll be waking up, so if I'm not home, you can feel free to help yourself to anything in the kitchen. I'm afraid I'm not likely to be done with your jacket any time soon, so I took the liberty of adjusting another item that I think will be simply stunning with your frame and coat. It should also be a bit more comfortable in this warmer weather, should you have any business to attend to. Otherwise, make yourself at home.

-Rarity

The groaning agony behind Ink's eyes forced him to read the message over three times before he was finally able to understand it all. While he was very much used to the sensation of inebriation, hangovers were something of an old and forgotten nemesis. A part of him considered a cold shower, but in all honesty, he lacked the motivation. Instead, his eyes wandered to the bright red faux leather thing resting across the foal-sized chair at the other end of the room. It was clearly meant to be a jacket, judging by the sleeves, though the rubies and the black 'V' that crossed over the length of the chest left Ink more inclined to label it a violation of the Geneighva Convention.

He didn't particularly feel up to any further thought while he was experiencing the pain of another pony wailing on the inside of his skull. He stumbled out of lavender sheets and made his way out into the hallway beyond the small room. From shortly down the opposite side of the hall, the stallion could hear running water, and singing.

"—Piece by piece, snip by snip

Croup, dock, haunch, shoulders, hip—"

It wasn't long before Ink's hooves were carrying him away from the noise of his own accord. There were only a few songs he could really stand to listen to, and of them only one that was tolerable with any level of a headache. And since nopony had died recently...

In his haste to escape Rarity's music, the Stalliongradian found his way to the stairs. And then, shortly after, he found his way down them. His head didn't take long afterward to start outright throbbing.

"Пылающий зад Селестии! Who is putting stairs..." He looked around the room as his vision came back together. "...in... sensible... location..." His complaint trailed off. In fact, the stairs were perfectly aligned with a narrow hallway, connecting the kitchen of the home/boutique to its main showroom.

It was the revelation of the proximity of the kitchen which finally got a gurgling, desperate plea of hunger from Red Ink's stomach up to the pit of agony that currently was taking the form of his brain. He struggled to his hooves, and didn't so much walk forward as lurch onto the flat sheet of green linoleum.

Nopony was around, and as a result, Ink took the opportunity to perform a formal supply requisition. This is to say, he began rooting through Rarity's cabinets and refrigerator, grabbing any items of food that appealed to him in the slightest and piling them onto the countertop. He passed over all sorts of rare and exotic foods with strange names, instead availing himself with all eighteen of Rarity's eggs, a solid hoof-sized block of some peppered cheese, and half a loaf of bread for toast. The next step was a frying pan... or six.

Ink flung open, and subsequently slammed, a dozen cabinets in his search. For some reason, the noise of wood striking violently against wood didn't bother the stallion. A more sober pony might have guessed he was somehow habituated to the noise, as if he made a habit of rather violent carpentry, or perhaps just beating down doors. Ink had neither the sobriety, nor the inclination to support such a thought.

""То что надо!” Roscherk slurred out. His wing wrapped around a tall, thin glass bottle.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Rarity shrieked. The noise was harsh enough for Red Ink to very-nearly drop his precious prize. It bobbled in the air, and he dove to put his wings between the bottle and the floor.

"Don't you think you've quite had enough, Roscherk?" she continued, causing Ink to wince in agony. "I should think the surplus of that vile substance you drank at Pinkie's party would be enough!"

"Not for drinking," he whispered, setting the bottle of 170 proof vodka down before it could be hurt. Something could certainly be said of Rarity owning such strong alcohol, were there anypony present brave enough to make the comment. Instead, Ink focused his attention on explaining himself. "Cure, for headache."

Only then did he get a look up at his hostess. Rarity would have been very beautiful without her makeup, and her mane hanging down wet alongside her head. However, any realization of her appearance was stolen away by the harsh ringing that remained in Ink's ears well after her vicious words were done.

"Unacceptable! And, frankly, shameful! I'm having a very difficult time believing you are a guardspony, Mr. Ink, as I know Shining Armor would not employ a raging alcoholic!"

Ink pinned his head beneath his ears and wings. "Please... stop..."

"Stop what? Telling you the truth? Forcing you to confront reality? To take some responsibility for the sorry state of your body?"

"The whining..."

Rarity's eyes narrowed. "Whining? You think this is whining?"

Twenty minutes and two war-crimes later, Ink was literally shaking in the corner, huddled in a tiny ball. His eyes were pinpricks, staring unfocused in Rarity's vague direction as she went about assembling a nice, reasonably sized breakfast for herself and her houseguest. When the teakettle whistled, Ink screamed.

"Oh, come now. It's just tea. Drink some. I'm sure it'll fix you right up. Within reason, of course." The mare poured a small cup, with a dab of milk and a touch of honey for good taste, before levitating it over to the brutalized pegasus.

"Not as good as magic," Ink muttered. His hooves and wings struggled with the tiny handle of the teacup, until it fell outright from his grip and shattered on the floor.

Rarity tsk'd gently, more out of pity than annoyance. "You really are a lost soul here, aren't you, Mr. Ink? I can forgive the cup, but I have to ask what you expect to do with magic to help yourself out of this sorry state."

"Years ago, in..."

"I would appreciate you coming to the table and speaking to me like a civilized stallion."

Ink glared, and wished silently that the magic of the Stare were within his skills. Alas, the disgruntled pegasus found no better option than to rise to his hooves and maneuver across the kitchen. His motion ended slumped and slouching opposite Rarity at her small table. She directed a cold glare to the way his forelegs rested on the table, but given the struggle it had taken to get him there at all, she chose to hold her tongue.

"During war," the stallion began, before waiting momentarily for an interruption that didn't come. He cleared his throat once more. "...During war, mentor taught me skill. With fire magic."

"You've fought in a war? The last time Equestria had a war, you and I would both have been foals."

The growling that followed reminded Rarity of a timber wolf. "Ignorant Canterlot pony. No, we had war. Revolution, in Stalliongrad." For that one word, the pony forced himself into a mockery of a Canterlot accent, and his tongue beat down every syllable with excessive force. "Mentor taught me fire."

"You mean that magic you did at the party? Where you lit yourself on fire, but you didn't get burnt?"

"I am thinking Rainbow Dash knows that magic. But yes. Pegasus magic. There is word in Equiish, but I am not caring. Important is this. Fire does not burn self, but it is burning things around them. Or, if smart, inside them."

"You... you burn yourself? Inside your body?"

"Mentor was poisoned. He drank much vodka, all at once, so that blood would burn. Then came fire. Poison is not part of a pony's body. Vodka is not either. Soon, both were gone. But blood is. Flesh is. Mentor was healthy."

Rarity's mouth hung open exactly until the moment when she realized how unladylike such an expression had to look. She clamped herself shut and nodded. "In some sense, I must say that I find the idea frightening, but I suppose I can see how useful it is. You intended to do the same here?"

"Mentor's method was blunt. At home, I mix... 'drink'." Ink actually pantomimed the quotes with his wingtips. "Three parts strong drink. One part lamp oil. In Equiish, is named 'Dragon's Breath'. Wonderful for clear mind, but will burn the food out of stomach as well; hunger is small cost."

"I see," Rarity lied impeccably, momentarily grateful not to be Applejack. "Well, I suppose I can at least understand your motive, although I have no intention of permitting you to drink such a... substance."

"Doesn't taste as bad as ingredients."

Rarity's brow climbed its way up her face. "Really? Lamp oil?"

"I was meaning vodka. But that too."

It took the seamstress a moment to realize Ink was serious. She discarded the thought and smiled in his direction. "Would you forgive me for jumping to conclusions?"

"What difference does make?" Roscherk asked. "I am not angry."

"Firstly, whether or not one is angry is not of concern. An apology is about more than simply dealing with anger. It is a matter of honor, and taste. And even if that weren't the case, you certainly seemed angry."

Ink rolled his eyes. "No. I was annoyed. When I am angry, fire alarms are going off."

"Aha. So I was wrong about the alcohol, but I was correct about your rather..." Her words hung in the air as she sought a diplomatic euphemism. "...militant tendencies."

"You are meaning fights? Perhaps for a civilian."

Rarity was taken aback by the comment for a moment. A sip of her tea dispelled her shock, though it did nothing for her concerns. "Well, if you're going to go around trying to cover up that you're a guardspony, you could certainly make an effort to behave like one of us." She matched his derogatory tone to a 'T'. "I suspect, were I in your hooves, that learning some self-control would be an excellent first step to fitting in here for... whatever it is that you're actually doing."

"Discipline? My discipline is–"

It was at that moment that some fundamental law of the universe was challenged. The stallion truly named Roscherk Krovyu had intended the word 'perfect', but doing so would have been so utterly, intrinsically false that the very concept of honesty would not permit the phrase to be uttered. Such a lie would have threatened the very fiber of space and time, and so they conspired to stay his tongue before it could do any further damage than his mind already had in formulating the statement.

Well, either that, or Ink remembered that his loss of self-control in Baltimare in the line of duty had led to the unintentional deaths of three civilians, and a considerable amount of property damage.

Rarity must have seen something flash across Ink's face, though her attentions were distracted by a knocking from the boutique door in the main room.

"Come in," Rarity called in a sing-song voice, as her horn ignited to open the door.

"As you wish, milady." Despite the actual words spoken, the young and distinctly non-equine voice clearly carried stress and concern.

Red Ink's mind supplied the necessary soap-opera canned laughter as the bell over the door jangled, and a little purple dragon walked into the room. His reaction on seeing the hung-over stallion at Rarity's table was immediate. It contained a mixture of fatigue, irritation, and... jealousy? Of a romantic nature?

As a stallion, Red Ink had always enjoyed two advantages when it came to his interactions with the opposite sex. The first was that he was not particularly picky when it came to mares beyond them having a 'decent' appearance. The second was that despite his short stature, he was capable of picking up and throwing most of his competition in a very literal sense. It was a combination of these two factors which led the Stalliongradian soldier to lack much by way of experience with the idea of a romantic rival.

"Oh. It's you." Spike's words could not have been more blunt without the addition of a comically placed anvil.

Not quite sure how to respond, Ink settled for "Yes?"

Spike outright ignored the stallion as he turned to Rarity. "Can I help you with anything, Rarity?"

"Well, as it turns out Spike, I'm not really planning to–"

"Please." The dragon whelp dropped to his knees and clutched his claws together. "I have to get out of the library. I'll do anything."

"Out of the library? Spike, why would you..."

Spike's glare in Ink's direction finished the entire line of conversation instantly.

"...I see." Rarity took a deep breath, and then a smile spread across her face. "In fact, Spike, I do have something you can do. I'll need a moment to write a quick letter, and then I'll need you send it on its way for me, along with a package."

Spike's head hung slightly. "I... can't actually send packages to Princess Celestia. My fire's only strong enough for paper."

Rarity stood up from her seat, walked over to the young dragon, and placed a hoof on his chin. "Oh, Spikey-wikey, I don't have anything for the Princess. The message is for Fluttershy."

"Oh. Okay." Spike's expression perked up. "And the package?"

"Well, he is sitting right there," Rarity explained, gesturing in Ink's direction.

August 30th, 1452 A.S.
Outside Ponyville
0858 Hours

Silence is in some senses a great deal like a bandage. Not a real, proper medical bandage, mind you, but those stupid flimsy things that you stick on a child to convince them that somehow, their "boo-boo" is magically better instantly. Such a bandage often can do a good job of keeping blood from getting everywhere, and if applied correctly, the pressure can bring a great deal of comfort to a paper cut, or the stray nick of a kitchen knife, or some other petty civilian accident.

However, much like silence, the longer such a stupid would-be bandage remained, the worse it would be to remove it. The wearer would get to enjoy the entirely delightful experience of ripping out about half their coat trying to get the disgusting adhesive off, and then beneath it, they'd find that those hairs of their coat left attached to their body would be absolutely caked down in a sickening mixture of dried blood and... gooey stuff.

From the day he'd learned to light himself on fire, Red Ink hadn't gotten a single cut which had not subsequently been cauterized shut. However, he still remembered (and resented) the thoughts of such infernal objects that had dominated the end of his every childhood scrape with his younger brother. He'd learned very quickly that it was far more of a mercy to simply rip them off then to let them linger, and leave him with hours of washing and rubbing, trying to clean his coat of their built-up gunk.

He could tell that gunk was building up between himself and the rather tiny green-and-purple dragon beside him. He resolved to stop it from growing any thicker.

"So... how is dragon coming to be in Ponyville?"

Spike did not react well to his precious silence being broken. He glared at Ink out of the corners of his eyes as he continued to walk forward on his stubby legs. "I moved here with Twilight."

"Okay... well, how is dragon coming to be live with ponies?"

Spike attempted to growl in his throat. The noise reminded Red Ink of a purring cat. "Twilight hatched my egg when she got her Cutie Mark."

"Dragons guard eggs well," Ink observed. "How is she getting one?"

Spike sighed, and his explanation came out grumbled and hesitant. "Princess Celestia says one of the teachers at her school found me in Baltimare. She says whoever my parents were, they probably died in the war. Not like it really matters. Twilight and the Princess are my family."

Ink chuckled. "You are latching onto Twilight, like gosling? Thinking she is mother, because she is purple?"

"Ugh, no." Spike made a sort of shivering motion. "She's like my sister. I mean, she was only eleven when I hatched."

Ink shrugged. "Was joke. Besides, she is not looking to me like good mother."

"Hey, watch it, bub. I can breathe fire!"

Ink stopped in his tracks, staring at the little dragon with his claws balled into fists on his hips. The pegasus turned around in the street, and leaned forward so that he was staring the tiny lizard eye-to-eye. "So can I." A little, almost teasing gout of naturally colored, red-orange flame licked over Spike's face. By the time the smoke had cleared, Ink had stepped back to the road with a smile on his face.

"You don't have to be such a jerk, you know? Twilight was pissed yesterday."

"Why? She should be honored. I am probably first stallion who shows interest in rutti–"

Spike's punch was a masterstroke. The tiny dragon succeeded where dozens of grown stallions had failed, catching Red Ink's heavy jaw right where it connected to his neck. The stallion dropped like a sack of rutabagas (Ink was considerably denser than a sack of potatoes), clattering to the dusty road with shock on his face.

"Don't talk about Twilight like that!" Spike yelled.

Ink stood up, and dusted himself off casually, pointedly ignoring the little dragon who was panting, and quite literally fuming as he stared daggers from his serpentine eyes. Only when his blood-toned coat was free of dirt did he return his attention to the dragon. The levity in his expression was gone completely.

"That was a good punch," he began.

"I don't care about the punch! Don't talk about Twilight like that!"

"Defending your sister? Touching." Ink held a hoof to his jaw for just a moment, and then smiled. "Fine. You are having my apology. But understand something else, little dragon."

Spike took a deep breath, and then nodded. "Yeah?"

"I have killed wyrm. Big dragon, grown up, with claws longer than my body, and magic strong as Princess. If I were killing you, I would not even tell troops. They would not be caring."

Ink started up the road as Spike was left to process the thought. It was only when he realized he was being left behind that the dragon abandoned his contemplations and broke into a run to catch up. "You killed a dragon?"

"You are maybe thinking that is evil, but in..." He stopped, hesitated, and twisted his face into a brittle mask. "...Stallion-grad, I am hero for it. Well, that and for killing pony."

"You killed ponies? Like... like the Changeling Queen?"

Mistaking Spike's shock for awe, Ink nodded and smiled slightly. "I would not be making comparison, but yes. I am glad to be seeing somepony, or somedragon, who is appreciating me. Perhaps I am meeting another soon, yes?"

"Uh, yeah?" Spike answered, entirely confused. "I... what?"

"We are going to meet Fluttershy, yes?"

"We're basically there," Spike answered, gesturing ahead to a... well, realistically, a grassy knoll. Ink absentmindedly noted that it would be the perfect place from which to stage an assassination, if somepony were walking down the road toward the nearby Everfree Forest.

"She is living in... a hill she cut the sides off of?"

Spike nodded. "She likes it quiet. Let's see if she's in."

The pony and the dragon approached the cottage, as Ink's eyes scanned the surroundings. To his assessing, predatory eye, there were dozens of shadowed hiding places and dens for tiny creatures; yet none of the animals themselves were to be seen. He didn't have much experience with small animals, as most vermin that might dwell in a city were less-than-comfortable in the magical chill of Stalliongrad's streets. Nevertheless, he found himself set on edge as his draconic guide finally reached the door. A fist of scaled claws rapped on the door, and it slid open.

In a hole in the ground there lived a pegasus. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a Fluttershy-hole, and that meant animals.

Ink recoiled at the madness, and the motion, and the stench of it all. Birds and vermin, brown-furred mammals and scaly reptiles. Even... a seal? Surely, a creature that didn't belong over four-hundred miles from the nearest ocean. The stallion's momentary concentration was stolen away when Spike addressed the animals.

"Hey. Any of you know where Fluttershy is?"

Red Ink assumed the dragon was joking, or insane. Yet sure enough, the mass of animals calmed themselves, and a little white rabbit emerged from the masses. Though like most rabbits he was silent, his little forepaws gesticulated wildly in an attempt to convey some sort of message.

"Uh huh. Yeah. Okay." Spike's head nodded along with the motions, as if he actually understood the creature. Ink offered a concerned glance in the baby dragon's direction, just in time to receive Spike's focus in turn. "Angel says she's out taking care of Hairy out by the forest, but she'll be back soon." The dragon smiled, then turned to the rabbit again. "Can you give her this?" He offered the folded note Rarity had written only a few minutes earlier.

The rabbit stared at the paper with something that seemed to cross disdain and scorn. After a bit of proffering from Spike, however, he grabbed the note and hopped off.

"Well, that should be it, then. Just wait for a few minutes and she should be back, okay, Mr. Ink?"

The Stalliongradian gave a sidelong glance to the room full of animals, who were all watching him, before offering a sort of hesitant half-nod. "I survive."

"Great. I gotta get back to Rarity."

Red Ink held himself back at the last second from a particularly distasteful joke about draconic anatomy, and instead watched silently as the dragon darted out of the room. When the infantile reptile was gone, the stallion realized that he was alone in a glorified hole in the ground, full to brimming with animals. His eye twitched only slightly, at first.

August 30th, 1452 A.S.
Fluttershy's Cottage
0908 Hours

Seven minutes. Seven minutes marked the extent of Red Ink's patience, before he snapped. He grabbed a carrot out of the pile at his hooves (incidentally, it was the sixth of nineteen to have been thrown at him), and pointed it menacingly at the little white creature.

"Посмотрим, как весело тебе будет, когда я засуну эту долбанную штуку так глубоко в твою задницу, что ее конец будет торчать из твоего рта! Спорим, я смогу поместить там еще парочку, прежде чем ты наконец сдохнешь!"

It truly is a shame Red Ink's vocabulary wasn't so colorful in Equiish as it was in his native tongue. But while most of the animals in the room were confused by the obscure threat, Angel understood the words perfectly; his history with the Stalliongradi tongue was complicated, but it explained his father's eye patch and missing ear, and his extreme mastery of produce-based guerilla warfare.

The rabbit wasn't actually faster than the pegasus, but in the cramped confines of Fluttershy's 'cottage' (an extremely generous term, in Ink's opinion), Angel's size gave him the advantage. To his credit, Red Ink only wasted six minutes on attempted bunny-cide before finally making his way to the door and leaving in a huff.

"Waste of time," Ink muttered to nopony in particular. At that moment, he considered his options. It was a true expression of his boredom, and the fraying of his sanity, that he honestly considered heading into the Everfree Forest for a day or two, simply to kill time until his 'job' started. On the other hoof, Celestia might decide to have him executed if he didn't at least send a letter her way with some stupid lesson.

He rolled his eyes, slowly realizing that he was actually regretting slapping Twilight's flank. What was the world coming to? And, worse, what the hay was he supposed to do? Apologize? He didn't really feel sorry. At least, not for her. He certainly felt sorry for himself, having to put up with such a moronic situation.

The wanderings and ramblings of his mind were cut off by a noise that enticed and caressed his ears, tantalizing them as the tips danced in the gentle breeze. He found himself in a moment of ecstasy, leaning as if to brush gently against the source and allow its delicate care to continue. Blood flushed to his ears, and they twitched back and forth erratically, their motion beyond the control of a mind overrun with pleasure. There was only one thing which could bring him such happiness, and drive him to such heights of passion: pure, unadulterated violence.

He could hear the tension of the grapple, as a body was pressed tightly between powerful legs. His mind devoured the swift crack of a well-placed blow, and the howl of agony from the unfortunate... bear?

He darted around the corner of the 'cottage', and down the hill. The sound grew closer with his every hoof fall. The roaring, the clash of hoof on flesh. The crumpling of a body hitting the grass.

And then there she was, emerging from behind a tree, a goddess of beauty and war. He stopped, struck so still as to seem dead.

Her pink mane billowed in the breeze as she rolled between the bear's legs, and in the very same motion, her own hind leg swept across the grassy ground. The enormous beast was toppled in an instant. She wasted no time in taking advantage of her position.

She caught his right hind leg in the crook of her leg, and twisted it around. The scream of agony was musical. It folded back on his body, so that his spine turned concave, in the shape of a perfect 'C', complete with serifs made of his ears and claws at both ends.

Without letting go, she reached down to his shoulder. The butter yellow of her coat rippled with focus and control as her hind leg seized his right forepaw, and pulled up. His body twisted over itself, framing her in the center. The picture was perfect.

And then, to conclude the act, her last free leg reached under his jaw and caught hold of his muzzle. The yank twisted his head around, at least ninety degrees. The crack of his spine was audible. The crumpling of his body bore a beautiful finality, like the last note at the end of a beautiful song. And, like all good performances, he intended to give it the applause it deserved.

His hooves beat against the ground, and she looked up. Sparkling blue eyes swiveled and locked on the stallion, and then she was moving. No hesitation. No pause to consider her options. Merely a spreading of wings and a blur of yellow and pink left empty space where once true beauty had stood.

"Wait!" Ink called out, as his tongue and his mind dueled over the words to deliver. "I am... I am wanting to talk to you!"

His eyes wandered from tree to tree, as he walked into the grotto proper. Without care, he wandered over the dead bear, and for just a moment he could have sworn he felt it breathing. Yet his mind was not concerned with such fantasies; instead, he was pursuing a dream. A beautiful dream, with a flowing mane and hooves that could snap skysteel. And she was getting away.

"O-oh. Okay."

He nearly jumped as he turned. She peeked out from behind a tree. Only her eyes and the top of her mane were visible, watching him from a mere two feet away. In silence, she had closed that much distance... he was astonished. Had her intent been more violent, he would have held no defense.

"Uh..." Ink stumbled. "I..."

She stepped out from behind the tree, and her hoof gently teased the grass. "You're... Mr. Ink? Right?"

"Oh, uh, yes. Red Ink. You are calling me Red, if you are liking to."

She smiled, and nodded gently. The motion concealed much of her face behind the mass that was her mane. "I'm Fluttershy."

"You're..." He sucked in his breath, and forced himself to focus. He couldn't allow himself to be stunned into silence by a mare, even one who was finally his equal. Where had he lost the courage that freed Stalliongrad? Where had he lost the drive that ended the Blizzard Revolution? He shook his head, ending his chastisement, and smiled. The gesture seemed only to unnerve the mare before him. "That was amazing. You are skilled with hooves."

"Oh," Fluttershy muttered, glancing toward the dead bear. "It's just something I've picked up. It, uh, really helps taking care of the animals, sometimes."

"Yes," Ink nodded, glancing toward the fresh corpse. "You are truly taking good care."

She smiled. It was a small thing, but honest, and it lifted his heart. "So... can I help you, Red?"

"Oh, uh... yes..." He begged his mind for an excuse, though it took a moment in coming. "You are having mail. From seamstress. Rawreety."

"Rarity sent me a letter?" Fluttershy seemed emboldened by the mention of her friend. "I wonder why she didn't just come visit herself. It's always so much fun having her over."

"Perhaps I am... taking her place?" Ink wasn't quite sure of the proposition, as indicated by both his pause and the slightly forced smile that accompanied it.

Fluttershy hesitated for a moment, before something like resolve took its place on what little the Stalliongradian stallion could see of her face. Her wing gestured to her 'cottage' as she began to walk. "Do you like tea, Red?"

"Of course," he lied, as only one blindly consumed with thoughts of romance can. He didn't even consider what he'd actually been asked, nor did he notice his hooves as they made their way back into the cramped cottage. It was only then, in a rush of adrenaline, that his thoughts came surging back.

The carrot was clutched in a paw, sharpened to a fine point and aimed for his throat. The rabbit wore a bandolier of similarly weaponized produce as he soared through the air, ready to defend his mistress.

Tragically, tactics that had served the rabbit well against the vile mares and stallions of Ponyville were little match for Red Ink's honed and sharpened reflexes. Angel was caught by the tip of Ink's wing and thrown to the ground at the far side of the room. Distracted by shuffling around the animals on the couch to make room for Ink to sit, Fluttershy didn't even notice.

"There, that should be nice." She puffed up a pillow, and gestured for Ink to take a seat. He moved over gently, watching the fallen rabbit, but no further attempt at assassination was made. Almost as soon as his flanks hit the cushion, Fluttershy was pacing away. "I'll just go get some drinks, okay?"

"Wonderful," Ink answered. And then he sat and waited, his eyes wandering the room. There were birdcages without actual doors, little hanging cabins filled with the eyes of curious vermin, and the homes and signs of countless other tiny creatures. His eye twitched slightly as it searched for somewhere to look which would not force him to stare at animals. His gaze alighted on a small end table, and the gently folded paper sitting atop it. He recognized Rarity's note, though he didn't know its contents. At that point, the test of his willpower began.

He lasted twenty seconds.

Dearest Fluttershy,

I have a request for you, which I am afraid you may not find enjoyable. However, I can think of nopony better to turn to. It isn't only your kindness that will help here, but the fact that you were the one who first brought out the light in Discord. Now, forgive me for bringing up a sore subject, dear, but my point is that you are the pony most suited for a rather difficult task.

You recall that rowdy stallion from Pinkie's party? The slightly short pegasus with the thick accent? Well, after you departed last night, things escalated. To make a very long story short, I took Mr. Ink back to the Boutique with me, and let him spend the night. In his company, I learned some curious facts about him. I'm not entirely sure he recalls all of what he told me in the grips of his drink and half asleep on Sweetie's bed, but it was most... haunting.

I'll get to that in a moment, but first, I feel I should explain exactly what I am asking. You see, Mr. Ink (or 'Rowshirk', as he seems to prefer) is in a very unique situation, and–

"Do you like sugar in your tea?"

Ink jumped, and fumbled with the letter. It had taken him far too long to struggle through the Equiish writing, decorated as it was with loops, curls, and frills. Now, Fluttershy was approaching. He barely managed to refold the letter and return it to the end table before she returned, holding a tray with a small tea set on the ends of her wings.

Ink watched her approach, and set the entire display delicately atop the low coffee table in front of him. She then reclined back in a thickly padded green chair opposite him, and smiled. "Uh, was I too quiet?"

He shook himself, tearing his eyes away from the mare. "Sorry, what?"

"What would you like in your tea? I brought sugar, milk, and lemon. Oh, but if you'd like, I have honey and cinnamon in the kitchen too." Her eyes darted to the kitchen, and she moved to rise, as if he might be offended by the incompleteness of her presentation.

He held up a hoof as gently as he could manage, though the spade-like rugged edge he presented seemed more likely to be interpreted as a threat than a calming gesture. "This is fine, Fluttershy."

She giggled gently as she sat down.

"Am I making joke?"

"Oh, no. It's, uh, it's just..." She hid behind her mane. "The way you say my name is funny."

His brow rose. "Am I saying wrong? Fluttershy?"

"No," she answered. "Just your accent." Then her eyes flashed up. "Oh, I'm so sorry, that's rude of me, and–"

"It is being fine, Fluttershy." He watched as she poured two cups of tea, and offered him one. His wing took hold of the little cup gingerly, and he lifted it to his lips. The flavor was awful, but a strong jaw went a long way toward concealing his opinion. "Oh, here is letter." He passed the paper across the table. Fluttershy's reading gave him an opportunity to tilt his teacup, sending his warm beverage flying across the room to splash over an irate white rabbit.

It didn't take Fluttershy long to finish reading in her native tongue. When she was done, she set the paper down, and took a gentle and demure sip of her own tea. Something small had changed in the way the mare's back sat against her chair. Her face stuck out boldly from beneath her mane.

"So? What is saying?"

Fluttershy offered a small smile. "I think tonight we should have a dinner party."

Author's Note

It's been a while, but I'm back. And slowly realizing that the 'import from Google Docs' function leaves paragraphs with uneven spacing, because it doesn't understand the difference between a 'tab' and an arbitrary number of spaces. I'll see if I can't get that fixed, but for now, bear with me.

Moonraiser

IV

Moonraiser

August 30th, 1452 A.S.
Sweet Apple Acres
0947 Hours

The mare known as Resistant rolled her neck. Trees shivered in fear of the motion. The great master Macintosh shared her strength, but he was a kind and sensitive caretaker who afforded the trees respect. Resistant was a callous, cruel being; a taskmaster who punished failings and poor yields with brutal uprooting. The orchard was still in awe of the terrible fate of the tree the Apples had named Walt (but who was known by his peers as Krang, Mighty Master of the South-Eastern March).

The taskmaster's work was done, and she sighed gently to herself. Her borrowed harness slid off her neck slowly, and took its place resting against a supporting beam on the Apple's porch. Her coat sucked down sweet freedom, shedding away a slight tinge of sweat. Her hoof idly removed her wide-brimmed straw hat, and began to play with her right ear. Or rather, the little stump where only half of it remained.

"Mornin'," a deep and booming voice muttered. Resistant twitched, slamming the hat back onto her head to conceal her curious scar.

"Uh,…"

Big Mac nodded gently, before his lazily lidded eyes swept over the domain of his dynasty. "Yer done? Already?"

Resistant nodded. "Jus' now," her tongue delivered, graced with little tics that suggested a heritage in one of the tiny farming villages far to the north of Trottingham.

"Well then, yer off fer' now," Mac answered, staggering the world with the length of his thought. "I'll do the west forty."

"Already done," Resistant told him.

"Huh?" The workhorse's brow rose. "Ain't nopony that fast."

The mare shrugged. "Took eight hours."

"Ya been working since two in the mornin'?"

"I don't sleep much," she told him honestly. "So I worked."

It was a testament to the sort of stallion Macintosh Apple was that he did not advise Resistant a doctor or even a nap. It was not that he was afraid of her reaction. nor that he lacked concern for her well-being, but rather that without so much as a word he could see that nothing would be gained from speaking. A life of few words had lent Big Mac that peculiar skill, to look at something and strip it down to the simple truth. He could give no more than a single glance to his youngest sister and know whether or not her homework was really done. On a good day, he could estimate the value of her property damage. With older mares, that same casual glance told him not only of a night's activities, but their length, the number of ponies involved, and the general satisfaction derived for all parties. It was a consequence of this skill which caused him not to look his grandmother in the eyes very often.

When Macintosh looked into Resistant's eyes that morning, he saw the same thing he'd seen for the past days since he'd hired her on. A desperate mare, with a secret or six. But also an honest worker, with strong legs and no desire at all for harm. And as a stallion of few words, he had no desire to ask what she was hiding.

Thus, in that moment, he asked a question very different than the comment she had been asking. "Wanna play a game of 'shoes?"

She shrugged, and nodded, and only a moment later, they had made their way around the house to the little pitch the Apple family had set up. Macintosh dragged out four shoes - two in red, two in blue. "Go 'head," he muttered, around a stalk of wheat that Resistant was sure had been granted from on high by Celestia herself, given its longevity.

Resistant reached down to the first of her blue shoes and stopped with her hoof just a few inches away. After a moment's hesitation, she instead picked it up in her mouth, and swung it about for a level toss. Her aim was passable, but it wouldn't win the game.

"Fair shot," Mac noted, before placing a hoof on the pronged end of one of his own shoes. "But I was expectin' a farm mare like you'd know how ta buck San Palomino style."

Before she could respond, his forehoof stomped down on the prongs of the red horseshoe. It popped up into the air, hovering at a height ever so slightly above his head. During the time it took to rise, the huge stallion spun around, so that his hind legs rested where his head had been. Staring backwards over his own shoulder, his eyes traced the falling shoe. He reared up into a single-legged buck, and then lashed out just as the shoe reached the level of his back. Hoof met shoe, and the latter was sent flying off like a bolt of lightning.

It struck the target pole directly, but bounced off from the sheer force, landing just inside of Resistant's initial toss.

"Great shot," she told him.

"It's a bit hard," he explained, but his explanation was cut off before he could go any further.

"What're ya doin', Mac? Y'already done with the whole side—" The elderly matron of Sweet Apple Acres stumbled around the side of the barn, where she stopped thankfully just short of dead. The wrinkles on her face piled up at the corners in a seventy-wagon traffic jam that could only be her smile. "Oh, y'all with a filly-friend. Ain't mah place tah interrupt y'all."

Resistant spared a glance Macintosh's direction, and then stifled a small chuckle at the way his face had grown brighter. "Gran,–"

" Oh there ain't nothin' fer me tah be doin' here. Ya’ll have fun, now. And be nice tah my gran'son, you." Granny Smith stumbled away the direction she had come, but a few of her words leaked back around the building. "…best dern hips ah've seen in years."

A long, hollow silence settled into the morning air.

Big Macintosh followed his usual habit of offering a single word response. In this case, the word in question was "Ahdon'knowwhatsgottenintoGranny,butahain'tmeantanythintowardya."

It took a moment to parse the thought, before Resistant smiled as disarmingly as she could manage. Tragically, hers was a smile that could thaw a cold war, and it came across looking almost predatory toward the similarly sized stallion.

"Er, uh…" That legendary addition to the collected sum of Equiish speech was left to flop helplessly and suffocate in the morning air.

"It's fine," Resistant told him calmly. "I'm not looking for a stallion."

Once more, Big Macintosh revealed the extent of his character. This time, in place of silence, his tool was a few well chosen words. "Why not? Ya seem like a nice mare."

"Oh, so you have been looking?" The response would have come across as charming (if canned) had she smiled when she delivered it. Instead, Resistant seemed scolding in her response, and the force behind her words reflected on the more introverted farmer.

"Uh, no, ah just–"

She sighed, raising a hoof to calm him. "A joke, Macintosh. And I had a perfectly good stallion."

"Had?"

Rather than answering the question, she resumed their game. Her left forehoof stomped on one of her remaining shoes. It bounced up in the air as she reared up for a buck. The strike itself came out half-hearted, however, and it skidded to a stop just short of Mac's better throw.

Knowing a sore subject when he saw it, Mac took his second shot. The motion was smooth and practiced, right up until he completely missed the shoe on its way back down. He'd been expecting a chuckle or a tease, but the implacable Resistant didn't so much as bat an eyelid. In a way, he was grateful for that. His hooves stomped again, and this time, his buck landed perfectly on its target. The red shoe clanged onto the targeting pole and stuck there; a perfect ringer.

"Nice," Resistant muttered.

"Thanks," he drawled back. "But the game ain't over yet." He marched across the pitch in silence, and returned with all four shoes in tow. Two blue crescents fell at Resistant's hooves. "Ah really am sorry 'bout Granny. She just don't know when ta back off sometimes."

Resistant stomped down on a shoe and sent it flying. It soared just over the top of the target pole, and kept going another dozen feet or so beyond. "Doesn't bother me. I can deal with an old mare just fine."

"Ain't said ya couldn't." Mac casually stomped his own shoe, and shot it off again. It was a gentle buck, by the standards of a titan, and it bounced to a stop in the dirt just short of the goal–much closer than Resistant's. "Ya might have an easier time of it, though, if ya just told 'er yer spoken for."

"Spoken for?" Resistant looked away from her target to shake her head. "I guess I've never thought of it that way… It's been seven years now, Macintosh." He watched her chest spread wide and draw back as she sucked down a breath.

Macintosh was a stallion of few words. And so, rather than wasting words comforting the towering mare with the blunt-jawed face, he simply patted her on the shoulder with a foreleg and smiled.

"Thanks."

"Ya been a big help, Resistant. Now mah sister can afford to run off with 'er friends like she's always wantin' ta."

Resistant smiled knowingly as she lined up her second shoe of the set. "National heroes, right? Where is she today?"

"Ah, out with some friends," Mac answered. "Later on, they're all goin' ta meet some new stallion in town for dinner. He came by yesterday, actually, lookin' fer work."

Resistant's hoof stomped down on her last shoe as he drawled on. Her hind legs pulled back, building up her force and controlling it carefully.

"Name's Red Ink."

Resistant's buck was an animalistic display of force. She lashed out with all her strength, and the shoe she struck shot off with a speed to rival the best of the Wonderbolts. As if at the same moment, a deafening slashing noise preceded a painful thud.

The solid iron spike driven into the ground as the target for the game of horseshoes had not been knocked over. Resistant's buck had sliced it cleanly in half.

August 30th, 1452 A.S.
Fluttershy's Cottage
1826 Hours

The door to Fluttershy's peculiar home was not really being held open. Instead, Roscherk Krovyu slouched against it, as his eyes watched the skies overhead. He had clearly noticed the mass of approaching mares, and for the most part simply chose to disregard them.

"Oh boy! It's Inky!"

The roll of his eyes did eventually wind up looking Pinkie Pie's direction. Of course, given that her muzzle was only about a third of an inch from kissing him, it would have been hard not to see her no matter where his eyes were actually pointing. He pulled his head back a bit to spare himself the pain of trying to focus on what could be accurately described as a pink smear over his vision.

The mare was garbed in a light dinner dress that he would have bet money was hoof-made by Rarity. If nothing else, the absence of stains and crumbs on its fabric clued him in. Then, of course, were the gems and the frills, both of which she seemed too obtuse to appreciate.

"Nice dress, Pinkie Pie. Замечательно выставляет напоказ твои бедра. Не то, чтобы пони-нибудь бы мог их не заметить."

"Ooh, is that Stalliongradi? What'd you say? What'd you say?"

"I really liking your… mane." He lied smoothly, before folding a hoof across his chest to lazily point into Fluttershy's cottage. "Table is set. Be heading inside."

"Okey dokey! Thanks, Inky!"

"Roscherk," he grumbled as she quite literally hopped past him.

The next mare to approach was a more palatable sight, if only for her respect for his personal space. Yet even from a distance, he could smell them. Apples. The one true enemy that must be defeated.

She was garbed in a cowpony hat, and nothing else. Clearly, Rarity had less influence over the farmer than the baker. For a moment, he contemplated using that as the base point for breaking up their friendship as a way to free himself from his torturous assignment. Then he remembered exactly what such action would entail for Equestria, and for perhaps the very second time in his entire life, he felt a little surge of gratitude toward the concept of friendship.

"Well, howdy. I reckon ya look a sight better than ya did at the party last night."

"It was… not finest hour."

Applejack shrugged. "Believe me, I can understand. First impressions not always comin' out the way ya want 'em, right?"

Roscherk Krovyu paused mid-nod to consider a conundrum. In his past, first impressions virtually always came out the way he wanted. Namely, the other pony would quiver in utter terror of his reputation, if not the literal fire spreading across whatever building they happened to be occupying. Unconditional surrender would follow shortly afterward. Then, punishment in turn: either a relatively swift execution, a permanent crippling of their magic, or an extended imprisonment. Regardless of his choice, the odds of ever meeting such a pony again were slim. In his mind, it was a beautiful thing when first impressions became sole impressions.

Nevertheless, a gut instinct warned that the Bearers would likely not appreciate his mentality on the issue, given the events of the past days. So, rather than clarifying the honest truth, he set about lying to the face of the Bearer of Honesty in the form of a continued nod. To his surprise, the action went off without a hitch. Applejack wandered into the house and proceeded to take her seat.

Third in order and second in descending scale of utter fury was the Bearer of Magic, Twilight Sparkle. Her brows were creased down into a glare that ran even and parallel to the flat crop of her bangs. She wore a pleasant yellow sundress with a singular pink ribbon that looked surprisingly simple for a creation of the local fashionista (at least, compared to the designs he had seen that morning).

"Добрый вечер, Sparkle."

The unicorn rolled her eyes. "You're not fooling me, Red Ink."

"Not even giving me chance?" Ink t'sked as he shook his head slowly. "Fluttershy will being so disappointed, Sparkle."

"Well, she'll just have to learn to cope, then." With a small huff, Twilight trudged inside.

It took all of Ink's willpower not to swat her flank as she strode past. He would likely have failed his desperate resistance were it not for the bright blue blur that shot up to his face.

"Rainbow Dash."

Like Applejack, she had chosen to wear nothing. Quite unlike Applejack, her approach to their discussion was the very opposite of forgiving. "Red Ink."

"We even have something saying to one other?"

"No."

"Good. Sit."

In retrospect, he was proud of the conversation. It had been short, and while far from friendly, it hadn't ended in a decapitation or, at the very least, a black eye.

As the final guest approached, the back of Ink's mind scolded him. Proud? For ending a conversation without violence? Why should that be something to be proud of? Could it be that he was really changing?

He certainly hoped not.

Rarity approached last, wearing an outfit that only she could have possibly stomached. The lace and the frills would have had him in a gagging fit (or functioning as a living incinerator), were events more within his control. Tragically, he instead was forced to endure the thing she wore over her body.

"Oh, Roscherk, so good to see you."

Her voice couldn't have been that bad earlier that morning; he was certain it would have killed him outright. Rarity was far beyond the realm of merely putting on airs, and seemed to have begun putting on whole skies.

"Thank you," he muttered.

Rarity cocked a brow. "Normally, at least in Equiish, that would be 'it is good to see you too,' or something to that effect."

Ink drew in a very slow breath, and then forced it out through his nostrils in a blunt snort. "Then I am being safe, for being close to right as my Equiish."

Rarity wore a sort of teasing smile as she shook her head and wandered into Fluttershy's cottage. Ink pulled himself up off the door, and then tugged it shut behind him with a wing as he stepped inside.

Fluttershy's cottage had been more-or-less emptied of animals. This produced a rather amusing environment in the fenced yard out back, but thankfully Angel was still inside, and thus unable to orchestrate a formal coup (or even a chicken coup). Despite his presence, the interior of the room was marked by a restrained calm. A simple, round, and decidedly non-magical table was surrounded by seven small and humble cushions. Opposite the door, a window surrounded by rather strange char marks looked out on an otherwise pleasant evening.

Red Ink tromped straight past the six mares who were in the process of taking their seats, and headed into the kitchen of the cottage. With each step, he asked himself why he even bothered. The best answer he could come up with was that Celestia would kill him if he didn't. The thought certainly provided impetus, but it did little to actually bolster his enthusiasm. Shrugging off the thought, he flared his wings and conjured a warm but subtle fire. With a bit of effort, six ceramic bowls were arranged atop his feathers. Donning an entirely false smile, he made his way back into the main room of the cottage, sidling through doorways to accommodate his wingspan.

"Oh my, dinner already? I'm quite famished."

"Oh, it smells super-duper yummy. Like…" Pinkie Pie stood up from her cushion and made a show of sniffing the air. "…pickles."

"It's pickle soup," Fluttershy explained, as Ink silently made his way around the table, setting down bowl after bowl in front of the Bearers. "Mr. Ink's recipe all the way from Stalliongrad."

A bit of soup splashed on Ink's shoulder as he twitched at the name. Scowling slightly, he set the final bowl down in front of Fluttershy, and returned to the kitchen for his own dinner.

His parting strides were marked by a nearly vomit-inducing slurp. Ink's teeth gritted together as a scolding voice called out. "Pinkie! It's terrible manners to start when Roscherk hasn't even had a seat yet."

"Oh, but it smelled sooo good. I mean, maybe it could use some hot sauce, or frosting, or sugar, or lemonade, or–"

"Soured cream," Red Ink told her coldly, dropping a bowl of the thick white substance onto the table, where it clattered against the wooden surface. Pinkie smiled, and scooped a vast and heaping helping onto her own soup. Meanwhile, Ink sat down with his own bowl, and took a careful sip. Not three minutes in, and his patience was already spent on that one alone. It was going to be a long evening.

A bit of a silence settled over the table as everypony enjoyed their soup. Everypony, that is, except Rainbow Dash. She stared down at her bowl not with disgust, but a sort of blank expression as though haunted by ghosts of the past. Fortunately for her, such ghosts were only figments of her imagination, at least for the moment. It would be at least six months before the past started catching up with her, and then in a much different form than pickle soup.

Fluttershy was the first to actually comment on Rainbow's vacant stare. "Oh dear. Rainbow, are you okay?"

Rainbow Dash's head swiveled slowly upward. "This is rassolnik, right?"

Ink's head swerved. "You are knowing name of dish in Stalliongradi?"

Rainbow nodded slowly, and then took a very visible gulp. "I'm not really hungry."

"Oh, come on, Rainbow. Roscherk spent all this time preparing a nice meal for us, and you aren't even–"

"I'm not hungry, Rarity." Rainbow stood up and turned for the door. "Look, you can all pretend he's gonna turn out nice if you want, but I know what guardsponies are like. Be careful he doesn't light the rest of Fluttershy's house on fire." With those gracious parting words, the mare darted out the door and into the evening sky.

Fiction had taught Red Ink that in the wake of such a blunt departure, a welcome silence would overtake what little conversation might have existed.

Fiction was dead wrong.

"Hold up, Red, y'all 're a guardspony? I thought ya was a school teacher."

"Yeah, Inky, why didn't you say so? Ooh, that's so exciting! Do you have cool armor? Do you work for Twilight's brother? Do you have to dye your coat white and–"

"Please, be shutting up." Ink accompanied the comment by pounding his hoof on the surface of the table.

Fluttershy jumped at the motion and the sound. "Mr. Ink, manners."

Ink leaned her direction and muttered in a voice perfectly audible to the entire table. "I was telling you this was stupid idea."

The yellow mare wilted under his attention. "I'm sorry…"

Ink let his gaze slowly slide across the five remaining mares. "Well, you are knowing now, my 'secret'." He added the quotes with the tips of his wings. "May as well be telling you everything. I am name Roscherk Krovyu. Commandant of Army and Guard of Free and Equal Ponies of Domain Stalliongradi."

Pinkie giggled. "Wowzer, that's a long name. Do they have a nickname? 'Inky's team'?"

In the time it took the unbearable mare to utter her comment, Twilight Sparkle had recovered from her sudden shock. "Wait… you're the Commandant of the Black Cloaks?"

"Black Cloaks?" Pinkie's brow wrinkled, before a surprisingly literal lightbulb ignited overhead. "Ooh, like your jacket?"

Ink ignored her as he glared at Twilight. "Well, was. I should not be surprised you are knowing of us."

"Uh, 'Black Cloaks'? Didn't ya'll say somethin' about them earlier when you 'n Rainbow came back from that, uh, history trip?"

"Archeological expedition," Twilight corrected her tragically undereducated friend, before returning her attention to Ink with a spiteful glare. "And yes, I do know about the Black Cloaks. You'd think I'd remember being driven out of Saraneighvo a few years ago by your crazy guardsponies."

"Wait… that was you?" Ink had to put a foreleg behind him to keep from falling over as he broke into laughter.

Nopony else found it funny.

"So, Twilight, do tell us about these 'Black Cloaks'. They're the guardsponies of Stalliongrad, yes?"

"They're…" Twilight clearly had something acidic. To Ink's surprise, a silent exchange between Fluttershy and the unicorn spared him yet another useless diatribe of a civilian criticizing his work. Instead, Twilight concluded with "…a lot like Mr. Ink."

"Thank you," Ink told, knowing full well that the words were not intended to be a compliment. "But it is not my work anymore. Now I am serving Princess as Commander of Honor Guard."

Twilight stood up, and Fluttershy followed the motion.

"You–"

"Twilight, give him a chance," Fluttershy scolded in her soft but forceful voice. "I can understand if you disagree with Mr. Ink, but he's been a sweetheart most of the day. Isn't that right, Roscherk?"

The Stalliongradian cocked his head. "A 'sweetheart'?"

"Well, yes. I mean, maybe not at the market this morning…"

Pinkie Pie quite literally lunged into the conversation. "Ooh, ooh! I wanna hear about that! Mrs. Cake said something happened at the market this morning! What happened? Tell me!"

Red Ink and Fluttershy shared a knowing glance before the former began to tell yet another story.

August 30th, 1452 A.S.
Ponyville Public Market
1117 Hours

The green earth pony presented his goods, and Red Ink glared at them. "Jar of pickles for fourteen bits?"

"Well, yes. That is what the sign says, as I'm sure you can see."

"Uh, Mr. Ink, that seems like a fair price…"

"Be shutting up, Fluttershy. We are not spending your bits like this." Ink pushed the taller mare aside and placed his forelegs up on the front of the merchant's stall to lend himself a bit of height. "Five bits."

"Five? Do I look like a charity house, Mr…?"

"Krovyu," the red pegasus responded calmly. "And you are…"

"H-his name is Mr. Pickle."

"Pickle?"

"Yep, Mr. Crow-view. Just like Miss Fluttershy said, I'm In A. Pickle. And I don't very much like the way you barter, so I'll do you a bit of a favor. Ten bits for the jar, and you get away from my stall so I can do some more business."

Red Ink's brow twisted like the twirled moustache of a villain who could only be described as 'nefarious.' The pegasus stallion turned his attention briefly to his companion. "Mr. Pickle is having farm, yes? Cucumbers?"

Fluttershy didn't seem to understand the question, so she nodded innocently and answered calmly. "Just out of town to the south."

