• Published 31st Mar 2012
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This Platinum Crown - Capn_Chryssalid



Only one mare can claim the Platinum Crown of Canterlot.

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Chapter Forty One : Applejack - The Lion’s Den (part 1)

AN: New chapters incoming. We're bouncing back in time a little to cover events "on the outside" so to speak.

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Applejack: The Lion’s Den (part 1)

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The banner of the Restored Ponyville Barony fluttered in the wind, bobbing and weaving in time with the harnesses of the ponies carrying it as they marched. Within the stately procession, the largest of the flags, waved proudly from atop the carriage at the front. The small town was represented by the ancient apple tree, three banded apples hanging from its symbolic boughs, flanked on the left by the open book and on the right by the celestial estoile – a star with six wavy points that some ponies believed predated the Princess’ own, similar, cutie mark. It represented Ponyville: the agriculture and history, the belief in knowledge and goodness and enterprise. Bordered in royal purple, it cut a distinct figure visible and identifiable even from afar.

To some ponies, the crest meant even more than that. Aside from the purple border and the book, it was also much the same standard Applejack’s great grandfather, Baldwin Apple, had ultimately put down when he retired the Barony and the title that came with it. Now Rarity flew it. Green eyes following one of the fluttering banners, Applejack wondered about what it meant, if anything, about the changing times. In a strange way, and maybe just in her own mind, it sort of made her old friend family, to dust off that old flag and proudly carry it with her.

The carriage, first and fanciest among many, bucked and shifted as it traversed the rough country road, pulled by two able-bodied stallions from the town. They were a pair picked expressly for their size and being accustomed to carrying generous loads. Rarity had insisted. “Ponyville’s finest male specimens,” she had described it with a flourish. One pony must’ve found the choice a little flattering.

“Ya holdin’ up okay, Big Mac?”

E-ee-yup.”

“Well, we don’t got that much more ta go,” Applejack said, hearing a little bit of strain in her brother’s voice.

She trotted alongside him, one of the small pony-portable town banners attached to her saddle. It stuck out neatly from under a flap in her cloak. The apple farmer wasn’t one to wear anything fancy, so a plain, old cloak would have been just fine in case of rain, but this particular one wasn’t just designed for practicality. The cloak itself was tough, durable, waterproof – everything a pony would expect and everything Applejack approved of – but the fancy golden clasp, complete with shiny jewel, seemed out of place to her.

Rarity had insisted, though, and this was her trip. Better overdressed, she supposed, than underdressed.

At least when it came to these sorts of ponies…

“Hey, now! What about asking me how I’m holding up, huh?” Caramel asked, glancing at her from the other side of her brother. This was the Big Caramel – ‘Creamy Caramel’ some of the mares in town called him – and he was darn near Big Mac’s size and the pride of that strange family. Most every mare had more daughters than sons, but the Caramel family was a little (in)famous in town for being the exact opposite. They had a rather notable surplus of colts, which had made for very interesting times growing up.

“Ya’ll won’t let my big brother show you up, will ya?” Applejack asked with a grin.

“This lout?” Caramel objected. “Never!”

“Enope,” Big Mac chimed in.

The two were old friends and shared a laugh, too. Caramel still came over to help with the apple harvest from time to time, even though he was married and had his own affairs to tend to. Sometimes Applejack swore she still saw a mischievous little twinkle in Granny Smith’s eye when he dropped by, as if the old matriarch was still trying to see how she could get him into the family.

“Just sorta wondering why Rarity – er, Lady Rarity – couldn’t get some of those mercenaries to haul her around? Or those troublemaking dragons,” Caramel added, snorting at the mental image. “Wouldn’t that be a sight? A carriage pulled by dragons. Sure’d make an impression!”

“If’n ya’ll forgot why you’re hitched up to that fancy cart back there,” Applejack replied, motioning to the car behind them. “It’s because, A, them companyponies are meant ta look all scary and professional, and neither’a you two are fit for looking professional-anything…”

Caramel snorted again, but Big Mac rumbled in a casual chuckle.

“And B,” Applejack continued, “yer both big fellas who want bits ta spend, and Rarity, well, it just so happens, she’s got some bits ta throw around. And C! Do you really wanna ask those dragon-boys ta pull anything behind em?”

“The things we do for bits,” Caramel lamented.

“Eyup.”

“It ain’t like you’ve even gotta go that far,” Applejack reminded them as they crested a hill. “Why, we gotta be almost there by… now…”

“Holy smokes,” Caramel said, his breath momentarily taken away. “Would’ya look at that.”

Big Mac just whistled.

At the top of the hill, they could look down on the plateau adjacent to the far side of the Puddinghead Reservoir, originally filled centuries before Ponyville’s much newer concrete dam. It was normally a huge green pasture, bordered by tamed wilderness and mountains to the north and open, hilly country to the east.

The field was no longer empty.

Instead, an orderly forest of tents, crimson and onyx, sprawled across the green grass. It was a portable town very nearly the size of Ponyville itself, a literal village in miniature. Like Ponyville’s town hall, the largest building was in the center, a small stone keep. And just when the heck had they built that? Stone towers and keeps didn’t just spring up out of the ground, at least as far as Applejack knew. Around it, there were green open areas left for roads and ordered subdivisions of tents like town blocks or neighborhoods.

The faint outline of fences and sentry beacons could be seen from afar, though they paled compared to the multitude of flags and banners that billowed by the dozens all across the tent-city. Still, Applejack struggled to wrap her head around the fact that somehow these ponies had built a small castle down by the lake. Magic had to be involved in it somehow. There was no other explanation.

“Company’s coming,” Rainbow Dash warned as she came in for an easy landing, wings still flapping. “Better look sharp.”

Dash didn’t wear a cloak, but she still wore the same strange clasp around her neck that Applejack did. It was a part of the set of ‘fashionable armor’ Rarity had made for all her friends. Unlike heavy royal guard armor, which Applejack was more familiar with, this was a light corset-shaped piece of folded armor and cloth, studded by dozens of small brass buds and grommets and folded over the midsection with imitation leather. The cuirass had a dyed line down the middle which wrapped thinly around the collar and was heavily engraved with gold. The two main buckles that fastened the cuirass together, one over each shoulder, were functional, but also bore dangling tassels that had to be purely ornamental. The clasp Rarity insisted they wear was set in place on the armor’s thin brass gorget.

Applejack kept hers at home, awfully grateful for the generous gift, of course, but rather expecting never to have to wear the thing. A farmer was happier wading in mud than wearing armor. It was one of the reasons why her family had abandoned the town’s Barony back when it had been founded. Besides, she wasn’t here to pick a fight or prance around. She had come to represent Ponyville and to give her friend good, honest advice, whether she wanted to hear it or not.

“Rainbow, how many of them are there down there by the lake, you think?” Applejack heard Caramel whisper in awe.

“Dunno,” Dash replied, flicking back her mane and craning her neck to look down on things from an earth pony’s point of view. “One of the Companyponies up in the air said it might be four thousand.”

“Four thousand?” Caramel gasped, turning on the armored weathermare. “That can’t be!”

“They ship in food and water and resupply along the railroad,” Dash explained. “And, yeah, they forage, too.”

“Four thousand ponies,” Caramel repeated. “That’s an entire town.”

“A bigger town than Ponyville, sugarcube,” Applejack added, impressed, but focusing her attention less on the teeming mass of equines and more on a small group approaching them. “That’s exactly why we’re here: can’t have ‘em eat us out of house and home while they’re in the area.”

Four thousand ponies would swamp Ponyville if they were allowed in the town proper. It would be impossible to billet so many guardponies. Rarity’s Free Company – the Dove and Cross – already took up its fair share of land, putting up their barracks just outside town while some of the officer-types paid to live-in with willing ponies. That wasn’t even counting just how much food and water four thousand ponies consumed daily. It was a little frightening to contemplate… but, at the same time, the businessmare in Applejack couldn’t help but see an opportunity.

That many ponies would drink literally tons of cider, eat entire fields of apples, and pay a premium for jams, jellies, pies and virtually any other treat she could imagine. Not that she was tempted to jack up the prices just because demand spiked… but the numbers, in the end, would be worked out in the next few hours. There were a lot of good, honest bits to be made here, most of them at the expense of the noble that brought all these ponies so far from their homes and families.

The four ponies were soon joined by more of Rarity’s Dove and Cross Companyponies, dressed in their silver and white uniforms and polished steel cuirasses. They’d been well-behaved guests in the town, welcomed by more than a few as another warm body to keep between the town and the Everfree, but some of them still made Applejack nervous. It was less that they had done and more what sort of profession they engaged in. Being some sort of fighter-for-hire just didn’t seem like an all-too-honest living. At least Lady Yumi’s bodyguards had been loyal to her, through thick and thin, without expecting to profit from it.

How much could you count on a pony whose only loyalty was to whoever paid them the most bits?

“Nervous?” The question came from the head of Rarity’s mercenary guard as he looked back at them. “Don’t be. They’re just ponies, same as any of you. Relax, show respect, and you shall receive respect in turn.”

In the admittedly few times Applejack had seen or interacted with him, Captain Germoglio seemed like a real contradiction. He was a unicorn, tall and sort of handsome, but not very rugged or well-built. He had a black moustache and beard the same color as his mane, and, with his finely groomed coat and tail, he seemed sort of a dandy… like Blueblood, she supposed. But leaner.

There was a keenly athletic and dangerous air to Germoglio Bianco that Blueblood never had, for all the Princes’ time spent in front of a mirror or with his physical trainer. The poufy and frilly armor this stallion wore, a more dolled-up version of the cuirass and sleeves a lot of Free Company ponies wore, only exacerbated the juxtaposition.

