//------------------------------//
// No Matter What Arises, Just Try to Have a Good Day 
// Story: Wedding March 
// by Carabas 
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Sir Stratus of Her Solar Majesty’s Dayguard was not having a good day.

Being a member of either branch of the royal guard typically involved interminable aeons of training and planning for every possible scenario, and then sedately watching events pan out with nary a hitch save whatever everyday pony error could throw up. The key word there was ‘typically’. From time to time, you were dealt the odd wildcard. Like Nightmare Moon’s return. Or the Discord Incident. 

Or whatever on earth today was.

That morning, he’d even heard a couple of older Dayguard muttering about how they were overdue for their next unforeseen calamity, and Stratus resolved that if they all made it to the next morning in one piece, he’d find that same couple and lamp them one for jinxing everything. In the meantime, he’d just try to get to Luna’s tower and endeavour to not die en route.

The skies of Canterlot blazed as Stratus frantically wove his way through them. Clusters of Dayguard and Nightguard pegasi wheeled amidst swarms of changelings coming from all sides, given desperate support from whatever earth ponies and unicorns weren’t yet mobbed or unconscious on the ground. Crossbow bolts, arrows, spellfire, and stunning jolts crisscrossed the sky, and lightning bolt after lightning bolt cracked out from batteries of emergency stormclouds. 

The Royal Guard, Dayguard and Nightguard alike fought well. But ‘well’ could only take them so far when they were outnumbered and caught off-guard and facing seemingly-hundreds of opponents from all angles who could fly and spellweave, which was frankly cheating if you weren’t a Princess. For every changeling one of his comrades introduced to the business end of steel-shod hooves or spurs or spellfire, several more changelings would dogpile them from every other direction, and send them unconscious or stunned to the ground in seconds. Aerial melees quickly devolved into frantic messes at the best of times, and this one was no exception.

It also really hadn’t helped when a squadron of what looked like Dayguard reinforcements, flying up from the southern wall, had sprouted chitin at the worst possible moment. Some of the nervier members of the Royal Guard had started pre-emptively kicking each other.

Ahead and high above him, there rose the Nocturne Tower. In its spire, Stratus knew, he’d find Princess Luna’s sleeping quarters. And somewhat less conveniently, he’d find a heavy cordon of hovering changelings surrounding it, their numbers hard to make out from this distance but assuredly far too high for comfort.

He flew on regardless.

As he wove around the worst parts of the sky-wide melee, a mid-air scrum of Nightguard and changelings swung past him, a chaotic blur of snarls and swung hooves and shed feathers. Stratus lashed out with a steel-clad hoof to knock one changeling senseless, sending them tumbling down towards the ground, and the Nightguard they’d been about to stun turned on Stratus.

“Much obliged!” the Nightguard panted. Stratus recognised her—Dame Wind Vane, customarily a cheerful pain in the neck to the Dayguard and accomplished underminer of Stratus’s dignity on many occasions. Events had conspired to put the longstanding (really less than a year old, but it ought to have been longstanding) rivalry between the two guard divisions on hold for today, though. “Where’re you flying to, pal? We need a helping hoof here!”

“We need Princess Luna more! She can turn the tide!” Stratus pointed up towards the Nocturne Tower, and the unhealthy number of changelings that surrounded it. “I’ll need cover to get to her!”

Wind Vane looked up at the tower for a moment, and then sighed, flexing her legs and adjusting her barding. “Small hope there. But I suppose karma had to bite me in the rump for the coatdye incident sooner or later.” She secured her helmet. “Ready when you are.”

Stratus nodded grimly, and took off in the direction of the Nocturne Tower once again. He was aware of Wind Vane rocketing up into the sky at his back, and paced his flight speed accordingly—there’d be no good outcome here if he outflew his cover. He broke out into a mercifully clear expanse between his position and the tower, and angled upwards. His broad wings flapped, his barding creaked, and the increasingly-untamed wind lashed his face all the while.

The cordon of changelings surrounding the tower had noticed his ascent, and had clustered to receive him. Their horns glowed with magic, and Stratus was ready for the first volley of stunning spells they unleashed at him. He corkscrewed in the air to avoid them, passing close enough to some of the hissing balls of acid-green light that he felt them brush across his barding. Exhilaration beat a thunderous tattoo in his heart and head, and he flew on with the fury of a stallion possessed.

Another round of stunning spells flew at him thick and fast, and this time Stratus was forced to pitch wildly down to avoid them. Barks of laughter came from the changeling swarm as he plummeted and didn’t cease even when he whirled in the air and hammered his way up again. The swarm was above him now, close enough for him to see the solid greens and blues of their multifaceted eyes, close enough for him to all but taste the sizzling magic of the third round of spells they were ready to spit…

And in that moment, a miracle the size and shape of a roiling thundercloud tore down from above and descended upon them, engulfing some of the swarm entirely and wildly spitting thunderbolts in every direction. Stratus sighted the rear end, legs, and wings of Wind Vane sprouting from its top, wildly kicking and flapping as she drove the cloud onwards. The swarm was scattered and disoriented, and that was all the chance Stratus needed. He hurled himself through a gap in their midst, aiming straight for the balcony jutting out from the spire.

Three of the slightly more on-the-ball changelings flew to meet him, and Stratus let well-honed drill instincts and a certain amount of vicious improvisation rise to greet them. One of them flew down to receive an upthrust forehoof to their throat, and they spun off with a plaintive gurgle. Stratus flitted sideways as another came barrelling down, and scythed around with a well-aimed kick from a backhoof, catching the changeling squarely in an area few beings aspire to be kicked in. It likewise spun away emitting its own plaintive noises, this time in a considerably higher pitch.

That left one, and it barely had time to take stock of the loss of its immediate friends before Stratus lunged into it, smashing it right into the stone wall of the tower with an almighty crash. Most of the air left its body in one dazed cough, and Stratus helped evict whatever dregs were left with a headbutt right to its torso. The changeling drooped, and Stratus left it to do so as he flapped up onto the balcony at long last.

There before him sat the door leading into Luna’s private chambers, a midnight-blue curtain on the inside drawn shut. A snore like a buzzsaw grated out from within. Wind Vane clattered down by him, facing the sky with her forehooves raised and ready to start kicking. “Bang the door and shout really loud,” she hissed. “It’s our only ghost of a chance.”

Stratus felt he didn’t need the urging. “Princess Luna!” he bellowed, hammering the glass of the door’s window. “Canterlot’s under attack! Princess Celestia has fallen! Your ponies need you! PRINCESS LUNA!”

There was a hitch in the snore, and a murmur from past the door, and hardly daring to hope that salvation might be about to spring out, Stratus leaned in to hear it. 

“...mrrgh. Fi’ more minutes, mother.” 

“I ... what? No! Princess Luna! PRINCESS!”

“When I said loud, pal, I meant loud,” said Wind Vane. There was a great and all-surrounding buzzing of changeling wings. “Look lively, we’re about to get hit by all the stunning spells in the world.”

“Is she a heavy sleeper?” Stratus said desperately.

Wind Vane laughed the laugh of the despairing. “There ain’t a suitable simile for it, pal.”

Stratus gathered his breath, and he just about managed to get halfway through his heartiest roar of “PRINCESS LU—” before he got hit by all the stunning spells in the world.

“...d’n wanna meet the tutor t’day ...” mumbled the Princess of the Night as Stratus was hammered bodily into her door by the weight of the spells. He collapsed, all ability to control his limbs gone, and his head flopped around to regard the world. Wind Vane lay next to him, likewise stunned and sprackled, while above and all around, there were changelings. Dozens of changelings. Dozens upon dozens of changelings, some of whom looked angry.

“For future reference,” groaned Wind Vane from between half-frozen teeth, “the trick’s to get Sir Contrabassoon, have a unicorn slap an amplification charm on him, and have him shout into her ear from an inch away. That sometimes does it.”

Several changelings started forward—one of whom, Stratus unhappily noted, was rubbing their throat, another of whom was coughing as they tried to suck in air, and another of whom was walking very oddly indeed—before a senior-looking one stopped them. “All are to be kept alive,” they hissed. “The hive must have as full a larder as possible for the days ahead. Queen’s command.”

