“You don’t like me,” Malachite the Younger remarked as he poured brandy out of the fine crystal decanter.
The room was pleasant enough. It had been Princess Celestia’s sitting room, where she had welcomed many guests. The viceroy had made a point not to use any of her things, nor even to step into her chambers, so the room was new to him.
At present, it contained only three ponies. Himself, of course; Raven, Celestia’s seneschal; and a young mare by the name of Mi Amore Cadenza, or Cadance for short.
The question had not been directed at one or both of them in particular, but it was Raven who spoke first.
“No, I don’t.”
Malachite smiled and sat back down. “Brandy?”
“I don’t drink,” Raven said flatly.
“If you say so,” he replied, and took a sip. Good stuff, it was. He had to give these southern barbarians credit. They’d come a long way since the Empire had blinked out of existence.
“I do,” Cadance said. “Might I?”
He nodded, and watched her.
“Raven,” Malachite began, while the young dispossessed princess filled a glass, “I know you do not like me. Yet I personally made sure that you would stay on. Do you know why?”
“I can guess.”
“Please do.”
“My first guess would be that you enjoy the distress of others, my Lord. The second is like it: because you enjoy rubbing your victories in other’s faces. Also, you need someone familiar with the levers that make Equestria keep running, and you need someone who isn’t trying to get any favors out of you while she’s about her work. You know my reputation and you know that the Princess and Equestria were my life. I have no other allegiances and no other ties. No family, no great house, no other ambitions.”
Malachite took another sip.
In truth, there was some truth in that. She misjudged him on the first two counts, but her lack of nobility had certainly been a part of it. He found he rather enjoyed the company of Raven, her intense loathing of him aside. She was refreshing. She was honest. Most importantly, she was someone he could see as an equal. How perverse! The viceroy of Sombra’s great empire speaking to an uppity commoner in such a way! It made their exchanges fun.
He hummed. Princess Cadance sat and then returned to what she had been doing: namely, staring at the carpet.
“I chose you because you knew what to do without having to be told,” he said at last. “And because you hate me. That hatred is honest and open. I have grown rather bored of hatred, to tell you the truth. More ponies hate me than have ever loved me, and they all do so in such an annoyingly veiled manner. No, I find your open disgust refreshing. But that isn’t the reason.”
“Might I be told what that reason was?” Raven asked. Her gray eyes bored holes into his own.
He met her gaze.
“Two, actually. Two reasons. First, and you will be quite unhappy to hear it, but we are similar. We have served a leader most of our lives, and been bound closely to their service. We have lost our way, and our masters have died and left us without instruction or guidance. When Celestia and the Emperor died, in a single hour we both found ourselves in very unfamiliar territory.”
“Fair.”
He grinned even broader. “The second reason you can say better than I could. Raven, what are you loyal to?”
“Celestia, my Princess. Who is coming back,” she added with venom.
He nodded. “And if I told you that I dearly hoped that you were right?”
“Then I would roll my eyes and call you a liar.”
“Please, feel free to do so, for I do wish it. Though for different reasons than you do, I must say. But you are loyal to Celestia. You’re loyal to the job.”
“I am. I have and I will be always.”
“And that is why I like you. I too, am loyal to the job. My Emperor was a very different pony once. When he was younger, he was rather likable. Oh, he was brash. We’re all brash in our youth. A bit reckless, yes, but he was rather popular among the downtrodden commonfolk. Do you know why? Because he pretended to care about them. I believed him then. I thought it quaint, but noble.”
“That’s hard to imagine,” Cadance said softly. She’d had more than Malachite had, a fact he noted with surprise.
“I know it must be. Raven, I have a plan. A grand plan with many parts and more uncertainty than I am comfortable with. Shall I explain it?”
She smiled. “Only if you don’t mind explaining your plans to the enemy, my Lord. For I remain that, whatever you say.”
“But curiosity so often trumps hate. I do love that about ponies. Cadance, dear, are you alright?”
“No.”
He sighed. “I suppose that was a foolish question.”
“My aunt is gone, Shining is in the dungeons, and I’m at the mercy of a conqueror,” she said, and took something a bit too large to be called a sip. “No, I am not alright, and not even Aunt Celestia’s brandy can make me feel better.”
“Captain Shining has been treated well.”
“He’s in a cell.”
Malachite raised a hoof. “A cell with a nice bed, a writing table, a private bathroom, and fine carpet. I made sure that it was up to par.”
She shrugged.