This stallion even wore silly hose over his back legs, for Celestia’s sake! No pony should look so silly, so dandy, but still seem like he could be actually dangerous. Having spent time around Yumi’s retainers, and Shigure in particular, Applejack could all but feel that this was a pony in their vein – one who hadn’t just been trained to fight, but one that had fought most of his life. This was a pony, she suspected, whose carefully concealed cutie mark indicated he had a talent for something unsavory.

Something violent.

“Maybe just a little nervous,” Applejack admitted, and where other ponies would have tried to put on a front or make an excuse, she told it like it was. “I’ve never seen anythin’ like this before, and so many ponies… like you…”

“So many ponies like me,” the stallion repeated in his faint Bitalian accent, smirking. “We all have our calling, Miss Applejack. Yours is on the farm, and it is a noble profession, honest and true. Mine is on a different field, where I reap a different crop.” His smirk faded a bit as the riders grew closer, and his tail waved slowly left and right, betraying a hint of anxiety on his part as well. “If it is any consolation, the pony we are to meet makes me nervous as well.”

“Signore,” another pony whispered, leaning over to speak softly to the guard Captain. “They come. One is The Lady.”

The Captain nodded, as if expecting the news.

Not long after, four ponies galloped up to the now paused carriage. Two of them, a unicorn and a pegasus, Applejack recognized right away. The other two were new faces.

Lady Antimony did not wear a dress or the usual frou-frou finery Applejack remembered from her brief stay in Ponyville. Today, the tall unicorn wore a tight waistcoat that hugged her torso, laced up the front like an actual corset, and over that a cloak in black and carmine-red. Applejack was no seamstress, but she knew enough to patch up working clothes. What Antimony wore looked delicately stitched and couldn’t have been much in the way of real protection, so it wasn’t like the armor Rainbow Dash wore, though it was certainly stylized with patterns of snakes, entwined around her chest. Her red and black hoof-boots were dusty from use, but well maintained.

Next to her, Applejack also recognized that big bodyguard Antimony had brought with her on her first visit to Ponyville. She wracked her memories for a second before a name came to her: Gewitter. It was a weather name, like a lot of pegasi had. She was a big mare, and her clothes were much the same as before, at least as well as Applejack could remember. Rarity had called the outfit a dolman and pelisse overcoat, and it sported the same shade of cerise-red that Antimony now wore, laced up with a gold and ivory sash. Unlike before, her outermost primary feather had been clearly painted with a gold stripe, maybe as a sort of rank among her peers. Applejack couldn’t be sure.

The two new ponies were also dressed, but differently. One was a cream white Pegasus stallion with a strange sort of foreign-looking hat with an ornamental crest plume, a hackle, and a brass badge. If he wore proper armor, it wasn’t easily visible beneath his single-breasted overcoat. A peaked collar sported gold and red tabs and his gloves and sash were both alabaster black, aside from one golden button that pinned it in place over the coat.

The second was an earth pony, a mare just about Applejack’s size, with the same sort of faint freckles on her cheeks. Her coat was a sort of sour-apple white-green and her mane was a dull red, like Apple Bloom’s but faded. Her eyes were a piercing yellow, though, and betrayed little emotion. Her uniform was again similar to the others, but her overcoat lacked the sash. Her buttons were a bright gold, however, and one bore a golden lanyard that looped around and over her shoulder. Most unusual and distinct was her cocked hat. Later, Rarity would gush about the use of ‘silver bullion lace’ to decorate the hat – an obsession of hers – but at Applejack’s first glance, it simply looked really odd.

Couldn’t anypony else in Equestria just wear a plain old hat, for Celestia’s sake?!

Momentarily absorbed in the almost surreal fact that she was meeting these sorts of puffy ponies, never mind her actual run-ins with the Princess herself, Applejack almost missed the first round of introductions. She had to hurry to play catch-up, her ears twitching.

“The rest of our party belong to the Compagnia della colomba e croce. We are honored to escort and serve the Lady of Ponyville, the Baroness Rarity…”

Germoglio Bianco had already gone around giving out the names of the ponies around him.

“A pleasure,” Antimony replied, dipping her head in a polite nod. “I have with me my bodyguard, Gewitter.” She motioned with her horn towards the large pegasus mare and then to the stallion. “Chef d'Escadrons of our Prance Second Aerial Grenadiers, Sir Wind Shear…”

Then, finally, to the stoic earth pony mare.

“And this” – Applejack found herself listening very carefully, as the mare seemed almost familiar somehow – “is Général de Brigade Antonovka, one of the two commanding officers commissioned and empowered to lead our family guard here.”

The earth pony mare blinked, but otherwise seemed solidly disinterested in the meet and greet. Wind Shear, meanwhile, attempted to make up for Gewitter’s typical silence and Antonovka’s apathy. He grinned broadly and bulled forward to shake hooves. First with Germoglio and then with herself.

“Jolly good work, sticking it to that Nightmare Moon!” He gave Applejack’s hoof a solid shake, and she found herself a little impressed by his grip.

“Ah, thanks?” was the first response that came to mind.

“Hey, I helped take her out, too!”

“Yes, Rainbow Dash! Of course! We’ve heard much of you!”

“You have?! I mean. Of course you have. Of course you have…!”

Applejack’s moment of introspection quickly passed as she saw her friend cozy up to the pegasus grenadier, no doubt about to start up on a less than impartial retelling of her exploits. Applejack smiled and rolled her eyes.

“I would speak a moment with Lady Rarity before we escorted you to my father,” Antimony broke the brief silence. She had addressed the statement to Germoglio, primarily, but she had taken no pains to keep others from overhearing. Applejack opted to watch and listen, carefully, but otherwise keep inconspicuous. ‘A tree hears many secrets,’ Granny sometimes said.

Honestly, Applejack wasn’t sure she trusted this Antimony mare all that much.

She watched as the noblemare approached the carriage. A moment later and the door opened. Applejack’s ears prickled as she tried to discretely listen in. She could hear Rarity’s voice. It didn’t sound like the two mares were having a confrontation or argument, but… and there was a giggle from the other occupant in the carriage. It didn’t sound like trouble was brewing, but one could never be too careful. They were literally trotting right into the camp of a pony – of a family – Rarity had dueled with just a few months ago.

Even if this Antimony mare wasn’t an enemy anymore, that didn’t mean her father would be all too friendly. Cruciger was his name. All Rarity had said was to tread carefully and fairly with him. Turning back to the view from before, looking down on the army camped just a few miles outside Ponyville, Applejack couldn’t help but feel a small knot form in her stomach.

“What’d you say they called this place again?” Rainbow Dash asked, still chatting with Wind Shear.

“Just a little sobriquet the griffins gave us… as a sign of respect,” the grenadier replied, snickering. “We call the keep in the center ‘The Lion’s Den.’ The Lair of the Black Duke.”

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“My word! This tent…this tent is…! It’s simply marvelous! I love it!”

Rarity’s eyes were positively glittering with delight at the sight that greeted her as she stepped out of the carriage. She had a rather chic and well-appointed tent of her own, for when necessity dictated extended outdoor adventures, but this was just on a whole other level!

The tent before her had to be at least three stories tall, not counting the grand, spiraled poles – like minarets – that soared regally into the sky. Rarity noticed a preponderance of copper, capping rises in the colorful fabric and supporting banners large enough to hide a building behind. The central tent was so large, in fact, that it could not possibly be as a portable as her own two-story excursion model. There were heavy metal braces, at least six and possibly as many as eight, anchoring the portable home in place. The highest roof was domed and actually appeared to support a small observatory, and the second floor boasted no less than three balconies, two of which were shaded. It was the contrast of the colors and beauty of the copperwork that really caught the fashionista’s eye, however.

This tent spoke of a pony of taste, refinement and grandeur!

“Is this your father’s tent?” Rarity asked, walking slowly across the grass. “He has fine taste, I must say!”

“Actually,” Antimony interrupted with a polite cough, “that is my mother’s tent. Father prefers mother not work inside his keep, hence she has a tent of her own.”

The Prench Baroness pointed to the nearby stone keep. Rarity had first caught sight of it from inside her carriage as it approached the army camp. Having visited the Puddinghead Reservoir not too long ago to explore her options regarding Ponyville’s water situation, she knew for a fact that there had not been a keep or castle nearby. Not even the foundations of one.

It must have been erected here from scratch by Cruciger’s personal guard, though how they had done so in such haste, Rarity couldn’t imagine. It was a monolithic structure, like a cylindrical drum tower, but slightly sloped and with a roofed top that resembled a lean-to. The capped end of a barrel just barely protruded from beneath the overhang. There was no real adornment or ostentation. Slits for windows were the only break in the monotony of thick masonry, and the door inside was located, forebodingly, beneath an iron-reinforced overhang. Between the tower and the tent stood an iron statue of a rearing bull that seemed to be imitating a dragon by belching brass flames. Rarity also noticed, as she drew closer to the tent, that the bull sculpture appeared to be missing its eyes.

The ox, or the bull, was one of the symbols of the Terre Rare family, along with the eight-pointed star. The horn-motif was most everywhere in the ringing encampment as far as Rarity had so far discerned. Bull horns capped the poles of flags and crowned the tops of tents. Looking out from her carriage on the ride in, she had seen the distinctive sigil of the bull and the eight-pointed star fluttering from multicolored banners hung from pole and lance and spear, on patches and surcoats as uniformed mares and stallions marched by, and even etched onto the framework of a fearsome-looking cannon that was most certainly not designed for punctual party preparation.

“At the moment, my father is in seclusion with some of his officers.” Antimony trotted ahead to direct Rarity towards the large, colorful tent that had first caught her eye. “Would you prefer to wait with my mother and myself in our tent?”

“That would be lovely, is--” Rarity paused and gestured back to her carriage, where Applejack, Rainbow Dash and some of her companyponies were unloading trunks from her ride. “--is there room for my friends inside?”

“As long as they resist the urge to touch anything,” Antimony replied.