There was a general grumbling from the three at the front. Their commander was silent for a moment, before favouring Stratus with an unfriendly smile. “Remember,” they said, “alive.” Then they stood aside.

And as the three changelings began the long and leisurely process of finding out which part of Sir Stratus elicited the funniest noise when kicked, the hapless guardspony heard one last consolatory mumble of, “...wanna sword for Hearthswarming, bwwr.”





Dame Lyuba of Pachydermia was not having a good day.

It had been ill-favoured from the start, by dint of being the day of the whole accursed foreign trip. Lyuba naturally distrusted outlandish parts, due to all the outlandish things they contained, not least of which were outlanders themselves, stunted and strange-brained and followers of all the wrong customs. There were already enough things in Pachydermia that she disapproved of without expanding her horizons to include yet more things.

She’d been unhappy, but that couldn’t be helped. The Shahanshah had to go for his and Pachydermia’s benefit, the Lord Regent insisted. And although she could have passed the duty of safeguarding His Grace abroad onto some other unlucky elephant, that would have been beneath her. She was the best warrior of all the mammoth clans, and the greatest of the knights sworn to the Lord Regent’s service, and her discomfort was a small price to pay to ensure her liege was as safe as could be. 

They’d made the long sequence of assisted teleportations north along the entire Dactylian coast and across the Cheval Sea, and once they’d finally arrived, Lyuba found that everything about Equestria set her teeth on edge. It was too cold, in spite of all its sunshine; it was all gaudy greens and blues rather than the rich, dependable bronze-and-olive hues of home; the ponies were too small, were hard to keep track of, and all looked the same to her eyes; and although Princess Celestia was courteous towards His Grace, that sort of polite behaviour only proved she was hiding something and marked her out as one of the more perfidious sort of ponies.

The long wait until the wedding ceremony and their chance to return home began, and Lyuba’s existing stress was compounded by minding the Shahanshah in that environment. His Grace was pleasant enough company, but he had all the sense of propriety as a puppy on hallucinogens, and his sense of self-preservation wasn’t so much non-existent as actively negative. He’d try to wander off to happily talk to anyone, no matter how far below his station or outlandish or suspicious they seemed to Lyuba’s eyes. If His Grace had been in a room with a dozen faithful noble elephants and one scruffy regicide to choose from, Lyuba grimly imagined, the Shahanshah would be galumphing over to the regicide to blithely enquire where they were from and what they did and what they were planning with that knife before anyone could take a breath.

It had not been an easy couple of hours.

Then, the ceremony itself. Letting His Grace out of her sight had screeched contrary to every instinct in Lyuba’s bones, but a heroic amount of wheedling on the Shahanshah’s part and some grudging acknowledgement of the day’s diplomatic necessities had finally made Lyuba permit it. She’d waited outside, helpless to do anything but hope for the day to end faster.

Then matters abruptly improved. There was a commotion inside the hall and what sounded like hostile magic, and that was all the excuse Lyuba needed to come storming in. There, ahead of her, there’d been some wizened and chitinous outlander finally acting openly malevolently, like they were meant to. She finally had a real duty to act on whilst outlanders all around her dithered in terrified uselessness. She could safeguard His Grace, they could cut the visit short, she could vent on a suitably squashable target, the day was looking up at last …

And then, as she’d charged, her magical shield, the same shield she’d raised to hold off whole armies in the past, had been ripped apart like tissue paper.

And then she’d been thrown through out a window.

And then she’d fallen through a bloody roof.

Proper wakefulness was slow to return, and Lyuba came to amidst a pile of rubble in a corridor freshly exposed to sunlight. From above, another chitinous creature, smaller than the one that had bested(!) Lyuba, came buzzing down on membranous wings. It alighted on the floor before Lyuba, its eyes aglow with evil intent, its horn simmering with magic. 

Lyuba lay processing the day’s events, clotted up as they were in ever-growing clouds of red-black rage, as the creature buzzed closer.

She’d had enough.

Faster than the creature could so much as blink, she snatched out with her trunk, seized them tight, and spent the next few minutes reducing them to a greasy laminate over every available flat surface before she finally calmed down enough to try and recover her bearings.

She was in the middle of a corridor, with windows on her left side opening onto a view of an enclosed garden. Lyuba had studied maps of Canterlot’s palace complex before coming here, and she had any grown elephant’s perfect memory. She knew where everything was. The problem was that, for the moment, ‘everything’ didn’t include herself. Gauging the distance she’d been thrown by that spell was tricky. There had been many enclosed gardens on the maps.

The way ahead of her curved to the left, and from that way, Lyuba could hear the low murmur of voices. They’d be able to inform her, whether voluntarily or with the application of several wallops from her trunk. She rose to her feet and immediately lumbered off that way, fastidiously wiping her trunk on a curtain as she went. It and several other wall furnishings weren’t quite wide enough to share the corridor space with Lyuba, and it and said wall furnishings ended up decorating the floor in her wake.

The voices continued for a while as Lyuba marched on, though they soon hushed. Suspecting an ambush, Lyuba curled her trunk in to have it ready to swing out with bone-powdering force. She came to a heavy wooden door, and casually smote it in. She stooped and shrugged through its splintered remnants, and found her entry into the room beyond rewarded with a pair of terrified yelps. The source of the voices had been found.

There was three of them, as motley a group of outlanders as Lyuba could have wished to never meet, in a little meeting room strewn with rubble. One of them was an ibex doe clad in a white-and-gold servant’s uniform, her eyes wide and terrified even as she brandished a broom as if it were a lance. The similarly-uniformed one next to her looked as if the Creator couldn’t decide whether it had been making a pony stallion or a donkey jack and had eventually decided to give him the ugliest traits of both. He hefted a compact crossbow in one hoof and forelimb. It trembled in his grasp as he pointed it at Lyuba. 

Between them both, dwarfing their frames, there tottered a barding-clad aurochs cow. A longbow hung at her side, which she seemed presently too out-of-sorts to whip out and use. She stood below a ragged opening in the ceiling and amidst most of the rubble, and Lyuba briefly wondered whether the cow had had a similarly fruitful meeting with the chitinous one.

“Where is this in the palace?” thundered Lyuba, before any of them could do anything unhelpful, like scream or try to attack her or ask questions of their own.

“What?” stammered the ibex.

“Palace!” shouted Lyuba. “Location therein! Answer me!”

“I … we’re just westaways of the Crystal Hall—”

“I require specifics!”

“Could everyone please not shout?” said the aurochs cow then, her soft tone somewhat bleary. “That roof’s left me a little disorientated, and I’m still seeing two of everything. Who are you, madams … madam, beg pardon. Where are you trying to go?”

Lyuba narrowed her eyes as she regarded the cow. There had been a guest list... “You are the queen of the bovines. Goldtorc.”

“The Royal Consort,” replied Goldtorc, standing a little steadier. “These two, I gather, are Alloy and Tundra, and were kind enough to assist me when I fell in through this room’s roof. You must be with the Pachydermian Shahanshah? Do you know where Green … the Bullwalda is?”

“Perhaps he is with the Shahanshah,” said Lyuba curtly. “His Grace is my priority. I need to return to the Crystal Hall and secure him.”

“That… changeling, whatever her name was… she’ll still be there, will she not?”

“Irrelevant. I have a duty.” Lyuba turned back upon the ibex and mule. “You will tell me the quickest way to the Crystal Hall.”

“I...” Alloy swallowed. “This doesn’t connect directly up, you’ll have to go outside for a bit. There’s… ach, there’s folk there I should protect as well, I’ll lead you there...”

“No!” blurted out Tundra. “You don’t have to, you shouldn’t put yourself in danger. I… we all got training back in Bellbylon, I can look after myself. You stay safe, and I’ll lead… er, whatever your name is, good mammoth… to the Crystal Hall.”

“What? No!” Alloy looked wildly at Tundra. “I’ve been trained as well, and I know the place better. You stay here!”

“Really? When did you get the chance to train?”

