//------------------------------// // Time Shall Unfold What Plighted Cunning Hides // Story: General Amnesty // by Cynewulf //------------------------------// The General Amnesty had been announced a month before, in the middle of a grand speech given by one former Viceroy of the Crystal Empire, Malachite the Younger. Malachite was a unicorn, strangely enough, though of a different sort. The ponies of the old empire had grown strange with isolation, taking on the nature of their protective Crystal Heart as their magic intertwined with its glow. He was old, though not quite to the point of being decrepit. Frailty was not far off, but he had a few miles of hard running left in him. His ancestors had been earth ponies, then crystal ponies, and he bore their legacies whether he had a horn or not. Rainbow and Applejack had been sitting at the mouth of an old cave near Ghastly Gorge, hiding out in the Old Colony that the batponies had long ago built, hiding except to come up to hear the broadcasts on their beaten up radio. Radio Free Canterlot was a daring, suicidal venture, and it was invaluable. So it was that leaning against one another, back to back, they heard Malachite the Younger’s speech above the terraced city of Canterlot, delivered from the very same balcony that Celestia herself had favored when addressing the crowds. Enjoying each other, they listened. * Rainbow Dash got off the train a bit after one o’clock and found herself weirdly sore, irritable, and hungry. The first she could shrug off, the second was useful, and the third was easily solved. So it was that she found herself sitting in a streetside cafe watching the crowds go by, as she wrote her message. Writing had always been a little difficult for her physically. Though magic had never appealed to her generally, she could see that it had certain advantages over writing with a pencil in your mouth. Her message read: Dear cousin, The trip was uneventful. Was too hungry and stopped to eat before I came up to see you. I was really hoping to see Uncle at the train station, but I understand that he has other things to attend to, what with the Amnesty and all. Please send my love to the others, and I’ll see you soon. Orange She folded the paper up and then retrieved a little vial of green liquid from her saddlebags. One drop on the page and it went up in magical green fire and was on its way, directed by her intention. “Uncle” was Malachite. The presence of guards at the train station had been concerning. None of them had noticed her, though, and she was sure of that. They were too flat-expressioned, too tired. More than that, if anypony had seen Rainbow Dash, the mare who once put a whole platoon of Crystal legionaries flat on their asses just by flying through them, then they wouldn’t have just let her by. Amnesty or not, animosity lived on. Her sandwich was good, and the air was nice. She could afford to rest here awhile and just… wait. Wait for an answer, she guessed. Wait for nothing. She liked action. She lived for it! But even Rainbow Dash sometimes just wanted to rest. * Malachite had a reedy voice, thin and unpleasant. This is what he said, and his voice like cutting reeds reached their ears: “Politics is not an exact science, as the professors and scholars sometimes propose. Neither it is quite as much about compromise in the conventional sense as is often imagined in the public mind. It is usually a win-lose situation or one in which all lose quite equally. “We have all lost. The Empire has lost the Emperor, its mind and its eyes, its architect and protector. The Principality of Equestria has lost its princess, its peace of mind and its graceful and beloved light. The war took thousands from us. It tore Equestria to shreds and ruined her vistas. The industry that war demands polluted her skies and rivers, devoured her trees, and hardened her ponies. “But the war is over. It must be over, for we can no longer bear the cost of it. Two great lands have clashed, and been both lessened by their struggle. The Empire is out of manpower and food. Equestria is out of energy and money. I am being perhaps more straightforward than I should be with you now, because if we are to come together and live in a world beyond the War, we must be honest. We can no longer survive apart. We must survive together or starve alone. “So, in the interests of peace… in the interests of survival, in the interests of seeing a World beyond all of our tears, I am proclaiming a general amnesty. Without condition, without reservation, the United Empire will not pursue any of Celestia’s former partisans.If they will cease hostilities, Equestrian rebels and Imperial deserters alike will be left alone. Any further attacks after today will be treated as a rejection of amnesty. But as of this broadcast, the United Empire’s forces in both realms have ceased all offensive operations and drawn back to their home bases to rest and recover, and inevitably to begin demobilization. “The new world is here. Let us make something of it worth living in. Thank you. * The flash of bottled dragonfire that delivered the reply from her “cousin” catapulted Rainbow out of her memories, but it did not disperse the the pitted