“You know, I would have expected the Duke and Duchess to share a tent,” Rarity mused as she gestured to her companions. Only a second later, she realized it was a somewhat improper remark and added, “Oh, I – I hope you don’t mind my insinuating… I didn’t mean--”

“My mother is rather eccentric,” Antimony explained, straight faced. “Father often steps out during the day when she is in an excitable mood.” She frowned, and her half-lidded eyes darted back to the carriage. “Is Pinkie Pie still asleep? I thought you would wake her once we arrived.”

“Pinkie is just resting her eyes for tonight,” Rarity assured her. “We need her at her best, remember.”

“True. I just don’t think I’ve ever actually seen her asleep until today,” the older Baroness said. She shook her head. “Then again, this may be for the better. Right now, my mother is hyperactive enough without having her around. Come, let us make introductions.”

Rarity nodded and followed her onetime opponent and current co-conspirator into the entryway of the pavilion tent. The two unicorns passed by a stern-faced pegasus guardmare, partly hidden in an alcove behind a cloth curtain and then entered a surprisingly large space that took up most of the tent’s internal volume. The rooms to either side – the left and right wings of the tent – appeared to be luxurious apartments. Rarity could see a large bath, a small but well-stocked pantry, a sun room and a moon room on opposite ends… it was all quite lovely.

The main part of the tent, however…

Well… it rather reminded her of what Twilight had done to the library’s basement.

There were strange instruments set up, beeping and humming, to what end, Rarity couldn’t begin to imagine. A large rack displayed a variety of what appeared to be scored and pitted metal plates in varying states of wear and tear. A ladder led up to the user-friendly end of the telescope she had seen part of from outside. More curious still, there was a row of glass orbs, some seemingly completely empty, though others had bits of otherworldly black energy boiling within them. A shelf of beakers and other chemicals rested in the back, being carefully tended to by a mare with a pure-white overcoat and goggles. Another identically dressed mare was busy fiddling with a large device in the center of the tent, where two mirrors and a metal plate were curiously suspended by a clockwork apparatus surrounded by a magical field.

“Begin the test, purple!”

“Beginning test!” The mare double-checking the plate replied, scurrying away from the device.

The mare who had spoken before gracefully descended on a floating platform, making a dainty little jump down onto the floor. She pointed to the other mare by the chemistry set, and the two quickly took shelter behind a pair of metal bracers that lit up with a shield spell. Rarity heard Antimony sigh, and both saw and felt a similar shield crackle to life in front of them. A cylindrical contraption, similar to a slender cannon, charged up with an audible whine.

“Test number nineteen,” the commanding unicorn mare who had descended moments before ordered. A strange contraption of lenses clicked and whirred over her right eye as she gestured dramatically with her hoof. “Commence firing!”

“Firing!” One of the other mares, who must have been her servants, stomped down on a trigger.

And… nothing seemed to happen.

“What is going on?” Rarity whispered, not wanting to intrude but growing curious.

“Some sort of experiment on the speed of magic relative to celestial bodies,” Antimony whispered in return. “I don’t even pretend to understand it, myself.”

“Record the results!” the mare in charge commanded before turning to the two new arrivals with a look that seemed to say ‘what is it, this time?’ Then she took a second look, and her expression brightened. The red lens over her eye swapped out for blue. “Ah, Antimony! You’re back! And this must be the mare that defeated and humiliated you!”

“The Baroness, Rarity,” Antimony introduced her guest without missing a beat. She also gestured to the strange mare. “Rarity, my mother, The Duchess Twinkling Star Light.”

“A pleasure,” Rarity offered, bowing politely to the older mare.

“Hmm! One seventy-five, two twenty-four, two thirty,” Star Light muttered, reaching up to flick a lens on the set of glasses that covered her right eye. Her hoof deftly clicked out two glass lenses that retracted off to the side until her eyepiece turned a shade of violet. It then began to glow. “No, no, no. Her ambient magic doesn’t seem nearly high enough to have caused you any trouble, Antimony. Barely nine hundred microswirls in a non-energized state. Are you certain you lost to this mare?”

“Rather certain,” Antimony grumbled, losing a bit of her customary cool.

“You! Yes, you there.” Star Light pointed at the former seamstress. “Do that friendship magic thing I heard about. I want to measure it.”

“Mother,” Antimony whispered, sliding up to her side, “she is not here to be another test subject.”

“Oh?” The older mare tilted her head to the side in a fleeting moment of confusion. “She isn’t? Why else would you bring her…? Ah! Ah, yes, yes, yes. Politics. I see. Yes.”

Lady Star Light craned her neck sharply, and her headgear clicked and whirred as it folded out of the way, revealing both her eyes and all of her face. She was a pure white unicorn, whiter than her youngest daughter but with the same sort of pronounced ‘princess’ nose Antimony had. Her eyes were a bright violet, and her short mane and long tail were a rich mix of cerise red and a shade of pink similar to Fluttershy’s. For a mare who had to be around middle age – and who had foaled no less than four children – she looked to be in excellent shape, slim and leggy and very pretty in a mature, classical-Canterlot sense. Her cutie mark was a constellation, one of the few Rarity actually recognized on sight.

Libra.

“A pleasure to meet you, my dear,” Star Light said with a matronly tone as she ducked her head in a refined greeting. “A blood sample says what.”

“What?” Rarity blurted out without thinking. “OW!”

“That counts as verbal consent!” Star Light giggled, detaching a tiny vial of blood from the hypodermic she now levitated through the air. Before Rarity could even object, it was labeled and shot off to the far end of the lab, thanks to the older mare’s magic.

“Mother!” Antimony snapped. “Must you?! Every time!”

“Tut-tut-tut, fret-fret-fret!” Lady Star Light dismissed her daughter with a jaunty wave of her hoof. “I always sample the mares who give my little foals a good fight. You never know when you might find out something new! If I can unlock the secrets of friendship magic and refine it into an injectable…”

“What?” Rarity asked again, already lost and growing lost-er by the second. She jumped back, though, when the hypodermic needle swiveled around. “Wait! No! I am not a blood sample!”

Lady Star Light stared at her, long and hard. “I don’t suppose I could I have a bone marrow sample, too?”

Antimony quickly shook her head as if to scream, ‘No! No! Say no!’

“I am afraid I must decline,” Rarity said, slowly. “Please, darling, I’m not entirely sure what this is about, but, please, no more needles?”

“Trypanophobia?” Lady Star Light asked, innocently. “You know, I have an injection that can help with that…”

Rarity’s eyes widened, and she prepared to bid a hasty exit when Antimony held out a hoof between the two mares. She sighed and fixed her mother with a quick glare. “You’ll have to forgive my mother, Lady Rarity. She often forgets she is a Duchess and not simply a doctor.”

Or physicist OR a world-renowned arcanosmith!” Star Light added and rolled her eyes. “But, yes, I am a Duchess as well. Not so much by choice… but one’s birth is one’s birth. There’s nothing that can be done about it.”

Rarity blinked, momentarily thrown by the odd statement. She had not been able to learn very much about Lady Star Light, even from Twilight. Mostly it had been with respect to her research and other study. Apparently, while there was a cultural and social stigma to nobleponies being involved in anything involving manual labor – or anything that made money by retail or trade in general – science and academia was a lauded and very respectable “hobby” for a noble-born mare or stallion to engage in. Twilight had been rather delighted by that fact.

“Of course, I wouldn’t have met my sweet little hubby-bear if I wasn’t a Duchess, so I really shouldn’t complain,” Star Light continued, speaking almost as quickly as Pinkie Pie on an average day. “Well, yes, hmm, enough of that! I have experiments to run, so you can fill me in on things while I oversee the next round of tests. Please watch your hooves!”

Rarity yelped as she felt the floor beneath her rise up, revealing another metal platform. Star Light hopped back onto her own, and soon all three – one for each unicorn mare – took to the air. Antimony offered an apologetic look for the confusion, and Rarity tried to remind herself that, even if the platform upended, it wasn’t much more than a single-story fall. So long as she didn’t land on any of the particularly dangerous-looking equipment below, anyway. Lady Star Light, meanwhile, went back to ordering around her assistants, whom she referred to simply as ‘purple’ and ‘orange’ and ‘yellow’ … a doubly odd set of nicknames, as neither mare had any purple or orange or yellow coloration.

“What are you doing here if you don’t mind me asking?” Rarity asked, slowly getting back into her comfort zone. So, her hostess was clearly a little eccentric. Well, that wasn’t such a bad thing, given her plans for the night. Cruciger was hardly a normal stallion himself.

“I am attempting to either prove or disprove a theory regarding the speed of magical conduction in a vacuum and in aether,” Twinkling Star Light explained, floating a small blackboard close by and making high-speed marks on it with two colors of chalk. “More specifically, I want to see if the universal sea of aether through which our world moves is stationary or in motion! This means measuring the speed of magic in perpendicular directions to determine the orientation of the motion of the aether if there is one.”

“Additionally, by refining our calculations for the behavior of magic via the universal transmission medium, we can determine which stars provide which aspects of magic to our world!” Star Light concluded with a flourish of chalk. She spun the blackboard around, showing Rarity a picture of a planet being bombarded by arrows.

Unfortunately, the rather simplistic picture was surrounded by arcane and thaumaturgical gibberish.

“Um… what?” Rarity asked and flinched, catching a needle with her magic before it could prick into her neck. Two could play at that game!

“Oh ho! Your needle control… is almost on par with my own!” Star Light remarked with a somewhat unhinged grin as the two magical mares struggled for control over the hypodermic. “Have you considered a career in proactive medicine?”

“I don’t know, darling… have you considered a career in preemptive fashion?” Rarity asked, also grinning a little too widely.

Antimony slowly hovered away from the pair. “Do you really want to throw around needles in here, mother?”