“I… some time ago. Does it matter? I don’t want to see you go into harm’s way!”

“You think I want to see the same happen to you?” Tundra’s voice rose.

“Nobody is going into harm’s way except for the only being in this room equipped to deal with it!” blazed Lyuba. There was some personal unspoken drama going on here, and even if she’d generally been in the mood for it, this wasn’t even slightly the time. “Point me to the outside, and that’ll be enough for me to find my way!”

“I am certainly going with you,” said Goldtorc, shaking more dazedness out of her gaze and regarding Lyuba with something approximating full wakefulness. “I have to find the Bullwalda. Bovaland cannot lose its king. I cannot lose Greenhorn.”

“Then Bovaland can find its king in its own time, not mine,” snapped Lyuba. “I can ill-afford to have a pack of outlanders stumbling after me and getting in the way!”

“I will get in no-one’s way, save those I intend to,” said Goldtorc frostily. “I can likewise look after myself. Perhaps a shade better than you can.”

And just like that, there came the red-black stormclouds again. Lyuba breathed in sharply. “Repeat that,” she hissed, feeling the urge to laminate something once more. She didn’t doubt she could flatten this little royal upstart quicker than blinking.

That wouldn’t be entirely diplomatic, though, sorely tempting as it may be. A good prolonged shout would take the edge off.

“I apologise,” said Goldtorc, as the seconds ticked by. “That was ill-considered of me. But please be assured that I can—”

“Let me tell you of myself, little queen,” hissed Lyuba. “I am Dame Lyuba. I am the First Tusk of Pachydermia and the Steel Doyenne of the Starwards clan, and both of these are ranks I have earned! I have taken scars from beasts you would not believe exist, and I gave back more than scars in return. When the Shahs’ Alliance contested with the late Shahanshah Baybar’s war for the throne at Redcrag Pass, I alone held the pass for the Shahanshah on the first day of battle, and when that first day was done, I alone held the pass still! I have duelled every challenger to the Lord Regent’s position and the Shahanshah’s honour, and every challenger has lain broken in the dust when I was done! When the Lord Regent still wandered freely in his youth, he and I and twelve warriors of my clan delved into the darkness of the Wailing Deep, and he and I returned alive. Simpering little princess, who are you to besmirch me?”

There was a long, pregnant silence.

“Who am I?” Goldtorc replied in soft tones. “I am Goldtorc, Royal Consort of Bovaland. But before then, I was Goldtorc, third daughter of petty thanes from nowhere of significance in Bovaland’s eastern marches. And when the Lover’s Tourney came to divine the quality of those who wished to become the new Bullwalda’s consort, I was left to prove the quality of my blood with a rusty blade, a twisted old bow, and ill-fitting barding.” 

Her voice didn’t rise, but it shifted pitch towards a growl. “In the tilted charge, I broke a dozen shields and threw down twice that many other noblecows. In the hundred-strong melee that followed, I stood alone at the end, my barding hanging off me in tatters and my blade blunted from use. And when I at last stood exhausted before the archery targets with blood and muck still masking my vision, I shot three bullseyes in a row. I had my satisfaction that day, I proved my skill and the worth of my blood and married my king, I fought for my heart’s desire, and if you call me a simpering little princess once more, Dame, I swear I will have satisfaction again!”

The silence this time was chasm-like in its depth, and was broken by Alloy mutely whispering to Tundra, “I’d have just argued that there’s safety in numbers, myself—”

There was a scuffle at the room’s window, and Lyuba, who had been focused on Goldtorc like a hawk, whirled around on it. One of the chitinous little beasts hovered there, its gaze flitting to each of the room’s inhabitants as magic gathered around its horn.

Lyuba moved to intercept, but before she could take more than one step, something whirred past her. “Glark!” protested the little beast as an arrow shaft slammed between its eyes, knocking it out of the window and into oblivion.

The mammoth turned around and there stood Goldtorc, her longbow upright and enclosed within an aura of magic. Alloy had dropped his crossbow, and Tundra was looking at the cow with shock. Two seconds from sighting to loosing, Lyuba estimated.

The red-and-black stormclouds were forced back, and Lyuba came to a decision. “Consort,” she said grudgingly, “you are free to try and keep up with me.”

“Delighted to hear it,” Goldtorc replied, and she glanced apologetically at Tundra and Alloy. “But we shall need to be guided if we’re to find them.”

“I volunteer,” they said in unison.

Lyuba groaned inwardly. She didn’t need her emotions regarding outlanders becoming more complicated. Not at her time of life. Not now of all times. And especially not while there was still a Shahanshah to be saved.





Charity the pyrefalcon was not having a good day.

Most days hadn’t been very good ones for Charity, which the atavistic red-hot haze that passed for her thought process defined as ‘deprived of bloodshed’. Ever since she’d hatched, genetic processes running slightly deeper than her bones had equipped her with every proper instinct for a pyrefalcon, where her fight-or-flight response had been replaced with homicidal maniacism. She knew her place in the ineffable machinery that was the natural world, and that place was to eff the world good and hard.

But that hadn’t come to pass. She’d hatched and had immediately been presented with the long, gentle face of a Saddle Arabian pony. And when she’d flapped her way clear of her eggshell to try and open their insides to daylight, she’d been restrained. She’d been cooed at. She’d been shown kindness.

Every day as she’d grown, the Saddle Arabian falconer had cared for her and pampered her and tried to train her with gentle coaxing and rewards, no matter how often she set him on fire or pecked him to the bone. He just kept coming with infinite goodwill and compassion, which were as alien to Charity as the dark side of the moon. It was all wrong. Every day over the past months and months and months had been wrong. 

And now she’d been secured within the accursed metal cage that she couldn’t rip apart easily, teleported across the ocean, and had spent hours watching countless ponies and miscellaneous other things that all had the gall to live in her vicinity. Some of them stopped by her cage to admire her and make cooing noises. Some had even stopped by her cage and made noises to the effect of what a pity it was to see such a beautiful creature caged up. It was all noise to Charity. She yearned to take away their jugulars so that they’d stop making it.

There had been an interesting bit of commotion recently, though, which she regrettably wasn’t the one perpetrating. A new species of prey had entered proceedings, changing their hides as if in constant moult. They smelled curious. Charity watched them with fascination, and wished very much to dissect them. At any rate, they’d made sure most of the ponies and miscellany were on the ground, either stunned or unconscious or fervently wishing they were so. 

A few minutes after, a group of them had walked past, taking with them some of the faces and beings she recognised from earlier. One of them was the lanky pony who’d brought her here. One of the new prey walloped him in the kidneys as they stumbled past, and Charity felt a temporary flare of something almost akin to positive sentiment towards that particular one. Then it went, and so did they.

Mind you, if they could let her out of this cage...

“Keeeeeeee,” kee’d Charity, by way of friendly preamble to get their attention.

She went largely ignored, though some of the new prey had looked her way with some interest. They marched on into the greenery, and Charity craned her head to see them shove the old faces into a wooden structure amidst the greenery. After that, several of the new prey took up watchful stances around the structure, and others peeled off into the sky.

And some came wandering back in the direction of Charity’s cage.

Noises came from them as Charity hopefully kee’d in their direction. “Look at that thing,” one of them hissed. “Is that a bird from another land?”

“Must be,” another one said, their tone softer than the others. “It looks very pretty. Do you… do you think the Queen’ll want it?”

“The Queen has her toys,” growled a third. “This one isn’t a pony or any love-bearer that I can detect. We can play with this one.”

“Oh, yes,” said the first speaker. “See what it’s made of. What makes it tick. Peel it open to that effect.”

“It’s done nothing to us,” objected the second speaker.

“Such the soft-heart, Thorax,” growled the third. “You still sure you’re not a pony yourself?” It leaned closer to the second. “No love in you we can drink dry? We could try and find some. You’ve given us enough excuses to make the effort.”

“I...” The second speaker cringed back.

“Keeeeeeee,” Charity kee’d irritably. They were all just making noise, instead of letting her out. Did she have to flash her plumage, wiggle her tail-feathers, kee in an especially coy manner? What?

