I run.
I run, hooves pounding against cloud. My eyes are white-rimmed and my nostrils are flared, gulping at the icy high-altitude air. I can feel the blood pumping just beneath the skin of my face, and the flesh of my muzzle feels hot.
I ponder wings. I ponder flying. I dismiss the notion. My wings are not trustworthy. 988 years old, but only a pitiful fraction of that spent anywhere other than solid ground. My horn flares teal as I gather my cloak around my body. Keep running. Keep r—
Out of the dark, another one leaps. A bright light lances at my eyes. I recoil, whinny, wheel about, bolt off in a new direction. I don't know where I am anymore, completely lost in these twisting and map-defying streets. Carefully sculpted cumulus towers, dotted with windows of chilly yellow lamplight—pegasus cloudominiums—rise on either side. They carve sharp moon-shadows across my path. I do not stop to admire the sight. I run.
A meeting of alleys, a choice of direction. I pause, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar streets, glancing frantically back and forth between three dispiritingly-similar canyons of cloud. Beneath my heavy hood and cloak, I sweat, and even the cold night air of Cloudsdale cannot wick it off me. I pause—
—and then there comes the noise of wings behind me and I have no more time to hesitate. I choose the leftmost path on little more than the strength of instinct and bolt as though stung by a hornet. I run. I run.
I hope to the stars as I gallop that my choice will eventually lead me home, or rather, the closest thing to "home" I have: a private guest room in the modest manse of the Hegemony's resident minister. "Home" was supposed to be the ambassador's quarters at the Hegemonic Embassy, back when things were right and good. Things stopped being right and good the moment I set hoof in this city and they have not recovered since.
The noise of wings rises behind me again (how is it possible they are so fast how is it possible). The safety of my guest room seems so very far away right now, too lofty a goal to hope for. I whittle down my list of goals to a single entry: get free of the ponies with the cameras.
I have already lost, of course. They have already caught me on film. Tomorrow's Acta Diurna will be abuzz with news of Princess Cadance, the Canterlot Girl, muzzle-to-rump in the bread-lines with the common poor, waiting for her annona. If I'm lucky, they will call me "Canterlot Girl." Sometimes the press will snidely refer to me as "The Flamingo" because I am large and pink and ungainly and do not fly at all well; and on top of that one of them managed to discover that I sneak shrimp from the griffons whenever I can, which really hammered the metaphor home. I cannot bear to think about the look on Lt. Armor's face when he sees the Acta tomorrow, because he will look wounded and stern and resolute and above all he will blame himself for failing to prevent me from sneaking out of my private quarters after leaving me for the night, and he will vow to keep an even closer eye on me, regardless of my wishes in this matter. Things have gone very, very wrong, and it's all because I just couldn't help myself, all because I was so very hungry.
The tears do not even have a chance to form before the vicious wind whisks them away. No. That's not right. They haven't gone wrong. They were wrong from the start.
A pony flutters out of an alley of cloud to my left. There is a flash—
* * *
—I smile for the picture, just in time.
"Thanks, Princess!" says the morning-colored photographer, tipping his hat to me. My photogenic smile melts softly into something serene and genuine.
"You're very welcome," I say, in my practiced Princess Voice, and he flits away across the arcade's airspace, whistling.
I turn back to my Royal Guard retainer, sitting across from me at the little café table. My eyes are twinkling. "They like me, Lieutenant Armor," I say. "They actually like me."
"As you say, Your Highness."
I make a tut-tut noise. "Now, Lieutenant," I say. "You've got words hiding behind your words. I thought we discussed this: no secrets, no deference."
"Sorry, Ma'am."
I give him an encouraging smile. "I'm resigned to the fact that you will be shadowing me and reporting back to Canterlot on my actions and progress, but I can't stand the idea of spending every waking hour in the presence of a hall monitor. I'd rather you be a friend to me."
"Are you ordering me to be your friend, Ma'am?"
I shoot him a wry look. "You are absolutely infuriating, Lieutenant," I say. "But, if that makes you more comfortable... sure. Yes, that's an order. Not to be my friend, because I obviously can't mandate that, but at least to act like one. So, let's start this conversation over. I say, 'They actually like me, Lieutenant Armor.' And then you say...?"