“Hmmm!” Twinkling Star Light considered it for a second before releasing her control of the hypo to her guest. “Alright! To explain it simply, Baroness of Ponyville, the magic you use – like the atoms in your body – originally came from the stars, and aether is the means by which it is continually transmitted to us. It saturates our world!”

“Whenever you use magic, you tap into that primal force given to us by the stars themselves!” Star Light levitated a pair of glass spheres to float around her, covering her mouth with her hoof as the laughed in a ladylike titter. “Doesn’t that thought send shivers down your spine? It makes you wonder what else ponykind is capable of… if we really are ‘children of the stars.’”

“But…!” she amended, a second later, before Rarity could respond. “I know you aren’t here to listen to me go on about magic and science! You’re here to meet my sweet, little husband, so why don’t I put on some tea, and you and your friends can learn just what sort of stallion you’ll be dealing with. And you can tell me about how, exactly, you managed to embarrass my daughter like you did.”

Antimony stiffened, objecting. “Mother, must we--”

Twinkling Star Light passed a glance her way, and Antimony quickly lowered her eyes in deference.

“Make no mistake in my intentions,” she continued, addressing Rarity specifically. “I have only passing interest in political games or maneuvers. The only things I care about are my husband, my freedom, and my research. My daughter’s defeat only interests me insofar as I cannot imagine how you accomplished it. Give me some useful datapoints and variables, and I’ll tell you what you need to know to benefit your little town.”

- - -

Pinkamena Diane Pie snorted as she rolled onto her other side on the carriage seat, burying her face into the soft pillows. One pink hoof reached behind her to scratch idly at her rump. The act elicited another grumble as she tossed and turned again before finally settling flat on her back. Very slowly, her eyes opened, and she yawned.

Sitting upright, she noticed the rather hefty trunk that remained in the carriage.

Pinkie yawned again, reached under the seat, and came back with a polished, professional briefcase. Inspecting it for a moment, she felt around underneath… and detached one of the small, stubby legs. Inside was a key. Holding it up to her eyes, she laid the briefcase down next to her and unlocked it. Inside were a number of recessed compartments holding some necessary “items” for her “business.”

The bristly moustache went on first.

Then the wig.

“The name’s Pie,” she muttered to herself. “Pinkie Pie. And yes, my name rhymes with spy. Whahahahaha!!!”

“Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash slammed a hoof against the carriage door. “Stop laughing so loud!”

“Hahahaha,” Pinkie laughed quietly.

- - -

Applejack couldn’t remember meeting a more imposing unicorn than Duke Cruciger.

It wasn’t just the size of him, though there was that. Ponyville stallions were of a smaller breed than Canterlot’s, especially when it came to unicorns. She had seen it firsthoof when she visited the royal city. There had been dozens of them at the Gala; Rarity had attracted a whole herd of them, back when she showed up and started to sing. So there was that, but it didn’t tell the whole story, either. It was more how he looked at ponies and how he held himself. He didn’t even need to speak. Just his standing there was enough to make a pony feel smaller than she actually was.

Maybe… it was a little like how the Princess made everypony feel. Just like with Cruciger, it wasn’t just her size. It was her bearing. She had a powerful, awe-inspiring presence that was only reinforced by her being so unnaturally tall. It might even have been some sort of magic… and this Cruciger pony had it, too, though it trended more towards frightening than awe-inspiring.

“FIRE!”

A thunderous blast snapped Applejack back to the present, fixing her eyes forward. The sound had come from one of the cannons sighted downrange towards the reservoir. A second later and a fountain of water erupting out in the middle of the Puddinghead Lake indicated where the cannonball had landed. A small buoy with a bright red flag bobbed and dipped close to the splash, likely placed there to help the artillery-ponies practice or gauge their accuracy.

Perpendicular to the cannon that had just fired, a long line of its fellows stretched in two orderly rows, their bronze and iron bores pointing upward in salute, capped with some sort of dark cloth sheet. Each row of cannons looked roughly the same, with the same general size and shape, but each one had also been personalized in one way or another. Some were ornately engraved, and one that caught Applejack’s eye was even enameled with a rather saucy and indecent picture of Princess Celestia. Others sported pictures on their gun carriages of dragons or hydras or other monsters. Taking passing interest, Applejack got the impression it was roughly a fifty-fifty split between the cannons marked with monsters and the ones marked with light porn.

Everywhere, though, she could see more of the bull and star standard, printed all over the camp, making the owner of all this hardware unmistakable.

“Hrm. I do have certain affection for artillery, Lady Rarity,” Cruciger explained, patting the barrel of one of the weapons without humor. Listening to him, Applejack had the impression that he was not a very easily amused pony. Even talking about his cannons and his guards and strolling around the camp in what seemed to be a leisurely way, he never laughed or chuckled.

The Black Duke seemed completely humorless.

“When I was in the royal guard, as a young colt, so much emphasis was put on the lance and the spear, either as an actual weapon or as a magical focus.” Cruciger’s deep voice rumbled as he spoke, though primarily to Rarity, who walked alongside him in a subdued overcoat and pink vest, a fancy woven-straw hat shielding her eyes.

“The Princess’ Royal Guard is a bastion of traditionalism: traditional values, traditional upbringing, and traditional tactics. The first two are acceptable, but the third must bow to innovation and the realities of life on the border provinces. You might notice that, of all the branches of my guard, the officers of my artilleryponies are the most likely to be drawn from middling families… Come, and let me introduce you to one.”

Rarity followed along, and Applejack and Big Macintosh followed her in turn, along with a small retinue of Free Companyponies, Rainbow Dash mingled among them. Cruciger had only three escorts of his own with him, two huge pegasus Grenadiers and the mare Applejack had met before, however briefly. Général de Brigade Antonovka. It was such a strange sounding name, but there was something about the mare herself, though Applejack couldn’t quite put her hoof on what.

Cruciger led them on, past the cannons and around to the safer shore of the Puddinghead Reservoir. He was easy to keep track of and to follow, not just because of his size, but because of the dusty-red cloak that he wore, trimmed not just in black and gold but also some sort of sable or fur. It had clearly seen use on the road, as had the dirty brown riding boots on his legs. This was an active pony, despite his age and infirmary, and Applejack had little doubt he had trotted alongside his guards the entire way from Prance… despite being, frankly, partly crippled. He walked with a limp in one leg, and half his face looked like it had been chewed on by a manticore.

They settled down on the side of the lake where a small banquet had been laid out for them.

Cruciger sat first, clearly favoring his right side as he lowered himself down onto a plain brown mat. Watching him, Applejack couldn’t help but compare him to Shigure. Both were big stallions, tough ones. Both had seen fighting in their lifetime, and both seemed initially unapproachable in their demeanor. Shigure, however, had proven to be rather friendly and understanding when away from his duties. Cruciger just seemed old and rough and mean, like a gnarled, black apple tree that he been repeatedly struck by lightning and lit on fire but that still clung tenaciously to life.

He was scarred across the left side of his face to the point where it cut into his upper lip and cost him his eye. An obsidian jewel had been cut and faceted to fill the void there, sitting in a thin, curved hollow of silver, like an eyepatch soldered into place. The other eye was no less menacing, despite being entirely natural. The dark orb had a coldly calculating gaze. Applejack, just from what little she had seen, couldn’t imagine this old soldier putting up with a filly’s pestering about his cutie mark, like Shigure had with Apple Bloom. Finally, as if completing the ensemble, Applejack could see part of another terrible scar on the old stallion’s chest as he sat down.

“Sit,” he commanded. “Eat. Drink. You are my guests. I honor you as such.”

Applejack sat next to Rarity, on her friend’s right, while Dash took the left. Germoglio sat to Dash’s left, and Big Mac settled himself down to Applejack’s right. Their other escorts all kept back, and as soon as they found their places, Cruciger motioned with his hoof, and a pair of servants descended, pouring water and filling plates. It was not a fancy meal, but it was a fine-smelling one. Applejack’s plate was soon crowned with some sort of fruit-spiced bread – she could taste strong hints of apple and pear – on top of a bed of greens, walnuts, and dried cranberries, all drizzled with vinegar and olive oil. Warm, white napkins were provided to wipe their hooves clean before they ate.

“Thank ya kindly fer the grub,” Applejack said, and Rarity seconded the sentiment.

“We are honored, Lord Duke,” she said.

“All right! Food! Let’s eat already! I. Am. Starving!” Rainbow Dash ripped her loaf of bread into quarters and quickly gobbled one down. “Oh, this--” she didn’t even bother swallowing before she opened her mouth again “--is pretty good!”

“Eyup.”

One could almost have forgiven Cruciger for at least letting a small smile grace his features in that moment, but no: he only looked on with the same slight frown that seemed chiseled permanently onto his face. Like Rarity, he began to eat with a mixture of hooves and magic, though Applejack noticed with some approval that he wasn’t quite as fussy as her old unicorn friend. Not far away, another cannon fired, the sound prompting more than a few ponies near her to jump a little in surprise. The thunder was followed a second later with a distant splash, reassuring everypony that it was just more target practice over the reservoir. Soon, the occasional artillery barrage just faded into the background ambiance.

Only when everypony had finished eating did Cruciger look them over and say, “My ponies need food, water, pasture, and your blessing to camp within the demesne of Ponyville. Some of my officers would also enjoy the amusements your town has to offer. We may speak now of these things.”

“My blessing is contingent on the other matters under discussion,” Rarity replied, meeting the one-eyed Duke with a confident expression.

It was part bluff, Applejack knew. There was nopony to really remove Cruciger from wherever he wanted to set up camp. The Royal Guard couldn’t leave Canterlot in large numbers and was only a fourth the size of the army here. Prince Blueblood had marched almost all of his Ducal Guard off to confront the Neighponese marching inland from Los Pegasus as they ‘escorted’ Lady Yumi to Canterlot.

“Go on,” Cruciger prompted, impassive.