“Open that cage for us, Thorax,” purred the first speaker. “I’m sure we’ll all feel much better after some light entertainment.”

The second speaker’s gaze dropped to the floor. And then, slowly, wondrously, he trudged towards Charity’s cage and began to fiddle at the latch. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered under his breath. “If you can understand me, you should fly away as soon as you’re free. These two… they’re not pleasant. Even compared to everyone else in the hive.”

Charity regarded his fumbling with the cage door with her mad eyes, and she dismissed his meaningless noise in favour of thinking very un-pyrefalcon-like thoughts.

Her time being raised by Saddle Arabians had left one pony-esque impression on Charity’s blade of a mind, and that was a sense of something like gratitude. And the form that gratitude took for Charity in that moment was this: for letting her out, she’d eviscerate the cage-opener last.

Don’t say virtue isn’t rewarded.

The cage swung open, and the faces of the new prey leaned in, and Thorax had just enough presence of mind to duck as Charity erupted outwards at face height. 

This was looking to be the best day ever.





Princess Celestia of Equestria was not having a good day.

She wished it was only her pride that she could say had been wounded the most by the changeling queen’s magic. But no, every physical part of her was busy twanging furious notes of pain, building up to a full-body melody of agony. She wanted to curl up in a ball and repeat every word polite Equestrian society held to be unrepeatable, and keep on repeating them until there weren’t any left for anypony else.

So of course there’d be children present.

“Do come out,” she whispered as loudly as her throat could bear, trying to muster every bit of the grace and reassurance she wasn’t feeling even slightly in touch with at all.

The tablecloth twitched upwards, a trunk raising it at its base, and she saw the Shahanshah of Pachydermia crouched under her table, his brown eyes wide with concern. Smaller trunkless faces leaned out past his bulk, three fillies, and Celestia recognised the younger sisters of the Element Bearers. Then a distinctly more reptilian face leaned out past them in turn, and Celestia met Spike’s green eyes.

Past his own immediate concern and shock, Celestia recognised another sentiment lurking under the little dragon’s gaze, for which she had all the sympathy in the world. It was the sentiment that came along with the weary recognition that all the best-laid plans had collapsed, and that everypony around you seemed to be doing their utmost to ensure it all went irreversibly to crap. Again.

“Princess Celestia!” came the cry from the three fillies and the little dragon as they sprang out from under the table, with the not-so-little elephant lumbering after them in some confusion. 

“For my sins,” the alicorn muttered under her breath, and then creaked her head up off the ground, raising a chorus of protest from every muscle in it. She forced what she hoped was a reassuring smile onto her features. “Ah, Spike. Girls. Shahanshah Sailears. I’m afraid the… wedding has gone a little off the rails.”

“Princess! Are you alright?” Spike was the very picture of concern as he rushed up and grabbed one of her forehooves.

“We can check!” said one of the fillies, Sweetie Belle. “Somepony check her pulse. Princess, how many hooves am I holding up?”

“Er,” replied Celestia, as Sailears began awkwardly patting at her other forelimb with his trunk in search of a pulse, as Apple Bloom and Scootaloo favoured her with their own expressions of critical regard, and as Sweetie Belle held up one hoof and gave Celestia an expectant look. “One? But—”

“Good!” said Scootaloo. “She’s still compost mental. Or whatever the term is.”

“Scoots, I don’t think that’s—” Apple Bloom started.

“I think I’ve found one!” Sailears declared, suddenly delighted to have made a contribution to proceedings. “A pulse, that is.”

“Guys, step back! Give her some air!” Spike said. “Princess, is there anything we can do to help?”

A stiff drink for preference, some part of Celestia suggested, which she suppressed. “Don’t worry about me.” She coughed raggedly. “But this… this isn’t a safe place for you five to be. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, tell me, can you see your older sisters from that window? Are they making their way to the hall with the Elements?”

The three fillies turned to said window immediately and galloped there, save Scootaloo, who briefly turned back with a chagrined expression. “Er,” she said, “technically, Rainbow Dash isn’t quite my older sister, but—”

“Beg your pardon, Scootaloo,” wheezed Celestia. “I’m over twelve hundred years old now, I get confused from time to time. Thank you, Spike.” This was to the dragon whelp, who had retrieved a fallen and suitably soft-looking bicorne and pushed it under her head as a cushion. Sailears hovered nearby, confused eagerness returning to his features, before the three fillies whisked him away.

Confused, Celestia thought as all three fillies alternately flapped, clambered, or used the Shahanshah as an obliging ramp to make their way up onto the table by the window. Confused, and still capable of being caught off-guard. She didn’t exactly mind not actually being omnipotent, she told herself, but she wished any possible illusion of such hadn’t been dispelled quite so decisively.

That was going to be a problem, assuming everypony lived.

“It’s okay, Princess Celestia!” Apple Bloom called out. “We can see ‘em! They’re fighting a whole bunch of changelings right now! Hah! Look at that!”

“What was it?” Scootaloo seemed fixated on another part of whatever was happening down past the window.

“My big sis just lassoed a changeling and used it to hit another changeling!”

“Oh, um… yeah? Well, Rainbow Dash just used all four hooves to kick four changelings at once!”

“What? She never. You’re fibbing!”

“Was not!”

“That’s Rarity using the, um, the serene art of ponikido, she calls it. She says it’s good exercise and good for cultivating a proper ladylike poise.” Sweetie Belle watched her own patch of battlefield as a heated argument/competition-by-proxy picked up steam next to her. There was a distant ‘Hi-yah!’, a distinctly organic thwack and accompanying yelp that even Celestia managed to make out, and Sweetie Belle winced. “Ooh. That didn’t look serene at all, though.”

“Guys, how’s Twilight?” Spike called, looking agitated. “She’s not hurt, is she?”

Sweetie Belle peered down. “Well,” she said hesitantly, “I don’t know what Pinkie Pie’s even doing with her, but she doesn’t look hurt, no. Plenty of changelings look hurt, though.”

Celestia breathed out. Plenty of changelings wasn’t a good sign, even if the Element Bearers sounded like they were making sterling progress. The more sterling the progress, even, the more likely it would be that more changelings would be sent in or Chrysalis herself would intervene. And if that happened...

Luna wasn’t likely to get involved soon enough to tip the scales. She was a heavy sleeper at the best of times, Celestia knew, and she’d put in an especially long shift the night and evening before so Celestia could be sure to be well-rested for today. Much good that had done. That left one other alicorn, and Celestia strained her neck to see her. Cadance stood upright and swaying slightly in the grip of forcibly-induced unconsciousness, with some darkly-glistening material rooting her hooves to the ground and clotted around her horn. Captain Armour stood next to her, and his glassy expression spoke of potent mental enthrallment.

Little likely help there, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Cadance?” croaked Celestia. She rose her voice as much as she could, and felt something scrape inside her throat. “Cadance?”

The younger alicorn’s eyes fluttered open, and a long and heartfelt groan escaped her. “Celestia?” she managed.

“Much as I may wish otherwise. Are you hurt? Can you free yourself?”

Cadance’s bleary gaze slid to her restraints, and she tried to light up her horn with magic. It fizzled out against the dark material, and with a grunt, she tried to wrench one hoof free. The material tightened and the stone creaked under an alicorn’s strength, but she still wasn’t free. She tried to wrestle her way clear of it for several moments, her legs twisting and her wings flapping with effort, before she finally yielded with a pant. “I’m sorry, I can’t. This stuff is strong.”

“Well.” Celestia sighed. “It was worth trying.”

Cadance looked around, beheld Shining Armour, and her face crumpled. “Shining?” She strained harder to reach him, leaned her head across, and the force of her exertion made small cracks run across the stone floor under her. And still to no use. Finally, when her breaths came out ragged, she extended one wing. It just about managed to brush against the stallion’s side. She held it there for some time.

Celestia gave her a moment. From the window, the commentary continued.

“Who’s winning now?” said Sailears.

“Well, uh...” Apple Bloom scanned the whole of whatever was raging outside. “Fluttershy’s just been backed into a corner by a whole bunch of Twilights, and… oh, wow, I didn’t know she could kick that hard.”