I gesture, signaling his cue.
Lt. Armor bites the inside of his cheek for a moment. "They don't actually like you," he says. "They like the novelty of you. There's a difference."
"There," I say, blinking, a little stung; but I did ask for it, after all. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"
"No, Ma'am," he says, gingerly poking at the last remnants of a falafel on the glittering plate in front of him. The plate is ice, or rather, a stabilized high-altitude ice-cloud amalgam. Another proud product of the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation! Kitchen cleanup in Cloudsdale is a cinch; when you're done with your dishes, you just toss them away, and they melt into raindrops that water the ground below. It also showers the land with little bits of food, I suppose. (It's all right, I am told, because it's accepted that the cloud city will create something of a blight beneath it, so it is never stationed directly over an inhabited area.) They really do the most wonderful things with ice and cloud here, or so I have read in my preparatory research. I am anxious to see it all for myself.
I am also anxious about that falafel. Lt. Armor is just sort of playing with it, and my stomach has a gnawing feel that tells me I am coming due for yet another shameful alicorn gorging. How unprincesslike would it be for me to ask if I might finish Lt. Armor's food for him? Terribly, probably. Far more proper for me to just stay silent, stick to my own plate, now empty. Very, very empty. I probably oughtn't to have even eaten as much as I had, for propriety's sake.
However, you can't eat propriety, and my appetite is not a cooperative beast. Obviously the leftover bits of the lieutenant's lunch are not going to completely suffice, but maybe it would kill the cravings a little until I can find a suitable cake to devour in its entirety somewhere behind closed doors. I feel comfortable that I'll be able to sort something out once I'm set up in the embassy, so no sense in worrying about it now and really he's just playing with it what is he even doing doesn't he realize—
"Ma'am," says the lieutenant, "would you like to finish this?"
"Oh," I say, blinking. "Oh, certainly. I mean, it's not something I was going to ask, of course. That would have been rude of me."
"More rude than hovering over it like a cat on a mouse hole?"
My eyes narrow. "Lieutenant Armor," I say. "I'm not sure I care for—"
The lieutenant nudges the remaining bit of falafel to the left. Despite my best efforts, my eyes follow it as it moves. Shoot.
Lt. Armor gives me a lopsided grin and levitates the leftover bit of falafel over to my side of the table. I pluck it out of the air with a sullen look, feeling reluctant to prove him right, but there is only so long I can hold out. I crunch down on the last remaining little ball of oil-fried chickpea. The tahini sauce is sour and garlicky and phenomenally delicious. Humility never tasted so good. In the fullness of time, a slim, mustachioed pegasus flits over and presents us with a bill. I clop my hoof down upon it before Lt. Armor can say a word, and count out an appropriate number of bits (making certain to tip generously, of course!) and the pegasus flits away.
I smile at the lieutenant. "You've got questions in your eyes again."
He nods, and takes a little breath. He's getting much better at this "lack of deference" thing. "Coin purse," he says, quietly, his steely blue eyes watching the other patrons of the little café as he speaks. "You paid in bits, but you have a literal pile of cheques to the Royal Bank of Canterlot in your saddlebag you could've signed over to him. They might be more secure."
"Secure or not, I won't be using them," I say, plucking one of the notes from my saddlebag. It flutters like a castle pennant in the strong, chilly Cloudsdale wind, and then I theatrically let it go. The wind takes it I know not where. "This is princess money, Lieutenant Armor. This is money I get for being who I am, not for actually doing anything of use. I refuse to live any more on a royal stipend. I plan to earn my way in this brave new world."
"So, the cash...?"
"Foalsitting savings!" I say perkily. "Money earned through hard work, Lieutenant."
"Right," he says, with a smirk. "Twiley can be a hoofful at times, can't she?"
"Nonsense, Lieutenant. Your sister was a pleasure and I'd have watched her for free; not so much the Lulamoon girl, or the young Countess D'Heartstrings, or that odd little Twinkleshine."
"So how long are you planning to live on foalsitting money?"
"Not long," I say. "But no need to worry. You'll obviously be supporting yourself on the Regiments' coin, but I myself will be drawing ambassador's pay very shortly. It's been a great comfort to know I have a job awaiting me."
