This Platinum Crown

by Capn_Chryssalid

Chapter Twenty Three : What You Want From Me

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(23)

What You Want From Me

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R: “Who else did you say was going to be in this?”

S: “Just yourself and Miss Octavia.”

R: “Octavia…?”

B: “A delightful cellist with an oh-so serious look; she enjoys yoga, has an apartment in Manehattan and finds the texture of sawdust to be surprisingly erotic.”

S: “…”

R: “… and how do you know all this, my sweet Prince? Not first-hoof experience, I hope?”

B: “You wound me, my dear! It is the duty of my noble station to know how to excite any mare. In Canterlot, my network of informants is very extensive!”

R: “Regardless, Octavia is it? Has she already given her interview?”

S: “Yes, Your Ladyship. All we needed was enough to fill a page. As our cover mare and central article, your interview must be much longer. May we begin?”

R: “I see the stenographer has already seen fit to start recording before we begin. But yes. We may as well. It may take my mind off of certain… things. Oh, is that a confused look?”

B: “Curiosity, not confusion. What do you need your mind taken off of? This isn’t that business from before?”

R: “Something else. A personal matter.”

B: “Ah. I see.”

R: “The interview, Summer Styles?”

S: “Of course, my Lady. Let’s talk about your growing up in Ponyville…”

Analysis [Interview SECTION A]
Recommended session [A] quotes for Page 2, Picture 2:

“More than anything, I like to spend time with my friends and family. I know they support me and I always support them. Even after everything that’s happened to me I’d still like to hold onto a normal life as much as I can.”

“Actually, I did enter a modeling contest in school when I was a little mare. I was terribly nervous and lost, true, but more importantly, the filly who won was wearing one of my dress designs! After that, everypony came to me if they wanted to look good on stage.”

“The most wonderful thing about being born and raised here [in Ponyville] is just how closely knit the community is, and how welcoming and kind hearted they all are. Canterlot has incredible energy, and Manehattan is a vibrant city day or night, but Ponyville has a passion and soul all its own and unique in Equestria. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

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Twilight Sparkle found Eunomie still at the library and still practicing her Swords to Plowshares spell. The serious mare had taken time to – just as promised – make lunch for both Twilight and her sister, leaving it under a warmth spell in the library’s athenaeum and reading room. She had also arranged all the stray tomes, but rather than return them to the shelf they belonged, she had laid them out in front of the shelf, just in case they had been removed for a reason.

Click-hiss, and the tapering double-edged longsword in front of her vanished in a cloud of magical smoke, revealing a single medium sized steel plow of the sort many small farms used around Ponyville. Click-hiss, and it turned back to the sword. Eunomie stood still as a statue save for the glow of her horn and her slow breathing. She transmuted the spell twice more before she even blinked.

‘Has she been at it all day?’ Twilight couldn’t help but wonder.

“Hello, Eunomie,” she said, greeting her guest. “Did anything happen while I was out?”

“Yes, Twilight,” Eunomie replied, blinking slowly and transmuting the plowshare by rote. “Four ponies came by to check out books, one of those four returned two books, another returned a book but did not check any out. Two young colts also came by looking for magazines. They read what they needed without leaving. For your convenience, I have kept a log of all transactions and set up a sign-in register near the door to better track all activity in the library.”

“Oh!” Twilight only then noticed the mostly empty log book on a pedestal off to the side of the front door. “That’s a good idea! So… those four must’ve been… Bon Bon, Colgate, Rain Shine and Berry? And Snips and Snails were the two young colts? What’s this mark next to Colgate’s name?”

“The blue mare returned a book late according to your records.” Click-hiss. “Thirty one hours late to be exact. So I gave her ‘one strike.’”

Twilight had heard of this sort of thing before, and frowned a bit.

“I appreciate all the work,” she offered a little carrot first; expecting Eunomie could be a little upset when the caveat was brought up. “But this library doesn’t use a three strikes system and we don’t penalize ponies for being a little late.”

“As you wish.” Click-hiss.

Twilight felt the urge to put hoof to face, but stopped herself. Naturally, Eunomie wouldn’t be upset. The pale unicorn didn’t even notice or care about pauses in conversation. Click-hiss.

“If you do not wish to penalize ponies, then perhaps you should consider incentives instead?” Eunomie suggested as Twilight approached and took a seat by the coffee table. “Rather than punish a pony who is late three times, you could reward one who is on time a larger number of times… twenty, maybe?”

“That’s a good idea!” Twilight agreed. “It could even encourage ponies to visit the library more! What sort of rewards should we use?”

“…” click-hiss. “I… don’t know,” Eunomie admitted. Still, Twilight urged her on, to try and propose something. Eunomie paused in her transmutation practice, thinking deeply. “Maybe… timely ponies could be given permission to retain books or periodicals for longer than the normal?”

“A good idea,” Twilight nodded happily. “See, not so hard!”

“My sister is better at incentivization. My specialty is really castigation. I’m sure she could come up with a more elegant form of reward.” That said, Eunomie returned to her practice. Click-hiss. Plowshares back to swords, for who knew how many times today.

“You look like you’ve got that spell pretty down.” Twilight dismissed the warmth spell with a wave of her hoof and nibbled at the sandwich that had been left for her. She had eaten brunch with her brother earlier, but skipped lunch while walking first to the Apple Farm and then to Sugarcube Corner, where she’d refrained from Pinkie’s many offers of behind-the-counter sweets.

“That is kind of you to say, but inaccurate.” Click-hiss. Eunomie’s eyebrows twitched, and she reversed the spell again. “Just fifty six transmutes earlier, I made a mistake in returning the plowshare to a sword. Please be assured that my continued work on this spell will not interfere with my duties. In addition to news regarding the library, my father sent a response an hour ago, along with a gift. Both are upstairs, outside your room.”

“He replied already?” Twilight asked, surprised, but not unhappy. “I’ll take a look at it right away. Thanks!”

Eunomie nodded, but didn’t elaborate any further.

On her way upstairs, paper-wrapped sandwich floating at shoulder level, Twilight couldn’t resist asking, “I was also wondering… how…. many of those transmutes have you done?”

The crimson-maned unicorn’s tail swished in what may have been irritation.

“Seven hundred and fifty nine, as of now.”

‘Sweet Princess Celestia! Did she just say seven hundred?!’

“You aren’t tired?” Twilight asked, growing a little worried.

“I am exhausted, but if I do not complete this today, I will do eight hundred tomorrow.” Eunomie glanced back over her shoulder at Twilight, half way up the stairs. “I really do not want to do this all tomorrow.” She turned back to her transmutes. “I hope my father’s response is to your liking, Twilight Sparkle.”

Just as she had said, there was a sealed scroll and a wax case waiting for her outside the door to her room. There was also a square wooden box on a metal tray. Quickly finishing off the tulip and cheese sandwich, she retreated into her room and jumped up onto the bed. On the verge of opening either the sealed scroll or the scroll case, she first eyed the wooden box. It then set in that these were gifts…

Gifts, from a pony courting her.

Technically, they were more making a mutually beneficial arrangement than the kind of romantic courting Rarity liked so much, but it was still courting. Nobleponies often exchanged letters and gifts before formally meeting. Twilight swallowed, put the three items down on her bed, and rolled onto her back. She had thought to have come to terms with much of this already – ever since, in just a bit of a panic, she had tried to foalnap Blueblood. It had to be her state of mind and being: she was calmer now, thinking more clearly, and therefore more attuned to her whirlpool of emotions.

These were gifts. In all likelihood, they were gifts from the pony she was going to marry.

The thought of it was weird, unfamiliar, and left a little fluttery sensation in the pit of her stomach. What would the letter say? What were the two gifts? If she liked them, then wouldn’t she have to reciprocate with gifts of her own? She had read up and researched the practical points of arranging a political match. She had a good idea what to ask for a dower and bridal token. She knew what to demand in concessions for her family. She knew what to ask about her would-be husband’s intentions and plans for resolving the growing rift between Canterlot and Prance.

She had planned less for how to get to and then beyond that point. Twilight hadn’t had many - or really any - close friends before moving to Ponyville. She definitely hadn’t had any coltfriends. She’d never dated; Tartarus, she’d never even considered it very important in the first place. Even arranged marriages, like she’d always expected to have, involved some meet and greet. There had to be some foundation there, even for love magic to take effect. That hadn’t been a concern with Blueblood, who she had grown fond of and come to know fairly well. All she knew of Alpha Brass, aside from his face and voice, was second-hoof. These were his first words… to her.

His first words, aside from a passing “Happy birthday, Twilight” once every few years.

Floating the bound scroll over her head and hooves, Twilight brought it in close to inspect the wax seal. It bore the image of an ouroboros, held up by two small unicorns, their manes savage like a lion’s and their mouths open, belching flame. A unicursal heart was below the snake and between the legs of the two unicorns, the lines for it splaying out to the sides and back in.

“Okay. Let’s do this.” She cracked the wax seal, unfurling the letter. “Dear Twilight Sparkle…”

Her eyes read every word and every sentence, twice.

Most of it was just a response to her initial offer. He had agreed to a dower of at least one castle and keep, a minimum of one hundred square kilometers of land and fifty thousand bits independent of the value of the property. He offered her choice of two possible estates. The larger one, five hundred square kilometers, was in the colonies. Heuschrecke, it was called, but it wasn’t complete yet. The other offer was smaller, only ninety square kilometers of adjacent land, forty acres attached to the castle itself, but it was both complete and much closer to Canterlot and Ponyville.

“Braemar Castle,” she said, deciding on it. Braemar passed all the criteria she had set, except the hundred square kilometer grant, but ninety was close enough. Once one got closer to the old cities of Equestria, the subdivisions of lands became much smaller and closely clustered.

“He doesn’t mention any towns,” she reasoned, “so it’s probably a conservatory castle or hunting lodge, like Ptarmigan.”

Still, it was a generous dower.

A dower she could need, in a worst case scenario. The traditional noblepony’s dower was a gift of land and other wealth directly to the bride herself, in the event of a spouse’s passing. A mare was expected, by default, to take over much of the running of a household and to head said household, but in the event of a husband’s death, sisters and mothers could and would legally dispute just how much of their brother’s or son’s riches went to his wife. Given just who Alpha Brass counted as his sisters, it was the smart thing to do to ask for a hefty dower. It also provided an independent seat of power for the wife.

After that, he made a counter offer on the bridal token. Unlike the dower, that was a gift given to the bride’s family to use as they saw fit. It could or couldn’t be used for the bride’s benefit. Twilight had proposed, first and foremost, public and official recognition and endorsement of her father as head of the Canterlot Terre Rare. It was what had dragged her into this mess in the first place. She was also tempted to ask for an investigation into Lord Wrathenow’s death, but her father’s assertion had been that her great uncle had been “silenced” while already dying of old age. She also didn’t want to force Antimony to become an enemy if she could help it, since her father believed Cruciger’s youngest daughter to be responsible.

Second, aside from the endorsement, she wanted her family to receive legal rights to Hocksbach Hall in Canterlot. It was a very prestigious building, but it had been controlled by the Terre Rare outside Canterlot, even though it was in Canterlot. They had held onto it since Lady Arsenic’s time. Her parents would appreciate finally assuming rights to it. Lastly, she wanted a transfer of ten percent of all wealth assumed as a result of their mutual takeover of the main branch Terre Rare to be distributed among the Neptunium and Kamacite branches of the family. It was about as subtle as a hoof to the eye, but it would help to win over any reluctant family, even if it was at the expense of the main branch.

Alpha Brass in his letter saw much of this, but didn’t agree to all of it. He didn’t mind the redistribution of wealth to secure the loyalty of the lesser Terre Rare, though he asserted that ten percent was too much to take from the main branch. “Bribes are subtle things; ten percent will be seen as vulgar.” He readily agreed to endorse her father, but he was a little reluctant to part with Hocksbach, which was a relic from the Founder, Arsenic herself. Twilight took out a piece of paper and began to scribble down notes for her response, and counter-offers.

“Stewardship of Hocksbach Hall instead?” she wondered aloud, putting a question mark next to the idea. “Instead of ten percent, maybe seven percent equivalent in artwork, tomes… things like that?”