“Is Fluttershy the pony with the yellow hide and pink mane?”

“Yep! Why?”

“I think Dame Lyuba likes her!” Sailears scratched one ear with his trunk. “Well, when I say ‘like’, I mean when she came up to try and speak to me, Dame Lyuba shouted at her before she knocked her away with her trunk, it’s usually the other way arou—”

“Hey, guys, look, Rainbow Dash’s kicking her way through clones of everypony else!” enthused Scootaloo. “Down goes a Pinkie Pie… and she went right into a Rarity. There goes a Twilight… and now she’s just knocked the daylights out of an Applejack!” Scootaloo paused. “Wait, no, that Applejack’s standing back up and yelling at her, maybe that wasn’t a clo—”

“Celestia?” ventured Cadance, and Celestia’s attention turned back to her. “Do you have any tricks left to play at a time like this? Any at all?”

“None, I’m sorry to say, that occur at present,” rasped Celestia. She was reasonably sure that hadn’t been spoken loudly enough to be heard by the little ones. Hopefully. “Right now, all I can do is trust in the Element Bearers. They’re our hope right now.”

Cadance hesitated. “What about Luna?” she said, but Celestia recognised the hopelessness in her expression before she’d even finished. She may not have known Luna as long as Celestia, but Luna wasn’t terribly shy of making herself known to ponies. Besides, snores that could split logs tended to tell their own story.

“Our foreign guests?” Cadance desperately ventured.

Celestia shook her head with some effort. “No,” she said. “More than a few amongst them are our allies, and some of that few would undoubtedly try to do something if they could. But Chrysalis now has them held and bound at her leisure, and even if they were to get free… if we couldn’t defeat her, on our own ground and with all of our power at hoof, then there is very little they will be able to do.”

Cadance’s head fell. Celestia took advantage of the hush, and fell back to thinking.

“Hey, not fair! That changeling tried to stun Rarity while she had her back turned! That’s cheating!”

Such as the hush was.

A sniff made itself known. Celestia looked its way, and realised Cadance was trying to hold back tears and failing.

“I’m sorry,” the younger alicorn blurted out, as to her side, Spike awkwardly proffered a torn piece of tablecloth. “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t let myself get captured by that… by that monster in the first place, then none of this would be—”

“Cadance,” Celestia interjected, as gently as she could manage, “when it comes to being surprised and overcome by unforeseen enemies, do I look like a pony who’s going to throw the first stone?”

“But…  but that shouldn’t be the point. You shouldn’t have had to be surprised by her in the first place.”

“What I should have done,” Celestia said, “is notice an obvious imposter under my very nose, and not have had Twilight Sparkle go to the effort of finding out and being disbelieved.” She ruefully shook her head. “Perhaps if she’d laid out her evidence a little better, or approached me in private… but no. She isn’t a princess, you’re still young, and Luna’s still got a bit of acclimatisation to go. What is the modern expression? The bit stops here. As yet.” She paused and said wearily, “It’s good at doing that.”

Cadance was silent. Celestia thought.

It wasn’t often she felt this helpless, and she didn’t relish the feeling. She was the twelve-century-old schemer. She had been the sole Princess of Equestria for a thousand years, and seen its fortunes rise and rise. The bit stopped with her. Even in her position, even with her current strength, even still. She had to have something.

Well… she had one thing. The last resort.

The last resort. The resort that whispered in her dreams with a tongue of fire. The resort that promised her everything, peace and happiness and plenty for all under her wing. The strength to break upstarts like Chrysalis, no matter how much power they had. The strength to put the world to rights, once and for all, and to the hells with the slow approach. The strength to gather all the world’s wrongs and all the world’s wrongdoers. And to put them to the flame.

And the price would be to do that. To do exactly that. And to keep on doing that. Finding new wrongs and wrongdoers, and they would keep emerging, until the whole world was ash.

“Ha ha, look!” came a filly’s voice, as if from far away. “Look at the way she’s flying!”

No. With luck and courage and the Elements of Harmony, the world had just about survived the last mad alicorn. You couldn’t keep on testing the world’s luck. And though the world may not know or appreciate it as yet, it ought to be glad of two other alicorns standing as a counterweight against her if need be.

Celestia could keep that last resort, that Nightmare, at bay. She’d been doing that for twelve hundred years already, she was getting good at it, and she could keep on doing it. So long as there was any other option. Any at all.

No armies at hoof. No power to speak of. All her usual levers and allies were beyond her. No other alicorns in fighting condition. And six brave ponies beyond her ability to help. What did she have left? What could she do?

“Spike,” she croaked out. “Girls. Shahanshah. Attend me. I have something very important to ask of you.”

The five exchanged glances and rushed over to Celestia’s side, eyes wide with concern. Scootaloo sneaked the odd glance back in the direction of the window, but otherwise, she had their attention.

“Spike, do you still remember all the ways to get around the palace?” Celestia asked. “All the twisty little passages that intruders might overlook, all the ways to get outside in a hurry, all of them?”

“Yes, Princess!” he said. “Why?”

“Because I need you—all of you—to leave Canterlot as quickly as you can. The city’s not safe. This hall’s likely the least safe place of all. Get out of the palace, and get out of the city. If you come across any of the Royal Guard or any palace staff en-route, they are my ponies, and they will help you, no matter the cost. Make your way back to Ponyville, get to your families, and then get to somewhere further away and safer than there. Shahanshah, there’s a substantial elephant emigre population in San Fransicolt, and your best bet may be to head for there and see that a message is sent home to your uncle.”

“I… can try and get everypony out safe, Princess,” said Spike. He stood straighter, making himself as tall as possible. “I will. But what are you going to do?”

By way of response, Celestia stretched out with one aching forelimb, every muscle keening in protest. She dug her hoof into the stone floor, and pulled the whole of her limp frame forward with one almighty heave.

The distance managed may have only been a quarter of an inch, but, if she said so herself, it was a very full-bodied quarter of an inch. It might even have been a third.

“I,” she panted, “am going to put my hope in the Element Bearers. And while they do what needs to be done, and while you five make your getaway, I am going to hunt down Chrysalis.”

All ponies and the dragon present acquired the distinct rictus-grins of beings torn between being loyal subjects and feeling obliged to point out the many, many fundamental flaws in their sovereign’s approach. “Er,” Cadance managed. “Celestia—”

“Won’t she just beat you senseless, though?” said Sailears, whose tutor hadn’t yet concluded that season’s series of diplomacy and tact lessons.

“Perhaps I can’t quite go hoof-to-hoof with her as much as I’d like at this moment in time.” Another quarter-inch. “But if she spends ten seconds kicking new colours into my hide rather than spending ten seconds tormenting somepony else, then that’s a trade-off I’m content with. I can take it.”

It wasn’t her cleverest plan, Celestia would freely admit. Frankly, something that included the clause ‘And hope she doesn’t kick anything too vital’ wasn’t a clever plan by any measure. But she’d never regarded herself as an especially clever pony. In her heart of hearts, that schemer reputation had always seemed undeserved.

But nevertheless, she was sure she’d have been able to put that plan into motion if, at that moment, overcome by long minutes of something as arduous as talking, her throat hadn’t turned traitor and all but exploded out of her with sudden coughing. Celestia lay there, writhed, and produced noises commonly more associated with the more run-down sort of plumbing system.

It lasted a minute or so. And during that minute, and even as it began to subside, she was aware of beings awkwardly standing by on all sides, watching their princess put a brilliant plan into motion and then have it turn into so much spluttering. One small set of hooves seemed to be pattering around in the hopes of finding a glass of water. It wasn’t the most mortifying thing that Celestia felt had happened to her today, but it was up there.

And then, on top of all that, a terrible thing happened.

There dawned an expression on the Shahanshah’s face. A bright, cheerful expression that could have struck mortal terror into the heart of a thousand Pachydermian Lord Regents, or a thousand Dame Lyubas. Sailears had had an idea. “I have a plan! I know what we can do!” he exclaimed.

“What’s that?” said Apple Bloom.