“Aside from shooting at the reservoir, I assume you would also like to begin drawing water from it if you have not already,” Rarity said, inclining her head towards the water and the scenic Puddinghead Lake. Applejack was reminded of the town’s own water problems and conflicts that had come to a head when Rarity assumed the vacant Barony. Tapping into the Puddinghead Reservoir had been one of the proposed solutions to shore up the town’s water supply, especially for Ponyville’s pegasus population.

It was a beautiful highland lake, too, though this was the first time Applejack had visited it since she was a filly. It was a long hike from Ponyville, up into the hills at the foot of the mountains. A dam had been built here a thousand years ago, around the time of the founding of Canterlot. Centuries later, a larger dam closer to Ponyville had been constructed of concrete, further expanding the lake. It was like two big bubbles, now: the smaller but deeper Old Puddinghead, and the newer and wider, but shallower, New Puddinghead. They were eating by the shore of the New Puddinghead, but Applejack could see the spooky, darkly forested shores of the old reservoir not too far away.

“My associate, Sir Bianco, has led me to believe your host requires something on the order of one hundred gallons of water a day,” Rarity continued, dabbing at her lips with a napkin. “Is that correct?”

“It is,” Cruciger confirmed.

“Very well.” Rarity put on a magnanimous air. “You may draw what you need from the local water supply free of charge. I ask only that you take care not to contaminate the reservoir itself.”

The Duke inclined his head slightly in thanks. “That is very generous of you, Lady Rarity.”

“You guys manage your own weather, right?” Rainbow Dash spoke up, not the least bit shy, regardless of her company. “I’m a weathermare, too, so I’d like to know what you’re doing with our water and how you’re doing it. Even the water in the ground ends up back in the sky sooner or later! So this is kinda my business, you know?”

“Hrm.” Cruciger nodded, slowly, understanding her concern. “The pegasus ponies in my engineering corps are well trained. They will collect the water and treat it through a process of cloud-form vaporization and condensation. The water we collect will be put into storage, and my ponies will drink from our existing supply before we use yours. You have my word that there will be no unseemly mob slurping away at your lake and no contamination of your water reserves.”

“You won’t be sky-farming for water?” Dash asked, narrowing her eyes even as she took a bite out of another loaf of walnut bread.

“We will not dehydrate your air, harvest your clouds, or damage the local weather,” Duke Cruciger assured her, and through her, Ponyville’s new Baroness.

“Good!” Dash declared. “Just making sure!”

“Hrm.”

“With that said,” Rarity resumed her lead in the conversation, “there is the matter of food, forage, and visits to the town… and security. Applejack?”

“Huh?” The farmer felt her brother nudge her none-too-subtly. “Oh! Oh yeah. The food n’ forage situation! Well, sir, Ah mean, yer Lordship, Ponyville’s got some right fine pasture and rangeland all up along the north part of town. Plenty ‘a brome and orchard grass, bluegrass, too, and all sorts of wild growin’ stuff that a pony can eat. Lots of clover and alfalfa, too… everything ya need to make hay later in the season. About half the land up there is owned by the barony, now, and the other half is held by a ‘buncha local ponies.”

Seeing the Duke fixing her with his one brooding eye, Applejack shook her head and mentally admonished herself. He wasn’t interested in details like who owned the land. That was why Rarity was here, so she could handle all the local matters and narrow things down to just the big picture.

“Right, so…!” She coughed, quickly recovering her wits. “There should be between three and four hundred pounds per acre of forage for ya up there. Multiply that by at least two hundred square acres, an’ there ya go.”

Cruciger slowly nodded in approval. “My scouts already identified the forage situation north of your town. Our estimates are similar to your own. What about grains, fruits, vegetables and, most importantly, sugar and salt?”

This was where the real money was, and it was the reason Applejack had come.

“Apples are our specialty here in Ponyville,” she said with no small amount of pride. She could still taste a hint of apple on her tongue from the lunch the Duke had shared with them. “But we’ve got plenty of other stuff, too: carrots, ‘n peas, ‘n wheat ‘ta spare. We import sugar, but we also grow it local from sugar beets and process it, too.”

The need for salt was pretty self-explanatory, but raw sugar was just as important to a pony’s diet. Instead of getting extra energy from animal or plant proteins, like minotaurs or griffins, equestrians needed sugar and lots of it. In big cities, like Canterlot or Manehattan, there were sweets shops on almost every street corner. Ponies didn’t just have a ‘sweet tooth’ compared to other intelligent folk; they needed it. Four thousand ponies marching around would need a sugar boost even more than most, especially if they were using magic.

Luckily, Apples were plenty sweet, too. ‘Sweet Apple Acres’ had the name for a good reason.

Applejack went on to outline what sort of crops were available and what sort of ‘catering’ the local baking and farming communities could provide and for what price. Expectedly, nearly every town Cruciger’s guardsponies passed by was inevitably depleted of goodies; they had a lot of disposable income. Their Captains would be paying for anything but the luxuries, which was the last order of business. Before that, they arranged for six hundred pounds of grains, vegetables and sugar to be delivered per day. It was, supposedly, half of the one thousand two hundred pounds of rationed food consumed by Cruciger’s personal army every day.

“The terms are satisfactory to me,” Cruciger finally said with a faint note of approval. He was not one for haggling. He had stated a fair price for a fair deal, and Applejack didn’t want to quibble with him. The town would be making a lot of bits from this as it was. The Duke turned to Rarity again, giving her his full attention.

“I approve as well,” Rarity said with a smile. “Thank you, Applejack.”

“Not a problem, sugarcube,” she replied, breathing a small sigh of relief at a job well done. The rest was in Rarity’s hooves now.

“Let us discuss access to the local railroad network…”

The two nobleponies went on for a time about all the other necessities. The Duke needed access to the railroad and permission to route his trains to further supply his guard. This, naturally, would be an inconvenience to rail traffic into, out of, and approaching Ponyville, requiring compensation. There was also the matter of what services would be provided in-town.

Applejack did not exactly relish the idea of more guardponies coming to Ponyville, especially ones who were there to enjoy themselves rather than do their duty guarding the place. It sounded like a recipe for trouble. Rarity was of a similar mind, and coupled with both her concern for security and – surprisingly – Lady Antimony’s agreement, she and Cruciger made the decision to limit the interaction between Ponyville and the two visiting divisions of guards.

The two had just finalized their agreement when, suddenly, Applejack found herself asking, “Ain’t all this a lotta trouble?”

Cruciger’s single eye fixed on her and she threw her hooves up over her mouth without thinking.

Rarity laughed, politely. “Darling, you have to--”

“Actually, yeah. It does seem like a lot of work,” Rainbow Dash chimed in, holding up her glass for more water. “I mean, it’s kinda neat, but you’ve gotta be burning through a lot of bits, keeping so many ponies around! Plus all the headache! Sometimes I have to manage, like, a dozen ponies for weather duty. I can’t imagine bossing around four thousand!”

“You’ll pardon us fer being curious,” Applejack amended her earlier, impulsive, question. She tentatively lowered her hooves from her mouth as she realized she probably hadn’t caused a diplomatic incident. Probably.

Rarity laughed again, nervously. “Come now…”

“It is a show of force,” Cruciger answered, cutting Rarity off before she could say more. “Lord Yama has brought two thousand ponies to ‘escort’ his daughter to Canterlot. Lord Blueblood has mobilized one thousand green cadets and half as many real guards to counter him and show that he is not intimidated. I could have marched south with five hundred ponies… or one thousand, as my rivals have done.”

Still, Cruciger did not smile. He was not emotionless, just cold and stern.

“But I am Cruciger,” he stated and paused as if nothing more need be said. “I… am Cruciger,” he repeated, “and in all Equestria, no mortal pony can match the power I bring to the field. Four thousand? On a whim, I could bring eight thousand ponies south and set camp in front of the Royal Palace itself. This host is only a demonstration of fact: the power in this country is held by the Terre Rare, not the Garlands, not the Quartz, and not the Bluebloods.”

Slowly rising to his hooves, he still towered over the seated mares. “It is a fact my cousins in Canterlot have forgotten. Soon, I will remind all of them of their rightful place… beneath my hoof.”

- - -

“Pinkie Pie, sugarcube, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Nope!”

“Ah’m just sayin,’ the last time you put on a big production, it kinda caused a war,” Applejack went on, ducking her head as a priestly white habit flew through the air. “Ah’m not sayin’ you’ll cause a riot and destroy Ponyville with this, but please, please don’t cause a riot and destroy Ponyville.”

“Don’t worry, Applejack! I definitely won’t start a war this time!” Pinkie replied from underneath a tangle of costumes and a comically overturned trunk. One of her hooves stuck up out of the mess. “See? I’m giving a thumbs-up! That means there’s nothing to worry about!”

Applejack sighed. “Sugarcube, whatever a’ thumb’ is, we don’t have it.”

“Oh yeaaah!” Pinkie’s head emerged from the pile of clothes to glare at her hoof. “I guess that expression doesn’t really fit, does it? But maybe if I blow on my other hoof, I can turn this one into something with a thumb? OH! Or better yet, a pumpkin! Or a sexy lady!”

“Don’t you think you should, I don’t know, take this sorta seriously!?” Applejack ducked her head, bit down on a pink curl, and pulled Pinkie Pie free with a jerk of her neck. The pink pony nimbly tumbled out of the pile of costumes and jumped onto all fours.

“I mean, do ya even know yer lines?” Applejack asked, shaking her head in dismay. “If I were you--”

“Oh, rimorso!” Pinkie Pie swooned, draping part of a colorful blue costume around her shoulders. She turned, extending a hoof to an imaginary audience. “Ah, padre!” Raising her voice, she trotted towards Applejack. “Tu ben sai s'io l'ami… Patria, famiglia, padre per lui non abbandono?”