Ink smiled with far too many teeth. Then, in a single fluid motion, his hooves lunged out and grabbed the other pony by the scruff of his mane. The wooden stand rattled. Fluttershy shrieked. Mr. Pickle's eyes widened.

"Now I am thinking you are really in pickle. You are saying ten bits and I leave? Here is counter-offer. Six bits, and I am not burning down your crops."

Pickle's eyes turned to pinpricks, and he nodded in silence. Smiling more genuinely, Red Ink released the other pony, took his jar of pickles, and stepped aside.

The ponies were watching him, eyes wide, some legs trembling, and at least one bladder contracting. The last one really detracted from the mood. Being intimidating was great, until everything started to smell like salt and you could no longer enjoy a margarita. Still, in time, he was sure Ponyville would warm up to him. At least that one pony already had.

He swaggered up to another stall with a smile on his face. A dozen or so bottles of wine, and as many harder alcohols were arranged in a pair of toothy racks, an earth pony mare stood between them with a distinct smile on her purple face.

"Hiii!" she shlurred…. er, slurred. "I'm Berry Punch. Wanna get shomething tashty to drink?"

Red Ink nodded. "Do you carry gin?"

"Why of courshe!" Her hoof gesh– gestured to one of her display racksh…

Ahem.

Her hoof gestured to one of her display racks. The motion was tragically misjudged, and sent her wares spilling onto the grass. Thankfully, it was only a small fall, and none of the bottles cracked. Ink scooped them up quickly in surprisingly dexterous wings, and had them back in their case in no time.

"Thanksh."

"Be thinking nothing of it," Ink answered, before beginning to actually read the labels. Vodka, Scotch… Mead? Really? He had to shrug off his surprise. Coffee Liqueur, and finally, Gin.

"Mr. Ink," Fluttershy called out to him, seemingly cross despite her quiet voice. He was surprised it had taken her so long to deal with Mr. Pickle and find her way back, to be honest. Yet he held his tongue, as hers lashed out. "That wasn't very nice of you."

"Oh, hi, Fluttershhy." Slurring a name that actually contained an 'sh' blend was a feat that could only be accomplished by a mare whose very ass was stamped with supremacy over the blunter points of alcohol. Or perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that the blunter points of alcohol had total mastery over her–ass and all. "I didn't shee you there."

"Hello, Berry Punch." Fluttershy looked away from the mare, and used Ink's presence as an excuse to mask her shyness. "Mr. Ink, you really shouldn't be so mean."

"You would rather have paid twelve bits?" Before she could answer, he shook his head. "I was not thinking so." Ink grabbed the vodka off the shelf. "Am I being okay with taking sample, Punch?" He had to admit, he liked the name.

"Shure. Jusht don't drink too much."

Ink popped the top off the bottle and sucked a swig into his mouth. He then made a great show of swishing it around, like a particularly over-enthusiastic model from a mouth wash advertisement.

"Uh, Mr. Ink, what are you–"

He cut her off not with his voice, but the roar of flames. His open mouth released a pillar of fire easily thirty feet long into the sky over Ponyville, accompanied by a terrifying roar. Fluttershy yelped again, and this time accompanied the motion by darting back.

While his previous show had been earned him worried glances from the corners of ponies eyes, this action earned him their fascination, or at the very least their interest.

"Oh, Mishter Ink!" Berry Punch muttered, swooning. Ink caught her in the wing that didn't hold the bottle of vodka, and he looked down into her eyes. Had he been wearing his jacket, it might very well have popped open from the sudden (offended) surge of his shoulder muscles. Her face wore a heated desperation, and a lust beyond the unfocused dancing of her pupils. Her disgusting breath swept over his slightly unkempt facial fur. "Letsh do it!"

"No," Ink responded, as his wing dropped her rather bluntly onto the ground. A few ponies chuckled as Ink replaced the bottle of vodka, took the bottle of gin, and leaned down (he wished–up, in reality) to Fluttershy's ear. "Give four bits. Vodka was garbage. I had meant to swallow it."

Ink moved to walk away from the stall and leave Fluttershy to settle the actual counting of the bits. In that action, he very nearly tripped over a mass of six or so knee-high fillies and colts, led by a trio in red caps.

"Wow! That was awesome!" Ink barely noticed the weight of the orange pegasus filly as she leaned on his foreleg.

Another of the tiny ones–Apple something–gave him a toothy grin from beneath her pink bow. "Ya didn't say ya were part dragon, Mister Ink."

"That is because I am not," Ink answered, endeavoring to part the small sea of foals. His efforts failed miserably. "You are wanting something?"

"Well, yeah, mister. We wanna know how ya did that!" shouted a diminutive colt with a distinct Trottingham accent.

"Yeah! Even the Great and Powerful Trixie couldn't breathe fire!" The colt who delivered those words could be described as the stick figure of a unicorn. He sounded as if his nose were clogged with his frontal lobes, and Ink had half a mind to do him (and the rest of the town) a favor by fishing them out.

"Pegasus magic," Ink explained as though it were the simplest thing in the world. And, at least for him, it was. "Join guard if you are wanting to learn."

"Aw," the orange pegasus muttered. "But you have to be eighteen to join the Royal Guard."

Ink's brow rose for a few reasons. Firstly, there was no actual age restriction for his guard, although the practical entrance requirement would have prevented such colts and fillies from ever actually making it into the Black Cloaks. Secondly, though, was the fact that this little filly knew that fact.

"You have tried joining Royal Guard?"

"We all did," explained the third caped filly. The little white unicorn with the curly hair smiled up at Ink. "We thought we could get guardspony cutie marks."

"Most ponies are joining guard because of cutie mark. Not other way around."

Applebloom cut in. "Well we're the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and we're on a quest tah find our cutie marks! So we gotta try everythin' we can!"

A voice from the far side of the market called out. "What's she's trying to say, Mr. Ink, is that they're a bunch of good-for-nothing blank flanks!"

Red Ink's mane cracked like a bullwhip from the speed at which his harsh brown eyes locked on to the speaker. She was a pink filly, wearing the stupidest headdress he had ever seen.

Rarity made a wounded noise as she looked up from her soup. "Mr. Ink, I made that tiara."

"Then I am supposing Tiara is Sweetie Belle's sister. It would be explaining whiny voice."

The ponies at the table gasped and drew back.

"H-how dare you?"

"Very easily," Ink answered, this time stumbling into a clever response not by virtue of his own wit, but out of a blind luck that stemmed from his awful Equiish. "Now kindly being quiet, so pink one is getting story, and staying quiet as well."

The pink filly in the utterly disgusting tiara strode up to the group, accompanied by a frankly ugly gray friend in hideous plastic-framed blue glasses. In Ink's mind, her mane style was to die for. This did not mean what most other ponies might assume. He meant that he would rather die than look at it. The fact that the braid rather resembled a noose laying against her neck only seemed to encourage him.

The first filly adjusted her stupid headpiece as she glared snootily at the caped trio. "I bet you don't even know who Mr. Ink is."

"Ah do to!" Applebloom answered. "He's a Stalliongrad pony–" Ink winced. "–and he's new in town."

"Heh. I knew it. You blank flanks don't have a clue. Mr. Ink is going to be our teacher while Miss Cheerilee is away."

The foals' eyes shot from Diamond Tiara onto Red Ink's face–or rather, the broad hoof that was suddenly covering it.

"Really?"

"Can ya teach us how ta breath fire?"

"Please don't make us study math."

"Shut up!" Ink flared his wings as he shouted. As one, the foals cowered, and he sighed to regain his composure.

When the stallion again opened his eyes, there was a moment where Ponyville seemed to have faded away. Snow was falling. He felt the chill on the tips of his ears. Standing on frosted cobblestone streets, a mass of little ponies were staring up at him. His eyes shrunk to pinpricks at the sight of the two at the front of the group. Both earth ponies. The elder was a filly, maybe six at most. Her eggshell coat and frosted off-white mane gave her a faded, almost sepia appearance as she stared into the stallion's eyes in terror. Her younger brother, no more than four, was too young to understand why he ought even be afraid. His misty purple-blue coat and matching near-white mane bobbed as his eyes darted around the snowy street.

Ink blinked, and it was gone. No more of those faces, but for just a moment he was shaken, and a moment was all it took to deprive him of his edge.

"Apology. It is true. I am being teacher for you, and so I am not being rude. We are having fun. But first, we are remembering important lesson for before class, yes?"

The foals shared confused glances before the smallest of the students (with the Trottingham accent) spoke up. "Uh… what lesson?"

"When we are wanting ask question, what do we do?"

Almost immediately, one hoof from every member of the entire group shot into the air.

"Very good."

The hooves did not go down.

"Oh." Ink rubbed his temple. "Uh… Applebloom, you first."

"Ya gonna tell us how ya got yer Cutie Mark now?"

Eyes rolled. "No."

"Aww…" bemoaned the Cutie Mark Crusaders as one.

"Story is not for young pony."

"Wait, Inky, your Cutie Mark story isn't for foals? Did you do something naughty?" Pinkie Pie wiggled her eyebrows so wildly that they failed to be suggestive and instead jumped all the way into the realm of comedy.

Ink's daily quota of groans had already long-since been exceeded and so instead he chose to growl at her, baring the corners of his teeth as he did so. "Pink Pie, I am not telling you either. Clearly, you are foal more than them. At least they are learn taking no for answer."

Twilight cringed. Red Ink certainly didn't have a monopoly on distaste for awful word choice.

"Well, ah reckon ahm glad ya didn't tell Applebloom. She'd 'a run off 'n tried ta get her mark jus the same way."

Unlike her 'country' companion, Rarity held off her words in favor of staring pointedly at Ink's hind end. Unlike with Applebloom the previous morning, he didn't mind the attention. Of course, then she started talking. Hers was the only voice he had ever experienced that was more tolerable while hung over. Then again, that morning was his first time being hung over in almost seven years, so perhaps there was some bias behind the observation. Or maybe not. Science was no more his forte than Equiish grammar.

"I must ask, though, Roscherk, how in Equestria can a quill writing in red ink be considered a 'mature' talent? Did you perhaps grade a paper too harshly for another student as a foal?"

He offered her a silent, level-eyed glare. "You are wanting to hear story of market, or story of ass? I can only be telling one."

Rarity and Twilight flinched at his coarse language. Or, perhaps, it was that he proceeded to lift his bowl to his lips and drain it all in a fashion that would make most frat colts jealous. For starters, most chuggable liquids weren't filled with diced potatoes and pickles.

"There. Now I am not having to stop for eating. Hopefully, you are not finding time to interrupt me between words." Glaring from eye to eye across the table (and kindly skipping Fluttershy), the sole stallion in the room continued his tale.

Ink swept over the small sea of raised hooves, and sighed even as his lips betrayed a slight smile. "Class, it is being summer, yes?"

"Well… yeah," the nasally challenged unicorn observed.

"And yet here you are, standing in market, wanting to be asking many questions."

"Yeah, we wanna know more about you!"

Ink smiled like a wolf as he leaned down to the caped unicorn fill who had just responded. "Then I am expecting you will all be very enthusiastic in first day's class, yes?" Before the implications could (fail to) sink in, the grown stallion waved his wings. "Be running along, students. Enjoying last days of summer."

As the foals ran off with a mixture of reluctance and excitement, a few older ponies approached. The first spoke with a quiet voice. "That was nice of you, Mr. Ink."

"They are not liking me so much on first day of class, I am betting," the stallion responded to Fluttershy. "Look at them. Running off, no discipline. Take three in capes."

"The Cutie Mark Crusaders?"

"Yes. They are having earth pony. She should be taking point of formation. Pegasus should be flying, and monitoring rear of squad. And what is unicorn filly doing, with nose pointed into ground. Where is attention? Where is awareness of threats?"

A distinctly masculine voice cleared itself. "Uh, threats, Mr. Krovyu?"

The stallion drew his attention not by virtue of his tone, but by the correct inflection on his name. A brown earth pony with a slicked back black mane and a bright red tie offered a smile just as predatory as any Ink had ever worn. The filly with the stupid headpiece was standing halfway beside and halfway between his legs. So, her father, then, he assumed.

"When I was colt, one was not running down streets without keeping close eye on surroundings." Ink extended a hoof. "You are being…"

"Filthy Rich," the stallion answered, offering a handshake that Ink could at least respect, even if the earth pony was no match for the pegasus' physical strength. "I do some business with your brother."

In response to the name, Ink snorted, and spat a ball of phlegm onto the dirt road.

"How disgusting," Rarity gasped.

"Yes," Ink replied with a smile. "Predvidenie is disgusting. Thinking he is so much better than other pony, with stupid scarf in different knot for every day of week, and glasses framed in solid gold. At least this… Rich pony is having better taste. Though I am still not understand you Canterlot ponies, wearing collar of shirt with tie, but no actual shirt, or jacket."

As was the norm for the Bearers, their foremost scholar provided an explanation. "Well, unlike Stalliongrad–" Ink gagged on a sip of water. "–it does tend to get warm here. I'm sure you've noticed." Twilight glanced outside, to where the setting sun was plainly visible; a clear contrast from the city of perpetual ice. "So we tend to prefer just the collar because shirts and dresses are usually very warm."

"Unless they are well designed for that sort of thing," Rarity added.

"Well, yes."

Having recovered from near death by the most loathed of all puns, Ink shook his head and resumed his story.

"I see," Filthy Rich observed, staring at the miniscule puddle of mud that had just been created. "Well, in any case, I do happen to know something about you, Commandant. And while I am very much a believer in firm discipline, I trust we both understand that there will be none of what was just witnessed with Mr. Pickle in the presence of my daughter. Is that understood?"

Ink leaned forward, speaking in a harsh whisper. "You are having many balls, Rich. In Стольный, even Tsar is not telling me how to do my job. Tartarus, even Celestia does not interfere."

"Is that so?" Rather than backing down, Filthy Rich's less-than-friendly smile grew wider. "I suppose I'll have to ask her about that when I see her in Canterlot next week. While I'm at it, I'm sure Secretary Foresight and the Tsar will be glad to hear what you've been up to here in the Domain of Canterlot."

It wasn't merely a slap in the face; the words were a stake to the heart. Where a thousand swords and sharpened shoes and spells had failed, a few simple sentences had dropped Ink to the dust.

His knees trembled. He fell in slow motion, until he was sitting in the dirt. The noise of his flanks striking the ground was deafening. His jaw hung open. His eyes were unfocused as his mind raced.

"I'm glad we understand each other, Mr. Ink. Come along, Diamond." Filthy Rich walked away from the fallen pony, smirking as he went. "Oh, and be careful with the rest of the merchants here in Ponyville. Mr. Pickle is a good friend of mine. Do find me if you feel we have anything else to discuss."

"Oh, I am finding you," Ink responded. Tragically, due to an utter lack of dramatic timing, this line was delivered almost a full minute after Filthy Rich, his daughter, and her unbearable gray friend had all fled the scene.

"You're okay?" Fluttershy asked, helping the stallion to his hooves. "You were just sitting there, staring off into the distance for, oh, three minutes or so. I almost went to get Nurse Redheart, and–"

"Fine," Ink interrupted. "I am being fine." He adjusted his hoofing to a wider, more aggressive stance, and brushed the dust off his coat sloppily with his wings. His voice had become snappy and irritated. "Next on list?"

"Oh, uh… we got potatoes and pickles and your gin, even though, uh, Rarity said you shouldn't be drinking–"

"Not for dinner," Ink snapped. "For cooking."

Fluttershy darted back from his voice. "Oh. Alright then. Well, next you said we needed sour cream?"

Ink swept over the market, and was disappointed that his fleeting intimidating reputation had largely failed. Either the ponies of this town were surprisingly quick to forget, or they trusted that Filthy Rich had 'handled' the situation.

Nopony 'handled' Roscherk Krovyu. Well, except Filthy Rich, who had just done exactly that. It didn't do good things for Ink's mood. His eyes finally alighted on the dairy stand, identifiable by its huge ice chests, and the logo of a cow overhead. He didn't so much walk toward it as storm in its direction.

Tragically, the dairy stand was unmanned (unponyed?). Gritting his teeth, Ink shouted toward the stand. "Milk pony, I am wanting business!"

"Might want to get your eyes looked at, then. Spilt Milk is on her lunch break."

As was becoming a rather tiresome routine that day, Red Ink turned around to look the speaker in the eye. Behind him, rather than another merchant, he found a subtly off-white pegasus stallion kicking the last leg of an easel into place. From beneath his black fedora, the tips of a brown mane could be seen, just above a friendly (if sarcastic) smile.

"Name," Ink muttered by way of a demand.

"Depends who's asking," the other pegasus answered, before raising a hoof to the very tip of his hat. A casual downward flick tossed it into the air, and without even looking up, the pegasus caught it on the tip of his wing.

"Oh, Hat Trick!" The mouth of the pegasus in question briefly flickered into a frown. Meanwhile, Fluttershy smiled as she caught up with her angry companion. "I, uh, see you've met Mr. Ink."

"I'd say just about everypony in town has by now, Fluttershy. He isn't hard to miss, though I can see how he might sometimes get overlooked." Hat Trick grinned as he paced around Red Ink, until his line of sight to Fluttershy passed directly over the short stallion.

"You are thinking yourself clever?"

"On a good day," Hat Trick replied, before glancing up to the sky. "Weather's certainly nice enough to count. Usually is, around here."

"You could start story by it," Ink observed, poorly translating an old Stalliongradi idiom.

"Yes, I suppose one could, if one were a terrible writer." Hat Trick and Red Ink spared a moment to glare together into the foreground before continuing their conversation. "So you're the new school teacher. Running around telling stories about your friends from Stalliongrad breaking other ponies knees, and threatening the shopkeepers. I'm sure the parents are thrilled."

"You are watching tongue. Father is great pony."

"I didn't mean your parents, though I'm sure you look up to them." Hat Trick paused for just a moment to let the blow sink in.

Ink sprung at the opportunity, beginning to pace around the taller, but far thinner pegasus. "Clever. I am eating two height crack, but three, and knees are breaking. Then we are seeing who looks up to who." His eyes alighted on the rough outline that had begun to appear on the pony's easel. "At least one of us is being good at 'special talent'."

"Thanks, but there's really no need to insult yourself," Hat Trick responded without missing a beat. He slowly reoriented himself face the angry Stalliongradian pony, and leaned over to grab a paintbrush.

Ink's wing slapped his jaw lightly, but enough to stop the motion. Hat Trick took a moment to replace his fedora, and then glared.

"Uh, stallions…"

"You are having problem with me?" Ink asked.

Hat Trick shrugged. "I'm just a fan of nice ponies. I moved here to get away from some of the worse chaos back in Fillydelphia. I mean, Ponyville's great for inspiration, if you don't mind Ursas and Nightmare Moon and Discord–"

Ink's wings flared, and somehow, the simple motion stopped the onslaught. "I am not evil." His nostrils flared as a snort of anger followed the sentence.

"Uh, Mr. Ink…"

Hat Trick adjusted the former half of his namesake, and moved once more for a paintbrush. This time, the action involved trying to reach around Red Ink, which the militant pegasus took with less than total grace. Seeing only that the other pony was 'stepping to him', Ink reached out a well-sculpted foreleg and shoved Hat Trick away. After catching himself, Hat Trick made a very, very poor decision: he pushed Ink back.

Surprisingly, this was not an issue of Ink's violent retaliation. Even as irritated as he was at the pony who could be said to rival (if not exceed) his wit, Ink was well aware of the metaphorical sword Celestia had hanging over his head. Unfortunately, Ink's excellent control over his limbs did not extend to one curious and very-nearly unique feature of his body. When he was shoved backward toward the case filled with Hat Trick's opened painting supplies, his temper flared in an entirely too literal fashion. Fire spread across his wings, and then into the painting supplies.

To reiterate: the magical fire of Red Ink's anger mixed with the extensive supplies of paints, thinners, and other miscellaneous chemicals belonging to a professional artist.

The explosion, it is said, was quite large.

"You blew up the market?!" Twilight shouted.

Ink shook his head, and raised a wingtip as if to calm her. "No, Sparkle. I explode only…" He paused, dipping his head as he counted silently. "…four stalls. Dairy, lettuce, alfalfa, and… Fluttershy, what was fourth stall?"

"Ms. Protractor's school supplies."

"Ah, yes. I am having forgive students Monday." Ink smiled, seemingly entirely jovial about the subject. "Really, only three and half. Dairy was in metal cases with ice. Product undamaged. Only burnt down wood."

"So let me get this straight." Twilight glanced briefly toward Fluttershy with surprising sympathy, before returning her angry glance to Red Ink. "You threatened Mr. Pickle's life to save six bits on a jar of pickles, you told the Cutie Mark Crusaders that you had an 'adults-only' Cutie Mark Story, you picked a fight with Hat Trick, and then you blew up roughly one seventh of Ponyville market square?"

Ink took a moment to consider the statements, glanced to Fluttershy, shrugged with his wings, and then concluded the series with a single curt nod in Twilight's direction.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "But now you're here, just sitting fine, like nopony is going freak out about you?"

"Well, being fair, fire was not my fault really… and only casualties were eyebrows and front of Hat Trick's hat."

"You– agh!" Twilight ran a hoof down her face, stretching her jaw in a way that surprised Ink. "Do you just not get it? Or do you not think far enough ahead to understand the idea of consequences?"

"I am thinking that I am very much understanding consequences, Sparkle," Ink told her bluntly.

"Uh, ah ain't so sure 'bout that," Applejack told him evenly.

"Ooh, ooh, I have a question!" Pinkie put one of her forelegs on the table beside her empty bowl, and raised her other hoof as high as she could reach into the air. "Call on me, Inky!"

"You are joking."

"Nuh-uh. See? I've got my hoof raised an everything."

Red Ink took a moment to close his eyes and massage a vein that visibly throbbed even through the coat on his temple. "Fine, Pink Pie. What?"

"If you blew up the milk stand, where'd you get this sour cream?"

It was the sort of question that forced a total paradigm shift, which was a strange event for Ink but entirely familiar for Pinkie's friends. As one, the entire group slowly shifted to stare at the bowl of sour cream with a mixture of fear and disgust.

It took Ink a moment to realize what they were assuming, and then he smiled. "No, no, do not be worrying. It is soured cow cream, not from goat or… I am not knowing. Whatever else Canterlot pony is milking. I am thinking, already in debt to milk mare; why not put it on tab? Plus, there was much smoke, so no questions were being asked."

"Are you telling us that you stole this sour cream?" Rarity asked, readying her hoof for rapid deployment to her forehead.

Ink nodded.

Twilight Sparkle screamed. "That's it! Look, Mr. 'Ink', I don't care who you think you are, but you aren't welcome here in Ponyville any longer. I'm going to go get Spike and have my brother and Princess Celestia–"

"No!" Ink spread his wings and darted forward, landing in a combat stance between Twilight and the door out of the Fluttershy's cottage. "Please, Sparkle, not that!"

"Oh, now you're worried? Afraid Shining Armor will kick you out and throw you in the dungeons?"

Ink locked up completely, stiff legged, wings flared, and eyes widened. It took all the effort of his stocky neck simply to twitch a pathetic excuse at a desperate shaking of his head. "No, Sparkle."

"Twilight, dear," Rarity called from behind her at the table. "Perhaps we can all just sit down, and sort this out–"

Twilight didn't even turn to address her friend. "I think he's had enough second chances."

"So he caused a little trouble and got plastered at a party. Big whoop. He ain't any worse than the Crusaders."

"That's just the beginning. Spike told me what you said on the way here, Commandant Krovyu." Twilight leaned forward, until their muzzles were nearly touching. "I know what kind of pony you are."

Ink swallowed thin air. The motion was nearly audible.

"Twilight, I think you're scaring Inky!"

This time, Twilight simply ignored the protest. "We'll see what Celestia has to say when she finds out about what you did in Stalliongrad."

"…she knows." Ink muttered, softly enough that only Twilight could hear. The unicorn's eyes grew wide. "That is why I am here; more than you know." Quivering, he fell out of the way of the door. "And so if I am failing here, she is having me killed."

"What in tarnation?"

"Dear, the Princesses would never–"

"I don't think…"

"No way!"

All save Twilight cried out in protest. The purple unicorn looked the blood-colored stallion in the eyes. "What did you do?"

Ink clutched his brow. "You would not be sleeping at night. But what Celestia is knowing is history." He turned to face the group. "We are not playing games here anymore, I am seeing. Time for joke is past now. I am soldier. Not like Shining Armor; on good day, he is police pony. He is not knowing real war." The brief words were directed at Twilight, but Ink's focus quickly returned to larger group. "I was colt when dragons attacked. Brother and I spent days sneaking out, stealing food for family. When city was rebuilt, Baron Frostbite was putting me in secret police. Spent days hunting earth ponies running from assigned farms, enforcing curfews, and standing in frozen towers on dragon border, watching for attack."

His eyes lost focus. "Father was breaking first. No longer standing racism. Paranoia. Stalliongrad was well fed enough, secure, but ponies were not happy. And because he is alicorn, they were following him. So seven years ago, brothers and I are taking up army of rebels. I was fighting soldiers who had once been my… what is word? Follower?"

"Subordinate?" Twilight suggested.

Ink nodded. "And I was killing them. Well. Not many ponies are having special talent for war." He glanced down at his hoof, and for just a moment it seemed as if something wet and slimy were dripping off. "I am learning from Mentor… name of Steel Lining."

Fluttershy wrapped her wings around herself tightly and shuddered once. "Oh…"

"Something is wrong?"

"I… I promised I wouldn't tell." The mare shook her head. "I'm sorry."

Ink gave her a moment to reconsider, before moving his attention back to Twilight. "Sparkle, you are know him?"

"Not very well," she responded. "But he was Princess Celestia's bodyguard since before I was born. Everypony called him 'the Commander'. I only learned his name at that funeral a week ago."

"He was…" Ink hesitated. "Point is, he is teaching me what it is meaning to be guard. 'Hooves are not toys, Roscherk,' he was saying always to me. And his Stalliongradi was being bad as my Equiish, if not worse." The shadow of a smile danced over Ink's lips. "So I am trying to be guardspony like he was teaching me. And it is working well. At least, until now.

"He and I are freeing home together. We toppled Frostbite with own hooves, brought end to blizzard, and revolution. Brought freedom. Then he was leaving, and world was falling apart. My army break beneath my hooves. Traitor hired assassin, killed my brother. I have spent years hunting for them. And then I was finding trail, both to traitor and to assassin."

The stallion's tone dropped even further, and the pace of his words slowed well beyond their already sluggish pace. "I am coming to Canterlot, after 'Commander' is being killed by them. I am given his position; as his student, and as one who is knowing tricks to capturing his killers, it is making sense. Assassin was being lost, but I am hunting down traitor in Baltimare, ready to end it."

Little sparks winked into being along Red Ink's wings. "But Shining Armor is stopping me. Wanting to take her alive. I… lose control. Fight him. Building is catching fire. Apartment. Many ponies are hurt. Three die. My fault."

Nopony else seemed to have a clue what to say, just as Red Ink expected. "It is mistake Commander would never be making. I am coming back to Celestia failure, and now she is punishing me. That much I am understanding. Simple. Easy. But this… 'friendship' garbage, it is not being useful to me. She is try making me soft? What good is that in her guard?"

In the ensuing silence, each of the five mares remaining in the room shared a glance with the others. Then, finally, Twilight took charge and spoke up. "Could you… go outside for a minute? The girls and I need to talk."

Ink said nothing. His footsteps and the chill of the evening air served as an excellent answer.

August 30th, 1452 A.S.
Edge of the Everfree Forest
2206 Hours

Roscherk Krovyu stared up at the moon, enraptured by its surface. The perpetual ice storms of Stalliongrad hid the pale orb from view constantly, and until he was already a grown stallion, Ink had only ever seen pictures.

The night wind tickled his mane, his ears, and his feathers. The bark of the tree against which he sat was rough, scratchy, and incredibly comfortable to rub against. It was a beautiful night, and he knew he ought to enjoy it, as in all likelihood it would be one of his last.

"I know a place where the water is warm,
when it falls on your nose from overhead.
Birds join in song and the trees sing along,
In the Valley of Dreams that lies ahead.
No fear of ice, for the feeling is nice,

When you lay down to rest on a soft green bed.
I want to go, there's no ice, there's no snow,
Just the warmth of the sun and a soft green bed…"

"We are curious that thou sing such a song, Captain Ink."

He jumped to his hooves at the haunting voice that echoed from every direction at once, and his eyes scanned the sky, finding nothing amidst the blues and purples and blacks. "Who is there?"

"You would lead our sister's Honor Guard, and yet you do not even know our…" There followed a moment of silence. "…my voice?"

Ink spun when the voice suddenly came from a single definite point behind him. He spun in place, and very nearly keeled over. "Princess Luna? I am not expecting you."

She smiled at the corner of her mouth. "You would serenade my moon with such an entrancing melody and then not expect my presence?" And then the towering mare reached out and tapped him in the middle of his mane. "Surely my sister hath chosen her new watchdog with more cunning than that." He scowled slightly, but she continued before he could speak. "We must know: was that a lullaby?"

"No," he answered. "Only one lullaby at home. I was sing slowly, but song is meant for two parts, more lively. Mare and stallion, together."

"You sing a love song to my moon?" Luna smiled widely enough that Ink's gut sank. He could have sworn that just for a moment he saw fangs at the corners of her smile. "Indeed you are a most amusing pony, Roscherk Krovyu."

"But you are here to put an end to me?"

Luna's smile disappeared instantly. "And here we had hoped that one of our sister's Honor Guard might not hold our past so tightly against us. Do you expect that I am here in hunger? That, as the foals fear, I have come to devour you?"

Ink gave her a confused expression. "I am not expecting any particular execution. But Sparkle is sending her letter, and my life is ending, yes?"

"I should believe I would know if your fate were so sealed, Captain." Luna looked into his eyes closely. "I spoke with my sister last night in regards to your situation."

Ink gestured with a tip of his head toward Fluttershy's cottage. "My fate is already being sealed."

"Oh, really? You know this?"

Ink rolled his eyes. "Yes, Princess, I am knowing with certainty. Many times I have been on other side of heavy door. If I were being inside with Serp and Molot, I would be drinking and telling stories of mares I have bedded, simply to kill time. To further punishment, and enjoy suffering."

"I see." Luna grinned with obvious amusement. "And you believeth that the Bearers of Harmony are of such a mentality? That they shall leave you to sweat and await your fate as they drink and carouse within, telling stories of their conquests?"

"Why else are they putting me out here?"

"Perhaps they are in all honesty making a decision, and seek privacy. Shall we bet on it?"

"What?"

Luna grinned like a school filly, though with the subtlest hint of some greater wisdom behind the teasing corners of her eyes. "We go up there to the window and listen in. If you are proven to be correct, I shall relieve you of your obligation."

"Princess Celestia is not–"

"Our sister is not your concern, Captain. We have been given power over your fate, because we believe in you. Though we are not inclined to simply relieve you of your task, it is within our power."

After waiting for a spell, Ink prompted her further. "But…"

"But if I should be proven right, then you shall sing for me the rest of that song. Both the parts. Romantically." She offered him an enormous wing. He hesitated for only a moment, before realizing that he had nothing to lose. Or so he thought.

The alicorn princess and the ex-guardspony moved like shadows, drawing up to one of cottage windows. Without exposing his face fully, Ink could only make out the shadows that were cast against the window. Still, he was close enough to make out their voices.

"–ain't the point, Twi. I don' know what all he done in Stall-yun-grad–" Red Ink very momentarily leaned away from the window to vomit. "–but it ain't our place to say what that means."

"Yes, dear, Princess Celestia sent him to us because she thinks we can change him. Fluttershy succeeded with Discord, after all."

"We had the Elements of Harmony to hold over his head! What happens if 'Red Ink' goes flying off the handle? What happens when he kills somepony?"

"I don't think Inky's like that, Twilight. I mean, sure, maybe he's a little crazy–"

Somewhere, a kettle took offense at the racist slurs of a nearby pot.

"–but he isn't going to hurt anypony. Well, at least, not on purpose. I mean, come on, he's a guardspony. If he went around hurting everypony, he wouldn't be very good at his job, right?"

"He isn't like my brother, Pinkie! Rainbow and I saw what his guards are like when we went to Saraneighvo. One of them killed another pony with a sickle!"

Red Ink leaned back from the window to slap himself on the face with a hoof. "Serp, how stupid are you possibly being?"

"She speaketh the truth?" Luna asked in a forced whisper.

The Stalliongradian nodded. "A few years ago, subordinate was onto plot by rebels. Not recognizing Sparkle. Idiot." Luna's eyes went wide, even as Ink went back to listening in. He already knew his answer of course, but curiosity had wiped the idea from his mind.

"But ah thought you said ya didn't know him 'fore yesterday, Twi."

"Well, I didn't know him. He probably would have lit the inn on fire!"

"Oh, come now, Twilight. That's hardly fair of you. He said what happened in the market was an accident, and Hat Trick can be a bit caustic even on the best of days. Although I will admit Roscherk's attitude didn't help…"

"He kills ponies! What part of that are you not understanding?"

"Uh, the part where he ain't killed any ponies, Twi. Ah mean, I ain't doubtin' ya, so ta speak…"

"I suspect what Applejack is trying to get at, Twilight, is that while he may be a bit rough around the edges, it seems like you might be making unfair assumptions about him."

"Yeah!" A crash signaled Pinkie Pie jumping, or rolling, or some other activity that the eavesdroppers could not see. "And we all know what they say about assumptions, right?"

"That they–"

Pinkie Pie cut Fluttershy off immediately. "That they aren't very nice! And you're a nice pony, Twilight, so we know you won't just assume he's a mean bad meanie evil nasty-nosed…" The pink mare ground to a halt, and then groaned. "Sorry girls, that one got away from me. Uh, meanie-pants. There, finished it."

"I'm not assuming as much as you think, girls. He killed a dragon! He said so himself, to Spike."

"Well, not every dragon is my dear Spikey-Wikey." Ink suppressed a gag as Rarity continued inside. "And, I once again remind you Twilight, he is a guardspony. Perhaps this dragon was… less than pleasant."

"Maybe it was like King Krenn," Fluttershy agreed with surprising force, before her voice caught on a moment of guilt and regret. "Though that still wouldn't be very nice."

Everypony was quiet for a moment, as the shadows on the window moved together into a single mass. Ink stole a peek out of confusion, and caught a glimpse of a massive group hug.

"Poor Discord," Pinkie Pie muttered to nopony in particular.

"We had to do it, girls. We stopped a war."

"He still don't deserve bein' stuck like that. Even if he was a pain in the flank."

"Applejack!"

"Oh, uh, sorry, 'Shy. He just got on my nerves, turnin' all the apples into chocolate or whatever whenever he'd drop by."

"Just because he doesn't understand how to be a good friend as well as we do doesn't mean he wasn't trying." Fluttershy's voice grew more forceful. "He just needed a chance, and for somepony to take the first step, and be his friend. And, uh, I think Mr. Ink is the same. That was why I thought of a dinner party." Fluttershy's voice dropped a bit in volume. "I know this didn’t quite turn out that well, but I'd really like it if you'd all help me."

Twilight's voice picked up. "He really reminds you of Discord?"

Fluttershy laughed lightly. "He, uh, burned down my drapes when I told him. I guess in Stalliongrad, they don't know about Discord."

"Oh." That was all Twilight Sparkle could come up with.

"So, we all agreein', then? 'Cause I'm gonna go get him, if y'all 're ready."

Ink's head pulled back from the window. "Come, Princess, we are–" But Luna wasn't there. He hadn't heard her move, yet she was nowhere in sight. Without time to concern himself, Ink took her disappearance in stride. Namely, the stride of sprinting away from the window and sliding to a rest beside his tree. His action fell just in time, too, as his back struck the wood just as Fluttershy's front door swung open.

"Ya out here, Raw Shark?"

Having already emptied his stomach from her accent, Ink sighed. "Mr. Ink is being fine, Applejack. Otherwise, it is Roscherk."

"That's what ah said. Anyway, we figure ya oughta come on back in now."

"Right…" Ink slunk forward slowly as Applejack darted back inside, shutting the door behind her. He spent the intervening steps contemplating how best to convey his false surprise at their decision. The actual impact of their words was something that could be puzzled over later.

He pushed open the door, and realized instantly that he had no need for false surprise. For the first time in his life, he found himself unhappy to be at the bottom of a pile of mares. Legs were wrapped around him in a stifling hug.

"This is stupid," he announced bluntly, once the surprise had settled.

"Aw, come on, Inky! Everypony needs a hug once in awhile."

"Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but friendship is not contagious disease, yes?"

"Of course not," Twilight told him. He felt her weight shift off the pile. "Friendship is a form of Emotionally Resonant Thaumic Field."

"What." It wasn't a question.

Fluttershy picked up where Twilight had left off. "What Twilight is saying is that friendship is magic. And we all want to be your friends."

"Oh." Ink closed his eyes as he pondered. "Thanks. Now get off."

Dear Princesses Luna and Celestia,

Today, I am learning many valuable lesson about friendship. It seems first step in lessons is that I am not understanding why 'bother' with friendship.

In Стольный, I was having had three ponies who I thought of as friends. First was little brother, Polnoch, who in Equiish is being called 'Midnight'. I told you about him when I was first meet you. Others are still alive: Serp and Molot. Good subordinate, but not really friend. Serp is more fan than friend, and Molot sees me as Commandant first, pony second.

They were who I was think of when I was hearing 'friend'. They were who I was drinking with, dragging after mares with, and 'hunting' with back home. But I was not making sacrifices for them. They were not urging me into being a better pony. Only I was told always that I was in the right. Always I was a hero. In some way, I am always knowing always knew it is was 'bad' for me. Commander Lining is not needing ponies to bolster his reputation.

Regardless, today I am being told differently. Today, I am learning that friendship is bond between ponies who are wanting the best for each other. We are see friendship in ponies who we are opening ourselves to, and who are also being open themselves to us, to share in aid, in happiness, and… other sappy things. (You were doing so well there, Red) I am not lying to you; these are not being my words. I am being was told these things, but Sparkle (Either 'Twilight' or 'Ms. Sparkle') is reminding reminds me that I am to be experiencing them myself before I am writing to you. And so I am informing you, partly because 'honesty' is Element, but also because I am suspecting you are would knowing the truth anyway, and lying is waste of my blood.

Sparkle's plan is that, when I am not teaching or otherwise busy, I am spending time with her friends, one by one, learning of their Elements. Some, I am thinking, are stupid, but perhaps when I am practicing magic with Sparkle herself, I am will getting better control over my temper, and fire. (Do you mean 'your fire'? Or can you actually control other fire too? Ooh, now I want to do an experiment! I haven't ever had an Empath to study before. I wonder how friendship will affect your magic! What do you mean I'm writing it down, Spike? I haven't even asked him…). That is what you are really wanting out of a guardspony, yes? Control?

Well, whatever your purpose is, I am will likely ending up dead from this, so I am supposing you are will be happy either way. Either Rainbow Dash is killing me, or I am killing self when I am reaching 'Pink Pie's' lessons. Laughter is a wonderful side effect of alcohol and young mares; not balloons and foal's games and puns. (You have to give Pinkie a chance. And as for Rainbow Dash… We'll put her off for last, I think. Probably better that you don't have to deal with her after what she's just been through…)

Now Sparkle is telling me that I should be informing you of other goings on. So where am do I beginning? Ah! I am getting got a job as substitute teacher for the school here in Ponyville. Sparkle is most firm in insisting that I am learning better Equiish (or at least a non-progressive tense), so she is going to grading this letter for grammar later. I have not had paper graded since the day I earned my Cutie Mark. It is a strange experience.

Also, I am meeting met most beautiful mare in entire world today. A Pegasus, with a slender body and a gorgeous mane. She is like me, with fire in her blood and eyes of warrior, though she is hiding it much better, and is not fighting ponies. Only monsters and creatures of forest. She is felled bear single-hoofedly, without even recourse to weapons or magic. She moves in silence, like shadows, even sneaking up even on me. When I am being back to in the guard, I am hoping to recruit her.

(Princess: I guess he's talking about Cloud Kicker; she's certainly got a lot of fight in her, though I have no idea what she'd be doing fighting a bear. Fluttershy might know more. I just hope he doesn’t wind up breaking somepony's heart… or their spine.)

Finally, I am telling will tell you this because Sparkle is twisting my wing over it. Today, I am blowing blew up Ponyville marketplace. It was accident. I am eventually repaying the damages (though I would be appreciating loan from home; teacher salary in this Domain is pathetic), but Sparkle is insisting I am telling you so that when Royal Guard come to investigate, I am not having to deal with Shining Armor again. We are all remembering what happened last time, after all, and Ponyville is beautiful town.

Sparkle is telling me that is sounding like threat, so I am to clarify: this is not my trying to hold city hostage; just observing 'reality of situation'.

Concluding report for August 30th, 1452 A.S.

Cpt. Red Ink, Honor Guard

-Roscherk Krovyu

August 30th, 1452 A.S.
Midair over the Domain of Canterlot
2314 Hours

Luna had brought only a single bodyguard–a crime which would have had her elder sister in fits following recent events, had Celestia any chance of noticing. However, as the illusionist of the family, the odds of Celestia even noticing something wrong were low at best. Thus, instead of dragging her newly assigned, marenizing unicorn protector all the way from Canterlot, she was free to enjoy the company of a single Night Guard.

Third Brother's expression could very easily be described as 'terminally unimpressed'. His slitted yellow eyes scanned the ground far below as his rough purple mane billowed in the wind rushing past his face. Though he was the largest and strongest of her Night Guard, Luna chose him for not for his strength, but because she enjoyed his near-silent company.

She watched as his eyes moved, sweeping back and forth. Usually, the golden ellipses were sharp, jumping from point to point, but that night, they swept slowly and smoothly, failing to see what lay before them.

"Something troubles you, Third Brother."

He flinched, as if being caught in a daydream or a memory. "Forgive me, Mistress; I had no intentions of making my thoughts known."

Luna's brow rose with enough curiosity to kill three and a half kittens. "So you have been keeping secrets from us?"

The usually stoic stallion winced. "I... I had believed they were honestly not of your concern, Mistress. I beg your forgiveness."

"There is nothing to forgive, Third Brother. We would ask, though; what is it that fills your mind?"

"I am wondering what you intend to do with Captain Ink, which the Sun Goddess would rather not."

Luna smiled more to herself than at her servant. "Do you know how long it has been since my sister has had a real battle?"

Third Brother's wings shot wide, and he came to a hover. "I... do not understand the question, Mistress. I suppose... thirty cycles, since she fought and fell to the Changeling Queen?"

Luna shook her head slowly, taking the task of hovering in place with far more grace than her defender. "A single burst of magic is not a 'real battle' Third Brother. You see, in ages past so long ago that they have faded even from the memory of my sister's precious tomes, I was the warrior. Celestia does not well understand what it is to risk herself in defending something. Hers are the ways of peace and diplomacy first and foremost, and she is by far my better at both." Luna let out a sort of chuckling snort. "But she does not know of the life of a warrior. And she knows nothing of redemption."

She had thought the issue resolved with that revelation, and so moved to fly on. However, like the last strand of toilet paper clinging desperately to the bottom of a hoof, Third Brother gave her pause by speaking up again.

"Mistress, I... I fear I must ask to speak my mind."

She looked at him quizzically. "But of course. I would not have you hold your tongue without cause."

Third Brother grimaced, and his neck twitched as he struggled to find his words. "Captain Ink... he is not as you are, though you seem to believe he is."

"What do you mean?"

"You..." Third Brother winced as if in physical pain, and his eyes darted toward the moon hanging overhead in the sky. "Yours is to seek redemption, knowing that your actions were wrong. But Captain Ink... his heart is broken."

"Ah, I see." Luna smiled. "His is an issue of romance? It would explain his song–"

"No," Third Brother interrupted quite forcefully, before drawing back as he realized that he had interrupted Luna. "Forgive me, Mistress. Mine was not the place to speak so swiftly or so freely, and–"

"Calm yourself, Third Brother." Luna swept over beside him and wrapped a foreleg around his neck to calm him. Flying in such close proximity ought to have been difficult, yet Luna had no trouble in the timing of her wingbeats. "We are speaking freely here, alone. I would rather you not fear me."

He looked away sheepishly. "Of course, Mistress. My point is that my metaphor was in poor choice. Not 'heartbroken', but heart broken, as one might break a bone. The damage was done long ago... at least, by the standards of mortals. And the wound has never been set."

"I am afraid I do not fully follow. Are you saying that these lessons in friendship will not be enough to fix his behavior? His nature?"

"I am informing you of a truth that he has not recognized himself, Mistress. Or, at the very least, one which he has not accepted." Third Brother's face returned to its usual even expression, punctuated only by the tips of his rather short fangs sticking just barely out of his mouth. "I was once told that a soldier is one who fights to defend something they believe to be bigger than their self. Captain Ink forgot that lesson, long ago. Now, he fights in denial, believing that if he finally wins, he will have back something he lost."

"And that is?"

"His last real friend."

Luna pulled slowly away from Third Brother, her mind consumed with a thousand burning questions. The Night Guard, in turn, set about scanning the surrounding sky for threats once more. Yet despite his action, he spoke up again. "These lessons in friendship, and the Bearers; they may force him to face reality. But his heart is set in its ways, healed into a twisted, limping thing. It will have to be broken again before it can be set."

Author's Note

This chapter dedicated to Ruirik, who is an incredibly awesome author and artist, and did a ton of work of my characters, which you can see on my blog. Get well soon, sir.

Oh, yeah, and Hat Trick is his OC.

Also, a huge thanks to my Pre-Reading team of SatoshiKyu, DarkPhoenix, Roflknief, Keyesty, and guest translator 'Susha'.

I've been playing a lot of Tetris...

Quantum of Schoolhouse

V

Quantum of Schoolhouse

A chain of five white dots moved across a solid black backdrop. The sixth hovered, in the air, and then grew larger with a glossy surface, until it took on an entirely reflective sheen.

Roscherk Krovyu wandered into view from the right side of the round mirror. At first, the motion was calm and collected. His black suit jacket trimmed perfectly to his form, and the black tie around his neck was immaculate.

Without turning his head, his eye caught the mirror. And for him, that was enough. In a single smooth motion, as fast as lightning, he swiveled on his rear left hoof and lashed out. A lacquered black dress shoe flew off his hoof. Some glass vial on the shelf above the mirror shattered. Thick red liquid spilled over the mirror, dribbling like blood over the reflection of the well dressed stallion. Somewhere outside the Golden Oaks library, a brief guitar riff played. It was followed by the sound of a rising band, led by trumpets.

Though the stallion failed to notice, a line of bold black text appeared in midair before him.

Loyal Liar Presents

When the tremble of strings sounded again, Roscherk Krovyu released his voice.

"A memory brought me from Stalliongrad
In need of my rare and hard-earned skills

A "Price of Loyalty" Tale

But now that I'm here in Ponyville
I'm missing the life that I had.

Edited by SatoshiKyu, Roflknief, DarkPhoenix, and Ruirik

With Translations by Keyesty

I've fought soldiers, monsters. I lived for the moment.
But oh, it just couldn't last.

Starring Roscherk Krovyu

In a moment's weakness
I lost all control. Now I'm trapped,
Unmaking my past.

Also Starring:

Sweetie Belle, Applebloom, Scootaloo

Stoikaja

For now I endure in Ponyville,
I'm trying to change who I've become.

With Princess Celestia as 'M'

and Rarity as 'Q'

But someday they'll need the soldier again.
He'll come from Stalliongrad with Love"

"From Stalliongrad With Love"

When the stylized text card finally faded, and Red Ink was once more the focus of attention, he wandered over to the window of the guest bathroom, pushed it open, and leaned out. Below, a rather large band dressed in snappy red vests was staring up. They gave him a startling applause.

"Thank you," he called down. "I am app– I mean, I appreciate accompaniment."

"That's what we do," the conductor shouted back. "I enjoyed the number."

Ink gave a small smile. "It just came to me. I was enjoy the guitar especially."

"Oh, why thank you." The mare holding the shiningly polished acoustic stood up, and Ink's smile became much more genuine. She was a rather plain yellow coated mare, with a cute short mane and a slender physique. "You have an excellent tenor."

"I am thanking you. Although I can go deeper. In fact," he continued, wiggling his eyebrows ever so slightly, "if you are caring to join me for drinks tonight, I will show just how much deeper I can go."

She smiled, blushed, and looked away. He earned a few disapproving glares from the others in the band, but he never got to hear her response; a sharp tug on his tail pulled him away from the window. Only a moment later, an aura of rose magic shut the window and the blinds.

"Sparkle–"

"Twilight," the unicorn corrected. "And what do you think you're doing?"

Ink considered explaining his advances, but ultimately decided against it. "I am doing– sorry." He grimaced. "I do my best to not look like an idiot in this jacket." He gestured to the black fabric hanging from his neck. "What is the point?"

"The point," Twilight explained, "is that you make a good impression on your pupils. And that means not being late on the first day of class."

"Fine, fine." Ink shrugged in the garment. "I leave, go get my jacket from Rarity, and head to class. Good?"

"Close enough," Twilight replied with a slight smile. "I'm impressed with how much progress you've made in just two days. Though I do have to ask: how do you sing so well in Equiish when you can hardly speak?"

"I... was think it natural. Being much the same as how, when one pony is starting to sing, everypony else is knowing lyrics, even if song is being made up off top of head. Some magic all ponies are sharing, perhaps?"