That sounded fair.

Then, the letter came to her obligations. Her family was expected to provide a dowry, just as he was being asked to pay a dower and a bridal token. On her parents’ passing, their lands and titles were to pass on to one of Twilight’s foals, not one of Shining Armor’s. Alternatively, the clause existed to consolidate Ptarmigan into the new main branch family that Twilight would be creating, in which case her single heir would inherit everything. Up front, her parents were to contribute a yearly income of two thousand bits – not a problem for them as far as Twilight knew – and to swear fealty to the new main family of Alpha Brass and Twilight Sparkle. She didn’t imagine her parents would have a problem with that, either.

The final stipulation was a written guarantee of marriage into the Blueblood line. Twilight already had Blueblood’s Pinkie Promise to that effect, but after reading what a Pinkie Promise actually was, Alpha Brass suggested in rather polite terms that “it may not be binding in a court of law, save one where Pinkie herself presides.”

That was, by and large, the body of his letter.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she read on, at the very bottom of the scroll. “I am under no pretense that this is anything but an alliance intended to spare our great family from bloodshed. Though we have only spoken briefly, and I have not visited often enough to have left an impression on you, I remember you well. You were a humble and soft spoken mare in your youth, and a fair maid last I saw you, but I have discovered that beneath that lies the heart and soul of a true hero of Equestria. Starswirl himself once spoke of the virtues of ‘silence, even in a storm’ and ‘humility, even in greatness.’ I see those in you, in all you have achieved, in all you have learned, and I would be honored to support you by your side.”

Twilight Sparkle smiled, despite herself. Now, it seemed, she had come to the more personal part of the letter. She also remembered those quotes of Starswirl’s. Twilight re-read the last couple sentences again and felt her heart beat a little faster. Her distant cousin had left an impression, though he didn’t know it.

“For my part, I have inherited much from the legacy of Arsenic, and now, from Olive Branch. The weight of it sometimes seems crushing. Only a strong mare can bear the burdens that will come from leading the Terre Rare. Share this burden with me, Twilight Sparkle, and I promise I will be forever your faithful and true husband and friend.”

“Yours sincerely, Alpha Brass,” Twilight finished, and exhaled, rolling the scroll back up.

‘I have inherited much from the legacy of Arsenic, and now, from Olive Branch,’ she thought, running the sentence over again in her head, two then three times. ‘What does that mean? Every great family has secrets, but… was he just being dramatic?’

Oddly, at that moment, she remembered…

“I need to check a few references on pre-classical and classical spellwork. Specifically the structure and organization of Reinmare Star Fields, the nature and disposition of magical amplification via low density inorganic solids, oh, and I need to double check the elastic theory of aether propagation as a result of both invocation and convocation.”

For a moment, the sheer technical density of Twilight's words baffled her fellow unicorn and magic user. Antimony shook her head in much the same way most of Twilights friends and acquaintances did after hearing a few sentences of technomagical babble. Muttering a soft "very well," the Baroness started on her way... only to pause once more.

“Aether propagation?” she inquired, but didn't turn around. “And Reinmare Fields?”

Both were very obscure fields of study. Antimony was an intelligent mare, though, and well acquainted with magical theory. Then again, there had been the peculiar magic she used with her eyes. Twilight had deduced that it was a means of organic enchantment, but instead of using her horn to punch the magic through the shields or resistances of another pony, she used eye contact to bypass it entirely. Combined with Antimony’s incredible illusions, it was an extremely potent form of magic.

There was literally no pony Twilight could think of to have anything like it.

That – that was strange where everything else could be explained. Ponies hadn’t invented any sort of truly new magic in centuries. Everything in the modern era was refinement and improvement on existing magical theory and practice. Yes, ponies generally kept their dueling techniques and the like a family secret, but then there was also that combined illusion-possession technique that Cruciger had used to watch the duel. Even her own words came back to her as she thought about it more.

“I knew the name from when I was little,” Twilight had said to her friends, back in Rarity’s boutique during the wine tasting. “But when I looked up more information on her - I didn't even know I had earth pony blood in me - there were some strange writings and rumors. There was a treatise on magic that she wrote... unicorn magic if you can believe it! Bridging alchemy and enchanting! Her sister didn't seem to have done much, but Lady Arsenic is mentioned dozens of times in arcane scrolls and notes. All very fascinating!”

She’d lowered her voice then, her conjured illusion dimming in response.

“She must have been a scholar or something. Everypony knows no earth pony can use unicorn magic. The Bluebloods have access to all of Canterlot's magic, forbidden or otherwise. I bet she was very knowledgeable...”

Arsenic was her great, great grandmother, and she had lived a hundred and sixty six years. Even before she died, she had secluded herself among the Bismuth branch of her family, outliving her eldest daughter. Bismuth the Second had finally succeeded her grandmother officially, but still Arsenic had lived on. Nopony outside the Bismuth line saw her outside of family conventions. Her father had once joked that, “Great grandma Arsenic could still be alive, somewhere. She’s too scary for Tartarus.”

Of course… that was silly…

Wasn’t it?

Twilight shook her head, burying the back of her mane into her bed’s throw pillow. Of course it was. If the Terre Rare had secrets, it had to mean that they had held onto some knowledge from when they split from the Bluebloods. Theirs was a family that had always valued magical aptitude, power and merit. That had to be it: the main line of the family still had some of Canterlot’s secrets.

‘Only a strong mare can bear the burdens that will come from leading the Terre Rare.’

The alternative, the wilder hypothesis, was that there was something more than just whatever Arsenic had taken from her split with Blue Belle. Antimony’s eyes… the possession spell…

And what had he meant, ‘and now, from Olive Branch?’

“I want to meet,” Twilight wrote on her scrap paper. She stared at the words for a few seconds, almost crossed them out, but ultimately left them intact. They were true. She did want to meet. Exchanging letters and gifts was nice, but time was of the essence, and things would be accomplished so much more quickly face to face.

“I want to meet you,” she repeated, but Celestia’s words came to her. She wanted to meet him, but if she did, it would be on her terms.

“I want you to meet me,” she said instead, writing it down. “It can’t be in public. Ponies would talk and we’d lose the element of surprise. We can meet in private somewhere in Ponyville.”

The big question was where?

She was tempted to suggest Blueblood’s Manor. It was secure, but there were nobles and other art festival guests arriving. It would be crowded, and it was impossible to know which guests would have loose tongues. Cruciger couldn’t know that his son planned to ally with the Canterlot Terre Rares. Twilight wasn’t even sure if Alpha Brass would still support them if that happened, or just pull out to sit on the sidelines, like he appeared to be doing now, while biding his time.

Sighing to herself, evaluating the possibilities in her mind, Twilight carefully put away Brass’s letter and floated over his two gifts. One was a scroll in a sealed tube, which meant it was a preserved document. Inspecting it, her eyes lit up when she found the label. It was an original version of Starswirl’s “Science of Sorcery,” first edition, volume one, copied by unicorn scribes on the eve of his ascending to the rank of Arch Mage. “Science of Sorcery” was a common book now, and the latest edition was the eleventh, published sixty years ago, but this was a historical treasure!

In strange contrast, the box was just… a box.

“A puzzle box,” Twilight realized, as she tried to open it.

Definitely, it was a puzzle box, which leant itself to the question of what was inside it? Just from the look of the lacquered, intricately etched and painted surface, it was obvious that it consisted of multiple sections that fit together. Experimentation proved that some could move and some were locked in place. The shapes were three dimensional pentominos – given the design, some of them must have had depth as well.

Sitting in bed, Twilight glared at the stubborn puzzle box, no longer foaling around with it. She tried to recall what movements she had already made, and what pieces moved and how. Finally, she managed to detach one, but there were more beneath it, and doing so made it impossible to move others she needed. She inserted the piece back in and continued to work at it.

“Ah ha!” she cheered, loudly, as she made a minor breakthrough. A smattering of pieces hung in the air over her head and three sheets of paper were covered by recordings of what the surface had looked like and what she had removed from it and where. She had also learned that a piece could be removed from one section and inserted into another.

Unfortunately, in the process…

“Eleven o’clock!” Twilight startled, noticing the time on her clock. “How did it get so late!?”

Rushing out of bed and back downstairs, dragging the magically suspended papers, puzzle, and sections of puzzle with her, Twilight half expected to hear the regular ‘click-hiss’ sound of Eunomie’s swords to plowshares spell practice. Given the hour, it would mean that she had been at it more than a thousand times. Instead, there was no crack of magic, only the growing beat of a record being played at the rear of her library’s athenaeum. The music wasn’t familiar, but it sounded like the sort of thing Vinyl Scratch played at some of Pinkie’s parties.

On the table, just as it had been for lunch, Eunomie had left food under a warmth spell. Twilight smiled at the gesture, relieved she wouldn’t have to make something herself or go out hunting for take-out. The music became louder as she descended the stairs and Twilight saw an empty bowl on the table. Her first thought had been that it was Eunomie’s, but then Twilight noticed a third placemat at another empty space. This dish had been cleared and left out, and little as Twilight knew Eunomie, she seemed the type to always clean up after herself.

Looking around to the back of the back of the athenaeum, Twilight saw a pale unicorn mare… with a blue mane.

She was lying on a small pile of pillows, tapping her left back hoof in time with the music playing from a nearby gramophone. Other than that, she just seemed to be lounging around. A trio of black vinyl records floated around in lazy spirals and loops over her head along with three record cases. They were moving around too quickly for Twilight to read any of the covers from halfway across the room, but she could make out the cover of the magazine hovering above the blue-maned mare’s eyes.

Playcolt

“Is that… pornography?” Twilight felt the need to ask. Perhaps she was mistaken and-

“Light porno,” the mare replied, not moving the book from in front of her face. “Nothing hard core. No colts-on-colts or anything.”

Well, that was a… relief?

“You must be Euporie,” Twilight said, taking a moment to see what Eunomie had left for her. It looked like lightly fried flower buns of some sort and smelled quite good. There were four of them in some sort of broth. A nearby plate had a single scoop of ice cream under a Chilly Willy spell for desert.

“This smells pretty good!” the librarian said, figuring it was as good a topic as any to break the ice. “My own cooking isn’t nearly as good as this!”

“Yeah. Eunomie can cook stuff,” Euporie agreed, though it sounded dismissive. Unlike her stoic sister, there was no difficulty hearing inflection or emotion in Euporie’s voice. It was exaggerated, like she wanted everypony hearing it to know just how she felt.

“So what are you listening to?”

“Phat Colt and the Dirty Trix. This is just an instrumental track.”

“Ah… I’ve never heard of this Fat Colt…” Twilight admitted. The music was very heavy on beats. “So the ‘Dirty Tricks’ are his band, or… what he does?”

Euporie slowly lowered the porno rag she had been reading. Rather than explain her odd taste in music, she smiled – revealing a crescent of pearly white teeth – and pointed a hoof at Twilight first assumed to be her purple mane. But it was too high.

“What is that?” she asked, meaning the puzzle box pieces.

“Something Alpha… something your father sent me.” Twilight took some secret satisfaction in the way Euporie’s grin melted away. The pale mare licked her lips briefly.

“Love letters and presents,” Euporie said, chuckling in a way that made it clear she really wasn’t happy or laughing. “That’s so cute. Should I start planning a bachelorette party?”

“I’m sure Pinkie will want to,” Twilight told her. “In fact, I know she wants to.”

“I hope she can keep a secret,” the other unicorn muttered.

“She can. Spreading secrets is the surest way to lose a friend,” Twilight paraphrased, leaving out the ‘forever!’

Euporie grunted, accepting that. “You gonna do it, then?”

“Do it?”

“Marry my step father?”

“I’m thinking about it.” Twilight then asked, “Why?”

“No reason.” Euporie retreated back behind her magazine. “As long as you don’t spoil my fun, we’ll get along great.”

For a minute or two, Twilight tried to enjoy the music as she ate. The instrumental track became a vocal one, though, and she just couldn’t quite get used to it. It wasn’t the sort of music she could dance to, and she liked to dance. Why Vinyl played this music at all, Twilight wasn’t sure. It had to be a Manehattan or Balitmare or downtown Fillydelphia thing.

