//------------------------------//
// 16 The Comforting Lie of Justice 
// Story: The Skyla Pseudonym 
// by iisaw 
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Chapter Sixteen


The Comforting Lie of Justice


To everypony's surprise, the Amberdale Operation went very smoothly. In fact, there was only one moment when it teetered on the edge of absolute disaster. Well… two moments, really. Fortunately, my niece was a bit more mature and perceptive than I had realized, and the structure of the pegasus military in that world was more feudal than efficient.

Skyla and I flew south for a bit, to make it seem to the ponies of Amberdale as if we were coming from Grayhold. We then flew up the river and landed a furlong away from the gate where the narrow path along the waterside entered the town. I had expected a major road for transportation of ore and smelted metal, but evidently the river provided an easier way to ship heavy material to and from the town. We could have easily flown over the wall of course, but that just wasn't done in the Empire.

We found the stamping mill quite easily,[1] and the forepony swallowed our explanation that the medals we wanted made were a rush job for the immanent glorious victory over the pirate fleet in the west. The fact that we paid in advance got us pushed to the front of the queue.
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[1] The deep thud, thud, thud, of the water-driven trip-hammers was a helpful guide.
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"I don't see why you want them to be solid sheet orichalcum," the forepony said. "Most medals are plated tin. Lot's cheaper."

"Nothing but the best for our brave stallions out in the territories!" I said, with every appearance of sincerity.

He shrugged. "Well, you're payin' for it." He lipped a pencil out of his apron pocket and scribbled a few figures on a post in the mill that had seen many past calculations. "Fastest I can get you a load of ten thousand would be three days from now, and that'll be working three shifts." He frowned at his chicken scratches. "I didn't think there was even a tenth that many ponies in the Western Fleet."

"Oh, we'll be using these for years to come. New lands to conquer, and all that!" I said, keeping a chipper smile plastered across my muzzle.

"If you say so," he said, and wrote us out a receipt for our payment. "We'll load 'em up on a barge and ship 'em down to Stonebridge when they're finished. You can take 'em from there."

"Perfect! Thank you, sir!"

"A pleasure, ma'am."

Our next stop was at the smelter and foundry, and we had the ready-made excuse that we were checking to make sure there was enough sheet orichalcum for our mill order. What we were actually after was something else entirely, and that was the reason I had crafted the mandala for the pegasus disguise gun so carefully. It was also the reason neither of us were wearing armor.

The phlegmatic mill forepony had been discreetly giving Skyla and I a thorough going over, but the smelter manager outright stared.

"We're twins," I explained,[2] posing oh-so-casually to show off my carefully constructed assets. Skyla did the same, but I assumed that it was simple unconscious grace on her part. I didn't need a mind-reading spell to see the fantasies churning through the manager's imagination. He didn't actually drool, but it was a close thing.
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[2] Yes, even identical twins don't have identical cutie marks, but a bit of paint altered mine enough to be plausible.
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"I find your work so fascinating," I said, batting my eyes in what I hoped was a flirtatious way and not like I'd merely gotten grit in them. "I mean, turning rocks into metal? That's so clever! And alloys! Aren't they so tricky to make? Unfortunately, my sister and I have never been lucky enough to actually see orichalcum being alloyed..."

The tour was on almost instantly. 

I kept up the inane chatter and appreciative comments until we got to the area where the orichalcum was made. It was one of those amazing moments when an unyielding mystery suddenly becomes simple and obvious. The proportions of copper and gold that went into the alloy were exactly what Equestrian researchers had always supposed. They were also correct in assuming that magic was the key part of the process. What they never guessed was that it wasn't unicorn magic.

Seven earth ponies stood evenly spaced around the crucible where the molten metals were being mixed, with their forehooves worked deeply into the earthen floor. I could feel the intensity of the thaumic flow as soon as I stepped onto the dirt.