"Hmm..." Twilight scratched her chin. "That's an interesting theory, Mr. Ink. Why don't you sing something in Stalliongradi, and I'll try–"

Ink shook his head. "Everypony is knowing it has to be spontaneous, yes?" Twilight chuckled. "What?"

"Just that you know a word like 'spontaneous', but you can't conjugate 'know'." Twilight chuckled as she stepped out of his way. "Have a good first day at school, Mr. Ink."

"I am looking forward to it," he responded, tightening his tie and adjusting his cuffs as he made his way out the door.

September 1st, 1452 A.S.
Carousel Boutique
0737 Hours

When the bell above the door rang, Rarity looked up from her work. "Oh, Mr. Ink! Please, come in! I'll be with you in just a moment."

"Mr. Ink?" The second voice met Ink's eardrums the way a blender might greet a vat of gelatin. After the dull humming that he recognized as shell shock faded, he turned to the unicorn filly in front of his hooves. The light reflecting off her polished smile was just shy of blinding, and he squinted as he beheld the way she looked up at him with awe and wonder. "How come you're here? Don't we have class in a half an hour?"

"Yes we do, uh..."

"Sweetie Belle," the filly supplied.

Ink nodded. "Yes, Sweetie. But first, I need my jacket."

Rarity looked up from her work at the pointed comment and smiled. "Oh, that's what's so important? I thought you might need me to refit that jacket. It's a good deal too tall for you."

Ink's eye twitched. "Twilight said it was her brother's."

Rarity's mouth made an 'O' shape, but it was Sweetie Belle who put words to the uncomfortable thought. "Oh, well that makes sense. Captain Armor is a lot taller than you, Mr. Ink."

Gritting his teeth, the stallion ignored the comment and walked across the room, to where Rarity had laid his most precious garment across the back of a model dummy.

"Here we are, Mr. Ink," she began. "I patched up the holes and the burns in the fabric, but I'm afraid I haven't yet had the time to actually repair the stitching near the wing slits, or the fraying under the collar. Also, I considered adding some quilting and a Trottingham fold to those false pockets you have sewn into the inside."

"False pockets?" Ink cocked his head. "They are being–" He interrupted his own sentence by slapping himself across the face. "They are called sheathes, Rarity."

"I see Twilight's lessons are bearing fruit."

"Убейте меня." Ink ran his hooves along the sleeves of the garment, and stopped at the cuffs. "I told you I did not want gems."

"Oh, I know. I had originally intended to do over the entire breast in black opals, but I wouldn't go against your wishes. These are like the improvements to the, uh, sheathes as you say. They'll help to hold the garment together better without changing much of its appearance. These are just cufflinks. I imagined you might like them." Her magic gave one a slight twist, revealing a little crooked pin that glowed with the aura of her magic. "They open ninety percent of Equestria's locks."

Ink's jaw slowly fell open. "What?"

"I'm teasing, Mr. Ink. Though picking a stubborn lock with a cufflink is sometimes a valuable skill for a gentlecolt."

"I would sooner die than be called a gentlecolt. I would wind up like brother."

"The one who bought you this jacket? I dare say–"

"No, no." Ink chuckled a little as he shook his head. "Polnoch... that is something like 'middle of the night' in Equiish - he was younger brother. And he never had anything stuck up his–"

"Roscherk Krovyu!" Rarity interrupted, gesturing to Sweetie Belle.

Ink coughed awkwardly into his hoof. "...accounting tables," he concluded. "I meant older brother... nevermind."

Rarity laughed a little at the stallion's awkwardness, though her smile was genuine, appreciating the effort he was putting into controlling himself. "Well, I had to take your 'sheathes' out, along with some of the lining. I also noticed it isn't properly fitted for you. If you need it now, go ahead and take it; it looks fine on the outside at least. However, I'll need you to bring it back so I can finish my work. And then, perhaps, we can talk about doing something with a slightly nicer fabric for you."

He rolled his eyes, but nodded nevertheless. "Fine. I am bringing... no, not right. I brang?"

"Will bring?" Sweetie Belle suggested helpfully.

"Ah, yes. I will bring it back tonight."

"Excellent," Rarity observed, as Ink and his student progressed toward the door. "Oh, and make sure you bring it back in pristine condition, darling."

September 1st, 1452 A.S.
Ponyville Schoolhouse
0759 Hours

Sweetie Belle appreciated that Mr. Ink had held the door open for her. That meant he was a 'gentlecolt', as Rarity would put it, which was good. She'd been worried when he'd yelled at her and the other crusaders in the market, but he was probably just having a bad day. After all, Rarity yelled at Sweetie when she was having a bad day, or when she'd taken too much of the medicine she kept in the high cabinet over the sink, and that didn't make her any less of a lady.

Smiling, Sweetie Belle made her way into the nearly-packed classroom and moved to take her seat. She wasn't quite there, though, when a familiar and unwelcome voice called out.

"Oh, look! The blank flank has to get the teacher to walk her to class. Did you get lost, Sweetie Belle?"

She recognized Diamond Tiara's voice - the 'leader' of the two bullies was almost always the one to sling the first insult. Sweetie practiced what Rarity had taught her, smiling and breathing gently through her nose without saying anything. That's what a responsible adult would do, as Rarity put it.

As Sweetie Belle had walked back to her seat, Mr. Ink had made his way into the room. However, rather than stand behind his own desk, he was looming over Diamond Tiara's, glaring daggers at the filly.

"Uh, Mr. Ink, is something wrong?"

"Respect," Ink replied, before stepping away from her desk to the front of the room. Sweetie didn't have the eye of her sister for fashion, but she could see something was wrong in the way the stallion's coat shifted on his back. He made his way to the chalkboard at the front of the room and wrapped the tip of his wings around a stick of chalk.

Mr. Ink faced the class as his wing moved with a mind of its own, darting around to the chalkboard and beginning to write in funny-looking Equiish. "My name is Red Ink. You may call me Mr. Ink, or Sir." His wing stopped its work for a moment on a long list near the edge of the board to scrawl out six enormous letters.

Яed Inк

"Uh, Mister Ink?"

Ink turned to the filly who had addressed him. "Yes, Apple..."

"It's Applebloom," Sweetie's friend called out. "And yer 'arr' is backwards."

Ink glanced at the way he'd written his name, and then shrugged. "It looks better with a 'Ya'. Thank you, Applebloom." Having concluded his thought, he turned sideways, so that he could look at the class while his wing scratched a single word in strange and foreign letters.

Уважение

"...find out what it means to me," the teacher mumbled, in the style of superstar pop sensation Sapphire Shores, from the hit album Sensaaational!, available at a record store near you. Remember, colts and fillies, record piracy is a crime.

By the time Sweetie Belle's attention had returned from the memory of those obnoxious commercials that always seemed to be on the radio station Rarity liked, Mr. Ink had moved on. "Stand up," he ordered, glaring in Diamond Tiara's direction. She rose tentatively to her hooves as the class watched. Ink rubbed his free wing over his face in an expression of what Sweetie would define as a mixture of lassitude and exasperation, had she the grasp of Equiish to properly use such polysyllabic terms. Instead, her young mind had to settle on the thought that he seemed unhappy as he continued to speak. "No. All of you, be standing."

The class rose as he turned, and he gave them a 'smile'. Something about the expression left the little unicorn unsettled, though if anypony had asked, she wouldn't have been able to explain it. For just a moment, she was tempted to call for an adult... but then, he was an adult, wasn't he? And that meant he was trustworthy, right?

After all, nopony would actually let a dangerous pony become a teacher.

Right?

Ink tapped the blackboard with his wing. "Can anypony tell me what this says?" The teacher seemed surprised when Twist raised her hoof. Glancing her direction, he raised a brow. "Yes?"

"Uh, I guethth it thayth rethpect."

His eyes slid to Sweetie in the next seat over, though his head didn't move. "What?"

"She says 'it says respect,'" Sweetie explained on behalf of the linguistically challenged filly. It didn't seem like it really needed to be explained, but then again, Mr. Ink's accent was even funnier than Big Macintosh's, those few times when he actually chose to speak.

"Ah. Smart filly." Mr. Ink returned his attention to Twist. "What's your name?"

"Twitht."

He cocked his head. "I don't know that word. What does 'twitht' mean?"

The class burst into uproarious laughter, as Twist hid her head beneath her hooves. Sweetie felt bad for Twist, but evidently her sympathy wasn't as strong as the new teacher's. The class' laughter cut off abruptly when Mr. Ink slammed a hoof on the surface of his desk. When he removed the offending foreleg, his shoe remained lodged in the wood, standing bolt upright.

"Apology, Twist," the teacher muttered. "I had no want to embarrass you." Stumbling past his awkward word choice, Ink turned to address the rest of the class. "Twist is right. This word is Uvazheniye. Say it with me. Ooh-vah-zen-ee-yay."

The class tried as best they could, though their efforts momentarily put a sort of green color on Mr. Ink's face. Suspecting they'd said it wrong, Sweetie chimed in. "I think we should try again. On the count of three? One... two..."

"No!" Mr. Ink shouted, having finally returned to his usual red self. He braced a hoof on his desk for two desperate gasps of air. After a moment of recovery, he leveled his gaze across the class. "It does mean respect, in my tongue. Stol'nogradskiy Pay attention to this: it is not 'Stalliongrad.' In this class, we say Stol’nograd, because we are not uneducated swine. The city name is not a stupid joke. Understand?"

Tragically, the back of Ink’s mind reminded him that he was, in fact, butchering Stalliongradi grammar to make the statement work. But the less sophisticated edge of Equiish forced a compromise, and at least he’d gotten rid of the damned pun.

The class nodded slowly, though Sweetie Belle was sure their responses were more out of intimidation than actual comprehension. She didn't see a stupid joke in 'Stalliongrad' - it wasn't any different than Manehattan or Canterlot, really. Just a name. She didn't give the complaint much further thought, as her eyes kept drifting to the solid steel shoe jutting up out of the splintered wood of the teacher's desk. It seemed funny that he'd been able to do that. Shoes weren't supposed to stand up on their ends.

Mr. Ink snapped his wing, which caught everypony's attention just as much from how startling the action was as the actual noise. Sweetie was sure Scootaloo's wings didn't bend that way. She lost track of yet another thought when the teacher spoke up again. "Now, to point I was intent on making in the first place. In class, we will be practicing uvazheniye. Respect, as you would say it. I would like very much that we get along before your teacher comes back. However, if you are not respectful to each other, it is very likely that we will not get along." And then he gave that smile again, and let his gaze drift over the entire class. "Nopony would like it if I did not get along with them, I think. Do we have understanding?"

The class generally nodded with a mixture of fear and outright confusion. Ink seemed satisfied by the reaction, as he pulled out Cheerilee's chair and flopped back into it so that his hind hooves were resting on the desk next to the standing shape of his shoe. "Now, I have introduced me. We are getting started..."

A hoof rose into the air. Mr. Ink turned to Twist. He seemed unhappy to have been interrupted by the raised hoof. "Yes?"

"Thouldn't we introduthe ourthelveth?"

"I don't care," Ink told the class. To his credit, he did eventually realize he'd said something wrong. "I will learn names better during the course than from listing off like a roster. Besides, Ponyville has, what, a hundred foals? Two hundred? If you do not know one another, introductions are not changing things. We will start learning now instead. So..." He glanced down at a manila folder lying open on the desk, and the shoe pinning it to the desk. Judging from the slight shock in his eyes, Sweetie concluded he hadn't actually intended to thrust his shoe through an inch and a half of wood, as well as the middle of his document.

"Uh, our first topic is be..." His voice trailed off, though the class could still hear him clearly. "No, that's not right. Just is? Yes." Volume returned. "Our first topic is reading. Get book from there, in corner. And, uh... Applebloom, bring me one." As the class started to mass around the bookshelf in the corner, he continued to speak. "Our book is being 'Crime and Punishment' by... wait, what?"

"Is something wrong, Mr. Ink?" Sweetie Belle asked.

He shook his head with a look of trepidation, or perhaps regret.. "Nothing wrong at all. I have met the author of this. Fyodor Dostudyevsky." There passed a brief wistfulness through Mr. Ink's eyes, and then he shook his head. "Miss Cheerilee has been nice to me, choosing a Stol'nogradskiy novel."

An orange pegasus in the back of the class looked up from her book. "Ooh! Are you from Stalliongrad, Mr. Ink?"

Sweetie Belle could have sworn she smelled smoke as Ink dedicated his attention toward Scootaloo. "Little one, you remind me of the way I like my milkshakes. Was that not clear? Yes, I am from Stol'nograd. So was Mr. Dostudyevsky." Mr. Ink glanced down at the folder on the desk in front of him briefly. "Evidently, we are to discuss him before we start reading. So let us. Dostudyevsky was a..." Mr. Ink hesitated, and Sweetie watched his mouth test words without lending them voice. He finally settled on "...rebel. He was an earth pony who wrote literature about equality between the types of ponies. This got him in a lot of trouble with the Baron of Stol'nograd..."

April 22nd, 1442 A.S.
Petrashevsky Building, Stalliongrad
0424 Hours

"You're sure this is a good idea, big brother? The Commandant told us to wait for backup, and–"

"Stop being such a pussy, Polnoch. It's not like we're raiding armed dissidents or deserters or something actually dangerous. They're poets, for Celestia's sake. Earth pony poets. Predvidenie is probably scarier than any of them."

"Roscherk, one of these days you're going to get us all killed."

The older of the two pegasi slapped his younger brother upside the head with his wing playfully. "Come on, Polnoch. Enough with the doom and gloom. We do this on our own, we'll be up for promotion. You'll finally make lieutenant, and you'll be swimming in mares the way I am. How 'bout it, huh?" Roscherk tapped the silver bands on the shoulders of his fitted black shirt, and then adjusted the cap of his uniform.

"I don't know, Roscherk... I mean, you're right. They aren't dissidents or deserters. What have they actually done wrong?" The faded purple pegasus glanced at the bronze bars on his own shoulders with a bit less pride. "They just wrote some books, right?"

"They broke the law, Polnoch. And either we take them down, or somepony else does. I'm not going to kill anypony; just scare them shitless so they obey. Then they get hauled off to the dragon border to build Frostbite's wall for a few years, learn their lesson, and everything's fine."

"Yeah, but what's really wrong with writing a book?"

Ink shrugged. "Predvidenie's the one who'd answer that for you. You tell him, and he'll tell Frostbite. But for right now, this..." Ink glanced at a card he'd tucked into the breast pocket of his uniform. "...this 'Dostudyevsky' is getting arrested no matter what. So are we going to do this?"

Polnoch sighed, staring at the tacky carpet. "Yeah, I guess."

Ink wrapped a wing around his brother's shoulders. "Look, Polnoch, relax. I get where you're coming from, okay? But right now, we can't worry about it. Now, you go ahead and get the door; I'll do the talking. Okay?"

Polnoch nodded. "Fine, Roscherk. I've got your back." Then the younger stallion reared up and bucked the door off its hinges in a shower of splinters and sparks.

"Police!" Roscherk shouted. "Everypony down!"

The room erupted into a blinding flurry of motion. A table toppled on its side. A stack of pages flew into the air. Ponies ran. One came charging toward the door, hoping to make it past Roscherk to freedom.

A padded wing crest absorbed the collision, as Roscherk clotheslined the stallion, flipping him back over onto his back. Before the unfortunate pony could even catch his breath, the black-clad pegasus finished his work with a dual-hooved stomp to the ribs. From the crack and the hoarse scream that followed, at least three had shattered.

"Anypony else?" Roscherk walked forward, leaving the unfortunate stallion to writhe in agony. "I honestly cannot stop you from trying, after all."

The papers finished their fall from the air, and a stillness filled the chamber. An icy draft ruffled Roscherk's feathers, and he glanced to the corner of the room, where an earth pony mare was halfway out a window.

"We're on the seventh story. Unless you're planning on growing wings on the way down, I'd shut the window." He smiled when she climbed inside, and then turned to the mass of ponies at the other side of the room, huddled beside a bookshelf. "Which one of you is..." His wing fetched his little note card. "Fyodor Dostudyevsky?"

Out of the mass came a scraggly looking white stallion with a white beard that had been grown out to compensate for his balding mane. His eyes were lined with wrinkles of anger. "What do you think you're doing, colt?"

"Colt?" Roscherk chuckled, adjusting his hat. "I am Lieutenant Roscherk Krovyu of the Secret Police."

"I know who you are." Dostudyevsky's eyes darted to Polnoch. "Both of you. The alicorn's sons, right? Though in those uniforms, somepony might mistake you for Frostbite's children."

"Who we are isn't important," Polnoch countered, stepping past the stallion in the entryway of the apartment, who still lay clutching his broken ribs. "Fyodor Dostudyevsky, you are under arrest for distribution of seditious writings, and for rebellious activities in service to the dragons."

"Dragons?" The author shook his head from side to side with almost pitying disappointment. "The same ghost story the baron has been telling for a decade, and yet we haven't seen a scale."

"Not my issue," Roscherk interrupted, grabbing the manacles from his belt and dropping them to the cheaply carpeted floor. "Judging by your writing, I'd say you know the laws just fine."

"So you've read my work?" Dostudyevsky's glare grew tighter. "Then let me ask you: what gives you the right?"

"Right? What difference does it make?" Polnoch asked.

Roscherk, on the other hand, extended a wing to grab Dostudyevsky's attention. "You want to know what gives me the right? The fact that I can do it, and you can't stop me."

Dostudyevsky opened his mouth to reply, but Roscherk's steel-shod hoof cut off the speech. Crumpling and gasping for breath, Dostudyevsky's eyes managed to stay open only long enough for Roscherk to give him a sarcastic smile as the chill of steel wrapped around his forelegs.

September 1st, 1452 A.S.
Ponyville Schoolhouse
0814 Hours

"Uh, Mr. Ink?"

Red Ink shook his head, ridding himself of the memory. "What?"

Sweetie Belle was talking to him from the corner of the room. "You were talking about Mr. Dostudyevsky, and then you just sorta stared out the window and went quiet, and..."

"Apologies." Ink nickered as he shook his head again. "Remembering home. I was talking about Dostudyevsky?"

"Yeah. You said he got taken away to a work camp by... and then you just sorta stopped talking. What's a work camp, anyway? Is it like summer camp?" The palomino colt in the corner smiled despite his proverbial massacre of the word.

"A work camp is like a dungeon. Prison. Jail. Only, not as nice. In Stol'nograd, ponies were sent east and forced to build the wall. Many froze to death."

"The wall?" Appleboom asked.

"There's a huge stone wall on the border with the land of the dragons. Baron Frostbite built it, because he apparently forgot that most dragons can fly, and was too busy suck–" Ink went so far as to slap himself across the face to cut off the sentence before it went too far.

"Sucking what?" Diamond Tiara's ugly gray lackey called out.

"Lollypopth?"

Ink nodded, struggling not to laugh. "Actually, that's a great way to put it, Twist. Baron Frostbite was always after my older brother's lollipop."

"Oh! Ith your brother a candy maker too? I know everypony ith alwayth trying to get my lolllypopth!" Twist exclaimed.

Ink took a brief moment to nearly pass out from laughter, before looking up at a class of entirely unbemused students. "I..." Another few chuckles escaped his control. "I'm sorry. That's some, uh, grown-up humor. Now, why don't we actually start talking about the book?"

September 1st, 1452 A.S.
Ponyville Schoolhouse
0914 Hours

"Alright, class. Putting your books aside for now. And, since you are all so interested, we will do our history lesson next."

"But Miss Cheerilee said we were gonna learn about the history of Prance!" somepony shouted.

Ever the student of 'history', their teacher summarized the topic quite effectively. "Once upon a time, Prance had many good knights. They had wars with Saddle Arabia and the camels of the Marehara, and they wore stupid wigs. Then they lost three wars with Trottingham. The domain has not mattered since. The end."

"But what about–"

"No," Ink insisted. "I am quite sure that is all that has happened in Prance, ever. Just smug ponies wearing stupid scarves and ugly glasses, as far as eyes can see."

"Ain't that a little, uh, racist, Mr. Ink?"

The question caught Ink's attention. "No, Applebloom. I didn't say anything about whether those ponies were unicorns or pegasi or earth ponies. Stupidity and bad fashion sense are not races. Now, we should get on with our lesson." Ink looked at the roll of maps hanging above the blackboard, and sorted through them until he found the one he wanted.

"Here we are..."

"Cloudsdale isn't in Stalliongrad!"

Ink winced. "No, Scootaloo, Cloudsdale is not in Stol'nograd. A long time ago, however, it was. Does anypony know when?"

Ink's eyes glanced briefly to the ecstatic waving of Twist's hoof, and he scanned slowly over the class.

"Ooh, Mithter Ink! I know!"

Ink found himself struggling to suppress a powerful and blunt urge. While it might be stretching the definition of 'speech-therapy', his ears would certainly find the action therapeutic. Ultimately, he had to remind himself both that she was just a filly, and that Celestia would quite literally kill him, in order to defeat the sudden magnetic attraction that sought to unite the polar opposites of her jaw and his steel-shod left hoof. Groaning, Ink gave up and acknowledged her, though he couldn't quite stop a small jab. "Thplendid, Twist. Since you're the only one in the class who seems to know anything, why don't you tell us?"

The lanky filly wilted at his comment, and Ink could not bring himself to care. Instead, he crossed his forelegs in a deliberate show of impatience, and coughed gently.

"Oh, um... that wath back when Hearthth Warming Day happened, right?"

Ink elevated his forehooves briefly, giving her a small clap which punctuated an otherwise silent classroom. Though his posture and balance were excellent, the stallion eventually had to put his forehooves back on the ground. "Yes, Twist. Eight thousand years ago, Stol'nograd was under control of three races. Pegasi from Cloudsdale, Earth Pony from Amber Field, and Unicorn from River Rock." Ink realized what information he was actually going over halfway through the thought. "You are already aware of this story, I trust?"

The class nodded.

"Good. Because when you all are my age, you will be tired enough of hearing about Commander Hurricane and Princess Platinum that you'll wake up the day after Hearth's Warming hung over in an alleyway, and you'll still think it was a good day because you didn't have to sing that song."

"Uh, what does 'hung o–"

"The point is," Ink interrupted after realizing what he had just said aloud, with all the subtlety of a bull in a porcelain overused metaphor factory, "that everypony knows the story. So we're going to skip it, and move on." Ink turned back to the sliver of chalkboard, grabbing a piece of chalk in his wing and beginning to write a series of names. "Commander Hurricane's oldest son was a pegasus named Tsyklon."

"Uh, do you mean ‘Cyclone’?" asked Pipsqueak.

"I don’t think so. That is like... dizziness? Uh..." Ink scratched his brow, thinking. Finally, giving up, he drew an enormous spiral on the board. "When clouds go like this in storms, that is his name. I do not know Equiish word for it, but it is not important.” Before the class could object, he continued. “This pony, Tsyklon, did not go with his father when Equestria was founded. He stayed in Stol'nograd."

"That's stupid!" Diamond Tiara announced. "Who'd want to stay in the snow?"

Ink's brow rose as he gave the filly a look of false curiosity. "A good question. Let me ask a similar question. Who would want to live in a backwater dump whose only attraction is that six special madmares happen to have met here?"

A clamor of voices rose up in the room, and Ink proceeded to ignore them all. His focus remained locked solidly on the pink filly who had become the object of his ire. Diamond Tiara opened her mouth to speak, and only then did Ink decided to grace the room with his thoughts.

"Do not answer that. It was hypo... hippo..."

"Hypocritical?" Sweetie Belle suggested.

"Yes, that is it. Hypocritical question." Ink ignored what sounded like snickering as he returned his thoughts to ancient history lessons collecting dust in the little wedge of his brain between 'military tactics' and 'ways I can punch my brother and get away with it'.

"Now," the stallion continued, "Tsyklon had some problems, because as Tiara was correct in observing, Stol'nograd is snowy, and it is hard to grow food. So what did he do?"

Scootaloo raised a hoof, and Ink gave her a nod.

"Uh, did he light himself on fire?"

Applebloom leaned over in her seat to box her friend over the ears.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Cause yer being thick, Scoot. If ya tried to grow a farm with fire, you'd burn everythin' down!"

"Well, maybe if you didn't put the fire right next to the plants–"

"Girls," Ink cut in. "What are we practicing in this class?"

"Uh... respect?" Scootaloo muttered.

"Yeah, that's it!" Applebloom chimed in.

"Exactly. Respect.

Ink nodded. "Respect, yes. Uvazheniye . That means not cutting off one other's thoughts. Also, Applebloom..." She withdrew under the stallion's gaze. "...that was the worst punch I have ever seen. Form is sloppy. You are more likely to hurt your ankle than the target."

There was a very extended awkward silence in the class.*

Red Ink returned to the chalkboard. "Well, there is a famous book about Tsyklon in Stol'nogradskiy. It has a funny title, and extremely short chapters, but it's actually very long. If I were to summarize, it is just ‘Tsyklon Flies East.’"

Ink's large intestine barely managed to resist collapsing in on itself as he continued his lesson unabated. "He eventually met and made a deal with King Twisted, the ruler of the dragons."

"Twisted?" somepony in the back of the room asked.

Ink nodded, scratching up a few words on the chalkboard. "Stol'nogradskiy is based on the Draconic language, but it is much nicer to listen to, without so many reptile noises. The dragon ruler was called Krenen..."

кренен

"...which means twisted or bent or malformed, because he has a stunted right leg, and he is missing a wing. He walks with a cane. Now, in Stol'nogradskiy, krenen is a very old way to say that word, and as result, his name has been shortened to..."

кренн

"Krenn. Of course, that isn't his real name, but I would not be surprise if Celestia and Luna were the only ones who know it anymore now. Now, we return to our story, yes? Tsyklon flew to Krenn, and asked him to give him heat from beneath the earth, so that the ponies in Stol'nograd could grow crops. Krenn..."

A loud yawn interrupted Ink's lecture. He turned away from the chalkboard to find the class in a general state of disinterest.

He almost lit himself on fire.

"You think Stol'nograd doesn't matter?" Ink asked, in a voice that might have been more pleasant had it not been forced to lose a ton of weight and crawl through the narrowest of spaces in his gritted teeth.

What ensued would go down in history as one of the stupidest decisions ever made.

"Well, not really, no," Diamond Tiara told the teacher. "I mean, like, who cares about a bunch of stupid ice and snow, anyway."

If Red Ink's physical strength had not been evident when he rammed a blunt shoe through the surface of his desk, it was made perfectly clear when he swatted Diamond Tiara's entire desk out from in front of her with a single foreleg. The class panicked at the show, at least at first. Foals rose from their seats, though most were too afraid to speak as they stared at the pile of splinters that had come to rest against the schoolhouse wall.

"Stand, Tiara."

She looked at him, eyes wide and genuinely afraid. Her eggshell coat grew wet at the corners of her eyes as she struggled to contain her tears, hiding behind the little strand of matted off-white mane that hung down over her face. "P-please, Mr. Ink..."

He blinked, and the colors returned. Pink. She was pink. Not that filly. He staggered backwards into the desk of another student, tripped on the leg of a stool, and collapsed.

The foals were staring, confused, as Mr. Ink held a shuddering hoof over his own eyes for far too long. Yet nopony asked if he was okay. In their eyes, spelled out in letters too plain to ignore, he could see why.

Fear.

"Go... go outside, class. Having break. Recess. I need... need advice."

September 1st, 1452 A.S.
Schoolhouse Road, Ponyville
1101 Hours

"Well, that was close, Doctor" muttered Derpy as she adjusted her mailbag. "I thought we were going to be too late."

"Oh, do relax, Derpy. You've been through this enough times to know things always turn out okay. Why, we practically had all the time in the world. And I..." The brown stallion in the red tie and white dress collar stopped. "Why, my good sir, what seems to be the problem?"

The 'problem' in question was a 'fresh blood' coated stallion with a 'dried blood' mane, sitting just outside the door to the schoolhouse with his chin on his forehooves, staring blankly at the ground. "Nothing," he mumbled, with the thick tones of Stalliongrad filling his word.

The brown stallion responded with a crisp Trottingham accent of his own. "Well, I dare say that if 'nothing' were the problem, then I wouldn't find you out here moping about, would I? Do tell, it's not as if we bite. Or shall I guess? Did you have a bad breakfast?" He waited for a reaction, but got nothing from Ink's face. "Trouble with the misses?" Nothing. "An obnoxious exterminator won't leave your home, and keeps shouting his job through his gasmask in a monotone voice?" Then the stallion gave a false gasp as if coming to a sudden realization and leaned in close. "Did you eat a pear?"

"Doctor," Derpy scolded, grabbing the stallion by the scruff of his mane. "Stop bothering Mr. Ink."

"Oh, you know him, Derpy?"

Ink looked up. "Have we met?" He was sure he would have remembered those eyes... had he punched her too hard?

"No, but you're Dinky's teacher." Derpy extended a hoof. "I'm Derpy. This is the Doctor."

"Do–"

"Don't say it!" the stallion interrupted. After a moment of tense silence, his muscles relaxed, and he exhaled. "Thank you. Just 'Doctor' will do."

"So... it is not 'the Doctor?'"

"Well, that's quite complicated, and I think I'll spare you the explanation. Suffice it to say that both work just fine."

Derpy nodded. "It's really complicated. Anyway, what's wrong, Mr. Ink? Why are you outside when class is going on?" The gray mare gave a wide and genuine smile.

"Well..." Ink sighed. "I lost my temper at one of the students, and–"

Trotter Louis Stallionson would have been proud of the transformation that followed. Derpy's eyes focused to a single point of undiluted rage. "IF YOU HURT DINKY, CELESTIA HELP ME–"

"Derpy, calm down! You're doing it again!"

"I'LL MAIL YOU HOME IN TINY BOXES!" Derpy's wings ignited in flames, yet Ink could not even tear his eyes away from hers, given the sheer might of her Empatha.

Sighing, the Doctor reached... behind his tie?... and pulled out a long slender metal object with a blue tip. Acting quickly, he thrust it against Derpy's flank. After a sort of whirring noise issued from the glowing blue tip, her eyes lost focus and she just sort of fell backwards. "Muffins?"

"Yes, dear, on the way home." He reached out a hoof and pulled the mare back from Ink's face. "Apologies, Mr... Ink, was it? She's quite protective of her daughter, though she's really quite a nice mare."

"What did you do?" Ink asked the earth pony. "What was that thing?"

"Oh, this?" Somehow spinning the little metal tube around his hoof, he smiled. "Well, it's a miniature jet injector–like an injection needle, only without the needle. I had it custom made. It has a mild anesthetic in it right now, and I only gave her a quarter dose. She'll come about... well, right about now."

On cue, Derpy rubbed her eyes. "Oh... well, that was no fun. I'm sorry, Mr. Ink. Dinky is okay, right?"

"Dinky is fine... I think. Which one is she?"

"Little purple unicorn, blonde mane, cutest smile in the entire world..." The Doctor shot Derpy a small grin.

Ink, however, raised a brow, glancing between a pegasus and an earth pony. "Unicorn...?"

"Oh, I'm not the father," the Doctor clarified. "I was still in the Guard proper when she was born."

"Guard proper?"

The Doctor nodded. "Reserves now; actually, you'd be surprised how much of the population of Ponyville is reserve guardsponies. I think Princess Celestia is a little bit protective of her student." He chuckled, and then leaned forward to whisper in Ink's ear. "But I'm sure you already realized that Commandant."

"Wait, you know–"

"Well, I've got an appointment with the mayor, and it wouldn't do to be late." Ink's eyes widened as the Doctor chuckled and stuck his... jet-thingy... back into his tie, where it seemed to completely disappear. "So let me leave you with this, Mr. Ink. If you waste your time trying to go back in time, you'll drive yourself insane. The only thing to do is, well, soldier on."

Ink stared as the earth pony smiled and ran off, muttering something in Prench under his breath as his hooves carried him away. The soldier's mouth hung open until he felt a gentle hoof push it shut.

"He's like that sometimes," Derpy explained. "I don't really understand it either." Then the same hoof on Red Ink's chin pulled his head around to look her in her wild eyes. "Now, I don't know what all that was about, but you seem like a nice enough pony. Everypony makes mistakes, right? I know I do." She giggled lightly at a joke he didn't quite understand. "Anyway, you should go back in there, tell that pony you're sorry, and go back to teaching. Now, I do need to get back to work too. Have a nice day." Derpy smiled and took off, before turning to hover at about the height of the school building roof. "Oh, and one more thing. I meant what I said about Dinky."

It took Ink twenty seconds to build up the strength to swallow.

September 1st, 1452 A.S.
Ponyville Schoolhouse Playground
1104 Hours

Some twelve seconds after finishing his conversation with Derpy, Mr. Ink had found his way around the side of the schoolhouse building to where the fillies and colts were playing. Or rather, had been playing. They all stopped as he approached, watching him.

Unsure of what else to do, Ink spoke to them. "You can all, uh, go back playing. Tiara, can I speak with you?"

The foals all tentatively returned to their activities, save the pink filly who had been called out. She hesitated in approaching Ink, and did so slowly, without meeting his gaze. She stopped nearly four full strides from where he had taken a seat, and called out to him uncomfortably. "Yeah?"

"I..." He took a deep sigh as he built up the effort to force the words out of himself. "I must apologize. Losing my temper, it was not fair to you."

"Oh." Diamond looked up. "I'm not in trouble?"

"No," he told her. "Though you would be smart not insulting Stol'nograd to other ponies. Many powerful and dangerous pony are coming from there."

"Okay..." Diamond muttered. "Well, can I go back and play now?"

Ink shrugged. "Help yourself."

In literary tradition, Ink might have expected to feel a great weight lifted off his soul, yet for the pleasure that Diamond's forgiveness gave him, the blots on his past were no less weighty. Instead, he still found himself facing doubt as his eyes scanned the playground, watching foals swing and spin on the merry-go-round and play an incredibly disorganized game of hoofball. Yet in their glances he saw fear–not so outright as before, and not so paralyzing, but present nevertheless.

"Hey Mr. Ink."

He turned to the orange filly with the unruly purple mane as she approached. "You are... Scootaloo, yes?"

She nodded with a little smile. "That's me. So, uh... can I ask you a favor?"

"What is it?"

"Well," Scootaloo took a moment to glance around the playground before continuing. "See, Rainbow Dash was helping teach me how to fly. Only, after she got back from Zebrica a few weeks ago, she's kinda been... keeping to herself. I was hoping I could practice and get better so I could impress her."

Knowing nothing better to do in the conversation, Ink skipped to the end. "You want me to help you fly?"

"Uh, yeah. I just need help getting in the air, so I can practice gliding and trimming with the wind and stuff."

"Okay." Ink held out a hoof.

Scootaloo was familiar with the practice. She would climb onto the older pony's hoof, and let them lift her up, providing the strength of full-sized wings while her smaller pair controlled her trim as she flapped.

Unfortunately, Red Ink was not familiar with this idea.

We now go to Mr. John Magnum for commentary of this amazing play.

"Why thank you," the older stallion in the Hawaiian shirt replied. "Now, as you can see here, the Stalliongradian Quarterback takes the foal in the hike. From there's he's up on his hind legs, great posture. Look at this step. Count it with me. One, two, three, and then back up and throw. It's like he's got a cannon for an arm! Let's see that again."

The stallion grabbed a yellow marker as the scene rewound, and began to play again in slow motion.

"Now you can see here," he highlighted around Ink's hoof. "the pacing here is gorgeous. You just don't see this kinda attention to detail in the modern sport anymore..."

Magnum rambled on as his yellow marker came to dominate the instant replay. Meanwhile, Scootaloo found herself rather high in the air, and moving incredibly fast, relative to the speed with which Rainbow would usually carry her. It took her a very short moment to realize that Ink wasn't holding onto her belly.

Then she screamed.

September 1st, 1452 A.S.
Ponyville Schoolhouse
1238 Hours

The door swung slowly open to reveal the silhouette of a terrible, but rather small, bog monster. The class stared in confusion and silent fear, though Mr. Ink mostly seemed amused.

"You are okay, Scootaloo?"

"Yeah," the filly answered, pulling the tree sap out of her mane as she stepped into the interior light. What seemed like most of a tree was sticking out of her mane. "It just took a long time to walk back from Froggy Bottom Bog."

Sweetie Belle's jaw dropped. "He threw you almost three miles?"

"I think I caught an updraft," Scootaloo replied. "I landed pretty softly, though, so that's something. Anyway, Mr. Ink, what did I miss?"

Ink resisted the urge to respond with 'the entire Everfree Forest, thankfully', and instead chose a less gruesome answer. "Oh," Ink looked around the room. "Uh, class, physics time is done now. We are going to do activity I told you about after recess. So stand up from desks, please, and we will begin. Diamond Tiara, come forward and stand at the front of the class."

As the filly moved up, Ink pulled out from behind his desk a rather large metal bucket filled with water. Reaching into his pocket, he removed a dozen bits, and dropped them into the water. Before they had drifted down all the way through, he placed his wing on the surface of the water and froze it solid. The class ooh'd at the display of magic, to which Ink shrugged. "That was not strong magic. Only a bucketful. I am not good at ice." Having concluded his work, he hauled the bucket off to the corner of the room, and then moved back to the front.

Diamond Tiara made looked to her teacher with considerably less trepidation than her previous approach. "Yes, Mr. Ink?"

"Congratulations, dear," Ink told her with a dry sarcasm that escaped the grasps of much of the class. "You are now Baron Frostbite."

"What?" Diamond asked, cocking her head in confusion.

Ink waved his wing toward the standing students in the classroom. "You are now the ruler of the Domain of Stol'nograd, and these are your subjects. You can do whatever you want with them." Horror flashed across the faces of the class as a wide grin grew on Diamond Tiara's.

Ink's explanation, however, was not done. "You will need some to go out and work the freezing fields. You will need some to stand guard against the dragons on the wall to the east. And the rest can work in the city, in warm houses, enjoying life. But if you have too few farming, your ponies will starve. And if you have too few on the wall, the dragons will sneak in, and burn down your cities like they did to Coltpenhagen thirteen years ago. So choose."

"Hey!" Applebloom called out. "Why does she get ta' be the Baron?"

"Because," Ink responded calmly. "She was born the wealthy third son of a noble from Canterlot. Her blood is the blood of Lord Iron Curtain, and Princess Platinum, and Commander Hurricane, and ultimately all the way back to Princess Celestia herself. She was born to rule. Raised to rule." Despite the drama in his words, Ink's voice was dull, flat, and deliberately unconvincing. "How could some commoner from Stol'nograd hope to compare?"

"Exactly," Diamond Tiara announced, with considerably more enthusiasm than Ink had. "Silver Spoon, come here. You get to be with me!"

"Totally!" The duo did a little dance number, and then looked out at the rest of the class. "Like... what should we do with the rest of them, Diamond?"

"Ooh! I know!" Diamond smiled predatorily as she turned her attention toward the Cutie Mark Crusaders. "I want all the blank-flanks to work the fields."

"Do you know this story?" Ink muttered to himself as he looked Diamond's direction. She didn't hear him. He turned his attention to the Crusaders. "Well, you heard the Baron. Get the bits."

"What?" Scootaloo asked.

"It's solid ice," Sweetie Belle complained.

"Ah don' wanna!" Applebloom shouted, pounding a hoof on her desk with finality. "It ain't fair, Mr. Ink!"

"Life isn't fair," Ink observed. "Diamond, are you just going to take that from her?"

Diamond looked up at her teacher with excitement. "You mean I get to make her shut up?"

"Well, you could always send her to the wall. Lots of ponies freeze to death there. Some even get eaten by dragons."

"Ooh!" Diamond Tiara rubbed her hooves together. "Alright, everypony, here's how this is gonna work. If you're a blankflank, get farming. If you complain about it like Applebloom, you get to go to the wall."

"Applebloom," Ink directed. "Go to the back wall, and stand on your hind legs with your forehooves up."

"Why?"

"Because otherwise the Baron's secret police with throw you over the wall, and you'll freeze to death or get eaten for sure," Ink answered. "Stol'nograd does not tolerate dead weight."

Grumbling under her breath, Applebloom made her way to 'the wall'. Meanwhile, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were joined by Pipsqueak, Dinky, and a few other young foals as they beat their hooves against the ice and shivered at the cold.

"The rest of you get to live in the city," Diamond told the class. Ink watched the students that relaxed back in their seats, noting the discomfort on most of their faces as they watched their friends being mistreated.

Ink spoke up, his voice commanding the attention of everypony in the room. "This, class, is what Stol'nograd was like twenty years ago. Only, instead of blank flanks, we had earth ponies forced to work the fields, and in addition to prisoners and dissenters, pegasi were put on the wall. It was a life, though not a comfortable one. Pegasi are more resistant to the cold, and serve better as scouts and soldiers. Earth ponies' magic allows them to grow more crops. But, as Applebloom put it, it was not fair. Unicorns ruled the cities, living in the warmth and controlling the money."

A hoof was raised, and Ink gestured to it.

"Why didn't Princess Celestia do anything?"

Ink nodded. "Well, at first, she allowed Baron Frostbite's actions because they were necessary. Most of you are too young to remember this–I was younger than most of you when it happened, but the Dragon Wars leveled most of the Domain. Forced work orders were necessary to reseed fields and cut down wood to rebuild homes. The threat of dragons made ponies willing to serve on the wall. Everypony did their part."

"But after that–" the foal protested.

"After that, Princess Celestia did do something. She sent a guardspony."

"One guardspony?" somepony else asked.

"A special guardspony..." Ink muttered, as his eyes scanned the room. "Pipsqueak, come to the front of the room, please."

"Me, sir?" he asked in his amusing accent.

"Yes, you. Come on up."

Pipsqueak darted forward. "Who'm I, Mr. Ink?"

"Your name is Commander Steel Lining. You are the Captain of the Honor Guard, Princess Celestia's personal bodyguard, and the hero of the Dragon Wars." As the long list of titles progressed, Pipsqueak's eyes grew wider and wider. "You've come because you and Princess Celestia are worried about how the ponies of Stol'nograd are being treated. So tell me, Commander, what do you think about Stol'nograd?"

Ink had to give the colt credit for the resolve he lent to his role. "It ain't fair!"

"And what are you doing about it?"

"I'm gonna go tell Princess Celestia!"

"Really?" Ink asked, before catching himself. "Ah, I shouldn't expect you understanding these politics. It would be bad if Stol'nograd did not become free because of native ponies, or so Commander Lining thinks. So he decided he would get ponies inside of Stol'nograd to help, instead of bringing in an army. So now, Commander, who do you go to if you want to find ponies who want to change Stol'nograd?"

"Oh, uh, Applebloom! And Rumble and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo and–"

"The blank flanks," Ink interrupted. "That seem like a smart choice. Hm... Actually, this will do nicely. Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Rumble, and..." Ink's eyes wandered the cluster of blank flanks by his frozen barrel before alighting on a purple unicorn with a loose blonde mane reminiscent of her mother's. "...Dinky. Coming up to front, please."

Diamond Tiara's eyes widened in fear as her temporary power began to slip through her hooves. Ink took a bit of amusement in this before he began to speak. "Now, class, there will be several names here, so I will write them for you on the board, in Stol'nogradskiy and then in Equiish, along with what they mean." Ink grabbed a piece of chalk. "First up, Dinky, you will be Watchful Eye."

Бдительное Око – Bbditel'noje Oko – Watchful Eye

"Now, Watchful Eye is an alicorn. Does anypony know what 'alicorn' is?" Ink scanned the class before rolling his eyes. "Yes, Twist?"

"An alicorn ith a printhethth."

Ink winced before nodding. "Yes, that's one way to put it. An alicorn is a pony like Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. A winged unicorn, some ponies say. But alicorns have all three types of magic – unicorn magic, earth pony magic, and pegasus magic."

"Earth ponies have magic?" somepony asked.

Ink nodded. "We will talk that later. But yes. Now, important thing to remember, class, is that not all alicorns are princess, or even prince. Watchful Eye was not a noble pony. His parents were an earth pony and a pegasus."

"A doctor earth pony and a mailmare pegasus?" Dinky asked with excitement.

"Uh... sure, why not?" Ink shrugged, having basically no knowledge of his grandparents’ occupations. The dragons had killed them both. Nevertheless, his acknowledgement had put a smile on Dinky's face. "Now, Watchful Eye had three sons. A unicorn, and then two pegasi. The unicorn was the oldest, and his name..."

Предвидение – Predvidenie – Foresight

"...was Foresight. Today, Sweetie Belle is going be our Foresight."

The filly nodded. "Okay."

"We'll come back to you in a moment, Sweetie. Scootaloo, you next. Watchful Eye's next son was a pegasus, he named Roscherk Krovyu."

Росчерк кровью – Roscherk Krovyu –

Ink paused for a moment considering what to put. He didn't want to put Red Ink, not only because it was wrong, but because he had no intention of revealing his part in the story to his students. After a while, he filled in the blank.

"Roscherk Krovyu means something like to take blood, and make writing with it. But most often, I have heard it translated like this."

Blood Stroke

"Blood Stroke?" Diamond Tiara asked. "Who'd name their foal that?"

"I don't know," Ink answered, unable to resist himself. "Who would name their foal after something as superficial as expensive clothing?"

Thankfully, Diamond didn't seem to catch on. Ink smiled just a little as he continued. "Watchful Eye's last son will be Rumble, because his colors are close. Just a bit more blue or purple to his mane and coat."

The little colt stared up at Ink, and the grown stallion nodded. "This last son was named Midnight."

Полночь – Polnoch' – Midnight

"Now, Baron Frostbite..." Ink paused, waiting. "Ahem. Baron Frostbite."

"What?" Diamond asked. "Oh, right, that's me. Sorry."

"You have a problem, Baron. You are supposed to be the pony with the blood right to rule Stol'nograd, but here there is an alicorn. And everypony believes that alicorns come from royal blood, whether they are known to be royal or not. Your ponies are starting to ask why you should be allowed to stay in power. What are you going to do about it?"

"Send her to the wall!" Diamond Tiara said without missing a beat.

Ink shook his head. "Wrong, Baron. Think for a second. If you sent Watchful Eye to the wall, he would be among many other ponies who also do not like you, correct?"

"Well, yeah, so?"

"So what happens if those ponies group together? What happens if they rise up against you?" Diamond gulped, and Ink nodded. "Right. The real Baron Frostbite saw this threat. So his plan instead was to welcome Watchful Eye into his family. Keep your friends close, enemies closer, is phrase?"

"I think so," Sweetie Belle told him.

"Close enough, then. Well, Frostbite took in Watchful Eye. It was his intention to solve two problems in one go. You see, Frostbite did not have any heir to take his place as Baron."

"Heir?" Scootaloo asked.

"It means kids. He didn't have any kids."

"Why not?" Diamond Tiara asked.

Ink paused, and then smiled. "Well, see, Frostbite was too busy trying to get other stallions' lollipops." And then scolding himself, he added "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

"Oooh," Twist noted, sending a chill down Ink's spine. "Tho when you thaid he wanted your brotherth lollipopth, you actually meant that he wanted to thuck hith–"

"Yes! I mean no! I mean... just, stop, please." Ink buried his face in a wing for a moment, until he was certain the onslaught was over, and then cleared his throat. "Right. Well, what matters here is that Frostbite wanted Watchful Eye's sons." The class stared at him, and Ink slowly realized what he had said. "The sons he already had. Foresight, Re– er, Blood Stroke, and Midnight."

"Oh!" the class observed in collective understanding.

"Right. So Baron Frostbite paid for Foresight to go to a bunch of fancy, expensive, stupid colleges in Canterlot and Trottingham and Prance, and he started wearing a bunch of really ugly scarves..." Ink realized he was rambling, and cut himself off. "Meanwhile, because they were pegasi, Blood Stroke and Midnight were given high-ranking positions in Frostbite's guard, who everypony called the Secret Police."

"If everypony knew what to call them," Pipsqueak asked, "wouldn't they not be secret anymore?"

"Well, they weren't really secret. They were just called the secret police. It... don't worry about it, okay. What matters is this: Dinky, you don't have to work in the fields anymore. Your family gets comfortable, important jobs, and some day, your eldest son will be the Baron of Stol'nograd. How does that make you feel?"

Dinky looked around the classroom and shook her head. "But my friends are still over there..."

"Exactly," Ink noted, patting Dinky on the head with a wing. "So one day, Commander Lining came to visit Watchful Eye, and they hatched a plan to fix Stol'nograd. Revolution."

Ink stepped over to stand behind Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Rumble.

"Now, in many ways, Watchful Eye's sons were perfect team. Foresight was genius of numbers and logistics. He could feed army better than Frostbite, and get ponies from place to place easily. He also knew strong, rare magic if things became dangerous. Blood Stroke was a great soldier, and Commander Lining taught him to use powerful pegasus magic. And while Midnight was also a soldier, his great skill was manipulating the weather. He was fast enough and strong enough to push away the clouds of Stol'nograd, if only for a few minutes. And he could build a cloudstone wall faster than anypony else I've ever heard of. He made bunkers, and barracks, and he let their ponies march without dealing with the strongest of wind and snow. His dream was to end the storm over Stol'nograd, but first they needed freedom from Baron Frostbite."

Ink sighed. "But there was one more they needed, Commander Lining insisted. A hero for the common pony who had not lived with Baron Frostbite in Burning Hearth Castle. Somepony who the earth ponies and the pegasi would stand behind because they shared in pain."

Ink turned to the back of the room, his face drawn with grim determination. "Applebloom, come here."

"Alright!" Scootaloo exclaimed.