At least the food was good.

“Your sister said you were… a libertine?” Twilight asked, as she finished her dinner.

“Kinda.” Euporie’s eyes emerged just above the top of her magazine. “I’m not into any of the philosophy junk like my mom, though, so don’t bother. He. He. He! Want to hear something funny, though?”

For a reason only her subconscious could answer, Twilight hesitated. “I… guess, sure.”

“You probably noticed Eunomie’s stupid little spell? The one she’s been doing all day?”

“Swords to plowshares,” Twilight clarified.

“Yeah, I know what it is.” Euporie suddenly rolled up the magazine, a mistreatment of printed material that almost made Twilight twitch. Luckily she remembered it wasn’t exactly high quality material in the first place. “So I came back, and she was doing this spell over and over. I asked her what she was up to, and she said: eight hundred. I made a mistake when you came inside. One hundred more.”

“Hold on, though, hold on,” she insisted, waving a hoof at Twilight. “The best part is this. She kept nodding off as she got close to nine hundred. I was just sitting there, eating, you know, and trying not to laugh. Kinda failing at it, too, since I kept snickering. While she ran out to splash her face with water, I conjured up a little sleeping powder and put it on the floor. So every time she does this transmute, a cloud of it kicks up! You should’ve seen her!”

Euporie slapped her thigh, laughing without restraint.

“Did she finish?”

“Huh?” Euporie asked, a little thrown by the question. “Finish? What? Her stupid reps?”

Twilight nodded. “Did she?”

“I dunno. Maybe? Maybe she just collapsed. I was too busy laughing!” Euporie sighed, falling back into the pile of pillows. “Don’t tell me: you don’t see how it’s funny?”

Twilight didn’t. “She was trying very hard to learn that spell…”

“She knows the spell well enough after doing it almost a thousand fucking times,” Euporie replied, unapologetically dismissive. “Even Eunomie can learn something after doing it more times than there are ponies in this town.”

Euporie took a long look at her fellow unicorn, evaluating her with amber eyes identical to her sister’s, but fiery with passion. Finally, she smirked and ran a hoof through her wild blue mane.

“I think you did find it a bit funny,” she told Twilight. “Maybe you didn’t even think of what you were feeling as ‘funny’ at the time. Maybe you felt something similar: pity. You must’ve thought, when she explained what she does, why is this mare doing this hundreds of times? Isn’t that extreme? What’s wrong with her?”

“Then,” she finished, smirk growing. “You must’ve thought: ‘I wouldn’t need to do that.’”

Twilight glanced away, a spoon full of ice cream in her mouth. It was a little galling to admit, but she had been thinking some of that. Eunomie’s idea of practice was extreme. Even for Celestia’s student, it was kind of crazy. The Princess had put her through the ringer in a lot of ways, but she never would’ve had her repeat the same spell hundreds of times and then hundreds more every time she made a tiny mistake. Eunomie didn’t even have a teacher doing it to her she was doing it to herself. It was extreme.

And… maybe… she had thought it was a little funny, in a dark way. Sword to Plowshares was hardly an introductory spell. It took some skill to even learn it, and Eunomie’s familiar Galen was an impressive arcane construct. A pony like that shouldn’t have to repeat a spell hundreds of times to learn it. Certainly not Plowshares.

“So I’m right,” Euporie commented, as if sensing Twilight’s thoughts. “You didn’t laugh, like I did, but deep down in your heart you felt the same. You were just more polite about it. That’s not a bad thing, though. Sometimes ponies get angry when I laugh at them, and then I have to go through all the work of making them feel happy, too.”

“Why does she do it?” Twilight asked, the last spoonful of ice cream floating by her cheek. She looked to Euporie for an answer.

The grinning unicorn snickered. “Back when she was still around, Mom used to tell this story…”

‘Back when she was still around?’ Twilight thought, but didn’t point out the slip of tongue.

“She was pregnant with me and Eunomie,” Euporie continued, not noticing the mistake. “And she had this witch doctor working for her - some crazy, hashish chewing zebra. One day, Mom said to the witch: I think I’d like two daughters instead of just one. Can you do that?’ The zebra looked at her and said, ‘no, but I can split the one inside you.’ Mom thought about it and figured it was probably better to carry two foals for ten more months than two foals for twenty two. So she says, ‘do it.’”

Euporie pointed to herself with both front hooves. “And here I am, and Eunomie, too. We’re one pony, split in two. Except, the way I figure it, that old zebra didn’t make it a clean cut. Instead of two equal halves, I ended up with all the magic and all the talent, and even the sexier body. Did Eunomie mention she had a personal tutor?”

Twilight nodded. “I asked about if she went to the Academy…”

“She failed the general entrance exams for unicorns,” Euporie explained, chuckling again. “He. He. He! Isn’t that funny? You and I breezed through it… I know I did it without trying, and I bet you did, too. Eunomie studied for days and still failed. So Mom got her a tutor. She practices so much because she has to. Maybe this is just schadenfreude talking, but I call that funny.”

“But…” Twilight protested, but for a moment found herself short on words. How could Eunomie be lacking in talent? She was studious and knowledgeable and hardworking. She had reminded Twilight of herself when they first met. She loved to study, too.

Study new things.

She remembered Eunomie, so focused on her practice, and couldn’t help but remember when she had practiced magic. She and Eunomie were practically the same age. How long had it taken her to learn Swords to Plowshares?

A few hours.

It had taken her a few hours, and even then, theory had taken most of the time.

“There are some things Eunomie got that I didn’t, though,” Euporie admitted, and Twilight’s mind returned to the present. “Things I don’t really think I need, but other ponies find them useful. She can sit there and do stuff long after I’d have given up and left. And… once she starts on something, she’s never once failed at it. I guess you could say, I got the talent and she got the tenacity.”

“I think I got the better deal by far,” Euporie concluded, snapping out her Playcolt magazine again. As she returned to her ‘reading’ Twilight noticed a piece of paper that had come to settle on the edge of the table. Reaching over, she gave it a look, and saw names. Quite a few names.

“Pinkie Pie Friendship Party?” Twilight read the title.

“I’m having a swinging little party for my new filly friend,” Euporie explained, nose deep in her ‘ladies magazine.’ “I’d toss you an invite, but aside from Pinkie and me, it’s couples only.”

That sounded odd. “Couples only?”

“Also, first rule of Party Club is we don’t talk about Party Club.”

- - -

“Yo, Fluttershy! Your creepy rabbit coltfriend keeps staring at me! Can I squish him?”

“Um. No. Please don’t.”

From out back behind the cottage, Ritter stared up at second story rear window, mentally counting down from five, knowing full well it would be another second or two before…

“Oh! He is not my coltfriend!” Fluttershy’s head poked out the window, her long pink mane tied up behind her back so it was out of the way while she cleaned. With the holiday over, she had moved things back into the attic and taken the opportunity to start preparing for Hearth’s Warming. It was getting cold enough that she was ready to start making the rounds to help animals prepare for the winter. As if bears couldn’t hibernate by themselves anymore. Or maybe they couldn’t? Ritterkreuz wasn’t sure.

Her cheeks colored by just a trace of stray pink, Fluttershy called down for her closest animal friend. “Angel Bunny. Please don’t intimidate poor Ritter. She’s very easily spooked.”

The big mare’s left eyebrow twitched, but rather than rise to the bait, she shouted, “You know, a lot of ponies love animals, but not so many really love animals! When was the last time you got laid?”

“Please stop being gross and get back to work!” Fluttershy disappeared back through the window.

“If he watches me in the bath, I’m gonna kick him!” Ritterkreuz yelled back up, but Fluttershy didn’t dignify her with an answer. “And if he watches me clop… I’ll LET HIM!”

For just a moment, she imagined Fluttershy bursting out of the window…

But no dice. It was too bad, too. It would’ve been hilarious. Kinda scary, but hilarious.

“Back to work, then,” she muttered, unhappy.

Angel Bunny continued to glare, too, totally ignoring his Mistress’s orders. The little prick. Ritterkreuz hissed under her breath and tried to ignore him. Fluttershy had work for her to do, and she did mean to do it. After all, it was only fair she help pay for hiding out at Fluttershy’s place; the battle mare just wished she could’ve been doing something productive, like tracking down animals who owed Fluttershy money and beating it out of them! Or finding animals who owed Fluttershy for all the food she gave then and BEATING it out of them! Or, in general, just beating up some thing for some reason. It didn’t matter what.

Instead, she was stuck with trees.

Fluttershy loved her stupid trees, too, for some damn reason, and she couldn’t bear to tear them down even when they were basically standing dead. In particular, she had an old maple tree she needed taken down, and the soft spoken pegasus had also gotten it into her head to try and recycle as much of the dead tree as possible. Just so long as she wasn’t around to actually have to watch the poor plant be chopped down and dismembered into planks, chips and firewood.

It was usually the work of a logger and sawyer team. Cutting the old maple tree down hadn’t been hard. Ritter knew the guard trick of turning a feather into a blade, and by vibrating them she could cut through bark and branch like a knife through butter. The problem was that it was as tedious and boring as anything the former Wonderbolt could imagine. If she hated one thing above all else, it was boring, and if one thing was nearly as bad as boring, it was tedious.

“Stupid tree. Stupid rabbit. Stupid tree. Stupid rabbit. Stupid tree. Stupid rabbit!!”

Stacking the cut heartwood planks up after cleaning the sides of any traces of remaining bark, Ritter opened a can of paint and began treating the ends. If they weren’t, they’d dry out much faster than the rest of the wood, ruining it. As much as she hated a job, no pony could say Ritterkreuz was a slacker. It was really earth pony or unicorn work, though. It definitely wasn’t good honest pegasus labor (like doing the exact same thing, but to clouds).

All the while, that dumb bunny glared at her, like a cat.

“That’s it!” Ritter snapped, noisily spitting the paint brush out of her mouth with a resounding ‘p-too!’ She found Angel Bunny watching her from on top of the tree’s stump. “You’re like a cat! A mean, nasty tomcat trapped in a bunny’s body! Go stare at somepony else for a while! Go rape a balloon! Whatever asshole bunnies do!”

The stupid rabbit’s face parted with a grin.

“I should stomp on you,” Ritter growled, raising a rather large hoof.

Angel Bunny opened his mouth and bit the air a few times, as if to say, ‘I’ll nibble on you.’

“You think you can bite me before I squish you?”

Pegasus and bunny rabbit stared, hard, one set of eyes beady and black, the other mellow yellow. Ritter blinked first, cursing her inability to just sit and stare. Losing to Fluttershy at it was weird, but expected. Losing to a stupid bunny was just dumb. Finally just knocking the stump with enough force to dislodge the vicious rabbit from his perch, Ritter went about the final part of her job for the day: tearing up the stump.

The planks were drying. The thickest branches were bundled and cut as firewood and the smaller branches and clumps of leaves were shredded, mostly, and ready for composting and use as bedding. All that was left was the stump. Fluttershy had said she didn’t want a ‘painful reminder’ of her lost tree sitting around like a slowly rotting tombstone, so it had to go. This was so earth pony work.

Ritterkreuz was no earth pony, but she was strong. The tree didn’t cooperate or give, so she had to compensate for her not being an in-tune-with-nature type pony by just cursing and ripping away. She snipped a few thick roots, hitched herself up, and pulled and pulled. Blowing the hell out of the stump with an explosion would have been preferable, but it would also alert any of the guards still searching the forest. Even a little boom could be heard quite a ways away.

She had just pulled the whole thing free when a buzzing sound caught her ears.

“Hey, look who it is,” Ritter remarked, stretching out a leg to catch Scootaloo with an ‘ooph!’ The little filly hung onto her leg, even as her scooter continued for a few paces and then rolled onto its side.

“Wow! You’re doing actual work?” Scootaloo asked, scrambling up the big mare’s side and onto her back. “I’m surprised! Does this mean no training today?”

“Just no fighting. Fighting is my favorite type of training, but not the only one.”

“Even after Spitfire and the others beat you up?”