I smile, pop the final bit of hummusy pita into my mouth and give it a polite thirty chews. This has the unintended effect of making my next sentence sound unusually portentous.
"Everything is working out perfectly," I say.
* * *
"Sorry—she's... what?"
"She's not retiring," says the prim, ice-blue pegasus stallion at the desk in front of me.
I am still smiling, because my smile hasn't gotten the message to fall over yet. "I'm not sure I understand."
"Very little not to understand, I'm afraid," says Mr. Weather Eye, Canterlot's Resident Minister to the City-State of Cloudsdale. "Her Excellency Sunny Smiles has decided she will not, in fact, be resigning her post as originally planned. As a result, the vacancy you were brought in to fill no longer exists." He plucks a decorative snow globe from his austere gray stratus desk, gives it a good shake between his hooves, and sets it down again, watching the little flakes swirl around the tiny model of Cloudsdale within it. I must assume that they are, in fact, actual snowflakes. "Ah," he says, watching them fall.
"There must be some sort of mistake," I say, feeling sweat begin to prickle the skin beneath my pink coat. "I've got paperwork and everything. Lots and lots of paperwork. My Aunty—I mean, Princess Celestia made sure everything was completely handled before I arrived. She accounted for every eventuality."
"Not the eventuality that Her Excellency Sunny Smiles would change her mind and choose to stay in her position, I'm afraid. And while I'm certain your 'Aunty' could forcibly retire her from her position if she saw fit, I'm reasonably certain your portfolio does not currently contain an ejection notice."
"No!" I say. "Of course it doesn't! This was a done deal, Mister Weather Eye."
"Apparently not." He shrugs.
"I have to meet with her. We need to speak on this."
A sharp bark of a laugh. "Best of luck with that. H.E. Smiles hasn't left the walls of the Embassy in about a month. Not that she ever was much of a trot-around mare; unicorn, don't you know. Not everypony is as blessed as your lictor."
"My what?"
"The sober-looking lieutenant parked outside, the one with the city crest that gives him pegasus hooves." He waves a hoof absently. "Pegasus term for an attendant-slash-personal guard. Status symbol. It's a cultural thing."
"She doesn't have to leave the Embassy! I'll go to her!"
"H.E. Smiles takes meetings very rarely these days. Does most of her work by mail. I should know; I've tried and failed to sit down with her and discuss the distribution of Canterlot's tax bits on a number of occasions."
I blink, trying to find words. "You're saying she'd refuse to meet me? I am an alicorn princess of Equestria, Mister Weather Eye! One of two!"
"I doubt it would matter."
I shake my head, sitting back on my cushion a bit. "This is... I'm trying to find a word for this, Mister Weather Eye. I just passed 'unbelievable' and am quickly closing in on 'outrageous.'"
Weather Eye leans forward. He locks eyes with me. "Yes," he says. "Yes, it is. Completely outrageous. To be quite frank, I've been waiting for your arrival. Somepony with Celestia's ear needs to tell her what's going on here. H.E. Smiles has been a faithful servant of the Tiara for years upon years now, and it just isn't like her to behave so erratically. I was hoping you could carry this news back to the Sun Princess when you return to Canterlot."
"'Return'?" I say. "I'm not going back there!"
The stallion nods, taking this in. When he speaks, his words are carefully measured. "Not much for you here, though, at this point?"
"I'm not going back," I repeat, more forcefully, tapping my gold-shod hoof against the desk and causing the snowflakes in the globe to billow up. "You don't know what it was like living with her! You don't know what it's like being the functional daughter of She Who Brings The Dawn! She's... she's..."
Two deep, chuffing breaths. Then, one slightly more measured one. I bring my hoof to my chest on the inhale, and let it out on the exhale. Just as the Sisters always taught me to do. "...she's testing me," I say, my voice perfectly even.
"Pardon?"
"This is a test. The mare is testing me, seeing how I'll react to having my world jerked out from underneath me. Again. The entire Hegemony's dealings with the City-State of Cloudsdale are being jeopardized by an old nag trying to teach me a life lesson." I laugh, shaking my head. "This is so her!"