“The other leaders!” said Sailears. “Some of them are competent. The griffon and the two cows looked like they could stand up to anything, at least. What if, on our way out, we went and freed them from where Chrysalis is holding them prisoner? They could help us!”

“No. It’s not your role to put yourselves in danger for the sake of grown-ups such as they, many of whom are - and take this from one of their number - morally-compromised in an exciting variety of ways. Look to your own safeties first and foremost, and know that even if they were free, there is little they could do.”

...were the words Celestia tried to line up and let fly. Instead, what came out was another cough and “.”

“That’s… actually kind of a neat idea,” said Scootaloo, looking thoughtful. “Some of them know how to fight, then?”

Yes, some! But some isn’t enough against an army of changelings. They already got captured once, and Chrysalis can just as easily do it again! Just get to safety! Instead, “ss.”

“For certain! Some of them even brought weapons with them. If you saw the king and queen of the cows, they clattered when they walked.”

“And I suppose,” Spike said slowly, “if they were to go and help out Twilight and the others...”

You were meant to be the voice of reason! “yng.”

“I don’t think it would be wise to risk yourselves. Wherever these beings are, it’ll undoubtedly be under heavy guard—” Cadance started, but was drowned out by the rising tide of enthusiasm.

“We got Cutie Mark Crusader ingenuity, Spike’s know-how, and an elephant, Princess Cadance,” said Apple Bloom, a fierce grin breaking out across her features. “I reckon we can suss our way past whatever they’ve got.”

You looked sensible as well! “yrrk.”

“I heard her say something about taking them out to a shed in the gardens,” said Sailears. “They must be out there. And, um, for some reason they’ve got an imposter of me with them as well.”

“Great!” said Spike. “I know a few ways to get from here to the gardens without being seen. Service corridors and such. We could get there in a few minutes, no problem.”

“I—” Cadance valiantly ventured, to no avail.

“Don’t worry, Princess Celestia!” said Sweetie Belle, stooping by Celestia as the group enthusiastically trundled off to a side-door indicated by Spike, a quest in their sights. “We’ll get them freed! I’m sure they’ll come and help you as well!”

By my authority as Sun-Princess of Equestria, I order all of you to go and be somewhere safe! “bchk phht.”

“You’re welcome! And don’t worry!” The group were already disappearing through the door and round its corridor with whoops and a medley of improvised war-cries. The last thing Celestia heard before the door closed at their backs was Spike’s contemplative murmur of, “I suppose to be really sure of not being seen, we’re going to need a good disguise as well...”

Then they were gone. Silence ticked by, underscored by the usual background noises of distant screams and explosions. Celestia breathed in slowly, coaxing in some relief for her throat. 

“I am a princess of Equestria,” she eventually muttered.

“...Yes?” said Cadance.

“Nothing. Just reminding myself.”

Did she have any more cards to play? Any petty thing that could tip the balance one way or the other? It’d have been a pretty poor look-out for the centuries-old Princess of Equestria, knower of all things and solver of all problems, most powerful being alive and weaver of a thousand schemes and tricks, &c, if she didn’t. Celestia spent a few embarrassed moments trying to recall one.

And happily, it occurred to her that she did have one last thing.

Celestia looked to a corner of the room shrouded by a great velvet curtain. With the utmost of the magic left to her, expending every scrap of power and determination she could dredge up from the most hidden bits of her soul, and past the burning sensation in her horn, she reached out and just about managed to twitch the curtain open.

Behind it, there stood revealed a delicate silver bird cage, and in that bird cage, Philomena sat perched, one head tucked under a flame-red wing. Celestia coughed in a way that brooked no ignoring, and the phoenix rose to blink at her. The cheeky bird did it condescendingly as well. If Celestia wasn’t so attached to her, she swore, she’d trade her in for a tortoise or something else equally unlikely to give her unspoken lip.

“Come on,” Celestia rasped, raising her voice. “You’ve had enough peaceful seclusion. You go help as well.”

Philomena exaggeratedly rolled her eyes, gripped the cage’s latch with her beak, and levered it open. In a sudden sunburst, she was up and flying, and with another quick flash and an acrid smell, she’d melted through a stained glass window on her way out.

“Pity,” said Cadance softly. “I quite liked that particular window.”

Celestia lay back on the floor. So it wasn’t much of a card. So what. She’d have liked to see other beings get a point-blank wallop from the magical equivalent of an avalanche and still come up with something.

There was the clatter of hooves alighting on the floor, and a low burst of self-satisfied laughter as something paced towards the fallen alicorn at her back. Celestia didn’t need to turn around to know that Chrysalis had reappeared.

“Ah, Princess,” Chrysalis purred. “Where were we?”

Well, she couldn’t say this wasn’t what she’d planned for. She could have done with yet another trick for purely personal benefit if she was being honest, but Celestia glumly supposed that there was such a thing as the universe being too nice.





Arch-Minister Burro Delver of the Asinial Republic was not having a good day.

The scant consolation on offer was that, judging by the muffled shrieks from outside, some other beings were having even worse days.

“Those are coming from nearby,” said Greenhorn, as something nearby shrieked the complicated shriek of being simultaneously set on fire and having one’s essential veins yanked out by a set of sharp claws. “What on earth’s happening out there?”

“Oh dear.” Simoom put a hoof to his mouth. “Charity might have gotten loose in the chaos. I do hope she isn’t happening to anyone.”

“An unforeseen encounter with Saddle Arabian wildlife’s a terrible thing to happen to anyone, dear,” said Fairy Floss. “But if that ‘anyone’ includes our captors, then I find myself struggling to muster much sympathy, really.”

“If our immediate captors are being introduced to whatever business ends a pyrefalcon has, then that gives us an opportunity to make our escape. Before replacements get sent in,” said the Crown. A faint purple glimmer ran around its ranks of jewels. It seemed distracted. It hadn’t been snide to anyone in at least a few minutes.

Burro clocked that, and other things, as he looked through the musty darkness of the shed and drummed one hoof on the grain of the thick wood planks making up the wall. He’d been examining it for the last couple of minutes since they’d been dumped inside. His Cunning scrabbled around the inside like a beast in a cage far too small for it, sniffing out any possible structural weaknesses, keeping a steady track of anything that creaked, running out lines of inference, assessing mass, guessing at wherever might be a weak spot…

For that last one, his Cunning was throwing out guesses of ‘Bugger knows’. Sod Green had built her garden sheds to be tough. Several centuries of age had somehow not detracted from that, and had only imparted mustiness. Even the traditional vulnerable options of the door lock and hinges seemed to have mithril in them. 

“Speaking of escape,” the Crown continued, “Arch-Minister? Progress, if any?”

“You’d need,” Burro muttered absently, as he tapped on a plank, his Cunning listening to the sound produced by the wood, “force. A lot of force. Not subtle. And you’d need to be at it for a while.” His mind fizzed with calculations for a second, and then he said, “If anyone’s got a steel-wired ballista or a barrel of corvid black powder hidden on their persons, now’s the time to whip it out.”

“I could venture an explosive spell,” said Greenhorn, his horns lighting up. Sailears looked alarmed.

“Probably not viable. Not unless you throw in enough power to kill yourself, or you’ve been an alicorn in disguise all this time.” Burro stood back and glared at the wall, his frustrated Cunning retreating into the background of his mind. “Even if the guards here have been pyrefalconed, Chrysalis couldn’t have secured us any better if she’d thrown us into one of the city’s jails. Whatever Sod Green’s up to in the Hereafter, I hope it goes embarrassingly wrong for her.”

“She really must have plans for us, then,” said Simoom quietly. “Not taking any chances when it comes to us escaping.”

“We’re leverage, dear,” Fairy Floss said sourly. “We’re not reliable, and our countries will find us quite replaceable if need be, but so long as she has us, our governments back home won’t make any moves that are too rash for her comfort. And if she truly can exert some mental dominion over us, or send out doppelgangers with our images, she could wreak yet more havoc. All she needs is to hold us for long enough.”

“Long enough,” repeated Simoom. “Until when?”