She cried, lamentably, reaching up to slick back her mane until it was long and limp, though no less rosy. “Oh! Ti lascio, ahimé, con lacrime, dolce mia terra! Oh! Ahimé, non avrà termine per mi sì gran dolore! Oh!”

Applejack blinked, uncomprehending. “Uh, translation?”

“Oh, remorse!” Pinkie translated, though with notably less emotion. “Oh, father! Thou knowest I adore him! Country, family, father, do I not abandon for him? Oh! I'll leave you, alas, with tears, my sweet land! Oh! Such cruel grief will never end! Oh!” She winked slyly. “I added the ‘ohs’ to the screenplay. Call it the Pinkie Pie treatment.”

Before Applejack could say anymore, Pinkie reached up to run a hoof through her limp mane again.

“Applejack,” she said, kicking the ground with a back leg and impossibly hurling costumes – complete with hangers – back into place. “I really am taking this seriously.” A courtly gown flew onto the rack. “As seriously as I can take something.” It was followed by a tattered white dress and cloak. “That’s how serious I’m taking it.”

She popped up in front of Applejack, fixing her hooves onto her friends’ shoulders. “I’ve been working on this for weeks, and being this serious about one thing is actually driving me a little loco in the caboco!” Her eyes did a little swirl and she leaned in disturbingly close to Applejack’s face. “Loco. In. The. Caboco.”

“But!” she declared, zipping back to kicking costumes off the floor and onto their stands and racks, “this is super-duper important to Rarity and to Twilight and to the town and… even to me.”

Finished with the costumes, Pinkie sat down and stared at herself in a dressing mirror. “My special talent isn’t just parties, though you know I love parties. I totally love parties. My cutie mark tells me to make ponies smile, and Monee’s papa sounds even sterner and more frowny-faced than mine! Making him smile is a challenge for me, a super huge challenge, and if it helps my friends in the process, then I have to approach it seriously and put all my effort into it. One hundred and seventeen point three percent!”

Applejack watched, more than a little concerned, as Pinkie ran her hooves through her limp mane. She had a disturbingly serious expression on her face as she stared at her reflection. Maybe, she allowed herself to hope, this wouldn’t be like Appleoosa. Pinkie had weeks to prepare for this and a whole troupe of professional actors under Rarity’s patronage and employment. Pinkie Pie did love to put on a show, though that usually didn’t literally mean she put on a show.

Especially when that show was a gosh darned unicorn opera.

“If yer sure,” Applejack said, sitting next to her friend and trying to be supportive. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to ask how the heck Pinkie knew how to speak Bitalian.

“I’d have preferred a comedic opera,” Pinkie freely admitted. “But Monee says Forza is one of her papa’s favorites, so…” She shrugged, helplessly. “He has to like it for our plan to work. He has to like me.”

Applejack’s ears twitched. “What plan?”

“Some sort of plan!” Pinkie answered, evasively, as she ran a brush through her mane. “I was mostly involved in naming it. I call it Operation Smiling Snake!” She tilted her head back to look at her friend, upside down. “As for the details and boring stuff like that…? I sorta left that to Rarity and Twilight! They’d be the ponies to ask about it.”

“I thought you were just puttin’ on a show?” Applejack tilted her Stetson back and scratched her forehead.

“Oh, I am!” Pinkie went back to the mirror but not before Applejack noticed her reaching for a cup of what looked like some sort of drink. Sniffing, she could just pick up the smell. It was… iced coffee?

Pinkie Pie was drinking pure caffeine?

Oh, lordy.

What kinda crazy plan was this?

- - -

Now, Applejack knew she wasn’t the most cultured of ponies when it came to broader Equestrian culture. It was just the less-than-pretty truth. There was no point denying it.

Most of what she did know came from the time she had spent with her Aunt and Uncle Orange in Manehattan. They’d taken her to a few plays and operas in the city, and she supposed she was grateful for the experience, though she’d found it terribly boring as a little filly. That had really been it, though. When she’d returned to Sweet Apple Acres, she’d left that sort of stuff behind her. In short, it was no surprise that she was not all that familiar with most of what was going on in front of her.

La Forza del Destino (“The Force of Destiny”) was a Bitalian opera by somepony named Verdi (or ‘Green Olive’ according to the playbill). Also according to said Playbill, it was set in Bitaly just after the old War of Equine Succession that brought Bitaly back into Equestria proper, hundreds of years ago.

The lead ponies were Pinkie Pie, playing the mare, ‘Soothing Light,’ and a Ponyville actor Applejack didn’t know too well, Pure Note, playing the stallion, ‘Bright Guard.’ Bright Guard was from a lesser sort of family, so of course, he and Soothing Light were keeping their relationship a secret. Soothing Light’s father, the Marquis de Caltropava, wanted his daughter to marry somepony of high station. It was the classic sort of ‘love versus family honor’ setup that crazy unicorns loved so darn much.

In the play, things very quickly turn tragic as Bright Guard accidentally kills the Marquis de Caltropava. Granted, the Marquis was killed after he discovered the two lovers and threatened to kill them both to preserve his daughter’s reputation. Because by the standards of crazy old-timey unicorns, family honor and reputation were more important the actual lives of your family. So the old pony bites the dust and Soothing Light’s brother, Waning Light, swears revenge on his father’s assassin. Soothing Light flees to a cave near a convent (convents were apparently much more numerous back in the day) and Bright Guard signs up to fight the endless waves of monsters plaguing the countryside, which was apparently a thing back then. There, Bright Guard saves the life of Waning Light, the very same brother who swore revenge, except neither recognizes the other one. A duel is averted and the two return home…

Where they promptly agitate one another and get into a duel anyway!

Why? Probably because they were unicorns, and go back a couple centuries and unicorn nobles were all revenge-crazy idiots with horns both on-head and up-the-rear. The opera was up to the part where the actors playing Bright Guard and Waning Light were about to duel and Applejack – no spoilers needed – could tell the whole story was about to end in further tragedy.

“Da un lustro ne vo' in traccia,

Ti trovo finalmente;

Col sangue sol cancellasi

L'infamia ed il delitto.

Ch'io ti punisca è scritto

Sul libro del destin.

Tu prode fosti, or monaco,

Un 'arma qui non hai …

Deggio il tuo sangue spargere.

Scegli, due ne portai!”

(For five years I have been on thy track,

At length I find thee!

With blood alone can thy infamy

And misdeeds be blotted out!

That I punish thee is written

In the record of destiny.

Thou wert then valiant, now a monk;

Thou hast no weapon here;

As I thy blood must shed,

Two (swords) I have brought: choose one!)

“Vissi nel mondo, intendo;

Or queste vesti, l'eremo,

Dicon che i falli ammendo,

Che penitente è il cor.

Lasciatemi.”

(In the world I have lived, so I understand;

now this robe, this retreat,

Proclaim my errors reformed,

and that my heart is penitent.

Leave me.)

“Difendere

Quel sajo, né il deserto.

Codardo, te nol possono.”

(Coward,

Neither the cassock, nor the desert,

Can protect thee!)

Up on the stage, in front of hundreds of well-dressed officers and more than a thousand guardponies, circling the small stage and sitting on grass and hill, Bright Guard and Waning Light confronted one another, the later demanding that the former pick up a weapon and fight.

Lord Cruciger, Lady Star Light, Rarity, and Antimony were seated in a place of honor, just off to the left side of the stage on a small platform to keep them off the ground. Applejack also saw Rainbow Dash sitting on the edge of a cloud with a group of pegasi, munching on popcorn and dropping hoof-fulls of crumbs on the poor unicorns and earth ponies below them. Big Macintosh was nowhere to be seen, but knowing him, he was probably off cavorting with his new army friends somewhere. Applejack dearly hoped he wouldn’t end the night by getting abducted by some of the raunchy guardmares she’d heard stories about.

The apple farmer shifted, a little uneasily, in her own ‘mare of honor’ box. She and Germoglio shared it with two of Cruciger’s generals. One was Général de Brigade Antonovka, and the other was Général de Brigade Cross Bow. She had met Antonovka, but Cross Bow was new. They had only exchanged a cursory greeting before the play began, but he had smiled and insisted the mares be seated first, and that, together with his rather frail appearance gave her the impression he was another noblepony, albeit a courteous and friendly one. He had a notably pink and well-maintained mane, though, which was something she had never seen in a stallion before. It gave him a very dandified look.

“Per la gola voi mentite!

A me un brando!”

(You lie through your teeth!

Give me a sword!)

Up on stage, Bright Guard snatched a sword from the willing and eager Waning Light.

“Un brando, uscite!”

(A weapon – lead on!)

Waning Light turned momentarily, as if to draw the audience in on his excitement at the prospect of revenge.

“Finalmente!”

(At last!)

But Bright Guard balked at the violence to come, throwing down his sword.

“No, L'discordia non trionfi.

Va, riparti!”

(No, Discord shall not triumph.

Go, please leave me!)

Waning Light quickly turned and struck the tortured Bright Guard across the face.

“Ti fai dunque di me scherno?

S'ora meco misurarti,

O vigliacco, non hai core,

Ti consacro al disonore!”

(What, doest thou make a jest of me?

If thou hast not the courage, coward,

to measure weapons with me,

I condemn thee to dishonor!)

This final insult seemed to finally push Bright Guard over the edge, using his magic to pick up his sword once more.

“Ah, segnasti la tua sorte!”

(Thou sealeth thy death warrant!)

He pointed the blade at the other unicorn.

“Morte! A entrambi morte!”

(Ah! Death! Come forth to death!)

The two stallions cried at once:

“Morte! A entrambi morte!”

(Ah! Death! Come forth to death!)

Together, they lunged, as the curtain briefly fell.

“Vieni a morte!

A morte andiam!”

(Come! To Death!

And Hell shall receive thee!)