"I'm sorry," says Weather Eye. "You think H.R.H. Celestia and H.E. Smiles are in collusion on this?"
"I know so. She's trying to frustrate me and stress my patience again. Just like she did with that nice Dotted Line back at Names and Standards. Except he, bless his heart, was as much a victim as I was. Oh, I'll send her a letter describing what's going on, all right, but it'll be the sunniest darn letter you ever read! I am not going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me crawl back to Canterlot. As far as I'm concerned, Mister Weather Eye, this city is my home, and I'm not giving up my home that easily."
"Your home it may be, but... where are you planning to live?"
I frown. "The embassy, I thought...?"
"The ambassador's apartments at the embassy are for the use of the ambassador. Q.E.D."
"I'll find a place."
"Places take time to find, here," says Weather Eye. "Doubly so places on the firmament."
"Do I... need one of those?" I cannot believe how out of my depth I am. I thought I researched this, I really thought I did...
"Your lictor may have pegasus hooves, but he most certainly doesn't have pegasus wings. This immediately limits your possibilities. Certainly a place in the Column is right out. Likewise the Reach or the Archipelago. Won't matter if you can't fall through the clouds if the path leading to your home is on an 80-degree incline, or simply doesn't exist at all that day. New Veneighzia might be a possibility, out by the old Weather Factory—lots of earth ponies there, lots of bridges—but it's an unsavory part of town, not suited for mares of your standing. You'd bring shame on the entire Hegemony living there. So yes, you'll want a place on the firmament. Either that, or an apartment somewhere on the Bahamoot herself, Duchess Portolan's old dry-docked flagship."
"I saw it from Point Cumulus. I'm familiar with it."
"Then you'll be familiar with how prohibitively expensive it is to live there—though, on second thought, at least that won't be a problem for you?"
I think of the cheques in my saddlebags. I set my mouth in a hard line.
"No stipends," I say. "I make it here on my own."
Weather Eye gives a heavy sigh and looks at me with a slightly frustrated expression. He picks up the snow globe and gives it another quick shake. I have breathing exercises; he has his snow globes. We are not so dissimilar.
"Well," he says, eventually, "I see that you're adamant. But you're also a princess, and I absolutely cannot stand the thought of one of Equestria's alicorns living in a wet little nimbostratus loft above a thermopolium. This is not the sort of thing that happens in my city. Ergo: you'll be a guest of my home for as long as it takes to get your hooves under you. This may take some time unless H.E. Smiles abruptly goes sane once more, but until that happens, the resources of my household are at your disposal."
I bow my head, lowering my horn until it is nearly level. I smile warmly. "Many thanks, Mister Weather Eye. I am sure we will not trouble you for long."
"There is no trouble," says Weather Eye. "My house is yours. Take whatever you need from the stores; just make certain you document it."
My smile drops just a touch. "Document... my food, for instance?"
"Food above and beyond formal meals, yes. Those are already documented by my chef. Apart from that... sundries, toiletries, whatever. You don't need to limit yourself; take whatever you need. Just make sure it's documented."
I start to say something, then stop. I start to say something else and then stop that too. Banish it. Banish it all.
"Wow," I eventually manage, stupidly. "You must be a good record-keeper!"
"One of a hoofful in this city, I'm afraid. We are prosperous and generous here in Cloudsdale, but we are also sloppy. Case in point: the annona."
I know the word. "The government's bread allotment. One loaf per citizen per day, whenever they require it." It was something I'd been particularly excited to read in my preparatory research. As though there wasn't enough to love about my new city, Cloudsdale's government believed in stability through generosity! Could they be any neater?
Well, Weather Eye seems to think so, given his theatrical snort. "Oh, yes, 'One loaf per citizen per day' is the idea. In reality, the situation's a mess. A pony could hypothetically hop from distribution point to distribution point collecting loaf after loaf and nopony would be the wiser. And the busier distribution points don't even verify a pony's citizenship before handing it over. It's a ruinous state of affairs, but whatever the Senate may think, my household is mine, and I will run it as I see fit. That means good records, Ma'am."
"Very commendable of you," I say. My stomach growls, which then causes my gut to churn with despair.