"No," Ink answered, putting a calming wing on Scootaloo's back. "This role is not as happy as the others." The teacher rolled his neck, forcing deep breaths to control his emotions. "So Commander Lining and Midnight went to the wall, and there they found their pony. An earth pony mare named Stoikaja... she calls herself Soldier On in Equiish."

Стойкая – Stoikaja – Soldier On

Ink looked to Applebloom. "Stoi–sorry, Soldier On, was a huge mare, stronger than most buffalo, but she had been sent to the wall when one of her foals was accused of stealing a golden necklace from a noble."

"She was a mom?" Applebloom asked.

Ink nodded. "Though she was young. I believe... nineteen or twenty, when she had second foal, and joined the rebellion."

The guardspony could see their faces when he let his mind wander back. So worried about their mother, as if there were anything Frostbite could throw at her that would even make her bleed. He could see the way Predvidenie held them on his back, as the unicorn stayed back from the fight, directing the war alongside Mentor with nothing more than a map and a ledger.

"Somethin' wrong, Mr. Ink?"

The stallion returned to the present at the sound of the accented voice. "No. Nothing, Applebloom. Now, I am not going to lecture you in battles and tactics. You would not remember, and most of you would not care. But here is what is important to know: the curse of Hearth's Warming is still strong in Stol'nograd, and when the ponies there fight one another, the storm grows worse. That is why it was named the Blizzard Revolution. For almost two years, the Domain had worst storms in its history. In summer, winds blew like the worst of winters. In winter, you could freeze to death walking across the street. Ponies suffocated in their homes when they were buried under snow. Others starved. It was terrible..." Ink sighed. "...but it was a short pain, to free Stol'nograd from ponies like Frostbite forever. And that is what happened."

Ink collapsed backward, sighing gently. "Go back to your seats."

The class, attentions still riveted on Ink, scrambled back to their stools. Ink looked over them with weary eyes. "After fighting all across the Domain, the rebel army finally reached the city of Stol'nograd. Ponies loyal to Frostbite, mostly unicorns, fought in the streets. It was brutal. The rebels were hardly a trained force. The blizzard was too harsh, and supplies too short, to stop and train. Even in the winters, when fighting stopped for the sake of survival, nopony could do anything in those cramped holes. The rebel army could never beat Frostbite's force... but there was a plan, so that they did not have to."

Ink brushed back his mane with a hoof. "The army marched on Burning Hearth Castle. It was a bloodbath, going up the narrow, icy path on the cliffs, with unicorn magic raining down from all sides and pegasi pushing the soldiers off the cliffs to their deaths. But Soldier On and Midnight fought it, and because of that, the army was drawn away from Burning Hearth Castle itself."

"Did Baron Frostbite fight in the battle?" Pipsqueak asked.

Ink shook his head. "He stayed in the castle, watching from a window in his study, with two fireplaces to keep him warm, and his personal elite guard to keep him safe. At least, that's what he thought. But Commander Lining and Foresight had found an old book that told of a secret passage into the castle from the valley below. The Commander and Blood Stroke snuck into the castle, and killed Baron Frostbite's guards."

Unable to contain the suspense, one of the students spoke up. "Did they kill him?"

"No," Ink answered. "At least, not at first. They captured Frostbite, and then they snapped off his horn."

Most of the foals winced. A few unicorns, familiar with the pain of just hitting their heads too hard, sheltered their heads. Ink nodded somberly, though inside he had no regrets for what he had done.

"Then they dragged him outside, up to the balcony of the castle, and the fighting stopped. The loyalists surrendered. The revolution was over."

"But what happened to Baron Frostbite?" Pipsqueak asked.

Ink sighed. "I told you earlier about how Frostbite would throw ponies over the wall. Let them freeze to death, or be eaten by dragons." The class' eyes widened, and Ink nodded. "Blood Stroke threw Frostbite over the wall, with robes, and oil, flint, and steel for a fire."

"Why all that?"

"Because it is said that freezing to death is as painless as falling asleep. But ponies who lost legs and wings when the dragons attacked... they say the alternative is much more painful."

After a long period of silence, Ink glanced at the clock. "Now, Miss Cheerilee says to remind you, Family Appreciation Day is next week. Remember to find family you can bring. And... class dismissed."

Before the students had even filed out, Ink's head hit the desk, and he was lost in his memories.

*Ink's mind imagined that the pause probably lasted about as long as it would take for an arbitrary hypothetical reader to glance not merely to the bottom of their page, but all the way to the appendix of their book, and then look up the item in question. That is to say, the pause lasted a long time, and subsequently, it also became very awkward and jarring. It disrupted the flow of the class, much as a poorly used and inappropriate hoofnote would. Thankfully, this brief lapse in his imagination only stole his attention for a short time before he returned his thoughts to the regular flow of the class.

You Only Live Thrice, Part I

VI

You Only Live Thrice

Part I

You Only Live Thrice

Once when you are born,

Once when you look Death in the face,

And once when you rise from your grave for revenge.

How many syllables was this supposed to have, again?

-The Last (and first) Haiku of Commander Hurricane,

dated November 10th, 18 Age of the Founding

September 8th, 1452 A.S.
Ponyville Marketplace
0937 Hours

Seven hooded heads hissed in near-unison as the massive spades that served as the creature's feet tromped out after its prey. The pale green unicorn fleeing from the creature screamed at the top of her lungs, though it took some time for the noise to develop into an actual thought.

"Hydra!"

Ponyville Marketplace would have erupted into chaos, if it honestly hadn't already reached that point. However, Lyra's announcement had been rather pre-dated by the sheer amount of noise that a creature of such gargantuan proportions made in the process of bashing down trees and sliding over boulders. Nearly everypony was running.

At one particular stall, a stallion in a heavy jacket was staring at an array of fine cutlery as the mare who owned the wares in question tugged on his burly shoulders. "You've gotta get out of here!"

"I don't see why I should," the Ponyville schoolteacher answered with utter apathy as the tower of serpentine death bore down toward him at a reasonably alarming rate. "I am not done."

The mare, whose name was probably some pun on forks and spoons, gritted her teeth and groaned at him. "You're going to be done forever if you don't leave!"

"I doubt that." Ink's eyes surveyed the wares once more, and then lit up at an item he hadn't noticed before. Given it's size, such a lack of perception was something of a miracle, though the hissing of an approaching hydra and the tugging of an insistent mare might have had something to do with it. Still, a kitchen knife three-feet in length isn't something one easily misses.

Before the insignificantly named silverware pony could say anything further he grabbed the sword–and really, why bother pretending otherwise? –and flew off in what most other sane and well-meaning ponies would have labeled 'the wrong direction'.

"Wait, you're going to–" began a long and tiring list of words which formed a sentence entirely inapplicable to a stallion who had, in his youth, written "monster hunter" on a job application with absolute sincerity. By the time they were done, the first hydra head was bleeding on the street, writhing and squirming and other delectable gerunds best left to the imagination.

The rest of the creature recoiled in the pain of decapitation which surely need not be described, given the natural familiarity every reader ought to have with the sensation. Suffice it to say that the same pain which coursed through the creature's nerves also left it off guard to the burly pegasus who had turned on a metaphorical bit and set his wings on fire.

Since the conclusion of this so-called 'battle' was entirely foregone the moment Ink decided to involve himself, this narrative will now skip what is surely an item of no particular interest to anyone. Who would honestly want to hear about the speed with which Ink dove between the creature's necks and spun in midair, lashing out with his 'kitchen knife' of titanic proportions, severing heads and laughing as the creature grew back more in their places? What purpose would be served in described the terrible gash on his shoulder that ceased its bleeding and shed its poison in a burst of flame? All that matters is that, in the end, Roscherk has a small scrape on the end of his coat, and was carrying a large, charred black hydra skull on his back. A rather wet explosion issued from the charred and fully decapitated corpse behind him. Rather than looking back, he pulled a pair of sunglasses from his coat, slid them onto his face, and calmly walked forward into the crowd that had assembled to watch his victory. They were, in a word, dumbfounded.

"No need to thank me," he told them, pride dripping from his every word as his wings waved off the applause he was sure would erupt at any moment. "Wasn't even that hard."

"Y– you k-k-killed it…"

In a moment of silence, Ink's wing lowered his sunglasses down his muzzle to stare at the speaker. A teenaged purple-ish pegasus was staring with wide eyes at the stew covering the streets of the marketplace. Slowly, his eyes scanned the crowd, and noted that in the place of the public applause he might have earned in a more 'civilized' Domain, the collective ponies of Ponyville seemed to share the mare's shock.

"Well, no shit I killed it," Roscherk answered her in disbelief, and simultaneously embracing a bit of vocabulary that had been his constant companion in hs native Stalliongradi, but had only recently been translate to Equiish. "What were you expecting? That I use the 'friendship magic' stopping it?"

After a painfully long pause, at least a dozen ponies nodded. Ink's hoof met his face hard enough to shatter his sunglasses.

"Would you rather I let it eat you? Crushing homes, and destroying families? It is…" He glanced back at the meaty mess. "It was a hydra! A mindless, unfeeling killing machine! A monster!"

A familiar voice pushed its way through the crowd. "Strictly speaking, Mr. Ink, that hydra was far from being mindless, although I can understand the misconception. Rather than separate brains in each of its skulls, a hydra has only a single central brain inside it's chest cavity, roughly adjacent to its spleen. You can see it if you–" Twilight Sparkle pushed her way out of the small mass of ponies, at which point her jaw dropped at the mess Ink had made. "O-oh. You blew it up." She didn't seem to have room in her voice for any expression save utter shock at the gory landscape before her.

"Hydra blood burns like oil. Bad trait for fighting me." Roscherk shrugged. "You were about to say something stupid, about how hydra has feelings too, and I should not be splattering it all over houses? Or are you merely irritated by new paintjob for the town?" Ink took a moment to enjoy the dripping stains on the market stalls. "I like it."

"It's completely unsanitary!"

"Somepony tell Rainbow Dash it would be good to be getting rain to wash off the stalls before they dry. Unless you are fans of green paint."

A whimpering noise drew the attention of the arguing ponies, and they turned back to where Twilight had previously carved her swath through the stunned crowd. A butter yellow mare stared at the mess that had formerly been a sentient creature.

"Wh-what happened?"

Ink gulped visibly, scolding himself in his mental monologue. How could I have been so greedy? So thoughtless? I should have shared–it wasn't as if there weren't enough heads for both of us.

"I'm so sorry, Fluttershy–"

"You killed it?" she asked with gentle but hollow tones, eyes wide with shock, lids quivering on the verge of tears. "You murdered a defenseless creature? Just because it was hungry?"

Twilight cut in. "Not to be insensitive here, Fluttershy, but it was a hydra. I don't think 'defenseless' is the right word."

Roscherk shook his head slowly, as his mind lagged behind his tongue. "No, she's right, Sparkle. It was pretty defenseless, at least against me." As Fluttershy's shock and sorrow turned into a focused, quite literally magical force of unstoppable willpower, Ink realized what he had actually just said. "I should have waited, shouldn't I–"

His words ended not with a verbal interruption, but with the force of a Stare so potent it sent a physical shockwave sweeping over the crowd. "Yes, you should have. And you should also be ashamed of yourself, Mister Ink. You… you…" Fluttershy's Rant lost the lower-right leg of its initial letter, devolving into a slow and steady Pant. After a moment, her legs quivered, and she fell to the ground clutching her forehead. "Oh my. I've never felt so tired…"

"Your Empatha is strong," Roscherk noted, still struggling to shake off the feeling of overwhelming fear tinged with shame. "But I would guess you never use it on another pegasus before, right? My magic fought back yours; that is why you are tired." He shook his wings briefly, as if shivering off a layer of snow. "Never have I seen such will; even mentor could not match you eye to eye; then again, I would be surprised to see you wield wind and thunder as he did, or fire as I do." He unleashed a small chuckle, lost on the crowd, and moved to where some of the hydra's blacked and crisp bones still remained mostly intact. After glancing at the pile for a moment, he lifted the skull and set it on his back, balanced between his wings. "Eat something, and calm yourself, and you will heal quickly, Fluttershy. If you would like, I would love to buy you brea–"

"Not the time, Roscherk," Twilight interrupted.

"Ugh, fine," the stallion answered. His eyes then wandered to the crowd. "Well, what are you standing for? Nothing more to see. Back to shopping or eating or whatever it is boring ponies do. Unless somepony is willing to offer me a job, that is."

As the crowd dispersed, delayed only by a cluster of ponies guiding the fatigued Fluttershy aside, Twilight made her way up to her houseguest. "Why are you looking for a job? You should get going; you're late for class!"

"Cherry Lee, or whatever name is, returned today. Too bad, too. I had been hoping to teach students magic." Somewhere, forty-odd grateful parents felt a sudden pang of relief, and had no conscious knowledge of why. "But now she is back, and substitute is out of work."

Twilight's eyes widened. "Oh! Uh, actually, I've got this letter for you here." Twilight's magic fiddled with a saddlebag Ink hadn't previously noticed at her side. After a moment's trouble, she offered him a tightly bound scroll, bearing a rather ornate wax seal emblazoned with the icon of a crescent moon.

"Let us see what this says," Ink noted, as his wing tore the letter open.

"Dear Mr. Ink,

I know we had agreed you would be soob– no, subs… sub-stit-uh-ting–"

"It's substituting… for me for just a few days, but I'm afraid something rather urgent has come up here with my sister–the one who's wedding I left to attend in the first place. I have no idea just how long I will be gone for, but as you've probably guessed, it will be more than a week. I hope to be home by the first snow, but until then, I'm afraid that the education of Ponyville's foals lies in your hooves.

Well, perhaps 'afraid' isn't what I really mean. I confess when I found you in the Chair-tree-use–"

"That's 'chartreuse'."

"Oh, the vomit color!" Ink chuckled, before turning back to the page. "…the Chartreuse Café, I was quite desperate, but at the same time, I had never seen you teach. For all I knew, you were just some pony who had no teaching experience at all. So I pulled your records…" Ink looked up very slowly. "Oh. Shit."

Twilight turned a very peculiar shade of white, reminiscent of a hemophobe sealed into the vault of a blood bank. "We're going to prison…"

Ink took a slow breath, and shook his head. "If she were going to turn me in, I would not be getting a letter. She is smart. Blackmail, most likely; she does not know I am a soldier." He took a slow breath. "This will be easy to fix. Is there a musician's shop in town?"

"Musician's shop?"

Ink nodded. "I will need you to dig me a trench, and get some lime out of that chemistry lab you keep in your basement. I will get some piano wire, and…" Ink slowly realized the look he was earning from the other mare. "You do not like my solution? What will you do? Turn her into frog?"

"That's a ridiculous myth. Unicorns don't turn other ponies into frogs! It would need to be something in the same taxonomic class, at least–a dog or a ferret would be a good choice." It was Twilight's turn to realize what she was saying, and shake her head. "But that's not the point! We aren't going to do anything to Cheerilee. She's an incredibly nice mare, and unlike somepony who comes to mind, she's never hurt anypony."

"Then I suppose I will actually have to pay her what she wants… let's see here… So I pulled your records, and I was impressed that you had worked as a Professor at West Hoof Military Academy?"

Twilight's eyes widened. "Wait, you worked at West Hoof?"

Ink chuckled. "You were supposed to be smart, Twilight. It seems I have… what is the term, bodyguard angel?"

"That would be a 'guardian angel'."

"Meh, bodyguard angel is more badass. But my point is that Princess lied for me. I am safe." Ink's wing burst into flame, incinerating the letter. "Well, I ought to be at work, then. Have a good day, Twilight."

"Yeah, you too… I hope Cheerilee is alright. I'd hate to be stuck away from home for so long."

Two Days Earlier

Cheerilee found herself in a surprisingly good mood when she was awoken in the middle of the night in her own hotel bedroom, by a vampony leaning over her sleeping form. He was a huge burly creature, rather than the thin and gallant stallions who filled the rather intimate fantasies of young attractive schoolteachers everywhere. He wasn't leaning over her neck to feed on her or… well, the word ravage came to mind. Still, she imagined she could make do. Her mind wandered over all the things he could do with those fangs of his, hanging out over the gentle line of his lower lip.

"Good night," he noted with a peculiar accent, helping himself to the free soda provided in the hotel's mini-fridge. "Thirsty?"

"I could go for something to drink," she answered, biting her lower lip and staring at his flanks, obscured by thin purple armor. His slitted yellow eyes followed where she was watching, and sighed.

"That is not the purpose of my visit, ma'am."

"Oh, of course not. You came because you're thirsty. But that doesn't mean we can't both come too." She slid a hoof along her side, brushing away the covers and the sheets, whilst simultaneously rubbing over the surface of the three smiling flowers on her juicy flank.

Third Brother growled. It was a guttural noise, that shook the mirror on the room’s wall in which he was plainly reflected. "Cheerilee of Ponyville, you are far more conscious than you seem to believe."

She sat up slowly. "I'm only as conscious as you want me to be, dreamy. Why don't you come ride me until I pass out? Then you can drink as much as you want. I won't stop you."

The stallion's muscles rippled beneath his taut skin, simply from the motion of walking over to the side of the bed. His eyes stared at her coldly. "You are entirely awake. This is not a dream. And I am here neither to feast on your flesh and blood, nor to take advantage of your weak and frail mortal body with my vastly superior undead form." Maintaining his straight face, he continued. "Rather, I am serving as the courier of a thought on behalf of my mistress."

"Mistress? Sounds kinky. I'm game."

"Damn it, mare!" he shouted only a few inches from her face, with enough force to disturb her mane. "I am not a figment of your sexual fantasy! I come with a proposal from Princess Luna."

Realization swept over Cheerilee like the scent of a coltfriend's fart. At first, it was merely unpleasant, but then it became downright shocking to the point that she found herself on the verge of fainting from embarrassment. "Y-you mean I've been awake this whole time?"

"Yes," Third Brother answered.

"And I just said all those things to you…"

"You were quite… descriptive, yes."

Cheerilee gagged, feeling just the slightest tinge of vomit in the back of her throat. "I-I'm so sorry, mister…"

"I am Third Brother of the Night Guard." He took a breath to steel himself. "Princess Luna sends tidings, and wishes you an opportunity. She wishes you allow Roscherk Krovyu–the stallion you likely know as 'Red Ink'–to continue on as the teacher of Ponyville Elementary for the time being."

"Oh! Did I do something wrong?"

"This has nothing to do with you, ma'am, and everything to do with Roscherk. However, Mistress is well aware of the cost of this request, and has offered you recompense. For so long as he continues to fill your place in Ponyville, the Royal Treasury will supply not only your full salary, as if you were working, but also any expenses accrued by whatever ...pleasures you might enjoy over your extended vacation."

Cheerilee's eyes widened on the verge of dark. "So you're… offering me a paid vacation? So I can leave some other pony in charge of my foals?"

Third Brother sighed. "Mistress had anticipated you might be opposed to the idea, and–"

"I'm in!"

The Night Guard's brow rose sharply. "I see. The Princess will need you to draft a letter detailing an excuse for your extended absence. Then our business will be concluded."

"Okay." Cheerilee began rummaging around the cheap hotel room for a piece of paper and a quill or pencil. "Just, uh, please don't mention anything about this."

"I can hardly blame you," Third Brother answered. "My fear was that you would scream, upon waking to find a strange stallion in a bedroom that you had locked and sealed."

The ensuing silence was very quiet (as silence ought to be). Cheerilee just stared at Third Brother, who's expressionless face seemed locked on the paper Cheerilee had finally dug out of the nightstand.

Finally, her quill began to scratch. Third Brother walked over to her side, and placed a wax seal on the table. "Close the letter with this, and drop it into any mailbox."

"Okay. Uh, thanks?"

"My pleasure." Third Brother moved to tall window on the far side of the room, and placed a hoof gently on their surface. To Cheerilee's shock, the glass rippled like water, allowing the stallion to simply step through. He was nearly gone when some idea caught his attention, and he briefly turned back. "I hope I did not offend you with my disinterest in your body, but I am a married stallion. I will ask Fifth Brother if he should like to come and visit you in the night in my stead. Sleep well."

Leaving the red-faced, stammering mare behind, Third Brother's leathery wings soared off into the night.

Shaking her head, the school teacher rolled over in bed to try and reclaim what little was left of the night's sleep. "I really need to stop reading those stories Twilight lent me..."

September 8th, 1452 A.S.
Ponyville Schoolhouse
0937 Hours

"…a thirty-seven percent shift in market value away from fruit-bat guano jelly and toward our own proprietary mix of raspberry and zap-apple jam. However, this year, the market has fa–" Filthy Rich cut himself off to glare at the door, where a messy and smoke-stained stallion tromped through the door. "Oh, I see you've decided to show up at work, finally. Thankfully, since today is Family Appreciation Day, the foals weren't left alone."

"Kill yourself, Filthy," Roscherk answered, as his eyes swept over the crowd, and the dozen or so adults who had been brought along with them.

The well-to-do earth pony wasn't done with his least favorite educator, however. "Tell me, Mr. Ink, what was it that was so important that you would show up nearly an hour and a half late for class?"

Roscherk took a moment before answering the stallion's accusatory question. He spent it walking over to his desk, and dropping the blackened hydra skull from his back onto the wooden surface, where everypony could see. Only then did he turn to Filthy Rich. "I killed a hydra this morning in the market, and saved at least twenty lives." With a snide grin, the much shorter of the two stallions continued. "How were your stocks this morning?"

Filthy Rich adjusted his necktie. "Well, in any case, I was quite done with my presentation–"

"Thank 'lestia!" Pipsqueak muttered rather more loudly than he had intended.

"–so I suppose you are 'on time', if only this once."

"Right." Ink sighed, taking in the crowd of 'adult' ponies mixed in with the foals. It would probably have helped if he had the slightest clue what 'Family Appreciation Day' was for; maybe it was like what Predvidenie was always talking about, where he would just sit and watch the value of his holdings appreciate... but that would be an awful boring day for the foals.

He cleared his thoughts with a shake of his head, and swept once more over the crowd. The 'Cutie Mark Crusaders' had brought their respective elder sisters. Rarity was in mild shock at the blackened skull sitting on the desk, Applejack was occupied picking her teeth, and Rainbow Dash seemed frankly bored. At the pegasus’ side was the gray, blond-maned mare whose furious stare had haunted at least a few of his nightmares for the past week. She seemed occupied with the brown paper bag sitting on Dinky's desk. Further into the class were a few more ponies that Ink didn't recognize.

Buffing up his false bravado, the stallion nodded, preparing a plan which even the bravest of military minds would label suicidal. "Since we have so many adult ponies in our classroom today, I think today would be a good time to teach a lesson I promised you the first day of class." The foals' eyes widened as Ink removed his jacket. "So, can the Harmony ponies please come up to the front of the classroom with me?"

After a moment of confusion, Rainbow, Rarity, and Applejack made their way to where Ink was waiting. With a surprisingly casual motion, his hoof tossed the teacher's desk against the wall. A few eyes widened at the display of strength, though at least one earth pony farmer seemed unimpressed.

"Alright, class. Today, we are learning about magic."

The cheers were deafening. The pale fade of the adults faces were, by contrast, completely silent.

"So here is a question I should ask first. Parents, family, whatever you are today; you can answer too. I am curious how many Equestrians know these words. We will start with easy question. What is the real name for 'unicorn magic'?"

A huge number of blank stares met the stallion's question, but Dinky Doo raised a hoof after a long pause. Ink nodded in her direction. "Yes, Dinky?"

"Well, when Miss Twilight is teaching me magic, sometimes she calls it 'Arcana'."

"Ah, close. It's Arcana. You have to italicize it." Ink earned a few strained stares for the awkward emphasis he had placed on the word. "But still, impressive. I had not believed a foal would know. Now, Rarity, you are here."

She seemed confused at the comment. "Uh, yes, that is correct. Did you want me to do something?"

The Stalliongradian nodded. "Something impressive, with magic. You must know some trick, yes?"

"Well, a lady does not boast."

Ink slapped his face. "I am not telling you to boast. Boast is to talk about yourself with inflated ego, because you are so smart and know so much about money and all the ponies love you for stupid railroads, and…" His words trailed off as he realized he was rambling. "Point is, you must do something."

"Well, I suppose if you're going to put me on the spot…" Rarity seemed a bit irked as her horn ignited with the pale tone of her magic. After a moment's focus, the walls of the room faded into a sort of brilliant red backdrop. An upbeat music could be heard from all around, and a startling pattern of gems danced across the surface. After a few long seconds of the illusion, Rarity released her spell, and the classroom returned.

Ink sighed. "I should have gotten Sparkle."

After scoffing, Rarity held a hoof to her mouth. "Well, we'll just have to see if she can fix your coat the next time you tear it, then."

Completely blowing off the mare, Ink turned to Applejack. "Now, harder question. What is Earth Pony magic called?"

"Uh, Ah weren't so sure we actually had magic…"

"Endura," Rainbow Dash noted under her breath, causing Ink's brow to rise.

"You know about Endura, Rainbow Dash? I am suppose that I should not be surprised, learning with the Honor Guard–"

"I don't want to talk about it," Rainbow interrupted, folding her forehooves of her chest as she hovered near the upper corner of the classroom. "Teach your stupid lesson."

"As you wish," Ink replied. "Yes, Applejack, earth ponies have magic. I am sure you use it, even if you do not know it. So does the pink one…" After the flash of a sneer, Ink looked out at the crowd. "Does anypony have any guesses as to what Endura actually does?"

"It lets you dodge things!" Scootaloo shouted, without bothering to raise her hoof. "And it makes you super-strong, and huge, and–"

"Quiet, Scootaloo! " Applebloom whispered all-too forcefully. "We promised we wouldn't say nothin'."

"I didn't say it was Resistant who–"

"Shut! Up!"

Pinching his brow, Ink flared his wings wide open, and allowed them to burst into flame. Everypony was instantly quiet. After a moment of smoldering, the stallion released his power, and put the feathered appendages back at his sides. "Thank you for paying attention, girls. Now, what do we use here?"

Applebloom and Scootaloo sighed. "Uvazheniye."

Ink's eye twitched, but he nodded nevertheless. "Correct. Now be quiet, so I can teach you interesting things. Applejack, how old are you?"

With a cross expression, Applejack answered Roscherk. "That ain't a question ya just ask a mare in front of a crowd, Sugarcube."

Ink answered by shrugging. "Alright, I will guess. You are… forty five? Fifty?"

A moment later, Ink pulled himself out of the wall, and Applejack lowered her legs from the forceful buck she had delivered to his chest.

"How rude, Mr. Ink!" Rarity added, as the farmer herself seemed unwilling to offer comment.

"It was meant as a compliment," Ink gasped, slapping himself to force the wind back into his lungs. A gasping breath restored the volume to his voice. "I certainly will not look so good when I am forty. One thing Endura does is keep a pony younger for much longer. This is why earth ponies live longer than pegasi or unicorns. I knew a stallion in Stol'nograd who had his one-hundred twelfth birthday a year ago. He looked like Filthy."

"It's Mister Rich," Diamond Tiara's father interjected.

Twist raised a hoof, and received a nod from Ink. "Tho Mr. Ink, ith thith why Granny Thmith thayth that the wath actually there for the founding of Ponyville, even though that wath more than two hundred yearth ago?"

After mentally decoding that riddle, Roscherk nodded. "I would not be surprised if this 'Granny Smith' you speak of is more than two-hundred. Rare but not unheard of. Especially if she worked a job with a great deal of labor when she was young."

"She's our Granny," Applejack explained. "She used ta run the farm. But I always thought she was just bein' senile when she told me we didn't need ta celebrate her birthday til she turned two-hundred and ten."

"Well, now you know." Roscherk smiled gently, and received a smile in turn. Unfortunately, his smile still included a decent sized bruise where she had struck him. After a lingering moment of awkwardness that reminded him of his first introduction to Twilight Sparkle, he turned to the class. "Endura is hard to show off, but very useful for many pony. It grants strength, and speed, and endurance. It lets user stay young, sense danger, and in rare case, regenerate their wounds with speed. Watch this!"

And then, with no further warning, he returned Applejack's earlier favor, bucking her squarely in the jaw. The class, and their family members, generally shrieked and reacted poorly, but where Ink had been thrown across the room, Applejack needed only shake her head to clear her thought and restore the anger that ought to have been present in her expression. Ink was prepared to dodge her oncoming assault, and so found himself quite literally blind-sided when Rainbow Dash belted him across the face with a hoof.

The sound of thunder heralded his body being lifted off the ground and flung over the heads of the foals, so that he tumbled as a blood-colored ball into the far side of the room. The students rose in shock as Rainbow leapt across the room with the aid of her wings, and laid to work on the stallion.

"I've had it with you, guardspony! Nopony hurts my friends!"

Her hoof came up and down on his face at least a dozen times, even as the others in the room cried out. "Rainbow, stop!"

"Ah ain't hurt, Rainbow!"

Finally, it was Roscherk who'd had enough. Pressing his wings against the floor for support, he rolled up onto his back so that his hind hooves were directed at Rainbow's chest. Then, surging with all the might of his overdeveloped musculature, he lashed out at her.

It was Rainbow's turn to be thrown back, with a lower arc than Roscherk. She flew into the desks of the schoolfoals, knocking several aside and toppling their desks and seats.

It was not Red Ink who rose from the floor at the back of the room, but Roscherk Krovyu, Commandant of the Black Cloaks and Warden of Stalliongrad. His wings, forelegs, and mane burned with a fire to haunt nightmares. Blood leaked from a split lip and a bruised muzzle, though the droplets that fell away sizzled in the air. Sparks danced from his form as he walked forward. His heaving breaths were dry, popping every few seconds like a fire.

Roscherk Ink recoiled for a moment, and then managed to put out the flames on his body. They didn't seem to trust him anymore, but they did not run.

"I'm sorry, I should not have let myself get so engrossed. That was Empatha – pegasus magic. It controls fire, as I used it, and air, as Rainbow Dash did." Then, with a slight hint of inspiration, he winked very pointedly at her. "Because our magic is powered by emotions, it can be scary, and violent, but it also has good uses."

"Like what?" Filthy Rich asked scornfully. "I've only ever heard of it being used by renegade guardsponies."

"What's that supposed to mean, daddy?" Diamond Tiara asked.

Rather than looking at his daughter, Filthy Rich smiled at Ink. "I think it's past time everypony here knew who you really are, 'Mister Ink'."

Ink's eyes widened as the class turned on him. "Uh, well, I'm–"

"What do you mean, daddy?"

Filthy Rich shook his head as he glanced to his daughter. "Why don't you ask your friends there?"

After a gesture with his hoof, the wealthy earth pony moved out of the way of a little colt who seemed quite calm for being on fire. His eyes were more resolute than any Ink could imagine. Try as he might, the stallion could not find the strength to look away. "My name is Unyielding. Do you remember me, Mr. Ink?"

Before Ink could answer, the throbbing in his temple from Rainbow's blow overwhelmed him, and he crumpled onto the floor.

A Location
Eventually

"–okay?" a murky voice asked in the dark.

"Ah think–" the distinct voice faded out for a moment, along with a surge of pain in Ink's temple. "–shouldn't have done that, Rainbow."

"Well he attacked you!"

"I would not say he did not deserve it," offered a stallion's voice, familiar and yet distant. What followed were a gasp, a scream, and a blood-curdling shriek respectively. Ink wished he could have his ears cut off as the sound continued ringing.

"What the–" a momentary pop stole the sound from Ink's ears. "–'re you?"

Rainbow's voice interrupted before the stallion could answer. "Oh, phew. Uh, Rarity, AJ, this is Third Brother. He works for Princess Luna."

"Ladies," the Night Guard offered, without even the slightest hint of patronization. "Apologies for startling you."

Rarity, who still seemed rather shaken, replied. "What are you doing in my house?"

"Performing my duty," Third Brother replied calmly. "On an unrelated note, you should lock your attic windows at night."

"Wha–"

"We have more important things to worry about." And then came the sensation of a frigid coat against Ink's neck. He shifted lightly, and received a great pain for his trouble. "As I was saying, Rainbow Dash, I have no doubt that he deserved it. However, in the future, should you feel the need to punch somepony you dislike like, I would encourage you to spare them your magic."

"I wasn't trying to hurt him! I was just pissed off–"

"And that is the danger of Empatha. It seems almost poetic that was on the receiving end for once in his life."

The scoffing voice of Rarity cut in. "I don't know who you think you are, sir, but talking about him that way behind his back is not something I will stand for."

The stallion somehow made a shrugging noise. "He is awake now, though I do not know how long it will be before he can speak or open his eyes. He can hear us, and I imagine most of his hallucinations will have faded by now."

Ink tasted dried blood in his mouth as he struggled to move it. "Mares, I could use a gin and tonic, and a pillow, if you do not mind," he told them.

What came out of his mouth was more akin to "Aggh agmma…"

"Ah. I see," the stallion noted. "I will have a doctor sent."

"Just what we needed, Rainbow; ya gave him brain damage."

"I just hit him! It wasn't even a lightning bolt, and Deadeye survived that…" Rainbow Dash's voice trailed off with what Ink recognized as a tone of regretful loss. In order to convey his state, he pushed himself upright.

"Whoa Nelly! Mr. Ink, that ain't a good idea–"

After the world finished spinning, he held up a hoof and offered a smile, only slightly counteracted by his split lip and the trail of blood leading down from his face. His eyes squeezed open to reveal the hazy, swimming faces of three mares and a 'stallion'. "I… fine. No need for…" Shaking his head, the stallion struggled to remember his words. "What is Equiish way? I am being well?"

"Oh, Celestia, I actually did buck him stupid." Rainbow hid the blob that was her face beneath similarly shaped hooves. "Great, now Twilight's gonna be mad at me."

"He'll be fine in a week or two," Third Brother replied calmly. "I had feared he would be unconscious for several days, rather than a few hours. He ought to recover his faculties, given time. Now, I must depart."

Ink leaned forward, trying to bring the gray creature into focus. Third Brother recoiled. "You are being doctor on me?"

"Wow, that was bad…" Rainbow noted, earning a harsh glare from Rarity.

"No, I have only been watching from the shadows, Roscherk, doing what little I can to aid you on my Mistress' behalf." A beautiful description of the way his tongue danced nimbly over his fangs might have been appropriate, had Ink's eyes been able to appreciate it. Instead, he only saw the outline of a pony walking away into the blurry back of the room. "Я надеюсь, тебя минует моя судьба, Росчерк."

The stallion's unfocused eyes widened. "You are speaking–?"

"До свидания," Third Brother cried, before bursting into a cloud of bats and disappearing.

Rarity and Rainbow exchanged a brief glance, before the latter broke into a wide smile. "That was so awesome…"

"I dare say I must disagree. Even had he not broken into my home, bats are unsanitary, disgusting, blood-sucking creatures that–"

"Shutting up!" Ink pounded a hoof that echoed his pounding headache. "Here is boot teak?"

"Huh?"

"He's asking if this is the boutique; I thought you of all ponies might appreciate a bit of linguistic difficulty, Applejack." The purple stripe over Rarity's white blob shifted slightly, so that it was pointed 'toward' Ink. "Yes, we are at Carousel Boutique, Mr. Ink–"

Somewhere, a poet wept.

"–and it has been… three hours since your unfortunate lesson. Can I get you anything?"

Ink pondered, and then nodded. "Up."

"I… don't think I follow."

"You can getting me up. Not class miss."

"Oh dear, Mr. Ink, you see…"

Applejack's slightly more defined blob (which now featured a pair of smaller green blobs) spoke up. "Don't be an idiot, Mr. Ink. Y' ain't fit to stand, much less teach mah sister 'bout magic and fancy tricks 'n whatnot. You lay down this instant and wait for a doctor."

In response to her request, Ink rolled over on his side, and dropped his hooves to the floor. Rarity's plush carpet was quite a pleasant feature for the stallion to discover with his chin. Balancing on shaky legs amidst the struggling hooves of three mares, he 'spoke', with some degree of success.

"Am Commandant. Black Clock. убийца. I fight many battle bleeding, bruises and wounds. Worse of much than face punch from mare who has even never killed dragon."

Rainbow held her tongue at the comment, though her brow grew darker.

"If I can fight, can learn many foal. Simple, yes. Beside, who is now with foals?"

Rainbow took the opportunity to answer. "Some unicorn came by. A total egghead; you could pretty much smell it."

"Rainbow! Care at least a touch."

"Well, it's true. I mean, his name was Four Eyes, wasn't it?"

Roscherk growled, and limped forward. "Show him me."

"Why ever so angry, Mr. Ink?"

"Remind me of somepony. Wanting to punch."

Ponyville Schoolhouse
1340 Hours

Roscherk had regained not only most of his sight, but also motor skills. He was imitating a rather elegant limp by the time he and the three mares in his company made their way through the little door of the school.

"…and then you simply take the integral of the vector triple-product generated by aggregate market shift and your net exports, and–"

"Mr. Ink! You're alive!"

"Yay!"

"Make him stop!"

Ink was swarmed by a tide of foals, who did a rather impressive job of toppling the most dangerous stallion of Stalliongrad. After Applejack and Rainbow Dash helped him back to his hooves, he finally got a glance across the room.

"Teaching pony. What are name?"

Across the still rather hazy room, from behind a tall backed, rounded black chair that Ink was sure hadn't been there before came the stallion's voice again. "You don't recognize my voice? Oh dear, Roscherk. I hope you don't have amnesia, as well as a loss of word processing. Or has your Equiish actually gotten worse in your time here?"

"Amnesia?" Rarity asked. "That terrible plot point from my romance stories?"

"Amnesia is a terrible plot point in fiction, yes," the stallion answered without turning to face the mare. "It is also the unfortunate but altogether realistic effect of blunt force trauma to the skull, particularly when assisted by magic."

"Answering I!" Ink shouted, before wincing at the volume of his own voice. "Who?"

"Always so anxious, Mr. Ink? And here I thought you might have learned some manners." The stallion seated in the chair turned slowly around to face Roscherk. He was a tallish unicorn, with a beautifully groomed blue coat and a darkly golden mane. A thin, dried red scar ran through his left eyelid, from his brow down to his chin, beneath the lenses of a pair of gold-framed glasses. A luxurious red scarf was wrapped tightly around the neck of his gray neighru jacket. Resting against his hind legs, Rarity's white cat purred slowly, enjoying the attentions of the stallion's hoof. "It's been a long time, hasn't it, brother?" He paused to briefly play with the line where the cat had scratched his eye.

"Предвидение? Какого тут тобой делается?"

"Oh, Celestia," The stallion sighed, taking his hoof from the cat. "I had assumed it would just be your Equiish. Let's not butcher our mother tongue, when your vocabulary is 'fine' in the local dialect. And on that note, you're welcome to use 'Foresight' for the sake of our listeners."

"Be killing yourself, Predvinie," Ink answered rather flatly, in what could honestly be described as his usual greeting. A few of the foals seemed confused by this, but Twist's eyes widened with a terrible realization, before diving beneath her desk and covering her head. Ink continued unabated. "And why should any care being…"

"Be given," Foresight suggested.

"I can to talk for myself," Ink snapped, before shaking his head.

"Uh, no, ya really can't, sugarcube."

Ink's stare would have launched a thousand ships in the course of evacuating nearly any major city. He turned slowly toward the front of the class and rolled his eyes. "You teaching of my students money tricks?"

Foresight adjusted his scarf in a manner that might best be described as 'toolish', and nodded. "Nothing that complicated, of course. They are elementary students, after all."

"Please make him stop," Scootaloo pleaded, looking desperate. "My head felt like it was going to explode."

"Oh, that problem not been." Ink smiled like a feral cat. "Predvidenie, am I telling them stories of Lady Padayuschaja Zvezda?"

Foresight smiled back, just as predatorily as Ink had. "If you're thinking of blackmail, brother, you'd best consider that it isn't a game played alone."

Ink growled. "What do you know that I don't?"

At the query, Foresight chuckled, and rose from his seat. "The things I know that you don’t could fill libraries, Roscherk. And crumble empires." Adjusting his scarf subconsciously, the stallion added "And I do mean that entirely literally."

Roscherk Krovyu briefly toyed with the concept of just what mysterious object had found filled the gaping plot hole that dominated his brother's personality. Whatever it was, the pegasus was sure of two things: it had to be massive, and it hadn't seen the light of day in at least a decade.

Predvidenie continued. "Perhaps I'll tip my hoof for this. Some of my students told me that their dear substitute teacher, Mr. Ink, had told them all about the history of Stalliongrad."

"Be saying right!"

"Oh, little 'Red Ink' can't stand a pun?" Foresight nickered with amusement. "Very well. You told your students all about Stol'nograd. All the grim bloody truth. You even used real names. Isn't that right, Roscherk Krovyu?"

Ink's eyes widened slowly, as did those of at least a few of his students.

Foresight paced forward calmly, walking amongst the student's desks to approach his dizzy brother. "I can see at least a few of them have already put together the dots. I wonder how many more will realize the truth when an alicorn comes walking in here and calls you his son."

"Father? Father is here?"

"Father and I took a trip to the Crystal Empire. I think Father was interested in their social system, since they don't have the same racial stratification–"

"Stop, Predvidenie."

"What?"

"If talking like Haynd Rend novel, I am sparing trouble to choking scarf. Ugly."

Rarity glanced at the accessory and shook her head. "I dare say you're being foalish here, Mr. Ink. That scarf is a Prench silk masterpiece; I'd love to work with fabric that nice. It must have cost a fortune. Would you trouble me with where you purchased it?"

"An eye for fashion?" Predvidenie asked. Ink gagged aloud. "Well, my dear Miss Rarity–"

"You know my name?"

"How could an educated stallion not recognize a heroine like yourself on sight?"

Rarity swooned. Foresight caught her gently, even as he tugged off his scarf and wrapped it around her neck. "This little prize was a gift from Duchess Couture of Mareis, though I have a few spares back in Burning Hearth Castle."

Rainbow joined Roscherk in his retching.

"I can't possibly take this–"

"Of course not. I propose a trade; you are a seamstress, or so I hear. I should very much like to add one of your works to my collection. Call this my payment."

Finally, unable to contain herself, Rainbow moaned an instinctual word.

"Gaaaaaaaay!"

Not that there's anything wrong with that…

Foresight winced, and then turned to Rainbow slowly. "I am growing quite tired of the rampant homophobia of some ponies. However, I will note that, were you to hear my brother's oh-so-threatening childhood embarrassment of mine, you would know quite well the reality of my more private pursuits."

Ink coughed loudly into his hoof, gathering the attention of the class. Then he turned to Twist (who was still hiding beneath her desk, eyes wide), and gave her an incredibly corny wink. His mouth permitted out only a single word.

"Lollypopth."

As the class erupted into laughter, Foresight buried a face in his hoof in slow motion. "You know, Roscherk, some ponies might accuse you of being a foal."

"That being always why you are to call me bully? Looking glasses needs broken."

Foresight smiled. "Oh, good. For a moment, I was concerned you were a changeling or something; were you running short on the threats of abject violence, or just having a good day?"

"I am snapping horn off."

A wince offered prelude the ensuing silence, and Ink realized what he had just said in front of his students. Shaking his head, Foresight made his way toward the door, and then stopped. "To answer your earlier question properly, Father, our escort, and I were on our way home via Canterlot, expecting to catch you again, when… well, let's just say a little bat told me that we could find you here. I'll go fetch father."

"He coming here?"

"Not here, but nearby. You're living in the library with Twilight Sparkle, correct?"

Ink nodded.

"If you've slept with her, Roscherk, I will be very upset with you. She is a very nice mare."

"So was… Kselia…Ksevia…"

Foresight removed his glasses gently, as his face began to turn red. "Her name was Ksenia, Roscherk. For all the times you tell that stupid story, you ought to at least remember her name!"

"Worth paying–"

"That is not a story for children, though I suppose you wouldn't understand, since you've never grown up! Teach your foals how to kill each other, or how to get stone-drunk and wake up in a puddle of their own vomit in an alley so their older siblings have to come and find them! I can't imagine you actually know how to do anything else!"

And with that, the unicorn stepped outside and slammed the door.

"…wow," Rainbow muttered.

Ink sighed, and looked around the class. "Happy Day Family Appreciation?"

You Only Live Thrice, Part II

VII

You Only Live Thrice

– Part II –

Если вы читаете это, то будьте готовы к диалогам зрелищным и вульгарным, так как части этой главы имеют гриф "Для взрослых". Вас предупредили.

Особая благодарность моим переводчикам: Keyesty, и Google Translate (за фразы Росчерка)

The sickle swung for Shining Armor's already bleeding neck. Only a quick flip of his shoulder put steel and magical amethyst between himself and the gale-force winds surrounding the notched steel weapon. At the same moment, his horn surged, and his pegasus assailant was flung across the room.

Feathers the color of wheat flared, a field in the wind. The motion brought forth a spin and a flip, so that it was his hind hooves and not the back of his black jacket that caught the bookshelf. Around the handle of the sickle, a mouth grinned beneath a spiky, wild gray mane. The coat flapped wildly from the winds filling the small room, and the pegasus launched himself once more at Armor.

Magic would have come too slow for the stallion; even a shield would not have beaten the pegasus. Instead, Armor relied on the one trick he had left. Lowering his head and throwing forward his right shoulder, he braced against the charge.

The force was painful, especially given the still-open wound on the far side of his neck. Despite the pain, the play worked in the captain's advantage. He was large for a unicorn, and pegasi were known for being lighter than their land-bound peers. The bladed sickle struck once more against Platinum's Ward, only to slide off without any effect. Then the pony wielding the weapon struck Armor's side, and likewise bounced off to little effect.

Before the other pony could stand up, Shining Armor gathered his magical aura around the pegasus' weapon and tore it away. A casual flick of his head launched the farming tool across the room, where it lodged cleanly into a bust of Smart Cookie.

Clutching his wound with a forehoof, the captain of the Royal Guard of Canterlot glared down at his foe. "You are under arrest for assault, attempted murder, and resisting arrest."

"Научись говорить по-Стольноградски, или иди оттрахай себя." the Black Cloak growled as he struggled to right himself.

Shining smiled, even as he shook his head. Then he turned to the door, hanging ajar, and called out. "Princesses, I have the situation under control. Could one of you tell Sergeant Crack to bring me a set of manacles?"

September 8th, 1452 A.S.
Golden Oaks Library
1351 Hours

The road to Ponyville's library was deserted of any ponies save the three mares accompanying a marginally confused and severely bruised stallion in search of his father. Nopony was speaking as they approached. In premise, this was simply a matter of a lack of subject. In practice, this was because exactly nopony wanted to hear a word out of Roscherk's addled mind, given how much effort it would likely take to decipher that linguistic Gordian knot.

Thusly they continued up to the library until a strangely familiar pair of 'chariots' came into view. At least, the three mares would have called them chariots. Ink's glance observed that they were, respectively, a cross section of a padded cell in a gilded asylum and the latter half of a locomotive engine in spiked black metal. The better of the two was probably comparably aerodynamic to a parachute.

"What do you think those are for?" Rainbow asked.

"If I had to guess, I'd say the Princesses have come to visit Twilight." Rarity paused to ponder for a moment. "Though it isn't like them to drop by unannounced. You know how Twilight gets."

Applejack gave a mild shrug. "Luna'd probably think it was funny."

"You have a fair point, Applejack. I wouldn't mind speaking with Princess Luna on the topic of private property and her guardsponies either."

As they approached, a shouting voice could be heard in the air. It made Ink chuckle aloud, though it was lost on the mares in his company.

"Ты, чёкнутая сука! Чё я тебе сделал, а? У нас есть жеребенок, которого я не помню?"

A globe engulfed in a purple aura smashed through the library window, landing a few feet from Ink's forehooves. He stopped laughing. The mares seemed at least slightly perturbed, but Roscherk was more concerned with the other voice he had heard. He charged forward (somewhat woozily) through the door.

Not, it should be noted, through the doorway. As the splinters settled to the library floor, Ink took in the scene. There was a farming sickle of polished steel, sized so that it might well have been called obscene (when it wasn't being called Пожалуйста, о, пожалуйста, не убивайте меня, or just Aaagh!, followed by a succession of obscenities and/or ultimately fatal gargling noises). It had somehow gotten stuck more than a foot deep into a wooden bust of Smart Cookie. There were two toppled bookshelves, whose books had been strewn everywhere. Some were burnt, some were covered in a thin layer of frost, a few seemed to have burst into piles of loose pages, and at least three had sprouted legs and begun to run and hop around the room blindly.

In the center of Hurricane Twilight was the mare herself, with her mane and tail somehow literally on fire despite the lack of a pair of wings on her back. Her magic flared repeatedly, though it wasn't so much attacking as it was lashing out at random in bolts of arcane power. Ink rather casually sidestepped one such blast. A surge of electricity added some height to his spiky, slung back manestyle as the energy shot past him, transforming a bookshelf into a painting of a bowl of wax fruit.

"Impressionsists..." Ink growled, before returning his focus to the room.

On the far side of the library, protected by a shield of radiant scarlet, were Princesses Celestia and Luna, Captain Shining Armor, and that one guardspony whose wing Ink had broken, but whose name he could not recall. If memory served, the other stallion was one of Ink's new subordinates, for what good it did.

Despite the presence of the diarchs, Ink's attention was most held by a much older acquaintance at Twilight's side. Partially cuffed by steel manacles and partially frozen to a wooden stool 'sat' a curious looking wheat brown stallion with a mane of deliberately spiked gray hair. Some of it was also on fire, but in a clearly non-Empathic fashion. His teeth, filed to minor spikes–which created far more of the appearance of a total idiot than the 'bear' he had been aiming for–gnashed together in a furious but futile resistance almost reminiscent of a holy text.