The manager took my gasp for one of admiration. "Yep, it isn't easy training up these fellas to make the metal xanthosize properly, but I like to think I do a pretty good job of it. I've never delivered a bad batch in my life!"

I didn't say anything until Skyla poked me with a wingtip.

"Huh? Oh, yes! Very impressive!" I am ashamed to admit that I had unfairly neglected my earth pony aspect where matters of magic were concerned. Oh, I could revive a dying houseplant or sweeten an apple past its prime, but nothing much beyond that. So, I couldn't determine precisely what the earth ponies were doing.

But I didn't need to. Now that I knew the basic concept, and that it somehow involved a citrinital process,[3] there were earth pony metal specialists back home who could suss out the exact details without much difficulty.
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[3] Citrinitas (sometimes called xanthosis) is the third standard type of transformative phase in alchemical workings, and the one that causes most students of non-methodical dispositions to decide to explore a less hazardous field of study.
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I left in a bit of a happy daze. Skyla and I gave the poor old manager a very friendly twin-sandwich hug as we departed that probably fueled his fantasies for months. 

We were almost back to the town gate when it happened. I was burbling along barely above a whisper to a (no doubt) disinterested Skyla about how cheap orichalcum would drastically improve Equestrian archanotech. "My raptor set cost me nearly ten thousand bits to build! When we bring back this knowledge, the sets will be so inexpensive that everypony in Equestria will be able to afford one. We could build big sets to send out educational lectures and kingdom-wide news... maybe even music! Yes, that would be possible… Yes, suppose you wanted to go to a concert in Canterlot, but didn't have time to travel there. It could be transmitted to—"

That's when the town overseer and his companion stepped out of a shop and into our path.

I could tell he was some sort of important pony from the gold chain of office around his neck, and began to stand aside and bow courteously, as a good pegasus servant should. Then I recognised him from Katydid's description and caught sight of the beautiful unicorn mare that plodded along in his wake. Her lovely peach-colored mane was very long, and it had been combed back to cover her shoulders.

With mouth, wing, or magic, I can draw either of my blades and sweep it up in a rising diagonal cut that is intended to slice through an opponent's throat in a single lightning-fast movement. After years of training and experience, it is an instinctual move that my body can perform before I even consciously register a threat.

The only reason I didn't kill the overseer and ruin my careful plan, was that Skyla slapped her wing over mine before I could draw. By the time my brain had caught up with my furious reaction, she had smacked me with her other wing and said, "Sister! This is the honorable overseer of this town! Mind your manners!"

"Oh," I said, shaking just a little from the adrenaline rush. "Yes. Yes, of course," I said, stepping back and bowing as shallowly as I thought I could get away with. "Overseer."

He didn't even realize how near he had come to dying. He also missed another close approach when he gave us both a lecherous leer and said, "It's not often I see such intriguing young mares in my town. Would you ladies like to join me for dinner tonight?"

"Oh, we'd love to," Skyla said. "But sadly, our orders are to be back in Grayhold before dark. Perhaps some other time?" 

"Ah, you are under the command of the governor? He owes me a favor or two, so maybe I can arrange something… soon." The grin that spread across his face made me want to vomit. The mare behind him squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head nearly to the ground.

Skyla giggled. She giggled. To my knowledge, she hadn't giggled since she was a filly. "No need to call in a favor, sir. My sister and I will have a day off at the end of the week, and it would be fun to spend it in such a nice little village." She batted her eyelashes at him in a perfectly natural way. "And in such august company, as well! Would that be convenient for you, sir?"

It seemed I had been mistaken, and Skyla knew perfectly well what effect a beautiful female form had on the stallions around her, and was far better at using it to her advantage than I was.

"I will always have time for such lovely ladies!" he said.

I swear, it felt like his eyes left slime trails on me. 

"Oh good!" Skyla said. "Now, you'll have to excuse us, overseer. We have to fly!"