“Hey! I gave as good as I got, runt!” Ritter ignored the proverbial monkey on her back for a little while longer, just long enough to kick over a wheelbarrow full of dirt into the sump left by the tree’s root ball. “That teacher of yours, Cheerleader I think?”

“Cheerilee.”

“She didn’t go flapping her gums or anything, did she?”

“Nope!” Scootaloo punctuated the word with a little jump, first onto Ritter’s wing and then down to the ground. “She can keep a secret! Miss Cheerilee’s really great and super understanding!”

“She also strikes me as the upstanding citizen type,” the gray mare grumbled. “They tend to squeal, sooner or later.”

She started turning around, to keep Scootaloo in sight, when she noticed a rustling in the bushes. Her wings tensed, expecting an ambush, but her ears twitched, hearing voices a little too high to be guardponies. She turned on Scootaloo, frowning.

“You didn’t…”

“Maybe I told one or two ponies,” Scootaloo admitted, waving her hooves. “But that’s it!”

She motioned to the bushes, and a little yellow filly with wine-red mane emerged, looking a little nervous at being called from her hiding place. She turned around, reached into the bush, and started pulling at something. A second or two of effort later, and a white-coated unicorn filly popped out, bowling the two over. They bounced back onto their hooves and gave a somewhat forced and extremely wide pair of smiles.

“More runts, huh?” Ritter asked, and the smiles instantly became wide-eyed pouts.

“That’s just the way she talks,” Scootaloo told her friends, pulling them both into a hug. She pointed to the unicorn, and then to the earth pony. “This is Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. You can call us…”

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders!” the three chorused, raising their hooves to meet in the air.

“The what.”

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders,” Scootaloo repeated. “I know I talked about them before.”

“Uh…”

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders are a sororal organization dedicated to the ad-vancement of, um, equine knowledge of cutie marks,” the little while unicorn said, obviously rehearsed.

“An’ how ta get em!” the earth pony chimed in.

Ritterkreuz blinked, not quite sure what to say. “Okay.”

“We heard you were the one giving Scootaloo flying lessons!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed, either happy for her friend, or… just happy to be Sweetie Belle. “Do you think she’ll get a flying cutie mark?”

“Maybe.”

“We were wondering if we could help ya’ll out?” Apple Bloom asked, getting a little closer to the burly mare. “Maybe we could get our cutie marks, too? Like cutie mark crusader flight instructors!”

“Oh yes, that’ll end well.” Ritter gave the tree stump she had uprooted a swift kick, sending it rolling. “Where were you three when I could’ve used you for actual manual labor?”

“We were in school!” Sweetie Belle answered, not getting the sarcasm.

“…thank goodness,” Scootaloo murmured.

“Well, you missed your chance to become cutie mark crusaders lumberjacks and cutie mark crusaders unpaid indentured labor. But…!” Ritter began to chuckle, springing happily over to the side of Fluttershy’s house. “I do have your training ready, runt! And if your friends want to help me help you, more power to ‘em!”

The three unsuspecting fillies cheered, probably expecting they would be doing something like throwing Scootaloo into the air or directing her as she buzzed around, barely able to hover for more than a second or two. Even Scootaloo herself seemed ready to get caught up in the idea. It really did make Ritterkreuz giggle deep down inside.

“Ta-da!” She posed, one hoof extended towards a tree… with a bucket hanging from a rope tied to one of the lowest branches. The Cutie Mark Crusaders stopped in their tracks, staring, trying to see past the obvious bucket on a rope to the cool fight training equipment that must exist somewhere, right?

“Allow me to introduce you to your training equipment for today,” Ritter continued, prancing happily over to a nearby trough and water pump. “This! Who can tell me what this is?”

“OH! Oh! I know!” Sweetie Belle enthusiastically played along, throwing her hooves into the air. Ritter pointed to her, encouragingly, and she said, “That’s a water pump!”

“Bingo!” Ritter then twirled and scooped up a metal bucket. “And this? What is this thing?”

“A water bucket!” Sweetie blurted out, this time bouncing into the air for a second. “A metal water bucket!” she corrected herself, post-landing.

“Correct again!” Ritterkreuz replied, scooping up some of the water from the trough with the bucket. “I can see which one of you three is the smart one.”

“Hey!” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both objected to Sweetie’s left and right respectively. She little unicorn had a big smile plastered on her face, but she squeaked as her friends briefly crowded her out. “Ah’m plenty smart!” “Me too!”

“We’ll see about that,” Ritter said, the handle of the bucket between her teeth. She cantered over to the hanging bucket, stood on her hind legs and used her front hooves to upend the water from one bucket into the other. It wasn’t much. She had only taken out a tenth of a bucket for the demonstration.

“What,” she asked, pointing to the underside of the hanging bucket. “Is this?”

“I know!” Sweetie cried, but Scootaloo pushed her out of the way.

“A bucket!” the pegasus filly declared.

“Uh uh!” Apple Bloom chimed in, bumping Scootaloo out of the way. “It ain’t just a bucket, it’s a leaky bucket!”

“You got it!” Ritter clopped her front hooves together and fall back on all fours. “A leaky old rust bucket. That’s exactly what it is.”

She pointed again to the underside, where water was dripping out from around the base of the bucket. It swung unsteadily from the rope, probably making the leaking even worse than normal. Ritter trotted over to the crusaders, opened her mouth, and dropped the first – not leaky – water bucket in front of Scootaloo.

“You’re going to fill that,” she said, motioning with her head to the leaky bucket hanging from the tree. “With this…” She tapped the rim of the good bucket with her hoof. “Using water from over there,” she concluded, tilting her head and twitching an ear over in the direction of the trough and pump.

“What?” Scootaloo gawked, looking up at how high the bucket was hanging. Ritter had needed to stand up on two legs to reach it and pour. It was well out of reach of a little filly. Even the three of them standing totem-pole style probably wouldn’t be tall enough. “You can’t be serious?”

“You gonna give up then?” Ritter asked, nonchalant.

“N-no way!” Scootaloo rushed to pick up the metal bucket and tried to get used to carrying it in her mouth. Ritter had to bite back her laughing. The bucket was half the size of the filly trying to haul it around!

Right away, reaching the trough, Scootaloo filled it almost to the brim. Predictably, this made it far too heavy for her to handle. Ritterkreuz stood back and watched, first as Scootaloo struggled with the weight, and then as her friends tried to help her. The three little fillies were tenacious, too. It was several minutes and two spilled buckets before they gave up on filling it anything more than half-way.

Then they faced the rather amusing obstacle of boosting Scootaloo up so she could then upend the contents of one bucket into another. The terrible trio ended up a jumble more than once – almost soaking themselves in the process – trying to get the swinging bucket to cooperate. During one long lull, Ritter noticed the little white unicorn glaring at the rope and Apple Bloom eyeing the drying lumber stacked behind Fluttershy’s cottage.

“Now, girls, don’t think about cheating,” Ritter warned, much to the feigned innocence of the cutie mark crusaders. “I like ponies who think inside the chimney, but cutting the bucket down or building a ladder isn’t what this training is about. I’m not seeing how clever you can be. I’m seeing how badly your friend there wants to fly.”

“I really want to fly!” Scootaloo cried, slumped over the metal bucket. “You know I do!”

“Then fill up that bucket,” Ritter said, eyes level. “Here’s a hint. Use those little tufts of feather on your back. Or give up. I bet you can go and eat ice cream with Fluttershy instead of going through all this trouble.”

“Ice cream does sound good,” Sweetie added, helpfully.

“I’ll do it!” Scootaloo yelled, clamping down on the bucket and dragging it over to the pump and trough.

“Get ice cream?” Sweetie asked.

Scootaloo just paused, turned, and stared at her.

“So, that’s a ‘no’ for ice cream?” The little unicorn gave a pitiful face, wide puppy eyes and all. She then turned it on the only adult present.

“Okay, fine! I’ll get you ice cream,” Ritter told Sweetie Belle, starting to get up, only to give up and fall back on her stomach. “After you get me some whiskey. …Or some wine.”

The little horn-head’s face very quickly turned into a pout, then a look of consternation that none of her tricks had worked. Then, very likely, she started wondering how to get her hooves on some alcohol.

“Doesn’t Applejack have some of that funny water in the…?”

“Don’t even think about it,” Apple Bloom warned. “Ah don’t want a grounded fer life cutie mark!”

The two idle fillies turned back to Ritterkreuz.

“If we can’t have ice cream,” Sweetie began.

“Then tell us about that!” Apple Bloom finished, pointing to the big mare’s flank. Ritter’s cutie mark, a trio of crude asymmetrical explosions, jagged orange on yellow, stood out against her gray coat. The former Wonderbolt’s wings bristled and she snorted.

“You want one like it?” she asked. “You can be Bomber Belle and Apple Boom!”

“I’d like to hear the story, too,” Scootaloo said, a partly filled bucket between her hooves. The unicorn and earth pony fillies were only momentarily distracted by the partly conjured mental pictures of themselves with explosives cutie marks, and quickly starting nodding their heads excitedly, agreeing with Scootaloo.

“Fine,” Ritter grumbled. “We’ll make it a trade. I tell you a story, and you three… or you two do something for me.”

“Is it something bad?” Apple Bloom asked. Ritter liked her: she already knew the score.

“Nothing bad,” the mare assured her, and the more skittish unicorn filly. “I promise.”

The two gave each other a look, like ‘are you sure?’ but eventually agreed. “Okay!” they said.

“Good. Now! Once upon a time, there was a fair and beautiful Princess named Ritterkreuz…”

Three half lidded stares fell on Ritterkreuz, and she paused in her great and totally truthful story. The three cutie mark crusaders didn’t seem convinced by the likelihood of the tale thus far. One bloody sentence in, and she’d already lost them. Was it really so hard to believe she had been a beautiful, fair Princess…?

Okay, yes, it probably was.

“All right,” she started anew. “Once upon a time, I was a little filly like you three. No flank stamp or anything.”

Sweetie Bell and Apple Bloom began to imagine it, and Ritter could herself envision a little bubble-reality over their heads with a small gray pegasus filly, blank of flank, with a short green mane and tail. It was close, but not quite right.

“Keep in mind, when I say: ‘I was a little filly like you,’ I mean, I was your age but still bigger than you.” The image of the filly expanded slightly, getting taller. “I’ve always been big, and in my little filly head, I imagined I could get a racing cutie mark or a trick flying cutie mark or something cool like that.”

The little version of herself buzzed around, just like Scootaloo did.

“I never did, though. So then I thought: maybe I’d be good at sports and get a sports cutie mark? Lots of pegasi love sports and I liked to play hoofball with the colts. None of it got me a cutie mark, though, and one day… I boarded a ship and left home.”

The unmarked filly Ritterkreuz walked up a wooden plank and onto an airship. It sailed away from Cloudsdale, towards the north and east. There, through the banks of clouds, a city built into and on top of three mountain crags bustled with winged life. Terraces and tiers cut into the stone formed palace bulwarks and clan eyries.

“Because my father was a high ranked Commander of Equestria, I was sent to Crown Roc,” Ritter told the crusaders, and held up a hoof as she tried to describe it to their young minds. “Some ponies call it the Castle of the Roc, the Griffin version of Canterlot. Three mountains shrouded in clouds, with a city sprawling almost from the peaks down to the base. Unlike Canterlot, griffins didn’t use magic to make it… they cut it with explosives and their bare claws, and entire palaces are built right into mountain sides and halls. That’s where I was sent to live for three years.”

“Why?” Sweetie Belle asked. “I wouldn’t want to live with griffins!”

“Did something happen to yer family?” Apple Bloom wondered.

“It was an exchange of hostages,” Ritterkreuz explained. “Griffins go live with ponies, and ponies go live with griffins. They say it helps everypony and everyone understand each other better. My parents… my father took care of a griffin chick, and a noble griffin family took care of me.”

She smirked at Sweetie Belle, guessing it wasn’t an exchange everypony would enjoy.

“I sort of liked being around griffins more than ponies,” she said, sighing with nostalgia. “I was with an eyrie… a household… with four griffin chicks around my age. At first, they all treated me like I was delicate; like I’d break if they were too rough with me. It didn’t take too long to prove them wrong.”

