11 December, Y.C. 969
Ponyville
“Until tomorrow, then.”
“Tomorrow,” agreed the mare at the other side of the table with a slight nod. After a moment, she started to gather her papers, not even bothering to use her magic for it. It was that kind of day, after all. The slight rustling caught the attention of the two observers on the second level; realizing what was happening, they immediately got up and were gone in a twinkle.
Dag sighed. He envied them. Not for the mind-numbing boredom — he experienced that just like they did, after all — but rather the fact that they could, and often did, fall asleep pretty much whenever they wanted to. All of Equestria’s major news agencies had sent out delegations at the beginning of the negotiations, and this little town’s library had been packed, the second floor full of official observers and curious townfolk alike.
He lazily started to collect his own papers and sighed again. Those were the days. All of, what, just a few weeks ago? Back when they had some amount of hope in this whole damn business. Now, neither of them bothered to so much as bring a staff. What was the point?
At the hint of a sound above him he blinked twice and looked up; his female counterpart was holding a sheaf of papers, a single lone strap doing its very best to hold them all together.
“Where will you be tonight?” said the mare with the air of somepony repeating herself.
“Oh,” he said. “Hadn’t thought about that. Probably stay in.” He attempted a smile. “It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah,” she agreed dully with a dip of her seafoam mane. “Same here. But it’s one of my staff’s birthday, so….”
She gave a helpless shrug.
“Go for it,” said Dag. “See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, then,” she said with a half-smile.
He watched her leave, then slowly turned back to his own papers.
It was nice to have a decent counterpart on the other side of the table, he mused. LeFleur was actually quite a pleasant person to be around — away from the table. At it, though, was a different issue entirely. At one point he had noticed that the Blackacreans had a mule in their delegation; maybe that’s where she picked up her stubbornness.
Papers collected — for what they were worth; at this point he had been over them so many times he knew their contents by heart, and they were mostly just for show — he turned for the door. For a moment he considered going out somewhere, but decided against it: tonight was a good night for an early dinner, some reading, and then bed.
Besides, he didn’t want to risk running into LeFleur or her delegation out on the town. They had laid out that ground rule early on, when it became clear that she wasn’t about to make any concessions any time soon. Ponyville was neutral ground, at least for the purposes of the negotiations, but neither of them wanted to risk bringing their delegations out somewhere to eat and running into each other. For one, no eatery in the town was big enough for the both of them; for two, that just didn’t seem like a good idea.
Usually they traded off nights “out,” so to speak, but Dag had given her the past five days. He just didn’t feel like going anywhere, and he knew his people felt the same way.
On the short path from the library to the temporary accommodations in an unused wing of the town’s hospital, Dag nearly stumbled over a rock. He gave it a good kick; it shot over to a low brick wall, bounced off, and came back to hit his flank.
He cursed under his breath, rubbing the spot. Just his luck. With the hundredth sigh that day — that evening, by this point — he continued on.
Stonewalling, that’s what they were doing. He knew it, she knew it, everyone knew it. Even the newsponies had given up; only the Herald kept a reporter on the scene. Dag had gotten a good look at the Herald’s staffer; he was a young pony, the sheaf of papers on his flank crisp like only a new cutie mark could be.
All the other papers had gotten together, pooled their men, and left a single joint reporter at the scene. Every day, the poor stallion dutifully sent off the joint report to news agencies in every corner of Equestria. Most days it was a single line. What else was there to report?
“Evening, Chief Diplomat,” called a mare from the door to the hospital. “You’re back late. What was on the docket today?”
“Thrilling business, Miss Jacqueline,” he deadpanned. “Went all over the railroad again.”
Dag entered the hospital, the air inside only marginally warmer than outside. He groaned. “Heater broke again?”
“’Fraid so,” said the mare, offering a bundle of fabric; he realized she was wearing one herself, its reddish color blending into her copper coat. “Blanket?”
“Yes, please,” he said, trading the papers for the covering. “Thanks, Jackie.”
“Sure thing,” she said with a winsome smile. She turned to gesture in towards the main hall, which was lit with candles every dozen paces. It looked like the power was out, too. Not that he minded; it wasn’t as if he was going to be up late into the night.
“So,” prompted Jackie as they moved down towards the glow at the end of the hall, the common room where his staff would normally be working hard under the watchful eye of his chief, Otto. Not today, though. What was there to do?
“The railroad.”
“Ah, yes,” he said with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “We went down it, spike by spike.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Yeah, but it felt like it,” he shrugged. “Went over every kilometer between Ponyville and Appleloosa. Ponyville Forest, Remaregen Bridge over the river, the bit next to Froggy Bottom Bogg, bridge over the gorge, and the stretch from there over the grasslands down to Appleloosa itself.”
She frowned slightly. “What…?”
“Did we talk about?” he laughed. “Pretty much everything. Where it came from, who supplied the materials, who supplied the labor.”
Jackie snorted, not breaking her stride.
“Pretty much,” agreed Dag, then affected an air of absurd eagerness. “Did you know that eighteen percent of the raw iron in the Remaregen support struts came from the abandoned mines in what is now Rambling Rock Ridge?”
“I did not,” she said, shaking her head at him. “And I don’t think I’ll remember it for much longer, either.”
“Makes two of us,” he spat. “Even if it did matter to the land ownership — which it doesn’t, by the way, I checked the civil code last night — that happened nearly a hundred and fifty years ago.”