"Serp?"

"Комендант?" The actively burning pegasus looked up from his assailant with a glimmer of hope. "Ну спасибо гребаной Селестии! Убери от меня эту суку! Мне кажется, она хочет моего тела!"

Twilight whirled, ripping Serp's sickle out of the bust with a surge of telekinesis. It was clear she hadn't meant to wield the thing, as her aura gathered in two distinct points at the blade and the handle, ready to snap the weapon in half. The twisting of her neck brought her glowing eyes in line with Ink's. He stared at her rather blankly, as if disbelieving of her state. The flames on her neck settled slowly to a natural purple mane, and she simply stopped in place. "Oh." The weapon clattered quite loudly to the ground.

"You saying to have 'oh'? Only?"

Twilight groaned. "No, I'm 'having' a lot more to say than that, Roscherk. For starters, what the hay is one of your soldiers doing in my house, trying to kill me?" Her hoof pointed with obvious accusation in Serp's direction.

Ink's brow rose, and then turned toward his old friend. "Серп, какого хрена вы делаете с Искоркой?"

"Она та шлюха мятежников, о которой я тебе говорил прошлой зимой! Та самая, что помогла ёбаному Альянсу Повстанцев сбежать, когда я проводил мой рейд в том баре. Хорошо хоть, я получил немного выпивки из этого."

Ink slapped his face with his hoof, and then found himself regretting the motion as the bruise dominating his brow began to throb with searing pain. "Ah!"

"What?" Rainbow Dash called from the doorway upon hearing the sound of the gasp of pain. She, Applejack, and Rarity entered the room at the same time that Shining Armor decided Twilight's magical rage had finally simmered down, and lowered his shield. All at once, ten ponies were trying to speak to one another in two different languages. Somewhere, Discord wept with joy.

It was nearly three full minutes of noise later that Luna spoke up with a magically empowered voice.

"There shall be silence!"

And lo, it was so. The room pivoted almost as one to face the ruler of the night, who sat back calmly on the library floor and smiled. "Thank thee."

"You," Celestia corrected, in a whisper audible to the entire room.

"Shut up, Celestia! We're trying to work here!" Luna coughed into her hoof. "Ahem... Captain Ink, who is this stallion?"

Ink scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "Well... This mine friend... Round Farm Blade." He pointed to the weapon near his hooves on the floor by way of clarification.

"It is called a sickle," Shining Armor muttered under his breath.

"What happened to your Equiish, Roscherk?"

Luna raised a hoof. "One at a time please, Twilight Sparkle." Turning to Roscherk, she continued. "Now, doth Sickle have some explanation as to his attempted murder of Twilight Sparkle?"

"Ah... yes." Roscherk turned, placing a calming foreleg over Serp's shoulder. "He thinking she was criminal solder rebel from Stol'nograd."

Luna's brow rose, in part from the train-wreck of words, and in part from their implications. "Is this the normal state of affairs in Stalliongrad? Breaking into ponies’ homes on suspicion of treason and attempting murder without regard for trial or arrest?"

Ink's eyes widened slowly. "What answer I giving that problem goes away?"

It was at this point that Shining Armor stepped forward. "For war crimes, including but not limited to corruption, attempted murder, and murder, I'm placing you both under arrest."

"Did you see him?"

"He's soo dreamy!"

"Those wings are beautiful!"

"And his mane..."

"I want his foals!"

Had Roseluck known the identities of the stallion's foals, she might have had a different opinion. However, without such knowledge, she was left gossiping with her friends across the street from the attractive stallion sitting alone at a table within Sugarcube Corner.

The approaching stallion in a tan neighru jacket and a blue Prench silk scarf (which had replaced his gift to Rarity–always carry a spare scarf) was momentarily confused, until he saw the pony in the window and realized just what was happening. It seemed like the mares of Ponyville were no different than those of Stalliongrad: everypony wanted an alicorn for his body.

The bell over the door rang as he entered, and only a moment later his personal space was rather violently invaded. "Welcome to Sugarcube Corner! Can I get you anything?"

Foresight glared down through his glasses at the pink earth pony mare quite literally pressed against his muzzle. "A bit of space would be wonderful."

She darted off at a speed he was certain should have resulted in a sonic boom, and came back with a chocolate-frosted pastry balanced on a tea plate on her right forehoof. "Here you go! I figured that the moon is in space, so a little bit of space would be like a piece of the moon; that's why I brought you a moon pie! They're Princess Luna's favorite! Ooh, I should bring her one!"

Foresight tried to take a step toward the alicorn in the room, and was cut off by the mare darting into his path. "Wait, you're new! Oh, I haven't met either of you yet! I need to throw you a welcome party–"

Foresight's magic clamped down on the mare's muzzle, transforming her words into "Mmph bmmbph mm..."

"No thank you. My father and I are very busy, and will only be in town shortly."

The mare somehow managed to step out of Foresight's telekinetic grasp. "Well, that just means we need to have the party sooner, silly."

"No." Foresight pushed his way past the mare, only to be blocked again as she darted into his path.

"Aww... Why are you so grumpy?"

"Because my brother is an imbecile, and I would very much like to get back home." He picked her up with his magic, set her down to his side, and walked forward.

She shot to his side like a particularly infuriating bolt of lightning. "Oh, that's too bad... where's home, then? Your accent sounds a bit like Bitaly or Trottingham or Prance. Ooh, are you from Canterlot? There are lots of fancy-sounding ponies there! Did I guess right?"

"Stalliongrad." Foresight took a seat. "Hello, Father."

"Oh!" The mare's eyes widened as she cut off what would have been a quiet conversation. "Are you Inky's brother?"

Foresight stared at his father, and his father stared back. After almost a minute of silence, the Tsar of Stalliongrad turned slowly. "Does he actually let you call him that?"

"Yuppers!" Pinkie answered. "He'd have to, like, clamp down on my mouth or something to really stop me, and that wouldn't be very nice. It isn't very nice to do it with magic either, mister. But still, I forgive you..."

She didn't actually stop speaking as Foresight leaned forward across the table. “Она это серьезно, Отец?”

"Ни малейшего понятия," Watchful Eye answered calmly. "Разве она не однa из носительниц Элементов Гармонии?"

"Розовый пирог, кажется. Что-то было не так насчет перевода в газете. Я могу это произнести лучше на Эквестрианском."

"...and that's why seedless watermelons are illegal in Saddle Arabia."

Foresight's eyes widened in proportion with his confusion, and then swiftly drooped with the revelation that he had no desire for an explanation. "That's very interesting," he lied, calmly. "This is a café, correct?" The acute on the 'e', which he had taken care to correctly pronounce, went unappreciated.

"Yup! Sugarcube Corner, Ponyville's bakery, cafe, and–"

"I'd like a small Marocchino. My father will have a straight black coffee with two sugars and heavy cream."

"Oh, you're thirsty! Okey dokey!" Pinkie shot off like a bullet, only to return before either Stalliongradians had found the time to turn back toward each other. "Silly me, I forgot to ask what you wanted to eat. We have muffins and cupcakes and pie and cake and teacakes and tiramisu and baklava–"

"We aren't here to eat."

"–and strudel and cannoli and hot cross buns and–"

"Pinkamena Pie, we are not here for your food!" Foresight did not shout, but his words were forceful, and perhaps edging towards cruelty.

Pinkie visibly wilted. "Aww, but... You've got to try something."

"We will," Watchful Eye told her. "Because contrary to what Predvidenie thinks, I actually did come to a bakery to eat. Give us whatever you recommend."

Pinkie's eyes lit up like what an uninspired author might describe as something very, very bright. She shot off again, leaving the two stallions alone.

"Thank you, Dad," Foresight muttered sarcastically. "I can't wait for some sugary garbage to ruin my coffee."

"You're in a delightful mood," Watchful Eye observed, folding his wings and leaning back in his seat. "I take it you found Roscherk?"

"I wouldn't have believed it this morning. He found his way into teaching primary school."

"He hasn't hurt anypony there, has he?"

Foresight chuckled. "Last I checked, none of their parents were contracted assassins."

Watchful Eye gave a very curious glance to his eldest son. "Is that something I should know about Stoikaja?"

Foresight became very pale, and picked at the cuff of his scarf. "Look, Father, I... I know this sounds strange, but I promised Roscherk I wouldn't discuss it–"

"–and breaking a promise is the fastest way to lose a friend... foreeeverr!" Having concluded her spiel, Pinkie Pie emerged fully from beneath the table, and deposited frosted cake composed of numerous brightly colored blocks atop the table, along with a pair of coffee mugs.

The two stallions were stunned into silence by the appearance of the mare. She sat relatively calmly at the side of their table, humming a somewhat familiar tune and waiting for them to eat.

Watchful Eye regained his composure first. "How did you do that?"

"Well, mostly, I used fondant. You can see the joints in the blocks were a little tricky, but I thought you two would appreciate it." She smiled wide, and went back to humming.

Foresight turned slowly. "Is that"Земли Вечного Лета" you're humming?"

Pinkie laughed. "No, silly. It's the Tetris theme!"

As Foresight stared in confusion, Watchful Eye served himself a piece of cake with his hooves, and then took a sip of coffee with the same limbs. It was Pinkie's turn to be slightly confused. "Hey, Mr. Eye, how come you don't use your magic?"

The Tsar gave a glance to the pink mare, then closed his eyes, squinted up his face, and focused. His cup of coffee rose from the table slowly and not particularly steadily. After a bit of trouble the beverage reached his lips, at which point he took it in his hooves again to actually tilt it back and drink. After setting the coffee down, he wiped his brow of a bead of sweat. "Being an alicorn does not make me powerful, Pink."

"Call me Pinkie."

"Alright, Pinkie. Well, my point is that most ponies assume I can... I don't know, raise the sun or live forever or something similarly ridiculous. They imagine I live in some giant castle–"

"Father, we do live in a giant castle."

Watchful Eye grimaced. "We live in about a third of the rooms of a giant castle, and leave the rest untouched. But my point is that when somepony sees an alicorn, their mind sees a pony who has infinite power, that all the mares will fawn over instantly without any reasoning, and who will save the world, and have more power than even the Princesses. And while I do sometimes attract the attention of shallow mares, the supposed benefits are not worth the trouble they bring." Watchful Eye grabbed a piece of cake, and found it to be composed of four flat 'cubes' of pastry, in the shape of a 'T'. He spared himself a moment to take a bite and swallow before concluding his thoughts. "Then again, I could say the same of the different breeds of ponies in society, or of magic in general." As if somehow aware of how brutally political and cynical his tirade had become, Watchful Eye looked down at his cake with brow askew. "Are there lollipops in this?"

"Oh, you noticed!" Pinkie hopped up. "Watch out; I think I got all the sticks, but I don't want you to get surprised."

At this point, somepony might have pointed out that Pinkie would usually have made some comment to the effect of Watchful Eye not choking to death on a lollypop stick simply by virtue of the necessity of his appearance in the immediate sequel. However, contrary to popular opinion, Pinkie's peculiar version of Endura 'danger sense' was still restricted to 4-dimensional space, and could not branch into hypothetical universes. Or, to use laypony's terms, she lacked the capacity to 'break the fourth wall'. Isn't that right?

"Yup," Pinkie answered. Neither Stalliongradian leader bothered to ask her who she was replying to as she inclined her head off toward the most distant corner of the room's ceiling. Thus, the only thought in Foresight's mind was to fetch a doctor (preferably a psychiatrist) when her leg began twitching rapidly.

"Are you having a seizure?" the unicorn asked rather flatly.

"Nope. Pinkie Sense. You two should hurry to the library; I think Inky needs your help."

"Pinkie Sense?" Watchful Eye asked. Foresight's seven-and-a-half university degrees failed him as he simply shrugged.

"Just trust me; you should go quickly. Not that you two shouldn't be quick about everything."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Foresight inquired.

"Well, when you're Russian, there's no time for Stalin."

Two bags of flour fell on the floor in the kitchen, followed closely by a frying pan. A full two beats later, an alicorn and a unicorn walked out the door thoroughly confused. Neither had laughed.

Pinkie glanced upward as Gummy popped his head out of her mane. "Well, I thought it was funny."

"Joke."

"I'm not sure I follow..."

"This is joke." Roscherk stated as a fact. His body was struggling to fight Shining Armor's magic.

Celestia glared down at him. "This is not a laughing matter, Red Ink. These accusations against you are serious and troubling."

"You knew!" he growled back. "If this was point, why you were not killing me begin with?"

Serp took a moment to struggle in his partially frozen bonds and offer some guidance to his best friend. "Эта, Росчерк... твои крылья опять возгораюся..."

"Заткнись, Cерп. Я знаю, что я делаю." Ink growled, flaring his wings further. No small amount of smoke rose up to the roof of the library's central room, though the fires themselves disappeared. "In Stol'nograd, we war rebels, many years. Since end of rebel."

"What?" Luna cocked her head. "Thou... fought rebels since the rebellion ended?"

Twilight cut in. "If I may, Princess?"

"That may be wise, Twilight." Celestia interrupted. "We know you will not be as biased a source, and your language is... less inhibited."

Twilight nodded. "Well, let's see. You know about the Blizzard Revolution?"

Celestia looked at Luna, and Luna looked back at Celestia. The former (who was formerly the latter) responded. "We know disappointingly little about these events."

Twilight sighed. "To summarize, it was a social dispute over racial stratification, exacerbated by a period of extreme rebuilding following the Dragon Wars."

"Equestrian knows nothing for Blizzard."

Twilight shook her head and ignored him. "If memory serves, it was the February prior to your return, Princess–" the unicorn nodded toward Luna. "–that Baron Frostbite was killed and the government was overthrown, and Roscherk's father took the title of Tsar."

"We hath met him; a most agreeable stallion." Luna nodded. "Continue."

Twilight gulped. "Well, there was a lot of disagreement about what to do with the 'spoils of war'. Many of the lower-class pegasi and earth-ponies thought that they should be able to loot goods and reclaim lands from the nobility. However, the ponies who formed the new government–Roscherk's family and some of the other leaders of the revolution–stated that these goods and lands would be needed to create stability and to establish a new government. To some ponies, that claim sounded a lot like what the revolution had started over in the first place; especially since the original Black Cloaks who were going to be the new police force were almost all former members of Frostbite's Secret Police."

"You read this all?" Ink asked through gritted teeth.

"Where the information came of is of little concern; do you agree to her representation?" Celestia asked.

"Fine," the stallion growled.

"Alright, then–"

"Sister, We had thought this situation was Ou–" Luna coughed into a hoof. "Was mine to deal with." Celestia dipped her head to defer to her sister, and Luna continued. "Thank you. Roscherk, perhaps others in this room hath grown discomforted by revelations of your past, but I find myself inclined to observe that nothing has truly changed since your initial agreement with my sister."

"Princess!" Shining interrupted. "You can't be serious!" The unicorn, clearly irate, maintained his arcane hold on Ink's torso as he stepped into Luna's field of view. "Think about what he's done! He's killed innocents in cold blood in Baltimare, he nearly got Twilight killed, and now he tells us that he's attacked protesters in their homes!"

Luna leaned forward to Shining so that she could look him in the eye. "Firstly, Captain Armor, I would be straining words to claim the events of Baltimare were murder in cold blood. Secondly, while perhaps his choice in friends is poor–" Luna glared at Serp quite pointedly. "–We would be hard pressed to blame him for those actions. But above all else, We cannot help but notice you are not calling for Our arrest and execution, though we are quite guilty of the same three crimes."

Silence settled on the room like eternal night: chilling and uncomfortable. It was finally broken by the one pony who simply did not understand the cause of the silence.

"Росчерк, почему все замолкли? Луна, что ли, спит с этим озабоченным стражником?"

The comment went ignored, but like the Elements of Harmony, it did restore dialogue to the room. Shining Armor swallowed hard. "I didn't mean to–"

"You were not intended to be scolded, Captain. It was only meant that you should forgive Captain Ink."

Armor's horn released its magic, and Ink (who had lazily been 'leaning' on the telekinetic Arcana) collapsed to the floor suddenly. After a moment of slight awkwardness, an increasingly familiar voice cut in.

"Росчерк, вытащи меня отсюда! Есть еще места, которые я должен увидеть, и пони, которых я должен оттрахать."

Ink moved over to the Black Cloak, only to be stopped by a serious voice. "Not gonna happen." An olive green pegasus with one wing in a sling stepped forward, alongside Shining Armor. "He isn't going anywhere."

Ink rounded like a cyclone, flaring his wings. "He is make honest mistake. Thick, maybe, but Serp is not smart enough for evil. So, as new Commander–"

As Honor Guard Master Sergeant Thunder Crack's right forehoof, shod in steel, lashed out at Ink's head, the Commandant had a flash of insight from the throbbing bruise on his brow. Beneath it, two neurons fired together, which followed with more and more in a burst of lightning that soon reached the muscles of his forelegs.

Nopony saw that. Very few of them actually saw him move, at least at first. His right, thankfully unshod hoof caught Crack's at the knee. His left pulled down on the other Honor Guard's same leg, pulling the wounded pegasus from the floor.

It was a complicated maneuver, but it ended simply. Thunder Crack was hoisted entirely over Ink's back, and judo-thrown directly onto Serp. The stool that the Black Cloak was bound to shattered, though the weight of another pony represented a similar level of restraint.

"Sorry," Ink told the other stallion completely unapologetically. "Slipped."

"Don't compare yourself to the Commander," Crack replied, rolling over.

"Хорош, Комендант, это было что, нарочно? Потому что если так, то ну тебя на хуй."

More senseless violence, almost as ridiculous as to be labeled slapstick might very well have ensued, were it not for the arrival of two far less militant stallions. The first was a blue unicorn in a neighru jacket and a scarf who probably needs no further introduction because his name was Foresight. The second was an undressed, attractive, and apparently younger golden alicorn named Watchful Eye.

"Princesses?" Foresight expressed his surprise. "It's a pleasure to see you." He scanned the room.

"Predvienie, it's good to see you as well," Celestia replied with a diplomatic level of mild disinterest. "And Tsar Eye. I have to confess, I'm surprised to see you."

"Agreed, Sister."

Foresight tilted his head slightly. "Captain Armor. The Crystal Empire was beautiful."

These introductions went on for some time and are not worth reciting in full. Most notable are that the Golden Oaks Library contained three alicorns of varying sizes, three pegasus soldiers, two grown unicorns, and four of the six Bearers of Harmony. Given the little 'Maximum Capacity' plaque above the door, Watchful Eye's entrance had been a criminal act, though nopony felt the need to point that out.

In the course of the realization of just how crowded the room was, Foresight and Tsar Eye had concluded their introductions and finally settled their attentions on the pony in the room whom they had actually arrived for.

"Roscherk Krovyu," Watchful Eye began slowly.

"Oтец."

"Equiish in front of the Princesses, Roscherk. Is something wrong with your voice?"

There was another explanation that need not be repeated.

"Ah. Well, Rainbow Dash, thank you. It would do Roscherk some good to remember he isn't immortal." The Tsar resettled his wings against his back. "I hope we aren't interrupting."

"Or that we are interrupting Roscherk and Serp making fools of themselves," Foresight interrupted.

"Тебе под хвостом ничего не жмет, Предвидение?" Serp asked rhetorically.

Red Ink chuckled audibly, but Foresight managed to ignore the comment with only a gritting of his teeth. The unicorn smiled. "Honestly speaking, can I ask what is actually going on here?"

Further explanation occurred.

Foresight sighed deeply when the subject was completed. "Well... I'll thank you for your kindness to my brother. As for Serp... kill him."

"What?" Ink shouted. Several other faces showed surprise at the unicorn's callousness–his father included.

Foresight gestured calmly in Serp's direction. "If you're expecting me to fight on his behalf, Roscherk, you have no concept of how many hoops I've jumped through because you chose to make him Marshal of Saraneighvo."

Ink's head swayed from side to side with disdain. "So this it? You mad I make joke with students, tell of Ksenia; you think revenge is having them execute Serp? But call me monster."

"No, I think they ought to execute Serp because he is a monster. He follows you around like a little fan, thinking you're 'cool', without understanding what it even means to do your job. And I'd just let him go, but you turned him into... that."

"So my fault?" Ink's wings flared, and for a moment, there was spark along their crests. However, the fire never came to be. "My fault needing soldiers? My fault for glory? For... worship? Or maybe my fault for Stoikaja?"

"Colts!" Watchful Eye shouted. The two grown stallions pulled their faces apart, and became suddenly aware that there were ten other ponies in the room. Most were stunned with shocked faces, or hiding their emotions behind smooth, mask-like expressions from which no opinions could be extracted.

"Father..." Foresight began.

The alicorn stallion wasn't done. "You are both making foals of yourselves, of me, and of our domain. Predvidenie, though I agree with many of your points, being 'right' does not excuse your tone. Roscherk... honestly, I'm not sure what to say at this point that hasn't already been said. I hope the Princess' plan for you works."

"As do we," Luna interrupted. "We feel it must be asked: do you have input on the matter of this 'Sickle' guardstallion?"

Eye sighed, turned slowly toward Serp, and then toward his eldest son. "Predvidenie, defend him."

"What?"

"You are a lawyer–"

"What? No! I have a political science degree and a legal history minor from Trottingham. I don't belong in a courtroom."

"I don't see a courtroom," Watchful Eye observed calmly. "I see a heavily damaged library. You owe this much to me and to your brother. Even if you did not, this was a mistake. If you care to pursue his other behavior at a later date, I would much rather have Serp's punishment handled within our domain."

"But..." Foresight's complaint died slowly as his mind began grinding away. Seven point three six seconds later, he spoke again. "Twilight, can I convince you to forgo pressing attempted murder charges, and instead call it... attempted assault, battery, and wrongful arrest–with the understanding that Serp is a moron and honestly thought you were a rebel from Stalliongrad and not a hero of Equestria?"

"He attacked her with a sickle!" Rainbow Dash cut in.

"I had noticed," Foresight muttered dryly. "Frankly, I don't expect her to accept, but–"

"If you promise to keep him away from other ponies on the streets, I'll take the deal."

Foresight actually dropped his glasses. It took several seconds for him to find them and restore them to his face, and another few to close his mouth. "Well... alright." Then his horn pulled a little pen and a sort of fancy document pad from his jacket. "On behalf of the Army and Guard of the Free and Equal Ponies of the Domain of Stalliongrad, who in turn act on the behalf of Marshal Serp of Saraneighvo, I plead guilty to six-ish counts of criminal property damage and one count each of the aforementioned attempted crimes of assault, battery, and wrongful arrest."

"Predvidenie, what doing?"

Ignoring his brother, the unicorn continued. "Assuming the maximum possible fine for these crimes, as well as a rough estimate of the actual property damage, fees for any psychological counseling needed, and other miscellaneous costs, I conclude our business with this–" Foresight ripped off a small rectangular piece of paper and floated it over to her. "–and the agreement that our domain will never press charges for your unlawful removal of the lost journal of Commander Hurricane from our borders."

Twilight blushed slightly, glanced down at the piece of paper floating before her, and fainted on the spot. Foresight chuckled, set the check down on the table, and turned to the Tsar. "Princesses, this should cover whatever legal fees he would owe your domain, and then some." Another little document landed in front of Luna. "There's a little snippet for Third Brother there too; he'll explain what it means for you." Before any clarification could be requested, the stallion's tone of speech accelerated suspiciously. "That should conclude things. Roscherk, I'd say it was a pleasure to see you again, but I'd be lying." And with that, he walked out of the library.

Watchful Eye nodded to his Diarchs but gave them no actual words. He strode over to his younger living son and wrapped a wing over his shoulders. "You can do this, Roscherk. Come visit when it's done." Then, grabbing the scruff of Serp's black jacket with his teeth, the physically larger Tsar dragged the last unfamiliar face from the room. As Serp was nearly free of the space, Celestia called out to him.

"Было бы полезно, если бы вы следили за своим языком. Вы никогда не знаете, кто может понять вас. Я уверена, что капитан Армор смог бы найти для вас специальную камеру в Кантерлоте, если бы вдруг некоторая пони рассказала ему, что вы говорите за его спиной."

The last glimmer of Serp through the doorway was a white-faced, terrified stallion with his tail so far between his legs that it surely had to be cutting off blood to his more sensitive organs.

Captain Armor and Sergeant Crack followed him out, leaving the Diarchs, the Bearers, and Roscherk relatively 'alone'.

"Is Twilight alrigh’?" Applejack asked.

"Fine," Roscherk answered. "Predvidenie money doing that."

"Oh, I very much doubt it could seriously be that mu...c...h..." Rarity's voice devolved into a whimpering squeal as she lifted Twilight's check.

"Come on, Rarity, what does it say?"

Instead of answering, Rarity beckoned Rainbow and Applejack over. The mares stared at the paper, and promptly reverted to cavepony levels of intelligence at the sight of the staggering volume of '0's Foresight's flowy script had printed.

"He can't actually afford that, can he?" Rainbow asked.

Ink shrugged. "Depend. What number?"

"Seven-hunderd n' fifty million bits."

Ink's brow rose. "Oh."

That was really all there was to be said, but Celestia added a bit of explanation. "Predvidenie is something of a prodigy with the stock market–or so I've heard it said. The ponies from the treasury occasionally come to talk to me about him, but they've audited him half-a-dozen times and they haven't found anything."

"So... this is real money? He actually just made Twilight the richest mare in Ponyville?" Rainbow asked.

"She did almost get stabbed," Applejack observed.

“Heh... I bet she’ll spend it all on books.”

Rarity coughed into her hoof. "I hate to interrupt, but we should probably get her to bed, and–"

"I'll do," Ink told them, before hefting the unconscious mare over his shoulders. "You have jobs, yes?"

"I'm not leaving you alone with Twilight!" Rainbow announced.

"You think am dumb? They being here." He gestured with his neck toward Celestia and Luna. "If you worry, stay. We both sleep. Not much to talk."

Applejack glanced between her two conscious friends. "He, uh... he does have a point. Ah think. Princess, you keep an eye on Twi', now, ya hear?"

"Of course, my little ponies." Celestia bowed her head gently. "I'll see to it you are informed of any further happenings. But for now, I will make one request of one of you. Rainbow Dash."

"Huh? Me?"

"I would appreciate it if you could play host to Mr. Ink while Twilight deals with today's events."

"Whoa, hold on, you want me to let him live in my house?"

Celestia nodded. "You are the owner of the Silver Lining designed home on the skyline here, correct? I was under the impression you lived alone."

"Well, yeah, but... I mean..." Dash struggled, and ultimately failed to produce an argument. "Fine. But only for a few days."

"Thank you, Rainbow Dash. Now, we will see to it that Twilight and Mr. Ink both enjoy an excellent night of sleep. Please, don't let us take up the rest of your days. If you see Captain Armor or Sergeant Crack, send them back. We'll be leaving before moonrise."

"О! O да! Ну же, Принцесса, это именно так, как я-"

Ink's ecstasy was suddenly interrupted by the sound of Princess Luna's voice. "Forgive me for interrupting."

"Uh... it's not a problem." he lied. "Not a very good dream, anyway."

Luna strode out of the darkness that Ink's mind had not bothered to define and took a deep breath. "In reality, Mr. Ink, We– no, sorry, I was just standing over you in the Ponyville library. You were showing a rather potent sign that you were enjoying yourself." Luna shook her head, and focused her magic. "But we should not dwell on that. Allow me to explain myself. Since your arrival in Ponyville, I have been watching your dreams. It is my suspicion that one such phantasmal memory is of great significance to your quest to become a changed stallion. I had planned to wait, but it seems the date has fallen into my lap. So together, tonight, you and I are going to visit this memory, and unravel whatever it is that haunts you, and defines you."

"Uh... what memory?" Ink asked with obvious worry.

"I do not know yet; we shall discover it together." Luna's horn flashed.

August 30th, 1447 A.S.

"The Wall", Stalliongrad

2143 Hours

Ink could see a younger Roscherk Krovyu and eight of his best Black Cloaks had gathered on the abandoned stones of Baron Frostbite's doomed fortification. Rampant snow fell around them, and their heavy black jackets blew in the wind. The Black Cloaks were watching for something, but Roscherk wasn't interested in them. He didn't particularly sing, but his voice called out certain words, with a defined rhythm.

"The wall is not so cruel my dear, nor icy winter's chill

Go past it not afraid of what's beyond.

It cannot hurt as much as tears and lovers broken wills

that carry on when Frostbite's storms are done..."

"What is that song?"

Ink hesitated to answer at first. "The Lullaby of Stalliongrad. It... well, it began as a revolutionary song. Frostbite would execute ponies at sunset. He'd hurl them off the wall to be eaten by dragons. We–the ponies of Stalliongrad–would sing it, as a sign of resistance, and to comfort the condemned that we couldn't save. Night after night, the Domain joined in this song, and there were fillies and colts who grew up listening to it."

"Like those two?" Luna asked.

Ink recoiled as Roscherk's song stopped with the approach of a eight year old colt, and a five or six year old filly. They were both earth ponies. The former had a sort of pale blue or periwinkle coat, and had the gall to glare daggers at Roscherk. His sister was more tentative in her approach. She looked at him, eyes wide and genuinely afraid. Her eggshell coat grew wet at the corners of her eyes as she struggled to contain her tears, hiding behind the little strand of matted off-white mane that hung down over her face. "P-please, Mr. Blood Stroke..."

Ink pulled Luna's attention away from the dream of his memories. "Leave, Princess."

"I will do no such thing," the Princess of the Night responded resolutely, returning her attention to the dialogue before her. “We believe this is for your own good.”

"You are not going over the wall, foals," Roscherk told the foals. "You are only here so that I can guarantee your mother will arrive as well."

"Mom?"

"Don't listen to him, Neustannaja," the colt cried with a raspy anger. "He's the one who killed daddy."

The filly started bawling; her tears froze into ice not long after they left her eyes, creating a circle of frost across her face.

"If you think I'm going to let you go for crying, you don't know me very well." Ink flared his wings and ignited them into a towering bonfire in the same motion. "I don't know who your father was, but I hope I didn't make it too easy on him. She didn't make it easy for–"

"Commandant!"

Ink and Roscherk both swiveled toward the voice. "What?"

"We've got her; we killed all her friends, but we did like you asked and left her alive."

"Ah." Roscherk smiled like a shark. "Well, little ones, mommy's coming." He turned toward the voice, calling down toward the 'inside' of the Wall, where Stalliongrad lay in the distance, obscured by snow. "Bring her here."

Luna and Ink watched with wide eyes as six Black Cloaks approached from the 'inside' of the Wall, surrounding an off-white mare. Soldier On, as Luna had known her, looked far less like a soldier in Ink's memories. Rather than the harsh glare and the tightened body of a trained killer, 'Stoikaja' wore her mane loose, wild, and long. Her every step betrayed not discipline or focus, but a concern that bordered on madness. None of the Black Cloaks serving as her 'escort' dared to step within hoof's reach of the towering earth pony. When they reached the foot of the crumbled stones leading up to the wall, the party stopped.

"Mommy!"

Little Neustannaja moved to run down the sheer face of the wall. Roscherk wasn't having it. His burning wing swept her hooves out from under her, and his left forehoof shod in steel pressed down against her throat.

"Let her go!" Stoikaja yelled, beginning to spring forward.

"No sudden moves," Roscherk answered. The spite unrestrained in his every word turned to icicles in the bitter air, despite the fire roaring from above his black coat.

Stoikaja's hooves slid to a stop on the icy stone. Desperation rang out over anger. "Please, Roscherk, don't hurt her."

"I'd be glad not to." Roscherk's hoof wrapped around the filly's neck, pulling her up against his chest where her struggles meant nothing against his overdeveloped physique. "Here's how this is going to work, Stoikaja. You admit you were the one who had my brother killed. You tell me where to find the assassin. Then I put your head on a pike in front of Burning Hearth."

"No!" The young colt present had the courage to run up and strike the leg holding his sister. "You're not gonna hurt her!"

Roscherk reared back, not from pain but to grant himself a clear shot. His free right forehoof cracked down on the colt's neck, toppling him instantly.

"Upornyj" Stoikaja ran forward again, only to be stopped when Roscherk placed a hoof between her and the downed foal.

"He is still alive. I don't want to ruin our deal."

"Mommy..." Neustannaja pleaded from within Roscherk's grasp, struggling to free herself in vain.

Stoikaja's wild mane hung unsettled in the wind for a moment before she lowered her head. "You want me, Roscherk? Do it."

"It's not that simple." The smoke billowing from Roscherk's back grew taller against the specks of snow in the air. "You're going to tell Stol'nograd that you were the one who did it. This rebellion of yours is dying with you. I'm tired of losing honest ponies to your lies."

"My lies?" The mare lifted her head. "Polnoch would have been ten-thousand times the Commandant you are. I'll die for my children, but I can't drag the domain with me."

The air cracked like a whip as Ink moved his wings. It wasn't a large motion; more like a gentle readjustment of position, but the fire he projected in huge plumes against the sky was not so peaceful. His body language spoke of a growing anger, as he lowered himself toward the cold stones of the wall. "It's already over, Stoikaja. Spare me the blood."

"Isn't that what you love, Roscherk? The blood?"

"Shut your mouth!"

"Let go of my daughter."

Roaring in anger, Roscherk flung the filly toward the edge of the wall like a ragdoll. She bounced and slid on the cold stones of the wall before coming to rest at the lip of a sheer seventy-foot precipice overlooking a plain of ice, stone, and snow.

Stoikaja's primal scream filled the air, and she began to run forward.

The Commandant roared in anger, and his mouth lit up in orange. A torrent of fire poured off his tongue toward Stoikaja, hot enough to drive away the icy curse that plagued the land. Most of the other Black Cloaks were petrified as smoke engulfed their prisoner. It came as little surprise when Stoikaja tore out of the black clouds toward Roscherk, but she passed him up entirely in the interest of saving her daughter.

He was not so distracted. The steel shoe on his hoof, now heated to the point of glowing white, seared into the mare's flesh with every strike he landed against her. His hooves moved with untraceable speed, slicing into her flesh and searing the shut the wounds they left behind.

She toppled to the cold surface of the wall with a deafening crunch, mere feet from her daughter, too determined in her rescue to even gasp or cry out in pain.

Roscherk pounced atop her and wrapped his hooves around her neck as his wings flared. Only inches from her filly's hooves, Stoikaja was pulled into the air by the burly pegasus who was her most loathed enemy.

"Say it!" he shouted, as consumed by his obsession as he was by flames.

Stoikaja twisted in his grip even as she gasped for air. The sheer might of her body was thrown into a single blow against Roscherk's ribcage. Bones slid into muscle and sinew two dozen feet in the air, and in shock, the short lived flight ended in a sudden fall.

The collision of flesh and bone on ice and stone was deafening, punctuated by a sudden darkness overtaking Ink's memories.

"Is that it?" Luna asked? "This is the memory that–"

"If I told you it was," Ink asked as he clutched his neck in phantom pain, "would you let it stop here?"

Then the chill wind and the dark stones returned as Roscherk's eyes fluttered open to the sight of crumpled Black Cloak bodies with snapped necks and glazed eyes. A few had already fled into the distance, and two more still stood, fighting the titanic rebel as best they could. Stoikaja tackled one with her shoulder as the other's blade clove through her mane. Before the toppled stallion could react, her hoof lashed into his throat twice, drawing blood and tearing a gaping wound. Without standing, her hind legs caught the other stallion's ribcage in a full buck. Spurs of bone shattered from the sides of his chest at the impossible force; he was dead before he hit the ground.

The sparks of Roscherk's rage were still there, but they were nothing compared to the fire that erupted from his back in that moment. Stoikaja turned in wide-eyed surprise as the whole world danced in orange and red and black. The stallion's roar was guttural, indistinct, and defined solely by the rage of having been bested once again. The crackling of fire consumed the wall, as a literal wall of flames expanded to cover the stones of Frostbite's legacy. Bodies burned in coats that wrapped them like body bags. Roscherk could not be brought to notice as he lunged forward.

He struck Stoikaja and her flesh burned. Her hooves shattered his foreleg, but the heat in his blood concealed the pain. He ripped at her and burned her, biting and striking in a whirlwind of flames that would have cooked a lesser pony alive. Her strength and her endurance were nothing against him when his mind refused to recognize such petty concepts as pain and danger. He protected himself not by dodging or blocking, but with the sheer volume of damage he and his fires wrought upon her once-invulnerable form.

For the first time since the Dragon Wars, the snow in Stalliongrad fell black and orange.

When he had broken her guard, his hooves beat against her hind legs again and again and again, burning open flesh and muscle and cracking dried bone to reveal seared marrow. By the time his fury had abated to permit speech, the unstoppable titan of the rebellion could no longer stand.

"Now..." Roscherk panted between his rapid words. "...I'll finish what Frostbite started."

Stoikaja's face was too battered, and her mind too tired to even consider a response. Roscherk hefted her with a wing and a hoof, and carried her to the edge of the wall, where an icy fall awaited. "As Mentor would say, enjoy Hell."

"Mom!" Neustannaja screamed, crawling out from beneath a charred corpse and rushing forward. Stoikaja's head rolled toward her daughter too late to stop the unthinking fury of a guardspony gone mad.

Two ponies fell from the Wall, out of the fire and into the welcome chill of the snow. Roscherk watched them tumble, though the darkness of the night and the falling snow far below concealed what was left of them.

The fire died slowly, leaving a single wounded stallion standing amidst a company of ashes and corpses. The wind picked up, and Roscherk knew that it was finally done. He turned to survey his losses with a hollow gaze, as if he were a farmer looking upon a burnt field. In the dearth of his anger, he could find no emotion for them. No tears were there to shed for the fallen six.

His eyes did stop, once. Amidst the burnt black fabric and the charred coats there was something smaller. He'd thought it was a scrap of fabric, at first. One more memory of Polnoch burnt in the night. But as he stared, he saw the shapes of little legs, and a youthful tail.

Silently, Roscherk collected the body of the bravest little soldier. The colt settled across the stallion's back with the help of a wing. And then, limping on a broken leg, Roscherk Krovyu wandered into the night with the last memories of a travesty, and the weight of two young souls sitting on his own.

Red Ink could not stay as silent.

"Прощай опять мы говорим,

Зная, что расставанье предстоит.

Но ты жди лучей летнего солнца,

В своем сердце меня сохранив."

By the time the notes had finished, the stallion had only his memories for company.

Third Brother lowered himself onto the library balcony from his roost in the leaves, just as Luna stepped outside. The Night Guard waited for the doors to close before speaking. "So now you know, Mistress."

Luna nodded. "But I find myself wondering: how could you have known? Were you present?"

Third Brother responded with a curt shake of his head. "No, Mistress. The story was told to me some time later."

"By whom, if I may ask?"

Third Brother answered with an unreadable tone. "Stoikaja." The hints of a Stalliongradi accent in the way he said the name caught the Princess by surprise. His tight lips offered no further explanation as he took off into the night.

Author's Note

For the benefit of English-only readers,

Relentless - Неустанная [Neustannaja]
Unyielding - Упорный [Upornyj]

Dr. Do

VIII

Dr. Do

September 14th, 1452 A.S.
1 Awesome Bullavard
0541 Hours

Ink inclined his neck at the knocking on the wall of solid clouds. "I'll be there in a second!" Sweat dripped down the bulging muscles of his neck. With some degree of effort, he kept all four of his legs pinned to his sides. "Девяносто девять… сто." Gasping in a breath, he extended his legs and lifted his right wing from the floor. A quick flap of the sore limb restored some semblance of styling to the feathers beneath the rippling muscles, while simultaneously discarding more than a few loose pinions.

He momentarily grumbled at the interruption of his morning workout, even if no actual words were uttered. He resolved to finish the set of pushups for his other wing before bed, giving no particular care for the advice that working out directly before going to sleep was medically inadvisable.

Having 'groomed' himself, Ink walked off the hard cloudstone floor of Rainbow Dash's trophy room, and onto the plush raw cumulus carpeting of her living room. Across a messy and sparsely decorated room, Ink could see an empty doorway looking out on Ponyville. Rainbow had forgiven him the door he had broken in exchange for his forgiveness of the head-wound he had suffered four days prior.

The absence of a door was notable for the smiling gray face staring through the open space it should have filled. "Hi, Mister Ink!"

"Good morning, Derpy. You're here early this morning."

"Yup!" The mailmare tilted her head gently to the side. "Sounds like your head is finally healed up. You're going to be back at school tomorrow, right? Dinky wanted to ask you a whole bunch of questions."

Ink cocked his brow. "Did she… tell you?"

"Tell me what?" Derpy asked. "Ooh, is it a class secret?"

"No." The stallion found himself at pause as to whether to continue. "She didn't mention anything about my past? She didn't tell you who I am?"

"Of course not, silly. I already know who you are. You're Mr. Ink, the substitute teacher from Stalliongrad."

Ink's brow rose, and then fell softly as his mind wrapped itself around the idea that the wall-eyed mare might perhaps be much wiser than he had given her credit for. "Okay. Well… why are you here, then?"

"Well, I came with First Class Priority Mail for Rainbow Dash." Derpy's head darted into her messenger bag, and pulled out a manila envelope. "Straight from Manehattan; might be the Wonderbolts. I'll bet she'll be excited. Also, Mr. Ink, I don't actually have a letter or anything, but Twilight said she'd like to see you once you could talk right again. Maybe you should stop by the library."

"I'll be sure to do so." Ink extended a wing toward the mare. "I can give the envelope to Rainbow when she wakes up."

"Oh! Thanks! I always hate just leaving Rainbow's mail out front here, but she never checks her mailbox on the ground…"

"It is not problem."

"I think that's 'not a problem'," Derpy corrected, as she hoofed over the package. "Have a nice day, Mr. Ink."

“You too...” Ink’s brow rose as he noted a particularly bad moment for the mailmare’s eyes. “Can I ask you something before you go?”

“Sounds like you just did,” she teased, before cocking her head to the side and smiling widely. “Go ahead.”

“What’s with your eye?”

Ink had been at least conscious of the fact that the question might bring about the mare’s ire. Instead, to his pleasant surprise, Derpy chuckled. “This old thing? When I was little, some bullies were picking on my little sister. I drove ‘em off, but one of them hit me pretty hard in the side of the head. Of course, the buck wasn’t as bad as falling from Cloudsdale.” Derpy’s levity began to fade as her eyes drew to a focus, in perfect line with Ink’s. Or rather, with his left eye. “Actually... you hurt your head too, right?”

“...yes?” Ink asked. “Is something—”

“I think you should go find a mirror,” Derpy told him with urgency and seriousness. “Like, fast.”

Pressing a wing to his left eye, Ink turned without so much as a goodbye and rushed back into Rainbow’s opulent home.

Chuckling to herself lightly, Derpy flew away.

Daring Do lunged, barely sliding between the descending stone barrier and its place on the temple floor. The idol of Discord made it through without trouble, but only a flick of her wing retrieved her most prized possession before the Zebrican temple shut itself off from the world forever.

“Phew. That was a close one,” she muttered, restoring her pith helmet to its place on her head.

“Indeed it was, Doctor Do.”

Daring jumped at the distinctly familiar voice. One didn’t usually expect a Stalliongradi accent in the depths of the Zebrican jungle. Turning away from the temple for the first time since her near-death, she saw his smug smile.

His red coat ended at the edge of a long black leather jacket, topped in black fur he had no doubt skinned from some poor animal with his own hooves. His hooves were shod in bladed steel just as sharp as his tongue, and just as cruel as his harsh brown eyes.

“Commandant.”

“You do remember me, Dr. Do. So glad to hear it. I’d like you to meet my friends.” The Commandant’s blood-toned wing gestured to the jungle, and a few dozen war-painted Zebras emerged. Daring recognized them by the patterns of the white and red lines running perpendicular to their stripes. The Mshenzi tribe were a legend in the world of archeology: the lost cannibal tribe of Zebrica. Her gut told her that the Commandant wasn’t clever enough to have dug up such a forgotten people, but her mind wasn’t about to call his bluff when they were clearly obeying his commands.

He continued his speech as her mind raced. “My friends, this is Doctor Daring Do. Professor of Archeology at the University of Manehattan, and world-renowned explorer and treasure hunter. While your reputation may not precede you here, Doctor, I’m sure you must be familiar with my company.”

Without even thinking, Daring snapped back at him. “What, were your Black Cloaks too scared to come to Zebrica this time? Or could they just not take the heat?”

“I assure you, Doctor, my subordinates are occupied with pressing matters. Matters, I might add, which also concern me. So I’ll give you a simple ultimatum. Give me the idol, or I will pry it from your cold, dead hooves.”

“I thought we had something...” Daring muttered sarcastically, as she eyed the spear wielding zebras. She was a good flier, but she wasn’t sure she could dodge that many spears. Then there was the risk of the Commandant chasing her. The bigger pegasus wasn’t nearly as agile, but he was a lot faster. Gulping down her pride, she extended a hoof. “Fine. Take it.”

“I’m glad you see things my way,” the Commandant muttered, as he snatched the golden statue of the draconequus from Daring’s hooves. Spreading his wings, he rose into the air over the jungle. “Wala kula yake haraka haraka.”

Daring gulped. Her ear wasn’t all too trained to the dead languages of Zebrica the way her eyes were, but she was able to pick up enough.

“How about you don’t eat me at all?” she asked, as the zebras paced forward.

- - -

Golden Oaks Library
0612 Hours

“You seem like you’re in a bad mood, Mr. Ink.”

Red Ink was surprised by the statement. It was usually altogether blatant when he was in a bad mood, and it had been a very long time since he’d heard an honest comment to that effect. He took a sip of the tea sitting on the table in front of him, gagged down the bitter flavor, and nodded. “That... that mailmare. I thought I would have to get eyepatch.”

Twilight seemed surprisingly unaffected by the comment. Then again, that lack of surprise was easily explained by the all-consuming void Ink had decided had to be contained between the pages of the novel hovering in front of her face.

Spike, who had been across the main room of the library shelving books, shrugged. “Meh; I’m not seeing it.”

Twilight looked up from her book. “Sorry, what?”

“I said he wouldn’t look very good with an eyepatch. Too short to be a pirate.”

“Say that to my face, little dragon, and see what happens.” Ink pounded his chest, prompting Spike to take a step back and raise a brow. Satisfied with the reaction, Ink returned his hoof to the ground. “That’s what I thought.”

“Geez... lay off buddy. I’m short too.”

“I’m not short,” Ink growled. “It’s not my fault you Canterlot ponies are all unnaturally tall.”

Spike cocked his head. “Uh, they aren’t any taller than—”

Twilight interrupted with a raised hoof. “Actually, Spike, you’ll find that on statistical average, an adult pony in the Domain of Stalliongrad is four point six inches shorter than their equivalent in the Domain of Canterlot, due to malnutrition brought about by the effects of the Dragon Wars, and then later the Blizzard Revolution.” Twilight concluded her explanation by setting her rather thin novel face down on the table and sitting upright properly. “Now will you two please stop arguing?”

“...fine.” Spike went back to shelving books, but couldn’t resist launching a parting phrase over his shoulder. “He started it.”

“I’m sure,” Twilight muttered. “Actually, Roscherk, I was hoping to talk to you about that.”

Ink’s brow rose. “I had not realized we were using first names now.”

“I told you ‘Twilight’ was fine a long time ago, actually. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” The librarian stood up and walked around the little table so that she could look Ink in the eyes at a more even level. “Specifically, I wanted to talk to you about how you behaved when Foresight and your father were here.”

Ink groaned inwardly, bracing himself for the impending onslaught of her criticism.

“I was impressed with the way you controlled your temper.”

“...what?”

“I’m not saying you couldn’t still use some improvement,” Twilight continued, oblivious to Ink’s shock. “However, you didn’t light your wings on fire, and you kept control of yourself.”

“Perhaps you remember a different day than me. I threw Thunder Crack through one of your chairs. Right?”

Twilight shrugged. “Like I said, you could use some improvement. But more what I mean is how you behaved with Foresight. When you came to Ponyville a few weeks ago, you would have burnt down the whole library if you got in a shouting match like that one. I’m not saying you’re anywhere near perfect. I just wanted to say that I had noticed an improvement.”

“Oh. Well, why bother mentioning anything before I was ‘done’?”

“Dr. Compensation’s research suggests that positive reinforcement is fundamental to the development of positive habits.” Twilight smiled at the recitation of knowledge, as if encountering an old friend. “Also, I feel like having you continue to meet with me to practice Equiish and work on your control of your Empatha is beginning to hit what I might label a ‘point of diminishing returns’.”

“...you have only just taught me to speak Equiish, Twilight. I do not speak Cirran.”

“Quod non Cirran. Noli esse ridiculum.” Twilight chuckled at Ink’s show of misunderstanding, despite her own lack of familiarity with the effectively dead language. “What I mean is that if you want to get any better at handling conflict appropriately, you should spend some more time with my friends, and maybe start learning some more about the Magic of Friendship. It has been a while since you wrote a friendship report.”

Ink rolled his eyes. “I talked to her face to face. I do not see the need.”

“She used to make me do them face to face,” Twilight noted.

The pegasus groaned. “Can you imagine what it would have said, Twilight?” He let his voice slip into a deliberate mockery of his own accent. “Dear Princess Celestia, today I am learn that being punch into face by Rainbow Dash is much hurt. Mailmare is making think my eye is broken. Now I am not into speaking well, and am making fool of self in front of father. Friendship is stupid. It is too hot here. Sign, Red Ink.”