The little Ritter in their shared mindscape tussled with a young griffin over a ball, the pair rolling around on a cold stone floor, growling and hissing. Another little griffin had a flag, and other chicks chased after him, one pony among them. Then the same group was perched in the trees, hanging easily to thick branches with talons and claws, the tiny Ritterkreuz struggling to do the same with her hooves.

“I learned to play griffin games… to speak the griffin language, to dance like them and hunt like them and even dress like them. I ate griffin foods, too. It made me sick at first, but I refused to be treated differently, like I was a little pony they had to coddle. Everypony can eat a little meat, but I had to learn to stomach rabbit and lamb and rat, the big three of griffin cuisine. Then there was the week I had the flux…”

Her audience shuddered, and Ritter chuckled, amused.

“You know, there’s a very special dish there,” she told them, licking her lips in an exaggerated fashion. “Qazy, they call it. Horse sausage, made out of one naughty unicorn filly, one naughty pegasus filly, and one very naughty earth pony to round out the flavor.”

“Gross!” “No way!” “Eeeghhh!”

Ritterkreuz’s chuckles broke out into full blown laughter as Sweetie Belle turned faint and started to swoon at the ghastly image. It took some rough shaking courtesy of Apple Bloom to snap her out of it. While said image was still fresh in the minds of the cutie mark impaired trio, Ritter continued her story.

“I also learned to like explosives and fireworks,” she said, and the little imagination-filly snickered as things blew up around her in colorful sprays of sparks. “Griffins have special talents with explosives and powders. That’s how they cut up their mountains, like I said before. They blow them up!”

She pounded her hoof on the ground, making a loud ‘clop’ sound.

“Boom!” Ritterkreuz shook her head. “Anyway, I learned a lot from the griffins I stayed with… but even though hundreds of ponies live all their lives in Crown Roc, they’re still not seen as griffins. They can be valued servants and friends and business partners, but they’re still not griffins and they’re always treated differently. They’re not the same clan. It was the same with me. No matter how hard I tried to fit in, I was only just pretending to be one of them. I never forgot it either. Every time I got sick eating something they told me not to eat, every time I tried to climb a wall with claws I didn’t have… every time I pronounced a word just a little bit wrong because I had lips and no beak, I would remember that I was just a guest here. That I was still a pony.”

Somewhere along the line, Ritter’s imaginary-self ended up alone. To one side of her, ponies were playing together and playing hoofball and learning from a teacher and working together. To the other side, griffin chicks were fighting: over food, over bragging rights, over where to sit and who got to speak, all while the adults egged on the competition. When the not-so-little filly reached for the other ponies, they avoided her, intimidated by her size and the way she acted. When she reached for the griffins, they edged away, never willing to really let her into their group.

“I had been in Crown Roc for more than year,” Ritter said, her eyes down and staring at her hooves. “I was fluent in the language, but didn’t have much reason to speak it. I spent a lot of time by myself, learning how the griffins made their mountain blasting explosives. There was something about it: about a big bang, reshaping the entire landscape…. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I even learned a little trick, putting some of the powder on my wings, so I could make little firecracker pops whenever I wanted.”

She closed her eyes and let out a breath. “One day, I overheard a bunch of griffins. They all knew I spoke their language, so if they didn’t like me, they didn’t dare to talk about me except behind my back. I listened in, and realized they were talking about another pony. It was the way griffins were… you had to stand up to them, to be dominant or at least to try and be dominant. This stupid pony was just sitting there with a book, while they harassed him, trying to get him to fight.”

The corners of Ritter’s mouth pinched as she grinned, just a little, remembering that day well.

“It pissed me off!!” She suddenly roared, startling Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom enough to knock them off their rumps and onto their backs. “The stupid little unicorn pissed me off because he was being such a sissy! And the griffins pissed me off for being such jerks! And I pissed myself off for not being able to just ignore it and walk away! So I jumped in, made some booms, and started kicking!”

Only Scootaloo seemed nonplused.

“Sounds about right,” she commented, the imagined little Ritterkreuz getting into a scrap with three griffins at the same time, mercilessly punching and kicking her way through them. By the time all three had been subdued, the gray filly was left scratched and bruised, but grinning happily despite her injuries.

And on her flank…

“That’s how I got my cutie mark,” Ritterkreuz said, and Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom pulled themselves back up into a sitting position. The big gray mare held up a hoof. “One. Two. Three. I knocked those idiots out. I didn’t notice I had my cutie mark yet, though. I was still angry. So I turned on the stupid unicorn who they had been picking on… a prissy white-coat horn-head, and I told him to stand up for himself, and that those three had been talking trash about him to his face.”

She snorted, but her smile made any attempt at sounding angry difficult.

“He said he knew what they had been saying, but that it didn’t matter,” Ritter raised the tenor of her voice to try and sound like a little colt instead of a gruff mare. “’I’m a unicorn. If I use magic, they’ll say I cheat. If I don’t, then I’ll always lose. So I don’t do either. I don’t do anything.’ Typical of him.”

‘Okay, then!’ the little gray filly declared, on impulse. ‘I’ll fight for you, and if some griffin challenges you to a race, I’ll race for you, too. I’ll even eat weird things if they want you to do that. I don’t mind at all! Sounds like fun.’

‘Really?’ the colt had asked, suspicious. ‘And what do you want from me?’

‘I dunno. Stuff.’

‘Stuff?’

‘Just don’t be boring. I hate boring.’

‘I’ll try and be entertaining, then. What’s your name, anyway?’

‘Ritterkreuz.’

‘Blueblood.’ The colt introduced himself with a flourish of his hoof before pointing to her rear end. ‘Did you know you just got your cutie mark?’

“That was how I got it, but later, as I thought about it, I wondered,” Ritter explained, glancing back at her cutie mark with one eye. “What does it mean? Most ponies who get cutie marks for protecting other ponies get a shield or an arrow or something, and I didn’t fight because I really wanted to protect Blueblood, I was just pissed and looking for a brawl. The marks I have don’t even look like real explosions, not really.”

Slowly, she turned to meet the curious looks of the three crusaders.

“Then it came to me,” she finished, a dark cast to her pale golden eyes. “My marks aren’t literal explosions or explosives. They represent violence! My cutie mark is the pure expression of violence and fighting itself! My special talent is raising hell and kicking ass!! That’s who I am!”

“So,” Ritter asked, stretching her neck out to loom over her filly listeners. “Who wants a cutie mark like mine?”

For a long moment, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom said nothing. Ritterkreuz didn’t blame them for their silence. The poor little runts were too probably too shocked to-

“At least it would be ‘A’ cutie mark,” Apple Bloom concluded. “And Apple Boom sounds pretty cool!”

“Huh…?” Ritter mumbled. “What?”

“I’d be Meanie Belle!” Sweetie decided, but just as quickly asked, “Is there a way to get a fighting cutie mark without actually fighting?”

More than a little confounded by the fact that her story had only encouraged the crazy little fillies, Ritterkreuz settled into being the sudden target of Apple Boom’s made up martial arts and Meanie Belle’s imaginary magic blasts. These girls really wanted their cutie marks! It was probably pretty pointless to tell them that a flank stamp was a pain in the ass – literally. Scootaloo, meanwhile, buzzed up to the hanging bucket and emptied a small stream of water, only spilling a little over the sides in the process.

Her work didn’t escape her erstwhile trainer’s eye, distracted though she was.

‘Not bad,’ Ritter thought, watching out of the corner of her eye as Scootaloo ran to fill the bucket again. ‘Not bad at all. This little runt has guts… and guts… are better than any cutie mark.’

- - -

The filled bucket hit the ground with a splash.

It was getting dark, and despite their earlier interest, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom had opted to go and help Fluttershy on her census of the soon-to-be-hibernating. Each one had left with bundles of little blankets for the forest critters who had the good fortune to live outside or on the Everfree border. Only Scootaloo had remained to keep training.

Ritterkreuz stayed with her, watching but not talking. She had shed most of the bandages of the other day, even when the wounds were still a little raw. The temptation was strong to head off and do her own thing, like she usually did, but she also understood when to lay low and heal up. It wouldn’t be long before she was back in her prime.

“Hey,” Scootaloo called out, carrying the leaky bucket back over to the trough and pump. It was full, and she looked exhausted, but she still had the energy to drag it over and upend all her hard work back into the watercourse.

“Was that story true?” she asked, finally collapsing onto her side. “The story about how you got your cutie mark?”

“What makes you think it wasn’t?” Ritter asked, flexing her wings.

“I dunno,” the little filly admitted. “A feeling, I guess.”

Her would-be trainer inhaled, slowly, mentally weighing how to respond.

“It was mostly true,” she said, after a little thought. The squirt had earned an honest answer. “You want the truth-truth, Scootaloo?”

The filly nodded, tired but triumphant. Best of all, she didn’t need anypony to tell her she had done it. She didn’t need anypony forcing her or cajoling her. She had done it and stuck with it because she wanted to see herself do it. She wanted it.

“The part I left out was that I was in over my head in that fight,” Ritterkreuz said, still a little bitter about it, years later. “Those griffin boys were bigger than me, and just as mean if not meaner. There’s an advantage in claws and beaks, you know. They aren’t just for show.”

She scratched the back of one hoof with the other, suddenly self-conscious.

“After my little surprise attack, I was in trouble… hell, I had been looking for trouble in the first place, but I found it. One of the griffins had me pinned, and his back legs were on my stomach. I knew he was gonna rake me with his claws. I could feel them dig into my skin.”

In her memory, the little version of herself was struggling on the ground, outweighed by just one of the griffins she had picked a fight with, much less all three. The hind legs of a griffin were like those of a lion. The claws could retract and they were curved and perfect for climbing or scratching or mauling, depending on how much force was put into them. Above her, the griffin was smiling, his tail wagging in anticipation.

“I’d probably still have those scars on me today,” Ritterkreuz admitted, eyes closed. “But then the griffin on top of me floated in the air, upside down. I looked up and saw why. It was the stupid little colt I’d come to help. Blueblood was using his magic to help me. With the leader of the three out of the picture, the odds changed. Two on one, I did okay… and then, later, one on one, I did better than okay.”

The griffin fell out of the air and looked around, stunned. His two friends were unconscious, and a bruised and bloody filly twice as big as she had any right to be barreled down on him. On the sidelines, a unicorn colt sighed and put away his book.

“Aside from that, it happened just like I said,” Ritter finished, and as her eyes opened, her expression was relaxed and at ease and comfortable with the company. “He had my back… and I had his… until he left for home when his mother died. And that’s the real story, kid.”

“Why’d you pick a fight with those three griffins?” Scootaloo asked. It was really the biggest question of them all.

Ritter didn’t even have an answer for it.

“I just did,” she replied, honestly. “Looking back, I think I knew I’d get beaten up. It wasn’t the first fight I’d gotten into like that. Listen, kid… Scootaloo… I…”

The gray mare cut short whatever she had been about to say – exactly what, she wasn’t even sure herself – and her expression morphed into a wicked grin. The reason for the transformation became clear a second later, as a blue shape floated down from over Fluttershy’s cottage. Four cyan hooves touched the green grass, cantered a few paces, and stopped. A tail, naturally dyed in six streaks of color, snapped and relaxed.

“Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo exclaimed, forcing herself back up in the presence of her idol.

“The Rainbow Bitch.” Ritterkreuz chuckled, effortlessly rising up on all fours. Her wings spread and angled upwards in a threat display mirrored, unconsciously, by the other mare’s wings as well. “What a surprise, Sparky let you off your leash!”

“Ritterkreuz,” Rainbow Dash said. She looked fine, healthy… it would be nice to say unhurt, too, except her face was sooty and caked with streaks of tenacious dirt that hadn’t been easily washed off by a dip in the lake.

“You guys… aren’t gonna fight, are you?” Scootaloo dared to ask, not sure if she should even try and prevent it. The two adult ponies glared at each other, towering over the little orange filly.

“Fighting’s fine by me,” Ritter said, her eyes not leaving her potential opponent.