The scene quickly changed, thanks to the wizardry of the opera crew, to a valley traversed by a stream. It was mostly a painted background, folded or unfolded while the curtain as briefly down, but ponies had also brought out a curious cave-front with a door built into it. It even had a little bell and a mailbox with three black balloons. This was the cave that Soothing Light had exiled herself to while her brother and lover were out dueling and fighting monsters to try and redeem themselves. Prop-ponies lowered the sun and brought up a full moon.

Pinkie Pie appeared in this scene as Soothing Light, wearing a fake horn. Her clothes were worn and rough, the once white cloth stained. As it had been for all but the start of the play when she shared scenes with Bright Guard, her hair was limp and long, and her countenance grief-stricken. It was a look Applejack had frankly never thought her friend could pull off.

As long as Applejack had known the party pony, Pinkie Pie had never been able to hold any expression but a smile for more than a minute, yet, here, she had somehow managed to keep from bouncing or throwing confetti for more than two hours. Applejack privately felt a little bad for thinking of her friend as so one-dimensional… but, it was really surreal to see her break that well-worn mold everypony was used to.

“Oh! Pace, pace, mio Celestia!

Cruda sventura

M'astringe, ahimé, a languir;

Come il dì primo

Da tant'anni dura

Profondo il mio soffrir.

L'amai, gli è ver!

Ma di beltà e valore

Cotanto Iddio l'ornò.

Che l'amo ancor.

Né togliermi dal core

L'immagin sua saprò.

Fatalità! Fatalità! Fatalità!

Un delitto disgiunti n'ha quaggiù!

Guardo, io t'amo.

E su nel cielo è scritto:

Non ti vedrò mai più!

Oh Dio, Dio, fa ch'io muoia;

Che la calma può darmi morte sol.

Invan la pace qui sperò quest'alma

In preda a tanto duol.”

(Oh! Peace, grant me peace, Celestia!

By dire misfortune I am condemned to languish;

As on the first day, during so many years,

Profound has been my grief.

I loved him! With beauty and courage

Heaven had so adorned him.

I love him still, nor can I from my heart

His image tear away.

Fatality! fatality! Fatality!

A crime has parted us forever here below!

Guardo, I love thee, and in Heaven 'tis decreed

That I shall never see thee more!

Oh Heaven, suffer me to die, for peace

To my soul death alone can give.

Here in vain I hope for peace,

A prey to lingering woe.)

As she sang, Pinkie dragged herself over to a stone where a small bag of provisions had been left by the mother from the nearby convent. Soothing Light’s role was sort of overwrought with tragedy, in Applejack’s opinion (if this had been an earth pony story, she probably would’ve just hit both her idiot brother and her moron lover over the head with a rock and put them to work in the fields – or so Applejack sort of liked to imagine), but Pinkie Pie was playing to the role surprisingly well.

Unlike that performance in Appleoosa, when she did burst into song as the opera required, she did it without plunging into the audience or bouncing around stage or other likely inopportune improvisation. As far as Applejack could see, there was just the occasional ‘oh’ instead of ‘ah’ and a bit of exuberance towards her own grief. Everypony watching seemed to be regarding her performance with genuine interest.

By Celestia’s Golden Apples, she was actually pulling this off.

“Misero pane, a prolungarmi vieni

La sconsolata vita … Ma chi giunge?

Chi profanare ardisce il sacro loco?

Maledizione! Maledizione! Maledizione!”

(Miserable food, thou comest to prolong

A wretched life… but who comes?

Who dares profane this sacred spot?

Malediction! Malediction! Malediction!)

Bright Guard and Waning Light, just off scene, were still dueling with sword and spell. A large ball of what looked like ice streaked across the stage on invisible curtains while fireworks exploded in the air. Applejack would’ve thought it silly, had she not been present for Rarity’s own duel with Antimony – a mare she was now, somewhat ironically, seated next to while watching this actors’ duel. As it was, Applejack could sort of imagine the two enraged stallions fighting after those long five years, swords clashing and magic flying through the air.

Until, at last…

“Io muoio! Celestia!

L'alma salvate.”

(I am slain! Celestia!

Save my soul.)

Bright Guard stood over the stabbed and bleeding Waning Light as the same moon shone down on them.

“E questo ancora sangue d'un Illuminare.”

(Again is the blood of Light shed.)

Bright Guard threw his hooves up to the sky and lamented his cursed fate as he went galloping for a priest to give his slain opponent absolution and burial. Thinking that the cave contained a hermit or somepony from the nearby convent, Bright Guard banged his hooves on the door, pleading for aid. When at last Soothing Light opened the door, the two quickly recognized one another.

“Soothing Light!” Bright Guard cried, but made no move towards her.

“Tis he!” Pinkie exclaimed, singing her lines in Bitalian as she reached for him and letting in a little excited ‘oh,’ that was her personal addition to the character. “Oh! Again I see thee!”

“Away, away from me! These hooves of mine--” Bright Guard backed away from her and fell to his knees. “--are stained with blood! Look yonder!”

“What meanest thou?” Pinkie asked, her character confused and distraught.

Bright Guard pointed back the way he had come, where Waning Light was still fallen. “See, there lies a dying stallion.”

“Thou hast killed him?” Pinkie threw her hooves over her mouth in a gasp.

“Vainly, I tried to evade this fray,” Bright Guard admitted with a voice that seemed to fill the night air. “Within the cloister’s shelter passed my life. He sought me out there – insulted me – I slew him!”

“And he was?”

“Thy brother!”

“OH!” Pinkie cried, and ran at full gallop to the fallen Waning Light. Finding the body, she shrieked with despair and fell forward. Applejack actually flinched at the cry. Pinkie’s voice was usually so high and giddy; hearing a scream – not a scream of fright or joy, but a scream of anguish – from her mouth and in her voice was a little unnerving.

And then, stumbling back to a similarly despairing Bright Guard, Pinkie revealed a blood-red stain on her white habit.

“Nell'ora estrema perdonar non seppe.

E l'onta vendicò nel sangue mio.”

(In his last hour, he pardoned not,

And with my blood revenged his shame.)

As Soothing Light and Bright Guard shared their last moments, holding one another and singing over Waning Light’s still body, the light of the moon slowly faded. Applejack actually felt herself draw closer to hear the final words of the story, and the climax of her friend’s unexpectedly successful performance.

“Thou condemnest me to live

While thus forsaking me!”

Bright Guard held Pinkie as she slumped, weakly, over her brother’s body.

“I, the guilty one,

Alone unpunished go!”

“Oh,” Pinkie Pie’s final, parting, trademark gasp was, for the first time, without energy or life. “Heaven, I thee await – far away – I but before thee go, Guardo.”

“Dead!” Bright Guard cried to the audience and also fell over his fallen love as the orchestra and chorus brought their heart-wrenching aria to a close. “Passed away to heaven!”

The curtain slowly fell over the small stage by the lake’s shore and a thousand ponies and more stomped their hooves in applause. There was a brief pause before the curtain rose again, and the three main actors all stood and bowed. From the outer circle of ponies, the common guards and soldiers in Cruciger’s personal army, cheers and whistles sounded together with the synchronized stomping of hooves, enough to be almost deafening. The inner circle of ponies, the officers, were much more restrained in their approval, and when Pinkie took a bow of her own, a particularly lusty cheer came up from the ponies on land and in the air.

Applejack only let her stunned surprise delay her for a moment before she joined in. Close by, Germoglio was also clopping his hooves in approval. Cross Bow was doing much the same, and Antonovka, the other mare present, was on her haunches and clapping her hooves together more sedately. The stage soon filled with the rest of the cast and crew, and then a light shone on the orchestra that had provided the ambience and music for the opera.

“Well, I’ll be! That was pretty amazin’ wasn’t it?” Applejack felt the need to ask, though she’d have preferred to see what Rarity and Dash thought. It would be interesting to pick the brains of some of her fancypants company.

“I was unaware the lead mare had such talents,” Germoglio replied first. “My ponies tell me she has already offered – or demanded – to host parties for them, for their birthdays, though I know not how she accessed our company records. Most towns have a pony dedicated to recreation and keeping spirits high. We even have a few in our army here, but I clearly underestimated her. Yes, I am impressed.”

“A very respectable performance,” Antonovka said, lowering her front hooves to the ground again. “I have not seen this play since I last visited home, years ago.”

“This was my first time seeing it,” Cross Bow was the last one to reply. “I rather enjoyed it.”

Applejack was about to say more when Antonovka snorted.

“Your first time seeing it?” she asked, and shook her head. “Are you losing your memory already? Have you forgotten Saint Poniesburg?”

“Oh, yes, I had forgotten!” Cross Bow grinned, bashfully. “My mistake. Good of you to catch it for me, Antonovka! You always are a stickler for details. Nothing gets by you.”

The stern mare grunted, setting her eyes back on the stage. Applejack didn’t miss, however, how the other earth pony’s eyes also darted over to Cruciger’s booth. Was there some subtext here she was missing?

She set her eyes on Pinkie Pie, again, up on the stage.

And what was this ‘plan?’ Was it just this play? And why, when one thought about it, was Pinkie Pie playing a major character in an opera, here, of all places?

“Miss Applejack,” Antonovka’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and she noticed the stoic mare pointing off to the side. “Is that your brother? The large, red, farmpony? He seems to have quite a crowd around him.”

Applejack spun to her right and caught sight of Big Macintosh with three mares in uniform pulling him along. No wonder her sibling senses were tingling!

“Ah, excuse me!” Applejack all but jumped to her hooves. “Big Macintosh! Get back here! Ah’m not lettin’ you outta my sight! You hear me?!”

Brigadier General Antonovka watched her go, saying nothing.

- - -

“He smiled,” Antimony said, breathlessly. “He actually smiled… a little.”

“I do think he likes you, darling,” Rarity said and gently nudged Pinkie Pie with her hoof. The pink pony had retired to her carriage after the play, and, despite her natural exuberance, it was clear that the performance had taken a toll on her. Antimony and Rarity had been the first two ponies to make it past the Free Company guards posed outside to see her in the flesh.