"I'll have my staff redirect your bags to my home, and when you're ready, one of my air-carriages will take you there as well. You'll doubtless wish to discuss the unfortunate news with your lictor."
"Yes," I say. "Doubtless I will."
I absently raise my hoof for the traditional kiss. It is a completely mechanical gesture. I barely even feel it when it happens.
"Please do sort this out, Your Highness," says Weather Eye.
"Of course," I say.
I am still smiling.
* * *
"I knew it," says the lieutenant. His eyes are squinted and he is looking down and to the left slightly. This is Lt. Armor's Serious Thinking face. It's sort of sweet; I wish I could be more charmed by it right now. "I knew there was a reason the sitting ambassador didn't send a welcoming delegation to Point Cumulus. You're being snubbed, Your Highness."
"It's not so bad," I say, trying to keep my voice light as I gaze at the scenery outside the window of the tiny pegasus-drawn dirigible. It is extremely strange to see so much white and so little green.
"It is, in fact, so bad. You need to meet with her. If she refuses to meet you, you need to make her meet you."
"That'd seem incredibly rude of me, Lieutenant. Wouldn't it?" I raise my chin and fold my hooves before me on the seat. "As an alicorn princess of Equestria, I must be patient with my subjects, even the mysteriously intransigent ones. I suspect H.E. Smiles is just getting a bout of cold hooves at the prospect of retirement. It's something that happens to mares of her age. I give it a week, two tops. Then she'll vacate both her post and the Embassy and we continue the plan as though none of this ever happened."
"And meanwhile?"
"Meanwhile, we are guests of Mister Weather Eye, who seems at first glance to be a very nice stallion. Strict, certainly. Controlled. But very nice."
"So why are you so worried?"
"I'm not."
"You are. Ma'am."
I am now beginning to regret this candidness thing. "No, no worries whatsoever. Just... maybe a little concerned about the kitchen situation."
Lt. Armor studies me with that piercing gaze of his. "You have to tell him about the food thing."
"Absolutely not. Out of the question. We are princesses of Equestria, Lt. Armor; we cannot be seen in so undignified a position. Ponies should not know of it. You should not know of it. And you wouldn't know of it, had Aunty not forgotten to lock the door during high tea."
"If he's boarding an alicorn, he needs to know what that means. I know you don't want to look rude, or weird, but he needs to be told how much energy you burn and how it affects him as a host. Up front."
"I am perfectly capable of restraining myself for a few weeks. If I need to supplement, I can get my own food."
"Using foalsitting money?" Lt. Armor looks dubious.
"Among other things. I have a few ideas."
The balloon carriage swings around a towering cumulonimbus pillar on the power of the tireless wings of its draystallions, and the bright and shining Pegasopolian Acropolis comes into view. It is achingly white in the midday sun, and the sky rimming the soaring structures is a transfixing high-altitude indigo. There is not a cloud in the sky—or rather, there is, but we're literally on top of it. My eyes water at the glare even as my heart leaps in my breast.
"It turns out, there are all sorts of possibilities in this city."
* * *
And that brings us to tonight, when it all goes to Tartarus.
If you were to take all the pictures of me printed in the Acta and put them in a sort of flip book, you would see that, to my credit, my smile has never fallen once during the past few weeks. Your flip book would, on the other hoof, reveal a certain dimming of the sparkle of my eyes, concurrent with heavier and heavier makeup to hide the hollows and dark circles underneath. But on the surface, no change.
And that's the goal, isn't it? Cheery perfection, timeless in the face of change. Changelessness is what alicorns are about! Even as the headlines on the variety pages change from facile celebration to tongue-in-cheek mockery. Even as the editorials change from cautious wait-and-see opinion pieces to satirical near-assassinations praising H.E. Smiles for not prematurely ceding her post to a mare whose primary qualification is more than the usual number of extremities (all praise to her aunty the Dawnbringer, of course). Cloudsdale is not the Hegemony. They do not bow to me here. They do not show deference to me here. It is, in short, everything I wanted in a first posting.
I am miserable.