Rainbow Dash shook her head, the first to break contact and meet Scootaloo’s worried expression. “That’s not why I came. I want to talk about something first.”

- - -

“Maybe I really am just bein’ a stubborn mule,” Applejack asked herself, far from where anypony could actually hear her doubts given voice. “What do you, think, girl?”

Winona, sadly, was more interested in sniffing the base of one of the farm’s many apple trees, her tail curled up slightly in excitement at the prospect of finding – and chasing – one of Fluttershy’s wayward and often garden raiding animal friends. Applejack mostly let her dog lead the way, trailing in silence as she thought about Rarity, about cider, about her farm…

A cold wind blew in from the north and Applejack sought some shelter against it by pressing her hat down flat on her head. The sky was darkening overhead, but it was a clear and shaping up to be picture perfect night. Stars were already beginning to peek out against the encroaching darkness, even with Luna’s moon not yet given permission to rise. Only Sun or Moon held sway over the heavens, never both at the same time, even during dusk and dawn.

Looking up, Applejack focused less on the sky and more on the trees.

The late blooming orchard was populated by honeycrisp cultivars, just ripening on the branch. They were typically the last harvest before winter, sweet and tart and perfect for eating raw or as a snack before the snows fell. Half would be sold as they were harvested and half would be stored to ripen for use in treats and baked goods. The bad apples would be discarded or used for pig chow, not that there was much profit in that. Almost anything made for decent pig chow.

Winona rushed forward again, starting a rabbit from a patch of thorny bush by the low stone fence and ditch that separated Sweet Apple Acres from a narrow strip of public land. Winona barked at the fleeing critter but didn’t give chase past the fence, though she was more than capable of jumping it if she needed to. Legs hanging over the edge of the stone divider, Applejack could see some of the neighboring farms: the Carrots and the Honeys.

‘Carrot Top wouldn’t have snapped at Rarity like I did,’ Applejack thought to herself, resting her chin on top of her hooves. ‘She’d have been happy for the help.’

Applejack wanted to be grateful. Getting into a screaming match with her oldest friend wasn’t what she had wanted when she went to Blueblood’s Manor.

‘Wasn’t it, though?’

She had to have known that Rarity would stick by what she had done. She was never one to just do nothing when a friend of hers was in need or in trouble. Even before she had done it, Applejack had been on the lookout for when – not if – Rarity had decided to get involved. A smarter pony would’ve acted on that and pre-emptively told the new Ponyville Baroness not to get involved.

‘I didn’t want to fight with her… did I?’ Applejack crushed her eyes shut and felt a cool breeze flow through her mane. ‘Maybe I don’t know what I want anymore.’

She wanted to save her family farm, but she didn’t want to sacrifice her principles to do it.

That was really the issue, wasn’t it? It was all her. Big Macintosh didn’t have a problem accepting Rarity’s agricultural subsidies… even though he had to know that the moment the government and nobles stuck their nose in the farm, they would never leave. Even if they didn’t, the Apple Family hadn’t needed to be bailed out in more than two centuries of operation. Two centuries! Not since her great grandfather Baldwin Apple was granted the land by the Princess herself.

‘Then, generations later, Applejack inherits the farm and bucks everything up,’ she thought, grumpily. ‘That’ll be what they say about me. Three generations later. Applejack couldn’t even run the farm without her friends bailing her out. She was incompetent and it was all her fault.’

“Was it… all mah fault?” she asked Winona, reaching out to pull the sable brown border collie into a hug. “Was it?”

“Better proud and on the street, is that it?” Rarity batted her hoof away and also took to her hooves. “Does your great grandfather’s farm mean so little to you? I’m sure your pride will be a comfort to Granny Smith and Apple Bloom when they don’t have a home!”

“It means everything ta me,” she wanted to say.

“You take that back!” Applejack bulled forward, all but butting heads with the other mare. “You take that back right now!”

“I will not!” Rarity yelled, not intimidated by the forceful Element of Honesty. “And I will not see the Apple Farm fall apart while I have the power to save it! Not when I am Baroness!”

“What do ah do, Winona? Ah can’t go back on mah word now. Ah can’t.” She buried her face in the dog’s mane; Winona didn’t talk or pantomime like some animals – except to Fluttershy of course – but she was always there, and buried in her fur, Applejack felt a little better and a little warmer.

Rarity.

What was she going to do – what was she going to say – to Rarity when she saw her again?

“Ah don’t wanna have ta fight with her over this,” Applejack said, releasing Winona and starting back to the farm house. “Ah’d just apologize, but… but I still think I’m right. It ain’t right, what she’s plannin’ ta do, and there’ll be hell ta pay if the farmers’ association finds out. She’s the Baroness now, and that means she helps everypony or nopony. No playin’ favorites. Ah know that’s how things aught ta be.”

Pinkie Pie would probably just rattle off an ‘I’m sorry’ and then start bouncing around, more interested in a ‘making up’ party than in just what she’d had to apologize for. Twilight was a reasonable pony. If she was wrong, she’d figure it out and apologize without so much as a hiccup. Fluttershy would say she was sorry even if she didn’t think she had to apologize at all; she’d just do it to avoid a fight. Tarnation, she wouldn’t have gotten in a fight with Rarity in the first place! Only Rainbow Dash and Rarity herself had the same sort of stubborn streak. Both would probably be likely to apologize without really meaning it, just to move on.

“Ah can’t just say ‘I’m sorry, ah was wrong.’ Cause I’m not wrong.” Applejack wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince, talking to herself like this. She turned to Winona. “Ah’m not wrong, am I?”

Winona glanced back at her owner and smiled, her tongue lolling out slightly.

“Ah don’t know what ta do anymore… and it’d probably be the end of Equestria before Rarity came ta apologize ta me.”

And what did she have to apologize for? For trying to help?

For going behind her friend’s back, when she damn well knew better!

Applejack felt the hot little poker of indignation from before, hardening her expression just as it hardened her heart. She understood Rarity, and Rarity understood her. Maybe that was why it stung so hard. If Twilight had done it, she probably wouldn’t have been nearly as upset. She loved Twilight as a good friend, but they had only known each other for a little over a year, and to be honest, the lavender bookworm was still a little scatterbrained sometimes.

But… was that it? Was that all these was to it?

Was it possible, just a little bit possible, that Rarity had touched a nerve already rubbed raw? It all really came back to the cider, to the farm’s strained finances, and to Applejack’s own inability to keep things solvent. The moment competition showed up in Ponyville, the moment things got rough with the market, and everything became a crisis. The farm shouldn’t have HAD to rely on cider sales in the first place! Cider wasn’t like Zap Apples. It was a supplement to the farm’s income. That’s how it had been before. Was it possible that some of her anger towards Rarity had been…?

“At mahself?” she finished, sighing.

Deep contemplation and the like really weren’t up her alley. Tangibles were so much easier to wrap a pony’s hooves around. What she needed to do was dwell less on her own problems and insecurities and get the darn farm in the black. Without Rarity’s under-the-table help.

Approaching the farmhouse, Applejack noticed a strange sight. A pony she didn’t recognize stood just outside the front door, wearing odd clothing. It was almost all white, except for a few floral patterns in blue over where the cutie mark would be. The patterns were centered around a trio of leaves sprouting from a silver arrowhead. It was a pattern that took her a moment to recall.

The last time she had seen it had been on a flag, hanging from an upside down ‘L’ shaped pole.

Picking up her pace, giving the waiting unicorn a wary look, Applejack entered her house. Inside, she saw some of the Neighponese retainers that had helped around on the farm for some room and board… mostly food. Old Antlers was there, sitting at a table with Granny Smith and Big Macintosh. White Dew and Evening Squall, the earth pony healer and unicorn barrier magician respectively, were sitting by the wall opposite. The former nodded to Applejack as she entered. Cool Breeze, the disagreeable pegasus mare who – unlike the others – had just hung out in the clouds while the others worked, stood proudly to the left of another pony, herself seated next to Shigure.

“Yumi,” Applejack remembered the name.

“Lady Yumi!” Cool Breeze barked the correction. Shigure raised a hoof to her in silent greeting.

This mare, like the one outside, was dressed in white, but it was unadulterated by any colors or patterns. She sat primly at the table in the family room, soft lambskin boots running halfway up her legs and bleached silk covering her torso. Only the upper part of her front legs was visible, and her neck, a dusky white color a shade smokier than Rarity’s white coat. Her straight mane and tail were a perfectly groomed black with a streak of dark gray.

“Miss Applejack,” the well-dressed mare said, dipping her eyes just barely enough to notice. “We meet again.”

“So we do,” Applejack replied, turning to her family members present. “Mind tellin’ me what’s goin’ on?”

“Applejack,” Granny Smith answered, her tone scolding, “Lady Yumi is a guest here, so let’s keep our tone civil, now.”

“I’ll remember that.” She made no promises, though.

“You’ve made quite the impression on my retainers,” Yumi said, sounding just as haughty as when she had put up that pas d’arms outside Ponyville. “While I came to bring them back into my fold, I have also had a mind to suggest how we can help one another.”

“Help one another?” Applejack asked, openly suspicious. “What do ya’ll mean by that?”

If this was about the cider and the farm…

“We don’t need yer money, if that’s what this is,” she warned.

“Of course not. I have heard of your farm’s troubles, yes, but as an earth pony myself, I respect your self-reliance and work ethic.” Yumi’s forest green eyes were similar to the ones that stared back at Applejack in the mirror every morning. She hadn’t noticed that before.

“I need something from you,” she explained, “I believe it to be something you can do for me that no pony else in this town can. In return, I will give you what you need to crush your competition… these Flim and Flam brothers.”

Applejack felt her heart skip a beat. Something that would crush the Flim Flam brothers? Something that could save the farm? But it wasn’t money…? Staring hard at this ‘Lady Yumi’ or ‘Yumi-hime’ or whatever, Applejack couldn’t help but wonder just what the foreign mare meant. What did she mean she could help with? What did she mean, something only Applejack could do for her? There was no way she was saying she could work on the farm, not a fancy pony like her.

“Explain it ta me,” Applejack finally said, though the demanding tone made the easily bristled Cool Breeze do just that. She seemed on the verge of snapping and saying something like, ‘show more respect to Yumi-hime!’ Luckily for her, she didn’t get the chance.

“Fertility,” Yumi replied.

“Fertility?”

“The secret skill of my family, the ruling family of Neighpon,” she explained, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Is simply that: ‘fertility.’ If you ever visit our realm you will notice that it is very mountainous, with little arable land. Despite this, we grow many crops, including rice, wheat, barley, tobacco, tea leaves, sugar beets, pears, oranges, and of course… apples. Ensuring the richness and bounty of Neighpon is the duty of the royal family, of which I am a member.”

Applejack remembered the duel, most particularly, the end of it. Three of her retainers had fallen at the hooves of Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and a mere apple farmer. Yumi had not reacted well to the failure of her subordinates. Applejack remembered standing next to her friends, the only one to notice that the grass at their feet had stopped swaying and begun pointing all in one direction: up the hill and at the Neighponese noblemare watching them from on high.

“You control plants,” Applejack reasoned.

“I do,” Yumi answered, that tiny smile of hers still in place. “It is my honor to bring prosperity to poor lands. It is also my honor to tour my realm and ensure that our crops do not fail, even in the worst of seasons. I have noticed much of your crop here is discarded… your honored elder here has a fine nose for weeding out bad apples. This is the natural limitation of what your farm can produce.”

Applejack looked over at Granny Smith, and the old mare was nodding in agreement. There was no other pony at the farm really suited to quality control, not just when it came to cider, but to basically all their apple products. Something like a third of all apples bucked were ultimately rejected for cider production and were instead used for animal feed. Still, they were producing more cider at present than ponies bought… but that was mostly because Flim and Flam had the market so darn saturated.

Taste.

That was it!

“You can make our apples taste better?” she asked, hesitant but… curious and excited at the same time. The family had reached the limit of what they could do with existing cider making techniques and still Flim and Flam’s cider beat them out in some taste tests.