“Really?” Pinkie asked, her bright eyes twinkling despite her fatigue.

“Him and about a thousand other stallions out there,” Rarity replied with a wink. “An amazing job, really! I am sorry I ever doubted you!”

Pinkie smiled back and slowly lifted herself off the soft couch seats of the carriage. “I’m just happy I could help, Rarity. So what’s the rest of what I have to do?”

“You’ve forgotten already?” Antimony asked and sighed softly. “Honestly, Pinkie. You named this crazy plan of ours but you can’t remember what it is?”

“Excuse me for only being able to memorize the lines of an entire play in a week,” Pinkie grumbled, her tone coming to the surprise of both unicorn noblemares. Pinkie ran a hoof through her limp mane. “Sorry, I--”

“You’re tired,” Antimony said, understanding. “Any normal pony would be.”

“Indeed,” Rarity agreed, sitting down close to her earth pony friend. “It was what we counted on. Pinkie Pie, the plan was for you to catch Lord Cruciger’s eye with this play. It was his favorite, and you were one of his favorite characters. That was why we picked it, remember?”

Pinkie nodded slowly as that conversation slowly came back to her. She had been playing with Gummy at the time! Oh, and there had been an apricot cupcake in the oven, and three yellow birds were flying outside the window and Antimony had stepped on one of Gummy’s chew toys and jumped at the ‘squeak’ it made. It was all clear as day! Everything except all the talking. But the important stuff! Darn you important stuff!

“Entertaining a visiting dignitary like my father is only common courtesy,” Antimony explained. “You being a part of the play was the only way we could get him to spend time around you during dinner.”

“Oh no! I’m not supposed to seduce him, am I?” Pinkie asked, rather too innocently.

Antimony choked in disgust, and Rarity blushed a rather bright shade of red.

“N-no, darling, just listen,” Rarity pleaded. “You have a very special talent we need to make use of.”

“Making ponies smile?” Pinkie asked. “But I just did that. OH! Is it my super amazing skill as a cookie-sculptor and cookie-eater? Actually, I’m sort of super when it comes to eating anything, not just cookies!”

“Not as such,” Antimony muttered.

“Actually, no, that’s close to it,” Rarity replied. “Pinkie, I have never – in my life – seen you pass out at a party. You are always the first pony in and the last one out. I don’t know anypony who can drink more than you, eat more than you, or who has more energy. It is that energy we wish to harness.”

“Woah! Woah! Woah! “ Pinkie jumped up and made warding gestures with her hooves. “Rarity, you gotta be kidding! You can’t just plug me up into a super powered beam weapon and use my hyperactivity to destroy your enemies!”

“… What?” Rarity finally found her voice. “No! That isn’t the plan!”

“Actually, I sort of like that plan,” Antimony admitted with a smug grin.

Rarity frowned at the other Baroness and then focused on Pinkie Pie. “We just need you to go to the party, sit with Lord Cruciger, and eat and drink and talk him into exhaustion. We need him to be dead tired come morning.”

Pinkie blinked, slowly processing what she’d been told. “O-ooo-ooh! Is that all?”

“That’s all,” Rarity confirmed.

“Okey dokey.” She sounded almost disappointed. “Are you sure you don’t want to plug me into a huge magical device?”

“Quite sure,” Rarity replied, but Antimony remained conspicuously silent. “We’re both sure,” Rarity said again.

“Yes, well,” Antimony said, rather pointedly readjusting the direction of the conversation. “You have clearly forgotten my warnings.”

“Warnings?” Pinkie asked, tilting her head cutely to the side. “What’do’ya mean, Monee?”

“My father,” the Terre Rare successor explained, “is no ordinary stallion. His stamina, both magical and physical, is immense. Even after being wounded, losing his eye and the use of one of his lungs, he has never once hesitated to duel or otherwise exert himself. Nor has he lost a duel, despite his crippled state. He marches alongside his subordinates, for miles across country, without any hint of weariness. I could never accomplish what we are asking you to do, Pinkie Pie. You should not approach it lightly. This will be the most difficult party of your entire life.”

“We need Lord Cruciger to literally be up all night,” Rarity said, reaching out to put a gently hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder. “He must not be fit to duel tomorrow.”

“Monee. Rarity.” Pinkie held up her hooves to silence the them. “You had me at ‘most difficult party of your entire life.’” She grinned, eyes narrowing in challenge. “At the risk of infringing on copyright: It. Is. On.”

- - -

Applejack was all but waiting outside when Rarity re-emerged.

“Applejack!’ Rarity greeted her all-too-honest friend with a smile and a wave. “Wonderful to see you again! Are you looking for help getting ready for dinner tonight?”

The warm welcome seemed to roll right off the earth pony’s back. Applejack was frowning beneath the rim of her Stetson, and, even without having to say it, Rarity knew exactly what she was thinking. She knew something was up. ‘What ya got hiding under yer hat this time, huh?’ was the sort of question that came to mind.

“Rarity,” Applejack said after a long pause, trying to school her expression and voice. Still, it wasn’t hard to detect the mix of disappointment and trace anger in her tone. “Ah thought you said you weren’t gonna be keepin’ me in the dark anymore? What happened to that, huh?”

Rarity sighed but didn’t deny it.

She did, however, pull her friend aside.

Whispering the truth in her ear behind the carriage, filling her friend in on her plot for the night, Rarity told the truth… or at least, as much of it as she felt she could without compromising her co-conspirators. The rather obvious emergence of Antimony from the carriage a minute into the conversation pretty much exposed at least one of them, and given how Applejack was much less oblivious than she sometimes appeared meant that she probably had a good guess as to what went unsaid.

When it was all finally said and done, Applejack simply stared at Rarity, her mouth curved down in a faint scowl. It was clear, right then and there, that she wasn’t exactly happy about what she had heard. But she thought long and hard about what to say before she responded, dipping her hat down with a hoof to partly hide her face while she processed everything she had been told.

“You really trust these ponies yer workin’ with?” she asked, still hiding her face.

“I have to, since they don’t trust each other.” Rarity shook her head in dismay. “I trust them to do what they have to do to keep Equestria safe.”

Applejack frowned, not entirely convinced.

“And I believe--” Rarity continued, pausing only a moment to catch her racing thoughts. “--I have to believe… that the ponies I’ve looked up to all my life aren’t all bad. That they can be everything I’ve imagined them to be. Maybe they will never be selfless or chivalrous, but they can be as noble as they claim to be. Maybe I can help bring out the best in them. The alternative… that everything I thought was wrong, that there is nothing I could even do about it…”

“Ya just can’t sit back and accept that,” Applejack finished, when her friend trailed off, unable to say more.

Rarity nodded. “Yes. I… I really – maybe I am just being naïve, but…”

“Rarity,” Applejack interrupted her, not just with her words but by brushing a hoof against the unicorn’s shoulder. In the same motion, she angled back the rim of her Stetson so they could meet eye to eye, face to face. “Rarity, I know yer a good pony. You’re my friend… and I do think Ah understand where yer coming from with this… but…”

“But?” Rarity asked, a little afraid of just where this was heading.

“But ah’m worried about you, Ah really am,” Applejack admitted, no longer frowning, but clearly struggling with her ability to express the conflicting thoughts and emotions in her head. “You know I’m behind ya. That I’ve got yer back. Ah always will. And I don’t wanna be a broken record, either, repeatin’ myself and sayin’ the sort of stuff Ah said before. But Ah can’t rightly say I like all these plots and schemes yer talkin’ about, and I like even less that yer in this mess and doin’ all this ‘cause’a that darn noble title ya got.”

Rarity averted her eyes.

“This is a right slippery slope yer hoofin’ around, sugarcube, and if you fall--” Applejack pressed a hoof to her friend’s chest “--Ah’m worried you’ll fall hard. And all these ponies you’ve surrounded yerself with? They’ve got dark sides to ‘em. What makes you think they’ll reach down to help you up, instead’a stomp you down?”

“Friendship,” Rarity murmured and then repeated herself a little more loudly. “Friendship, Applejack. I want them to be my friends, and that means trusting them and risking being hurt by them. Some noblepony in this country, in this entire country… needs to be the first to put her life in the hooves of others. Some noblepony needs to take that chance and that leap of faith!”

At some point in her explanation, moisture had formed at the corners of her eyes, and Rarity sniffed, quietly muttering an ‘excuse me’ as she magically produced a handkerchief to dab away the tears. Applejack didn’t miss the initials BB&RB monogrammed on the silk. It took a few seconds for the fussy fashionista, thrown alone to the timberwolves, to compose herself enough to meet her own standards of presentably.

“I have to be that pony, Applejack.” Rarity told her, the handkerchief vanishing, leaving behind only determination and resolve. “Even if it ruins me, I have to at least try. I have to. But I am sorry for keeping this – so much of this – from you until now.”

Applejack sighed, but nodded, holding up her hoof to chest level. “You gotta be you, sugarcube.”

Rarity grimaced, but gently bumped her hoof with Applejack’s. “And you as well, heaven help us both.”

Author's Note:

Australian Author Note!
(because this one is down under, you see)

To illustrate and commemorate some epic action on the horizon, and the power of a certain lavender unicorn finally put on display like so many wanted, I'm on the prowl for a new piece of TPC art. I'm thinking Cruciger and Twinkling Star Light, plus Twilight Sparkle. I'm sort of tempted to try and make a new pic myself, but it always takes so much time, and that's free time spent away from working on the story, so...
Anyway, if anyone wants to help out with this, I'd be including it (with the other TPC related pics) in a gallery addendum to the title page. Or maybe I'll try embedding the pic into a chapter, like so many other authors do. My chapters are kind of plain, aren't they? No pictures or fancy scene separators or anything. Hmm.

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