It is sunset when Lt. Armor and I skulk back into the shadow of the resident minister's colonnaded cloud-manse and throw off the heavy hooded cloaks that hide both our horns and his lack of wings. We are free to come and go as we please—thank the stars Weather Eye's stern control of his household does not extend to attempting to impose a curfew as well—but we keep to the shadows so that nopony knows where we've been and what we've been doing there. We slink up the back stairs down the darkened upper hall, and finally find ourselves outside my tiny guest room. I do not complain about the space of my accommodations. More was offered, but I declined. I am polite. Polite and hungry.
"Well," I whisper, in as cheery a fashion as I can manage. "Another successful mission! Two ponies, two distribution centers, four loaves. Mathematics!"
"Yeah," says Lt. Armor, levitating a fat, crusty-looking loaf of bread out of the folds of his cloak and across the threshold of my guest room. I take it and place it next to the others on the sideboard. It is all I can do to not straight-up leap upon them. The lieutenant watches me as I organize the spoils of tonight's gathering session, his mouth a hard line.
"You do realize we can't keep doing this. Right, Ma'am?"
"Of course we can't," I say. "This has always been a stop-gap, just until we get our hooves under ourselves. But I finally have a meeting scheduled with H.E. Smiles, on the books and everything. I'm certain when I finally get a chance to just sit down and talk with her I'll be able to convince her to see my side of things. Work out some sort of paid internship or something."
"You don't get it, Ma'am," says Lt. Armor, increasingly testy. "We don't need to stop it soon, we need to stop it now. We are taking bread intended for the needy just because you refuse to cash a single stipend cheque."
"Lieutenant," I say, "are you lecturing me?"
"I... guess I am!" he replies. Then, a flicker of fear in his eyes. "Is that still okay?"
I huff out through my nostrils. "Yes," I say, after a moment. "Yes. This is still better than dealing with a blank wooden puppet staring at me all the time."
I sigh, then, a bit more gently. "As for your concerns, yes. Yes, I understand that what we're doing sounds bad, but you know as well as I do that this city has bread going spare. The public granaries are overflowing, the distribution points are never exhausted. The Senate wants the ponies of this city to be happy. Why shouldn't I be included in that?"
"It looks bad, Ma'am. It looks really, really bad. This is not the image you want to present to this city."
"Hence, the cloaks," I say, hanging mine on a hook near the door. "Hence, the secrecy."
"Okay, but," says the lieutenant, "all this creeping around and wearing disguises to try and feed yourself, all this is legitimately better for your pride than spending your stipend? Or explaining the situation to our host?"
"My situation with Aunty Celestia is very complicated, Lieutenant," I say, feeling a prickle in my hackles. "As best as I can tell, she engineered this entire situation as a test of character."
"Correct me if I'm wrong," says Shining Armor, telekinetically lifting a letter from a stack on my vanity, "but doesn't this letter you shared with me earlier seem to belie that?"
"You'd think so, Lieutenant. You don't know her."
"'My dearest Mi Amore,'" says the lieutenant, reciting the first few lines. "'I hope this letter finds you well, especially under the present circumstances. I received H.E. Smiles's puzzling retraction of her resignation shortly after you departed for Cloudsdale, and I am as startled by this development as you doubtless are.'"
"Ha," I mutter. "Likely story."
"'My inquiries into the matter are ongoing, and I will keep you informed of anything that I learn. You are my duly appointed Ambassador Plenipotentiary, and I have full confidence in your ability to fill this role whenever you are able to work out a resolution with H.E. Smiles, the nature of which I leave to your more-than-capable hooves. In the meantime, you are an adult and are free to take residence wherever you wish; but if you choose to remain in Cloudsdale rather than under the aegis of the Mountain, please exercise the utmost care.'" Lt. Armor folds the letter back up and returns it to my vanity. "Sounds to me as though she's as in the dark as anypony."
"And yet," I say. "And yet, isn't that exactly what she'd want me to believe?"
"It would... depend on what her goal actually is, I suppose."
"Exactly!" I cry. "You have no idea how deep her game is. I have no idea how deep her game is. The only sure thing is that the only reason she can do what she does is that she's reading your field reports, which does, honestly, make you part of the problem. So please do not test my patience on this. Please."
Lt. Armor nods. He is Serious Thinking again.
"Okay," he says, at last. "Sleep well, Ma'am. I'll be right downstairs if you need anything, and I do mean 'anything.'"