feeling in her stomach. The missive read: Cousin, I am glad that you’ve made it to Canterlot safely. The streets have been empty without you here, but I’m sure we’ll be back to normal soon. Please, hurry on up to the house and I’ll have some tea on waiting for you. Oh, and could you bring me some groceries? You know what I like. Surprise me! Haystack Rainbow chuckled softly. Haystack never used a codename and never really cared much for subtlety. Most of his message wasn’t coded at all. Only the first bit had any other meaning. It was a signal that security in the streets was tight, and that there was someone or someones waiting on her at his house on Thursday Street. Probably one of the old Radio Canterlot cadres, she guessed. A friend, most assuredly. The bit about food and tea had been quite literal. She’d have to remember to go by the Zebraican market on the way, if it was still up and running. She left the cafe where she’d wasted so much time and began the long trek to Haystack’s house. * Canterlot wasn’t her city. It wasn’t Applejack’s, either. Hell, it wasn’t Haystacks or half of the Canterlot cadres’. But that didn’t matter. In a much deeper and much truer sense, it was their city. They hadn’t been born there or grown up there, but they’d claimed it by fighting for it… one way, and then another. Haystack was an old friend, all the way back from when Celestia was still around. Sombra’s army swarming out of the north seemed a far less daunting prospect in those days. Ponies signed up for what they expected to be a short adventure around Stalliongrad and then back home in a couple of weeks. Exciting, dangerous, but not disastrous. She noted to herself sometimes, when she had dreams about it, that Celestia had never joined in on their cheerful marching songs. Haystack had been logistics. He pulled carts, though he wasn’t exactly the strongest pony. He ran the numbers. Rainbow Dash could hit a pony-sized target going full speed from a starting point miles off every time, but Haystack could make sure that every warrior in an army had enough to eat for exactly how long it would take to get from one town to another. He knew the answers to every question: where to stop, where not to stop, where the food was and wasn’t, where the air was too cold or too warm, where the terrain would lead to loss of ponies or material. He was also a recluse. Eccentric, nervous (very, very nervous), but ultimately kindhearted. He had been Radio Free Canterlot’s heart and voice for so long, despite his nerves and disposition. It had been Haystack who read the reports, and introduced the music, and read the code that he’d been given to read, and gave the news. It was also Haystack whom she’d written a week or so ago while she and Applejack had been staying in the small house on the beach. His house was a shabby sort in an old neighborhood. Not a bad one, but not the best either. Two stories, and a basement beneath. That’s what the floorplans somewhere in Canterlot’s labyrinthine city hall told, anyhow. In reality there was an entrance down into the city’s often forgotten, haphazard network of crypts and wine cellars and old mining tunnels carved with magic by unicorns a millenia dead. Those caverns and passages had become a second home to Haystack and his circle of conspirators. She entered after knocking to give him ample warning and dug for the key under a deceptive pile of masonry for the key. Dash found Haystack sitting in the expansive and spartan living room, lying flat on his back and staring at the ceiling. He was a lazy sort, Haystack. A genius capable of impossible feats of coordination, he nevertheless preferred to be left to his own slothful devices. She suspected that he’d not been out to get his own groceries in months, relying on cadres and conspirators passing through to deliver his meals. “Got your stuff,” Rainbow said after she deposited the bags of groceries in the kitchen and returned to find him still lying there. “Thanks,” he grumbled. “Wondered if you’d gotten lost.” “It hasn’t been that long since I was in Canterlot,” Rainbow said. She’d snagged a pack of candied oats on the way and nibbled on them as Haystack roused himself and stood, stretching. “I’ll make something,” he said. His voice was flat, which was odd. She hadn’t seen him in a long time, but the Haystack she remembered was expressive, even in the depths of his laziness. Dash shrugged it off. Not everything was a big mystery. Instead of wondering, she stole his place on the couch and grabbed a nap. She awoke to find to a familiar and stonefaced sight. More specifically, she woke to Maud Pie poking her face with a hoof, bearing a flat expression. Combat instincts took over. Rainbow Dash bolted out of bed with a cry, wings trying to flair open and hooves coming up to protect herself. But this was Maud Pie, and she was undeterred. When Haystack walked back in from the kitchen, wearing a ludicrous pink apron with frills, he found her pinned to the couch and complaining loudly. Haystack rolled his eyes. “Let her go, Maud.” “I was going to,” Maud intoned. “Don’t scare ponies when you wake them up, geeze,” Rainbow said as soon as she was free and had confirmed she could feel all of her limbs. “I