“I can bring out the natural flavor in any given apple, so that every one tastes as good as the best one on that tree,” Yumi said, as if such a thing wasn’t the holy grail of farming. “For those apples still on the tree, I can use my magic to destroy imperfections. Every apple will be as high quality an apple as that tree can produce.”

She took some pains to be sure she was clear.

“I can not make apples sprout from corn stalks, nor can I do more than save diseased or dying trees,” she told the Apple family. “What I offer you can only be done to healthy, strong trees. You have many of these, and this is a well-run orchard, but you must understand that I can not work miracles. I can only have a plant reach its full potential.”

Applejack had to fight not to gawk. Of course, she couldn’t make apples grow from corn, or any sort of silly thing like that. Applejack herself knew she could influence seedlings and saplings to grow using natural earth pony magic. Even apple bucking itself was a form of magic. But the larger and older a tree got, the less a pony could do with it. If this Lady Yumi could exert normal earth pony magic on fully grown trees…!!

“How many trees could’ya do this to?” she asked. Even just ten or twenty would…

“All of them.”

Applejack blinked, momentarily stunned. “Excuse me?”

“I can feel them,” Yumi explained, straight faced. “You have two hundred and sixty two apple trees producing fruit at this moment. I can use my power on all of them.”

Applejack stared at the pale earth pony, searching for some possibility that this was a joke or trick. Any minute now, everypony would break out in laughter at Applejack, the silly filly, falling for such an obvious prank! Yet, seconds passed, and there was only silence in the room. She turned to Big Macintosh and Granny Smith, trying to read their expressions. Both seemed shocked, but not to the point of doubt or incomprehension.

“The Fujis always said they had good harvests,” Granny Smith said, recalling some incident that must have long predated the birth of anypony else in the room. Even old Antlers.

“Is there some drawback ya ain’t mentionin’?” Applejack asked.

“Only to myself,” Yumi replied, not troubled by her answer. “My magic mingles with that of the trees, and the energy for the growth comes from me. The effort will be taxing for me, and it will be days before my magic returns to normal, but that is a small price to pay. I take it this deal is something you are interested in making?”

“It is, so far,” Applejack admitted, her wariness returning, but tempered by excitement. With entire trees of perfect apples they could make barrels of their best cider in bulk, and their best cider was better than Flim and Flam’s.

Rarity’s secret subsidies had already pushed the farm in the black, but this way, she could save the farm and pay Rarity back everything she owed. Then there would be no debt between them. Everything would be evened out. Then… maybe then she could… apologize.

“What would ya need from me?” she asked the Neighponese heiress.

“Blueblood,” Yumi answered, to the farmer’s surprise. “I want to meet His Grace, Prince Blueblood, in private. I want to plead my case for being Duchess. I can bring much to Canterlot… and to the lands surrounding it. In a thousand years and more, no earth pony has ever worn the Crown of Canterlot. I wish to be the first. I would speak with him alone at the Art Festival and that is all.”

“And you think ah can manage that for ya?” Applejack weighed the noblemare’s request and just what it would mean. She already had an idea of how it could be done. She had an invitation, and Blueblood wouldn’t mind being pulled aside by her for a little while.

It wouldn’t be hard to arrange things.

“You are an Element of Harmony and a friend to His Grace,” Yumi said, and her smile widened just a little. “Yes. I think you can do this for me.”

Author's Note:

AN
Topical episode tomorrow, and as always, I try for a weekend chapter release. I am pretty curious how things go with the coming episode, though. It may affect things to come.
But, before then, and maybe after depend on when you hear this... new chapter of TPC for ya!

-

My personal sincere apologies to PiquoPie and any others similarly upset over my previous version of the author note. I had not thought that it would spoil things in the show for my readers. It was not my intention.

- - -

Comments

[Seether00]

Manipulations! Just massive amounts of manipulations! Even though she is a psycho, Ritter is most straight forward. She just enjoys beating stuff up.

[psychicscubadiver]

Masterfully done.

The only thing more impressive than the excellent story is the speed at which you produce such high quality chapters.

[Themaskedferret]

Oh AJ you dumb broad. Still, this should be fun. Is AJ honestly going to be so gullible as to buy that?

[onlyanorthernsong]

so many updates for " This Platinum Crown"!

you spoil us good sir! So many yummy helpings of the best pony fic currently updating!!

[vren55]

1716041 Hmm.... I would say Yumi would be a manipulative and rather scary... the question is... would her servants support her when they realize she's being dishonorable?

[djthomp]

Man, if Alpha Brass was on the level... that doesn't actually sound like that bad of a match... Definitely be suspicious of that family though, Twilight.

Wild ass (and almost certainly wrong) guess time, Arsenic somehow turned herself into Chrysalis.

Cutie Mark Crusader Criminal Accomplices! Yay!

"My parents… my father took care of a griffin chick, and a noble griffin family took care of me.”

Gilda?

Hah! Ritterkreuz was not completely prepared for the Cutie Mark Crusader reaction to her story. And I do like the sound of Apple Boom and Meanie Belle.

[RTStephens]

Of all the things to take away from this most excellent of updates:

Chilly Willy is now the best spell. It's just too cool.

Carry on.

[Ghosted Note]

This story is good, and you're a good writer. I'm not really finding any major faults in the story, and I've been hooked from the beginning... but man, it's just so heavy, and not in the same way as many other stories. You see dark stories, where ponies die left and right, and the sad stories where you can't really tell the living ponies from the dead, but this is somehow harder to read for me. Twilight's getting a political marriage? Fleshing out the government of Equestria which most of us politely ignore because of its implications? Take it as a mark of great writing that this evokes such heaviness of heart. Maybe what makes me feel so depressed after reading this is that this story has no innocence. You've done a wonderful job of making this story into its own version of real life, and as a result, it carries all of the melancholy of real life with it, where everyone has to cut corners on their dreams and sacrifice their integrity to get by. This is real life with magic and ponies added.

[Cold in Gardez]

How do you write these things so fast?

[The Great Derpsby]

Might've been completely paranoid of me, I'll admit, but after reading this chapter, I went and googled if there'd been a noticable practice of bride/marriage abduction in Japan in the past.
Turns out that yes, there was.

[q97randomguy]

This is just too good! SO MANY UPDATES!

[Kraid]

Another one! Color me spoiled. Not only is the.plot so thick you can cut it with a knife but it is so well written that each chapter is a delight to be savored. Carry on my good author!

[emrlddrgn]

Wow, man, you've turned the gain on your output WAY up. And without a noticeable drop in quality, either. Well done!

Corrections: 90 square miles is WAY MORE than a hundred square kilometers. I suspect you live in the US or UK and decided to make Equestria metric

[Psykosis]

Meanie Belle is best tumblrpone. Well, maybe not best, but still pretty awesome.

cutie mark crusaders unpaid indentured labor

[nemryn]

And, of course, if Applejack refuses, Granny Smith may be finding more bruised apples than usual. That would be terribly unlucky, wouldn't it?

1716273
Of course they would. This kind of 'honor' is just a giant scam to begin with.

[Piquo Pie]

Edit: Apology accepted.

[nemryn]

Antimony shook her head in much the same way most of Twilights friends and acquaintances did after hearing a few sentences of technomagical babble.

I believe the term is 'thaumobabble'.

[Convisku]

I'll add my voice to the "How do you get these out so quick?" chorus.

[Spiritus Arcane]

My main worry about Alpha Brass is that he's unknowingly (or even maybe KNOWINGLY) involved with whatever plans Chrysalis has (outside the wedding I mean), so it could actually all be a giant trap.

With the flashback seen here, I'm starting to wonder if Ritter is actually on Blueblood's side in all this, in a roundabout, violent sort of way...

Yumi's offer seems like another giant trap. Ok, she can make apples into super apples...but what happens when she leaves? What she may not be telling AJ is that this little boost ends up wrecking the tree's metabolism or something and ends up killing it, meaning that while the farm gets through cider season fine...they end up with a farm full of dead trees in the end. And even if AJ stays loyal to her friendship with Rarity, there's no guarantee that Yumi won't just wreck the trees with her powers anyway out of spite.

[Cyberpanda2000]

A brilliant job developing Ritter from a boring evil Mary Sue to a believable and interesting character.

[JessieLaurent]

It's weird. I'm liking Ritter more and more, even though perhaps I shouldn't.

And, speaking of trust where it shouldn't be given, I almost believe that Yumi might be, if not on the level, at least far less crooked than Alpha or Psycho-Unicorn-Pinkie-Pie...Euporie, I think.

While I can see that this could definately be a trap, consider the possability that it's not. Sure, it is true that Yumi has something she really wants, and she is willing to do much to get it, but if a fair trade would work as well as anything else, what would it hurt her? She helps Applejack, gets to meet Blueblood, potentially drives a wedge between Applejack and Rarity, wins him over (not likely, but she can't know that) and gains the Platinum Crown or whatnot. Sure, there are elements of that that the reader doesn't like, but she would be being Honest with Applejack, even if she had a secondary goal of driving a wedge between Rarity and one of her friends...one of her friends who has done some impressive fighting, and is impressive in her own way.

Now, should Applejack accept it? Well, there's not any better options at the moment. Maybe Yumi's help is temporary, but what about the cash subsidies? Unless Rarity and Mac plan on just outlasting the Flim-Flam Brothers that doesn't solve anything, while improving the product MIGHT.

As far as speculation goes, I think she'll accept it.

[Hoof of Approval]

Oh. Great.

So now we start to understand a lot of the plots that are going on, but... none of them are good. At all.

Don't do it, Twilight. Don't do it, AJ! It's a trap, all of it, and you'll be throwing Canterlot and Ponyville away to tyrants!

[Themaskedferret]

1716273 *nods* For me it depends on how close to the Feudal Japanese culture they'll stick. In those eras I believe it didn't matter how corrupt your master was you still followed them as long as they were your master. I could be wrong though.

I am curious to see how much of this bull AJ buys though. I mean up to this point it's apparently not even crossed her mind that she's essentially be helping to try and split Rarity and BB up despite knowing how happy they are and the fact that Rarity's one of her best friends. I think if AJ follows through on either it'll be hard to pull off, though I have faith in the good Capn

I suspect if she does go with Yumi's idea she'll have a lot of self justification going on to try and lie to herself and I can easily see her changing her mind and trying to stop Yumi. I'd love to see some sort of farce scenario where she bursts in on Yumi and BB and gets attacked for her troubles. Would be a nice way to let the mane 6 know what Rarity's facing as well since I sort of get the feeling that up til now they've been in the dark. Could just be me though

[Piquo Pie]

1718484

Yes but don't forget, Prince Blueblood still has the magic of ever burning hellfire that requires the sole of a living pony. If worse comes to worse he could sacrifice himself to burn all the bad guys.

[Causal Quill]

Empathic deficit, constant need for stimulation, dominance games in place of normal relationships, incapable of guilt... Am I describing Ritterkreuz, Euporia, or both? You have two apparently sociopathic characters, and the contrast between them is kind of fascinating. They have essentially the same personality, but their personal histories diverge in one very major way. Ritterkreuz could never pretend that anypony around her was like her. Meanwhile, Euporia's magical talents and shallow social environment have apparently immersed her in the illusion that everypony is exactly like her. One of them is isolated and overtly aggressive. The other one is social and superficially charismatic. Neither one appears capable of normal relationships, and ironically, it's the aggressive one that appears like she may be capable of her own insane breed of friendship.

If Twilight Sparkle and Euporia end up in a fight for some reason - and it doesn't seem improbable at all - I can imagine Twilight 'counterspelling' Euporia right out of existence by magically undoing the split between the two sisters. I can't imagine it'd be good for the newly fused pony, either.

[Air Quiet Reader]

Yumi is going to go Poison Ivy on Bluebood isn't she She doesn't seem dumb enough to think she can convince Prince Blueblood without some kind of sinister coercsion or threat.

Great chapter.

[Arkaine Deao]

1718869

This. I don't think people, even people who have read TBNE, truly understand what Blueblood is capable of in a pinch.

Is it going to happen? Probably not, for it would, unless done properly, wreck the story.

Could it happen? Yes.