We were nearly a half league outside the town and still walking along the path before I could unclench my jaw. "As soon as we have the medals, I'm going to kill him," I said in a quite reasonable tone of voice.

Skyla lifted an eyebrow. "For being a lascivious old goat? If that were a reason to kill a pony, you'd have to do away with a good percentage of the stallions back home." 

I took a deep breath and looked her square in the eyes. "I am going to kill him, because he rapes and maims ponies that are his de facto slaves."

Skyla stopped dead in her tracks. "What?"

I explained to her what I had learned from Katydid. Then I had to stop her from flying back to Amberdale and slicing the overseer to ribbons.

"But you're right!" She snorted and stamped a hoof. "He deserves it!"

A lecture on the subject of punishment and redemption sprang to mind and then died away. I had no intention of punishing the overseer or exacting any sort of futile revenge; I only wanted to make sure that no more ponies would suffer because of him. In any civilized nation, he would have been exiled at the very least. If I had had full use of my magic, I would have tried a reform spell. Well, maybe I would have. I would like to think that's what I would have done.

"When we have the medals safely stowed away," I said. "For now, let's get back to the ship."

We would have been better off staying on the path, because not long after we took to the air, we were spotted by a pegasus patrol.

We were about to turn from our southeast course and head up into the mountains, so we did a quick scan of the sky to make sure we were unobserved. We weren't. "Some flyers to the west of us," Skyla said. "At about four o'clock."

I looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, there were some distant figures in the sky. It was difficult to determine their course right away, so we decided to keep heading south and hope that they would ignore us. They didn't.

"Coming in from behind and above," I observed a few minutes later. "Not exactly the most friendly of approaches."

Skyla considered this for a minute. "We should stop. I think ignoring them at this point would be suspicious."

I agreed and we slowed down, banking in a broad curve above the river to face the approaching pegasi. "Seven of them," Skyla observed. "We're okay unless they've got guns, and I don't see any."

With their long brass barrels and thick oak stocks, the heavy magic guns weren't an ideal weapon for flyers, but the pegasi weren't unarmed. "Those crossbows aren't exactly a joke, and we're unarmored," I pointed out.

"I'm as good at snap-shields as you are," she said casually. "Even the little ones we can manage here are good enough to deflect a few quarrels if we act quickly."

I sighed. "Alright. The signal is if either of us uses the Royal Voice. Then we take care of the ones in our own hemisphere as quickly as possible. But let's try not to slaughter them if we can avoid it, okay?"

"Sounds good to me!" she said in a completely inappropriate chipper tone of voice.

"Hello!" I called out to the pegasi as they got near. "What's up?"

Nopony answered me. The one I assumed was their officer made some wing signals, and his squad spread out to surround us.

"What's going on?" I asked again.

"Land in that clearing," the officer said, pointing with a foreleg.

"Listen," I said, putting a touch of irritation in my voice. "We're on courier duty for the governor, and we're expected back in Grayhold—"

"Land or we'll shoot you out of the air!" he demanded. His ponies aimed their weapons at us in a very business-like manner.

Skyla turned toward the clearing, sniffed loudly, and said, "That's not very friendly!"

I followed in silence, keeping to Skyla's right and carefully tracking and assessing the ponies on my side.

We landed and the officer and three of his pegasi surrounded us on the ground. The other three flew overhead to keep us from taking off again.

"What is going on?" I demanded. "Did something happen? Well, I mean other than Redkeep blowing up, as if that wasn't enough. Did the commander—"

The officer stalked forward and took a close look at our mouths. "Well, at least you're not blacklips. Show me your orders. Move slowly!"

We didn't have any, of course. I didn't even know what an official set of orders looked like or I would have prepared a forgery. I got ready to shout, but Skyla interrupted me.

"We are the new assistants to Governor Gray," she said. "The new private assistants, do you understand? We've just been up to Amberdale to—ahem—pay off a favor that the governor owed to the town overseer. Just what sort of written orders do you think the governor would be stupid enough to give us?"