did not mean to startle you,” Maud said. “But you would not wake up.” Rainbow sighed. “Eh, it’s fine. You got food ready, Hay?” “Yeah,” he said, and once again his tone bothered her. No jokes, nothing at all. “You… uh. You okay?” she asked. He blinked at her. “Yeah,” he said and turned back to the kitchen. “Yeah. Come get it.” * Whatever was up with Haystack, it wasn’t a problem with his ability to plan. He’d laid it all out perfectly for her to the minute. Malachite the Younger was touring the city in an open carriage in the morning along with a few aides and functionaries. There was going to be some sort of announcement, and the whole city was abuzz with the possibilities. The general amnesty itself had reduced half the country to chaos as ponies hurried back to their homes, assured of safety and freedom of travel. Canterlot had been backed up with refugees flooding back home since the day the broadcast had gone out, and in all that time the former Viceroy of the Crystal Empire had made sure that every single one of them knew that big news was just around the corner. What was it? That was Rainbow Dash’s question. Maud hovering beside him, Haystack had shrugged. Did she want his speculation, or did she want an answer? He had a few guesses, but no one knew for sure. Some said he was announcing some sort of power sharing agreement. Others said that he was serious about not being Head of State and was going to nominate someone at last. But who? There were a few options. Prince Blueblood was still alive, and the Crystal War had purged much of his youthful foolishness and refined him into a statespony of stature… even if it hadn’t erased his nastiness or his love of petty gestures. Some pointed to a young niece of the Princess that few had ever seen, one Cadenza. But she was a foreigner by all accounts, a poor soul from Henosia beyond the Empire, marooned by war and disaster. A council of nobles, perhaps. Rainbow stopped caring about two minutes into his explanation. It wouldn’t matter anyway, would it? It wasn’t a parade, but it still had a published route. The Viceroy would be visiting a few key points and there would be large crowds at each stop. The first few would be worksites where the walls of Canterlot were being rebuilt. Then came a stop at a few of the more famous of Canterlot’s many spots of interest. Eventually, he planned to return to the Palace and open the gardens to the public for his announcement. The stops were out, of course. Crowds didn’t just risk immediate collateral—they also added too many variables. Rainbow Dash wanted to teach Malachite a lesson. A bomb dropped into his carriage would do it. But too many ponies around made the chances of some pegasus interrupting her path higher than she’d like. She needed space to swoop in, then escape without having to fight through a panicking crowd. So it would have to be somewhere between two points. There were a couple of spots that Haystack had picked and that Maud had scoped out and found acceptable, and he showed her. She smiled. “That one.” “Why?” he asked. “It’s got a little cafe by the street. I ate there earlier, and remember what the layout is like,” she explained. “I figure it’s as good a place as any.” Haystack shrugged. “Sure. Why not? It’s all madness anyway.” Dash paused, and then cocked her head to the side. “What? You don’t want to do this?” “Hell no,” he grumbled and looked away. “You got me the bomb, the route… everything.” “Because you’re my friend,” he said. “Because you were gonna do it anyway and if I don’t help you, you’ll just get yourself killed.” “So you don’t think it’s a good idea.” “It’s the worst idea.” Dash frowned, and then took a deep breath. She didn’t want to yell at Haystack. She’d done that only once before, months ago, and the look of fear in his eyes had been… well, it had not been pleasant. Haystack was fragile in some ways. And now, taken aback, she could see what was wrong. He was terrified. He was miserable, and uncomfortable, and pressured. He didn’t want to be here. More than that, Haystack didn’t want her to be here, or for any of this to be happening. “I’m going to make it. This will be better.” “No it won’t,” he said. “But I’ll be damned if you won’t make it. Cafe it is,” he said through gritted teeth, shaking his head. His voice was not flat at all. No, it had never been. It was tight, the way a pony trying to keep his emotions in check spoke. “Right. Maud will post up across the street. She’s mapped out a place and she’ll show you in the morning. You give her the signal, and she’ll bail you out. If you don’t give her that signal, she won’t do a thing. Easy.” “What’s the signal?” He laughed. It was more of a bark than anything else. Then he pulled a saddlebag from beneath the table where his map lay and he pulled out a gem that he pushed across to Rainbow. “What else? A rainbow. Shatter that and it’ll blind anything in fifteen paces for, oh, ten seconds or so. You can bail, she can give you a few seconds more, and we’re all in the clear. But you had better not leave her out to dry, you hear me? You’d--” “I will be fine, Haystack,” Maud said quietly. “You’d better be,” he said, and his voice wavered. “We all will be,” Rainbow said.