[Piquo Pie]

1722098

I think the true capabilities of Blueblood are being kept hidden by Bluoblood himself. It wouldn't do to be ousted for suddenly being a dashing hero, or competent.

I am pleasantly surprised that Capn_Chryssalid hasn't defaulted to 'because Blooblood learned this during that time stuck in the place' without that actually having happened like him learning to teleport.

[Prime 2.0]

with a bucket handing from a rope tied to one of the lowest branches.

*hanging

Ritter noticed the little while unicorn glaring at the rope

*white

Both would probably be as like to apologize without really meaning it, just to move on.

*likely

4 chapters in 2 weeks? Good god man, you're spoiling us!

Ritter's interactions with the CMC were just delicious; her story was great, and the crusaders bounced off each other in a really spot-on fashion, you completely nailed them this chapter. I don't laugh very often, but I nearly lost it when Ritter was introduced to what those three fillies actually do. Meanwhile, I loved Applejack's introspection and the new conflict gearing up from Yumi's offer. Yumi has a trick up her sleeve for when she gets that private audience with Blueblood, I can just feel it. This noblepony war by proxy is really starting to get intriguing.

[ScootaLewis]

Relevant.
"Applejack crushed her eyes shut and felt a cool breeze flow through her mane."

[Boobah]

1716433 The timeline doesn't work for Chrysalis to be Arsenic's alter ego. Until Rarity bumped her out of the running, she already had a match all lined up... and if she married Blueblood and became Grand Duchess Canterlot, it really didn't matter what the Canterlot branch of the family was up to. The prestige of returning Arsenic's line to the duchy's throne would make it nearly impossible for any of the Terre Rares to be anything but her ardent supporters; there would've been no reason to interfere with Shining Armor's match to Cadance, and more than a little harm if she was caught doing it.

1717715 On the honor front: Depends on the person. Just like chivalry in the Occident. Many knights and samurai were just thugs with good gear and training, but there were others who truly tried to live up to the ideals that justified their social status to the small folk.

Of course, a key part of the samurai code was obedience to one's lord; the proper way for the ideal samurai to refuse an order was to commit seppuku.

1718376 I don't think Yumi's offer is the trap; the trap is almost certainly the little favor she's asking. After all, AJ has family out that way; she'd probably know if the noble's solution to a bad year was to make many bad years while you grew a new orchard.

No, the real question seems to be just how many fingers Brass has in this pie; is this a game of Xanatos Roulette, Speed Chess, or just a pileup? AJ is only in this position because Brass financed the Flim Flam brothers and made driving Sweet Apple Acres out of business part of their mission.

Oh, and Yumi and Brass have been meeting at his floating pleasure palace, too, giving them the opportunity to scheme; if one of Brass's goals is freedom for Star Caller, making Yumi Grand Duchess ought to do the trick since the seal is weakening and only a unicorn Grand Duchess can fix it.

1718447 It's probably worth pointing out that accepting Yumi's help would also put the barony on better financial footing, too, since Rarity has been borrowing and begging money for her various projects. Not that anybody besides Rarity likely has any idea just how far in the red she is.

1719132 Alternately, it might be the best thing that ever happened to her. Both Euporie and Eunomie seem fundamentally broken as individuals; it's easy to see why they're so broken up over Mom's passing when she left them only half a pony each for her personal convenience.

1720595 I'd gotten the impression that Yumi just thought that highly of herself. I could see her believing that if she could get Blueblood to herself for a while he could finally see that she was the only mare good enough for him. Or, alternately, what with her spending time in Brass's pleasure palace and outright saying she has fertility magic, she might just go for magically enhanced seduction.

And now I wonder if that explains her high strung, overly defensive pegasus lackey who is so very protective of her Yumi-hime.

[djthomp]

1725301 Are you talking about Lady Arsenic or Lady Antimony?

[Causal Quill]

1725301

It might be the best thing that ever happened to them two years later. For the first few months, the newly-remerged pony is going to need a psychiatrist, possibly on an in-patient basis.

Also, I think you're underestimating how dangerous Yumi could be. When all the grass was pointing at her in that one scene (way back in chapter twelve), it probably meant that she was about to do something to the grass that wouldn't be friendly to the individuals involved. Her warriors had shamed themselves, but worse, they'd made her unhappy. For that, she was about to...

"I shall turn this field... this battle-field... into a Sea Of-"

That's when Antlers appeared and reminded her to respect discretion and the laws of the realm. While Yumi is surely capable of doing (and has surely in her past done) good and wondrous things with her magic, the implication is that she's also willing to commit murder with it, and she's not overly burdened with a sense of loyalty and obligation in how she does so. Several of her followers were downed in the zone of affected grass.

[Boobah]

1725320 Whoops. I did misread that. Blech. I had thought you wrote Antimony; Arsenic makes more sense, especially with the whole sequestered thing and with a pretty long known lifespan. It'd also explain how Brass and Chrysalis teamed up, not to mention playing on the whole metamorphosis thing implied in Chrysalis's name. And, of course, if 'changeling queen' is a transitional stage, what is she turning into?

1725768 I'm honestly not sure why you'd think I thought Yumi wasn't dangerous (or even not-very-dangerous.) Given what a yumi IS, I pretty much assumed she was getting ready to shoot every piece of plant matter in the area through any and everyone who'd annoyed her at the time, although I hadn't considered that she'd casually gank her own retainers in her fit of pique. I think you're right that she might have, though.

I do consider her less dangerous than, say, Alpha Brass, but that's more because Brass seems both more ambitious and less impulsive than because Yumi isn't powerful.

[Ponibius]

Finally got caught up with this story, and it continues to entertain me immensely. So many plots going back and forth, and I'm loving it. the endgame for this is going to be nuts, I can already tell.

[Always Breakfast]

Twilight brought it in close to inspect the wax seal. It bore the image of an ouroboros, held up by two small unicorns, their manes savage like a lion’s and their mouths open, belching flame.

Gee, this family crest doesn't look like palpable evil or anything.

“it may not be binding in a court of law, save one where Pinkie herself presides.”

I guess that means it depends on how many comically small hidey-holes your courtroom has, then.

Definitely getting bad vibes from Yumi. Not just because...well, she's Yumi, but also because if she doesn't get her meeting with Blueblood or it doesn't go as planned, she may well make Sweet Apple Acres wither on the spot out of spite.

[TheAussieBlue]

Applejack, get it in writing. Then find someone good with Legalese, and have it checked. This... can go so wrong in so many ways. Yumi is much like the Sidhae (faeries) of old. Yumi may be telling the truth, but is she being honest?

Twilight needs to grasp that she may not be dealing dealing with some loving, compassionate Alpha Brass. She needs to ignore poety, nicieties, and gifts, and focus instead on the figures, precentages, and numbers.

Rarity needs to start being much more aggressive in her monitoring and political manouvering. Her political staus is being attacked via financial, economic, and political means. That many nobles don't show up at once for no reason.

Ritter's presence at Fluttershy's house is asking for trouble. Sooner or later, something big is going to go down. A particularly cuntish noble could use such a situation as blackmail. Ritter is also a sociopath, a violent madmare who's only interest is fighting.

The best way to deal with the SSAS (Flim Flam) is for Rarity to tie that machine up in so much red tape that it can't do anything. Delays, misfiles, calling on an offical who isn't avaliable for a few weeks, anything to get that thing to stop producing. Sabotage and falsified reports are also acceptable, though not legal.

And if anyone says it in a meeting, well. Minutes are fun things to manipulate. It is characteristic of all committee discussions and decisions that every member has a vivid recollection of them, and that every member's recollection of them differs violently from every other member's recollection; consequently we accept the convention that the official decisions are those and only those which have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials; from which it emerges with elegant inevitability, that any decision which has been officially reached would have been officially recorded in the minutes by the officials, and any decisions which is not recorded in the minutes by the officials has not been officially reached, even if one or more members believe they can recollect it; so in any particular case, if the decision would have been officially reached, it would have been recorded in the minutes by the officials and if it isn't it wasn't.

An ammendum: Rarity cannot allow Applejack's farm to fall. If it falls, then Brass gets an economic foothold that will be impossible to remove. If Alpha Brass gets an Economic foothold, then he can destroy Rarity via economic means. Driving up prices, buying out other competitors, whatever, if Alpha Brass get the farm, bad things happen. Period.

[Seether00]

So, now that Magic Duel is behind us, is it going to change the method of duels in the story?

Trixie did conjure up her own pies.

[Qwazy-Reader]

1733316

I'm guessing it won't since it's already been quite established. My guess is that if the story goes that far, the duel in that occurrence will be changed. Then again, maybe that duel was a special case.

[TheAussieBlue]

1734029
The story has already deviated significantly from the standard story line. Spike has wings. The Flim Flam Bro's are engineers, not con-men. Celestia is... no, wait, she was always stupid. Seriously, this is what you get when you have a hands off policy. Celestia is... either playing an incredibly long game, or she's stupid.

I dunno, we have different prefences to ruling. I'm more... hands on, than Celestia. More brutal. More cuntish.

[The Author of Life]

Typo.
Euporie slowly lowered the porno rag she had been reading.
Euporie slowly lowered the porno rag
slowly lowered the porno rag
lowered the porno rag
the porno rag
porno rag

[dragonjek]

So... Alpha Brass and his daughters (Euporie, at least) specialize in mind-altering (or emotion-altering) magic? I'm actually finding Alpha Brass to be the most frightening and sinister of the antagonists the story has presented, just because of how affable he is. The villain that doesn't use force is the most terrifying of them all. I'm really worried about poor Lyra...

I get a feeling Pinkie's going to get more than a little upset at Euporie for her meany pants pranks, and at what she's planning (for a lot of individuals swinging can be seen as terribly immoral, especially so I think in a place with small-town values like Ponyville. I don't think many ponies would actually go for it, and for it to be an actual Party I imagine that Euporie would have to use her mind-twisting magic...).

Also, Ritter just earned even more crazy points, which I didn't know she could. Eating meat, now? *shudders*

I like to think that Yumi is going to be honorable about this and only talk, but we really don't know very much about her. She doesn't seem as... malevolent... as some of the other competitors for the Crown do, though.

I really, really hope to see Twilight see past reason soon (because AB's proposal is all too reasonable, that's the poison of it!), and hopefully get in a fight that will let us see the most-powerful-unicorn-ever-ness of her (because I'm pretty certain that every single person reading this so far has been eagerly awaiting that). Also, I really want to know what's in that puzzle box (it would be funny if it turned out that nopony was able to open it for XXXX years).

This story receives a mobius strip of

[Pashoo]

That whole section with Ritterkreuz~

I want to pick a favorite, but I'm just loving every damn hero, villain, chapter and moment in this story!

[Super_Big_Mac]

1739002 But those are rags.

[valforwing]

1739002
yeah rag is just an older term for magizine...welll more or less for printed work of bad quality. like porns and tabloids and penny omance novels

[Borg]

I'm still no fan of Alpha, and I still don't think Twi should marry him, but now I'm getting a slightly nervous, "wow this is actually happening" sort of feeling. A lot like the anticipation in the days before a significant episode, actually. And that's not a bad feeling, and I don't know why. I should still have a bad feeling about this.
Complimenting Twilight does make me like him a little better, but it can't force me to be happy about it. Because we all know it's the truth; she is quite a catch.

Better get a move on, Ritter. Sweetie couldn't keep a secret if the fate of Equestria depended on it.

My gut says you can trust Yumi, AJ. If she says she just wants to talk, she's not going to cause anything that will make Rarity hate you forever. Which is good, because it sure sounds like you're going to.

[RevelRomp]

Hrm... I guess now I can credit Ritter with at least one line that I genuinely liked, now. Though rape is still strong. So Ritter now has a total of 0.5 funpoints.

[Ono-Matopoeia]

Ritterkreuz has exceeded my expectations of her character going into this. I am intrigued.

[Lazo]

For some reason that warming spell got my attention. I imagine anything heated that way would need to be thrown out within the hour unless its kept at over 140ºF or 60ºC. But then again, magic. Plus, who cares about food safety in a story? Leave it up to me to get fixated on little details like that.

[Anmynous]

Lambskin boots? But the sheep talk!