His self parody completed, Ink gave an impressively sarcastic bow. Twilight offered his performance a bit of simple applause as she finished off the last of her chuckles. “So Derpy told you that your eye had gone lazy?”

Ink nodded. “I asked her what she happened to her eye, and she told me she fell on her head when she was younger.”

The librarian couldn’t help but smile. “You should be careful around Derpy, Mr. Ink. She’s smarter than you’d think.”

“Is she Honor Guard?” Ink asked rather bluntly, earning a stare that could not merely be described as wide. Oceanic was a decent approximation for the spread of Twilight’s eyelids. “You think I am kidding?”

“Well... yeah, pretty much,” Twilight managed, once she regained control of her tongue and settled her laughter at the ridiculousness of the insinuation. “She gets a lot of unfair blame for being stupid, but she really is kinda... clumsy.”

“Clumsy?”

“She dropped a piano on my head once.”

Ink pondered this for a moment, in light of his experiences with the mare who had so bluntly threatened his life, and then casually deceived him with so little difficulty. After this moment’s thought, he replied to Twilight with the utmost sincerity.

“Maybe—and I am just saying maybe—Mentor decided that he wanted to get rid of you.”

“What?”

“You know, like... assassination? You had, perhaps, done something that challenged Princess’ power?”

“Firstly, Mr. Ink, that’s ridiculous. What threat could I possibly pose to Princess Celestia, even if I did have something against her? Even if I somehow became her equal in Arcana, I’m not about to sprout wings or something. Secondly, I’ll have you know that the Commander and I were on excellent terms.”

“Really? Did he ever tell you his name?”

It was a loaded question, of course. The pony might as well have actually been named The Commander, were it not for the reality that “Hi, I’m The” looks pretty stupid on a mass-produced nametag sticker. He only went by a rough approximation of his real name during the Blizzard Revolution to avoid drawing attention to his position.

Twilight gave the stallion a ‘brook-wide’ dead stare (as opposed to the ‘ocean-wide’ gaze of a pony begging to live) before replying to his original question. “When I was little, I asked him why he had Commander Hurricane’s armor. He told me he was actually Commander Hurricane, but that it would have to be our little secret. Princess Celestia sometimes had him teach me about history; I believed him about having lived through a lot of it until I found the West Horn history textbook he’d been using to brush up.” Twilight stared off at the wall for a moment, before actually answering Ink’s question. “I didn’t know his real name until the funeral a few weeks ago, if that’s what you’re asking. Then again, I don’t see what difference that makes. I don’t believe he was the sort of stallion who would just kill somepony because they were inconvenient to Princess Celestia—and I doubt she would allow a pony like that around either.”

Ink’s impending burst of laughter at the expense of a young mare’s gullibility was interrupted by the door slamming open to reveal a little orange pegasus filly. “Hey Twilight! Have you seen Rainbow Dash?”

Twilight gritted her teeth at the number of books that had been toppled from their perches by the slam of the door against the nearby wall. “No, Scootaloo. I imagine she’s still asleep.”

“Actually,” Ink interrupted, “she’s out of town today, Scootaloo.”

“Mr. Crowview!” Scootaloo jumped a little bit, hovered on her little wings for just a second, and then ran forward and slid to a stop sitting just in front of him. Somewhere in Stalliongrad, a lonely puppy froze to death that very instant, in a perfect example of Starswirl’s Three-and-a-halfth law: Conservation of Adorableness.

Mr. Krovyu, who had found the pronunciation of his name anything but adorable, winced and contorted his neck at a sound that he would gladly have likened to a screaming cat being dragged by its claws down a chalkboard. “Yes, Scootaloo?”

“You’re all better! Are you going to be back at school tomorrow?”

Ink nodded slowly. “And I would appreciate it if you continued to call me Mr. Ink.”

“But that’s not your real name!”

Ink groaned. “Just... Mr. Ink is fine.”

“Well... okay.” Like so many young and rambunctious fillies who had managed to make off with one too many chocolate bars while nopony was looking and were consequently on raging sugar-highs, Scootaloo’s focus launched off of Ink expeditiously. It settled on Twilight’s book.

“Is that the new Daring Do, Twilight?”

Always eager to see a young mind indoctrinated with the value of the printed word, Twilight lit up like a fireworks stand with an angry Red Ink inside. “Yep! It comes out tomorrow, but Mr. Up sent me a personal copy after I gave him a copy of my notes on Commander Hurricane’s journal. I’ll put it up to be checked out once I’m done.”

Scootaloo considered temptation by biting her lip momentarily, before shaking her head in a surprising show of willpower. “Nah, that’s okay. I’m gonna go get my own copy, signed and everything!”

“I thought Fed Up was going to be in Manehattan all day. You aren’t going that far, are you?”

Scootaloo looked suddenly guilty, like this pathetic excuse for a simile. “Yeah, well... I’m going to go with Applebloom and Applejack.”

“Applejack? Really? I thought she was with Resistant prepping for applebucking next weekend.”

“Yeah, well... hey, Mr. Ink, there’s this really cool, uh, Stalliongrad history thing I want to show you for school and you should come outside right now and look at it.” Scootaloo urgently pressed against Ink’s foreleg. The futile action was rewarded when he humored the filly, allowing her to lead him outside the library.

Ink took in the Ponyville morning air, and was overcome with a curious feeling which he only barely managed to resist voicing in song.

Morning in Ponyville shimmers,

morning in Ponyville shines,

and right now my gut is telling me,

that shortly, I’m probably gonna die.

“Did you say something, Mr. Ink?” Scootaloo asked.

He shook his head. “Not out loud. Now, what did you actually want?”

“I wanna go to Manehattan. It’s gonna be Rainbow Dash’s birthday soon, and I wanna get her the new Daring Do book, signed.”

Ink cocked his brow. “Do you know how far Manehattan is?”

“Uh... well, I know it’s on the ocean, across from Stalliongrad.”

“It is a long way. We would have to spend the night there. What would your parents say?”

“Uh... nothing?” Scootaloo proposed.

Ink shook his head. “You expect me to pay for your train ticket and just let you go?”

“No, Mr. Ink. I expect you to fly.” After a moment’s pause at the glory of the subtle accent that had slipped into the phrase, Scootaloo continued. “Look, I really wanna do this for Rainbow Dash, and I need your help. I promise you won’t get in trouble. It can be our secret, okay?”

A moment later, it was revealed that even Roscherk Krovyu had a soft spot in his charred and blackened heart for the wide, pleading puppy eyes of a filly trying far too hard to get her way.

Either that, or he just didn’t care about the potential consequences. Probably the latter.

Daring pulled back on the mane of the little filly in the oversized Manehattan Yankee’s cap. “Whoa there, Squirt,” she whispered with intensity. “It’s a long way down.”

“There are ponies down there, Dr. Do!” Little Disc warned.

“Ponies? But Onyx Ridge has been abandoned for eight-thousand...” Daring’s words died on her tongue as she leaned over the ledge and down into the bowels of the ancient barbarian fortress. “Oh.”

“Who they?” the little filly from Shanghay inquired in her peculiar accent.

“Black Cloaks. I hate those guys.” Daring reached into her bag with a dexterous wing and dug for her notebook. “I was expecting Wargs to be holding Dad. Something’s up.” The mare’s suspicions were confirmed when a blue creature that was decidedly not a pony revealed itself. “Ahuizotl is working with them?” She watched as her oldest rival stalked amongst the black-cloaked figures. “Where’s the Commandant? Do you see him, squirt?”

No reply was forthcoming. “Squirt?!” Daring turned to find a blood-red hoof wrapped tightly around a squirming, fighting filly.

“You were looking for me, Doctor Do? Here I am.”

Gathering Avenue, Manehattan
1019 Hours

“No, listen to me, Little Disc is by far the best kid sidekick in all of fiction. I mean, think of Temple of Do, right? She totally bucks Ahuizotl in the face, and then she frees all the other kids and―” The colt was cut off in his tirade by a pair of blood-colored wings beneath a long black coat, soaring barely over his head. “Hey, mister; badass Commandant cosplay.”

Ink allowed Scootaloo to scamper off his back and onto the paved Manehattan street before turning around to get a good look at the colt who had just addressed him. A sixteen-ish face, painted a thick blue, stared back at him. That wasn’t even the tip of the weirdness iceberg, but it was enough to send a chill down Red Ink’s spine. Atop the colt’s head was... another fake, stuffed head that looked like it had been made out of paper scraps and garbage. There were gaudy fake gold bracelets around some of his ankles, and his tail had been bound up to resemble that of a cat; at its end was a paw-like thing. Beside him was a rather obese colt, who had been painted to look like a tiger.

A part of Ink wondered whether he even had the capacity to care about an explanation.

In the undeniably awkward silence that filled the time it took Ink to perform this analysis, the colt had settled on another topic of discussion to broach with the pro-tier cosplayer. “What do you think the Commandant’s real name is going to be? They say it’s finally going to be revealed in the new one!”

After puzzling over the meaning of the sentence, Ink settled on responding the way Twilight would have expected him to. “My name is Roscherk Krovyu.”

“Whoa, you actually speak Stalliongradi?”

“No way, Check,” his fatter friend interrupted. “I’m sure he just looked up a few words at the library or something. Besides, everypony knows the Commandant is gonna be her dad from the past, with the Scepter of Midnight.”

“You’re an idiot, Con. I bet you five hundred bits he’s undead Commander Hurricane, from the Phoenix’s Hearth. Why else would Fed Up give us that huge cliffhanger about the body getting thrown into the fire? Plus, the Commandant didn’t show up until the next book.”

“Yeah, but they talked about him way back in The Sapphire Stone. Don’t you remember that whole scene with...”

Their dialogue didn’t actually drop off in volume by any decrease in the intensity of their argument. Instead, the rapidly decreasing volume was caused by Ink and Scootaloo walking away. The hardened soldier of the two turned to his guide. “So... what are we actually doing here?”

“We’re headed in there,” Scootaloo answered, pointing with a hoof toward the broad, flat edifice of the Manehattan City Convention Center. “Looking for Fed Up; he’s an author.”

The two semi-strangely dressed colts called after the departing duo after a moment of awkward realization. “...hey, wait, where are you―”

When a pegasus flares their wings, they are expressing an intense emotion: arousal has attained a certain reputation for this behavior, though it is far from the only example. Between perceptive pegasi, the inclinations of feathers can convey a specific emotion, rather than the mere presence or absence of such a strong feeling. Shock, for example, is denoted by a flight-formation spread capable of taking off at a moment’s notice. Rage, in turn, involves the spreading of feathers to their maximum extent in order to shed the excess heat produced by the associated Empathic discipline of fire. When a pegasus desires to express this rage toward a single individual, they do so by bending their wings backward and around at the shoulder joint, to point the tips of both limbs toward the subject of their ire simultaneously. It is a rather acrobatically involved motion whose necessary effort is far more indicative of a mutual hatred than, say, the uplifting of a single central digit on a ‘claw’ or analogous appendage.

The purpose of this lengthy diatribe is so that our non-pegasus readers can appreciate Ink’s mutual talents of bodily flexibility, and particularly unhealthy levels of overall hatred for his average fellow pony. Rather than bothering with his wings, Ink performed this motion with his hind legs.

The two colts could barely even be described as offended; their overwhelming emotion was one of amazement.

As the stallion continued on his way, the presence of his long black coat prevented Scootaloo from noticing the gesture, and thus she said nothing in response as they made their way toward the convention center.

“What was that?” Ink asked while the two stallions were still well within earshot. “Are they in a cult?”

“Huh? No! They’re Daring Do fans.”

“What’s a daring do?”

“Not ‘a daring’. Daring Do. They’re books about an awesome archeologist doctor.”

Ink was puzzled by this comment. “You know what archaeologists do, right?”

“Yeah! They go dig up buried treasures and―”

“No, those are pirates. Archeologists are boring ponies who dig up chunks of broken pots trying to figure out whether or not Starswirl the Bearded drank enough milk as a foal. They do not find treasure.”

“But―”

Ink trod upon Scootaloo’s dreams like a glorious red velvet carpet over a thousand porcelain Hearth’s Warming ornaments. “If you want to go on an adventure, you’d be better off moving to Stol’nograd with me. Rainbow Dash can teach you how to fight, and then you can put in an application to join the Black Cloaks.”

What Ink did not mention, simply out of lack of conscious care, was that there did not exist in the entire world even a single paper copy of a job application for the Black Cloaks. Instead, their leader encouraged would-be defenders of the Domain of Stalliongrad to travel out into the wastes of the domain and kill a monster; the bigger and deadlier, the better. It’s severed head was then to be placed on his desk in the armory down the street from Burning Hearth Castle, where he would judge the competitiveness of the applicant, and decide their starting salary. The Black Cloaks employed a professional boar taxidermist who helped in this assessment, and whose official title was ‘Secretary to the Commandant’―after all, his foremost obligation was to keep Ink’s desk clean.

“Rainbow doesn’t like to talk about fighting,” Scootaloo said. “Or her trip, or guardsponies, or really anything like that.”

“What, because her friend died?” Ink didn’t notice the utter shock on the filly’s face as he walked toward the Manehattan City Convention center. “She acts like nopony else has ever lost somepony. Oh, poor me. I lost friend and now I will never be a guardspony again, except if Stol’nogradi I don’t like comes to my town. Pathetic.”

“Hey! Don’t be mean to Rainbow Dash! She’s not pathetic; she’s totally awesome!”

“Her Empatha is as strong as mine,” Ink observed with a bitter lack of self-awareness. “She can break sound by flying at it. Yet, despite her goal, she is not ‘Wonderbolt’.” The word was accentuated with wing-quotes. “Her only claim to fame is being friends with Sparkle. She works as weather-pony in a two-bit town. If she actually wanted something from life, she would already have it by now.”

By this point, Scootaloo had almost lost her temper in that potent tightly-bottled mixture of anger and sorrow that ‘civilized’ adults refer to as a tantrum. “You take that back!” she shouted.

“Why should I―”

Perhaps, Mr. Ink― just perhaps― because you’re having an argument with a little filly in the streets of Manehattan and everypony is now staring at you.

“Ahem,” Ink said (notably not actually clearing his throat or coughing). “What I mean to saying... no, that’s not right. What I mean to say, Scootaloo, is that Rainbow Dash has some very significant skills, but I feel like she is wasting them. If she would just get over the other guardspony friend who died and put on some armor again, she could someday be almost as good as me.”

Ink stepped calmly out of the metaphorical fountain of his overwhelming hypocrisy and pride, and up to the literal convention center doors. They opened easily at the press of his hoof. His jaw subsequently opened at the simple pull of gravity.

The two pegasi squirmed against one another, back to back, inside the rather creaky barrel floating its way down river at an unsettling pace.

“This is your fault!”

“How, Doctor, is this in any way myfault?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” the archeologist replied with unprecedented sarcasm. “Maybe its because you thought that Ahuizotl would share his treasure with you? Or maybe it’s because your plan was to have all three of us work together? Or maybe it’s because you’re black-hearted and don’t care about anything except power!”

The military stallion pressed back against the smaller mare. “In my defense, he was only supposed to betray you. And how was I supposed to know he already had the Hoof of Glory? Otherwise, he’d be the one in this stupid barrel, and I’d be up there enjoying...” The Commandant paused. “What in Tartarus does he actually eat, anyway? Come to mention it, what is he?”

“An ahuizotl.”

“Gee, thanks, Doctor. I know his name. What kind of creature is he?”

“An ahuizotl. It’s the name of his species, though I think he might be the last one. That’s beside the point, seeing as we’re tied together in a barrel going down the Amarezon!”

The Commandant scoffed. “You say that like it’s a big deal. We just wait until we spill up on shore and then find a rock to cut the ropes. Simple.”

“It would be... if there weren’t a waterfall a half-mile down the river.”

The Commandant’s struggles grew far more intense, but they were of little help against the ropes binding him to his arch-nemesis. Soon, the roar of the water was audible over the sound of their hooves scraping against the wood of the barrel. With a sigh that Daring could not hear, but felt against her back, the leader of the Black Cloaks gave up his effort. “I will see you in the Summer Lands, Dr. Do.”

“I guess you can call me Daring, now,” she replied. “Though I wouldn’t cross your wings over the whole Summer Lands thing.”

They shared a laugh, cut brief by the sound of roaring water. Daring spoke up again. “There is something I’ve sort of always wondered.”

“Yes?”

“What’s your real name?”

“Well, Dr. Do― er, Daring... It’s...”

Enjoy this excerpt? Be sure to pick up

Daring Do and the Satchel of Tirek

Available September 15th

“It’s a jungle...”

“Yeah, its supposed to look like it’s from the books, Mr. Ink. Daring usually goes exploring in the jungle or the desert or― What are you doing?”

Ink was prodding a plastic tree with his hoof, his face the picture of ‘enigma’ one might find in an arbitrary dictionary. After a moment’s consideration, he bit down on a fake leaf, ripped it from the tree, and swallowed it with a pained expression on his face.

“Disgusting!”

“Well, yeah, it’s a fake tree. Jeez, do they not have plants in Stalliongrad?”

Ink gagged, coughed, and regurgitated the leaf. Any more artistic explanation would only serve to spread his displeasure. “We have pine trees,” he answered. “I have only seen palm trees in pictures.”

“Well, there aren’t gonna be any real palm trees in Manehattan. Now can we actually go inside?”

Ink nodded, and turned away from the plant to a little bench and a mare in a pith helmet sitting behind it.

“Hello, explorers,” the mare greeted as Ink and Scootaloo approached. “Ooh... that’s a great Commandant costume.”

Ink’s brow rose. “Do we... know each other?”

“A Stalliongradi accent too? I’m impressed.” Her hoof moved to a little steel box sitting on the table, whose lid she flipped open. “Are you two interested in three-day passes, or just for today?”

“Uh...”

“Just today,” Scootaloo provided, before her teacher could beg any clarification. “We wanna meet Mr. Up.”

“Oh, well, you know the winners of the costume contest get to meet him for lunch, right? I bet if you hurry, you can still get entered.” She turned to Ink. “It’s twenty bits for you, and ten for the filly.”

“Thirty bits to go in a building? That’s highway robbery!”

Scootaloo’s pouty face continued to have no effect on Ink.

“Thirty bits is the price, mister. And I don’t care how scary your ‘Black Cloaks’ are.” She pantomimed the single quotes with her forehooves. “Do you really want to upset your daughter?”

The thought made Ink die a little inside; he was quite sure he had a few children somewhere in the world, and one of his few truly inspired fears was the idea of having to meet one of them. He knew there had to be at least one (statistically speaking) who had made a blood-oath against him for some perceived slight or abandonment.

Ink’s jaw dropped, and then locked shut again. Rather than wasting time in protest, he slammed a hoof down on the table. “I will give you twelve bits.”

“Uh... this isn’t some flea market, sir.”

“Okay, how about twelve bits and I don’t...” And then, his hoof seconds from lashing out to grab the mare’s throat, Roscherk Krovyu hesitated. “Er, rather, what I meant is... seventeen bits?”

“The price is fixed.”

A glimmer of an idea was born in the stallion’s mind in that moment. He contorted his face in an artificial anger that was rather foreign to a pony who so often found himself in possession of a surplus of the genuine article. “Of course price is fixed! You are part of bourgeoisie, making monopoly over common ponies of proletariat! What do you think crowds will do when I tell them that you kept a down-on-his-luck stallion from taking his little sister inside?”

“Uh...”

“Either she and I walk through those doors, or you are going to have a very bad morning tomorrow with the press. Your choice.”

He didn’t even bother to wait for her response; Ink picked up Scootaloo with a toned wing and carriedher into the convention hall. The filly squirmed in his grip until they stopped in a smallish sort of chamber between two sets of double doors. Ink set her down, and began scraping off his tongue with his hoof.

“What was that?”

“That is how Predvidenie got his way when he was a foal, since he was too much of a bitch to stand up for himself. Also, if I ever hear you say those words, I will expel you.”

“What words? ‘Bitch’?”

“No. Proletariat and bourgeoisie.” Ink spat on the fake tree. “Мерзость.” He rolled his shoulders and looked around the convention hall proper to take assessment of the situation.

Booths, displays, and decorations filled the open hall, decorating about a third of it as a jungle, a third as the wide steppes of the Marehara desert, and the rest as a sort of old-world university. An enormous amount of work and money had gone into creating a realm of fantasy for the ponies present.

And the ponies. Ink had never really seen so many in one place outside of a battlefield. Ponies in costumes, running around and mingling. Ponies making friends, and arguing over whether or not ‘Daring struck first’ ― whatever that meant. He was so consumed in the shock and the confusion that he barely noticed Scootaloo’s growing excitement, until her buzzing wings actually began to disturb his jacket.

“You wanna... go look for this ‘Fed Up’ pony?”

“Do I?” Scootaloo ran forward so suddenly that Ink nearly lost her in the mass of faces dominating the room. Fortunately, even with his vertical deficiency, his overall mass was great enough to plow through the crowd with ease. With that rather abrupt transition into the convention proper, Ink’s adventure began.

Daring Do and the Fan Meetup VII
Manehattan City Convention Center
1246 Hours

“This ‘pizza’ stuff is pretty good,” Ink muttered, as his unnaturally dexterous wings folded his seventh slice cleanly in two, and he shoved it into his mouth.

“I still can’t believe you’ve never had a slice of pizza before. What do you even eat in Stalliongrad?”

Ink managed to catch the pizza on its way back up, so that it didn’t spill all over the floor. “Please, Scootaloo, not while I’m eating.” Discarding the now-ruined pizza, the stallion pulled another slice from the cardboard box balanced between his wings and gulped it down. “But in Stol’nograd, which is not a pun, I am quite fond of potato pelmeni with khren. Or lily sandwiches.”

At the mention of the second item, Scootaloo’s eyes widened slightly. “So you do eat normal food? Just not pizza?”

Ink shrugged, at first unable to answer with another slice of pizza in his mouth. After a moment to swallow, he smiled down. “Pelmeni is far more normal than this stuff. Who puts cheese on a tomato?” Before she could respond, Ink forced the conversation away from what would undoubtedly eventually be a revelation about the peculiar eating habits he had picked up in the revolution. “Too bad all the signed copies of that book were sold out, huh?”

“Yeah. At least you didn’t make a whole big scene like you almost did at the ticket counter. Although, how come you didn’t do that whole thing with the berg-wazzy―”

Ink’s wing slapped Scootaloo’s ears. “What did I tell you about those words?”

“Ow. Sorry, geez. Don’t have a cow, Mr. Ink.”

“Good.” The stallion gritted his teeth. “I didn’t use those words because it wouldn’t matter. If they don’t have more books, complaining about the government and richer ponies isn’t going to make one appear. It will be easier to hunt down this ‘Fed Up’ pony face to face and get him to scrawl his name on covers of books.”

“Yeah, but everypony knows Fed Up hates talking to big groups of fans. You have to win the costume contest to talk to him, like the mare at the door said.”

Ink took a moment to disregard his disclusion from the term ‘everypony’, and then settled in for what his gut warned him was going to be a terrible time. “Costume contest? You mean like all these ponies who are dressed up and making to believe they are my soldiers?”

“Well, uh, yeah. See, in Daring Do, there’s this character called the ‘Commadant’...”

Ink nodded. “Commandant Roscherk Krovyu.”

“No, not you. He’s the bad guy in the story.” Ink scowled. Scootaloo didn’t seem to catch on. “I guess he’s red too, but I don’t think he’s really supposed to be short...” The smell of smoke brought the filly’s attention around. “Uh, is something wrong?”

“No...” Ink managed through gritted teeth. “Why would anything be wrong?”

“Well, I dunno. You just seemed sort of tense.”

At this point, the absence of flames on Ink’s wings was something of a miracle. “Look, Scootaloo, I am... I don’t care about the books, okay. We go, you win this costume thing, and we can leave before anypony realizes that I ran off with a filly half my age alone.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Realization dawned like Celestia before her morning coffee on Scootaloo’s face. “Wait... you’re not the ‘stranger’ from ‘stranger-danger’ that Miss Cheerilee―”

“No!” Ink shook himself. “Absolutely not.” With a swift twist of his wing, the stallion produced what seemed to be a knife of jagged black crystal from within his likewise dark jacket, and held it close to his chest where only Scootaloo could see. “I keep a special knife for ponies like that.”

“Cool!” Scootaloo reached out to touch it, and found the blade twisted out of her reach. “Aw, come on! I’m not gonna cut myself.”

“Better that you not risk it. If you cut yourself with that knife, you will never fly again.”

Scootaloo’s eyes widened, and Ink sensed a conversation that was four parts uncomfortable, two parts military atrocity, and one part political conspiracy. He cut off any discussion of Coltpenhagen at it’s core, interrupting with a new conversation to a random passerby.

“Hey, you―you know where the costume thing is?”

The pony Ink had randomly spotted out of a crowd had painted his coat red, and wore a crappy imitation of Ink’s jacket, which had probably cost twice as much as the genuine article. Rigid, fake red wings gave him an appearance of constant arousal which in no way matched the irritation on his face when he turned around.

“What’s it to ya, shorty? Think you’re gonna win with that lousy getup just ‘cause you got lucky being red with wings, huh?”

Ink forced himself to take two deep breaths to dispel his irritation at being called ‘shorty’, and put on the most pained, unnatural smile that anypony had worn since... well, to spare another anecdote, since a very long time ago.

“My friend and I would like to enter, yes. Do you know where we go?”

“Well, you’re outta luck, squirts. I’ve got the last entry myself, and neither your scruffy flank, nor the wannabe Little Disc are gonna get me to give it up; there’s few enough entries I can get away with auctioning this, and make a few hundred bits.”

Ink’s brow rose. “Can I buy it off you?”

The earth pony chuckled, looking Ink down and... down some more. ‘Up and down’ doesn’t work on somepony that short. “You can’t afford it, buddy. Maybe your blank-flank sister can help.”

“Hey!” Scootaloo cried. “Come on, Mr. Ink. We don’t want his stupid―”

Ink’s wing didn’t unfurl. One instant, it was against his side, and the next it was rigid out to his right, cutting off Scootaloo’s words. The stallion’s chest rose and fell with every panting breath. “Apologize to her.”

“Or what?”

“Well, to start, I will probably have to tell your mother.”

Some ponies are born stupid. Ink was convinced this one had to practice to get as good as he was. “Oh, real sick burn. It’s not like you’d know where to find her if you wanted to.”

“I’d just have to head to bed,” Ink replied, feeling a bit too lazy to do anything creative with the easy lead-in. “She isn’t that expensive, if you have a real job.”

The stallion growled. “If you’re looking for trouble, punk―”

“Then I would likely have to go find somepony actually scary, and not some two-bit, snot-nosed punk who think’s he’s a badass because he happened to hit a growth spurt before everypony else in his elementary class.”

The other stallion threw the first swing, but by that point, it was already over. He was too slow for Ink not to block, had he cared to. He was also too weak to actually get anything more than a twitch and a mild sting out of Ink’s cheek.

Then the real Commandant replied. A hook to the right shoulder put him off balance, and then an uppercut actually flipped the colt head over hooves onto his back. Ink stepped forward once, and caught a blow to his ribs, which he barely noticed. He spun the stallion onto his back, grabbed his still-stinging right foreleg, and twisted it up behind his back.

“Security!” two gold-clad guardsponies shouted as they charged forward from somewhere amidst the crowd.

Ink smiled as calmly and non-sociopathically as he could manage. “It’s fine, officers; I have the situation under control.” And then, with a particularly dexterous hoof, he flipped out the silver badge he kept on the inner pocket of his jacket. “Commander Krovyu, Honor Guard.”

“Whoa! What’s an Honor Guard doing here?”

Ink had a clever answer about ‘taking his sister on vacation’, but found himself infinitely more amused when he didn’t have to use it. The older of the two conventional guards put a hoof on his companion’s shoulder. “Not our business to ask, Buckle. Sir, we’ll be glad to take this one off your hooves.”

“Hold on, sir!” the other guard interrupted. “You really buy that this random pony is―”

“For the love of Celestia, Buckle, shut up.” He continued, whispering, though Ink could easily hear him. “Didn’t you hear about what happened to Captain Armor in Baltimare? We don’t want to stick our noses in Honor Guard business. I’m not losing my job over a scuffle at a Daring Do convention.”

Buckle nodded. “Ahem. Sorry, sir. We’ll take this one back to the station for some basic questioning.”

Ink stepped away from his victim, casually lifting the stallion’s ticket for the costume contest as he did so. “Nothing too harsh; he just needs to learn not to pick on little fillies for not having their Cutie Marks yet.”

Like so many civilized adult ponies, the guardsponies glared down at the grown stallion. Despite how easily he had fallen for Ink’s bait, something in his eyes suggested that he knew exactly what was happening, and that he wasn’t likely to find much hospitality in a Manehattan Guard Station cell.

Ink led Scootaloo away from the rather unfortunate scene, and was quickly distracted by a magically amplified voice.

“Attention: all costume-contest competitors should assemble at the main show hall in five minutes. Thank you!”

“Oh boy...” Ink whispered in Scootaloo’s ear. “Here we go.”

Fed Up lived up to his name as he leaned on the edge of the stage, supported by a leg brace on his right foreleg and a cane pressed against his side. The aging earth pony glared at yet another reminder of what his writing had been reduced to, and only had the spirit to throw a half-hearted wave at the costumed fan before sitting down on the faux-expensive pillow that had been laid down for him.

The uneducated, unimaginative droves roared for him, and his heart sank even further. It took a sigh and a strengthening of will to even look up into their faces. “Good work, everypony.”

Somewhere, Applejack felt suddenly sick.

The M.C. Pony, whose name Mr. Up had promptly forgotten on their introductions at the last four conventions, waved a far more enthusiastic hoof. “Actually, Mr. Up, we still have three more contestants.”

The stallion grumbled under his breath, hoping the microphone wouldn’t catch it. He was sure it had to have been covered by that damnable theme song, which seemed to be following him everywhere. “Fine. Send them out.”

The first one was a mare, dressed in a rather high-quality outfit of his predominant protagonist. Underneath the pith helmet, her face shone with confidence that echoed in her stride. In short, she was just like every other half-decent would-be actress he’d seen paraded across the stage in the show. Out of sheer laziness, he took note of the number pinned on her shirt: 4-24.

After a few poses and a passable recitation of some lines from the books, she finally got out of sight, leaving only two more to go. Up committed her number to memory as the victor of the ‘Daring’ category out of sheer laziness, and steeled himself for the last competitor.

When two ponies started coming up the stairs, he found himself immensely grateful that he wouldn’t have to sit through them both separately. The little orange filly made a pretty good Little Disc, he had to admit. Then the second pony stepped onto the stage, and Up stood in shock.

“That’s... amazing.”

‘The Commandant’ nodded slightly, and mouthed something Up couldn’t parse.

“These are some impressive costumes,” the unicorn M.C. called out. “Do you have anything you’d like to say, or do, for the audience?”

The stallion flared his wings. Five seconds of pyrotechnics later, everypony knew who had won the ‘Commandant’ category of the contest.

Ink and Scootaloo walked alongside some Daring Do pegasus and another filly painted bright blue. Their destination was a small room with five chairs and a round table. Atop the table lay four copies of Daring Do and the Satchel of Tirek, alongside a pile of mediocre deli-bought daisy sandwiches and water bottles.

“You did it, Mr. Ink!”

“It was going to happen, Scootaloo,” Ink muttered. “I am the Commandant.”

“Well, yeah, but not the one from the stories.”

Ink chuckled. “Scootaloo, I bet you three hundred bits that if I pick up that book there on the table and look up ‘the Commandant’s name, it’ll say ‘Roscherk Krovyu’. The author is making a stab at me, and he knows it.”

“What?” Scootaloo cocked her head like a confused puppy. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I know him from Stalliongrad, Scootaloo. It means―”

Ink was cut off by the door swinging open to reveal an irate, limping author. “Alright, let’s get this over with. What are your names?”

The filly in blue stepped forward first. “Well, I’m Ahuizotl.”

“Yes, I know,” Up muttered with fatigue in his tone. “What’s your real name? So I can sign your pre-release copy of the book?”

“Oh, right! Well, I’m Sally Forth.”

Fed Up nodded, and scrawled something mostly illegible on the inside cover of one of the books. “Alright, ‘Daring’, you next. What’s your name?”

“Uh... I’m uh...Spectrum Sprint.”

“Took a while?” Ink teased, as the author wrote.

“Alright, little one, you’re next.”

“My name’s Scootaloo... but could you write it for ‘Rainbow Dash’ in there? It’s a gift.”

“Really?” Fed Up’s brow rose, alongside that of the incredibly subtle ‘Spectrum Sprint’. “A little filly like you came all this way to get a present for somepony else? I have to admit I’m impressed.”

“Well, I didn’t come all this way alone. I couldn’t have won the contest without Mr. Ink’s help.”

Fed Up chuckled. “No, I suppose you couldn’t have. Alright, here’s one copy for Rainbow Dash. I guess that just leaves you, ‘Mr. Ink’. What’s your real name?”

“I think you know, Mr. Dostudyevsky.”

Everything stopped when Fed Up, née Fyodor Dostudyevsky, dropped the fourth book onto the floor. “No. No! Not you! I thought the costume was eerily good, but... What do you want with me?”

“Exactly what Scootaloo said. I’m helping her get a book for her friend.”

“It can’t be that simple.” The older stallion’s eyes went glassy for a moment before he shook his head erratically. “You ruined my life!”

“...what, do you want a kiss to make it better? I sent you to the Wall like.. ten years ago. And you weren’t even there that long before we overthrew Frostbite anyway.”

“Because you were so much better!” Fed Up roared. “When the riots at Burning Hearth started, I wrote for Stoikaja’s rebels. You broke my leg, and it’s never healed right since. I finally gave up and ran away, but of course I couldn’t be ‘Fyodor Dostudyevsky’ anymore, or you and your crazy Black Cloaks would find me. So I started writing here, under the name Fed Up. But nopony wanted to read about social reform, because life under Celestia is great. So I was stuck not selling any books, and I wound up writing this garbage―”

“Whoa, hang on!” ‘Spectrum Sprint’ interrupted. “Daring Do isn’t garbage!”

“It’s trash!” the author ranted, pounding on the table. “Unintelligent, meaningless garbage. But every time I try and insert even the slightest bit of intelligence or deeper meaning, everypony has a collective heart attack about it!”

The old stallion panted to himself for some time. Finally, Ink couldn’t contain his amusement any more. He shook his head slowly. “Well, Mr. Dostudyevsky, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you really don’t mean as much to the Black Cloaks as you seem to think. The truth is that I couldn’t give two shits about what you write outside the Domain. And, frankly, as long as you didn’t give the money from your books to the rebels, I wouldn’t really have cared even if you had stayed in Stol’nograd.”

”Херня!”

“Please, Fyodor, not in front of the foals.”

“You would have drummed up some charges and thrown me into the dungeons under Burning Hearth Castle with all the other dissidents.”

Ink actually laughed. “Secret dungeons? Do I look like the kind of pony who enjoys that much leather? You’re supposed to be smart, so think for a moment. Do you think Celestia would let us continue to rule Stol’nograd if we were dragging ponies screaming from their beds at night and locking them away under the castle?” And then the levity briefly left Ink’s voice. “Imprisonment is expensive, whereas fines and executions are very cheap. And if you think you warrant an execution, you have a vastly overinflated opinion of yourself. Now, you can write Scootaloo’s name in that book, so she has a copy for herself, or you can run away and leave it unsigned; I really don’t care. I don’t give any more of a shit about your book, or your foalish stab at me than I do about you in general. I did the best I could in Stol’nograd.” Ink turned toward the door. “Scootaloo, I’ll meet you outside.”

“I’ll tell the guard about you!” Dostudyevsky shouted. “Celestia will hear what you did!”

“What, that I helped a little filly get a special birthday present for her personal hero, who happens to be one of the saviors of the country?” Ink smiled sarcastically over his shoulder. “Please do. I’d appreciate it.” The door to the room swung open at Ink’s hoof, and he strode out. As it slowly shut, his voice could be heard through the shrinking crack. “Oh, and sorry about your leg.”

September 16th, 1452 A.S.
1 Awesome Bullavard
2206 Hours

Rainbow Dash lay back on her lush cloud bed and smiled. It had been a great birthday; definitely one for the books. And speaking of books...

Her hoof shoved aside a hard-cover novel, whose inner cover bore a rather hollow note from ‘Fed Up’ to ‘Spectrum Sprint’. It was kind of cool that she’d managed to win, but that prize wasn’t halfway as meaningful as the book she held in her hooves. There was still a bit of blue wrapping paper stuck to the corner, which she peeled off carefully. Its cover opened to the most beautiful words she’d ever found inside one of the novels.

To Rainbow Dash,

Looks like you’ve got a fan. Take care of her,

-Fed Up

Happy Birthday, Rainbow Dash

Someday, I hope I can be as awesome as you.

-Scootaloo

Of course, she’d already been reading the thing, but she hadn’t quite finished it yet. There was still that last scene...

Daring and the Commandant tumbled out of the leathery bag together; its omnipresent heartbeat slowly settled as they lay on the desert sand side-by-side. They knew they should have been enemies, but some strange sense of comradery tempered their fatigue and kept their hooves against the coarse ground.

“You know, Commandant,”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“You never told me your real name.”

“Well,” the Commandant chuckled. “That’s a funny story. I could tell you, I guess, but now that we aren’t about to fall off a waterfall. It’s probably better I just show you.”

Before Daring could move, the Commandant was up on his hooves. His wings peeled off the black coat covering his chest and body. For the first time, Daring could see something else beneath it. This strange object was likewise black, but shiny and lacquered to a degree that confused her. It was only when the garment was mostly off that she recognized the shape of a cuirass, and the accompanying plates of armor.

Not the sort of armor the Canterlot Royal Guard wore, though; this was old stuff. Ancient stuff. Cirran stuff. “You... no way. That’s impossible!”

“Is it though?” The Commandant laughed. “I guess you did find an archeological relic on this journey, Doctor Do, even if it wasn’t the one you were actually looking for. I’d love to give you an interview, but right now we should probably do what we can to stop Ahuizotl from taking over Equestria.”

“Whatever you say... Commandant Hurricane.”

Ink slammed the cover of the book, three doors down the hall in Rainbow’s guest bedroom. “Shit... I owe Scootaloo three-hundred bits.”

Epilogue: For Your Ears Only

Epilogue

For Your Ears Only

December 18th, 1452 A.S.
Canterlot Royal Theater Dressing Room 1
1054 Hours

“Oh, come on, Mr. Ink; you’ve got to take it off sooner or later.”

The ‘Commander’ of the Honor Guard sighed. “I know, Rarity. It’s just strange. You have no idea how many times I asked him if I could try it on, and he always said no.”

“What, the real thing?” Twilight shook her head. “You know that’s just a costume, right? Commander Lining didn’t make a habit of lending the real set of Hurricane’s Armor out every Hearth’s Warming Eve for the pageant.”

“I am aware,” Ink told her, before putting on the fake black helmet. “It’s still hard to believe he’s gone. Or that I’ve got his job, now.”

“Well, first you’ve got to stop being Commander Hurricane!” Pinkie patted Ink on the back. “Come on, let’s see your racism face one more time.”

“Oh, please, Pinkie. How many times do I have to tell everypony the stories about him aren’t true?” Twilight clutched her brow. “It’s like Rainbow and I went on our big trip to Stol’nograd for nothing.”

“Thanks,” Ink muttered over his shoulder. “Well, I think we should get ready; it’s about time I got back to the Princess; we have dinner with Prince Blueblood this afternoon.” Ink made a ‘gagging’ motion with his hoof, earning a light laugh from some of the mares in his company. “You have my apologies for stealing the show.”

Rarity slapped him across the fake black cuirass teasingly. “Oh, come now, Mr. Ink. And here I thought Rainbow Dash had elected to stay behind this year.”

“Are ya comin’ back to visit some time?” Applejack asked.

Ink shrugged. “Protecting the Princess is a full-time job.”

“I’m sure we’ll see him around,” Twilight noted. “It isn’t as if she has any shortage of reasons to visit Ponyville.”

“Or perhaps we’ll come visit him. But now, we probably ought to be going.”

Ink held up a hoof. “Wait. Fluttershy!”

The mare, who had until that moment been completely silent, made a sort of squeaking noise as she turned. “Yes?”

Ink was grateful for a red coat to hide his nervousness. He’d approached plenty of mares before in his life, but somehow, vulgar Stalliongradi pickup lines didn’t seem like the right approach here.

“Would you... like to get dinner some time?”

Fluttershy’s eyes grew very wide, and she hid behind her mane when she responded. “Well, um, you see... I’d love to... as a friend.”

She darted out of the room before Ink could reply, and it took him a moment of long breaths to restore his resolve. He would probably have wandered off in search of ‘eggnog’ that very moment, were it not for Rarity wandering up to his side.

“I’m not so sure Fluttershy’s ready for that kind of a relationship, Mr. Ink. But your mention of Prince Blueblood does bring something to mind. You’re something like the ‘Prince’ of Stalliongrad yourself, correct?”

Ink shrugged, debating silently to himself whether or not. “My father is Tsar. You could say that. He would be furious.”

Rarity placed a hoof over her mouth as she laughed. “Well, the thing is, I’ve always rather had a fantasy for going to the Gala with a glorious prince. My last try didn’t work out quite so well, but I was rather looking forward to not going to this year’s Gala alone.”

“Gala?”

“The Grand Galloping Gala,” Rarity answered. “It’s quite a big deal here in the Domain of Canterlot; everypony who is anypony attends. This year, Princess Luna is holding a masked ball, and it should be so much fun. Twilight got us all tickets, as always, but I’ve rather been dreading another incident like the last time I attended. So I was wondering if you might consider being my date for the night?”

Silently, Ink wondered why the prissy mare who had been so enamored with his brother’s Prench scarves and droves of money would ask him over the other ‘Prince’ of Stalliongrad. Little did he know that Rarity was well aware of the ‘Lollypop Incident’. Frankly, that’s both a story for another time, and a story that likely isn’t comfortable enough to be told.

Ink cocked his brow. “I’m not much of a dancer. And I’m very busy tonight. I have a meeting with a sculptor about the assassin―”

“You mean you’re going to unpetrify her?”

In an astounding temptation of fate, Ink nodded. “I don’t see how it could possibly do any harm, now that we have her captured. But regardless, she is likely to tie up the rest of my evening.”

“Oh, the Gala isn’t tonight. It won’t be for another few months. Think of it as a night to relax, after some time with a very hard job.”

Ink placed a hoof on his chest. “You and me? What happens at this ‘Gala’?”

“Oh, the usual. Dancing. Socializing. I’m certain after last time we attended, it will prove to be calm and pleasant. I can’t imagine any of your work will show up that night.”

Across the world, philosophers stirred in their beds, shaken by a great disturbance in the concept of ‘truth’, as though a million voices had cried out in deception, and then were suddenly silenced.

Ink, who was about as far from a philosopher as a gigantic boulder is from a diamond, grinned. “I suppose we can make something happen, Rarity.”

“Don’t take it as any sort of romantic proposal, Mr. Ink.” Rarity walked away, though she did flick his nose with her coiled tail as she left. “At least, not so far in advance.”

Ink was left standing alone in a costume of his mentor’s armor backstage, staring blankly at the door. Only one word came to his addled mind.

Кобылицы.

Sweet Apple Acres
2043 Hours

“Resistant, you comin’ inside tonight?” Granny Smith shouted. “Y’d better not be out there drinkin’ like ya was at Applebuck Season.”

Stoikaja sighed. “I ain’t drinkin, ma’am. An’ I had my part of the orchard done anyhow, so I don’t see why it matters what I do on my time.”

The snappiness of the mare’s response caught Granny Smith’s attention. Pulling her shawl tighter around her withered shoulders, the old mare stepped out of the gentle warmth of the house and into winter’s bitter embrace.

“What’s wrong, dearie? Ya been seemin’ so blue lately.”

“...I don’t take too kindly ta this season, ma’am.”

The old mare rested a gentle hoof on Stoikaja’s shoulder. “Family?”

The younger mare’s silence was all the answer Granny Smith needed.

“Well, yer welcome t’ join us if’n ya want some company for Hearth’s Warmin’; Applejack jus’ got home an’ we got enough supper on th’ table ta feed half the town.”

“No, Ah couldn’t-”

“It wasn’t a suggestion. Asides, I’m sure Big Mac’d love to keep ya company.” The old mare grinned for a moment before seriousness returned to her voice. “Nopony should be alone tonight.”

The Stalliongradi mare stared at the snowing sky before she nodded. “Ah’ll... Ah’ll be in ‘n a bit... Ah promise.”

Satisfied, Granny Smith smiled to Resistant and gave her shoulder a gentle pat. Quickly as her old bones would allow, she made her way back to the warmth of her home. Stoikaja watched her as she went, her ears hearing the faint sounds of laughter from inside.

The foals laughed, chasing one another about the cramped living room. She watched them from the couch, a smile on her lips.

Scowling, Stoikaja cast her gaze to the skies, silently cursing the snow that fell over the fertile earth. Snowflakes fell upon her, cold like death and melting into her coat like tears. She hated snow, she hated the things it carried. The old ache only worsened when she heard the wings approach.

He landed just behind her, snow crunching under his hooves. She didn’t turn to face him, and for a moment, he didn’t move to approach her. Her breath caught in her throat when he took a step, his cold body sitting beside her.

“...Stoikaja?” he spoke.

“You shouldn’t be here...”

The night guard extended his left wing, draping it over her shoulders to shield her from the snow. Though it kept the snowflakes and the calm breeze away, the leathery wing lacked the heat to really compete with a blanket. “It’s Hearth’s Warming Eve. I couldn’t let it pass without seeing you.”

“If she finds out―”

“She trusts me,” he answered quickly, “and even if she knew to ask, I wouldn’t tell her you were here.”

Stoikaja sighed, her head ever so slightly nodding. Then her thoughts turned to grimmer topics. “Is he alive?”

The night guard’s slitted yellow eyes briefly met On’s. “...Yes.”

On lowered her head, her lips pulled into a tight frown. “Why?”

“You know why,” he answered, his voice quiet.

She shook her head, long strands of blonde mane swaying over her face. “What he did to Neustannaja and Upornyj... what he did to you...”

The night guard leaned his head back, gazing into the snowy skies. “He’s still my brother.”

Stoikaja looked him in the eye, the pain of a mother’s loss reflected in her expression. “They were our children!”

The stallion reached into his armor, retrieving a tiny crystal that seemed to be made of the night sky itself. It swirled with colors; blues and purples of every shade and dotted with little pinpricks of light that flickered like stars.

Two little voices sang to her. Their laughter and joy radiating warmth better than any palace hearthfire. They smiled and told her the words...

“W-what is that?” she asked, her vision blurring with unshed tears.

“A message, and a gift,” he answered, holding it out for her. “I brought it along when I got my day in the sun. They said they love you, and they miss you.”

With a trembling hoof, she reached out for the crystal. She hesitated only a hair's breadth from touching it, afraid to lose the warmth. Her heart skipped a beat when she touched it, the warmth filling her like an emptied cup.

“Don’t be sad, mommy!”

“We’re always here for you!”

Stoikaja recoiled, the wall she had built around her heart crumbling as the tears ran down her cheeks. He was there in an instant, his strong hooves catching her and pulling her to him. The mighty soldier... the weary soldier... the broken soldier... she wept into his shoulder, and he held her close for as long as she needed.

“It’ll be alright,” he whispered, a hoof petting her mane.

She wished she could believe him as easily as she used to, before he was turned, before she had desecrated what he was. Where there was once warmth there was now only a deathly chill. It pulled the heat from her body and reminded her of the winters she hated so.

“It’s hard, I know,” he said, his hooves rubbing her back, “but you have to be strong for them, Stoikaja. I need you to be strong for them.”

“They need you, too...” she answered, her voice barely a whisper in the breeze.

He leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I’m doing what I can.”

With a sigh, she reluctantly nodded, and let her hooves slip around his back to hold him close. His cold armor made her shiver, but she didn’t dare let him go. They held each other tightly, enjoying the precious few moments of peace for what they were. Reluctantly, he pulled away, his eyes meeting hers.

“You should go inside. Warm up, have some fun.”

“I don’t―”

He pressed a gentle hoof to her lips, silencing her. With the other he held out the crystal. “Please, Stoikaja. For us...”

With a sigh, she took the crystal in her hooves, losing herself to her thoughts as she stared into its depths. He spread his batlike wings in preparation to fly, she barely managed to snap herself free of the crystal's spell in time to stop his flight with a hoof to his shoulder.

They stared into each other’s eyes, sorrow and resolve mixing with the distant memories of happier times. There were no words as they leaned forward, lips meeting in a soft kiss.

“I love you, Stoikaja, never forget that.”

“I love you too, Polnoch.”

Author's Note

A huge thanks to the following people who made this story possible:

Editors: SatoshiKyu, DarkPhoenix, Roflknief, and the 24th Pegasus.
Art and editing: Ruirik.
Russian Translation, editing, and inspiration for far too many jokes: Keyesty.

Please keep comments on that last bit of the epilogue confined to this story's comment thread; I don't want to spoil things for people who are only reading WLL. Thank you very much. I hope you've enjoyed the ride.