"Thank you, Lieutenant," I say, making a conscious effort to smooth my composure. The lieutenant turns and goes, presumably to his bed in the servant's quarters. Lt. Armor does not like this house any better than I do; he wants desperately to hover closer, but he obviously can't sleep in my room, and short of having him curled up in front of my door like a dog, this is the best we can do. I smile, briefly, despite myself, at the thought.
Then, I shut the door and get to work on the bread, first retrieving a quarter-pound of butter from the little elemental cold-box underneath the cloud-amalgam sideboard, purchased with literally the very last bit of foalsitting money, and my meeting with Her Excellency Smiles (which I am convinced will sort this whole thing out) seems a lifetime away. The bread is... not wonderful, less good than it looks on the outside. Far too much oat flour, not enough durum. I am pretty sure I can taste mill-grit. I have absolutely no right to complain. The first loaf is gone practically before I am even aware that I am eating it. I make an effort to take my time with the second, and more-or-less fail at that. Similarly the third. My stomach burns through them like tissue paper, thrown on the all-consuming fire of alicorn metabolism, and I cannot make it stop.
I stare at the fourth loaf for a long time. I actually whine a bit.
Then I turn away sharply, disrobe, and step into to my private shower-bath, hooves clicking against amalgam tile, hoping the distraction will kill the cravings. It does help a bit, because bathrooms in Cloudsdale are wonderful. Back in Canterlot, we thought hot water and indoor plumbing were pretty fancy, but they're nothing on even an average shower-bath in Cloudsdale. Ablution in this city is a sensory miracle, accomplished via an in-room cubicle of weather delivered to your exact specification by the 'ducts (another proud product of the Cloudsdale Weather Corporation!) Feel like a fog bath? Touch a control, and it's done. Fancy sitting in a gentle snow shower for a time? Touch a control, and it's done. Want to steep yourself in an invigorating summer storm, to the rumble of distant thunder? Same thing. I dial up a setting that has quickly become my favorite, a many-jetted pool accompanied with drizzles of hot rainbow and the smell of spring wind, and let it transport me for a short time.
Okay, a long time. The frogs of my hooves are getting a little pruney by the time I am able to pull myself away. I towel myself off, dry my mane with a sustained gust of hot Leveche from the 'ducts, put on a fresh robe, and... set up camp before tonight's last loaf of bread again. Banish it to Tartarus.
I hold out for longer than I expect to, but pretty soon, it follows the other three down my gullet. Not even crumbs remain. With the tiniest snarl of frustration I step out onto the cold little private balcony adjoining my room and look out over Cloudsdale. Its blazing white has gone to night-blue in the sharp moonlight, and the stars above glitter like razors. I stand for a moment watching the city's peripheral clouds undulate and break against its more solid and structural central masses like waves crashing against a beach, as hot plumes of stray lightning crackle overhead. Laughter and music begin to drift up from the public fora and gathering-places, as the bright pegasi of the greatest city in the sky prepare for another night of play.
Their happiness seems so close to me right now. Just barely, but forever, out of reach. In one desperate moment I am seized with the overwhelming urge to run sobbing back to Canterlot, to just grab the lieutenant, cash a stipend cheque, hop a redeye at the sky-docks and be back to the easy, predictable comfort of the Hegemony by morning. The thought of a private Equuish breakfast with Aunty, complete with piles of mushrooms and stewed tomatoes and stacks upon stacks of fried bread, is enough to make me literally cry right now, so I do.
Then, I gather myself. I force my weakness behind me. I'm staying in this city if it kills me. I just need a little more to eat.
And, conveniently enough, I know of a distribution point for the annona I have not visited today, one that may well be open late into the night. It's a bit far down the cloud-mass, and I hate the thought of venturing back out into the frigid streets especially after my nice warm bath, but given a choice between that and documenting an uncommonly large midnight snack with Mr. Weather Eye's pantry police (and all the unbearable Polite Understanding I'd have to face in doing so) I know what I have to do. And I know that Lt. Armor would not understand, which is why I'm doing it all aloney on my owny.
I duck back into my room and grab my cloak; then leap from my balcony into the shadows and join the pulse of the city. I do not make a sound.