The officer frowned and made a long and not unappreciative examination of us. "You're—"

"Look," I interrupted him. "If you want to verify who we are, why don't you come back to Grayhold with us and ask the governor directly? I'm sure he will be happy to answer all your insolent questions about his private affairs."

"Maybe I don't give much of a damn what some stomper aristocrat thinks," the officer said, sneering.

I knew it was a test the moment he uttered the words. He wasn't a very good actor and his heart wasn't behind his words. "What?!" I cried out in mock indignation. "How dare you say such a thing! The count will have you broken and—"

"Easy! Easy there!" He held up a placating wing. "I apologize for the rude words, but I have to be on the lookout for any disloyal pegasi. I didn't mean what I said."

I shuffled my hooves in an attempt to mimic the adorable way Fluttershy does it when she's uncertain about something. "I—I don't understand. Why would we be disloyal?"

The officer frowned and shook his head. "My apologies again. You're free to go."

"Something's going on," Skyla said softly, glancing around at the encircling pegasi. "Are we in danger? Please tell us, sir."

He hesitated and I stepped to Skyla's side, putting a comforting wing over her back and adding my own soft and totally-not-afraid-because-I'm-a-big-girl, "Please?"

He grimaced and said, "There have been some rumors going around. Some foolish pegasi have taken gossip for truth and deserted, that's all."

"Al leekorn," I whispered.

"No!" he half-shouted. "That's an old legend and there's no truth to it!"

It was a risk. It was a big risk, but I noted the nervous reactions of the squad members to my words and thought it was a risk worth taking. 

"But what if it's true? What if Twilight Sparkle has returned?" There was a horrified gasp from several of the pegasi that proved the supposedly secret name had been making the rounds. "I heard she's only come back to restore harmony to the Empire. My cousin from Palo Verde says she just wants the three tribes to be equal and—"

"You shut your mouth right now, do you hear me?" The officer shouted, growing red in the face. "I don't give a damn if you are the count's personal plaything! If you say one more mutinous word, I will shoot you both dead and leave you for the buzzards! Am I clear?"

I did a fairly good imitation of a fearful cringe. "Y-yessir!"

"Now, you pampered whores get your lazy tails back to your master before I change my mind!"

"Yes sir! Sorry sir!" We fled into the sky. 

The patrol went on its way, swinging west of us, but never far enough to be completely out of sight. Skyla and I flew on toward Grayhold.

"What was that word he used?" Skyla asked me when we were well out of earshot.

I was in no mood to open that complex can of worms, so I simplified it for her. "Pejorative term meant to belittle us as—uhmn—non-combatants."

She frowned at me, probably sensing that I wasn't telling her the whole truth. But she let it go.

The patrol shadowed us almost all the way to the city, and only lost sight of us when the sun sank below the horizon. It was clear that we weren't going to make it back to Nebula on schedule, so I called up Ao on the raptor and gave her a brief account of what had happened. "We will spend the night in the mountains north of the city and fly back in the morning, over."

"Understood, Ms. Nightshade. Please call at first light, over."

"Will do, Ms. Ao. Out."

We found a sheltered spot under an overhanging crag and settled in for the night. We talked as we shared the oat bars from my saddlebags. 

"You did really well today, Captain Niece," I told her, as I passed her a canteen of water.

"Thank you, Ms. Auntie." She chucked. "Is it weird that I think it was kinda fun?"

"Not at all! This sort of thing is fun," I said, opening a bag of dried apples and floating some over to her. "When I was little, I got to know a lot of the Canterlot guards, and sometimes they'd tell me stories of adventures they'd had. None of them were about standing around guarding an empty audience hall."

"So… deadly peril is entertaining?"