-Loyal Liar

Lollypopth

I was convinced to add the following events to my narrative by my ‘good’ ‘friend’ Hat Trick, whom I owe a great deal of money… or something. If there are any foals reading this, I have two pieces of advice. The first is to remember that no amount of money is worth your dignity. The second is that you should stop reading this right now! The rest of this story already wasn’t particularly appropriate for young foals, but this segment simply could not be retold with any degree of justice if it were to abide by the common laws of decency and respect. As a result, you should stop reading if you are too young or too old to be employed, if you are easily offended, or are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. Reading this chapter may increase your risk of heart attack or stroke, and has been known to cause shortness of breath due to increased laughter. Do not read ‘Lollypopth’ if you are taking aspirin for chest pain, as this may cause rare but serious bleeding. Consult your physician before continuing.

- - -

- - -

December 25th, 1452 A.S.
Ponyville, Domain of Canterlot
906 Hours

Roscherk Krovyu walked tall, like a stallion renewed. Admittedly, said renewed stallion was still only barely three feet tall, but nopony was about to point that out to Celestia’s bodyguard unless they were particularly cold, and didn't really care for their eyebrows very much anyway. He wore gilded armor under his black jacket, and a military-issue saber and collapsible spear were belted to his sides beneath his wings. For the first time, he strode the streets of Ponyville as a real guardspony.

Unlike the crowded streets of Canterlot, Ponyville was abuzz with a lack of activity. The week after Hearth’s Warming, families were back to the seclusion of their homes and out of the slowly melting snow. It would be time to clean up winter soon―what a ridiculous notion to a Stalliongradian―and then there would be foals in the streets. But that day, the corpses of snowponies dripped their watery lifeblood onto uneven patches of snow and ice.

“Hey, look who it is!” A snowball whizzed past the stallion’s face, and he batted a second aside with his wing almost by reflex. A third struck his jacket, though he barely noticed it between the thickness of the fabric and the weight of his armor.

“Hat Trick.” Ink glared at the white pegasus, standing sideways so that the motion of his wing dipping into the snow would go unnoticed. “Do I need to blow up your paint set again? Or did you learn your lesson last time?”

“I didn’t think you’d remember, Inky.”

A literal wave of snow soared into the air as Roscherk spun with his wing extended. Hat Trick was fast enough to shield his precious fedora―not a trilby, for all the uncultured swine reading this―but his wings and coat were left utterly soaked.

Ink scooped up another mass of snow and readied it, only for a nagging voice in the back of his mind. He imagined it to be Celestia, if she were sixty years old and sounded like a dying cow, and looked exactly like his aunt in every imaginable respect.

“Now, Roscherk,” said the mare in his mind, in perfect Stalliongradi. “It wouldn’t be very respectable for the Commander of the Honor Guard to go using his combat magic to hurl all that much snow at a helpless―”

The nagging voice was silenced when one of Hat Trick’s snowballs smacked into Roscherk’s face. “What’s wrong, Mr. Ink? Lost in my beauty?”

“I should not be doing this, Hat Trick,” the guardspony answered. “It would not befit an Honor Guard.”

“Oh?” Hat Trick laughed, dropped his fourth snowball, and paced forward. “So Princess Celestia gelded you? Here, I was hoping we could have a drink and catch up on old times.” Of course, Hat Trick referred to the Thursday card nights that had been omitted from previous segments of this tale for the sake of its accessibility to more delicate minds. “What are you actually doing back here, anyway?”

“Running an errand,” Ink answered. “Twilight Sparkle spent the some-odd hundred million bits my brother gave her on donations to the Royal Academy and Celestia’s School and the Canterlot Library, and the History Museum, and at this point I suspect you get the point of the list.”

The civilian cocked his head. “So what are you, then? Her congratulatory singing stallion-gram?”

“Do I look like a prostitute?”

Hat Trick briefly considered taking the easy, one-word answer, but ultimately decided that he was a better pony than that. That is not to say ‘better’ in a moral sense, but rather, better in the sense of replying to such an easily twisted comment. His choice of words ran thusly: “I guess not. I can’t think of a mare who’d sleep with you for free, let alone paying you for it.”

“Visit Stalliongrad sometime.”

“I guess I can imagine there’d be mares who’d take that deal,” the artist admitted. “But personally, I’d still choose to freeze to death.”

Despite being perhaps the second most flame-retardant pony alive in Equestria (after the five-time Equestrian Chili-eating champion, Asbestos Plumbing), Ink had to admit that he’d been burned.

In the course of thinking up a sufficiently brutal and defenestrating insult, Ink managed to deliver a single knock to the door to the Golden Oaks Library with his face.

“Hello?” an unmistakable unicorn’s voice called out. “Is it urgent? We’re closed.”

“Twilight, it’s me,” Ink answered, clutching his face. “Roscherk.”

The door was flung open with the aura of an archmage. “Oh, Mr. Ink! I wasn’t expecting you; come in.”

After his few months in Ponyville, Ink had to reflect that perhaps the library was one of the world’s universal constants. From the bust of Smart Cookie (now with a fatal sickle-induced wound) to the case holding the Elements of Harmony, to the vague state of disorder, it was exactly the way he remembered leaving it. In fact, the only appreciable difference to the room was the pink alicorn sitting at the far side of it.

“Oh! Princess Can Dance!”

“It’s Cadance, Roscherk.”

Ink’s head tilted to the side like a lost puppy. “You know my name?”

“We’ve met more than once,” Cadance noted with a lack of amusement. “Shining Armor is my husband.”

“Oh.” Ink’s mind raced for more words. It came up with only one. “Shit.”

“I’m glad we understand each other,” Cadance muttered. “What are you doing here?”

“Didn’t I tell you, Cadance?” Twilight asked. “Roscherk stayed with me over the summer, helping me with my thesis on the magic of friendship.”

“I see,” Cadance answered, in a voice that might have been called political were it not for the honesty of its statement. “Who’s your friend, if I may ask?”

“Princess, this is Hat Trick; he makes his living being a smartass, mostly.”

Hat Trick flipped the former half of his name off with a wing, holding it over his breast as he bowed. “It’s my pleasure to meet you, Princess Cadance.”

“Likewise,” she replied. Then she shifted her attention to her former foalsitee. “I’ll relieve myself for a moment so you can help these two.” The pink alicorn turned and walked away, most likely entirely aware of the four eyes locked onto the crystal heart stamped on her ass.

Red Ink leaned over to Hat Trick’s ear. “I would tap that like I wanted a glass of beer.”

“That’s weak, Ink; real alcohol doesn’t come on tap.” Then he smiled. “I would tap that like I needed syrup for my pancakes.”

“I prefer waffles. I would tap that like I was on stage performing a musical.”

“Ooh; well played.” Hat Trick stepped through the doorway to the warmth of the library interior, and immediately wandered over to the ‘Art’ section.

Ink made his way into the library, pulled off his jacket, and draped it over Smart Cookie’s face. “Ah; much more comfortable. How are things in Ponyville?”

“Oh, you know. Slow. Calm. Devoid of fire.” The unicorn cracked a little smile. “No major monster attacks, which is nice. Dash has been better, but she’s holding out. How’s Canterlot?”

“Awful,” Ink replied. “All these nobles are so stuck up, and the Princess insists I can’t even threaten any of them. They spend all their time talking through their noses and sucking each others lollypopth.”

Twilight chuckled. “That word is pronounced ‘lollipops’, though I don’t recall many of them going around at noble parties.”

“That’s because I didn’t mean candy, Twilight.” Ink rolled his eyes. “How can I put this in terms you’ll understand? You know my brother, right?”

Twilight nodded. “Predvidenie; I went to college with him for a while. I think Cadance had a class with him too. Isn’t that right Cadance?”

Ink hadn’t really paid much attention to the sounds of plumbing that were omitted from previous scene descriptions, and thus was surprised when Cadance answered from a mere few feet away. “Yes, I had a class with Predvidenie.”

“Well,” the Stalliongradian continued. “Predvidenie is a great example of a stallion who absolutely loves to suck other stallions’ lollypopth.”

Rather than some condemnation of his crude analogy, Princess Cadance shifted in the pink spectrum from the socially acceptable ‘pretty princess range’ to the dangerous ‘red zone’. “That, uh… that isn’t exactly true, Roscherk.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight demanded. “Can I get a straight answer?”

“No,” Ink muttered with a chuckle, earning a glare from Cadance. His own focus moved to the alicorn. “We’re talking about penises, Twilight. Specifically, stallions who like to be on the receiving end of them.”

“The correct plural is actually penes,” Twilight clarified, simultaneously raising the educational value and significantly lowering the actual dialogue in the room. “Also, isn’t that a bit homophobic?”

He shook his head. “I never said there was anything wrong with it. Nothing wrong with liking stallions; only the stallion he actually chose. What I was getting around to explaining was that my brother decided to reveal his preference in the most hilariously embarrassing way I could ever imagine.”

Cadance bypassed the pink spectrum completely, winding up in a shade that very much resembled Ink’s own. “Okay, listen to me, Roscherk: your brother didn’t want that to happen. It was mostly my fault.”

Ink looked at Cadance incredulously. “Really? This ought to be good. How could you possibly be responsible for that catastrophe?”

The princess of love cleared her throat. “Well, it all started in Charms class…”

November 9th, 1445 A.S.
Classroom 101, The Royal Academy of Canterlot
1328 Hours

As was the case for so many college ponies, the stallion known as Foresight was a walking ball of hormones and addled thoughts. Unlike his immaculately organized future self, these thoughts were largely random and utterly uncontrolled. Baron Frostbite will want to see my report card, but I failed astrology. Cadance is so attractive. I’m going to be up all night if Blueblood throws another party upstairs. The major schools are Abjuration, Enchantment, Conjuration, Transmutation, Flank, and Horn. Wait, no, that’s not right…

“Good morning, Foresight.”

The blue stallion shook himself to regain his focus, then again to get his golden mane off of his glasses. “Oh. Hi, Cadenza.”

“We’ve been practice partners all year, Predvidenie. You don’t have to be such a stranger.”

The unicorn gulped. “Uh… right. Sorry, Cadance; just got a lot on my mind, with everything that’s going on.”

Cadance rolled her eyes. “I know what you mean. Today is family day, and I’m just hoping my dad hasn’t brought his entire personal guard, like he did when I left home. He’s so paranoid.”

“Sounds rough,” Foresight muttered, levitating a scroll, quill, and inkwell out of his bags and onto his desk in the middle of the lecture hall. “I’m glad I don’t have to deal with any of that.”

The Bitalian princess smiled. “What’s your family like? Anypony coming to visit?”

Glasses were adjusted, and a deep breath was taken. “My dad, my brothers, and probably Baron Frostbite. He’s the one paying my way through classes here, and he’s pretty good friends with my dad.”

“Oh? I didn’t know you knew the Baron of Stalliongrad.”

“My dad’s an alicorn,” Foresight mumbled, bringing out a smile of anticipation on Cadance’s face. “Before you get excited, he’s terrible at magic. He used to be really good, but then my mom died…”

Here Lies

Whatever Mood Existed That Day in Charms Class

Brutally Murdered by Predvidenie,

November the 9th, 1445

A Loving Sensation

Rest In Peace

“Sorry; I didn’t know.” Cadance looked down at her book. “Looks like it’s about time for class to start.”

As if part of some greater narrative or production which could assure such timing, Cadance’s words heralded the arrival of an aging unicorn. Dr. Graymane, whose magnificent profile served as the backdrop to the dartboards not only of his students, but also his fellow teachers, stomped up to the podium in the center of the classroom and began to lecture at his students from the top of his lungs.

“Today’s lecture is on the topic of Cutie-Oscillating Charm Spells; this may be the most important lecture of the year, and as a result, I quite honestly do not care when your parents or families do or do not arrive. To a real mage, and certainly to any aspiring archmage, family is a distraction worth attending only so much as they provide a useful feature like tuition or a test subject for your experimentation. On that topic, if anypony has seen my wife, a careless student left her cage open last night, and now he’s quite lonely in there.”

In the ensuing silence of fear and awkwardness, Dr. Graymane began scratching on the chalkboard at the front of the room with a carrot. Nopony in class knew why he used a carrot, or why the carrot was able to produce white chalk when drawn along the blackboard. Nopony had the gall to ask, either. When freshmen would ask, the classic response was to simply shout “WIZARD!” and walk away.

Foresight began to scratch down notes as Graymane shouted with his back to the class. “As you are hopefully aware, supposing you aren’t too hopelessly dim to actually graduate, cutie marks can have a huge impact on the power of a pony’s spellcasting. What you probably don’t know, because foals of your generation are lazy and can’t be counted on to even read two chapters ahead in their textbooks, is that a pony’s special talent can also allow them to work magic which is outright impossible for other ponies. Today, the majority of you will be demonstrating that said spells aren’t worth the breath I used to explain them to you. Perhaps two or three of you will have a spell with the capacity for something valuable, like cleaning up all the shit the collective class was slinging around in the essays last week.”

As the aging unicorn scratched arcane forumulae (no self respecting spellcaster would ever describe their complex recipes of magic as ‘formulas’, for fear of ‘fitting in’ with ‘normal ponies’), Cadance slid her pencil into her notebook and shut it. “I already know how this works.”

“You do?”

The alicorn nodded. “You know my ‘heart spell’?”

Foresight adjusted his glasses. “The one that makes ponies fall in love?”

“More like a hormonal imbalance,” Cadance whispered. “Otherwise, that would be just a little bit…”

“Unethical?”

“Yeah.” The Bitalian princess chuckled to herself. “Anyway, I can probably help you figure yours out faster than we could sitting here getting yelled at. Want to head back to the practice hall and work on it?”

“Sure,” Foresight replied, closing his book.

Red Ink collapsed backward, placing a wing over his face. “Oh. Oh! Suddenly, it all makes so much sense. Wow, Candace, I almost can’t believe it.”

“Cadance,” the alicorn corrected. “And I hope now you can respect that it wasn’t his―”

“Respect?” Ink scoffed. “My brother doesn’t deserve any respect.”

Twilight glared. “Predvidenie is a kind and generous stallion, and his sexual orientation―”

“I don’t hate my brother because he’s gay,” Ink interrupted. “And really, after how he reacted when Polnoch and I hired that donkey stripper for his birthday, I doubt he is. I hate my brother because he’s an asshole. Not just any asshole, either; he’s like the prophesied king of the assholes, long awaited by a mourning populace of douchebags and drunk frat colts.”

Twilight gave Ink a look which spelled out in no uncertain terms that while she was impressed by his mastery of Equiish, she was disappointed in his choice to use her lessons for a cause of evil instead of kindness and charity.

Ink responded with a look that simply said ‘no shit’.

“Hey, Hat Trick,” the Stalliongradian called. “Come here; you’ve gotta here this.”

“You used the wrong form of ‘hear’ the second time,” Twilight commented.

Ink nodded as the white pegasus took a seat nearby. “Got it, Twilight. Now, listen to this; you’re gonna piss yourself.”

Baron Frosbite was a pale blue, rather lanky stallion who almost looked like he belonged on Princess Luna’s Night Guard. His magic levitated an absolutely tiny glass of vodka as he reclined on his own cape, inside the closed chamber of his flying carriage. “Tell me, Eye, has it been a while since you’ve been to Canterlot?”

“Just over twenty years,” answered the well-muscled golden alicorn. “Predvidenie was still very young, and we didn’t have either of you two yet.” Gentle amber eyes shifted to a pair of pegasi in the room, alike in their slick black uniforms and completely unalike in virtually every other way. One was tall, fit, pale blue, and generally looked far more like Baron Frostbite than his actual father. The other was a sexy badass with a perfect physique, a red coat that makes mares everywhere swoon, and enormous wings. “Why are we speaking in Equiish, Frostbite?”

“Why, because I don’t want Roscherk and Polnoch here to embarrass themselves when we see Princess Celestia. The last thing I need is for such high ranking police officers to look bad in front of the Royal Guard. We’ll have to tell them an inspiring story about your work, colts. I’m thinking a good choice would be that stallion you rescued from his alcoholic father. The one with the really generic Equiish name. What was it? Frank? Joe?”

“Josef Stallion” Polnoch grumbled in his almost freakishly deep voice.

“Ah, yes, that’s it.” Frostbite cracked a smile, and emptied a bit of his expensive vodka into it. “It’s astounding how just a little bit of kindness can prevent a lifetime of evil and cruelty―even for an earth pony. You two turned his life around, my colts.”

“Am no your colt…” Roscherk mumbled, refraining from his native tongue primarily because Frostbite was perfectly fluent in Stalliongradi and would thus understand every insult the foul-mouthed colt could fling.

Baron Frostbite rolled his eyes. “Perhaps you should let Polnoch do the talking tonight, Roscherk. You do understand what I’m saying? Do I need to use Stalliongradi?”

“He’s not an idiot, Frostbite,” Watchful Eye scolded.

The baron shrugged. “I didn’t mean to say he was.” There was clearly more to the thought, but nothing more came when the carriage lurched to a halt. “Ah! Here we are. Eye, colts, I give you the Royal Academy of Canterlot.”

The door of the carriage opened to a mass of students and their families embracing, talking, and vaguely enjoying one another’s company. Roscherk and Polnoch shot one another a quick glance, before simultaneously making gagging motions with their hooves. The ensuing laughter went a long way toward distracting the brothers as a heavyset unicorn approached their little group.

“Sforzando!” Baron Frostbite called out. “It’s been so long.”

Sforzando Eccessivo, Il Principe of Bitaly, folded himself at the foreshoulder into a stiff bow. “It truly has, Frostbite.” The portly pony picked his head up, looking across the assembled ponies. “I didn’t know you had any foals, Frostbite. And… oh?” The Prince’s gaze fell on the golden coat of Tsar Watchful Eye. “An alicorn? I don’t believe we’ve met, sir. My name is Sforzando Eccesivo, Prince of Bitaly and Heir to the Neighdici branch of the Line of Platinum. You are?”

“Watchful Eye,” the Stalliongradian replied. There was a pregnant silence, as Sforzando waited for a list of titles which frankly never came. “I’m here to see my son,” Eye finally noted.

“Oh, that’s splendid. I’m actually here to see my daughter, Cadenza. She’s an alicorn as well. Perhaps you could teach her some of your more unique magic―”

“I don’t practice magic,” Watchful Eye snapped.

“Oh…”

Here Lies

The Mood Jr.

“Well, I’m glad you two have gotten on together,” Frostbite announced, wrapping a foreleg each around the necks of the stallions in question. “Come on, let’s go find ours.”

Nopony felt the need to comment that, simply by virtue of the height difference between his two ‘friends’, Frostbite was making a rather impressive diagonal. Regardless of the silence on the subject, he was practically kneeling with one hind leg, and the other was struggling to find the ground at all. In short, he walked like a dog trying to take a piss.

Polnoch and Roscherk followed quietly, shooting the occasional odd glance here and there as virtually the only pegasi present. They would probably have kept up with the adults, were it not for the combination of Polnoch’s youth (at age 18), his height (3’11” at the shoulder, towering over the heads of most earth ponies, let alone pegasi), and his physique (which experts in the field described as ‘undeniably sexy’ - Cosmarepolitan). All of these traits were present in a collegiate environment, full of countless hormones, and mares who had spent their last several weeks cooped up with the best, brightest, and generally nerdiest stallions that Equestria had to offer.

The fact that Polnoch was wearing a sleek black Stalliongradian police uniform did nothing to help the matter. Realistically, the gold epaulets were almost cheating.

They came at him like a tsunami.

“Mares… please…” Polnoch picked up a particularly aggressive azure mare with what appeared to be mare-pattern balding, and threw her across the room ‘gently’. “I can only pleasure four of you at a time. Form an orderly line or something.”

The lovestruck mare, a lowly illusionist with no real family and no real talent, who went by the name ‘Beatrix’, swore that she would someday win the Stalliongradian’s heart. Of course, like everything else she ever did in her life, she would fail at that task, and go through her years lonely and envious of more talented and more friendly magicians.

Roscherk glanced over to the lonely mare. “Hello. You are to be want sexing with stallion?”

“Get away from me, perv!” the mare shouted back, throwing down a smoke bomb and fleeing like a little bitch.

His self-esteem shattered, the elder of the two pegasi collapsed onto his hooves, sobbing. “Why?”

“There, there,” Polnoch comforted his brother, wrapping a blue wing over the stallion’s shoulders as the other batted hormonal mares away left and right. “You sleep with far more mares than me, Roscherk. Why, you’re practically a *****.”

“Not to help.”

“Right, sorry.” Polnoch smiled. “We’ll find you somebody to love just yet.”

For the sake of brevity, this narrative will omit the subsequent musical number. Suffice it to say that pop sensation Friendly Mercury did an excellent number, but nothing could offset Roscherk’s miserable Equiish. When Mercury slipped and broke his foreleg, there would have been ample opportunity for a joke; however, Roscherk had not yet learned to light himself on fire, and thus could neither label himself the new Mr. Farenheit, nor deliver a witty one-liner about breaking thermometers. Instead, the best he could come up with was to half-heartedly mutter ‘another one bites the dust’, and walk off in self-pity. No matter how much he wanted killer queens and fat-bottomed mares, it seemed he was just a poor colt with no pony to love him.

Having expended the entertainment value of the scene, the Stalliongradian brothers adjusted their classy outfits, timed their steps (an awkward process, given the height difference), and walked off in search of their elders. It was an involved process, given the immensity of the unfamiliar castle. By unspoken agreement, the two stallions set about their search the same way they did whilst serving as police officers: clearing each room one by one until the target was located.

After bucking in four doors, Roscherk Krovyu growled. “I am swear, Polnoch, if not finding behind this door Father, I―”

The door swung open, and as if by magic, the pegasus found his words stolen away. The room wasn’t particularly notable. Its only contents were a series of stupid-looking ‘cold-sore red’ symbols drawn on the floor in what looked like sidewalk chalk, and two ponies. One was incredibly attractive. The other was his older brother.

Predvidenie’s eyes seemed to sparkle in an unnatural light. The room’s glow dimmed, save a brilliant column centered on the royal blue stallion with the golden locks. For a moment, the world stopped. His heart skipped a beat, and his eyes grew wide.

“Roscherk?” Predvidenie asked, with a tenderness that could move mountains.

“Predvidenie?” Roscherk replied, as if addressing a hoof fungus.

There followed a long moment of utter stillness, where a single whispered word might change the course of fate. Roscherk judged his elder brother and found the scrawny unicorn wanting. Predvidenie drank in his younger brother’s physique, and found himself unquenched.

And the thirst could not be denied.

There are moments in Equine history when fate looks at an impossible scenario and dictates that sheer force of will can overpower the laws of the universe. Such struggles have made gods of mere mortals, toppled empires, and sent blood pumping through stilled hearts. On that day, one such event transpired that would shake the foundations of Equine civilization forever.

Predvidenie was a tall lanky stallion who took magical dueling for his P.E. credit as a way to avoid both polo and physical exertion in general, beyond the jogging that produced his physique. He compensated for his average looks with expensive clothing, such as the scarf that fluttered off of his neck in his sudden burst of movement.

Roscherk, in contrast, was what hoofball players referred to as an untackleable foe, whose center of gravity was a mere two feet above his hooves, and yet whose body mass was far more than the average hoofball player. Earth ponies four feet in height had failed to topple him, and would continue to do so well into his future.

For the first time in his life, Predvidenie ignored the physics and lunged. Roscherk lost his hoofing taking a step backward in confusion. That little motion was all it took.

The pegasus had been expecting a blow to the head. What he recieved instead was a wet, mushy feeling. Lips? And then… a tongue?

Predvidenie would have described the scene differently.

His brother’s supple lips rolled like the gentle snowy slopes behind Burning Hearth Castle. Though rough, they bore a surprising depth, and hid a tender secret. It was poetic, that a pegasus and a unicorn, both native to the land of Hearth’s Warming should embrace in such taboo love, abandoning the bygone restrictions of the past in favor of a bright new future for all ponykind.

The unicorn’s tongue slid gently into his brother’s mouth, exploring tender cheeks before touched only by the fairer sex. And surely, how unfair they had been to hide such a glorious example of a stallion from the world.

Then Roscherk bit down on his brother’s tongue.

“He kissed you?” Hat Trick asked, holding a wing to his face. “Wow. That… I honestly don’t think I know what to say about that.”

Twilight Sparkle finally found control of her jaw. “Cadance, that was your fault? I heard everypony was making fun of Predvidenie before he transferred to Trottingham, but…”

“Yes, Twilight, that was my fault. My fault, and the fault of his brothers who turned around and told everypony.” Cadance leveled a glare at the red pegasus, who was laughing so hard that it seemed his cutie mark might fall off. “Honestly, Roscherk, I suddenly realize that Shining is right about you. You are a terrible pony.”

“Cadance!” Twilight gasped.

Red Ink shook his head. “No, Twilight, she’s right. I still have a long way to go before I actually earn anypony’s forgiveness. Besides, the Honor Guard captain has to be a terrible pony, sometimes. Come on, Hat Trick; let’s give the mares some privacy.”

Hat Trick twisted his head like a confused puppy. “Didn’t you come here to deliver something?”

Ink reached into his jacket and threw an envelope on the central table. “There. Done.” The captain allowed his civilian acquaintance to leave first, and then turned back in the doorway to offer some parting words to the princess of the Crystal Empire… who really ought to be an Empress then?

“Cadance, one last thing: if your husband ever decides to grow a pair of balls, tell him that he can say things to my face, instead of bitching to his wife. I’d probably have fun kicking his ass again.”

And with that, the door to the library slammed shut.

Twilight Sparkle looked at Cadance, and saw a goddess of fury and vengeance made manifest, albeit in a shapely, pink, and distinctly effeminate form.

“Uh… Cadance… you don’t look so good. Um… sunshine sunshine―”

“Not now, Twilight,” the alicorn interrupted. “Nopony insults Shining.”

“Mr. Ink! Mr. Ink!” the chorus of voices was three pitches too high for Ink’s comfort, but he nevertheless smiled at the noise.

“Class! How are you all doing?”

“Great!” Sweetie Belle answered. “Ms. Cheerilee said we had to stop learning about Stalliongrad because it was too violent, though.” The class nodded, with notable pouts on a few faces.

“Too violent? Red Ink?” Hat Trick laughed. “You’re joking, right?”

Ink, who still hadn’t quite grasped sarcasm in Equiish, nodded. “When I was your age, I carved my name in a Vargr’s back with one of my own quills. But oh no, history is too violent.”

“I do not appreciate that, Mr. Ink,” a distinctly older mare’s voice noted from behind Ink. The stallion performed a military reversal, and stood to his full height. Cheerilee had to look down slightly less to meet his eyes. “I’m frankly appalled at some of the lessons you taught these foals.”

Ink put his hoof to his chin, making a show of thinking. Then he smiled. “Oh. Well, as Captain of Princess Celestia’s Honor Guard and her personal bodyguard, allow me to observe that I really couldn’t give less of a shit, Cherry Lee. I’d never been a teacher before, and frankly, I probably learned more from those foals than they did from me. But now I’m back on top of the world, and I can do whatever I want. For example, this!”

Then his wings wrapped around Hat Trick, and they came together.

For Ink, it didn’t seem real.

Things like this were only supposed to be in the purview of schlocky romances, like the ones Fluttershy and Rarity were so fond of—yet there Hat Trick was, frozen in her place, with Roscherk’s lips interlocked with his. Hat Trick’s cheeks burned, his heart palpitated, and his mind spun from the simple fact of her situation.

It was exactly like the way Ink had seen it in movies. There were fireworks flaring off his own wings, whistles of approval from a few passing mares, and sweeping strings from a gray mare with a cello; there was an enormous shift in his previous paradigms, and a sudden epiphany of new emotion. It was simply Hat Trick and him, with the world around them nothing more than a vague afterthought.

All too soon, Hat Trick’s lips parted with Roscherk’s, as the taller but weaker stallion’s resistance managed to push Ink away. A ghost of warm breath washed over Ink’s muzzle as the artist retreated. Roscherk forced his eyes open; immediately, he found himself once again lost in Hat Trick’s furious gaze. The older stallion’s pale white cheeks were laced with the faintest hint of crimson and his lips still parted slightly as he shouted in slow motion. Ink’s heart had blocked out all noise.

The guardspony remained frozen in her place, as Hat Trick’s strength failed to displace the stronger military-trained stallion. Roscherk’s forelegs had, at some point unbeknownst to their owner, wrapped themselves around Hat Trick’s waist and under his tail as well. No matter how hard he tried, the captain couldn’t find the words to break the silence of the moment that existed only within his own mind. He was torn between euphoric excitement and utter terror―what if Hat Trick doesn’t like me―which resulted in a noticeable tremble running throughout his body. Hat Trick’s forelegs pressed against Roscherk’s chest, failing to escape his grip while also sensuously rubbing him up and down. Mere inches below, the one part of Roscherk which was peculiarly tall made itself know, rising to the occasion.

“Hehe…” the civilian in the pair chuckled. “Okay, that was a pretty good one, Ink.”

Instead of letting go, Ink fluttered bedroom eyes. “You alright, Hat Trick?” he asked, his voice airy and soft. “I know that might have been sudden.”

“Let go of me!” Hat Trick answered, struggling to avoid the guardspony’s collapsible spear.

“You sure?” Ink asked teasingly. “You’re shaking.”

“That’s because you’re hooves are on my ass! I’m pretty good for a joke, but you’re taking this too far!

“First kiss?” Ink inquired with a quirked eyebrow. “I understand how uncomfortable it can be.”

Hat Trick’s roar had devolved below the level of intelligible conversation.

“With a stallion, or ever?” Roscherk asked, his seductive voice turned up to maximum.

“I will kill you with an axe!” Hat Trick replied after an insignificant pause.

Ink’s mouth formed a silent ‘oh’, his wing providing a constant hug to the older stallion. Though Ink imagined silence filling the air between them, the actual words Hat Trick released were unfit both for the crowd of foals present, and for repetition here.

Then Cadance’s spell ended. Ink blinked twice, looked down at himself, and realized exactly how he was holding Hat Trick. Without further ado, the white stallion was abruptly dropped in the snow.

Then there was a real silence, as Ink slowly turned to look around. Without exception, every eye in Ponyville was staring at him. For the first time in his life, Ink buttoned up his jacket, concealing ‘little Ink’ from innocent eyes who just weren’t ready for his glory.

In retrospect, there was only one filly who could have ever broken the ensuing silence. She walked up to Ink’s side and looked him squarely in the eyes.

“Tho you like lollypopth too, Mither Ink?”

***** - While this unfortunate word had been blocked out of Ink’s memory at the time (resulting in him releasing a loud, fog-horn like shriek mid-sentence to Hat Trick, Twilight, and Cadance in sheer violation of the Golden Oaks Library’s noise restrictions), he would later realize that the list of options was quite finite. It had to be something like colt-whore, or gigolo, or male prostitute, or marenizer, or…

Ink quickly came to realize that his opinion of himself was about as low as his opinion of authors who used footnotes in documents stored as scrolls instead of books, or on other mediums where the text is presented on a single ‘page’ of theoretically infinite length.

On Her Majesty's Honor Guard

From Stalliongrad With Love

by Loyal Liar
Pre-Read by SatoshiKyu, Roflknief, and DarkPhoenix
Russian Translations provided by Keyesty
Cover Art by Ruirik

I
On Her Majesty's Honor Guard

There once was a pony with a very unfortunate name. It tended to make introductions very awkward for the stallion. Fortunately for him this name was in Stalliongradi, and because he spent much of his time in the Domain of Canterlot, most ponies would not understand the meaning behind it even if he told it to them. Still, at the advice of his brother, he had chosen what he had been told was a more sociable name. This stallion instead went by the name 'Red Ink'. Tragically, it only made him more frightening to schoolfoals, demonstrating fully that his brother was not a very kind pony.

Red Ink was a guardspony–specifically, the Captain of Princess Celestia's Honor Guard. It was a prestigious position, and one which he had only recently acquired. Many ponies would have killed to be so close to the Princess. Indeed, it was the existence of such violent and ambitious ponies that necessitated the position in the first place. Red Ink had loved the position, but he was beginning to feel like he might prefer a bit of distance from his ruler.

Red Ink was not afraid of very many things. In some way, that lack of fear came with his position. He had led the Blizzard Revolution, overthrowing the evil Baron Frostbite and freeing Stalliongrad. He had charged into battle more times than he could remember; he had even fought and killed a dragon in one-on-one combat, once. All these feats meant nothing as he sat on a small cushioned bench outside Celestia's private chambers, watching the ornately crafted doors.

He had been waiting for almost two hours, with no idea what was going on inside those doors. The guardspony had no idea that inside, Celestia was finishing off a short novel she hadn't been able to enjoy in past days. Contrary to what her secretary had noted, the princess not only was not in a current appointment, but in fact had managed to secure the entire day free. She was fully conscious of Red Ink's waiting presence outside, and forcing him to wait without total knowledge of her attitude was a fully conscious choice that illuminated her to be a true master of politics. To define that term in the words of famous statespony Neighbraham Lincoln, it meant that she was fully capable of fooling all of the ponies all of the time. She generally exercised restraint in this capability, but Ink's crimes had earned a show of both her skill at manipulation, and her anger.

After a full two hours of waiting, a pegasus mare flew through the doors slowly and calmly. She was technically his subordinate, though he had never felt less in command in his entire life. She approached on gentle wings, unable to walk due to the short stubs that should have been her hind legs. When she spoke, it was in a soft, almost pitying voice. "She's ready for you now, Captain."

Red Ink stood, adjusted his thick black jacket, and started walking toward his fate. His subordinate, one Private Marathon, spoke over her shoulder as he passed. "Be careful. I've never seen her like that." He had no idea that the message had originally come from Celestia's mouth, and on her orders. The fact would have mattered little, as it was still the truth. Red nodded grimly, determined to face his fate with dignity.

It took only a few more steps for him to enter Celestia's chambers. The mighty ruler of all Equestria was staring out the window at the rising sun. Though her only motion came from the flow of her ethereal mane, she nevertheless was aware of his presence. She displayed the trait by addressing him as he approached.

"Sit down, Red Ink."

He did so silently, claiming the cushion closest to the door. It was incredibly soft, twisting to accept the pegasus' wings without resistance. On a better day, he might have likened it to a pile of puppies, completely missing the morbid insinuation of the analogy. "You wish to be speaking with me, Princess?"

Celestia turned only her neck, glancing back at him with a single eye. Her speech was strained and slow, as if each word had to be held back from delivering a torrent of spite. "I have to wonder about your Equiish, Red Ink. Your brother and father both speak it perfectly."

"I did not take well to lessons. I thought better to spend my time learning battle."

"I see." Celestia rounded fully, striding across the room on slender legs to take her seat opposite the captain. "I also see no point in wasting our time discussing petty issues. Do you know why you are here?"

Red looked away as he answered. "No."

"Very well. I will start with a simpler question, then: as a member of my Honor Guard, what is your duty?"

"I am stopping criminal, and fighting wars."

Celestia shook her head. "Those are actions. They define how you pursue your duty. But they are not the duty itself." She watched slowly as Red Ink's eyes wandered around the room before raising her voice suddenly. "Listen to me!" He moved as if shocked, jolting suddenly on his cushion and staring directly at the Princess. "Your duty is to protect myself, my sister, and Equestria. Now. Do you know why you are here?"

Red placed his hooves to his brow, thinking. After a long silence, Celestia would wait no longer. "You still don't understand it? Do you remember what occurred in Baltimare, two weeks ago?" Her horn claimed a fragment of purple crystal sitting near the window she had previously been staring out of. It hovered in midair between the two ponies, glowing with magic and memories. Only a moment later, a huge structure, wreathed in flames, appeared in the air before the would-be guardspony.

Red Ink's brow creased, and he nodded. "I failed to apprehend target."

Celestia shook her head. "You still don't understand. Of course not." Her towering figure rose and fell in a deep breath. "My concern isn't that she got away. You're here, Ink, because you endangered the lives of my subjects. Three ponies died in that fire. Had it not been for Captain Shining Armor's presence, it would have been six."

Ink snorted derisively. "I would have caught her if he had not felt need to run off-"

"He was right!" Celestia's usually calm tone broke again with surprising force. After a moment of silence, her composure returned. "Shining Armor understands what it means to be a guardspony, and evidently you do not. I understand that the point of the Honor Guard is to make difficult decisions, but the lives of innocent ponies must come first. Not only did you fail to protect them, but your loss of control put them in a danger they would not otherwise have had to face. To reduce the point to its most basic level, Red Ink, you killed three ponies."

"But-"

"No." The word was not shouted or punctuated by force or anger. "There is no excuse for this. The law is clear on this matter. Your actions amount to murder, and for their quantity you would be assigned to die." Celestia then rose and walked to the window again to stare out as she spoke. "Fortunately for you, Equestria is not ruled by strict, unyielding law. I am nothing if not a believer in forgiveness and redemption. The only question is whether or not you are capable of such a reform. I do not pretend to have much faith."

Celestia's long, slender horn ignited in golden mana, which in turn levitated a tightly bound parchment scroll. "Effective immediately, you are stripped of your rank and standing within the Equestrian Guard. From now until I see fit to restore to you those titles, you are considered to be just another Equestrian citizen, albeit one serving on a royal mission. You are to take this message to my student, Twilight Sparkle, in Ponyville. From there, she will have orders concerning your continued service. This is your one chance, so please behave yourself." Then Celestia stepped away from the window, in perfect time to the shrill whistle of a distant train at the Canterlot Station. "I've included a ticket with the letter. You should hurry if you want to catch your train."

He'd been forced to actually land on the caboose of the moving train, and present his ticket to the conductor in the midst of the roaring wind. Twice, in the process of shouting over the noise, he'd nearly lost his scroll. Thankfully his long black coat had provided a much needed pocket. Having been permitted into the nearly-empty train, he collapsed into a seat and took comfort in the embrace of the familiar garment.

The fabric was cheap, rough wool knitted tightly enough to keep out the snows and winds of his home without concern for the comfort of its wearer. It hung down his back, covering his cutie marks and only permitting his tail to peek out the end. Here and there were patches where a spear or a sword or even a bolt of magic had come too close to his body. More than a few corresponded to shallow scars that were visible through his own coat. They marked him as a warrior, skilled for his relatively young age of twenty-eight. But then, that skill was what had ultimately put him on the train... wasn't it?

He shook his head to clear the thought. There was nothing he detested so much as self-doubt. It should have gone away, and yet like the weight of the scroll in the pocket beneath his wing, it clung to him. He glanced down toward the rolled parchment, and his eyes stopped on his chest. It bore his newest scar, and also the one he was least proud of. A strip of raw flesh, pink and vulnerable without the fur of his coat to hide it. It stretched from his right shoulder at the base of his neck all the way across his chest and down to the very tip of his front-most left rib. Its width was uniform, just wider than an average pony's hoof. Then again, it had been the parting gift of a larger-than-average pony. That he'd lost to her only incensed the ex-guardspony further.

As the two closest stops on the line, the ride from Canterlot to Ponyville never took longer than an hour. That the train was headed downhill only added to its speed. Even this rapid means of transit, however, was far too slow for an impatient stallion with the weight of Princess Celestia's ire bearing down on his mind. He stared at the scroll in his pocket.

It sat still.

He shook his head and turned out the window. There wasn't much to see by way of civilization; just grassy hills and forests, and the occasional distant mountain. He was vaguely aware that places like Vanhoover were somewhere in the direction he was looking, in the distant west. On the other hand, his only interest in maps as a colt had been studying old battles. Was the closest city a hundred miles away, or a thousand? Out of the deadliest combination of boredom and temptation, he turned back to the scroll in his pocket.

He could almost picture it with beady black eyes. It stared at him curiously, but made no motion.

He dragged his eyes away with the dense muscles of his neck, built up from hard days learning to wield sword and spear. Once his mind was free, he began to scan the train. Perhaps there was something more interesting to look at within than outside it.

The passenger car was nearly empty. Only two other ponies were present, those being an elderly couple that sat on paired benches. The stallion never bothered to look up from his newspaper, barely listening as his wife rambled about finding a gift for their granddaughter's cuteceñera. From his rather distant seat, Red Ink persisted in eavesdropping for about thirty seconds. After that, the torture was too great to bear.

The seal on the letter lacked any sort of magic. It opened with a simple twist of his hoof, revealing a plain note.

I'm disappointed, Red Ink, but I can't say that I'm surprised.

You'll have to be patient, unless you've learned unicorn magic since we spoke.

-Princess Celestia.

Red Ink screamed.

"Now, Spike, just put those last two books up and we'll be done with the geography section." Twilight Sparkle, librarian of Ponyville, surveyed her domain with satisfaction.

"Finally," the young dragon grumbled, climbing the short shelving ladder with the tomes in question tucked against his eyes. "Then I get to go help Rarity?"

Twilight didn't answer immediately, due to a surprising interruption. Neither the infant reptile nor the books remained at their height for long, however. It seemed a miracle that the door didn't explode into splinters from the three forceful knocks that resounded. Following the blunt assault, Spike rose slowly from the floor with both books impaled on his namesake ridge of scales.

"Oh, that must be Rainbow!" Twilight exclaimed, turning toward the library's primary entrance.

"Wait, Twilight!" her assistant yelled as he struggled to remove the reference works categorized violently on his back. "I've got a bad feeling about this. Most of the books are still on their shelves. And since when has Rainbow even known we have a door?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Spike, it's got to be..." Twilight's words fell away as her magic opened the door to a somewhat surprising looking pony.

Twilight Sparkle's mind processed an immense of amount of information very quickly. The stallion in front of her was obviously not Rainbow Dash, in no small part because he was a stallion. Unless, of course, a unicorn had miscast Starswirl's Effluvescent Shifting–though that was unlikely, given the general lack of Archmagi in and around Ponyville. She knew she hadn't cast the spell herself; she'd avoided it for years after she made the very mistake she was pondering. She'd apologized to Shining for weeks. And, almost like magic itself, she was off topic. She refocused on the stallion in front of her.

He was bulky and well-muscled, but not particularly tall. Together, the traits suggested he was compensating for a subconscious perception of a lack in his own masculinity, according to a rather famous pony psychologist. He would also be reckless, and have a violent tendency, which fit with the enormous scar on his chest and the minor ones to be seen across the rest of his face and body. Of course that same psychologist would then be suggesting that his presence on her doorstep was a factor of some subtle (or perhaps less-than-subtle) physical resemblance between herself and his mother. At that point, that train of thought followed its predecessor into oblivion.

Next, part of her memory screamed for her attention. He was familiar, somehow, though she couldn't pull forth a name to match his unique face. Given how consumed she had been with her work on her thesis, it wasn't hard for her to imagine that some loose acquaintances had slipped away from her mind. She gave up attempting to produce his name, as her mind jumped to another, more urgent topic.

The fourth in her series of thoughts was a rather complicated academic metaphor. It alleged that, much like her thought experiment concerning Rainbow circumnavigating the globe at super-sonic speeds, while her mind was working at an incredible speed, it was still taking her a long time to actually say anything. Best estimates from top analytical brain cells put her delay at nothing short of 17.24 seconds, an amount which her social cells described as 'awkward' and 'socially unacceptable'. In a desperate attempt to repair the publicity nightmare, the leader of said cells proposed a rapid, immediate response. It was forced through her speech cortex immediately out of desperation.

"Hellohowareyou?"

His brow elevated, and his wings rustled uneasily, reacting to the strange mare standing in front of him. "I am not knowing this greeting, but hello."

Her mind, still on high alert from its last failure, recovered with sudden analysis. The thick tones of a Stalliongradi accent were obvious. Further, his use of Equiish was so painful, the chairman cell of the Equiish board within her language center retired then and there. The grammar was so bad and the accent so thick that he reminded her of a Con Mane villain–complete with deforming scar! She threw away the idea for its inherent rudeness and chose to greet him in his native tongue.

"Приношу свои извинения. Мое имя Сумеречная Искорка. Это великая честь встретиться с вами"

Ink recognized the words as a rather formal greeting, sounding so stiff and upright that for a moment her mistook them for the tongue of a dragon, rather than a pony. He cocked his head slightly to the side. "Вы говорите по-Стольнградски?" The question denoted his surprise at finding a pony who spoke Stalliongradi at all so far from his home, even given her awkward cadence.

She smiled, but shook her head. "Barely any. I was just improvising off of Draconic, since the languages are very similar. I learned it for my studies, but I haven't had much chance to speak it. I've never been to the 'City of Stallions', if that's what you're asking."

At the use of the world's stupidest nickname for his home, Ink groaned. "Not stallions."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. City name has nothing to do with gender."

"But... it's clearly written that way in all my texts. Some of them are centuries old."

There was a sort of pause as Red pinched his muzzle and shook his head. "Yes, your texts. In Equiish. But my home is much older; it is not even named stupid words that each pony so often uses."

There was something of an annoyance mixed in with Twilight's academic curiosity. She likely found something unfair about being lectured in such utterly broken Equiish. "Well, what does it mean then?"

"Capital."

"Capital? Just Capital? Shouldn't that be what you call Canterlot?"

"Not just Capital." Ink groaned and sat down at the obvious curiosity that proceeded to spill from her face. "Listen, you want history lesson, I will give you one in better time. We are having things to discuss. For now, you are understand that my city is called 'Стольный град'. Or…" His next pause was accompanied by a growling in his throat. "Stole-knee-grad." As if to emphasize his disgust, he completed the action by spitting on Twilight's floor. "One is having to be dead to make this stupid mistake."

Twilight laughed awkwardly as she stared at the blot of his phlegm on the library floor. "Uh, I think you mean 'deaf'."

"I know what deaf mean," Ink responded, with a shrug that produced a sickening and rather violent crack from his toned shoulders. "I am not misspeaking. Now, you are still Twilight Sparkle, so I have something for you." His wing curved strangely in on itself to access the inside pocket of his heavy black jacket–a garment which seemed starkly out of place in the heat of August. She stared at his startling flexibility as his feathers produced a tightly bound scroll bearing a broken emblem of Princess Celestia's seal. In only a moment, it was held out for her. "For you."

"Really?" Twilight took the letter in her magic and turned back to the library's interior. "I wonder why she didn't just sent it by Spike." It took her a few steps to see he was waiting at the door. "Oh, you're welcome to come in, Mr..."

"Red Ink," he answered. The name itched the back of Twilight's memory, but she ignored it in favor of the scroll clasped in her magic. "Spike!"

"What?" the young dragon answered, having finally freed himself of the books decorating his body. He wandered out of the library's small kitchen with a cookie in his hand, but stopped when he saw the new stallion. "Oh, hello."

Red Ink lowered himself and spread his wings. "Dragon?"

The tiny drake spread his hands, hoping to placate the larger pony. "Hey, man, chill. I'm Spike."

"Oh, yes, Mr. Ink, this is my assistant, Spike. Spike, this is Red Ink. The Princess sent him."

Spike nodded, despite the fact that Red Ink was still standing low, as if anticipating a fight. "Okay, cool. So you're a guardspony or something?"

What followed was an awkward silence that put Twilight's greeting to shame. Ink's eyes locked on to the tiny purple dragon, then jumped to the scroll that Twilight had yet to open, before finding a sudden interest in the room's ceiling. The complicate series of optic maneuvers that followed consumed more than a few moments before he finally found his words. "Not... at the moment."

"Oh, well, whatever." Spike wandered past the flustered Stalliongradi toward the door. "Cool coat, by the way. Twilight, I'm headed to Rarity's."

"Okay," Twilight answered, glancing at the small figure wandering away before she turned back to her message. The closing of the surprisingly intact door drowned out the unrolling of the parchment.

Red Ink sat in apprehension, staring at Twilight Sparkle. He still wasn't quite sure what to make of the mare. She certainly had the body of an academic. In fact, she was startlingly similar in build to his second tutor. Yet, despite that, she lacked the scolding quality of a true academic that generally accompanied his every sentence in common Equiish. Its absence meant that he did not hate her on principle. Beyond that, he decided to hold his judgment and wait for her to finish reading the letter. His life was quite literally being held in her telekinetic grip.

He watched as her eyes scanned down the page, line by line, jumping back suddenly like a typewriter at each and every line. She stopped at the bottom, and then a quizzical expression left her to jump to the top of the message again. She read quickly, but it felt like a thousand years for the soldier.

Finally, she put down the paper and looked him squarely in the eye. "Wow... okay."

"What?!" He hadn't intended to shout, but the way she winced as she recoiled left a misinterpretation of his volume utterly impossible.

"Well, a little while ago, I spoke with Princess Celestia about my thesis on the natural spread of friendship. I've been researching the magic of friendship for almost five years now, and I've made some amazing discoveries. Unfortunately, in order to finish my research, I needed a... well, a control group."

The words sounded like something his older brother would say, but they were alien to Red Ink's ears. "I am not understanding."

"Okay, how do I put this delicately? Hmm..." Twilight took a deep breath, released it, and then sucked down another before she built up the courage to speak. "A control group in an experiment is a subject or group of subjects who are, at least initially, unaffected by the controlled variable. So, in this case, what I'm saying is..."

She hesitated too long for Ink's patience. "Just say it."

"The Princess is saying you don't have any friends." The words fell out of Twilight's mouth in a torrent, but they weren't over after the first gush. "She's saying you don't understand the value of other ponies, and she wants me to see if I can't change that. So, basically, you're here to learn about friendship."

Ink's eyes grew narrow, and his stare vacant. His mind simply refused to process her words. They made no sense. He barely heard her as she continued.

"She also said she wanted you to write her Friendship Reports, the way I do. I'll teach you when you're ready to do the first one. Oh, and she wanted me to let you see the letter, so I'll just leave it here for when you're done with... that." He made no more note of her gesture than of her departure. "I'm going to make some tea, and then we can talk about this. Go ahead and read the letter."