Jackie paused in mid-stride and turned towards him.
“You remember the thing you just said?” she asked, arching a dark red eyebrow.
“The iron content or the property law?” he teased.
“Either,” she said, brown eyes boring deep. “Because I’ve already forgotten about both of them.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” he said, pursing his lips. “They’re not particularly interesting facts, and in the scheme of things —”
“And you know what else?” she asked, bringing her head closer.
“I,” she said, so close he could feel her breath.
“Don’t,” and he could feel it warm now, the heat a touch of summer in mid-winter.
Jackie opened her lips for ‘care’ but he sealed them with his own, closing the distance before she got the word out. Both sheaf of paper and blanket dropped to the floor, where they rested for a solid minute or two.
Eventually, they detached themselves. Dag shivered for a moment in the cool air of the hall; Jackie threw her blanket over him, keeping his body close for warmth.
“Long day.”
“You wouldn’t believe,” he said sadly, leaning against her. “I can’t believe I’m still here.”
“You’re the best there is,” she said, nuzzling against him. “Sooner or later, the Princess will need her best stallion, right here.”
“The Princess’ best can’t do anything if he’s gone crazy,” he reminded her. “I can only take so much of this idiocy at a time, and my tolerance isn’t getting any higher.”
“That’s why I’m here,” she said, her head still pressing against his neck, gently angled to keep her horn away from the ticklish spot just behind his ears. He was an Earth pony, but had plenty of unicorn blood in his lineage; she was the opposite, a unicorn born of mostly earthy stock. They had often joked about what their foals might look like. Joked, because they both agreed that trying to raise foals while on the road as often as he was probably wasn’t a good idea.
Of course, given the way negotiations were going here, they might well start settling down to raise some youngsters. On winter nights like these, making them certainly wouldn’t be a problem, with the power out and their bodies the only thing to keep them warm….
The faint glow at the end of the hall suddenly became brighter as they heard the soft sound of the door to the common room opening.
“Looks like we’ve got company,” murmured Jackie.
“We can always change that.”
“Later,” she said, nipping his ear. “The night’s not going anywhere.”
A slight glow of her horn and suddenly they were wearing blankets again; on the floor, the spilled papers straightened themselves out and jumped up to her hoof. Dag smiled. Some ponies might be jealous, but he couldn’t figure why. She had gifts he didn’t, and he had gifts she didn’t; the only difference was hers were a bit more obvious. And, when it came to looking proper in a matter of seconds, hers were a bit more useful.
A greenish-red blur came around the corner, then stopped short as it caught sight of them.
“Mr. Hammer!”
“Agnes?” Dag blinked. Their host was generally glad to help out, but she usually stayed in the building, rather than dashing out of it; she had been running at a speed more suited for one of the young pegasus couriers on his staff. “What’re you doing in a rush?”
“You’re not going out tonight, are you?” asked Jackie, concerned. “It’s mighty cold….”
“Not anymore,” said the mare with a sigh of relief, pulling off the red blanket; her green coat almost lime-colored in the candlelight. “I was looking for you, actually; thought I would have to go to the library.”
“We called it a day,” said Dag vaguely. “What is it? What’s the rush?”
“A message,” she said breathlessly. “No time to wake one of your staff; I had to get it to you, and fast!”
“Well what is it?” he asked, stepping forward. “If it’s that —”
“I was standing in the kitchen, baking up a pie for you two tonight,” she started, glancing from one to the other, “because I’ve got a few apples leftover from this week’s shipment from down south, and if I don’t use them they’ll go bad, and here I was, ready to pull it out of the oven when suddenly there’s this flash, and… oh no!” Her eyes went wide. “It’s still in there! I’ve got to —”
“The flash,” prompted Jackie before she could turn away. “What —”
“A letter,” she said, frantic. “From the Princess. It just appeared out of thin air….”
“Give it here,” said Dag; she passed him a small scroll. Green and gold, royal seal; it was the Princess, all right. Teleporting a scroll this far without a paired receiver at the other end… this must have taken an enormous amount of effort.
He swallowed. This didn’t bode well.
“Well?” said Jackie, eyes wide. “What does she say?”
He snapped the seal off with a flick, scanning down the words. There were only a few lines of text, but as he reached the bottom he realized that there wasn’t much to say. He read it a second time, glanced away for a moment, and then a third time, just to be sure.
“She…” he started, then paused.
Both Agnes and Jackie leaned in slightly. They didn’t look related, but mannerisms were in the blood.
“The Princess expects results,” he said flatly.
Jackie blinked.
“How is that different from…?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “She needs results, and she needs them now.”
“But why?” she asked. “They’ve been stalling for weeks!”
Dag glanced quickly at Agnes — oh, forget it. She might not have clearance, but she would find out soon enough.
“They’re mobilizing the Air Patrol,” he said quietly. “Five full Wings.”
For a full thirty seconds, the hall was quiet. Jackie was first to break the silence.
“The last time….”
“Dragon Skirmishes,” he finished with a nod. “I know.”
“And she expects results.”
“She does,” he said, already starting to sweat a bit, the perspiration clammy on his face.
“It’s a good thing she has the best stallion in the land on the job,” said Jackie, attempting cheerfulness. “If you can’t broker a deal, no one can.”
“That’s just it,” he said, staring into the dim candlelight of the hall. “Doesn’t matter if no one can do it… it needs to happen. We can’t risk anything less.”