I shrugged. "It's complex. Nopony likes being truly terrified, but afterwards…" I thought about it for a second. "The old stallion who was captain before Shiny said something to me once. 'The most wonderful thing in life is to have a spear miss you by a hair's breadth. The worst thing is for it to happen over and over again.'"

She wrinkled her nose in puzzlement. "I'm not sure I know what that means."

"It means we should get this over with and go home as soon as possible," I muttered around a mouthful of apples.

"As long as your plan works," she said. "If we don't help out the unicorns here, I couldn't face going…" She trailed off and looked as if she was thinking hard.

I took a wild guess at the subject of her thoughts. "Speaking of deadly peril," I asked, casually, "who are you going to apologize to first when we get back?"

She scowled at me, then sighed. "I suppose there's going to be a long line waiting for me on the other side of the gate."

"Oh yeah!" I grinned at her. "I'll distract Luna for you, but you're on your own with the rest of them."

"From the look on your face, I'd say you're actually looking forward to that."

"Oh yeah," I said again, my grin widening. "She'll storm at me in Middle Equish for a while, and then I'll cry, and she'll cry, and then there'll be one amazing thunderstorm over Twilight Town."

"Huh? What does a thunderstorm have to do with it?"

I laughed. "Oh, my dearest niece! Wait until you have a very special somepony of your own. You too will discover the wonders of make-up sex!"

"Eeeeew!"

"Oh, please! You're interested in sex by now, surely?"

"Well, yeah! but…"

"But what?"

"You… You're old! Like really old! Mom-old, even!"

I laughed out loud. "But your mom and my brother—"

"No,no no! I don't want to hear it! It's gross!" She closed her eyes wrapped her wings around her head.

I smiled at her fondly. The rough situation we found ourselves in had made me forget how young she was. Of course, I'd battled a plethora of monsters before I'd found my own special somepony, so I could sympathize. It didn't mean I didn't enjoy teasing her, though.


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We actually started out before first light to reduce the chance of being spotted by another patrol. When I called Ao, we were flying low in the shadow of the mountains and had less than an hour to go to reach the valley where Nebula lay at anchor.

Other than some farmers headed out to their fields who didn't even look up, we didn't see anypony on our way back. 

"All truly went as planned then?" Ao asked as she helped me stow my gear in my cabin.

"Except for the little hiccup with the patrol on the way back, but that just turned into an opportunity to plant some ideas in their heads. We also found out that some pegasi have been deserting lately. Good news all around!"

"Truly?"

"Don't sound so surprised, Ao! We certainly deserve some good luck, don't we?"

"If we are to receive what we deserve, this one will sleep with her sword close by tonight," she said.

I swatted her side with a wingtip, but laughed all the same. "Lucky for us, there is no such thing as cosmic justice!" But as I said it, I thought about the overseer and my laughter died away.

"You are troubled, Majesty?"

I told her about the overseer.

"After we take the medals from the barge, an uproar in the town will be of no consequence, yes? You may kill the vermin then," Ao said, cheerfully. "Or this one will do it, if you find it distasteful."

"Utterly distasteful, but no… No, I will do it, Ao. This is something I'd never ask a friend to do in my place."

"This one is happy to, if it would ease your mind—"

I shook my head emphatically. "It would only make me feel worse, I promise you."

She nodded sadly. "Often has this one had to accommodate your sense of justice, Majesty. This one does not understand, but will question it not. Kill or do not kill, it shall be as you wish."

"Your morals are remarkably flexible, Ao."

"Thank you, Majesty!" She smiled and dipped her head.

"It wasn't exactly a compliment."

Her smile grew slightly more sly. "This one imagines that it was not entirely a condemnation, either." 

I sighed and smiled despite myself. "You know me too well, old friend." I folded the table down and got out my little writing box. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to make a comprehensive list of ways everything can go horribly wrong in the next two days, and make an outline of countermeasures."

Ao floated through the doorway, saying over her shoulder as she left, "Enjoy yourself, Majesty."

She really did know me too well.


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