“If I was her, dear, long enough to get a proper grip on Canterlot and as much of Equestria as possible. Once she’s got that, then, if she really is a love-eater, she’ll have all the resources and power she could possibly wish for.” Fairy Floss’s eyes glinted like steel balls. “She could take down Celestia with whatever love she’d consumed before, and whatever she got from one royal couple. Now she has all the couples of a city at her mercy, or lack thereof. How powerful will she be then?” Her tone lowered. “What would it take to stop her?”

Simoom hesitated in answering. “I… I don’t know? The whole continent in arms? The whole world?”

“What’s your contingency plan for an alicorn at war, speck? Escalate it now to thwart whatever beat the alicorn,” muttered the Crown, hovering still in its servant’s grasp. Various gazes turned to it, and its circling purple light briefly flashed a peevish green. “What? Don’t bother me, I’m thinking. Goodness knows something competent in this shed ought to do so.”

“Do so, then,” snapped Fairy Floss. She sighed and kneaded the bridge of her muzzle. “Maybe Chrysalis is an aspiring conqueror, maybe she isn’t. But if she’s got any sense when she comes into her new power, she’ll make sure not to leave a single potential threat intact.”

“Surely, though, it won’t be easy for her to get a secure hold on much of Equestria. Not while there’s Legions in the field and a turbulent citizenry—” Greenhorn started.

Burro heard no more. Gellert, who’d been silent in one corner, regarding everyone else with his best impersonation of a hawk (which he had a natural advantage in pulling off), unfolded then with a yawn, stretched, and ambled over towards Burro. “Burro, old boy,” he said with a lazy smile, “mind if I have a chat with you in the corner? Just to keep my spirits up?”

“Wha—” Burro turned to face Gellert, and he saw that the old griffon’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. It was a worrying sight, even amidst a whole heap of other worries, for a being for whom emotional expression tended to be a cheerfully unnuanced affair. Burro thought quickly, and nodded. “Of course.”

The griffon hooked one forelimb around Burro’s withers and pulled him into his corner to face the wall. The conversation went on at their backs, but Gellert leaned in towards Burro so that his soft mutter filled the world. “Right. So by way of preamble, for my purpose in getting you here, rest assured that I’ve picked on you because you’re the only one I’m certain I can do it with. And because you’re the one I give most of a damn about.”

“That’s… flattering, I think.” Burro matched the volume of Gellert’s mutter. “What purpose?”

Gellert glanced around at the others, and then leaned in closer to Burro. “These changeling beasties. They can wear a being’s skin. And though they probably don’t get the being’s mind in the process, they can at least impersonate the surface personality. Right?”

“Right,” said Burro.

He noticed then that Gellert’s claw rested casually on his wither, in a way that indicated it could tighten or slash out at a second’s notice. He sighed. “Ah, right.”

“Right,” hissed Gellert. “And if I was a crafty shapechanging queen with an army of shapechanging servants who’d recently acquired a host of suspicious characters such as us, I’d want to put someone in with them. To keep an ear open to what they said behind closed doors, and to do something in case they looked like causing trouble. In all that kerfuffle back there, it couldn’t have been too hard to make a switch.”

“Not at all,” conceded Burro. “Especially if you’d been planning something like this from the get-go.”

“I’m reasonably sure I’ve not been switched, though you shouldn’t just take my word for that,” said Gellert. “And I need to be sure you’ve not been either. So with that in mind, I’m going to ask you to cast your mind back fifty years. To the Asinial Main.”

“Fifty years. Ah. A significant time period.” Burro closed his eyes, and didn’t need much effort to recall then. A time when idiot young privateers had gotten themselves into more trouble and more glory than they’d known what to do with. He could still taste the briny air. See the roiling ocean on all sides. Smell the coal-smoke and pervasive scent of tar. Feel the kiss of the blade that had notched his ears. Hear the roar of steam engines, the crashing of storms, and the iron sonata of springald bolts criss-crossing the air between metal hulls. “What specifically about then and there?” he said at last.

“We sailed with another donkey, if you’ll recall. You gave him a pseudonym and such in that pack of fibs you called a memoir. What was his actual name?”

Burro breathed out. And then turned, a smile creasing his features. “You couldn’t give me a hard one? Cranky Doodle. Equestrian-born, as I recall. On a quest for his love across the bounding main, and all that sort of thing.” His smile fell slightly. “Hope the poor lad’s not still out there, searching.”

Gellert visibly relaxed. His smile ran all the way up to his eyes. “Wouldn’t surprise me too much if he was. Daft donkeys are a rucat a dozen, we all know that. Come on, verify me now.”

“Alright.” Burro thought briefly. “You might recall I dashingly crossed blades with the corsair king himself and prevailed. I wrote about it in my memoirs, and if I say so myself, I think my version of events is much preferable to what reality gave us. Would you care to recount—in your own inimicable style—how exactly it went?”

“Hah!” Gellert snorted. “I couldn’t say for certain, I’d been run ragged at that point myself. But from what I saw, he had you on the backhoof the whole time, up from the hold to the deck, and goodness knows how you survived. He’d filled you so full of holes he could have taken you below decks and used you as an inefficient sieve. And I’d make more unkind remarks in that vein, except when I tried to get involved, he slashed his name into my hide as well. How did you beat him in the end, anyway?”

“You think I was in a fit state to recall?” Burro shook his head. “The next thing I knew was waking up in a great deal of pain and being mentioned in dispatches as a hero of the republic.”

“The dispatches couldn’t have known you that well, then,” said Gellert, who chuckled as he slid away from Burro’s retaliatory swipe. He looked at Burro again, his expression amiable, and then glanced back towards the others. “So. We both remain impeccable and pure of intent.”

“As we always are,” Burro replied dryly. He glanced towards the others as well. They still seemed to be arguing about the capability of any potential Equestrian resistance. Fairy Floss, who’d noticed their various glances backwards, favoured them with a skeptical one of her own. She’d be asking questions soon.

“I’m not sure I know anything sufficiently personal about the others to test them as well… at least, nothing that couldn’t have been found out by Chrysalis. Out of interest,” said Burro, “when did you develop enough craftiness to come up with that line of suspicion?”

“I do actually do Chieftain things, you know,” grumbled Gellert. “Whenever I’m not trying to tempt you towards debauchery. I’m just surprised you weren’t being crafty enough.”

“Well…” Burro waved a hoof at the shed wall. “...I’ve been distracted.”

“True, I suppose. And you’re getting daft in your dotage.”

“Go swim with a shark.” Burro grinned briefly, and then lowered his voice yet further, as low as it could possibly go. His Cunning had been drip-feeding him information all the while it had been active, and he’d agreed with the conclusions it had fed him. “Your suspicions about a changeling spy amongst us...”

“What about them?”

“They’re good. They hold water. But… what if she didn’t need to go that far?”

Gellert’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”

“Suppose you were a changeling queen, like you said, with an army of shapechangers. But if your ability to impersonate rests on knowing the subject, surely your common-or-garden shapechanger can only go so far. However, if you knew what you were attacking ahead of time—and you’d received intelligence ahead of time about all the foibles and plans about what you were to attack—then wouldn’t there be a simpler way?” Burro’s voice dipped to a growl. “Just put your informant in the same room as your captives. Then you’re sorted.”

He looked directly at the Crown, held aloft in its menial’s magical grasp.

Gellert followed his gaze and glowered. It currently seemed to be haranguing Simoom, and a few flecks of gold glittered amidst its purple. A few.

“Can’t say I’d put it past it,” Gellert eventually allowed. “And if anything had the motive to sneak in a new foe and lay her low, and the skill to find said foe and give her what she needed… Capra’s Security Service have never been slouches.”

“And besides,” Burro hissed, “if I’m right in guessing these changelings can only impersonate quadrupeds… or quadruped-ish beings, like yourself… then there’s only one here who they’re not going to try and impersonate. Suppose they never needed to.”

Gellert took this in silence. Before them, the conversation seemed to have wound to a halt, and a brief metallic snarl came from the Crown. “Enough of this,” it said. “I decline to sit helpless here, yammering about unhelpful hypotheticals while other members of our company gossip in the background. If our guards are still scattered, now’s the time to apply the force the Arch-Minister spoke of. Menial?”