So, the viceroy continued on. “The both of you must know what comes next. I will need you. More than that, you will need me… and you will need each other.”
“Get on with it, My Lord,” Raven added.
“Only you can make that sound like a curse,” Malachite remarked and chuckled. “Celestia vanished. Her body was never found. There are many theories, and I am not sure that any of them are believable. But the possibility of her returning is very believable, and we must all be ready. I spoke the truth in my broadcast and you know it, Raven. We need each other. Our nations have exhausted themselves.”
She shrugged. “You’re grandstanding, My Lord.”
“So I am. It’s one of my only pleasures in life.” He made a sweeping gesture. “Before the Princess can return, we must make sure that she has a kingdom of some sort to return to. I cannot lead it. It is not in my nature, and I am rather hated. The Equestrians hate me as a symbol of their conquerors. The Empire hates me because I have kept the great Houses in line and removed Sombra’s harsh control over the commonfolk while keeping them quite firmly in check. Do you know how I managed to stay in power? Only Opal of the Ninth Legion, that proud and frankly vicious heroine of the People, kept them from deposing me the day after the Emperor was laid in state. Even now, she is sitting in her tent somewhere outside of Stalliongrad, waiting to see if I will warrant her immediate and undoubtedly bloody correction.
“You and I, Raven, are faced with the task of administration. Together we must marry two disparate systems together as best we can without losing the merits of either. We compromise where we can, and reform where we cannot. But we cannot have a faceless rule. My dearest Cadance, that is where you come in.”
“You want to make me a figurehead,” Cadance said. “You want a puppet who can go to balls and dances like the world hasn’t fallen apart and wave at the nice ponies tomorrow in the gardens.”
“Yes,” the viceroy said, and then his face softened. “Though you sell yourself short, my dear. There is more to what I ask of you than merely that. The balls and parties are one thing, but inspiring your people, new and old, is another. You are the only true neutral ground between us. Neither one or the other. Your mother in Henosia makes you a foreigner in two lands, and your character and demeanor gives you the potential to inspire love in both. My people have suffered under an iron hoof and Equestria has been left more or less motherless. Both lands need a leader whose kindness and strength of heart will keep them warm through winter. And of course… the Crystal Heart. I know it called you.”
“It did,” Cadance said stiffly.
Malachite nodded. “There it is then. Cadance will sit the throne with a seneschal on her right and a prime minister on her left.”
Raven cut in. “What’s to stop us from just booting you out, then?”
Malachite sighed. “Do try to look past your feelings about me, if only for a moment. In truth, nothing. You could give me the boot and send me back to whatever is left of my estate near Amethyst City. Or, I suppose, what’s left of it. I’ve always wanted to have a nice crystal berry vineyard, you know. But I trust you won’t. You need me. Not as much as I need the two of you, but you need me to keep the Empire’s resources pouring into Equestria, just as I need you to keep Equestria’s food convoys feeding my people.”
“Why the Summer Sun Celebration? Why tomorrow?” Raven asked.
“Because it’s a holiday. At least, if anyone else had asked me that, I would have given them that answer. But for you, most beloved Raven, I will tell you the truth. I wish to pay respects to Celestia’s statue in the garden, and then I hope to signal to the people that young Cadance has not forgotten her. Your speech..” He paused only long enough to levitate a parcel from the table into Cadance’s waiting hooves.
Cadance opened it and scanned the lines. “It’s about Auntie.”
Malachite nodded. “As it should be. There is another I will give you later, when it is finished, which you will deliver in Imperial Center. That one will be mainly about how you intend to be the ponies’ friend and not their slavemaster. Uplifting stuff, isn’t it?”
“I’d like to read that when you’re done, my Lady,” Raven said, still not looking away from Malachite.
“Of course,” Cadance replied, her voice soft and distant. “What about Shining?”
“I’ve already had him released. He also has a letter, and should still be in your chambers in the other tower. Hopefully, he’s accepted what I’ve had to say and he hasn’t tried to kill any of my guards. That would be hard to cover up.”
Cadance sighed. “I have no choice, but I would do it anyhow.” She paused. “I still don’t like you.”
“You don’t have to like me. It is probably better that you do not, at least for now. Dislike me as much as you wish, if it keeps you alert and on your guard. I ask only that you do your best.”
With that, he held up a glass.
“A toast, if you would. To Equestria. To Celestia’s return. I, too, look forward to it. I would speak to the mare who freed me from my bondage face to face.”