The soft closing of the kitchen door managed to snap him out of his stupor where louder, closer words had failed. Friendship? The whole idea was moronic! He was a guardspony! A soldier! Friendship wouldn't help him in a fight, except perhaps to acquire subordinates. But he already had the whole Honor Guard for that! And besides, he had plenty of friends back in Stalliongrad! It wasn't like he was some shut-in idiot. In fact, it could be said that he only had friends in Stalliongrad. After all, the vast majority of his enemies were dead.

Perhaps that should have been a red flag...

The train ride had begun to let him comprehend Celestia's anger, even if he still felt justified in what he'd done in Baltimare. He was prepared to accept a punishment. What staggered his mind was how poorly the punishment he had been assigned seemed to fit his supposed crime. This wasn't some post on the icy draconic border where 'decent ponies' (a term he used as a slur for spineless, inbred cowards) would forget about him. It was ridiculous, like the punchline to a terrible joke. Hoping for a better answer, he trudged over to the parchment Twilight had left behind, and began to scan its message.

No sooner had his hoof come into contact with the parchment than the ink began to swirl before his eyes. Whatever message Twilight had read, it was gone before he could read even two words. The black lines swirled and then separated into completely different words before his eyes, then settled suddenly.

Red Ink,

Now that you've heard from Twilight, you should understand your punishment, even if you don't fully comprehend it. However, there are a few rules that Twilight does not need to know; pay attention, as you'll only have the opportunity to read this once.

This is your only chance to earn my forgiveness. I take the lives of my citizens very seriously. It will be up to Twilight to determine when, and if, you have learned enough. Should you give up or abandon this task, I will task Captain Armor and the Royal Guard with hunting you down, and sentence you to execution. I hope a threat to your life will motivate you, as I can produce nothing else that you seem to care about.

My student does not know why you are there; as far as I informed her, you are simply socially inept. With my apologies to your reputation, I felt that was for the best. You are free to reveal the truth whenever you wish, but I warn you that Ponyville will not react well to the knowledge of your genuine nature.

You will have no access to your father's wealth while in Ponyville; I want you to experience the life of a normal Equestrian citizen, without birthright or bloodlust. To that end, you will have to support yourself. This should not prove hard, but I do warn you that violence of any kind, for any purpose against my subjects is unacceptable. If Twilight reports that you have been involved in a physical altercation, you will have failed. I hope that I make myself clear.

As I said, Red Ink, I am very much a believer in the thought that anypony can redeem themselves, given time. Show me that my faith is not misplaced.

-Princess Celestia

Ink removed his hoof, and the parchment immediately burst into green flames. He pulled away, only to watch as its sparkling ashes fled up and out of the arboreal library through a convenient window. No sooner was it gone than Twilight returned.

"Now, Red–do you mind if I call you Red?–let's talk about friendship."

Despite what Celestia had promised, Red Ink already felt dead.

A View to a Quill

X

A View to a Quill

September 18th, 1452 A.S.
Ponyville Schoolhouse
1402 Hours

The looming reptile roared, blasting back Ink’s mane and sending ripples of wind through his jacket. He stood his ground staunchly, even having the gall to smile at the creature.

“Pff. You think you can intimidate me like that?”

Emerald flames washed over the pegasus stallion. Ponies screamed and cowered, until the smoke had cleared. Ink brushed his jacket off rather casually, making a point of the utter irony in the motion. Despite its mundane nature, it seemed undamaged.

The dragon lunged, but his bulk was no match for his would-be prey’s agility. Ink leapt to the side, and rolled across his back to return to his hooves as quickly as he could manage. A razor-sharp claw slashed through the air mere inches from his neck. He ducked before a second could decapitate him. And then he spoke what could only have been magic words.

“I was lying. They are all chocolate coins.”

With a rather uncomfortable sounding twisting and snapping, the looming dragon’s bones grew shorter, and his scales paler. In a matter of minutes, Spike was back to his usual self, and the only sign of the battle was the pile of planks and splinters that had formerly been Cheerilee’s desk.

Spike seemed rather disappointed as he stared at the little cloth sack clenched in his tail. “...really?”

“Really, really,” Ink answered. “You can keep them, though. For being a good sport.” And then, without missing a beat, he turned to the class.

Most of the foals were hiding behind a barricade of overturned desks and chairs that would, in reality, have been entirely ineffective at stopping Spike’s rampage. He could see their eyes peeking out from behind the woodwork. “Now, class... what have we learned from this?”

“Never give Spike money!” Scootaloo yelled.

“Stay away from dragons,” Rumble added.

Ink couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. “Really? I think Spike seems nice enough. Isn’t he cute?” He placed a rough hoof on the ridge of green spikes that crested the wyrmling’s head and rubbed them teasingly.

Spike replied by gently ramming his elbow into Ink’s exposed groin. “Watch it, pal.”

After regaining his vision, Ink struggled to play off his loss of balance as a piece of loose wood on the floor. It was clear nopony was buying it. “That isn’t what I meant, class. What did we learn about dragons? Perhaps about how they work?”

“Ooh! Ooh!” Twist’s hoof emerged from the fortress.

Ink sighed. “Yes, Twist?”

“Ith it that dragonth grow when they get money?”

It was the answer Ink had been hoping for, even if the little facsimile of a teacher growing in his heart had been hoping for somepony else to come up with the idea. “Ah, but do they?”

There was a long awkward silence, until Ink growled and walked over to the structure. “All of you, come out of there. And in the future, you don’t need to worry; nopony gets hurt in my class. I am a guardspony, after all. In fact, I’m the best guardspony.” He picked up two desks with his hooves, and another with his wings. The class emerged from the ensuing gap, only to awkwardly shuffle around in the wide-open space that had formerly been populated with their respective seats.

Once Pipsqueak had made his way out of the fort, Ink casually tossed the furniture back onto the pile. The fort collapsed under the unexpected impact, producing a rather thundering noise. It wasn’t a true explosion, but on principle as a true action hero, Ink turned his back to the structural collapse and walked away slowly.

“Now,” the ‘teacher’ muttered once the noise had died down. “What did we actually see happen here? Twist says dragons grow when they are given money. Is that true?”

Rumble raised his hoof, but didn’t actually wait to be called on before speaking. “Nuh uh. ‘Cause, like you said, Mr. Ink, you didn’t actually give him any money.”

Ink smiled. Had he been a great deal more self-aware, he might have been impressed or confused by the amount of joy he derived from Rumble’s insight. After all, the question involved no mares, no alcohol, and no violence. Alas, Ink was never the type of pony to examine himself in such philosophical detail, and so his only actual response was to exclaim “That’s right, Rumble. Now, here’s a tricky one. If it isn’t that I gave him a huge bag of money, what do you think caused him to grow?” There ensued a long pause, and Ink sat silently hoping that somepony would produce his answer.

“Does it matter if it’s actually money?” Applebloom asked with her peculiar accent. “Maybe it don’t matter if the coins ‘re chocolate or gold.”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you, blank-flank? Gold is way more valuable than chocolate.” Diamond Tiara thrust her muzzle in the air.

“Hey! Watch―”

“Uvazheniye! I will not have any more shouting in this class,” Ink shouted.

“Sorry, Mr. Ink,” Applebloom muttered. Ink waited for Diamond’s apology, and settled for a dip of her head.

“Also, Diamond, I don’t want to hear ‘blank-flank’ anymore. Plenty of successful ponies earned their cutie marks at Applebloom’s age. Now, you are both on the right track. Anypony else have guesses?”

There was still some great delay as gears churned in young minds. The pale lavender hoof that rose on the side of the class earned just a little smile from Ink. “Yes, Dinky?”

“Is it because he thought there was money in the bag?”

Ink couldn’t resist pumping his foreleg. “That’s it! Good work, Dinky. That’s what I wanted you all to understand before we got started on the next history lesson. Dragons do grow up with time, but it takes a very long time, and also a great deal of magic. Most ponies think that magic comes from gold, but that isn’t right. The coins aren’t magic; the magic comes from the dragon.”

“So if you make a dragon think something is gold, it will make them big and strong?”

“Not just gold,” Ink explained. “The item does not matter. All that matters is what the dragon thinks is valuable. For example...” Ink let the words hang in the air as he scanned the room. “Diamond, how much is your tiara worth?”

“One-thousand, eight-hundred bits”

Once more, Nightmare Moon’s record for history’s longest-distance spit was saved only by the fact that Ink had nothing in his mouth at the time. “It’s a hat!”

Diamond scoffed. “Clearly, Mr. Ink, you have no taste in jewelry.”

“Maybe that’s why there isn’t a Mrs. Ink,” Silver Spoon replied, earning chuckles from both fillies.

Ink managed to ignore their comments, and return his attention to the lecture he had initially settled on. “Alright, class. I want you all to imagine that you have two-thousand bits. You can buy whatever you want. How many of you would buy an eighteen-hundred bit tiara?”

Exactly zero hooves rose into the air. Ink nodded. “Glad to see we all have some common sense. That, though, is what ‘value’ actually means. It determines what you want, and what you’re willing to do to get it. Now, Spike here clearly values money.” Ink nodded. “Makes sense; I’m a pretty big fan of money to. But some dragons are very different. Take, for example, Zagatka... or, I guess, Zagadka?”

Загадка

The chalk moved quickly in Ink’s native tongue, especially given his nearly prehensile wings. He turned back to the class. “The name means ‘riddle’ or ‘enigma’. If you remember, Draconic and Stol’nogradsky are very similar languages. Zagadka was a dragon who very much loved magic, and so she collected books. She had thousands.”

“Sounds like Twilight...” Spike muttered.

“How big was she?” Dinky called out.

Ink stretched out his wings as far as they could reach, shook them for a moment in thought, and then nodded. “Her fangs were as long as I am... her whole body would probably fill the market, if she were coiled up.”

“What?”

“No way!”

“That’s huge!”

Ink chuckled and nodded, basking in the foals unknowing phrase. “I can remember, her wings were as wide as this schoolhouse, and her heart would probably fill up half this room.”

Most of the foals had wide eyes, but Pipsqueak had the clarity of mind to ask a rather troublesome question. “Uh, Mister Ink... How’d you know how big her heart was?”

Abruptly, the class stopped to contemplate the entirely legitimate question. Ink rubbed his hooves on the floor awkwardly, until Twist had the gall to cut open the silence with the same visceral intensity that had once guided a younger Roscherk Krovyu to disembowel a grown wyrm.

“Ith it becauth you uthed to be a guardthpony? From the Dragon Warth?”

Ink coughed into his hoof. “Well, uh... that’s half-right.”

“You were the pony from the thtory about Thtalliongrad?”

The ‘parallel universes’ theory of quantum mechanics dictates that every choice, or event determined by probability, is a branching point from which as many as millions of worlds can spawn. In that moment, seven-million such worlds spawned as the result of Twists’s sentence. In six-million, nine-hundred ninety nine thousand, nine-hundred ninety seven of them, Ink would be dead within ten minutes.

Our Ink wasn’t so lucky. Also, he hated quantum mechanics.

“I thought we had talked about this. None of you can say my name without making me want to lose my lunch, so Mr. Ink will be perfectly fine.” He growled in his throat at the thought of all the ‘Raw-sharks’ and ‘Crow-views’ in his near future, and then regained his focus. “ Yes, I am Roscherk Krovyu, from our earlier history lesson, if that is what you are all looking for.”

“So did you really break off the Baron’s horn?” Rumble called out, earning a potent wince from the unicorn members in the class.

Ink wanted to run across the room and give Rumble a high-hoof for being a badass, but his calmer and more rational mind told him that would be a bad impression for the foals. Instead, he settled for a cold nod. “There are more civilized ways to take away somepony’s magic, but at the time that was what I knew how to do. But now we aren’t talking about me. We’re talking about dragons.”

“I thought you said you wanted me here to talk about the Dragon Wars,” Spike muttered. “If you aren’t gonna get on with it, can I go? I’ve still gotta reshelve a bunch of books from last time Pinkie came over...”

Ink covered his face with a hoof as some of the students got far more excited.

“We’re gonna talk about the Dragon Wars?” Rumble called out.

Pipsqueak shared his enthusiasm. “Miss Cheerilee always said only big ponies got to learn about that. Did you fight in the Dragon Wars?”

“No, I did not,” Ink grumbled. “I was nine when the dragons attacked Saraneighvo, and...” Ink took a deep breath. “We’ll have to start again on Monday. It looks like it’s almost time for you all to go. Over the weekend, I’d like you all to write a one-page paper on what you value most. We’ll use it to talk about the Dragon Wars, so the more work you put into it, the more of a part you’ll get to have on Monday. And finally...” He glanced at the sloppy writing on the inside of his left foreleg, made no easier to read by the dragon fire that had minutes earlier spread across his body. “I’ve been asked to invite ‘yah ahwll’ to help with the apple harvest at Sweet Apple Acres tomorrow.”

“Like, eww,” Diamond Tiara voiced. “Who’d want to spend their weekend doing farm chores?”

“Maybe ponies who’ve had to work a day in their lives,” Applebloom muttered.

“I’ll be there,” Ink drawled with an inspiring lack of enthusiasm. “In case anypony feels like giving me some company.”

“Well, ya don’t gotta say it like that, Mr. Ink,” the farm-filly muttered. “There’s gonna be pie ‘n cider ‘n stuff. Granny says we got the best harvest we’ve had in years, and we’re gonna need all the hooves we can get.”

“Delightful. Well, that’s it for the week. See you Monday.”

As the class poured out of the room, Ink followed them into the dirt street. He had intended to fly off that very moment and get some flowers for Fluttershy, but his attention was stolen by a tugging on his foreleg. He looked down to see Sweetie Belle standing next to him.

“Yes?”

“Now that we know your real name, will you tell us your Cutie Mark story?”

“No. Even if it were appropriate, you aren’t the sort of pony who would get a talent like mine.”

“What he’s trying to tell you, blank-flank, is that you don’t have any talents. You should probably just―”

Ink stepped up to Diamond Tiara, and the gray filly that seemed to be joined at her flank. “Thank you, Diamond. You’ve just given me a great excuse to miss helping out at the farm tomorrow.”

“Uh, like, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you and I are going to have Saturday detention,” Ink told her with a sadistic grin. “I’m sure you weren’t doing anything meaningful anyway.”

“Hey, you can’t just do that. My dad will never let you.”

Just as Ink had predicted, Silver Spoon came to her equally vile friend’s support. “Yeah, Mr. Ink. Just... go away. Nopony actually likes you except the blank flanks.”

“Ah, I’m glad you spoke up, Silver Spoon. I’m sure Diamond would have been lonely alone. You should both probably wear something warm. I’d suggest leaving your jewelry at home, if you don’t want it getting dirty.”

“What?!”

“Relax, Silver. He can’t actually do anything. Daddy will stop him.”

Ink scraped the ground, and his feathers flared every so slightly. “You think your dad is going to stop this? Do you remember who I am?”

Diamond didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah. You’re a washed-up, second-rate guardspony who Twilight Sparkle’s brother threw out for being... oh, how did Daddy put it?” She put a hoof to her jaw, feigning a poor recollection, before allowing her eyes to widen. “Right! A scumbag!”

Ink’s hooves dug the earth of the road, and all mirth in his expression disappeared. “Alright, Diamond. I’ll be at your home at seven tomorrow morning.”

“I’m sure our butler will be there to get rid of you,” Diamond answered. “Come on, Silver, let’s go get ready for our skiing trip.”

The fillies had no idea what sort of a firestorm they had unleashed.

Sweet Apple Acres
2056 Hours

“Aww... I thought I had it that time.” Applebloom pulled the blindfold off her eyes, only to immediately be smacked in the face by a tennis ball on a long string. She swatted the offending hairy ball away with obvious disgruntlement. “Why do I have ta wear this thing anyway, Resistant?”

The enormous farm mare, whom Applebloom did not know to truly be the guardspony renegade known as Stoikaja, went back to laying out the huge wooden barrels that would hold the next morning’s harvest. “If you try to dodge with your eyes, all I’ll be teaching you is how to win at dodgeball in school. Endura takes time, and you might not even have the ability to begin with.”

“If I can’t do it, how come I have to keep playing with this stupid tetherball?”

“I suspect you can do it. The Endura is strong in your family, Applebloom.”

“Applejack can dodge stuff?”

‘Resistant’ chuckled. “Not quite. Your brother is the one I was referring to. He also seems to have a preternatural sense toward avoiding your grandmother in my company.”

“Why would he want to avoid Granny?”

“She seems to think I ought to become your sister-in-law.” The mare’s mind flickered back to an inordinate number of barely-comprehensible comments about her hips and her work-ethic. She chose to interpret them in a flattering light, though she couldn’t help but also find the Apple-family matriarch amusing. “It’s not gonna happen, but she just doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“She is kinda stubborn,” Applebloom agreed. “Just like Applejack.”

The towering mare sat down and stared up between the apple branches to the starry august sky. “You have a good family, Applebloom. Stick close to them.”

Applebloom may have been young, but she wasn’t completely stupid. “How come you’re sayin’ that, Resistant? Are you leaving?”

“After the harvest tomorrow, probably.” Resistant’s shoulders rose and fell with smooth motion. “I have one more... acquaintance to catch up with. Then I’ll probably go to Canterlot.”

“Do you have family there?”

“My...” She hesitated longer this time than in her previous sentence. Rather than malice, the hollow pause was filled with regrets and mixed feelings. The word she settled on surprised Applebloom. “...coltfriend.”

“You’ve got a coltfriend?”

“Well, you don’t have to say it like that, Applebloom. I know I look like a colt.” She feigned a sob, and received a sheepish expression for her efforts.

“Sorry, Resistant.”

“I’m teasing, Applebloom. I knew what you meant. But now, I think it’s time for bed for young mares.”

“Aww...”

“We’ve all got a big day tomorrow; all your friends and your sisters friends are going to be here.”

“Yeah. Well, all except Mr. Ink. He gave Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon detention for making fun of Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo and I.”

Resistant’s ears perked. “Is that so? Well, thank you for letting me know. I’ll have to head to the schoolhouse and talk to Roscherk.”

Applebloom’s face widened just a bit. “You know his real name?”

“Everypony from Stalliongrad knows his name.” Resistant chuckled at a stray thought before continuing. “Y’all just do well ‘n remember that Ah’m from San Palomino City, if’n anypony asks ya.” The accent died beneath a metaphorical guillotine. Thankfully, it was not replaced by a corresponding haughty Prench Revolution era accent, as that metaphor might have been wont to suggest. “You head back to the house now and get to bed. I’ll be in once I’m done out here.”

Applebloom ran off, and Stoikaja turned around to monitor the orchard. It had been years since she last worked a farm through the night, but she wasn’t about to let her chance at ‘Mr. Ink’ slip away.

September 19th, 1452 A.S.
The Second Estate
0700 Hours

The Rich family home was a rather large structure, glorified enough in its architecture to have such unnecessary features as distinctly separate wings and a mezzanine. The word offended the approaching teacher in the same sense that words like proletariat and chartreuse unsettled him. The fact that they were all of Prench origin was mostly a coincidence (or perhaps, if one was to split racist hairs, a corollary)―he despised them for their stuffy pretentiousness.

Also, if one were to split racist hairs, one might have an excellent non-biological explanation for the increased frequency of baldness in elderly stallions.

Ink knocked twice on the double-doors to the mansion, and then once on the butler’s face. In a tragedy that pervaded a society of Jeeves and Alfreds everywhere, a thousand-year-old monocle fell to the ground and shattered.

“Oh. Sorry. Didn’t see you there.”

“No,” muttered Silver Platter. “I must imagine you did not. No decent pony would notice a door open and continue to knock, after all. I must assume you are here for the young mistress?”

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

“I am quite well,” Platter replied. “I assure you none of the glass entered my eye. Now―”

“No, I mean your nose. Do you have a cold or something? You sound kinda...” Ink made a vague motion in front of his muzzle with a hoof. “Anal?”

Platter’s flat stare turned into a glare. “I had been told by the young mistress that your Equiish was not of social usability. The term you are looking for is nasal, and I assure you that I am quite fine.”

Ink hadn’t meant ‘nasal’.

“Right. Well, where’s Diamond and her friend?”

“They will not be accompanying you. Master Rich has informed me to see you off the premises, and to inform you that he will press charges and bring this incident to the attention of your superiors if you do not accompany me.”

“Superiors. Heh. That’s a good one.” Ink rolled his shoulders, stepped forward, and shoved the aging earth pony butler out of the way. “Rich! Get your flank down here now and talk to me like a stallion!”

“Sir, you are trespassing and―”

“Shut up, Jeeves. As of right now, this is an Honor Guard investigation.”

The clopping of hooves on the fine marble floor of the foyer preceded a new entry to the conversation.

“An investigation of what, Mr. Krovyu?” Filthy Rich’s hair was as immaculate as the golden money-sign on his tie clip. He came to a stop a few feet from Ink and helped his butler up from the floor.

“Filthy... you said it right.” Ink couldn’t help but be amused. “Well, to answer your question, the Honor Guard has decided to emphasize its investigation of bullying and discrimination-related crimes.”

“I suppose I’ll have to repeat myself. What?”

Ink’s carefully laid trap came to life with the help Twilight had given him the previous afternoon. His wing retrieved from within his jacket a huge tome. “This is the most recent edition of the legal code of the Domain of Canterlot. If you’ll look where I’ve bookmarked, you’ll find the domain’s laws on bullying.”

“My daughter is a perfectly behaved filly. Perhaps she has a bit of a wit, but I don’t see how any of this... unless you intend to tell me she physically attacked somepony else―”

“Not quite, Filthy.”

“Mr. Rich.”

Ink ignored the complaint. “See Clause, uh, C.”

Filthy Rich read aloud. “Discriminatory hate-speech constitutes... Ink, what are you trying to pull. I know my daughter hasn’t said anything like this. We’re earth ponies, for Celestia’s sake. It’s not like she’s going to tease unicorns for being ‘inferior’.”

Ink didn’t respond aloud. Instead, he flipped the book to another page, where Twilight had placed a bookmark at a particular line. The earth pony father read it aloud. “...includes speech targeted on the basis of race/breed, gender, sexual orientation, or special talent...”

“Or lack thereof,” Ink added with a smug grin. “Do you give up?”

“I wouldn’t let you walk off with my daughter in a thousand years, Black Cloak. Even if this is the law, you don’t have jurisdiction here.”

“Ah, but that’s the thing.” The next book Ink produced was far older, and he handled it with greater tenderness. “Ahem. The Honor Guard shall be a special third contingent of the Equestrian Guard, managed separately from the Royal and National Guards. Its purposes shall be the protection of the Princess, and the protection of the greater nation in that order... yadda, yadda, perpetual state of military readiness... yadda, yadda... Aha! Here we are.” Ink flipped the book around, and gestured with a wing at the line he’d been searching for.

“The Honor Guard shall have universal jurisdiction within Equestria to perform any legal functions otherwise assigned to the Royal Guard or the guard or police of a domain in pursuit of their objectives, as determined by the Princess or their captain―”

“Guess who?” Ink offered as he shut the weighty old codex.

Filthy Rich’s nostrils flared. “So that’s it? You’re holding my daughter for ransom over some old laws and your military rank?”

“I’m not trying to take your daughter away, Rich. But she’s growing up into a huge bitch, and she needs a lesson in respect. So I’m going to teach her what she needs. And if you won’t let me teach her, I’ll have you arrested.”

Filthy Rich stared at the ground for a moment before gathering the courage to speak. “I... I haven’t always had the time Diamond needed. Perhaps the way she’s growing up is my fault.” Then remorse became steel. “But if I hear so much as one word from her about you... behaving poorly with her, I’ll be the one holding all the law books. Do I make myself clear?”

“Of course,” Ink replied, somewhat too nicely to seem genuine. “Now where is she? And, for that matter, is her friend here too?”

Filthy Rich sighed slowly as he turned toward his butler. “Platter, can you go get the girls? I’ll have them meet Mr. Krovyu at the schoolhouse.”

“No, actually, I had different plans. Have them meet me in front of Sweet Apple Acres.”

The comment seemed to calm Filthy’s nerves. “Oh, that’s what you’re planning. I was worried you were going to do something... well, something drastic.”

“Who, me?” Ink asked, placing a wing over his chest and feigning shock. “Why, I would never.”

Fundamental falsehood had never tasted so sweet.

Sweet Apple Acres
0739 Hours

“There you girls are.” Ink stopped tapping his hoof on the dirt road as Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon approached. “Glad you decided to make it.”

“Shut up, Mr. Ink,” Diamond mumbled. “Just let us do our farm work and go home.”

“Farm work? I don’t recall saying anything about farm work. I was planning on going for a nice walk and telling you both a story. And then, at the end, I’ll have a simple activity for you. Doesn’t that sound much nicer than farm work?”

“Whatever,” Silver Spoon droned. “Maybe the other foals in class think you’re ‘cool’ because you used to be a guardspony, but we don’t care.”

“You might want to pay attention to this one, girls. It might save your life.” Letting the words hang in the farm air, Ink wrapped a wing over his face, and ripped out two of his own primary feathers. Moving with amazing speed, his hooves danced over the tips of the feathers. Silver Spoon was surprised when his action yielded a pair of sharpened quills. Diamond Tiara was more concerned with the fact that their teacher was wearing a pair of razor-bladed, solid steel shoes. He offered one of the improvised writing implements to each of his students. They took them with some hesitance.

“What’s this for?” Diamond asked. “Do you want us to write an essay?”

“All I want, Diamond, is for you to write your names. But that’s later. Right now, we’re going for a walk, and I’m going to tell you a story. It begins with a little foal in Stol’nograd, nineteen years ago.”

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Silver Spoon asked bluntly. “Just like all your other stories.”

“Yes, Silver, it is me. Also, shut up. Now... nineteen years ago...”

April 24th, 1433 A.S.
Tsyklongrad, Saraneighvo Oblast
11:45 AM

“You are, without a doubt, the worst student I have ever had the misfortune of working with, Mr. Krovyu.”

“Yeah? Well, screw you, Mr. Trotstoy!” Roscherk slammed the door. “Come on, Polnoch. We don’t wanna learn his dumb language anyway.”

The six-year old colt pulled his jacket tighter around himself in the early spring snow. Beneath the heavy fabric, it would have been hard to tell that the younger brother had his cutie-mark before his blank-flanked older brother, or that he had the maturity to go with it. “Roscherk, isn’t dad going to be mad?”

“Dad’s probably gonna be pissed,” Ink replied. “But I’d rather deal with him than this stallion. Let’s get going, Polnoch.”

“If you say so, big brother...” Polnoch huddled close to the older, larger stallion as the two turned back to the road toward Saraneighvo proper. “But this was your idea if Dad asks.”

“Whatever you say,” Roscherk muttered. Huge clouds of steam escaped his nostrils with every breath, and the wide spread of his wings marked his emotion. “Let’s hurry. I don’t want to get caught in the woods.”

‘The woods’ in Stalliongrad were something worth being intimidated by. Rather than the gentleness of Equestria’s quiet places, the icy domain was most easily compared to the Everfree Forest. There were monsters and magic things that lurked amongst the trees, waiting to gobble up colts who went wandering alone.

There were yetis and wights and stranger things. Creatures from the horror stories that parents in happier parts of the world would tell their foals as a way to scare them into cleaning rooms and going to sleep at night. In Stalliongrad, that sort of story would be too grim, and too true to teach such a lesson.

The two foals made their way toward what they thought was home, with only each other and their bags for company. Or so they thought. Then the ground rumbled, and split, and out emerged a creature that froze the colts’ blood in a way the ice never could. It had huge claws, and a dense white coat, and sharp, horrible teeth.

Roscherk and Polnoch knew it instantly. A vargr—a warg in Equiish. A sort of bigger, more vicious ‘wolf’ to a diamond dog’s ‘dog’. It spoke to the foals.

“Two little ponies out in trees. So alone. Who wants go first?”

The older brother took stock of his belongings. He had a coat, but it wouldn’t save him from fangs and claws. He had a book of Equiish that wouldn’t be of much use even in place of a rock to throw. And, finally, he had a quill, fashioned from one of his own molted feathers, and sharpened to a rather piercing point. Then—

The Everfree Forest
0812 Hours

“Roscherk!”

Ink spun toward the woods with a song of ice and fire in his heart. That is to say, his blood vessels were murdering each other wholesale in pursuit of becoming the one true king of his circulatory system. But that tale of intrigue and violence hardly pertains to this one, with its intense screaming of hated Stalliongradi names. Then again, it wasn’t the name that had been spoken that earned Ink’s reaction, but the voice of the speaker. “Stoikaja?”

The enormous earth pony mare walked slowly out of the magical forest toward the stallion, blocking off his way out of the woods. “Fillies,” the mare growled with heavily accented Equiish. “You should run away.”

They didn’t move, frozen in something like confusion or fear. Stoikaja slid a razor-sharp steel shoe off of her right forehoof, and stomped on its edge. Like a coin, it popped up into the air. The same forehoof that had launched it into the air delivered it a terribly powerful backhoof, sending it flying in the direction of a nearby tree.

A strong pony like Applejack might have lodged the steel cleanly in the wood of the trunk. Stoikaja wasn’t merely a ‘strong’ pony. When the shoe she had launched stopped its motion, it was on the other side of the tree, trailing a line of splinters and sawdust. A great creaking and then a sudden thunderous crack marked tree’s fall. “Leave. Now.”

They ran past her, somehow knowing that screams would do them no good. The earth pony let them pass unhindered as she searched a leather pouch at her side for another sharpened shoe.

Ink watched them go, and then adjusted his jacket. “I wasn’t expecting you to catch up to me so soon after Baltimare, ‘Soldier On’.”

“I would have waited,” Stoikaja replied. “But I’m not letting you kill somepony elses’s foals.”

“It was staged,” Ink muttered. “I paid off one of the local Diamond Dogs to—”

Ink felt the wind on his cheek, as one of Stoikaja’s bladed shoes was bucked over his shoulder. He’d barely managed the shift of his weight to keep it out of his throat. He leapt to the side, lit his wings on fire by sheer willpower, and prepared to dodge her next shoe.

In retrospect, he probably should have been more concerned about the toppled tree she was launching toward him.

Sweet Apple Acres
0815 Hours

“‘n that’s why ya gotta hit the tree nice and low. Y’all follow?”

Applebloom nodded vigorously, though she already knew the basics behind bucking trees. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were less-than-engrossed.

“Why are we doing this again?” the pegasus whispered.

“We might get apple bucking cutie marks.”

Applejack adjusted her hat. “Somethin’ ya don’t understand, girls?”

“Uh, no, it’s just... well, we’ve got it, Applejack.”

“Alrighty, then. I leave you girls to it. Don’t be ‘fraid to stop and grab a drink if ya get tired.” The grown cowpony wandered away, and the girls set to work on the ripe fruit of Sweet Apple Acres.

Their task didn’t last long uninterrupted. Scootaloo had looked up after three bucks toward the distant edge of the Everfree forest. “Is that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon?”

Applebloom made a sort of snorting noise. “We should just ignore ‘em, Scoots. We’ve got work to do, ‘n we don’t need those bullies in our way.”

Sweetie Belle grabbed the earth pony filly by the shoulder. “No, Applebloom. Look; something’s wrong. I think they’re crying.”

Applebloom would likely have still decided to ignore the two bullies, had they not also spotted the crusaders and turned in their direction. Despite the distance to the forest’s edge, it didn’t take long for the two groups to meet.

“Where’s your sister?” Diamond Tiara asked of Applebloom.

“What’s it to ya?”

Sweetie Belle gave Applebloom a disappointed glare. “What’s wrong?”

Diamond was panting from the distance they had run. “Mr. Ink’s... fighting... in the forest...”

“What, fighting a monster?” Scootaloo waved a wing. “He kicked Spike’s flank, and he beat that hydra that came into the market.”

Silver Spoon shook her head. “Not a monster... It’s a mare...”

“She bucked a tree... down! By throwing her... shoe at it.” Diamond wiped off her brow. “She had these sharp shoes... like Mr. Ink’s.”

Scootaloo held up her hooves. “Whoa, whoa, hold on; what were you even doing in the Everfree forest?”

“He... was telling us this... story about how he... Ah, Silver, you tell them.”

Silver spoon adjusted her glasses, and took a moment to steady her breathing. “I think it was his Cutie Mark story. He fought a Diamond Dog or something, with one of his feathers. He gave us these.” She tossed a blood-colored feather in front of the crusaders. “He wanted us to write our names, or something. Now where’s your sister, Applebloom?”

Applebloom turned and pointed. “She’s over there, somewhere.”

Diamond and her friend moved off at a slower, but still hurried pace. Applebloom moved to follow, only to be stopped by yet another hoof on her shoulder. She turned to Scootaloo’s smiling face.

“I just had the best idea for getting our cutie marks.” The clarity of the sentence was impressive, given the blood-colored quill clutched between her teeth.

“No, Scootaloo. That’s a terrible idea!” By convention, Scootaloo’s statement might have been precedent for a scene-ending cliffhanger, but unfortunately, Applebloom was quick enough to catch the transition. “Mr. Ink’s a guardspony. We don’t wanna go looking for danger!”

“I’m with Applebloom,” Sweetie Belle stated, as firmly as the gentle filly could manage. “I don’t want to get in trouble with Mr. Ink either.”

“Well, what if we got them to stop fighting? Mr. Ink would be super proud of us, and maybe he’d let us be guardsponies too.” Scootaloo gestured at the woods. “Wouldn’t that be way cooler than any of the cutie marks we’ve tried so far?”

“Well, I dunno...”

“Think about it for a second. We’re never gonna have a chance to do this again. Rainbow Dash would say ‘it’s now or never.’ I say we go now.”

The following nods came slowly compared to the speed of the hooves galloping toward the forest’s edge.

Ruins of the Everfree Palace
0829 Hours

Stoikaja huddled behind the huge stone orrery that had once held the physical forms of the Elements of Harmony. At that moment, all she could think of the chamber was the fire scorching her body. She could barely move without actually sticking a limb into the inferno, and she knew Roscherk had more than enough fiery Empatha left to keep her that way.

He was standing somewhere at the far side of the room; she couldn’t even peek her head out to spot him without burning away her coat. All she could hear was his voice, and the way his broken left wing dragged along the floor. The nearly-crippling wound didn’t seem to be bothering him beneath the focus he was putting on his magic.

“I’ve been waiting for this for so long, Stoikaja,” he growled over the pops of the fire on the overgrown mossy structure, and the drips of the slowly melting stone itself.

Facing her mortality, the mare couldn’t help but wonder aloud at questions that had haunted countless sleepless nights. “Is the power really worth it? Were the spoils worth the blood?”

Roscherk actually had the gall to laugh, sounding like a fictional tyrant, or his Daring Do counterpart. “You think I still care about the spoils? Didn’t I make myself clear on the Wall?” His voice went from an amused speech to a furious roar. “This is about Polnoch!”

Stoikaja’s ears were filled with the roar of the fire, which grew tighter around her, burning her coat and steaming away the tears building in her eyes. She barely heard the scream, until the fire lost its intensity.

It came again a moment later, echoing against the churn of molten stone. The screams of fillies in the forest, somewhere nearby.

Red Ink turned back, toward the entrance to the crumbling stone ruins. “Girls?”

He turned to Stoikaja’s hiding place for just a moment, and then back to the forest. The decision he made was split second, as much of instinct as it was of conscious thought.

Somewhere behind him, in a fit of Stalliongradi fury, Stoikaja stepped forth from her hiding place and stared at the fleeing stallion. Her words were short, and trite, and layered with a heavy, masculine Stalliongradi accent.

“Someday, Roscherk, I will break you.”

At the Bottom of That One Cliff where Applejack Demonstrated that ‘Honesty’ Meant Asking Your Friend to Trust You and Throw Themself to Their Probable Death Instead of Explaining that Rainbow Dash is There to Catch Them Like A Rational Pony Would
0834 Hours

The titanic Timberwolf (likely fused from dozens of smaller timberwolves that somepony had probably bashed into pieces once) closed in on the Cutie Mark Crusaders, huddled at the foot of a huge stone cliff. There was nowhere to run, and only a slight outcropping of stone to save them.

The creature roared, fishing for the fillies with its wooden claws. Applebloom smashed its toe with a stone, causing the creature to momentarily draw back in howls of rancorous pain. Soon, though, its digging continued. Sweetie Belle found a rather large, femur-shaped stick, and shoved it into the creature’s mouth. At first, the beast seemed stuck, but before the fillies could escape, the plank was shattered into splinters by larger and more animate branches.

“Hey! You there!”

The creature stopped paying attention to its small meal, and then turned. From between its towering legs, the fillies could see their savior.

Red Ink stepped forward with confidence, yelling at the Timberwolf. “Yeah, you, morning wood!” Ink paused a moment, and then slapped his own face. “Girls, when you tell everypony about this, tell them I said something more badass than that. I must be out of practice.”

The Timberwolf roared, as wolves are often inclined to do toward prey. Generally, however, the prey does not respond by charging at them and taking a huge chunk out of their forepaws with overly-developed muscular forelimbs.

Sweetie Belle, who had gained a great deal of confidence from the recent adjustment to her personal actuary tables, called out. “What do you want us to say?”

“Tartarus, I don’t know.” Ink flared his good wing, and set the limb on fire. This action seemed to intimidate the timberwolf, though the creature still had the advantage of size. “What do you think of ‘You worthless beech!’?”

“I don’t get it,” Applebloom muttered. “What’s the ocean got to do with him?”

Ink waved his fiery wing forward, and the beast was driven back for a moment. Then it drew back its rapidly regenerating forepaw and swatted Ink’s entire body across the clearing at the base of the cliff. He rolled twice in a mass of red and black, before coming to rest on his hooves, bleeding.

“It was a bad joke anyw― Shit, my ribs.”

“Are you okay?” Scootaloo shouted.

“Better than ever!” Ink lied through gritted teeth. “Try this one.” He leapt aside to dodge another swing of the timberwolf king’s paw, and immediately regretted the strain on his side. “Make like a tree, and leaf!”

Somewhere, despite the violence, crickets chirped audibly.

The timberwolf seemed to have heard that one before, and like any good monarch, it was not amused. Moments later, pinned to the ground by roots that gnarled up out of the ground around his hooves, Ink realized that he wasn’t either.

“I get that one!” Applebloom cried out.

“Great!” Ink ripped a hoof out of the entangling roots, silently cursing druids everywhere, and delivered to the timberwolf a masterfully cooked hoof flambe.

The timberwolf seemed to lack an appreciation for the finer points of Stalliong― sorry, Stol’nogradian cuisine.

Now, for those of you reading at home who are familiar with my language, yes, that should be ‘Stol’nogradsko’ But in the time since all of this happened, I’m afraid I’ve had to learn to live with the some butchery of my language for the sake of allowing others to understand. As long as it doesn’t contain the pun, I will survive it with my lunch intact.

Now where was I? About to die or something?

The giant timberwolf seemed to lack an appreciation for getting punched in the face. It roared, shook its nose until the fire went out, and then turned its eyes toward Ink. No longer was the battle for a meal; the battle was for survival.

Of course, it was at that point that things really went wrong for Red Ink. There is a sort of sound that a proper magical airship engine makes when it has decided that, frankly, enough is enough, and its tired of all this work it does for these ponies who don’t even belong in the air anyway. It usually starts as a sort of rumbling, that then becomes a grind, before sort of ‘farting out’ accompanied by a steamy hiss. If the pilot of the airship is unlucky, the next noise they hear is the screams of the passengers as the vessel lurches and dives out of the air.

Ink’s wings skipped the first two steps, and jumped straight into half-hearted sputtering of dying flame. Realizing his predicament, Ink decided to utilize the single permissible Equiish instance of an otherwise forbidden word in stories for foals under the age of 17. “Well... fuck.”

It was really quite impressive how far a giant wooden wolf could throw a flight-capable creature, given the motivation of said foe not being likely to ignite said wooden beast. Rather than rolling onto his feet, Ink slid on his side. His precious black jacket was shredded, and stained by red ink, seemingly flowing from the quill on his flank. He briefly tried to stand; the scream of pain when he put weight on his right hind leg told the fillies otherwise.

“You know, your bark just about exactly as bad as your bite. Are you gonna make me carve my name in your back with my feathers?”

"Uh, what?" Scootaloo asked.

Ink growled, clearly in pain from his ribs. "It's how I earned my Cutie Mark. Why I never told you the story. I didn't want you running off in the woods trying to kill monsters. I guess we're past that point now."

"You foughta monster with a feather? When you were our age?" Sweetie Belle squeaked. For once, Ink didn't find the noise infuriating.

He found it inspiring. "Badasses are not made, Sweetie Belle. They are born."

What many ponies do not realize about timberwolves is that they are not stupid animals. Well, most ponies realized they weren’t animals, given that they’re made of wood. Rather, most ponies assumed that they were stupid plants, or stupid magical constructs, or something similar. The point of this rather extended diatribe, however, is that timberwolves are not intrinsically stupid. Their ‘leadership’, in particular, can be quite cunning.

The creature turned away from Ink altogether in the course of his short dialogue, and placed a paw on the cliff over the little outcropping that held the crusaders. For a beast two dozen feet tall, toppling the cliff to pin them would no doubt be a trivial action.

Ink had only a moment, but for somepony like him, a moment was all it would take. Flapping his functional wing took the weight off his leg as he ran toward them. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, building tension as the scene dragged on. Would Ink make it? On a broken leg and a broken wing, was he fast enough? Could he save the Crusaders from certain death?

In the time it took the narrator to gasp for breath, Ink leapt under the falling stone, and extended his wings to cover the fillies. Rocks fell, but surprisingly, nopony died. The snapping of bone and the stallion’s gasp of intense pain cut off what might have been a joyous moment.

“Are you okay, Mr. Ink?”

Ink looked down at the Crusaders with tears in his eyes. “Girls, I want you to run. And don’t look back.”

“What about you, Mr. Ink?” one of them asked.

“I’ll be fine, girls. Don’t worry ab―!”

The terrible truth of ‘heroes’ is that, so often, that last monologue is left unsaid. Though perhaps he wasn’t to be called a true hero, Ink went the same way. The Stol’nogradsky commandant-turned-teacher was ripped out from over the fillies by a mouthful of gnarled teeth and bark fangs. The stallion had always imagined he would have the strength to die without screaming or crying, but reality had a way of shattering such dreams.

The timberwolf seemed to smile as the last of the black fabric slid down its blood-stained gullet, and it took its paw off of the cliff.

“Mr. Ink!” the best crusader shouted, in a moment of poignant loss and emotional agony.

“Come on,” Applebloom yelled, grabbing the former pony and dragging her along. “We need ta run!”

Sweet Apple Acres
0942 Hours

Chaos ruled the farm outside of Ponyville. Thankfully, this wasn’t in the sense of dancing buffalo in tutus and chocolate milk rain, but rather, a more controlled sort of military chaos. Families were gathered tight around their foals. A crowd had gathered, still not sure exactly what was going on. And in the center of it all, the Princesses themselves had arrived with a contingent of guardsponies. One such stallion stood before the sisters, remarkable only for the jagged crack running down the length of his horn.

“The scouts haven’t found any sign of her, your majesties. Some of the stone in your old castle was melted, but she wasn’t anywhere around there. Crack thinks she might have jumped in the river to get away.”

“If she is strong enough to survive the current, we won’t catch her now.” Celestia sighed. “We’ll have to trust Captain Armor’s assessment that she isn’t a threat for now.”

The stallion seemed appeased by the comment, and gave a stiff salute. Then he wandered off into the crowd, and immediately set his eyes on three mares who ran the Ponyville flower stand.

“Incorrigible stallion...” Luna muttered.

Celestia chuckled. “He’s quite the mare’s stallion, but at least he’s cunning about it.” Then the princess realized the looks her laugh had earned her, and she whispered to her sister. “Now I feel like a terrible pony for laughing. Have you heard any word about Ink?”

Luna shook her head. “We fear you will soon be delivering his soul to the Summer Lands, Celestia.”

The elder princess didn’t have the heart to correct Luna’s archaic language. Instead, their eyes wandered across a crowd of shocked and semi-mourning acquaintainces. Saddest of all were the students in Ink’s class, gathered together in a group just staring at the forest and hoping their teacher would somehow come back alive.

A distinguished gray mare began to play a brutally sorrowful cover of ‘Summer Lands’ on a violin far smaller than her usual fare, accompanied after a moment by a fedora’d stallion and his guitar. In a way, the tune seemed fitting to the passing of a pony who had so fully embodied the racial stereotypes of Stalliongrad.

“I know a place where the water is warm,

When it falls on your nose from overhead.

Birds join in song and the trees sing along,

In the Valley of Dreams that lies ahead.

No fear of ice, for the feeling is nice,

When you lay down to rest on a soft green bed.

I want to go, there's no ice, there's no snow,

Just the warmth of the sun and a soft green bed.

No more need for sad goodbyes

We’ll run together ‘neath sunny skies...”

“Yes, that’s all... very nice, and I'm sure you'd like to hear the end of that song... but... I’m still bleeding to death over here.”

Everypony gasped, as though the protagonist’s survival were somehow surprising. Other ponies might have waited until the end of the song to pop up, but Ink had never been one to really like the idea of a tragic montage. Also, as he had pointed out, time was of the essence. The urgency was emphasized when the stallion collapsed on his side, nearly beyond the treeline of the Everfree Forest.

“I’m gonna get you, big brother!” the little colt shouted.

The elder pegasus shook his head. “Not if I get you first.” Carefree hooves pushed at the younger stallion, but he was too quick to get bowled over by his burlier brother.

“Please be careful,” Predvidenie warned, adjusting his scarf. “We’re trying to get a portrait here, not wrestle.”

Roscherk rolled his eyes. “We’ll be fine when the photographer’s set up, Predividenie, but―”

In his distraction, Ink hadn’t seen the younger pegasus sneaking up on his side. He was bowled over, and found himself ‘pinned’ by Polnoch’s forelegs.

“I got you, big brother!”

And then the bright bulb flashed, and the unposed moment was captured forever. Everypony laughed, the way a family was supposed to. It felt like a fairy tale.

Canterlot Rehabilitation Clinic
Woodland Park
September 30th, 1452 A.S.
2:25 P.M.

“I hope I’m not interrupting, Captain.”

Ink nearly dropped the old photograph in shock. “Princess Celestia?”

The regal monarch nodded slowly, and walked over to sit beside the stallion. Ink’s hind leg and both wings were held in firm braces, but he seemed to be supporting himself rather well on the little bench at the edge of the woods. “I recognize your older brother, but who’s the colt?”

“His name was Polnoch,” Ink answered with a sigh. “It meant ‘Midnight’ in Equiish.”

Celestia smiled sadly. “The Revolution?”

Ink shook his head. “Afterward. He was a great pony. And a lot more popular than me. We’d intended the Black Cloaks to only be monster hunters, and to have him run the police force. But when Stoikaja...” Ink closed his eyes, and then opened them again. “Sorry, Princess. The doctors were warning me about my blood pressure.”

“It’s sound medical advice; I’m glad you’re listening.”

“I don’t think they care about the medicine...” Ink muttered guiltily. “Somepony may have lit the therapist’s couch on fire.” Ink was surprised when Celestia laughed with him. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“I’ve never been much of a fan of those couches, Captain. Frankly, I never seem to fit.”

Both ponies shared a laugh that died slowly and calmly. Finally, though, Ink was ready to ask the lingering question. “You called me Captain.”

“Yes, I did. If you’re not too attached to being a substitute teacher, I think you finally learned the lesson I wanted you to learn.”

“Which was?”

“What it really means to be a guardspony. You had a choice, Rowshirk―”

Ink winced. “Ink, please, Princess.”

“Apologies. In any case, Ink, you had a choice between revenge on Soldier On, and saving somepony’s life. The stallion who I put in charge of the Honor Guard out of desperation several weeks ago would have chosen the former. But you did what I expect of my guard. You made the right choice.”

Ink cocked his brow. “Then what was the point of the ‘Friendship Reports’?”

Celestia looked away, and Ink though he saw a glimmer of a blush on her face. “Well, to tell you the truth, I had a rather good laugh at the expense of your broken Equiish. I was rather disappointed when Twilight had proofread them for you.”

Ink nodded with a little smile of his own. “Alright. Dear Princess Celestia, today, I am learning valuable lesson. For many years, I am being think of myself as soldier; where to be killing and winning and defeating enemy is most important. But that is most wrong approach. Being guard is not being soldier; it is being protector. Control is of more important than power. So now, I am coming back to Canterlot... from Stol’nograd, with love.”

Celestia was laughing quite vibrantly by the end, though she calmed herself quickly when he was done. “Why don’t you say ‘Stalliongrad’?”

Ink winced visibly. “Because it is a butchery of a good name, for the sake of a stupid pun.”

The Princess huffed. “Well, I resent that, Captain. I’ll have you know, Cyclone thought I was quite clever when I came up with that pun.”

Ink’s gaze slowly narrowed. “You made that pun?”

Celestia nodded. “I’ve always been something of a fan of puns in place names. Canterlot. Vanhoover. Manehattan. But I must say Stalliongrad was probably my best... Do you smell something?”

Ink glanced back at the melting plaster on his wings, and then gave the princess a flat stare. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“Well, if you say so. In any case, Captain Krowvyou, I’ll have an assignment for you in December. Until then, take your time recovering. The Honor Guard will be glad to have you.”

Ink’s wince lasted for most of the Princess’ departure, but he couldn’t let her go on such a note. “Princess Celestia?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“The name’s Ink. Red Ink.”