The ibex stood to attention. “Your Unfettered Highness?”

“Don me.”

And that, in and of itself, would have been sufficient cause for Burro to act. He nodded at Gellert, and got a nod back.

The instant the ibex lifted the Crown up towards his head without so much as blinking, Greenhorn and Fairy Floss opened their mouths to object, Simoom blinked, Sailears looked startled, and Burro and Gellert lunged. One wild haymaker from Gellert met the side of the ibex’s head, and he was all but thrown senseless into one wall, the Crown flying out of his grasp. It clattered on the floor, and Burro kicked it savagely. It bounced off the door frame, and its jewels barely had time to change colour before the old jack leaned over it. Yells and exclamations came from everybody else; Burro ignored them.

“You think we’re stupid enough to let you try that, you vile old piece of scrap?” blazed Burro. “Do you think our heads button up the back?”

Purple and red and blue seethed in the depths of the Crown’s jewels like the world’s liveliest bonfire, and a snarling noise came from it like two saw blades mating. “I don’t presume to speculate about anything going on with your head, Arch-Minister!” it screeched. “But whatever goes on in there, kindly keep it to yourself and out of my designs! What in the Blackness Beyond do you and the chieftain think you’re doing?”

“We’re stopping you hijacking some poor being right before our eyes,” said Gellert. “And stopping you laying your claws upon the power to kill us all. That’s what you do with your poor servants, isn’t it? Lash out with more of their muscle and magic than their bodies and minds were made to handle, and leave them drained, broken shells while laying waste to everything around you. It’s very efficient malevolence on your part, that particular trick, well done. But I’d rather it wasn’t performed in front of me, thank you.”

“What a lovely compliment,” hissed the Crown. “But while I did intend to spend every last drop of magic my menial had to offer if it’d be of use in escaping, what makes you think I intended to use it killing you? You’re very low on my list of priorities at the best of times, chieftain, and today you’re so below my sight as to be invisible.”

“We know this whole mess is of your making, Crown!” Burro ground his forehoof into its monde. “If the changelings needed inside information to infiltrate in the first place, who more keen to provide it than you? If Equestria falls to sudden invasion and all three alicorns are taken out of the equation for good, who benefits more than you and your ambitions? If things had gone awry, then who should have happened to show up uninvited and well-placed to intervene? My word, it’s you.”

Fairy Floss frowned. Simoom and Sailears looked bewildered. Steam blasted from Greenhorn’s nostrils and his eyes reddened. “That makes sense,” he said in a voice that promised storms. 

“No, it doesn’t—” hissed the Crown, the instant before Greenhorn grabbed out with his magic and snatched it up into the air. It rotated helplessly before his gaze.

“Do you think us all witless?” the aurochs rumbled.

“I’ll do you the unmerited honour of assuming you have wits, you pathetic relic, if purely for the purposes of insulting them.” The Crown, still rotating helplessly in Greenhorn’s grasp, had reacquired something of its habitual snideness, and Burro felt almost comforted to hear it. “I had nothing to do with today’s events, save showing up for them and getting lumped in against my preference with the whole sorry pack of you. Think! Surely even you can see the holes in the Arch-Minister’s line of thinking.”

“What holes?”

“Stars above, fine, I’ll walk you through it. Firstly, his point about intelligence and infiltration. Whatever intelligence these creatures have been working with, is it not entirely likely that they got it from their ruler having impersonated a princess of Equestria? There are plenty of ways that could have come to pass without my Security Service so much as getting wind of it, though I do wish they had. I’d have worked to stop this.”

“Stop this?” Burro laughed. “You? You benefit the most from this!”

“Yes, stop it! I won’t deny my ambitions. I want a Capra that reflects the glory of the long-gone Empire, that can act without being constrained by Equestria or alicorn interference! How in every hell conceived does replacing Equestria and the alicorns with something even more dangerous and unpredictable help me in the slightest?” Its screech had risen, and at end of the sentence had become an outright scream.

“Perhaps you miscal—” Burro started, the footing for his arguments not feeling quite as firm as they’d once done, but the Crown pressed on.

“And lastly,” it hissed, “if I’d arranged for all of this, why would I put myself in the crossfire? That’s what nice, expendable ambassadors are for!”

There was a silence, before Gellert finally said, “Well, you’re a damned lunatic. There’s that as a reason.”

The Crown laughed bitterly. “Give me some credit, chieftain.”

“Why should he break a winning habit?” There was little rancour and a lot of weariness in Fairy Floss’s tone. “But perhaps we should put this matter to one side. Until we can all breathe easily again.”

Burro sighed. A fog of uncertainty had joined the room’s murk. It usually came along with leaving the crystal-clear thinking the Cunning provided, but no small amount had to come from the circumstances. He was still inclined to trust the Crown and its explanations no further than he could throw an especially fat whale, but the possibility that it hadn’t actually been involved seemed much greater than it had a few minutes ago. It wouldn’t be the first time a donkey’s Cunning had led them magnificently astray. Was there some other conspirator? Was it all Chrysalis’s own doing? Maybe Gellert’s idea had been the right one… but if they didn’t know enough about anyone else here, how could it be tested?

Where had the changelings even come from? How well could Equestria fare? Was there any salvation in the offing? And where had his bicorne gotten to? The shed and the fracture-lines between everyone in it didn’t allow for any of these to be answered. There just wasn’t enough information for anything but speculation, no matter how much Cunning he threw at it.

Greenhorn dropped the Crown back by the door with a clatter. There was something between a snore and a hiccup from the unconscious ibex, and a few glances went his way.

“If nothing else, thank you for just randomly assaulting my subject,” the Crown drawled. “It’s a wonderful precedent I’ll be sure to make use of myself, if we make it out of here. Give me back to him once he wakes up. Maybe then I’ll be allowed to attempt an exit.”

Burro eyed the purple light dancing in its jewels again, and realisation dawned. “Depths, I’ve just remembered what that colour means. You’re worried.”

The Crown’s attention settled on Burro again, like a winter wind had just brushed through his mane. “What an observant donkey you are.”

Burro closed his eyes. “Alright,” he muttered. “No rescue likely to come our way. No chance of getting actual answers to any of our questions here in this shed. No way of knowing what’s going on out there from in here. But… I don’t think any of that’s a problem.”

“And why isn’t it?” Fairy Floss arched her brow.

“Because we can get out of here,” he said softly, turning back to regard the wall. He tapped it with his hoof. “I think I have a plan.”





Pollina was having an excellent day. She’d amassed two piles of winnings, had spent them all on multiple rounds of drinks for the whole table, and was swaying slightly in her chair while accruing a third pile of winnings. If this sort of thing usually happened in Canterlot, she ought to visit more often. 

That said, she couldn’t shake the growing impression that, out of sight, bad days were happening to other folk.

“Alright, I stand corrected,” Girard said, rising up from his chair and drawing his sabre as a dark, magic-spitting shape zipped past the bar’s window, followed closely by screams, followed by yet another dark shape crashing into the cobblestones just outside the bar. “Something’s going on.”

“Is the city under attack?” roared one of the bovish huskarls, cursing as he rose from his seat, scattering dice and tokens and the snakes-and-ladders board. “Blast it! We thought the city guard had events well in hoof! There was a city-spanning shield of all things!”

“Which way to the palace from here?” Dolly demanded. “Do any of you know this city’s streets better than Serrai and I? We must see that the Tyrant is safe.”

“I know a way.” Berry looked pensive even as she said it, though. “It’s quite a trek from here, though. Even if we take it at a gallop...”

“Teleporting all the way there would drain us unduly in the face of whatever trouble there is,” the huskarl said. “Is there no shortcut?”

And just like that, like so many other beings in Canterlot that day, Pollina had an idea. A brilliant idea, if she and the alcohol in her system were any judge.

“I know a shortcut!” she said, rising from her seat and managing to not fall over. “Follow me, everyone!”

The assembled guardsbeings looked at her with no little surprise. “You do? Where is it?” Serrai asked.

“Not far! It’s parked just outside the main gate!”